τοῖς ὀνόμασι καὶ ῥήμασιν
. The dative is instrumental.
δοκεῖν ‐‐ δοκεῖν
. The repetition “partim perspicuitatis studio, partim sermonis familiaris negligentiae cuidam tribuenda videtur” Schneider, who cites in illustration
Laws 859 D, where there is a similar repetition of
εἶναι. Other parallels will be found in Engelhardt
Anac. Pl. Spec. III p. 44.
ῥυθμῷ καὶ ἁρμονίᾳ κτλ.
Rhythm and Pitch are the two elements of Music: see III 398 D note The words
αὐτὰ ταῦτα mean ‘just these’ and no more: viz. Metre and Music. For the sense cf. (with Ast) Isocrates
Evag. 8—10.
ἔχειν
. ἔχει was read till Bekker, apparently without any MS authority. The influence of
φήσομεν is still felt.
ἐπεὶ γυμνωθέντα ‐‐ φαίνεται
. Cf. Isocr. l.c. II
ἢν γάρ τις τῶν ποιημάτων τῶν εὐδοκιμούντων τὰ μὲν ὀνόματα καὶ τὰς διανοίας καταλίπῃ, τὸ δὲ μέτρον διαλύσῃ, φανήσεται πολὺ καταδεέστερα τῆς δόξης ἧς νῦν ἔχομεν περὶ αὐτῶν and Pl.
Gorg. 502 C
,
Symp. 205 C
,
Phaedr. 258 D
ἐν μέτρῳ ὡς ποιητής, ἢ ἄνευ μέτρου ὡς ἰδιώτης. A cursory inspection of these passages of Plato might lead one to suppose that he defined poetry as no more than
λόγος ἔχων μέτρον, but we can see from other passages in his writings that it was not the
μέτρον, but the
μῦθος which appeared to him to be the most essential part of poetry (e.g.
Phaed. 61 B
ἐννοήσας ὅτι τὸν ποιητὴν δέοι, εἴπερ μέλλοι ποιητὴς εἶναι, ποιεῖν μύθους ἀλλ’ οὐ λόγους: cf. Arist.
Poet. 9. 1451^{b} 29
τὸν ποιητὴν μᾶλλον τῶν μύθων εἶναι δεῖ ποιητὴν ἢ τῶν μέτρων. See also Walter
Gesch. d. Aesthetik im Alt. pp. 460, 463). Whether Plato would have spoken of a prose romance as a poem, is another question, and the passages to which I have referred make it unlikely that he would have done so. Aristotle seems to attach less importance than Plato to the metrical form: see
Poet. 1. 1447^{b} 17 ff.
οὐδὲν δὲ κοινόν ἐστιν Ὁμήρῳ καὶ Ἐμπεδοκλεῖ πλὴν τὸ μέτρον· διὸ τὸν μὲν ποιητὴν δίκαιον καλεῖν, τὸν δὲ φυσιολόγον μᾶλλον ἢ ποιητὴν κτλ. and ib. 9. 1451^{b} 2 ff.: but it is doubtful whether even Aristotle could have said with Sir Philip Sidney ‘One may be a poet without versifying,’ although he would certainly not quarrel with the converse statement that ‘one may be a versifier without poetry.’ See on the whole subject Butcher
Aristotle's Theory of Poetry^{2} etc. pp. 143 ff. and Courthope
Life in Poetry etc. pp. 68 ff.
τεθέασαι γάρ που
. An example is afforded by III 393 B ff., but the reference is more general.
ἔοικεν ‐‐ προλίπῃ
. Aristotle cites this as an example of an
εἰκών (
Rhet. III 4. 1406^{b} 36 ff.).
ἴθι δή, τόδε ἄθρει κτλ.
Plato has already proved that Imitation is ‘third from Truth’
ἐκ τῆς εἰωθυίας μεθόδου (596 A), i.e. from the ontological standpoint provided by his own Ideal Theory. The following argument takes up a different standpoint, according to which knowledge is defined as
ἐμπειρία or practical familiarity (601 C, D, 602 A). The attitude assumed throughout this section resembles in some respects that of the historical Socrates (601 D note). Can the two points of view be reconciled? Bosanquet makes an interesting attempt to do so (pp. 379, 389 ff.), but his misconception (as it seems to me) of Plato's Ideas renders his conclusions less valuable than they might otherwise have been. Krohn (
Pl. St. p. 255) professes himself unable to effect a reconciliation. We must admit that Plato himself does not, as a matter of fact, endeavour in this passage to connect the two arguments. Had he chosen to make the effort, I think a careful study of
Euthyd. 288 E
— 290 D and
Crat. 390 B
—E will shew on what lines he might have proceeded (see on
ἐμπειρότατον in 601 D), but it is safer to suppose that he has shifted his ground, and is applying a new and less strictly scientific
μέθοδος to shew that the Imitator is third from knowledge, as Imitation is from truth.
ἡμίσεως ‐‐ ῥηθέν
. See on 601 E.
ἡμίσεως or
ἡμισέως, in whichever way accented, is surely a full adverb, and not “the genitive used adverbially” (J. and C.) like
ὀλίγου, πολλοῦ, etc., although there is good authority for the genitive in
‐εως from
ἥμισυς (see Lobeck
Phryn. p. 247). Stephanus preferred
ἡμισέως: but the adverb follows the accent of the genitive plural (
ἡμίσεων), and
ἡμίσεως· ἐπίρρημα. Πλάτων Πολιτείας ἕκτῳ (Antiatt. in Bekk.
Anecd. 98. 30)—a note which certainly refers to this passage: see
Introd. § 4—supports the MS accentuation (Schneider). Liebhold's conjecture
ἐπὶ μιμήσεως needs no refutation.
ἐπίσταται
. See on
ἐμπειρότατον in D below.
οὐκοῦν ἀρετὴ ‐‐ πεφυκός
. The historical Socrates was in the habit of testing the beauty, excellence etc. of an object by the degree in which it fulfilled its function or purpose: see especially Xen.
Symp. 5. 4 ff. together with other passages cited by Krohn
Pl. St. p. 369. Plato himself adopts the same standard in I 352 E—353 E and elsewhere.
ἐμπειρότατον
. Throughout the whole of this argument it is held that he who
uses, e.g. an instrument, has
knowledge of it (
ἐπίσταται C,
εἰδώς and
εἰδότι E,
εἰδότος and
ἐπιστήμην etc. 602 A), and Plato says nothing to make us attach any metaphysical significance to the word ‘knowledge,’ which he often employs throughout his writings without any suggestion of the Ideas (e.g. II 374 D, IV 422 C). There is no doubt a certain sense in which —if we have regard to
Crat. 390 B
ff. and
Euthyd. 288 E
ff.—
ὁ χρώμενος has, not indeed scientific knowledge of the Idea, but something analogous thereto. Dialectic, which is the scientific Knowledge of Ideas, is
κατ’ ἐξοχήν the
χρωμένη ἐπιστήμη, the Science which alone knows in what respect each thing is good and
useful, and
uses things accordingly (cf.
Euthyd. 290 C
,
Crat. 390 C
), proving itself thereby the royal or kingly science (VI 505 A note). Thus the man who uses a single instrument correctly occupies the same relative position in regard to that object which the dialectician occupies in regard to the totality of things, and is, in his own small way, a king compared with the maker and imitator of the instrument. Cf. Bosanquet p. 390. But if Plato had intended us to pursue this vein, he would, I think, have furnished us with some hints in the course of the argument itself. See also on 601 B.
οἷα ‐‐ χρῆται
: ‘what are the good or bad points of the instrument he uses when he uses it,’ lit. ‘what good or bad things that which he uses does’—we cannot like the Greeks say ‘makes’— ‘in use.’ This interpretation, which is Schleiermacher's (“wie sich das was er gebraucht gut oder schlecht zeigt in Gebrauch”), seems to me the natural and obvious meaning of the Greek. In agreement, apparently, with Schneider's version, Campbell proposes “what specimens of that which he (the user) employs, the maker makes that are good or bad in actual use,” remarking that “the correlation of singular and plural arises from the collocation of particular and universal. The instrument (sing.) is
good in some cases, but bad in others (plur.).” Campbell's solution has the advantage of referring
ποιεῖ to
ποιητής, and corresponds more exactly with
χρηστῶν καὶ πονήρῶν αὐλῶν in E. The grammatical difficulty is however, I think, insuperable. If the subject to
ποιεῖ must be
ποιητής, it would even be easier to make
ᾧ χρῆται=
τούτῳ ὃς χρῆται—a rare form of attraction illustrated on V 465 D: but there is a certain elegance in applying
ποιεῖ also to the instrument, which is in its way a ‘maker too’ and one by whose
ἔργα the other maker must be guided. Herwerden remarks “expectabam potius
οἷα ἀγαθὰ ἢ κακὰ (sc.
ἐστι)
ἐν τῇ χρείᾳ ὧν (i.e.
τῶν οἷς )
κτλ.” It is well that his expectations have been disappointed.
ἐξαγγέλλει
. Bekker and others write
ἐξαγγελεῖ both here and in E below. The present echoes
ἄγγελον γίγνεσθαι, and I agree with Schneider that change is needless, in spite of
ἐπιτάξει and
ὑπηρετήσει: cf.
κεῖσθαι—ἔσεσθαι V 478 D. For the meaning cf.
Crat. 390 B
.
οἳ ἂν ὑπηρετῶσιν κτλ.
I take this clause as a sort of parenthetical adjunct or characterisation of
αὐλοποιῷ: ‘thus the fluteplayer informs the flutemaker about his flutes—the persons who are his
servants in the art of fluteplaying— and he will give orders how they should be made, and the flutemaker will
serve him.’ The liberty is great, but hardly greater than Plato allows himself elsewhere in the
Republic: cf. III 411 C
ἀκράχολοι οὖν καὶ ὀργίλοι ἀντὶ θυμοειδοῦς γεγένηνται, δυσκολίας ἔμπλεοι, IV 426 C
ὡς ἀποθανουμένους, ὃς ἂν τοῦτο δρᾷ, VI 496 C, D, I 347 A note: and the break afforded by the interposition of this clause makes the difference of tense between
ἐξαγγέλλει and
ἐπιτάξει seem easy and natural. To the ordinary interpretation, which makes
αὐλῶν the antecedent to
οἳ ἄν, it is a serious and I think fatal objection that the verb
ὑπηρετεῖν is used immediately afterwards of the flutemaker in a way which seems to imply that it has been used of him before: and it is also very strange and unnatural to speak of flutes as
ὑπηρέται ἐν τῷ αὐλεῖν. Jowett's translation “which of his flutes is
satisfactory to the performer,” though Schleiermacher, Schneider and Prantl take much the same view, cannot be fairly extracted from
οἳ ἂν ὑπηρετῶσιν. Many inferior MSS read
οἷα for
οἵ: and Richards conjectures
οἷα ποιοῦσιν or
οἷα ἀποτελοῦσιν, but the change is much too great. I once suggested
ὑπερέχωσιν for
ὑπηρετῶσιν, but now believe the foregoing interpretation to be right.
ἐξαγγέλλει
. See on
ἐξαγγέλλει in D above.
πιστεύων
. In the language of the Line, his state of mind is
πίστις (cf.
πίστιν ὀρθήν below): see App. I to Book VII. In 596 B on the other hand the
δημιουργὸς πρὸς τὴν ἰδέαν βλέπει. Plato does not try to reconcile the two points of view (601 D note): but he might say that the objective
reality of that which guides the
δημιουργός is always the Idea, whether he acts on his own initiative or under the direction of another. See on 596 B. It should be noted that Poetry and the other imitative arts are placed higher, and not lower, than
δημιουργία in
Phaedr. 248 E
. Here, however, Plato's purpose is a narrower one, viz. by means of an illustration derived from the mechanical arts to complete the proof—hitherto only
ἡμίσεως ῥηθέν 601 C—that the Imitator does not
εἰδὼς ποιεῖν, as many assert (598 E), but is in reality third from knowledge.
