f the unjust who clings to
appearance as the true reality! His high character makes him a ruler;
he can marry where he likes, trade where he likes, help his friends and
hurt his enemies; having got rich by dishonesty he can worship the gods
better, and will therefore be more loved by them than the just.'

I was thinking what to answer, when Adeimantus joined in the already
unequal fray. He considered that the most important point of all had
been omitted:--'Men are taught to be just for the sake of rewards;
parents and guardians make reputation the incentive to virtue. And other
advantages are promised by them of a more solid kind, such as wealthy
marriages and high offices. There are the pictures in Homer and Hesiod
of fat sheep and heavy fleeces, rich corn-fields and trees toppling with
fruit, which the gods provide in this life for the just. And the Orphic
poets add a similar picture of another. The heroes of Musaeus and
Eumolpus lie on couches at a festival, with garlands on their heads,
enjoying as the meed of virtue a paradise of immortal drunkenness.
Some go further, and speak of a fair posterity in the third and fourth
generation. But the wicked they bury in a slough and make them carry
water in a sieve: and in this life they attribute to them the infamy
which Glaucon was assuming to be the lot of the just who are supposed to
be unjust.

'Take another kind of argument which is found both in poetry and
prose:--"Virtue," as Hesiod says, "is honourable but difficult, vice is
easy and profitable." You may often see the wicked in great prosperity
and the righteous afflicted by the will of heaven. And mendicant
prophets knock at rich men's doors, promising to atone for the sins
of themselves or their fathers in an easy fashion with sacrifices and
festive games, or with charms and invocations to get rid of an enemy
good or bad by divine help and at a small charge;--they appeal to books
professing to be written by Musaeus and Orpheus, and carry away the
minds of whole cities, and promise to "get souls out of purgatory;" and
if we refuse to listen to them, no one knows what will happen to us.

'When a lively-minded ingenuous youth hears all this, what will be his
conclusion? "Will he," in the language of Pindar, "make justice his high
tower, or fortify himself with crooked deceit?" Justice, he reflects,
without the appearance of justice, is misery and ruin; injustice has the
promise of a glorious life. Appearance is mas