; and
then her beauty will be revealed, and justice and injustice and all the
things which we have described will be manifested more clearly. Thus
far, we have spoken the truth concerning her as she appears at present,
but we must remember also that we have seen her only in a condition
which may be compared to that of the sea-god Glaucus, whose original
image can hardly be discerned because his natural members are broken
off and crushed and damaged by the waves in all sorts of ways, and
incrustations have grown over them of seaweed and shells and stones, so
that he is more like some monster than he is to his own natural form.
And the soul which we behold is in a similar condition, disfigured by
ten thousand ills. But not there, Glaucon, not there must we look.

Where then?

At her love of wisdom. Let us see whom she affects, and what society and
converse she seeks in virtue of her near kindred with the immortal
and eternal and divine; also how different she would become if wholly
following this superior principle, and borne by a divine impulse out of
the ocean in which she now is, and disengaged from the stones and shells
and things of earth and rock which in wild variety spring up around her
because she feeds upon earth, and is overgrown by the good things of
this life as they are termed: then you would see her as she is, and know
whether she have one shape only or many, or what her nature is. Of her
affections and of the forms which she takes in this present life I think
that we have now said enough.

True, he replied.

And thus, I said, we have fulfilled the conditions of the argument; we
have not introduced the rewards and glories of justice, which, as you
were saying, are to be found in Homer and Hesiod; but justice in her own
nature has been shown to be best for the soul in her own nature. Let a
man do what is just, whether he have the ring of Gyges or not, and even
if in addition to the ring of Gyges he put on the helmet of Hades.

Very true.

And now, Glaucon, there will be no harm in further enumerating how
many and how great are the rewards which justice and the other virtues
procure to the soul from gods and men, both in life and after death.

Certainly not, he said.

Will you repay me, then, what you borrowed in the argument?

What did I borrow?

The assumption that the just man should appear unjust and the unjust
just: for you were of opinion that even if the true state of the case
could not po