by Plato
10 (10.600b) Creophylus, the companion of Homer : Some sources call Creophylus Homer’s hetairos (that is, “friend,” “companion,” also “disciple”), while others claim that he was a son-in-law. The name Creophylus “makes us laugh” because, as it is apparently derived from the words for “meat” (kreas) and “race” or “tribe” (phylon), it can be interpreted as meaning something like “made from meat” (hence Jowett’s interpolation, “that child of flesh”). The story about Creophylus’ disregard for Homer does not appear in other sources.
11 (10.600c) can you imagine... that he would not have had many followers, and been honored and loved by them?: In Gorgias 519c-d, Socrates similarly asserts that, if students mistreat their instructor (that is, a Sophist or rhetorician like Gorgias), the fault lies with the instructor and exposes his failure as an educator.
12 (10.600c) Protagoras of Abdera and Prodicus of Ceos: Protagoras, from Abdera in Thrace, was one of the most prominent and successful “sophists” in Athens in the mid-fifth century B.C.E. See note 2 on 5.449d for the educational claim that Plato puts in Protagoras’ mouth in Protagoras 318e-319a. If the “dramatic date” of Republic is meant to be 411 or 410 B.C.E., the reference to Protagoras in the present tense would be anachronistic. Prodicus, from the island Ceos, was another prominent and successful Sophist who was active in Athens during Socrates’ lifetime; in Protagoras, he and Protagoras are represented as staying in the home of the wealthy Athenian Callias.
13 (10.601c) only the horseman who knows how to use them—he knows their right form: The superior “knowledge” attributed in this passage to the per-Ison who uses a given object is not to be confused with the philosopher’s knowledge (epistemê) of the ideas.
14 (10.602b) Imitation is only a kind of play or sport; Compare Phaedrus 274c-278e; also Laws 3.685a, 4.712b, and 7.817a-d; Republic 7.536b-c. As these and other passages suggest, Plato would have readily acknowledged that his own dialogues, qua “imitations,” are in the final analysis “play,” albeit an especially constructive type of “play.”
15 ( 10.602d) And the arts of measuring and numbering and weighing come to the rescue of the human understanding ... and the apparent greater or less... give way before calculation and measure and weight?: Compare 7.522c-526c, especially 7.522e-524d.
16 (10.604e) And does not... the rebellious principle ... furnish a great variety of materials for imitation? Whereas the wise and calm temperament ... is not easy to imitate or to appreciate when imitated, especially... when a promiscuous crowd is assembled in a theatre.... : This concession that the sober behavior of upright, self-restrained figures does not make for “good theater” figures into a broad critique of the dynamics of public performance, whether in theatrical competitions or political assemblies or law courts, that takes shape in several Platonic dialogues. Gorgias 501d-511a, for example, highlights how dramatists and politicians alike, as they compete for public favor, are obliged to “flatter” their audiences and cater to their tastes; compare what Socrates says about sophists in Republic 6.493a-d. Plato’s dialogues themselves, we might imagine, offer alternatives to the unwholesome yet exciting exhibitions on the tragic stage, and they arguably live up to the standards Socrates establishes in this passage for imitations of “the wise and calm temperament.” Yet they were hardly intended for popular consumption by the “promiscuous crowd” and would thus bear out Socrates’ point that the “imitative poet who aims at being popular” is bound to prefer the easily imitated “passionate and fitful temper.”
17 ( 10.605c-d) the best of us... delight in giving way to sympathy, and are in raptures at the excellence of the poet who stirs our feelings most: Socrates’ acknowledgment of the powerful appeal of “moving” passages in poetry resonates with his repeated professions of affection for Homer, and also looks ahead to his conclusion that “hymns to the gods and praises of famous men are the only poetry which ought to be admitted into our State” ( 10.607a). This is a far stricter provision for “censorship” than what was argued for, vis-à-vis the education of children in the guardian classes, in books 2 and 3, and reflects the emerging concern in Republic’s later books that adults, even when intelligent and well disciplined, can readily become “childish.”
18 (10.607a) For if you go beyond this and allow the honeyed muse to enter, either in epic or lyric verse, not law and the reason of mankind, which by common consent have ever been deemed best, but pleasure and pain will be the rulers in our State : See note 2 on 3.391a and note 6 on 9.577a; also 6.505c.
19 (10.607b) let us tell her that there is an ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry; of which there are many proofs: As far back as the archaic period, individuals such as Xenophanes criticized the representations of the gods in Homer. These men were themselves poets, but it is perhaps fair to identify in their works the beginnings of a “quarrel” between poetry and philosophy. On the other hand, it may be wise to take Socrates’ claim about the antiquity of the quarrel with a few grains of salt—since Xenophanes and his kind were not “philosophers” according to the standards developed in books 6 and 7 of Republic—and to construe what is said here as an effort to promote and justify the systematic critique of poetry and its cultural impact that Plato undertakes in his dialogues.
20 ( 10.608b) for great is the issue at stake, greater than appears, whether a man is to be good or bad: Literally, “for great is the contest....” See note 14 on 1.344e.
21 ( 10.608c) And yet no mention has been made of the greatest prizes and rewards which await virtue: The challenge that Glaucon and Adeimantus set up for Socrates in book 2 (culminating at 2.367a-e) was to demonstrate that justice is intrinsically “profitable” and injustice “unprofitable,” regardless of external circumstances such as rewards or penalties. At this point, which marks the beginning of Republic’s final section, Socrates argues that his companions should return to him what was “borrowed in the argument” (10.612c)—that is, the recognition of and rewards given for justice by both human beings and gods, in this life and the next. The consideration of the rewards for justice and penalties for injustice in the hereafter, which are of far longer duration and far greater consequence than what is received while one is alive, motivate the discussion of the soul’s immortality that begins just below.
22 (10.608d) Are you not aware, I said, that the soul of man is immortal and imperishable?: In Phaedo and Phaedrus, Plato has Socrates contend that the soul is immortal, and that the death or destruction of the body does not entail the death or destruction of the soul. Whereas Socrates simply assumes that the soul is immortal in Gorgias 523a-b, he offers explanations, or “proofs,” of its immortality here and also in Phaedo 64a-107d and Phaedrus 245c-246a. The argument made below in 10.608d-611a—that is, that things can be destroyed only by their own particular “evil” (kakon in Greek) and that, since the soul is not destroyed by its evil (that is, injustice), it cannot be destroyed at all and is therefore immortal—differs from what is adduced in Phaedo and Phaedrus, and these differences suggest that Plato did not intend Socrates’ arguments to be construed as offering definitive answers. Rather, the reason-Iing presented here about everything having a particular “evil” seems to hark back to and reinforce the crucial assumptions introduced at 1.352d-354a that each thing, whether living or inanimate, has a single function, and that there is a unique “excellence” that enables this function to be performed well.
23 ( 10.608d) He looked at me in astonishment, and said: No, by heaven: And are you really prepared to maintain this?: The notion that souls (psychai) somehow survived the body and were taken to the underworld (or, in special instances, to the Islands of the Blessed) was widely accepted, and it was central to both the Orphic and Pythagorean systems of belief. Socrates has already introduced the concept of the soul’s reincarnation at 6.498d. What surprises Glaucon at this moment is, perhaps, Socrates’ readiness to make a rational case for the immortality of the soul.
24 (10.611a-b) But this we cannot believe.. any more than we can
believe the soul... to be full of variety and difference and dissimilarity: In Phaedo 72b, Plato has Socrates use similar reasoning to establish that the living “come from the dead”—that is, by the process of reincarnation. The contention immediately below that the soul “cannot be compounded of many elements” also corresponds with Phaedo 79d-80b, and the image of the soul as marred by communion with the body and other miseries resembles what Socrates asserts in Phaedo 67a and 82e. For the need to contemplate the soul “in her original purity” (that is, apart from the body), see also Gorgias 524d-525a.
25 (10.612c) Will you repay me, then, what you borrowed in the argument?: See book 2, especially 2.361c and 2.367c-e, as well as note 21 on 10.608c. Socrates’ language may deliberately echo the terms in which he, Cephalus, and Polemarchus initially discussed justice at 1.331a-332c—that is, as the repayment of debts and the giving of what is “due.”
26 (10.613c) And now you must allow me to repeat of the just the blessings which you were attributing to the fortunate unjust: At 2.360e-362c, Glaucon imagines the lot of the “happy” unjust man, who literally gets away with murder, and that of the wrongly tormented “unhappy” just man; here Socrates reverses their situations.
27 (10.614b) I will tell you a tale: Like Republic, Gorgias and Phaedo conclude with tales about the afterlife, which describe the experiences of the soul when separated from the body; in Phaedrus 246a-256e, Socrates presents another, quite lengthy eschatological myth. Like the myth of Er in Republic, these stories describe the rewards received after death by those who have been virtuous in life and, conversely, the punishments of those who have been unjust, but their details and emphases differ considerably. Glaucon prefaces the myth in Republic by claiming that nothing would be “more pleasant” (hedion in Greek—Jowett’s translation of Glaucon’s statement “there are few things which I would more gladly hear” is less than literal). Although the myth’s concerns are very serious, Glaucon’s words suggest that Plato did not mean his readers to take it as literal truth. As with the different arguments for the soul’s existence in Republic and other dialogues, it is worth considering how the details and emphases in this and the other eschatological myths may be determined by the particular concerns of their dialogues.
28 (10.614b) not one of the tales which Odysseus tells to the hero Alcinoüs, yet this, too, is a tale of a hero, Er the son of Armenius, a Pamphylian by birth: Books 9-12 of Odyssey, in which Odysseus tells Alcinoüs, king of the Phaea cians, about his wanderings after the fall of Troy, were traditionally called “the tales to Alcinoüs” (apologoi Alcinou). The phrase rendered by Jowett as “a tale of a hero” (apologon alkimou andros) is plainly meant to be a pun on apologos Alcinou. There has been a good deal of speculation since antiquity on Plato’s source(s) for the story of Er, son of Armenius. Pamphylia was a territory in southern Asia Minor, and the names “Er” and “Armenius” also suggest that the story has an origin in the Near East. Some scholars have also interpreted “Pamphylia” as meaning “from every tribe” (that is, pan + phylon), thus suggesting that Er is a figure universally representative of humanity.
29 (10.616b-c) another day’s journey brought them to the place, and there, in the midst of the light, they saw the ends of the chains of heaven let down from above: It is difficult to determine where exactly Er and his fellow travelers are standing; what kind of place could afford this comprehensive view of the cosmos, in all its enormity? Other elements in the description are equally challenging; how, for example, does the spindle of Necessity hang from the ends of the light shaft that binds heaven and earth together but also turn on Necessity’s knees? There is much scholarly debate over the significance of various details in the description that follows, and it seems wisest to approach the whole picture with a flexible imagination. However its details are construed, the overall purpose of Er’s vision of the light binding the universe together and of the spindle of Necessity is to convey the sense of cosmic order. All that happens in human life, including and especially the judgment of one’s past life and one’s choice of the next life ( 10.617d-620d), occurs in accordance with this order, and thus “justice” is shown to be a fundamental cosmic principle.There is also disagreement about the sources of inspiration for the cosmic vision revealed to Er. The geocentric conception of the cosmos seems to reflect contemporary astronomical theories, as does the conception of the heavenly bodies, whose movements in the sky are contained (or reflected?) in the eight concentric hemispheres that comprise the whorl of Necessity’s spindle. Several scholars argue that these conceptions reflect Pythagorean speculation, at least in part. At 7.529a-530b, however, Socrates draws a distinction between the true astronomy practiced by philosophers, which is concerned with abstract problems of movement, and the pedestrian concerns of the Pythagoreans and others, who (so Socrates claims) content themselves with studying the motions of mere physical entities. The image of the concentric hemispheres of the heavens presented in the figure of Necessity’s whorl is plainly an ideal model concerned with elucidating cosmic order in toto, and as such it seems to accord with the aims and goals of what Socrates has defined as “true” astronomy. If the image draws on Pythagorean thinking, it perhaps also offers a critique of and corrective to it. Nonetheless, the placement of the image within a myth that has been characterized as “pleasant” (see note 27 on 10.614b) ought make us wary of believing that Plato intended his readers to take its details literally.
30 ( 10.616c) for this light is the belt of heaven, and holds together the circle of the universe: The “line of light, straight as a column” mentioned just above is envisioned as penetrating the center of both the heavens and the earth, which is itself at the center of the heavens. Some scholars interpret the reference to “under-girders of a trireme” to mean that bands of light must also wrap around the outside of the heavens. The term “under-girders” (hypozomata), however, can refer to cables that pass from bow to stern within a ship’s hull and hold it together lengthwise. If these kinds of cables are what Plato had in mind, then it seems likely that we are meant to envision heaven and earth held together by only a single, central shaft of light.
31 (10.616c) the whorl is made partly of steel and also partly of other materials: The whorl of Necessity’s spindle differs from ordinary whorls in that it is perfectly hemispherical and composed of eight hollow hemispheres of different thicknesses and materials and colors, which fit together, one inside the other. Each hemisphere contains or represents—it is not entirely clear which is the more proper conception—a heavenly body and its placement in the heavens, except for the outermost one, which contains or represents “the fixed stars” and so has several heavenly bodies. The “movements” of the heavenly bodies and the appearances of their different rates of speed are accounted for by the rotations (at different speeds) of the hemispheres, which are counter to the rotation of the spindle as a whole.
32 (10.617b) a siren, who goes round with them, hymning a single tone or note: The notion of “astral music” is clearly Pythagorean; compare 7.530d, where the studies of astronomy and harmonics are said, following the Pythagoreans, to be “sister sciences.”
33 (10.617b) The eight together form one harmony: Harmonia, literally “tuning,” usually refers to notes that are sequentially rather than simultaneously sung or played. Although it may be that the sirens emit their single notes simultaneously, it is perhaps more reasonable to assume that they sing in sequence, and that the notes they emit make up two tetrachords.
34 (10.617e) “the responsibility is with the chooser—God is justified”: The prophet’s pronouncement begins Republic’s final argument for the utility of philosophy. Not only does the person who practices philosophy choose wisely and so become “happy” while he or she is alive on earth, but the ability that he or she gains to “learn and discern between good and evil,” and to determine (literally, “reason out”) which qualities of the soul are better and worse, is the only thing that will enable him or her to choose the next life wisely, “undaz
zled by the desire of wealth or the other allurements of evil ...” (10.618b-619b). Without philosophy, one lacks the reasoning ability (logos) to make the best decisions, as is borne out by the example of the man whose aretê in his former life “was a matter of habit only,” and who has no logos to keep him from choosing the greatest tyranny as his next life (10.619b-d). So, too, it is only the saving grace of philosophic logos that keeps souls from drinking too much from the river of Unmindfulness (10.621a). The fact that the myth is offered as a fanciful and “pleasant” construction does not detract from the overall seriousness and significance of what it conveys. This passage, which accentuates the responsibility that individuals have for shaping their lives, is very much in keeping with the major concerns of Republic. That there is a lottery determining the order in which one may choose one’s future life is a concession to the fact that control over circumstances is not complete; nonetheless, as the prophet insists, “Even for the last comer, if he chooses wisely ... there is appointed a happy and not undesirable existence” (10.619b).
35 ( 10.621c) And it shall be well with us both in this life and in the pilgrimage of a thousand years which we have been describing: Literally rendered, the last words of Republic are, “and as we receive the rewards of justice, just like victors in games collecting prizes, both here and in the thousand-year journey that we have described, let us do well.” The phrase “let us do well” (eu prattômen) is in the subjunctive mood and is therefore hortatory, not declar ative. In Greek the expression “to do well” has some of the same ambiguities that it can have in English, since it means both “to act well” and “to do good things,” and also “to fare well.” Eu prattômen is a favorite phrase of salutation and farewell in the letters attributed to Plato, and it may reflect his personal usage. They are fitting closing words for Republic, which has been concerned all along with “doing” and “faring” well.
