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[586a] of wisdom and virtue but are ever devoted to1 feastings and that sort of thing are swept downward, it seems, and back again to the center, and so sway and roam2 to and fro throughout their lives, but they have never transcended all this and turned their eyes to the true upper region nor been wafted there, nor ever been really filled with real things, nor ever tasted3 stable and pure pleasure, but with eyes ever bent upon the earth4 and heads bowed down over their tables they feast like cattle,5

1 For ξυνόντες see Blaydes on Aristoph.Clouds 1404.

2 Cf. What Plato Said, p. 528, on Phaedo 79 C for πλανάω of error in thought. This is rather the errare of Lucretius ii. 10 and the post-Aristotelian schools.

3 Cf. on 576 Aἄγευστος, and for the thought of the whole sentence cf. Dio Chrys.Or. xiii., Teubner, vol. i. p. 240.

4 Cf. Milton, Comus,“Ne'er looks to heaven amid its gorgeous feast,” Rossetti, “Nineveh,”in fine,“That set gaze never on the sky,” etc. Cf. S. O. Dickermann, De Argumentis quibusdam ap. Xenophontem, Platonem, Aristotelem obviis e structura hominis et animalium petitis,Halle, 1909, who lists Plato's Symp. 190 A, Rep. 586 A, Cratyl. 396 B, 409 C, Tim. 90 A, 91 E, and many other passages.

5 Cf. Aristot.Eth. Nic. 1095 b 20βοσκημάτων βίον. Cf. What Plato Said, p. 611, on Phileb., in fine.

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