[580]
And in addition, shall we not further attribute to him all that we spoke of before, and say that he must needs be, and, by reason of his rule, come to be still more than he was,
1
envious, faithless, unjust, friendless, impious, a vessel and nurse
2
of all iniquity, and so in consequence be himself most unhappy
3
make all about him so?
No man of sense will gainsay that, he said.
Come then, said I,
580b
now at last, even as the judge of last instance
4
pronounces, so do you declare who in your opinion is first in happiness and who second, and similarly judge the others, all five in succession, the royal, the timocratic, the oligarchic, the democratic, and the tyrannical man.
Nay, he said,
the decision is easy. For as if they were choruses I judge them in the order of their entrance, and so rank them in respect of virtue and vice, happiness and its contrary.
Shall we hire a herald,
5
then, said I,
or shall I myself make proclamation that the son of Ariston pronounced the best man
6
and the most righteous to be the happiest,
7
580c
and that he is the one who is the most kingly and a king over himself;
8
and declared that the most evil and most unjust is the most unhappy, who again is the man who, having the most of the tyrannical temper in himself, become, most of a tyrant over himself and over the state?
Let it have been so proclaimed by you, he said.
Shall I add the clause
alike whether their character is known to all men and gods or is not known
9
?
Add that to the proclamation, he said.
Very good, said I; this, then, would be one of our proofs, 580d but examine this second one and see if there is anything in it. What is it? Since, said I, corresponding to the three types in the city, the soul also is tripartite, 10 it will admit, 11 I think, of another demonstration also. What is that? The following: The three parts have also, it appears to me, three kinds of pleasure, one peculiar to each, and similarly three appetites and controls. What do you mean? he said. One part, we say, is that with which a man learns, one is that with which he feels anger. But the third part, owing to its manifold forms, 12 we could not easily designate by any one distinctive name, 13 580e but gave it the name of its chief and strongest element;
Very good, said I; this, then, would be one of our proofs, 580d but examine this second one and see if there is anything in it. What is it? Since, said I, corresponding to the three types in the city, the soul also is tripartite, 10 it will admit, 11 I think, of another demonstration also. What is that? The following: The three parts have also, it appears to me, three kinds of pleasure, one peculiar to each, and similarly three appetites and controls. What do you mean? he said. One part, we say, is that with which a man learns, one is that with which he feels anger. But the third part, owing to its manifold forms, 12 we could not easily designate by any one distinctive name, 13 580e but gave it the name of its chief and strongest element;
Republic. Plato. Paul Shorey (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1935-37.
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