James Adam, The Republic of Plato

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εἴδωλα εἰδωλοποιοῦντα κτλ. See cr. n. εἰδωλοποιοῦντα seems also to have been the reading of the first hand in Vind. F. The dative εἰδωλοποιοῦντι is retained by Schneider, who makes it agree with τῷ ἀνοήτῳ and regards ἀφεστῶτα as neuter plural. This interpretation, though grammatically tenable, is otherwise unsatisfactory. Plato (in 605 A) has just correlated Poetry with Painting because Poetry also a produces φαῦλα πρὸς ἀλήθειαν and b consorts with φαῦλόν τι τῆς ψυχῆς. On both grounds, he concludes, Poetry must be proscribed: for b τοῦτο ἐγείρει—τοτὲ δὲ σμικρά, and a εἴδωλα εἰδωλοποιεῖ. The chiastic sequence is usual in Plato. If we read εἰδωλοποιοῦντι, Plato assigns only one of his two main reasons for the exclusion of Poetry, viz. b, and the correspondence between this and the preceding sentence disappears. On this account Stallbaum and others are, I believe, right in restoring the accusative, and making ἀφεστῶτα, as well as εἰδωλοποιοῦντα, agree with τὸν μιμητικὸν ποιητήν. The error—an easy one after διαγιγνώσκοντι and ἡγουμένῳ — affected ἀφεστῶτα also in at least one MS, for Ξ has ἀφεστῶτι.

605C - 607A But the most serious count in our indictment is that Poetry is capable of corrupting, with few exceptions, even men of character and virtue. Tragedy stirs in us just those emotions which we are ashamed to indulge when suffering misfortunes of our own, and the consequence is that we succumb more readily in the hour of trial. The same may be said, mutatis mutandis, of comedy also. We shall therefore decline to model our lives after Homer, and refuse to surrender our city to the rule of Pleasure.

αὐτῆς. That is, τῆς ποιήσεως. Cf. VI 503 E note

τὸ γὰρ καὶ τοὺς ἐπιεικεῖς. See on 595 B.