[40a]
another the winged kind which traverses the air; thirdly, the class which inhabits the waters; and fourthly, that which goes on foot on dry land. The form of the divine class1 He wrought for the most part out of fire, that this kind might be as bright as possible to behold and as fair; and likening it to the All He made it truly spherical; and He placed it in the intelligence2 of the Supreme to follow therewith, distributing it round about over all the Heaven, to be unto it a veritable adornment3 cunningly traced over the whole. And each member of this class He endowed with two motions,4 whereof the one is uniform motion in the same spot, whereby it conceives always identical thoughts about the same objects,
1 i.e., the fixed stars, and their sphere which moves with the daily rotation of the spherical Cosmos (the motion proper to “intelligence,” Cf. 36 C,Cratyl. 411 D).
2 i.e., the “intelligent” outermost sphere of “the same” (cf. the derivation of φρόνησιςfrom φοράin Cratyl. 411 D).
3 There is a play here on the word κόσμος, as meaning (1) “adornment,” (2) “universe.”
4 i.e.(1) the rotation of the star on its own axis; (2) the diurnal revolution of the sphere of fixed stars.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925.
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