THE REPUBLIC OF PLATO - Studyplace

IN'l1l0DUCTJON
'But, no doubt, the best course is to have something of both. Just £'or
purposes of education it is a good thing to take up philosophy; there
is no disgrace in it for a young lad; but when a man who is getting on
in years still sticks to it, the thing becomes ridiculous. I feel towards
philosophers, Socrates, much as I do towards people who lisp and behave
like children. When I see a child who is still young enough to
talk in that way naturally, lisping at his play, I like it, as a charming
trait of gende breeding, which suits his age; whereas, when I hear a
small child speaking distincdy, it offends my ear and seems to me only
fit for a slave. But when you find a grown man lisping and behaving
childishly, the effect is contemptible; you want to beat him for being
so unmanly. Now that is how I feel towards philosophers. I like to
see a young lad at such studies; they seem suitable and are evidence of
good breeding; if he neglected them, I should set him down as a lowborn
fellow, who would never have the spirit to play an honourable
part in the world. But when I see an older man unable to get away
from his philosophising, then, Socrates, I begin to think that there is
a man who needs a good beating. For, as I was saying, such a person,
however gifted, is bound to lose his manly qualities, if he keeps away
from the centres of public resort-the market-place, as the poet says,
where famous men are made--and creeps away to spend the rest of
his life whispering with three or four youngsters in a corner, and never
makes his voice heard on any matter worthy of a free man's utterance.'
The choice between philosophy and a political career was not one
that a younger man could possibly have put before the Socrates
we know from the dialogues, at any time in the last twenty years
of his life, when he was wholly occupied with his mission. It is
noteworthy that no dramatic date can be fixed for the conversation
in the Gorgias, and even the scene is left unspecified. This vagueness
is intentional. When Plato wishes to make us fed as if we
were living again at some fifth-century time and place, he does so;
notably in the Laches, the Protagoras, or the Symposium. But in
the Gorgias the impression is ddiberatdy blurred by anachronisms,!
with the result that transparent allusions to Socrates' trial and
1 The death of Pericles (429 D.C.) is described as recent. Nicias is spoken of in
terms which could not have been used after the Sicilian expedition (415-413). Yet
Archdaus has become tyrant of Macedon (414/413), and Euripides' AfJtio~ (about
4081 is quoted.