The city

I saddled my she-camel and came to al-Madīnah, and there was the Messenger of God, God bless him and grant him peace, and his companions.

So I seized him, and I remembered the supplication of my brother Sulaymān, and had it not been for that he would have been left bound for the people of al-Madīnah to see — or as he said, upon him be peace.

And as the welfare of the city and the good order of its affairs come about only if the king is learned in the courses of governance, comprehends the modes of management, knows the outcomes of affairs, governs the soldiery and sets the subjects straight;

and likewise the city is separate houses, and its being a city does not subsist in each house but in the whole.

and if you yourselves give that attention to the trial which the considerations I have put before you demand, and inflict upon the criminal a punishment proportionate to the injury which he has done, you will cleanse the entire city of its defilement.

Thus may all of us citizens best avoid defilement.

I forbade the ass-drivers, as I said, to touch the wood, and after giving notice to Phaenippus to attend the sacrifice, as the law commands, I went back to the city.

I would not be pressing you so urgently to study philosophy unless I thought that in this I was making you a most precious contribution as evidence of my goodwill, and unless I observed that our city often makes use of ordinary men for lack of men of the best type, and through their bungling incurs the gravest misfortunes.

Neither do I think that it will be in your power to live as chance decrees, but that the City will appoint you to be in charge of some department of her business, and in proportion as your natural gifts are the more conspicuous it will judge you worthy of greater responsibilities and will the sooner desire to make trial of you.

so that the strangers who first visit either laugh at the city or pity it.

Since now even the land before the gates is altogether wild and dreadfully unsightly, as though in the deepest wilderness, not as the suburb of a city;

and I followed to the city.

they fled the city, as though no longer able to see it with their own eyes.

our lord and master Muḥammad ibn ʻAbd Allāh, whose body appeared in Makkah and was hidden away in al-Madīnah, and whose noble name came to be present throughout the world;

Thus, then, as it seems, you will lay down the law in the city that we are founding, that the lover may kiss and pass the time with and touch the beloved as a father would a son, for honorable ends, if he persuade him.

And shall we not also need in our city, Glaucon, a permanent overseer of this kind if its constitution is to be preserved?

And when they have arrived they must look out for the fairest site in the city for their encampment, a position from which they could best hold down rebellion against the laws from within and repel aggression from without as of a wolf against the fold.

Then reaching the sāla forest near the city of Kaliṅga, Bharata arrived swiftly, though his horses were utterly exhausted.