[365c]
since it is the “‘seeming’”Simonides, Fr. 76
Bergk, and Eur. Orest. 236 as the wise men show me, that “‘masters the
reality’” and is lord of happiness, to this I must devote
myself without reserve. For a front and a show1 I must draw about
myself a shadow-line of virtue, but trail behind me the fox of most sage
Archilochus,2 shifty and bent on gain. Nay,
'tis objected, it is not easy for a wrong-doer always to lie hid.3 Neither is any other big thing
facile,
1 A Pindaric mixture of metaphors beginning with a portico and garb, continuing with the illusory perspective of scene-painting, and concluding with the craftly fox trailed behind.
2 Cf. Fr. 86-89 Bergk, and Dio Chrysost.Or. 55. 285 R.κεπδαλέαν is a standing epithet of Reynard. Cf. Gildersleeve on Pindar Pyth. ii. 78.
3 Cf. my review of Jebb's “Bacchylides,”Class. Phil., 1907, vol. ii. p. 235.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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