James Adam, The Republic of Plato

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ἑαυτῷ. “Plato passes from the rational part of soul to the man himself” J. and C. Hence καταφρονήσας below. The antithesis with ἄλλος ἀνήρ makes the meaning clear; and a similar transition occurs, as Schneider points out, in VI 486 A: see also note ad loc.

καταφρονήσας -- ποιήματος. He cannot bring himself to despise the whole poem: yet that is the only safe thing to do. From this point of view Plato's own καταφρόνησις ὅλης τῆς ποιήσεως is in itself the strongest testimony to the hold which Poetry had on him. See on 595 B.

ἀπολαύειν -- οἰκεῖα. Cf. III 395 C ff. and Laws 656 B.

θρέψαντα -- κατέχειν. Plato and Aristotle agree in holding that Pity is one of the principal emotions to which Tragedy ministers. The point at which they part company is where they begin to discuss the effect produced upon human life and conduct by the indulgence of this emotion in the mimicry of the stage. According to Plato, the emotion grows by what it feeds upon, and becomes more and more troublesome and deleterious in real life, the more we indulge it at the theatre: according to Aristotle, tragedy effects the ‘purgation’ of pity and its kindred emotions and tends to free us from their dominion in matters of more serious moment (Poet. 6. 1449^{b} 27 et al.). Aristotle hopes to effect by means of theatrical stimulation what Plato would attain by starving the emotions even in play. It is obvious that the Aristotelian theory of the drama was in this important respect developed in direct and conscious antagonism to the Platonic, to which, in other particulars, it owes much: see Finsler Platon u. die Arist. Poetik pp. 96 ff. I think it may fairly be argued that Plato's view is not less true to experience than that of Aristotle; for a spectacle which ‘purges’ the ἐλεεινόν in one man may strengthen it in another and make him more than ever inclined to self-pity. On the contrast between the Platonic and Aristotelian views see Butcher Aristotle's Theory of Poetry^{2} etc. pp. 237—268, especially 241 f., and for Aristotle's debt to Plato in his definition of tragedy consult the excellent essay of Siebeck Zur Katharsisfrage in his Unters. zur Phil. d. Gr. pp. 165—180.

ἐλεεινόν . ἐλεεινός and not ἐλεινός is the Platonic form of this word: see Schanz Phaedo p. VII.