[598a]
But
tell me now this about the painter. Do you think that what he tries to
imitate is in each case that thing itself in nature or the works of the
craftsmen?” “The works of the craftsmen,” he
said. “Is it the reality of them or the appearance? Define that
further point.1” “What do you
mean?” he said. “This: Does a couch differ from itself
according as you view it from the side or the front or in any other way? Or
does it differ not at all in fact though it appears different, and so of
other things?” “That is the way of it,” he
said: “it appears other but differs not at all.”
1 Cf. Gorg. 488 D, Soph. 222 C.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.