Kitap 6
488
So, said I, you are making fun of me after driving me into such an impasse of argument. But, all the same, hear my comparison so that you may still better see how I strain afterThe word γλίσχρως is untranslatable, and often misunderstood. In 553 C it means stingily; in Cratyl. 414 C it is used of a strained etymology, and so in 435 C, usually misunderstood; in Crito 53 E of clinging to life; Cf. Phaedo 117 A; in Plutarch, De Is. et Osir. 28 of a strained allegory and ibid. 75 of a strained resemblance; in Aristoph. Peace 482 of a dog. imagery. For so cruel is the condition of the better sort in relation to the state that there is no single thingCf. Laws 747 B. like it in nature. But to find a likeness for it and a defence for them one must bring together many things in such a combination as painters mix when they portray goat-stagsCf. Horace, Ars Poetica, init.; What Plato Said, p. 550 on Phaedr. 229 D-E, and 588 c f. The expression is still used, or revived, in Modern Greek newspapers. and similar creatures.The syntax of this famous allegory is anacoluthic and perhaps uncertain: but there need be no doubt about the meaning. Cf. my article in the Classical Review, xx. (1906) p. 247. Huxley commends the Allegory, Methods and Results, p. 313. Cf. also Carlyle’s famous metaphor of the ship doubling Cape Horn by ballot. Cf. Class. Phil. ix. (1914) p. 362. Conceive this sort of thing happening either on many ships or on one: Picture a shipmasterThe Athenian demos, as portrayed e.g. in Aristophanes’ Knights 40 ff. and passim. Cf. Aristot. Rhet. 1406 b 35 καὶ ἡ εἰς τὸν δῆμον, ὅτι ὅμοιος ναυκλήρῳ ἰσχυρῷ μὲν ὑποκώφῳ δέ, Polyb.vi. 44 ἀεὶ γάρ ποτε τὸν τῶν Ἀθηναίων δῆμον παραπλήσιον εἶναι τοῖς ἀδεσπότοις σκάφεσι, etc. Cf. the old sailor in Joseph Conrad’s Chance, ch. i. No ship navigated . . . in the happy-go-lucky manner . . . would ever arrive into port. For the figure of the ship of state Cf. Polit. 302 A ff., 299 B, Euthydem. 291 D, Aesch. Seven against Thebes 2-3, Theognis 670-685, Horace, Odes i. 15 with my note, Urwick, The Message of Plato, pp. 110-111, Ruskin, Time and Tide, xiii: That the governing authority should be in the hands of a true and trained pilot is as clear and as constant. In none of these conditions is there any difference between a nation and a boat’s company. Cf. Longfellow’s The Building of the Ship, in fine. Cf. Laws 758 A, 945 C. For the criticism of democracy by a figure cf. also Polit. 297 E ff. in height and strength surpassing all others on the ship, but who is slightly deafCf. Aristoph. Knights 42-44. and of similarly impaired vision, and whose knowledge of navigation is on a par withCf. 390 C, 426 D, 498 B, Theaetet. 167 B, and Milton’s unknown and like esteemed, Comus 630. his sight and hearing. Conceive the sailors to be wrangling with one another for control of the helm, each claiming that it is his right to steer though he has never learned the art and cannot point out his teacherFor this and similar checks on pretenders to knowledge Cf. Laches 185 E, 186 A and C, Alc. I. 109 D and Gorg. 514 B-C. or any time when he studied it. And what is more, they affirm that it cannot be taught at all,Plato of course believed that virtue or the political art can be taught in a reformed state, but practically was not taught at Athens. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 14, on 518 D, What Plato Said, pp. 70 and 511, Newman, Introd. Aristot. Pol. p. 397, Thompson on Meno 70 A. but they are ready to make mincemeat of anyoneA hint of the fate of Socrates. Cf. 517 A, 494 E and Euthyphro 3 E. who says that it can be taught, and meanwhile they are always clustered aboutThe participle περικεχυμένους occurs in Polit. 268 C, but is avoided here by anacoluthon. the shipmaster importuning him and sticking at nothingFor the idiom πάντα ποιεῖν Cf. Euthyph. 8 C, 504 D-E, 471 C, 575 E, 494 E, Gorg. 479 C, Phaedr. 252 E, Apol. 39 A, and, slightly varied, Eurip. Heracleidae 841. to induce him to turn over the helm to them. And sometimes, if they fail and others get his ear, they put the others to death or cast them outThe word ἐκβάλλοντας helps the obvious allegory, for it also means banish. from the ship, and then, after bindingHere figurative. Cf. Gorg. 482 E, Theaet. 165 E. Infra 615 E it is used literally. and stupefying the worthy shipmasterCf. Polit. 297 E. The expression is slightly ironical. Such is frequently the tone of γενναῖος in Plato. Cf. Rep. 454 A, 363 A, 544 C, 348 CHipp. Min. 370 D, Soph. 231 B, Hipp. Maj. 290 , Polit. 274 E. with mandragora or intoxication or otherwise, they take command of the ship, consume its stores and, drinking and feasting, make such a voyageCf. Polit. 302 A, Laws 906 E, Jebb on Soph. Antig. 189-190. of it as is to be expectedCf. 407 D with Thucyd. iv. 26, vi 69, vii. 25. from such, and as if that were not enough, they praise and celebrate as a navigator, a pilot, a master of shipcraft, the man who is most cunning to lend a handCf. 427 E, Laws 905 C, Eryx. 396 E, Aristoph. Knights 229. in persuading or constraining the shipmaster to let them rule,Neither here nor in D-E can ὅπως with the future mean in what way, and all interpretations based on that refers to getting control. Cf. 338 E, Laws 757 D, 714 C, 962 D-E, Xen. Rep. Lac. 14. 5. Cf. Class. Phil. ix.(1914) pp. 358 and 362. while the man who lacks this craftFor τὸν δὲ μὴ τοιοῦτον Cf. Alc. II. 145 C. they censure as useless. They have no suspicionsThe ppl. must refer to the sailors; hence the acc. (see crit. note). Whatever the text and the amount of probable anacoluthon in this sentence, the meaning is that the unruly sailors (the mob) have no true conception of the state of mind of the real pilot (the philosophic statesman), and that it is he (adopting Sidgwick’s οἰομένῳ for the MS. οἰόμενοι in E) who does not believe that the trick of getting possession of the helm is an art, or that, if it were, he could afford time to practise it. Those who read οἰόμενοι attribute the idea of the incompatibility of the two things to the sailors. But that overlooks the points I have already made about ὅπως, and τέχνη and is in any case improbable, because the sentence as a whole is concerned with the attitude of the true pilot (statesman), which may be represented by the words of Burke to his constituents, I could hardly serve you as I have done and court you too. Cf. Sidgwick, On a Passage in Plato’s Republic, Journal of Philology, v. pp. 274-276, and my notes in A.J.P. xiii. p. 364 and xvi. p. 234. that the true pilot must give his attentionFor the force of the article cf. Thucyd. ii. 65 τὸ ἐπίφθονον λαμβάνει, and my article in T.A.P.A. 1893, p. 81, n. 6. Cf. also Charm. 156 E and Rep. 496 E. to the time of the year, the seasons, the sky, the winds, the stars, and all that pertains to his art if he is to be a true ruler of a ship, and that he does not believe that there is any art or science of seizing the helmὅπως . . . κυβερνήσει. Cf. p. 20, note h. with or without the consent of others, or any possibility of mastering this alleged artThe translation gives the right meaning. Cf. 518 D, and the examples collected in my emendation of Gorgias 503 D in Class. Phil. x. (1915) 325-326. The contrast between subjects which do and those which do not admit of constitution as an art and science is ever present to Plato’s mind, as appears from the Sophist, Politicus, Gorgias, and Phaedrus. And he would normally express the idea by a genitive with τέχνη. Cf. Protag. 357 A, Phaedrus 260 E, also Class. Rev. xx. (1906) p. 247. See too Cic. De or. I. 4 neque aliquod praeceptum artis esse arbitrarentur, and 518 D. and the practice of it at the same time with the science of navigation.
