Phaedrus — Plato

p. 203keep in the dark if he means to be great in his injustice (he who is detected is nobody) : for the highest reach of injustice is, to be deemed just when you arenbtT' '^ThereforejT say that to the perlHftTyirrijust man we miist attribute the most perfect injustice ; there is to be no deduction, and we must allow him, while doing the most unjust acts, to have won for himself the greatest reputation for justice.

If he has taken a false step he must be able to retrieve himself, being one who can speak with effect, if any of his deeds come to light, and force his way where force is required, and having gifts of courage and strength, and command of money and friends. And at his side let us place the just man in his nobleness and simplicity, being, as -^schylus ^ says, and not seeming.

There must be no seeming, for if he seem to be just he will be honored and rewarded, and then we shall not know whether he is just for the sake of justice or for the sake of honors and rewards ; therefore, let him be clothed in justice only, and have no other covering ; and he must be imagined in a state of life very different from that of the last.

Let him be the best of men, and be esteemed to be the worst ; then let us see whether his virtue is proof against infamy and its consequences. And let him continue thus to the hour of death ; being just, let him seem to be unjust.

Then when both have reached the uttermost extreme, the one of justice and the other of injustice, let judgment be given which of them is the happier of the two.* Heavens ! my dear Glaucon, I said, how energetically you polish them up for the decision, first one and then the other, as if they were two statues. I do my best, he said.

And now that we know what they are like there is no difficulty in tracing out the sort of life which awaits either of them. But as you may think the description of this a little too coarse, I will ask you to fancy, Socrates, that the words which follow are not mine. Let me put them into the mouths of the eulogists of injustice.

They will tell you that in the case described the just man will be scourged, racked, bound — will have his eyes burnt out ; and, at last, after suffering every kind of evil, he will be impaled. This will teach him » iEschylus (SsTcy-lus, 525-456 B.C.) : earliest of the three great tragic jMDCts of Greece. * "There is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in wickedness." — EccL vii. 15.

p. 204that heought to_secgL pnlYf and jiot. tQ.beuJust^ and that the words of iEschylus may be more truly spoken of the unjust ^, than of the just. For the unjust, as they will say, is pursuing a reality ; at any rate, he does not live with a view to appearances, he wants to be really unjust, and not to seem only : — " His mind is like a deep and fertile soil Out of which his prudent counsels spring.

In the first place, he is thought just, and therefore bears rule ; he can marry whom he will, and give in marriage to whom he will ; also he can trade and deal where he likes, and always to his own advantage, because he has no misgivings about injustice ; and in every contest, whether public or private, he gets the better of his antagonists ; and has gains, and is rich, and out of his gains he can benefit his friends, and harm his enemies ; moreover, he can offer sacrifices, and dedicate gifts to the gods abundantly and magnificently, and can honor the gods and any man whom he wants to honor in far better style than the just, which is a very good reason why he should be dearer to the gods than the just.

Thus they make to appear, Socrates, that the life of the unjust is so ordered both by gods and men as to be more blessed than the life of the just. I was going to say something in answer to Glaucon, when Adeimantus his brother interposed ; Socrates, he said, you don't suppose that there is nothing more to be urged ? Why, what else is there ? I answered. The strongest point of all has not been even mentioned, he replied.

Well, then, according to the proverb, " Let brother help brother ; '* and if he fails in any part do you assist him ; although I must confess that Glaucon has already said quite enough to lay me in the dust, and take from me the power of helping justice.

Nonsense, he replied ; I want you to hear the converse of Glaucon*s argument, which is equally required in order to bring out what I believe to be his meaning ; I mean theargu- , ment of those who praise justice and censure injustice, with a view to their consequences only. Parents and tutors are always telling their sons and their wards that they are to be just ; but why ? not for the sake of justice, but for

THE REPUBLIC 20$ the sake of character and reputation.; in the hope of obtaining some" of those offices and marriages and other advantages which Glaucon was enumerating as accruing to the unjust from a fair reputation.

More, however, is made of appearances by this class than by the others ; for they throw in the good opinion of the gods, and will tell you of a shower of benefits which the heavens, as they say, rain upon the pious ; and this accords with the testimony of the noble Hesiod and Homer, the first of whom says, that for the just the gods make — " The oaks to bear acorns at their summit, and bees in the middle ; And the sheep are bowed down with the weight of their own fleeces," and many other blessings of a like kind are provided for them.

And Homer has a very similar strain ; for he speaks of one whose fame is — ** As the fame of some blameless king who, like a god, Maintains justice ; to whom the black earth brings forth Wheat and barley, whose trees are bowed with fruit, And his sheep never fail to bear, and the sea gives him fish.

Still grander are the gifts of Heaven which Musaeus ^ and his son* offer the just ; they take them down into the world below where they have the saints feasting on couches with crowns on their heads, and passing their whole time in drinking ; their idea seems to be that an immortality of drunkenness is the highest meed of virtue.

Some extend their rewards to the third and fourth generation; the posterity, as they say, of the faithful and just shall survive them. This is the style in which they praise justice.

But about the wicked there is another strain ; they bury them in a slough, and make them carry water in a sieve**; that is their portion in the world below, and even while living they bring them to infamy, and inflict upon them the punishments which Glaucon described as the portion of the just, who are reputed unjust ; nothing else does their invention supply.

Such is their manner of praising the one and censuring the other. * See Apology, note 52 , Protagoras, note 28. Son, Eumolpus (u-m61'- pus). " As a punishment lor killing their husbands, the Danaides (da-naT-dez), daughters of DanaCs (da'na-us^, were compelled, in Tartarus, to draw water forever m sieves.