[586c]
as to seem intense in either kind, and
to beget mad loves of themselves in senseless souls, and to be fought
for,1 as Stesichorus says the wraith of Helen2 was fought for at Troy
through ignorance of the truth?” “It is quite
inevitable,” he said, “that it should be
so.”“So, again, must
not the like hold of the high-spirited element, whenever a man succeeds in
satisfying that part of his nature—his covetousness of honor by
envy, his love of victory by violence, his ill-temper by indulgence in
anger,
1 For περιμαχήτους cf. Aristot.Eth. Nic. 1168 b 19, Eth. Eud. 1248 b 27, and on 521 A, p. 145, note e.
2 For the Stesichorean legend that the real Helen remained in Egypt while only her phantom went to Troy Cf. Phaedr. 243 A-B, Eurip.Hel. 605 ff., Elect. 1282-1283, Isoc.Hel. 64, and Philologus 55, pp. 634 ff. Dümmler, Akademika p. 55, thinks this passage a criticism of Isoc.Helena 40. Cf. also Teichmüller, Lit. Fehden, i. pp. 113 ff. So Milton, Reason of Church Government,“A lawny resemblance of her like that air-born Helena in the fables.” For the ethical symbolism cf. 520 C-D.
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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