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ἀκροασόμεθα δ᾽ οὖν κτλ. ‘We shall listen, I say, in the conviction that this kind of poetry should not be taken seriously’ etc. A majority of MSS, including Α and Π, read αἰσθόμεθα instead of ἀκροασόμεθα (see cr. n.): but the present αἴσθομαι was not used in classical Greek, as Stallbaum successfully proves in his elaborate note (cf. also Kühner-Blass Gr. Gr. I 2. p. 354), and if it were, the meaning would still be unsuitable. Neither of the two variants, αἰσθώμεθα and εἰσόμεθα has any great MS authority, or is at all likely to be right. I formerly adopted Madvig's conjecture ᾀσόμεθα, which is in harmony with the Greek tendency to drop the preposition in repeating the reason why τῶν εἰρημένων should not, like ἐκείνοις in 612 B, refer to what Plato in 614 A calls ‘those goods which Justice by herself supplied’ (ἐκείνοις τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς οἷς αὐτὴ παρείχετο δικαιοσύνη): and it is much more natural to assign this meaning to τῶν εἰρημένων than to suppose ‘that Plato had two plans in his mind as to how to finish the Republic.’ I can find no sufficient evidence to justify any such idea.

πᾶς γὰρ -- ἂν εἴη. Cf. VI 486 A. Stallbaum follows Bekker in reading πρὸς τὸν πάντα with q and Flor. U, comparing VI 498 D, οὐχ ὑπὲρ τοῦ παντός below and Phaed. 107 C. “Videtur—πᾶς ad universum tempus, quod omnino dicitur, ab illo verbis πᾶς οὗτος etc. significato distinguendum sufficere, ac nescio an consulto scriptor, quum priorem πάντα χρόνον necessario definisset, hunc plane infinitum exhibuerit” (Schneider). Cf. Walbe Synt. Plat. spec. p. 26.

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