I Am

I am told that the distance is considerable, but probably there are shady places under the trees, where, being no longer young, we may often rest and converse.

'There you come to first principles, like a true votary of the goddess Athene; and this is all the better, for you will the sooner recognize the truth of what I am saying—that all men everywhere are the enemies of all, and each individual of every other and of himself; and, further, that there is a victory and defeat—the best and the worst—which each man sustains, not at the hands of another, but of himself.' And does this extend to states and villages as well as to individuals?

'We confess that we have no institutions worth mentioning which are of this character.' I am not surprised, and will therefore only request forbearance on the part of us all, in case the love of truth should lead any of us to censure the laws of the others.

Remember that I am more in the way of hearing criticisms of your laws than you can be; for in well-ordered states like Crete and Sparta, although an old man may sometimes speak of them in private to a ruler or elder, a similar liberty is not allowed to the young.

'I am ready to pursue any method which is likely to lead us to the truth.' Let me put the matter thus: Somebody praises the useful qualities of a goat; another has seen goats running about wild in a garden, and blames a goat or any other animal which happens to be without a keeper.

'You seem to think that it ought to be.' And I am ready to maintain my position.

There are; but in order to explain them, I must repeat what I mean by right education; which, if I am not mistaken, depends on the due regulation of convivial intercourse.

'Certainly not.' And yet he may do this anywhere except in Egypt; for there ages ago they discovered the great truth which I am now asserting, that the young should be educated in forms and strains of virtue.

In other states, as far as I know, dances and music are constantly changed at the pleasure of the hearers.' I am afraid that I misled you; not liking to be always finding fault with mankind as they are, I described them as they ought to be.

'There I cannot agree with you.' Then may heaven give us the spirit of agreement, for I am as convinced of the truth of what I say as that Crete is an island; and, if I were a lawgiver, I would exercise a censorship over the poets, and I would punish them if they said that the wicked are happy, or that injustice is profitable.

'Once more, I must say, Stranger, that you run down our lawgivers.' Not intentionally, my good friend, but whither the argument leads I follow; and I am trying to find some style of poetry suitable for those who dislike the common sort.

I am endeavouring to show how our fifty-year-old choristers are to be trained, and what they are to avoid.

'Very true.' I am showing whence the need of lawgivers arises, for in primitive ages they neither had nor wanted them.

And I repeat—in jest if you like, but I am willing that you should receive my words in earnest—that 'the prayer of a fool is full of danger.' I will prove to you, if you will allow me, that the ruin of those states was not caused by cowardice or ignorance in war, but by ignorance of human affairs.

Ten commissioners, of whom I am one, are to give laws to the colonists, and we may give any which we please—Cretan or foreign.

And therefore let us make a selection from what has been said, and then proceed with the construction of the state.' Very good: I am quite at your service.

And I hope that you in your turn will retaliate upon me if I am false to my own principle.

'I have no desire to see one.' You would have seen what I am describing, if you ever had.

I am endeavouring to show you how easy under the conditions supposed, and how difficult under any other, is the task of giving a city good laws.

Now I am disposed to give preludes to laws, dividing them into two parts—one containing the despotic command, which I described under the image of the slave doctor—the other the persuasive part, which I term the preamble.

'That shall be the way in my colony.' I am glad that you agree with me; this is a matter which it is important to remember.

Because I am going to enact that the bridegroom shall not absent himself from the common meals.

But if I am right, nothing can be more foolish than our modern fashion of training men and women differently, whereby the power the city is reduced to a half.

I am naturally pleased in reflecting upon all our words, which appear to me to be just the thing for a young man to hear and learn.

'What do you mean?' I have observed this ignorance among my countrymen—they are like pigs—and I am heartily ashamed both on my own behalf and on that of all the Hellenes.

'How do you mean?' What I am going to say may seem absurd and at variance with the usual language of age, and yet if true and advantageous to the state, and pleasing to God, ought not to be withheld.

'That is so.' Now, then, I am in a position to define the nature of just and unjust.

Even if you say—'I am small, and will creep into the earth,' or 'I am high, and will mount to heaven'—you are not so small or so high that you shall not pay the fitting penalty, either here or in the world below.

Men have said of old, that to fight against two opponents is hard; and the two opponents of whom I am thinking are wealth and poverty—the one corrupting men by luxury; the other, through misery, depriving them of the sense of shame.