Plato Republic 3.401

ποικιλία . II 378 C note

τὴν τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ κτλ. This famous section describes in glowing language, like that of the Symposium, Plato's ideal of art. He does not desire to banish art, as is sometimes asserted, but rather idealises it by effecting—as he believed—its reconciliation with beauty and truth. Art aspired to be καλόν in his day: Plato wished it to be so in the fullest sense of the word: and his idea of beauty is sufficiently comprehensive to include moral and spiritual beauty as well as physical. Plato was doubtless unfair in the application of his principle to some of the Greek artists and poets, but in itself his ideal—the love of spiritual beauty —is one to which the best and most enduring art—which alone can find a place in an ideal city—consciously or unconsciously ever seeks to conform. See Nettleship Lect. and Rem. II pp. 112— 116.

τοῖς ποιήμασιν κτλ. Cf. Laws 656 D, E. Nettleship ( Hell. pp. 117 f.) remarks on the fact that “Plato in his criticism of Greek art has almost ignored the painters and sculptors, and confined his assaults to the musicians and still more to the poets.” This is true, although the present passage shews that his canons were intended to regulate painting, sculpture, architecture, and the minor arts as well as music and poetry. Among other reasons, Nettleship plausibly suggests that Plato “did not see in the sculptors and architects of his time the signs of degeneracy which drew his attention to the poets and musicians.” Cf. 401 C.

ὁπόθεν ἂν κτλ. No Greek could read these words without thinking of Olympia; no Athenian without recalling the glories of the Acropolis. It was probably in the spirit of this ideal that Epaminondas—himself a man of Platonic sympathies, if not a Platonist— hinted to his countrymen that their city could not be truly great until the Propylaea crowned their citadel (Aesch. περὶ παραπρεσβείας 105. See also Nettleship Hell. pp. 115—123). Partly on grounds of style, and partly for grammatical reasons, I believe that Plato wrote τις and not τι (see cr. n.). ‘Whenever anything strikes on their eyes or ears from fair works of art’ sounds material and gross in a passage so full of poetic feeling; and in the second place ἄγουσα agrees with αὔρα, whereas it should be ἄγον and agree with τι if τι is right. Translate ‘Whensoever from beautiful works of art there smites upon their eyes or ears as it were a salubrious breath from healthful regions.’ In the same way a sort of ἵμερος flows into the soul from beauty, awakening love and admiration ( Phaedr. 251 C ). The melodious current of Plato's rhythmic utterance flows onward like the steady though gentle breeze which it describes. With αὔρα—ὑγίειαν cf. Arist. Probl. I 52. 865^{b} 19 πόλις ὑγιεινὴ καὶ τόπος εὔπνους ( διὸ καὶ ἡ θάλασσα ὑγιεινή). For the syntax of τις—ὥσπερ αὔρα· φερουσα cf. τὰς τῆς γενέσεως ξυγγενεῖς ὥσπερ μολυβδίδας VII 519 B, where a similar corruption occurs in some of the MSS: see note ad loc. Paris A has τί for τίς again in II 360 E.

ἐν μουσικῇ τροφή . The insertion of ἡ before ἐν (suggested by Rückert) is needless: cf. 404 B.

φέροντα : not ‘imparting’ (Jowett), but ‘bearing,’ ‘carrying,’ like φέρουσα in the simile: cf. Symp. 188 A ἥκει φέροντα εὐετηρίαν.

καὶ μὴ καλῶς . Herwerden's conjecture ἤ for καί misses the precise force of παραλειπομένων ‘falling short’: cf. Critias 107 D ὀξέως αἰσθανόμενοι τὸ παραλειπόμενον. The word is explained in καὶ μὴ—φύντων, where the contrast is between imperfections of art and imperfections of nature.

ἐκεῖ : i.e. ἐν μουσικῇ.

ὀρθῶς δὴ κτλ. I formerly (with Baiter and others) adopted Vermehren's proposal ( Pl. Stud. p. 94) to read ὀρθῶς δὴ <χαίρων και> δυσχεραίνων τὰ μὲν καλὰ· ἐπαινοῖ καὶ [ χαίρων καὶ ] καταδεχόμενος κτλ. The correction is certainly an attractive one, in view especially of Laws 653 B, C, where education is defined as μισεῖν μὲν ἃ χρὴ μισεῖν—στέργειν δὲ ἃ χρὴ στέργειν, and 654 1) τὰ μὲν ἀσπαζόμενος ὅσα καλά, τὰ δὲ δυσχεραίνων ὀπόσα μὴ καλά, and Arist. Eth. Nic. II 2. 1104^{b} 11 ff. But the MS reading, though less pointed and pregnant, is in itself satisfactory enough, if δυσχεραίνων be understood with reference to what precedes ( τῶν παραλειπομένων), and we are therefore hardly justified in altering the text. (The omission of χαίρων καί in q should not be used as evidence of dislocation.) Hartman (after Stallbaum) excises καί between χαίρων and καταδεχόμενος, but this too is unnecessary. We may translate (with Jowett) ‘and rejoicing in them’ (as opposed to δυσχεραίνων just before) ‘and receiving them into his soul.’ The preposition κατα‐ in καταδεχόμενος suggests that beauty is an exile coming home again: the return of exiled truth and beauty is indeed with Plato the aim of education and of life. Cf. Phaedr. 250 A —252 A.

τρέφοιτο . For the metaphor cf. Phaedr. 248 B ff.