R. G. Bury, The Symposium of Plato

τοῦτο μὲν ὑπάρχειν. “That this (viz. the statement of the facts) should be the ground-work”: there is no need to insert, with Bast, πρῶτον or μέγιστον after τοῦτο. For this sense of ὑπάρχειν, cp. Menex. 237 B. For the thought, cp. Emerson “Veracity first of all and forever. Rien de beau que le vrai.”

ἐξ αὐτῶν δὲ τούτων. Rettig's comment on this is “mit Beziehung auf das collective in τοῦτο gedachte τἀληθῆ.” This is misleading, since τοῦτο means τὸ τἀληθῆ λέγειν, a singular notion, and αὐτὰ ταῦτα here represents simply τἀληθῆ. In the Socratic theory of rhetoric here stated we have the following order of treatment proposed: (1) τὸ τἀληθῆ λέγειν, (2) ἡ τῶν καλλίστων ἐκλογή, (3) ἡ εὐπρεπὴς θέσις. But it is implied that the 2nd and 3rd of these—artistic selection and arrangement—are valueless, except in so far as they are based on the 1st requisite: in other words, matter is more important than form. Cp. Procl. in Tim. p. 27 αἱ γὰρ ἀπὸ τῆς οὐσίας εὐφημίαι πασῶν προέχουσεν, ὡς καὶ ὁ ἐν τῷ Συμποσίῳ Σωκράτης παραδίδωσιν.

ὡς εἰδὼς τὴν ἀλήθειαν. I follow Badham and Hug in bracketing the next words (τοῦ ἐπαινεῖν ὁτιοῦν) as an erroneous gloss on ἀλήθειαν, with which we must supply περὶ τοῦ ἔρωτος, as required by δεινὸς τὰ ἐρωτικά above and the passage there alluded to (175 D). Cp. Phaedrus 259 E ἆρ᾽ οὖν οὐχ ὑπάρχειν δεῖ τοῖς εὖ γε καὶ καλῶς ῥηθησομένοις τὴν τοῦ λέγοντος διάνοιαν εἰδυῖαν τὸ ἀληθὲς ὧν ἂν ἐρεῖν πέρι μέλλῃ. Rettig defends the traditional text, asking “ist denn ἡ ἀλήθεια τοῦ ἐπαινεῖν ὁτιοῦν hier nicht identisch mit ἡ ἀλήθεια περὶ Ἔρωτος?” To this the answer is “no!”: for if the tradition be kept we must take τὴν ἀλήθειαν as equivalent to τὴν ἀληθῆ (or rather ὀρθὴν) μέθοδον, which is a very unlikely equation, especially so soon after τἀληθῆ in another sense: Stallb.'s rendering may serve to indicate the difficulty involved,—“utpote veram tenens laudationis cujuslibet naturam et rationem”: Jowett's “thinking I knew the nature of true praise” shirks the difficulty.

τὸ δὲ ἄρα. For τὸ δὲ, “but in reality,” cp. Meno 97 C (with Thompson's note), Apol. 23 A (with Stallb.'s note).