James Adam, The Republic of Plato

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τυραννικὸς ὤν. “Have a care of inserting any negative particle here, as H. Stephanus would do, which would wholly destroy the sense” (Thomas Gray). Cf. 575 C, D and 579 C.

δυστυχὴς ᾖ. Cobet (V. L.^{2} p. 534) revives Bekker's δυστυχήσῃ: but the MS reading is preferable: “significatur infelicitatem ei qui tyrannus factus sit, usque adesse perpetuoque eum comitari” (Schneider). Cf. VIII 561 A note and δυστυχεῖ εἷναι 580 A.

ἀλλ᾽ εὖ μάλα κτλ.: ‘but carefully study by means of argument the two individuals in question.’ τὼ τοιούτω is literally ‘the two such people,’ i.e. the two τυραννικοί, viz. the τυραννικός who lives an ἰδιώτης βίος, and the τυραννικός who becomes a τύραννος. It is the relative position of these two individuals in respect of misery which is the question before us now, and the rest of this chapter aims at answering it by argument: see 579 C, D, where the conclusion of the reasoning is given. No satisfactory explanation of the MS reading τῷ τοιούτῳ λόγῳ σκοπεῖν (cr. n.) has yet been offered. Some hold that τοιούτῳ refers forward (“nach folgender Regel,” Schleiermacher, Prantl), but τῷ τοιούτῳ cannot be thus used, although τοιούτῳ by itself might be. Others translate “by the help of such a process of reasoning as we now employ” (J. and C. etc.). I doubt whether this meaning, which does not, by the way, furnish a sufficiently pointed antithesis to οἴεσθαι, is easily conveyed by τῷ τοιούτῳ. The translations “bei einer solchen Untersuchung” (Schneider), “where the argument is of such a nature” (J. and C., comparing the altogether different τοῖς τοιούτοις κακοῖς in 579 C), and ‘in this high argument’ are untenable on grammatical grounds; nor can we easily explain the dative as meaning ‘in the interests of’ (“videndum ne dativus eam rem significet, cuius gratia accurate quaerendum esse Socrates dicat” Schneider). The emendations proposed are (1) τὼ τοιούτω λόγω (Stephanus), (2) τὸ τοιοῦτον λόγῳ or τὸν τοιοῦτον λόγῳ (Ast), (3) fortasse εὖ μάλ᾽ ἐν κτλ. (W. H. Thompson J. Ph. V p. 218). Did Stephanus mean by τὼ τοιούτω λόγω something like the δίκαιος and ἄδικος λόγος of the Clouds? τοιούτω could not convey so much, but Stephanus was, I believe, on the right track when he restored τὼ τοιούτω. The corruption was all the easier, because the dual is constantly corrupted in the MSS of the Republic: thus in III 410 E all MSS have ἀμφότερα, in III 412 A ἐπιτεινομένῳ was written by A^{1}, in IV 422 E πολέμια is the reading of A, and in IV 442 D both A and Π give τῷ ἀρχομένῳ for τὼ ἀρχομένω. Cf. also III 395 A note