J. Adam, A. M. Adam, Commentary on Plato, Protagoras
J. Adam & A. M. Adam, Ed.

CHAPTER XXXI

3. δηλοῖ (sc. εἰρημένα) is used as in Soph. Ant. 242 δηλοῖς δ᾽ ὥς τι σημανῶν κακόν.

5. κενεάν goes proleptically with μοῖραν αἰῶνος.

7. πανάμωμον ἄνθρωπον in apposition to τὸ μὴ γενέσθαι δυνατόν. Krosche compares Semonid. Amorg. πάμπαν δ᾽ ἄμωμος οὔτις οὐδ᾽ ἀκήριος (Frag. 4).

εὐρυεδοῦς ὅσοι—χθονός. Hom. Il. VI. 142 βροτῶν οἳ ἀρούρης καρπὸν ἔδουσιν, Hom. Od. II. 14. 10 ‘quicumque terrae munere vescimur’ (Heindorf).

9. ἐπί θ᾽ ὑμῖν εὑρὼν ἀπαλλελέω: after Bergk's emendation for the ἔπειθ᾽ ὑμῖν of the MSS., which cannot be made to scan: see Appendix I, p. 217. It might be possible (in view especially of φησίν in the next line) to regard ἔπειτα here as no part of the poem, were it not for 346D where it must be part. ἐπί θ᾽ ὑμῖν is the most probable of the many emendations proposed and accounts by far the most easily for the reading of the MSS. ἐπί is to be taken with εὑρών, and τε is like the quasignomic τε in Homer, e.g. Il. I. 218 ὅς κε θεοῖς ἐπιπείθηται, μάλα τ᾽ ἔκλυον αὐτοῦ. Translate ‘“trust me, I will tell you when I've found your man”, says he’. ὑμῖν (a kind of ethic dative) does not belong so much to ἀπαλλελέω as to ἐφευρών. What Simonides himself wrote was no doubt ἐπί τ᾽ ὔμμιν (availing himself of the Aeolic form as in the next line); this Plato put in Attic as ἐπί θ᾽ ὑμῖν, from which to ἔπειθ᾽ ὑμῖν the step was easy. Sauppe's ἐπὶ δή μιν εὑρών and Kroschel's ἐπεὶ οὔτιν᾽ εὑρών are hardly happy.

10. φησίν applies only to the last line: the former φησὶ γάρ covers the first sentence.

12. πάντας ὅστις: so below in l. 16 ὥστε τούτους φάναι ἐπαινεῖν ὃς ἄν and in l. 23 ὃς ἂν—τούτων: see also note on 319D

14. ἀνάγκῃ δ᾽ οὐδὲ θεοὶμάχονται. Proverbial: cf. Laws, VII. 818B ἔοικεν ὁ τὸν θεὸν πρῶτον παροιμιασάμενος—εἰπεῖν ὡς οὐδὲ θεὸς ἀνάγκῃ μή ποτε φανῇ μαχόμενος. Aars quotes the words of Agamemnon in Il. XIX. 86 ἐγὼ δ᾽ οὐκ αἴτιός εἰμι, ἀλλὰ Ζεὺς καὶ Μοῖρα καὶ ἠεροφοῖτις Ἐρινύς.

17. ὃς ἂν ἑκὼν—ποιῇ: but ἑκὼν ὅστις ἕρδῃ without ἄν above, as often in poetry: Goodwin, M.T. p. 208, § 540.

19. οὐδεὶς τῶν σοφῶν—ἑκόντα ἐξαμαρτάνειν. The doctrine that no one sins willingly—a corollary of the view that vice is only ignorance—is characteristic of the ethical teaching both of Socrates and Plato (compare note on 324Aand on Euthyphr. 2C), but not of all Greek sages, and it is only by the most perverse sophistry that Socrates here reads it into Simonides, ignoring entirely the words ἀνάγκῃ δ᾽ οὐδὲ θεοὶ μάχονται.

23. καὶ δὴ καί: see on 343Babove.

26. καλὸν κἀγαθόν: see on Apol. 21D.

27. καὶ ἐπαινέτην. The words φιλεῖν καὶ ἐπαινεῖν which follow in the MSS. were ejected by Heindorf.

28. μητέρα ἢ πατέρα ἀλλόκοτον. Sauppe remarks that from Homer onwards μήτηρ generally comes first in such enumerations—an interesting survival, perhaps, of the greater importance assigned to the mother in primitive Greece. ἀλλόκοτον (‘eccentric’ as in Rep. VI. 487D) from ἄλλος (in its sinister sense) and κότος (i.q. τρόπος, ἦθος, ὀργή) according to Phrynichus (quoted by Kroschel).

29. ἢ πατρίδα: see Crito, 50E-51C.

34. ἔτι μᾶλλον: not = μᾶλλον ἢ κατ᾽ ἀξίαν, but—as is presently explained—because they ‘add voluntary feuds to those which they cannot avoid’.

36. ἀναγκαίαις: Heusde's correction for ἀνάγκαις of MSS.

ἐπικρύπτεσθαι—ἀναγκάζεσθαι. Plato is probably thinking of Socrates after his trial as he depicts him in the Crito. ἀναγκάζεσθαι ‘are constrained’ is of course passive.

39. παραμυθεῖσθαι, like mulcere, as often. Sauppe quotes Hor. Epod. XIII. 18 ‘deformis aegrimoniae dulcibus alloquiis’.

41. ἡγήσατο—ἀναγκαζόμενος: ‘believed—that he had praised, etc.’ Plato deals a sly thrust at Simonides' notorious avarice, as Pindar (quoted by Sauppe) does in Isthm. 11. 6 ἁ Μοῖσα γὰρ οὐ φιλοκερδής πω τότ᾽ ἦν οὐδ᾽ ἐργάτις. The words ἀλλ᾽ ἀναγκαζόμενος contain the sting; for the life of the χρηματιστής is βίαιος (Ar. Eth. Nic. 1. 3. 1096^a. 5).

46. ἔμοιγ᾽ ἐξαρκεῖ κτλ. See Appendix I, pp. 214 ff. for the arrangement of this part of the poem.

48. γ᾽ ὀνησίπολιν. The MSS. read γ᾽ ὀνήσει πόλιν, which G. Hermann emended to τ᾽ ὀνησίπολιν, Bergk to ὀνασίπολιν.

49. οὐ μήν: so the MSS., and so, most probably, Plato; but Simonides can hardly have written this, which will not scan; see Appendix I, p. 217.

51. οὐ γάρ εἰμι φιλόμωμος probably belongs to an earlier part of the poem (before ἔμοιγ᾽ ἐξαρκεῖ: cf. οὐ διὰ ταῦτά σε ψέγω, ὅτι εἰμὶ φιλόψογος in line 45): see Appendix I, p. 217.

53. γενέθλα is Stephanus' correction for γένεθλα of the MSS., a mistake due to supposing that ἀπείρων (not from ἄπειρος) went with ἠλιθίων: it belongs to γενέθλα.

56. πάντα τοι καλά—μέμικται sums up the whole moral teaching of the poem.

60. καὶ οὐ ζητῶ κτλ. Socrates recapitulates part of the poem by way of interpreting the final text: see note on τὸ δ᾽ ἐστὶν γενέσθαι κτλ. in 344Eabove and Appendix I, p. 214.

62. τούτου γ᾽ ἕνεκα: ‘si hoc spectetur s. requiratur, τὸ πανάμωμον εἶναι’ (Heindorf): cf. Phaed. 85B ἀλλὰ τούτου γ᾽ ἕνεκα λέγειν τε χρὴ καὶ ἐρωτᾶν ὅ τι ἂν βούλησθε. The sense is: if I must wait for perfection before beginning to praise, I shall never praise anyone.

66. ὡς πρὸς Πιττακὸν λέγων: not serious, of course, nor true.

67. διαλαβεῖν: i.e. make a division, ‘pause’, virtually ‘punctuate’. The editors compare the use of διαστίξαι in Ar. Rhet. III. 5. 1407^b. 14 τὰ γὰρ Ἡρακλείτου διαστίξαι ἔργον διὰ τὸ ἄδηλον εἶναι ποτέρω̣ πρόσκειται.

68. ἄκων δ᾽ ἔστιν οὕς: see on 344B

70. νῦν δὲ—σφόδρα γάρ. Cf. Apol. 38B νῦν δὲ—οὐ γὰρ ἔστιν and note in loc. Here διὰ ταῦτα sums up the clause σφόδρα γὰρ— λέγειν.