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“Come then,” I said, “and join me in this further thought, and do not be surprised that those who have attained to this height are not willing to occupy themselves with the affairs of men, but their souls ever feel the upward urge and the yearning for that sojourn above. But, at any rate, my dream as it appears to me is that in the region of the known, the last thing to be seen and hardly seen is the Idea of Good, and that when seen it must needs point us to the conclusion that this is indeed the cause for all things of all that is right and beautiful, giving birth in the visible world to light, and the author of light and itself in the intelligible world being the authentic source of truth and reason, and that anyone who is to act wisely in private or public must have caught sight of this.” “I concur,” he said, “so far as I am able.” And if you assume that the ascent and the contemplation of the things above is the soul's ascension to the intelligible region, you will not miss my surmise, since that is what you desire to hear. “This image then, dear Glaucon, we must apply as a whole to all that has been said, likening the region revealed through sight to the habitation of the prison, and the light of the fire in it to the power of the sun. (At 521c he goes further and likens philosophers to those who have ascended from Hades to the heavenly gods.) So, they would lose any ambition to achieve fame for such false games and honors, which they would now regard as worthless. The prisoners are like shades in the underworld, and the enlightened is like one who has ascended back into life. Plato quotes a famous line of Homer’s Odyssey, where the shade of Achilles tells Odysseus that it were better to be a poor man’s slave than king of all the dead. Likewise, they would regard the interest and pursuits of the prisoners in recalling and guessing the shadows as a pitiful. But once they had become accustomed to the daylight world with its real objects instead of shadows or idols and direct sunlight instead of the reflected glow of flame, they would come to regard the shadows and idols as mere imitations and cast-offs of the real things. They were confused by and even doubted the reality of the brighter, solid things that they saw as they ascended up and out of the cave. Here Socrates considers the attitude of the enlightened person who has seen the sun toward their former status in the cave.

#SHIFTY EYES HOMER FULL#

“ Well then, if he recalled to mind his first habitation and what passed for wisdom there, and his fellow-bondsmen, do you not think that he would count himself happy in the change and pity them?” “He would indeed.” “And if there had been honors and commendations among them which they bestowed on one another and prizes for the man who is quickest to make out the shadows as they pass and best able to remember their customary precedences, sequences and co-existences, and so most successful in guessing at what was to come, do you think he would be very keen about such rewards, and that he would envy and emulate those who were honored by these prisoners and lorded it among them, or that he would feel with Homer and “‘greatly prefer while living on earth to be serf of another, a landless man,’” and endure anything rather than opine with them and live that life?” “Yes,” he said, “I think that he would choose to endure anything rather than such a life.” “And consider this also,” said I, “if such a one should go down again and take his old place would he not get his eyes full of darkness, thus suddenly coming out of the sunlight?” “He would indeed.” “Now if he should be required to contend with these perpetual prisoners in 'evaluating' these shadows while his vision was still dim and before his eyes were accustomed to the dark-and this time required for habituation would not be very short-would he not provoke laughter, and would it not be said of him that he had returned from his journey aloft with his eyes ruined and that it was not worthwhile even to attempt the ascent? And if it were possible to lay hands on and to kill the man who tried to release them and lead them up, would they not kill him?” “They certainly would,” he said.

Shifty eyes homer