Circles, drawing, and inclinations · Lexicon

From the book

The Lovers

Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordKyklos means a circle; the opening has the plural accusative kyklous, the objects being drawn.
In The LoversBecause Socrates cannot quite hear, the opening establishes knowledge through limited observation.
In this editionThe edition suggests that the inclinations could depict one circle tilted against another and associates that possibility with its note on Oenopides.
A place to readκύκλους γοῦν γράφειν ἐφαινέσθην — Socrates reports apparent circle-drawing, rather than an overheard proposition.

Meaning

Kyklos means a circle; the opening has the plural accusative kyklous, the objects being drawn. Graphein can mean to write or draw, and the drawn circles make “drawing” appropriate here. Enklisis means an inclination or tilt; the plural enkliseis names what the lads imitate by inclining their hands. None of these nouns by itself specifies the celestial equator, zodiac, or an exact angular measurement.

The choice between “write” and “draw” is a small reminder that the writing-master’s setting does not restrict the activity to letters. The same general graphic action can represent geometry. Likewise the hands do not merely accompany speech decoratively: Socrates treats their position as evidence about the subject being considered.

Use in the book

Because Socrates cannot quite hear, the opening establishes knowledge through limited observation. He reports what the two seemed to be drawing and what their gestures resembled, then asks the lover beside him. That lover’s answer offers an evaluation, “prattling” and “talking nonsense,” rather than an explanation of the diagram. The gap between seeing a practice, labeling it, and understanding it prepares the later demand to know what philosophy is before judging its worth.

The lads’ earnestness accompanies the images. A circle may look simple while the question it expresses is difficult; conversely, earnest gestures do not guarantee an important result. The narrative leaves both possibilities available. Socrates’ initial “great and fine” is a question, not a certification of the astronomy.

Drawing and manual imitation also warn against mapping the two adult rivals too neatly onto mind and body. The supposed intellectual pursuit is embodied, and the athlete later supplies a sound judgment about measure. The conceptual contrast is between relevant understanding and empty claims, not between hands as such and thinking as such.

Places to read

132bκύκλους γοῦν γράφειν ἐφαινέσθην — Socrates reports apparent circle-drawing, rather than an overheard proposition.
132bἐγκλίσεις τινὰς ἐμιμοῦντο — The inclinations are presented indefinitely as things imitated.

Translation in this edition

The edition suggests that the inclinations could depict one circle tilted against another and associates that possibility with its note on Oenopides. The inference is explicitly tentative. At 132b1 the apparatus reports graphein in B beside graphontes in T and W; the continuous text follows Burnet’s infinitive reading. This article quotes the supplied edited text, not a new collation of those manuscripts. “Inclinations” preserves the geometrical suggestion without inserting an unnamed celestial mechanism.