Plato, Republic, ed. John Burnet, 1.329

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[329] 329a
ἐγώ σοι, ἔφη, νὴ τὸν Δία ἐρῶ, ὦ Σώκρατες, οἷόν γέ μοι φαίνεται. πολλάκις γὰρ συνερχόμεθά τινες εἰς ταὐτὸν παραπλησίαν ἡλικίαν ἔχοντες, διασῴζοντες τὴν παλαιὰν παροιμίαν· οἱ οὖν πλεῖστοι ἡμῶν ὀλοφύρονται συνιόντες, τὰς ἐν τῇ νεότητι ἡδονὰς ποθοῦντες καὶ ἀναμιμνῃσκόμενοι περί τε τἀφροδίσια καὶ περὶ πότους τε καὶ εὐωχίας καὶ ἄλλʼ ἄττα ἃ τῶν τοιούτων ἔχεται, καὶ ἀγανακτοῦσιν ὡς μεγάλων τινῶν ἀπεστερημένοι καὶ τότε μὲν εὖ ζῶντες, νῦν δὲ οὐδὲ ζῶντες. 329b ἔνιοι δὲ καὶ τὰς τῶν οἰκείων προπηλακίσεις τοῦ γήρως ὀδύρονται, καὶ ἐπὶ τούτῳ δὴ τὸ γῆρας ὑμνοῦσιν ὅσων κακῶν σφίσιν αἴτιον. ἐμοὶ δὲ δοκοῦσιν, ὦ Σώκρατες, οὗτοι οὐ τὸ αἴτιον αἰτιᾶσθαι. εἰ γὰρ ἦν τοῦτʼ αἴτιον, κἂν ἐγὼ τὰ αὐτὰ ταῦτα ἐπεπόνθη, ἕνεκά γε γήρως, καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι πάντες ὅσοι ἐνταῦθα ἦλθον ἡλικίας. νῦν δʼ ἔγωγε ἤδη ἐντετύχηκα οὐχ οὕτως ἔχουσιν καὶ ἄλλοις, καὶ δὴ καὶ Σοφοκλεῖ ποτε τῷ ποιητῇ παρεγενόμην ἐρωτωμένῳ ὑπό τινος· πῶς, ἔφη, 329c ὦ Σοφόκλεις, ἔχεις πρὸς τἀφροδίσια; ἔτι οἷός τε εἶ γυναικὶ συγγίγνεσθαι; καὶ ὅς, εὐφήμει, ἔφη, ὦ ἄνθρωπε· ἁσμενέστατα μέντοι αὐτὸ ἀπέφυγον, ὥσπερ λυττῶντά τινα καὶ ἄγριον δεσπότην ἀποδράς. εὖ οὖν μοι καὶ τότε ἔδοξεν ἐκεῖνος εἰπεῖν, καὶ νῦν οὐχ ἧττον. παντάπασι γὰρ τῶν γε τοιούτων ἐν τῷ γήρᾳ πολλὴ εἰρήνη γίγνεται καὶ ἐλευθερία· ἐπειδὰν αἱ ἐπιθυμίαι παύσωνται κατατείνουσαι καὶ χαλάσωσιν, παντάπασιν τὸ τοῦ Σοφοκλέους γίγνεται, 329d δεσποτῶν πάνυ πολλῶν ἐστι καὶ μαινομένων ἀπηλλάχθαι. ἀλλὰ καὶ τούτων πέρι καὶ τῶν γε πρὸς τοὺς οἰκείους μία τις αἰτία ἐστίν, οὐ τὸ γῆρας, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἀλλʼ ὁ τρόπος τῶν ἀνθρώπων. ἂν μὲν γὰρ κόσμιοι καὶ εὔκολοι ὦσιν, καὶ τὸ γῆρας μετρίως ἐστὶν ἐπίπονον· εἰ δὲ μή, καὶ γῆρας, ὦ Σώκρατες, καὶ νεότης χαλεπὴ τῷ τοιούτῳ συμβαίνει.
καὶ ἐγὼ ἀγασθεὶς αὐτοῦ εἰπόντος ταῦτα, βουλόμενος ἔτι 329e λέγειν αὐτὸν ἐκίνουν καὶ εἶπον· ὦ Κέφαλε, οἶμαί σου τοὺς πολλούς, ὅταν ταῦτα λέγῃς, οὐκ ἀποδέχεσθαι ἀλλʼ ἡγεῖσθαί σε ῥᾳδίως τὸ γῆρας φέρειν οὐ διὰ τὸν τρόπον ἀλλὰ διὰ τὸ πολλὴν οὐσίαν κεκτῆσθαι· τοῖς γὰρ πλουσίοις πολλὰ παραμύθιά φασιν εἶναι.

Republic. Plato. ed. John Burnet. Oxford. 1905.

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Current edition Perseus

Πολιτεία (Greek) (Platonis Opera Tomus IV: Tetralogia VIII. Burnet, John, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.)

Translations (1)

Republic Perseus (Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 5-6. Shorey, Paul, translator. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1935-37 (printing).) — 1.329 focus

[329]
Yes, indeed, Socrates, he said, I will tell you my own feeling about it. 329a For it often happens that some of us elders of about the same age come together and verify¹ the old saw of like to like. At these reunions most of us make lament, longing for the lost joys of youth and recalling to mind the pleasures of wine, women, and feasts, and other things thereto appertaining, and they repine in the belief that the greatest things have been taken from them and that then they lived well and now it is no life at all.² And some of them 329b complain of the indignities that friends and kinsmen put upon old age and thereto recite a doleful litany³ of all the miseries for which they blame old age. But in my opinion, Socrates, they do not put the blame on the real cause.⁴ For if it were the cause I too should have had the same experience so far as old age is concerned, and so would all others who have come to this time of life. But in fact I have ere now met with others who do not feel in this way, and in particular I remember hearing Sophocles the poet greeted by a fellow who asked, 329c How about your service of Aphrodite, Sophocles—is your natural force still unabated? And he replied, Hush, man, most gladly have I escaped this thing you talk of, as if I had run away from a raging and savage beast of a master.⁵ I thought it a good answer then and now I think so still more. For in very truth there comes to old age a great tranquillity in such matters and a blessed release. When the fierce tensions⁶ of the passions and desires relax, then is the word of Sophocles approved, 329d and we are rid of many and mad⁷ masters. But indeed in respect of these complaints and in the matter of our relations with kinsmen and friends there is just one cause, Socrates—not old age, but the character of the man. For if men are temperate and cheerful⁸ even old age is only moderately burdensome. But if the reverse, old age, Socrates, and youth are hard for such dispositions.
And I was filled with admiration⁹ for the man by these words, and desirous of hearing more I tried to draw him out and said, I fancy, 329e Cephalus, that most people, when they hear you talk in this way, are not convinced but think that you bear old age lightly not because of your character but because of your wealth. For the rich, they say, have many consolations.¹⁰

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.

παροιμίαν . ἥλιξ ἥλικα τέρπει ( Phaedr. 240 C ).

ξυνιόντες : i.q. ὅταν ξυνίωσιν ‘whenever they come together.’ Such a use of the participle is admissible when the main verb is in the present of habitual action. ξυνόντες is a needless conjecture.

οὐδὲ ζῶντες . Soph. Ant. 1165 —1167 τὰς γὰρ ἡδονὰς | ὅταν προδῶσιν ἄνδρες, οὐ τίθημ’ ἐγὼ | ζῆν τοῦτον, ἀλλ’ ἔμψυχον ἡγοῦμαι νεκρόν. Cf. also Mimn. Fr. I. 1 ff.: Sim. Fr. 71 τίς γὰρ ἁδονᾶς ἄτερ<*> θνατῶν βίος ποθεινός: Eur. Fr. 1065 . Similar sentiments are very common throughout Greek literature, especially in poetry.

ἔτι ‐‐ συγγίγνεσθαι . These words are rejected by Hirschig, Cobet, and Hartman, but their genuineness is supported by the singular αὐτό in αὐτὸ ἀπέφυγον and by Plut. περὶ φιλοπλουτίας 5. 525 A ὁ Σοφοκλῆς ἐρωτηθεὶς εἰ δύναται γυναικὶ πλησιάζειν, Εὐφήμει, ἄνθρωπε, εἶπεν κτλ. In such matters Greek realism called a spade a spade. In spite of the anecdote here told, few writers have painted sadder pictures of old age than Sophocles: see for example O. C. 1235— 1238 and Fr. 684. More in keeping with the present passage is Fr. 688 οὐκ ἔστι γῆρας τῶν σοφῶν, ἐν οἷς ὁ νοῦς | θείᾳ ξύνεστιν ἡμέρᾳ τεθραμμένος.

ἀπέφυγον ‐‐ ἀποφυγών . The repetition adds a certain impressiveness to the sentence. Herwerden is in error when he ejects ἀποφυγών, which seems to have been read also by Plutarch (referred to in last note).

κατατείνουσαι is intransitive. If the meaning were (as Ast holds) transitive —man being conceived as the puppet of the desires cf. Laws 644 E—we should expect ἐπι‐ or συν‐ rather than κατατείνουσαι: see Phaed. 94 C and 98 D.

παντάπασιν κτλ. The impressive iteration is in keeping with the age and earnestness of the speaker: cf. 331 A, B.

ἐστι . Stallbaum and others eject this word, but it is not easy to see why a scribe should have inserted it, particularly in such an idiomatic position. The asyndeton before δεσποτων is regular in explanatory clauses. I read ἐστι (with A) in preference to ἔστι: the meaning ‘is possible’ does not suit, and would require ἀπαλλαγῆναι rather than ἀπηλλάχθαι. Translate ‘it is the deliverance once and for all from tyrants full many and furious.’ The grammatical subject, as in English, remains vague; it is involved in ἐπειδὰν —χαλάσωσιν. For the use of ἐστι cf. Euthyphr. 2 D φαίνεταί μοι—ἄρχεσθαι ὀρθῶς· ὀρθῶς γάρ ἐστι τῶν νέων πρότερον ἐπιμεληθῆναι. The sentence-accent falls on πολλῶν and μαινομένων and not on ἐστι. The view of old age presented here recalls the μελέτη θανάτου of the Phaedo.

εὔκολοι . Like Sophocles himself: ὁ δ’ εὔκολος μὲν ἐνθάδ’ , εὔκολος δ’ ἐκεῖ ( Ar. Frogs 82 ).

ἐκίνουν . κινεῖν ‘rouse’ is technical in the Socratic dialect for the stimulating of the intellect by interrogation: cf. (with Stallbaum) Lys. 223 A , Xen. Mem. IV 2. 2. See also Ar. Clouds 745 .

οὐ μέντοι γε . The collocation μέντοι γε, which rarely occurs in good Greek, is condemned by Porson (on Eur. Med. 675 ) and others. In Plato it is found only here and in Crat. 424 C , [ Sisyph.] 388 A. Here some inferior MSS omit γε. It would be easy (with Hoefer de particulis Plat. p. 38, Cobet, and Blaydes) to write οὐ μέντοι ὅσον γε, but “notanda talia potius quam mutanda.” The idiom, though exceptional, is (in my judgment) sufficiently supported (see the instances cited by Blaydes on Ar. Thesm. 709 ). It should also perhaps be remembered that the speaker, Cephalus, was not a native Athenian. Cf. 331 B E notes

τὸ τοῦ Θεμιστοκλέους . The story as told by Herodotus VIII 125 is probably more true, if less pointed: ὡς δὲ ἐκ τῆς Λακεδαίμονος ἀπίκετο (sc. Θεμιστοκλῆς) ἐς τὰς Ἀθήνας, ἐνθαῦτα Τιμόδημος Ἀφι<*>ναῖος—φθόνῳ καταμαργέων ἐνείκεε τὸν Θεμιστοκλέα—ὡς διὰ τὰς Ἀθήνας ἔχοι τὰ γέρεα τὰ παρὰ Λακεδαιμονίων, ἀλλ) οὐ δἰ ἑωυτόν. ὁ δὲ—εἶπε· οὕτω ἔχει τοι· οὔτ) ἂν ἐγὼ ἐὼν Βελβινίτης (Belbina was a small island about 2 miles south of Sunium) ἐτιμήθην οὕτω πρὸς Σπαρτιητέων, οὔτ’ ἂν σὺ ὤνθρωπε ἐὼν Ἀθηναῖος. The changes are not due to Plato: for τῷ in τῷ Σεριφίῳ—for which Heindorf on Charm. 155 D wrongly suggests τῳ, like Cicero's Seriphio cuidam ( Cato Mai. 8)—shews that Plato's form of the story was also familiar. The Platonic version, in which Belbina has become Seriphus, and Themistocles' detractor a Seriphian, afterwards held the field.

Plato Republic 1.329

ed. John Burnet

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