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common, or should they stay inside the house as though they were disabled by bear-
ing and nursing the puppies, while the males do the work and have all the tending of
the flock?”
“Everything in common,” he said, “except that we’d treat the females as weaker
and the males as stronger.”
“Is it possible, then,” I said, “to use any animal for the same things if you don’t
give it the same rearing and training?”
“It’s not possible.”
“So if you’re going to make use of women at the same tasks as men, they’ll also
have to be taught the same things.”
“Yes.”
“Music and gymnastic exercise were given to the men.”
“Yes.”
“Therefore this pair of arts needs to be made available to the women too, as well
as the things connected with war, and they need to be applied in the same manner.”
“It’s likely, based on what you’re saying,” he said.
“Probably,” I said, “many of the things being talked about now would look
absurd if they’re done the way they’re being described, just because they’re contrary to
custom.”
“Very much so indeed,” he said.
“Do you see which of them would be most absurd?” I said. “Isn’t it obvious that
it would be for the women to be exercising naked in the wrestling schools alongside the
men, and not just the young ones but also those who’re already on the older side, like
the old men who’re still devoted to exercising in the gyms when they’re wrinkled and
not a pleasant sight?”
“By Zeus,” he said, “that would look absurd, at least the way things are at
present.”
“But as long as we’ve got ourselves started talking about it, we shouldn’t be
afraid, should we, of all the jokes of whatever sort from witty people at the advent such
a change in both gymnastic exercise and music, and not least about having war ‘tools’
and ‘mounting’ horses?”
“You’ve got that right,” he said.
“Instead, since we have started to talk about it, we need to pass right to the tough
part of the law, asking these guys not to do what properly belongs to them but to be seri-
ous, and to recall that it’s not much time since it seemed to the Greeks the way it does now
to many of the barbarians, that it’s shameful and absurd to look at a naked man, and when
the people of Crete first introduced gymnasiums, and then the Spartans, the fashionable
people of the time took the opportunity to ridicule all that. Don’t you imagine they did?”
“I do.”
“But since it appeared to those who adopted the practice, I imagine, that it was
better to uncover all such things than to hide them, what had been absurd in their eyes
was stripped away by what was exposed as best in their reasoning. And this reveals that
one who considers anything absurd other than what’s bad is empty-headed, as is one
who tries to get a laugh by looking at any other sight as laughable than one that’s sense-
less and bad, or who takes seriously any mark of what’s beautiful that he’s set up other
than what’s good.”
“Absolutely so,” he said.
“Well then, isn’t this the first thing that needs to be agreed about these things:
whether they’re possible or not? And shouldn’t a chance for disputes be given to anyonee452a
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