Symposium

Block VI: 203a–208d (Burnet pages 44–51)

How it was made. Burnet pages 44–51 (scan pp. 208–215), 230 lines, the middle of what Diotima taught Socrates: the birth of Love from Resource and Poverty at the feast for Aphrodite’s birth, and his nature as a lover of wisdom, between the wise and the ignorant; the argument that love is of the good’s being one’s own always; its work, giving birth in the beautiful, in body and in soul; a later lesson on why every creature loves its offspring, in which mortal nature shares in immortality by leaving something new in place of the old; and the love of honour. The block ends inside Diotima’s question about Alcestis, at 208d2. 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. In the Greek, two breathings in the apparatus had been read the wrong way round: the manuscripts’ reading at 206b2 is ἢ σπουδῇ, “or earnestness”, with a smooth breathing, not a relative pronoun, and the papyrus’ marginal correction at 205b9 is ὧ, with a rough one; both were settled by setting them beside sure pairs from the same fount. The rest of the text, the margins and the apparatus were confirmed letter by letter on all eight pages, with the two phrases Burnet letterspaces as quotations, and Ἔρως at 204d3, whose breathing and accent did not print in this copy though their space is left. In the English, a “she said” that had fallen out was restored (204d8); Diotima’s question “do they seem so to you?” now fits Socrates’ answer “not to me” (206a1); her “welcome” answers Aristophanes in the word he used (205e, as 192a–b); “taken all together” replaces a second “in sum” and keeps Burnet’s lower-case love (206a11); “in what is beautiful” marks the bare dative at 206b7; the plural at 208a2 is “pieces of knowledge”, as elsewhere; a marker was moved (205e1), and small words restored (αὖ, τοι, γάρ, μέντοι, and a comparison’s “than these”); “account” now answers “account” at 205d–e; and three phrases that followed Lamb’s Loeb translation were reworded, with “exertion” for σύντασις. θαυμάζειν is now “marvel” throughout the volume, at 180b too. In the notes, Beauty takes the office of Moira and Eileithyia rather than standing beside them, and Pindar’s Fates are plural, with Eleutho named as a variant; penēs is of one family with Penia, not derived from it; Agathon’s use of poiēsis is described as it stands (196e–197a); and three new notes record readings the English depends on: “she said” (ἦ δ’ ἥ) against the manuscripts’ “already” (205c4), “everything divine” against “every god” (206d1), and “again” from a later hand in B (207c2). In the Editorial Note, Stobaeus’ citations are taken to 203a7, corr. is also glossed as the papyrus’ corrector, the bracket in αὑτῷ (αὐτῷ) is explained, and the papyrus’ ελεγεσ and its ὡμολογησαμεν with a breathing are described.