Plato : POLITEIA Persons of the dialogue: Socrates - Glaucon - Polemarchus  - Adeimantus - Cephalus - Thrasymachus - Cleitophon Translated by Benjamin Jowett - 77 Pages (Part 3) - Greek fonts Search Plato's works / Plato Anthology / The Greek Word Library = Note by Elpenor

POLITEIA part 3 of 4, 5

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This Part: 77 Pages

Part 3 Page 10

Certainly not, said Adeimantus, raising his voice.

Who is it, I said, whom you are refusing to let off?

You, he said.

I repeated, Why am I especially not to be let off?

Why, he said, we think that you are lazy, and mean to cheat us out of a whole chapter which is a very important part of the story; and you fancy that we shall not notice your airy way of proceeding; as if it were self-evident to everybody, that in the matter of women and children 'friends have all things in common.'

And was I not right, Adeimantus?

Yes, he said; but what is right in this particular case, like everything else, requires to be explained; for community may be of many kinds. Please, therefore, to say what sort of community you mean. We have been long expecting that you would tell us something about the family life of your citizens —how they will bring children into the world, and rear them when they have arrived, and, in general, what is the nature of this community of women and children— for we are of opinion that the right or wrong management of such matters will have a great and paramount influence on the state for good or for evil. And now, since the question is still undetermined, and you are taking in hand another state, we have resolved, as you heard, not to let you go until you give an account of all this.

To that resolution, said Glaucon, you may regard me as saying Agreed.  - 

And without more ado, said Thrasymachus, you may consider us all to be equally agreed.

I said, You know not what you are doing in thus assailing me: What an argument are you raising about the state! Just as I thought that I had finished, and was only too glad that I had laid this question to sleep, and was reflecting how fortunate I was in your acceptance of what I then said, you ask me to begin again at the very foundation, ignorant of what a hornet's nest of words you are stirring. Now I foresaw this gathering trouble, and avoided it.

For what purpose do you conceive that we have come here, said Thrasymachus, —to look for gold, or to hear discourse?

Yes, but discourse should have a limit.

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