REPUBLIC(BOOKVI) 111
the instituting of the rulers, even though I knew that the complete truth would be offensive
and a hard thing to bring about, because as it is, the need to go through these things came
along nonetheless. And while the particular things about women and children are finished,
it’s necessary to go into the ones about the rulers as if from the beginning. And we were
saying, if you recall, that they must be seen to be passionately devoted to the city, standing
the test amid pleasures and pains, and being seen not to drop this conviction through
drudgery or terrors or any other vicissitude, or else the person who’s incapable is to be
rejected, while the one who comes through untarnished in every way, like gold tested in
the fire, is to be established as a ruler and given honors and prizes both while living and at
his death. Some such things as that were being said when the discussion slipped past them
with its face covered, in fear of setting in motion what’s now at hand.”
“You’re telling the exact truth,” he said; “I do recall.”
“I was reluctant, dear friend,” I said, “to state what has now been daringly
exposed, but now let it be boldly stated: it’s imperative to put philosophers in place as
guardians in the most precise sense.”
“Let it be so stated,” he said.
“Then consider it likely that you’ll have few of them, since the nature we went
through needs to belong to them, but its parts are rarely inclined to grow together in the
same place, but in most cases grow as something severed.”
“How do you mean?” he said.
“With natures that are good learners, have memories, are intellectually flexible,
are quick, and have everything else that goes with these things, and are youthfully spir-
ited and lofty in their thinking as well, you know that they aren’t willing at the same
time to grow up being the sort of natures that want to live with calmness and stability in
an orderly way, but instead are the kind that are carried off wherever their quickness
happens to take them, and everything stable goes right out of them.”
“You’re telling the truth,” he said.
“But with those natures with stable characters, on the other hand, that are not easily
changeable, those one would treat as more trustworthy and that would be unmoved con-
fronting terrors in war, wouldn’t they be the same way confronting things to be learned
also? They’re hard to move and slow to learn as though they’d been numbed, and they’re
full of sleepiness and yawning whenever anything of the sort needs to be worked at.”
“That’s how they are,” he said.
“But we claimed it was necessary to have a good-sized and high-quality share of
both, or else not be allowed to take part in the most precise sort of education or in honor
or in ruling.”
“Rightly,” he said.
“And don’t you imagine that will be rare?”
“How could it not be?”
“So not only does it need to be tested in the labors, terrors, and pleasures we spoke of
then but also, something we passed over then and speak of now, one needs to give it exercise
in many kinds of studies to examine whether it will be capable of holding up under the
greatest studies, or whether it will shy away like people who show cowardice in other areas.”
“It’s certainly appropriate to examine it that way,” he said, “but what sort of stud-
ies in particular are you saying are the greatest?”
“No doubt you remember,” I said, “that we pieced together what justice, moderation,
courage, and wisdom each would be by distinguishing three forms that belong to the soul.”
“If I didn’t remember that,” he said, “it would be just for me not to hear the rest.”
“And what about what was said by way of preface to that?”
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