Plato, Republic, Paul Shorey (Translator), 5.474

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[474] Whereupon he, Socrates, said he, after hurling at us such an utterance and statement as that, you must expect to be attacked by a great multitude of our men of light and leading,¹ who forthwith will, so to speak, cast off their garments² 474a and strip and, snatching the first weapon that comes to hand, rush at you with might and main, prepared to do³ dreadful deeds. And if you don’t find words to defend yourself against them, and escape their assault, then to be scorned and flouted will in very truth⁴ be the penalty you will have to pay. And isn’t it you, said I, that have brought this upon me and are to blame? And a good thing, too, said he; but I won’t let you down, and will defend you with what I can. I can do so with my good will and my encouragement, and perhaps I might answer your questions more suitably⁵ than another. 474b So, with such an aid to back you, try to make it plain to the doubters that the truth is as you say. I must try, I replied, since you proffer so strong an alliance. I think it requisite, then, if we are to escape the assailants you speak of, that we should define for them whom we mean by the philosophers, who we dare to say ought to be our rulers. When these are clearly discriminated it will be possible to defend ourselves by showing that to them by their very nature belong the study of philosophy 474c and political leadership, while it befits the other sort to let philosophy alone and to follow their leader. It is high time, he said, to produce your definition. Come, then, follow me on this line, if we may in some fashion or other explain our meaning. Proceed, he said. Must I remind you, then, said I, or do you remember, that when we affirm that a man is a lover of something, it must be apparent that he is fond of all of it? It will not do to say that some of it he likes and some⁶ does not.
I think you will have to remind me, he said, 474d for I don’t apprehend at all. That reply, Glaucon, said I, befitted another rather than you. It does not become a lover to forget that all adolescents in some sort sting and stir the amorous lover of youth and appear to him deserving of his attention and desirable. Is not that your reaction to the fair? One, because his nose is tip-tilted,⁷ you will praise as piquant, the beak of another you pronounce right-royal, the intermediate type you say strikes the harmonious mean, 474e the swarthy are of manly aspect, the white are children of the gods divinely fair, and as for honey-hued, do you suppose the very word is anything but the euphemistic invention of some lover who can feel no distaste for sallowness when it accompanies the blooming time of youth?

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.) — 5.474 focus

[474]
καὶ ὅς, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἔφη, τοιοῦτον ἐκβέβληκας ῥῆμά τε καὶ λόγον, ὃν εἰπὼν ἡγοῦ ἐπὶ σὲ πάνυ πολλούς τε καὶ 474a οὐ φαύλους νῦν οὕτως, οἷον ῥίψαντας τὰ ἱμάτια, γυμνοὺς λαβόντας ὅτι ἑκάστῳ παρέτυχεν ὅπλον, θεῖν διατεταμένους ὡς θαυμάσια ἐργασομένους· οὓς εἰ μὴ ἀμυνῇ τῷ λόγῳ καὶ ἐκφεύξῃ, τῷ ὄντι τωθαζόμενος δώσεις δίκην.
οὐκοῦν σύ μοι, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, τούτων αἴτιος;
καλῶς γʼ, ἔφη, ἐγὼ ποιῶν. ἀλλά τοί σε οὐ προδώσω, ἀλλʼ ἀμυνῶ οἷς δύναμαι· δύναμαι δὲ εὐνοίᾳ τε καὶ τῷ παρακελεύεσθαι, καὶ ἴσως ἂν ἄλλου του ἐμμελέστερόν σοι 474b ἀποκρινοίμην. ἀλλʼ ὡς ἔχων τοιοῦτον βοηθὸν πειρῶ τοῖς ἀπιστοῦσιν ἐνδείξασθαι ὅτι ἔχει ᾗ σὺ λέγεις.
πειρατέον, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, ἐπειδὴ καὶ σὺ οὕτω μεγάλην συμμαχίαν παρέχῃ. ἀναγκαῖον οὖν μοι δοκεῖ, εἰ μέλλομέν πῃ ἐκφεύξεσθαι οὓς λέγεις, διορίσασθαι πρὸς αὐτοὺς τοὺς φιλοσόφους τίνας λέγοντες τολμῶμεν φάναι δεῖν ἄρχειν, ἵνα διαδήλων γενομένων δύνηταί τις ἀμύνεσθαι, ἐνδεικνύμενος 474c ὅτι τοῖς μὲν προσήκει φύσει ἅπτεσθαί τε φιλοσοφίας ἡγεμονεύειν τʼ ἐν πόλει, τοῖς δʼ ἄλλοις μήτε ἅπτεσθαι ἀκολουθεῖν τε τῷ ἡγουμένῳ.
ὥρα ἂν εἴη, ἔφη, ὁρίζεσθαι.
ἴθι δή, ἀκολούθησόν μοι τῇδε, ἐὰν αὐτὸ ἁμῇ γέ πῃ ἱκανῶς ἐξηγησώμεθα.
ἄγε, ἔφη.
ἀναμιμνῄσκειν οὖν σε, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, δεήσει, ἢ μέμνησαι ὅτι ὃν ἂν φῶμεν φιλεῖν τι, δεῖ φανῆναι αὐτόν, ἐὰν ὀρθῶς λέγηται, οὐ τὸ μὲν φιλοῦντα ἐκείνου, τὸ δὲ μή, ἀλλὰ πᾶν στέργοντα; 474d
ἀναμιμνῄσκειν, ἔφη, ὡς ἔοικεν, δεῖ· οὐ γὰρ πάνυ γε ἐννοῶ.
ἄλλῳ, εἶπον, ἔπρεπεν, ὦ Γλαύκων, λέγειν ἃ λέγεις· ἀνδρὶ δʼ ἐρωτικῷ οὐ πρέπει ἀμνημονεῖν ὅτι πάντες οἱ ἐν ὥρᾳ τὸν φιλόπαιδα καὶ ἐρωτικὸν ἁμῇ γέ πῃ δάκνουσί τε καὶ κινοῦσι, δοκοῦντες ἄξιοι εἶναι ἐπιμελείας τε καὶ τοῦ ἀσπάζεσθαι. ἢ οὐχ οὕτω ποιεῖτε πρὸς τοὺς καλούς; ὁ μέν, ὅτι σιμός, ἐπίχαρις κληθεὶς ἐπαινεθήσεται ὑφʼ ὑμῶν, τοῦ δὲ τὸ γρυπὸν βασιλικόν φατε εἶναι, τὸν δὲ δὴ διὰ 474e μέσου τούτων ἐμμετρώτατα ἔχειν, μέλανας δὲ ἀνδρικοὺς ἰδεῖν, λευκοὺς δὲ θεῶν παῖδας εἶναι· μελιχλώρους δὲ καὶ τοὔνομα οἴει τινὸς ἄλλου ποίημα εἶναι ἢ ἐραστοῦ ὑποκοριζομένου τε καὶ εὐχερῶς φέροντος τὴν ὠχρότητα, ἐὰν ἐπὶ ὥρᾳ ᾖ;

Notes on the current edition

Republic

1. Lit. many and not slight men.

2. Cf. Hipponax, fr. 74 (58), Theophrast. Char. 27, Aristophanes Wasps 408.

3. Cf. Apology 35 A, Theaetetus 151 A.

4. τῷ ὄντι verifies the strong word τωθαζόμενος.

5. Cf. Theaetetus 162 A 7. The dialectician prefers a docile respondent. Cf. Sophist 217 C, Parmenides 137 B.

6. τὸ δὲ μή: for the idiom Cf. Philebus 22 A, Laws 797 E, 923 C, Demodocus’s epigram on the Chians, Aeschylus Persae 802, Sophocles O. C. 1671.

7. Another of the famous sentences that would be worth a monograph. Cf. Lucretius iv. 1160, Molière, Misanthrope, ii. 5, Horace, Satire i. 338. F. Brunetière, Les Epoques du théâtre francÿais, p. 76, thinks that Molière took it from Scarron, not from Lucretius. Shakespeare Much Ado, III. i. reverses the conceit, Santayana, Reason in Society, p. 25, writes prettily about it.

Commentary

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

διατεταμένους . Here and in VI 501 C Ξ (with a few other MSS) reads διατεταγμένους, which is less appropriate: “nulla enim τάξις in turba tumultuantium” (Stallbaum). Cf. 462 C note

ὡς ‐‐ ἐργασομένους : “intending to do heaven knows what” (Jowett). The phrase is idiomatic in Plato for any excess of ill-regulated zeal: cf. Ap. 35 A with my note ad loc.

τῷ ὄντι ‐‐ δίκην : ‘you will learn to your cost what flouting means.’ τῷ ὄντι indicates that τωθαζόμενος is to be taken in the fullest sense of the word: cf. IX 579 D, I 343 C, VI 511 B notes τωθάζω always implies personal abuse, often of an indecent kind: see Cope's interesting account of the word in Aristotle's Rhetoric Vol. II pp. 49 f.

ἀμύνεσθαι . The promise is fulfilled in VI 501—502 C.

ἐννοῶ : i.q. νῷ ἔχω, ‘remember,’ not ‘understand’ (as D. and V.). Cf. Euthyphr. 2 B , Polit. 296 A . The illus tration which follows is all the more appropriate because the φιλόσοφος is himself an ἐραστής, in love with Truth: cf. VI 490 B.

πάντες οἱ ἐν ὥρᾳ κτλ. So in Charm. 154 B (cited by J. and C.) Socrates, an ἀνὴρ ἐρωτικός ( Symp. 177 D ), confesses ἀτεχνῶς γὰρ λευκὴ στάθμη εἰμὶ πρὸς τοὺς καλούς· σχεδὸν γάρ τί μοι πάντες οἱ ἐν τῇ ἡλικίᾳ καλοὶ φαίνονται.

ὁ μέν, ὅτι σιμὸς κτλ. The point is that the ἀνὴρ ἐρωτικός, loving πάντας τοὺς ἐν ὥρᾳ, finds beauty even where there is none. He ‘sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt.’ The passage has often been imitated, and may have suggested the well-known satirical outburst of Lucretius (IV 1160—1170).

ἐπίχαρις : ‘pleasing,’ χάριν ἔχουσα πρὸς τὴν ὄψιν Arist. Pol. E 9. 1309^{b} 24. With τὸ γρυπὸν βασιλικόν cf. Phaedr. 253 D and Arist. Physiog. 6. 811^{a} 36 οἱ δὲ γρυπὴν ἔχοντες ( τὴν ῥῖνα ) καὶ τοῦ μετώπου διηρθρωμένην μεγαλόψυχοι· ἀναφέρεται ἐπὶ τοὺς ἀετούς. Neither τὸ σιμόν nor τὸ γρυπόν are marks of beauty; the straight nose is the fairest (Arist. Pol. l.c.).

λευκοὺς δὲ θεῶν παῖδας is in harmony with Laws 956 A χρώματα δὲ λευκὰ πρέποντ’ ἂν θεοῖς εἴη καὶ ἄλλοθι καὶ ἐν ὑφῇ. See also Dieterich Nekyia pp. 39 ff.

μελιχλώρους κτλ. : ‘and honey-pale darlings, with their name—do you suppose they are the creation of anybody but a fond and euphemistic lover, who readily excuses pallor, if appearing on the cheek of youth?’ Plato is ridiculing the idea, as well as the name, μελίχλωρος: there never was a μελίχλωρος except in the lover's brain. The word is not, apparently, earlier than Plato, and does not occur again till Aristotle ( Physiog. 6. 812^{a} 19): Theocritus uses it hypocoristically of the silkworm (10. 27). It is difficult, if not impossible, to connect τοὔνομα with μελιχλώρους, as is usually done, translating, ‘and the name honeypale, too,’ etc. Hartman proposes μελίχλωρος, which is ungrammatical, Richards μελιχλώρου. μελιχλώρου (which the poet Gray had already conjectured) is harmless enough: but emendation is unnecessary if καί is ‘and.’ μελιχλώρους—see cr. n.— has less MS authority than μελαγχλώρους, though supported by the Scholiast on VI 485 B, by μελίχλωρος in Aristotle and Theocritus (ll. cc.), and by the suitability of the word in the mouth of an ἐραστὴς ὑποκοριζόμενος. μελίχρους was apparently read by Plutarch ( de recta rat. audiendi 45 A) and other ancient authorities: see Schneider's note.

Plato Republic 5.474

Paul Shorey (Translator)

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