Plato, Republic, Paul Shorey (Translator), 5.455

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[455] Then, is it not the next thing to bid our opponent tell us 455a precisely for what art or pursuit concerned with the conduct of a state the woman’s nature differs from the man’s? That would be at any rate fair. Perhaps, then, someone else, too, might say what you were saying a while ago, that it is not easy to find a satisfactory answer on a sudden,¹ but that with time for reflection there is no difficulty. He might say that. Shall we, then, beg the raiser of such objections to follow us, 455b if we may perhaps prove able to make it plain to him that there is no pursuit connected with the administration of a state that is peculiar to woman? By all means. Come then, we shall say to him, answer our question. Was this the basis of your distinction between the man naturally gifted for anything and the one not so gifted—that the one learned easily, the other with difficulty; that the one with slight instruction could discover² much for himself in the matter studied, but the other, after much instruction and drill, could not even remember what he had learned; and that the bodily faculties of the one adequately served³ his mind, 455c while, for the other, the body was a hindrance? Were there any other points than these by which you distinguish the well endowed man in every subject and the poorly endowed? No one, said he, will be able to name any others. Do you know, then, of anything practised by mankind in which the masculine sex does not surpass the female on all these points?⁴ Must we make a long story of it by alleging weaving and the watching of pancakes 455d and the boiling pot, whereon the sex plumes itself and wherein its defeat will expose it to most laughter? You are right, he said, that the one sex⁵ is far surpassed by the other in everything, one may say. Many women, it is true, are better than many men in many things, but broadly speaking, it is as you say. Then there is no pursuit of the administrators of a state that belongs to a woman because she is a woman or to a man because he is a man. But the natural capacities are distributed alike among both creatures, and women naturally share in all pursuits and men in all— 455e yet for all the woman is weaker than the man. Assuredly. Shall we, then, assign them all to men and nothing to women? How could we? We shall rather, I take it, say that one woman has the nature of a physician and another not, and one is by nature musical, and another unmusical? Surely.

Republic. Plato. Paul Shorey (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1935-37.

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Current edition Perseus

Republic (English) (Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 5-6. Shorey, Paul, translator. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1935-37 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Πολιτεία Perseus (Platonis Opera Tomus IV: Tetralogia VIII. Burnet, John, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.) — 5.455 focus

[455]
οὐκοῦν μετὰ τοῦτο κελεύομεν τὸν τὰ ἐναντία λέγοντα 455a τοῦτο αὐτὸ διδάσκειν ἡμᾶς, πρὸς τίνα τέχνην ἢ τί ἐπιτήδευμα τῶν περὶ πόλεως κατασκευὴν οὐχ ἡ αὐτὴ ἀλλὰ ἑτέρα φύσις γυναικός τε καὶ ἀνδρός;
δίκαιον γοῦν.
τάχα τοίνυν ἄν, ὅπερ σὺ ὀλίγον πρότερον ἔλεγες, εἴποι ἂν καὶ ἄλλος, ὅτι ἐν μὲν τῷ παραχρῆμα ἱκανῶς εἰπεῖν οὐ ῥᾴδιον, ἐπισκεψαμένῳ δὲ οὐδὲν χαλεπόν.
εἴποι γὰρ ἄν.
βούλει οὖν δεώμεθα τοῦ τὰ τοιαῦτα ἀντιλέγοντος ἀκολουθῆσαι 455b ἡμῖν, ἐάν πως ἡμεῖς ἐκείνῳ ἐνδειξώμεθα ὅτι οὐδέν ἐστιν ἐπιτήδευμα ἴδιον γυναικὶ πρὸς διοίκησιν πόλεως;
πάνυ γε.
ἴθι δή, φήσομεν πρὸς αὐτόν, ἀποκρίνου· ἆρα οὕτως ἔλεγες τὸν μὲν εὐφυῆ πρός τι εἶναι, τὸν δὲ ἀφυῆ, ἐν ᾧ ὁ μὲν ῥᾳδίως τι μανθάνοι, ὁ δὲ χαλεπῶς; καὶ ὁ μὲν ἀπὸ βραχείας μαθήσεως ἐπὶ πολὺ εὑρετικὸς εἴη οὗ ἔμαθεν, ὁ δὲ πολλῆς μαθήσεως τυχὼν καὶ μελέτης μηδʼ ἃ ἔμαθε σῴζοιτο; καὶ τῷ μὲν τὰ τοῦ σώματος ἱκανῶς ὑπηρετοῖ τῇ διανοίᾳ, τῷ 455c δὲ ἐναντιοῖτο; ἆρʼ ἄλλα ἄττα ἐστὶν ἢ ταῦτα, οἷς τὸν εὐφυῆ πρὸς ἕκαστα καὶ τὸν μὴ ὡρίζου;
οὐδείς, ἦ δʼ ὅς, ἄλλα φήσει.
οἶσθά τι οὖν ὑπὸ ἀνθρώπων μελετώμενον, ἐν ᾧ οὐ πάντα ταῦτα τὸ τῶν ἀνδρῶν γένος διαφερόντως ἔχει ἢ τὸ τῶν γυναικῶν; ἢ μακρολογῶμεν τήν τε ὑφαντικὴν λέγοντες καὶ τὴν τῶν ποπάνων τε καὶ ἑψημάτων θεραπείαν, ἐν οἷς δή τι δοκεῖ τὸ γυναικεῖον γένος εἶναι, οὗ καὶ καταγελαστότατόν 455d ἐστι πάντων ἡττώμενον;
ἀληθῆ, ἔφη, λέγεις, ὅτι πολὺ κρατεῖται ἐν ἅπασιν ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν τὸ γένος τοῦ γένους. γυναῖκες μέντοι πολλαὶ πολλῶν ἀνδρῶν βελτίους εἰς πολλά· τὸ δὲ ὅλον ἔχει ὡς σὺ λέγεις.
οὐδὲν ἄρα ἐστίν, ὦ φίλε, ἐπιτήδευμα τῶν πόλιν διοικούντων γυναικὸς διότι γυνή, οὐδʼ ἀνδρὸς διότι ἀνήρ, ἀλλʼ ὁμοίως διεσπαρμέναι αἱ φύσεις ἐν ἀμφοῖν τοῖν ζῴοιν, καὶ πάντων μὲν μετέχει γυνὴ ἐπιτηδευμάτων κατὰ 455e φύσιν, πάντων δὲ ἀνήρ, ἐπὶ πᾶσι δὲ ἀσθενέστερον γυνὴ ἀνδρός.
πάνυ γε.
ἦ οὖν ἀνδράσι πάντα προστάξομεν, γυναικὶ δʼ οὐδέν;
καὶ πῶς;
ἀλλʼ ἔστι γὰρ οἶμαι, ὡς φήσομεν, καὶ γυνὴ ἰατρική, ἡ δʼ οὔ, καὶ μουσική, ἡ δʼ ἄμουσος φύσει.
τί μήν;

Notes on the current edition

Republic

1. Plato anticipates the objection that the Socratic dialectic surprises assent. Cf. more fully 487 B, and for a comic version Hippias Major 295 A

if I could go off for a little by myself in solitude I would tell you the answer more precisely than precision itself.

2. Cf. Politicus 286 E, where this is said to be the object of teaching.

3. Cf. Protagoras 326 B, Republic 498 B, 410 C, Isocrates xv. 180, Xenophon Memorabilia ii. 1. 28.

4. On the alleged superiority of men even in women’s occupations cf. the amusing diatribe of the old bachelor in George Eliot’s Adam Bede, chap. xxi.:

I tell you there isn’t a thing under the sun that needs to be done at all but what a man can do better than women, unless it’s bearing children, and they do that in a poor makeshift way,

and the remarks on women as cooks of the bachelor Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 234. But Xenophon Memorabilia iii. 9. 11 takes the ordinary view. On the character of women generally Cf. Laws 781 and Aristotle in Zeller trans. ii. 215.

5. Cf. Cratylus 392 C

ὡς τὸ ὅλον εἰπεῖν γένος

Commentary

Commentary on Plato, Republic (Plato. The Republic, Vol 1-2. Adam, James, editor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902-1903.) focus

ὀλίγον πρότερον . 453 C.

τοῦ ‐‐ ἀντιλέγοντος . 454 E note

ἢ μακρολογῶμεν κτλ. Socrates is unwilling to bore us ( μακρολογεῖν) by enumerating the exceptions, which are —he implies—quite trivial. Cf. Xen. Mem. III 9. 11 ἐν δὲ ταλασίᾳ καὶ τὰς γυναῖκας ἐπεδείκνυεν ἀρχούσας τῶν ἀνδρῶν, διὰ τὸ τὰς μὲν εἰδέναι ὅπως χρὴ ταλασιουργεῖν, τοὺς δὲ μὴ εἰδέναι. It is hinted in οὗ—ἡττώμενον that, even in these, women may sometimes be excelled by men; but the general rule was the other way, otherwise the ridicule would be pointless. Grote somewhat exaggerates the significance of the clause οὗ —ἡττώμενον, when he suggests that Plato may have seen finer webs in Egypt— where weaving was performed by men— than in Greece (Plato III p. 200 note). Cf. Proclus in remp. I pp. 242, 253 ed. Kroll.

κρατεῖται is construed like ἡττᾶται, μειοῦται, νικᾶται and the like; but a parallel instance is hard to find. (In Aeschin. F. L. 152, cited by J. and C., the reading is ποίᾳ κρατηθεὶς ἡδονῇ;). Richards proposes κρατεῖ, in which case τὸ γένος would be the male sex—an awkward change of subject.

ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν . See I 341 B note The sentiment is illustrated by J. and C. from Crat. 392 C πότερον οὖν αἱ γυναῖκες ἐν ταῖς πόλεσιν φρονιμώτεραί σοι δοκοῦσιν εἷναι ἢ οἱ ἄνδρες, ὡς τὸ ὅλον εἰπεῖν γένος; Οἱ ἄνδρες.

πάντων μὲν κτλ. Plato, in short, makes government a question of capacity, and not of sex. With what follows cf. the passages cited above on 451 C. For the relative weakness of woman cf. infra 457 A and Laws 781 A.

ἐπὶ πᾶσι is doubted by Herwerden, who proposes ἐν πᾶσι or ἐν ἅπασι. ἐπί may however mean ‘with a view to,’ ‘for,’ as in 471 A.

ἡ δ) οὔ . ἡ μέν is idiomatically omitted: see 451 D note

ἄρα is better, I think, than ἆρα, though somewhat more difficult: the interrogative ἆρα is moreover generally elided before οὐ. The sentence (as J. and C. remark) is “an ironical negation with an interrogative tone.” The irony in this passage lies in ἄρα. As might be expected from the accumulation of negatives, late MSS shew a great variety of readings. Bekker follows q and reads καὶ γυμναστικὴ ἄρα καὶ πολεμική—an obvious but wholly superfluous attempt to simplify the authoritative text.

Plato Republic 5.455

Paul Shorey (Translator)

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