[430e]
be very wrong1 of me not to desire
it,” said I. “Go on with the inquiry then,” he
said. “I must go on,” I replied, “and viewed
from here it bears more likeness to a kind of concord and harmony than the
other virtues did.” “How so?”
“Soberness is a kind of beautiful order2 and a continence of certain pleasures and appetites, as they
say, using the phrase ‘master of himself’ I know not
how; and there are other similar expressions that as it were point us to the
same trail. Is that not so?” “Most certainly.”
“Now the phrase ‘master of himself’ is an
absurdity, is it not? For he who is master of himself would also be subject
to himself,
1 εἰ μὴ ἀδικῶ is idiomatic, “I ought to.” Cf. 608 D, 612, Menexenus 236 B.
2 Cf. Gorgias 506 E ff.σωφροσύνη and σωφρονεῖν sometimes mean etymologically of sound mind or level head, with or without ethical suggestion, according to the standpoint of the spaeker. Cf. Protagoras 333 B-C. Its two chief meanings in Greek usage are given in 389 D-E: subordination to due authority, and control of appetite, both raised to higher significance in Plato's definition. As in the case of bravery, Plato distinguishes the temperamental, the bourgeois, the disciplined, and the philosophical virtue. But he affects to feel something paradoxical in the very idea of self-control, as perhaps there is. Cf. Laws 626 E ff., 863 D, A.J.P. vol. xiii. pp. 361 f., Unity of Plato's Thought, nn. 77 and 78.
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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