Symposium

Block IV: 192e–197e (Burnet pages 29–35)

How it was made. Burnet pages 29–35 (scan pp. 193–199), 197 lines, from the close of Hephaestus’ question and the end of Aristophanes’ speech, with its warning that the halves may be split again, through the exchange in which Eryximachus, Socrates, Agathon and Phaedrus spar over Agathon’s “theatre”, to Agathon’s speech on the youngest, most tender, most virtuous and wisest of the gods, which ends with the last page of the block at 197e8. The Greek was set line for line from the photographs of Burnet’s page, with his apparatus, and the English written and annotated in the approved voice; independent reviewers then checked the Greek and the apparatus against the photographs letter by letter, the English against the Greek clause by clause, and every note and the extended Editorial Note against their sources.

What the reviewers caught. The Greek text, the margins and the apparatus were confirmed letter by letter on all seven pages, with the capitals for the god’s name and for Necessity restored against the transcription, the quotation marks and letterspacing in Agathon’s speech, and the verse of Homer and of Agathon set as Burnet sets it. The doubtful forms of the apparatus stand as printed, among them the lemma οἷς οἵων at 195a2 and a single point where a colon is wanted at 196e4; the mark after τοιόσδε. at 195a8 was shown to be a stray mark in printer’s ink, and the reader’s pencil on these pages was told apart from the print by its density. In the English, the participle “hearing this” belongs to the one who would not deny it, not to “we” (192e5); two particles were restored (194c1, 194e1); the quotation at 197b3 now takes in Zeus, whom Burnet spaces with the words that follow; θορυβεῖσθαι is “be thrown into confusion”, as in the Lysis; Love “does not come even within a long way” of old age (195b3); “the speech” renders τὸν λόγον, since “my” would follow the manuscripts’ μου, not the μοι Burnet prints; and Phaedrus “took him up”, as at 176d. Agathon’s paired words are now carried where English allows (“gracefulness” and “gracelessness”, “heedful” and “heedless”, “beheld” and “admired”, “generous” and “ungenerous”), and Necessity’s “kingship” answers Love’s being “king of the gods”. About twenty phrases that followed Lamb’s Loeb translation were reworded. In the notes, Agathon in the Protagoras sits with Pausanias beside Prodicus, and does not recline; the source of the words at 197b3 is said to be unknown, not a verse; the breaking up of Mantinea is cited from the whole of Xenophon’s account; and a new note explains Vahlen’s comma after “well” at 194a3, which makes Socrates foretell a good speech. In the Editorial Note, fort. is glossed in each of its uses, the phrase at 196c is given as Aristotle’s quotation of Alcidamas, the words Agathon quotes are no longer called lines of verse, Hermogenes is cited from his On Types of Style, et is glossed, and the key terms are placed by speaker.