Plato, Republic, ed. John Burnet, 2.377

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[377] 377a
παιδευτέον δʼ ἐν ἀμφοτέροις, πρότερον δʼ ἐν τοῖς ψευδέσιν;
οὐ μανθάνω, ἔφη, πῶς λέγεις.
οὐ μανθάνεις, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, ὅτι πρῶτον τοῖς παιδίοις μύθους λέγομεν; τοῦτο δέ που ὡς τὸ ὅλον εἰπεῖν ψεῦδος, ἔνι δὲ καὶ ἀληθῆ. πρότερον δὲ μύθοις πρὸς τὰ παιδία ἢ γυμνασίοις χρώμεθα.
ἔστι ταῦτα.
τοῦτο δὴ ἔλεγον, ὅτι μουσικῆς πρότερον ἁπτέον ἢ γυμναστικῆς.
ὀρθῶς, ἔφη.
οὐκοῦν οἶσθʼ ὅτι ἀρχὴ παντὸς ἔργου μέγιστον, ἄλλως 377b τε δὴ καὶ νέῳ καὶ ἁπαλῷ ὁτῳοῦν; μάλιστα γὰρ δὴ τότε πλάττεται, καὶ ἐνδύεται τύπος ὃν ἄν τις βούληται ἐνσημήνασθαι ἑκάστῳ.
κομιδῇ μὲν οὖν.
ἆρʼ οὖν ῥᾳδίως οὕτω παρήσομεν τοὺς ἐπιτυχόντας ὑπὸ τῶν ἐπιτυχόντων μύθους πλασθέντας ἀκούειν τοὺς παῖδας καὶ λαμβάνειν ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολὺ ἐναντίας δόξας ἐκείναις ἅς, ἐπειδὰν τελεωθῶσιν, ἔχειν οἰησόμεθα δεῖν αὐτούς;
οὐδʼ ὁπωστιοῦν παρήσομεν.
πρῶτον δὴ ἡμῖν, ὡς ἔοικεν, ἐπιστατητέον τοῖς μυθοποιοῖς, 377c καὶ ὃν μὲν ἂν καλὸν μῦθον ποιήσωσιν, ἐγκριτέον, ὃν δʼ ἂν μή, ἀποκριτέον. τοὺς δʼ ἐγκριθέντας πείσομεν τὰς τροφούς τε καὶ μητέρας λέγειν τοῖς παισίν, καὶ πλάττειν τὰς ψυχὰς αὐτῶν τοῖς μύθοις πολὺ μᾶλλον ἢ τὰ σώματα ταῖς χερσίν· ὧν δὲ νῦν λέγουσι τοὺς πολλοὺς ἐκβλητέον.
ποίους δή; ἔφη.
ἐν τοῖς μείζοσιν, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, μύθοις ὀψόμεθα καὶ τοὺς ἐλάττους. δεῖ γὰρ δὴ τὸν αὐτὸν τύπον εἶναι καὶ ταὐτὸν 377d δύνασθαι τούς τε μείζους καὶ τοὺς ἐλάττους. ἢ οὐκ οἴει;
ἔγωγʼ, ἔφη· ἀλλʼ οὐκ ἐννοῶ οὐδὲ τοὺς μείζους τίνας λέγεις.
οὓς Ἡσίοδός τε, εἶπον, καὶ Ὅμηρος ἡμῖν ἐλεγέτην καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι ποιηταί. οὗτοι γάρ που μύθους τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ψευδεῖς συντιθέντες ἔλεγόν τε καὶ λέγουσι.
ποίους δή, ἦ δʼ ὅς, καὶ τί αὐτῶν μεμφόμενος λέγεις;
ὅπερ, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, χρὴ καὶ πρῶτον καὶ μάλιστα μέμφεσθαι, ἄλλως τε καὶ ἐάν τις μὴ καλῶς ψεύδηται.
τί τοῦτο; 377e
ὅταν εἰκάζῃ τις κακῶς οὐσίαν τῷ λόγῳ, περὶ θεῶν τε καὶ ἡρώων οἷοί εἰσιν, ὥσπερ γραφεὺς μηδὲν ἐοικότα γράφων οἷς ἂν ὅμοια βουληθῇ γράψαι.
καὶ γάρ, ἔφη, ὀρθῶς ἔχει τά γε τοιαῦτα μέμφεσθαι. ἀλλὰ πῶς δὴ λέγομεν καὶ ποῖα;

Republic. Plato. ed. John Burnet. Oxford. 1905.

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Current edition Perseus

Πολιτεία (Greek) (Platonis Opera Tomus IV: Tetralogia VIII. Burnet, John, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.)

Translations (1)

Republic Perseus (Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 5-6. Shorey, Paul, translator. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1935-37 (printing).) — 2.377 focus

[377] And education must make use 377a of both, but first of the false? I don’t understand your meaning. Don’t you understand, I said, that we begin by telling children fables, and the fable is, taken as a whole, false, but there is truth in it also? And we make use of fable with children before gymnastics. That is so. That, then, is what I meant by saying that we must take up music before gymnastics. You were right, he said. Do you not know, then, that the beginning in every task is the chief thing,¹ especially for any creature that is young and tender²? 377b For it is then that it is best molded and takes the impression³ that one wishes to stamp upon it. Quite so. Shall we, then, thus lightly suffer⁴ our children to listen to any chance stories fashioned by any chance teachers and so to take into their minds opinions for the most part contrary to those that we shall think it desirable for them to hold when they are grown up? By no manner of means will we allow it. We must begin, then, it seems, by a censorship 377c over our storymakers, and what they do well we must pass and what not, reject. And the stories on the accepted list we will induce nurses and mothers to tell to the children and so shape their souls by these stories far rather than their bodies by their hands. But most of the stories they now tell we must reject. What sort of stories? he said. The example of the greater stories, I said, will show us the lesser also. For surely the pattern must be the same and the greater and the less 377d must have a like tendency. Don’t you think so? I do, he said; but I don’t apprehend which you mean by the greater, either. Those, I said, that Hesiod⁵ and Homer and the other poets related. These, methinks, composed false stories which they told and still tell to mankind. Of what sort? he said; and what in them do you find fault? With that, I said, which one ought first and chiefly to blame, especially if the lie is not a pretty one. 377e What is that? When anyone images badly in his speech the true nature of gods and heroes, like a painter whose portraits bear no resemblance to his models. It is certainly right to condemn things like that, he said; but just what do we mean and what particular things?

Commentary

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

ἀληθῆ : i.e. truths of fact or history, not yet with reference to moral truth, for nothing has been said to change the connotation of ψευδής or its opposite ἀληθής. In Plato's view legend contains some elements of historical truth.

ἀρχὴ ‐‐ μέγιστον : semi - proverbial, with reference to ἀρχὴ ἥμισυ παντός: cf. Laws 753 E, and (for the application of the sentiment) ib. 765 E.

μάλιστα ‐‐ τύπον . See cr. n. To τύπος there are two objections: (1) the subject of πλάττεται and ἐνδύεται should be the same; but the subject of πλάττεται is not τύπος, but the νέῳ καὶ ἁπαλῷ ὁτῳοῦν, cf. πλάττειν τὰς ψυχὰς in C below: (2) it is more natural and correct to say that an object which ‘is being moulded’ ‘puts on’ a τύπος, than to say that the τύπος sinks into it. Reading τύπον we obtain the proper contrast between ἐνδύεται and ἐνσημήνασθαι: the youth puts on whatever impression or type the educator desires to stamp him with. The metaphor becomes more explicit in Plutarch De lib. educ. 3 F καθάπερ γὰρ σφραγῖδες τοῖς ἁπαλοῖς ἐναπομάττονται κηροῖς, οὕτως αἱ μαθήσεις ταῖς τῶν ἔτι παιδίων ψυχαῖς ἐναποτυποῦνται. Cf. also Theaet. 191 D and Hor. Epp. II 2. 8 argilla quidvis imitaberis uda.

ῥᾳδίως οὕτω : ‘carelessly, without more ado’: cf. 378 A and I 331 C. This idiomatic οὕτω is common with adverbs like ῥᾳδίως, εἰκῇ, ἁπλῶς, νῦν, ἐξαίφνης: for examples see Blaydes on Ar. Wasps 461 .

καλὸν : sc. μῦθον, which some MSS (including II) insert. For μῦθον understood from μυθοποιοῖς cf. III 399 D, where τοῦτο i.e. αὐλός is understood from αὐλοποιούς, 410 A, where αὐτοί (i.e. ἰατροί) follows ἰατρική, IV 421 E, and (with Schneider) Laws 886 C θεογονίαν διεξέρχονται, γενόμενοί τε (sc. οἱ θεοὶ) ὡς πρὸς ἀλλήλους ὡμίλησαν.

πλάττειν κτλ. Mothers and nurses practised massage on the bodies of infants: cf. Laws 789 E τιθέντες νόμους τὴν μὲν κύουσαν περιπατεῖν, τὸ γενόμενον δὲ πλάττειν τε οἷον κήρινον ἕως ὑγρόν, καὶ μέχρι δυοῖν ἐτοῖν σπαργανᾶν, and Alc. I 121 D. A trace of massage practised for medical purposes appears in Zeno Fr. 180 (ed. Pearson).

ἐλεγέτην . The dual links together Homer and Hesiod as jointly responsible for Greek theology: see on 363 A. Among the first to rebel against their authority were Pythagoras, Xenophanes, and Heraclitus (D. L. VIII 21, IX 18, IX I). Xenophanes' protest was particularly famous in antiquity: see Sext. Emp. adv. Math. I 289 and IX 193 ap. Ritter and Preller Hist. Philos. Gr.^{7} pp. 76, 77. Plato's attack on the Olympian theology in this and the succeeding book was perhaps the severest blow that Paganism received before the Christian era, and pointed the way for those exaggerated diatribes against the heathen gods in which it afterwards became the fashion of early Christian apologists to indulge, beginning with the Apology of Aristides (cc. 8—11). Cf. X 607 B note

ὅπερ ‐‐ ψεύδηται . ὅπερ is τὸ εἰκάζειν κακῶς περἰ θεῶν etc. A distinction is drawn between mere lies and the lie which is in itself οὐ καλόν, unbeautiful and immoral in tendency, e.g. the story of Uranus and Cronus ( ὁ εἰπὼν οὐ καλῶς ἐψεύσατο in E below). Such legends not merely misrepresent the gods, but also corrupt mankind.

τῶν μεγίστων : masculine, not neuter: cf. 378 B.

Ἡσίοδος . Theog. 154—181.

τὰ δὲ δὴ κτλ . δή emphasizes the case of Cronus as the most important (cf. Prot. 311 D , 312 E): it is so because the delinquent is Zeus, the reigning king of gods and men. The example set by Zeus on this occasion was no doubt sometimes used to justify wrong-doing: see for example Aesch. Eum. 640 , 641, Ar. Clouds 904 —906 πῶς δῆτα δίκης οὔσης ὁ Ζεὺς | οὐκ ἀπόλωλεν τὸν πατέρ’ αὑτοῦ | δήσας ; ib. 1079 ff., Eur. H. F. 1317 — 1319, and especially Pl. Euthyph. 5 E — 6 A, where Euthyphro urges the analogy in all seriousness to justify his vexatious prosecution of his own father. The pernicious effect of such legends on human conduct is again pointed out in Laws 886 C, 941 B: cf. also Isocr. Bus. 38—43, Luc. Men. 3, and Grote Plato III p. 194 note

πλούτου δὲ οὐδέν and Liebhold ( Fl. Jahrb. 1888, p. 107)

κόσμου δὲ ἄλλο μὲν <ἔχοντ)> οὐδέν for τοῦτον δὲ ἄλλο μὲν οὐδέν. Neither of these proposals has any plausibility, and it is best to regard this as one of the places where we owe the right reading to Π .

Plato Republic 2.377

ed. John Burnet

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