[604c]
and nothing in mortal
life is worthy of great concern,1 and our grieving checks2 the very thing we
need to come to our aid as quickly as possible in such case.”
“What thing,” he said, “do you
mean?” “To deliberate,”3 I said, “about what has
happened to us, and, as it were in the fall of the dice,4 to determine the movements of our
affairs with reference to the numbers that turn up, in the way that reason
indicates5 would be the best, and, instead of stumbling like children,
clapping one's hands to the stricken spot6 and
wasting the time in wailing,
1 Cf. Laws 803 B and Class. Phil. ix. p. 353, n. 3, Friedländer, Platon, i. p. 143.
2 Höffding, Outlines of Psychology, p. 99, refers to Saxo's tale of the different effect which the news of the murder of Regner Lodbrog produced on his sons: he in whom the emotion was the weakest had the greatest energy for action.
3 Cf. Herod. i. 20πρὸς τὸ παρεὸν βουλεύηται.
4 Cf. Eurip.Electra 639 and fr. 175πρὸς τὸ πῖπτον, Iph. Aul. 1343 and Hippol. 718πρὸς τὰ νῦν πεπτωκότα, Epictet. ii. 5. 3. See also Stallbaum ad loc.
5 Cf. 440 B, 607 B, Herod. i. 132.
6 Cf. Demosthenes' description of how barbarians box iv. 40 (51),ἀεὶ τῆς πληγῆς ἔχεται.
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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