[498d]
who
have just become friends and were not enemies before either. For we will
spare no effort until we either convince him and the rest or achieve
something that will profit them when they come to that life in which they
will be born gain1 and meet with such discussions as these.”
“A brief time2 your forecast contemplates,” he said. “Nay,
nothing at all,” I replied, “as compared with
eternity.3 However, the
unwillingness of the multitude to believe what you say is nothing
surprising. For of the thing here spoken they have never beheld a
token,4
1 A half-playful anticipation of the doctrine of immortality reserved for Bk. x. 608 D ff. It involves no contradiction and justifies no inferences as to the date and composition of the Republic. Cf. Gomprez iii. 335. Cf. Emerson, Experience, in fine,“which in his passage into new worlds he will carry with him.” Bayard Taylor (American Men of Letters, p. 113), who began to study Greek late in life, remarked, Oh, but I expect to use it in the other world.” Even the sober positivist Mill says (Theism, pp. 249-250) “The truth that life is short and art is long is from of old one of the most discouraging facts of our condition: this hope admits the possibility that the art employed in improving and beautifying the soul itself may avail for good in some other life even when seemingly useless in this.”
2 For εἰς here cf. Blaydes on Clouds 1180, Herod. vii. 46, Eurip.Heracleidae 270.
3 Cf. on 486 A. see too Plut.Cons. Apol. 17. 111 C “a thousand, yes, ten thousand years are only an ἀόριστος point, nay, the smallest part of a point, as Simonides says.” Cf. also Lyra Graeca(L. C. L.), ii. p. 338, Anth. Pal. x. 78.
4 γενόμενον . . . λεγόμενον. It is not translating to make no attempt to reproduce Plato's parody of “polyphonic prose.” The allusion here to Isocrates and the Gorgian figure of παρίσωσις and παρομοίωσις is unmistakable. The subtlety of Plato's style treats the “accidental” occurrence of a Gorgian between the artificial style and insincerity of the sophists and the serious truth of his own ideals. Cf. Isoc. x. 18λεγόμενος . . . γενόμενοςWhat Plato Said, p. 544 on Symp. 185 C, F. Reinhardt, De Isocratis aemulis, p. 39, Lucilius, bk. v. init. “hoc ‘nolueris et debueris’ te si minu' delectat, quod τεχνίονIsocrateium est,” 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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