The Lovers

Key Words of the Dialogue

These notes are for orientation, not reference: each explains a word the argument leans on, what it meant in the Athens of Socrates, and what the dialogue does with it. The Glossary at the back lists the renderings with the places where they matter.

Philosophy, philosophize, philosopher (philosophia, philosophein, philosophos)

Philosophia joins philo-, “loving”, and sophia, “wisdom”, and the words did not yet name a discipline or a profession: to philosophize could be to pursue learning and argument of any kind, and comic poets mocked it as idle talk about “the things up in the sky” (132b). The dialogue asks what it is. The athlete calls it prattle; the wiser lover first calls it “much learning” (133c–e), then the knowledge of as many crafts as possible, not precisely, like the man who has the craft himself, “but as is reasonable for a free and educated man” (135b–d); the argument ends by placing it nearer the knowledge by which a man knows himself and rightly orders his household and his city (138a–139a). Philosophia and philosophos are “philosophy” and “philosopher”, as in the Charmides (153d, 154e), and philosophein is “philosophize”, throughout, and pephilosophēkōs is “the man who has philosophized” (136a); the English thereby gives up the “love of wisdom” inside the word, which the note at 132b explains, with the dialogue’s other “loves”: philotimōs, “ambitiously” (133a), philogymnastia, “the love of exercise” (133d), and philonikein, “strive for victory” (134c).

Lover, rival lover, beloved (erastēs, anterastēs, paidika)

Erastēs is the older lover of a youth, paidika the youth he loves, and anterastēs one of two men who love the same youth. The scene is a school where “the young who were thought the most comely” sit with “their lovers” (132a), and the two rivals argue before the boy they both love: the wiser speaks “in a loud voice, so that his beloved should hear him” (133b). The rivalry is in the arguments too. Each disparages the other (132c, 134a–b), the wiser most bluntly (“he is nothing”, 134c), and the wiser twice speaks one way to his rival and another to Socrates (133d, 134c). The title Anterastai, “Rival Lovers”, which Diogenes Laertius uses (3.59), comes from the word. Erastēs is “lover”, anterastēs “rival lover” (“his rival in love” at 132c, where it is predicative), paidika “beloved”, as in the series.

Much learning, much labor (polymathia, polyponia; ponoi)

The wiser lover’s first answer, which Socrates sums up as polymathia, “much learning”, and he accepts, is Solon’s: Solon grew old “always learning many things”, and the philosopher must learn “as much as possible in his life” (133c). Socrates sets beside it a word of the same make, polyponia, “much labor”, and asks whether that is the love of exercise (133e). The athlete knows better: ponoi, the labors of training, make the body fit when they are moderate, not many (134a–b), and his rival concedes it (134c). The parallel carries the argument from the body to the soul, where the subjects of learning too should be moderate (134d–e). Socrates’ last words return to it: philosophizing is far from being “much learning” (139a). The English keeps the pair parallel: “much learning”, “much labor”, and ponoi “labors”, as in the Alcibiades II (142b); diapeponēkenai is “to have labored at” (136a).

Moderate, in moderation (metrios, metriōs; ametros)

Metrios, from metron, “measure”, is what keeps to the measure: neither too much nor too little. The athlete’s moderate labors (134a) lead Socrates to the moderate in food, in everything to do with the body, and in the soul (134c–d), and so to the question who knows the measure for the soul, as the doctor, the trainer and the farmer know theirs (134e). The wiser lover takes up the word for his own ideal: the philosopher should “have laid hold of all of them in moderation” (136b). The English keeps “moderate” throughout, ta metria “what is moderate”, ametros “immoderate”, and metriōs “in moderation”, where the Alcibiades I (130c) has “adequately” (a departure recorded in the Glossary).

Useful and useless (chrēsimos, achrēstos, achreios)

Chrēsimos is what can be used, achrēstos what cannot. The wiser lover grants that the good are useful and the base useless, and that philosophers are most useful (136b–c); but the craftsman is always there, and to the question whether, “as long as there is any craftsman, the philosopher is not useful”, he answers “It appears so” (136d), so that philosophers prove “base and useless” (137a–b). At the end Socrates asks whether the runner-up philosopher is to be achreios, “of no use”, so long as there is a judge or a king, and the answer is no (138e). Chrēsimos is of the same root as chrēstos, “decent”, which the next stage of the argument uses. Chrēsimos is “useful”, achrēstos “useless”, achreios “of no use”.

Good, decent, base, worthless (agathos; chrēstos; ponēros; mochthēros)

Agathos is the widest word of praise: good of its kind, good for someone, good morally. Chrēstos, “serviceable”, is of men honest, respectable, decent; ponēros, from ponos, “toil”, and mochthēros, from mochthos, “hardship”, are both “wretched”, and so worthless or bad. The dialogue uses the last two interchangeably: the good are useful and “the base useless” (136b), recalled as “the worthless useless” (136e) and again as “the base useless” (137a); the craft that makes horses and dogs best knows “the decent and the worthless” (137c), and a man ignorant of “the decent and worthless men” is ignorant “whether he is decent or base” (138a). The words are the same for horses, oxen and men, since the argument turns on the likeness. Agathos is “good”; chrēstos is “decent” and ponēros “base”, as in the Hipparchus, and mochthēros “worthless”, as in the Alcibiades II.

Craft and craftsman (technē, dēmiourgos)

A technē is a craft or art with knowledge of its own: carpentry, medicine, piloting, farming. A dēmiourgos is one who practises a craft for others. The wiser lover wants the philosopher to know the crafts as “a free and educated man”, by “understanding”, not “handiwork”, so as to follow what the craftsman says and to contribute a judgment, without being a slave to any one of them (135b–136b). Socrates turns this into the question of use: whenever there is a craftsman, the philosopher is not needed (136c–e). Those “in earnest about the crafts”, Socrates says, are called “menial” (banausos) (137b). Then the argument finds a craft of its own for the philosopher: the one by which the king, the statesman and the household manager rule, which is one with justice and temperance (138c). Technē is “craft” and dēmiourgos “craftsman”, as in the series.

Runner-up, pentathlete, second prizes (hypakros; pentathlos; ta deutereia)

The pentathlon joined running, the long jump, the discus, the javelin and wrestling. The pentathletes, Socrates says, “fall short” of the racers and wrestlers “in these men’s own events”, but “are first among the other athletes and beat them” (135e); so the philosopher, “holding the second prizes”, is “a kind of runner-up in everything” (136a). Hypakros, a rare word, is “just under the top”, answering akros, “top”, in Socrates’ “top master builder” (135c). The wiser lover takes the image as praise; Socrates uses it to ask where the runner-up is useful (136c), and at the end denies that the philosopher may “hold the second prizes” in judging and ruling (138e). Hypakros is “runner-up”, pentathlos “pentathlete”, ta deutereia “the second prizes”.

Punish (kolazein; akolastainein)

Kolazein is to correct, chastise, punish: to check what is unruly. The argument’s last stage begins from it. The same craft makes horses and dogs best and “punishes them rightly” (137b–c); in cities, the knowledge that “rightly punishes those … who are unruly and break the law” is the judge’s, which is justice (137d); and the philosopher must “himself punish, judging rightly”, in his own household (138e). Akolastainein, “to be unruly”, is of the same root: akolastos, literally “unchastened”, was the ordinary word for the undisciplined and licentious man. Kolazein is “punish” throughout, of horses and dogs as of men.

Temperance and knowing oneself (sōphrosynē, sōphronein; to heauton gignōskein)

Sōphrosynē, from “sound” and “mind”, was self-control, moderation, discretion, the virtue that knows its limits. The Delphic inscription “Know thyself” was commonly read as a call to it, and the Charmides (164d–165a) makes Critias read it so. Here the argument reaches it from the other end: whoever does not know the decent and worthless men does not know himself, “whether he is decent or base”; not knowing oneself is “not being temperate”; so knowing oneself is being temperate, which is “what the inscription at Delphi urges” (138a). Sōphrosynē is “temperance”, sōphronein “be temperate” and sōphrōn “temperate”, as throughout the series.

Justice (dikaiosynē, dikaios; dikazein, dikastikē; dikēn didonai)

Dikaiosynē is justice, dikaios the just man, dikazein to judge a case, and dikēn didonai to pay the penalty. The knowledge that “rightly punishes those in cities who are unruly and break the law” is “the judge’s”, and Socrates’ interlocutor calls no other “justice” (137d). Since that by which we punish rightly is justice, and that by which we distinguish oneself and others is temperance, and both are the same knowledge, justice and temperance are “the same thing” (138b); and cities “are well ordered: when wrongdoers pay the penalty”. The inscription at Delphi had already been said to urge “temperance and justice” (138a). Dikaiosynē is “justice” throughout the series; dikastikē is “the judge’s” (knowledge).

King, tyrant, statesman, household manager, master (basileus, tyrannos, politikos, oikonomos, despotēs)

When one man orders a city rightly, his name is “tyrant and king”; when one man on his own orders a household rightly, “household manager and master” (138b–c). The arts of each, basilikē, tyrannikē, politikē, oikonomikē and despotikē, prove to be “one craft” with justice and temperance (138c). The list joins the household to the city, as the Statesman (258e–259c) does at length, and the tyrant to the king, as it does not (276e). A tyrannos was a sole ruler whose power rested on no lawful or traditional title; the word was not always one of blame. The renderings are “king”, “tyrant”, “statesman”, “household manager” and “master”, with “kingly”, “tyrannical”, “the statesman’s”, “the household manager’s” and “the master’s” for the crafts; dioikein is “order”, and oikeisthai “be ordered”, as in the Alcibiades I.

Fine and shameful (kalos, aischros)

Kalos is beautiful of persons and fine of acts and things; aischros, its opposite, is ugly or shameful. The dialogue opens with the question whether philosophizing is “shameful” or “fine” (132c–133b), and Socrates’ first objection is that one cannot know whether a thing is fine or shameful without knowing what it is (133b). Philosophy is then found “fine” and also “good” (133d), and the love of exercise “both fine and good” (133e). At the end the word returns as a reproach: the wiser lover agrees that it is “shameful” for the philosopher not to be able to follow the judge and the king, and “shameful … to appear second or third and not to lead” (138d–139a). Kalos is “fine” (and “beautiful” of the young, 133a), kallion “more finely”, aischros “shameful”.