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ὑπὸ τοῦ δεσμοῦ κτλ. “Puerile interpretamentum” says Herwerden, quite superfluously. Hirschig's ἀδυνατοῦντας for ἀδυνάτους is no improvement. The word, like ὄντας, depends of course on ἰδέ. For καόμενον, Hirschig, with Cobet's approval, conjectures καομένου, and so Baiter also reads: but καομένου leaves αὐτοῖς out in the cold. “Vide ne φῶς πυρὸς ita in unam notionem coalescant, ut alterius attributum simul etiam alteri conveniat” Hermann. This explanation is correct: cf. 517 B.

ἐπάνω ὁδόν . ἐπάνοδον (Badham), which means ‘ascensum,’ is out of place here. ἐπάνω means only that the road is at a higher elevation than the prisoners (so also Schneider): it should not be taken with ὁδόν in the sense of a ‘raised way’ (Jowett). There is no reason why the ὁδός should be raised above the level of the ground, and it is unnecessarily harsh to construe the adverb with the noun. The fact that verbal nouns occasionally take an adverb in Plato (see on IV 434 C) does not justify Jowett's construction in this passage.

ὥσπερ τοῖς θαυματοποιοῖς κτλ. As in a Punch and Judy show. Cf. [Arist.] de Mundo 6. 398^{b} 16 ff. οἱ νευροσπάσται μίαν μήρινθον ἐπισπασάμενοι ποιοῦσι καὶ αὐχένα κινεῖσθαι καὶ χεῖρα τοῦ ζῴου καὶ ὦμον καὶ ὀφθαλμὸν κτλ. (Blümner, Privatalterth. p. 503 note 5, where other references are given). I agree with the Oxford editors in holding that τῶν ἀνθρώπων denotes the performers, and not, as Schneider and others translate, the spectators. οἱ ἄνθρωποι could not, without further specification, stand for the spectators, and no further specification is given. But Jowett and Campbell are, I think, in error when they distinguish between the θαυματοποιοί and the ἄν- θρωποι, and suppose that the θαυματοποιός is “not the actual exhibitor or puller of the strings, but the master of the show.” The ἄνθρωποι and the θαυματοποιοί are the same, and Plato might, if he had been so minded, have written ὥσπερ τοῖς θαυματοποιοῖς πρὸ ἑαυτῶν κτλ. The substitution of τῶν ἀνθρώπων for ἑαυτῶν puts the matter in a more objective way, and has also a contemptuous effect.

ὅρα τοίνυν κτλ. τοίνυν is ‘also’ (I 339 D note). The low wall which crosses the εἴσοδος at a point between the prisoners and the fire intercepts the shadows of the παραφέροντες: but the σκεύη which they carry, presumably on their heads, overtop the wall, and are reflected on the wall of the cave in front of the prisoners. See Fig. ii on p. 65. Plato adopts various devices in order to suggest a due proportion between the objects inside and outside the cave in point of reality. Thus (1) the typical examples ἀνδριάντες etc. are themselves images of the natural objects of the superior ὁρατόν: (2) the originals of the Cave are all (except the prisoners themselves 515 A) σκευαστά, whereas those of the superior ὁρατόν are —primarily speaking—φυτευτά (for the significance of this see 532 C note): (3) the contents of the Cave, both originals and shadows, may be regarded as less luminous and true than the ὁρατά outside, because they derive their light and truth, not from the Sun, but from an artificial Fire (see also on 517 C). The interpretation of the simile is to be sought in the δοξαστόν generally as well as in the ὁρατόν in particular (see on 517 A), but we need not suppose that every detail is significant. Comparisons have been made between the παραφέροντες and (in the ὁρατόν) δαίμονες (Campbell II p. 16, comparing Tim. 43), or (in the δοξαστόν) Sophists etc. (Shorey, Idea of Good etc. p. 238). The latter analogy is the more fruitful, but neither of them is altogether free from difficulty, and Plato may have intended the παραφέροντες only as part of the machinery of his similitude. If the Cave is to represent the world of τὰ πολλά, it must have a semblance of life and motion; and without the παραφέροντες the shadows would be motionless and dead.

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