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← ExitStobaeus, Volume I

Reading language

Book I Chapter 49

9.1 · Plato: what can be dissolved?

In the same work.

“Is it not naturally fitting for what has been put together and is composite to undergo this: to be divided in the way in which it was put together? If something is uncompounded, does it not belong to that alone, if to anything, to escape these changes?”

“That seems to me to be so,” said Cebes.

“Then the things that always remain the same and in the same condition are most likely to be uncompounded; ⟨but⟩ those that vary from one time to another and never remain ⟨the same⟩ are composite?”

“That is how it seems to me.”

. . . . .¹²⁹³

9.2 · Visible and unseen kinds of being

“Shall we then posit,” he said, “two kinds of things that are, one visible and the other unseen?”

“Let us do so,” he said.

“And that the unseen remains the same, while the visible never remains the same?”

“Let us posit that too,” he said.

“Come then,” he said, “are we ourselves anything other than body on the one hand and soul on the other?”

“Nothing else,” he said.¹²⁹⁴

9.3 · The body belongs with the visible

“To which kind, then, would we say the body is more similar and more closely akin?”

“It is clear to everyone,” he said, “that it is the visible.”

“And the soul: visible or unseen?”

“Not visible to human beings, at any rate, Socrates,” he said.

“But we were speaking of what is visible or not to human nature. Or do you think we meant some other nature?”

“Human nature.”¹²⁹⁵

9.4 · The soul’s affinity with the unseen

“Then what do we say about the soul: is it visible or invisible?”

“Not visible.”

“Unseen, then?”

“Yes.”

“Then soul is more like the unseen than body is, and body more like the visible?”

“It must be so, Socrates.”¹²⁹⁶

9.5 · The soul drawn into bodily perception

“And did we not say some time ago that when soul uses the body to examine something, through sight or hearing or any other sense (for examining something through a sense is what ‘through the body’ means), it is drawn by the body toward things that never remain the same? The soul itself then wanders, is disturbed, and grows dizzy as though drunk, because it is in contact with such things.”

“Certainly.”¹²⁹⁷

9.6 · Thought in contact with the unchanging

“But when it examines things by itself, it goes toward what is pure, everlasting, immortal, and unchanging. Being akin to that, it is always in its company whenever it comes to be on its own and is able to do so. It has ceased its wandering and, in relation to those things, always remains in the same condition, because it is in contact with things of that kind. And is this condition of the soul called understanding?”

“What you say is entirely right and true, Socrates,” he said.¹²⁹⁸

9.7 · Which kind is closer to soul?

“Then, from both the earlier discussion and what has now been said, to which kind does soul seem to you more similar and more closely akin?”

“From this line of inquiry, Socrates,” he said, “I think everyone, even the slowest learner, would agree that soul is altogether more like what always remains the same than what does not.”

“And the body?”

“The other kind.”¹²⁹⁹

9.8 · Ruling and being ruled

“Consider it in this way too. When soul and body are together, nature commands the one to serve and be ruled, the other to rule and exercise mastery. In these respects, which seems to you like the divine and which like the mortal? Does the divine not seem to you naturally fitted to rule and lead, and the mortal to be ruled and serve?”

“So it seems.”

“Then which does soul resemble?”

“Plainly, Socrates, soul resembles the divine, and body the mortal.”¹³⁰⁰

9.9 · The combined comparison

“Consider, Cebes,” he said, “whether all that has been said yields this result for us: soul is most like what is divine, immortal, intelligible, uniform, and indissoluble, always remaining the same as itself in the same condition; body, in turn, is more like what is human, mortal, unintelligible, multiform, dissoluble, and never remaining the same as itself. Can we say anything against this, dear Cebes, to show that it is not so?”

“We cannot.”

“If that is how matters stand, is it not fitting for body to be dissolved quickly, and for soul to be altogether indissoluble, or something close to that?”

“Of course.”¹³⁰¹

9.10 · The persistence of the body

“Do you observe, then,” he said, “that when a person dies, the visible body, lying in the visible world, which we call a corpse and which is liable to dissolve, fall apart, and disperse into the air, undergoes none of these things immediately? It remains for a fairly long time, and for a very long time indeed if the person dies with the body in good condition and at a suitable season. For when the body shrivels and is embalmed, like those embalmed in Egypt, it remains almost whole for an extraordinarily long time. And even if it decays, some parts of the body, bones and sinews and all such things alike, are, so to speak, immortal. Are they not?”

“Yes.”¹³⁰²

9.11 · The soul’s departure to the unseen

“And soul, then, the unseen, which departs to another place of the same kind, noble and pure and unseen, to Hades in the truest sense, to the good and wise god, where, if the god wills, my own soul must soon go: will a soul of this kind and with this nature, on being released from the body, immediately have been blown away and destroyed, as most people say? Far from it, dear Cebes and Simmias.”¹³⁰³

10 · Plato, Cratylus: the name of soul

Plato, from the Cratylus.

I think those who gave soul its name had something like this in mind: when it is present in the body, it is the cause of the body’s living, providing the power to breathe and refreshing it; but as soon as what refreshes it fails, the body perishes and dies. That, I think, is why they called it psychē, soul.¹³⁰⁴

11.1 · Plato, Phaedrus: self-motion

Plato, from the Phaedrus.

Every soul is immortal. For what is always in motion is immortal; but what moves something else and is moved by something else ceases to move when its life ceases. Only what moves itself, since it does not abandon itself, never stops moving; for it is also the source and beginning of motion for all other things that move.¹³⁰⁵

1293.The excerpt joins Phaedo 78c with 79a-80e; Wachsmuth’s heading gives 78b-c and 79a-80d. Its dots mark the printed discontinuity. The supplied tauta and de are represented in English, with “but” moved to its natural position. The argument proceeds from composition and change to the distinction between visible and unseen things. “Most likely” retains eikos; it is not a categorical identification.

1294.Eidē here means kinds or classes; the statement divides things that are into visible and unseen. Aeides, “unseen,” will later be linked by wordplay with Hades. The English question about our composition renders the compressed allo ti ... ē construction as a request for agreement.

1295.The qualification concerns visibility to human observers. The Greek answer “not by human beings” leaves the verb of seeing implicit; the English makes that implication explicit. Kinship with a kind is the argument’s claim at this stage, rather than identity with it.

1296.Both aoraton and aeides express the absence of visibility. The genitive sōmatos makes the comparison “more like the unseen than body is”; the second clause supplies body as the contrasting subject. This conclusion concerns resemblance, which the next passages develop through the soul’s activity.

1297.The bodily senses direct soul toward changing objects, and the soul’s condition is described as reflecting their instability. The imagery of wandering and drunkenness is part of the comparison; “in contact with” translates ephaptomenē without making this an assertion of physical contact between soul and object.

1298.Phronēsis is rendered “understanding,” as in Cebes’ request above. The soul’s steadiness is connected with the character of what it apprehends. Pathēma here denotes its state or condition, not necessarily suffering. The qualifications “whenever” and “is able” remain part of the claim.

1299.Methodos is the course of inquiry or argument just followed. The emphatic holōi kai panti, “altogether,” strengthens the comparison; it does not erase its comparative form. The body is assigned the contrary affinity.

1300.The grammatical genders identify body as what serves and soul as what rules. The account uses the language of command and mastery to establish a further resemblance between soul and the divine. This is an analogy within Socrates’ argument, not a separate statement that every actual human action is governed by reason.

1301.“Or something close to that” is a significant qualification and is retained. Mono-eides and poly-eides contrast uniformity with multiplicity of form. Anoēton stands opposite noēton, intelligible, so here it is rendered “unintelligible,” not “unthinking.” Wachsmuth reports that manuscript P omits the text from “and indissoluble” onward through a later passage on p. 335; his printed text continues from other evidence.

1302.The body’s persistence prepares a comparison with the soul; “so to speak” explicitly qualifies the description of bones and sinews as immortal. “Shrivels” renders sympeson, literally collapsing or drawing together, in the context of preservation. The printed homoiōs, “alike,” is retained rather than the alternative homōs, “nevertheless,” noted in the apparatus.

1303.The verbal association between aeides, “unseen,” and Hades is part of the passage’s wordplay, not an etymology asserted by this edition. Socrates speaks of his own approaching death. The extra Greek article to after “to” is rejected by Wachsmuth and remains bracketed opposite; it has no natural separate English equivalent. The conditional “if the god wills” is retained.

1304.Cratylus 399d-e. The proposed explanation connects psychē, “soul,” with anapsychon, “refreshing” or “cooling,” alongside breathing. Keeping psychē in the English makes the wordplay visible. This is the explanation offered in the quoted dialogue, not an established historical derivation of the word.

1305.Phaedrus 245c-246a. Wachsmuth prints “when its life ceases, its motion ceases”; his apparatus records the reversed order in Plato, “when its motion ceases, its life ceases.” The English follows the printed Stobaeus. The argument distinguishes motion received from something else from motion whose source is the moving thing itself.