Plato references Homer frequently–and with those words still fresh in my mind the current task is made lighter.
I find Socrates’ and Adeimantus’ creation of their ideal state by turns idyllic and tongue-in-cheek. For example, see how they decide to handle theodicy and God’s nature in general:
And if a poet writes of the sufferings of Niobe–the subject of the tragedy in which these iambic verses occur–or of the house of Pelops, or of the Trojan war or on any similar theme, either we must not permit him to say that these are the works of God, or if they are of God, he must devise some explanation of them such as we are seeking; he must say that God did what was just and right, and they were the better for being punished; but that those who are punished are miserable, and that God is the author of their misery– the poet is not to be permitted to say; though he may say that the wicked are miserable because they require to be punished, and are benefited by receiving punishment from God; but that God being good is the author of evil to any one is to be strenuously denied, and not to be said or sung or heard in verse or prose by any one whether old or young in any well-ordered commonwealth. Such a fiction is suicidal, ruinous, impious.
I agree with you, he replied, and am ready to give my assent to the law.
Let this then be one of our rules and principles concerning the gods, to which our poets and reciters will be expected to conform– that God is not the author of all things, but of good only.
That will do, he said.
If only it were so simple.
After serious derailment several months ago due to a multitude of events plus many other books, I finally revisited Plato this weekend and finished his Republic. I enjoyed it and plan on re-reading it sometime, as well as delving into his other works. Though I hardly agree with it all, I can see why some of my professors revere him so. He was one of a kind.
On to the Epic of Gilgamesh!
