[514b]
able to look
forward only, and prevented by the fetters from turning their heads. Picture
further the light from a fire burning higher up and at a distance behind them,
and between the fire and the prisoners and above them a road along which a low
wall has been built, as the exhibitors of puppet-shows1 have partitions
before the men themselves, above which they show the puppets.”
“All that I see,” he said. “See also, then, men
carrying2 past the wall
1 H. Rackham, CIass. Rev. xxix. pp. 77-78, suggests that the τοῖς θαυματοποιοῖς should be translated “at the marionettes” and be classed with καινοῖς τραγῳδοῖς(Pseph.ap.Dem. xviii. 116). For the dative he refers to Kuehner-Gerth, II. i. p. 445.
2 The men are merely a part of the necessary machinery of the image. Their shadows are not cast on the wall. The artificial objects correspond to the things of sense and opinion in the divided line, and the shadows to the world of reflections,εἰκόνες.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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