[475c]
“Certainly.” “The student, then, who is
finical1 about his studies, especially when he is young
and cannot yet know by reason what is useful and what is not, we shall say
is not a lover of learning or a lover of wisdom, just as we say that one who
is dainty about his food is not really hungry, has not an appetite for food,
and is not a lover of food, but a poor feeder.” “We
shall rightly say so.” “But the one who feels no
distaste in sampling every study, and who attacks his task of learning
gladly and cannot get enough of it, him we shall justly pronounce the lover
of wisdom, the philosopher, shall we not?” To which Glaucon
replied,2
1 δυσχεραίνοντα, squeamish, particular, “choicy.” Cf. 391 E, 426 D, and Pope, Essay on Criticism, 288—“Those heads, as stomachs, are not sure the best,/ Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest.”
2 Plato as usual anticipates objections and misunderstandings. Cf. e.g. on 487 B.
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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