The Republic of Plato Books I.-V

THE REPUBLIC OF PLATO BOOKS I.-V THOMAS HERBERT WARREN, M. A. PREFACE This little book, slight as it is, has been, I am afraid, somewhat slow in making its appearance. I hope bhat on the whole it has gained more than lost by the lelay. It has been written in the scanty leisure which has formed the occasional interruption of six OT seven much preoccupied years, and again and again [ have had to lay it aside for weeks, or even months. My own knowledge has grown within this period, and my views have both sensibly and insensibly altered, [ hope for the better and truer, but I am not without ^ears that this very advance has introduced somewhat )f inconsistency and unevenness into these pages. Personally, I should have liked to keep it somewhat onger yet upon the stocks, in the hope of removing hese and other blemishes, but I have trespassed too nuch on the long-suffering patience and never-failing ourtesy of my publisher and printer, and perhaps it s just as well that my work should now be compelled o make its venture Such as it is, it can claim, unless I am mistaken, to )e the first commentary in English on so many as five ooks of the Republic. Plato, so much written about n. antiquity, has found, as a whole, few editors, still 3wer commentators, in modem times. The great THE REPUBLIC OF PLATO viii Preface. from his admirable school editions of the Euth3rphro and Crito. I have also been helped by a little French edition of the Eighth Book by M. Espinas, of Bordeaux, the introduction to which, especially is brightly and sug- gestively written. I should like, too, to pay a compliment, though rather a general one, to the sister University and the illustrious band of ' Cambridge Platonists ' of our own day, especially to Mr. Archer Hind, whose Phaedo gave me much pleasure and one or two hints, and of whose Timaeus I hope to make more use hereafter. If Plato has had few editors, he has found many translators. The well-known renderings of the Re- public by Davies and Vaughan and by Jowett are of real help, the first more to the understanding of the letter of Plato, the second to the appreciation of his spirit and soul. Beside these, I have been aided by Engelmann's version, and by the older German rendering with notes of Fahse, and amused by an anonymous French version of 1765. Other and special debts will be found acknowledged as they arise, nor will I write a preface after the recipe of the wittiest ever written, that to Don Quixote, and append a list of the obvious aids of the Platonic scholar from Timaeus and Proclus to Ast and Eiddell, or of the mass of monographs, theses, school-programmes, and congratulatory epistles which elucidate or obscure the Eepublic. I will only add that I wish I had become ac- quainted earlier with the brilliant if bold criticism of Teichmiiller's Literarische Fehden, Breslau, 1881, and 1884 ; that for a general account of Plato I think Chaignet's La Vie et les Ecrits de Platon, Paris, 1871, deserves to be better known, for it has peculiarly Preface. ix the French charm of being readable while didactic and learned without heaviness; and that lastly; I have been inuch interested in two little brochures by a Dutch preacher, which, unless my eye is deceived by the refraction of an imperfect knowledge of the language, contain some of the prettiest and most appreciative criticism of the prose poetry of Plato which has recently appeared a_" De Dichter en zijne Vaterstad by H. Was, Predikant te Kruisland, Leiden, 1881, and Plato's Politeia by the same as Predikant te St. Oedenrode, Amhem, 1885. The series to which this book belongs is intended for the use of senior scholars at schools and junior scholars at the universities. These, so far as my experience goes, have not as a rule the time to use many books beside the commentary in hand. I have therefore aimed at making this commentary sufficient in itself, or as supplemented by ordinary books of refer- ence. At the same time such students as will read the Republic at all will I think be interested by having some indication given them of a fuller treatment. It is often instructive to know that evidence exists and where it might be found, though time does not allow of its being verified at first hand. I am glad to find my view confirmed by the precept and example of Schanz, who says, in his preface to his School Com- mentary on the Euthyphro a_" ^^Selbst eine Ausgahe, die sich ausdriicklich als Schvlausgabe hinsteUt, soil, wie Kriiger richtig hemerkt, heme SchiUerausgahe sein'^ Having such students in view, and dealing only with the first five books of the Eepublic, I have more- over taken Plato rather as a man of letters than as a philosopher. The connexion of these earlier books with the philosophical ideas of the later, still more the 2)hilosophical synthesis of the Bepublic as a whole, L X Preface. with its relation historical or logical, to the Platonic system, are questions I have avoided or perhaps postponed. I have also purposely not given an analysis. I believe such analyses are most profitably made by the student for himself; but if he seek one to his hand he has an ample choice in those of Jowett, Day, Hoole, and Davies and Vaughan. To ofi'er a new text to the world we should have first determined the relative value of all the mss. of our author, and in any given passage should further have learned to be able to assess the weight of the ruling of the usage Avithin themselves of the mss. it is decided on previous grounds to call in evidence. This I cannot profess to be able to do. To correct de suo a passage here and a passage there without such continuous consideration has always seemed to me a presumptuous and haphazard enterprise, and although good luck and sympathetic ingenuity have occasion- ally divined the trnth by a species of sortilege, the more frequent result has been to multiply the confu- sion of idle printed variants. I have therefore, though not altogether approving of it, adopted bodily a text presumably consistently com- piled, merely removing a few misprints and, probably, introducing a few others. It is that of Baiter's Fourth Edition, described by him in his preface dated July 24, 1874. It is chiefly noticeable as embodying the emendations of Madvig, and is therefore a highly corrected text. As to many of Madvig's introductions, with some of those of other illitstrious scholars, adopted by Baiter, I am myself very sceptical. I believe that we should preserve more of Plato in preserving more of the text of the great Paris ms. But the few hours of an amateur which I Prefaca xi have spent over that famous document would not justify me in doing more than stating my own intuition, the value of which it would take long study to establish. Meanwhile the effect of Madvig's cor- rections is to give us language as I believe less ; Platonic, but certainly more regular, grammatical, and easily intelligible. For a school text this has its advantages. Ere long it is to be hoped the first living authority, Schanz, who has already indicated the lines on which a new text of the Republic should be pre- pared, will apply the results of his unsparing study, and great experience, and his own sure and sanative touch to Plato's masterpiece. There is left to me the privilege of a preface, to thank those friends who have assisted me in putting together these pages. The part of my work in which I feel most confidence is what I .owe to them. First and foremost should come my old companion of school and college, Mr. E. N. P. Moor of Clifton. He has kindly been at the pains of reading through the whole of my manuscript and most of the proofs, and there is I think no page of the notes which does not owe something, most owe much, to his sound and graceful scholarship, literary sense, and cultivated educational tact, invaluable alike in correction and suggestion, in the counsels both of omission and insertion. With such a helper I am peculiarly fortunate to have been able to associate another scholar and school- master a_" Mr. F. Haverfield of Lancing College. Mr. Haverfield has revised for me the latter half of the Commentary. His keen eye, singular critical faculty, his encyclopaedic and methodical knowledge, and especially his wonderful working acquaintance with the bibliography and apparatus of scholarship, could xii Preface. not fail to be of great assistance in whatever measure employed ; and I only regret in my own interest and that of my readers that the first half of the book was already stereotyped before I called in his effective aid. I am also indebted to a Fellow of my own college, the Eev. H. E. Bramley, for reading over the text and comparing it with the Ziirich original. I must not omit to mention too my friend Mr. Thomas Case, Fellow and Tutor of Corpus Christi College, who has placed at my service a body of annotations made by him in connexion with his college lectures, full of his own sagacious insight and practicality. Mr. John Addington Symonds will perhaps have ' forgotten, but I do not forget, the valuable and fruit- ful hints and help he gave me some years ago at Davos for the Introduction.

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