[343c]
Then Simonides, ambitious to get a name for wisdom, perceived that if he could overthrow this saying, as one might some famous athlete, and become its conqueror, he would win fame himself amongst men of that day. Accordingly it was against this saying, and with this aim, that he composed the whole poem as a means of covertly assailing and abasing this maxim, as it seems to me.1Now let us all combine in considering whether my account is really true. The opening of the ode must at once appear crazy if, while intending to say that
1 In this view of the purpose of the poem (which is to show that there is no lasting perfection in human life), and in the detailed commentary that follows, Socrates is aping the disquisitions of the more literary sophists (e.g., Hippias, who warmly approves, Plat. Prot. 347a).
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 3 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967.
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