Complete Works (211 page)

[c] Just then Polemarchus caught up with us. Adeimantus, Glaucon’s brother, was with him and so were Niceratus, the son of Nicias, and some others, all of whom were apparently on their way from the procession.

Polemarchus said: It looks to me, Socrates, as if you two are starting off for Athens.

It looks the way it is, then, I said.

Do you see how many we are? he said.

I do.

Well, you must either prove stronger than we are, or you will have to stay here.

Isn’t there another alternative, namely, that we persuade you to let us go?

But could you persuade us, if we won’t listen?

Certainly not, Glaucon said.

Well, we won’t listen; you’d better make up your mind to that.

Don’t you know, Adeimantus said, that there is to be a torch race on
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horseback for the goddess tonight?

On horseback? I said. That’s something new. Are they going to race on horseback and hand the torches on in relays, or what?

In relays, Polemarchus said, and there will be an all-night festival that will be well worth seeing. After dinner, we’ll go out to look at it. We’ll be joined there by many of the young men, and we’ll talk. So don’t go; stay.

It seems, Glaucon said, that we’ll have to stay. [b]

If you think so, I said, then we must.

So we went to Polemarchus’ house, and there we found Lysias and Euthydemus, the brothers of Polemarchus, Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, Charmantides of Paeania, and Clitophon the son of Aristonymus. Polemarchus’ father, Cephalus, was also there, and I thought he looked quite old, as I hadn’t seen him for some time. He was sitting on a sort of [c] cushioned chair with a wreath on his head, as he had been offering a sacrifice in the courtyard. There was a circle of chairs, and we sat down by him.

As soon as he saw me, Cephalus welcomed me and said: Socrates, you don’t come down to the Piraeus to see us as often as you should. If it were still easy for me to walk to town, you wouldn’t have to come here; we’d come to you. But, as it is, you ought to come here more often, for you [d] should know that as the physical pleasures wither away, my desire for conversation and its pleasures grows. So do as I say: Stay with these young men now, but come regularly to see us, just as you would to friends or relatives.

Indeed, Cephalus, I replied, I enjoy talking with the very old, for we should ask them, as we might ask those who have travelled a road that we too will probably have to follow, what kind of road it is, whether rough [e] and difficult or smooth and easy. And I’d gladly find out from you what you think about this, as you have reached the point in life the poets call “the threshold of old age.”
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Is it a difficult time? What is your report about it?

By god, Socrates, I’ll tell you exactly what I think. A number of us, who
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are more or less the same age, often get together in accordance with the old saying.
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When we meet, the majority complain about the lost pleasures they remember from their youth, those of sex, drinking parties, feasts, and the other things that go along with them, and they get angry as if they had been deprived of important things and had lived well then but are now hardly living at all. Some others moan about the abuse heaped on [b] old people by their relatives, and because of this they repeat over and over that old age is the cause of many evils. But I don’t think they blame the real cause, Socrates, for if old age were really the cause, I should have suffered in the same way and so should everyone else of my age. But as it is, I’ve met some who don’t feel like that in the least. Indeed, I was once present when someone asked the poet Sophocles: “How are you as far as [c] sex goes, Sophocles? Can you still make love with a woman?” “Quiet, man,” the poet replied, “I am very glad to have escaped from all that, like a slave who has escaped from a savage and tyrannical master.” I thought at the time that he was right, and I still do, for old age brings peace and freedom from all such things. When the appetites relax and cease to importune us, everything Sophocles said comes to pass, and we escape [d] from many mad masters. In these matters and in those concerning relatives, the real cause isn’t old age, Socrates, but the way people live. If they are moderate and contented, old age, too, is only moderately onerous; if they aren’t, both old age and youth are hard to bear.

I admired him for saying that and I wanted him to tell me more, so I [e] urged him on: When you say things like that, Cephalus, I suppose that the majority of people don’t agree, they think that you bear old age more easily not because of the way you live but because you’re wealthy, for the wealthy, they say, have many consolations.

That’s true; they don’t agree. And there is something in what they say, though not as much as they think. Themistocles’ retort is relevant here. When someone from Seriphus insulted him by saying that his high reputation
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was due to his city and not to himself, he replied that, had he been a Seriphian, he wouldn’t be famous, but neither would the other even if he had been an Athenian. The same applies to those who aren’t rich and find old age hard to bear: A good person wouldn’t easily bear old age if he were poor, but a bad one wouldn’t be at peace with himself even if he were wealthy.

Did you inherit most of your wealth, Cephalus, I asked, or did you make it for yourself?

What did I make for myself, Socrates, you ask. As a money-maker I’m [b] in a sort of mean between my grandfather and my father. My grandfather and namesake inherited about the same amount of wealth as I possess but multiplied it many times. My father, Lysanias, however, diminished that amount to even less than I have now. As for me, I’m satisfied to leave my sons here not less but a little more than I inherited.

The reason I asked is that you don’t seem to love money too much. And those who haven’t made their own money are usually like you. But those [c] who have made it for themselves are twice as fond of it as those who haven’t. Just as poets love their poems and fathers love their children, so those who have made their own money don’t just care about it because it’s useful, as other people do, but because it’s something they’ve made themselves. This makes them poor company, for they haven’t a good word to say about anything except money.

That’s true.

It certainly is. But tell me something else. What’s the greatest good [d] you’ve received from being very wealthy?

What I have to say probably wouldn’t persuade most people. But you know, Socrates, that when someone thinks his end is near, he becomes frightened and concerned about things he didn’t fear before. It’s then that the stories we’re told about Hades, about how people who’ve been unjust here must pay the penalty there—stories he used to make fun of—twist his soul this way and that for fear they’re true. And whether because of [e] the weakness of old age or because he is now closer to what happens in Hades and has a clearer view of it, or whatever it is, he is filled with foreboding and fear, and he examines himself to see whether he has been unjust to anyone. If he finds many injustices in his life, he awakes from sleep in terror, as children do, and lives in anticipation of bad things to come. But someone who knows that he hasn’t been unjust has sweet good
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hope as his constant companion—a nurse to his old age, as Pindar
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says, for he puts it charmingly, Socrates, when he says that when someone lives a just and pious life

Sweet hope is in his heart,
Nurse and companion to his age.
Hope, captain of the ever-twisting
Minds of mortal men.

How wonderfully well he puts that. It’s in this connection that wealth is most valuable, I’d say, not for every man but for a decent and orderly one. Wealth can do a lot to save us from having to cheat or deceive someone [b] against our will and from having to depart for that other place in fear because we owe sacrifice to a god or money to a person. It has many other uses, but, benefit for benefit, I’d say that this is how it is most useful to a man of any understanding.

A fine sentiment, Cephalus, but, speaking of this very thing itself, namely, justice, are we to say unconditionally that it is speaking the truth [c] and paying whatever debts one has incurred? Or is doing these things sometimes just, sometimes unjust? I mean this sort of thing, for example: Everyone would surely agree that if a sane man lends weapons to a friend and then asks for them back when he is out of his mind, the friend shouldn’t return them, and wouldn’t be acting justly if he did. Nor should anyone be willing to tell the whole truth to someone who is out of his mind.

[d] That’s true.

Then the definition of justice isn’t speaking the truth and repaying what one has borrowed.

It certainly is, Socrates, said Polemarchus, interrupting, if indeed we’re to trust Simonides at all.
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Well, then, Cephalus said, I’ll hand over the argument to you, as I have to look after the sacrifice.

So, Polemarchus said, am I then to be your heir in everything?

You certainly are, Cephalus said, laughing, and off he went to the sacrifice.

Then tell us, heir to the argument, I said, just what Simonides stated [e] about justice that you consider correct.

He stated that it is just to give to each what is owed to him. And it’s a fine saying, in my view.

Well, now, it isn’t easy to doubt Simonides, for he’s a wise and godlike man. But what exactly does he mean? Perhaps you know, Polemarchus, but I don’t understand him. Clearly, he doesn’t mean what we said a moment ago, that it is just to give back whatever a person has lent to you, even if he’s out of his mind when he asks for it. And yet what he has lent
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to you is surely something that’s owed to him, isn’t it?

Yes.

But it is absolutely not to be given to him when he’s out of his mind?

That’s true.

Then it seems that Simonides must have meant something different when he says that to return what is owed is just.

Something different indeed, by god. He means that friends owe it to their friends to do good for them, never harm.

I follow you. Someone doesn’t give a lender back what he’s owed by giving him gold, if doing so would be harmful, and both he and the lender [b] are friends. Isn’t that what you think Simonides meant?

It is.

But what about this? Should one also give one’s enemies whatever is owed to them?

By all means, one should give them what is owed to them. And in my view what enemies owe to each other is appropriately and precisely—something bad.

It seems then that Simonides was speaking in riddles—just like a poet!—when he said what justice is, for he thought it just to give to each what [c] is appropriate to him, and this is what he called giving him what is owed to him.

What else did you think he meant?

Then what do you think he’d answer if someone asked him: “Simonides, which of the things that are owed or that are appropriate for someone or something to have does the craft
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we call medicine give, and to whom or what does it give them?”

It’s clear that it gives medicines, food, and drink to bodies.

And what owed or appropriate things does the craft we call cooking give, and to whom or what does it give them?

It gives seasonings to food. [d]

Good. Now, what does the craft we call justice give, and to whom or what does it give it?

If we are to follow the previous answers, Socrates, it gives benefits to friends and does harm to enemies.

Simonides means, then, that to treat friends well and enemies badly is justice?

I believe so.

And who is most capable of treating friends well and enemies badly in matters of disease and health?

A doctor.

And who can do so best in a storm at sea? [e]

A ship’s captain.

What about the just person? In what actions and what work is he most capable of benefiting friends and harming enemies?

In wars and alliances, I suppose.

All right. Now, when people aren’t sick, Polemarchus, a doctor is useless to them?

True.

And so is a ship’s captain to those who aren’t sailing?

Yes.

And to people who aren’t at war, a just man is useless?

No, I don’t think that at all.

Justice is also useful in peacetime, then?

It is.
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And so is farming, isn’t it?

Yes.

For getting produce?

Yes.

And shoemaking as well?

Yes.

For getting shoes, I think you’d say?

Certainly.

Well, then, what is justice useful for getting and using in peacetime?

Contracts, Socrates.

And by contracts do you mean partnerships, or what?

I mean partnerships.

Is someone a good and useful partner in a game of checkers because [b] he’s just or because he’s a checkers player?

Because he’s a checkers player.

And in laying bricks and stones, is a just person a better and more useful partner than a builder?

Not at all.

In what kind of partnership, then, is a just person a better partner than a builder or a lyre-player, in the way that a lyre-player is better than a just person at hitting the right notes?

In money matters, I think.

Except perhaps, Polemarchus, in using money, for whenever one needs to buy a horse jointly, I think a horse breeder is a more useful partner, [c] isn’t he?

Apparently.

And when one needs to buy a boat, it’s a boatbuilder or a ship’s captain?

Probably.

In what joint use of silver or gold, then, is a just person a more useful partner than the others?

When it must be deposited for safekeeping, Socrates.

You mean whenever there is no need to use them but only to keep them?

That’s right.

Then it is when money isn’t being used that justice is useful for it?

[d] I’m afraid so.

And whenever one needs to keep a pruning knife safe, but not to use it, justice is useful both in partnerships and for the individual. When you need to use it, however, it is skill at vine pruning that’s useful?