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εὐμαθεῖς κτλ. ‘The faculty of learning easily, memory, sagacity, quickness, and so on, together with spirit and high-mindedness, are, as you know, not often naturally combined with the disposition to live soberly in quiet and stedfast ways’ etc. Plato means that natural intelligence and vivacity, with their accompaniments of spirit and highmindedness, rarely go with moral stedfastness. A good illustration is afforded by the contrast between “the Athenian and the Spartan, the former ‘neither resting themselves nor letting anyone else rest, the latter so slow that aggression can hardly rouse them to repel it’” (Bosanquet). Cf. Thucyd. I 70. For other views on the text and interpretation of this difficult passage see App. VI. ὑπὸ ὀξύτητος κτλ. Theaet. 144 A οἵ τε ὀξεῖς—καὶ ἀγχίνοι καὶ μνήμονες—ᾁττοντες φέρονται ὥσπερ τὰ ἀνερμάτιστα πλοῖα. τὰ βέβαια κτλ. Theaet. 144 B οἵ τε αὖ ἐμβριθέστεροι νωθροί πως ἀπαντῶσι πρὸς τὰς μαθήσεις καὶ λήθης γέμοντες.
The Republic of Plato. James Adam. 1902. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
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