[490a]
a scholar and gentleman1 must have from birth. The leader of
the choir for him, if you recollect, was truth. That he was to seek always
and altogether, on pain of2 being an impostor without part or lot in true
philosophy.” “Yes, that was said.”
“Is not this one point quite contrary to the prevailing opinion
about him?” “It is indeed,” he said.
“Will it not be a fair plea in his defence to say that it was the
nature of the real lover of knowledge to strive emulously for true being and
that he would not linger over
1 The quality of the καλὸς κἀγαθός gave rise to the abstraction καλοκἀγαθία used for the moral ideal in the Eudemian Ethics. Cf. Isoc.Demon. 6, 13, and 51, Stewart on Eth. Nic. 1124 a 4 (p. 339) and 1179 b 10 (p. 460).
2 For ἤ= “or else” Cf. Prot. 323 A and C, Phaedr. 237 C, 239 A, 245 D, Gorg. 494 A, Crat. 426 B, etc.
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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