 Book 3, Part 2 of Plato's Republic, this is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jim Allman. The Republic by Plato. Translated by Benjamin Joatt. Book 3, Part 2. Enough of the subjects of poetry, let us now speak of the style, and when this has been considered, both matter and manner will have been completely treated. I do not understand what you mean, said Edimantus. Then I must make you understand, and perhaps I may be more intelligible if I put the matter this way. You are aware, I suppose, that all mythology and poetry is a narration of events, either past, present, or to come. Certainly he replied. And narration may be either simple narration or imitation or union of the two. That again, he said, I do not quite understand. I fear that I must be a ridiculous teacher when I have so much difficulty in making myself apprehended. Like a bad speaker, therefore, I will not take the whole of the subject, but will break a piece off in illustration of my meaning. You know the first lines of the Iliad, in which the poet says that Crises prayed Agamemnon to release his daughter, and that Agamemnon flew into a passion with him. Whereupon Crises, failing of his object, invoked the anger of the God against the Achaeans. Now as far as these lines, and he prayed all the Greeks, but especially the two sons of Atreus, the chiefs of the people. The poet is speaking in his own person. He never leads us to suppose that he is anyone else. But in what follows he takes the person of Crises, and then he does all that he can to make us believe that the speaker is not Homer, but the aged priest himself. And in this double form he has cast the entire narrative of the events which occurred at Troy and Inithica and throughout the Odyssey. Yes, and a narrative it remains both in the speeches which the poet recites from time to time and in the intermediate passages. Quite true. But when the poet speaks in the person of another, may we not say that he assimilates his style to that of the person who, as he informs you, is going to speak? Certainly. And this assimilation of himself to another, either by the use of voice or gesture, is the imitation of the person whose character he assumes? Of course. Then in this case the narrative of the poet may be said to proceed by way of imitation. Very true. Or if the poet everywhere appears and never conceals himself, then again the imitation is dropped, and his poetry becomes simple narration. However, in order that I may make my meaning quite clear and that you may no more say, I don't understand, I will show how the change might be effected. If Homer had said, the priest came, having his daughter's ransom in his hands, supplicating the acans, and above all the kings, and then if, instead of speaking in the person of crisis, he had continued in his own person, the words would have been, not imitation, but simple narration. The passage would have run as follows. I am no poet, and therefore I drop the meter. The priest came and prayed the gods on behalf of the Greeks that they might capture Troy and return safely home, but begged that they would give him back his daughter, and take the ransom which he brought, and respect the god. Thus he spoke, and the other Greeks revered the priests and assented, but Agamemnon was wroth, and bade him depart and not come again, lest the staff and chapels of the god should be of no avail to him. The daughter of crisis should not be released, he said. She should grow old with him in Argos. And then he told him to go away and not provoke him, if he intended to get home unscathed, and the old man went away in fear and silence, and when he had left the camp, he called upon Apollo by his many names, reminding him of everything which he had done pleasing to him, whether in building his temples, or in offering sacrifices, and praying that his good deeds might be returned to him, and that the Achaeans might expiate his tears by the arrows of the god, and so on. In this way the whole becomes simple narrative. I understand, he said. Or you may suppose the opposite case, that the intermediate passages are omitted, and the dialogue only left. That also, he said, I understand. You mean, for example, as in tragedy. You have conceived my meaning perfectly. And if I mistake not, what you failed to apprehend before is now made clear to you, that poetry and mythology are, in some cases, wholly imitative. Instances of these are supplied by tragedy and comedy. There is likewise the opposite style, in which the poet is the only speaker. Of this the dithiram affords the best example, and the combination of both is found in epic, and in several other styles of poetry. Do I take you with me? Yes, he said, I see now what you meant. I will ask you to remember also what I began by saying, that we had done with the subject that might proceed to this style. Yes, I remember. In saying this I intended to imply that we must come to an understanding about the memetic art, whether the poets, in narrating their stories, are to be allowed by us to imitate, and if so, whether in whole or in part, and if the latter in what parts. Or should all imitation be prohibited? You mean, I suspect, to ask whether tragedy and comedy shall be admitted into our state? Yes, I said. But there may be more than this in question. I really do not know as yet. But whither the argument may blow, that there we go. And go we will, he said. Then, adamantus, let me ask you whether our guardians ought to be imitators, or rather, has not this question been decided by the rule already laid down that one man can only do one thing well, and not many? And that if he attempt many, he will altogether fail of gaining much reputation in any? Certainly. And this is equally true of imitation. No one man can imitate many things, as well as he would imitate a single one. He cannot. Then the same person will hardly be able to play a serious part in life, and at the same time be an imitator and imitate many other parts as well. For even when two species of imitation are nearly allied, the same person cannot succeed in both as, for example, the writers of tragedy and comedy. Did you not just now call them imitations? Yes, I did. And you were right in thinking that the same persons cannot succeed in both, any more that they can be rhapsodist and actors at once? True. Neither are comic and tragic actors the same, yet all these things are but imitations. They are so. And human nature, adamantus, appears to have been coined into yet smaller pieces, and to be as incapable of imitating many things well, as of performing well the actions of which the imitations are copies. Quite true, he replied. If then we adhere to our original notion and bear in mind that our guardians, setting aside every other business, are to dedicate themselves wholly to the maintenance of freedom in the state, making this their craft, and engaging in no work which does not bear on this end. They ought not to practice or imitate anything else, if they imitate it all. They should imitate from youth upward only those characters which are suitable to their profession, the courageous, temperate, holy, free, and the like. But they should not depict or be skillful at imitating any kind of illiberality or baseness, lest from imitation they should come to be what they imitate. Did you never observe how imitations, beginning in early youth and continuing far into life, at length grown to habit and become a second nature, affecting body, voice, and mind? Yes, certainly, he said. Then, I said, we will not allow those for whom we profess a care and of whom we say they ought to be good men, to imitate a woman, whether young or old, quarreling with her husband, or striving and vaunting against the gods and conceit of her happiness, or when she is in affliction, or sorrow, or weeping, and certainly not one who is in sickness, love, or labor. Very right, he said. Neither must they represent slaves, male or female, performing the offices of slaves. They must not. And surely not bad men, whether cowards or any others, who do the reverse of what we have just been prescribing, who scold or mock or revile one another in drink or out of drink, or who in any other men are sinning against themselves and their neighbors in word or deed, as the manner of such is. Neither should they be trained to imitate the action or speech of men or women who are mad or bad, for madness, like vice, is to be known but not to be practiced or imitated. Very true, he replied. Neither may they imitate smiths or other artificers, or oarsmen, or bosons, or the like. How can they, he said, when they are not allowed to apply their minds to the calling of any of these? Nor may they imitate the naying of horses, the bellowing of bulls, the murmur of rivers and roll of the ocean, thunder, and all that sort of thing. Nay, he said, if madness be forbidden, neither may they copy the behavior of madmen. You mean, I said, if I understand you are right, that there is one sort of narrative style which may be employed by a truly good man when he has anything to say, and that another sort will be used by a man of an opposite character in education. And which are these two sorts, he asked? Suppose I answered that a just and good man in the course of a narration comes upon some saying or action of another good man. I should imagine that he would like to personate him, and will not be ashamed of this sort of imitation. He will be most ready to play the part of a good man when he is acting firmly and wisely, in a less degree when he is overtaken by illness or love or drink, or has met with any other disaster. But when he comes to a character which is unworthy of him, he will not make a study of that. He will disdain such a person, and will assume his likeness, if at all, for a moment only when he is performing some good action. At other times he will be ashamed to play a part which he has never practiced, nor will he like to fashion and frame himself after the baser models. He feels the employment of such an art, unless ingest, to be beneath him, and his mind revolts at it. So I should expect, he replied. Then he will adopt a mode of narration such as we have illustrated out of Homer. That is to say, his style will be both imitative and narrative, but there will be very little of the former and a great deal of the latter. Do you agree? Certainly, he said, that is the model which such a speaker must necessarily take. But there is another sort of character who will narrate anything, and the worse he is, the more unscrupulous he will be. Nothing will be too bad for him, and he will be ready to imitate anything, not as a joke, but in right good earnest, and before a large company. As I was just now saying, he will attempt to represent the roll of thunder, the noise of wind and hail, or the creaking of wheels and pulleys, and the various sound of flutes, pipes, trumpets, and all sorts of instruments. He will bark like a dog, bleed like a sheep, or crow like a crock. His entire art will consist in imitation of voice and gesture, and there will be very little narration. That, he said, will be his mode of speaking. These, then, are the two kinds of style. Yes. And would you agree with me in saying that one of them is simple and has but slight changes, and if the harmony and rhythm are also chosen for their simplicity, the result is that the speaker, if he speaks correctly, is always pretty much the same in style, and he will keep within the limits of a single harmony, for the changes are not great, and in like manner he will make use of nearly the same rhythm. That is quite true, he said. Whereas the other requires all sorts of harmonies and all sorts of rhythms, if the music and the style are to correspond, because the style has all sorts of changes. That is also perfectly true, he replied. And do not the two styles, or the mixture of the two, comprehend all poetry and every form of expression in words? No one can say anything except in one or the other of them, or in both together. They include all, he said. And shall we receive into our state all the three styles, or one only of the two unmixed styles, or would you include the mixed? I should prefer only to admit the pure imitator of virtue. Yes, I said, adamantous, but the mixed style is also very charming, and indeed the pantomimic, which is the opposite of the one chosen by you, is the most popular style with children in their tendons, and with the world in general. I do not deny it. But I suppose you would argue that such a style is unsuitable to our state, in which human nature is not twofold or manifold, for one man plays one part only, yes, quite unsuitable. And this is the reason why in our state and in our state only, we shall find a shoemaker to be a shoemaker and not a pilot also, and a husbandman to be a husbandman and not a dykist also, and a soldier and not a trader also, and the same throughout? True, he said. And therefore, when any one of these pantomimic gentlemen, who are so clever that they can imitate anything, comes to us, and makes a proposal to exhibit himself in his poetry, we will fall down and worship him as a sweet and holy and wonderful being, but we must also inform him that in our state such as he are not permitted to exist, the law will not allow them. And so when we have anointed him with myrrh, and set a garland of wool upon his head, we shall send him away to another city. For we mean to employ for our soul's health the rougher and severer poet or storyteller, who will imitate the style of the virtuous only, and will follow those models which we prescribed at first when we began the education of our soldiers. We certainly will, he said, if we have the power. Then now, my friend, I said, that part of music or literary education which relates to the story or myth may be considered to be finished. For the matter and manner have both been discussed. I think so, too, he said. Next in order we'll follow melody and song. That is obvious. Everyone can see already what we ought to say about them if we are to be consistent with ourselves. I fear, said Glaucon, laughing, that the word every one hardly includes me, for I cannot at the moment say what they should be, though I may guess. At any rate you can tell me that a song or ode has three parts, the words, the melody, and the rhythm. That degree of knowledge I may presuppose? Yes, he said, so much as that you may. And as for the words, there will surely be no difference between words which are and which are not said to music. Both will conform to the same laws, and these have already been determined by us. Yes. And the melody and rhythm will depend upon the words. Certainly. We were saying, when we spoke of the subject matter, that we had no need of lamentation and strains of sorrow. True. And which are the harmonies expressive of sorrow? You are musical, and can tell me. The harmonies which you mean are the mixed or tenor Lydian, and the full tone or base Lydian, and such like. These then, I said, must be banished, even to women who have a character to maintain they are of no use, and much less to men. Certainly. In the next place, drunkenness and softness and indolence are utterly unbecoming the character of our guardians. Utterly unbecoming. And which are the softer drinking harmonies? The Ionian, he replied, and the Lydian. They are termed relaxed. Well, and are these of any military use? Quite the reverse, he replied. And if so, the Dorian and the Phrygian are the only ones which you have left. I answered, of the harmonies I know nothing. But I want to have one warlike to sound the note or accent which a brave man utters in the hour of danger and stern resolve, or when his cause is failing, and he is going to wounds or death or is overtaken by some other evil, and at every such crisis meets the blows of fortune with firm step and a determination to endure, and another to be used by him in times of peace and freedom of action, when there is no pressure of necessity, and he is seeking to persuade God by prayer or man by instruction and admonition, or on the other hand, when he is expressing his willingness to yield to persuasion or entreaty or admonition, and which represents him when by prudent conduct he has attained his end, not carried away by his success, but acting moderately and wisely under the circumstances and acquiescing in the event. These two harmonies I ask you to leave, the strain of necessity and the strain of freedom, the strain of the unfortunate and the strain of the fortunate, the strain of courage and the strain of temperance. These I say, leave. And these, he replied, or the Dorian and Phrygian harmonies of which I was just now speaking. Then I said, if these and these only are to be used in our songs and melodies, shall we not want multiplicity of notes or a pan harmonic scale? I suppose not. Then we shall not maintain the artificers of liars with three corners in complex scales. Are the makers of any other many strained, curiously harmonized instruments? Certainly not. But what do you say to flute makers and flute players? Would you admit them into our state when you reflect that in this composite use of harmony the flute is worse than all the stringed instruments put together? Even the pan harmonic music is only an imitation of the flute? Clearly not. There remain only the lyre and the harp for use in the city, and the shepherds may have a pipe in the country. That is surely the conclusion to be drawn from the argument. The preferring of Apollo and his instruments to Marcius and his instruments is not at all strange, I said. Not at all, he replied. And so, by the dog of Egypt, we have been unconsciously purging the state, which not long ago we termed luxurious. And we have done wisely, he said. Then let us now finish the purgation, I said. Next in order to harmonize, rhythms will naturally follow, and they should be subject to the same rules, for we ought not to seek out complex systems of meter or meters of every kind, but rather to discover what rhythms are the expressions of a courageous and harmonious life, and when we have found them, we shall adopt the foot and the melody to words having a like spirit, not the words to the foot and melody. To say what these rhythms are will be your duty, you must teach me, as you have already taught me the harmonies. But indeed, he replied, I cannot tell you. I only know that there are some three principles of rhythm out of which metrical systems are framed, just as in sounds there are four notes out of which all the harmonies are composed. That is an observation which I have made. But what sort of lives they are, separately the imitations I am unable to say. Then I said we must take Damon into our councils, and he will tell us what rhythms are expressive of meanness, or insolence, or fury, or other unworthiness, and what are to be reserved for the expression of opposite feelings. And I think that I have an indistinct recollection of his mentioning a complex, critic rhythm, also a dactylic or heroic, and he arranged them in some manner which I do not quite understand, making the rhythms equal in the rise and fall of the foot, long and short alternating. And unless I am mistaken, he spoke of an iambic as well as of a trochaic rhythm, and assigned them the short and long quantities. Also in some cases he appeared to praise or censure the movement of the foot quite as much as the rhythm, or perhaps a combination of the two. For I am not certain what he meant. These matters, however, as I was saying, had better be referred to Damon himself. For the analysis of the subject would be difficult, you know. Rather so, I should say. But there is no difficulty in seeing that grace, or the absence of grace, is an effect of good or bad rhythm. None at all. Book 3, Part 3 of Plato's Republic. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jim Allman. The Republic by Plato. Translated by Benjamin Joatt. Book 3, Part 3. And also that good and bad rhythm naturally assimilate to a good and bad style, and that harmony and discord in like manner follow style. For our principle is that rhythm and harmony are regulated by the words, and not the words by them. Just so, he said, they should follow the words. And will not the words and the character of the style depend on the temper of the soul? Yes. And everything else on the style? Yes. The beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity. I mean the true sense of the word. The true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character. Not that other simplicity which is only a euphemism for folly. Very true, he replied. And if our youth are to do their work in life, must they not make these graces and harmonies their perpetual aim? They must. And surely the art of the painter and every other creative and constructive art are full of them. Weaving, embroidery, architecture, and every kind of manufacture. Also nature, animal and vegetable. In all of them there is grace, or the absence of grace. An ugliness and discord and inharmonious motion are nearly allied to ill words and ill nature. As grace and harmony are the twin sisters of goodness and virtue and bear their likeness. That is quite true, he said. But shall our superintendents go no further, and are the poets only to be required by us to express the image of the good in their works, on pain, if they do anything else, of expulsion from our state? Or is the same control to be extended to other artists, and are they also to be prohibited from exhibiting the opposite forms of vice and intemperance and meanness and indecency in sculpture and building and the other creative arts? And is he who cannot conform to this rule of ours to be prevented from practicing his art in our state, lest the taste of our citizens be corrupted by him? We would not have our guardians grow up amid images of moral deformity, as in some noxious pasture, and their brows and feet upon many a baneful herb and flower day by day, little by little, until they silently gather a festering mass of corruption in their own soul. Let our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the true nature of the beautiful and graceful, then will our youth dwell in a land of health amid fair sights and sounds, and receive the good in everything, and beauty, the effluence of fair works, shall flow into the eye and ear like a health-giving breeze from a purer region, and insensibly draw the soul from earliest years into likeness and sympathy with the beauty of reason. There can be no nobler training than that, he replied. And therefore, I said, Glockon, musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful. And also because he who has received this true education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art and nature, and with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason why, and when reason comes he will recognize and salute the friend with whom his education has made him long familiar. Yes, he said, I quite agree with you in thinking that our youth should be trained in music and on the grounds which you mention. Just as in learning to read, I said, we were satisfied when we knew the letters of the alphabet, which are very few, in all the recurring sizes and combinations, not sliding them as unimportant whether they occupy a space large or small, but everywhere either to make them out, and not thinking ourselves perfect in the art of reading until we recognize them wherever they are found. True. Or as we recognize the reflection of letters in the water, or in a mirror, only when we know the letters themselves, the same art and study giving us the knowledge of both. Exactly. Even so, as I maintain, neither we, nor our guardians, whom we have to educate, can ever become musical until we and they know the essential forms of temperance, courage, liberality, magnificence, and their kindred, as well as the contrary forms in all their combinations, and can recognize them in their images whenever they are found, not sliding them either in small things or great, but believing them all to be within the sphere of one art and study. Most assuredly. And when a beautiful soul harmonizes with a beautiful form, and the two are cast in one mold, that will be the fairest of sights to him who has an eye to see it. The fairest indeed, and the fairest is also the loveliest? That may be assumed. And the man who has the spirit of harmony will be most in love with the loveliest, but he will not love him who is of an inharmonious soul. That is true, he replied, if the deficiency be in his soul, but if there be any merely bodily defect in another he will be patient of it, and will love all the same. I perceive, I said, that you have or have had experiences of this sort, and I agree. But let me ask you another question. Has excess of pleasure any affinity to temperance? How can that be, he replied? Pleasure deprives a man of the use of his faculties quite as much as pain. Or any affinity to virtue in general? None, whatever. Any affinity to wantonness and intemperance? Yes, the greatest. And is there any greater or keener pleasure than that of central love? No, nor a matter. Whereas true love is a love of beauty and order, temperate and harmonious? Quite true, he said. Then no intemperance or manish should be allowed to approach true love? Certainly not. Then matter and temperate pleasure must never be allowed to come near the lover and his beloved. Neither of them can have any part in it if their love is of the right sort? No indeed, Socrates, it must never come near them. Then I suppose that in the city which we are founding you would make a law to the effect that a friend should use no other familiarity to his love than a father would use to his son. And then only for a noble purpose. And he must first have the other's consent. And this rule is to limit him in all his intercourse, and he is never to be seen going further or, if he exceeds, he is to be deemed guilty of coarseness and bad taste. I quite agree, he said. This much of music, which makes a fair ending. For what should be the end of music, if not the love of beauty? I agree, he said. After music comes gymnastic, in which our youth are next to be trained. Certainly. Gymnastic as well as music should begin in early years. The training in it should be careful and should continue throughout life. Now my belief is, and this is a matter upon which I should like to have your opinion in confirmation of my own, but my belief is, not that the good body by any bodily excellence improves the soul, but on the contrary, that the good soul by her own excellence improves the body as far as this may be possible. What do you say? Yes, I agree. Then to the mind when adequately trained, we should be right in handing over the more particular care of the body, and in order to avoid prolixity we may now only give the general outlines of the subject. Very good. That they must abstain from intoxication has been already remarked by us. For of all persons a guardian should be the last to get drunk and not know where in the world he is. Yes, he said, that a guardian should require another guardian to take care of him as ridiculous indeed. But next, what shall we say of their food? For the men are in training for the greatest contest of all. Are they not? Yes, he said. And will the habit of body of our ordinary athletes be suited to them? Why not? I am afraid, I said, that the habit of body such as they have is but a sleepy sort of thing and rather perilous to health. Do you not observe that these athletes sleep away their lives and are liable to most dangerous illnesses if they depart in ever so slight a degree from their customary regimen? Yes, I do. Then I said a finer sort of training will be required for our warrior athletes, who are to be like wakeful dogs and to see and hear with the utmost keenness amid the many changes of water and also a food of summer heat and winter cold, which they will have to endure when on a campaign they must not be liable to break down in health. That is my view. The really excellent gymnastic is twin sister of that simple music which we were just now describing. How so? Why, I conceive that there is a gymnastic witch like our music is simple and good and especially the military gymnastic. What do you mean? My meaning baby learned from Homer. He, you know, feeds his heroes at their feasts when they are campaigning on soldiers fair. They have no fish, although they are on the shores of the Hellespont and they are not allowed boiled meats but only roast, which is the food most convenient for soldiers, requiring only that they should light a fire and not involving the trouble of caring about pots and pans. True. And I can hardly be mistaken in saying that sweet sauces are nowhere mentioned in Homer. In proscribing them, however, he is not singular. All professional athletes are well aware that a man who is to be in good condition should take nothing of the kind. Yes, he said, and knowing this they are quite right in not taking them. Then would you not approve of Syracuse and dinners and the refinement of Sicilian cookery? I think not. Nor, if a man is to be in condition, would you allow him to have a Corinthian girl as his fair friend? Certainly not. Neither would you approve of the delicacies, as they are thought, of Athenian confectionery? Certainly not. All such feeding and living may be rightly compared by us to melody and song composed in the panharmonic style and in all the rhythms. Exactly. Their complexity engendered license and hear disease, whereas simplistic music was the parent of temperance in the soul and simplicity and gymnastic of health in the body. Most true, he said. But when intemperance and disease is multiplied in a state, halls of justice and medicine are always being opened, and the arts of the doctor and the lawyer give themselves airs, finding how keen is the interest which not only the slaves but the freemen of the city take about them. Of course. And yet what greater proof can there be of a bad and disgraceful state of education than this, that not only artisans and the meaner sort of people need the skill of first-rate physicians and judges, but also those who would profess to have had a liberal education, is it not disgraceful and a great sign of want of good breeding, that a man should have to go abroad for his law and physic because he has none of his own at home, and must therefore surrender himself into the hands of other men whom he makes lords and judges over him? Of all things, he said, the most disgraceful. Would you say most, I replied, when you consider that there is a further stage of evil in which a man is not only a lifelong litigant facing all his days in the courts, either as plaintiff or defendant, but is actually led by his bad taste to pride himself on his litigiousness. He imagines that he is a master in dishonesty, able to take every crooked turn and wriggle into and out of every hole, bending like a witty and getting out of the way of justice, and all for what, in order to gain small points not worth mentioning. He not knowing that so to order his life as to be able to do without a napping judge is a far higher and nobler sort of thing. Is that not still more disgraceful? Yes, he said. That is still more disgraceful. Well, I said, and to require the help of medicine, not when a wound has to be cured, or on occasion of an epidemic, but just because, by indolence and a habit of life such as we have been describing, men fill themselves with waters and winds as if their bodies were a marsh, compelling the ingenious sons of Asclepius to find more names for diseases, such as flatulence and Qatar. Is this not, too, a disgrace? Yes, he said. They do certainly give very strange and newfangled names to diseases. Yes, I said, and I do not believe that there were any such diseases in the days of Asclepius, and this so I infer from the circumstance that the hero Euripilus, after he had been wounded and homer, drinks a posit of premium wine welled besprinkled with parley meal and grated cheese, which are certainly inflammatory, and yet the sons of Asclepius who were at the Trojan War do not blame the damsel who gives him the drink, or rebuke Patroclus who is treating his case. Well, he said, that was surely an extraordinary drink to be given to a person in his condition. Not so extraordinary, I replied, if you bear in mind that in former days, as is commonly said, before the time of Herodocus, the guild of Asclepius did not practice our present system of medicine, which may be said to educate diseases. But Herodocus, being a trainer, and himself of a sickly constitution, by a combination of training and doctrine found out a way of torturing, first and chiefly himself, and secondly the rest of the world. How was that, he said? By the invention of lingering death, for he had a mortal disease which he perpetually tended, and as recovery was out of the question, he passed his entire life as a valetudinarian. He could do nothing but attend upon himself, and he was in constant torment whenever he departed in anything from his usual regimen, and so dying hard, by the help of science he struggled on to old age. A rare reward of his skill. Yes, I said. A reward which a man might fairly expect who never understood that. If Asclepius did not instruct his descendants in valetudinarian arts, the omission arose, not from ignorance or inexperience of such a branch of medicine, but because he knew that in all well-ordered states every individual has an occupation to which he must attend, and has therefore no leisure to spend in continually being ill. This we remark in the case of the artisan, but, ludicrously enough, do not apply the same rule to people of the richer sort. How do you mean, he said? I mean this. When a carpenter is ill he asks the physician for a rough and ready cure, an emetic, or purge, or caudery, or the knife. These are his remedies. And if someone prescribes for him a course of dietetics, and tells him that he must swath and swaddle his head, and all that sort of thing, he replies at once that he has no time to be ill, and that he sees no good in a life which is spent in nursing his disease to the neglect of his customary employment, and therefore bidding good-bye to this sort of physician, he resumes his ordinary habits, and either gets well and lives and does his business, or, if his constitution fails, he dies, and has no more trouble. Yes, he said, a man in his condition of life ought to use the art of medicine thus far only. Has he not, I said, an occupation, and what profit would be there in his life if he were deprived of this occupation? Quite true, he said. But with the rich man this is otherwise. Of him we do not say that he has any specially appointed work which he must perform if he would live. He is generally supposed to have nothing to do. Then you never heard of the saying of facilities that as soon as a man has a livelihood he should practice virtue? Nay, he said, I think that he had better begin somewhat sooner. Let us not have a dispute about this, I said, but rather ask ourselves, is the practice of virtue obligatory on a rich man, or can he live without it? And if obligatory on him, then let us raise a further question, whether this dieting of disorders, which is an impediment to the application of the mind in carpentering and the mechanical arcs, does not equally stand in the way of the sentiment of facilities? Of that, he replied, there can be no doubt. Such excessive care of the body when carried beyond the rules of gymnastics is most inimical to the practice of virtue. Yes, indeed, I replied, and equally incompatible with the management of a house, an army, or an office of state, and what is most important of all, irreconcilable with any kind of study or thought or self-reflection. There is a constant suspicion that headache and giddiness are to be ascribed to philosophy, and hence all practicing or making trial of virtue in the higher sense is absolutely stopped, for a man is always fancying that he is being made ill and is in constant anxiety about the state of his body. Yes, likely enough. And therefore our politic asclepius may be supposed to have exhibited the power of his art only to persons who, being generally of healthy constitution and habits of life, had a definite ailment. Such as these he cured by purges and operations, and made them live as usual, herein consulting the interest of the state. But bodies which diseases had penetrated through and through he would not have attempted to cure by gradual process of evacuation and infusion. He did not want to lengthen out good-for-nothing lives, or have weak fathers beginning weaker sons. If a man was not able to live in the ordinary way he had no business to cure him. For such a cure would have been of no use either to himself or to the state. Then he said, you regard asclepius as a statesman. Clearly. And his character is further illustrated by his sons. Note that they were heroes in the days of old and practiced the medicines of which I am speaking at the Siege of Troy. Remember how, when Pandaris wounded Menelaus, they sucked the blood out of the wound and sprinkled soothing remedies. But they never prescribed what the patient was afterwards to eat or drink in the case of Menelaus, any more than in the case of Eurypolis. The remedies, as they conceived, were enough to heal any man who, before he was wounded, was healthy and regular in his habits. And even though he did happen to drink a positive premium wine, he might get well all the same. But they would have nothing to do with unhealthy and intemperate subjects, whose lives were of no use either to themselves or others. The art of medicine was not designed for their good, and though they were as rich as Midas, the sons of Asclepius would have declined to attend them. They were very acute persons, these sons of Asclepius. Naturally so, I replied. Nevertheless, the tragedians and Pandaris obeying our behests, although they acknowledged that Asclepius was the son of Apollo, and also that he was bribed into healing a rich man who was at the point of death, and for this reason he was struck by lightning. But we, in accordance with the principle already affirmed by us, will not believe them when they tell us both. If he was the son of a god, we maintain that he was not avaricious, or if he was avaricious, he was not the son of a god. End of Book 3, Part 3 Recording by Jim Allman, Houston, Texas Book 3, Part 4, Plato's Republic This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Jim Allman The Republic by Plato Translated by Benjamin Joatt Book 3, Part 4 All that, Socrates, is excellent. But I should like to put a question to you. Aught there not to be good physicians in a state? And are not the best those who have treated the greatest number of constitutions good and bad? And are not the best judges in like manner those who are acquainted with all sorts of moral natures? Yes, I said. I too would have good judges and good physicians. But do you know whom I think good? Will you tell me? I will if I can. Let me, however, note that in the same question you joined two things which are not the same. How so, he asked? Why, I said, you joined physicians and judges. Now the most skillful physicians are those who, from their youth upwards, have combined with the knowledge of their art the greatest experience of disease. They had better not be robust in health, and should have had all manner of diseases in their own persons. For the body, as I conceive, is not the instrument with which they cure the body. In that case we could not allow them ever to be or to have been sickly. But they cure the body with the mind, and the mind which has become and is sick can cure nothing. That is very true, he said. But with the judge it is otherwise. Since he governs mind by mind, he ought not therefore to have been trained among vicious minds, and to have associated with them from youth upwards, and to have gone through the whole calendar of crime, only in order that he may quickly infer the crimes of others as he might their bodily diseases from his own self-consciousness. The honorable mind which is to form a healthy judgment should have had no experience or contamination of evil habits while young. And this is the reason why, in youth, good men often appear to be simple, and are easily practised upon by the dishonest, because they have no examples of what evil is in their own souls. Yes, he said, they are far too apt to be deceived. Therefore, I said, the judge should not be young. He should have learned to know evil, not from his own soul, but from late and long observation of the nature of evil in others. Knowledge should be his guide, not personal experience. Yes, he said, that is the ideal of a judge. Yes, I replied, and he will be a good man, which is my answer to your question. For he is good who has a good soul, but the cunning and suspicious nature of which we spoke, he who has committed many crimes and fancies himself should be a master in wickedness. When he is amongst his fellows, he is wonderful in the precautions which he takes, because he judges of them by himself. But when he gets into the company of men of virtue, who have the experience of age, he appears to be a fool again, owing to his unseasonable suspicions. He cannot recognise an honest man because he has no pattern of honesty in himself, at the same time as the bad are more numerous than the good, and he meets with them oftener, he thinks himself and is by others thought to be rather wise than foolish. Most true, he said. Then the good and wise judge whom we are seeking is not this man, but the other. For vice cannot know virtue too, but a virtuous nature, educated by time, will acquire a knowledge both of virtue and vice. The virtuous and not the vicious man has wisdom, in my opinion. And in mine also. This is the sort of medicine and this is the sort of law which you will sanction in your state. They will minister to better natures, giving health of both soul and of body, but those who are diseased in their bodies they will leave to die, and the corrupt and incurable souls they will put an end to themselves. This is clearly the best thing both for the patients and for the state. And thus our youth, having been educated only in that simple music, which, as we said, inspires temperance, will be reluctant to go to law. Clearly, and the musician, who, keeping to the same track, is content to practice the simple gymnastic, will have nothing to do with medicine unless in some extreme case. That I quite believe. The very exercises and tolls which he undergoes are intended to stimulate the spirited element of his nature and not to increase his strength. He will not, like common athletes, use exercise and regimen to develop his muscles. Very right, he said. Neither are the two arts of music and gymnastic really designed, as is often supposed, the one for the training of the soul, the other for the training of the body. What then is the real object of them? I believe, I said, that the teachers of both have in view chiefly the improvement of the soul. How can that be, he asked. Did you never observe, I said, the effect on the mind itself of exclusive devotion to gymnastic or the opposite effect of an exclusive devotion to music? In what way shone, he said? The one producing a temper of hardness and ferocity. The other of softness and effeminacy, I replied. Yes, he said, I am quite aware that the mere athlete becomes too much of a savage and that the mere musician is melted and softened beyond what is good for him. Yet surely, I said, this ferocity only comes from spirit which, if rightly educated, would give courage. But, if too much intensified is liable to become hard and brutal, that I quite think. On the other hand, the philosopher will have the quality of gentleness and this also, when too much indulged, will turn to softness but, if educated rightly, will be gentle and moderate. True. And in our opinion the guardians ought to have both these qualities? Assuredly. Harmony? Beyond question. And the harmonious soul is both temperate and courageous? Yes. And the inharmonious is cowardly and borish? Very true. And, when a man allows music to play upon him and to pour into his soul through the funnel of his ears those sweet and soft and melancholy heirs of which we were just now speaking, and his whole life is passed by the passionate spirit which is in him as tempered like iron and made useful instead of brittle and useless. But, if he carries on the softening and soothing process in the next stage he begins to melt and waste until he has wasted away his spirit and cut out the sinews of his soul and he becomes a feeble warrior. Very true. If the element of spirit is naturally weakened him the change is speedily then the power of music weakening the spirit renders him excitable. On the least provocation he flames up at once and is speedily extinguished. Instead of having spirit he grows irritable and passionate and is quite impractical. Exactly. And so in gymnastics, if a man takes violent exercise and is a great feeder and the reverse of a great student of music and philosophy at first the high condition of his body fills him with pride and spirit and is twice the man that he was. Certainly. And what happens? If he do nothing else and holds no converse with the muses does not even that intelligence which there may be in him having no taste of any sort of learning or inquiry or thought or culture grow feeble and dull and blind his mind never waking up or receiving nourishment and his senses not being purged of their mists. In philosophy, uncivilized never using the weapon of persuasion he is like a wild beast all violence and fierceness and knows no other way of dealing and he lives in all ignorance and evil conditions and has no sense of propriety and grace. That is quite true, he said. And as there are two principles of human nature one the spirited and the other the philosophical some God, as I should say has given mankind two arts a string to them and only indirectly to the soul and body in order that these two principles like the strings of an instrument may be relaxed or drawn tighter until they are duly harmonized. That appears to be the intention. And he who mingles music with gymnastic in the fairest proportion and best attempers them to the soul may be rightly called the true musician and harmonist in a far higher sense than the tuner of strings. You are quite right, Socrates. And such a presiding genius will always be required in our state if the government is to last. Yes, he will be absolutely necessary. Such then are our principles of nurture and education. Where would be the use of going into further details about the dances of our citizens or about their hunting and coursing their gymnastic and equestrian contests? For these all follow the general principle and having found that we shall have no difficulty in discovering them. I dare say that there will be no difficulty. Very good, I said. Then what is the next question? Must we not ask who are to be rulers in whose subjects? Certainly. There can be no doubt that the elder must rule the younger. Clearly. And that the best of these must rule. That is also clear. Now are not the best husbandmen those who are most devoted to husbandry? Yes. As we are to have the best guardians for our city, must they not be those who have most the character of guardians? Yes. And to this end they ought to be wise and efficient and to have a special care of the state? True. And a man will be most likely to care about that which he loves. To be sure. And he will be most likely to love that which he regards as having the same interest with himself, and that of which the good or evil fortune is to affect his own? Very true, he replied. Then there must be a selection. Let us note among the guardians those who in their whole life show the greatest eagerness to do what is for the good of their country, and the greatest repugnance to do what is against her interests. These are the right men. And they will have to be watched at every age in order that we may see whether they preserve their resolution and never under the influence either of force or enchantment, or cast off their sense of duty to the state. How cast off, he said. I will explain to you, I replied. A resolution may go out of a man's mind either with his will or against his will. With his will when he gets rid of a falsehood and learns better, against his will whenever he is deprived of a truth. I understand, he said, the willing loss of a resolution, the meaning of the unwilling I have yet to learn. Why, I said, do not see that men are unwillingly deprived of good and willingly of evil? Is not to have lost the truth in evil and to possess the truth of good? And you would agree that to conceive things as they are is to possess the truth? Yes, he replied. I agree with you in thinking that mankind are deprived of truth against their will. And is not this involuntary deprivation caused either by theft, or force, or enchantment? Still, he replied, I do not understand you. I fear that I must have been talking darkly, like the Tragedians. I only mean that some men are changed by persuasion and that others forget. Argument steals away the hearts of one class and time of the other, and this I call theft. Now you understand me? Yes. Those again who are forced are those whom the violence of some pain or grief compels to change their opinion. I understand, he said, and you are quite right. And you would also acknowledge that the enchanted are those who change their minds either under the softer influence of pleasure or the sterner influence of fear. Yes, he said. Everything that deceives may be said to enchant. Therefore, as I was just now saying, we must inquire who are the best guardians of their own conviction that what they think the interest of the state is to be the rule of their lives. We must watch them from their youth upwards and make them perform actions in which they are most likely to forget or to be deceived. And he who remembers and is not deceived is to be selected. He who fails in the trial is to be rejected. That will be the way? Yes, and there should also be toils and pains and conflicts prescribed for them in which they will be made to give further proof of the same qualities. Very right, he replied. And then, I said, we must try them with enchantments. That is the third sort of test, and see what will be their behavior, like those who take colts amid noise and tumult to see if they are of a timid nature. So must we take our youth amid terrors of some kind and again pass them into pleasures and prove them more thoroughly than gold is proved in the furnace, that we may discover whether they are armed against all enchantments and of a noble bearing always, good guardians of themselves and of the music which they have learned, and retaining under all circumstances a rhythmical and harmonious nature, such as will be most serviceable to the individual and to the state. And he who at every age, as boy and youth in immature life, has come out of the trial victorious and pure shall be appointed a ruler and guardian of the state. He shall be honored in life and death and shall receive sepulcher and other memorials of honor, the greatest that we have to give. But him who fails, we must reject. I am inclined to think that this is the sort of way in which our rulers and guardians should be chosen and appointed. I speak generally and not with any pretension to exactness. And speaking generally, I agree with you, he said. And perhaps the word guardian in its fullest sense ought to be applied to this higher class only who preserve us against foreign enemies and maintain peace among our citizens at home, that the one may not have the will or the others the power to harm us. The young men whom we before called guardians may be more properly designated auxiliaries and supporters of the principles of the rulers. I agree with you, he said. How then may we devise one of those needful falsehoods of which we lately spoke? Just one royal lie which may deceive the rulers, if that be possible, and at any rate the rest of the city. What sort of lie, he said? Nothing new, I replied. Only an old Phoenician tale of what has often occurred before now in other places as the poets say and have made the world believe, though not in our time. Such an event could ever happen again or could now even be made probable if it did. How your words seem to hesitate on your lips. You will not wonder, I replied, at my hesitation when you have heard. Speak, he said, and fear not. Well then, I will speak, although I really know not how to look you in the face on what words utter the audacious fiction which I propose to communicate gradually, first to the rulers, then to the soldiers, and lastly to the people. They are to be told that their youth was a dream, and the education and training which they received from us and appearance only. In reality during all that time they were being formed and fed in the womb of the earth, where they themselves and their arms and appurtences were manufactured. When they were completed the earth, their mother sent them up, and so their country being their mother and also their nurse they are bound to advise for her good and to defend her against attacks and her citizens they are to regard as one of the earth and their own brothers. You had good reason, he said, to be ashamed of the lie which you were going to tell. True, I replied, but there is more coming. I have only told you half. Citizens, we shall say to them in our tale, you are brothers, yet God has framed you differently. Some of you have the power of command, and in the composition of these he has mingled gold, wherefore also they have the greatest honour. Others he is made of silver to be auxiliaries. Others be husbandmen and craftsmen he is composed of brass and iron, and the species will generally be preserved in the children. But as all are of the same original stock, a golden parent will sometimes have a silver son or a silver parent a golden son, and God proclaims as a first principle to the rulers and above all else that there is nothing which they should so anxiously guard, or of which they are to be such good guardians as the purity of the race. They should observe what elements mingle their offspring. For if the son of a golden or silver parent has a mixture of brass and iron, the nature orders a transposition of ranks, and the eye of the ruler must not be pitiful toward the child because he has to descend in the scale and become a husbandman or artisan, just as there may be sons of artisans who have an in mixture of gold or silver in them are raised to honour and become guardians or auxiliaries. For an oracle says that when a man of brass or iron guards the state, it will be destroyed. Such is the tale. Is there any possibility of making our citizens believe in it? Not in this present generation, he replied. There is no way of accomplishing this. But their sons may be made to believe the tale, and their son's sons and posterity after them. I see the difficulty, I replied, yet the fostering of such a belief will make them care more for the city and for one another. Enough, however, of the fiction, which may now fly abroad upon the wings of rumour and lead them forth under the command of their rulers. Let them look round and select a spot once they can best suppress insurrection, if any prove refractory within, and also defend themselves against enemies who, like wolves, may come down on the fold from without. There let them encamp, and when they have encamped, let them sacrifice to the proper gods and prepare their dwellings. Just so, he said, and their dwellings must be such as will shield them against the cold of winter and the heat of summer. I suppose you mean houses, he replied. Yes, I said, but they must be the houses of soldiers and not of shopkeepers. What is the difference, he said? That I will endeavour to explain, I replied, to keep watchdogs who, from want of discipline or hunger, or some evil habit or other, would turn upon the sheep and worry them, and behave not like dogs, but wolves, would be a foul and monstrous thing in a shepherd. And therefore every carer must be taken that our auxiliaries, being stronger than our citizens, may not grow to be too much for them and become savage tyrants instead of friends and allies. Yes, great care should be taken, and would not a really good education furnish the best safeguard? But they are well educated already, he replied. I cannot be so confident, my dear Glaucon, I said. I am much more ought to be, and that true education, whatever that may be, will have the greatest tendency to civilize and humanize them in their relations to one another, and to those who are under their protection. Very true, he replied. And not only their education, but their habitations, and all that belongs to them, should be such as will neither impair their virtuous guardians, nor tempt them to prey upon the other citizens. Any man of sense must acknowledge that. He must. Now let us consider what will be their way of life, if they are to realize our idea of them. In the first place, none of them should have any property of his own beyond what is absolutely necessary. Neither should they have a private house or store closed against anyone who has a mind to enter. Their provisions should be only such as are required by trained warriors, who are men of temperance and courage. They should agree to receive from the citizens a fixed rate of pay, enough to meet the expenses of the year and no more. They should go to mess and live together like soldiers in a camp. Gold and silver we will tell them that they have from God. The diviner metal is within them, and they have therefore no need of the draws which is current among men, and ought not to pollute the divine by any such earthly admixture. For that commoner metal has been the source of many unholy deeds, but their own is undefiled. And they alone of the citizens may not touch or handle silver or gold, or be under the roof with them, or wear them, or drink from them. And this will be their salvation, and they will be the saviors of the State. But should they ever acquire homes or lands or monies of their own, they will become housekeepers and husbandmen instead of guardians, enemies and tyrants instead of allies of the other citizens. Hating and being hated, plotting and being plotted against, they will pass their whole life in much greater terror of internal than of external enemies, or of ruin, both to themselves and to the rest of the State, will be at hand. For all which reasons may we not say that thus shall our State be ordered, and that these shall be the regulations appointed by us for guardians concerning their houses, and all other matters? Yes, said Glaucon. End of Book 3 Recording by Jim Allman, Houston, Texas. Book 4, Part 1 of Plato's Republic. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by B.G. Oxford. The Republic by Plato Translated by Benjamin Joett. Book 4, Part 1 Here, Ademantus interposed a question. How would you answer Socrates, said he, if a person were to say that you are making these people miserable, and that they are the cause of their own unhappiness? The city, in fact, belongs to them, but they are none the better for it, whereas other men acquire lands and build large and handsome houses and have everything handsome about them, offering sacrifices to the gods on their own account and practicing hospitality. Moreover, as you were saying just now, they have gold and silver and all that is usual among the favorites of fortune, but our poor citizens are no better than mercenaries who are quartered in the city and are always mounting guard. Yes, I said, and you may say that they are only fed and not paid in addition to their food, like other men, and therefore they cannot, if they would, take a journey of pleasure. They have no money to spend on a mistress or any other luxurious fancy, which, as the world goes, is thought to be happiness, and many other accusations of the same nature might be added. But, he said, let us suppose all this to be included in the charge. You mean to ask, I said, what will be our answer? Yes. If we proceed along the old path, my belief, I said, is that we shall find the answer and our answer will be that, even as they are, our guardians may very likely be the happiest of men, but that our aim in founding the state was not the disproportionate happiness of any class, but the greatest happiness of the whole. We thought that in a state which is ordered with a view to the good of the whole, we should be most likely to find justice, and in the ill-ordered state, injustice, and, having found them, we might then decide which of the two is the happier. At present, I take it, we are fashioning the happy state, not piecemeal or with a view of making a few happy citizens, but as a whole, and by and by we will proceed to view the opposite kind of state. Suppose that we are painting a statue, and someone came up to us and said, why do you not put the most beautiful colors on the most beautiful parts of the body? The eyes ought to be purple, but you have made them black. To him we might fairly answer. You would not surely have us beautify the eyes to such a degree that they are no longer eyes. Consider, rather, whether by giving this and the other features their due proportion we make the whole beautiful. And so I say to you, do not compel us to assign to the guardians a sort of happiness which will make them anything but guardians. For we too can clothe our husbandmen in royal apparel and set crowns of gold on their heads and bid them till the ground as much as they like and no more. Our potters also might be allowed to repose on couches and feast by the fireside passing round the wine cup while their wheel is conveniently at hand and working at pottery only as much as they like. In this way we might make every class happy and then, as you imagine, the whole state would be happy. But do not put this idea into our heads for if we listen to you the husbandmen will be no longer a husbandman. The potter will cease to be a potter and no one will have the character of any distinct class in the state. Now this is not of much consequence where the corruption of society and pretensions to be what you are not is confined to cobblers. But when the guardians of the laws and of the government are only seeming and not real guardians then see how they turn the state upside down. And on the other hand, they alone have the power of giving order and happiness to the state. We mean our guardians to be true savers and not the destroyers of the state whereas our opponent is thinking of peasants at a festival who are enjoying a life of poverty, not of citizens who are doing their duty to the state. But if so, we mean different things and he is speaking of something which is not a state. And therefore, we must consider whether in appointing our guardians we would look to their greatest happiness individually or whether this principle of happiness does not rather reside in the state as a whole. But if the latter be the truth then the guardians of auxiliaries and all others equally with them must be compelled or induced to do their own work in the best way and thus the whole state will grow up in a noble order and the several classes will receive the proportion of happiness which nature assigns to them. I think that you are quite right. I wonder whether you will agree with another remark which occurs to me. What may that be? There seem to be two causes of the deterioration of the arts. What are they? Wealth, I said, and poverty. How do they act? The process is as follows. When a potter becomes rich will he, thank you, any longer take the same pains with his art? Certainly not. He will grow more and more indolent and careless. Very true. And the result will be that he becomes a worse potter? Yes, he greatly deteriorates. But, on the other hand, if he has no money and cannot provide himself with tools or instruments he will not work equally well himself, nor will he teach his sons or apprentices to work equally well. Certainly not. Then under the influence of either poverty or of wealth workmen and their work are equally liable to degenerate. That is evident. Here then is a discovery of new evils, I said, against which the guardians will have to watch, or they will creep into the city unobserved. What evils? Wealth, I said, and poverty. The one is the parent of luxury and indolence and the other of meanness and both of discontent. That is very true, he replied. But still I should like to know, Socrates, how our city will be able to go to war, especially against an enemy who is rich and powerful if deprived of the sinews of war. There would certainly be a difficulty, I replied, in going to war with one such enemy. But there is no difficulty where there are two of them. How so, he asked. In the first place, I said, if we have to fight our side will be trained warriors fighting against an army of rich men. That is true, he said. And do you not suppose, Ademantus, that a single boxer who is perfect in his art would easily be a match for two stout and well-to-do gentlemen who were not boxers? Hardly, if they came upon him at once. Now, I said, if he were able to run away and then turn and strike at the one who first came up, and supposing he were to do this several times under the heat of a scorching sun, might he not, being an expert, overturn more than one stout personage? Certainly, he said, there would be nothing wonderful in that. And yet, rich men probably have a greater superiority in the science and practice of boxing than they have in military qualities. Likely enough. Then we may assume that our athletes will be able to fight with two or three times their own number. I agree with you. For I think you are right. And supposing that, before engaging, our citizens send an embassy to one of the two cities telling them what is the truth. Silver and gold we neither have nor are permitted to have. But you may. Do you therefore come and help us in war and take the spoils of the other city? Who on hearing these words would choose to fight against lean, wiry dogs rather than with the dogs on their side, against the fat and tender sheep? That is not likely. And yet there might be a danger to the poor state if the wealth of many states were to be gathered into one. But how simple of you is the term state at all of any but our own? Why so? You ought to speak of other states in the plural number. Not one of them is a city, but many cities as they say in the game. For indeed any city, however small, is in fact divided into two. One the city of the poor, the other of the rich. These are at war with one another. And in either there are many smaller divisions, and you would be all together beside the mark if you treated them all as a single state. But if you deal with them as many, and give the wealth or power or persons of the one to the others you will always have a great many friends and not many enemies. And your state while the wise order which has now been prescribed continues to prevail in her will be the greatest of states. I do not mean to say in reputation or appearance, but indeed and truth, though she number not more than a thousand defenders. A single state, which is her equal you will hardly find either among Helens or Barbarians, though many that appear to be as great and many times greater. That is most true, he said. And what I said will be the best limit for our rulers to fix when they are considering the size of the state and the amount of territory which they are to include and beyond which they will not go. What limit would you propose? I would allow the state to increase so far as is consistent with unity. That I think is the proper limit. Very good, he said. Here then, I said, is another order which will have to be conveyed to our guardians. Let our city be accounted for large nor small, but one and self-sufficing. And surely, he said, this is not a very severe order which we impose upon them. And the other, said I, of which we are speaking before is lighter still. I mean the duty of degrading the offspring of the guardians when inferior and of elevating into the rank of guardians the offspring of the lower classes when naturally superior. The intention was that in the case of the citizens generally each individual should be put to the use for which nature intended him. One to one work, and then every man would do his own business and be one and not many. And so the whole city would be one and not many. Yes, he said, that is not so difficult. The regulations which we are prescribing, would adimantos, are not as might be supposed a number of great principles but trifles all if care be taken as the saying is of the one great thing. A thing, however, which I would rather call not great, but sufficient for our purpose. What may that be? he asked. Education, I said, and nurture. If our citizens are well educated and grow into sensible men, they will easily see their way through all these as well as other matters which I omit. Such, for example, as marriage, the possession of women and the procreation of children which will all follow the general principle that friends have all things in common as the proverb says. That will be the best way of settling them. Also, I said, the state if once started well was a fascinating force, like a wheel. For good nurture and education implant good constitutions and these good constitutions taking root in a good education improve more and more and this improvement affects the breed in man as in other animals. Very possibly, he said. Then to sum up, this is the point to which above all the attention of our rulers should be directed that music and gymnastic be preserved in their original form and no innovation made. They must do their utmost to maintain them intact and when anyone says that mankind most regard the newest song which the singers have they will be afraid that he may be praising not new songs but a new kind of song and this ought not to be praised or conceived to be the meaning of the poet. The fundamental innovation is full of danger to the whole state and ought to be prohibited. So Damon tells me and I can quite believe him he says that when modes of music change the fundamental laws of the state always change with them. Yes, said Ademantus and you may add my suffrage to Damon's and your own. Then I said, our guardians must lay the foundations of their fortress in music. Yes, he said the lawlessness of which you speak too easily steals in. Yes, I replied in the form of amusement and at first sight it appears harmless. Why yes, he said and there is no harm. Were it not that little by little this spirit of license finding a home imperceptibly penetrates into manners and customs when issuing with greater force it invades contracts between man and man and from contracts goes on to laws and constitutions in utter recklessness ending at last socrates by an overthrow of all rights private as well as public. Is that true? I said that is my belief. He replied then as I was saying our youth should be trained from the first in a stricter system for if amusements become lawless and the youths themselves become lawless they can never grow up into well conducted and virtuous citizens. Very true he said. And when they have made a good beginning in play and by the help of music have gained the habit of good order then this habit of order in a manner how unlike the lawless play of the others will accompany them in all their actions and be a principle of growth to them and if there be any fallen places they will raise them up again. Very true he said. Thus educated they will invent for themselves any lesser rules which their predecessors have all together neglected. What do you mean? I mean such things as these when the young are to be silent before their elders how they are to show respect to them by standing and making them sit what honor is due to parents what garments or shoes are to be worn the mode of dressing the hair deportment and manners in general you would agree with me? Yes. But there is I think small wisdom in legislating about such matters I doubt if it is ever done nor are any precise written enactments about them likely to be lasting impossible. It would seem adimantis that the direction which education starts a man will determine his future life like always attract like to be sure until some one rare and grand result is reached which may be good and may be the reverse of good that is not to be denied and for this reason I said I shall not attempt to legislate further about them naturally enough he replied End of book 4 part 1 Recording by B. G. Oxford December 2008 Book 4 part 2 of Plato's Republic this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recorded by B. G. Oxford The Republic by Plato translated by Benjamin Joe it Book 4 part 2 Well and about the business of the Agora and the ordinary dealings between man and man or again about agreements with artisans about insult and injury or the commencement of actions and the appointment of juries what would you say? There may also arise questions about any impositions and exactions of market and harbor dues which may be required and in general about the regulations about markets, police harbors and the like but oh heavens shall we condescend to legislate on any of these particulars? I think he said that there is no need to impose laws about them on good men what regulations are necessary they will find out soon enough for themselves yes I said my friend if God will only preserve to them the laws which we have given them what divine help said Ademantus they will go on forever making and mending their laws and their lives in the hope of attaining perfection you would compare them I said to those invalids who having no self-restraint will not leave off their habits of intemperance exactly yes I said and what a delightful life they lead they are always doctoring and increasing and complicating their disorders fancying that they will be cured by any nostrum which anybody advises them to try such cases are very common he said with invalids of this sort yes I replied and the charming thing is that they deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth which is simply that unless they give up eating and drinking and wenching and idling neither drug nor cottery nor spell nor amulet they will avail charming he replied I see nothing charming in going into a passion with a man who tells you what is right these gentlemen I said do not seem to be in your good graces assuredly not nor would you praise the behaviour of states which act like the men whom I was just now describing for are there not ill-ordered states in which the citizens are forbidden under pain of death and yet he who most sweetly courts those who live under this regime and indulges them and fawns upon them and is skillful in anticipating and gratifying their humours is held to be a great and good statesman do not these states resemble the persons whom I was describing yes he said the states are as bad as the men and I am very far from praising them but do you not admire I said the coolness and dexterity of these ready ministers of political corruption yes I do but not all of them for there are some whom the applause of the multitude has deluded into the belief that they are really statesmen and these are not much to be admired what do you mean I said you should have more feeling for them when a man cannot measure and a great many others who cannot measure or cubits high can he help believing what they say nay he said certainly not in that case well then do not be angry with them for are they not as good as a play trying their hand at paltry reforms such as I was describing they are always fancying that by legislation they will make an end of frauds in contracts and other rascalities which I was mentioning not knowing that they are in reality cutting off the heads of a hydra yes he said that is just what they are doing I conceive I said that the true legislator will not trouble himself with this class of enactments whether concerning laws or the constitution either in an ill ordered or in a well ordered state for in the former they are quite useless and in the latter there will be no difficulty in devising them and many of them will naturally flow out of our previous regulations what then he said is still remaining to us of the work of legislation nothing to us I replied but to Apollo the God of Delphi there remains the ordering of the greatest and noblest and chiefest things of all which are they he said the institution of temples and sacrifices and the entire service of gods, demigods and heroes also the ordering of the repositories of the dead and the rights which have to be observed by him who would propitiate the inhabitants of the world below these are matters of which we are ignorant ourselves and as founders of a city we should be unwise in trusting them to any interpreter but our ancestral deity he is the God who sits in the center on the navel of the earth and religion to all mankind you are right and we will do as you propose but where amid all this is justice son of a wrist on tell me where now that our city has been made habitable light a candle and search and get your brother and Polymarcus and the rest of our friends to help and let us see where in it we can discover justice and where injustice but they differ from one another and which of them the man who would be happy should have for his portion whether seen or unseen by gods and men nonsense said Glaucon did you not promise to search yourself saying that for you not to help justice in her need would be an impiety I do not deny that I said so and as you remind me I will be as good as my word fine we will he replied well then I hope to make the discovery in this way I mean to begin with the assumption that our state, if rightly ordered is perfect that is most certain and being perfect is therefore wise and valiant and temperate and just that is likewise clear and whichever of these qualities we find in the state one which is not found will be the residue very good if there were four things and we were searching for one of them wherever it might be the one sought for might be known to us from the first and there would be no further trouble or we might know the other three first and then the fourth would clearly be the one left very true he said similar method to be pursued about the virtues which are also foreign number clearly first among the virtues found in the state wisdom comes into view and in this I detect a certain peculiarity what is that the state which we have been describing is said to be wise as being good in counsel very true and good counsel is clearly a kind of knowledge for not by ignorance but by knowledge do men counsel well clearly and the kinds of knowledge in a state are many and diverse of course there is the knowledge of the carpenter but is that the sort of knowledge which gives a city the title of wise and good in counsel certainly not that would only give a city the reputation of skill of carpentering then a city is not to be called wise because possessing a knowledge which counsels for the best about wooden implements certainly not nor by reason of a knowledge which advises about brazen pots I said nor as possessing any other similar knowledge not by reason of any of them he said nor yet by reason of a knowledge which cultivates the earth the city the name of agricultural yes well I said and is there any knowledge in our recently founded state among any of the citizens which advises not about any particular thing in the state but about the whole and considers how a state can best deal with itself and with other states there certainly is and what is this knowledge and among whom is it found it is the knowledge of the guardians he replied and is found among those whom we were just now describing as perfect guardians and what is the name which the city derives from the possession of this sort of knowledge the name of good in counsel and truly wise and will there be in our city more of these true guardians or more smiths the smiths he replied will be far more numerous will not the guardians be the smallest of all the classes who receive a name from the profession of some kind of knowledge much the smallest and so by reason of the smallest part or class and of the knowledge which resides in this presiding and ruling part of itself the whole state being thus constituted according to nature will be wise and this which has the only knowledge worthy to be called wisdom has been ordained by nature to be of all classes the least most true thus then I said the nature and place in the state of one of the four virtues has somehow or other been discovered and in my humble opinion very satisfactorily discovered he replied again I said there is no difficulty in seeing the nature of courage and in what part that quality resides which gives the name of courageous to the state how do you mean why I said everyone who calls any state courageous or cowardly will be thinking of the part which fights and goes out to war on the state's behalf no one he replied would ever think of any other the rest of the citizens may be courageous or may be cowardly but their courage or cowardice will not as I conceive have the effect of making the city either the one or the other certainly not the city will be courageous in virtue of a portion of herself which preserves under all circumstances that opinion about the nature of things to be feared and not to be feared in which our legislator educated them and this is what you term courage I should like to hear what you are saying once more for I do not think that I perfectly understand you I mean that courage is a kind of salvation salvation of what of the opinion respecting things to be feared what they are and of what nature which the law implants through education and I mean by the words under all circumstances to intimate that in pleasure or in pain or under the influence of desire or fear a man preserves and does not lose this opinion shall I give you an illustration if you please you know I said that dyers when they want to die wool for making the true sea purple begin by selecting their white color first this they prepare and dress much care and pains in order that the white ground may take the purple hue in full perfection the dying then proceeds and whatever is died in this manner becomes a fast color and no washing either with lies or without them can take away the bloom but when the ground has not been duly prepared you will have noticed how poor is the look either of purple or of any other color I said I know that they have a washed out and ridiculous appearance then now I said you will understand what our object was in selecting our soldiers and educating them in music and gymnastics we were contriving influences which would prepare them to take the die of the laws in perfection and the color of their opinion about dangers and of every other opinion was to be indelibly fixed by their nurture meaning not to be washed away by such potent lies as pleasure mightier agent far in washing the soul than any soda or lie or by sorrow fear and desire the mightiest of all other solvents and this sort of universal saving power of true opinion in conformity with law about real and false dangers I call and maintain to be courage unless you disagree what I agree he replied for I suppose that you mean to exclude mere uninstructed courage such as that of a wild beast or of a slave this in your opinion is not the courage which the law ordains and ought to have another name most certainly then may I infer courage to be such as you describe why yes I said you may and if you add the words of a citizen you will not be far wrong here after if you like we will carry the examination further but at present we are seeking not for courage but justice and for the purpose of our inquiry we have said enough you are right he replied two virtues remain to be discovered in the state first temperance and then justice which is the end of our search very true can we find justice without troubling ourselves about temperance I do not know how that can be accomplished he said nor do I desire that justice should be brought to light and temperance lost sight of and therefore I wish that you would do me the favor of considering temperance first certainly I replied I should not be justified in refusing your request then consider he said I replied I will and as far as I can at present see the virtue of temperance has more of the nature of harmony and symphony than the preceding how so he asked temperance I replied is the ordering or controlling of certain pleasures and desires this is curiously enough implied in the saying of a man being his own master and other traces of the same notion may be found in language no doubt he said there is something ridiculous in the expression master of himself for the master is also the servant and the servant the master and in all these modes of speaking the same person is denoted certainly the meaning is I believe that in the human soul there is a better and also a worse principle and when the better has the worse under control then a man is said to be master of himself and this is a term of praise but when owing to evil education or association the better principle which is also the smaller is overwhelmed by the greater mass of the worse in this case he is blamed and is called the slave of self and unprincipled the reason in that and now I said look at our newly created state and there you will find one of these two conditions realized for the state as you will acknowledge may be justly called master of itself if the words temperance and self mastery truly express the rule of the better part over the worse yes he said I see that what you say is true let me further note that the manifold and complex pleasures and desires and pains are generally found in children and women and servants and in the free men so called who are of the lowest and more numerous class certainly he said whereas the simple and moderate desires which follow reason and are under the guidance of mind and true opinion are to be found only in a few best born and best educated very true these two as you may perceive have a place in our state and the meaner desires of the many are held down by the virtuous desires and wisdom of the few that I perceive he said then if there be any city which may be described as master of its own pleasures and desires and master of itself ours may claim such a designation certainly he replied it may also be called temperate and for the same reason yes and if there be any state in which rulers and subjects will be agreed as to the question who are to rule that again will be our state undoubtedly and the citizens being thus agreed among themselves in which class will temperance be found in the rulers or in the subjects in both as I should imagine he replied do you observe that we are not far wrong in our guess that temperance was a sort of harmony why so why because temperance is unlike courage and wisdom each of which resides in a part only the one making the state wise and the other valiant not so temperance which extends to the whole and runs through all the notes of the scale harmony of the weaker and the stronger and the middle class whether you suppose them to be stronger or weaker in wisdom or power or numbers or wealth or anything else most truly then may we deem temperance to be the agreement of the naturally superior and inferior as to the right to rule of either both in states and individuals I entirely agree with you and so I said we may consider three out of the four virtues to have been discovered in our state the last of those qualities which make a state virtuous must be justice if we only knew what that was the inference is obvious end of book four part two recording by B.G. Oxford December 2008 book four part three of Plato's Republic this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by B.G. Oxford the Republic by Plato translated by Benjamin Joett book four part three the time then has arrived Glaucon by Huntsman we should surround the cover and look sharp that justice does not steal away and pass out of sight and escape us for beyond a doubt she is somewhere in this country watch therefore and strive to catch a sight of her and if you see her first let me know would that I could but you should regard me rather as a follower who has just eyes enough to see what you show him that is about as much as I am good for offer up a prayer with me and follow I will but you must show me the way there is no path I said and the wood is dark and perplexing still we must push on let us push on here I saw something hello I said I began to perceive a track and I believe that the query will not escape good news he said surely I said we are stupid fellows why so why my good sir at the beginning of our inquiry ages ago there was justice tumbling out at our feet and we never saw her nothing could be more ridiculous like people who go about looking for what they have in their hands that was the way with us we looked not at what we were seeking but at what was far off in the distance and therefore I suppose we missed her what do you mean I mean to say that in reality for a long time past we have been talking of justice and have failed to recognize her I grow impatient at the length of your exordium well then tell me I said whether I am right or not you remember the original principle which we were always laying down at the foundation of the state that one man should practice one thing only the thing to which his nature was best adapted now justice is this principle or part of it yes we often said that one man should do one thing only further we affirm that justice was doing one's own business and not being a busy body we said so again and again and many others have said the same to us yes we said so then to do one's own business in a certain way may be assumed to be justice can you tell me whence I derive this inference I cannot but I should like to be told because I think that this is the only virtue which remains in the state when the other virtues of temperance and courage and wisdom are abstracted and that this is the ultimate cause and condition of the existence of all of them and while remaining in them is also their preservative and we were saying that if the three were discovered by us justice would be the fourth or remaining one that follows of necessity if we are asked to determine which of these four qualities by its presence contributes most to the excellence of the state whether the agreement of rulers and subjects or the preservation in the soldiers of the opinion which the law ordains about the true nature of dangers or wisdom and watchfulness in the rulers or whether this other which I am mentioning and which is found in children and women slave and free men artisan, ruler, subject the quality I mean of everyone doing his own work being a busy buddy would claim the palm the question is not so easily answered certainly he replied there would be a difficulty in saying which then the power of each individual in the state to do his own work appears to compete with the other political virtues wisdom, temperance, courage yes he said and the virtue which enters into this competition is justice exactly let us look at the question from another point of view are not the rulers in a state those to whom you would entrust the office of determining suits at law certainly and are suits decided on any other ground but that a man may neither take what is another's nor be deprived of what is his own yes that is their principle which is a just principle yes then on this view also justice will be admitted to be the having and doing what is a man's own and belongs to him very true think now and say whether you agree with me or not suppose a carpenter to be doing the business of a cobbler or a cobbler of a carpenter and suppose them to exchange their implements or their duties or the same person to be doing the work of both or whatever be the change do you think that any great harm would result to the state not much but when the cobbler or any other man whom nature designed to be a trader having his heart lifted up by wealth or strength or the number of his followers or any like advantage attempts to force his way into the class of warriors or a warrior into that of legislators and guardians for which he is unfitted and either to take the implements or the duties of the other or when one man is trader legislator and warrior all in one then I think you will agree with me in saying that this interchange and this meddling of one with another is the ruin of the state most true seeing then I said that there are three distinct classes any meddling of one to the other or the change of one to another is the greatest harm to the state and may be most justly termed evil doing precisely and the greatest degree of evil doing to one's own city would be termed by you injustice certainly this then is injustice and on the other hand when the trader the auxiliary and the guardian each do their own business justice and will make the city just I agree with you we will not I said be over positive as yet but if on trial this conception of justice be verified in the individual as well as in the state there will be no longer any room for doubt if it be not verified we must have a fresh inquiry first let us complete the old investigation which we began as you remember under the impression that if we could previously examine justice on the larger scale there would be less difficulty in discerning her in the individual that larger example appeared to be the state and accordingly we constructed as good a one as we could knowing well that in the good state justice would be found let the discovery which we made be now applied to the individual if they agree we shall be satisfied or if there be a difference in the individual we will come back to the state and have another trial of the theory the friction of the two when rubbed together may possibly strike a light in which justice will shine forth and the vision which is then revealed we will fix in our souls that will be in regular course let us do as you say I proceeded to ask when two things a greater and less are called by the same name are they like or unlike insofar as they are called the same like he replied the just man then if we regard the idea of justice only will be like the just state he will and the state was thought by us to be just when the three classes in the state severally did their own business and also thought to be temperate and valiant and wise by reason of certain other affections and qualities of these same classes true he said and so of the individual we may assume that he has the same three principles in his own soul which are found in the state and he may be rightly described in the same terms because he is affected in the same manner certainly he said once more then oh my friend we have a lighted upon an easy question whether the soul has these three principles or not an easy question nay rather Socrates the proverb holds that hard is the good very true I said and I do not think that the method which we are employing is at all adequate to the accurate solution of this question the true method is another and a longer one still we may arrive at a solution not below the level of the previous inquiry may we not be satisfied with that he said under the circumstance I am quite content I too I replied shall be extremely well satisfied then faint not in pursuing the speculation he said must we not acknowledge I said that in each of us there are the same principles and habits which there are in the state and that from the individual they pass into the state how else can they come there take the quality of passion or spirit it would be ridiculous to imagine that this quality when found in states is not derived from the individuals who are supposed to possess it for example the Thracians Scythians and in general the northern nations and the same may be said of the love of knowledge which is the special characteristic of our part of the world or of the love of money which may with equal truth be attributed to the Phoenicians and Egyptians exactly so he said there is no difficulty in understanding this none whatever but the question is not quite so easy when we proceed to ask whether these principles are three or one whether that is to say we learn with one part of our nature we are angry with another and with a third part desire the satisfaction of our natural appetites or whether the whole soul comes into play in each sort of action to determine that is the difficulty yes he said there lies the difficulty then let us now try and determine whether they are the same or different how can we he asked I replied as follows meaning clearly cannot act or be acted upon in the same part or in relation to the same thing at the same time in contrary ways and therefore whenever this contradiction occurs in things apparently the same we know that they are really not the same but different good for example I said can the same thing be at rest and in motion at the same time in the same part impossible still I said let us have a more precise statement of terms less we should hear after fall out by the way imagine the case of a man who is standing and also moving his hands and his head and suppose a person to say that one and the same person is in motion and at rest at the same moment to such a mode of speech reject and should rather say that one part of him is in motion while another is at rest very true and suppose the objector to refine still further and to draw the nice distinction that not only parts of tops but whole tops when they spin around with their pegs fixed on the spot are at rest and in motion at the same time and he may say the same of anything which revolves in the same spot his objection would not be admitted by us because in such cases things are not at rest and in motion in the same parts of themselves we should rather say that they have both an axis and a circumference and that the axis stand still for there is no deviation from the perpendicular and that the circumference goes round but if while revolving declines either to the right or left, forwards or backwards then in no point of view can they be at rest that is the correct mode of describing them he replied then none of these objections will confuse us or incline us to believe that the same thing at the same time in the same part or in relation to the same thing can act or be acted upon in contrary ways certainly not according to my way of thinking yet I said that we may not be compelled to examine all such objections and prove at length that they are untrue let us assume their absurdity and go forward on the understanding that hereafter if this assumption turn out to be untrue all the consequences which follow shall be withdrawn yes he said well I said would you not allow that ascent and dissent desire and aversion attraction and repulsion are all of them opposites whether they are regarded as active or passive for that makes no difference in the fact of their opposition yes he said they are opposites well I said and hunger and thirst and the desires in general willing and wishing all these you would refer to the classes already mentioned you would say would you not that the soul of him who desires is seeking after the object of his desire or that he is drawing to himself the thing which he wishes to possess or again when a person wants anything to be given him his mind longing for the realization of his desire intimates his wish to have it ascent as if he had been asked a question very true and what would you say of unwillingness and dislike and the absence of desire should not these be referred to the opposite class of repulsion and rejection certainly admitting this to be true of desire generally let us suppose a particular class of desires and out of these we will select hunger and thirst which are the most obvious of them let us take that class he said the object of one is food and of the other drink yes and here comes the point is not thirst the desire which the soul has of drink and of drink only not of drink qualified by anything else for example warm or cold or much or little or in a word drink of any particular sort but if the thirst be accompanied by heat then the desire is of cold drink or if accompanied by cold then of warm drink or if the thirst be excessive then the drink which is desired will be excessive or if not great the quantity of drink will also be small but thirst pure and simple will desire drink pure and simple which is the natural satisfaction of thirst as food is of hunger yes he said the simple desire is as you say in every case of the simple object and the qualified desire of the qualified object but here a confusion may arise and I should wish to guard against an opponent starting up and saying that no man desires drink only but good drink or food only but good food for good is the universal object of desire and thirst being a desire will necessarily be thirst after good drink and the same is true of every other desire yes he replied the opponent might have something to say nevertheless I should still maintain that of relatives some have a quality attached to either term of the relation others are simple and have their correlatives simple I do not know what you mean well you know of course that the greater is relative to the less certainly and the much greater to the much less yes and the some time greater to the some time less and the greater that is to be to the less that is to be certainly he said and so of more and less and of other correlative terms such as the double and the half or again the heavier and the lighter the swifter and the slower and of hot and cold and of any other relatives is not this true of them all yes and does not the same principle hold in the sciences the object of science is knowledge assuming that to be the true definition but the object of a particular science is a particular kind of knowledge I mean for example that the science of house building is a kind of knowledge which is defined and distinguished from other kinds and is therefore termed architecture certainly because it has a particular quality which no other has yes and it has this particular quality because it has an object of a particular kind and this is true of the other arts and sciences part 3 recorded by B.G. Oxford