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PRESBYOPIC CORRUPTION: PLATO, SYMPOSIVM 219A

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2019

Archibald Allen*
Affiliation:
New York

Extract

Alcibiades relates Socrates' warning on his proposal for a reciprocal exchange of beauty; he should take a better look (ἄμεινον σκόπει) in case he is mistaken about Socrates' beauty and true worth: ἥ τοι τῆς διανοίας ὄψις ἄρχεται ὀξὺ βλέπειν ὅταν ἡ τῶν ὀμμάτων τῆς ἀκμῆς λήγειν ἐπιχειρῆι· σὺ δὲ τούτων ἔτι πόρρω, ‘the sight of the mind, you know, begins to see sharply when the sight of the eyes attempts (?) to fade from its prime—but you (are) still far from these (developments).’

Type
Shorter Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2019 

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References

1 Renehan, R., ‘Plato, Symposium 219a2–4’, CR 19 (1969), 270–1Google Scholar.

2 So, for example, with explicit translation, Stallbaum, G., Platonis opera omnia, vol. 1 Symposium (Gothae, 1828)Google Scholar, wann die Schärfe der Augen aufzuhören beginnt’; Robin, L., Platon, t. IV Le Banquet (Paris, 1929)Google Scholar, quand celle des yeux se met à perdre de son acuité’; Lamb, W.R.M., Plato III, Symposium (Cambridge, Mass. & London, 1925/1983)Google Scholar, ‘when the visual [sight] is entering on its wane’. For tacit acceptance of ἐπιχειρῆι = ἄρχηται vel sim., see Bury, R.G., The Symposium of Plato (Cambridge, 1932 2)Google Scholar and many others, including Burnet, J., Platonis opera, vol. II (Oxford, 1901)Google Scholar.

3 He compares [Plat.] I Alc. 131e11 τὰ δὲ σὰ λήγει ὥρας, σὺ δ᾽ ἄρχηι ἀνθεῖν (‘the things that are yours are fading from their prime, while you are beginning to bloom’).

4 Dover, K., Plato: Symposium (Cambridge, 1980)Google Scholar.

5 Waterfield, R., Plato: Symposium. A New Translation (Oxford, 1994)Google Scholar.

6 Rowe, C., Plato: Symposium (Warminster, 1998)Google Scholar.

7 Cf. Boter, G., The Textual Tradition of Plato's Republic (Leiden, New York, Köln, 1989), 107CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Halliwell, S.H., ‘Forms of address: Socratic vocatives in Plato’, in de Martino, F. and Sommerstein, A.H. (edd.), Lo Spettacolo delle Voci, vol. 2 (Bari, 1995), 87121, at 107Google Scholar, cited by Rowe (n. 6), ad loc.