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1To be sure, there is a vein of occasional repining in the Hellenic poets, as, indeed, in all thoughtful men, just sufficient to show that they saw, also, the pathos of life. In the Platonic " Apology " Socrates declares that death, even if it be only a dreamless sleep, is still a gain, since there are few days or nights in a long life which a wise man can recall, that were so happy as the night when he slumbered most unconscious. But it is from the lips of the Homeric Achilles, bereft and conscious of imminent doom, from the octogenarian poet of an CEdipus himself world-worn, or from a Socrates already upon the threshold of old age, strenuous to reconcile himself and his to the inevitable, that such utterances fall. To Pindar and the countless lesser lyric poets, to the Tragic Three and their forgotten rivals, as to Homer, life, and especially youth and early manhood, seemed far more fair than " That man I count most happy, Parmeno, Who, after he hath viewed the splendors here, Departeth quickly thither whence he came." iii iv SPECIAL INTRODUCTION
2any " casual hope of being elsewhere blest. The gods and heroes, the kindly lesser powers that haunt mountain, wood, and stream, were almost as near to the fifth-century Hellenes as to the mythic age itself. Ordinary men knew all the Homeric poems by heart. In popular tradition, in the myriad forms of painting and sculpture, above all as vivified afresh by the genius of dramatic poetry, the legends " Of Thebes or Pelops' line, Or the tale of Troy divine," still hung like a splendid tapestry about the calmer reality. That reality itself was anything but commonplace. The glorious war against the Persian invader left the most deeprooted confidence that the Hellene had no rival, and that Athens was the natural capital and university of Hellas. Pericles lived and died in that belief: and Plato's life all but overlapped that of the idealistic statesman. He must have actually looked on, an eager-eyed boy, when the armada sailed forth upon the Sicilian expe'dition, amid yet wilder dreams of occidental empire. The failure and disillusion came — swift and bitter, indeed. Yet victorious Sparta did not destroy, or even utterly and permanently humble, her nobler rival. Throughout Plato's mature life Athens was again self-governed ; she had regained a fleet, some commerce, and even a modest leadership in a maritime league, though never her pristine haughtiness and far-reaching hopes. Her people looked backward, rather than forward, with fond pride. Their instinct was right. Macedon, not Attica, was to lead Hellenism to wrorld-wide dominion, though the culture, the art, and the speech of the race were to remain always essentially Attic. Throughout the fourth century B.C., indeed, supremacy in things spiritual still abode with Athens. With Plato walked and talked, under the over-arching trees of Academe, the choicest spirits of Hellas — greatest of all, Aristotle, " master of them that know " — though less happy than Plato and all they that are dreamers with him of the dream divine. Aristotle was drawn to Athens by the great teacher, and spent there his happiest and most useful years. Plato, then, was no mere introverted musing psychologist
3of the closet. Indeed, he is our chief source of knowledge for the conversational speech of fourth-century Athens. The streets, the gymnasia, the beauty of youth, the pride of manhood, and the teeming life of the city generally, are revived in his dialogues as nowhere else. The picturesque setting, the sharply outlined characters, the realistic grace and variety in speech, and the easily unfolding plots, of his most perfect dialogues, such as the Protagoras and Symposium, show that he might have been — that, indeed, he actually is, along with the other sides of his composite manifold lifework — as masterly a dramatist as Sophocles. Even as a fun-maker, he is but second, though indeed a far-away second, to his contemporary, the unapproachable mad spirit that in the name of conservatism and the " good old ways " turned all the decencies and realities of life upside down in his comedy. Aristophanes himself, it should be remembered, is a welcome guest at the Platonic Banquet. He speaks there, even on the topic of Love, wittily and with bold creative fancy, though Socrates' eloquence makes all that went before seem idle chatter. He drinks well and manfully, too, though here again he meets his match. The Symposium ends with a glimpse of Socrates, sober still and argumentative to the end, sitting, as the long night wanes, between Aristophanes and their host, the tragic poet Agathon. While they quaff in turn from the great bowl, the philosopher is convincing the reluctant and drowsy pair that the consummate dramatist will fuse comedy and tragedy, or become alike supreme in both. We need not call this a prophecy of Shakespeare's advent. It was already largely made true in Plato's own noble art, which saw life whole, alike an amusing and a pathetic spectacle. We must insist, then, that Plato's was a great, all but the greatest, dramatic genius. The characteristics of that most noble of arts, including even the effacement of the artist's own person, are seen at once from the fact, that all his works are — not didactic sermons, in form at least, but — realistic dialogues: and the chief interlocutor in most, a prominent figure in nearly all, is that most grotesque and most pathetic, most ugly and most fascinating of figures, whether in fiction or in real life, "short of stature, stout of limb," satyr-faced and siren-voiced, Socrates the Athenian.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
1To be sure, there is a vein of occasional repining in the Hellenic poets, as, indeed, in all thoughtful men, just sufficient to show that they saw, also, the pathos of life. In the Platonic " Apology " Socrates declares that death, even if it be only a dreamless sleep, is still a gain, since there are few days or nights in a long life which a wise man can recall, that were so happy as the night when he slumbered most unconscious. But it is from the lips of the Homeric Achilles, bereft and conscious of imminent doom, from the octogenarian poet of an CEdipus himself world-worn, or from a Socrates already upon the threshold of old age, strenuous to reconcile himself and his to the inevitable, that such utterances fall. To Pindar and the countless lesser lyric poets, to the Tragic Three and their forgotten rivals, as to Homer, life, and especially youth and early manhood, seemed far more fair than " That man I count most happy, Parmeno, Who, after he hath viewed the splendors here, Departeth quickly thither whence he came." iii iv SPECIAL INTRODUCTION
2any " casual hope of being elsewhere blest. The gods and heroes, the kindly lesser powers that haunt mountain, wood, and stream, were almost as near to the fifth-century Hellenes as to the mythic age itself. Ordinary men knew all the Homeric poems by heart. In popular tradition, in the myriad forms of painting and sculpture, above all as vivified afresh by the genius of dramatic poetry, the legends " Of Thebes or Pelops' line, Or the tale of Troy divine," still hung like a splendid tapestry about the calmer reality. That reality itself was anything but commonplace. The glorious war against the Persian invader left the most deeprooted confidence that the Hellene had no rival, and that Athens was the natural capital and university of Hellas. Pericles lived and died in that belief: and Plato's life all but overlapped that of the idealistic statesman. He must have actually looked on, an eager-eyed boy, when the armada sailed forth upon the Sicilian expe'dition, amid yet wilder dreams of occidental empire. The failure and disillusion came — swift and bitter, indeed. Yet victorious Sparta did not destroy, or even utterly and permanently humble, her nobler rival. Throughout Plato's mature life Athens was again self-governed ; she had regained a fleet, some commerce, and even a modest leadership in a maritime league, though never her pristine haughtiness and far-reaching hopes. Her people looked backward, rather than forward, with fond pride. Their instinct was right. Macedon, not Attica, was to lead Hellenism to wrorld-wide dominion, though the culture, the art, and the speech of the race were to remain always essentially Attic. Throughout the fourth century B.C., indeed, supremacy in things spiritual still abode with Athens. With Plato walked and talked, under the over-arching trees of Academe, the choicest spirits of Hellas — greatest of all, Aristotle, " master of them that know " — though less happy than Plato and all they that are dreamers with him of the dream divine. Aristotle was drawn to Athens by the great teacher, and spent there his happiest and most useful years. Plato, then, was no mere introverted musing psychologist
3of the closet. Indeed, he is our chief source of knowledge for the conversational speech of fourth-century Athens. The streets, the gymnasia, the beauty of youth, the pride of manhood, and the teeming life of the city generally, are revived in his dialogues as nowhere else. The picturesque setting, the sharply outlined characters, the realistic grace and variety in speech, and the easily unfolding plots, of his most perfect dialogues, such as the Protagoras and Symposium, show that he might have been — that, indeed, he actually is, along with the other sides of his composite manifold lifework — as masterly a dramatist as Sophocles. Even as a fun-maker, he is but second, though indeed a far-away second, to his contemporary, the unapproachable mad spirit that in the name of conservatism and the " good old ways " turned all the decencies and realities of life upside down in his comedy. Aristophanes himself, it should be remembered, is a welcome guest at the Platonic Banquet. He speaks there, even on the topic of Love, wittily and with bold creative fancy, though Socrates' eloquence makes all that went before seem idle chatter. He drinks well and manfully, too, though here again he meets his match. The Symposium ends with a glimpse of Socrates, sober still and argumentative to the end, sitting, as the long night wanes, between Aristophanes and their host, the tragic poet Agathon. While they quaff in turn from the great bowl, the philosopher is convincing the reluctant and drowsy pair that the consummate dramatist will fuse comedy and tragedy, or become alike supreme in both. We need not call this a prophecy of Shakespeare's advent. It was already largely made true in Plato's own noble art, which saw life whole, alike an amusing and a pathetic spectacle. We must insist, then, that Plato's was a great, all but the greatest, dramatic genius. The characteristics of that most noble of arts, including even the effacement of the artist's own person, are seen at once from the fact, that all his works are — not didactic sermons, in form at least, but — realistic dialogues: and the chief interlocutor in most, a prominent figure in nearly all, is that most grotesque and most pathetic, most ugly and most fascinating of figures, whether in fiction or in real life, "short of stature, stout of limb," satyr-faced and siren-voiced, Socrates the Athenian.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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