[576a]
or, if they themselves want
something, they themselves fawn1 and shrink from no
contortion2 or
abasement in protest of their friendship, though, once the object gained,
they sing another tune.3”
“Yes indeed,” he said. “Throughout their
lives, then, they never know what it is to be the friends of anybody. They
are always either masters or slaves, but the tyrannical nature never tastes
freedom4 or true friendship.” “Quite
so.” “May we not rightly call such men faithless5?” “Of course.” “Yes, and
unjust to the last degree,
1 ὑποπεσόντες: cf. on 494 Cὑποκείσονται.
2 σχήματα was often used for the figures of dancing. Cf. Laws 669 D, Aristoph.Peace 323, Xen.Symp. 7. 5, Eurip.Cyclops 221. Isoc.Antid. 183 uses it of gymnastics.
3 Cf. Phaedr. 241 Aἄλλος γεγονώς, Demosth. xxxiv. 13ἕτερος ἤδη . . . καὶ οὐχ ὁ αὐτός.
4 Cf. Lucian, Nigrinus 15ἄγευστος μὲν ἐλευθερίας, ἀπείρατος δὲ παρρησίαςAristot.Eth. Nic. 1176 b 19, 1179 b 15.
5 Cf. Laws 730 C, 705 A.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.