people suffer in this way
are mean enough and obvious enough, and not worth speaking of.

Yes, he said, a man has no need of eyes in order to perceive that.

And from all these evils they will be delivered, and their life will be
blessed as the life of Olympic victors and yet more blessed.

How so?

The Olympic victor, I said, is deemed happy in receiving a part only of
the blessedness which is secured to our citizens, who have won a more
glorious victory and have a more complete maintenance at the public
cost. For the victory which they have won is the salvation of the whole
State; and the crown with which they and their children are crowned is
the fulness of all that life needs; they receive rewards from the
hands of their country while living, and after death have an honourable
burial.

Yes, he said, and glorious rewards they are.

Do you remember, I said, how in the course of the previous discussion
some one who shall be nameless accused us of making our guardians
unhappy--they had nothing and might have possessed all things--to whom
we replied that, if an occasion offered, we might perhaps hereafter
consider this question, but that, as at present advised, we would make
our guardians truly guardians, and that we were fashioning the State
with a view to the greatest happiness, not of any particular class, but
of the whole?

Yes, I remember.

And what do you say, now that the life of our protectors is made out to
be far better and nobler than that of Olympic victors--is the life of
shoemakers, or any other artisans, or of husbandmen, to be compared with
it?

Certainly not.

At the same time I ought here to repeat what I have said elsewhere, that
if any of our guardians shall try to be happy in such a manner that
he will cease to be a guardian, and is not content with this safe and
harmonious life, which, in our judgment, is of all lives the best, but
infatuated by some youthful conceit of happiness which gets up into his
head shall seek to appropriate the whole state to himself, then he will
have to learn how wisely Hesiod spoke, when he said, 'half is more than
the whole.'

If he were to consult me, I should say to him: Stay where you are, when
you have the offer of such a life.

You agree then, I said, that men and women are to have a common way of
life such as we have described--common education, common children; and
they are to watch over the citizens in common whether abiding in the
city or goin