Wool-working and weaving

Use in the book

At 126e wool-working is the example of a subject the wife knows and the husband does not. Alcibiades agrees that they cannot have the requisite shared expert concord about it. Socrates adds that the husband need not learn it, calling it a woman's subject, and then reverses the roles with hoplite fighting. The accepted allocation generates a problem for identifying all friendship with shared specialist knowledge. It is not itself an argument that the spouses cannot love one another.

Weaving appears at 128c–d as the craft caring for things belonging to the body, in contrast with gymnastics caring for the body itself. Clothing production had also distinguished the shoemaker's ignorance from his competence about shoes at 125a. Here textile work helps specify objects of expertise and care.

The entry therefore must preserve two differences: wool-working need not be identical with the narrower operation of weaving, and the gendered household example does different argumentative work from the body–belongings distinction. In both cases the familiarity of the activity makes an abstract claim testable.

Places to read

1. 125a–125bCloak production marks a competence the shoemaker lacks
2. 126e–127aWool-working tests shared knowledge between differently trained spouses
3. 128c–128dWeaving improves the body’s belongings, unlike bodily training

Translation in this edition

The edition distinguishes “wool-working” from “weaving.” Its supplied question about cloaks and bedclothes at 128a13–b1 comes from Stobaeus in Burnet's angle brackets; weaving itself at 128c15 is in the main transmitted sequence.

ἱμάτιον / στρῶμα

Attested: ἱματίων (himatiōn; 125a); στρώματα (strōmata; 128a). At 125a: Cloaks whose production the shoemaker does not understand. At 128a: Bedclothes belonging to the body in the speech supplied from Stobaeus. Lexical identification: family label: ἱμάτιον / στρῶμα. The question containing this form is supplied by Burnet from Stobaeus at 128a13–b1 and is translated in this edition. See Wool-working and weaving.

ταλασιουργία

Attested: ταλασιουργίας (talasiourgias; 126e). At 126e: Wool-working known by the wife but not the husband in the test of concord. Lexical identification: lemma: ταλασιουργία. See Wool-working and weaving.

ὑφαντική

Attested: ὑφαντικῇ (hyphantikēi; 128c). At 128c: Weaving as care for the body’s belongings rather than the body itself. Lexical identification: lemma: ὑφαντική. See Wool-working and weaving.

Use in the book

Socrates asks whether Lysis may handle the tools involved in his mother’s ταλασιουργία. The surrounding objects include wool, loom, batten, and shuttle. Lysis laughs and says that touching them would get him beaten.

The example widens practical competence beyond male-coded driving and supervision to a task controlled by his mother. The word identifies a specific craft, not domestic work indiscriminately. Its philosophical work comes from the analogy: wanting to use an implement and belonging to the household do not establish a right to operate it.

Places to read

1. 208dτῶν περὶ ταλασιουργίαν ὀργάνων — the implements for wool-working.