The Republic · ¶96

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…

Plato · translated by Benjamin Jowett · composite transcription based on the 1888 third edition
Benjamin Jowett, revised third edition (1888), with Stephanus numbering from the 1908 edition; composite transcription, Project Gutenberg #55201
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