Lysis

Editorial Note

The Greek text. The Greek is John Burnet’s, from the third volume of his Oxford Classical Text of Plato (1903), which holds the fifth to the seventh of Thrasyllus’ tetralogies; the Lysis closes the fifth, after the Theages, the Charmides and the Laches. The copy reproduced is the one used for the Charmides of this series: the second impression of January 1909, “corrected in a number of places”, printed at Oxford by Horace Hart. It is reproduced page for page and line for line: each left-hand page of this edition is one page of Burnet, with his line-ends, his marginal section letters and line numbers, and his apparatus criticus at the foot. In the margin, “St. II p. 203” at the head of the dialogue gives the volume and page of Stephanus’ edition at which it begins; where each later page of Stephanus begins, its number stands in place of the letter a; and within each section every fifth line is numbered. Burnet sets these in the outer margin of his page, this edition in the right-hand margin; his running heads, and the printer’s signatures at the foot of some pages, are not reproduced. The words were taken from the Perseus Digital Library’s digital transcription of Burnet, and every line was then checked against the photographs of this copy; where the two differ, this edition prints what Burnet printed. Burnet’s title, ΛΥΣΙΣ, and beneath it the one name ΣΩΚΡΑΤΗΣ, since Socrates narrates, are kept, with his paragraphing (a new, indented paragraph where the speaker changes, except in the quick exchanges, which he runs on with dashes), his capitals at the openings of speeches, and his accents, breathings and punctuation, and two apparent misprints: a raised point after οὖν at 221d2, and Τι, without its accent, at 222d5. His verse quotations are set on lines of their own, as he sets them (212e, 214a, 215c–d). Square brackets [ ] enclose words he believed spurious: αὐτοῦ at 204a9, which he deletes himself, ἐμβάλλειν at 209d8 and τὰ at 213e5, both after Heindorf, φίλῳ at 216b7, after Cornarius, οὗ at 217c1 and τι at 217c5, which later manuscripts leave out, ψευδέσιν at 218d3, as Heindorf proposed, and δὲ at 220e1, which Cornarius leaves out. Angle brackets ⟨ ⟩ enclose words that the principal manuscripts lack and that he supplies: δὲ at 211e7 (Buttmann), μὴ at 213c4 (Cornarius), πρὸς at 215d3 (a correction in the Coislinianus), ὄν at 219a2 (Heindorf) and τοῦ φίλου at 219b3, which he adds himself.

Reading the apparatus. The notes at the foot of each Greek page are Burnet’s, unaltered. Entries are keyed by section letter and line as numbered in the margin, so that “a 4” is the fourth line of section a. The section letters begin again with each Stephanus page. On the first page Burnet also sets the Stephanus page before the first entry for each page (203 a 1, 204 a 2); on later pages he does not, so that “a 3” after “e 10” on page 3 belongs to the new page (204e10, 205a3). A further entry on the same line follows after a wider space without repeating the key. Usually the reading printed in the text comes first, followed by the witnesses that have it; a colon separates it from the alternatives, each followed by its witnesses. Where the text’s reading is followed by a square bracket ], the bracket closes the lemma, and what follows is a reading of other witnesses (206e1, 206e8), a scholar’s proposal (203b3), or a note of what a hand did to the word (203b5). Angle brackets ⟨ ⟩ enclose a word a scholar would add (207e1). An entry with no colon may give a scholar’s proposal alone (204b6, 207e1). Round brackets enclose a remark on the entry, usually what a correcting hand did and where (203a1, 206d4). At 203a1 Burnet’s “(et mox b 1)” refers to the second Ἀκαδημείας, which stands in b 2; it is printed as he prints it. Three spaced points stand for words of a passage left out of the quotation (209c1, 210c7). An asterisk stands for a letter erased in a manuscript (203b3, 206a10). Forms are given as the manuscripts have them, not brought into line with the text: T’s νεμέα and B’s νέμεα at 205c5 carry no iota subscript, and B’s βούληι ναύτη at 208d4 keeps the iota written on the line.

The witnesses. The three principal manuscripts are B, the Bodleian Plato (MS. E. D. Clarke 39, written in 895); T, the Venice manuscript (Marcianus, Append. Class. 4, cod. 1); and W, the Vienna manuscript (Vindobonensis 54, suppl. phil. Gr. 7). The raised numerals and small letters are correcting hands: B² is B’s old corrector, whom Burnet’s Preface takes to be Arethas or Arethas’ scribe, and b later hands; T² and t are hands correcting T, marked on the same pattern. Letters written together share a reading: “B T W” is all three, “B t” B and a later hand in T. Burnet also cites the Coislinianus (Coisl.), a manuscript of the Coislin collection at Paris, one at Venice (Ven. 184), one at Florence (Laur. lxxxv. 17) and one in the Vatican Library (Vat. 1029), and the Latin translation of Marsilio Ficino (Ficinus; Florence, 1484), whose rendering implies a reading. The printed edition whose pages give the standard references is that of Stephanus (Henri Estienne, Geneva 1578); ci. Stephanus (219d5) marks a conjecture of his. Two ancient writers are cited as witnesses to the text: Pollux, the lexicographer of the second century AD, who cites 206e, in his own words, in his Onomasticon, and the Latin grammarian Priscian (Priscianus, about AD 500), who quotes 210a (Burnet cites him at a1 and a9).

Names and abbreviations. A scholar’s name standing alone after a reading marks that scholar’s reading or proposal; ci. (coniecit), “conjectured”, marks a scholar’s conjecture (210a6, 221c2), and a question mark a proposal offered doubtfully (209a7). Seclusi, “I have bracketed”, marks a deletion of Burnet’s own (204a9), and scripsi, “I have written”, a reading of his own (214d2). The scholars named in these pages are Martin Schanz, Rudolf Hirschig, Carel Gabriel Cobet, Herbert Richards, Johan Nicolai Madvig, Charles Badham, Ludwig Heindorf, Immanuel Bekker, Janus Cornarius, Gottfried Stallbaum, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Philipp Buttmann, Johann Georg Baiter, Friedrich Ast and Karl Friedrich Hermann, and four whom Burnet names by surname or initial only, Goldbacher, Salvini, C. Schmidt and H. Müller. add., added (addidi, I have added, 219b3; postea add., added later; add. in marg., added in the margin; add. corr. Coisl., added by a correction in the Coislinianus; add. ci., proposed addition, 221c4); al. (alii), other manuscripts (206e7); alteri tribuunt, “they give it to the other speaker” (204a9); altero loco, in the second place (217d3); an … ?, perhaps … ? (219c3); anonymus apud Heindorf, an unnamed scholar cited by Heindorf (216d5); ante, before; coll., comparing (211e2: Herbert Richards, proposing παρέργως, “as a side matter”, for πρᾴως, compares Dinarchus, Against Philocles 14, μὴ παρέργως ἔχειν πρός, “not to treat as a side matter”); corr., corrected (corr. Coisl., a correction in the Coislinianus); duarum litterarum, of two letters (210b6); erasum, erased; et, and; et mox, and just after; ex emend., by correction; extra lineam suppl., supplied outside the line (219a2); fort. (fortasse), perhaps (218b8); fuit, stood there before (206a10); in marg., in the margin; in ras., written over an erasure; Lysidi tribuit, “gives it to Lysis” (208a5); mox, just after (209d8: Bekker reads ἐμβαλεῖν and brackets the ἐμβαλεῖν that follows); non videtur … fuisse, “it does not seem to have been” (211b7); om., leaves out; post, after; prius, the first of two like words (214e7); rasura, erasure (207a2: B’s single λ stands where λλ was, apparently by erasure); recc. (recentiores), later manuscripts; refictum, refinxit, re-formed (211b7, 214c2); scr., written (scr. recc., the reading of later manuscripts; scr. Ven. 184, scr. Coisl., scr. Laur. lxxxv. 17, the reading of that manuscript); secl., bracketed as spurious (secl. ci., proposed bracketing, 218d3); sed, but; servato, keeping (219d5); signum interrogandi posuit, “set a question mark” (213c7); supra, above; suprascr., written above; ut videtur, as it seems; vel, or (217c7). γρ. (graphetai, “it is written”) introduces a variant written beside the manuscript’s own reading (209b7). A vertical stroke marks the end of a line in the manuscript: B has ησ at the end of one line and η at the start of the next (208d4).

The English. The translation is new. It aims to be exact, with every clause answering to a clause of the Greek, and to keep what translations of this dialogue often lose: Socrates’ humor. That means his teasing of Hippothales, the lover who cannot stop writing poems about the boy, Ctesippus’ mockery of Hippothales, the gravity with which Socrates sets out to prove to a boy that his parents do not let him do as he likes, and the timing of the short exchanges. Socrates tells the story to an unnamed listener, and his narration keeps its historic presents (“Menexenus … comes in”). Speech is set in double quotation marks, and where Burnet runs quick questions and answers on in one paragraph, the English runs them on too, with a dash at each change of speaker. Where a joke depends on the Greek and cannot be carried into English, a note explains it briefly; nothing is added to make it funnier. The reading Burnet prints is translated, including the conjectures he adopts; words he brackets as spurious are not translated, and where his choice of reading changes the sense, a note says so.

Each right-hand page translates the Greek page opposite. When a sentence runs over the turn of Burnet’s page, the English breaks at the nearest point English word order allows and leaves the sentence unfinished at the foot of the page, as the Greek does. The Stephanus section letters in the margin of the English mark where each section begins.

Key terms. The dialogue asks what a friend is, and its word, philos, has no single English equivalent: it means “friend” and “dear”, and it is said of the one who loves and of the one who is loved, of people and of things. It is rendered “friend” throughout, one word for one word, because the argument turns on the word’s two directions and the reader needs to see the same word tried each time; the note at 206a says so where the word first appears. Philia is “friendship”, and the verb philein is “love”; the noun “love” renders erōs, the love of a lover, whose verb eran is “be in love”. Erastēs is “lover”, erōmenos “beloved”, and ta paidika, the boy whom a lover courts, “darling”. Hetairos is “companion”, and never “friend”. Kalos is “beautiful” of persons and in the proverb that “the beautiful is a friend” (216c–d), and “fine” of other things (205e), and the adverb kalōs is “well” (204a, 217a); kalos kagathos is “beautiful and good”; gignōskein, like eidenai and epistasthai, is “know” (the formula eu isthi, 211b, is “rest assured”). Epithymein is “desire”, eudaimōn “happy” and makarios “blessed”; archein is “rule”, epitrepein “entrust”, and phronein “understand”. Echthros, the opposite of philos, is “enemy”, and misein “hate”; agapan, another verb of affection, is “cherish”; the verb philosophein is “love wisdom” (218a–b); heneka is “for the sake of” and dia “because of”, kept apart where the argument turns on the difference (218d–221d); ponēros (214b–c) is “wicked”, and kakos “bad”; oikeios, which the argument comes to at its end, is “akin”, and allotrios, said of the bad at 222c, “alien”. The philosophoi of 212d, one of a list of words compounded with philos, are “friends of wisdom”, and Lysis’ philosophia at 213d is “philosophy”, with a note.

The notes. The notes identify persons and places, explain what the English cannot carry, and mark the places where Burnet’s choice of reading makes a real difference to the sense. Interpretations are labelled as such. They are numbered afresh on each page.