Volume 4

The works of Plato. A new and literal version, chiefly from the text of Stallbaum ... By Henry Cary [vol. II, Henry Davis, vols. III-VI, George Burges] / [Plato].

Plato

Date:: 1848-1854

Credit: The works of Plato. A new and literal version, chiefly from the text of Stallbaum ... By Henry Cary [vol. II, Henry Davis, vols. III-VI, George Burges] / [Plato]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$necessary for him, who has acted unjustly, to drag along with himself, both while he is moving about upon the earth, and when he takes ^ under the earth a journey without honour, and thoroughly miserable in every way. By detailing these and other reasons of the like kind, I was enabled to persuade Dion. And I should have felt most justly against those, who murdered him, an anger, in a certain man¬ ner, almost as great as against Dionysius ; for both had injured myself and all the rest, so to say, in the highest degree. For^ the former had destroyed a man, who was willing to make use of justice; while the latter (was) unwilling to make use of it through the whole of his dominions, although possessing the greatest power. In which (dominions) had philosophy and power existed really, as it were^ in the same (dwelling), they would have set up amongst all men, both Greeks and Barbari¬ ans, an opinion not vainly^ shining, (and) in every respect the true one, that neither a state nor a man can ever be happy, unless by leading a life with prudence in subjection to jus¬ tice, whether possessing those things themselves, or by being brought up in the habits of holy persons their rulers, or in¬ structed in justice. This injury did Dionysius inflict. But the rest would have been a trifling wrong, as compared to these. But he, who murdered Dion, did not know that he had done the same deed is, “ et quasi caecus non cernit se frustra contendere inexplebilem explore concupiscentiam; neque rursus cernit, quantum sit impietas malum qui- busque insit rebus, semper injustitiae mixta.” In other respects however his translation is too loose to be a safe guide. The Greek was perhaps originally to this effect, TvcpXbg wv yap ovx bp^v ojg KUKbv -pXiKbv del [ler dbiK{]p,arog eKaarov ^wsTrerai avT<p Tip p,7] Tr'ip.TtXaaQai r&v dp- Trayjadrwn dvoaiovpyia : and so I have translated. ^ On vouTog and vourelv, taken in the sense of going, not as usual of . returning, see my note on Philoct. 43. Here, however, the idea of a re.- turn is to be kept in mind. For the dead are said to return to the earth. See at Menexenus, § 6, and compare the language of Walter Scott, who says of the person, who has no love for his father-land, that he “ Living shall forfeit fair renown. And doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he sprung. Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung.” * To preserve the syntax must be inserted after obbkv— ^ Ficinus has “ vere in idem quasi domicilium ”—he therefore found in his MS. bvTijjg ihg iv ravTip oiKip, not merely ovrittg sv ravrip— ^ The Greek is here iKavSig, the sense requires ov KevHig— 2 L 2$