[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 intoxication1 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 guardian2 should need a
guard.” “What next about their food? These men are
athletes in the greatest of contests,3 are they not?”
“Yes.” “Is, then, the bodily habit of the
athletes we see about us suitable for such?”
1 Cf. 398 E. There is no contradiction between this and the half-serious proposal of the Laws to use supervised drinking-bouts as a safe test of character (Laws 641).
2 γε emphasizes what follows from the very meaning of the word. Cf. 379 B, 389 B, 435 A.
3 Cf. 543 B, 621 D, Laches 182 A, Laws 830 A, Demosthenes xxv. 97ἀθληταὶ τῶν καλῶν ἔργων.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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