[495d]
just as men escape from prison to take
sanctuary in temples, so these gentlemen joyously bound away from the
mechanical1 arts to philosophy, those
that are most cunning in their little craft.2 For in comparison
with the other arts the prestige of philosophy even in her present low
estate retains a superior dignity; and this is the ambition and aspiration
of that multitude of pretenders unfit by nature, whose souls are bowed and
mutilated3 by their vulgar occupations4
1 Cf. the different use of the idea in Protag. 318 E.
2 τεχνίον is a contemptuous diminutive, such as are common in Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. Cf. also ἀνθρωπίσκοι in C, and ψυχάριον in 519 A.
3 Cf. 611 C-D, Theaet. 173 A-B.
4 For the idea that trade is ungentlemanly and incompatible with philosophy Cf. 522 B and 590 C, Laws 919 C ff., and What Plato Said, p. 663 on Rivals 137 B. Cf. Richard of Bury, Philobiblon,Prologue, “Fitted for the liberal arts, and equally disposed to the contemplation of Scripture, but destitute of the needful aid, they revert, as it were, by a sort of apostasy, to mechanical arts.” Cf also Xen.Mem. iv. 2. 3, and Ecclesiasticus xxxviii. 25 f. “How can he get wisdom that holdeth the plough and glorieth in the goad . . . and whose talk is of bullocks? . . . so every carpenter and workmaster . . . the smith . . . the potter . . . ”
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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