[450a]
as you overheard, not to let you
go till you have expounded all this as fully as you did the rest.”
“Set me down, too,” said Glaucon, “as voting
this ticket.1” “Surely,” said
Thrasymachus, “you may consider it a joint resolution of us all,
Socrates.”“What a
thing you have done,” said I, “in thus challenging2 me! What a huge debate you have
started afresh, as it were, about this polity, in the supposed completion of
which I was rejoicing, being only too glad to have it accepted
[450b]
as I then set it forth! You don't realize what
a swarm3 of arguments you are stirring up4 by this demand, which I foresaw and evaded to save us no end of
trouble.” “Well,” said Thrasymachus,5“do you suppose this company has come here to prospect
for gold6
and not to listen to discussions?” “Yes,” I
said, “in measure.” “Nay, Socrates,”
said Glaucon, “the measure7 of listening to such discussions is the whole
of life for reasonable men. So don't consider us, and do not you yourself
grow weary
[450c]
in explaining to us what we
ask or, your views as to how this communion of wives and children among our
guardians will be managed, and also about the rearing of the children while
still young in the interval between8 birth and formal schooling which is
thought to be the most difficult part of education. Try, then, to tell us
what must be the manner of it.” “It is not an easy thing
to expound, my dear fellow,” said I, “for even more than
the provisions that precede it, it raises many doubts. For one might doubt
whether what is proposed is possible9 and, even conceding the
possibility,10 one might still be
sceptical whether it is best.
[450d]
For which
reason one as it were, shrinks from touching on the matter lest the theory
be regarded as nothing but a ‘wish-thought,’11 my dear
friend.” “Do not shrink,” he said,
“for your hearers will not be inconsiderate12 nor distrustful nor
hostile.” And I said, “My good fellow, is that remark
intended to encourage me?” “It is,” he said.
“Well, then,” said I, “it has just the
contrary effect. For, if I were confident that I was speaking with
knowledge, it would be an excellent encouragement.
[450e]
For there is both safety and security in speaking the
truth with knowledge about our greatest and dearest concerns to those who
are both wise and dear. But to speak when one doubts himself and is seeking
while he talks is
1 Cf. Protagoras 330 C.
2 Cf. Theaetetus 184 C, Gorgias 469 C.
3 For the metaphor cf. Euripides Bacchae 710 and σμῆνος, Republic 574 D, Cratylus 401 C, Meno 72 A.
4 Cf. Philebus 36 D, Theaetetus 184 A, Cratylus 411 A.
5 Thrasymachus speaks here for the last time. He is mentioned in 357 A, 358 B-C, 498 C, 545 B, 590 D.
6 Lit. “to smelt ore.” The expression was proverbial and was explained by an obscure anecdote. Cf. Leutsch, Paroemiographi, ii. pp. 91, 727, and i. p. 464, and commentators on Herodotus iii. 102.
7 Plato often anticipates and repels the charge of tedious length (see Politicus 286 C, Philebus 28 D, 36 D). Here the thought takes a different turn (as 504 C). The δέ γε implies a slight rebuke (Cf. Class. Phil. xiv. pp. 165-174).
8 So 498 A. Cf. on Aristophanes Acharnians 434, and Laws 792 A.
9 Cf. 456 C, Thucydides vi. 98, Introduction xvii.
10 εἰ ὅ τι μάλιστα: a common formula for what a disputant can afford to concede. Cf. Lysias xiii. 52, xxii. 1, xxii. 10. It occurs six times in the Charmides.
11 Cf. Introduction xxxi-xxxii, 456 C, 499 C, 540 D, Laws 736 D, Aristotle Politics 1260 b 29, 1265 a 17δεῖ μὲν οὖν ὑποτίθεσθαι κατ᾽ εὐχην, μηδὲν μέντοι ἀδύνατον.
12 ἀγνώμονες=inconsiderate, unreasonable, as Andocides ii. 6 shows.
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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