[558a]
if it occurs to you to do so, is not all that a heavenly and delicious
entertainment1 for the
time being?” “Perhaps,” he said,
“for so long.” “And is not the
placability2 of some convicted criminals exquisite3? Or have you never seen in
such a state men condemned to death or exile who none the less stay on, and
go to and fro among the people, and as if no one saw or heeded him, the man
slips in and out4 like a revenant5?”
“Yes, many,” he said. “And the tolerance of
democracy,
1 διαγωγή: cf. 344 E, where it is used more seriously of the whole conduct of life. Cf. also Theaet. 177 A, Polit. 274 D, Tim. 71 D, Laws 806 E, Aristot.Met. 981 b 18 and 982 b 24 uses the word in virtual anaphora with pleasure. See too Zeller, Aristot. ii. pp. 307-309, 266, n. 5.
2 Cf. 562 D. For the mildness of the Athenian democracy cf. Aristot.Ath. Pol. 22. 19, Demosth. xxi. 184, xxii. 51, xxiv. 51 Lysias vi. 34, Isoc.Antid. 20, Areopagit. 67-68, Hel. 27; also Menex. 243 E and also Euthydem. 303 Dδημοτικόν τι καὶ πρᾷον ἐν τοῖς λόγοις. Here the word πρᾳότης is ironically transferred to the criminal himself.
3 κομψή: cf. 376 A, Theaet. 171 A.
4 For περινοστεῖ cf. Lucian, Bis Acc. 6, Aristoph.Plut. 121, 494, Peace 762.
5 His being unnoticed accords better with the rendering “spirit,” “one returned from the dead” (a perfectly possible meaning for ἥρως. Wilamowitz, Platon, i. p. 435 translates “Geist”) than with that of a hero returning from the wars. Cf. Adam ad loc.
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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