"The Living Word" Part I
Something comparable to think about... Consider this statement,
made by a musician, about Bach's Goldberg Variations (there are 32 of them,
technically, = Aria plus 30 variations plus Aria)... "It is, in short, music
which observes neither end nor beginning, music with neither real climax nor
real resolution ..." - Glenn Gould 1956.
Key word: daimonion = 'the daimōn thing' or 'the little daimōn', which is Socrates' parody of the wording used by the State in accusing him of introducing unacceptable concepts of daimones:
A1. The State's accusation was that Socrates does not "believe" (nomizei, derivative of nomos) in the gods that the state "believes" in ... but that Socrates does "believe" in new "divinities" = daimonia [= plural of daimonion] of his own. The State's wording of the charge against Socrates becomes the basis for his own wording of the inner voice that prevents him from doing something wrong. He calls that inner voice his daimonion.
A2.
"I have a thing that is divine [theion]
and daimonion" - described as an inner voice that stops
Socrates from doing things that are morally wrong. The familiar daimonion [Jowett translates it as "oracle"]
within me [in the Greek, simply "the usual mantic power of the daimonion"] used to oppose me in the past,
but not now. The Jowett translation 'oracle' is not all that bad, since
in conveys the idea of Apollo's oracle in particular.
A3. What does the daimonion not tell Socrates not to experience? It does not tell him not to die, because dying 'now' is not wrong – it is right. It really is the hōra, the right time, as we see at the end of this passage. These two words daimonion and hōra belong to the language of heroes, and the same goes for a third word, sēmeion, which is used here as a synonym of daimonion.
A) From Plato Apology of Socrates
Hitherto the oracular
[mantikē] art of the daimonion within
me has constantly been in the habit of opposing me even about trifles, if I
was going to make a slip or error about anything; and now as you see there has
come upon me that which may be thought, and is generally believed to be, the
last and worst evil. [40b] But the
sign [sēmeion] did not oppose me, either
as I was leaving my house and going out in the morning, or when I was going
up into this court, or while I was speaking, at anything which I was going to
say; and yet I have often been stopped in the middle of a speech; but now in
nothing I either said or did touching this matter has the oracle opposed me.
What do I take to be the explanation of this? I will tell you. I regard this
as a proof that what has happened to me is a good [agathon],
[40c] and that those of us who think
that death is an evil [kakon] are
in error. This is a great proof to me of what I am saying, for the customary
sign [sēmeion] would surely have
opposed me had I been going to evil and not to good [agathon]. Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there
is great reason to hope that death is a good [agathon], for one of two things:—either death is a state of
nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and
migration of the soul [psukhē]
from this world to another. Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness,
[40d] but a sleep like the sleep of him
who is undisturbed even by the sight of dreams, death will be an unspeakable
gain [kerdos]. For if a person were
to select the night in which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were
to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to
tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better
and more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a private
man, but even the great king, [40e]
will not find many such days or nights, when compared with the others. Now if
death is like this, I say that to die is gain [kerdos]; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is
the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead are, what
good [agathon], O my friends and judges,
can be greater than this? [41a] If
indeed when the pilgrim [theōros]
arrives in the world below, he is delivered from those who profess justice in
this world, and finds the true [alēthēs]
judges who are said to give judgment there, Minos and Rhadamanthus and Aeacus
and Triptolemus, and other sons of gods who were righteous in their own life,
that pilgrimage [theōria] will
be worth making. What would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus
and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? No, if this be true [alēthēs], let me die again and again. [41b] I, too, shall have a wonderful interest
in a place where I can converse with Palamedes, and Ajax the son of Telamon,
and other heroes of old, who have suffered death through an unjust [non-dikaios]
judgment [krisis]; and there will be no small pleasure,
as I think, in comparing my own sufferings [pathos plural] with theirs. Above all, I shall be able to continue
my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in that;
I shall find out who is sophos, and
who pretends to be sophos, and is
not. What would not a man give, O judges, to be able to examine the leader of
the great Trojan expedition; [41c]
or Odysseus or Sisyphus, or numberless others, men and women too! What infinite
delight would there be in conversing with them and asking them questions! For
in that world they do not put a man to death for this; certainly not. For besides
being happier in that world than in this, they will be immortal, if what is
said is true [alēthēs].
Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth
[alēthēs]—[41d] that no evil [kakos] can happen to a good [agathos]
man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods;
nor has my own approaching end happened by mere chance. But I see clearly that
to die and be released was better for me; and therefore the oracle gave no sign
[sēmeion]. For which reason also,
I am not angry with my accusers, or my condemners; they have done me no harm,
although neither of them meant to do me any good; [41e] and for this I may gently blame them. Still I have a favor to
ask of them. When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish
them; and I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem
to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue [aretē]; or if they pretend to be something
when they are really nothing,—then reprove them, as I have reproved you,
for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they
are something when they are really nothing. [42a] And if you do this, I and my sons
will have as our experience [pathos]
at your hands something that is just [dikaion].
The hour [hōra] of departure
has arrived, and we go our ways—I to die, and you to live. Which is better
is known only to the god.
A4. Note the references by Socrates to heroes [= "demigods"; Jowett's rendering, not adopted in the adapted version of his translation in the Sourcebook, is "sons of God"] who are to be joined by Socrates in the afterlife. They include Homer and Hesiod; they are now deathless. On the idea of Homer and Hesiod as cult-heroes of the Hellenes by virtue of their being the premier teachers of Hellenic civilization, see Herodotus 2.53 and the commentary in Pindar's Homer Ch.8@22.
A5. Socrates will also meet, in the afterlife, Ajax (= Aias); why does Socrates single him out? Because what people did to him was wrong, just as what people are doing to Socrates is wrong.
A6. The idea of having a dialogue with a dead hero like Ajax (or even like Homer himself, who was considered to be a cult hero in the era of Socrates) is a way of establishing a communion with the heroic world. This way of communicating transcends the poet's inspiration by the Muse. Compare the dialogue of the initiated gardener with the non-initiated sailor in the On Heroes of Philostratus: that dialogue leads into a direct dialogue with the consciousness of dead heroes. The worshipper of the cult hero can enter into a communion with the consciousness of the cult hero.
B1.
Some background on the death of Socrates... In Plato's Apology, Socrates refers to Aristophanes Clouds, which we know was staged in year 423. Socrates is ridiculed
in that comedy because he is an intellectual: examples of contemporary intellectuals
are Gorgias and Prodicus. A key word is sophos in the sense of 'sophist'.
B2. The story of Socrates' quest, as reported in the Apology... Chairephon goes to Delphi on a pilgrimage [= theōria in Greek]. His quest is to ask who is most sophos of men. The priestess of Apollo answers for the god: that no one is more sophos than Socrates. Socrates asks himself: what kind of "riddle" [ainigma] is the god saying?
B3. Note the reference in the Apology to the wanderings [planai, plural of planē], and labors [ponoi] of Socrates (expressed in the form of a heroic quest). Compare the veering/wandering of Odysseus in Odyssey 1.2
B) from Plato Apology of Socrates [22a] I will tell you the tale of my wanderings [planai, plural of planē] and of the labors [ponoi], as I may call them, which I endured only to find at last the oracle [manteion] irrefutable.
C1. Observe how Socrates refers to Achilles' choice of death in Iliad 18.94ff (compare also Iliad 9.413). Socrates reads out of the Iliadic passage what Achilles is saying, but the reading by Socrates is framed in terms of what is right and what is wrong, whereas the reading by "Homer" is not. In effect, Socrates is having a dialogue with Achilles by quoting him in ways that correspond to the philosopher's frame of reference – and to the citizen-warrior's frame of reference.
C) From Plato Apology of Socrates. Someone will say: And are you not ashamed, Socrates, of a course of life which is likely to bring you to an untimely end? To him I may fairly [dikaiōs] answer: There you are mistaken: a man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong [doing dikaia or not] acting the part of a good [agathos] man or of a bad [kakos]. [28c] Whereas, according to your view, the heroes who fell at Troy were not good for much, and the son of Thetis [= Achilles] above all, who altogether despised danger in comparison with disgrace; and when his goddess mother said to him, in his eagerness to slay Hector, that if he avenged [paid honor or timē to] his companion Patroklos, and slew Hector, he would die himself—"Fate," as she said, "waits upon you next after Hector"; he, hearing this, utterly despised danger and death, [28d] and instead of fearing them, feared rather to live in dishonor [basely, like a kakos man], and not to avenge [give timē to] his friend. "Let me die next," he replies, "and exact justice [dikē] from the enemy, rather than abide here by the beaked ships, a scorn and a burden of the earth." Had Achilles any thought of death and danger? For wherever a man's place is, whether the place which he has chosen or that in which he has been placed by a commander, there he ought to remain in the hour of danger; he should not think of death or of anything, but of disgrace. And this, O men of Athens, is a true saying [alēthēs].
C2. The characterization of Socrates in his bravery is made parallel to the characterization of Achilles in his own bravery. Socrates is saying, in effect: I must not desert my post. That is the ethic of the hoplite = citizen soldier; for Socrates, this ethic of the hoplite is transformed into the ethic of the philosopher.
C3.
Note the way Socrates elsewhere describes himself as a gadfly (how is this image
an ainos?). Notice that he "stings"
an aristocratic but intellectually lazy "horse."
C4.
A man who fights for dikē
must lead a private, not a public, life.
C5. Note the list of the philoi present at the trial, including Plato.
C6. Socrates says that he deserves the honors due
to an Olympic victor.
C7. Socrates says: the greatest good for man is to discuss aretē (translated here as "virtue")
C8. The unexamined life is not worth living
C9. References to pollution in the Apology: "this confounded Socrates!" [Jowett's "confounded" translates miaros 'polluted' (adjective of miasma 'pollution'). Todd Compton, in an article written for the American Journal of Philology 1990, shows that Plato is tapping into the myth of Aesop in his role as a ritual scapegoat or pharmakos. On Aesop as a pharmakos, see Best of the Achaeans Ch.16@1, starting with "From the epic tradition of the Aithiopis, all the way to the end of @8.
D1. Further remarks about the trial and death of Socrates, year 399 before our era... In the Apology, Socrates is quoted as saying that Plato was present at the trial.
D2. Was Plato also present when Socrates died? Here is the answer...
D) From Plato Phaedo [Phaedo is "quoted" as saying. [59b] Of native Athenians there were, besides Apollodorus, Critobulus and his father Crito, Hermogenes, Epigenes, Aeschines, and Antisthenes; likewise Ctesippus of the deme of Paeania, Menexenus, and some others; but Plato, if I am not mistaken, was not feeling well.
D3. So the "transcriber" Plato, who is only mentioned twice in the writings of Plato, was not there when Socrates died. How can we trust his "quotations" of Socrates?
Plato is present when Socrates delivers his speech as dramatized in the Apology.
But he is absent ("sick") during the dialogue as dramatized in the Phaedo.
What are the implications for the status of a text like Plato's Phaedo?
Where does Plato live in his texts?
Where does Socrates "live"?
E1.
Plato's Socrates has never written anything down. But he does compose two masterpieces
during his last days.
E2. Just before he dies, Socrates turns a fable [what is the Greek word for "fable"?] of Aesop into poetry and then composes a hymn to Apollo; "this is in honor of the festival of Apollo that consecrates the time between Socrates' trial and his death, delaying his execution" (Todd Compton, American Journal of Philology 1990 p. 340). On the Festival of Apollo, see Phaedo 28b-c. On Aesop as a cult-hero and as a ritual antagonist of Apollo, see Best of the Achaeans Ch.17@@1-2.
E) From Plato Phaedo In the course of my life I have often had intimations in dreams "that I should make music [mousikē]." The same dream came to me sometimes in one form, and sometimes in another, but always saying the same or nearly the same words: Make and cultivate music [mousikē], said the dream. [61a] And hitherto I had imagined that this was only intended to exhort and encourage me in the study of philosophy, which has always been the pursuit of my life, and is the noblest and best of music [mousikē]. The dream was bidding me to do what I was already doing, in the same way that the competitor in a race is called on by the spectators to run when he is already running. But I was not certain of this, as the dream might have meant music [mousikē] in the popular sense of the word, and being under sentence of death, and the festival giving me a respite, I thought that I should be safer if I engaged with the holiness, [61b] and, in obedience to the dream, composed a few verses before I departed. And first I made a hymn [humnos] in honor of the god of the festival, and then considering that a poet, if he is really to be a poet or maker, should not only put words together but make stories [muthoi], and as I am not a maker of stories [muthologikos], I took some fables [muthoi] of Aesop, which I had ready at hand and knew, and turned them into verse. Tell Evenus this, and bid him be of good cheer; that I would have him come after me if he be a wise man, and not tarry; [61c] and that today I am likely to be going, for the Athenians say that I must.
E3.
Socrates "made" a hymn to Apollo; and the verb is poieō (poiētēs
'poet' is 'he who makes'). On important
parallelisms between the ainos-traditions
of Aesop and the ainigma-traditions
of the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi, see Pindar's
Homer Ch.11@17 (starting with "After quoting a passage in the Histories...")
up through @22. At Phaedo 61b, fables
of Aesop are called muthoi.
E4. Remember: one of Plato' s central points is
that Socrates does not leave writings behind.
F1. Here is the "swansong" of Socrates.
Think of Schubert's "hymn" To Music
The swan is the sacred bird of what god?
Why is the swan called the therapōn of the god?
Why is Socrates called "the fellow minister" of the swans?
F) from Plato Phaedo
Socrates smiled
and said: [84e] O Simmias, how strange
that is; I am not very likely to persuade other men that I do not regard my
present situation as a misfortune, if I am unable to persuade you, and you will
keep fancying that I am at all more troubled now than at any other time. Will
you not allow that I have as much of a prophetic [mantikos] capacity in me as the swans?
For they, when they perceive that they must die, having sung all their life
long, [85a] do then sing more than
ever, rejoicing in the thought that they are about to go away to the god whose
ministers [therapōn plural] they
are. But men, because they are themselves afraid of death, slanderously affirm
of the swans that they sing a lament at the last, not considering that no bird
sings when cold, or hungry, or in pain, not even the nightingale, nor the swallow,
nor yet the hoopoe; which are said indeed to tune a song of sorrow, although
I do not believe this to be true of them any more than of the swans. [85b] But because they are sacred to Apollo
and have a prophetic [mantikos] capacity
and anticipate the good things of another world, therefore they sing and rejoice
in that day more than they ever did before. And I, too, believing myself to
be the consecrated minister of the same god, and a fellow minister [homo-doulos] with the swans, and thinking
that I have received from my master a prophetic [mantikos] capacity that is not inferior to theirs, would not go out
of life in a less happy state than the swans.
F 2. mousikē: much more than just 'music.'
What is the significance of Socrates' Hymn to Apollo?
Note that "Homer" was known to Socrates as the poet of a Homeric Hymn to Apollo.
G1. Compare the "swansong" of Schubert:
G) "An die Musik" (To Music) by Franz Schubert (D. 547 Op. 88 No. 4). Text by Franz von Schober
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