Kitap 9
577
And would it not also be a fair challenge, said I, to ask you to accept as the only proper judge of the two men the one who is able in thought to enter with understanding into the very soul and temper of a man, and who is not like a child viewing him from outside, overawed by the tyrants’ great attendance,The word προστάσεως is frequent in Polybius. Cf. also Boethius iv. chap. 2. Cf. 1Maccabees xv. 32, When he saw the glory of Simon, and the cupboard of gold and silver plate, and his great attendance [παράστασιν]. Cf. also Isoc. ii. 32 ὄψιν, and Shakes. Measure for MeasureII. ii. 59 ceremony that to great ones ’longs,Henry V.IV. i. 280 farced title running ’fore the king. and the pomp and circumstance which they assumeFor σχηματίζονται cf. Xen. Oecon. 2. 4. σὸν σχῆμα ὁ σὺ περιβέβλησαι, Dio Cass. iii. fr. 13. 2 σχηματίσας . . . ἑαυτόν and σχηματισμός, Rep. 425 B, 494 D. in the eyes of the world, but is able to see through it all? And what if I should assume, then, that the man to whom we ought all to listen is he who has this capacity of judgement and who has lived under the same roof with a tyrantIt is easy conjecture that Plato is thinking of himself and Dionysius I. Cf. Laws 711 A. and has witnessed his conduct in his own home and observed in person his dealings with his intimates in each instance where he would best be seen strippedCf. Thackeray on Ludovicus and Ludovicus rex, Hazlitt, Strip it of its externals and what is it but a jest? also Gory. 523 E, Xen. Hiero 2. 4, Lucian, Somnium seu Gallus 24 ἢν δὲ ὑποκύψας ἴδῃς τὰ γ’ ἔνδον . . . , Boethius, Cons. iii. chap. 8 (Loeb, p. 255), and for the thought Herod. i. 99. of his vesture of tragedy,Cf. Longinus, On the Sublime 7 τὸ ἔξωθεν προστραγῳδούμενον, and Dümmler, Akademika p. 5. and who had likewise observed his behavior in the hazards of his public life—and if we should ask the man who has seen all this to be the messenger to report on the happiness or misery of the tyrant as compared with other men? That also would be a most just challenge, he said. Shall we, then, make believe, said I, that we are of those who are thus able to judge and who have ere now lived with tyrants, so that we may have someone to answer our questions? By all means. Come, then, said I, examine it thus. Recall the general likeness between the city and the man, and then observe in turn what happens to each of them. What things? he said. In the first place, said I, will you call the state governed by a tyrant free or enslaved, speaking of it as a state? Utterly enslaved, he said. And yet you see in it masters and freemen. I see, he said, a small portion of such, but the entirety, so to speak, and the best part of it, is shamefully and wretchedly enslaved.In Menex. 238 E Plato says that other states are composed of slaves and master, but Athens of equals. If, then, I said, the man resembles the state, must not the same proportionFor τάξιν cf. 618 B ψυχῆς δὲ τάξιν. obtain in him, and his soul teem γέμειν: cf. 544 C, 559 C, Gorg. 522 E, 525 A. with boundless servility and illiberality, the best and most reasonable parts of it being enslaved, while a small part, the worst and the most frenzied, plays the despot? Inevitably, he said. Then will you say that such a soul is enslaved or free? Enslaved, I should suppose. Again, does not the enslaved and tyrannized city least of all do what it really wishesCf. 445 B, Gorg. 467 B, where a verbal distinction is drawn with which Plato does not trouble himself here. In Laws 661 B ἐπιθυμῇ is used. Cf. ibid. 688 B τἀναντία ταῖς βουλήσεσιν, and Herod. iii. 80.? Decidedly so. Then the tyrannized soul— to speak of the soul as a wholeCf. Cratyl. 392 C ὡς τὸ ὅλον εἰπεῖν γένος.—also will least of all do what it wishes, but being always perforce driven and drawn by the gadfly of desire it will be full of confusion and repentance.Cf. Julian, Or. ii. 50 C. In the Stoic philosophy the stultus repents, and omnis stultitia fastidio laborat sui. Cf. also Seneca, De benef. iv. 34 non mutat sapiens consilium . . . ideo numquam illum poenitentia subit, Von Arnim, Stoic. Vet. Frag. iii. 147. 21, 149. 20 and 33, Stob. Ec. ii. 113. 5, 102. 22, and my emendation of Eclogues ii. 104. 6 W. in Class. Phil. xi. p. 338. Of course. And must the tyrannized city be rich or poor? Poor.
