HOMERIC Mevqodo~ IN PLATO’S SOCRATIC DIALOGUESPlatonic writing; and (2) because it places the Socrates of the dialogues fi rst of
all as a philosophical creation, rather than as primarily a historical personage.
The argument does not depend on its authenticity at all.
- The Greek is “th`~ tou' o{lou fuvsew~”; Cobb has “the nature of the whole
in a general sense.” Both readings are possible, but the one I gave, which
more resembles Nehamas’ and Woodruff’s, seems more in accord with the
Platonic text. - Gorgias 463b4. Donald Zeyl translates tribhv as “routine,” but it seems
clear to me that Socrates intends the more biting meaning as primary. - The Cooper edition seems to prefer “way of inquiry,” which preserves the
oJdov~ but suggests more than one Greek word. It’s a diffi cult call. I’ve decided to
leave mevqodo~ untranslated. - Diomedes the Achaian and Glaukos the Trojan confront each other on
the battlefi eld, but discover that they were the ver y best of friends in childhood.
Enthralled by their accidental reunion, they exchange their armor as a sign of
their mutual delight (Iliad 6.119– 233), “but Zeus stole away the wits of Glaukos /
whom exchanged with Diomedes the son of Tydeus armor / of gold for bronze,
for nine oxen’s worth the worth of a hundred” (6.234– 36). - Iliad 10.224.
- As I demonstrated in The Play of the Platonic Dialogues, ei\do~ always oc-
curs not merely as a visible quality but as belonging fi rst and foremost to the
self-presentation of what shows itself. And what shows itself in the manner of eidos
in the Homeric epics is always a human being or a god. The only exception is
a trivial one, occurring in book 18 where Odysseus uses a derivative of ei\do~ to
describe Argos, Eumaios’ dog. - Aristophanic comedy presents many such leaps. The best known to
philosophers is in Clouds, which fi nds Socrates swinging in a basket from the
sky. Peace has its hero, the farmer Trugaios, ascend to Mount Olympos on a
dung beetle. Birds has its “heroes” Euelpides and Peistetairos build a city called
Nefelokokkugivan (“Cloudcuckooland” in Jeffrey Henderson’s translation) and
also has them grow wings. But Aristophanes’ comedies are inspired and rich,
unlike Agathon’s encomium to e[rw~. - See the Oxford Classical Dictionary, ed. Simon Hornblower and Antony
Spawforth (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 919, 1119. - See especially Ion 533c9– 535a2, and in particular 533c7– d4: “That is
why the god takes [the poets’] intellect [nou'~] away from them when he uses
them as his servants, as he does prophets and holy diviners, so that we who hear
should know that they are not the ones who speak those verses that are of such
high value, for their intellect is not in them.” - Before such a gifted person, Socrates says, we would fall on our knees,
but “we would say that there is no such man among us in our city, nor is it lawful
for such a man to be born there” (!) (Republic 368a5– 6). - I translate the uJpov- as “underlying” because it suggests that the genuine
sense of Homeric poetry in Plato, as will be shown, is its underlying or “deeper”
sense. - In “Mythos and Logos in Platonic Politeiai,” in History of European Ideas