Plato Republic 9.586

κάτω κτλ. refers to the illustration in 584 D ff. The meaning of μέχρι πάλιν is ‘as far as back again’ sc. to the intermediate point: cf. μέχρι δεῦρο, μέχρι ἐνταῦθα, and other instances of the same usage in Stephanus-Hase Thes. s.v. μέχρι and Kühner-Blass Gr. Gr. II 1 p. 539 f.

πλανῶνται . They are like ‘wanderers’ who have lost the way: cf. the common use of πλανᾶσθαι in the New Testament; e.g. Pet. II 2. 15.

τὸ ἀληθῶς ἄνω refers to 584 D: but the words are intended also to suggest the deeper Platonic use of ‘the true Above,’ where Truth and Pureness dwell: see Phaed. 109 B ff., with VII 514 A note

βοσκημάτων δίκην κτλ. Cf. Tim. 91 E (the heads etc. of brute beasts are εἰς γῆν ἑλκόμενα in sympathy with their earthly souls) and VII 519 A, B notes With κεκυφότες εἰς τραπέζας cf. the description of Syracusan gluttony in the seventh Platonic Epistle 326 B ff. χορταζόμενοι (cf. II 372 D) and ὀχεύοντες are properly used of brute beasts, and therefore suitable after βοσκημάτων δίκην. ἕνεκα τῆς τούτων πλεονεξίας is equivalent to ὥστε τούτων πλέον (sc. than others) ἔχειν .

σιδηροῖς κτλ. The epithet is significant and should be pronounced with emphasis. The horns and hoofs wherewith these human βοσκήματα ‘kick and butt’ are lethal weapons made of iron. Van Leeuwen's conjecture σκληροῖς for σιδηροῖς ( Mnem. N. S. XXV Pt 4) only emasculates a fine comparison. J. and C. aptly cite in illustration Aesch. Ag. 1115 ff. ὁπλαῖς may be said “with a glance at ὅπλοις” (J. and C.). War springs from the insatiate desires of the flesh (II 373 E note): hence δἰ ἀπληστίαν.

ἅτε οὐχὶ ‐‐ πιμπλάντες explains ἀπληστίαν. They cannot be ‘filled’ because that part of themselves which they fill is not the real, not the continent part, and that wherewith they fill it is not the real either. Bosanquet aptly compares “Whoso drinketh of this water shall thirst again.” In οὐδὲ τὸ στέγον Plato doubtless has in mind the story of the Danaids, in which the πίθος τετρημένος was interpreted by certain ‘wise men’—probably preachers of the Orphic-Pythagorean way of life: cf. App. IV—as the bottomless or incontinent part of soul: see Gorg. 493 A ff., especially the words τῶν δ’ ἀμυήτων τοῦτο τῆς ψυχῆς, οὗ αἱ ἐπιθυμίαι εἰσί, τὸ ἀκόλαστον αὐτοῦ καὶ οὐ στεγανόν, ὡς τετρημένος εἴη πίθος, διὰ τὴν ἀπληστίαν ἀπεικάσας together with Rohde Psyche^{2} I pp. 326—329. Schneider makes a curious error when he says “ τὸ στέγον hic corpus quasi vas animi significare videtur.”

χρησμῳδεῖς refers to the halforacular style of Socrates' description: compare for instance σιδηροῖς κέρασί τε καὶ ὁπλαῖς with the famous ξύλινον τεῖχος in the oracle to the Athenians (Hdt. VII 141—144: see also id. 1 55 al. for more examples).

ἐσκιαγραφημέναις κτλ. See on 583 B. The words ὑπὸ τῆς—ἀποχραινομέναις mean ‘taking their colour from juxtaposition.’ The word ἀποχραίνειν had also a more technical sense ( τὸ τὰ χρωσθέντα ἑνοποιεῖν Tim. lex. Pl. s.v. χραίνειν), to which Plato alludes in Laws 769 A.

ὥσπερ κτλ. The many σκιαμαχοῦσι (VII 520 C) like the Trojans fighting for Helen's shadow in the fields of Troy.

Στησίχορος κτλ. See Phaedr. 243 A and Bergk Poet. Lyr. Gr.^{4} III pp. 214 ff. There is no real ground for supposing (with Teichmüller Lit. Fehd. I pp. 113 ff.) that Plato intends an allusion to Isocrates' Helena, in spite of περιμάχητος in Hel. 40 and the reference to Stesichorus ib. 64. Instead of τοῦ ἀληθοῦς Floyer Sydenham conjectured τῆς ἀληθοῦς (see Cl. Rev. II p. 229). It is more like Plato's suggestiveness to say ‘the truth’ than ‘the true Helen,’ which would moreover (as Lupton points out l.c.) rather be τῆς ἀληθινῆς.

ἕτερα τοιαῦτα κτλ. The satisfaction of τὸ θυμοειδές is also no true pleasure, but only λύπης ἀπαλλαγή. See Phil. 47 E . αὐτὸ τοῦτο means τὸ τοῦ θυμοειδές. The verb διαπράττηται is used as in IV 440 D οὐ λήγει τῶν γενναίων, πρὶν ἂν ἢ διαπράξηται ἢ κτλ. φιλοτιμίαν, φιλονικίαν and δυσκολίαν (‘ill temper’ cf. III 411 C) are particular forms of the principle which Plato calls τὸ θυμοειδές. Each of them is a κενότης and painful. The κενότης is filled, as the case may be, by τιμή, νίκη, or θυμός (indulgence in anger): hence πλησμονὴν τιμῆς κτλ. On the spelling φιλονικίαν, which the present passage, like others in Plato, clearly points to, see 581 B note

ἄνευ λογισμοῦ τε καὶ νοῦ is emphatic, and prepares us for θαρροῦντες λέγωμεν κτλ., where Plato concedes after all a certain measure of reality and truth to the pleasures of the two lower parts of soul, provided they act in obedience to reason. That the φιλοκερδές should in any degree whatsoever participate in true pleasure, has been judged inconsistent with the previous argument (Krohn Pl. St. pp. 227 ff.), but is not so, if we fully appreciate the restrictions which Plato makes (cf. Grimmelt de reip. comp. et unit. p. 76), and also remember that in the perfect city, which is the counterpart of the perfect soul, the lower orders found their truest pleasure in working for the common welfare under reason as embodied in the Guardians. The gist of the present passage is well expressed by Nettleship, who in his Lectures and Remains II p. 331 remarks “that in the most trivial satisfaction there may be a sense of serving something wider and higher than animal appetite: that this gives to the satisfaction of appetite a permanence and a satisfactoriness which by itself it cannot have.” Appetite, in short, behaves like a loyal citizen of the πολιτεία ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ. Cf. IV 443 D, E.

αἳ μὲν κτλ. The antithesis is supplied in a different form by ὅταν δὲ κτλ. 587 A. Instead of ἑπομένων in line 29 Stephanus read ἑπόμεναι, without MS authority: but cf. (with Schneider) ὡς ἄμεινον ὂν παντὶ ὑπὸ θείου καὶ φρονίμου ἄρχεσθαι, μάλιστα μὲν οἰκεῖον ἔχοντος ἐν αὑτῷ κτλ. 590 D. See note ad loc.

τὸ βέλτιστον ‐‐ οἰκειότατον . Cf. Arist. Eth. Nic. X chapter 7 ad finem δόξειε δ’ ἂν καὶ εἶναι ἕκαστος τοῦτο (sc. τὸ κράτιστον τῶν ἐν αὐτῷ), εἴπερ τὸ κύριον καὶ ἄμεινον κτλ. The whole of the latter portion of that famous chapter, in which Aristotle comes nearer to the spirit of Plato than anywhere else throughout his writings, might be summed up in the pregnant saying τὸ βέλτιστον ἑκάστῳ, τοῦτο καὶ οἰκειότατον—a saying which reaches to the very foundations of Plato's philosophy: for if that which is best for each thing, is also most its own—most truly akin to it, part of its very being,—it follows that each thing truly is just in proportion as it is good. In other words the cause of all existence is the Good; see on VI 505 D, 509 B.

τῷ φιλοσόφῳ κτλ. τῷ φιλοσόφῳ is of course neuter, and not masculine. With μὴ στασιαζούσης κτλ. cf. IV 441 D— 444 A. Soul attains its true unity (so far as is possible in this life: see on X 611 B) when the two lower ‘parts’ obey the highest; only then does a man become εἷς ἐκ πολλῶν (IV 443 E note). δικαίῳ εἶναι: i.e. according to the definition of Justice in Book IV l.c.