BERNARD FREYDBERG16, nos. 4– 6: 607– 12, I attempt to show that the excision of the exploits of epic
heroes would both alienate the souls of the young who need to be educated
and would also “carve whole pieces out of the Greek soul” (608). This matter
is treated more generally in chapter 7 of The Play of the Platonic Dialogues (New
York: Peter Lang, 1997).
- Among the passions and emotions to be purged are the following: (1)
strife (among the gods and elsewhere; Republic 378b8ff.); (2) violation of oaths
(379e2– 3); (3) causing evil (380a2– 4); (4) lying (382a1ff., 389b2ff.); (5) fear of
death (386a7ff.); (6) crying and lamenting (in general, and for lost loved ones;
387d4ff.); (7) and laughing (388e5ff.). There are many others, including—al-
beit obliquely—e[rw~! (396d2). - In chapter 3 of The Play of the Platonic Dialogues, I attempt to show that
there is never any claim in any of the dialogues that an original, an ei\do~, has
been noetically sighted, despite the many gestures in that direction that the
text makes. Rather, every time it appears that such an ascent to such a sighting
might occur, Socrates either breaks off the discourse, either with some words
of disclaimer (for example, “as it seems to me,” or “a god knows if it happens to
be so”) or else with a remark on the need for a longer path, another method, a
more well-prepared interlocutor. I interpret these dodges as playful in the high-
est sense, that is, as reminding us of what we cannot see in order that we hold
ourselves within the limits of what we can. - Book 2 of the Republic, 380d1ff.
- The Homeric images I treat in this section were all gleaned from sug-
gestions in Cooper’s notes. - I have not been able to determine why there are three different myths
of the lineage of Otos and Ephialtes. All three have their hubristic challenge to
the gods as their theme, but I have not been able to discover, either in the litera-
ture or through my own study, why Poseidon, Apollo, and Zeus are called their
father in three different contexts. I would welcome any insight on this matter. - See note 15 above.
- Regarding the Phaedrus in particular, this is the translation of Ne-
hamas and Woodruff in the Cooper volume. Helmbold and Rabinowitz also
have “proof,” as do Hackforth (in the Hamilton and Cairns volume) and Jowett.
There are exceptions, but while they are better, they are not particularly ex-
pansive. On page 50 of her Plato’s Phaedrus: A Defense of Philosophical Writing
(Birmingham: University of Alabama Press, 1980), Burger renders it as the less
loaded “demonstration,” as does Cobb in The Symposium and the Phaedrus: Plato’s
Erotic Dialogues (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993). - John Sallis, Being and Logos: Reading the Platonic Dialogues, 3rd ed.
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), 135– 36. - “Enormous punishment”; for example, Diomedes’ wounding by “limp
spearman” Paris after his earlier attack on Aphrodite. Once Odysseus removed
Paris’ arrow from Diomedes’ foot, the latter experienced “hard pain” and had
his charioteer “drive him back to the hollow ships, since his heart was heavy”
(Iliad 11.368 – 400).