Plato, Republic, ed. John Burnet, 10.619

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[619] ἀδαμαντίνως δὴ 619a δεῖ ταύτην τὴν δόξαν ἔχοντα εἰς Ἅιδου ἰέναι, ὅπως ἂν ᾖ καὶ ἐκεῖ ἀνέκπληκτος ὑπὸ πλούτων τε καὶ τῶν τοιούτων κακῶν, καὶ μὴ ἐμπεσὼν εἰς τυραννίδας καὶ ἄλλας τοιαύτας πράξεις πολλὰ μὲν ἐργάσηται καὶ ἀνήκεστα κακά, ἔτι δὲ αὐτὸς μείζω πάθῃ, ἀλλὰ γνῷ τὸν μέσον ἀεὶ τῶν τοιούτων βίον αἱρεῖσθαι καὶ φεύγειν τὰ ὑπερβάλλοντα ἑκατέρωσε καὶ ἐν τῷδε τῷ βίῳ κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν καὶ ἐν παντὶ τῷ ἔπειτα· οὕτω γὰρ 619b εὐδαιμονέστατος γίγνεται ἄνθρωπος.
καὶ δὴ οὖν καὶ τότε ὁ ἐκεῖθεν ἄγγελος ἤγγελλε τὸν μὲν προφήτην οὕτως εἰπεῖν· καὶ τελευταίῳ ἐπιόντι, ξὺν νῷ ἑλομένῳ, συντόνως ζῶντι κεῖται βίος ἀγαπητός, οὐ κακός. μήτε ὁ ἄρχων αἱρέσεως ἀμελείτω μήτε ὁ τελευτῶν ἀθυμείτω.
εἰπόντος δὲ ταῦτα τὸν πρῶτον λαχόντα ἔφη εὐθὺς ἐπιόντα τὴν μεγίστην τυραννίδα ἑλέσθαι, καὶ ὑπὸ ἀφροσύνης τε καὶ λαιμαργίας οὐ πάντα ἱκανῶς ἀνασκεψάμενον ἑλέσθαι, ἀλλʼ 619c αὐτὸν λαθεῖν ἐνοῦσαν εἱμαρμένην παίδων αὑτοῦ βρώσεις καὶ ἄλλα κακά· ἐπειδὴ δὲ κατὰ σχολὴν σκέψασθαι, κόπτεσθαί τε καὶ ὀδύρεσθαι τὴν αἵρεσιν, οὐκ ἐμμένοντα τοῖς προρρηθεῖσιν ὑπὸ τοῦ προφήτου· οὐ γὰρ ἑαυτὸν αἰτιᾶσθαι τῶν κακῶν, ἀλλὰ τύχην τε καὶ δαίμονας καὶ πάντα μᾶλλον ἀνθʼ ἑαυτοῦ. εἶναι δὲ αὐτὸν τῶν ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἡκόντων, ἐν τεταγμένῃ πολιτείᾳ ἐν τῷ προτέρῳ βίῳ βεβιωκότα, ἔθει 619d ἄνευ φιλοσοφίας ἀρετῆς μετειληφότα. ὡς δὲ καὶ εἰπεῖν, οὐκ ἐλάττους εἶναι ἐν τοῖς τοιούτοις ἁλισκομένους τοὺς ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἥκοντας, ἅτε πόνων ἀγυμνάστους· τῶν δʼ ἐκ τῆς γῆς τοὺς πολλούς, ἅτε αὐτούς τε πεπονηκότας ἄλλους τε ἑωρακότας, οὐκ ἐξ ἐπιδρομῆς τὰς αἱρέσεις ποιεῖσθαι. διὸ δὴ καὶ μεταβολὴν τῶν κακῶν καὶ τῶν ἀγαθῶν ταῖς πολλαῖς τῶν ψυχῶν γίγνεσθαι καὶ διὰ τὴν τοῦ κλήρου τύχην· ἐπεὶ εἴ τις ἀεί, ὁπότε εἰς τὸν ἐνθάδε βίον ἀφικνοῖτο, ὑγιῶς φιλοσοφοῖ 619e καὶ ὁ κλῆρος αὐτῷ τῆς αἱρέσεως μὴ ἐν τελευταίοις πίπτοι, κινδυνεύει ἐκ τῶν ἐκεῖθεν ἀπαγγελλομένων οὐ μόνον ἐνθάδε εὐδαιμονεῖν ἄν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὴν ἐνθένδε ἐκεῖσε καὶ δεῦρο πάλιν πορείαν οὐκ ἂν χθονίαν καὶ τραχεῖαν πορεύεσθαι, ἀλλὰ λείαν τε καὶ οὐρανίαν.

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).) — 10.619 focus

[619] And a man must take with him to the house of death an adamantine¹ faith in this, that even there he may be undazzled² by riches and similar trumpery, and may not precipitate himself into tyrannies and similar doings and so work many evils past cure and suffer still greater himself, but may know how always to choose in such things the life that is seated in the mean³ and shun the excess in either direction, both in this world so far as may be and in all the life to come; 619b for this is the greatest happiness for man.
And at that time also the messenger from that other world reported that the prophet spoke thus: Even for him who comes forward last, if he make his choice wisely and live strenuously, there is reserved an acceptable life, no evil one. Let not the foremost in the choice be heedless nor the last be discouraged. When the prophet had thus spoken he said that the drawer of the first lot at once sprang to seize the greatest tyranny,⁴ and that in his folly and greed he chose it 619c without sufficient examination, and failed to observe that it involved the fate of eating his own children, and other horrors, and that when he inspected it at leisure he beat his breast and bewailed his choice, not abiding by the forewarning of the prophet. For he did not blame himself⁵ for his woes, but fortune and the gods and anything except himself. He was one of those who had come down from heaven, a man who had lived in a well-ordered polity in his former existence, 619d participating in virtue by habit⁶ and not by philosophy; and one may perhaps say that a majority of those who were thus caught were of the company that had come from heaven, inasmuch as they were unexercised in suffering. But the most of those who came up from the earth, since they had themselves suffered and seen the sufferings of others, did not make their choice precipitately. For which reason also there was an interchange of good and evil for most of the souls, as well as because of the chances of the lot. Yet if at each return to the life of this world 619e a man loved wisdom sanely, and the lot of his choice did not fall out among the last, we may venture to affirm, from what was reported thence, that not only will he be happy here but that the path of his journey thither and the return to this world will not be underground and rough but smooth and through the heavens.

Commentary

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

ξὺν νῷ . On ξύν see IV 424 E note

συντόνως ζῶντι : according to the motto ( ἁπλοῦς καὶ) ἀτενής (VIII 547 E). συντόνως ζητοῦντι, which Herwerden conjectured, appears in q and Flor. U: but the reading of A is far more characteristic and significant.

ἔθει ἄνευ φιλοσοφίας κτλ. Cf. Phaed. 82 A f. οἱ τὴν δημοτικὴν καὶ πολιτικὴν ἀρετὴν ἐπιτετηδευκότες, ἣν δὴ καλοῦσι σωφροσύνην τε καὶ δικαιοσύνην, ἐξ ἔθους τε καὶ μελέτης γεγονυῖαν ἄνευ φιλοσοφίας τε καὶ νοῦ, and see also on VI 500 D, 506 C. It is interesting to observe that philosophic virtue is not a sine qua non for admission to the Platonic heaven. Throughout the whole myth, rewards and punishments are distributed for good and bad actions rather than for knowledge and ignorance (cf. 615 B ff.); and correct opinion or ‘Orthodoxy,’ in Plato's sense of the word, provided the lines have fallen to it in pleasant places, may well have been both blameless and beneficent on earth. But in the moment of supremest peril (618 B), when we have to choose another life, it is Knowledge, and not ‘Orthodoxy,’ that prevails. In the Phaedo l.c. Plato says that the ‘orthodox’ probably enter as before εἰς τοιοῦτον—πολιτικόν τε καὶ ἥμερον γένος, ἤ που μελιττῶν ἢ σφηκῶν, ἢ μυρμήκων, ἣ καὶ εἰς ταὐτόν γε πάλιν τὸ ἀνθρώπινον γένος, καὶ γίγνεσθαι ἐξ αὐτῶν ἄνδρας μετρίους.

ὡς δὲ καὶ εἰπεῖν : not “according to Er's account” (D. and V.), but ‘as one might say,’ ‘broadly speaking,’ i.q. ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν. Cf. Laws 639 E ( ξύμπανθ’ ὡς εἰπεῖν), 795 D, Soph. 220 E , Phaedr. 258 E , and [ Epin.] 976 E. These examples are cited by Grünenwald in Schanz's Beiträge zur hist. Synt. d. Gr. Spr. II 3. pp. 21 ff.

καὶ διὰ ‐‐ τύχην ‘as well as by the fortune of the lot’ is doubted by Herwerden, while Richards calls for καὶ <οὐ> διά, relying on 619 B καὶ τελευταίῳ—ἀθυμείτω and on ‘the drift of the whole passage.’ In point of fact, however, Plato nowhere denies that the fortune of the lot affects the issue. On the contrary, his whole theory supposes that it does, for those souls who choose late have fewer lives to choose from: see 617 E, 618 A, 620 C. ὁ τελευτῶν, it is true, need not despair (619 B), but none the less is the lot likely to produce μεταβολὴ τῶν κακῶν καὶ τῶν ἀγαθῶν. Cf. Procl. l.c. 302. 15 ff. τούτοιν χρεία δυεῖν, ἑνὸς μὲν τῆς ὀρθῆς κρίσεως περὶ τὸ ἄμεινον καὶ χεῖρον τῶν προτεινομένων βίων, ἑτέρου δὲ τοῦ τὸν κλῆρον μὴ ἐν τοῖς ἐσχάτοις πίπτειν· τί γὰρ εἰ καὶ ὁ αἱρούμενος εἴη περὶ κρίσιν ἀσφαλής, ἀλλ’ οἱ προτεινόμενοι βίοι διὰ δή τινας αἰτίας οἱ τυχόντες εἶεν; See also on 618 A and following note.

ἐπεὶ κτλ. The connexion of ideas is: The fortune of the lot, and our individual choice, are the two influences that affect our destiny: for if our lot is reasonably early and we choose as befits philosophers, it will be well with us. ἐπεί “reddit rationem ante dictorum” (Schneider). The sense is surely both plain and satisfactory, although Richards asserts that “ ἐπεί has no meaning, unless there was an οὐ preceding.”

οὐκ ἂν χθονίαν ‐‐ οὐρανίαν is explained by 614 B—D: see notes ad loc. In the Phaedrus those souls which choose the philosophic life three times successively are “excused from seven of the ten millennial probations through which the rest have to pass” (Thompson on 249 A).

γάρ is resumptive. For examples of this usage see Shilleto on Dem. F. L. 107.

Plato Republic 10.619

ed. John Burnet

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