“For the fact is, dear friend,” said I, “if you can discover a better way of life than office-holding for your future rulers, a well-governed city becomes a possibility. For only in such a state will those rule who are really rich,*Cf. Phaedrus in fine, ibid 416 E-417 A, 547 B. not in gold, but in the wealth that makes happiness—a good and wise life. But if, being beggars and starvelings*Stallbaum refers to Xen. Cyr. viii. 3. 39 οἴομαί σε καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἥδιον πλουτεῖν, ὅτι πεινήσας χρημάτων πεπλούτηκας, "for you must enjoy tour riches much more, I think, for the very reason that it was only after being hungry for wealth that you became rich." (Loeb tr.) Cf. also 577 E-578 A, and Adam ad loc. from lack of goods of their own, they turn to affairs of state thinking that it is thence that they should grasp their own good, then it is impossible. For when office and rule become the prizes of contention,*Cf. 347 D, Laws 715 A, also 586 C and What Plato Said, p. 627, on Laws 678 E, Isoc. Areop. 24, Pan. 145 and 146. such a civil and internecine strife*Cf. Eurip. Heracleidae 415 οἰκεῖος ἤδη πόλεμος ἐξαρτεύεται. destroys the office-seekers themselves and the city as well.” “Most true,” he said. “Can you name any other type or ideal of life that looks with scorn on political office except the life of true philosophers*Cf. 580 d ff., pp. 370 ff.?” I asked. “No, by Zeus,” he said. “But what we require,” I said, “is that those who take office*ἰέναι ἐπί in erotic language means "to woo." Cf. on 489 C, p. 26, note b, also 347 C, 588 B, 475 C. should not be lovers of rule. Otherwise there will be a contest with rival lovers.” "Surely." “What others, then, will you compel to undertake the guardianship of the city than those who have most intelligence of the principles that are the means of good government and who possess distinctions of another kind and a life that is preferable to the political life?” “No others,” he said.
“Would you, then, have us proceed to consider how such men may be produced in a state and how they may be led upward*Cf. on 515 E, p. 124, note b. to the light even as some*This has been much debated. Cf. Adam ad loc. Professor Linforth argues from Pausanias i. 34 that Amphiaraus is meant. are fabled to have ascended from Hades to the gods?” “Of course I would.” “So this, it seems, would not be the whirling of the shell*Cf. Phaedr. 241 B; also the description of the game in Plato Comicus, Fr. 153 apud Norwood, Greek Comedy, p. 167. The players were divided into two groups. A shell or potsherd, black on one side and white on the other, was thrown, and according to the face on which it fell one group fled and the other pursued. Cf. also commentators on Aristoph. Knights 855. in the children’s game, but a conversion and turning about of the soul from a day whose light is darkness to the veritable day—that ascension*Much quoted by Neoplatonists and Christian Fathers. Cf. Stallbaum ad loc. Again we need to remember that Plato’s main and explicitly reiterated purpose is to describe a course of study that will develop the power of consecutive consistent abstract thinking. All metaphysical and mystical suggestions of the imagery which conveys this idea are secondary and subordinate. So, e.g. Urwick, The Message of Plato, pp. 66-67, is mistaken when he says . . . Plato expressly tells us that his education is designed simply and solely to awaken the spiritual faculty which every soul contains, by "wheeling the soul round and turning it away from the world of change and decay." He is not concerned with any of those "excellences of mind" which may be produced by training and discipline, his only aim is to open the eye of the soul . . . The general meaning of the sentence is plain but the text is disputed. See crit. note. to reality of our parable which we will affirm to be true philosophy.” “By all means.” “Must we not, then, consider what studies have the power to effect this?” "Of course." “What, then, Glaucon, would be the study that would draw the soul away from the world of becoming to the world of being? A thought strikes me while I speak*A frequent pretence in Plato. Cf. 370 A, 525 C, Euthyphro 9 C, Laws 686 C, 702 B, Phaedr. 262 C with Friedländer, Platon, ii. p. 498, Laws 888 D with Tayler Lewis, Plato against the Atheists, pp. 118-119. Cf. also Vol. I. on 394 D-E, and Isoc. Antid. 159 ἐνθυμοῦμαι δὲ μεταξὺ λέγων, Panath. 127.: Did we not say that these men in youth must be athletes of war*Cf. 416 D, 422 B, 404 A, and Vol. I. p. 266, note a, on 403 E.” “We did.” “Then the study for which we are seeking must have this additional*προσέχειν is here used in its etymological sense. Cf. pp. 66-67 on 500 A. qualification.” “What one?” “That it be not useless to soldiers.*This further prerequisite of the higher education follows naturally from the plan of the Republic; but it does not interest Plato much and is, after one or two repetitions, dropped.” “Why, yes, it must,” he said, “if that is possible.” “But in our previous account they were educated in gymnastics and music.*Cf. 376 E ff.” “They were, he said. “And gymnastics, I take it, is devoted*For τετεύτακε Cf. Tim. 90 B τετευτακότι to that which grows and perishes; for it presides over the growth and decay of the body.*Cf. 376 E. This is of course no contradiction of 410 C.” "Obviously." “Then this cannot be the study that we seek.”