Section 362

What they will say is this: that such being his disposition the just man will have to endure the lash, the rack, chains, the branding-iron in his eyes, and finally, after every extremity of suffering, he will be crucified, 1 and so will learn his lesson that not to be but to seem just is what we ought to desire. And the saying of Aeschylus 2 was, it seems, far more correctly applicable to the unjust man. For it is literally true, they will say, that the unjust man, as pursuing what clings closely to reality, to truth, and not regulating his life by opinion, desires not to seem but to be unjust, Exploiting the deep furrows of his wit From which there grows the fruit of counsels shrewd, Aesch. Seven 592-594 first office and rule in the state because of his reputation for justice, then a wife from any family he chooses, and the giving of his children in marriage to whomsoever he pleases, dealings and partnerships with whom he will, and in all these transactions advantage and profit for himself because he has no squeamishness about committing injustice; and so they say that if he enters into lawsuits, public or private, he wins and gets the better of his opponents, and, getting the better, 3 is rich and benefits his friends and harms his enemies 4 ; and he performs sacrifices and dedicates votive offerings to the gods adequately and magnificently, 5 and he serves and pays court 6 to men whom he favors and to the gods far better than the just man, so that he may reasonably expect the favor of heaven 7 also to fall rather to him than to the just. So much better they say, Socrates, is the life that is prepared for the unjust man from gods and men than that which awaits the just. When Glaucon had thus spoken, I had a mind to make some reply thereto, but his brother Adeimantus said, You surely don’t suppose, Socrates, that the statement of the case is complete? Why, what else? I said. The very most essential point, said he, has not been mentioned. Then, said I, as the proverb has it, Let a brother help a man 8 —and so, if Glaucon omits any word or deed, do you come to his aid. Though for my part what he has already said is quite enough to overthrow me and incapacitate me for coming to the rescue of justice. Nonsense, he said, but listen to this further point. We must set forth the reasoning and the language of the opposite party, of those who commend justice and dispraise injustice, if what I conceive to be Glaucon’s meaning is to be made more clear.