Plato, Republic 588A-589B

Plato, Republic 588A-589B
457 Downloads

SINCE WE HAVE COME TO THIS POINT IN A DISCUSSION, let us again take up the first things that were said to us. And we will find that he says, ‘Good is he who has been done injustice completely. He is glorified justly.’ Is not this how he was reproached?

“This is certainly the fitting way!”

And I said, “Now then, we have spoken because he said that he who does injustice and he who does justice each has a force.”

”How then?”

“He said, ‘An image that has no likeness is the rationality of soul,’ so that he who said these things will understand. He […] or not? We […] is for me. But all […] who told them […] ruler, these now have become natural creatures – even Chimaera and Cerberus and all the rest that were mentioned. They all came down and they cast off forms and images. And they all became a single image. It was said, ‘Work now!’ Certainly it is a single image that became the image of a complex beast with many heads. Some days indeed it is like the image of a wild beast. Then it is able to cast off the first image. And all these hard and difficult forms emanate from it with effort, since these are formed now with arrogance. And also all the rest that are like them are formed now through the word. For now it is a single image. For the image of the lion is the one thing and the image of the man is another. […] single […] is the […] of […] join. And this […] much more complex than the first. And the second is small.”