Plato, Republic, ed. John Burnet, 10.604

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[604] 604a
τόδε νῦν μοι περὶ αὐτοῦ εἰπέ· πότερον μᾶλλον αὐτὸν οἴει τῇ λύπῃ μαχεῖσθαί τε καὶ ἀντιτείνειν, ὅταν ὁρᾶται ὑπὸ τῶν ὁμοίων, ἢ ὅταν ἐν ἐρημίᾳ μόνος αὐτὸς καθʼ αὑτὸν γίγνηται;
πολύ που, ἔφη, διοίσει, ὅταν ὁρᾶται.
μονωθεὶς δέ γε οἶμαι πολλὰ μὲν τολμήσει φθέγξασθαι, ἃ εἴ τις αὐτοῦ ἀκούοι αἰσχύνοιτʼ ἄν, πολλὰ δὲ ποιήσει, ἃ οὐκ ἂν δέξαιτό τινα ἰδεῖν δρῶντα.
οὕτως ἔχει, ἔφη.
οὐκοῦν τὸ μὲν ἀντιτείνειν διακελευόμενον λόγος καὶ νόμος 604b ἐστίν, τὸ δὲ ἕλκον ἐπὶ τὰς λύπας αὐτὸ τὸ πάθος;
ἀληθῆ.
ἐναντίας δὲ ἀγωγῆς γιγνομένης ἐν τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ περὶ τὸ αὐτὸ ἅμα, δύο φαμὲν αὐτὼ ἀναγκαῖον εἶναι.
πῶς δʼ οὔ;
οὐκοῦν τὸ μὲν ἕτερον τῷ νόμῳ ἕτοιμον πείθεσθαι, ᾗ ὁ νόμος ἐξηγεῖται;
πῶς;
λέγει που ὁ νόμος ὅτι κάλλιστον ὅτι μάλιστα ἡσυχίαν ἄγειν ἐν ταῖς συμφοραῖς καὶ μὴ ἀγανακτεῖν, ὡς οὔτε δήλου ὄντος τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ τε καὶ κακοῦ τῶν τοιούτων, οὔτε εἰς τὸ πρόσθεν οὐδὲν προβαῖνον τῷ χαλεπῶς φέροντι, οὔτε τι τῶν 604c ἀνθρωπίνων ἄξιον ὂν μεγάλης σπουδῆς, ὅ τε δεῖ ἐν αὐτοῖς ὅτι τάχιστα παραγίγνεσθαι ἡμῖν, τούτῳ ἐμποδὼν γιγνόμενον τὸ λυπεῖσθαι.
τίνι, ἦ δʼ ὅς, λέγεις;
τῷ βουλεύεσθαι, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, περὶ τὸ γεγονὸς καὶ ὥσπερ ἐν πτώσει κύβων πρὸς τὰ πεπτωκότα τίθεσθαι τὰ αὑτοῦ πράγματα, ὅπῃ ὁ λόγος αἱρεῖ βέλτιστʼ ἂν ἔχειν, ἀλλὰ μὴ προσπταίσαντας καθάπερ παῖδας ἐχομένους τοῦ πληγέντος ἐν τῷ βοᾶν διατρίβειν, ἀλλʼ ἀεὶ ἐθίζειν τὴν ψυχὴν ὅτι 604d τάχιστα γίγνεσθαι πρὸς τὸ ἰᾶσθαί τε καὶ ἐπανορθοῦν τὸ πεσόν τε καὶ νοσῆσαν, ἰατρικῇ θρηνῳδίαν ἀφανίζοντα.
ὀρθότατα γοῦν ἄν τις, ἔφη, πρὸς τὰς τύχας οὕτω προσφέροιτο.
οὐκοῦν, φαμέν, τὸ μὲν βέλτιστον τούτῳ τῷ λογισμῷ ἐθέλει ἕπεσθαι.
δῆλον δή.
τὸ δὲ πρὸς τὰς ἀναμνήσεις τε τοῦ πάθους καὶ πρὸς τοὺς ὀδυρμοὺς ἄγον καὶ ἀπλήστως ἔχον αὐτῶν ἆρʼ οὐκ ἀλόγιστόν τε φήσομεν εἶναι καὶ ἀργὸν καὶ δειλίας φίλον;
φήσομεν μὲν οὖν. 604e
οὐκοῦν τὸ μὲν πολλὴν μίμησιν καὶ ποικίλην ἔχει, τὸ ἀγανακτητικόν, τὸ δὲ φρόνιμόν τε καὶ ἡσύχιον ἦθος, παραπλήσιον ὂν ἀεὶ αὐτὸ αὑτῷ, οὔτε ῥᾴδιον μιμήσασθαι οὔτε μιμουμένου εὐπετὲς καταμαθεῖν, ἄλλως τε καὶ πανηγύρει καὶ παντοδαποῖς ἀνθρώποις εἰς θέατρα συλλεγομένοις· ἀλλοτρίου γάρ που πάθους ἡ μίμησις αὐτοῖς γίγνεται.

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

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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).) — 10.604 focus

[604] 604a Tell me now this about him: Do you think he will be more likely to resist and fight against his grief when he is observed by his equals or when he is in solitude alone by himself? He will be much more restrained, he said, when he is on view. But when left alone, I fancy, he will permit himself many utterances which, if heard by another, would put him to shame, and will do many things which he would not consent to have another see him doing. So it is, he said.
Now is it not reason and law 604b that exhorts him to resist, while that which urges him to give way to his grief is the bare feeling itself? True. And where there are two opposite impulses¹ in a man at the same time about the same thing we say that there must needs be two things² in him. Of course. And is not the one prepared to follow the guidance of the law as the law leads and directs? How so? The law, I suppose, declares that it is best to keep quiet as far as possible in calamity and not to chafe and repine, because we cannot know what is really good and evil in such things³ and it advantages us nothing to take them hard, 604c and nothing in mortal life is worthy of great concern,⁴ and our grieving checks⁵ the very thing we need to come to our aid as quickly as possible in such case. What thing, he said, do you mean? To deliberate,⁶ I said, about what has happened to us, and, as it were in the fall of the dice,⁷ to determine the movements of our affairs with reference to the numbers that turn up, in the way that reason indicates⁸ would be the best, and, instead of stumbling like children, clapping one’s hands to the stricken spot⁹ and wasting the time in wailing, 604d ever to accustom the soul to devote itself at once to the curing of the hurt and the raising up of what has fallen, banishing threnody¹⁰ by therapy. That certainly, he said, would be the best way to face misfortune and deal with it. Then, we say, the best part of us is willing to conform to these precepts of reason. Obviously. And shall we not say that the part of us that leads us to dwell in memory on our suffering and impels us to lamentation, and cannot get enough of that sort of thing, is the irrational and idle part of us, the associate of cowardice¹¹? Yes, we will say that. And does not 604e the fretful part of us present¹² many and varied occasions for imitation, while the intelligent and temperate disposition, always remaining approximately the same, is neither easy to imitate nor to be understood when imitated, especially by a nondescript mob assembled in the theater? For the representation imitates a type 605a that is alien to them.

Commentary

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

τόδε . See cr. n. τὸ δέ, though supported by most MSS and retained by Bekker and others, cannot, I think, be right. “Nescias τὸ cum νῦν construendum, an per se pro τοῦτο accipiendum sit. Hoc communi, illud Platonicae loquendi consuetudini repugnat. Contra τόδε offensione caret, et quoniam nexus inter haec et superiora intercedens paullo ante particula δέ post νῦν significatus est, δή—abesse posse videtur” (Schneider).

ἀντιτενεῖν . See cr. n. Schneider and the more conservative editors keep the present; but it is much more difficult to defend such a difference in tense with τε—καί than for example in 601 D. Cf. I 342 A note Stobaeus ( Flor. 124. 43) has μάχεσθαί τε καὶ ἀντιτείνειν, which may be right.

μόνος is bracketed by Cobet ( V. L.^{2} p. 361) and others. Cf. however Polit. 307 E αὐτοὶ καθ’ αὑτοὺς μόνοι and other examples in Ast Lex. Plat. s.v. μόνος.

ποιήσει κτλ. Richards would write ποιῆσαι, but ποιήσει is much more forcible. The words ἃ—δρῶντα mean ‘which he would not like any one to see him do’: not “which he would not choose to see another doing” (J. and C.). Cf. ἃ εἴ τις αὐτοῦ ἀκούοι αἰσχύνοιτ’ ἄν. It should be remembered throughout this passage that violent demonstrations of grief did not offend the Greek sense of propriety so much as they offend ours: cf. Bosanquet Companion p. 396.

αὐτὸ τὸ πάθος : “the affliction itself” (D. and V.): “das Leiden selbst” (Schneider), objectively understood: not “perturbatio” (Ficinus) or “Leidenschaft” (Schleiermacher). See Krohn Pl. St. p. 256.

δύο is of course neuter, but δύο τινέ ( q Flor. U) hardly makes the gender clearer and ought not to be preferred.

ἐν αὐτῷ . See cr. n. αὐτῷ, which Schneider and others retain, has a great preponderance of MS authority, but is not sufficiently precise: for the two principles do not merely belong to the man, but are in him: cf. 603 B. This kind of error is a common one in Paris A: see Introd. § 5. Morgenstern's conjecture αὐτώ, which Burnet adopts, would refer “ad proxime commemorata πάθος et λόγον·, quae diversa et duo esse Socrates iam supra posuit, non nunc demum colligit” (Schneider). φαμέν need not be parenthetical: for εἶναι can be omitted as well as ἐστί, and its presence would have been awkward here, on account of the εἶναι to which δύο is subject. See Schanz Nov. Comm. Pl. pp. 33 f.

τῷ νόμῳ . Richards proposes τῷ λόγῳ in view of λόγος καὶ νόμος above and λογισμῷ 604 D. This conjecture would introduce a false and unpleasing contrast between τῷ λόγῳ and ὁ νόμος. The repetition of ὁ νόμος is for emphasis.

δήλου ὄντος ‐‐ προβαῖνον . Cf. Euthyph. 4 D and other grammatical parallels in Kühner Gr. Gr. II p. 648.

οὔτε τι κτλ. The sentiment is repeated and expanded in Laws 803 B ff.

ὁ λόγος αἱρεῖ . Cf. IV 440 B and infra 607 B. The origin of this frequent phrase is, I think, to be sought in the legal rather than, as Schneider supposes, in the military meaning of αἱρεῖν. Cf. “voluptatem—convictam superiore libro” in Cic. de Fin. III 1. Badham (on Phil. 35 D ) strangely conjectures that the figure is “borrowed from the draught-board.”

ἀλλὰ μὴ προσπταίσαντας κτλ. Cf. (with Stallbaum) Dem. Phil. I 40. The curious error πλήττοντος for πληγέντος, found in several MSS besides A, is perhaps due to a reminiscence of V 469 E.

πρὸς τῷ ἰᾶσθαι κτλ. See cr. n. In Stephanus-Hase Thes. s. v. πρός it is said that γίγνεσθαι πρός τι= “occupatum esse circa aliquid vel in aliquo vel in aliqua re,” but no certain examples are given. I agree with the Oxford editors in thinking the dative right as against the accusative, which the German editors retain. Cf. VIII 567 A note

πεσόν . The conjecture πταῖσαν (Herwerden Mn. XIX p. 340) is worse than unnecessary. ἀφανίζοντα agrees of course with the subject of ἐθίζειν, which is singular, in spite of προσπταίσαντας. We need not (with Apelt Obs. Cr. p. 12) write ἀφανίζοντας or ἀφανίζουσαν: see on I 347 A.

ἰατρικῇ κτλ. Stallbaum reads τὴν θρηνῳδίαν with q (see cr. n.). “In dictione poetica articulum etiam minus desidero” (Schneider). The article would be comparatively tame.

τούτῳ τῷ λογισμῷ means the λογισμός expressed in λέγει που ὁ νόμος (B) — ἀφανίζοντα (D). Stallbaum was the first to restore λογισμῷ (from ΑΠ etc.) for the λογιστικῷ of inferior MSS.

ἔχει κτλ. ἔχει= ἐνδέχεται, as often. The Euripidean drama forcibly illustrates what Plato here says. τὸ ἀγανακτητικόν may be regarded as a degenerate variety of the θυμοειδές: cf. III 411 A—C and supra 602 C note

μιμουμένου . See cr. n. μιμούμενον, if it could be taken as passive, would be better and more pointed; but there is apparently no other example of the present participle of this verb used passively, and we are hardly justified in reasoning from the perfect ( μεμιμημένα Crat. 425 D ) etc. to the present. Schneider thinks μιμούμενον may be active, ‘the imitator’ being said instead of ‘the imitation’ (“nor is it easy to understand one who tries to imitate him” J. and C.). But we cannot help feeling that εὐπετές as well as ῥᾴδιον ought to agree with ἦθος. I therefore follow Stallbaum in preferring the genitive absolute μιμουμένου, which has the authority of q and several other MSS in addition to Π.

ἄλλως τε ‐‐ ξυλλεγομένοις . Cf. VI 492 B.

Plato Republic 10.604

ed. John Burnet

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