How is sorrow dealt with according to Socrates by Plato? How is this relevant to human nature today? Is feeling sorrow truly weak as noted around line 602? Are there ideas in the discourse of The Republic that relate to Sigmund Freud's ideas as well as Walt Whitman's?

Sorrow is dealt with by concealing it and pretending to be happy and content as to not embarrass oneself before one's peers. Throughout history, it was thought inappropriate to show passions or extreme emotion. Sometimes people were thought mad because of such occurrences. Today, some people still think it is improper to show a public display of emotion as if emotion is something that should be kept inside. But for some people, especially myself, I find it difficult to keep emotions bottled up inside. Often times I will not trouble others with problems but will release my frustrations into art (which displays another practical use of art, as if there needed to be any). I feel I am still afflicted with that very old policy of keeping my emotions to myself. I do not believe feeling sad is truly weak or "womanish" as Plato states around line 602 and I find it offensive to me and to women when people say such things even today.

Socrates mentions, "But, I remember, that on this subject we need not come to an agreement now; for we settled all this satisfactorily in the past conversations, in which we admitted that our soul is filled with a myriad of these simultaneous contradictions." Walt Whitman had a quote in which he stated that he does contradict himself but that he has a myriad of personalities within himself. So, to contradict oneself is potentially a human quality since it spans between more than just Whitman and Plato. Sigmund Freud is evident in Plato's writing with the line: "But when he is alone, he will venture to say much, which he would be ashamed to say in the hearing of another person, and he will do much, which he would not like anyone to see him doing." This gives almost a written definitive example of Freud's idea that human beings have a conscious part of ourselves which we keep hidden from the scornful society. Plato does not address happiness but I think it is important to mention that Freud had the notion that human beings should live life with the most pleasure possible.