Republic

And they produce a bushel of books of Musaeus and Orpheus, the offspring of the Moon and of the Muses, as they affirm, and these books they use in their ritual, and make not only ordinary men but states believe that there really are remissions of sins and purifications for deeds of injustice, by means of sacrifice and pleasant sport for the living, and that there are also special rites for the defunct, which they call functions, that deliver us from evils in that other world, while terrible things await those who have neglected to sacrifice. What, Socrates, do we suppose is the effect of all such sayings about the esteem in which men and gods hold virtue and vice upon the souls that hear them, the souls of young men who are quick-witted and capable of flitting, as it were, from one expression of opinion to another and inferring from them all the character and the path whereby a man would lead the best life? Such a youth would most likely put to himself the question Pindar asks, Is it by justice or by crooked deceit that I the higher tower shall scale and so live my life out in fenced and guarded security? Pindar, Fr. The consequences of my being just are, unless I likewise seem so, not assets, they say, but liabilities, labor and total loss; but if I am unjust and have procured myself a reputation for justice a godlike life is promised. Then since it is the seeming Simonides, Fr. 76 Bergk, and Eur. Orest. 236 as the wise men show me, that masters the reality and is lord of happiness, to this I must devote myself without reserve. For a front and a show I must draw about myself a shadow-line of virtue, but trail behind me the fox of most sage Archilochus, shifty and bent on gain. Nay, ’tis objected, it is not easy for a wrong-doer always to lie hid. Neither is any other big thing facile, we shall reply. But all the same if we expect to be happy, we must pursue the path to which the footprints of our arguments point. For with a view to lying hid we will organize societies and political clubs, and there are teachers of cajolery who impart the arts of the popular assembly and the court-room. So that, partly by persuasion, partly by force, we shall contrive to overreach with impunity. But against the gods, it may be said, neither secrecy nor force can avail. Well, if there are no gods, or they do not concern themselves with the doings of men, neither need we concern ourselves with eluding their observation. If they do exist and pay heed, we know and hear of them only from such discourses and from the poets who have described their pedigrees. But these same authorities tell us that the gods are capable of being persuaded and swerved from their course by sacrifice and soothing vows and dedications. We must believe them in both or neither.