falls, one or two to separate apartments.  The young people,
however, wait upon one another, and that alas! with some un-
willingness.  They have first and second tables, and on both
sides there are seats.  On one side sit the women, on the other
the men; and as in the refectories of the monks, there is no
noise.  While they are eating a young man reads a book from
a platform, intoning distinctly and sonorously, and often the
magistrates question them upon the more important parts of
the reading.  And truly it is pleasant to observe in what man-
ner these young people, so beautiful and clothed in garments
so suitable, attend to them, and to see at the same time so many
friends, brothers, sons, fathers, and mothers all in their turn
living together with so much honesty, propriety, and love.  So
each one is given a napkin, a plate, fish, and a dish of food.  It
is the duty of the medical officers to tell the cooks what repasts
shall be prepared on each day, and what food for the old, what
for the young, and what for the sick.  The magistrates receive
the full-grown and fatter portion, and they from their share
always distribute something to the boys at the table who have
shown themselves more studious in the morning at the lectures
and debates concerning wisdom and arms.  And this is held
to be one of the most distinguished honors.  For six days they
ordain to sing with music at table.  Only a few, however, sing;
or there is one voice accompanying the lute and one for each
other instrument.  And when all alike in service join their
hands, nothing is found to be wanting.  The old men placed
at the head of the cooking business and of the refectories of the
servants praise the cleanliness of the streets, the houses, the ves-
sels, the garments, the workshops, and the warehouses.

   They wear white under-garments to which adheres a cover-
ing, which is at once coat and legging, without wrinkles.  The
borders of the fastenings are furnished with globular buttons,
extended round and caught up here and there by chains.  The
coverings of the legs descend to the shoes and are continued
even to the heels.  Then they cover the feet with large socks,
or, as it were, half-buskins fastened by buckles, over which they
wear a half-boot, and besides, as I have already said, they are
clothed with a toga.  And so aptly fitting are the garments,
that when the toga is destroyed, the different parts of the whole
body are straightway discerned, no part being concealed.  They
change their clothes for different ones four times in the year,
that is when the sun enters respectively the constellations Aries,
Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn, and according to the circum-
stances and necessity as decided by the officer of health.  The
keepers of clothes for the different rings are wont to distribute
them, and it is marvellous that they have at the same time as
many garments as there is need for, some heavy and some
slight, according to the weather.  They all use white clothing,
and this is washed in each month with lye or soap, as are also
the workshops of the lower trades, the kitchens, the pantries
the barns, the store-houses, the armories, the refectories, and
the baths.

   Moreover, the clothes are washed at the pillars of the peri-
styles, and the water is brought down by means of canals which
are continued as sewers.  In every street of the different rings
there are suitable fountains, which send forth their water by
means of canals, the water being drawn up from nearly the bot-
tom of the mountain by the sole movement of a cleverly con-
trived handle.  There is water in fountains and in cisterns,
whither the rain-water collected from the roofs of the houses
is brought through pipes full of sand.  They wash their bodies
often, according as the doctor and master command.  All the
mechanical arts are practised under the peristyles, but the spec-
ulative are carried on above in the walking galleries and ram-
parts where are the more splendid paintings, but the more sacred
ones are taught in the temple.  In the halls and wings of the
rings there are solar time-pieces and bells, and hands by which
the hours and seasons are marked off.


G.M.  Tell me about their children.


Capt.  When their women have brought forth children, they
suckle and rear them in temples set apart for all.  They give
milk for two years or more as the physician orders.  After that
time the weaned child is given into the charge of the mistresses,
if it is a female, and to the masters, if it is a male.  And then
with other young children they are pleasantly instructed in the
alphabet, and in the knowledge of the pictures, and in running,
walking, and wrestling; also in the historical drawings, and in
languages; and they are adorned with a suitable garment of
different colors.  After their sixth year they are taught natural
science, and then the mechanical sciences.  The men who are
weak in intellect are sent to farms, and when they have become
more proficient some of them are received into the State.  And
those of the same age and born under the same constellation
are especially like one another in strength and in appearance,
and hence arises much lasting concord in the State, these men
honoring one another with mutual love and help.  Names are
given to them by Metaphysicus, and that not by chance, but de-
signedly, and according to each one's peculiarity, as was the
custom among the ancient Romans.  Wherefore one is called
Beautiful (Pulcher), another the Big-nosed (Naso), another
the Fat-legged (Cranipes), another Crooked (Torvus), an-
other Lean (Macer), and so on.  But when they have become
very skilled in their professions and done any great deed in war
or in time of peace, a cognomen from art is given to them, such
as Beautiful the Great Painter (Pulcher, Pictor Magnus), the
Golden One (Aureus), the Excellent One (Excellens), or the
Strong (Strenuus); or from their deeds, such as Naso the
Brave (Nason Fortis), or the Cunning, or the Great, or Very
Great Conqueror; or from the enemy anyone has overcome,
Africanus, Asiaticus, Etruscus; or if anyone has overcome
Manfred or Tortelius, he is called Macer Manfred or Tortelius,
and so on.  All these cognomens are added by the higher mag-
istrates, and very often with a crown suitable to the deed or art,
and with the flourish of music.  For gold and silver are reck-
oned of little value among them except as material for their
vessels and ornaments, which are common to all.


G.M.  Tell me, I pray you, is there no jealousy among them
or disappointment to that one who has not been elected to a
magistracy, or to any other dignity to which he aspires?


Capt.  Certainly not.  For no one wants either necessaries
or luxuries.  Moreover, the race is managed for the good of
the commonwealth, and not of private individuals, and the mag-
istrates must be obeyed.  They deny what we hold -- viz., that it
is natural to man to recognize his offspring and to educate them,
and to use his wife and house and children as his own.  For
they say that children are bred for the preservation of the
species and not for individual pleasure, as St. Thomas also as-
serts.  Therefore the breeding of children has reference to the
commonwealth, and not to individuals, except in so far as they
are constituents of the commonwealth.  And since individuals
for the most part bring forth children wrongly and educate
them wrongly, they consider that they remove destruction from
the State, and therefore for this reason, with most sacred fear,
they commit the education of the children, who, as it were, are
the element of the republic, to the care of magistrates; for the
safety of the community is not that of a few.  And thus they
distribute male and female breeders of the best natures accord-
ing to philosophical rules.  Plato thinks that this distribution
ought to be made by lot, lest some men seeing that they are kept
away from the beautiful women, should rise up with anger and
hatred against the magistrates; and he thinks further that those
who do not deserve cohabitation with the more beautiful
women, should be deceived while the lots are being led out of
the city by the magistrates, so that at all times the women who
are suitable should fall to their lot, not those whom they desire.
This shrewdness, however, is not necessary among the inhab-
itants of the City of the Sun.  For with them deformity is un-
known.  When the women are exercised they get a clear com-
plexion, and become strong of limb, tall and agile, and with
them beauty consists in tallness and strength.  Therefore, if
any woman dyes her face, so that it may become beautiful, or
uses high-heeled boots so that she may appear tall, or garments
with trains to cover her wooden shoes, she is condemned to cap-
ital punishment.  But if the women should even desire them
they have no facility for doing these things.  For who indeed
would give them this facility?  Further, they assert that among
us abuses of this kind arise from the leisure and sloth of women.
By these means they lose their color and have pale complexions,
and become feeble and small.  For this reason they are without
proper complexions, use high sandals, and become beautiful not
from strength, but from slothful tenderness.  And thus they
ruin their own tempers and natures, and consequently those of
their offspring.  Furthermore, if at any time a man is taken
captive with ardent love for a certain woman, the two are al-
lowed to converse and joke together and to give one another
garlands of flowers or leaves, and to make verses.  But if the
race is endangered, by no means is further union between them
permitted.  Moreover, the love born of eager desire is not
known among them; only that born of friendship.

   Domestic affairs and partnerships are of little account, be-
cause, excepting the sign of honor, each one receives what he
is in need of.  To the heroes and heroines of the republic, it
is customary to give the pleasing gifts of honor, beautiful
wreaths, sweet food, or splendid clothes, while they are feast-
ing.  In the daytime all use white garments within the city, but
at night or outside the city they use red garments either of wool
or silk.  They hate black as they do dung, and therefore they
dislike the Japanese, who are fond of black.  Pride they con-
sider the most execrable vice, and one who acts proudly is
chastised with the most ruthless correction.  Wherefore no
one thinks it lowering to wait at table or to work in the kitchen
or fields.  All work they call discipline, and thus they say that
it is honorable to go on foot, to do any act of nature, to see with
the eye, and to speak with the tongue; and when there is need,
they distinguish philosophically between tears and spittle.

   Every man who, when he is told off to work, does his duty,
is considered very honorable.  It is not the custom to keep
slaves.  For they are enough, and more than enough, for them-
selves.  But with us, alas! it is not so.  In Naples there exist
70,000 souls, and out of these scarcely 10,000 or 15,000 do any
work, and they are always lean from overwork and are getting
weaker every day.  The rest become a prey to idleness, avarice,
ill-health, lasciviousness, usury, and other vices, and contam-
inate and corrupt very many families by holding them in servi-
tude for their own use, by keeping them in poverty and slavish-
ness, and by imparting to them their own vices.  Therefore
public slavery ruins them; useful works, in the field, in military
service, and in arts, except those which are debasing, are not
cultivated, the few who do practise them doing so with much
aversion.

   But in the City of the Sun, while duty and work are dis-
tributed among all, it only falls to each one to work for about
four hours every day.  The remaining hours are spent in learn-
ing joyously, in debating, in reading, in reciting, in writing, in
walking, in exercising the mind and body, and with play.  They
allow no game which is played while sitting, neither the single
die nor dice, nor chess, nor others like these.  But they play
with the ball, with the sack, with the hoop, with wrestling, with
hurling at the stake.  They say, moreover, that grinding poverty
renders men worthless, cunning, sulky, thievish, insidious, vag-
abonds, liars, false witnesses, etc.; and that wealth makes them
insolent, proud, ignorant, traitors, assumers of what they know
not, deceivers, boasters, wanting in affection, slanderers, etc.
But with them all the rich and poor together make up the com-
munity.  They are rich because they want nothing, poor be-
cause they possess nothing; and consequently they are not
slaves to circumstances, but circumstances serve them.  And on
this point they strongly recommend the religion of the Chris-
tians, and especially the life of the apostles.


G.M.  This seems excellent and sacred, but the community
of women is a thing too difficult to attain.  The holy Roman
Clement says that wives ought to be common in accordance with
the apostolic institution, and praises Plato and Socrates, who
thus teach, but the Glossary interprets this community with
regard to obedience.  And Tertullian agrees with the Glossary,
that the first Christians had everything in common except
wives.


Capt.  These things I know little of.  But this I saw among
the inhabitants of the City of the Sun, that they did not make
this exception.  And they defend themselves by the opinion of
Socrates, of Cato, of Plato, and of St. Clement; but, as you say,
they misunderstand the opinions of these thinkers.  And the
inhabitants of the solar city ascribe this to their want of educa-
tion, since they are by no means learned in philosophy.  Never-
theless, they send abroad to discover the customs of nations,
and the best of these they always adopt.  Practice makes the
women suitable for war and other duties.  Thus they agree with
Plato, in whom I have read these same things.  The reasoning
of our Cajetan does not convince me, and least of all that of
Aristotle.  This thing, however, existing among them is ex-
cellent and worthy of imitation -- viz., that no physical defect
renders a man incapable of being serviceable except the decrepi-
tude of old age, since even the deformed are useful for consulta-
tion.  The lame serve as guards, watching with the eyes which
they possess.  The blind card wool with their hands, separating
the down from the hairs, with which latter they stuff the
couches and sofas; those who are without the use of eyes and
hands give the use of their ears or their voice for the conven-
ience of the State, and if one has only one sense he uses it in the
farms.  And these cripples are well treated, and some become
spies, telling the officers of the State what they have heard.


G.M.  Tell me now, I pray you, of their military affairs.
Then you may explain their arts, ways of life and sciences,
and lastly their religion.


Capt.  The triumvir, Power, has under him all the magis-
trates of arms, of artillery, of cavalry, of  foot-soldiers, of archi-
tects, and of strategists; and the masters and many of the

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