Symposium

Block VIII: 213e–219b (Burnet pages 59–65)

How it was made. Burnet pages 59–65 (scan pp. 223–229), 207 lines: Alcibiades’ great cup and his toast to Socrates; Eryximachus’ protest and the order of speeches; Alcibiades’ refusal to praise anyone but Socrates; and, after Burnet’s blank line, the first part of his speech in praise of Socrates: the likenesses of the silenus statues and the satyr Marsyas, the power of Socrates’ words over him, his shame, the golden statues inside, his attempts on Socrates at the gymnasium and at dinner, the night he kept him, and Socrates’ ironic answer to his offer. The block ends at 219b2 with Socrates’ “we shall deliberate”. 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 apparatus, the lemma at 217b6 is ἄν with an acute, like the text’s ἄν before μοι, not ἂν. The rest of the text, the margins, the verse line at 214b7 with its indent, the blank line at 215a4, the quotation marks and letterspacing of “χρύσεα χαλκείων” (219a1) and the apparatus were confirmed letter by letter on all seven pages; ᾄδομεν at 214b1 has a smooth breathing on the page, against the transcription, and the second siglum at 214b6 is a clear T, kept as printed. In the English, ἡγεῖσθαι is again “believe” in three places where it had become “think”; ἔμβραχυ, Cobet’s reading, is “at all”, not the manuscripts’ “in short”, and κελεύειν keeps “tell” (217a2); νέου is “of a young man”, not “young” with the soul (218a6); four particles were restored (215a5, 216c2, 217a6, 217c3); κοινωνεῖν is “be partners in”, with the adjective “wisdom-loving” (218b3–4); Socrates’ λόγοι stay “speeches” (218a5); διατίθεσθαι is “be disposed” (215e7); Socrates’ “Hush!” repeats Diotima’s (201e10); the page join at 215b4–5 now keeps γε on its own page; six Stephanus markers were moved; and eleven phrases that followed Lamb’s Loeb translation were reworded, among them “when the lamp had gone out” and “stirring him” (218b–c). In the notes, Xenophon’s Socrates does not call himself uglier than a silenus but claims that the Naiads bear sileni like him (Symposium 5.7; Critobulus at 4.19); Herodotus reports Marsyas’ skin at Celaenae without saying he saw it (7.26.3), and the contest is given its source in Apollodorus; Idomeneus’ line is spoken to Nestor about the wounded Machaon; the note on Burnet’s “we had dined” says that the first person is Photius’; the Corybants, Pericles’ joint guardianship with Ariphron, the two passages on the Sirens, the two proverbs of wine and truth (Suda ο 134; Alcaeus fr. 366) and the Orphic formula of the profane (fr. 1a–b Bernabé, with the Derveni papyrus) are given as their sources give them; and a note was added on Burnet’s own ἐπαινέσαι (214e5). In the Editorial Note, the conversation Alcibiades reports is described as set in single marks, and eirōnikōs is added to the key terms.