[439a]
“will you not class it with the
things1 that are
of something and say that it is what it is2 in relation to something—and it is,
I presume, thirst?” “I will,” said he,
“—namely of drink.” “Then if the
drink is of a certain kind, so is the thirst, but thirst that is just thirst
is neither of much nor little nor good nor bad, nor in a word of any kind,
but just thirst is naturally of just drink only.” “By
all means.” “The soul of the thirsty then, in so far as
it thirsts, wishes nothing else than to drink, and
1 τῶν τινὸς εἶναι: if the text is sound,εἶναι seems to be taken twice, (1) with τοῦτο etc., (2)τῶν τινός as predicates. This is perhaps no harsher than τὸ δοκεῖν εἶναι in Aeschylus Agamemnon 788. Cf. Tennyson's “How sweet are the looks that ladies bend/ On whom their favors fall,” and Pope's “And virgins smiled at what they blushed before.” Possibly θήσεις τῶν τινός is incomplete in itself (cf. 437 B) and εἶναι τοῦτο etc. is a loose epexegesis. The only emendation worth notice is Adam's insertion of καὶ τινὸς between τινὸς and εἶναι, which yields a smooth, but painfully explicit, construction.
2 Cf. further Sophist 255 D, Aristotle Met. 1021 a 27. Aristotle Cat. v., Top. vi. 4. So Plotinus vi. 1. 7 says that relative terms are those whose very being is the relation καὶ τὸ εἶναι οὐκ ἄλλο τι ἢ τὸ ἀλλήλοις εἶναι.
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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