[472a]
dismissing everything else.” “This is a sudden
assault,1 indeed,”
said I, “that you have made on my theory, without any regard for
my natural hesitation. Perhaps you don't realize that when I have hardly
escaped the first two waves, you are now rolling up against me the
‘great third wave2’ of paradox, the worst
of all. When you have seen and heard that, you will be very ready to be
lenient,3 recognizing that I had good reason after all for
shrinking and fearing to enter upon the discussion of so paradoxical a
notion.” “The more such excuses you offer,” he
said, “the less
1 ὥσπερ marks the figurative use as τινα in Aeschines, Tim. 135 τινα καταδρομήν.
2 Cf. Introduction p. xvii. The third wave, sometimes the ninth, was proverbially the greatest. Cf. Euthydemus 293 A, Lucan v. 672 “decimus dictu mirabile fluctus,” and Swineburne: “Who swims in sight of the third wave/ That never a swimmer shall cross or climb.”
3 συγγνώμην: L. and S. wrongly with ὅτι, “to acknowledge that . . .”
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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