Plato, Republic, Paul Shorey (Translator), 1.330

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[330] You are right, he said. They don’t accept my view and there is something in their objection, though not so much as they suppose. But the retort of Themistocles comes in pat here, who, when a man from the little island of Seriphus¹ grew abusive and told him that he owed his fame not to himself 330a but to the city from which he came, replied that neither would he himself ever have made a name if he had been born in Seriphus nor the other if he had been an Athenian. And the same principle applies excellently to those who not being rich take old age hard; for neither would the reasonable man find it altogether easy to endure old age conjoined with poverty, nor would the unreasonable man by the attainment of riches ever attain to self-contentment and a cheerful temper. May I ask, Cephalus, said I, whether you inherited most of your possessions or acquired them yourself? Acquired, eh? he said. 330b As a moneymaker, I hold a place somewhere halfway between my grandfather and my father. For my grandfather and namesake² inherited about as much property as I now possess and multiplied it many times, my father Lysanias reduced it below the present amount, and I am content if I shall leave the estate to these boys not less but by some slight measure more than my inheritance. The reason I asked, I said, is that you appear to me not to be over-fond of money. 330c And that is generally the case with those who have not earned it themselves.³ But those who have themselves acquired it have a double reason in comparison with other men for loving it. For just as poets feel complacency about their own poems and fathers about their own sons,⁴ so men who have made money take this money seriously as their own creation and they also value it for its uses as other people do. So they are hard to talk to since they are unwilling to commend anything except wealth. 330d
You are right, he replied. I assuredly am, said I. But tell me further this. What do you regard as the greatest benefit you have enjoyed from the possession of property? Something, he said, which I might not easily bring many to believe if I told them.⁵ For let me tell you, Socrates, he said, that when a man begins to realize that he is going to die, he is filled with apprehensions and concern about matters that before did not occur to him. The tales that are told of the world below and how the men who have done wrong here must pay the penalty there,⁶ though he may have laughed them down⁷ hitherto, 330e then begin to torture his soul with the doubt that there may be some truth in them. And apart from that the man himself⁸ either from the weakness of old age or possibly as being now nearer to the things beyond has a somewhat clearer view of them. Be that as it may, he is filled with doubt, surmises, and alarms and begins to reckon up and consider whether he has ever wronged anyone.

Republic. Plato. Paul Shorey (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1935-37.

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Current edition Perseus

Republic (English) (Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 5-6. Shorey, Paul, translator. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1935-37 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Πολιτεία Perseus (Platonis Opera Tomus IV: Tetralogia VIII. Burnet, John, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.) — 1.330 focus

[330]
ἀληθῆ, ἔφη, λέγεις· οὐ γὰρ ἀποδέχονται. καὶ λέγουσι μέν τι, οὐ μέντοι γε ὅσον οἴονται· ἀλλὰ τὸ τοῦ Θεμιστοκλέους εὖ ἔχει, ὃς τῷ Σεριφίῳ λοιδορουμένῳ καὶ λέγοντι 330a ὅτι οὐ διʼ αὑτὸν ἀλλὰ διὰ τὴν πόλιν εὐδοκιμοῖ, ἀπεκρίνατο ὅτι οὔτʼ ἂν αὐτὸς Σερίφιος ὢν ὀνομαστὸς ἐγένετο οὔτʼ ἐκεῖνος Ἀθηναῖος. καὶ τοῖς δὴ μὴ πλουσίοις, χαλεπῶς δὲ τὸ γῆρας φέρουσιν, εὖ ἔχει ὁ αὐτὸς λόγος, ὅτι οὔτʼ ἂν ὁ ἐπιεικὴς πάνυ τι ῥᾳδίως γῆρας μετὰ πενίας ἐνέγκοι οὔθʼ ὁ μὴ ἐπιεικὴς πλουτήσας εὔκολός ποτʼ ἂν ἑαυτῷ γένοιτο.
πότερον δέ, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, ὦ Κέφαλε, ὧν κέκτησαι τὰ πλείω παρέλαβες ἢ ἐπεκτήσω; 330b
ποῖʼ ἐπεκτησάμην, ἔφη, ὦ Σώκρατες; μέσος τις γέγονα χρηματιστὴς τοῦ τε πάππου καὶ τοῦ πατρός. ὁ μὲν γὰρ πάππος τε καὶ ὁμώνυμος ἐμοὶ σχεδόν τι ὅσην ἐγὼ νῦν οὐσίαν κέκτημαι παραλαβὼν πολλάκις τοσαύτην ἐποίησεν, Λυσανίας δὲ ὁ πατὴρ ἔτι ἐλάττω αὐτὴν ἐποίησε τῆς νῦν οὔσης· ἐγὼ δὲ ἀγαπῶ ἐὰν μὴ ἐλάττω καταλίπω τούτοισιν, ἀλλὰ βραχεῖ γέ τινι πλείω ἢ παρέλαβον.
οὗ τοι ἕνεκα ἠρόμην, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, ὅτι μοι ἔδοξας οὐ σφόδρα 330c ἀγαπᾶν τὰ χρήματα, τοῦτο δὲ ποιοῦσιν ὡς τὸ πολὺ οἳ ἂν μὴ αὐτοὶ κτήσωνται· οἱ δὲ κτησάμενοι διπλῇ ἢ οἱ ἄλλοι ἀσπάζονται αὐτά. ὥσπερ γὰρ οἱ ποιηταὶ τὰ αὑτῶν ποιήματα καὶ οἱ πατέρες τοὺς παῖδας ἀγαπῶσιν, ταύτῃ τε δὴ καὶ οἱ χρηματισάμενοι περὶ τὰ χρήματα σπουδάζουσιν ὡς ἔργον ἑαυτῶν, καὶ κατὰ τὴν χρείαν ᾗπερ οἱ ἄλλοι. χαλεποὶ οὖν καὶ συγγενέσθαι εἰσίν, οὐδὲν ἐθέλοντες ἐπαινεῖν ἀλλʼ ἢ τὸν πλοῦτον.
ἀληθῆ, ἔφη, λέγεις. 330d
πάνυ μὲν οὖν, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ. ἀλλά μοι ἔτι τοσόνδε εἰπέ· τί μέγιστον οἴει ἀγαθὸν ἀπολελαυκέναι τοῦ πολλὴν οὐσίαν κεκτῆσθαι;
ὅ, ἦ δʼ ὅς, ἴσως οὐκ ἂν πολλοὺς πείσαιμι λέγων. εὖ γὰρ ἴσθι, ἔφη, ὦ Σώκρατες, ὅτι, ἐπειδάν τις ἐγγὺς ᾖ τοῦ οἴεσθαι τελευτήσειν, εἰσέρχεται αὐτῷ δέος καὶ φροντὶς περὶ ὧν ἔμπροσθεν οὐκ εἰσῄει. οἵ τε γὰρ λεγόμενοι μῦθοι περὶ τῶν ἐν Ἅιδου, ὡς τὸν ἐνθάδε ἀδικήσαντα δεῖ ἐκεῖ διδόναι 330e δίκην, καταγελώμενοι τέως, τότε δὴ στρέφουσιν αὐτοῦ τὴν ψυχὴν μὴ ἀληθεῖς ὦσιν· καὶ αὐτός—ἤτοι ὑπὸ τῆς τοῦ γήρως ἀσθενείας ἢ καὶ ὥσπερ ἤδη ἐγγυτέρω ὢν τῶν ἐκεῖ μᾶλλόν τι καθορᾷ αὐτά—ὑποψίας δʼ οὖν καὶ δείματος μεστὸς γίγνεται καὶ ἀναλογίζεται ἤδη καὶ σκοπεῖ εἴ τινά τι ἠδίκησεν.

Notes on the current edition

Republic

1. Lit. the Seriphean of the anecdote, which, however, Herodotus (viii. 125) tells of another. Cicero Cato M. 8

Seriphio cuidam.

2. Cephalus, Lysanias, Cephalus, and so frequently.

3. Aristotle makes a similar observation, Eth. Nic. iv. 1.20, Rhet. i. 11. 26, ii. 16. 4. For nouveaux riches, γενναῖοι ἐκ βαλλαντίου, see Starkie on Aristophanes Wasps, 1309.

4. Cf. Theaetetus 160 E, Symposium 209 C, Phaedrus 274 E, with Epaminondas’ saying, that Leuctra and Mantineia were his children.

5. Cf. Walter Scott’s

Be a good man, my dear; nothing else will give you any comfort, when you come to lie here.

Perhaps the earliest positive expression of faith in future life and judgement for sin is Pindar’s Second Olympian. See Rohde’s Psyche and Adam in Cambridge Praelections. The Epicureans and sometimes the Stoics unfairly reprobated Plato’s appeal here to this motive, which he disregards in his main argument and returns to only in the tenth book. Cf. 363 C-D, 386 B, 613 E ff., also 496 E, 498 D, 608 D.

6. Cf. 498 C and Pindar Ol. ii. 64. But 500 D, there is the realm of Platonic ideas.

7. Cf. Gorgias 523 A, 527 A.

8. The conclusion logically expected, is more credulous, shifts to the alternative preferred by Plato. ὥσπερ marks the figurative sense of nearer. καθορᾷ is not

takes a more careful view of it

(Goodwin) but wins a glimpse, catches sight of those obscure things, as a sailor descries land. So often in Plato. Cf. Epin. 985 C. Sir Thomas Browne, Christ. Morals, iii. 22

And having been long tossed in the Ocean of the world, he will by that time feel the draught of another.

Waller on the Divine Poems—

The Soul's Dark Cottage, batter'd and decay'd,

Lets in new light through chinks that time has made . . .

Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view

That stand upon the threshold of the new.

Rabelais, iii. 21

Aussi les anges, les heroes, les bons demons (selon la doctrine des Platonicques) voyans les humains prochains de mort comme deport très sceur et salutaire—les saluent les consolent, parlent avec eux et ja commencement leur communicquer art de divination.

Commentary

Commentary on Plato, Republic (Plato. The Republic, Vol 1-2. Adam, James, editor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902-1903.) focus

Πλάτωνος Πολιτεία . On the name, characters, and date of action of the dialogue, see Introd. §§ 1, 2, 3.

καὶ τοῖς δή . καί is ‘also’ and δή illative.

εὔκολος ‐‐ ἑαυτῷ . The dative is used as with εὐμενής: cf. Ar. Frogs 359 μηδ’ εὔκολός ἐστι πολίταις (v.l. πολίτης). To suit the application precisely to the story we should require (1) neither would the ἐπιεικής easily endure old age with poverty, (2) nor the μὴ ἐπιεικής easily endure old age with riches. For (2) Plato substitutes ‘nor would the bad man ever attain to peace with himself by becoming rich’; thereby conveying the further idea that the bad man is not εὔκολος ἑαυτῷ under any circumstances or at any time. Richards' suggestion ἐν αὐτῷ (i.e. γήρᾳ) for ἑαυτῷ is neat, but loses sight of this additional point. The allusion to old age in the second clause, so far as it is necessary to allude to it, is contained in ποτε.

ποἶ ἐπεκτησάμην κτλ. : ‘do you want to know what I acquired, Socrates?’ ποῖα is simply ‘what’ as in Men. 87 E σκεψώμεθα δὴ καθ’ ἕκαστον ἀναλαμβάνοντες, π οῖά ἐστιν ἃ ἡμᾶς ὠφελεῖ. ὑγίειά φαμεν καὶ ἰσχὺς καὶ κάλλος καὶ πλοῦτος δή· ταῦτα λέγομεν καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα ὠφέλιμα, and in the usual τὰ ποῖα ταῦτα; There is no derision implied, as in ποῖος Κτήσιππος ( Euthyd. 291 A ) and the like: had Cephalus desired to pour scorn on the suggestion, he would have said πόθεν ἐπεκτησάμην; (cf. Crat. 398 E ): and it would be absurd to deride a charge to which you at once plead guilty ( γέγονα χρηματιστής κτλ.). If Socrates' question had been not πότερον—τὰ πλείω παρέλαβες ἢ ἐπεκτήσω, but ποῖα ἐπεκτήσω, Cephalus would have said ὁποῖα ἐπεκτησάμην: but this idiom is inadmissible, except where the same interrogative occurs in its direct form in the original question. In view of the answer ( μέσος τις κτλ.) which Cephalus gives, πόσα for ποῖα would be too precise. Of the various emendations which have been suggested, the only plausible one (in point of sense) is Richards' πότερον for ποἶ or ποῖ: this would assimilate the original and the repeated question, but is less well adapted to Cephalus' reply. Cephalus in point of fact uses an old man's privilege and accommodates his interrogator's question to his own reply. See also V 465 E note

Λυσανίας δέ . Groen van Prinsterer's suggestion ( Platon. Prosopogr. p. 111) Λυσίας for Λυσανίας is at first sight plausible, since it is in harmony with the well-known Greek custom of calling grandsons after their grandfathers: but the fashion was by no means invariable: see Blümner, Gr. Privatalterth. p. 284. [Plut.] vit. Lys. 835 C also calls Cephalus son of Lysanias.

τούτοισιν . Bekker and others read τουτοισί, but there is no reason for deserting the MSS. The archaic dative in ‐οισι is tolerably often used by Plato. In the Republic alone it recurs in 345 E, 388 D, 389 B, 468 D (Homer), 560 E, 564 C, 607 B ( ‐αισι) (poetic): see also Schneider on III 389 B, and for the usage of inscriptions Meisterhans^{3} p. 126. In this particular passage the archaic ending suits the age of the speaker; but it should be remembered that Plato's style (at least in his more mature dialogues) is not a mere reproduction of the vernacular Attic, but also in no small measure a literary language or ‘Kunstsprache,’ in which Ionisms and poetic and archaic forms are occasionally employed: see especially Hirzel Der Dialog I pp. 246—250 notes Hirzel (ib. p. 34 note 1) gives reasons for holding that a sort of κοινὴ διάλεκτος, resembling the dialect of Herodotus, was actually spoken in certain cultivated circles at Athens in the Periclean age, e.g. by Anaxagoras and his group, by the Ionian sophists and their followers etc., and some of Plato's Ionisms may be inherited from this source. Cf. VII 533 B note

οὗ τοι ἕνεκα ‐‐ ὅτι . The reading τούτου for οὗ, though supported by Stobaeus ( Flor. 94. 22), is a correction made by some one unacquainted with the idiom, which is common enough in conversational style: cf. infra 491 B ὃ μὲν πάντων θαυμαστότατον ἀκοῦσαι, ὅτι κτλ. and Ar. Frogs 108 . Hartman's τοῦ τοι (interrogative) is ingenious, but unnecessary.

διπλῇ ἢ οἱ ἄλλοι . The meaning is simply ‘twice as much as the others’: cf. e.g. Laws 868 A διπλῇ τὸ βλάβος ἐκτεισάτω and 928 B ζημιούτω— διπλῇ. The ἤ is like ἤ after διπλάσιος, πολλαπλάσιος etc. If διπλῇ meant simply ‘on two grounds,’ it could not be followed by ἤ, and we should have to regard ἢ οἱ ἄλλοι as an interpolation. Cephalus expresses himself somewhat loosely, as if loving a thing on two grounds, or in two ways, were equivalent to loving it twice as much. ταύτῃ below is defined by the ὥσπερ clause, and is preferred to ὥσπερ, partly in order to correspond to διπλῇ but stiil more to suit κατὰ τὴν χρείαν. The present passage is through Aristotle ( Eth. Nic. IV 2. 1120^{b} 14, cf. ib. IX 7. 1168^{a} 1—3) the source of the proverb about ‘parents and poets.’

ξυγγενέσθαι : ‘to meet’ in social intercourse, as in Ap. 41 A . ξυγγίγνεσθαι (suggested by Richards) would express habitual intercourse, which is not what Plato means to say. With the sentiment cf. Symp. 173 C ὅταν μέν τινας περὶ φιλοσοφίας λόγους ἢ αὐτὸς ποιῶμαι ἢ ἄλλων ἀκούω—ὑπερφυῶς ὡς χαίρω· ὅταν δὲ ἀλλους τινάς, ἄλλως τε καὶ τοὺς ὑμετέρους τοὺς τῶν πλουσίων καὶ χρηματιστικῶν, αὐτός τε ἄχθομαι ὑμᾶς τε τοὺς ἑταίρους ἐλεῶ, ὅτι οἴεσθε τὶ ποιεῖν οὐδὲν ποιοῦντες.

ἐπειδὰν ‐‐ τελευτήσειν : ‘when a man faces the thought that he must die,’ not (with Jowett) ‘when a man thinks himself to be near death,’ which would be ἐπειδάν τις ἐγγὺς εἶναι οἴηται τοῦ τελευτῆσαι, as Herwerden proposes to read (cf. Laws 922 C ὅταν ἤδη μέλλειν ἡγώμεθα τελευτᾶν). “Senum, non iuvenum τὸ οἴεσθαι τελευτήσειν est” (Hartman): the weakness of old age convinces us at last that we too must die. Cf. Simon. 85. 7—10 θνητῶν δ’ ὄφρα τις ἄνθος ἔχῃ πολυήρατον ἥβης | κοῦφον ἔχων θυμόν, πόλλ’ ἀτέλεστα νοεῖ· | οὔτε γὰρ ἐλπίδ’ ἔχει γηρασέμεν οὔτε θανεῖσθαι, | οὐδ’ ὑγιὴς ὅταν ᾖ, φροντίδ’ ἔχει καμάτου .

ἀδικήσαντα ‐‐ διδόναι δίκην . Plato is fond of this verbal play: cf Euthyph. 8 B and 8 E τῷ γε ἀδικοῦντι δοτέον δίκην. He who does not render justice in deeds must render justice in punishment: for the tale of justice must be made up. Note that we have here in ἀδικία and δίκη the first casual allusion to the subject of the Republic.

αὐτὸς κτλ . αὐτός= ipse s. ultro as opposed to οἱ λεγόμενοι μῦθοι. The verb is to be supplied by a kind of zeugma from μᾶλλόν τι καθορᾷ αὐτά (i.e. τὰ ἐκεῖ; or rather the predicate is accommodated to the second alternative. Cf. 344 B infra and VIII 553 C. To regard the bodily weakness of old age as in itself the cause of clearer vision of the world beyond may be in harmony with the doctrine of the Phaedo, but Cephalus is not represented as a Platonist. Tucker needlessly doubts the text.

καὶ ἐκ τῶν ὕπνων κτλ . καί is ‘both,’ not ‘and,’ and balances καὶ ζῇ: ‘many a time, like children, awakes out of sleep in terror and lives in the expectation of ill.’ For ὥσπερ οἱ παῖδες compare Phaed. 77 D , E, and for the general sentiment Arist. Eth. Nic. I 13. 1102^{b} 8—11 ἀργία γάρ ἐστιν ὁ ὕπνος τῆς φυχῆς ᾗ λέγεται σπουδαία καὶ φαύλη, πλὴν ε<*> πῃ κατὰ μικρὸν διικνοῦνταί τινες τῶν κινήσεων, καὶ ταύτῃ βελτίω γίνεται τὰ φαντάσματα τῶν ἐπιεικῶν ἢ τῶν τυχόντων.

Plato Republic 1.330

Paul Shorey (Translator)

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