Plato Republic 4.439

Paul Shorey (Translator)

Table of Contents

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

← Previous Next →

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

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The Annenberg CPB/Project.

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.) — 4.439 focus

Notes on the current edition

Republic

1. τῶν τινὸς εἶναι: if the text is sound, εἶναι seems to be taken twice, (1) with τοῦτο etc., (2) τῶν τινός as predicates. This is perhaps no harsher than τὸ δοκεῖν εἶναι in Aeschylus Agamemnon 788. Cf. Tennyson’s
How sweet are the looks that ladies bend
On whom their favors fall,
and Pope’s
And virgins smiled at what they blushed before.
Possibly θήσεις τῶν τινός is incomplete in itself (cf. 437 B) and εἶναι τοῦτο etc. is a loose epexegesis. The only emendation worth notice is Adam’s insertion of καὶ τινὸς between τινὸς and εἶναι, which yields a smooth, but painfully explicit, construction.
2. Cf. further Sophist 255 D, Aristotle Met. 1021 a 27. Aristotle Cat. v., Top. vi. 4. So Plotinus vi. 1. 7 says that relative terms are those whose very being is the relation
καὶ τὸ εἶναι οὐκ ἄλλο τι ἢ τὸ ἀλλήλοις εἶναι
.
3. Cf. on 437 C, Aristotle, De anima 433 b 8, Laws 644 E, 604 B, Phaedrus 238 C. The practical moral truth of this is independent of our metaphysical psychology. Plato means that the something which made King David refuse the draught purchased by the blood of his soldiers and Sir Philip Sidney pass the cup to a wounded comrade is somehow different than the animal instinct which it overpowers. Cf. Aristotle Eth. Nic. 1102 b 24, Laws 863 E.
4. Cf. 589, Epistle 335 B. Cf. Descartes, Les Passions de l’âme, article xlvii:
En quoi consistent les combats qu’on a coutume d’imaginer entre la partie inférieure et la supérieure de l’âme.
He says in effect that the soul is a unit and the lower soul is the body. Cf. ibid. lxviii, where he rejects the concupiscible and the irascible.
5. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 68:
Plato . . . delights to prick the bubbles of imagery, rhetoric, and antithesis blown by his predecessors. Heraclitus means well when he says that the one is united by disunion ( Symposium 187 A) or that the hands at once draw and repel the bow. But the epigram vanishes under logical analysis.
For the conceit cf. Samuel Butler’s lines:
He that will win his dame must do
As love does when he bends his bow,
With one hand thrust his lady from
And with the other pull her home.
6. ἐνεῖναι μὲν . . . ἐνεῖναι δέ: the slight artificiality of the anaphora matches well with the Gorgian jingle κελεῦον . . . κωλῦον. Cf. Iambl. Protrept. p. 41 Postelli
ἔστι γὰρ τοιοῦτον ὃ κελεύει καὶ κωλύει
.
7. The pulls are distinguished verbally from the passions that are their instruments. νοσημάτων suggests the Stoic doctrine that passions are diseases. Cf. Cicero Tusc. iii. 4 perturbationes, and passim, and Philebus 45 C.
8. λογιστικόν is one of Plato’s many synonyms for the intellectual principle. Cf. 441 C, 571 C, 587 D, 605 B. It emphasizes the moral calculation of consequences, as opposed to blind passion. Cf. Crito 46 B (one of the passages which the Christian apologists used to prove that Socrates knew the λόγος), Theaetetus 186 C
ἀναλογίσματα πρός τε οὐσίαν καὶ ὠφέλειαν
, and Laws 644 D. Aristotle Eth. 1139 a 12 somewhat differently.
9. ἐπτόηται: almost technical, as in Sappho’s ode, for the flutter of desire. ἀλόγιστον, though applied here to the ἐπιθυμητικόν only, suggests the bipartite division of Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 1102 a 28.
10. So the bad steed which symbolizes the ἐπιθυμητικόν in Phaedrus 253 E is ἀλαζονείας ἑταῖρος.
11. We now approach the distinctively Platonic sense of θυμός as the power of noble wrath, which, unless perverted by a bad education, is naturally the ally of the reason, though as mere angry passion it might seem to belong to the irrational part of the soul, and so, as Glaucon suggets, be akin to appetite, with which it is associated in the mortal soul of the Timaeus 69 D. In Laws 731 B-C Plato tells us again that the soul cannot combat injustice without the capacity for righteous indignation. The Stoics affected to deprecate anger always, and the difference remained a theme of controversy between them and the Platonists. Cf. Schmidt, Ethik der Griechen, ii. pp. 321 ff., Seneca, De ira, i. 9, and passim. Moralists are still divided on the point. Cf. Bagehot, Lord Brougham:
Another faculty of Brougham . . . is the faculty of easy anger. The supine placidity of civilization is not favorable to animosity [Bacon’s word for θυμός].
Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics, pp. 60 ff. and p. 62, seems to contradict Plato:
The supposed conflict between reason and passion is, as I hold, meaningless if it is taken to imply that the reason is a faculty separate from the emotions,
etc. But this is only his metaphysics. On the practical ethical issue he is with Plato.

Commentary

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

οὐ τούτων κτλ. : i.q. οὐ θήσεις τὸ δίψος εἶναι τοῦτο, ὄπερ ἐστί, τούτων τῶν τινός sitim esse id, quod est, inter ea s. tanquam unum eorum, quae alicuius sunt (Schneider). We must, I think, acquiesce in this interpretation, if the text is sound; but there is grave difficulty in taking εἶναι twice over, as Schneider virtually does (‘is that which it is, and is one of,’ etc.). I am strongly inclined to think that Plato wrote οὐ τούτων θήσεις τῶν τινός, <καὶ τινὸς> εἶναι τοῦτο ὅπερ ἐστὶν κτλ. With this emendation the meaning is: ‘Well now, about thirst, will you not place it in this category of things relative, and hold that it is what it is—that is, of course, thirst—relatively to something? Yes, said he, relatively to drink.’ τὰ τινός i.e. ‘the things relative to something’ for ‘the category of things relative,’ is further explained in καὶ τινὸς —ὅπερ ἐστίν. ἔγωγε answers the first part of Socrates' question, and πώματός γε the second. For other views on this passage see App. III.

δίψος δ) οὖν κτλ. δ) οὖν=‘however,’ as in I 337 C. The reading δ’ αὖ ( q and some other inferior MSS) is unpleasantly cacophonous before αὐτό .

οὐ γὰρ δὴ ‐‐ πράττει . See cr. n. Ast's emendation πράττει is preferable to inserting ἄν or changing δή to ἄν (with Schanz). The particle δή could ill be spared. The infinitive πράττειν is read by Galen ( de Hipp. et Plat. decr. V p. 488 ed. Kühn) and two inferior MSS. Those who retain the MS reading suppose that ἄν is carried on from ἕτερον ἂν εἴη; but the instances cited in support (I 352 E, II 360 C, 382 D, III 398 A) are very much easier than this. περὶ τὸ αὐτό refers of course to the object of the action in question: πῶμα for instance in a case of thirst. Note that Plato betrays a sense of the unity of soul when he uses the expressions αὐτὴν—διψῶσαν, and τό γε αὐτὸ—πράττει. So also in D below ᾧ λογίζεται sc. ἡ ψυχή. See on 435 A ff.

αὐτοῦ . See 428 A note The illustration, as Bosanquet conjectures, may have been suggested by Heraclitus' παλίντροπος ἀρμονίη ὄκωσπερ τόξου καὶ λύρης ( Fr. 45 B yw.).

οὐκ ἐθέλειν : ‘refuse’: cf. infra τὸ κωλῦον—κρατοῦν τοῦ κελεύοντος. So also Bosanquet ‘decline to drink.’

ἐνεῖναι δέ . The repetition of ἐνεῖναι with μέν and δέ has almost the force of a conjunction: cf. Phaed. 83 A ἀπάτης μὲν μεστὴ ἡ διὰ τῶν ὀμμάτων σκέψις, ἀπάτης δὲ ἡ διὰ τῶν ὤτων. It is quite unnecessary to insert καὶ after δὲ (with Ast and Hartman). For the verbal play in κελεῦον —κωλῦον cf. III 406 B note

ὅταν ἐγγίγνηται ‐‐ παραγίγνεται . See cr. n. The present ἐγγίγνηται is, I think, necessary, and the corruption (through ἐγγίνηται) easy enough. ὄταν ἐγγένηται could scarcely mean ἑκάστοτε, which is the meaning here required. The subject to ἐγγίγνηται is τὸ κωλῦον. It is not hinted that ‘all men have not right reason’ (J. and C.), but only that there is not on every occasion a conflict between reason and desire. See 431 C and 437 D note Reason readily acquiesces when it is good to gratify desire. τὰ—ἄγοντα καὶ ἕλκοντα is translated by Jowett ‘that which bids and attracts’: but ἄγοντα is said like ἄγοντος in 439 B and ἕλκοντα is ‘dragging.’ The plural should also be retained in the translation, otherwise τὰ ἄγοντα may be identified with the ἐπιθυμητικόν, which would be a mistake, for the appetitive part of soul is certainly not produced by παθήματα of any kind. τὰ ἄγοντα καὶ ἔλκοντα are in reality ‘impulses leading and dragging’ the soul, impulses engendered by ‘particular conditions and diseases’ (not ‘passive states’ or ‘passion,’ etc. with the English translators), i.e. in other words by abnormal bodily states favourable to desires, as for example fevers etc.: cf. Phil. 45 A , B. These impulses are no doubt special instances of the action of ἐπιθυμητικόν, but should be distinguished from the appetitive principle itself.

λογιστικόν . The φιλόσοφον of II and III shewed itself in moral rather than in intellectual relations: see II 376 B note λογιστικόν, though as yet directed only to moral questions, is intellectual more than moral. Intellect gradually asserts its predominance over will until in Books VI and VII it achieves its final triumph. Cf. 439 E, 441 E notes

τὸ δὲ δὴ τοῦ θυμοῦ κτλ. Hitherto θυμοειδές has been chiefly the source of courage and the natural antithesis of φιλόσοφον (II 375 A ff., III 410 D, 411 C). It now enters on a wider sphere as the ally of λογιστικόν, and becomes, thus far, more intellectual, as Krohn points out: note also the ὀρθὴ δόξα of 430 B. Its ethical connotation is also intensified; for it is not now simply spirit, but the sentiment of moral indignation at everything evil— “ein edler Unwille über alles Schlechte” (Krohn Pl. St. p. 55)—everything which tends to destroy the πολιτεία ἐν ἡμῖν. It becomes in short, as Brandt ( Zur Entwick. d. Pl. Lehr. v. d. Seelentheilen p. 18) says truly enough though ponderously, “leidenschaftlicher Selbsterhaltungs- und Selbstvervollkommnungstrieb.” Cf. Simson der Begriff der Seele bei Plato p. 110, and see also on II 375 A.

ἴσως κτλ. The θνητὸν εἶδος ψυχῆς of the Timaeus includes both the θυμοειδές and the ἐπιθυμητικόν: see 69 C ff. and cf. Pol. 309 C . Similarly in the Phaedrus the two lower faculties are figured as the two horses, and the highest as the charioteer of the soul's chariot (253 D): cf. Simson l.c. p. 109 notes

ποτὲ ‐‐ τούτῳ . The antecedent of τούτῳ is τι: ‘having once heard something I trust to this,’ i.e. ‘I rely on an incident which I once heard.’ πιστεύω means that he relies on it for a proof; and ὡς ἄρα goes with ἀκούσας. So Schneider correctly explains the Greek. The precise force of πιστεύω τούτῳ has, I think, been missed by most of those who have suspected corruption. For τι there have been various conjectures: ἔτι (Madvig), ἄρτι (Liebhold Fl. Jahrb. 1888 p. 110), τινος (Zeller Archiv f. Gesch. d. Phil. II p. 694)—all superfluous, and the first two very weak; while Campbell suggests that οὐ has dropped before πιστεύω, taking τούτῳ to refer to Glauco's suggestion. But in that case τοῦτο would be necessary.

Αεόντιος . “Ad hunc Leontium eiusque insanam cupiditatem spectat depravatissimus Theopompi comici Καπηλίδων locus” (Herwerden Mn. N.S. XI p. 346). The fragment is emended by Kock ( Com. Att. Frag. I p. 739) into Αεωτροφίδης ὁ τρίμνεως ( trium librarum homo, i.e. levissimus) Αεοντίῳ | εὔχρως τε φαίνεται χαρίεις θ’ ὤσπερ vεκρός. Bergk was the first to connect the two passages.

ὑπὸ ‐‐ ἐκτός : ‘close to the outer side of the North wall.’ Cf. (with Stallbaum) Lys. 203 A τὴν ἔξω τείχους ὑπ’ αὐτὸ τὸ τεῖχος. The North wall was the outer of the two walls connecting Athens with the Piraeus; the other, or South wall, was called τὸ διὰ μέσου τεῖχος, because it lay between the βόρειον and the φαληρικόν, which connected Athens and the Phalerum. See Gorg. 455 E and the other authorities cited by Milchhöfer Schriftquellen zur Topographie von Athen pp. CXIII ff., and Curtius u. Kaupert Atlas von Athen Bl. II.

παρὰ ‐‐ κειμένους : ‘lying by’ or ‘near the executioner’; not of course ‘at the executioner's’ as has been suggested. When seen by Leontius, the hangman was engaged in throwing the bodies into the pit ( ὄρυγμα or βάραθρον, from which he was often called ὁ ἐπὶ s. πρὸς τῷ ὀρύγματι). The βάραθρον into which the bodies of executed criminals were thrown, was a deep ravine outside the walls, in the deme Κειριάδαι. Leontius would pass near it, just before entering the city (probably by the Μελιτίδες πύλαι): see Curtius u. Kaupert l.c. Bl. II. The place is still pointed out to visitors to Athens on the western declivity of the Hill of the Nymphs. For the ancient authorities see Milchhöfer l.c. pp. I—II. Various suggestions have been made for δημίῳ. Valckenaer's δημιείῳ is a coinage of his own, and otherwise objectionable; Αυκείῳ (also Valckenaer) is topographically impossible, and so is Διομείῳ (Hemsterhuis), if it has anything to do with the Διομηΐς πύλη. The explanation which I have given seems also to have been held by Milchhöfer, for he quotes the present passage among the authorities for the βάραθρον .