[392e]
I won't try to speak
in wholes1 and universals but will separate off a particular
part and by the example of that try to show you my meaning. Tell me. Do you
know the first lines if the Iliad in which the poet says that
Chryses implored Agamemnon to release his daughter, and that the king was
angry and that Chryses,
1 Plato and Aristotle often contrast the universal and the particular as whole and part. Cf. Unity of Plato's Thought, p. 52. Though a good style is concrete, it is a mark of linguistic helplessness not to be able to state an idea in general terms. Cf. Locke, Human Understanding, ii. 10. 27: “This man is hindered in his discourse for want of words to communicate his complex ideas, which he is therefore forced to make known by an enumeration of the simple ones that compose them.”
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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