Kitap 9
586
Then those who have no experience of wisdom and virtue but are ever devoted toFor ξυνόντες see Blaydes on Aristoph. Clouds 1404. feastings and that sort of thing are swept downward, it seems, and back again to the center, and so sway and roamCf. What Plato Said, p. 528, on Phaedo 79 C for πλανάω of error in thought. This is rather the errare of Lucretius ii. 10 and the post-Aristotelian schools. to and fro throughout their lives, but they have never transcended all this and turned their eyes to the true upper region nor been wafted there, nor ever been really filled with real things, nor ever tastedCf. on 576 A ἄγευστος, and for the thought of the whole sentence cf. Dio Chrys. Or. xiii., Teubner, vol. i. p. 240. stable and pure pleasure, but with eyes ever bent upon the earthCf. Milton, Comus, Ne’er looks to heaven amid its gorgeous feast, Rossetti, Nineveh, in fine, That set gaze never on the sky, etc. Cf. S. O. Dickermann, De Argumentis quibusdam ap. Xenophontem, Platonem, Aristotelem obviis e structura hominis et animalium petitis, Halle, 1909, who lists Plato’s Symp. 190 A, Rep. 586 A, Cratyl. 396 B, 409 C, Tim. 90 A, 91 E, and many other passages. and heads bowed down over their tables they feast like cattle,Cf. Aristot. Eth. Nic. 1095 b 20 βοσκημάτων βίον. Cf. What Plato Said, p. 611, on Phileb., in fine. grazing and copulating, ever greedy for more of these delights; and in their greedCf. 373 E, Phaedo 66 C ff., Berkeley, Siris 330 For these things men fight, cheat, and scramble. kicking and butting one another with horns and hooves of iron they slay one another in sateless avidity, because they are vainly striving to satisfy with things that are not real the unreal and incontinent part τὸ στέγον: Cf. Gorg. 493 B, Laws 714 A. of their souls. You describe in quite oracular style,Plato laughs at himself. Cf. 509 C and 540 B-C. The picturesque, allegorical style of oracles was proverbial. For χρησμῳδεῖν Cf. Crat. 396 D, Apol. 39 C, Laws 712 A. Socrates, said Glaucon, the life of the multitude. And are not the pleasures with which they dwell inevitably commingled with pains, phantoms of true pleasure, illusions of scene-painting, so colored by contrary juxtapositionCf. on 584 A, p. 384, note a. as to seem intense in either kind, and to beget mad loves of themselves in senseless souls, and to be fought for,For περιμαχήτους cf. Aristot. Eth. Nic. 1168 b 19, Eth. Eud. 1248 b 27, and on 521 A, p. 145, note e. as Stesichorus says the wraith of HelenFor the Stesichorean legend that the real Helen remained in Egypt while only her phantom went to Troy Cf. Phaedr. 243 A-B, Eurip. Hel. 605 ff., Elect. 1282-1283, Isoc. Hel. 64, and Philologus 55, pp. 634 ff. Dümmler, Akademika p. 55, thinks this passage a criticism of Isoc. Helena 40. Cf. also Teichmüller, Lit. Fehden, i. pp. 113 ff. So Milton, Reason of Church Government, A lawny resemblance of her like that air-born Helena in the fables. For the ethical symbolism Cf. 520 C-D. was fought for at Troy through ignorance of the truth? It is quite inevitable, he said, that it should be so. So, again, must not the like hold of the high-spirited element, whenever a man succeeds in satisfying that part of his nature—his covetousness of honor by envy, his love of victory by violence, his ill-temper by indulgence in anger, pursuing these ends without regard to consideration and reason? The same sort of thing, he said, must necessarily happen in this case too. Then, said I, may we not confidently declare that in both the gain-loving and the contentious part of our nature all the desires that wait upon knowledge and reason, and, pursuing their pleasures in conjunction with them,Cf. Phaedo 69 B, and Theaet. 176 B μετὰ φρονήσεως. take only those pleasures which reason approves, ἐξηγῆται has a religious tone. See on ἐξηγητής427 C. Cf. 604 B. will, since they follow truth, enjoy the truestCf. on 583 B, p. 380, note b. pleasures, so far as that is possible for them, and also the pleasures that are proper to them and their own, if for everything that which is best may be said to be most its ownCf. What Plato Said, p. 491, on Lysis 221 E.? But indeed, he said, it is most truly its very own.
