Kitap 8
569
And what have you to say, I said, in case the people protests and says that it is not right that a grown-up son should be supported by his father, but the reverse, and that it did not beget and establish him in order that, when he had grown great, it, in servitude to its own slaves, should feed him and the slaves together with a nondescript rabble of aliens, but in order that, with him for protector, it might be liberated from the rule of the rich and the so-called better classes,For καλῶν κἀγαθῶν cf. Aristoph. Knights 185, and Blaydes on 735. See also on 489 E, p. 27, note d. and that it now bids him and his crew depart from the city as a father expelsCf. Blaydes on Aristoph. Clouds 123. from his house a son together with troublesome revellers? The demos, by Zeus, he said, will then learn to its costFor the threatening γνώσεται cf. 362 A, 466 C, Il. xviii. 270 and 125, Theocr. xxvi. 19 τάχα γνώσῃ, and Lucian, Timon 33 εἴσεται. what it is and whatFor the juxtaposition οἷος οἷον Cf. Symp. 195 A, Sophocles El. 751, Ajax 557, 923, Trach. 995, 1045. a creature it begot and cherished and bred to greatness, and that in its weakness it tries to expel the stronger. What do you mean? said I; will the tyrant dare to use force against his father, and, if he does not yield, to strike himCf. on 574 C, pp. 346-347, note e.? Yes, he said, after he has once taken from him his arms. A very parricide, said I, you make the tyrant out to be, and a cruel nurse of old age, and, as it seems, this is at last tyranny open and avowed, and, as the saying goes, the demos trying to escape the smoke of submission to the free would have plunged into the fireAs we say, Out of the frying-pan into the fire. Cf. Anth. Pal. ix. 17. 5 ἐκ πυρὸς ὡς αἶνος ’πεσες ἐς φλόγα, Theodoret, Therap. iii. p. 773 καὶ τὸν καπνὸν κατὰ τὴν παροιμίαν, ὡς ἔοικε, φύγοντες, εἰς αὐτὸ δὴ τὸ πῦρ ἐμπεπτώκαμεν. See Otto, p. 137; also Solon 7 (17) (Anth. Lyr.,Bergk-Hiller, 9 in Edmonds, Greek Elegy and Iambus, i. p. 122, Loeb Classical Library) εἰς δὲ μονάρχου δῆμος ἀιδρείῃ δουλοσύνην ἔπεσεν, Herod. iii. 81 τυράννου ὕβριν φεύγοντας ἄνδρας ἐς δήμου ἀκολάστου ὕβριν πεσεῖν, and for the idea Epist. viii. 354 D. of enslavement to slaves, and in exchange for that excessive and unseasonable libertyCf. Epist. viii. 354 D. has clothed itself in the garb of the most cruel and bitter servile servitude.For the rhetorical style Cf. Tim. 41 θεοὶ θεῶν, Polit. 303 C σοφιστῶν σοφιστάς, and the biblical expressions, God of Gods and Lord of Lords, e.g. Deut. x. 17, Ps. cxxxvi. 2-3, Dan. xi. 36, Rev. xix. 16. Cf. Jebb on Soph. O. T. 1063 τρίδουλος. Yes indeed, he said, that is just what happens. Well, then, said I, shall we not be fairly justified in saying that we have sufficiently described the transformation of a democracy into a tyranny and the nature of the tyranny itself? Quite sufficiently, he said.
