Complete Works

by Plato, Cooper, John M. , Hutchinson, D. S.

  In view of this, every gentleman must have a timetable prescribing what [e] he is to do every minute of his life, which he should follow at all times from the dawn of one day until the sun comes up at the dawn of the next. However, a lawgiver would lack dignity if he produced a mass of details about running a house, especially when he came to the regulations for curtailing sleep at night, which will be necessary if the citizens are going to protect the entire state systematically and uninterruptedly. Everyone should think it a disgrace and unworthy of a gentleman, if any citizen devotes the whole of any night to sleep; no, he should always be the first to wake and get up, and let himself be seen by all the servants. (It doesn’t [808] matter what we ought to call this kind of thing—either ‘law’ or ‘custom’ will do.) In particular, the mistress of the house should be the first to wake up the other women; if she herself is woken by some of the maids, then all the slaves—men, women and children—should say ‘How shocking!’ to one another, and so too, supposing they could, should the very walls [b] of the house. While awake at night, all citizens should transact a good proportion of their political and domestic business, the officials up and down the town, masters and mistresses in their private households. By nature, prolonged sleep does not suit either body or soul, nor does it help us to be active in all this kind of work. Asleep, a man is useless; he may as well be dead. But a man who is particularly keen to be physically active [c] and mentally alert stays awake as long as possible, and sets aside for sleep only as much time as is necessary for his health—and that is only a little, once that little has become a regular habit. Officials who are wide awake at night in cities inspire fear in the wicked, whether citizens or enemies, but by the just and the virtuous they are honored and admired; they benefit themselves and are a blessing to the entire state. And an additional advantage of spending the night in this way will be the courage thus inspired in individual members of the state.

  [d] When dawn comes up and brings another day, the children must be sent off to their teachers. Children must not be left without teachers, nor slaves without masters, any more than flocks and herds must be allowed to live without attendants. Of all wild things, the child is the most unmanageable: an unusually powerful spring of reason, whose waters are not [e] yet canalized in the right direction, makes him sharp and sly, the most unruly animal there is. That’s why he has to be curbed by a great many ‘bridles’, so to speak. Initially, when he leaves the side of his nurse and mother, and is still young and immature, this will be his tutor’s duty, but later on it will devolve on his instructors in the various subjects—subjects which will be an extra discipline in themselves. So far, he will be treated as a young gentleman deserves. However, both the boy and his tutor or teacher must be punished by any passing gentleman who finds either of them misbehaving, and here the child must be treated as though he were a slave.

  24. Any passer-by who fails to inflict due punishment,

  must for a start be held in the deepest disgrace, and the Guardian of [809] the Laws who has been put in charge of the young must keep under observation this fellow who has come across miscreants of the kind we mentioned and has either failed to inflict the necessary punishment, or not inflicted it in the approved fashion.

  Our sharp-eyed and efficient supervisor of the education of the young must redirect their natural development along the right lines, by always setting them on the paths of goodness as embodied in the legal code.

  [b] But how will the law itself adequately convey its teaching to this Guardian? So far, the instruction he has had from the law has been cursory and obscure, because only a selection of topics has been covered. But nothing, as far as possible, should be omitted; the Guardian should have every point explained to him so that he in turn may enlighten and educate others. Now, the business of choruses has already been dealt with: we’ve seen what types of song and dance should be selected or revised, and then consecrated. But what type of prose works should be put in front of your pupils? How should they be presented? Now here, my dear Director of [c] Youth, is something we’ve not explained. Of course, we’ve told you what military skills they must practice and learn, but what about (a) literature, (b) playing the lyre, (c) arithmetic? We stipulated that they must each understand enough of these subjects to fight a war and run a house and administer a state; for the same reasons they must acquire such knowledge about the heavenly bodies in their courses—sun, moon and stars—as will help them with the arrangements that every state is forced to make in this [d] respect. You ask what arrangements we are referring to? We mean that the days must be grouped into months, and the months into years, in such a way that the seasons, along with their various sacrifices and festivals, may each receive proper recognition by being duly observed in their natural sequence. The result will be to keep the state active and alert, to render the gods due honor, and to make men better informed on these matters. All this, my friend, has not yet been adequately explained to you by the [e] legislator. So pay attention to the points which are going to be made next.

  We said that you have insufficient information about literature, for a start. Now, what’s our complaint against the instructions you were given? It’s simply that you’ve not yet been told whether a complete mastery of the subject is necessary before one can become a decent citizen or whether one shouldn’t attempt it at all; and similarly in the case of the lyre. Well, we maintain that these subjects do have to be tackled. About three years will be a reasonable time for a child of ten to spend on literature, and a further three years, beginning at the age of thirteen, should be spent on [810] learning the lyre. These times must be neither shortened nor lengthened: neither the child nor its father must be allowed to extend or curtail these periods of study out of enthusiasm for, or distaste of, the curriculum; that will be against the law.

  25. Cases of disobedience must be punished by disqualification from the school prizes we shall have to describe a little later.

  First, though, you yourself must grasp just what must be taught by the teachers and learned by the pupils in those periods of time. Well, the [b] children must work at their letters until they are able to read and write, but any whose natural abilities have not developed sufficiently by the end of the prescribed time to make them into quick or polished performers should not be pressed.

  The question now arises of the study of written works which the authors have not set to music. Although some of these works are in meter, others lack any rhythmical pattern at all—they are writings that simply reproduce ordinary speech, unadorned by rhythm and music. Some of the many [c] authors of such works have left us writings that constitute a danger. Now, my splendid Guardians of the Laws, how are you going to deal with these works? What will be the right instructions for the lawgiver to give you about coping with them? I reckon he’s going to be very much at a loss.

  CLINIAS: What is the difficulty you’re talking about, sir? It looks as if you’re faced by a genuine personal problem.

  ATHENIAN: Your assumption is quite right, Clinias. But the two of you are my partners in legislation, and I’m obliged to tell you when I think I anticipate a difficulty and when I do not.

  CLINIAS: Oh? What makes you bring up that aspect of the business at [d] this point? What’s the matter?

  ATHENIAN: I’ll tell you: the idea of contradicting many thousands of voices. That’s always difficult.

  CLINIAS: Well, bless my soul! Do you really imagine that your existing legislative proposals flout popular prejudices in just a few tiny details?

  ATHENIAN: Yes, that’s fair comment. The point you’re making, I take it, is that although a lot of people set their face against the path we are following in our discussion, just as many are enthusiastic about it (or even [e] if they are fewer in number, they’re not inferior in quality)—and you’re telling me to rely on the support of the latter and proceed with boldness and resolution along the legislative path opened up for us by our present discussion, and not to hang back.

  CLINIAS: Natur
ally.

  ATHENIAN: Best foot forward, then. Now, what I say is this. We have a great many poets who compose in hexameters and trimeters and all the standard meters; some of these authors try to be serious, while others aim at a comic effect. Over and over again it’s claimed that in order to educate young people properly we have to cram their heads full of this stuff; we [811] have to organize recitations of it so that they never stop listening to it and acquire a vast repertoire, getting whole poets off by heart. Another school of thought excerpts the outstanding work of all the poets and compiles a treasury of complete passages, claiming that if the wide knowledge of a fully informed person is to produce a sound and sensible citizen, these extracts must be committed to memory and learned by rote. I suppose you’re now pressing me to be quite frank and show these people where they are right and where they’ve gone wrong?

  CLINIAS: Of course.

  [b] ATHENIAN: Well then, in a nutshell, what sort of estimate will do them all justice? I imagine everybody would agree if I put it rather like this. Each of these authors has produced a lot of fine work, and a lot of rubbish too—but if that’s so, I maintain that learning so much of it puts the young at risk.

  CLINIAS: So what recommendation would you give the Guardian of the Laws?

  ATHENIAN: What about?

  CLINIAS: The model work that will enable him to decide what material [c] all the children may learn, and what not. Tell us, without any hesitation.

  ATHENIAN: My dear Clinias, I suspect I’ve had a bit of luck.

  CLINIAS: How’s that?

  ATHENIAN: Because I haven’t got far to look for a model. You see, when I look back now over this discussion of ours, which has lasted from dawn up till this very moment—a discussion in which I think I sense the inspiration of heaven—well, it’s come to look, to my eyes, just like a literary composition. Perhaps not surprisingly, I was overcome by a feeling of [d] immense satisfaction at the sight of my ‘collected works’, so to speak, because, of all the addresses I have ever learned or listened to, whether in verse or in this kind of free prose style I’ve been using, it’s these that have impressed me as being the most eminently acceptable and the most entirely appropriate for the ears of the younger generation. So I could hardly commend a better model than this to the Guardian of the Laws in charge of education. Here’s what he must tell the teachers to teach the children, and if he comes across similar and related material while working [e] through prose writings, or the verse of poets, or when listening to unwritten compositions in simple prose that show a family resemblance to our discussion today, he must on no account let them slip through his fingers, but have them committed to writing. His first job will be to compel the teachers to learn this material and speak well of it, and he must not employ as his assistants any teachers who disapprove of it; he should employ only those who endorse his own high opinion, and entrust them with the teaching and education of the children. That, then, is my doctrine on literature and [812] its teachers, so let me finish there.

  CLINIAS: Well, sir, as far as I can judge from our original program, we’ve not strayed off the subjects we set out to discuss. But is our general policy the right one, or not? I suspect it would be difficult to say for sure.

  ATHENIAN: That, Clinias, as we have often remarked, is something which will probably become clearer of its own accord when we’ve completely finished expounding our laws.

  CLINIAS: True enough. [b]

  ATHENIAN: After the teacher of literature, surely, we have to address the lyre-master?

  CLINIAS: Of course.

  ATHENIAN: Now when we allocate these masters the duties of teaching this instrument and giving instruction in the subject in general, I think we ought to remember the line we took earlier.

  CLINIAS: What line do you mean?

  ATHENIAN: We said16 I think, that the sixty-year-old singers of Dionysus should be persons who are particularly sensitive to rhythm and the way in which ‘harmonies’ are constructed, so that when faced with good or [c] vicious musical representations, and the emotions aroused by them, they may be able to select the works based on good representation and reject those based on bad. The former they should present and sing to the community at large, so as to charm the souls of the young people, encouraging each and every one of them to let these representations guide them along the path that leads to virtue.

  CLINIAS: You’re absolutely right.

  ATHENIAN: With this object in view, here’s how the lyre-master and his [d] pupil must employ the notes of their instruments. By exploiting the fact that each string makes a distinct sound, they must produce notes that are identical in pitch to the words being sung. The lyre should not be used to play an elaborate independent melody: that is, its strings must produce no notes except those of the composer of the melody being played; small intervals should not be combined with large, nor quick tempo with slow, [e] nor low notes with high. Similarly, the rhythms of the music of the lyre must not be tricked out with all sorts of frills and adornments. All this sort of thing must be kept from students who are going to acquire a working knowledge of music in three years, without wasting time. Such conflict and confusion makes learning difficult, whereas the young people should above all be swift learners, because they have a great many important compulsory subjects laid down for them as it is—and in due time, as our discussion progresses, we shall see what these subjects are. But all these musical matters should be controlled, according to his brief, by our official in charge of education. As regards the actual singing, and the words, we have explained earlier what tunes and style of language the [813] chorus-masters must teach: we said—remember?—that these things should be consecrated and each allocated to a suitable festival, so as to benefit society by the welcome pleasure they give.

  CLINIAS: Here again you’ve spoken the truth—

  ATHENIAN: —the whole truth and nothing but the truth! So these are the regulations the person appointed as our Director of Music must adopt and enforce: let’s wish him the best of luck in his task.

  [b] We, however, must supplement our previous regulations about dancing and the training of the body in general. We’ve filled in the gaps in our tuition in the case of music, so now let’s deal with physical training in the same way. Both boys and girls, of course, must learn to dance and perform physical exercises?

  CLINIAS: Yes.

  ATHENIAN: So it won’t come amiss if we provide dancing masters for the boys and dancing mistresses for the girls, so as to facilitate practice.

  CLINIAS: Agreed.

  [c] ATHENIAN: So now let’s summon once again the official that has the hardest job of all—the Director of Children. He’ll be in charge both of music and of physical training, so he won’t get much time off.

  CLINIAS: How then will a man of his advancing years be able to supervise so much?

  ATHENIAN: There is no problem here, my friend. The law has already given him permission, which it will not withdraw, to recruit as assistant supervisors any citizens he may wish, of either sex. He will know whom [d] to choose, and a sober respect for his office and a realization of its importance will make him anxious not to choose wrongly, because he’ll be well aware that only if the younger generation has received and goes on receiving a correct education shall we find everything is ‘plain sailing’, whereas if not—well, it would be inappropriate to describe the consequences, and as the state is young we shall refrain from doing so, out of respect for the feelings of the excessively superstitious.

  Well then, on these topics too—I mean dances and the entire range of movements involved in physical training—we have already said a great deal. We are establishing gymnasia for all physical exercises of a military kind—archery and deployment of missiles in general, skirmishing, heavy-armed [e] fighting of every variety, tactical maneuvers, marches of every sort, pitching camp, and also the various disciplines of the cavalryman. In all these subjects there must be public instructors paid out of public funds; their lessons must be attended by the boy
s and men of the state, and the girls and women as well, because they too have to master all these techniques. While still girls, they must practice every kind of dancing and fighting in armor; when grown women, they must play their part in maneuvering, getting into battle formation and taking off and putting on weapons, [814] if only to ensure that if it ever proves necessary for the whole army to leave the state and take the field abroad, so that the children and the rest of the population are left unprotected, the women will at least be able to defend them. On the other hand—and this is one of those things we can’t swear is impossible—suppose a large and powerful army, whether Greek or not, were to force a way into the country and make them fight a desperate battle for the very existence of the state. It would be a disaster for their society if its women proved to have been so shockingly ill-educated that [b] they couldn’t even rival female birds, who are prepared to run every risk and die for their chicks fighting against the most powerful of wild animals. What if, instead of that, the women promptly made off to temples and thronged every altar and sanctuary, and covered the human race with the disgrace of being by nature the most lily-livered creatures under the sun?

  CLINIAS: By heaven, sir, no state in which that happened could avoid disgrace—quite apart from the damage that would be caused. [c]

  ATHENIAN: So let’s lay down a law to the effect that women must not neglect to cultivate the techniques of fighting, at any rate to the extent indicated. These are skills which all citizens, male and female, must take care to acquire.

  CLINIAS: That gets my vote, at least.

  ATHENIAN: Now for wrestling. We’ve partly dealt with this already, but we haven’t described what in my eyes is its most important feature. But it’s not easy to find words to explain it unless at the same time someone gives an actual demonstration with his body. So we’ll postpone a decision on this point till we can support our statements with concrete examples [d] and prove, among other points we’ve mentioned, that of all physical movements, those involved in our kind of wrestling are the most closely related to those demanded in warfare, and in particular that we should practice wrestling for the sake of military efficiency, rather than cultivate the latter in order to be better wrestlers.