From the book
The Lovers
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordNaus means ship; the text has its dative nēi, “in a ship.”
- In The LoversAfter the doctor receives priority in illness, Socrates asks whom the lover would trust on a storm-tossed ship: the pilot or philosopher.
- In this editionThe edition renders the compact Greek situation as “in a storm” within the ship question.
- A place to readἐν νηὶ χειμαζομένῃ — The emergency is a ship being storm-tossed.
Meaning
Naus means ship; the text has its dative nēi, “in a ship.” Cheimazesthai means to be storm-tossed or exposed to stormy weather. The participle cheimazomenēi agrees with the ship at 136d. The situation is already an emergency, not a calm comparison of general educational accomplishments.
Use in the book
After the doctor receives priority in illness, Socrates asks whom the lover would trust on a storm-tossed ship: the pilot or philosopher. The answer is the pilot. The example strengthens the felt urgency of appropriate expertise. One’s own person and belongings are at stake, and a theoretical claim to breadth offers little reassurance if navigation is the immediate need.
The ship is often readily allegorized, but this passage does not explicitly call the city a ship or a ruler its pilot. Its immediate role is a practical test of the runner-up’s alleged usefulness. The political argument comes later through punishment, justice and the ordering of a city. Reading a latent governing analogy is possible, but it should remain an interpretation rather than part of the sentence’s literal content.
Like the medical example, the storm establishes whom to prefer, not independently that all nonpilots aboard are useless. The dialogue immediately generalizes from the chosen expert to the claim that the philosopher is not useful whenever a craftsman is present. Keeping the ship’s precise function visible allows the reader to appreciate the force of the emergency without treating it as a complete proof of that stronger claim.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
The edition renders the compact Greek situation as “in a storm” within the ship question. It supplies no account of vessel type, crew organization or a particular voyage. Those details are unnecessary for the comparison and should not be invented to make the scene more picturesque.