The Education of the Guardians (Book III)

Such, then, I said, are the stories about the gods that our guardians may hear from childhood. But if they are to be brave, they must not fear death. So we must also strike out all those lines in which the poets make Hades sound terrible: Achilles saying that he would rather be a hired laborer on earth than king over all the dead; the souls of the dead flitting and squeaking like bats. We must not tell them of heroes weeping and lamenting, of Achilles rolling in the dust at the death of Patroclus, still less of gods lamenting. A good man does not think death terrible for another good man, his friend.

Nor should our guardians be lovers of laughter. Violent laughter brings violent change. And they must value truth highly. If anyone may lie, it is only the rulers of the city, for the good of the city, as a doctor may deceive a patient for his health; but for a private citizen to lie to the rulers is as great a fault as for a sick man to lie to his doctor. They must also be moderate: obedient to their rulers, and masters of their own pleasures in drink, love and food.

Then we come to style. All storytelling, I said, is either simple narration, in which the poet speaks in his own voice, or imitation, in which he speaks as if he were someone else, as in tragedy and comedy; or a mixture of the two, as in Homer. Our guardians should do one thing well, and not imitate many things. If they imitate at all, they should imitate from childhood only what befits them: men who are brave, moderate, holy and free. For imitation, continued from youth, becomes habit and second nature, in body, voice and mind. They must not imitate women quarrelling or in labor, slaves, cowards, drunkards, madmen, or the noises of horses, bulls, rivers and the sea. So if a man came to our city, clever enough to take every shape and imitate everything, we would bow down before him as a holy and wonderful being, anoint his head with myrrh, crown him with wool, and send him away to another city.

The same applies to music. Of the musical modes, we will keep only two: one that imitates the voice of a brave man in war or in danger, steadfast against fortune, and one that imitates a man in peaceful action, praying or persuading, moderate and content. The soft and drinking modes, the wailing ones, we will banish. We will not need many-stringed instruments; the lyre and the cithara in the city, and the shepherd's pipe in the country. And the same for rhythm: rhythms that express an orderly and brave life.

For rhythm and harmony sink deepest into the soul, and take hold of it most strongly. A boy rightly trained in music will be quick to notice what is ugly and badly made, and will welcome what is beautiful into his soul, and become beautiful and good himself, even before he can give a reason; and when reason comes, he will recognize it as a friend. The end of music is the love of the beautiful.

After music, gymnastics. The body should be trained simply, like the soldier's, with plain food, not the elaborate diets of athletes, who sleep their lives away and fall sick at the least change. Where there is luxury in food, there is need of doctors, as where there is licentiousness there is need of judges. Asclepius, the father of medicine, healed the healthy who had a particular illness; but he did not try to prolong, by endless regimens, lives that were useless to themselves and to the city. And note this: gymnastics is not only for the body. Too much gymnastics makes a man savage and hard; too much music makes him soft. The two must be blended in the right proportion, so that the soul is both brave and gentle.

Now, who shall rule? The best of the guardians: older men, who care most for the city, and who have been tested from childhood, through labors and pains and pleasures, to see whether they hold firm to the conviction that they must always do what is best for the city. These are the true guardians; the younger ones we shall call auxiliaries.

And now, I said, we need one of those convenient falsehoods, a single noble lie, to persuade the rulers themselves, if possible, and certainly the rest of the city. I am almost ashamed to say it. We shall tell them that all their upbringing and education were only a dream; that in reality they were formed and raised in the depths of the earth, their mother, who sent them up when they were ready; and that therefore they must defend their land as their mother and nurse, and regard their fellow citizens as their brothers, born of the same earth.

"Not without reason," said Glaucon, "were you ashamed to tell this lie."

And yet, I went on, all of you are brothers, but God, in forming you, mixed gold into those who are fit to rule, silver into the auxiliaries, and iron and bronze into the farmers and craftsmen. Children will usually be like their parents; but sometimes a golden parent will have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden son. The rulers must watch over nothing so carefully as the mixture in the souls of the children, and if a child of theirs is found with bronze or iron in him, they must without pity put him among the craftsmen or farmers; and if a child of craftsmen has gold or silver in him, they must raise him to the guardians. For an oracle says that the city will perish when it is guarded by iron or bronze.

Finally, the guardians' way of life. None of them shall have any private property beyond what is absolutely necessary. None shall have a house or storeroom that anyone may not enter. They shall receive from the other citizens, as wages for their guarding, just enough food for the year; they shall eat together in common messes, like soldiers in camp. As for gold and silver, we shall tell them that they have divine gold and silver in their souls, from the gods, and need no human gold; it would be impious to defile the divine possession with the mortal. For if they ever acquire land and houses and money of their own, they will become householders and farmers instead of guardians, enemies and masters of the other citizens instead of their allies.

(End of Episode 3 — continued in Episode 4: The Four Virtues)