Plato: Republic 10 9780856684067, 0856684066

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PLATO

REPUBUC 10

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Aris & PhilliPs ClAssiCAl TexTs

PLATO Republic 10

with translation and commentary by

S. Halliwell

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Aris & Phillips is an imprint of Oxbow Books First published in the United Kingdom in 1988, reprinted in 2005 by OXBOW BOOKS 10 Hythe Bridge Street, Oxford OX1 2EW and in the United States by OXBOW BOOKS 908 Darby Road, Havertown, PA 19083 © The author S. Halliwell Paperback Edition: ISBN 978-0-85668-406-7 A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher in writing. For a complete list of Aris & Phillips titles, please contact: UNITED KINgDOm Oxbow Books Telephone (01865) 241249 Fax (01865) 794449 Email: [email protected] www.oxbowbooks.com

UNITED STATES OF AmERICA Oxbow Books Telephone (800) 791-9354 Fax (610) 853-9146 Email: [email protected] www.casemateacademic.com/oxbow

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CONTENTS

Preface

vii

Abbreviations & References

viii

Note to 2005 Reprint

ix

Introduction

§ 1.1 The Platonic Approach to Poetry

3

§ 1.2 Art and Reality

7

§ 1.3 Art and the Mind

11

§ 1.4 The Platonic Legacy to Aesthetics

13

§2.1 The Myth of Er

17

§2.2 Astronomy and Religion

19

§2.3 Reincarnation and Destiny

21

Bibliography

30

Note on the Text

32

Text and Translation

33

Commentary

105

Appendix: The Relative Date of Republic 10

194

Index

196

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PREFACE The modern standing of Republic 10 is somewhat anomalous. Often ignored or underrated by professional philosophers and Platonic specialists, it is for many other people one of the best known and most intriguing parts of Plato's oeuvre. This wider familiarity is due principally to the fact that it contains the most provocative and notorious of Plato's treatments of poetry and visual art. In addition, it includes perhaps the most intricate and fascinating of his philosophical myths, the myth of Er - another feature which has promoted the book's status more among ordinary readers than among philosophers. It is a large part of the interest of bk.l0 that it embraces such disparate kinds of Platonic writing and material. I have tried in this edition to give roughly equal attention to these two major components of the work, both of which involve fundamental concerns of Plato's, and to do justice to the different types of interpretative approach for which they call. I have also included in my Introduction a sketch of the remarkable development by which Platonising thinkers, in antiquity and later, managed to invert Plato's own view of art, and to replace it with one whose influence and repercussions can be observed up to the period of Romanticism. Except for a few irreducibly linguistic points, Greek in the commentary is given in transliterated form. For those who read Greek this is a small inconvenience, while it will, I hope, make the book less forbidding and more useful to the Greekless. I must thank Catherine Osborne for allowing me to read her article on bk.l0 (see Bibliography) in advance of publication, and Professor N. Birdsall for advice on the possibly Semitic origin of the name Er. I would also like to make special mention of my son, Luke, who gave me valuable technical assistance in the preparation of the book. University of Birmingham

S. H.

vii

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ABBREVIATIONS & REFERENCES CAF

DK FGrH KRS

iSJ

OCD2 PCG PMG TrGF

T. Kock (ed.) Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta (Leipzig, 1880-88) H. Diels & W. Kranz (edd.) Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker 7 (Berlin, 1954) F. Jacoby (ed.) Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (Berlin, 1923-) G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers 2 (Cambridge, 1983) H. G. Liddell & R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon» (Oxford, 1940) N. G. L. Hammond & H. H. Scullard (edd.) The Oxford Classical Dictionary 2 (Oxford, 1970) R. Kassel & C. Austin (edd.) Poetae Comici Graeci (Berlin, 1983-) D. L. Page (ed.) Poetae Melici Graeci (Oxford, 1962) S. Radt (ed.) Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta 3 (Aeschylus) & 4 (Sophocles), (Gottingen, 1985, 1977)

References to passages in the Republic are given, wherever possible, without the title of the work. The book number is supplied in all cases except for those in bk.l0 itself, though it is given only once for successive citations from the same book. All references to Proclus are to W. Kroll (ed.) Procli Diadochi in Platonis Rem Publicam Commentarii (Leipzig, 1899-1901), by volume, page and line numbers. Note that throughout the translation (excepting the narrative of the myth of Er) the phrases 'he said' and 'I said' have been omitted, and replaced by the initials of the two interlocutors, Socrates and Glaucon.

viii

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NOTE TO 2005 REPRINT Since 1987 I have regularly returned to Republic 10and its issues. If! were to rewrite the introduction and commentary now, I would modify a number of details as well as incorporating new thoughts and suggestions. Equally importantly,I would offer a somewhat more dialectical, non-doctrinal reading of the first half of the book, avoiding the ascription of clear-cut beliefs to Plato on the basis of the text, and pushing further the idea that the arguments about poetry (and mimesis more generally) are deliberately, sometimes rhetorically, provocative (see p. 6). I limit myself here to providing references to the following publications in which I have more recently discussed material from book 10 (and in which my interpretations may be seen evolving): 'The Importance of Plato and Aristotle for Aesthetics', in J. J. Cleary (ed.), Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy V [1989] (Lanham, 1991) 321-48 [rpr. in L.P. Gerson (ed.) Aristotle: Critical Assessments, vo!. 4 (London, 1999) 289-312] 'Plato and the Psychology of Drama' in B. Zimmermann (ed.) Antike Dramentheorien und ihre Rezeption (Stuttgart, 1992) 55-73 [revised version forms part of The Aesthetics of Mimesis (below), eh. 2] 'Plato, Imagination and Romanticism' in L. Ayres (ed.) The Passionate Intellect (New Brunswick, 1995) 23-37 [revised version forms part of The Aesthetics of Mimesis (below), eh. 2] 'Plato's Repudiation of the Tragic' in M. S. Silk (ed.) Tragedy and the Tragic (Oxford, 1996) 332-49 [revised version in The Aesthetics of Mimesis (below), eh. 3] 'The Republics Two Critiques of Poetry' in O. Hoffe (ed.) Platon Politeia (Berlin, 1997) 313-32 [some parts adapted in The Aesthetics of Mimesis (below), eh, 1] 'Plato and Painting', in K. Rutter & B. Sparkes (edd.) Word and Image (Edinburgh, 2000) 99-116 [revised version in The Aesthetics of Mimesis (below), eh. 4] 'From Mythos to Logos: Plato's Citations of the Poets', Classical Quarterly 50 (2000) 94-112 The Aesthetics of Mimesis: Ancient Texts and Modern Problems (Princeton, 2002) 'Plato', revised version, in M. Groden, M. Kreiswirth, 1. Szeman (edd.) Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Criticsim, 2nd edn. (Baltimore, 2004, plus online version). Note, also, that my 1984 article, 'Plato and Aristotle on the Denial of Tragedy', cited in the Bibliography is reprinted, with revisions, in A. Laird (ed.) Oxford Readings in Ancient Literary Criticism (Oxford, 2005).

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The following is a small selection of further writings of interest to those studying Republic 10; I include foreign-language publications for advanced students (among them two items predating 1987 which I omitted to cite the first time round): Albinus. L., 'The katabasis of Er', in E. N. Ostenfeld (ed.) Essays on Plato's Republic (Aarhus, 1998) 91-105. Babut, D., 'Paradoxes et cnigmes dans largumcntation de Platon au livre X de la Republique', in 1. Brunschwig et al. (edd.) Histoire et Structure (Paris. 1985). 123-45 [rpr. in D. Babut, Parerga (Lyon, 1994) 259-81]. Bouvicr, D., 'Ulysse et la personnage du lecteur dans le Republique: reflexions sur limportance du mythe d'Er pour la theorie de la mimesis', in M. Fattal (ed.) La Philosophie de Platon (Paris, 2001) 19-53. Brown, E., 'A Defense of Plato's Argument for the Immortality of the Soul at Republic X 608c-611 a', Apeiron 30 (1997) 211-238 [rpr. in E Wagner (ed.) Essays on Plato's Psychology (Lanham, MD, 200 I). Burnyeat, M., 'Culture and Society in Plato's Republic', Tanner Lectures on Human Values 20 (1999) 217-324. Buttner, S., Die Literaturtheorie bei Platon (Tubingen, 2000). Ferrari, G. R. F., 'Plato and Poetry', in G Kennedy (ed.) The Cambridge History of Literary Criticsim, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1989) 92-148. Fine, G., On Ideas: Aristotle's Criticism of Plato's Theory of Forms (Oxford, 1995) 818, 110-19. Murray, P, Plato on Poetry (Cambridge, 1996). Nehamas, A., 'Plato and the Mass Media', The Monist 71 (1988) 214-24 [rpr. in A. Nehamas, Virtues of Authenticity (Princeton, 1999) 279-99]. Rutherford, R. B., The Art of Plato (Cambridge Mass., 1995). Schills, G., 'Plato's Myth of Er: the Light and the Spindle', Antiquite Classique 62 (1993) 101-14. Skillen. A., 'Fiction Year Zero: Plato's Republic', British Journal of Aesthetics 32 (1992) 201-8. Slings, S. R., (ed.) Platonis Respublica (Oxford, 2003). Thayer, H. S.. 'The Myth of Er', History of Philosophy Quarterly 5 (l988)m 369-84 Untersteiner, M., Platone Repubblica Libro X (Naples, 1966). S.H.

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INTRODUCTION

The Republic is the largest and greatest work written by Plato (427 - 347) in what is now generally known as his 'middle period'; it was probably composed over a number of years in the course of the 380s and, perhaps, early 370s BC. It belongs to the stage in Plato's output by which the Socratic dialogue form, originally invented to dramatise, keep alive and celebrate the style of philosophical enquiry pursued by Plato's teacher, Socrates (469 - 399), has started to become a medium for exploring ideas which we can no longer confidently attribute to the historical Socrates himself. The Republic can be seen as an ambitious attempt by Plato to bring together within a single, extensive work all the major questions and issues which had come to matter to him as a mature and increasingly independent thinker, though one still perpetuating the uncompromising quest for wisdom and truth learnt from Socrates. The major theme of the Republic is the nature of justice, which comes to be interpreted as the central value in both the unity of human societies and the harmony of individual souls. This parallelism between the city and the soul, the social and the psychic, forms one of the work's bonding leitmotivs (see comm. on 605b5), and it allows the scope of the dialogue to encompass great questions of politics, psychology and morality. After an initial challenge to Socrates, in bks.1-2, to establish the nature of justice and its intrinsic value, most of the work (bks.2 -7) is presented as the imaginative elaboration of requirements for a hypothetical city, ruled by philosophical Guardians, in whose entire organisation justice would be perfectly embodied. In the course of explaining the nature and educational needs of his envisaged philosophical rulers (bks.6-7), Socrates expounds a view of reality according to which our sensual world and its contents are inferior in being and truth to a transcendent and perfect realm of unchanging verities (the Forms). Thus the work takes on a metaphysical dimension which has implications for every facet of human lives. Combined with the political perspective of the hypothetical city is the psychological perspective of the individual soul, which is analysed (in bk.4) into a tripartite structure of elements: the rational, the 'spirited' (emotion and will), and the appetitive (desires). When regulated by the rule of reason, the relations between the components of the mind match the forces of social order which maintain the unity of a common good between the three classes of the just city (the philosopher Guardians, the military auxiliaries, and the civilian workers). These twin perspectives are sustained in bks.8-9, where we are offered an enquiry into variously defective political constitutions, and into the states of soul which correspond to 1

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them. Bk.9 also offers what appears to .be the final vindication of justice against the challenge which gave the discussion its original impetus. Only the just man, whose life is governed by reason, can be truly happy, Socrates is able to conclude; while injustice, whatever material rewards it may appear to reap, is a condition of wretched slavery to one's animal emotions and desires. Rep. 10 has sometimes been judged an 'afterthought' or later addition to the rest of the work. In fact, there are no good grounds for slighting the book in this way. 1 Its status may certainly be regarded as that of a coda, but the kind of coda which adds to, at the same time as it completes, the larger design. It must be recognised that, though a composition of great sophistication and purposefulness, the Republic as a whole is not a seamless garment. Its argument unfolds in stages which reflect the nature of exploratory dialectic, and at a number of junctures it takes a new or not wholly predictable turn: the start of bk.l0 is one of these. We have no reliable evidence, outside the work itself, either for Plato's original conception of the dialogue, or for just how this conception was modified as the writing proceeded. Whatever the chronology of composition (see the Appendix), we must accept that the text which we have reflects its author's final intentions for its shape and contents. Bk.l0 comprises three major elements, the second and third of which are closely linked: a renewed challenge to the credentials and effects of poetry (which had been earlier impugned in the discussion of education in bks.2-3); an argument for the immortality of the soul; and a mythical vision (attributed to a Pamphylian soldier, Er) of the realisation of justice in the eternal workings of the cosmos, encompassing both the astronomical system of planets and stars, and the reincarnation of immortal souls. The first part of the book therefore offers a reprise of an earlier subject, but it does so in such a way as to expand into new considerations about all mimetic (or representational) art. What then follows provides an elevated climax for the entire work, and strives to carry the vindication of justice onto a higher level than bk.9 had achieved: justice is finally seen not only to be the key to happiness in this life, but also to be sanctioned by a perfect world order within which the soul's goodness and happiness are measured on the scale of eternity. Thus the political, psychological and metaphysical strands of the Republic are finally drawn together into an essentially religious vision, a kind of philosophical 'theodicy'. Before examining the contents of the book in greater detail, it is worth being aware from the start of a particular point of Platonic purpose in the juxtaposition of an attack on poetry with a mythical exposition of an eternal scheme of justice. When Plato concludes the entire Republic with a myth, he is using a form of presentation which he knows to be particularly associated with poets (§2.1 below). The myth of Er starts (614b2-3) with an explicit contrast between the character of Plato's 2

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philosophical narrative and the myths of the very poet, Homer, who was the major target of the earlier part of bk.10's arguments. Plato was conscious throughout his life of being, both as writer and thinker, a kind of rival to the great poets of his culture. Bk.10 refers directly to an old 'quarrel' between poetry and philosophy (607b5), and as late as Laws 7 .817a -d Plato continues to express a sense of competition between his own philosophical enterprise and the nature of tragic poetry (which includes Homer: see 595c1). So we can say of Rep. 10 that its design lends implicit force to this point of view: Plato sets out his reasons for rejecting the finest Greek poetry, before offering his own philosophical, yet quasi -poetic, vision of a cosmic order of which the poets themselves had never spoken.

1.1 The Platonic Approach to Poetry Some of the reasons for bk.10's return to the subject of poetry arise, as we shall see, from the internal structure of the Republic. But the relation between bk.10 and the earlier scrutiny in bks.2-3 can also be placed in a longer Platonic perspective. It is commonly supposed that Plato possessed a fixed view of poetry, with Rep. 10 regarded as the chief statement of this view. But Plato's approach to poetry is less simple than that. It will be useful, therefore, to offer a sketch of some of the major themes and factors which shape this approach, up to the time of, and including, the Republic. (a) We start, as in other areas, with elements of Socratic influence. Socrates is portrayed from the early works onwards as fully conversant, in the typical educated fashion, with much Greek poetry, especially Homer's. He is ready to cite poetic material in considering the philosophical matters which interest him, and there is a recurrent strain of fondness for poetry in his attitude (see esp. Ap. 28b-d, 41a, Lys. 213e-14a, Meno 81b, Phdo. 94d-5a, Symp. 209a-d). Although there were no doubt other biographical factors too at work here, it is plausible that Plato was affected by a degree of Socratic respect for poetry. Significantly, at any rate, Plato continues to incorporate this feature in his Socratic persona as late as Rep. 10 itself (see comm. on 595b9-10), and I would diagnose some authentically Socratic as well as Platonic motivation for this. (b) Socratic interest in poetry leads, however, to a critical posture towards the authority of poets. Socrates argues at Ap. 22a -c that when he tested the reputation for wisdom popularly held by poets in his time, he found them unable to give that rational account of their work which alone, in his eyes, would guarantee true knowledge. At best, therefore, poets must be held to have access to some kind of irrational inspiration. 3 This content downloaded from 193.60.238.240 on Mon, 15 Feb 2021 08:04:24 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

In addition to Ap. 22c, poetic inspiration is considered, but not without irony, in Ion and at Meno 99c-d. But already by the time of the latter, we have moved well away from anything like a pure Socratic portrait. That Plato himself could never entirely dismiss the idea of inspiration is indicated later by Phdr. 245a (but cf. 248d-e) and Laws 3.682a. Equally, though, it must be said that inspiration never bulks large in, and is indeed usually altogether absent from, Plato's mature treatments of poetry. There is no trace of it in Rep. 10. It should be added that poets' lack of rationally accountable knowledge helps to explain the belief, probably in part Socratic (for it fits with his sense of personal dlalec-ic), that consistent interpretation of poetry is impossible: for this view see Prt. 347c-e (with the preceding parody of literary criticism), Ion again, Hp. Min. 365c-d, and the irony regarding Simonides at Rep. 1.332b-c. (c) The Socratic critique of poetry has a sharp ethical focus. The early work Euthyphro shows Socrates questioning traditional poetic (as well as visual) images of divine enmities (6b-c). This challenge to the ethical content of poetry in fact has a long philosophical tradition behind it, and it becomes a major strand in Plato's hostility towards poetry. 2 If poets purvey ethical falsehoods, not only are they deserving of philosophical rebuttal, but their status as central material in Greek education becomes questionable. It is this line of thought which leads to the major censure of poetry in Rep. 2-3, as well as to smaller passages such as 1.33ld-2c, 334a -e, and Meno 95c -6a. I would stress, though, that Plato's conviction of the need to exclude or ban poets from the ideally just state, goes beyond anything we have reason to attribute to Socrates himself. (d) Entailed in (c) is the sense that poetry can and does possess the serious power to work deleterious effects on its audiences. This becomes a permanent concern of Plato's, variously elaborated. One recurrent idea (derived particularly from the cultural conditions of classical Athens) is that poetry is debased by the requirement of satisfying mass audiences: e.g. Ap. l8c-d, Grg. 50ld-2d, Rep. 6.493, with my comm. at 602b3. Related to this is the suspicion that poetry (and other art) may be prepared to sacrifice ethical standards to the pursuit of one simple goal - giving pleasure to its devotees (see comm. on 606b4). Plato sustains this broad social appraisal of poetry's effects with an analysis of the impact of poetry on the individual mind. In Rep. 3, esp. 395c-d, 396b-e, it is contended that any poetry in direct speech (which Plato here calls mimesis: cf. (e) below) involves those who experience it - whether as actor, reader, or hearer 3 - in a process of imaginative identification, which will prove harmful to the extent that the behaviour of the dramatised characters is itself flawed. In bk.lO we find the even more radical claim that all poetry, whether dramatic or otherwise, invites or entails sympathy with the characters portrayed, and that the emotions 4

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evoked in this way carry over into - have a permanent effect on - the mental lives of poetry's audience (see comm. on 606b5-8). The deepening of the scope of this psychological charge is itself part of the explanation for Plato's return to the subject of poetry in the final book of the Republic. (e) My last paragraph has already referred to a further change in the ambit of Plato's arguments between bks. 2-3 and 10. This is the shift in the use of the mimesis word - group from denoting dramatic enactment through direct speech (3.392d5 ff.) to meaning artistic representation or depiction in a much broader sense (comm. at 595a5). This shift must be seen against the background of an increasing preoccupation on Plato's part with the concept of mimesis. There are, in fact, no direct references to poetic or artistic mimesis (in any sense) in the early dialogues. But from the middle period works onwards, we encounter a growing application of the language of mimesis both to visual art (e.g. Crat. 430b ff., 432b ff.) and to art - poetry, music, painting - in general (e.g. Crat. 423c-d, Phdr. 248el-2, Pol. 288c, 299d4, 306d). The assumption found in bk.10 that virtually all poetry is mimetic (see on 595a5) becomes invariable in Plato's later works (e.g. Tim. 19d-e, Laws 2.668a-b), as does the notion of a fundamental analogy between the status and aims of poetry and painting. Rep. 3 ~s limited sense of mimesis is certainly not aberrant; it has well-established usage behind it. 4 But it does make the argument of that book less ambitious than bk. 10's case against poetry, where the concept of mimesis anticipates and reflects the much greater range of mimesis terminology which becomes typical of Plato's later thought. 5 This sketch of some of the factors and developments in Plato's approach to poetry has already given us a partial sense of the relation between bks.2-3 and bk.10. The earlier passage rests on the foundations of a critical attitude which may go back in its essentials to Socrates (and, in certain respects, beyond him). It brings against poetry related charges of falsehood, immorality, and the psychological power, especially when using the dramatic mode, to imprint these effects on its audience. These arguments did not lose their validity for Plato; parallels to them can still be found as late as his final work, the Laws. 6 Bk.10 itself in fact picks up the earlier allegations of falsehood and psychological harm, but it enlarges and modifies the import of both, and thereby carries altogether further philosophy's 'quarrel' with poetry (607b5). The attack is now of a more radical kind, and revolves around the fresh understanding of mimesis as a process of specious image - making which accounts for all poetic and visual art. 7 Mimesis is now judged to be inherently false or fake, rather than simply capable of conveying falsehoods (which was the suggestion in bks.2-3). This new and deeper indictment takes some of its force from two bodies of doctrine, one psychological and 5

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one metaphysical, belonging to the intervening books of the work. The first, cited immediately at 595a7 -8, is the analysis of the internal dynamics of the soul, presented in bk.4 and subsequently explored, especially in bks.8-9. The second is the metaphysical vista of bks.5-7, according to which ultimate reality is represented by transcendent Forms or Ideas (see on 596a6). This metaphysical viewpoint is particularly pertinent to the tripartite hierarchy of being (Forms, particulars, images) set out at 596a -7e, but it is also echoed in the various later contrasts drawn between appearances and reality. The psychological doctrine of earlier books is explicitly recalled at a number of points in the condemnation of the effects of art on the mind at 602c-8b. The fresh condemnation of mimesis, therefore, builds on but goes beyond bks.2-3 by elaborating concepts and criteria taken both from the Republic's drama of the soul, and from the middle books' great series of contrasts (often expressed in the language of original and image) between the plane of unchanging verities and the multiplicity of particulars in the sensual world. So, within the total structure of the work, bk.l0's critique of poetry acquires extra weight and momentum from what has intervened since the earlier treatment; it expresses the much greater confidence with which poetry's status - as the core of Greek culture and education - can now be impugned, both in its relation to reality and in its impact on the soul. Moreover, although Plato's major concern is with poetry, and his analogy with painting is a subordinate (sometimes rhetorical) consideration, the latter should not be regarded as a purely polemical strategy. The critical point is that the wider concept of mimesis, as the references in (e) above demonstrate, itself incorporates the conviction of an affinity between poetry's and visual art's derivative standing in relation to the world. 8 Plato's development of this conviction may at times be gravely tendentious, as will become clear. But that does not altogether undermine his premise that certain important questions about art's status can be asked equally of poetry and painting. In what follows, therefore, I shall often assume that bk.l0 offers, at least in an inchoate form, a critique not just of poetry but of representational (mimetic) art as a whole. If for nothing else, Rep. 10 would be significant for raising in a bold form issues which have frequently recurred in later aesthetics and criticism of art. It is to be understood that Plato frames his challenge to art in a deliberately provocative manner: Socrates refuses to hedge his arguments round with compromising qualifications, but insists on stating the case against poetry and art with blunt directness, even with teasing exaggeration. One possible function of this style is to provoke the lovers of poetry into defining much more rigorously the value which they attach to it (see 607d). Rather than rejecting the provocation as too facile, we shall do well to try to recognise the permanent problems which some of its arguments pose. 9 6

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1.2 Art and Reality In constructing his arguments in Rep. 10, Plato makes use of already existing attitudes towards art, and attempts to show the adverse conclusions which can be drawn from them. Greek artistic practice and theory alike accepted that poetry and the visual arts in some sense represented, depicted, or dramatised reality (whether actual or potential). Such a view, which by Plato's time was generally expressed in the language of mimesis, 1 0 has also in one form or another been the most widely held of all assumptions about literature and art in the subsequent European tradition. This mimetic or representational aesthetic entails that works of art do not themselves constitute the elements of reality which they betoken or show. Rep. 10 reinterprets or exploits this conception in order to arrive at the conclusion that the process and nature of art - mimesis is intrinsically superficial, and of no direct value for the living of our lives. In a passage which 'has haunted the philosophy of art ever since', 1 1 art is compared to a mirror (596c - e) in its alleged limitation to producing evanescent simulations of the world of the senses. This limitation is doubly damning given Plato's metaphysical suppositions, for it means that poetry and painting have no access to the true, transcendent and unchanging reality which lies beyond appearances. All this, if accepted, necessarily makes it is absurd to attribute deep knowledge of the world to poets or painters, and equally so to claim that their work can have an ethically beneficial effect on us - a claim common in Greek culture as well as in later ages. The tenacious strength of this case is that, even when stripped of its metaphysical dimension (as it must automatically be, for most of us), it continues to pose a hard question about the relation between art and our other experiences of the world. Plato's position presupposes that poetry does in its own medium something comparable to what the painter does in his; the poet offers verbal images of men, gods, objects and events, just as the painter does in visual form. And what both artists achieve is no more substantial, no more informed by understanding, and therefore no more valuable, than turning a mirror on the ordinary world around us. If the subjects of art are of interest or importance, we can turn directly to the study of them, and do not need second - hand representations of them. How can something offered as a simulation (a mere appearance, dramatisation, or fiction) justify itself? Underlying this question is a serious doubt about the criterion of verisimilitude or truth - to -life as a complete or sufficient justification for art. Such a justification was probably widely presupposed in Plato's own culture, as it has often been since. But if Plato is right, a realistic painting or a convincingly dramatic piece of poetry cannot, on grounds of vividness or life -likeness alone, merit serious attention (even if Plato 7

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deliberately underestimates the skill needed to produce such qualities: see comm. on 599al-2). If truth-to-life were an artistic end in itself, then perfect illusionism would be a supreme achievement of art. Yet such illusionism, as Plato ironically intimates at 598c, would by definition obliterate all consciousness of art and would be incompatible with critical judgement. It does not follow, of course, that degrees of verisimilitude and vividness cannot be valuable artistic means to an end. Plato's argument compels us to see the need to define such an end (or ends). So, even after putting aside the metaphysics of transcendent being (the Forms), representational poetry and art do still have a case to answer (if, at least, they are not simply to lapse into trivial self-satisfaction). Plato's position itself, of course, can and must be challenged in certain respects. A full counter-case would need to be made on a number of fronts for different kinds of poetry and art (bk.l O is a great eraser of artistic distinctions). But we can start with the fact that while bk.lO may alert us to the weaknesses of positing verisimilitude as an end in art, it fails to consider why it might still be thought a valuable means to some further end. In dismissing mere representation (mimesis), Plato never seems to allow that it could serve a purpose beyond its own achievement. We can similarly observe how Plato ignores possibilities which he elsewhere acknowledges. No consideration, for example, is given to the positive ways in which a work of art might constitute something more than, and distinct from, the things which it represents. Qualitiessay, of beauty, design, expressiveness - which we may wish to predicate of a poem or painting, but not necessarily of its subject (separately conceived), are not permitted to figure in the enquiry. 1 2 Moreover, earlier passages in the Republic which refer to idealistic forms of painting (5.472d4 -7, 6.484c) prompt the question why bk.lO allows artisan craftsmen (596b), but not painters or poets, to have conceptions of ideal(ised) reality - a question not lost on later neoplatonist aesthetics, which produced a suitably metaphysical view of art to satisfy Platonic standards (81.4 below). But even without adopting such a stance, we can legitimately object that neither painting nor poetry is as dependent as Plato's argument contends on particulars in the world (in the way in which a mirror' necessarily is), nor as limited to slavishly reproducing them even where it does take them as its subject. Any form, or theory, of art which can lay claim to something other or more than the simulation of particulars, will reduce its vulnerablility to the first part of Plato's case in bk.l O, even if the basic premise of representational status is upheld. 1 3 One such theory was produced by Plato's own pupil, Aristotle (see §1.4 below). For the modern lover of poetry or art, who is likely to be heavily influenced by Romantic attitudes, there is a strong temptation to couch a defence against Plato in the language of creativity - to oppose the artist's 8

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inner light of imagination against the static and passive notion of art as 'mirroring'. Such claims are perhaps a necessary counterbalance to the reductionism from which Plato's formulation of poetry's and painting's aims partly suffers. But it remains important to see that brandishing a term such as 'creative' is not in itself to provide a solution to the question. If we are looking for a justification of art which will give it some valuable purchase on the world, and so some power to enrich our experience and understanding, we need a clarification of a number of related issues. Some of these are matters of psychology, to which I shall return in the next section. But it may help in defining a response to Plato's position to turn to consideration of his charge that mimesis, artistic representation, requires no knowledge in its makers, and cannot produce it in its audiences. Pursuing the reasons for this charge should give us further insight into both the strengths and the weaknesses of bk.10's indictment of art. Plato's stance here has a Socratic foundation (§1.1 above) in questioning the widely held Greek view that poets, if not painters, were knowledgeable in the various matters which they represented in their work (see comm. on 598c-e). Like Socrates, Plato here conceives of knowledge as divisible into specific' areas of expertise. On this basis he is able to claim that art cannot in general be justified in terms of its practitioners' technical mastery in the matters they depict or dramatise (though, once more, he ignores the intrinsic technicalities of art itself). 1 4 But defenders of both painting. and poetry might argue against Plato that by offering images of possible human realities to the imagination, these arts nurture the mind in ways which cannot be categorised according to a scheme of technical spheres of knowledge (such as medicine or strategy: cf. 599c). Plato was in fact faced in his own day with people who offered some such justification for poetry, but he rejected the idea of poets as ethical guides to life (606e5) for four principal reasons: first, that poetry, like all mimesis, is concerned with appearances not with substance (598a -9a); second, that empirical considerations (e.g. lack of followers) show, say, Homer not to have been an outstanding teacher in his own lifetime (599a -601 b); third, that imitators are inferior to both makers and users of objects (601 b-2b); fourth, that poetry's real power - its capacity to draw us emotionally into its world - is actually a force which harms, not improves, the mind (602c-8b). Of these reasons, the second is by the far the weakest; it depends on a series of arbitrary assumptions about the relation between ethical knowledge, on the one hand, and practical activity and success, on the other. But the nature of Plato's argument at this point should be read as a rhetorical rather than a philosophical rebuttal of the more exaggerated claims made on behalf of poets: if Homer was as omniscient and polymathic as some people believe, Plato's objection runs, why did he not change the world in some more conspicuous way than by 9

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writing poetry? One might, nonetheless, want to offer the rejoinder: is not the creation of poems which come to dominate the imagination of an entire culture (as Plato's own concern with them testifies) an impressive enough way of changing the world? The third reason - expressed by the tripartite scheme of user, maker and imitator at 601b-602b - depends heavily on the idea of technical There are many categories of knowledge which I have mentioned above. areas to which the scheme has no clear applicability at all, and it might be argued that art can enlighten us precisely in regions where there is no specialist source of guidance. More significantly, the relevance of the scheme to the central question of ethical action is obscure. The argument implies that where ethics is concerned, poets can hardly be taken seriously as guides to the realities of practical choice. This is both true and yet in need of qualification: true (against some existing Greek attitudes) in that a consistent relation between experience of poetry and moral virtue cannot be unsentimentally maintained; but to be qualified by the observation that Plato's own Socratic heritage had made him aware of the difficulty of finding any obviously superior paradigm of ethical teaching or influence. If our conception of ethics depends on stringent criteria of moral knowledge (making the good man equivalent to the expert user of an artefact), it will not be easy to point to an incontrovertible instance of such knowledge in practice. Yet, once we allow that ethical understanding may be acquired and fostered in a variety of ways, a place may reappear for the poet and artist in such processes. For one thing, Plato himself, by his own use of philosophical myth (§2.1 below). and indeed by his whole devotion to literary dialogue, appears to recognise the special capacity of imaginative and fictional narratives to offer the mind material for a specifically dramatic process of reflection. But Plato's fundamental allegation against the artist, implicit in the maker/user/imitator scheme as well as separately stated. remains that his concern with 'appearances' and 'simulacra' prevents him from obtaining any real hold on the truth (which for Plato. we must remember, lies ultimately beyond our human existences). No-one who values art seriously will. I think. take Plato's imputation lightly, even if he finds some of the arguments used to express it unacceptable. To answer Plato adequately here would necessarily be to provide an alternative aesthetic to the philosopher's, and an honest alternative would not pretend that the relation But in the between art and reality is an easy or straightforward one. present context I must restrict myself to observing that Plato's arguments drive home the inadequacy of viewing art as a substitute for some element of reality independently available to our experience. Any justification of art which rests on such a premise will always be vulnerable to the charges of parasitic imitation and specious pretence which bk.10 levels against both poetry and painting. (Similarly, some of Plato's arguments may be 10

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particularly penetrating when directed against bad art.) A vindication of these activities against Plato will always need, therefore, to identify something in the making and experience of art which cannot be readily found elsewhere in life, and yet - if aesthetic complacency is to be avoided - something which itself constitutes, or can contribute to, a good form of life. Instead of presenting art as a substitute for something else, such a defence would show that there is no substitute for art itself. That the best art is not sealed off from life is acknowledged by Plato himself in the last of the four objections which I listed above. To consider the implications of this brings us to the second great dimension of bk.10's aesthetic critique. 1.3 Art and the Mind Plato wishes to show that art can inflict positive damage on the mind. He sets about this, for both painting and poetry, by employing a strong dichotomy between the reasoning faculty and the 'lower', baser elements of the soul. In both cases, he contends, art encourages the latter at the expense of the former - painting by its invitation to the senses to judge by simulated appearances alone (and partial ones, at that); poetry by the arousal of sympathetic and powerful emotions which will in turn infect our ordinary lives and impede the work of reason. It must at once be said that the coupling of poetry and painting is weaker here than earlier in bktl O, and weaker than it needs to be. The two cases, as presented, are scarcely comparable at all, and that of painting seems especially tenuous: that even trompe l'oeil painting has any general effect on the reasoning, 'measuring' capacity of the mind (602d -3a), is a proposition difficult to make sense of. This leaves us, nonetheless, with an independently powerful argument against poetry, and indeed one which could in turn be generalised (though Plato does not do so) to apply to all art. The force of the argument depends on the premise that the emotions aroused by poetry are not distinct from those active in the rest of our lives. If we can acknowledge that Plato is right, au fond, to believe that poetry imaginatively engages our emotional life by drawing us sympathetically into the reality which it represents or enacts, then we should be able to recognise that he has grounds for arguing that this emotional engagement is a channel through which certain values may be communicated from a work of art to its willing audience. The combination of a sense of poetry as something psychologically potent and dangerous, with the earlier suggestion that it is sham and empty, may be paradoxical but is not illogical. Plato wants both to rebut certain claims for the wisdom derivable from art, and to attack what he sees as its real, if undesirable, efficacy in casting us under its spell. 1 5 11

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The lover of poetry or art here finds himself, therefore, up against someone who does not underestimate what he is attacking. Leaving aside the possibility of a purely negative, aestheticist defence (to the effect that the experience of art is pleasurably independent from the rest of life), a reply to the Platonic case requires two major and related components: first, a different understanding of the relation between reason and emotion within the mind; second, an alternative set of values bearing on the objects which provide a focus for our emotions. 1 6 Both these tasks were in part tackled by Plato's pupil, Aristotle, whose philosophy posits a much more interdependent relation between reason and the emotions, and attaches much greater value to the emotion of pit)! which is Plato's chief target at 603c-6b. 1 '7 The contrast between Plato and Aristotle helps to emphasise that we are dealing here with fundamental premises about psychology and ethics, on which our response to the arguments of 605-8 will depend. As regards ethics, there seems to be no way of circumventing the direct clash of opposing values. Both inside and outside bk.l0 Plato admits that he would be prepared to countenance poetry which endorses the same values as his own. 1 8 Most existing poetry is unacceptable to him because it implies and sustains values which are inimical to his. This is especially so with tragedy (which, for Plato, includes Homer: see at 595cl). Tragedy carries with it a sense of the importance of human life and its sufferings which Plato, in the light of So there is a matter of his philosophical convictions, cannot share. ultimate values at stake in the fear of poetry's psychological power in bk.l0. If we value life differently from Plato, then that has inevitable implications for our response to his assessment of art. But it may be possible to suggest that the ethical question might look at least a little different if Plato's uncompromising psychology were to be qualified. I have conceded that Plato is right to see a link between the experience of art and of the rest of life, but he may still be countered in his belief that the former affects the latter in a direct and uniform manner. Where tragedy is concerned, for example, he talks only of undiluted sympathy for the sufferings and griefs of the dramatic agents. He makes no allowance for more complex responses in which sympathy might, to take just one possibility, be combined with a sense of partial responsibility or guilt on the part of the agents. Once such complexities are allowed for, it may be much harder to posit such a consistent relation between the experience of life and of art as is done at 606a - b. Art, like the rest of life, can elicit less simple responses than the kind against which Plato's psychological argument is directed in bk.l0. Plato pays poetry the respect of admitting (almost confessionally, 605c) its power to grip and affect the mind, but he does not support this with a recognition of the intricate ways in which this power may operate in practice. He leaves us, we may feel, with one possible form of

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psychological influence - the kind mediated through a wholesale emotional surrender to art (which can unquestionably occur) - and we must allow the possibility that he observed such influence to be the major phenomenon of tragic theatre in his own culture. But the sweep of his final judgement of condemnation calls, in the larger context of aesthetic thought, for a much more comprehensive enquiry than he is prepared to offer in bk.If)." 9

1.4 The Platonic Legacy to Aesthetics Plato's two major treatments of poetry, in Rep. bks.2-3 and 10, posed a permanent challenge to later critics and theorists. When, for example, the rhetorician Dio of Prusa (Dio Chrysostom) in the first century AD composed a lecture on Homer's inspired genius, he could not avoid mentioning, and equivocating over, the grave censures passed on the poet by Plato (53.2-6). To trace all the subsequent effects, both positive and adverse, of Plato's case against poetry and art would take copious space and energy. What I shall attempt here is a mere sketch of some of the more significant lines of development. The most substantial response which Plato's arguments received in antiquity came from Aristotle, whose Poetics develops a positive evaluation of mimesis: rather than merely simulating particulars in the world, the poet (like the painter: Aristotle accepts the comparison) is now regarded as making intelligible representations of possible human realities, which can legitimately hold our interest in their ethical substance. Aristotle is able to find more intrinsic significance in mimetic art than Plato had done, since he rejects the latter's belief in a transcendent reality against which the human world must be measured. To the charge of ignorance on the part of the poet, Aristotle's answer is that the poet must not only know the principles of his own art but must have an implicit grasp of the kinds of reality (universals, Poetics 9) which he dramatises. The successful embodiment of universals in a fictional mode depends, like the work of any craftsman or artist (n.25 below), on a clear notion of the significant form to be structured in the material of the art - in the case of poetry and painting, the forms of human action and life. And while he agrees with Plato that art engages the emotions in ways which have implications for our psychological life in general, Aristotle rejects the particular suggestion that tragic pity is damaging to the mind: he believes both that pity has a legitimate place in the experience of reality, and that its arousal by tragedy can benefit us through a process of katharsis. 2 0 The Poetics, however, was not well enough known to have much effect on ancient reactions to Plato's criticisms of poetry. It had little impact, for instance, on the recurrent Hellenistic controversy, itself part of 13

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Plato's legacy, over the ethical usefulness of poetry. A series of critics entered the debate with pronouncements on one side or the other, and the terms of the argument seem to have been drastically simplified into a polarity between edification and pleasure. 2 1 Where poetry, and the education which went with it, was altogether repudiated, as by the philosopher Epicurus, some Platonic influence is possible but unprovable. Yet a consciously Platonic stance on the matter, if usually with some compromise, long remained available. We can see this particularly from the work of Plutarch (c.4S-l2S), whose De audiendis poetis widely echoes Plato in applying moralistic and psychological criteria to the judgement of poems acceptable in education, but who nonetheless yields a legitimate place to poetry as a preparation - a propaedeutic - for the adult pursuit of philosophy. This variety of qualified Platonic moralism was ready-made to be taken over by later Christian writers such as Basil of Caesarea (c.330-79), who was able to adapt it to the vital issue of the relation between pagan literature and Christian education. 2 2 But Plato had also invited the lovers of poetry to defend the art. One line of defence, which in fact goes back before Plato but was mostly elaborated in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, was the allegorising reinterpretation of poetry, especially Homer's. 2 3 Such a strategy, which allowed doubts about poetry's ostensible content to be assuaged or sublimated, and thus warded off any assault on its central cultural position, became associated especially with the Stoic and later the neoplatonist school, and was destined for a long and important history. It came eventually to be combined with other and equally significant developments in Hellenistic thinking about art. The notion that a poet or artist might go beyond the representation of nature existed already in the Classical period, and Plato acknowledges it without much sympathy. 24 During the Hellenistic era this view coalesced with a concept, also known to Plato, of the artist's inner 'idea' or 'image' of his intentions. The resulting fusion created a Platonising or quasi - Platonic model of art which yet momentously inverted Plato's own arguments in Rep. 10: art's sensuous forms and human materials could now be claimed as one channel of access to that higher, transcendent level of being from which Plato had placed the artist 'at second remove'. 2 5 A further Platonic strand related to this remarkable development was that of God as a cosmic artist or craftsman embodying his intentions even his Platonic Ideas - in the stuff of the world. This image had more than one source, but it had been very influentially worked out in Plato's Timaeus; 26 and it came to provide a paradigm for the activity of the human artist. Thus, paradoxically, Plato himself supplied most of the individual components for a new and more elevated ranking of art and the artist in the hierarchy of reality. It was just such a revaluation of art which found its way into the thought of the first great neoplatonist, 14

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Plotinus (c.205-270). In a seminal section of his Enneads (5.8.1) Plotinus incorporates art (referring directly to sculpture and painting) into his metaphysical system of degrees or levels of reality. He does so by seeing the creation of a work of art as a process by which the artist imposes a 'form' or 'idea' (eidos) on his material, though he thinks the resulting Plotinus beauty is necessarily inferior to that in the mind of the artist. also allows that art is in part, or at times, mimetic or representational, but he adds three qualifications to this: that nature - the object of mimesis - is itself a mimetic image of a higher reality; that art does not just copy but penetrates to the principles underlying nature; and that art adds to or improves on natural beauty. 2 7 True or perfect beauty is not to be found in the physical world, but it may nonetheless be intimated or expressed through certain sensuous forms. The process of reconciling Plato and the artists was continued by later neoplatonists, especially Proclus (c.410-85), who elaborated a theory of different kinds of poetry to account for the types or degrees of truth which might be expected from various literary works. Proclus's essential motivation, paralleling that of Plotinus, was to attribute to the greatest poetry (Homer's) a potential to communicate truths about a higher level of To being than the material or natural world experienced by the senses. do so, he not only invoked the concepts of allegory and symbolism, but also re-elaborated the ancient notion of poetic inspiration, now understood A further in a much more heavily metaphysical sense than originally. component of Proclus's thinking about poetry, which reflected the wider ideas of neoplatonism, was an intense concern with literary unity. Works of literature were regarded as microcosms, reflecting the structure of reality at large through the interrelation of their various parts or levels under the control of a guiding design. This notion of organic unity has proved to be of lasting significance. 2 8 By the end of late antiquity, therefore, Plato's direct and indirect legacy to aesthetics was, as it has since remained, rich but ambiguous. Plato's own works contained explicit condemnations of poetry and art on But these moral, epistemological, educational and other grounds. condemnations had stimulated, in a culture which continued to value poetry and art, new thought about the nature and functions of these activities, and had prompted a justification of them using ideas found, at least in an inchoate form, within the Platonic corpus itself. Although some traces of neoplatonist influence on aesthetics can be found in the medieval period - in, for example, the tendency to discern wisdom veiled allegorically behind the surface of poetry, and in the notion of poetic 'madness' 2 9 - it was only after the revival of neoplatonism in fifteenth - century Florence that this influence became conspicuous. Renaissance neoplatonism gave currency to ideals of spiritual beauty and love, and of the means of the soul's ascent to the contemplation of divine 15

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being. Exploiting the presence of poetry among the inspired states of the soul mentioned in the Phaedrus, devotees allowed art, as a source of symbols and indexes of higher things, an acceptable place in their scheme of the soul's aspirations to rise above the limitations of the natural world and to approach the realm of the divine. The resulting sense of the poet or artist as a god-like creator, a man with special powers of imagination, enabling him to give form to his intuitive or visionary ideas of beauty, became a vital alternative to the stricter, classicising aesthetic of the artistic 'imitation of nature' . A dialectic between these rival ideals, and their associated standards, can be traced in the subsequent history of art theory and critical thought. 3 0 It is a large part of the significance of the various developments sketched above that they have contributed to the permanent availability, since the Renaissance, of a matrix of views within which poetry and art are endowed with an insight going beyond or deeper than the plane of common experience. Such views have become most firmly established through the Romantic movement, on which neoplatonism was undoubtedly a serious, if fitful, influence: in England alone, figures as major as Coleridge, Wordsworth, Blake and Shelley all have vital neoplatonist connections. In the perspective of Plato's legacy to aesthetics, the abiding irony of this fact is that it has produced the widest currency yet attained by a notion of the artist and his art which contradicts that advanced most forcefully in the last book of the Republic, while yet embracing metaphysical and quasi - religious ideas of the kind which Plato himself did so much to elaborate for other purposes. For it is ultimately on a distinction between the sensible world of nature and a superior spiritual realm (whether conceived within or beyond nature) that both Plato's condemnation of art in bk.l0 and the tradition of ideas outlined above rest. 3 1 Even when disengaged from the framework of this distinction, many of bk.l0's arguments can continue to prompt important lines of thought about poetry and visual art, as I tried to suggest in earlier sections of the Introduction. But it remains true that Plato tests the claims of representational or mimetic art against the backdrop of a comprehensively dualist philosophy of the world. It is, in either case, for the initiation and provocation of a long debate about the relation between art and 'reality' (however conceived), and about the value of art to the human mind, that Rep. 10 has acquired the status of a notoriously fundamental document in the history of European aesthetics.

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2.1 The Myth of Er The conclusion of the Republic lifts onto a new plane - the plane of cosmic harmony and eternal destiny - the entire work's concern with justice and the soul. It does so by presenting an argument for psychic immortality, which is then reinforced by a mythical vision of the cosmos within whose order such immortality finds its place and meaning. About the argument for immortality, little needs to be added here to the analysis given in the commentary. It is clear, I think, that the beliefs or convictions which concern Plato at this point outrun the scope of cogently rational dialectic. The soul is something whose existence is known (if it is known at all) from our experience of embodied beings. Once the soul is imagined as capable of existence outside the body, as well as of transmigration into other bodies, the problem arises: how can embodied humans understand something which is so alien, so antithetical to the rest of their experience and knowledge? Plato suggests, in fact, that we can only begin to comprehend the nature of the soul if we contemplate it independently of its association with 'the body and other evils' (611b-c). But such a claim only compounds the difficulty. It is both a tacit acknowledgement of, and an attempted solution to, the problem of conceiving the 'true nature' of the soul, that Plato should leave rational argument behind and turn to myth. Muthos means a story. Plato applies the word to, among other things, the traditional Greek tales which we call myths, to such things as Aesopic fables, to the legendary material of poetry, to certain philosophical theories (including some of those of the Presocratics), to narratives of oral history, and to his own philosophical visions. His attitude to muthos or its use muthologia - varies from outright rejection, through playful acceptance of its lively appeal, to the endowment of it, in his own case, with portentous value. In one sense, the whole Republic is a story or muthos - the fictional account of a hypothetical society constructed to dramatise certain values and principles. Although some of Plato's brusquer comments on poetic myths might make us think otherwise, there is in fact nothing intrinsically objectionable to him about muthologia: the criterion of its acceptability is whether it provides a story of the good, a token of the truth. 3 2 But how is the truth - value of a myth to be interpreted or judged? Evidently not in terms of its literal meaning; a philosophical muthos, at least, cannot express all its import in a completely overt way. 3 3 The significance of a Platonic myth must be taken, in some degree at least, to be symbolic. In using myths in this way Plato was not, after all, unique. Before him, both certain presocratic philosophers, especially Parmenides, and some of the sophists had resorted to stories for the conveyance of their teachings. 34 In addition, it is difficult to avoid the inference that 17

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Plato intended his myths to be a kind of philosophical poetry, rivalling or displacing - while simultaneously using some of the features of - the traditional poetic mythology which he felt impelled to condemn. Within two generations of Plato's death, indeed, a hostile philosopher could ridicule his use of myth in general for its abandonment of rationality, and the myth of Er in particular for being no better than the tragic myths criticised in the Republic itself. 35 If Plato's myths are quasi - poetic expressions of some of the philosopher's deepest convictions, that does not entirely settle how we It remains an inherently difficult, probably insoluble, should read them. question whether all the details of a myth can or should be treated as functional in the same way or on the same principles. It is tempting to select certain features as significant, because they can be made to yield otherwise identifiable doctrines, while ignoring others as purely decorative. But we should surely be prepared to ask of any component just what it purports to conveyor intimate, and what its contribution is to the effect Enquiring into the putative sources of Platonic myths may of the whole. have a part to play in answering such questions, but, as §2.2 below and my commentary will clarify, it cannot give us a complete understanding of Plato's mythopoeic intentions. Nor should we shirk the ultimate question whether Plato's myths are inevitably in some degree elusive and opaque, by relying on a show of symbolism in spheres where we have no other access to what is symbolised. If so, what standing does this leave the myths in the work of a philosopher whose oeuvre so consistently advocates and values rationality? 3 6 The myth of Er, like those in Gorgias (122-5) and Phaedo (125-9), offers a story and vision of the soul's judgement after death. But its significance, in the context of the work as a Whole, is more complex than either of those earlier myths. 3? The myth's introductory function (see 613e-14a) is to give an account of the rewards and punishments which await the just and unjust after death. This function appears to be duly fulfilled by Er's report of the post mortem tribunal which sends souls on thousand - year journeys during which they receive tenfold recompense for their previous lives. Some interpreters have been greatly disturbed by the fact that this scheme should make so much of the consequences of justice and injustice, when the rest of the Republic has argued for the intrinsic But this discrepancy can be significance of vice and virtue to the soul. explained (though hardly rendered transparent) by the shift from the purely human to the cosmic plane of things, and by the symbolic rather than literal weight of the myth: the consequences of (in)justice can be read, in other words, as tokens of the soul's ultimate relation to the workings of the entire universe. The vision of the soul's judgement should not, then, be taken in isolation from the image of the rational, mathematical order of the cosmos. 3 8 At the same time, the fundamental concept of the soul's 18

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destiny is made problematic by the intricate procedure of reincarnation. Both of these topics call for further consideration. 2.2 Astronomy and Religion As Er accompanies the souls which, after a millennium of punishment or reward for their previous existences, are now journeying towards the choice of new lives, he and they are presented with a vision of the workings of the cosmic structure. They behold a pillar of light which binds the universe together and contains the suspended spindle of Necessity, whose rotations move the fixed stars, sun, moon and planets (616b-17b). The perfection of this system, with its mathematically specified arrangements and ratios, is completed by the 'harmony of the spheres' - the musical concord produced by the Sirens who accompany the heavenly bodies (617b). We can detect three major areas of possible influence on Plato's symbolic picture of the universe. (a) Presocratic cosmology. We are dealing here in part with a generic and diffuse affinity. Plato's image of a cosmic spindle, for instance, owes something to the presocratic habit of mind of characterising features of the universe in terms of familiar earthly objects. Examples of this habit are Anaximander's comparisons of the earth to a column drum (see on 616b5) and of the sun and moon to chariot wheels (KRS 135); Anaximenes' analogy between celestial movements and the turning of a felt cap on the head (ibid. 154-7); and Heraclitus's conception of the Plato's picture differs heavenly bodies as bowls of fire (ibid. 200-1).39 from all these in being neither comparative nor literal, but symbolic and even mystical. But in this and in certain other respects, we can see an important affinity to Parmenides' vision of an ordered universe of fiery rings, at the centre of which is the goddess, called both Justice and Necessity, who 'steers' and controls all. 4 0 (b) Pythagoreanism. Pythagorean cosmology itself reflects the general presocratic quest for a holistic understanding of the cosmos. According to a late Hellenistic source, it was the Pythagoreans who first posited the necessity of perfectly circular motions for heavenly bodies a presupposition which Plato shared or took over. 4 1 There are two other distinctive features of Pythagorean thought which appear in Plato's myth: first, a precise mathematical arrangement of the heavenly bodies; second, a doctrine of celestial music, whose Pythagorean spirit was specifically commended at 7.530d. Plato is most likely to have been familiar with these ideas through the work of the 5th cent. Pythagorean Philolaus (mentioned at Phdo. 61d-e), who appears to have recognised the existence of five planets, and who was probably responsible for systematising 19

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Pythagorean belief in a celestial harmony produced by the circular revolution of the heavenly bodies. 4 2 But this is not, one must insist, to claim that this aspect of the myth of Er is itself professedly Pythagorean (cf. on 617b6-7). (c) New astronomical thought. The 5th cent. had seen the development of scientific, observational astronomy in Greece, motivated by a mixture of practical (calendaric) and theoretical interests. Plato himself is credited by a late source with having set astronomers the challenge of accounting for all celestial phenomena by an arrangement of uniform, circular motions. Certainly, Plato's own works show a keen interest in elaborating a mathematical understanding of astronomy. 4 3 This line of thought led, in Plato's own lifetime, to the first fully mathematical model of the universe, produced by Eudoxus of Cnidus. The essence of this model was a set of 27 homocentric spheres (plus the earth), with irregularities in observed celestial phenomena accounted for by variations in direction, speed and axis of rotation. Eudoxus became associated with Plato's Academy, but it is chronologically difficult to see his influence on Rep. 10 itself, particularly in view of the detailed differences between the two. 44 Besides, there is no evidence that Eudoxus connected the mathematical perfections of the heavens with any particular religious or philosophical beliefs: in this respect, the kinship between Plato and the Pythagoreans is stronger. The astronomy of the myth of Er draws together strands, then, from a number of sources. 4 5 To observe the way in which Plato's imagination worked on elements of already existing material is of interest and importance. But the result is not mere syncretism; it is a distinctively Platonic vision. Its function and significance within the myth as a whole, and indeed for the import of the entire Republic, is to provide an image of a universal and eternal world order which goes beyond justice for individual souls. 4 6 If the fate of the soul is the most direct concern of the myth as of the rest of the Republic, it has nonetheless to be seen within the larger framework of an unchanging harmony in the universe at large: whatever imperfections are involved in the existence of individual souls, they are allowed to glimpse a transcendent perfection to which they should aspire to assimilate themselves. The ultimate purpose of justice is to reflect and realise within the individual soul, and in the relation between souls, the kind of unchanging and unified order which is the ground of the cosmos's being. This is the essence of a belief which Plato elsewhere tries to intimate by other means, especially by the existence of transcendent Forms. The value of an astronomical model to Plato was that it carried by its very nature an immensity and grandeur of vision which he could elaborate into suitably symbolic, religious and mythic terms. In doing so, he was distancing himself absolutely from any purely secular reading of the heavens

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or the world. Laws 12.967a attests that astronomers had begun to acquire a popular reputation for atheistic or materialist explanations of celestial bodies and their phenomena, and that such explanations were associated with the principle of 'necessity' . But for Plato the study of astronomy could lead only to the very opposite worldview: that the universe is controlled and guided by a cosmic soul which is the expression of perfect reason. 4"7 Plato's Necessity (616c4 etc.), like Parmenides' (see above), is therefore a goddess, whose daughters, the Moirae or Fates, represent the impingement of necessity on the existence of souls (see §2.3 below), a necessity which is inseparable from justice. This religious symbolism is connected with the choice of a spindle. The spindle is not a self-contained system, as one might find in a mechanistic world picture; it requires a source of movement, a guiding intelligence to control its regularity, and this is supplied by Necessity and her daughters. This conception of the rational sustaining source of the universe is akin to notions of a divine 'craftsman' of the universe (see n.26). 2.3 Reincarnation and Destiny The world order astronomically pictured in the myth of Er can only be communicated by a special 'messenger' returned from the dead (614d), because all other souls, on the threshold of reincarnation, are required to drink an amnesic draught from the river Heedless (621a). There is a hint, however, in the reference to some souls' excessive drinking from the river, of a possibility of recovering in life a knowledge of at least some of what was beheld and experienced by the soul in the millennium between two incarnations. The doctrine (found in the Meno, Phaedo, and Phaedrus) of knowledge as recollection from pre-natal existence, does not occur explicitly in the Republic, but some such doctrine is surely suggested by the episode just mentioned. Recollection is a theory of the process by which our souls find their way towards true knowledge, a grasp of perfect absolutes which the particulars of the ordinary world can only dimly suggest, but which our souls have previously experienced in their clearest form. The myth of Er allows obliquely for recollection of this kind, and thus it leaves some room for the ascent of the mind, through philosophy, towards that state of purity to which we were referred in the prelude to the myth (611e). But many problems of interpretation remain, problems inherent in the philosophical use of a medium - myth - whose richness of symbolism and narrative detail seems incompatible with the explicit structure of rational doctrine. How are the great and unphilosophical majority of souls to fare, according to the implications of the myth? How is an individual soul, transmigrating every thousand years into a new body, ever to progress 21

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towards justice in its earthly existence, if each of its series of reincarnations is discrete, and if the series as a whole does not allow of a There is a great paradox here. cumulative acquisition of experience? 4 B The souls choose their next existence in the memory of their previous embodied life (as well as of the preceding millennium of punishment or reward), but they then depart to live their new lives without any memory to sustain the choice. This makes the significance of the choices hard to fathom: if they are the choices of the souls' previous 'selves', this would entail a harsh. predestinarianism for the creatures who must live out the new lives. But if, as in fact is made quite clear (617d-e), the choices somehow belong to the new creatures themselves, how can they be conceived of as pre-natal and even prior to the identities to which they apply? Solutions to some of these problems can be constructed, but they are not all soluble in ways, or on principles, which are rationally compatible. We might, for instance, as 618c-d gives us some prompting to do, treat the pre - natal status of the souls' choices as allegorical of choices internal to the course of a life. But to extrapolate that interpretation consistently would lead us to regard the whole picture of the souls' existence between lives as symbolic of things inside life itself. The consequence of that would be to explain away, or at the very least to take all substance from, the very immortality of the soul. But that is not an option open to us. Immortality is an irreducible premise of the myth: a doctrine argued for in advance of it, and presupposed by Socrates' comments on it (618e-19a, 621c-d). Plato's myth, then, for all its apparatus of post mortem rewards and punishments, does not offer a comfortable or simple vision of the ascent of souls to an eventual state of eternal justice. As Er witnesses the spectacle of choice, he feels pity, amusement and amazement (620al-2), but there is little or nothing for him (or us) to admire or emulate. We have already seen at 619b-c how, in fact, terrible ethical retrogression is possible for souls; and if, as is said there, just as many souls recently rewarded for their previous existence fell nonetheless into fatal choices of their next life, then grave doubt is cast over the efficacy for any particular soul of the whole cycle of reincarnations. Even the philosophical soul will have in each incarnation to start afresh the process of recollection and learning, and so, it seems, will be unable to carry over knowledge and goodness previously attained. If we take all the details of the myth seriously, we may infer that for many souls, perhaps the majority, the cycle of reincarnation will be long and far from evenly progressive in some cases, even, unending. 4 9 From one point of view, this inference fits perfectly with the fact that souls are not, within this scheme of things, to be equated with persons: each soul becomes embodied in a living creature (human or animal), but it 22

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has an existence which transcends its individual incarnations. A person can learn from experience, but the souls in the myth of Er cannot learn continuously in this way, for they lose their previous incarnate identity at each transmigration. Plato is acknowledging, it would seem, that the quest for justice must always be pursued anew within the circumstances and limitations of an individual life. If knowledge and virtue are to be achieved, it must be by a choice which is rooted and lived out within a particular existence. Yet that conclusion forces us to ask what, after all, reincarnation itself signifies. Any concept of reincarnation presupposes that there is some sense in talking of the same soul animating different embodied creatures. The whole myth depends on that presupposition, but it leaves its ultimate meaning, together with the apparatus of necessity and choice, shrouded in There are forbidding difficulties in believing in literal obscurity. reincarnation; even a believer in the immortality of the soul may well demur at the idea of transmigration into a series of bodies. 5 0 Plato's presentation of reincarnation seems to lie at the intersection of a number of aims and problems: the basic postulate of immortality of the soul (without which the soul would be impermanent and therefore valueless: see on 604e3); the need to imagine a process by which the destiny of an individual soul can be prolonged beyond the failures of an embodied existence; but also, negatively, a recognition that our own lives do not in any straightforward way draw on the fruits of the (presumed) preexistence of our minds or souls. The result is a deep uncertainty about just what it is which constitutes the identity or continuity of a soul once it is separated from any individual embodiment, since, on his own admission (611b-c), Plato's entire treatment of the soul has dealt with it in its impure human context, not in its true purity. The notion of reincarnation remains accordingly mystical, enshrined in myth but never elucidated by dialectic. In these circumstances, we are scarcely in a position to elaborate criteria for answering the question (often put), 'Did Plato really believe in reincarnation?' Whatever a truly 'pure' soul would be, it would, on Plato's premises, have no connection at all with embodied personality: its ultimate existence would be an ineffable bliss of the kind suggested in the Phaedo and Phaedrus.v ' Reincarnation should perhaps be read as, above all, the negative corollary of this idea: it represents the visionary sense that, so long as it fails to attain complete purity, the soul must continue to be returned to, entangled in, a bodily existence, for that is the only existence of which an imperfect soul - the only kind of soul known to either Plato or us - is capable.

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NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION 1.

That Plato intended bk.l0 to be integral to the work is demonstrated by the large number of references to earlier arguments: see (with comm.) 595a5, 7-8, 596a6, 602e8, 603d5, e5, 607bl-2, 612b2 fl., b4, 613c8, el. For the relative date of bk.l0 see the Appendix. 2. Pre r-platonic philosophical criticisms of poetry are cited in comm. on 607a4, b5. 3. Acting is prominent at 3.395a; reading, and by implication hearing, at 396b-e. The Greek practice of reading aloud (Le. acting out orally) made these activities less distinct than they may seem to us: cl. Havelock chs. 2 and 9. Compare the image of magnetic rings of emotion at Ion 535e-6a. But Laws 7.816e suggests that acting poetry is more dangerous than hearing it performed. 4. For mimesis as dramatic enactment cf. esp. Aristoph. Thesm. 156, Frogs 109. 5. I discuss the range of mimesis terminology in Plato at Halliwell (1986) 116-21. Cl. U. Zimbrich, Mimesis bei Platon (Frankfurt, 1984). 6. See esp. Laws 2.653-60, where essentially ethical criteria for the regulation of art are laid down (albeit in a somewhat more tolerant spirit than in the Rep.), 10.885d-6c, 12.941b-c. Cf. Wind 3-6. 7. Even in bk.3 there is assimilation of all forms of art to 'image-making' (401a-d). For non-enactive mimesis in bk.3 see 399a7, c3-4, 400a7, 401a8, all referring to musical and rhythmic forms of expression. The view of all poetry as mimesis had earlier made a brief appearance at 2.373b5 (cl.382b9). 8. Poetry and painting were coupled before Plato tv Simonides (Plut. Mor . 346F) , Ion of Chios fr.8, anon. Dissoi Logoi 3.10. Within Plato's own works see e.g. 2.377e, Crat . 423d, Pot. 288c, 306d, Laws 2.669a-b; cl. Epin, 975d. The connection should be seen in the light of Plato"s evolving attitude to painting, on which see Demand's article. 9. Osborne's recent article recognises the challenge to art in general and offers a serious, rich reply to it. But her thesis that Plato's attack is directed against a theory of art, not art itself, seems to me an overstatement: Plato's rejection of poets from the city is not a response only to people's views of them. 10. Keuls ch.l argues that mimesis was not applied to 'static simulation of appearance' before Plato: I have answered this in Halliwell (1986) 110-13 (where footnote 5 should refer to Keuls 19-21). Xen. Mem. 3.10.1 shows that at least by the 2nd quarter of the 4th cent. the 24

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11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23.

24.

idea of mimesis in visual art was standard (Keuls' talk of 'recreation' (31) is beside the point). Gombrich 83. Occasional recognition of genuine artistic values of form and beauty can be found at e.g. 4.420c-d, Hp. Maj. 297e-8a, Grg. 503e-4a, Crat. 429a. For one kind of 'conceptual' art known to Plato, which would avoid some of bk.l0's criticisms, see my comm. on 598b2. Contrast Leonardo's suggestion that the good painter must understand 'the what he represents, while the bad will only copy appearances: painter who draws ... without the use of reason is like a mirror which copies... without knowledge' (I. A. Richter (ed.) The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (Oxford, 1952) 225). But Leonardo also uses the mirror metaphor positively: ibid. 218. Annas 342-4 faults this combination of arguments in bk.10, but cf. Schaper 47. R. Hepburn, Wonder and Other Essays (Edinburgh, 1984) ch.5 enlighteningly discusses a number of issues which are relevant here. See Halliwell (1986) ch.6. But the two philosophers shared some presuppositions: see comm. on 606b6. See 607a, with e.g. 2.377cl, 3.396c-d, 399a -c for this implication. Cf. D. W. Harding, 'Psychological Processes in the Reading of Fiction', Brit. Journ, of Aesthetics 2 (1962) 133-47, for some pertinent discriminations. Halliwell (1986) deals extensively with the Poetics' relation to Plato: see Appendix 2 and the Index s.v. Plato. See also G. F. Else, Plato and Aristotle on Poetry (Chapel Hill, 1986). For examples of the edification-pleasure controversy see Pfeiffer 166-7. See N. G. Wilson, Saint Basil on Greek Literature (London, 1975). There is a translation by F. M. Padelford in Essays on the Study and Use of Poetry (New York, 1902). For Christian writers' readiness to exploit Plato's criticisms of poetry in their polemics against pagan literature, see e.g. Minucius Felix Oct. 23, Augustine Civ. Dei 2.14, Tertullian Ad nat, 2.7. Plato himself refers unsympathetically to allegorical readings of poetry at 2.378d and Phdr. 229b-30a; but Phdo. 69c suggests a more accommodating attitude to philosophical allegory, and cf. Tim, 22c-d. N. J. Richardson, PCPS 21 (1975) 65-81, discusses early Greek attitudes to allegory; for later ones, see R. Lamberton, Homer the Theologian (Berkeley, 1986). For ideas of art's improvement on nature see Xen. Mem. 3.10.1, Aristot. Pol. 1281bl0-15, Poet. 1448a5-6, 1454b8-11, 1461b12-13. The notion of combining models became particularly associated with 25

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25.

26.

27.

28.

29. 30.

the story of Zeuxis's painting of Helen: see e.g. Cic. De invent. Z.1.1, Pliny NH 35.64. This motif is sometimes incorporated into more idealistic theories of art: e.g. Plot. Enn, 5.8.1 (see text), '[a statue made] from all beautiful models'. For the artist's mental 'image' cf. Xen. Symp, 4.21. Aristot. Met. 988a4, 1032a32-b1 posits a guiding 'form' (eidos) in the mind of every craftsman who makes artefacts; cl. Grg. 503e. But these passages do not imply a relation between the image/form and anything outside nature. Plato himself, however, intimates such a notion at 5.472d, 6.484c-d, 500e-1c. This gave the cue for the Platonising developments described in my text, first attested at Cic. Orat, 8-10 (cf. 18-19), then, with variations, at Sen. Epist. 58.18-21, 65.7-10, Dio Chrys. 12.55-61. Such developments may be related to theories of artistic imagination (cl. e.g. Sen. Controv . 10.5.8, Philostr. Vita Ap. 6.19), but they undoubtedly go beyond them. On the whole subject see Panofsky 11-32. See esp. Tim. 28-9, 41-2, with 6.507c, 7.530a, Soph, 265c-6d, Laws 10.902e. Outside Plato the concept of the divine craftsman or demiurge occurs at Xen. Mem. 1.4.3 ff. For the subsequent history of the concept see W. Theiler, Reallexikon fur Antike und Christentum 3 (1957) 694-711, and Curtius 544-6. Plotinus refers to art, particularly visual art, in a number of passages, and not always in quite the same terms. 2.9.16 allows art to function as a pointer to true, transcendent beauty. Both 4.3.10 and 5.9.11 limit the visual arts, in Platonic fashion, to the representation of the merely earthly, though the latter passage grants to music (perhaps including poetry) the power to rise higher than this. Some of these passages are discussed in relation to 5.8.1 by A. N. M. Rich, 'Plotinus and the Theory of Artistic Imitation', Mnemosyne 13 (1960) 233-9. Proclus's views on poetry and art are discussed in J. A. Coulter, The Literary Microcosm (Leiden, 1976), and his major essays on Plato's views of poetry in A. D. R. Sheppard, Studies on the 5th and 6th Essays of Proclus' Commentary on the Republic tHypomnemata 61, Gottingen, 1980) . On these two topics see, respectively, J. Spingarn, A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance? (New York, 1908) 7-16, and Curtius 474-5. On the development of neoplatonist aesthetics in the Renaissance and later see Panofsky 47 ff., N. A. Robb, Neoplatonism of the Italian Renaissance (London, 1935) ch.7, and the two major essays in E. H. Gombrich, Symbolic Images (Oxford, 1972) 31-81, 123-95. For literary criticism see B. Hathaway, The Age of Criticism (New York, 1962) e.g. chs.2, 25, 27. 26

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31. 32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37. 38.

39. 40.

The distinction is relevant, for example, to the connections and contrasts between Hegel's aesthetics and bk.10: see C. Karelis, Hegel's Introduction to Aesthetics (Oxford, 1979) xxix-r-xlii, li -lviii. For myths and 'play' see esp. Phdr. 276d -e. The falsehood of myths is mentioned at e.g. 2.377d-e, Crat. 408c7-8, Laws 12.941b. On the other hand, Plato is prepared to countenance false myth in a good cause, as - notoriously - at 3.414b-15d. And at Tim. 29d, 68d it is suggested that plausible myth is the closest that we can get to certain realms of truth. Laws 10.903b1 and Phdo. 114d7 treat myth as a kind of charm or spell, in contrast to reasoned argument. For the Rep. itself as 'myth' see 2.376d9, 6.501e4, and Tim. 26c8. A recent attempt, more rationalistic than mine, to define the philosophical value which Plato attaches to myth is Janet E. Smith, 'Plato's use of Myth in the Education of Philosophic Man', Phoenix 40 (1986) 20-34. CL n.36 below. Phdo. 114d and Phdr. 265b deny the literal truth of myths. Grg. 523a1 - 3 suggests, however, that philosophical myth can contain rational meaning (logos): see Dodds' note. On philosophical allegory cf. n.23 above. Parmenides' use of cosmological myth in the second half of his poem is discussed at KRS 254 ff, CL also Protagoras's myth at Prt. 320c-8c, and the allegory of Virtue and Vice attributed to Prodicus at Xen. Mem. 2.1.21-34. Colotes the Epicurean criticised Plato for exchanging truth for myth and doing what he had earlier (in bks.2-3) attacked the poets for: see Proclus II 105.23-106.14, and Macrob. Comm. in Somn. Scip. 1.2.3-5. Some of the ideas embodied in Platonic myths are never tackled by the dialectic of argument. This is significantly true of reincarnation, which is alluded to in the briefest fashion at 613a2 and 6.498d4 but is never discussed (Phdo. 81e ff. is hardly an exception). Plato was surely aware of the difficulties of making the concept amenable to rational enquiry. CL Stewart 61. See J. Annas, 'Plato's Myths of Judgement', Phronesis 27 (1982) 119-43; cf. K. Alt, Hermes 110 (1982) 278-99, 111 (1983) 15-33. Annas 349-53, for example, ignores the astronomy of the myth altogether; her reading of the myth is ungenerous in other ways too. Rohatyn 326 drives a wedge between the astronomy and the 'philosophy' of the myth. This presocratic mentality is the butt of Aristophanes' humour at Clouds 95-7. See KRS 257-9, with my comm. on 616c4. The articles of Richardson and Morrison deal with Parmenidean influence on the myth of Er, but on many details both are too speculative. 27

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41. 42. 43.

44.

45.

46. 47.

For the Pythagoreans see Geminus Isagoge p.Tl (ed. Manitius); for Plato, n.43 below. See KRS 342-5; for greater detail on Philolaus, Burkert 337-50, 386-400. Plato's challenge to astronomers is mentioned at Simplicius, In Aristot. De caelo comm. 488.14-24, 492.31-493.5 (ed. Heiberg). The firmest statement of Plato's view of astronomy is to be found at Rep. 7.529 - 30: for the import of this passage see Dicks 104 -7, and H. Bulmer-Thomas, CQ 34 (1984) 107-12, where many earlier views are cited. Cf. also Laws 7.822a on the uniform circularity of celestial motion; for other passages of importance see n.47 below. Plato's relation to Greek observational astronomy is considered by G. Vlastos, Plato's Universe (Oxford, 1975) 43-51. On Eudoxus' system see the full treatment in Dicks ch.VI, or the shorter outline in G. E. R. Lloyd, Early Greek Science: Thales to Aristotle (London, 1970) ch.7. On the question of chronology see my Appendix. Two substantial differences between Plato and Eudoxus are, first, that where Eudoxus' system has multiple spheres for the sun, moon and planets, Plato's gives only one whorl to each; and, secondly, that Plato's whorls, unlike Eudoxus's spheres, all share the same axis, the spindle's shaft (though this has occasionally been denied). Some scholars also see a considerable Eastern influence on both the astronomy and other elements of the myth of Er: Bidez ch.6 (with App.I) is representative of this line, but it will readily be seen that the evidence is far from exact. Kerschensteiner 137 - 56 provides more judicious treatment. On the particular question of Zoroastrian influence, what is clear is that soon after Plato's death Greek interest in Zoroastrianism and related matters led to judgements on Plato himself which we cannot endorse without independent evidence: cf. my note on 614b3, and for an astute judgement on the development of Greek interests in Iranian religion see A. Momigliano, Alien Wisdom (Cambridge, 1975) 142-8. It remains possible, of course, that some Platonic affinities with Zoroastrianism are due to the latter's influence on earlier Greek thinkers who have in turn affected Plato's thought: for a summary of presocratic Greek connections with Iranian religion see M. Boyce, A History of Zoroastrianism 11 (Leiden, 1982) 153-63. Cf. the idea that men exist for the sake of the universe, not vice versa, at Laws 10.903c. See esp. Laws 10.886d (specifically rebutting Anaxagorean materialism), 897b-8b, 12.966d -7d. The difference between Platonic and Anaxagorean 'necessity' is clarified by Phdo. 97b-9c (n.b. 97e2). Rep. 10 does not refer explicitly to a 'world soul': for texts which do 28

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see Tim. 35-6, Phlb. 30a, Laws 10.897a-99. 6.498d3-4 appears, though somewhat playfully ('?), to imply continuity of experience and learning between separate human existences. The Platonic doctrine of recollection seems essentially to involve memory of Forms and eternal truths (Phdo. 75c-d, Phdr. 249c) , though Meno 81c ff. strictly allows memory of everything. As for earlier thinkers, Emped. fr.ll7 ought to imply continutiy of memory through several reincarnations, and fr.129 may suggest the same for Pythagoras, but there is no trace here of any concern with the logical problems involved. Barnes 105-14 discusses the place of memory in Pythagorean metempsychosis. 49. Tht . 177a refers to the idea that some wicked souls may never escape from the cycle of human lives. The same point may be alluded to at Phdr. 249c. Pythagoras too may not have believed in escape from the cycle of reincarnation: see Bluck's Meno 66-7. 50. See P. Geach, God and the Soul (London, 1969) ch.l, together with the comments on Plato's concept of the soul on pp.18 ff, 51. Unlike the Phaedo (esp. 81a, ll4c), Phaedrus 248e-9a, and Tim. 42b, bk.l O gives no direct indication of the possibility of escaping from the cycle of reincarnation.

48.

29

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BmuOGRAPHY

Works listed here are cited in the notes and commentary by author's name alone (with publication date where necessary). Further bibliography on many points will be found in the commentary. Commentaries J. Adam, The Republic of Plat0 2 (Cambridge, 1963) J. Ferguson, Plato: Republic Book X (London, 1957) B. D. Turner, The Republic of Plato. Book X (London, 1889) General Studies J. Annas, An Introduction to Plato's Republic (Oxford, 1981) N. R. Murphy, The Interpretation of Plato's Republic (Oxford, 1951) R. L. Nettleship, Lectures on the Republic of Plato? (London, 1901) D. Rohatyn, 'Struktur und Funktion in Buch X von Platons Staat'; Gymnasium 82 (1975) 314-30 B. Rosenstock, 'Rereading the Republic', Arethusa 16 (1983) 219-46 N. White, A Companion to Plato's Republic (Oxford, 1979) Poetry & Art E. Belfiore, 'Plato's Greatest Charge against Poetry', Canadian Journal of Philosophy, suppl. 9 (1983) 39-62 id., 'A Theory of Imitation in Plato's Republic', TAPA 114 (1984) 121-46 N. Demand, 'Plato and the Painters', Phoenix 29 (1975) 1-20 H.-G. Gadamer, 'Plato and the Poets', in Dialogue and Dialectic, Engl. transl. (New Haven, 1980) 39-72 E. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion 5 (Oxford, 1977) C. Griswold, 'The Ideas and the Criticism of Poetry in Plato's Republic, Book 10', Journal of the History of Philosophy 19 (1981) 135-50 S. Halliwell, 'Plato & Aristotle on the Denial of Tragedy', PCPS 30 (1984) 49-71 id., Aristotle's Poetics (London, 1986) E. Havelock, Preface to Plato (Oxford, 1963) E. Keuls, Plato and Greek Painting (Leiden, 1978) I. Murdoch, The Fire and the Sun (Oxford, 1977) A. Nehamas, 'Plato on Imitation and Poetry in Republic 10', in J. Moravcsik & P. Temko (edd.) Plato on Beauty, Wisdom and the Arts (New Jersey, 1982) C. Osborne, 'The Repudiation of Representation in Plato's Republic', PCPS 33 (1987) 53-73 E. Panofsky, Idea: a Concept in Art Theory, Engl. transl. (Icon edn., New York, 1968) 30

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E. Schaper, Prelude to Aesthetics (London, 1968) E. Wind, The Eloquence of Symbols (Oxford, 1983) Immortality & The Myth of Er J. Bidez, Eos: ou Platon et l'Orient (Brussells, 1945) J. D. P. Bolton, Aristeas of Proconnesus (Oxford, 1962) R. S. Brumbaugh, Plato's Mathematical Imagination (Bloomington, 1954) W. Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, Engl. transl. (Camb. Mass., 1972) D. R. Dicks, Early Greek Astronomy to Aristotle (London, 1970) E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley, 1951) T. Heath, Aristarchus of Samos (Oxford, 1913) J. Kerschensteiner, Platon und der Orient (Stuttgart, 1945) R. Lattimore, Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs (Urbana, 1942) J. S. Morrison, 'Parmenides and Er', JHS 75 (1955) 59-68 R. B. Onians, The Origins of European Thought? (Cambridge, 1954) H. Richardson, 'The Myth of Er (Plato, Republic, 616B)', CQ 20 (1926) 113-33 E. Rohde, Psyche, Engl. transl. (London, 1925) R. A. Shiner, 'Soul in Republic X 611', Apeiron 6 (1972) 23-30 J. A. Stewart, The Myths of Plato (London, 1905) T. A. Szlezak, 'Unsterblichkeit und Trichotomie der Seele im zehnten Buch der Politeia', Phronesis 21 (1976) 31-58 Language & Chronology L. Brandwood, The Dating of Plato's Works by the Stylistic Method, (Ph.D. Diss., London, 1958) J. D. Denniston, The Greek Particles? (Oxford, 1954) G. F. Else, The Structure & Date of Book 10 of Plato's Republic (Heidelberg, 1972) R. S. W. Hawtrey, 'ITAN-Compounds in Plato', CQ 33 (1983) 56-65 H. Thesleff, Studies in Platonic Chronology (Helsinki, 1982) Miscellaneous J. Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers? (London, 1982) E. R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, Engl. transl. (London, 1953) K. J. Dover, Greek Popular Morality (Oxford, 1974) M. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge, 1986) R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship: From the Beginnings etc. (Oxford, 1968) E. Vermeule, Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry (Berkeley, 1979) G. Vlastos, Platonic Studies? (Princeton, 1981) 31

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NOTE ON THE TEXT

The Greek text is reprinted from J. Burnet (ed.) Platonis Res Publica (OCT, Oxford, 1902). In place of Burnet's apparatus critic us, which can be separately consulted by the interested reader, I have supplied a deliberately minimal apparatus of my own. This gives details for only a small number of passages, usually where there is an alternative to the printed text of some obvious significance, or where Burnet prints a conjectural reading. Wherever possible, I have checked readings against sources other than Burnet's sometimes unreliable citations; in a few places I supplement his information. SIGLA

A

Parisinus gr.1807, saec. IX

D

Venetus gr.185, saec. XII

(lost after 612e7)

E

Venetus gr.184, saec. XV

(= Burnet's 'scr. Yen. 184')

F

Vindobonensis supp. gr.39 , saec. XIV

Mon.

Monacensis 237, saec. XV

Il

P. Oxy. XLIV.3157, saec. 11

(fragments of 610c-13a)

32

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PLATO REPUBLIC 10

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St. U

Χ. Ρ.595

a

Ι

ΚαΙ μήυ, ήυ ο' ΙΥώ, πολλα μΕυ και δλλα ΠΕΡI αlιτη~

ivvobJ, ώ~ πavTΙΙ~ fιpα μίiλλ.oυ όρθωι; ιiιιc'(OμEυ τ/υ πόλιυ, ovx ήκιστα οε ιυθυμηθΕΙΙ; ΠΕρΙ ΠOιήσιω~ λίΥω. ΤΙΙ ποΙΟυ; Ιψη.

5

ΤΙΙ μηοαμρ παρaOίχισθαι αlιτη~ δση μιμηηκή' Υαρ μίiλλoυ

παvτΙΙ~

OV παpaOικτία vVV και ίυαΡΥέστΙΡου, ώ~ ίμΟI

ΟΟΚΕΙ, ΙPIιWfTat, ιπιιαη xωpι~ ΙKaστα οιρρηται τα τ/ι; ΨVXη~

b Είδη. πωι; λίyει~;

Ώ~ μευ πpι!~ ύμίi~ flpησOat---

φίλι, τόδι δι, 'ITfpl πάρτωυ τωυ τοι­

ιπιιδάυ

TLS-

ήμίυ άπαΥΥ'λλρ πιρ' του,

ώs- ιυ'τvXιυ άυθρώπφ πάσαs- ιπισταμ'υφ TCtS- δημΙΟVΡΥ'α!>

Kal τaλλα πάvτα δσα fls- tKaσTos- οίδιυ, ούδfV δτι oύxl d άκριβ'στιρου δτοvουv ιπισταμ'υφ, Vπoλαμβάυιιυ διί τφ τοιούτφ δτι ιύήθηs- ns- lίvθΡωποs-, κα', ώs- lοικιυ, ιυτvxωυ γόητ[ τιυι Kal μιμητρ ιξηπατήθη, /},στι lδοξιυ αϋτφ πάσ­ σοφοs- ιΤυαι, δια το aiJTOS- μη olόs- τ' ιτυαι ιπιστήμηυ Kal 5

,

,

αυιπιστημoσvVΗυ

\'

και μιμησιυ

~

i:

'

Ις;ιτασαι.

Άληθ'στατα, Ιφη.

Ούκουυ,

e

ηυ δ' ΙΥώ, μιτα TOVτO ιπισκιπτ'ου τήυ τι

τραΥφδ[αυ Kal του ήΥιμόυα αύτ/s- ''Ομηρου, ΙΠΗδή τιυωυ άκούομιυ δτι ούτοι πάσαs- μfV T'XVaS- ιπ[σταvται, πάρτα δ€ τα άυθρώΠΗα τα 'ITpos- άριτ/υ Kal κακ[αυ, Kal τά ΥΙ θιία' άυάΥκη Υαρ του άΥαθου ποιητήυ, ιΙ μ'λλιι πιp~ ώυ tιυ ποιπ KaλIds- ποιήσΗυ, ιΙδότα lίpα ποιιίυ, .η μη οΤόυ τι ιΤυαι

5 ποιιίυ.

διί δη

ιπισκ'ψασθαι

ούτοι ιvrι'χόVTfS- ιξηπάτηρται

πότιρου μιμηταLS- τούτοι!>

Kal

τα ΙΡΥα αϋτωι. δρωρτι!>

599 ούκ αZσθι!υovται τριττα άπ'χορτα του όVΤfJS- κα~ PlfOta ποιιίυ μη ιΙδότι τ/υ ι1λήθιιαυ-φαvτάσμαTα Λ

"

ποιουσιυ-η

τι

\

και

,

λ'

TOLS- πολλΟLSovv, Ιφη, ίξιταστ'ου.

ίσασιυ 'ITιpl ώυ δοκουσιυ

5

πάvv μfV

Λ"

Υαρ άλλ' ούκ όvτα .,

ΙΥοvσιv και τφ ουτι οι

αy~

θ

\

,

οι ποιηται

ιϊί λ/γιιυ.

44 This content downloaded from 193.60.238.240 on Mon, 15 Feb 2021 08:04:39 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

S.

G. S.

G. S.

G.

Surely, then, mimetic art is far removed from the truth; and, as it seems, the reason why it offers a rendering of everything is that it has only a small grasp of each object - and this as a mere simulacrum. For example, the painter, we can agree, will portray for us a shoemaker, a carpenter, and all other craftsmen, even though he understands the crafts of none of them. 598c Nevertheless, if he were a good painter, he might, by painting a carpenter and displaying it at a distance, deceive at least children and stupid adults with the belief that it really is a carpenter. Of course. Indeed, my friend, I think we ought to reason as follows about all such cases. When someone tells us that he has encountered a man with knowledge of all the skills and other things known by particular individuals - a knowledge more exact than anyone else's in every area - we should respond to him on the assumption that he 598d is a naive person, and that, as it seems, he was deceived by an encounter with a magician and imitator, so that the latter seemed to him all- knowing because of his own inability to distinguish knowledge, ignorance and imitation. Very true. Well then, we must next consider tragedy and its guide, Homer, since we hear from some people that these 598e poets have knowledge of all crafts, and all human affairs bearing on goodness and evil, as well as divine matters For they tell us that the good poet, if he is to too. compose well on whatever subject, must do so in a knowledgeable state, or otherwise be unable to write poetry. So we must consider whether these people have been deceived through their encounters with these imitators, and are not aware, when they see their works, 599a that they are twice removed from reality and are easy things for someone to make without knowledge of truth (for it is apparitions, not real things, which they make) - or whether there is actually something in what they say, and in reality good poets do know about the things on which they seem to most people to have fine things to say. We must certainly examine this. 45 This content downloaded from 193.60.238.240 on Mon, 15 Feb 2021 08:04:39 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

ΟΤΗ ουυ, ~Τ τι~ άμΦότφα δύυαιτο 'Π'oι~ιυ, τό T~ μιμ.ηθη­ σόμ~υoυ ιcαι τ(, ~rδωλOυ, ί'Π'ι τfi τωυ ~lδώλωυ δημιουΡΥ[q.

iavτ(,v άΦ~ιυαι tiv σπoυδάζ~ιυ ιcαι τοθτο 'Π'ροστήσασθαι του b iavτoiI βίου ώ~ β'λτιστου lxovτa; OυΙC lyωy~.

,Αλλ' ~Τ'Π'~P y~ οίμαι ί'Π'ιστήμ.ωυ ~Τη τfi άληθ~(q. τιΜ-ωυ 5

'Π"ΡΙ 11.'Π'~P ιcαι μιμ.~ί:Tαι, 'Π'oλtι 'Π'ρότφου ίυ TOΙ~ lpyoL~ tiv σ'Π'oυδάσ~ι~p η ί'Π'ι Toί:~ μιμ.ήμασι, ιcαι 'Π'~ιpφTO tiv 'Π'ολλα ιcαι ΙCαλα ΙΡΥα ~αVΤOυ ΙCαTαλι'Π'~ιυ μVΗμ~ί:α, ιcαι ~ίυαι 'Π'ροθυμ.οί:τ'

liv μ.δ.λλου δ ιyιcωμιαζόμ~υO~ η δ ίyιcωμιάζωυ. Οίμαι, ΙΦη· ου Υαρ ιξ Τσου η T~ τιμη ιcαι ή ώΦ~λCΑ.

τωυ μ~p TOWVV ι1λλωυ 'Π"ΡΙ μη ά'Π'αΙTωμ~p λόΥου 'ΌμηC

ρου η ι1λλου δvτιυoυυ τωυ 'Π'οιητωυ, ίρωτωΡΤΗ ~Ι ΙαTPΙΙC('~ ηυ τι~ αυτωυ άλλα μη μιμ.ητ/~ μόυου ΙαTPΙΙCωυ λόΥωυ, T(υα~

iιyι~ι~ 'Π'oιητή~ τι~ τωυ 'Π'αλαιωυ η τωυ υ'ωυ λ'y~Tαι 'Π'~'Π'OΙ­ ηΙCέυαι, ώσ'Π'~p ΆσΙCΛη'Π'ιό~, η Tίυα~ μαθηTα~ ΙαTPΙΙCη~ ΙCαT~-

5

λί'Π'~TO, ώσ'Π'~p έιc~ί:υo~ TOtι~ έιcyόυoυ~, μηδ' αυ 'Π'φι Tα~

ι1λλα~ T'Xυα~ αυτotι~ ίpωTωμ~υ, άλλ' ιωμ~p'

'Π'~pι δε ωυ

μηίστωυ T~ ιcαι ιcaλλ(στωυ ί'Π'ΙXHP~Ι λ'ΥΗυ 'Όμηpo~, 'Π'ολέ­ μωυ Tf 'Π"ΡΙ ιcαι στρατηΥιωυ ιcαι διoιιcήσ~ωυ 'Π'όλ~ωυ, ιcαι

d 'Π'αιδ~ία~ 'Π"ΡΙ άυθρώ'Π'ου, δ(ιcαιόυ που ίρωταυ αυτ(,υ 7rVVθα­ υoμ'υoυ~' .,Q φLλ~ NOμηp~, ~Τ'Π'φ μη Tp[TO~

ά'Π'(, τ/~ άληθ~ία~

~ί άpση~ 'Π"ρι, ~Ιδώλoυ δημιoυpyό~, &υ δη μιμ.ητ/υ ώρισά­ μ.~θα, άλλα ιcαι δΕVT~PO~, και oΤό~ Tf ησθα ΥΙΥυώσΚΗυ 'Π'οια

5 ί'Π'ΙTηδ~ύμαTα β~λTίoυ~ η x~(poυ~ άυθpώ'Π'oυ~ 'Π'oΙ~ι lδtq. και

δημοσ[q., λέy~ ήμιυ Tί~ τωυ 'Π'όλ~ωυ δια σε β'λτιου φιcησ~υ, ώσ'Π'φ δια ΛυκουΡΥΟIJ ΛαK~δα[μωυ και δι' ι1λλoυ~ 'Π'oλλo1ι~ e 'Π'ολλαι μηάλαι T~ και σμικρα(; σε δε Tί~ αιτιαται 'Π'όλιr

υομ.οθ'τηυ άΥαθ(,ρ y~yoυ'υαι ιcαι σφδ.r ώΦ~ληK'υαΙί Χαρώυ­ δαυ μευ Υαρ Ίταλ[α και ΣΙK~λ[α, και ήμ~ί:r Σόλωυα' σε δε

T[rj ΙξΗ τιυα ~Ι'Π'~ιυ; 5

ουκ οίμαι, ΙΦη δ Γλαύκωυ' ούκουυ λ'y~Tα( )'~

ουδ' ύ'Π"

α!πωυ Όμηριδωυ.

46 This content downloaded from 193.60.238.240 on Mon, 15 Feb 2021 08:04:39 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

S.

G. S.

G. S.

G.

Do you think, then, that if someone could make both things - the object of imitation, and the simulacrum of it - he would allow himself to take seriously the design of simulacra, and would let this dominate his life as if it were the best thing he possessed? 599b I certainly don't. But, I think, if he were truly knowledgeable about these objects of his mimesis, he would much sooner put his serious interest in the actual things than in their copies, would strive to bequeath many fine deeds as his own memorials, and would be much more eager to be the recipient than the bestower of praise. I think so; for there's no comparison in terms of honour and benefit. Well now, as regards other subjects, let's not ask Homer or any other poet for an explanation, by enquiring (on 599c the assumption that any of them was medically expert rather than just an imitator of medical language) which people any of the older or the modern poets is supposed to have cured, in the way that Asclepius did, or which pupils of medicine he left behind, as Asclepius did with his children. And let's not ask them about the other skills either, but put them on one side. As, however, for the greatest and finest subjects on which Homer purports to speak - wars, military strategies, the management of cities, and the education of man - it is 599d surely right for us to ask him the following question: 'Beloved Homer, if indeed you are not twice removed from the truth about goodness, as a craftsman of a simulacrum (which was our definition of an 'imitator'), but are only once removed, and if you were able to recognise which practices make men better or worse in their private and public lives, then tell us which city acquired a better organisation because of you, as Sparta did through Lycurgus and as many other cities, great and small, have done through many other men. Which city claims that you were its successful law- giver and 59ge brought its people benefit? Italy and Sicily lay claim to Charondas, and we Athenians to Solon: but who claims you?' Will he be able to name one? I think not; at least, there is no tradition of one even among the Homeridae themselves. 47 This content downloaded from 193.60.238.240 on Mon, 15 Feb 2021 08:04:39 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

600

' Άλλα. δή Tι~ πόλφΜ ίπι 'Ομήρου ύπ' ίK~(νOυ ι'ίpxoιπo~

η ΣVμβOυλ€ύOυTO~ Ευ 7Toλ~μηθιι~ μυημoυιύ€Tαι; Olιδ~(~. 5

, Αλλ' οΤα δη ~ι~ τα. ΙΡΥα σοφου άνδpo~ πολλαι ίπ(νοιαι J.t λ" 7J" Tινα~ α~λλ α~ ΠP"'1,H~ ~yoνται,

, , " ΤΙXνα~ και\ ~υμηxανoι fι~

lfJσπφ αυ Θάλ~ώ τι πίρι του Μιλησ(ου και

' Aναxάpσιo~

του Σκύθου;

Olιδαμω~ ΤOΙOVτOν olιδlν.

, Αλλα. δη ~ι μη δημοσ(q, lD(q τισιν ήyιμ6Jν παιδι{α~

]0

αlιτό~ (ων λίΥιται dΟμηΡο~ y~νίσθαι, ot ίιcιΙνoν ηΥάπων ίπι

b σvvουσ{q. .και τoΙ~ ύστίpoι~ δδόν τινα παρίδοσαν

β(ου

'OμηPΙΙCήν, lfJσπfρ ΠυθαΥόΡΜ αlιτό~ τ~ διαφ~pόιπω~ ίπι τούτφ ηΥαπήθη, και οΙ -6στ~poι Ιτι και νυν Πυθαyόp~ιoν τρόπου ίπoνoμά(oντι~ του β{ου διαφαvιΙ~ Π'f/ δοκουσιν ιίναι

5 ίν τoι~ ι'ίλλoι~; Olιδ' αυ, Ιφη, τoιoVτoν OlιDfV λΙΥιται.

δ Υαρ Kp~ώφυλo~,

ίt ΣώκραΤΗ, ίσω~, δ του 'Ομήρου ίταΙpo~, του όυόματo~ fι.υ yιλoώτιpo~ Ιτι πpo~ παιδι(αυ φαν~(η, ~ι τα. λfΎόμ~υα ΠιΡι

'Ομήρου άληθη.

λίy~ται Υα.ρ ώ~ πολλή τι~ άμίλΗα ΠιΡι

iKfWOV, ΟΤΙ ovv, ηυ δ' ίΥώ.

C αlιτoυ ηυ ίπ' αlιτoυ

Λίy~ται Υα.ρ

[(η.

Uλ/.' οίΗ, ίt ΓλαύΙCων, ~ι

τφ όυτι oΤό~ τ' ηυ παιδιύειυ άνθpώπoυ~ καΙ βιλτ{ου'1 άπ­ ιpyάζ~σθαι dΟμηΡΟ~,

i1n

π~pι τούτωυ olι μιμ~ισθαι άλλα.

5 ΥΙΥυώσΚΗν δυυάμ~υo~, OlιK 5.ρ' fι.ν πoλλoiι~ ίτα{poυ~ ίποιή­

σατο και ίτψΕτο και ήΥαπατο ύπ' αlιτων, άλλα. Πpωταyόpα~

iLfV ι'ίρα ό Άβδηp{τη~ καΙ ΠpόδΙKO~ ό K~ίΌ~ καΙ ι'ίλλοι πάμ­

πολλοι δύυανται τoι~ ίφ' ίαυτων παριστάναι lD{q σvyyιyνόd μ~νoι ώ~ ούτε οΖκ{αν oύτ~ πόλιν την αύτων δΙOΙK~Ιν οΤο{ τ' Ισονται, ίαν μ1/ σΦ~Ί~ αlιτων ίπιστατήσωσιν τη~ παιδ~ία~, και ίπι ταύτr/ τπ σοφίq. ούτω σφόδρα Φιλουυται, /i;σTf μόνον OlιK

ίπι ταΊ~

K~ΦαλαΊ~ π~pιφίpovσιυ αlιτoiι~ οί

ίταιροι'

5 dΟμηΡΟV δ' ι'ίρα οΙ ίπ' ίK~ίνoυ, ιίπ~p oΤό~ τ' ην πpo~ άp~την

όνησαι άνθpώπoυ~, Τι Ήσίοδον pαψφδ~Ίυ fι.υ πφιιόντα~ ~ίωυ,

e

και olιXι μαλλον fι.ν αlιτωυ άυτε{χοντο η του χρυσου καΙ

7ίνάΥκα(ον παρα. σφ{σιυ οίκοι ~ίναι, η ~ι μη Ιπειθου, αlιτoι fι.ν

hO() ,j(, όνήσαι Aristιd Λνι ναι

Α2

Α' D F Matthiae

ονε ί ναι

ον ι νάναι

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S. G. S.

G. S.

G.

S.

Well, is any war from Homer's lifetime remembered as 600a having been successfully fought under his leadership or on his advice? None. Well, as befits a man of practical intelligence, are many ingenious ideas of his recorded for the crafts or any other activities, as in the case of Thales of Miletus and Anacharsis the Scythian? No trace of any such thing. Well then, if there's nothing in public life, is Homer said to have been a private educational guide during his lifetime to individuals who cherished him for his company and passed on for posterity a Homeric way of 600b life, just as Pythagoras was himself exceptionally cherished for this reason, and his successors even now call their way of life 'Pythagorean' and are somewhat distinctive among other men? There's no tradition of that sort, either. Indeed, Socrates, perhaps Creophulos the companion of Homer would appear, even more ludicrous as regards education than his name suggests, if the story concerning Homer is true; for it is told that he showed great disregard for Homer during the latter's own lifetime. 600c That is the story, at any rate. But don't you think, Glaucon, that if Homer had really been able to educate men and render them better people, because he had a capacity in such matters not to imitate but to understand, he would have produced many companions and been honoured and cherished by them? But Protagoras of Abdera and Prodicus of Ceos and a host of others can associate privately with their contemporaries and suggest to them that they will be unable to manage their own household or city unless 600d these men themselves are in charge of their education; and they win such affection for this wisdom that their companions practically carry them round on their shoulders. Well, if he had really been able to help men to excellence, would Homer's contemporaries have allowed him, or Hesiod, to travel round reciting, and wouldn't they have clung to them more tenaciously than to gold, and pressured them to live in their houses or, if persuasion failed, wouldn't they ha ve followed 600e 49 This content downloaded from 193.60.238.240 on Mon, 15 Feb 2021 08:04:39 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

€παιδαyώyoυυ 07Γf/ jίσαυ, ~ω~ 'Kαυω~ παιδ€(α~ μ€TaλάβOι€υ; Παvτάπασιυ, ΙΦη, δOK€'~ μοτ, 6) ΣώKpαT€~, άληθη λίΥΗυ. ΟΙΙκουυ ηθωμ€υ άπο 'Ομήρου άpςαμίυoυ~ πάvτα~ Toυ~

5 πoιηTιKOV~ μιμηTα~ €Ιδώλωυ άp€rίj~ €ίυαι καΙ τωυ lίλλωυ πφΙ ώυ ποιoVσιυ, rίj~ δι άληθ€(α~ οΙΙχ ίίΠT€σθαι, άλλ' ιΖσπφ

νυυδη ίλίY.μ€υ, δ (ωypάφo~ σκυτοτόμου ΠOιήσ€ι δOKoυvτα

T€ ουκ €παtωv πφΙ σKυτOToμ(α~ καΙ TO'~ μη €K τωυ χΡωμάτωυ δε καΙ σχημάτωυ θ€ωpOυσιυ; Πάνυ μΕυ ovv.

601 €ίυαι, αύτό~

€παtοvσιv,

Οϋτω δη οίμαι καΙ του ποιηηκου φήσOμ€υ χρώματα lίπα

5 ~Kάστωυ τωυ T€Xυωυ TO'~ όυόμασι Kal Ρήμασιυ ΙΠΙΧΡωματ{­ (HV αύτου ουκ ίπαtοvτα άλλ' η μιμ€,σθαι, ιZστ€ ~Tίpoι~ ToιoύTOΙ~ ίκ τωυ λόΥωυ θ€ωpOυσι δOK€,υ, lάvτ€ πφl σκvτo­

Toμ(α~ Tι~ λίΥ'[l ίυ μίτρφ

Kal ρυθμφ Kal Iι.pμov{q., πcίνυ €υ

δOK€,υ λίy€σθαι, ίάvτε πφΙ στpαTηy{α~ ίάVΤ€ περί ΙΙλλου

b δτουoVυ' ο1Πω φύσει αυτα ταυτα μηάληυ Τιυα κήλ'1σιυ Ιχειυ.

ίπεΙ .yυμvωθΙvτα Υε τωυ rίj~ μoυσικij~ χΡωμάτωυ

τα τωυ ποιητωυ, αυτα ίφ' αύτωυ λεyόμ€υα, οίμα{ σε €Ιδίυαι οΤα φαύιπαι.

5

T€θΙασαι Υάρ που.

'ΈΥωΥΊ ΙΦη· ουκουυ, ηυ δ' ίΥώ, ΙOΙK€υ TO'~

τωυ ώρα{ωυ πpoσώπoι~,

Kaλωυ δι μή, οΤα y{yυ€Tαι Ιδ€,υ ίJTΑV αύτα Tlι lίυθo~ πpoλ{7Γf/; Παvτcίπασιυ, η δ' ίJ~.

'Ίθι δή, τόδε lίθPH' δ του €Ιδώλoυ πoιηTή~, δ μιμητή~, 10

c

φαμlυ, του μfυ όvτo~ oVδευ ίπαtΗ, του δι φαιυoμlυoυ'

oVx

o1Πω~ί ΝαΙ

Μη

TO{VVV ήμ{σ€ω~ αυτο KαTaλ{πωμευ ρηθίυ, άλλ' lKαυω~

%δωμευ.

5

Λly€, IΦη. Zωypάφo~, φαμίυ, ήυ(α~ T€ Υράψει καΙ χaλιυόυ; ΝαΙ

ΠOιήσ€ι δι y€ σΚVΤOTόμO~ καΙ χaλK€ύ~ί πΆvv y€.

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G. S.

G. S.

G. S. G. S. G. S. G. S. G. S. G.

them for instruction wherever they went, until they absorbed sufficient education? Absolutely true, I think, Socrates. Are we, then, to mark down all the poets, starting from Homer, as imitators who produce simulacra of excellence and of the other things they write about, and who have no grasp of the truth; but, as we agreed a while ago, the painter will make what looks like a shoemaker, even 601a though he has no understanding of shoemaking and nor does his audience, whose perception depends only on the shapes and colours? Absolutely. Analogously, I think, we shall agree that the poet uses his words and phrases to produce a superficial 'colouring' of each of the crafts, even though he understands only how to imitate them; so that other such people whose perception depends on h~ words think, if someone speaks in metre, rhythm and melody, whether on shoemaking or on strategy or on anything else, that his words are those of a real expert. Such is 601b the great power of enchantment which these very features naturally possess. Since, if the poets' works are stripped of their musical 'colours' , and are spoken simply as they are, I think you know how they look. I assume you've observed them. Certainly. Well, surely they resemble the faces of those who are youthful but not really beautiful, when their bloom deserts them? Quite so. 601c Come then, consider this: the maker of the simulacrum, the imitator, we agree, has no understanding of the reality but only of the appearance. Isn't that so? Yes. Then let's not leave the matter just half explained, but look at it thoroughly. Continue. A painter, we can say, will depict reins and bit? Yes. But it is saddler and bronzesmith who will make them? Certainly. 51 This content downloaded from 193.60.238.240 on Mon, 15 Feb 2021 08:04:39 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

10

~ Αρ'

ovv lπαtει oZα~ δ~ί: Tα~ ήΡία~ ~ίυαι Kal τ?ιυ χαλιυ?ιυ

δ ypαΦ~ύ~; η ofJD' δ πoιήσα~, δ T€ xaλιc~v~ ιcal δ σΙCυT€ύ~, άλλ' lΙC~LVO~ δσπιΡ TOύτoι~ lπ(σταται χΡησθαι, μόυo~ δ lΠΠΙKό~;

,Αληθ'στατα. ovv ofJ Π~Ρl πάρτα ο1Πω φήσoμ~ρ [χειυ;

~Ap'

πω~;

d

ll~pllιcaσTov Tαύτα~ τιυα~ TP~Ι~ T'χυα~ ~ίυαι, xPησoμ'vηυ.

,

ποιησουσαυ,

,

μιμησoμ~υηυ;

ΝαΙ

oυιcoυυ άp~τ/ ιcal ιcάλλo~ ιcω όpθότη~ iιcdσTov σιc~υoυ~

5

,

,""'

και

~φov

\

ιcαι

'

1.C

ηυ Δυ Ικαστου

7TPO~

\

~λλ

ΠPUΙ;ιω~ ου πpo~ α

fl

~,

''1

Ο τι η τηυ χΡειαυ ιστιυ,

πιποιημ'υου η πιφυιcό~;

OiΠω~.

Πολλη l'tpa άυάΥκη του χΡώμιυου iιcdσTIfJ ίμΠΙιΡότατόυ

τι ιίυαι Kal l'tΥΥfλοv Υ'Υρισθαι τφ ΠΟΙ7]Τρ οΤα aΥαθα η κακα 10

ποιιι ίυ τρ χριίιι Φ χΡηται' οΤου αύλ7]τή~ που αυλοποιφ

e JξαΥΥ'λλfΙ ΠfΡl τωυ αυλωυ, ot Δυ {,Π7JPΙTωσιυ ίυ τφ αυλιιυ, \'

και

1. C

"

~

Λ

Λ'

ΙΠΙTUΙ;ΙΙ OιOυ~ υΙΙ ΠΟΙΙΙΡ,

~,

Ο υ

,

,

VΠ7Jpιτησιι.

πω~ δ' oiί;

OVKOVV δ μιυ ιzoω~ ίξαΥΥ'λλει πιρ, ΧΡ7]στωυ ιcal πουηρωυ 5

άυλωυ, ό ΟΙ πιπιυωυ ποιήσει;

Να'. του αύτου l'tpa σιcιυoυ~ δ μ~ρ ΠOΙ7]Tη~ π(στιυ όρθηυ Ιξει

ΠfΡl Kάλλoυ~ τι ιcal πoυηPία~, σvυωυ τφ ιίδότι ιcal aυαyιcα­

60a (όμ~υo~ άκούιιυ παpa του ~ZδόTO~, δ δι xpώμ~υo~ ίπιστήμ7]Ρ. Πάυυ y~.

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S.

G. S. G. S. G. S.

G. S.

G. S. G. S.

G.

Does the painter, then, understand what form the reins and bit should take? Or does not even the maker of them, the bronzesmith and saddler, understand that, but only the person who knows how to use these things, the rider? Absolutely true. Shall we not agree, then, that this is the case with everything? What? That in each instance there are these three skills, whose 601d purpose is to use, to make and to imitate? Yes. So does the excellence, beauty and correctness of every artefact, creature and activity apply to nothing other than the use for which each thing has been made or engendered? Just so. So it is inevitably the case that the one who uses each thing has the most experience of it, and is the person to inform the maker where his work is successful or otherwise in practice. For instance, it is the oboe - player, I take it, who reports back to the maker 601e of oboes on those instruments which serve him well in playing; and he will give specifications for how they should be made, and the maker will in turn serve his requirements. Of course. So the person with knowledge reports back his judgements on good and bad oboes, and the other will trust him when he makes them? Yes. Then the maker of the same object will possess a correct opinion about its fineness or deficiency, from conferring with the person who has knowledge and from being obliged to listen to him; while the one who uses it will possess the knowledge? 602a Indeed.

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Ό δι μιμητ/!> 'ΠιΥτερον ίκ του χΡησθαι ί'Πισrήμην ttH 'ΠφΙ ων ~p Υράψ!l, εΣτε Kaλα καΙ όρθα εΣτε μή, η Mtav

5 .όΡθην δια το ίξ άνιίΥκη!> ΣVνEιναι τφ εΖδότι καΙί'Πιτάτnσθαι οIa χΡη Υριίφειν; OυδlTεpα.

Ούτε Δρα εΤσπaι ούτε όΡθα δοξάσει ό μιμητ/!> 'ΠΕΡΙ ων ~p μιμηται 'ΠΡΟ!> κάλλο!> η 'Ποvηρw.v. 10

ουκ Ιοικεν.

\...

Χαρ{ΕΙ!> ~p

εΤη ό ίν τfi 'Ποιήσει μιμητlJ(Ο~ 'ΠPO~ σοΦ{av ....

'Περι α/Ι' αν 'ΠΟΙΙ/.

b

ου 'ΠιΊvv.

Άλλ' ovv δη gμω~ ΥΕ μιμήσπαι, o1JK εZδω~ 'ΠΕΡΙ ~KάστOυ ()1Τ'[1 'ΠOVΗpoν η χΡηστόΡ' άλ/', ώ~ Ιοικεν, oΤOv Φα{νπaι ιιaλoν

Είιιαι

TOΙ~

'Πoλλoι~

τε κα, μηδιν

εΙδόιrυι.

,-σίΠο

μιμήσεται.

5

Τί Υαρ α/ο; TαVτα μfν δή, ιZ~ Υε φαύιπαι, ί'Πιεικως' ήμ'iv διωμολό'/'1ται,

τόν τε μιμητικον μηδιν εΙδlνaι 4ξιον λόΥου 'Περ' ων μιμε'iται, άλ/' είιιαι 'Πα~ιάν TUΙα καΙ ου σ'Πovδην τ/» μ{μηιrιν, TOύ~ ΤΕ τ/ς' Tpayιιcfί~ 'Πoιήσεω~ άπoμJυovς' ίν Zaμβείoις' καΙ ίν 10

c

Ι'Πεσι 'Πάπα~ εΤναι μιμηΤΙKo1ι~ ώς' οΤόν η μάλιστα. Πάιιv μΕ-ν

oVu.

ΠρΟς' Διό!>, ην δ' ίΥώ, το δΕ- δη μιμε'iσθαι TOVτO ου 'ΠφΙ

τρίτον μJν τΙ ίστιυ ά'Πο τ/~ όληθεία!>; ή Υιίρ; ΝαΙ

Προς' δι δη 'Ποιόν τί ίστιν των του άνθρώ'Που Ιχον τήν

5 ΔVναμuι ην lxEι; του 'Ποίου TUΙOς' 'Πίρι λΙΥειS';

του TOΙOVδε' ταύτόν 'Που ήμ'iu μJyεθo~ ίΥΥύθεν ΤΕ καΙ 'ΠόρρωθΕν δια τ/ς' όψεα/ς' ουκ Τσον φα{ΡΕται.

ου Υάρ.

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S.

G. S. G. S. G. S.

G. S.

G. S. G. S. G. S. G.

As for the imitator - will he know, as a result of using the things, whether or not he is presenting well and correctly anything he depicts; or will he have a reliable opinion about them, as a result of having to confer with one who knows and of being instructed by him how he ought to depict them? Neither. Then the imitator will have neither knowledge nor reliable opinion about the quality or deficiency of the things he imitates? Obviously not. What a splendid position for the poetic imitator in relation to wisdom on the subjects of his poetry! Far from it. But he will nonetheless make his imitation, without 602b knowledge of where good or bad lies in each case. Instead, so it seems, it's what appears to be good to the ignorant masses that he will imitate. What else? So far then, as it seems, we have a reasonable agreement that the mimetic practitioner knows nothing significant on the subjects of his imitation, but that mimesis is a game and not a serious matter; and that those who put their hand to tragic poetry, whether in iambics or in hexameters, are all mimetic practitioners

par excellence.

i\bsolutely. By Zeus, then surely this mimetic activity is concerned with something at two removes from the truth, is it not? Yes. But what element in men does the power which it possesses affect? What sort of thing are you referring to? Something of this sort: surely the same object doesn't seem an equal size to our vision both close to and at a distance? Indeed not.

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602c

Και ταυτα καμπύλα

10

Tf καΙ fvOla Ευ i)δατ, τι θεlJ)μέυoι~

καΙ Ιξω, καΙ KoLλά Tf δη και Eξέxovτα δια τηυ περι τα

χρώματα αυ πλάυηυ τij~ όΨfω~, καΙ πασά τι~ ταραχη δήλη

d ήμ,ρ Ευουσα αi)τη Ευ Tjj ΨVx.η·

ιίι δη ήμωυ τφ παθήματι

τij~ ψ6σfω~ ή σκιαγραφ,α Επιθφέυη γοηΤf,α~ oυδ€υ απο­ λf'ΠΗ, και ή θαυματοποι,α καΙ αΙ c1λλαι πολλαΙ τοιαυται

5

μηχ αυαΙ 'Αληθη.

OV

'Άρ' ουυ

το μιτρε,υ καΙ αριθμf'V καΙ Ιστάυαι βοήθΗαι

xaPSlnaTat πpo~ QWli Εφάυησαυ, ωστf μη fιpXfΙV Ευ ήμ,ρ το φαιvόμfVΟV μf'(ΟV η Ιλαπου η πλέου η βαρvτιροv, άλλα

το λογισάμfVΟV καΙ μετρησαυ η καΙ στijσαυ; πω~ γαρ oiΊ;

10

e

Άλλα μηυ τουτό γι του λσγιστικου

aV

είη του Ευ ψυΧ5

lργου. ToVτoυ γαρ ουυ. ToVτφ δ€ πoλλάKΙ~

~

"

tI

αμα περι

μf,(ω

,

ουκουυ Ιφαμευ τφ άδύυατου 10

καΙ σημα,υουτι

ταυτα.

ΝαΙ.

603

μετρήσαυτι

fιπα fiVat η Ελάπω Ετιρα. ίτέρωυ η ίσα ταυαυτ,α φα'Vfται

fiVaL;

awq>

l'ιμα περι ταυτα EvavτCa δοξά(ιιυ

Και όpθω~ γ' ΙΦαμευ.

Το παρα τα μέτρα ίΊρα δοξά(ου Tη~ ψυXη~ τφ κατα τα μέτρα ουκ

aV

είη ταυτόυ.

ου γαρ ουυ.

Άλλα μηυ το μέτρφ γε και λογισμφ πισΤfVΟV βέλτιστου

5 l!v είη τij~ ΨVXη~. Τί μήυ; Το fιpα τοvτφ ΕvαVΤιοvμfVΟV τωυ φαύλωυ fιυ Τι ffη Ευ

7ιμ.'υ. Άυάγκη.

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S.

G. S.

G. S. G. S.

G. S. G. S. G. S. G. S. G.

And the same objects look both curved and straight when we observe them in and outside water; and things look concave and convex because of our sight's unreliability where colours too are concerned; and every kind of confusion is evidently rooted here in our mind. 602d It is this debility of our nature which perspectivepainting exploits by using every sort of magic, and the same with conjuring and many other tricks of this kind. True. So, have not measurement, arithmetic and weighing been discovered to be the finest helps in the face of these things, so that it's not the appearance of greater or lesser size, quantity or weight which has control over us, but the calculation and measurement, or even weighing,' of them? Of course. Well now, this must be the function of the rational 602e element in the soul. Exactly. But frequently, when this element has measured, and indicates to us that certain things are greater or smaller than others, or equal to one another, the opposite appearance is simultaneously present in the same cases. Yes. And surely we agreed that the same element cannot hold contradictory beliefs at the same time about the same things? And we were right to. So the element of the soul which forms opinions in 603a contradiction to the measurements cannot be the same as the one which accords with them. Of course not. Moreover, the element which relies on measurement and calculation must be the best part of the soul. What else? So the element in conflict with this must be one of the base things in us. Inevitably.

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ο

Τοίπο TO(VVV διομολΟΥήσασθαι

βοvλόμfVΟ~ ΙλfΥΟV δτι ή

Υραφικη Kal δλω~ ή μιμητικη πόρρω μιν Tiί~ άληθfία~ ~ν τό

αύτiί~ ΙΡΥον άΠfΡΥάζfται, πόρρω δ' αυ φροvήσfω~ όντι τφ

b ίν ήμ,ν προσομιλf' Tf Kal ίταίρα και Φίλη ίστιν ίπ' oVOfvl ύΥΙf' ούδ' άληθf'. Παντάπασιν, ή δ' δ~.

Φανλη δ-ρα φανλφ ΣVYYΙΎνOμίνη Φαυλα yfVVq ή μιμητική. 5

~ΕΟΙΚfV.

ΠόΗρον, ην δ' ίΥώ, ή κατα τ/ν όψιν μόνον, η Kal κατα τ/ν άκοήν, ην δ1ι πο(ησιν όvομάζομfV; EΙKό~ Υ', Ιφη, και ταVτην. Μη τοίνυν, ην δ' ίΥώ, τφ flκότι μόνον πιστwιτωμ,fV ίκ

10

Tiί~ yραΦΙKiί~, άλλα και ίπ' αύτό αυ 1λθωμfV Tiί~ oιανo(α~

C τοθτο φ προιτομιλf' ή τii~ ποιήσfω~ μιμητική, καΙ tδOOILfV

Φαυλον η ιτπουδαί'όν €στιν. 'Αλλα χΡή. ~Ωδf

δη

'TrPOOdIILfOa'

πpάTToνTα~,

Φαμίν,

lι.νθρώπoυ~

5 μιμf,ται ή μιμητικη βιαίoυ~ η ίKoυσ(α~ πράςH~, Kal ίκ τοί, πράΠΗν η fV oΙoμίνoυ~ η KαKω~ ΠfπραΥίvαι, Kal €ν TOVτOΙ~ δη παιτιv η λυπoυμένoυ~ η xαίpovτα~. μή τι l1λλο ην παρα 1"αυτα;

Ούδέν.

10

9Αρ' OVV €ν &πασι TOύTOΙ~ δμoνoηΤΙKω~ l1vθρωπο~ διάΚΗ­

d ται; η aσΠfΡ κατα η/ν όψιν €ιττασ(αζfV και ίναυTία~ fIXfV ίν ίαvτφ δόςα~ l1ILa 'Trfpl τωυ αύτων, OiiTOO Kal €ν Tα,~ 'TrpJffιTL στασιάζΗ Tf Kal ILJXfTa, αύτ?ι~ αύτφ; άναμιμνρ­ σκομαι δι οτι τουτό "yf υυν ουδιν Of' ήμίi~ διομολογf,σθαι'

5 €ν γαρ TOί.'~ I1voo λόyoι~ ίKαυω~ πάι'τα ταυτα διωμολΟΥησά­

μfθα, δτι μυρίων τοιούτωυ ίναvτιωμάTων "l1μα γΙΥνομένων ή ψυχη ΥίμΗ ήμων. Όρθω~, 1φη. Όpθω~ Υάρ, ηυ δ' ίγώ' άλλ'

& τόΤf

άΠfλίπομfV, νυν μοι

e OOKf' άναγκα,ον fIVat δΙfςfλθfW. Τό πο,ον; ΙΦη.

603 c7

ήν

Ast

t

Α

i1 D F

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S.

G. S. G. S. G. S.

G. S.

G. S.

G. S. G.

It was with the aim of getting agreement on just this point that I said that painting, and mimetic art as a whole, produces work which is far from the truth; and far from wisdom too is the element within us with which it consorts as a mistress and beloved, for no 603b sound or true purpose. Entirely so. As a base thing, then, liaising with a base element in us, mimetic art breeds base offspring. It seems so. Is it true only of mimesis affecting our sight, or also of the sort which works on our hearing, which we call poetry? It's likely to be true of this too. Well, let us not just rely on the likelihood derived from the case of painting, but let us address ourselves next to the very element of our mind with which poetic mimesis 603c consorts, and see whether it is base or noble. Very well. Let us lay down the following premises: mimetic art, we can say, portrays men engaged in involuntary or voluntary actions, and as a result of their action believing that they have succeeded or failed, and either grieving or rejoicing in all these circumstances. Surely there's nothing else beyond these things? Nothing. Now then, does a man keep a steady frame of mind in all these circumstances? Or is it the case that, just as 603d we saw how in his vision he was at odds with himself and held conflicting views within him at the same time about the same things, so in his actions too he is at odds and at war with himself? But I recall that there is now no need for us to agree this point at any rate, since in our earlier discussion we agreed sufficiently in all these matters, that our soul is full of countless such conflicts which occur within us simultaneously. Correct. Indeed it is. But I think we must now pursue the point which we then put on one side. 603e Which one?

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'Αυήρ, ηυ δ' ~γώ, €πιιικ7ι~ Toιίiσδι: Tύxη~ μι:τασχών, ύου

απoλέσα~ 1ί τι 5.λλο ώυ πι:ρι πλι:ίστου ποιι:ιται, ίλtγoμέν

5 που και τότι: 5η pqUTa οΤσιι τωυ 5.λλωυ. Πάυυ γι:.

Νυυ δΙ γι: τόδ' €πισKι:ψώμι:θα, πότι:ρου otιδiv αχθΙσι:ται,

η

604

TOm-O μεν αδύυατον, μι:τριάσιι δΙ πω~ πpo~ λύπηυ. Οίίτω μαλ/ου, ΙΦη .. τό ΥΙ: αλτιθ'~.

ΤόδΕ υυν μοι πι:ρι αύΤοϋ ι:Ιπέ· πότι:ρου μαλ/ου αύτου οτι:ι

Tii

λύ7Γf/ μαχι:ισθαί

των δμοίων,

5

T€

και αυτιτι:ίυι:ιυ, 5ταυ δpίiTαι ύπο

η 5ταν Ευ ίρημίιι μόυo~ αlιTO~

καθ' αύτου

γίγυηται;

Πολύ που, Ιφη, διοίσιι, 5ταυ δpίiTαι.

Moυωθι:ι~ δΙ γι: οίμαι πολλα μευ τολμήσιι ΦθΙγξασθαι,

&. ι:Τ τι~ αiιτoυ άκούοι αΙσχύυοιτ' ι1ν, πολ/α δε ποιήσιι, &. ουκ ~p

δέξαιτό τιυα ίδι:ιυ δρωρτα. OiίTω~ (χιι, Ιφη.

10

Ούκουν το μευ αυητι:ίυι:ιν διακι:λι:υ6μι:νουλόγo~ και υόμo~

b Εστίυ, το δε lλκοv Επι Tα~ λύπα~ αυτο το πάθo~; Άληθη.

ΈυαυTία~ δε αγωyij~ γιγνOμέυη~ ίυ τφ αυθρώπφ πι:ρΙ το αiιτo l'ιμα, δύο Φαμευ αiιτω αυαγκαιου ι:ίυαι.

5

πω~ δ' ο{ι;

Ούκουυ τ6 μευ Ιτι:ρoυ τφ νόμφ Ιτοιμον πι:(θι:σθαι, δ δ υόμo~ Εζηγι:ΙΤαι; πω~;

Λέγιι που δ νόμ.o~ 5τι κάλλιστου 5τι μάλιστα ήσυχ ίαν 10

5.γιιυ €υ Tαι~ ΣVμΦOpαι~ και μη αγαυακτι:ιυ, ώ~ ο{ιτι: δήλου όPTO~ του αγαθου τι: και κακου τωυ τοιούτωυ, Ο{ιΤΕ ι:ί~ το

c

πρόσθι:υ ούδεν προβαιυον τφ xαλι:πω~ φέρουτι, ο{ιτι: τι τωυ ανθρωπίνωυ 5.ζιου ~p

μι:γάλη~ σπoυδη~, Ο τι: δι:ι Εν αVτoι~

οη τάχιστα παραγίγνι:σθαι ήμιν, το6τφ Εμποδωυ γιγυόμι:υου το λυπι:Ισθαι. Τίνι, η δ' 5~,

604 b4

αύτω

λ'γι:ι~;

Morgenstern

αύτii> Α

D

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S.

G. S. G. S.

G. S.

G. S. G. S. G. S. G. S.

G.

If a good man experiences so great a misfortune as to

lose a son or anything else which he values supremely, we surely agreed earlier that he will endure it with greater ease than other men. Certainly. But now let us consider this - will he not be distressed at all, or is this impossible, but will he show a certain moderation in his grief? Rather the latter, to tell the truth. Now tell me this about him: do you think he will fight 604a and strain against his grief more when he can be observed by his peers, or when he is all alone and in solitude? Much more, surely, when he is observed. But when alone, I think, he will go so far as to utter many things of which he would be ashamed if someone could hear him, and he will do many things which he wouldn't be prepared to let someone see him doing. That is so. So it is reason and custom which urge him to resist, while the force drawing him into grief is his affliction 604b itself? True. And when there is this conflicting motion in the person about the same object at the same time, we agree that there must be two separate forces. Of course. So the one force is ready to follow custom where it leads? In what way? Surely custom decrees that it is noblest to keep as much equanimity as possible in the midst of disaster, and to avoid indignation, on the grounds that the nature of good and evil is not apparent in such matters, that the person who bears them badly does not make things any better, and that nothing in human affairs is worth much 604c seriousness, while grief only impedes what we need most urgently in such circumstances. What do you mean?

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5

τφ βουλεύι:σθαι, ηυ δ' ιγώ, 'Πι:ρι το γι:Υουοι; και ι7>σ'Π€p ιυ 'ΠΤώσι:ι κύβωυ 'ΠΡΟΙ; τα 'Πι:'ΠΤωκ6τα τtθι:σθαι τα αύτου

'Πpιiyματα, 5η} ό λόγο" αΙρι:ι βέλτιστ' Δυ lXHV, αλλα μη 'Προσ'ΠΤα(σαυται; Kαθιi'Πι:p 'Παιδαι; ιχομέυουι; του 'Πληγέυτοι; ιυ τφ βoίiυ διατρ(βι:ιυ, αλλ' αι:ι lθ(ζι:ιυ τηυ ΨVXηυ 5τι

d τιiXιστα γ(γυι:σθαι 'ΠΡΟΙ; το Eίiσθα( τι: και l'ΠαυΟΡθουυ το 'Πι:σ6υ Τι: και υοσησαυ, Ιατρικπ θρηυιΡδ(αυ αφαυ(ζουτα. 'Ορθότατα

5

γουυ

ί'ιυ

τιι;,

lΦη,

'Προι;

ται;

τύχαι;

oiίτω

'Προσφέροιτο. Ούκουυ, φαμέυ, το μ'€υ βέλτιστου τούτιρ τφ λογισμφ ιθέλι:ι i'Πι:σθαι. Δηλου δή.

ΤΟ δ'€ 'ΠΡΟΙ; ται; αυαμυήσι:ιι; Τι: του 'Πάθουι; και 'ΠΡΟΙ;

dδυΡμοvι; ι1γου και α'Πλήστωι; 10

e

lxov αύτωυ ap'

TOV.,

ουκ αλόγιστ6υ

τι: φήσομι:υ ι:ίυαι και αργου και δι:ιλ(αι; φDωυ; Φήσομι:υ μευ ουυ. ουκουυ το μευ 'Πολληυ μ(μησιυ και 'Ποικ(ληυ lXH, το αΥαυαΚΤητικόυ, το δ'€ φρ6υιμ6υ τι: και ήσύχιου ήθοι;, 'Παρα­

'Πλήσιου ~υ αι:ι αVτo αύτφ, ουτι: ρ4διου μιμήσασθαι ουτι: μιμουμέυου ι:Vπι:τιι; καταμαθι:ιυ, ι1λλωι; τι: καΙ 'ΠαυηΥύΡι:ι και 5 'Παυτοδα'Ποιι; αυθρώ'Ποιι; ι:Ει; θέατρα συλλι:Υομέυοιι;'

605

αλλο­

τρ{ου γάρ 'Που 'Πάθουι; ή μ{μησιι; αύτοιι; γ{Υυι:ται.

Παvτά'Πασι μ'€υ oVv.

Ό δη μιμητικοι; 'Ποιητrιg δηλου 15n ου 'Προι; το τoιoVτoυ τijι; ΨVxηι; 'Πέφυκέ Τι: και ή σοΦ(α αVτoυ τούτψ aplUKHv

'Πέπηγι:υ, ι:Ι μέλλι:ι

ι:υδοκιμήσι:ιυ ιυ τοιι; 'Πολλοιι;, lι.λλα

5 'ΠΡΟΙ; το aγαυακτητικόυ Τι: και 'Ποικ(λου ήθοι; δ,α το ι:υμί­ μητου ι:ίυαι. Δηλου.

604 c7 d2 605 a3

α! ρε ϊ ί ατρ ι γε

F 2 Plut. Stob.

Kf.J Plut. Stob.

D F

έρεϊ

Α

-ι κην Α2

έρρε ι

D F'

-κΤΙν και

Α'

D F

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S.

G. S. G. S.

G. S.

G. S.

G.

I mean the capacity to deliberate about what has happened, and, as with the fall of dice, to settle one's affairs in the face of what has befallen one, following what reason deems to be the best plan. And instead of being overcome, like children clutching an injury and perpetually shouting, one should always accustom the soul as quickly as possible to confront the task of curing 604d and reviving the wounded and sick part, using 'medicine' to dispel sorrow. Such would certainly be the ideal response to misfortunes. So, we agree, the best part of us wants to follow this reasoning. Evidently. But as for the part which draws us towards recollections of our affliction and towards lamentations, and is insatiable for these, shall we not say that it is lacking in reason, and passive, and fond of cowardice? We certainly shall. gives 604e So the one type of character - the indignant scope for extensive and varied mimesis, while the prudent and restrained character, which is always self-consistent, is neither easy to act out nor readily understood if someone does act it, particularly in a public gathering when motley crowds are packed into For surely the mimetic enactment is of an theatres. experience alien to these people. Absolutely. 60Sa Then the mimetic poet is clearly not naturally equipped to deal with such an element of the soul, and his skill is not ordained to satisfy it, if he is to win a good reputation among the masses; rather, he is suited to the indignant and volatile character, because of the way this lends itself to mimetic enactment. Obviously.

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Ούκουυ

δΙKαίω~ αυ

αιΠου

ήδη

ιπιλαμβαυοίμεθα,

Kα~

ηθεψευ αυτίστροφου αύτου Τψ ζωγρ&.φιιι- Kα~ γαρ Τψ φαυλα 10

b

ποιειυ πρO~ λ/ήθειαυ (οικευ αύτψ, και Τψ πρO~

lnpov ΤΟΙ­

OVτOυ δμιλειυ Tη~ ψυxη~ αλλα μη πρO~ το βΙληστου, και

TUVT'fl

ώμοίωται.

και OiίTω~ 1ίδη αυ ιυ δίΚΊΊ ού παραδεχοί­

μεθα εl~ μ'λλουσαυ εύυομεισθαι π6λιυ, ί5η TOVτO ιγείρει τη~ ψυxη~

5

και

τρ'φει

και

lσχυρου

ποιωυ

lι.π6λλυσι

το

λΟΥιστικ6υ, t-ισπερ ιύ π6λει ί5ταυ η~ μoxθηρoυ~ ιγKραTει~

ποιωυ παραδιδψ τηυ π6λιυ, TOυ~ δΕ xαριεσT'ρoυ~ Φθείρρ' ταύτου και του μιμηηκου ποιητηυ φήσομευ κακηυ πολι­

τείαυ lδίq. ~Kάστoυ C

Tfl ψυχπ ιμποιειυ, Τψ αυοήτφ αύTη~

χαριζ6μευου και ουτε τα μείζω ουτε τα ιλάττω διαΥΙΥυώ­ σκουη, αλλα τα αύτα τοτΕ μΕυ μεγάλα .ηγουμ'υφ, τοτΕ δΕ

σμικρά, εΤδωλα εlδωλoπoιoυvτα, του δΕ ίΊ.ληθoυ~ π6ρρω πάυυ αφεστωτα.

5

Πάυυ μΕυ ουυ.

Ού μlρτοι πω τό 'γΙ μ'Υιστου καrηyopήκαμ-ιυ aυτη~. γαρ και

TOVS'

το

ΙΠΙ€ΙΚfLS' ίκαυηυ είυαι λωβασθαι, fKTOS' πΆVυ

ηρωυ δλίγωυ, πάυδειυ6υ που.

Τί δ' ού μ'λ/ει, εΤπερ Υε δρ~ αύτ6; 10

'

Ακούωυ σκ6πει.

ΟΙ γάρ που β'ληστοι ημωυ lι.Kρoώ-

μευοι 'Ομήρου η 6λλου ηυo~ τωυ τραγφδοποιωυ μιμουμ'υου

d ηνα τωυ .ηρώων ιυ π'υθει συτα και μακραυ ρησιυ lι.πoτεί­ υουτα ιυ TOΙ~ δδυρμoι~ η και qδουτά~ τε και ΚΟ7rTομ'vου~,

οίσθ' οη χαίρομ'υ τε και ιυδ6υΤΗ .ημO.~ αύτoυ~ ~π6μεθα

σvμπάσxoυτε~ 'Ποιητή υ, ~~

και σπουδάζΟΡΤΗ

ιπαιυουμεν

ώ~

άγαθου

αν .ημα~ ί5η μάλιστα OiίTω διαθΥ.

Οίδα' πω~ δ' ου;

"Οταυ δε οΙκειόυ τιυι ήμωυ KfjlJoS' Ύ'vητaι, fvvofiS' αυ ΟΤΙ

e

Ι'ΠΙ Τψ ιυαυτίφ καλλωπιζ6μεθα, αυ δυυώμεθα .ησυχίαυ &γειυ και καρτερειυ, ώ~ TOVτO μΕυ άυδρo~ όυ, ικειυο δΕ yυυι.ιΙK6~. (1\

Ο

"

τοτε

.....

εΤΤ[ιυουμευ.

Έυυοω, (Φη.

605 c3

-τ πο ι ούντ ι

F

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S.

G. S.

G. S.

G. S.

G.

So we would be right now to apprehend the poet and to place him as a match for the painter. For he resembles the latter in the making of things which stand in a poor relation to the truth, and he has also been found similar to him by virtue of associating with some 605b other part of the soul than the best. And for this reason, then, we would be right not to admit the poet into a city which is to enjoy good government, since he arouses and nourishes the part of the soul stated, and by strengthening it destroys the rational element - just as in a city, when someone puts base people in power and hands the city over to them, while ruining the finer men. On this analogy, we shall say that the mimetic poet puts an evil government into the soul of each individual, by pandering to the senseless part of it 605c (which cannot distinguish great from small but thinks that the same things are sometimes large and sometimes small), by making mere simulacra, and by standing far removed indeed from the truth. Indeed. But we haven't yet brought the greatest charge against For the capacity to impair even good men, poetry. with the exception of a very few individuals, is surely diabolical. Certainly, if it really does have this effect. Listen and consider. When the best of us hear Homer, or some other tragic poet, representing one of the 605d heroes in a state of grief and drawing out a long speech in the midst of lamentations; or when they even show people chanting and beating their breasts - you know that we take pleasure and, surrendering ourselves, we follow sympathetically and earnestly praise as a fine poet whoever works this effect on us to the highest degree. I do know it, of course. But when a personal sorrow befalls one of us, you also realise that we pride ourselves on the 'very opposite behaviour, to see whether we can keep our equanimity and show resilience, in the belief that this is manly 605e behaviour, while what we praised before befits a woman. I do realise it.

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9Η ιcaλω~ ουυ, ήυ δ' ΙΊώ, OύTO~ δ ~πα,υo~ ~XH,

το δρωυτα

5 TOΙOVτOυ ί'ιυδρα, οΤου lαvτόv η~ μη άξιοι €ίυαι άλλ' αΙσχύυοιτο ί'ιυ, μη βδ€λύTησθαι άλλα xα(P€ιυ η ιcal lπαιυ€Iυ; O~

606

μα τόυ Δ(" ~φη, o~ιc wλόΊΙΙΙ ~OΙΙC€υ.

Να(, ηυ δ' ΙΊώ, €Ι Ιιc€uηl Ί' α~Tό σιcoπo(η~.

llff; ΕΙ Ιυθυμοιο ί$η τό β(q. ΙCαΤ€Xόμ€υOυ τότ€ Ιυ ταί~ oΙιc€(αι~

συμφopαι~ ΙCαl. πεΠΗV1Jιcό~ του δαιcpυσα( τε ιcal άπoΔVpασθαι

5 Ιιcαυω~ ιcal άπoπλησθfjυαι, Φύσει Jv τoιoVτoυ οΤου τούτωυ Ιπι­ θυμειυ, τότ' Ιστlv τoVτo τό {ιπο τωυ ποιητωυ πιμ.πλιίμ€υOυ ιcal χαφου' το δε φύσΗ β/ληστου ήμωυ, ι'1τ€ o~x

Ιιcαυω~

πεπαιδευμ/υου λόΥΙΙΙ o~δε ΜΗ, άυ(ησιυ τηυ φυλαιcηυ του

b θpηυώδoυ~ τούτου, ι1τι άλλότρια πιίθη θ€ωpOυυ ιcal lαυτφ o~δευ αΙσχρου Jv εΙ ί'ιλ/οs- άv7ιp άΊαθo~ φιίσιcωυ €ίυαι άιcα(­ pω~ πευθεΙ, τουτου Ιπαιυειυ ιcal Ιλεειυ, άλλ' lΙC€Llfo ιcεpδαΙυευι ήΊειται, τηυ ήδουήυ, ιcal o~ιc ~υ δέξαιτο α~τ/~ στ€pηθfjυαι

5 ιcαTaφpoVΉσα~ ί$λου του ποιήματοs-.

λΟΊΙζεσθαι Ίαρ οίμαι

όλ(ΊOΙ~ τισlv μέηστιv ί$η άΠOλαύ€ΙV άυιίγιcη άπό τωυ άλλο­

τρ(ωυ εΙ~ τα OΙΙCεια'

θρέψαυτα γαρ Ιυ ιιcεΙυoι~ Ισχυρου το

lλ€ιυoυ olJ Ρ4διου Ιυ TOI~

C

awoiJ πάθεσι ιcατέXειυ.

' Αληθέστατα, ~φη. 9

Αρ' ουυ

olJX

δ αwό~

λόγo~ ιcal περΙ του γελο{ου;

l)τί.,

~υ αlJτo~ αΙσχύυοιο νελωτοποιωυ, ίυ μιμ.ήσει δε ιcωμιιιδιιcji η ιcal lδ{/f ΙΙιcoVωυ σφόδρα xαpp~ ιcal μη μ,σp~ ώs- ΠOVΗpιί, & γαρ τφ λόΊΙΙΙ αυ

5 TαlJτOυ πo,ει~ l)πεΡ Ιυ ΤOI~ Ιλέο,s-;

ΙCaτιιx€~ Ιυ σαvτφ βoυλόμεvoυ γελωτοποιειυ, ΦOβOύμ€υO~ • 't β ωμολ' ".., '1.\ , , oxια~, τοτ αυ αυΙH~, ιcαι ~ΙC€, υ€αυ'ΙCOυ πο'ησαs-

υo~αυ

~λαθβ πoλλάιcι~ Ιυ ΤOI~ olιctCoLS' lξευ€Xθει.~ ~στ€ ιcωμφδo­ ΠΟΙΟS' γευέσθαι. 10

ΚαΙ. μάλα, ~φη.

606 c3 c4 c7

αν

Schneider

αν Α

D F Burnet αν

D F

μι μήση-; ΑΙ

άνι ε ϊ ο

ειης Α

F

άνε ι τκ

D

άνί ητ; Ε ΜΟΩ.

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S.

G. S.

G. S.

G. S.

G.

Well, is this a healthy form for praise to take - that, when one witnesses the sort of person one would never want oneself to be, but would be ashamed of, instead of being revolted by the sight one enjoys and praises it? It certainly doesn't seem very consistent. That's right, if you were to consider it in the following way. How? If you were to reflect that the element which on other occasions, in the case of our personal misfortunes, was forcefully restrained and starved of the opportunity to glut itself with tears and lamentations, which is what it naturally craves to do, is the very one which is then sated and given pleasure by the poets. And the part of us which is naturally superior, insofar as it hasn't been adequately trained by reasoning or even by habit, slackens its control over this grieving capacity, on the grounds that they are other people's sufferings which it is watching and there is nothing shameful for oneself in approving and pitying when someone who purports to be a good man shows inappropriate grief. On the contrary, it regards that element - pleasure - as the value of the experience, and it would not be prepared to forego it by spurning the entire poem. For few men, I think, are capable of reasoning that contact with others' affairs inevitably infects one's own: since, when one pas nurtured and strengthened one's capacity for pity on the former, it is difficult to suppress it in one's own afflictions. Very true. Well, doesn't the same argument hold for comedy too? Namely, that whenever, at a comic performance or in private life, you get keen pleasure from, and refuse to detest as wicked, humour which you would be personally ashamed to indulge in, you are doing the same thing as For the urge which you used your in cases of pity? reason to suppress in yourself when it wanted to indulge in humour, out of fear of appearing a buffoon, is what you then in turn release; and by behaving there in an adolescent manner, you are often induced unawares into becoming a comic poet in your own life. Quite. 67 This content downloaded from 193.60.238.240 on Mon, 15 Feb 2021 08:04:39 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

606«

606b

606c

d

Kα~ πιp~ άqΨΟδισLωV δη και ΘVμOυ Kα~ πιp~ πάυτωυ τω" ίπιΘVμηΤΙKωυ τι Kα~ λυπηρωυ Kα~ ήδ'ωυ ίυ Tfi ψυχ:η, tι δή φαμιυ πάσΡ πράζιι ήμιυ iπισθαι,

δη TOιαVτα ήμE.~ ή

ποιητικη μ[μησι~ Ιργάζιται' τρ'φιι γαρ TαVτα ί'ιρδουσα, δίου

5

αlιχμιιυ, Kα~ ί'ιρχουτα ήμιυ καθLστησιv, δ'ου l1ρχισθαι αύτα

Ζυα βιλΤLΟV~ τι Kα~ ιlιδαιμoυ'στιpOΙ αυT~ ΧΙιΡόυωυ K~ άθλιωτ'ρωυ γιγυώμιθα.

e

Ούκ Ιχω ί'ιλλω~ φάυαι, ή δ' ί5~. Ούκουυ, ιίπου, :ι Γλαύκωυ, ί5ταυ Όμήρov ίπαιυέTaι~

ίυτύXΊ/~ λ'γουσιυ ~~

τη" Έλλάδα πιπαtδΙVKιυ oυτo~ δ

πoιητη~ Kα~ ΠPO~ δΙΟLκησLV τι Kα~ παιδΙLαv τω" άvθρωΠLvωv

πραγμάτωυ ί'ιζιo~ ΑVαλαβόυτι μaυθάυιι" τι Kα~ κατ 1 TOVτOυ

5 του ποιητη" πΆVΤα του αυτου β[ου KαTασKιvaσάμιvoυ ζηυ, 607 φιλιιυ μιυ ΧΡ1ι Kα~ άσπάζισθαι ~~ γυTα~ βιλT[σTOV~ ιΙ~

'οσου δύυαvται, Kα~ σvyχωpιιυ 'Όμηρου ποιητικώτατου ιίυαι και πρωτου τω" ΤΡαγφδοποιωυ, ιΙδίυαι δε δτι δσου μόυου

iJμvοv~ θιoι~ Kα~ ίγκ.ώμια TOΙ~ αγαθoι~ πoιήσιω~ παpαδΙΙCTέoυ

5 ιΙ~ πόλιυ' ιΙ δε τη" ήδυσμ'vηυ Μουσαυ παραδ'ζΊ/ ίυ μέλΕσιυ η Ιπισιυ, ήδουή σοι Kα~ λύπη ίυ τfi πόλιι βασιλιύσιτου αυτ~ υόμου τι Kα~ του κοιυΥ άι~ δόζαυτo~ ιίυαι βEλT[ιrτoυ λόγου.

b

Άληθ'στατα, Ιφη.

TαVτα δή, ΙΦηυ, άπολιλοΥήσθω ήμιυ άυαμvησθιισιυ πιp~ πoιήσEω~, δτι EΙKόTω~ ί'ιρα τόΤΕ αύτη"

€K

Tη~ πόλEω~ άΠΕ­

στ'λλομιυ τοιαύτηυ o~σαυ' δ γαρ λόγo~ ήμE.~ ΡΡΕΙ.

5

πωμιυ δε αVτjι, μη κα[ τιυα σκληρότητα ήμωυ κα1

προσΕ[­

aYPOLKLav

καταγυφ, ΟΤΙ παλαια μ'" τι~ διαφορα φιλοσοφLq ΤΕ και ποιητικΥ' Kα~ γαρ ή" λακίρυζα πpo~ δισπόταυ κύωυ"

lKfLVΗ "κραυγάζουσα" και "μ'γα~ ίυ άφρόυωυ C αγορ{α,σ,"

ICfVE-

και δ "τω" δ,ασόφωυ γxλo~ κρατωυ"

και οΙ "λEΠTω~ μιp,μυωυTE~,"

δτι ί'ιρα "πίυουτα,,"

Kα~ (iλλα μυρ{α σημι,α πaλαιίi~ ίυαυτιώσιω~ τούτωυ.

δμω~

δι ιΙρήσθω ΟΤΙ ήμιι~ γι, ΕΙ τιυα

lxo, λόγου ιιπι,,, ή πpo~

ήδουη" ποιητικη Kα~ ή μ{μησ,~, ~~

χΡη αύτη" ιίυα, ίυ πόλιι

607 bl

άπολελογήσθω Ε

Mon.

-ίσθω Α

D

-είσθω

F

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S.

G. S.

G. S.

It is likewise

true in the case of erotic desire, and 606d anger, and all the cravings, pains and pleasures in' the soul which we agree attach themselves to every action of ours, that such is the effect which poetic representation works on us. For it waters and nourishes these feelings, when they ought to be dried up, and it puts them in control of us, when they are the things that ought to be controlled if we are to become better and happier people, not worse and more miserable. I'm bound to agree. Consequently, Glaucon, when you encounter admirers of 606e Homer who assert that this poet has been the educator of Greece, and that for the management and education of men's affairs one should take up his works and learn them, and organise and lead the whole of one's' life in accordance with this poet's work - you ought to show 607a friendly affection to these people, since they are as virtuous as they are able, and you should agree that Homer is an outstanding poet and supreme among the tragedians; but you should be aware that the only poetry which can be allowed into the city is hymns to the gods If, however, you allow in and eulogies of good men. the Muse who is adorned in lyrics or epic verse, the rulers of your city will be pleasure and pain instead of custom and the rational principle which is universally accepted as the best. Very true. Let this, then, stand as our defence for our renewed 607b discussion of poetry, to show that, as this is her nature, we were right on that earlier occasion to banish her from the city; for our argument compelled us. But let us tell poetry, in case she should charge us with some harshness and boorishness, that there is an ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry. One can cite that 'bitch barking at its master' and 'howling'; and the person 'esteemed in the vacant chatterings of the witless'; and the 'ruling rabble of know-aIls'; and the 607c idea that those who 'ponder delicately' 'starve' after all - and countless other signs of the ancient antipathy between them. But let it nonetheless be said that, if poetic mimesis designed for pleasure could put an argument to show that she ought to have a place in the 69 This content downloaded from 193.60.238.240 on Mon, 15 Feb 2021 08:04:39 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

ευυομουμέυΤ/, lίσμευoι

ti.V

καταδεχοίμεθα, ώ~ σύυισμΙυ γε ήμ,ρ

αύτοί:!; κηλουμΙυοι!; υπ' αύτη!;· ιiλλα Ύαρ το δοκουυ άληθε~

ovx

δσιου προδιδόυαι.

η Ύάρ,

6>

φίλε,

ov κηλΥ

υπ' αντη!;

d Kal σύ, Kal μάλιστα σταυ δι' 'Ομήρου θεωρΥ!; αύΤήΡ; Πολύ Ύε.

OVKOVV δικα(α lurlv 01Πω κατιέυαι, ιiπoλoyησαμέυη ίυ μέλει ή τιυι ι'ίλλφ μέτρφ;

5

llJV1' μευ ουυ.

Kal τοί:!; προστάται!; αlιrfj!;, ί)σοι μη

Δοί:μευ δΙ "Ιέ που tίν

ποιητικοί, φLλοπο~ηταl δέ, ι'ίυΕv μέτρου λόΎου Vπεp αVτη!; εΖπεί:υ, ώ!; τε(α!;

ov μόνον

Kal τον

Kal ώφελ(μη προ!; τα!; πολι­ Kal ενμενω!; άκου·

ήδε,α άλλα

βίου του ιiνθpώπινόυ ίστιν'

e σόμεθα. ΚεΡδαυουμευ Υάρ που Νιν μη μόνον ήδεί:α φαυΤι άλλα και ώφελίμη. πω!; δ'

ov μέλλομεν,

ΕΖ δΙ Ύε μή,

6>

ιφη, κερδαίυειυ;

φίλε Εταιρε, ~σπερ οΙ ποτέ του ίρα.

5 σθέντε!;, ίαυ ή-Υήσωυται μη ώφέλιμου είυαι τον [ρωτα, β(q.

Kal ήμε,!; OiίTω!;, δια τον ίΎγε-Υουότα

μΙυ, ί)μω!; δε άπέχονται,

μευ Ιρωτα τη!; τοιαύτη!; ποιήσεω!; υπο τη~ 1ιίdυ καλωυ πολι-

608

τειων τpoφη~, ευνοι μεν ίσόμεθα φαυηναι αντ/ν ώ~ βελτ(. στην

Kal άληθεστάτηυ, εω!; δ' tίν μη οΤα τ'

fl άπολο-Υήσασθαι,

άκροασόμεθ' αύτfj~ ίπ4δoντε~ ήμί:υ αlιτoί:~ τουτου του ;,όΎου,

tιυ λlΎoμευ.,

5

Kal ταύτηυ τηυ ίπιιιδήν, εύλαβουμευοι πάλιν Kal του τωυ πολλωυ [ρωτα.

ίμπεσε,ρ εZ~ του παιδικόν τε

4σόμεθα δ' ουν ώ~

ov

σπουδαστΙου ίπl τfi τοιαύτΤ/ ποιήσει

ώ~ άληθε(α!; τε άπτομέυΤ/ και σπουδα(q., ιiλλ' εύλαβητΙου

b αύτηυ ~p τφ άκροωμέυιιι, πεΡl τη~ ίυ αύτφ πoλιτε(α~ δεδιότι, και νομιστέα lίπεp εΖρήκαμευ περι πoιήσεω~. Παυτάπασιν, η δ' ί)!;, σύμφημι.

5

MέΎα~ Ύάρ, [φηυ, ό άΎώυ, 6) φίλε Γλαύκωυ, μέΎα~,

ovx σ(1'O~ δοκει, τ6 χΡηστου η κακου γευΙσθαι, ~στε ουτε τιμρ ίπαρθέυτα OVτε χΡήμασιυ ουτε άpx.iί Oνδεμι~ ονδl Ύε 7ΓοιητικΥ ι'ίξιον ιiμελησαι δΙKαιoσύυη~ τε

Kal τη~ lίλλη~

ιlpετ/~.

607 d3 608 a6

άπολογησομέ νΊ'1 Α 2 gσόμεθα Madνig

-

ι σαμέ vn

αί σθόμε θα Α

D F D F

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G. S. G. S.

G. S.

G. S.

well- governed city, we would gladly welcome her back, since we are conscious of being enchanted by her ourselves; yet to betray what we regard as the truth would be impious. Are you too, my friend, not enchanted by poetry, and especially when it's through Homer that you behold her? 607d Very greatly. So she is entitled to reenter the city on these terms, if she defends herself in a lyric poem or some other verse-form? Certainly. We would surely also allow her representatives - men who do not practise the art, but are lovers of poetry to offer a prose defence on her behalf, showing that she provides not only pleasure but also benefit to communities and to the life of man. And we shall listen graciously; for it will be our gain, I think, if 607e poetry should be shown to be not just pleasurable but also beneficial. It certainly will be our gain. Otherwise, my dear companion, just as former lovers of a person pull themselves away, albeit reluctantly, if they consider that their love is not beneficial for them, so we too, because of the love for such poetry implanted by our rearing in supposedly fine communities, shall feel 608a well disposed for her to appear in the best and truest light. But, so long as she is unable to vindicate herself, we shall, as we listen to her, repeat our present argument as a charm to protect ourselves, taking care not to slip back into the puerile love from which most people suffer. So, we shall repeat as a charm that no serious interest should be shown in such poetry, as though it has a serious grasp of the truth; but anyone who listens to it should protect himself against it, out of 608b concern for the city within him, and should hold the beliefs which we have expressed about poetry. I'm entirely in agreement. For it is a mighty contest, dear Glaucon, even mightier than it seems, whether a man become good or evil; so it is right that one should not be induced by honours, or wealth, or any political power, and not by poetry either, to neglect justice and the rest of virtue. 71 This content downloaded from 193.60.238.240 on Mon, 15 Feb 2021 08:04:39 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

ΣύμΦημ( σοι, [Φη, ίξ ώυ διιληλύθαμιυ·

οίμαι δε και

Η.. &λλου δυηυουυ.

c

Και μήυ, ηυ δ' ίγώ, τ&. γι μέγιστα ίπ{χιφα IlPfrii~ προκι{μιυα aeλα

oiJ

Άμήχαυόυ Τι, Ιφη, λ/γH~ μ/γεθo~,

5

μι(ζω ίστιυ &λλα.

&v,

Τ( δ'

και

διιληλύθαμευ.

ηυ δ' ίγώ,

lv

εΙ τωυ ΙΙΡημ/υωυ

γι όλ[γφ χΡόυφ μ/γα γ/υοιτο;

,πα~ γαρ oυτό~ γι δ ίκ παιδO~ μ/χΡΙ πρισβύτου xpόυo~ πpo~ πάυτα όλ(γo~ πού η~ ~p

OiJlJfv

orH άθαυ&.τφ πράγματι ύπΈρ τοσούτου διί:υ oiJx ύπερ του παυτό~;

Τ( ουρ;

d

ιΤη.

μευ ουυ, ιφη.

χΡόυου ίσπουδακ/υαι, ιlλλ'

Οίι.ιαι (γωγ', [φη. ιlλλσ Τ[ τοίίΤο λ/YH~;

α/κ iίσθησαι, ηυ δ' ίγώ, ΟΤΙ άθάυαTO~ ήμωυ ή ψυχη και

5

ΟiJδ/πΟΤΙ άπόλλυται;

Και tι~ ίμβλ/ψα~ μοι και θαυμ&.σα~ ιίπι· Μα Δ(', Ιγωγι·

συ δΈ τοίίΤ' Ixιι~ λ/γΗΡ;

ΕΙ μη άδικω γ', Ιφηυ.

οίμαι δε και σύ·

xaλιπόυ. ~Eμoιγ', Ιφη· σου δ' tιυ ήδ/ω~ άκούσαιμι 10

oiJOfv

7"0 oiJ

OiJK γαρ

xaλιπoυ

τουτο.

ΆKo60Ι~ tίυ, ηυ ο' ίγώ. Μγι μόυου, [Φη. Άγαθόυ τι, ιίπου, και κακου KaλEί:~;

e

~Eγωγι.

''Αρ'

oi)v

ίfJσπEp ίγω πιp~ αύτωυ διαvοfi;

Το ποιου;

ΤΟ μευ άπολλύου και διαΦθιί:ρου παυ το κακου ιίυαι, το δΈ σφζου και ώΦιλουυ το άγαθόυ. 5

609

~Eγωy',.ΙΦη·

Τ( δι; κακου ~KάσTφ Τι και άΥαθου λ'γH~; οΤου όΦθαλμoί:~ όΦθαλμ(αυ και σύμπαυτι τφ σώμαη υόσου, σ(τφ ΤΕ

ίpvσ(βηυ, σηπιδόυα τι ξύλoι~, xaλKφ οε και σιδήρφ Ιόυ,

κα(, ΟΠΕΡ λέγω, σΧΕδου πασι σύμφυτου ~KάσTφ κακόυ ΤΕ και υόσημα;

5

~Eγωy', [φη.

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G. S. G. S.

G. S. G. S. G. S.

G. S. G. S. G. S. G. S.

G. S.

G.

I agree with you as a result of our discussion, and I think that anyone else would too. And yet, we haven't discussed the greatest rewards and prizes which await virtue. You must mean something of incredible importance, if there are others greater than those we've mentioned! But what could be of importance for only a short period of time? For surely this entire life of ours, from childhood to old age, would appear rather slight if compared to eternity? It would appear as nothing at all. Well then, do you think that an immortal entity ought to be seriously concerned over so small a time-span, but not over all eternity? Certainly the latter. But what do you mean by this? Haven't you realised that our soul is immortal and never perishes? He looked at me and said with amazement: Good heavens, I certainly haven't! But are you able to say this? Unless I'm mistaken. And I think that you too could; since there's nothing difficult about it. For me there is! But I would like to hear you discuss this 'simple' matter. You will. Then continue. Do you use the terms 'good' and 'evil'? Of course. Well do you have the same idea of them as I do? What? That evil is entirely coterminous with what destroys and corrupts, good with what preserves and benefits? Certainly. Well then, do you accept that each thing has its own evil and good? For instance, ophthalmia for the eyes, and illness for the body as a whole; blight for corn, woodworm for timber, rust for bronze and iron - as I say, is there a natural evil and malady for virtually everything? Indeed.

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608c

608d

608e

609a

Ούκουυ σταυ τιίι τι τούτωυ 7TPOσγέVΗται, 7Τουηρ6υ τε 7Τοιει

~ 7Τροσεγέυετο. και TελεVΤωυ σλου διέλυσευ καΙ ά7T while Protagoras... , yet Homer's contemporaries... , and would they not rather (d7) ...?' The particle expo: is used at cS and dS to pick up the main thread after, in each case, a long subordinate idea. 600c3 to educate men: to combat the idea of poets as 'educators' is one of the chief points of this whole section (already mentioned at S99dl and 600a9, and cf. 606e2 below). For poetic education (paideia) in Plato see esp. Prt . 338e (the sophist's view: see on c6 below), Phdr, 24Sa, Laws 7.810e; cf. e.g. Isoc. I.S1-2, 4.1S9, Timocles fr.6.7 ff CAF. Whether poetry should be considered educational became a conventional issue in Hellenistic criticism: pro, Neoptolemus (Philod. Poet. fr.XIII Jensen), Strabo 1.2.8, Plut. Mor. 30e; contra, Philod. frs.l-n, Eratosthenes (Strabo 1.1.10). 600c3-4 render them better: cl. S99dS above. 600c6 Protagoras...and Prodicus: the comparison between poets and sophist" is not casual, and in view of passages such as 6.493a, where it is said that sophists peddle popular values, it cannot be without irony either. Claims for the educational value of the two groups seem often to have overlapped, and it is not surprising that Plato should show Protagoras arguing at Prt . 316d that earlier poets were really sophists in disguise, or attaching great educational importance to poetry at 338e ff. (cl. Hp. Min. 363c-Sc). Ap. 1ge-20c has affinities with the present passage. Protagoras (c.490-420) was the most famous of the sophists, and a teacher of views on a wide range of topics, including the nature of truth, religion and morality. Prodicus (?c.46S-39S) was associated particularly with linguistic views on synonyms and 'correctness of language': see His chief appearances in Plato are at Prt . 31Sc-16a, Pfeiffer 39 ff. 336e-7c, 33ge-41e; cl. Lach. 197d, and Crat, 384b. For the controversial question of his relation to the historical Socrates see Bluck's note on Meno 96dS-6. 600c8 privately: in addition to givmg public lectures, sophists taught 'private pupils' and lodged in their houses; see e.g. Prt. 314c ff. 600dl to manage: the corresponding noun, dioikesis, occurs at S99c8 above, 606d3 below; cf. Plato's own early experiences of politics at Epist. 7.324d, 32Sc-d. Success in the affairs of the family and the city might well constitute a complete concept of excellence (arete) in the age of the sophists: see Meno 71e, 73a, 91a. Thg. 127e8 ff., Prt. 318e-19a illustrate the claims of sophists to teach such success. 600d4 practically carry them: the (alleged) adulation offered to sophists is 126

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dramatised at Prt . 315a - c, where we are shown Protagoras accompanied by an almost choreographed 'chorus' of fans, and then Prodicus sitting on a a special chair dispensing wisdom to his disciples on benches (like school boys? cf. 325e4). Cf. also Soph. 233b, and Meno 70b, where Gorgias is said to have turned the Thessalians into 'lovers chasing wisdom'. Does carrying on the shoulders allude to the treatment given to victorious athletes? 600d6 travel round reciting: for the view of Homer and Hesiod as travelling bards or rhapsodes cf. Laws 2.658b-d. It it traceable back to At Ion texts such as Hes. WD 150-59, Hom, Hymn Ap. 166-75. 533cl the Odyssean Phemius is called a rhapsode. Rhapsodes in the classical period certainly travelled around, like many other performers: Ion 530a-b, 541b8. The present contrast with sophists should not obscure the fact that the latter too visited different cities (cf. e.g. Prt. 315a7, Tim. 1ge4-5). 600e2 followed them: paidagbgein (cf. Ale. I 135d9-10); the normal meaning of the verb is to guide or supervise a child, either generally or in specifically educational activities (note the place of the paidagbgos in the sequence at Prt, 325c7). But the reference here cannot be to children, since the whole context presupposes people at least on the verge of manhood. The use of the verb is therefore humorous. Are we, then... : Socrates now applies to poetry the conclusion of 600e4 the earlier argument against painting, esp. 598b6-c1. 600e6 but, as we agreed: at 598b-c. The analogy with painting forces its way, as it were, into the question about poetry, giving a somewhat distracting effect. 601al-2 nor does his audience: to the artist's ignorance is added the ~fl makes the ignorance of his undiscriminating admirers; cf'. on 602b3. phrase generic. 601a5 colouring: the cognate verb epichrbnnusthai is used of suntan (as an image for shallow learning) at Epist. 7 .340d7. 601a7 shoemaking: originally used (at 598b9) as a basic example of a craft which the painter might portray but not understand; its function in the argument now becomes blatantly ironic (as the juxtaposition with The subject is hardly a likely one for Greek 'strategy' indicates). poetry, but even in such a mundane matter, Socrates implies, poets have no expertise. metre, rhythm and melody: the sensual concomitants of poetry are 601a8 now seen as the cause of the art's popular appeal; cf. 607a5, Isoc. 9.9-11. Metre/rhythm and melody are two of the three 'media' of poetry at e.g. 3.398dl-2 and in Aristot. Poet. 1 (the third, logos, is supposedly what is left when the others are removed: 601b2 - 3); and Aristotle too is inclined to treat them as pleasing embellishments: esp. 6.1449b28-9, -50b16. But at 3.398c-400d Plato accepted that rhythm and music ought to match, and add expressive power to, the logos of poetry; cf. 7.522a, Tim. 47d-e, which both envisage rhythm and music as capable of putting order into the soul. 127

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601a9 601bl

strategy: see on 599c7. naturally: the natural importance of melody and rhythm is more generously acknowledged at Laws 2.653e-4a, 672c-d, 673d; compare Aristot. Poet. 4.1448b20-1. 'Enchantment' somewhat offsets this, by harking back to the notion of the artist as 'magician' (597d3) and intimating the idea, later to be developed (606b, 607c7 ff.), that the pleasure involved is suspect or dangerous. In fact, though, the motif of poetic enchantment or bewitchment is as old as Homer (esp. Od. 1.337, 11.334 - 13.2) and is best attested for the classical period by Gorg. fr.11.10-14. The idea is reflected in the application of psuchagogia (lit. conjuring of souls) to poetry: see Halliwell (1986) 64 n.24. Plato also uses the language of enchantment, magic etc. of rhetoric (e.g. Euthd. 28ge-90a, Phdr. 267dl), sophistry (Prt. 315a-b), and music (e.g. 3.411a-b, Laws 2.659d-e). For later refs. to the 'magic' of poetry see e.g. Satyrus Vita Eurip. fr.2.1.7-8 Arrighetti, Strabo 1.2.5, Plut. Mor. 16d-e, Dio Chrys. 12.67, 71. 601b2 stripped: compare the use of psilos ('bare ') to refer either to prose (Menex. 239cl, Aristot. Rhet. 1404b14, Poet. 1.1447a29) or to writings without musical accompaniment (Phdr. 278c2, Laws 2.669d7). But the present passage insinuates that poetry uses metre and music like cosmetics (cf. Phdr . 239dl) to conceal the harsh reality underneath. Socrates envisages verse rewritten as prose: that is how the passage seems to have been taken by Aristot. Rhet. 1406b36-7al, citing the simile from b6-7 below. It is interesting that Socrates so readily supposes that Glaucon will have 'observed' works in this state. But Grg. 502c and Isoc. 9.10-11 make similar points, so it is clear that that the practice already existed (presumably in education) of paraphrasing verse passages: Plato offers an example himself at 3.393d-4a; for later evidence of this type of exercise see Cic. De orat . 1.154, Quintil. 1.9.2, 10.5.4-8, Dio Chrys. 18.19. 601b6-7 resemble the faces: Aristotle cites this simile from 'the Republic' at Rhet. 1406b36. Youthful freshness might make it hard to distinguish beauty from temporary attractiveness: cf. Chrm. 154b. The idea of the bloom or flower of beauty is traditionally associated with a' Greek poignancy over the brevity of human life (e.g. Mimn. frs.1-2 West), but for Plato the underlying point is rather the lack of true value in things which do not endure: cf. Symp. 183e, and for the link between value and permanence see on 604e2-3. 601b9 - 602c3 To the earlier triad - Forms, individual objects, mimetic representations Socrates now adds a new tripartite scheme which further confirms the worthlessness of art. Of the three activities of using, making and representing/ imitating things, the first alone involves true knowledge, while making rests on true opinion, and mimesis on nothing but ignorance. 601b9

consider this: an earlier conclusion is reiterated before we embark 128

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on the next stage. 'Reality' (to on) refers back to 598b2 ('the real thing') rather than the stronger sense at 597a4-5. 601c6 reins and bit: the new example is called for by the new tripartition, which requires an expert user as well as a maker; cf. on c15 below, and for the user/maker distinction compare Euthd. 289a -c (where the point is ethical), Crat . 390b-d. The stress on fields of expertise is important, but also arguably tendentious, in preparing for a judgement of ignorance against mimetic artists: see on 602a8. make: the verb poiein (and cognates) was earlier used of both 601c8 painter (e.g. 598bl) and poet (598e3-5 etc.), as well as mimesis in At 596e-7a, 597dll-2, doubts were raised about general (596c-d). whether mimesis can really be said to 'make' the objects of its The present argument too implicitly rests on these representations. doubts. But if the artist does not 'really' make the objects depicted in his work, this leaves intact the distinguishable, and essential, claim that the work of art itself is what he does make. not even the maker: this apparently flies in the face of the 601cl 0 The most economical craftsman's access to the type or Form at 596b. explanation of the discrepancy is that Plato was earlier concerned with what one might call knowledge of things as such; now he is attending to practical knowledge, knowledge of 'how to' do or use certain things. On both scores the mimetic artist's lack of credentials is the aim of the argument; in other respects the two passages are left unintegrated. Even so, it is far from clear why knowledge of what constitutes a good bridle should be denied to its maker. Information is fed back to the maker from the user, so that knowledge supposedly belongs only to the latter. But it might well be thought that this oversimplifies practical realities (for some artefacts, at any rate). An improved design for a musical instrument might be entirely the work of a maker, with performers only subsequently realising its new potential. More generally, a reciprocal exchange of knowledge and ideas between maker and user would be likely to take place; cf. on d4-6 below. But the whole point of the passage is, in any case, to set up another condemnation of mimesis; so it is doubtful whether we need be troubled by the anomalies with the philosophy of knowledge found in the middle bks. (cf. Annas 335). 601c15 everything: the extension of the argument is questionable. With the earlier example of a couch, as with many other objects, it would be impossible to posit an expert user (cf. the implication of 596b8), and without this element the scheme loses much of its force. That is clearly why the illustrations in this passage are taken from fields of practical expertise, horse-riding and musical performance. What?: the use of isolated n(;) clever' (cf. Nussbaum 52-3). 605clO the best of us: not, in view of the following argument, identical with the 'few' at c8; the anomaly is due to the 'confessional' tone (see on c7). 605cll some other tragic poet: a further assimilation of Homer to travedy (see on 595cl-2). 605c11 representing: this is one passage (603c5, 604e3-4 are others) where the idea of mimesis seems to carry a strong sense of 'impersonation' or 'enactment', as at 3.393a -c. But the broadening of the scope of mimesis at the start of the present book makes it hard to be sure of such nuances in individual passages. We can at any rate note here the strong identification posited between the poet and his characters. the heroes: the word refers here (as at 3.391d2-6, 404bll) to the 605dl warrior-leaders of the mythical tradition used by both epic and tragedy, rather than the religious objects of 'hero-cult' (as at 4.427b7, Laws 7.818c2); on the two senses see West, Hesiod: Works and Days 370-3. The supposed excellence of heroes is important for Plato's argument, as it was in bk.3's critique of poetry (esp. 387d-e, 388a-b): it is because the agents portrayed in epic and tragedy are ostensibly good (cf. 606b2) that even 'the best of us' can be induced to sympathise and approve. There are, of course, many examples of heroic grief in the poetry of Homer and Attic tragedy: for a catalogue of tragic lamentations see H. D. Broadhead, The Persae of Aeschylus (Cambridge, 1960) 311-13. But hints can also be found of the view that grief is unheroic: e.g. Soph. Aj. 319-20, 410-11. 605dl a long speech: the rhesis or set -speech was recognised as one of the central compositional components of both epic and tragedy (facilitating Plato's view of tragedy as rhetoric: see on cl above); it was therefore a likely vehicle for the expression of the emotional excesses under scrutiny here. For speeches in epic cf. 3.393b-c, and for tragedy note the implications of Phdr. 268c and Aristot. Poet. 6.1450a29. The importance of the rhesis was reflected in the practice of learning speeches from epic and tragedy by heart: see Laws 811a, Aristoph. Clouds 1371, Aeschin. 1.168, Theophr. Char. 15.10, 27.2. 'Drawing out', apoteinein, naturally implies longueur: cf. Prt . 329a5, 335c5, 336c6, and Aesch. Agam. 916 with Fraenkel's note. or...show: the translation supplies a further verb here to clarify the 605d2 transition in the Greek from a singular object (a hero) to a plural. Such transitions are relatively common in Plato (see Adam on 347a, and cf. on 604d2 above); this one helps to give a generalising sweep to the picture, but it also suggests group-scenes such as that in Iliad 24, or The reference to 'chanting' those involving the chorus in tragedy. (aidein) might be thought to apply only to tragedy (particularly to the kommos, a lyric lament involving both chorus and character(s)); for aidein and lamentations cf. 3.388d7. But the verb can in fact be used of rhapsodic recitation of epic (Ion 532d8, 535b4) and goes back to epic 144

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terminology itself (cf. West, JHS 101 (1981) 113 f.). Besides, epic is just as germane to the argument here, as the connections with bk.3's treatment of poetry, esp. 387d-8d, confirm. 605d3 pleasure: the paradox of tragic pleasure, observed also at Ion 535-6, Phlb. 47e-8a. A related idea appears earlier in Gorg. fr.l1.9 , 'a longing for grief', which in turn echoes a Homeric motif (see on 606b4); cf. also Timocles fr.6.7 CAF. Plato's explanation for such pleasure is that, through sympathy for sufferings not our own (606bl), we In his satisfy the emotional cravings of the lower part of the mind. Poetics, Aristotle makes the pleasure of tragedy more respectable by linking it with the understanding of what is involved in tragic suffering: see Halliwell (1986) 69 -77 . hepesthai, 'follow', is used psychologically also at Phdr . 234d5 and 604d6 below (where the rational part of the soul is concerned). Coupled here with 'surrendering' (cf. 8.561b2), it implies the overcoming of a resistance, which is precisely what 604al0-11 would lead us to expect. 605d3-4 surrendering ... sympathetically: compare the picture of audience responses to an epic recital at Ion 535e, and cf. again Gorg. fr.l1.9. The idea of sympathy is made part of the experience of all mimesis at Aristot. Pol. 1340a12 f.; for pity and sympathy cf. also his Rhet. 1385b13-15, 1386b14, 1408a23, and see on 606al below. Socrates here gives full acknowledgement of poetry's emotional potency precisely in order to draw adverse inferences about its effects on us. Havelock 44-5 and ch.IX interestingly argues that strong psychological identification with the figures of poetry, of the kind which worries Plato, was integral to traditional Greek memorisation/recitation of poetry. 605d4 earnestly praise as a fine poet: on the ambiguity which unfolds around the idea of praising/approving (epainein) see on e4 below. What is here admired in the poet is the ability to draw us into feeling real emotions towards fictional subjects; a similar point is made at Laws 7.800d4 - 5. For the implication of 'earnestly' see on 602b8. The use of the phrase 'fine poet' parallels, in both its irony and its implicit concession, the reference to a 'good painter' at 598c2. 605d7 a personal sorrow: this repeats the argument of 603e-4e, which in turn looked back to 3.387 - 8; 'personal' is in strong contrast to the sympathy for others' sufferings (esp. 606bl below) which poetry elicits. As before (see on 604b9 f.) the generalisation can be squared up to a point with independent evidence for Greek attitudes, but it once more slips into an extreme position which is distinctively Platonic (cf. on e5-6 below). Phdo. 117c - e offers a dramatic picture of the struggle to restrain grief something the young Plato may have learned unforgettably from witnessing the last days of Socrates' life. pride ourselves: kallopizesthai, lit. 'to beautify one's face', is 605d8 sometimes used of ostentatious behaviour (e.g. 3.405b9) but its sense here is closer to 'put a brave face on'; a close parallel is Crito 52c6, referring to Socrates' disdain for the death penalty. Nonetheless, the present passage implies that the underlying impulse towards grief is 145

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strong, and has in some sense to be concealed (as at 604a). For 'equanimity' (hesuchia) compare 604b9, e2, and e.g. Ap. 35b8; for the combination of equanimity and resilience, Phdo. 117e2. 605el-2 befits a woman: the notion that grief is intrinsically unmanly somewhat oversimplifies a set of delicate attitudes towards public and private grief; see on 604a7, and e5 below. But the view of grief as peculiarly female (also at 3.387e, 398e, Phdo. 117d -e, Ap. 35b3) derives from the social facts of war, and is traditional: see Hom. 11. 22.88, Archil. fr.13.10 West, Soph. Aj. 580, Eur. HF 536, Or. 1022, Aristot. EN 1171bl0-12; cf. Dover 101. In drawing this distinction between the sexes, can Socrates be convicted of forgetting his arguments in bk.5 for their equality? Probably not, since a residual female weakness was conceded at 455el -2, 456al1. Note, finally, Plato's intriguing claim that tragedy was the favourite genre of Athenian women, Laws 2.658d. 605e4 healthy form for praise: there is a crucial ambiguity in the argument, hinging around the repeated use of epainos (praise/ approval/esteem) and its cognate verb. We can either praise a poet on artistic grounds (605d4-5, cf. 606el and 2.383a7-8) or approve of the behaviour portrayed in his poetry (as at 3.390e4, 391a2). Comparison of 605d4 with e2-6 and 606b3 shows how this distinction is elided so as to allow an assimilation of the first to the second of these meanings, even though there is no logical entailment. If Socrates' position is to hold, it must equate the sympathy and pleasure already posited (d3-4) with complete approval for the characters But such depicted in poetry; Laws 2.655d-6b argues in similar terms. an unqualified equation does less than justice to the imaginative dimension of the experience of poetry, which makes admiration for the poet's achievement, and even a willing sympathy with the characters, compatible with something less than a complete acceptance of the behaviour shown in the poem. We must remember, though, that Plato assumes that one of the prime functions of poetry is to dispense praise or eulogy of its own (599b7) and that the effect of this on a reader or audience is to create a desire to emulate (cf. Prt . 326a): on these premises, when one expresses admiration of a poet, one would seem to be committed to accepting the values which his work incorporates. Moreover, the references to heroes at d1 above and to good men at '606b2 envisage poetry in which the characters are axiomatically great and admirable. Note the correlation between the quality of a poem and the nature of its characters at Hp. Min. 363b. For the general issue of ethical reactions to the 'images' of behaviour shown in poetry, see 3.401e-2a. 605e5 ashamed: an echo of 604a7 (cf. 3.388d), where the shame involved seemed, however, predominantly tied to public grief. Here (see next note) Socrates presses his case to an extreme which ordinary Greek attitudes would not have supported, though it is precisely these attitudes which have allowed the notion of shame to be brought into the argument at all. 146

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605e6

revolted: bdeluttesthai is a vehement verb, perhaps of colloquial raciness; it is used nowhere else by Plato, but the cognate adj. is put in the mouth of the crude Thrasymachus at 1.338d3. The forcefulness of language (compare 'detest' at 606c4) is startling at this point, for the argument moves too readily from the premise that general attitudes favour some restraint on grief, particularly in public, to the contention that one ought to be ethically revolted by the sight (fictional or actual) of grief in others. That's right: the inconsistency imputed to someone who resists grief 606a1 in his own life, but takes sympathetic pleasure from the poetic portrayal It depends not only on the of it in others, is far from obvious. ambiguity which I have questioned at 605e4 above, but also on the conviction that to pity others in their sorrows is psychologically linked with yielding to grief (Le. self-pity) in one's own life. This conviction rests on the element of imaginative sympathy involved in pity (n. 605d4): Aristotle developed this point, esp. at Rhet. 1385b13-15, by detecting in pity an imaginative sense of one's own vulnerability to similar sufferings. But to accept such a premise is still to fall short of seeing no psychological distinction between pity and self - pity (even supposing that all grief involves the latter). It remains perfectly consistent both to believe in the virtue of fortitude, the control of the emotions by reason, etc., and to pity those (in art or in life) whose sufferings merit it. 606a2 How?: this use of isolated nij is one of only four in the Rep.; nor does it occur earlier, though it becomes a feature of later works (Brandwood II 45). 606a3 forcefully restrained: the language not only suggests that the emotions are self-willed appetites, but also gives them something of the character of a wild animal (to be kept guarded, a8), as, more explicitly, at Tim. 70e. (It is possible, though doubtful, that there are also overtones of the treatment of slaves: cf. the idea of enslaving one's desires at 8.554a7.) For related animal imagery used of the soul see 605b3-4 above, and cf. e.g. 9.571c5, 588b-9b, Chrm, 155d-e, Phdr. 254a (the horses of the soul), and Laws l1.935a. Although katechein (again at b8, c6 below) is common in Greek for self-restraint, the addition of biai implies resistance to an alien element, and the combination is found with this significance from Homer (11. 15.186) onwards. 606a4 starved: the reverse of feeding the emotions, 605b4. 606a5 glut itself: the notion of desires and passions as things to be filled up is very common in Plato; e.g. 4.439d8, 9.571c7, 585a ff., Grg. 493-4c (allegory of the hedonistic soul as a leaky vessel), Laws 4.717d5, l1.935a4. But such expressions had long existed: e.g. Horn. It. 1.103-4, 9.675. 606a7 naturally superior: see on 603a4. 606a8 even by habit: habit may lead to right behaviour, but cannot guarantee true understanding and rational virtue, which is independent of habit: cf. 7.518d -e, with n.604c9 above. The point is dramatised later 147

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in the myth of Er by the soul which chooses a tyrant's life (619c7). it is watching: the (hE clause (b1 -2) couples a nominative participle, agreeing with the subject (a7), and an accusative absolute. The grammar of the sentence, if taken strictly, makes it seem that it is the best part of the soul which is lulled into enjoying the emotional experience of poetry, even though that is clearly not the required sense; for a comparable anomaly cf. 602e4. The incongruity is caused by the analytical separation of psychological faculties within the coherent experience of an individual. 606b1 other people's sufferings: this factor in the tragic experience is similarly stressed at Gorg. fr.11.9, Timocles fr.6.6 CAF; cf. C. Macleod, Collected Essays (Oxford, 1983) 3. It seems likely that Aristotle, perhaps in On Poets, responded to this very passage in defining his concept of katharsis: see the verbal echo at IambI. Mvst . 1.11 (cited under Aristot. Poet. fr.V Kassel), and cf. P. Here. 1581 (Philodemus) frs.IVB and V Nardelli. Pathe , 'sufferings', here embraces both its senses - the material causes of grief and the emotions thus produced; the same holds at b8 below, as earlier at 604b1. For a different use of allotrios see on 604e5 above. It is interesting to compare the present passage with the criticisms of Athenian sentimentality at Andoc. 4.23 and Isoc. 4.168, where it is alleged that people respond to the fictional sufferings of the tragic stage but not to those which they witness around them. 606b2 shameful: cf. on 605e5 above. For the significance of 'a good man' see at 605d1 above. 606b4 pleasure: Plato associates the essential pleasure of poetry with the indulgence of our lower emotional nature; cf. 605a3, d-e, 3.397d. Hence the comparison between tragedy and rhetoric at Grg. 502b-d in terms of their overriding aim of pleasing, rather than edifying, their audiences. Plato's preferred type of poet, by contrast, would be 'austere and unappealing', 3.398a8 (cf. Grg. 502b for the phrase). Laws 2.658e ff. shows a more temperate attitude to the pleasure of art. The idea that grief carries a kind of pleasure with it is old: see e.g. Horn. 11. 23.98 and Denniston on Eur. El. 125-6. 606b6 few men: these are the same few who were exempted from the harmful effects of poetry at 605c8; they are those who, by implication at 595b6-7, do understand the true nature of poetry. 606b6-7 contact with others' affairs: this is the central psychological contention of the argument (anticipated at 2.378c-e, 3.388d, 391e, 395d-e), and without it most of what is said from 603c to 608a would lose its guiding force. The thesis hangs on two essential premises: (a) that our emotional responses to others' sufferings affect those towards our own (see on al above); (b) that it is intrinsic to the nature of emotion that experience of it increases subsequent susceptibility. Comparable is the idea of emulating and becoming like what one associates with, 6.500c5 -7; poetry as a stimulant to emulation (see on 599b7) is another relevant conception.

606b1

148

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Plato here carries over to his general critique of mimesis the force of what was said at 3.394e ff. about specifically impersonatory mimesis. That earlier passage in turn reflected the assumption that dramatic impersonation in poetry is analogous to imitating or emulating a person in life. The result is a fundamental sense of all mimesis - whether for actor, playwright or audience - as entailing a process of likening oneself to (393c5-6), and hence becoming like, the objects (characters) of the poetry. If this view derives plausibility from the great emotional pull of dramatic art, it nonetheless erases some necessary discriminations. What, to go no further, of cases where opposing characters are portrayed must we identify equally with them? Plato, of course, is here primarily concerned with poetic figures whom he takes to have implicit authorial recommendation, but even so the case is surely too cut-and-dried. Wind 1-20 draws an important contrast between this concern of Plato's and Romantic attitudes which place a positive value on imaginative identification through art. Aristotle accepts the principle of art's influence on the mind at Pol. 1336b2 ff. but his concern is emphatically with the young (n.b. ibid. 21-3, where it is allowed that educated adults may be immune to harm). Plato, taking perhaps a more pessimistic view of the emotional maturity of most people, makes nothing of the distinction. For further differences between Plato and Aristotle here, see on b8 and d3 below. 606b6 infects: the verb apolauein more commonly means 'to derive enjoyment from', but it sometimes, as here (and cf. 3.395d1), signifies a harmful experience; some mss. have it also at Aristot. Pol. 1336b2 (previous note). Its present application is interestingly illuminated by its use of catching a contagious disease at Phdr. 255d5. It should not be considered 'ironic' (Ferguson). 606b7 nurtured and strengthened: the language of 605b4 again. 606b8 capacity for pity: lit. 'the pitying < element> " yet another formulation of the character of the part of the soul concerned (see on 603a7). Eleinos is more commonly a passive adj. ('piteous'); for its active force cf. Phdo. 59a2. Aristotle's doctrine of tragic katharsis is evidently an answer to this Platonic point: without denying a connection between our emotions in life and the experience of art (see on b6-7 above), Aristotle supposes that the latter may have a beneficial effect on the former; cf. on bl above, d3 below. Burnet prints, as always, the Attic form of the adj. eleinos, though Plato's mss. often give the Ionic eleeinos (which later became standard Greek), and some would read that here: see Adam's note and Dodds on Grg. 469al0. But deducing an author's usage from mss. on such a point is not straightforward: cf. Gomme & Sandbach on Men. Dysc. 297. 606c2 the same argument: attention passes from tragedy to comedy, as at 3.388e. There is, however, a slight asymmetry: the experience of tragedy is held to increase our propensity to (self-)pity, but that of comedy induces us to become makers, not just enjoyers, of humour. It is assumed that the impulse behind laughter is one which naturally 149

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channels itself into positive indulgence in comedy, whereas pity is intrinsically a 'passive' emotion which needs to be elicited by an object. 606c2 - 3 whenever: lit. 'whatever things ... ' (but the neuter relative is effectively adverbial, and lacks an antecedent in the main clause). With Schneider's text, printed by Burnet, C1.V in av (c3) functions first with the optative aischunoio (effectively potential, 'would be ashamed'), then with the indefinite subjunctives (c4). On the textual problems of this But all the passage see Adam's note, and his App. III (467-8). possible cases of the crasis, av, in Plato are uncertain (cl. L. Brandwood, A Word Index to Plato (Leeds, 1976) 59, s.v.) and ex C1.V is equally possible. The reference to shame echoes the argument concerning tragedy (604a7, 605e5, 606b2). in private life: behind Plato's concern with art there lies a broader 606c4 concern with the relation between emotional responses to others' behaviour (whether in art or in life) and the role of the emotions in one's own life. Aristotle's views on the link between what one will listen to in the way of the comic, and what one will say oneself, at EN 1128a-b, EE 1234a4 ff. (cf. Pol. 1336b2 ff.), should be compared. 606c4 detest as wicked: the strength of language deliberately parallels that used for tragedy at 605e6; cf. Laws 2.656b2. c7-9 will indicate which types of humour should be subject to such a condemnation; Plato can hardly mean that all laughter is utterly reprobate. At 5.452d8 -9 it was implied that laughter ought to be directed only against 'the stupid and evil'. Legitimate laughter of this kind would, on the principle later enunciated at Laws 7.816d-e, help us to understand serious things better by contrast. At Tht. 152e the Sicilian Epicharmus is mentioned as the finest of comic poets. But the idea (first at Quintil. 1.10.17) that Plato was himself fond of the mimes of Sophron, another Sicilian, probably goes back to a hostile Peripatetic source: A. S. Riginos, Platonica (Leiden, 1976) 174-6. 606c5 cases of pity: the Greek plural, eleois, is unusual, but paralleled at Dem. 25.83. Here it perhaps has a generalising force, and may have been influenced by the commoner plural, oiktoi. 606c7-9 buffoon...comic poet: Plato has in mind not casual humour, but the wilful type of laughter typical of the comic theatre (n.b. 'there', c7) or Bbmolochia, buffoonery, is ribald and coarse, and of scurrilous jesting. can be given a pejorative sense even in Old Comedy (e.g. Aristoph. Kn. 1358, Clouds 910, Frogs 1521). For an Aristotelian view of bomolochia see EN 1108a25 , 1128a - b. 'Adolescent', neanikon, suggests both headstrong and immature behaviour (3.390a2, 6.503c4); it is used in cr. connection with youthful irreverence at Aristoph. Wasps 1362. Aristot. Rhet. 1389bl0-12 on laughter and the young. (The attendance of boys at the comic theatre in Athens, for which see Laws 2.658d, Aristoph. Clouds 539, is germane to Plato's argument here, and cl. the phrase 'boyish malice' of comedy at Phlb. 49a8.) gelotopoiein (c3, 6) means to play the jester: it is appropriate of Aristophanes at Symp. 150

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189a8. The cognate noun is applied to Thersites at 620c3 below; cf. e.g. Xen. Symp. 1.11, 3.11 etc. (Philippos the joker). 606c7 release: Burnet prints the anomalous form,