[552c]
just a spendthrift.” “Shall we, then, say of him that
as the drone1 springs up in the cell, a pest of the hive, so such a man grows up
in his home, a pest of the state?” “By all means,
Socrates,” he said. “And has not God, Adeimantus, left
the drones which have wings and fly stingless one and all, while of the
drones here who travel afoot he has made some stingless but has armed others
with terrible stings? And from the stingless finally issue beggars in old
age,2
1 Cf. Laws 901 A, Hesiod, Works and Days 300 f., Aristoph.Wasps 1071 ff., Eurip.Suppl. 242, Xen.Oecon. 17. 15, and Virgil, Georg. iv. 168 “ignavum fucos pecus a praesepibus arcent.” the sentence was much quoted. Stallbaum refers to Ruhnken on Tim. 157 ff. for many illustration, and to Petavius adThemist.Orat. xxiii. p. 285 D.
2 Cf 498 A, Laws 653 A; also the modern distinction between defectives and delinquents.
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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