Plato Protagoras 345

τίς οὖν εἰς γράμματα κτλ. In order to read into Simonides the doctrine that virtue is knowledge and vice ignorance, Socrates assigns to πράξας εὖ in the poem the meaning of acting well, rather than faring well.

κακὸς δὲ κακῶς , sc. πράξας : a free rendering of κακὸς δ’ εἰ κακῶς of the poem, which Kral (following Ast) reads here against the MSS.

κακῶς πράξαντες , i.e. εἰ κακῶς πράξαιμεν , as the words of the poem show. Socrates' reasoning is: to become a bad doctor by practising badly, you must first have been a good doctor: for if you cannot become a doctor by practising badly, obviously you cannot become a bad doctor. The argument is as fallacious as it is ingenious: it assumes that κακὸς ἰατρός is a twofold notion, and more than ἰατρός , whereas it is a single notion and less. It would be more in conformity with experience to say that the ἰδιώτης does become by practising badly a κακὸς ἰατρός .

αὕτη γὰρ μόνη—στερηθῆναι . This sentence (necessary as the converse of the statement in 345A that good action comes from knowledge) is introduced as an explanation of ὑπὸ χρόνου κτλ. , because χρόνος, πόνος, νόσος , etc., produce ἐπιστήμης στέρησις .

μέλλει—γενέσθαι . See on 312C above.

διατελοῦντα ἀγαθόν explains ἀγαθόν more precisely: cf. 344B γενόμενον δὲ διαμένειν ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ ἕξει καὶ εἶναι ἄνδρα ἀγαθόν. διατελεῖν without a participle seems not to be elsewhere found in Plato, though it occurs in Thucydides and others.

ἐπὶ πλεῖστον : ‘ diutissime , ut ἐπὶ πολύ saepe significat diu ’. καί is ‘also’ not ‘and’, and balances οὓς ἂν οἱ θεοὶ φιλῶσιν : οἱ θεοφιλεῖς are also ἄριστοι .

ἐπί θ’ ὑμῖν εὑρὼν ἀπαλλελέω : after Bergk's emendation for the ἔπειθ’ ὑμῖν of the MSS., which cannot be made to scan: see Appendix I, p. 217. It might be possible (in view especially of φησίν in the next line) to regard ἔπειτα here as no part of the poem, were it not for 346D where it must be part. ἐπί θ’ ὑμῖν is the most probable of the many emendations proposed and accounts by far the most easily for the reading of the MSS. ἐπί is to be taken with εὑρών , and τε is like the quasignomic τε in Homer, e.g. Il. I. 218 ὅς κε θεοῖς ἐπιπείθηται, μάλα τ’ ἔκλυον αὐτοῦ. Translate ‘“trust me, I will tell you when I've found your man”, says he’. ὑμῖν (a kind of ethic dative) does not belong so much to ἀπαλλελέω as to ἐφευρών . What Simonides himself wrote was no doubt ἐπί τ’ ὔμμιν (availing himself of the Aeolic form as in the next line); this Plato put in Attic as ἐπί θ’ ὑμῖν , from which to ἔπειθ’ ὑμῖν the step was easy. Sauppe's ἐπὶ δή μιν εὑρών and Kroschel's ἐπεὶ οὔτιν’ εὑρών are hardly happy.

φησίν applies only to the last line: the former φησὶ γάρ covers the first sentence.

πάντας ὅστις : so below in l. 16 ὥστε τούτους φάναι ἐπαινεῖν ὃς ἄν and in l. 23 ὃς ἂν—τούτων : see also note on 319D

ἀνάγκῃ δ’ οὐδὲ θεοὶμάχονται . Proverbial: cf. Laws , VII. 818B ἔοικεν ὁ τὸν θεὸν πρῶτον παροιμιασάμενος—εἰπεῖν ὡς οὐδὲ θεὸς ἀνάγκῃ μή ποτε φανῇ μαχόμενος . Aars quotes the words of Agamemnon in Il. XIX. 86 ἐγὼ δ’ οὐκ αἴτιός εἰμι, ἀλλὰ Ζεὺς καὶ Μοῖρα καὶ ἠεροφοῖτις Ἐρινύς.

ὃς ἂν ἑκὼν—ποιῇ : but ἑκὼν ὅστις ἕρδῃ without ἄν above, as often in poetry: Goodwin, M.T. p. 208, § 540.

οὐδεὶς τῶν σοφῶν—ἑκόντα ἐξαμαρτάνειν . The doctrine that no one sins willingly—a corollary of the view that vice is only ignorance—is characteristic of the ethical teaching both of Socrates and Plato (compare note on 324A and on Euthyphr. 2C ), but not of all Greek sages, and it is only by the most perverse sophistry that Socrates here reads it into Simonides, ignoring entirely the words ἀνάγκῃ δ’ οὐδὲ θεοὶ μάχονται .

καὶ δὴ καί : see on 343B above.

καλὸν κἀγαθόν : see on Apol. 21D .

καὶ ἐπαινέτην . The words φιλεῖν καὶ ἐπαινεῖν which follow in the MSS. were ejected by Heindorf.