Book 6
503
We were saying, if you recollect, that they must approve themselves lovers of the state when testedCf. 412 D-E, 413 C-414 A, 430 A-B, 537, 540 A, Laws 751 C. in pleasures and pains, and make it apparent that they do not abandonCf. on 412 E, 513 C, Soph. 230 B. this fixed faithτὸ δόγμα τοῦτο is an illogical idiom. The antecedent is only implied. Cf. 373 C, 598 C. See my article in Transactions of the American Phil. Assoc. xlvii., (1916) pp. 205-236. under stress of labors or fears or any other vicissitude, and that anyone who could not keep that faith must he rejected, while he who always issued from the test pure and intact, like gold tried in the fire,Cf. Theognis 417-318 παρατρίβομαι ὥστε μολίβδῳ χρυσός, ibid., 447-452, 1105-1106, Herod. vii. 10, Eurip. fr. 955 (N.). Cf. Zechariah xii. 9 . . . will try them as gold is tried, Job xxiii. 10 When he hath tried me I shall come forth as Gold. Cf. also 1 Peter i. 7, Psalm xii. 6, lxvi. 10, Isaiah xlviii. 10. is to be established as ruler and to receive honors in life and after death and prizes as well.The translation preserves the intentional order of the Greek. For the idea cf. 414 A and 465 D-E and for ἆθλα cf. 460 B. Cobet rejects καὶ ἆθλα, but emendations are needless. Something of this sort we said while the argument slipped by with veiled faceCf. Phaedr. 237 A, Epist. vii. 340 A. For the personification of the λόγος Cf. What Plato Said, 500 on Protag. 361 A-B. So too Cic. Tusc. i. 45. 108 se ita tetra sunt quaedam, ut ea fugiat et reformidet oratio. in fearCf. 387 B. of startingCf. the proverbial μὴ κινεῖν τὰ ἀκίνητα, do not move the immovable, let sleeping dogs lie, in Laws 684 D-E, 913 B. Cf. also Phileb. 16 C, and the American idiom start something. our present debate. Most true, he said; I remember. We shrank, my friend, I said, from uttering the audacities which have now been hazarded. But now let us find courage for the definitive pronouncement that as the most perfectCf. 503 D. 341 B, 340 E, 342 D. guardians we must establish philosophers. Yes, assume it to have been said, said he. Note, then, that they will naturally be few,Cf. on 494 A. for the different components of the nature which we said their education presupposed rarely consent to grow in one; but for the most part these qualities are found apart. What do you mean? he said. Facility in learning, memory, sagacity, quickness of apprehension and their accompaniments, and youthful spirit and magnificence in soul are qualities, you know, that are rarely combined in human nature with a disposition to live orderly, quiet, and stable lives;The translation is correct. In the Greek the anacoluthon is for right emphasis, and the separation of νεανικοί τε καὶ μεγαλοπρεπεῖς from the other members of the list is also an intentional feature of Plato’s style to avoid the monotony of too long an enumeration. The two things that rarely combine are Plato’s two temperaments. The description of the orderly temperament begins with οἷοι and οἱ τοιοῦτοι refers to the preceding description of the active temperament. The MSS. have καὶ before νεανικοί; Heindorf, followed by Wilamowitz, and Adam’s minor edition, put it before οἷοι. Burnet follows the MSS. Adam’s larger edition puts καὶ νεανικοὶ τε after ἕπεται. The right meaning can be got from any of the texts in a good viva voce reading. Plato’s contrast of the two temperaments disregards the possible objection of a psychologist that the adventurous temperament is not necessarily intellectual. Cf. on 375 C, and What Plato Said, p. 573 on Theaet. 144 A-B, Cic. Tusc. v. 24. but such men, by reason of their quickness,Cf. Theaet. 144 A ff. are driven about just as chance directs, and all steadfastness is gone out of them. You speak truly, he said. And on the other hand, the steadfast and stable temperaments, whom one could rather trust in use, and who in war are not easily moved and aroused to fear, are apt to act in the same wayA tough of humor in a teacher when confronted with studies. They are not easily aroused, learn with difficulty, as if benumbed,For the figure Cf. Meno 80 A, 84 B and C. and are filled with sleep and yawning when an intellectual task is set them. It is so, he said. But we affirmed that a man must partake of both temperaments in due and fair combination or else participate in neither the highestLit. most precise. Cf. Laws 965 B ἀκριβεστέραν παιδείαν. education nor in honors nor in rule. And rightly, he said. Do you not think, then, that such a blend will be a rare thing? Of course. They must, then, be tested in the toils and fears and pleasures of which we then spoke,In 412 C ff. and we have also now to speak of a point we then passed by, that we must exercise them in many studies, watching them to see whether their nature is capable of enduring the greatest and most difficult studies or whether it will faint and flinchCf. 535 B, Protag. 326 C. as men flinch in the trials and contests of the body.
