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403a]
no less than
pain?” “Or between it and virtue generally?”
“By no means.” “But is there between pleasure
and insolence and licence?” “Most assuredly.”
“Do you know of greater or keener pleasure than that associated
with Aphrodite?” “I don't,” he said,
“nor yet of any more insane.” “But is not the
right love a sober and harmonious love of the orderly and the
beautiful?” “It is indeed,” said he.
“Then nothing of madness, nothing akin to licence, must be allowed
to come nigh the right love?” “No.”
“Then this kind of pleasure
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may not come nigh, nor may lover and beloved who rightly love and are
loved have anything to do with it?” “No, by heaven,
Socrates,” he said, “it must not come nigh
them.” “Thus, then, as it seems, you will lay down the
law in the city that we are founding, that the lover may kiss
1 and pass the time with
and touch the beloved as a father would a son, for honorable ends, if he
persuade him. But otherwise he must so associate with the objects of his
care that there should never be any suspicion of anything further,
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403c]
on penalty of being stigmatized for
want of taste and true musical culture.” “Even
so,” he said. “Do you not agree, then, that our
discourse on music has come to an end? It has certainly made a fitting end,
for surely the end and consummation of culture be love of the
beautiful.” “I concur,” he said.
“After music our youth are to be educated
by gymnastics?” “Certainly.” “In
this too they must be carefully trained
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403d]
from boyhood through life, and the way of it is this, I believe; but
consider it yourself too. For I, for my part, do not believe that a sound
body by its excellence makes the soul good, but on the contrary that a good
soul by its virtue renders the body the best that is possible.
2 What is your
opinion?” “I think so too.” “Then if
we should sufficiently train the mind and turn over to it the minutiae of
the care of the body,
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403e]
and content
ourselves with merely indicating the norms or patterns, not to make a long
story of it, we should acting rightly?” “By all
means.” “From intoxication
3 we said that they must abstain. For a guardian is surely the
last person in the world to whom it is allowable to get drunk and not know
where on earth he is.” “Yes,” he said,
“it would absurd that a guardian
4 should need a
guard.” “What next about their food? These men are
athletes in the greatest of contests,
5 are they not?”
“Yes.” “Is, then, the bodily habit of the
athletes we see about us suitable for such?”