so now, since you are beginning on another constitution before sufficiently defining this, we are firmly resolved,
as you overheard, not to let you go till you have expounded all this as fully as you did the rest.
Set me down, too,
said Glaucon, as voting this ticket. Footnote 1Cf. Protagoras 330 C.
Surely,
said Thrasymachus, you may consider it a joint resolution of us all, Socrates.
What a thing you have done,
said I, in thus challenging Footnote 2Cf. Theaetetus 184 C, Gorgias 469 C. me! What a huge debate you have started afresh, as it were, about this polity, in the supposed completion of which I was rejoicing, being only too glad to have it accepted as I then set it forth! You don’t realize what a swarm Footnote 3For the metaphor cf. Euripides Bacchae 710 and
σμῆνος
, Republic 574 D, Cratylus 401 C, Meno 72 A. of arguments you are stirring up Footnote 4Cf. Philebus 36 D, Theaetetus 184 A, Cratylus 411 A. by this demand, which I foresaw and evaded to save us no end of trouble.Well,
said Thrasymachus, Footnote 5Thrasymachus speaks here for the last time. He is mentioned in 357 A, 358 B-C, 498 C, 545 B, 590 D. do you suppose this company has come here to prospect for gold Footnote 6Lit. to smelt ore. The expression was proverbial and was explained by an obscure anecdote. Cf. Leutsch, Paroemiographi, ii. pp. 91, 727, and i. p. 464, and commentators on Herodotus iii. 102. and not to listen to discussions?
Yes,
I said, in measure.
Nay, Socrates,
said Glaucon, the measure Footnote 7Plato often anticipates and repels the charge of tedious length (see Politicus 286 C, Philebus 28 D, 36 D). Here the thought takes a different turn (as 504 C). The δέ γε implies a slight rebuke (Cf. Class. Phil . xiv. pp. 165-174). of listening to such discussions is the whole of life for reasonable men. So don’t consider us, and do not you yourself grow weary in explaining to us what we ask or, your views as to how this communion of wives and children among our guardians will be managed, and also about the rearing of the children while still young in the interval between Footnote 8So 498 A. Cf. on Aristophanes Acharnians 434, and Laws 792 A. birth and formal schooling which is thought to be the most difficult part of education. Try, then, to tell us what must be the manner of it.
It is not an easy thing to expound, my dear fellow,
said I, for even more than the provisions that precede it, it raises many doubts. For one might doubt whether what is proposed is possible Footnote 9Cf. 456 C, Thucydides vi. 98, Introduction xvii. and, even conceding the possibility, Footnote 10εἰ ὅ τι μάλιστα: a common formula for what a disputant can afford to concede. Cf. Lysias xiii. 52, xxii. 1, xxii. 10. It occurs six times in the Charmides. one might still be sceptical whether it is best. For which reason one as it were, shrinks from touching on the matter lest the theory be regarded as nothing but a
wish-thought,
Footnote 11Cf. Introduction xxxi-xxxii, 456 C, 499 C, 540 D, Laws 736 D, Aristotle Politics 1260 b 29, 1265 a 17 δεῖ μὲν οὖν ὑποτίθεσθαι κατ’ εὐχην, μηδὲν μέντοι ἀδύνατον
. my dear friend.Do not shrink,
he said, for your hearers will not be inconsiderate Footnote 12ἀγνώμονες = inconsiderate, unreasonable, as Andocides ii. 6 shows. nor distrustful nor hostile.
And I said, My good fellow, is that remark intended to encourage me?
It is,
he said. Well, then,
said I, it has just the contrary effect. For, if I were confident that I was speaking with knowledge, it would be an excellent encouragement. For there is both safety and security in speaking the truth with knowledge about our greatest and dearest concerns to those who are both wise and dear.
Book 5