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.

565/570 (page 557)

$should any message or letter arrive, relating^ to you, that they take care you know of it as quickly as possible, and that they put you in mind of it, in order that you may attend to the matter mentioned in the letters. And for the present do you not neglect the repayment of the money to Leptines, but repay it as quickly as possible, so that others, looking to him, may be the more ready to minister to myself. latrocles, who at that time was, together with Myronides, dismissed as a freed-man by myself, sails now with the things sent by me; keep him in your pay, as being well disposed to¬ wards you, and make use of him in any way you please, ^ and know yourself either the letter itself, or if a memorandum of it is preserved.^ ^ I have translated, as if the Greek were, what the sense requires, Trepi <76, not, as at present, Trapd <te—• 2—2 TPe words between the numerals I cannot understand. Stephens’s version is “ et epistolam aut ipsam, aut, si ipsius exemplar servatur, tute cognosce.” But vTroixvrjfia is not the Greek for “ exemplar,” but for “ commentarius.” The Greek is /cat rrjv iTnaroX'qv r} avrriv j], ei vtto- ixvrjfia avrrjg aoj^erai, Kal avrog laQi. One MS. however has a avrijv : two omit ei: one reads avroig for avrrjg, and one Kai 6 avrog : all which are proofs of some deep-seated disorder here. The sense seems to have been originally something to this effect, “ and acquaint yourself with the letter from itself, or, if it be not preserved, from the memorandum of the person who has heard it ”—in Greek, KaVrrjv eTriaroXrjv ^ avrfiv ei ixT) (Tiv^erat, did rb vTTOfivrjfxa avrrjv rov dicrjKoorog i<j9i. So in Euri¬ pides, Iphigenia is represented as telling the contents of the letter she is putting into the hands of Pylades; for to use her own words in v. 744, riv fxev eKacvayg ypacprjv, Avrrj (ppacrei (nyOrcra rdrreara\fxkva’ ’'Hr' b’ ev 9a\d(j<yy ypdfifxar d<pavia9y rdSe, To aiofxa crdvrag, rovg \6yovg crivaeig ep,oi. i. e. “ If you preserve the writing, ’twill itself The matter of the missive silent tell; But if by the sea the writing disappears. Saving your body, you will save my words.” As the foregoing Epistle was considered by Serranus to be spurious, Stephens was led to defend it by observing that it was referred to by Plutarch in T. ii. p. 533, B., and Theodoret, p. 27, ed. Sylb. So too when Collins had in his “ Discourse on Free Thinking ’’ reiterated the opinion expressed by Cudworth in his Intellectual System, p. 403, ed. 1678, of the Epistle being spurious, Bentley in his Remarks, p. 411, ed. Dyce, observed that the internal character of the letter exhibits all the marks of genuineness; for it is not a mere mass of common-place, such as the letters forged by Sophists generally are, but one of business, and with the circumstantial account of persons and things, suited to the writer and the times in which he lived; as in the passage, where allusion is made 2 o$