REPUBLIC(BOOKV) 105
“Then in the city we’ve been founding, which do you imagine would turn out as
better men, the guardians, when they’ve gotten the education we went over, or the
leatherworkers, educated in leathercraft?”
“You’re asking a ridiculous question,” he said.
“I understand,” I said. “What about it then? Compared to the rest of the citizens,
aren’t these the best men?”
“By far.”
“And what about the women? Won’t these be the best among the women?”
“They too, by far,” he said.
“And is there anything better for a city than for the best possible women and men
to arise in it?”
“There isn’t.”
“And music and gymnastic training, when they come to their aid in the way we’ve
gone over, bring this about?”
“How could they not?”
“Therefore the ordinance we set down for the city is not only something possible
but also the best thing.”
“So it is.”
“Then the women among the guardians need to take off their clothes, since
they’re going to be clothed in virtue instead of a cloak, and they need to share in war
and the rest of the guardianship connected with the city, and not engage in other activi-
ties, but less arduous parts of these same activities need to be given to the women than
to the men because of the weakness of their kind. And a man who laughs at naked
women engaged in gymnastic exercise for the sake of what’s best ‘plucks a laugh from
his wisdom while it’s still an unripe fruit,’ having no idea, it seems, what he’s laughing
at or what he’s doing. For the most beautiful thing that’s being said or will have been
said is this: that what’s beneficial is beautiful and what’s harmful is ugly.”
“Absolutely so.”
“Then shall we claim that we’re escaping from one wave, so to speak, by saying
this about the law pertaining to women, so that we don’t get completely swamped when
we set it down that our male and female guardians must pursue all things in common,
but that in a way the argument that says that’s possible and beneficial is in agreement
with itself?”
“And it’s certainly no small wave you’re escaping,” he said.
“But you’ll claim it’s no big one either,” I said, “when you see what comes after this.”
“Speak, then, and I’ll see,” he said.
“A law that goes along with this one,” I said, “and with the others that preceded it,
is, as I imagine, the following.”
“What?”
“That all these women are to be shared among all these men, and none of the
women is to live together privately with any of the men, and their children are to be
shared too; a parent is not to know the offspring that are its own, or a child its parent.”
“This is much bigger than the former one,” he said, “in respect to doubtfulness
about both what’s possible and what’s beneficial.”
“About what’s beneficial, anyway,” I said, “I don’t imagine there’d be any arguing
that it’s not the greatest good for the women to be shared or for the children to be
shared, if possible; but about whether it’s possible or not, I imagine there’d be a very
great dispute.”
“There could very well be dispute about both,” he said.
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