James Adam, The Republic of Plato

ἡ δέ γε κτλ. Having described διαλεκτική in terms of the cave-simile, Plato now proceeds to describe his προπαιδεία in the same way: cf. 515 C, 516 A notes Bosanquet finds a difficulty in ἡ λύσις—ἐπάνοδος, and thinks it just conceivable that these words describe the training in music and gymnastic and not the προπαιδεία (so also Susemihl Gen. Entw. II p. 201). But Plato's language is perfectly definite; and τῶν τεχνῶν ἂς διήλθομεν (532 C) cannot mean anything beyond or except the five studies just described. Nor is this the only passage where the ‘turning round’ of the prisoners while still in the cave and their gradual ascent are identified with the προπαιδεία, or with part of it: see 521 C. Plato means that the emancipation of the soul is a gradual process, and that we are not to expect our mathematical studies to deliver us from δόξα all at once. ἡ λύσις —εἴδωλα suggests that their first effect will be to loosen our intellectual bonds, and turn us as it were from reflected to original δόξαι—from εἰκασία to πίστις (VI 511 E, VII 517 A notes). The higher we mount, the less of δόξα we retain, and in the higher stages of the προπαιδεία (symbolized by ἐκεῖ—ἀποσκιαζομένας) we escape from δόξα altogether. See App. I.

, C 13 καὶ ἐκεῖ κτλ. ‘and when there, their inability still to look upon animals and plants and the light of the sun, but upon divine reflections in water and shadows of things real, not, as before, shadows of images thrown by a light which is itself but an image compared with the sun.’ Cf. 516 A, B. ἔτι ἀδυναμία is due to Iamblichus: see cr. n. and cf. Bywater in J. Ph. X p. 78. Nägelsbach also conjectured ἔτ᾽ ἀδυναμία. The difference between ἔτι and ἐπ in an uncial MS is practically nil. With πρὸς δὲ τὰ κτλ. the positive counterpart of ἀδυναμία (βλέπειν） is to be supplied: cf. Ap. 36 B (where Schanz's insertion of οὔ after οἱ πολλοί is inelegant and unnecessary) and Kühner Gr. Gr. II p. 1072. For ἔτι with a verbal noun cf. IV 434 C note ‘Divine’ φαντάσματα is a half-technical Platonic phrase for reflections of natural objects produced by natural lights: they are θεῖα because θείας ἔργα ποιήσεως (Soph. 266 C, where the whole matter is very clearly explained). Even without the aid of the Sophist, we might deduce the meaning from the antithetical clause ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ —ἀποσκιαζομένας, if we remember that the sun is a θεός (VI 508 A). The adjective is regularly placed after the substantive when two coordinate qualifications have to be expressed (here ἐν τοῖς ὕδασιν and θεῖα): cf. III 397 D τὸν τοῦ ἐπιεικοῦς μιμητὴν ἄκρατον, IX 573 A τῶν ἐν ταῖς τοιαύταις συνουσίαις ἡδονῶν ἀνειμένων. Other examples are given by Jebb on Soph. O. T. 1245 and Sandys on Arist. Ath. Pol. 51. 3: cf. also Stallbaum on Phil. 20 B. The present passage explains why Plato was so careful to make the originals in the Cave σκευαστά and εἴδωλα, and not φυτευτά: see on 514 B. Other views of this sentence are discussed in App. XIII.

πᾶσα κτλ. The anacoluthon is illustrated by Engelhardt Anac. Pl. Spec. III p. 45.

ταύτην τὴν δύναμιν: viz. λύσιν ἀπὸ τῶν δεσμῶν κτλ.