Plato, Republic

[590a] and is not taking the golden bribe much more disastrously than Eriphyle¹ did when she received the necklace as the price² of her husband's life?” “Far more,” said Glaucon, “for I will answer you in his behalf.”

“And do you not think that the reason for the old objection to licentiousness is similarly because that sort of thing emancipates that dread,³ that huge and manifold beast overmuch?” “Obviously,” he said. “And do we not censure self-will⁴ [590b] and irascibility when they foster and intensify disproportionately the element of the lion and the snake⁵ in us?” “By all means.” “And do we not reprobate luxury and effeminacy for their loosening and relaxation of this same element when they engender cowardice in it?” “Surely.” “And flattery and illiberality when they reduce this same high-spirited element under the rule of the mob-like beast and habituate it for the sake of wealth and the unbridled lusts of the beast to endure all manner of contumely from youth up and become an ape⁶ instead of a lion?” [590c] “Yes, indeed,” he said. “And why do you suppose that ‘base mechanic’⁷ handicraft is a term of reproach? Shall we not say that it is solely when the best part is naturally weak in a man so that it cannot govern and control the brood of beasts within him but can only serve them and can learn nothing but the ways of flattering them?” “So it seems,” he said. “Then is it not in order that such an one may have a like government with the best man that we say he ought to be the slave [590d] of that best man⁸ who has within himself the divine governing principle, not because we suppose, as Thrasymachus⁹ did in the case of subjects, that the slave should be governed for his own harm, but on the ground that it is better for everyone to be governed by the divine and the intelligent, preferably indwelling and his own, but in default of that imposed from without, in order that we all so far as possible may be akin and friendly because our governance and guidance are the same?” “Yes, and rightly so,” he said. [590e] “And it is plain,” I said, “that this is the purpose of the law, which is the ally of all classes in the state, and this is the aim of our control of children,¹⁰ our not leaving them free before we have established, so to speak, a constitutional government within them¹¹ and, by fostering the best element in them