The Second Alcibiades — Plato
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ΑΛΚΙΒΙΑΔΗΣ ΙΙ
Translation/edition: Floyer Sydenham, ed. Thomas Taylor (1804)
Language: English
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## The Second Alcibiades¹

[138a] Socrates: Alcibiades! are you going to the temple to make your petitions to the God?
[138a] Alcibiades: Your conjecture is perfectly right, Socrates.
[138a] Socrates: Indeed your countenance appears close and cloudy; and your eyes are turned toward the ground, as if you were wrapped in some profound thought².
[138a] Alcibiades: What profound thoughts could a man have at such a time, Socrates?
[138b] Socrates: Thoughts, Alcibiades, such as seem to me of the highest importance. For tell me, in the name of Jupiter, do you not think, when we happen, whether in private or in public, to be making our petitions to the Gods, that sometimes they grant a part of those petitions, and reject the rest; and that to some of their petitioners they hearken, but are deaf to others?
[138b] Alcibiades: No doubt of it.
[138c] Socrates: Do you not think, then, that much previous consideration is requisite to prevent a man from praying unwittingly for things which are very evil, but which he imagines very good; if the Gods at that time when he is praying to them should happen to be disposed to grant whatever prayers he happens to make? As Œdipus, they say, inconsiderately³ prayed the Gods that his sons might divide their patrimony between them by the sword⁴. Instead, therefore, of praying for his family, as he might have done, that the evils which it then suffered might be averted, he cursed it by praying⁵ that more might be superadded. The event of which curse was this, that not only what he prayed for was accomplished, but from that accomplishment followed other evils, many and terrible, which there is no need to enumerate⁶.
[138c] Alcibiades: But, Socrates, you have now spoken of a man who was insane, for who, think you, in his sound mind would venture to make such sort of prayers?
[138c] Socrates: Whether is it your opinion, that to be insane is to be in a state of mind contrary to that which is sound?
[138d] Alcibiades: I am quite of opinion that it is.
[138d] Socrates: And are you not of opinion, too, that there are men who want understanding, and men who have not that want?
[138d] Alcibiades: I am.
[138d] Socrates: Come, then, let us consider what sort of men these are. You have admitted, that men there are who want understanding, men who do not want it, and other men, you say, who are insane.
[138e] Alcibiades: True.
[138e] Socrates: Further now; are there not some men in a good state of health?
[138e] Alcibiades: There are.
[138e] Socrates: And are there not others in a bad state of health?
[139a] Alcibiades: Certainly.
[139a] Socrates: These, then, are not the same men with those.
[139a] Alcibiades: By no means.
[139a] Socrates: Whether now are there any men who are in neither of those states?
[139a] Alcibiades: Certainly, none.
[139a] Socrates: For every man must of necessity either have good health, or want good health.
[139a] Alcibiades: I think so too.
[139a] Socrates: Well: do you think after the same manner with regard to the having of understanding and the want of understanding?
[139a] Alcibiades: How do you mean?
[139b] Socrates: Do you think it to be necessary⁷, that a man should either have or want a good understanding? Or is there, besides, some third and middle state, in which a man neither has nor wants a good understanding?
[139b] Alcibiades: There certainly is not.
[139b] Socrates: Every man, then, of necessity must be either in the one or in the other of those two conditions.
[139b] Alcibiades: So it seems to me.
[139b] Socrates: Do you not remember that you admitted this, that insanity was contrary to soundness of understanding?
[139b] Alcibiades: I do.
[139b] Socrates: And do you not remember that you admitted this also, that there was no middle or third state, in which a man neither has nor wants a good understanding?
[139b] Alcibiades: I admitted this too.
[139b] Socrates: But how can two different things be contrary to one and the same thing?
[139c] Alcibiades: It is by no means possible.
[139c] Socrates: Want of understanding, therefore, and insanity, are likely to be found the same thing.
[139c] Alcibiades: It appears so.
[139c] Socrates: If then we should pronounce that all fools were madmen⁸, we should pronounce rightly, Alcibiades.
[139c] Alcibiades: We should.
[139c] Socrates: In the first place, your equals in age, if any of them happen to be fools, as indeed they are, and some of your elders too, all these we must pronounce madmen. For consider, are you not of opinion, that in this city there are few wise men, but a multitude of fools, whom you call madmen?
[139d] Alcibiades: I am of that opinion.
[139d] Socrates: Can you imagine then, that, living in the same city with so many madmen, we should live with any ease or comfort? or that we should not have suffered from them long ago, have been buffeted, and pelted, and have met with all other mischiefs which madmen are wont to perpetrate? But consider, my good sir, whether we live not here in a different state of things.
[139d] Alcibiades: What is then the truth of the case, Socrates, with respect to the multitude? For it is not likely to be what I just now imagined.
[139d] Socrates: Neither do I think it is so myself. But we should consider it in some such way as this.
[139d] Alcibiades: In what way do you mean?
[139d] Socrates: I will tell you. We presume that some men there are who are ill in health: do we not?
[139d] Alcibiades: Certainly we do.
[139d] Socrates: Do you think it necessary then that every man, who is ill in health, should have the gout, or a fever, or an ophthalmy⁹? do you not think that a man, without suffering from any of these diseases, may be ill of some other? For diseases, we suppose, are of many various kinds, and not of those only.
[139e] Alcibiades: I suppose they are.
[139e] Socrates: Do you not think that every ophthalmy is a disease?
[139e] Alcibiades: I do.
[139e] Socrates: And do you think that every disease, therefore, is an ophthalmy?
[139e] Alcibiades: By no means, not I. Yet still I am at a loss about your meaning.
[140a] Socrates: But if you will give me your attention, in considering the matter, both of us together, we shall go near to find the truth of it.
[140a] Alcibiades: I give you, Socrates, all the attention I am master of.
[140a] Socrates: Was it not agreed by us, that every ophthalmy was a disease; though not every disease an ophthalmy?
[140a] Alcibiades: It was agreed so.
[140b] Socrates: And I think it was rightly so agreed. For all persons who have a fever have a disease; not all, however, who have a disease have a fever; neither have they all of them the gout, nor all of them an ophthalmy. Every thing indeed of this kind¹⁰ is a disease; but they whom we call physicians say that diseases differ in their effects on the human body. For all diseases are not alike, neither are they all attended with like symptoms; but each of them operates with a power peculiar to itself, and yet diseases are they all. Just as it is with respect to workmen; for workmen we suppose some men are, do we not¹¹?
[140c] Alcibiades: Certainly we do.
[140c] Socrates: Such as shoemakers, smiths, statuaries, and a great multitude of others, whom it is needless to enumerate distinctly. All these have different parts of workmanship divided amongst them; and they all are workmen. They are not, however, smiths, nor shoemakers, nor statuaries, indiscriminately all of them together. [140d] Just so folly is divided amongst men. And those who have the largest share of it, we call madmen; such as have a portion somewhat less, we call senseless and stupified¹²: but if we choose to speak of these in gentler terms, some of us say they are magnanimous¹³; others call them simpletons; and others again, harmless and inexperienced in the world and speechless¹⁴. You will also find, if you reflect, many other names given them beside these. But they are all comprised under the general term, folly or want of understanding. There is, however, a difference between them, as one art differs from another, one disease from another. Or how otherwise doth the case seem to you?
[140d] Alcibiades: To me exactly as you represent it.
[140d] Socrates: This point, therefore, being settled, let us from hence return back again. For it was proposed, I think, in the beginning of our inquiry, to be considered by us, what sort of men wanted understanding, and what sort were men of good understanding. For it was agreed that some there were of each sort. Was it not?
[140d] Alcibiades: It was so agreed.
[140e] Socrates: Whether then do you suppose, that such persons have a good understanding who know how they ought to act, and what they ought to say?
[140e] Alcibiades: I do.
[140e] Socrates: And what persons do you apprehend to be wanting in understanding? are they not such as are ignorant in both those cases?
[140e] Alcibiades: These very persons.
[140e] Socrates: Will not these persons then, who are ignorant of what they ought to do and to say, both say and do what they ought not without being sensible of it?
[141a] Alcibiades: It appears so.
[141a] Socrates: Well then, Alcibiades, of this sort of persons, I said, was Œdipus. And you may find many in our own times, who, though they are not seized with sudden anger, as he was, yet pray for things hurtful to themselves; not suspecting evil in them, and imagining nought but good. Œdipus indeed, as he did not wish for any thing good, so neither did he imagine the thing he prayed for to be good. But some others there are, whose minds are in a disposition quite contrary to that of Œdipus. For you yourself, in my opinion, if the God to whom you are going to offer your petitions should appear to you, and, before you had made any petition to him, should ask you, “whether your desires would be satisfied with your becoming tyrant of Athens;” and (if you held this favour cheap, and no mighty grant) should add further, “and tyrant of all Greece;” and, if he should perceive that you deemed it still too little for you, unless you were tyrant¹⁵ of all Europe, should promise you that also; and not merely promise, but make you so immediately on the spot, if you were in haste to have all the Europeans acknowledge Alcibiades, the son of Clinias, for their lord and master; in this case, it is my opinion, that you yourself would march away full of joy, as if the greatest good had befallen you.
[141a] Alcibiades: I believe, Socrates, that I should; [141b] and that so would any other man whatever, had he met with such an adventure.
[141c] Socrates: You would not, however, accept of absolute dominion over the estates and persons of all the Grecians and Barbarians together, on condition of giving your life in exchange for it.
[141c] Alcibiades: I suppose not. For why should I, when it could be of no use to me?
[141c] Socrates: And, if you knew that you should make an ill use of it to your own detriment, would you not also in such a case refuse it?
[141d] Alcibiades: Certainly I should.
[141d] Socrates: You see, then, how dangerous it is, either inconsiderately to accept of it, when offered, or to wish and pray for it of yourself; since a man, by having it, may suffer great detriment, if not the total loss of his life. In confirmation of this, we could mention many persons who longed after tyranny, and laboured to obtain it, as if some mighty good were to be enjoyed from it; but having obtained it, were, from plots and conspiracies to deprive them of it, forced to part with their very lives. Nay, it cannot, I suppose, have escaped your own hearing, what happened as it were but yesterday, that Archelaus, tyrant of the Macedonians, was murdered by his favourite; for this favourite was no less fond of the tyranny, than the tyrant was of him; and imagined that, by obtaining the tyranny himself, he should be made a happy man; but that, after he had held the tyranny three or four days, he himself was, in his turn, secretly murdered by some others, who had conspired against him. [141e] Amongst our own fellow citizens, also, you see, (for this we have not from the report of others, but have been eye-witnesses of it ourselves,) that of those who succeeded in their ambition to command our armies, some were banished¹⁶, and still at this day live in exile from the city; others lost their lives¹⁷; and such as seem to have fared the best, such as had gone through many terrifying dangers¹⁸ in their campaigns, and were returned to their own country, have ever afterwards suffered at home, from sycophants and detractors, a siege as fierce and as dangerous as any from open enemies in the field, so that some of them at length wished they had never known how to command an army, much rather than ever to have born the burden of that command. Indeed if the dangers and toils, which they underwent, had tended to their advantage, they would have had something plausible to plead in behalf of their ambition: but their case is quite the reverse of that. In the same manner, with respect to the having of children, you will find many men who wish and pray for them; but after they have¹⁹ them, are brought, on that very account, into the greatest calamities and griefs: for some, whose children were incurably wicked, have spent all their after days in sorrow; and some, who had good children, but lost them by some bad accident, have been reduced to a state of mind no less miserable than the others, and, like them, have wished that their children never had been born. And yet, notwithstanding the evidence of these and many other cases of like kind, it is rare to find a man who would refuse those gifts of fortune, were they offered to him; or who, could he obtain them by his prayers, would forbear to pray for them. Few men would reject even a tyranny, if offered them; or the chief command of an army; or many other things, which often bring more mischief than benefit to the possessor. Nay, there are few men, of those who happen not to have them at present, who would not be glad if ever they came into their possession. And yet such, as obtain them, every now and then recant their wishes, and pray to be disencumbered of what they before prayed to have. I suspect, therefore, that in reality men accuse the Gods unjustly²⁰, in saying, that the evils which they suffer come from them:
[141e] For on themselves they draw, through their own crimes,
[141e] (or follies should we say?)
[141e] More griefs than fate allots to human life.
[141e] And to me, Alcibiades, it seems probable, that some wise man or other, happening to be connected with certain persons void of understanding, and observing them to pursue and to pray for things, which it were better for them still to be without, but which appeared to them good, composed for their use a common prayer²¹; the words of which are nearly these—
[141e] Sov’reign of Nature! grant us what s good,
Be it, or not, the subject of our pray’rs;
And from thy supplicants, whate’er is ill,
Tho’ supplicating for it, still avert.
[141e] Now in this prayer, it seems to me, that the poet says what is right; and that whoever makes use of it, incurs no danger. But if you have any thing to say against it, speak your mind.
[143a] Alcibiades: It is a difficult matter, Socrates, to speak against any thing which is rightly said. [143b] But what I am thinking of is, how many evils are brought on men by ignorance: since to this it seems owing, that we labour to procure for ourselves the greatest mischiefs, without knowing what we are about; and how extreme our ignorance is, appears in our praying for them. And yet no man would imagine that to be his own case; and every one supposes himself sufficiently knowing, to pray for things the most advantageous to himself, and to avoid praying for things the most mischievous: for to pray for these things would in reality be like a curse, and not a prayer.
[143c] Socrates: But perhaps, my good friend, some man or other, who happens to be wiser than you or I, might say, that we are wrong, in laying the blame so rashly on ignorance, unless we proceed to specify what things we mean the ignorance of. To some persons also, in certain conditions and circumstances, ignorance is a good; though it be an evil to those others we have been speaking of.
[143c] Alcibiades: How say you? Is it possible there should be any thing, which it is better for any person in any condition whatever to be ignorant of than to know?
[143c] Socrates: I think it is: are not you of the same opinion?
[143c] Alcibiades: Not I, by Jupiter.
[143c] Socrates: Well now;—but observe, I am not going to charge you with having a will, disposed to have ever perpetrated²² a deed, like that of Orestes, upon his own mother, as it is reported; or like that of Alcmæon, or whoever else happened to act in the same manner.
[143d] Alcibiades: Mention not such a horrid deed, I beseech you, Socrates.
[143d] Socrates: The man, who acquits you of a disposition to have acted in that manner, you ought not, Alcibiades, to bid him avoid the mention of such a deed; but much rather ought you to lay that injunction on a man who should express a contrary opinion of you; since the deed appears to you so horrid, as not to admit a casual mention of it in conversation. But do you think that Orestes, had he been a wise and prudent man, and had he known how it was best for him to act, would have dared to be guilty of any such action?
[143d] Alcibiades: By no means.
[143d] Socrates: Nor, I suppose, would any other man.
[143e] Alcibiades: Certainly, not.
[143e] Socrates: The ignorance therefore of what is best is an evil thing; and whoever is ignorant of that best will always suffer evil.
[143e] Alcibiades: So I think.
[143e] Socrates: And did not he think so too? and do not all other men think the same?
[143e] Alcibiades: I cannot deny it.
[144a] Socrates: Further then, let us consider this also. Supposing, that it should come into your head all at once, from a sudden fancy of its being the best thing you can do, to take a dagger with you, and go to the house of Pericles, your guardian and your friend; and supposing that, when you came there, upon your asking if Pericles was within, with intention to kill him only and no other person, you should receive this answer, He is within;—I do not say, that you have a will or inclination to verify any of these suppositions; I say no more than this—supposing you should be seized with such a fancy²³, (and nothing, I think, hinders a man, who is ignorant of what is best, from being at some time or other so seized,) in that case an opinion might be conceived, that the worst thing a man can do is, in some circumstances, the best: do not you think it might?
[144b] Alcibiades: Certainly so.
[144b] Socrates: If then, upon being admitted to his presence, you should see and yet not know him, but should mistake him for some other person, I ask you, whether you would, notwithstanding that, be so furious as to kill him?
[144b] Alcibiades: No, by Jupiter; I do not imagine that I should.
[144b] Socrates: For you would not be so furious as to kill any person, whom chance threw in your way; but him only at whom you aimed. Is it not for this reason that you would not kill him?
[144b] Alcibiades: Without doubt.
[144b] Socrates: And if you attempted the same thing ever so often, and still mistook Pericles, whenever you were about to execute your design, you never would lay violent hands on him.
[144b] Alcibiades: Certainly I should not.
[144b] Socrates: Well; and can you think that Orestes would ever have laid violent hands on his mother, if in like manner he had mistaken her for some other person?
[144c] Alcibiades: I think he would not.
[144c] Socrates: For he too had it not in his mind to kill any woman he should chance to meet with, nor the mother of any man whatever, but his own mother only.
[144c] Alcibiades: It is true.
[144c] Socrates: To mistake therefore, and not to kno whings of that kind, is better for men who are in such dispositions, and who are seized with such imaginations.
[144c] Alcibiades: It appears so to be.
[144c] Socrates: Do you now perceive, that for some persons, in some circumstances, to be ignorant of some things, is a good, and not, as you just now imagined it, an evil?
[144c] Alcibiades: It seems to me probable.
[144c] Socrates: Further; if you are willing [144d] to consider what follows after this, though it be strange and paradoxical, you may perhaps be of opinion that there is some truth in it²⁴.
[144e] Alcibiades: Above all things, Socrates, tell me what.
[144e] Socrates: That the acquisition of other sciences, without the science²⁵ of what is best, is, I may venture to say, likely to be found rarely beneficial, and generally hurtful to the person who has acquired them²⁶. And consider it in this way: do you not think it necessary that, when we are about to engage in any affair, or to speak on any subject, we should really know, or at least should fancy that we know, the subject we are about to speak on, or the affair we are going so readily to engage in?
[144e] Alcibiades: I do think it is.
[145a] Socrates: And do not our public orators, either knowing, or fancying that they know, what the city ought to do, give us accordingly their counsel off hand on every occasion? Some of them, on the subject of war and peace; others, when the affair of building walls, or that of furnishing the porttowns with proper stores, is in debate. In a word, all the negotiations between our city and any other, and all our domestic concerns, are they not conducted just as these orators advise?
[145a] Alcibiades: True.
[145a] Socrates: Observe then, how we proceed in this argument, if possible. Some men you call wise, and others you call foolish.
[145a] Alcibiades: I do.
[145a] Socrates: Foolish do you not call the many, and wise the few?
[145a] Alcibiades: Just so.
[145a] Socrates: And do you not give those different epithets to those two sorts of persons, in consideration of something in which they differ?
[145a] Alcibiades: I do.
[145b] Socrates: Whether do you call him a wise man, who knows how to harangue the people on those subjects of debate we mentioned, without knowing what advice is the best in general, and what on the present occasion?
[145b] Alcibiades: Certainly not.
[145b] Socrates: Nor him neither, I suppose, who hath the knowledge of military affairs, but knows not when it is best to go to war, nor how long a time to continue it. Is not my supposition just?
[145b] Alcibiades: It is.
[145b] Socrates: Neither then do you call him a wise man, who knows how to procure another man’s death, or the confiscation of his estate, or the banishment of him from his country, without knowing on what occasion, or what person, it is best so to persecute.
[145b] Alcibiades: Indeed I do not.
[145b] Socrates: The man, therefore, who possesses any knowledge of such a kind, if that knowledge of his be attended with the knowledge also of what is best, (and this I presume to be the same with the knowledge of what is beneficial; Is it so?
[145c] Alcibiades: Certainly it is:)
[145c] Socrates: We shall say, that he is a wise man, and sufficiently well able to judge for himself, and to be also a counsellor to the city. But of the man who has not the knowledge of what is beneficial²⁷, we shall say the contrary. Or what is your opinion that we ought to say?
[145d] Alcibiades: Mine agrees with yours.
[145d] Socrates: Well now; let us suppose a man skilled in horsemanship, or in shooting with a bow, or in wrestling, or boxing, or other combat; or in any thing else which art teaches: what do you say concerning him who knows what is executed best, in that art which he has learnt? The man, for instance, who knows what is performed best in horsemanship, do you not say of him, that he is skilled in the horseman’s art?
[145d] Alcibiades: I do.
[145d] Socrates: And the man who knows what is performed best in wrestling, I presume you say of him, that he is skilled in the wrestler’s art. Of a man who has the like knowledge in music, you say, that he is skilled in the musician’s art. And of men who have the like knowledge in the performances of other arts, you speak after a like manner: or how otherwise?
[145e] Alcibiades: No otherwise than just as you say.
[145e] Socrates: Do you think now, that a man, skilled in any of these arts, must of necessity be a wise man? or shall we say, that he wants much of being so?
[145e] Alcibiades: Much indeed does he, by Jupiter.
[146a] Socrates: Suppose then a commonwealth, composed of good bowmen and musicians, of wrestlers too and other artists; and mixed with these, such persons as we just now mentioned²⁸, such as understand military affairs, and such as know how to persecute a man to death; and superadded to them, your politicians, swoln with the pride of managing state-affairs; all these people void of the science of what is best; and not a man of them knowing when, or in what case, it is best to exercise the particular skill or knowledge that each man is master of; what sort of a commonwealth do you think this would prove?
[146a] Alcibiades: But a bad one, Socrates, I think for my part.
[146b] Socrates: Neither would you, I suppose, hesitate to pronounce it so, when you saw every one of these men ambitious of being honoured, and making it his chief business in the commonwealth,
[146b] To attain to more, and still more, excellence²⁹,
[146b] (by excellence I mean that which is the best in his own art,) but in what is best for the public, and best also for himself³⁰, generally mistaken; as being, I suppose, without rational principles, and governed only by opinion. In this case, should we not be right in pronouncing that such a commonwealth was full of great disorder and of lawless doings?
[146b] Alcibiades: Right indeed, by Jupiter.
[146b] Socrates: Did we not think it necessary for us, either to fancy that we know, or really to know previously, the business we are going to engage in, or offhand to speak upon?
[146b] Alcibiades: We did.
[146b] Socrates: And did we not also think, that if a man engages in any business which he knows, and his knowledge of it be attended with the knowledge of what is beneficial, he will be in a way of profiting both the public and himself³¹?
[146c] Alcibiades: How could we think otherwise?
[146c] Socrates: But that if it be attended with ignorance of what is beneficial, the contrary will happen; he will neither profit the public nor himself³²?
[146c] Alcibiades: Certainly we thought he would not.
[146c] Socrates: And what? are you still of the same opinion? or have you in any respect altered your way of thinking about these matters?
[146c] Alcibiades: Not at all: I think as I did still.
[146c] Socrates: Let me ask you then, whether you did not say that you called the many fools, and the few wise men?
[146c] Alcibiades: I acknowledge it.
[146c] Socrates: And do we not still say, that the many are mistaken in their opinion of what is best, for that they are generally, I suppose, without rational principles, and only governed by opinion?
[146c] Alcibiades: We still say the same.
[146d] Socrates: It is the interest, therefore, of the many not to be knowing in any affairs, nor to conceit themselves knowing; if what affairs they know, or conceit they know, they will be the more forward to engage in; and, engaging in them, will receive more harm than benefit.
[146d] Alcibiades: What you say is very true.
[146e] Socrates: Do you see then; do I not appear to have been actually in the right, when I said, that the acquisition of other sciences, without the science of what is best, is rarely beneficial, and generally hurtful, to the person who has acquired them?
[146e] Alcibiades: If I did not think so at that time, yet now, Socrates, I do.
[147a] Socrates: It is incumbent therefore on every civil state, and every private person, if they would manage their affairs rightly, to depend absolutely on this science; just as the sick patient depends on his physician; or as the mariner, who would escape the dangers of the voyage, depends on the commander of the vessel. For³³ without this science, the more vehemently an inward gale³⁴ impels a man, whether it arise from the consideration of his wealth, or bodily strength, or some other advantage of the same kind with either of those, so much the greater miscarriages will of necessity it seems befall him, from those very advantages. And, in like manner, the man who has acquired what is called much learning, and many arts, but is destitute of this science, and is driven along by each of the others, will not he meet with, and justly too indeed, a very tempestuous voyage? and supposing him to continue still at sea, without a commander of the vessel in which he sails, it will not be long³⁵ before he perishes. So that to such a man very appli- cable, I think, is that verse where the poet says of some person, in dispraise of him,
[147a] Much knew he, and in many things had skill;
But whate’er things he knew, he knew them ill.
[147a] Alcibiades: How, Socrates, doth this verse of the poet fall in with what we are speaking of? [147b] for to me it seems nothing to the purpose.
[147c] Socrates: Very much to the purpose is it. But poets, you must know, write enigmatically almost all of them, but this poet more especially. For it is the genius of poetry in general to use an enigmatical language; and it is not for any ordinary person to understand it. But when, besides this difficulty, the poetical genius, so enigmatical in itself, seizes a man who is backward in communicating his knowledge, unwilling to tell us plainly what he means, and desirous to conceal his wisdom as much as possible from the world³⁶, it appears in the highest degree difficult to find out the real meaning of any such poet. For you can by no means think that Homer³⁷, so very divine a poet as he was, could be ignorant, how impossible it was for a man, who possessed any science whatever, not to know it well. [147d] But he expresses himself enigmatically, I suppose, by using, instead of the words evil³⁸, and to know, the derivative words, ill, and he knew³⁹. If then we use the two proper words, there is formed this sentence, in plain prose indeed, but expressive of the poet’s meaning,—He was knowing and skilled in many things, but to know all those things was to him an evil.——It is evident then, that if much knowledge was to him an evil, what knowledge he had was worthless, and he himself was some worthless fellow; supposing any credit to be due to the conclusions from our past reasonings.
[147e] Alcibiades: And I think, Socrates, it is their due: for I should hardly give credit to any other rational conclusions, if I denied it to those.
[147e] Socrates: And you think rightly too. But in the name of Jupiter, let us proceed. [148a] For you see, how great are the perplexities attending the subject in which we are engaged; you see also, what the nature is of those perplexities. And you seem to me to have a share in them yourself; as you never rest from changing your thoughts over and over again upon this subject; discarding the opinions, which you had before so ardently embraced, and continuing no longer in the same mind. Should the God then, to whom you are going to make your prayers, appear to you, now after all our conclusions; and should he ask you, before you had presented any petition whatever to him—whether or no your desires would be satisfied, if you obtained any of those dominions mentioned in the beginning of our argument;—or should he leave to yourself the naming of what you wished for;—in which way, think you, could you best avail yourself of this opportunity? whether in accepting any of the grants offered you, or in naming some other thing you wished for?
[148b] Alcibiades: Now, by the gods, Socrates, I should not know what to say to such a proposal. Indeed, I think, that it would be rash in me to make any decisive answer at all; and that great caution is absolutely requisite in such a case; to prevent a man from praying unwarily for things evil, while he imagines them to be good; and from doing as you said, soon afterwards recanting his choice, and praying to be delivered from what he had before prayed to have.
[148b] Socrates: Did not then the poet, whom I cited in the beginning of this argument, know somewhat more than we do, in supplicating Jupiter to avert from us what is evil, even though we prayed for it?
[148c] Alcibiades: Indeed I think so.
[148c] Socrates: The Lacedæmonians, therefore, O Alcibiades! admiring and imitating this of the poet, or whether they had of themselves considered the subject in the same manner as he did, every one of them in private, and all of them in public, make a prayer similar to his: for they beseech the Gods to grant them such good things as at the same time are beautiful; and nothing more were they ever heard to pray for. Accordingly, no people have hitherto been more prosperous than they. And if it has happened to them not to prosper in all things, it was not because they prayed amiss; [148d] but because the Gods, I presume, have it in their choice, either to grant a man that for which he prays, or to send him the reverse. I have a mind to relate to you somewhat else on this subject, what I once heard from certain elderly men;—that, in the differences between the Athenians and the Lacedæmonians, it so fell out, that whenever they came to a battle, whether by land or by sea, our city was always unsuccessful, and was never able to get one victory:—that the Athenians therefore, uneasy at these miscarriages, and at a loss for some contrivance to put an end to their pressing evils, held a council, and came [148e] to this conclusion,—that their best way would be to send to Ammon⁴⁰, and consult him what they should do; and at the same time to ask him this question father,—on what account the Gods always give victory to the Spartans their enemies, rather than to them; though of all the Grecians, we, said they, bring them the greatest number of sacrifices, and those the fairest in their kinds; and though we, beyond all other people, have decorated their temples with the presents that are hung up in them; and in honour of the Gods have made yearly processions, the most solemn and the most costly; and have paid them a greater tribute in money than all the rest of the Grecians put together: [149a] whilst the Lacedæmonians, they said, never regard any of these things; but, on the contrary, worship the Gods in so slighting a manner, as to make their sacrifices commonly of beasts full of blemishes; and, in all other instances, fall far short of us, said they, in honouring the Gods; at the same time that the riches they are masters of are not less than ours. When the ambassadors had thus spoken, and had inquired of the Oracle, what they should do to find an end of their present misfortunes, the prophet made no other answer than this; (for without doubt the God did not permit him:) sending for the Athenian ambassadors, he spake to them these words,——Thus saith Ammon; he saith, that he prefers the pious addresses of the Lacedæmonians to all the sacrifices of all the Grecians.
[149b] —These words, and no more, spake the prophet. Now it seems to me, that, by pious addresses, the God means only that prayer of theirs. And it is indeed much more excellent than the prayers of any other people. [149c] For the rest of the Grecians, when they have either led up to the altar oxen with their horns gilded, or brought rich offerings and presents to hang up in the temples, pray for whatever they happen to desire, whether it be really good or evil. The Gods therefore, when they hear their impious addresses, accept not of their costly processions, sacrifices, and presents. So that much caution and consideration seem to me requisite on this subject, what is fit to be spoken to the Gods, and what is not. You will also find in Homer sentiments similar to those I have been expressing: for he tells us, that the Trojans, on a certain night, taking up their quarters without the city walls,
[149d] In honour of the blest Immortals, slew
Unblemish’d hecatombs:——⁴¹
[149d] and that the smoke from these sacrifices was by the winds wafted up into heaven⁴²:
[149d] Sweet odorif’rous smoke; yet by the Gods
Rejected, and the sav’ry taste refus’d.
For strong aversion in their holy minds
Was rooted, against Troy’s devoted tow’rs,
Against th’ injurious might of Troy’s proud king,
And ’gainst the Trojan people, who withheld
Helen, unjustly, from her wedded lord⁴³.
[149d] It was of no advantage therefore, it seems, to them to sacrifice, or to offer presents, to the Gods whom they had made their enemies. [149e] For the divine nature, I presume, is not of such a kind as to be seduced by presents, like those whose trade it is to make the most of their money, and who care not by what means they are enriched. Besides, we plead very foolishly, in our expostulations with the Gods, if we think to get the better of the Lacedæmonians by such arguments. For it would be a sad thing indeed, if the Gods regarded our presents and our sacrifices, and not the disposition of the soul, when a religious and just man addressed them. [150a] Nay, in my opinion, they have much more regard to this, than they have to those pompous processions and costly sacrifices. For nothing hinders, but that any, whether private persons or civil states, let them have sinned against the Gods and against men ever so greatly, may be well able to pay the Gods such a tribute yearly. But they not being to be bribed, disdain all that outward worship; as saith the divine Oracle, and as also saith the Prophet of the Gods. It seems, therefore, that justice and prudence are honoured, above all things, by the Gods, and by men too, such as have good sense and understanding. Now the prudent and the just are no other persons than such as know what behaviour and what speech is proper to be used in our intercourse, whether with gods or with men. But I should be glad to hear from you what your thoughts are on this subject.
[150a] Alcibiades: For my part, I am of the same opinion with you, Socrates, and with the Oracle. [150b] And indeed it would ill become me to give my vote opposite to the judgment of the God.
[150c] Socrates: Do you not remember, that you acknowledged your being much at a loss concerning prayer; for fear you should unwarily pray for evil things, imagining them to be good?
[150c] Alcibiades: I do remember it.
[150d] Socrates: You perceive then, that it is not safe for you to go and make your prayer at the temple, as you intended; lest your addresses should happen to be impious, and the God hearing them should wholly reject your sacrifice, and you perhaps should draw upon your own head some farther evil. It seems to me, therefore, that your best way is to be at quiet. For because of your magnanimity, (that fairest of names given to folly,) I suppose you would not be willing to make use of the Lacedæmonian prayer. It is necessary, therefore, that a man should wait till he has learnt what disposition he ought to be in towards the Gods and towards men.
[150d] Alcibiades: But, Socrates, how long will it be before that time comes? and who is he that will instruct me? for I should be very glad, methinks, to see that man, and to know who he is.
[150e] Socrates: It is he, whose care you are the object of. But as Homer⁴⁴ says of Minerva, that she removed the mist from before the eyes of Diomede,
[150e] That he might clearly see, and gods from men
Plainly distinguish,——
[150e] so must he in the first place, as it seems to me, remove from your soul the mist that now happens to surround it; and after that he will apply those medicines, by means of which you will clearly distinguish good from evil. For, at present, I think you would not be able so to do.
[150e] Alcibiades: Let him then remove that mist, or any other obstruction that he pleases: for he will find me readily disposed to follow any of his prescriptions, whoever the man is, if by those means I may become a better man than I am at present.
[150e] Socrates: It is wonderful to consider how greatly he is disposed towards the making you so.
[151a] Alcibiades: Till that time therefore, I think, it is the better way to defer my sacrifice.
[151a] Socrates: You think rightly too. For it is a safer way than to run so great a risque.
[151a] Alcibiades: It is undeniable, O Socrates. [151b] In the mean time, however, since you seem to me to have counselled well, I shall put this crown⁴⁵ about your brows. And to the Gods we shall present crowns⁴⁶, and all other accustomed offerings, then, when I see that day arrived. Nor will the time be long before its arrival, if it so please the Gods.
[151c] Socrates: Well, I accept of this: and should have pleasure in seeing the time come, when you yourself⁴⁷ shall have received some other thing in return for your present to me. And as Creon, when Tiresias, shewing him his crown [of Gold], said, it had been given him [by the Athenians], in honour of his science, as the first-fruits of [their]⁴⁸ victory obtained over the enemy, is by Euripides made to say,
[151c] This crown, a happy omen and presage,
I deem, of conquest on our Theban side.
For you know well, how tempest-tost a sea
We sail on——⁴⁹
[151c] I, in the same manner, deem this honour, you have now done me, to be a good presage. For, as I think myself sailing on a sea, no less tempest-tost than that of Creon, I should be glad to bear away the crown of victory from the rest of your admirers⁵⁰.

## Notes

[1] At Athens were two edifices, built in honour of Jupiter. One of these was a most magnificent temple, called the Olympium, and situate in the lower city. The other was only a chapel in the upper city, sacred to Ζευς ὁ σωτηρ, Jupiter the [universal] saviour, and adjoining to another chapel, sacred to Αθηνα ἡ σωτειρα, Minerva the saviour [of Athens]. Both these chapels stood at the entrance of the treasury; one probably on each side, as guardians of the public money: and this treasury stood at the back of that beautiful temple of Minerva, called the Parthenon. Now had Socrates met Alcibiades in the ascent, which led first to the Parthenon, and thence to the chapels behind it, no reason appears for his supposing that Alcibiades was going to pay his devotions to Jupiter, rather than to Minerva, the guardian Deity of Athens. But the masculine article τον, used in this place by Plato before the noun θεον, forbids us to imagine that Minerva could be here meant. For at Athens, as Minerva was styled ἡ θεος, the Goddess, by way of eminence, so Jupiter was styled either simply θεος, God, or ὁ θεος, the God, as being Supreme. Beside this, we are to observe, that in the chapel of Jupiter in the upper city, he was worshipped in a particular character, as the preserver of his votaries in dangers from which they had escaped; as not only is to be presumed from the title of Saviour, by which he was there invoked, but also is clearly proved from the Plutus of Aristophanes, act. 5, sc. 2, and from the oration of Lycurgus against Leocrates, p. 168 and 253, edit. Taylor. Now there is not the least appearance that Alcibiades had had any signal deliverance from danger, or that he was now going to offer a thanksgiving sacrifice, as it was customary to do on such occasions. From all this we justly may conclude, that the scene of this dialogue lies in a street leading to the temple of Olympian Jupiter in the lower city.—S.
[2] The first symbolical precept which the Pythagorean philosophers gave to their disciples was this: “When you go from your house with intention to perform your devotions at the temple, neither speak nor do any thing in the way thither concerning any business of human life”—A precept recorded, among others of like kind, by Jamblichus, in the last of his λογοι προτρεπτικοι, and rightly there interpreted, p. 134, to this purport:—that a man ought to purify his mind, by abstracting it from earthly cares, and from all objects of sense, whenever he contemplates divine things; because these are abstracted or pure from matter themselves; and pure naturally joins and unites with homogeneous pure. Further, divine things being stable, and always the same, but human things unstable, and for ever changing; they are in this respect also heterogeneous, and, as the same great Platonist elsewhere elegantly speaks, incommensurable, the one sort of things with the other; so that they mix not amicably together in the mind.—S.
[3] This sentence is evidently meant to prove the necessity of much consideration before a man prays; by showing, from the example of Œdipus, the mischiefs often consequent to rash and unpremeditated prayer. An opposition, therefore, seems intended between the αυτικα in this passage, and the προμηθεια, premeditation, or previous consideration, above recommended. Accordingly, we have ventured, against the opinion of Ernestus, in his Notes to Xenophon’s Memorab. lib. iv. cap. 7, to give this opposed meaning here to the word αυτικα, by rendering it in English inconsiderately; a meaning very little different from the primary and usual sense of the word, in which it signifies the same with παραυτικα, that is, immediately, directly, without delay.—S.
[4] The same relation of this curse is given by Euripides, in Phænissæ, ver. 68; by Sophocles, in Œdipus Colon. ver. 1437, 1447, et seq. (where Œdipus himself reiterates the curse:) and by the Scholiast on Æschylus, in Septem apud Thebas, ver. 613, 713, 729, and 853.—S.
[5] Curses in those antient days were prayers addressed to the Infernal Deities,—to Tartarus,—to primæval Night, but chiefly to the daughters of Night, the Eumenides. For no Deities who dwelt in light were imagined to be the authors of evil ever to any. In conformity with these practices and opinions, Sophocles, in the last of the two passages cited from him in note 7, and Statius, in his Thebaid, lib. i. ver. 56 et seq., give to this curse, pronounced by Œdipus against his sons, the form of a prayer, addressed to those powers of darkness. Hence appears the ignorance of the author of the κυκλικη Θηβαὶς, or old Greek ballad of the Siege of Thebes, cited by the scholiast on Sophocles, p. 577, edit. P. Steph. For, after he has told a very silly tale, how the two sons of Œdipus, having had an ox killed for a sacrifice, sent a joint of it to their father who was then blind,—and how Œdipus had expected the prime piece of all,—he concludes this part of the story in manner and form following; that is to say, being interpreted (as it ought to be) in ballad style and ballad metre,

As soon as e’er he understood
’Twas only the ache-bone,
For him too mean, unworthy food;
Against the ground, in wrathful mood,
He straightway dash’d it down.
Then pray’d he to th’ immortals all,
But chief to Jove on high,
That each by th’ other’s hand might fall;
And so to Pluto’s darksome hall
They both at once might fly.—S.
[6] The particulars are briefly related by Appollodorus, in Bibliothec. lib. iii. cap. 6 and 7.—S.
[7] In all the printed editions of the Greek we here read, Δοκει σοι οιον τε εἰναι, Do you think it possible, &c. And Cornarius, as if he found this reading in the Hessenstein manuscript, translates it into Latin thus: Videtur tibi fieri posse, &c. Ficinus and Stephens translate it, as if they had read in their manuscripts, Δοκει σοι δειν ειναι, Do you think that a man ought to be, &c. Neither of these readings can be right, because they, both of them, make this dialectical question to be foolish as well as impertinent; and because also either of them spoils the argumentation. To make the inference, in the next sentence of Socrates, just and conclusive, we must here read Δοκει σοι αναγκαιον ειναι, as we have supposed in translating it. The necessity of making this emendation in the Greek text was seen also by Dacier, as appears from his French translation.—S.
[8] That the philosophers of the Stoic sect derived from Socrates that celebrated paradox of theirs, παντας τους αφρονας μαινεσθαι, that all fools are mad, is a just observation of Cicero’s in Tuscul. Disputat. l. iii. § 5; and Dr. Davis, in his notes thereon, shows the justness of it, by referring to the passage in Plato now before us.—S.
[9] We have no single word in our language to denote that disease of the eyes, called by the Grecian physicians οφθαλμια, the word here used by Plato. They meant by it such a serous inflammation of the eyes, or defluxion of humours on them, as in Latin is called lippitudo.—S.
[10] That is, every continued indisposition of the body; whether the whole body suffer from it throughout, as in a fever; or whether it be seated in any organical part serving to motion, as in the gout; or serving to sensation, as in an ophthalmy. Plato, in his choice of similitudes and instances, where they are requisite to illustrate his subject, (and he never uses any but on such occasions,) is always so exquisitely curious, and often, as here, so scientifically judicious, that, with respect to this ingredient in good writing on ideal or intellectual subjects, we know of no writer who is his equal.—S.
[11] In the Socratic manner of arguing from answers given to interrogations, the interrogating party asserts nothing positively; nor even lays down the most certain principles for a foundation of the future reasoning, until they are admitted for truths by the responding party.—S.
[12] In the Greek, εμβροντητους, literally to be translated thunder-stricken. For the effect of lightning, (when attended by thunder,) and indeed of all æthereal or electrical fire, is to stupify, at least for a time, whatever animal it strikes.—S.
[13] This euphemismus is applied in the way of raillery or good-humour, to such men as want sense or understanding in the common affairs of human life; as men really magnanimous, being usually regardless of things really little and appearing so to them, are looked upon as fools or as senseless by the multitude, to whom those little things appear great and important —S.
[14] In the Greek, Ἐννεους, a word which, in the proper sense of it, is applied only to infants before they have attained to the use of speech. This epithet, and the two preceding it, are used in the way of extenuation or apology; the first for the wholly useless or unserviceable in any affair; the next for the silly or easy to be imposed on; the last for the silent from want of ideas, having nothing to say.—S.
[15] The word tyrant, every where in Plato, signifies a despotic or arbitrary monarch.—S.
[16] Thucydides, the son of Melesias, had been banished by ostracism, four or five years before what we suppose the time of this dialogue; and we no where read, that ever he was recalled from exile; nor indeed is it probable that he was, at least during the life of Pericles.—S.
[17] This was the case of Callias, the son of Calliades; he was slain in battle, about the time when the above-mentioned Thucydides was banished from Athens. See Thucydides the Historian, lib. i. §. 61, 2, and 3.—S.
[18] In the Greek, δια πολλων κινδυνων ελθοντες και φοβων.—But we should be glad to have the authority of some antient manuscript, for reading the last word in this sentence πονων, instead of φοβων· not only because the word πονων conveys a better meaning, but because also the words οἱ κινδυνοι τε και πονιο in the next sentence evidently appear to have respect to the mention of them both, made just before.—S.
[19] Perhaps the word ηδη in the Greek, which, as it is printed, precedes the word γενεσθαι, should be transferred from thence hither, that we might here read ηδη γενομενων.—S.
[20] This passage evidently alludes to a speech of Jupiter in Homer’s Odyssey, lib. i. v. 32, et seq.—S.
[21] It is necessary to observe, that this prayer is adapted solely to that part of mankind (and a very numerous part it is) who have not arrived at a scientific knowledge of divine concerns, and therefore know not what to pray for as they ought. See an excellent remark on this passage from Proclus in a note on the Republic, vol. i. p. 443. Mr. Sydenham, from mistaking the intention of this prayer, has made Socrates assert, without any authority from the text, that the author of it composed it for his own use as well as that of the ignorant. Hence he translates, “composed for his own use and theirs a common prayer.”—T.
[22] That part of the story of Orestes, which is here alluded to, is well known to those who are versed in Greek learning, from the Χοηφοροι of Æschylus, the Electra of Sophocles, and the Electra of Euripides.—For the story of Alcmæon, we refer them to the old Scholia on Homer’s Odyssey, lib. xi. v. 326; or to Servius’s Commentary on Virgil’s Æneid, lib. vi. v. 445. It is told more at large by Apollodorus, in lib. iii. cap. 6 and 7. But lest such of our readers, as happen to be unlearned in the history of antient Greece, should mistake the meaning of this passage, they are to be informed that Orestes and Alcmæon were guilty of so atrocious a crime, as the murder of their own mothers, out of a mistaken notion of filial piety, and an ignorance of the bounds of duty towards a father. Orestes was the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. His mother, in the absence of his father during the siege of Troy, carried on an amour with Ægisthus, cousin-german to Agamemnon. At her husband’s return home, after the destruction of Troy, she and her paramour procured his death; which was afterwards avenged by his children: for Orestes, at the instigation of his sister Electra, slew the adulterous pair together. Alcmæon was the son of Amphiaraus and Eriphyle. This lady betrayed her husband into a situation in which he must inevitably lose his life. He knowing how she had acted, and foreseeing the event, enjoined his son Alcmæon to avenge his death on Eriphyle, by taking away her life. In neither of these cases, cited here by Plato, does there appear any malice in the young princes against their mothers; no spirit of revenge for personal injuries done to them; no lust of riches or of dominion; in short, no selfish passion or appetite whatever; no other intention than to perform an imagined act of duty to their fathers, by doing such an act of justice on their mothers as belonged not to them to execute. It appears, that both of these unhappy princes perpetrated a deed so unnatural, from erroneoos notions of duty, justice, and honour; that is, through want of moral wisdom, or true prudence. We apprehend, therefore, that the drift of Plato in this passage is to prove, from these sad instances of the fatal effects of ignorance in the laws of nature and reason, the necessity of applying our minds to the study of moral science, in order to act rightly and to be happy.—S.
[23] In the Greek, ει, οιμαι, δοξει σοι ὁπερ ουθεν κωλυει, κ. τ. λ. The word οιμαι here seems to be out of its proper place, and to belong to the parenthetical part of this sentence, thus, ει δοξει σοι· ὁπερ, (or rather, as Stephens conjectures, ὁτιπερ,) οιμαι, ουθεν κωλυει δεπου τῳ γε αγνοουντι το βελτιστον παραστηναι ποτε δοξαν· ὡστε, κ. τ. λ.—S.
[24] Immediately before ειναι, which is the last word of this sentence in the Greek, the word τι seems to be omitted.—S.
[25] The words των αλλων επιστημων, in the Greek of this sentence, are sufficient to show, that, presently afterwards, we ought to read ανευ της του βελτιστου [sc. επιστημης]. And this reading, if it wanted confirmation, is indisputably confirmed by a subsequent passage, in which the very same paradoxical position, having been proved, is repeated as a conclusion from the proofs.—S.
[26] The last word of this sentence in the Greek, we presume, should be read, not αυτα, as it is printed; but, either αυτας [sc. επιστημας], or αυτο [sc. κτημα]. The latter of these two emendatory readings is confirmed by that passage, to which we have referred in the preceding note.—S.
[27] In the Greek, as it is printed, we here read ποιουντα, a word which is foreign to the sense. From what goes before, we conjecture the right reading to be either ωφελουντα, that is, ωφελειν επισταμενον, or else τοιουτον, that is, such a one as before described, ᾡ παρεπεται ἡ του βελτιστου επιστημη, whose particular knowledge or skill is attended with the science of what is best.—S.
[28] Instead of οἱς αρτι ειρηκαμεν, printed here in the Greek, we suspect that we ought to read ὡν α. ει.—S.
[29] Plutarch, towards the end of his treatise περι αδολεσχιας, concerning Talkativeness, cites the two following verses, which appear to be taken out of some antient Greek poet,

Νεμει το πλειστον ἡμερας τουτῳ μερος,
Ἱν’ αυτος αυτου τυγχανῃ κρατιστος ων.
He makes it the chief business of the day,
T’ attain to more, and still more, excellence.

In the passage now before us, we find the latter of these two verses cited by Plato, word for word. The former of them indeed he has a little altered; but only just so much as to adapt it to his own purpose; which could not be done without weaving it into his own prosaic style.—S.
[30] In the Greek, αυτον αυτῳ βελτιστου, Stephens perceiving this to be quite ungrammatical, proposes, by a very scholar-like as well as sensible emendation, that instead of αυτον we should read αὑτου. But perhaps the word αυτον was altogether intruded here by some transcriber, inattentive to the grammatical construction of this sentence, but who observed the words αυτον αυτῳ used in many following sentences, which have the same meaning with that now before us.—S.
[31] This interrogative sentence of Socrates no less evidently refers to a former sentence beginning with these words, The man therefore—a sentence that will greatly help us in amending this; the Greek of which, as it is printed, runs thus: Ουκουν καν μεν πραττῃ ἁ τις οιδεν, η δοκει ειδεναι, παρεπεται δη το ωφελιμως και λυσιτελουντως ἡμας ἑξειν, και τῃ πολει και αυτον αὑτῳ. Now in this sentence the words η δοκει ειδεναι not only are not found in the sentence to which this refers, and the sense of which it repeats with but little variation in the words, but they also convey a meaning contrary to the mind of Socrates. For he takes every occasion to inculcate, that only a man’s real knowledge, shown by his speeches, or his actions, and not his own false conceit of it, nor other men’s too high opinion of it, can be of any lasting advantage either to himself or to others. Of equal moment with this interpolation, (a fault to which the words οιηθηναι ειδεναι in the preceding sentence, where they are used rightly, seem to have given occasion,) is another fault in the sentence now before us, an omission of the words ἡ του βελτιστου επιστημῃ, or others to the same purport. For, without some such words, this sentence, in which Socrates delivers his opinion in the way of a question, is quite contradictory to his opinion, delivered but a little before in that sentence above referred to. Our supposition, that such words are here omitted in the printed editions of Plato, but ought to be inserted, is confirmed by the Latin of Ficinus, who translated faithfully from a manuscript copy of Plato, (probably the Medicean,) with which Grynæus afterwards compared and corrected that translation. For both Ficinus and Grynæus, in their Latin, insert these words; “addit autem scientiam optimi.” In this sentence also are wanting the words εδοκει ἡμιν; unless Plato purposely omitted them, as thinking it needless to repeat them, after they had been expressed in the question immediately preceding. There remains yet another fault in this sentence, the word ἡμας, a word which the grammatical construction by no means admits of. If our conjectural emendation of this sentence, which we now beg leave to offer to the learned, should appear to be a just one, it will appear at the same time, on examination, that all the faults in it, as printed, are owing originally to a mere transposition of some of the words in transcribing it, an error frequently found in antient manuscripts, and the cause of those many additional errors, as well in printed as in written copies, which were afterwards committed with intention to correct the former. The proposed reading is this; Ουκουν, καν μεν πραττῃ ἁ τις οιδε, παρεπεται δε ειδεναι το ωφελιμον, [or παρεπεται δε ἡ του βελτιστου επιστημη, as Ficinus and Grynæus seem to have read,] εδοκει ἡμιν, λυσιτελουντως ἑξειν τη πολει, και αυτον αὑτῳ.—S.
[32] This sentence, interrogative also, is thus printed in the Greek; ’Εαν δε γ’, οιμαι’, ταναντια τουτων, ουτε τη πολει, ουτ αυτον αὑτῳ: it plainly respects that passage cited in the last preceding note. The sense of it therefore must be the same with the sense of that: to express which sense exactly, we presume that we ought here to read, as follows; ’Εαν δ’ αγνοια [sc. του ωφελιμου παρεπεται], ταναντια τουτων, κ. τ. λ. There is thus, we see, but little alteration made, even in the letters; and the corruption of this passage was not perhaps made with more ease, than that with which the genuine reading has been restored.—S.
[33] Of this passage in the Greek, Monsieur Dacier says, “C’est un des plus difficiles endroits de Platon.” Indeed, as it is printed, it is quite unintelligible. For, after a comma put at the word πλειν, it proceeds thus; ὁσῳπερ αν μη προτερον επουρισῃ το της ψυχης. Ανευ γαρ ταυτης, ἧ περι, κ. τ. λ. But what if it were printed thus? Putting a full stop at πλειν, let the next sentence immediately begin, Ανευ γαρ ταυτης, ὁσῳπερ αν λαβροτερον επουρισῃ το της ψυχης, ἧ περι, κ. τ. λ. All the difficulty is now vanished by this slight transposition, and an easy alteration of μη προτερον to λαβροτερον, a word perhaps mistaken by the writer to whom it was read, from his not being so thoroughly well versed in the language of Homer, as a man must be before he can every where understand the language of Plato. Προτερον therefore being, as we suppose by this mistake, written in some manuscript copy of this dialogue, it is probable that some reader of it afterwards, who saw the absurdity of that word, condemned it by writing in the margin μη προτερον, and that the next half-learned transcriber, instead of omitting προτερον, took μη also into the text. Both these spurious words are rightly omitted in the Hessenstein manuscript, as we are informed by Cornarius; but the genuine word, in the mean time, was lost.—S.
[34] In the Greek, το της ψυχης, by which we understand το της ψυχης πνευμα in the nominative case before επουρισῃ, and not as Cornarius imagined, το πλοιον, or ακατιον, in the accusative case after that verb.—S.
[35] In the Greek, χρονον ου μακρον βιον θεων. Stephens proposes βιου θεων to be read for the two last words. And we embrace his proposal of reading βιου, but conjecture the right reading of the very last word to be rather βιων.—S.
[36] From this passage it appears, what opinion either Plato himself, or other learned men in his time, entertained of Homer, as a philosopher. For he here represents the great poet as possessed of some profound knowledge, which he thought proper and prudent to conceal from the bulk of mankind; and therefore making the discovery of it so difficult, on purpose that only those, whose genius led them to philosophy, and whose outward circumstances of fortune permitted them to follow their genius, might be able to make such a discovery from his writings.—S.
[37] We see, that the antient poem, entitled, from the name of the hero of it, Margites, in which was the verse above cited, is expressly attributed to Homer by Plato in this place; as it also is by Aristotle, in his Poetics, cap. 4, and in his Nichomachean Ethicks, lib. vi. cap. 7. What antient writers have acceded to their opinion, and what others have differed from it, may be seen in Fabricii Bibliothecâ Græcâ, l. ii. c. 2, § 24, n° 17.—S.
[38] In the Greek, αντι του κακου, we suspect the right reading to be αντι του κακον, that is, αντι του ονοματος ΚΑΚΟΝ, instead of the noun evil: as αντι του επιστασθαι, just after, means αντι του ῥηματος απαρεμφατου και πρωτοτυπου ’ΕΠΙΣΤΑΣΘΑΙ, instead of the infinitive and primitive verb to know.—S.
[39] We have here a specimen of Plato’s uncommon skill in philosophical or universal grammar. It appears, not only by his deducing the adverb ΚΑΚΩΣ, ill, from the substantive noun ΚΑΚΟΝ, evil, but also by (what shows a much deeper theory of words, considered as the parts of speech,) his deriving ΗΠΙΣΤΑΤΟ, he knew, a verb of the indicative mode, from the infinitive, or most general verb, ’ΕΠΙΣΤΑΣΘΑΙ, to know. See Mr. Harris’s Hermes, b. i. ch. xi. and viii.—S.
[40] The oracle of Ammon was highly celebrated for the truth of its predictions. It had been antiently consulted by Hercules and by Perseus. Long afterwards it was consulted by Crœsus, when he was meditating to stop the progress of Cyrus’s arms in Asia. In what veneration it was held by the Romans we learn from the ninth book of Lucan. And from the present passage in Plato, as also from the lives of Lysander, Cimon, and Alexander, in Plutarch, it appears to have been, among the Grecians of those days, in as great vogue and credit as any oracles of their own.—S.
[41] In the Greek, Ἑρδειν αθανατοισι τελειεσσας ἑκατομβας; a line this not found in the copies of Homer now extant; but in Barnes’s edition, supplied from this passage of Plato; and by Ernestus shown to be genuine, from the next line, which supposes the mention made of a sacrifice just before.—S.
[42] Κνιστη δ’ εκ πεδιου ανεμοι φερον ουρανον εισω. This line of Homer appears in all the editions of that poet. Plato is here obliged to take this sentence quite out of the metre; because he is relating, only at second hand and as told by Homer, a fact, the narration of which Homer himself puts immediately into the mouth of the muse: and, for the same reason, we have given a prosaic translation of it. In the preceding line, as also in those which follow, Plato was able to preserve the metre, while he only changed the indicative verbs into infinitive.—S.
[43] The verses, here translated, are not found in any of the editions of Homer, except in that of Barnes; but, as Ernestus judiciously observes, they are altogether worthy of that greatest of all poets.—S.
[44] Iliad. lib. v. ver. 127.—S.
[45] All those, who went to the temples with intent to petition the Gods for any particular favour, carried along with them crowns or garlands; and these they wore whilst they were praying. It was by such a crown, held by Alcibiades in his hand, that Socrates, in meeting him, conjectured rightly whither he was going.—S.
[46] The learned archbishop Potter, in his Archæolog. Græc. b. ii. ch. 4, very justly observes, that crowns and garlands were some of the presents offered to the Gods by their petitioners, to obtain some future benefit. And from the passage now before us we infer, that the very same crowns or garlands, worn by those petitioners during their prayers in the temples, they used, at their departure, to take off from their own heads, and to put them on the heads of the divine images; from whence afterward the priest took, and hung them up on the side walls of the temple. Plato here exhibits Alcibiades giving to Socrates the very honour which he had designed for the image of Jupiter. By this, we presume, he meant to signify, that whoever could teach wisdom and virtue, as Alcibiades supposed of Socrates, was to be esteemed and honoured as a divine man.—S.
[47] In the Greek, αλλο δε [f. αλλο τι] αντι των παρα σου δοθεντων ἡδεως ιδοιμι δεξαμενον εμαυτον. In which sentence the last word is, we doubt not, a corrupt reading, and was by Plato written σεαυτον. For we cannot apprehend how a man who has received a present can be said to make a return for it, by his own receiving of any other present from the same or any other person.—S.
[48] In this sentence all the words, enclosed within hooks, we have translated from Euripides, to render this passage of Plato clearer to those who have not read the Phænissæ of that poet, from which tragedy it is taken.—S.
[49] See the Phænissæ, v. 865.
[50] The fine turn, which Socrates here gives to his acceptance of the crown, presented to him by Alcibiades, is perfectly in character, being, at the same time, most ingenious, elegant, wise, modest, and polite. He accepts it not as an ensign of divine honour, as it was meant by the donor; but as a token of (future) victory; victory over his competitors for the friendship of Alcibiades, whom they endeavoured to corrupt, and success in his own endeavours to engage him wholly in the study of wisdom and the pursuit of virtue.—S. = END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME.