Book 9
587
Then when the entire soul accepts the guidance of the wisdom-loving part and is not filled with inner dissension,Cf. 352 A, 440 B and E, 442 D, 560 A, Phaedr. 237 E. the result for each part is that it in all other respects keeps to its own taskCf. What Plato Said, p. 480 on Charm. 161 B. and is just, and likewise that each enjoys its own proper pleasures and the best pleasures and, so far as such a thing is possible,For εἰς τὸ δυνατόν cf. 500 D, 381 C, Laws 795 D, 830 B, 862 B, 900 C. the truest. Precisely so. And so when one of the other two gets the mastery the result for it is that it does not find its own proper pleasure and constrains the others to pursue an alien pleasure and not the true. That is so, he said. And would not that which is furthest removed from philosophy and reason be most likely to produce this effectWhat follows (587 B-588 A) is not to be taken too seriously. It illustrates the method of procedure by minute links, the satisfaction of Plato’s feelings by confirmations and analogies, and his willingness to play with mathematical symbolism. Cf. 546 B f. and William Temple, Plato and Christianity, p. 55: Finally the whole thing is a satire on the humbug of mystical number, but I need not add that the German commentators are seriously exercised. . . . See however A. G. Laird in Class. Phil. xi. (1916) pp. 465-468.? Quite so, he said. And is not that furthest removed from reason which is furthest from law and order? Obviously. And was it not made plain that the furthest removed are the erotic and tyrannical appetites? Quite so. And least so the royal and orderly? Yes. Then the tyrant’s place, I think, will be fixed at the furthest removeCf. Polit. 257 B ἀφεστᾶσιν from true and proper pleasure, and the king’s at the least. Necessarily. Then the tyrant’s life will be least pleasurable and the king’s most. There is every necessity of that. Do you know, then, said I, how much less pleasurably the tyrant lives than the king? I’ll know if you tell me,Cf. Vil. I. p. 282, note a, on 408 D and p. 344, note b, on 573 D. he said. There being as it appears three pleasures, one genuine and two spurious, the tyrant in his flight from law and reason crosses the border beyondFor εἰς τὸ ἐπέκεινα Cf. Phaedo 112 B and 509 B. the spurious, cohabits with certain slavish, mercenary pleasures, and the measure of his inferiority is not easy to express except perhaps thus. How? he said. The tyrant, I believe, we found at the third remove from the oligarch, for the democrat came between. Yes. And would he not also dwell with a phantom of pleasure in respect of reality three stages removed from that other, if all that we have said is true? That is so. And the oligarch in turn is at the third remove from the royal man if we assume the identity of the aristocrat and the king.Cf. Vol. I. p. 422, note b, on 445 D and Menex. 238 D. Yes, the third. Three times three, then, by numerical measure is the interval that separates the tyrant from true pleasure. Apparently. The phantomCf. Phaedo 66 C εἰδώλων, where Olympiodorus (Norvin, p. 36) takes it of the unreality of the lower pleasures. of the tyrant’s pleasure is then by longitudinal mensuration a plane number. Quite so. But by squaring and cubing it is clear what the interval of this separation becomes. It is clear, he said, to a reckoner. Then taking it the other way about, if one tries to express the extent of the interval between the king and the tyrant in respect of true pleasure he will find on completion of the multiplication that he lives 729 times as happily and that the tyrant’s life is more painful by the same distance.Cf. Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 14 Hence estimating life by multiplying its length into its breadth. For the mathematical jest Cf. Polit. 257 A-B.
