tial, and the part of themselves which they fill is
also unsubstantial and incontinent.

Verily, Socrates, said Glaucon, you describe the life of the many like
an oracle.

Their pleasures are mixed with pains--how can they be otherwise? For
they are mere shadows and pictures of the true, and are coloured by
contrast, which exaggerates both light and shade, and so they implant
in the minds of fools insane desires of themselves; and they are fought
about as Stesichorus says that the Greeks fought about the shadow of
Helen at Troy in ignorance of the truth.

Something of that sort must inevitably happen.

And must not the like happen with the spirited or passionate element of
the soul? Will not the passionate man who carries his passion into
action, be in the like case, whether he is envious and ambitious, or
violent and contentious, or angry and discontented, if he be seeking to
attain honour and victory and the satisfaction of his anger without
reason or sense?

Yes, he said, the same will happen with the spirited element also.

Then may we not confidently assert that the lovers of money and honour,
when they seek their pleasures under the guidance and in the company of
reason and knowledge, and pursue after and win the pleasures which
wisdom shows them, will also have the truest pleasures in the highest
degree which is attainable to them, inasmuch as they follow truth; and
they will have the pleasures which are natural to them, if that which
is best for each one is also most natural to him?

Yes, certainly; the best is the most natural.

And when the whole soul follows the philosophical principle, and there
is no division, the several parts are just, and do each of them their
own business, and enjoy severally the best and truest pleasures of
which they are capable?

Exactly.

But when either of the two other principles prevails, it fails in
attaining its own pleasure, and compels the rest to pursue after a
pleasure which is a shadow only and which is not their own?

True.

And the greater the interval which separates them from philosophy and
reason, the more strange and illusive will be the pleasure?

Yes.

And is not that farthest from reason which is at the greatest distance
from law and order?

Clearly.

And the lustful and tyrannical desires are, as we saw, at the greatest
distance? Yes.

And the royal and orderly desires are nearest?

Yes.

Then the tyrant will live at the greatest dis