Notes
Socrates expresses himself carelessly in accordance with his assumed ignorance of the details of the subject. In the first part of the sentence he appears to be speaking of paeonic rhythms which are in the ratio of 3⁄2; in the second part, of dactylic and anapaestic rhythms, which are in the ratio of 1⁄1; in the last clause, of iambic and trochaic rhythms, which are in the ratio of 1⁄2 or 2⁄1.
Cp. supra, II. 368 D.
Making the answer of Socrates begin at καὶ γὰρ πρὸς κ.τ.λ.
Od. xx. 17, quoted supra, III. 390 D.
Reading προστατήσετον with Bekker; or, if the reading προστήσετον, which is found in the MSS., be adopted, then the nominative must be supplied from the previous sentence: ‘Music and gymnastic will place in authority over …’ This is very awkward, and the awkwardness is increased by the necessity of changing the subject at τηρήσετον.
BOOK V.
Reading ἔτι ἐγὼ εἶπον.
Or inserting καὶ before νομίμων: ‘a deceiver about beauty or goodness or principles of justice or law.’
Reading ὥστε εὖ με παραμυθεῖ.
Probably Works and Days, 121 foll.
Reading στραγγευομένῳ.
BOOK VI.
Or, applying ὅπως δὲ κυβερνήσει to the mutineers, ‘But only understanding (ἐπαΐοντας) that he (the mutinous pilot) must rule in spite of other people, never considering that there is an art of command which may be practised in combination with the pilot’s art.’
Or, taking παρὰ in another sense, ‘trained to virtue on their principles.’
Putting a comma after τῶν ἀνανγκαίων.
Or, ‘will they not deserve to be called sophisms,’ ….
Heraclitus said that the sun was extinguished every evening and relighted every morning.
Reading κατηκόῳ or κατηκόοις.
Reading ἦ καὶ ἐὰν οὕτω θεῶνται without a question, and ἀλλοίαν τοι: or, retaining the question and taking ἀλλοίαν δόξαν in a new sense: ‘Do you mean to say really that, viewing him in this light, they will be of another mind from yours, and answer in another strain?’
Cp. IV. 435 D.
Or, separating καὶ μάλα from ἄξιον, ‘True, he said, and a noble thought’: or ἄξιον τὸ διανόημα may be a gloss.
Reading ἀνὴρ καλός: or reading ἀνὴρ καλῶς, ‘I quite well knew from the very first, that you, &c.’
A play upon τόκος, which means both ‘offspring’ and ‘interest.’
Reading διανοοῦ.
Reading: ἄνισα.
Reading ὧνπερ ἐκεῖνο εἰκόνων.
BOOK VII.
Reading παρόντα.
In allusion to a game in which two parties fled or pursued according as an oyster-shell which was thrown into the air fell with the dark or light side uppermost.
Reading οὖσαν ἐπάνοδον.
Meaning either (1) that they integrate the number because they deny the possibility of fractions; or (2) that division is regarded by them as a process of multiplication, for the fractions of one continue to be units.
Or, ‘close alongside of their neighbour’s instruments, as if to catch a sound from them.’
Omitting ἐνταῦθα δὲ πρὸς φαντάσματα. The word θεῖα is bracketed by Stallbaum.
A play upon the word νόμος, which means both ‘law’ and ‘strain.’
γραμμάς, literally ‘lines,’ probably the starting-point of a race-course.
BOOK VIII.
i.e. a cyclical number, such as 6, which is equal to the sum of its divisors 1, 2, 3, so that when the circle or time represented by 6 is completed, the lesser times or rotations represented by 1, 2, 3 are also completed.
Probably the numbers 3, 4, 5, 6 of which the three first = the sides of the Pythagorean triangle. The terms will then be 33, 43, 53, which together = 63 = 216.
Or the first a square which is 100 × 100 = 10,000. The whole number will then be 17,500 = a square of 100, and an oblong of 100 by 75.
Reading προμήκη δέ.
Or, ‘consisting of two numbers squared upon irrational diameters,’ &c. = 100. For other explanations of the passage see Introduction.
Cp. supra, 544 C.