Symbolae Osloenses - Volume 84

Symbolae Osloenses 84, 2010 EDITORIAL NOTE Five of the articles in this issue of Symbolae Osloenses – those by Ausland,...

Author: Øivind Andersen | Monika Asztalos

20 downloads 859 Views 1MB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!
Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

Symbolae Osloenses 84, 2010

EDITORIAL NOTE Five of the articles in this issue of Symbolae Osloenses – those by Ausland, Freeland, Fossheim, Larsen, and Rabbås – deal with Plato's Phaedrus. The contributions originate in papers presented at a conference on Poetry and Philosophy in the light of Plato's Phaedrus which was organised in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Bergen, May 2009, by professor Vigdis SongeMøller. Due to adverse circumstances the last volume (83) for 2008 contained an extraordinary number of mistakes, especially in the Greek. Please consult the list of errata at the end of this volume. The editors regret that the publication of this volume (84) for 2009 has been somewhat delayed. Øivind Andersen and Monika Asztalos Editors

DOI: 10.1080/00397679.2010.501229

1


POETRY, RHETORIC,

AND

FICTION

IN

PLATO’S PHAEDRUS

HAYDEN W. AUSLAND DEPARTMENT

OF

MODERN AND CLASSICAL LANGUAGES THE UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA

AND

LITERATURES,

Difficulties often felt when trying to identify a main theme for the Phaedrus or to explain the attitude it implies toward an art of rhetoric are reduced once one applies general categories of poetic and rhetorical discourse to a series of competitive erotic speeches constituting the first part of the dialogue. Positive results include a unified literary reading of the dialogue as offering a particular theory of fiction while suggesting a critical reconsideration of the usual modern delimitation of its philosophical significance.

In reading and interpreting Plato’s dialogues, we confront various problems when trying to isolate forms of discourse we are accustomed to distinguishing as poetry and philosophy – and, one may add, rhetoric. This is at least partly because, like many of the genres and disciplines we today assume as a matter of course, philosophy and rhetoric had not yet been clearly distinguished in the times these depict. In fact, the process by which rhetorike was distinguished from what was then called philosophia appears to begin with the Platonic Socrates.1 Apparent confusion of these two, with each other and with poetry, grows acute in the case of the Phaedrus, in a way related to a topical question of its principal subject, which itself arose in connection with an already ancient tradition that it occupies a primary role in the Platonic Corpus. The question of a main subject originates in a tendency, characteristic of later Platonism, to assume that a philosophical work must exhibit a oneness or unity of aim (skopos). The tendency assumed a modern form in 19th century German Platonic scholarship, where one influential instance postulated that every Platonic dialogue was organized around a single, basic thought or idea (Grundgedanke; Grundidee). Given the shift in level and manner of treatment that occurs toward the middle of the Phaedrus, an ambivalence first arose between a view that the dialogue offers a philosophical treatment of eros, and another that it contains a philosophical treatment of rhetoric. The former view reflects the way eros forms the subject matter of three speeches of increasing poetic flavor occupying the first part of the dialogue, the last of which explains the phenomenon of eros in the terms of a mythical version of Platonist metaphysics. The second takes its bearings from the way the dialogue continues with a discussion of some precepts of an art of rhetoric distinguished by their dependence on a DOI: 10.1080/00397679.2010.494021

2

POETRY, RHETORIC,

AND

FICTION

IN

PLATO’S PHAEDRUS

Platonist epistemology and aesthetics, for the sake of which the speeches are now employed as examples. These alternatives soon had to compete with several more creative formulations of the “main aim” of the Phaedrus.2 When we regard the dialogue from the standpoint of ancient Greek poetics, however, a doubt arises whether we should expect the dialogue to exhibit a unity of the kind regularly postulated of it at all. In an exchange with one English editor of the dialogue, a student of Greek tragedy has made such a case in reference to the Phaedrus, arguing that we should not expect it to have any unity beyond that natural in a probable mimesis designed on the model of an actual dialogue between Socrates and Phaedrus. So long, in other words, as the Phaedrus follows a dialectical path of a kind likely or necessary in such a conversation, it will satisfy its own internal requirement of “animal-like” wholeness – without needing any single aim or basic thought determining its entire contents. One may compare the analogous problem for interpreting a range of Attic tragedies in which the action is extended in a novel vein well past what appears a natural resting point when one regards the dramas in the terms of a modern aesthetic – not to speak of modern philosophical expectations.3 In many ways, the poetic strain in this dialogue also complicates efforts to dispose of it as a confrontation between philosophy and rhetoric more moderate than the one most readers see clearly present in Plato’s Gorgias. In discussing this aspect of the dialogue one must contend with a self-imposed, modern scholarly fascination with discovering the order of elaboration of Plato’s dialogues, which, once known, is supposed to constitute the key to unlocking the secret of their proper understanding. The Phaedrus has played significantly alternative roles in this entirely modern construction as well. In the foundational version, Friedrich Schleiermacher judged it apt as the methodological and thematic starting point of the entire series, in virtue of the compression within it of so many familiar Platonic themes, as well as the “preliminary”, mythical form in which it incorporates a Platonist metaphysics. His view was swiftly challenged, however, and after Karl Friedrich Hermann re-cast the problem of ordering the dialogues as a partly biographical question, scholars came to agree it a work of Plato’s maturity, transitional to what are now conventionally held to be Plato’s late dialogues. This estimate has various grounds, prominent among which today is the way a merely figurative treatment of a “middle” Platonist metaphysics in its first part seems to recede before a rational application of a presumptively “later” method of division and collection fleshed out in its second part. Consistent with this developmentalist reading of its complex metaphysical allusions, the dialogue has more recently been held to reveal its author’s more “mature” compromise with the corporeal realities of the human erotic experience, and thereby also with the rhetorical art.4 3

HAYDEN W. AUSLAND Both the impulse and the various sciences by which modern scholars have sought to order the Platonic dialogues were evidently unavailable to the ancients. As it happens, however, the Phaedrus is one of the few dialogues that anyone in antiquity cared to date. Ancient reports inform us that it was regarded as Plato’s first dialogue, but suggest that this was for reasons quite different from those inducing Schleiermacher to give it the initial position in his hypothetical series. The ancient claim that it came so early in Plato’s life is evidently rooted in an estimate that the “youth-like” (μειρακιῶδες) question toyed with in it is a problem unworthy of mature philosophical treatment. It is unclear to exactly what feature of the dialogue this refers. It could be the erotic premise common to the speeches; but it might also be, “Whose speech is better than whose?” In any case, this view of its contents seems to have accompanied some educated criticisms of its literary features viewed in technical terms. Dionysius of Halicarnassus offers such a criticism when he blames Plato for having Socrates launch his first speech by so precipitately and – to Dionysius’ mind – inappropriately with a mock-poetic invocation of the Muses.5 The passage is but one of numerous instances of strongly poetic coloring in this dialogue, in which various genres are imitated or parodied. Students of Theocritus will recognize the dialogue’s setting and theme as paradigmatic for poetic competitions carried on in the locus amoenus of later Pastoral poetry.6 Reference and allusions to the mythical associations of the place show it more specifically to suggest what a recent writer has dubbed the “prelude meadow” topical in erotic lyric, while Socrates names Sappho and Anacreon explicitly as likely inspirations for the speech he then launches with his Pindaresque invocation of the Muses.7 His greater, second speech he models explicitly on a supposedly Stesichorean lyric “Recantation”, i.e. in the general tradition of Euripides’ tragic modification of Homer’s Helen-myth, as well as the rhetorical treatments of Gorgias and Isocrates.8 In this speech, Socrates’ mythical discourse has been fruitfully interpreted within its dialogical context as if it were a tragic choral lyric, but his image for the journey of the human soul also recalls Parmenides’ didactic poetry and related poetic mystery-traditions.9 Socrates’ closing prayer to Pan and the Nymphs is likewise inspired.10 Poetry is not all, however: Socrates mentions also unnamed prose writers as possible sources, as confirmed by the fable-like narrative with which he frames his first speech, his curious inversion of an Aesopian favorite at the center of the dialogue, and the Herodotean tale about the Egyptian Theuth’s invention of writing at the close of the dialogue. An intermixture of poetry and imaginative prose inspires the dialogue throughout. In the particular case criticized by Dionysius, Socrates’ invocation of the Muses at the outset of his first speech begins a passage in the course of which both his diction and prose rhythm increasingly show the signs of poetic inspiration, culminating in a half-frenzied etymology of “eros”. Socrates here pauses to reflect on the 4

POETRY, RHETORIC,

AND

FICTION

IN

PLATO’S PHAEDRUS

divine source of his condition, characterizing his own utterance as verging on the dithyrambic. The main body of the speech, which follows, rises gradually once more to poetic hights of expression, capped this time by a gnomic conclusion falling spontaneously into a line of hexameter verse.11 Socrates identifies his condition at this point with a “nympholepsy” characteristic of the topos, of which he had warned Phaedrus during the short interlude. When on the point of what he now terms “epic utterance”, apparently out of fear what might happen next, he brings himself once more under control before completing his rhetorical task in full. The implied tension is on one level that between rationality and enthusiasm more generally – but one must here bear in mind also the erotic imagery with which such dynamics are additionally charged in their context in the Phaedrus.12 Such features of the Phaedrus clearly conditioned the estimate of Plato’s writing as falling somewhere between prose and poetry, for the blending of which Socrates’ words at 237A to 241E are a canonical instance.13 They likely also prompted the related picture of this dialogue as the initial philosophical effort of an author who was also said to have previously tried his hand at poetic composition.14 They struck Dionysius of Halicarnassus as interfering with good prose style, but they are also explainable in terms of authorial caution or irony. The last possibility is hard to confirm; could even the elaborate description of the dialogue’s rural setting be meant in jest?15 Poetry does not deign to answer such questions, so that conceivably the Phaedrus in this way embodies a cautious kind of literary criticism.16 Perhaps the later critic has a point, however. To the rhetorically conditioned eye, the first part of the dialogue features a series of three competitive speeches, each purporting to have been composed in accordance with the rules governing one of three distinct genres of the rhetorical art: forensic, deliberative, and epideictic (demonstrative). This principle of organization is usually left unnoticed, only partly recognized, or even seriously garbled by modern commentators. But it nonetheless provides the framework for this part of the dialogue.

a. A litigant’s brief First, Phaedrus reads a speech he attributes to the very Lysias who famously earned a metic’s living by writing forensic speeches for litigants in Athenian lawsuits.17 The provenance of this speech was unproblematic for antiquity, which seems uniformly to have regarded it as a genuine speech written by the famous orator himself. A question arose only after an 18th century editor of Lysias summarily pronounced anyone imagining that it could have been written by the real Lysias to be bereft of all sense. By the early 19th century the question had become a topos of scholarly debate, which has continued to the present day.18 The debate 5

HAYDEN W. AUSLAND has been cast as perhaps overly concrete a dilemma, “Did Plato write the speech himself, or did he insert a speech written by Lysias?” Perhaps a better question is, “Does Plato expect a reader to think that he himself wrote the speech, or does he expect a reader to think that he inserted a speech written by Lysias?” Or perhaps he even expects some readers to think that he wrote it and other readers to think – or know – that Lysias did. From such a perspective, an as yet seemingly unconsidered hypothesis suggests itself that he has published the speech as his own composition, while having in fact taken it from Lysias, obscuring his plagiarism by implicating it with a fictional dialogue of his own.19 This would, in turn, offer an interesting solution to the objection, urged by partisans of Lysian authorship, that it would be unfair for Plato to criticize Lysias for shortcomings in a speech Plato himself has written, since the speech would now have been written by a Lysias whose admirerers would be disinclined to expose the plagiarism in the face of Socrates’ biting criticisms of the piece. The possibility becomes an ironic hall of mirrors of sorts once we recall that Lysias himself made a living by writing words for utterance by other parties in the first person, as if the words were their own. But in a way, this is merely a variant of the kind of problem we always confront when we try to assign intellectual responsibility for statements made in Plato’s fictional dialogues. Perhaps it is best, like the ancients, not to raise such a question explicitly at all. In any case, in this first speech, the speaker addresses a brief on behalf of the non-lover to the “jury” of a young beloved, arguing against the opposite case of the lover. That the principles of argumentation Plato has the literary Lysias use in this speech are forensic in kind can be seen by comparing Socrates’ immediate criticism of it as needlessly repetitive with some standard practices of forensic argumentation. For example, one way for an effective advocate to conceal any deficiency in good arguments his case may suffer is just by elaborating the same points again and again in various forms. This tactic is naturally something an accomplished dialectician like Socrates is rather better placed to see through than the average member of an Athenian jury of 500 democratic citizens – or, one might add, many a beautiful, sought-after youth.

b. One man’s advice to a younger man Socrates shortly undertakes to compete with Lysias’ speech not by opposing its premiss in equally forensic terms, but by developing the same premiss in the distinct terms of the deliberative genre of rhetoric.20 The pose he adopts is not that of a litigant, but one of an advisor to the attractive young man of the premiss he shares with Lysias. Everything in this speech – an initial excursus on Socratic definition included – is in the present context so molded as to serve the rhetorical purpose of recommending – and thereby inducing the hypothetical youth to 6

POETRY, RHETORIC,

AND

FICTION

IN

PLATO’S PHAEDRUS

adopt – one of two alternative courses of action. His general strategy is consistent with the rhetorical practice of the time, during which a speaker might seek to undercut a competitor by claiming or implying that he had erred in choosing the rhetorical form appropriate to the issue at hand. For example, Thucydides in the first book of his history has the Corinthians counter the Corcyreans’ appeal to the Spartans for an alliance by suggesting that the latter, who have spoken first, have deformed a recommendation of such a course of action as best for the Spartans (which is a deliberative question) by framing it as an accusation of the Corinthians’ alleged injustice instead (which is a forensic question). The first word of the first speech is “just” (dikaion), whereas the first word of the second speech is “necessary” (anankaion), and the outcome of a judgement on the justice of the Corinthians’ behavior might well differ from that of a deliberation on the relative benefits of joining in an alliance with the Corcyreans.21 In a fourth century case, Isocrates introduces the main body of his Helen with the foil of an elementary technical error on which he claims his teacher Gorgias has founded his earlier Encomium of Helen. Gorgias, he observes, has styled a “praise” of Helen what in fact turns out to be a defense of her conduct. But both the “forms” (ideai ) according to which one should compose two such speeches, and the “deeds” (erga) to which they are to be applied, are quite different, as are also their rhetorical premisses: one praises someone for being good, but defends someone who has been accused of injustice.

c. An exhibition of the true nature of eros The rhetorical form of Socrates’ second speech requires more careful explanation. According to Aristotle, praise and blame make up the epideictic (“demonstrative”) rhetorical genre, which it has recently been held that Aristotle himself also created by collecting previously disparate kinds styled encomium (praise), panegyric (festival-speech), and epitaphios (funeral speech), and then placing the whole thus constituted coordinate with the other two genres mentioned already.22 It may be doubted whether the genre was formed purely via such a process of collection, however. Another perspective from which to view this is by beginning with a division between speeches that are aimed immediately at producing action of some kind, and others that are in the first instance for the sake of a more leisurely contemplation. Persuasive speeches delivered in law courts or in public assemblies are speeches of the first kind. But what about an encomium delivered at a birthday celebration, or a civic leader’s public remarks on a national holiday, or a priest’s summing-up of the life of one recently deceased? These may aim ultimately at shaping action on the part of their audience. But they do so by inducing first an intermediate state of reflection on the basis of which such action can eventually be founded. And their challenge is not normally to confront the opposite 7

HAYDEN W. AUSLAND case, as in forensics or deliberation, but to bring about, or perhaps rather to renew, a certain way of perceiving the realm within which such choices are to be confronted. Take a funeral speech as an example. What does it say? “The deceased was a fine man, and yes it is sad that he is with us no more, but we must not give way to our grief to the extent that we forget that life goes on demanding deliberate action of us. So visit the graves of your ancestors, and for a while think on them, but then return to the world of the living and act.” The epideictic genre may thus perhaps best be conceived as comprising all speeches that seek to bring about theory or contemplation in such ways.23 It is in this case possible that Plato himself, rather than Aristotle, first isolated the genre as such – even that he did so in this very dialogue. When Phaedrus professes ignorance of further kinds of rhetoric beyond forensic and deliberative, Socrates asks him whether he does not know of the “arts” of rhetoric written by Nestor and Odysseus in their leisurely moments at Troy, or by Palamedes? By the first two, Phaedrus takes Socrates to mean Gorgias and Thrasymachus or Theodorus. Socrates says only “perhaps” in reply, proceeding to speak of “the Eleatic Palamedes” (viz. Zeno) as a third type of verbal psychagogia (“soul-leading”) making up the art of rhetoric as a whole. (261a-d) Why does Socrates point to Zeno of Elea as a third example? An important feature of the ancient rhetorical tradition, especially as influenced also by various figures moderns have grouped into a movement styled “the sophists”, is seen in its propensity to operate within the terms of what may be called a fictional premise (hypothesis), viz. a falsehood one assumes to be true for some literary or rhetorical purpose.24 Many of the speeches that can be classified in formal terms as forensic or deliberative were never actually used in the way presupposed by their technical form. Plato’s Apology of Socrates is a well-known case, for it should be clear that it does not record a speech Socrates actually offered in his defense, but is an imitation of such a speech fictionalized with a view to conveying an idea of the philosophical life as Plato – perhaps with the help of the the example of Socrates – has conceived it.25 The Busiris of Isocrates does something analogous in a curiously different way, ostensibly seeking to benefit an addressee named Polycrates while concealing Isocrates’ own views from other men. This Polycrates, we are told, prides himself on his Defense of Busiris (a mythical king of Egypt) and a likewise fictional Accusation of Socrates. Isocrates finds both productions lacking in the right qualities and so undertakes to instruct Polycrates by example with his own defense and praise of Busiris. This he terms “the same hypothesis”, which he allows is not itself serious or a vessel for serious speeches. (2, 5f. and 9; cf. 44) In both the Platonic and Isocratean cases, we have written speeches that are primarily forensic in form, but only for evidently fictional occasions. Their actual occasions are literary, although these too may well reflect the practice of delivering such speeches to a private audience for purposes 8

POETRY, RHETORIC,

AND

FICTION

IN

PLATO’S PHAEDRUS

of entertainment or instruction, since this was one way in which an accomplished speaker could make a living. We are to imagine an example as the premise for Plato’s Hippias Minor, which depicts dramatically the conclusion of a questionand-answer session following a speech by Hippias, in which he has apparently made the case that the Iliad is a greater poem than the Odyssey in direct proportion as the straightforward Achilles is the better man than the versatile Odysseus. (363a1–c3) As in several other dialogues, Plato here exhibits Socrates competing with a professional speaker partly by shifting the genre and consequent rules of discourse from rhetoric to dialectic – as these now appear to us. But this may also be viewed as a variant of the rhetorical move we saw in Isocrates’ Helen, just as other features of Socratic dialectic appear to be variations on the practices of forensic rhetoric.26 Thematic treatments of the kind Hippias has presented here were produced in written form as well, as were first-person fictional courtroom defenses of some hero’s conduct, and so on. From a rhetorical perspective, then, many of Plato’s dialogues are simply competing, dramatic fictions of the same general kind. In the terms of a distinction between speech aimed immediately at inducing action and speech aimed proximately at a preliminary stage of reflection, all such discourses fall into the latter category, whatever fictional form they may exhibit. In correspondingly modified rhetorical terms, then, all speeches founded on whatever fictional hypotheses fall under the epideictic, or demonstrative genre.27 “Epideictic” comes from the Greek verb epideiknumi, which means “put on show” or “exhibit”. Despite a claim to the contrary (44), Isocrates is in this sense exhibiting something by writing his Busiris, as is Plato by writing his Apology of Socrates. Epideictic rhetoric of the fictional kind was carried on within an intensely competitive literary culture that might seem immature or unseemly (meirakiodes, phortikon) by the standards of a later age, with genreshifts like those already mentioned being pressed into service for the sake of a victory. It was within this culture that Plato and Isocrates “published” their writings – whatever we take this concretely to have meant then.28 When Gorgias produced his Praise of Helen, he defended her against accusations of her conduct. His writing thus displays a fictional speech containing the kind of complication present in the speech of the Corcyreans in Thucydides – who can be seen to be doing the same thing once one considers that the speech is in fact Thucydides’ own composition embedded within his historical work, and governed by the rhetorical principle he terms “what was required” (ta deonta), as an approximation of the intent (gnome) of what was “truly” (alethos) said (1.22).29 When Isocrates enters the lists, his genre-adjustment assumes the broader form of a written discourse addressed to an unspecified audience, in which he accuses his educational opponents – who palpably include Plato – of “sophistry” on useless quodlibets,

9

HAYDEN W. AUSLAND while recommending the forms (ideai ) of his own alternative discipline, which he calls “philosophy” (philosophia). It is important to remember that at the time there existed as yet no competing philosophical “schools” – the Hellenistic term for which will be hairesis, primarily meaning “choice”, and only later coming to refer disparagingly to a “heresy”. It was instead into this competitive mix of rhetorical tours de force that Plato launched his Phaedrus, whose first two speeches vie with each other, as we have seen, by treating of the same premise in forensic and deliberative terms, respectively. Its third speech, Socrates’ highly poetic “palinode”, although known to us primarily as the vessel for much of the dialogue’s Platonic “philosophy”, in fact ups the ante in a fashion commonly encountered in epideictic rhetoric of the time, by exhibiting what the speaker or writer can still do when premising a radically alternative hypothesis – something counterfactual or otherwise preposterous. Gorgias’ work On Not-Being seems to have been such a production, as, most likely, were Zeno’s various hypothetical paradoxes.30 A rhetorical work entitled the Polity of the Athenians preserved among Xenophon’s writings, ostensibly our oldest example of Attic prose, appears to be an ironical instance of the kind. At least, the speaker professes personal disapproval of the Athenian democracy in principle before launching into his praise of the prudent manner the Athenians actually practice it (1.1). Assuming that he is representing himself accurately, historians of differing political tastes have styled the author of the piece “the old oligarch” or an “angry young man”.31 That so broad a disagreement is possible suggests that he is simply neither of these, but perhaps some later student of rhetoric playfully assuming an entirely fictional persona addressing a particular historical hypothesis. Viewed in this light it is no longer utterly inconceivable that Xenophon himself may indeed be its author. In the introductory remarks to his second speech in the Phaedrus, Socrates draws an explicit parallel with an already traditional topos of praising Helen (or arguing her innocent of all charges), presenting his own effort in the light of an older poetic, as well as the contemporary rhetorical tradition. His speech is clearly epideictic in its general intent, so that the three speeches taken together will now exemplify a complete rhetorical treatment of the same premise.32 Research into the origins of rhetorical theory has cast doubt on the traditional assumption that the arts of rhetoric (technai ) attributed to various fifth century figures beginning with “Corax and Tisias” must have taken the form of systematic treatments like the two preserved in the Aristotelian Corpus. An interesting alternative suggestion is that an “art of rhetoric” at the time might have consisted of a set speech like Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen, which would serve an illustrative function relative to accompanying oral explanation.33 Some such approach may well have been Isocrates’ practice, since one will otherwise search in vain for compelling evidence of the “art of rhetoric” a later ancient tradition attributes to him.34 10

POETRY, RHETORIC,

AND

FICTION

IN

PLATO’S PHAEDRUS

The possibility just mentioned offers a new way to see the organic wholeness of the kind we seek in the Phaedrus, inasmuch as it features three such speeches, together illustrative of the whole of the rhetorical art, followed by a theoretical discussion of the principles of rhetorical discourse per se conducted with reference to these same examples. What the Phaedrus accomplishes as an organic whole may thus be to depict dramatically but playfully an exemplary “art of rhetoric”, used for purposes of instruction in the way conventional at its dramatic date.35 Like the Hippias Minor, however, the Phaedrus depicts this complex of example and precept within a broader dialectical hypothesis. By so doing it responds implicitly to competitors like Isocrates, who themselves publish set speeches critical of dialectical practice. It has been reasonably suggested that Plato himself introduced the term “rhetoric” (rhetorike) as a means of distinguishing Gorgias and Isocrates’ conception of philosophy from his own.36 Something complementary to bear in mind is that Isocrates may well have employed idea as a techical term of what he calls philosophia – what we, following Plato, would regard as rhetoric – before Plato made Socrates use either of these terms in his distinctive way. This bids us notice that in the Phaedrus Socrates refrains from using idea or eidos of Platonistic “ideas” – except insofar as we may regard the “kinds” of division and collection as among these. What is usually regarded as this dialogue’s teaching on the ideas is instead set forward – mythically, to be sure – in the language of an Eleatic teaching on “being”.37 What is more, the term philosophia does not appear in any identifiably Platonic sense until well into the dialogue, having been used by the end of Socrates’ first speech only once (239b4), and in a way compatible with the usage of orators like Alcidamas, Xenophon, or Isocrates. It might, therefore, well be that Plato’s Phaedrus is setting forth his (and therewith the original for our own) notion of philosophy for the first time, in a forum where terms like idea and philosophia have already been claimed by his competitors.38 By now it is fair to say that he has had a success of the first order, so great, in fact, that, now imbued with a “sedimented” modern idea of philosophy ultimately deriving from Plato’s, we may wonder whether characterizing his endeavor in the “rhetorical” terms we have here allows him any properly “philosophical” aim at all. This, however, may be to hurry past an important question that can be settled finally only in the light of an initially historical inquiry, viz., What do we truly mean by “rhetorical” and “philosophical”?39 As suggested earlier, the Phaedrus can only qualifiedly be said to concern any one philosophical theme; its Thrasyllan subtitle (περὶ ἔρωτος) announces it as about erotic love, but the explicit treatment of love takes up only about one half of the whole dialogue, and has been structurally subordinated by Plato to the more embracing theme of discourse, more particularly of 11

HAYDEN W. AUSLAND written discourse. The erotic question is introduced as the occasion for the three exemplary speeches, and is thus structurally subordinate to the Phaedrus’ principle theme of discourse. But we also see that the erotic speeches exemplify not only formally, but even thematically, the problem central to the question of discourse. To go by no more than a careful statement found at the dialogue’s center (253c3-7), the main problem underlying the themes both of speech and love concerns the right manner of “capturing” or choosing (hairesthai - the verb underlying the later term for a philosophical “school”) an object of erotic aspirations as the condition for a noble and happy life. In the immediately following context, which forms the climax of Socrates’ epideictic recantation of his earlier, deliberative speech, this erotic capture or choice is described in two sets of terms previously articulated with a view to this use. The first is in the dynamic chariot-image with which many primarily associate this dialogue. (253c7-d1) The second outlines a series of psychic processes one may loosely call cognition, habituation and growth (253c3-6, 256b7c7, cf. 249a1-5). These will reappear in the second, theoretical phase of the dialogue as three stock elements entering into the makeup of the true practitioner of the rhetorical art: knowledge, practice and nature (269d2-8, alluded to again in reference to Isocrates at 279a2-b1).40 In this later discussion, the conventional, empirical approach to persuasion comes into conflict with an epistemic or scientific standard of technical rigor, such that their antagonism is revealed as one between the claims of probability (to pithanon or to eikos) and truth (aletheia), respectively, to be the right criterion for the rhetorical art. (272c7-273a1) On top of an earlier quasi-medical distinction between art and experience (techne and empeiria or tribe 270b1-10), this has set the stage for a confrontation like the one in the Gorgias, only here so direct a conflict is avoided by a compromise in which probability receives its due as what is at its best a version of the truth, and in which its tension with what is simply or naturally true is mediated and resolved through an art that can balance cognition of the kinds of souls and speeches with experience of the effects these produce in practical combination.41 But the question of an art of discourse generally arises only in the process of answering a prior, more specific question concerning the propriety of written discourse. This question motivates the dialogue’s second part (cf. 258d7 and 259e1f. with 277d1f.), and its answer depends upon Socrates’ and Phaedrus’ ability first to establish the limits of an art of discourse per se. By “written discourse” is meant the full range of public and private literary compositions, whether these are in metre or in prose (258d8-11; cf. 278b8d1). But this itself forms a kind of discourse taken simply, which is in the first instance spoken. An art of writing will therefore have to consist in some refinement upon the art of speaking or of discourse in general. 12

POETRY, RHETORIC,

AND

FICTION

IN

PLATO’S PHAEDRUS

The art of discourse per se is fixed as the kind of “psychic inducement” (psychagogia) that employs the power of speech in effecting its end. (271c10; cf. 261a7f.) A lengthy discussion yields three main elements in the art’s perfect constitution (271d1-272b7): (a) The knowledge (εἰδέναι, νοεῖν) of the several kinds (εἴδη) of souls and speeches, and their mutual suitability in theory. (b) The experience (αἴσθησις) of their combinations’ effects, yielding in turn the ability to recognize these kinds in practice. (c) The discernment in deed of the right, and the wrong, particular occasion (ἔργῳ … τὴν εὐκαιρίαν τε καὶ ἀκαιρίαν διαγνόντι) The third requirement reveals a crucial point of contact with Isocrates, re-locating the principle of occasion (kairos) without teaching that it determines from the outset what is required of oratory.42 But if speech is to be written, there is a further requirement that it be selfconsciously less than completely serious – which is to say at least partly playful. (276b1-d8) The justification for this assertion is located in the nature of writing as such, which, as a mere image of a living speaker, cannot “defend itself” by knowing to whom it ought to speak and to whom it ought not to speak, or by knowing the occasions when one ought speak and when one ought not. (cf. 276a5-7 with 272a4) This means that writing is deficient specifically in respect of the third requirement for an art of discourse, which is the need for flexibility and thus also propriety in addressing particular occasions.43 The conclusion that writing is something essentially playful is surprising, at least if we ignore the obvious fact that it occurs itself within a written work. It is in any case definitely suggested that the less than fully serious element in writing is occasioned by its deficiency in the sense just sketched. How, we may wonder, is an inability to address a particular circumstance mitigated by playfulness? Suggestive here are the particular formulations “ability to defend oneself” and “knowledge when to be silent and when to speak”. Play can render ambiguously indefinite what one is “really” saying; it can also have the effect of disarming one’s opponents.44 The problem of written speech may accordingly be resolved into a two-stage necessity: (A) The need to unify the two cognitive bases of knowledge and experience by discerning the nature of a particular occasion in fact – the problem of speech per se. (B) The need for a general literary form imitating this principle by way of a selfqualifying element of play – the more specific problem of written speech. 13

HAYDEN W. AUSLAND The second part of this compound need is satisfied by means of the device called myth or fiction (276e1-3), which leaves it ambiguous who is being addressed and what is being said to him. Recognizing this takes us some distance toward explaining why Plato’s writings regularly take the form of conversations invented in such a way that they are tied to hypothetically specific, but in one way or another unreal occasions. It also helps us see why the dialogues are so good at resisting attempts to isolate what are referred to as their “doctrines” in a form lacking any dependence upon the requirements dictated by their specific fictional hypotheses.45 But this produces another problem: if the philosophical significance of the dialogues is limited by the particular occasions they depict, then what more general meaning can they hold for their readers, especially their modern readers? To get a better view of this, one must look beyond the analysis within the dialogue’s serious treatments of love and rhetoric, to the playful frame of the leisurely conversation that forms their hypothetical occasion. The theme of myth or fiction plays a pervasive role the Phaedrus,46 but is exemplified in prose form on three separate occasions tied to its distinctive setting, which come roughly at the dialogue’s beginning, middle, and end. Near the center of the dialogue, and constituting a dramatic break between the dialogue’s two main parts, there comes a scene in which Socrates tells Phaedrus a tale about the cicadas singing in the the trees above them.47 This, we may infer, they have been doing throughout the conversation. (cf. 230c2f.) But Socrates chooses to notice this fact at the crucial point when he and Phaedrus are considering whether or not they should address the problem in what sense written discourse is a fine thing (258d1-11). The dialogue began owing to Socrates’ leisure, which permitted him to take the time needed to hear Phaedrus read Lysias’ speech, and it now continues in consequence of Phaedrus’ sense that life could not be more pleasantly, while liberally, spent than in pursuits like the one proposed (cf. 227b6-8 and 258e1-5). “Leisure time for such discourse, indeed it seems that we have this,” says Socrates.48 And at the same time, he continues, there is an additional boon the singing cicadas might bestow on them. In justification of this, Socrates tells a fable about the cicadas, drawing the moral that he and Phaedrus should continue their discourse and resist the temptations of sleep. That we should look to the favor of the Muses is regular enough a suggestion for the Platonic Socrates, but the mythical account of grasshoppers that were once men and are now the Muses’ spies is striking. Indeed, that their status is one in which they experience no need of food as a reward for their perpetual singing represents an inversion of the Aesopian favorite according to which the grasshopper, hungry on account of his neglectfulness during the previous summer (when he should have been collecting and storing up food like the ant) is told that he may keep warm by dancing the winter through (i.e. he may freeze or starve).49 14

POETRY, RHETORIC,

AND

FICTION

IN

PLATO’S PHAEDRUS

The motives of fable and leisure prominent in this context recall the dialogue’s very beginning, where Socrates, when asked by Phaedrus whether he was persuaded that the story (mythologema) about Boreas’ rape of Orethyia (said to have occurred somewhere in the vicinity) was true (alethes), replied that he really had no leisure (schole) for alternative likely (kata to eikos) justifications of such traditions when faced with the practical problem of self-knowledge.50 The same two themes of myth and leisure recur toward the end of the dialogue, where Socrates’ Herodotean tale about the Egyptian Theuth (who he says invented the idle pursuits of the trivium, checkers, dice, and writing) is challenged by Phaedrus as obviously fabricated. But now Socrates replies by dismissing all question of the myth’s provenance as a matter of indifference so long as it is true (alethe).51 While the play found at the dialogue’s two extremes emphasizes separately the usefulness and the truth that are to be found in myth, its central interlude contains a fable that Socrates says is among things of the kind it is fitting (prepei) that one who loves the muses (philomouson) should not have omitted to hear. (258b5f.) The fable exhibits both features criticized in connection with the Boreas or Theuth stories: it both “explains” the natural phenomenon of grasshoppers, and may well be the only other myth in the dialogues that is entirely Plato’s own fabrication.52 But what does the juxtaposition of these two features signify? Put another way, how does the story of the cicadas combine practicality with truth? We are here fortunate enough to have some technical guidance from antiquity. The rhetorical progymnasmata (“exercise-books”) popular in later antiquity regularly begin with a chapter on mythos (used here in the usual sense “fable”). This form of discourse makes an elementary use of the principle of verisimilitude or probability – according to one later Greek commentator “the greatest mystery of the rhetorical art”. Fable, he explains, also includes in a reflective or mimetic sense each of the three genres of rhetorical discourse – forensic, deliberative and epideictic – and as such can be said to comprehend potentially the entire art of rhetoric.53 According to Aphthonius, the author of one such manual, a fable is a false speech “that nevertheless contains an image of the truth”. According to Hermogenes, the author of another, it is a form of discourse that, while admittedly false, “is still of use in some respect related to life”.54 From these and one or two allied writers, we learn more. The particular kind of psychic inducement (psychagogia) that a fable employs makes it a suitable model for the rhetorical topic of advice (parainesis), since it is subject neither to refutation (since it is an explicit fiction), nor to critique through praise or blame that is directed at its author (since its gnomic content rests naturally on its own merits). Such benefit as it conveys it will as a rule convey unbeknownst to its beneficiary. Its usefulness is the same thing as its truth in the sense that it is only useful in relation to, and 15

HAYDEN W. AUSLAND more specifically, in imitation of, the truth – a fact constituting its likelihood or probability. What within it is verisimilar comes from what is fictionally probable (τὸ πιθανὸν τὸ περὶ τὴν πλᾶσιν), and the fable depends upon this to work its effect, which is to fashion (πλάττειν) of its youthful hearers by means of bringing their character into proper proportions.55 Why should “molding” a falsehood, which is to say a lie, contribute to “molding” character for the better? Herein lies that “mystery” of the likely or verisimilar, but the answer is in a way quite simple: the probability of a fiction lies in its resembling the truth, by means of matching discourses with characters, as well as of propriety in the arrangement of places, actions and the other elements going into a narrative. Stated broadly, verisimilitude is to be attained in fable through attributing the right things (including speeches) to different personae, i.e. through doing them justice in the course of telling their story.56 It is on this principle of propriety, foremost in speech, to what is fitting to each by nature that gives fable the probability that makes it the basic tool for molding a person for a good life. It is, furthermore, that feature which corresponds to the achievement of a similar propriety on the more complex level of a rhetorical hypothesis requiring speeches be fashioned that are consistent with the worth and dignity of its personae.57 This principle of likelihood can also be seen to work in life in the same way it works for discourse. Fictions that are “just” in the sense specified can be of a paradigmatic (i.e. exemplary) value through their hypothetical nature, in that they set a view of the truth (in the sense of what is by nature beneficial) in the context of an admittedly false example that nevertheless has application to life because it is typical. It is then not that difficult to see how a blending between the poles of theoretical precept and practical example might successfully be refined to the point at which a man’s life could be elevated, through its artistic fictionalization, to the status of a hypothesis for the man himself.58 On this basis, the main character might exhibit the educated discernment necessary to apply himself to speech and action in forms by nature suitable, both to his own persona and also to the several occasions with which he found himself confronted in deed.59 For a contemporaneous example, we may again look to Isocrates. In the Antidosis, the now aging writer begins by explaining his particular approach, which is to find a way in which he might best defend himself against the invidious charges habitually leveled against him by various sophists as well as a concomitant popular prejudice regarding the leisurely character of his literary activities. (1-5) Having premised that he and his writings are best understood when viewed against the background of a choice he has long since made for a given kind of life, Isocrates proposes to compose a seemingly occasional discourse that will in fact constitute what he calls an image (eikon) of his thought and life as a whole. For this purpose, he finds it convenient to hypothesize (hypothesthai) the fictional occasion of his own trial and personal risk on a capital charge to which he is bound to reply. 16

POETRY, RHETORIC,

AND

FICTION

IN

PLATO’S PHAEDRUS

(6-8) Thus the body of the Antidosis in form purports to be a forensic defense (en apologias schemati), but its real purpose is to show the truth about Isocrates himself and to make those who do not know him understand the sort of man he is.60 Isocrates’ intention in this work has affinities with the view of the relationship between discourse and life suggested by the episode about the cicadas, inasmuch as the very conversation that Socrates and Phaedrus contemplate is pursued not only in the interests of a liberal and leisurely kind of pleasure, but also with a view to the propriety it will be seen to exhibit when seen against the broader background provided by the theme of the choice for a “musical”, which is to say a philosophical, kind of life. The classical literary embodiment of the choice for this life is found in the portrait of Socrates left to us by his pupils, in which the precept and example, the theory and the practice, have coalesced in a single paradigmatic form, or idea.61 Socrates’ express disregard for useless, if “true” science in the face of the problem of self-knowledge does not constitute a doctrinal contradiction of his welcoming truth in any story, even if the story be sprung from a tree or a stone.62 The consistency in his teaching is that of what a later age will call his thoroughgoing agreement with nature, both in respect to the ways things ought to be, and in relation to the other way they generally are – a consistency perhaps first enacted on the several occasions that together make up his life of actual discourse, and thereupon reconstituted in the persons, but also the writings, of his pupils. It should go without saying that a severe problem results from these observations for even coherently posing a question of any concretely “historical” Socrates. But is this then to equate the individual real man with his fictional image? Perhaps it is this very thing, or even to reverse what might seem to be the natural priority and to suggest that the Socrates we meet and get to know in the Phaedrus is in a sense the real man or exemplar of which the son of Sophroniscus who died in Athens in the year 399BC was only a less than substantial image.63 To render this claim more acceptable than it may at first seem, we may take a moment to reflect on the ordinary sense in which an actual life (as distinct from its literary image) can be lived out on the basis of an ideal hypothesis concerning the kind of life that it is going to be. (cf. Isocr. Epist. 6.8-10) Thus in the Theaetetus Socrates sets out two basic “exemplars” (paradeigmata) for life, which he distinguishes in terms of the categories of leisure and business. (176e3-177a3; cf. 172d4-173b4). We might feel tempted to distinguish Isocrates from Lysias in the terms of this distinction. But whether or not we do, at least in the Phaedrus Plato advances Socrates himself as a man of the former stamp – as one who vindicates the liberal principle of leisure in both of the dialogue’s main parts, and particularly in the fable separating these. If the dialogue-persona Socrates represents the mythically true content of Plato’s teacher’s choice for the better life, then in what sense can the latter be held to have had his own doctrine in the 17

HAYDEN W. AUSLAND sense of a discourse adapted to leading the souls of his auditors toward what is better? This question directs our attention once more to the theme of an erotically motivated choice as constituting the philosophical life that Plato has persuasively re-fashioned in his Phaedrus.

Notes 1. For the ambiguity between later distinct genres, cf. Alcidamas, On Sophists 1f. For Socrates as the first to separate oratory from philosophy, see Cicero, de oratore 3 (16) 560 and Brutus (8) 31. On the complementary origin of philosophy as a newly distinct category, as well as the difference between the ancient understanding and our own, see Frede 2000, 4 and 9 and cf. Hadot 2002, 2 and 39. On the radically hypothetical nature of many seemingly settled categories, the problem of sedimentation, the assumption of certain categories or choices “as a matter of course”, and the complex task of history, see Klein 1977, 2 and 1985 (especially 72 and 84). 2. Cf. Proclus, In Remp. I.11.9–12 Kroll with Steinhart 1854, 21. For a review of the most important proposals extending into the 20th century, see Diesendruck 1927, 1–9. 3. Cf. Heath 1989 with Rowe 1986a. For a synopsis of their main differences, see Kastely 2002, 140f. Efforts to the contrary notwithstanding, Werner 2007 stays mainly within the terms of the traditional debate; cf. e.g. Helmbold & Holther 1952 and Plass 1968. Brisson 1992 follows a more novel path, emphasizing features of the dialogue recalling pre-Socratic concerns in the field of natural history. 4. The dialogue was placed later than the ancient tradition allowed already by Tennemann (1792, 117–19), but for minor reasons unrelated to any overall scheme. For criticism, with the view that the piece begins a methodical series of all Plato’s dialogues, see Schleiermacher 1804, 35, 50, and 67–82 [Engl. 32, 44f., and 59–73] and cf. Suckow 1855. Both ancient and modern views of it as an early philosophical effort were attacked by Socher, who associated it instead with a subsequent “Errichtung des philosophischen Lehr-Instituts” (1820, 299–326). A more thoroughly supported “institutional” reading soon became mainstream; see Stallbaum 1832, xxif. (. . . Plato doctrinae copias … ita coepit explicare, ut et in Academia docere inciperet et novae conditor philosophorum familiae exsisteret) and Hermann 1839, 514 (“Antrittprogramm für Platos Lehrtätigkeit in der Akademie”); cf. Steinhart 1854, 40f. Munk combined these views by regarding the dialogue as introductory to the “eigentlich” Platonic philosophy, as carried on at a personal level within the Academy’s inner circle (1857, 224–27). But by the 20th century, what had long been thought Plato’s main late dialogue had been relegated to a “middle” period in a modified hypothetical development toward the end of which Plato somehow transcends his own ideas. Raeder could thus now find reasons to place the Phaedrus after the Republic (1905, 278f.), while Arnim went a step further, moving it after the (now also post-Republic) Theaetetus and Parmenides as well, relying partly on his own researches via “Sprachstatistik” (for criticism of which, see Pohlenz 1913, 356–64) but also drawing conclusions from “wichtige Elemente seines dogmatisches Lehrgebaudes”. (1914, 155–205) The related and still largely current thought that the Phaedrus introduces a stand-alone and late Platonic “dialectic” of collection and division derives from Stenzel (1917, 105–12 [Engl. 149–56]). 5. Diog. Laert. 3.38 and Dion. Halic. de adm. vi dic. in Dem. c. 7 (cf. ad Pomp. c. 2), on which see Walsdorff 1927, 15f. Cf. Hermeias’ partly esotericist defense of Plato (9.11–10.22 Couvreur) and the suggestion of an ironic interpretation already in Arist. Rhet. 3.7, 1408b11. The defense has been renewed in modern times by Schleiermacher and many others since. For the interpretation of μειρακιῶδές τι… πρόβλημα in Diogenes, see Tomin 1997, 31–33, where a subsequent

18

POETRY, RHETORIC,

AND

FICTION

IN

PLATO’S PHAEDRUS

hypothesis concerning Plato’s supposed motivations abstracts from the dialogue’s larger ambitions. Similar holds in a different way for the effort to give it a concretely historical “political context” in Dušanić 1992 and (at greater length) 1981. 6. See Biese 1882, 60; Schoenbeck 1962, 102–11; Ellinger 1975, 288–90; and Vara 1992, 342f. On the Phaedrus’ affinities with the genre more generally, see Murley 1940; Pearce 1988, 297–300, Gutzwiller 1991, 73–79; and Hunter 1999, 14 and 145f. Parry 1957, 15–20 usefully adduces some epigrams ascribed to Plato. For the terminus technicus, see Cicero, ad Att. 12.19.88, comparing de Leg. 2 (3) 6f. 7. See Fortenbaugh 1966 and Pender 2007a, 3–8 and 2007b, 36–54. 8. See Demos 1997 and 1999, 65–86. Wright (2005, 104–110) holds the conventional account untrue, arguing that Plato himself invented the lines Socrates attributes to Stesichorus. On the meager additional testimonia to a Stesichorean correlate, see Ercoles 2008, 12–14 and 165–74. 9. See Lebeck 1972 and Slaveva-Griffin 2003. 10. See Motte 1963. 11. For an examination of the literary movement of the speech, see Krische 1848, 33–36, comparing Ast 1817, 208–9. 12. For the tension between enthusiasm and reason in the Phaedrus, see Meyer 1956, who is mainly concerned to explain away the former (versus the synthesis in Gundert 1949). For the dangers attending nympholepsy in the Phaedrus, and their connection with the dialogue’s topography outside the city walls, see Connor 1988, 158f. For the topical imagery of seduction and (attempted or feigned) resistance, see Switzer 1994, but cf. Cole 2000. For the dialogue’s multi-dimensional “topology”, see Philip 1981. 13. See Aristotle fr. 73 Rose; Lucian, Bis Acc. 33; Sidney, 1595, 21 (for whose own familiarity with the Phaedrus, cf. Pickett 1976); Geddes 1748, 180–200; and Shelley 1891, 9. Thompson (1868, 26) terms Socrates’ first speech a “dialecto-dithyrambic σκέψις”. On the question more generally, see Norden 1898, 104–113. 14. In one of several later attempts to maintain Schleiermacher’s initial placement of the dialogue, Volquardsen 1862, 1–32 argues that it incorporates “vier sprachlich-stilistische Studien des jungen autors”, identifying these as Aesopian, mock-Pindaric, Sapphonic, and Herodotean. 15. Thesleff 1967 argues to this effect. 16. See Vicaire 1960, 371. A pioneering scholarly monograph devoted to the dialogue (Ast 1801) interpreted the Phaedrus as an effort parallel to Horace’s Ars Poetica – itself understood as an outgrowth of a Roman satirical tradition stemming from classical Greek comedy. 17. Burger regards the speech attributed to Lysias as both epideictic (a “praise of non-love”) and deliberative (1980, 19 and 26). Griswold more carefully notices its properly forensic character (1996, 45f.). 18. For the status quaestionis more than a century into the debate, with some supplementary references to earlier literature on the question, see Darkow 1917, 90–94. For a summary with some more recent bibliography, see Boas 2002. 19. For ancient allegations of Plato’s plagiarism, see Riginos 1976, 178f. 20. Griswold (1996, 59) notices the term boule, but fails to draw a conclusion about the general form of the speech. 21. Thucydides 1.34–43, especially 37. 22. See Schiappa 1999, 185–206. For problems in defining epideictic, and the breadth of the term’s application in antiquity, see Burgess 1902, 91–113. 23. For an animated criticism of the traditional understanding of Aristotle’s θεωρός at Ars Rhet. 1358b4 as a spectator of the orator’s technical capacity or virtuosity, rather than of the μέγεθος ἀρετῆς or other moral quality reflected in his speech (cf. 1367b27), see Kraus 1905 and 1907 (where cf. 16–23 and 86f. on Plato’s contribution to Aristotle’s conception).

19

HAYDEN W. AUSLAND 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

See Trimpi 1983, 28–34. See Riddell 1877, xx. Further in Ausland 2002a. See Burgess 1902, 92f. and 96. For the competitive milieu, see Arnim 1898, 4–114 and Jaeger 1955, 105–30, 199–225, and 255–70 [Eng. 46–70, 132–55, and 182–96]. 29. Cf. Republic 414b1-c2, 476d8-e3, and Phaedo 70a7-b7. 30. See Isocrates, Helen 3f. and cf. Parmenides 127d6–128e7. 31. See Sealey, 1973, 262. 32. Benardete may be alone in having noticed the complementary rhetorical form of all three speeches (1991, 117, 120, and 129), although Weaver comes close (1953, 6). 33. See Cole 1991, 75f. 34. See Barwick 1963. 35. Kennedy (1963, 74) notices the two parts without, however, explicitly unifying them into a whole. 36. See O’Sullivan 1993. 37. Cf. Phaedrus 247c-e with Parmenides 7 DK, and see Slaveva-Griffin 2003, 248f. For the changing use of εἶδος throughout the Phaedrus, see Cook 1985, 435 n11. In the closest approach to theory in the mythical account of the hyperuranian realm, the soul is said to have “seen” true being via a theatrical metaphor (247c7, d4, e3, 249e5) connected in turn etymologically also with ἰδέα (247d3, 249 b6, 250a2, a4, b5, b8). 38. On the development of the meaning of φιλοσοφία, see Arnim 1898, 11, 17f., 63–65. For Isocrates’ use of ἰδέα, see Gaines 1990 and Sullivan 2001. For his use of φιλοσοφία, see Halliwell 1997, Timmermann 1998, and Livingston 2007, and compare the parallel usage in [Ps.-] Dem. Eroticus, a typical speech of praise followed by counsel, featuring a number of Isocratean ideas, but also framed on the model of the Phaedrus. See Clavaud 1974, 77–83 and Wendland 1905, 72f. 39. See Wyller 1991, 53f., Halliwell 1997, 108f., and Yunis 2005, 103f. Cf. note 1 supra. 40. On the triad, see Shorey 1909, 194f. 41. 273d2–274a5. Trimpi (1983, 16) unduly assimilates the two dialogues, sharply contrasting Plato’s supposed desire for “certainty by demonstration” with Isocrates’ defense of a persuasive dialectic. But if Socrates treats Polus after the fashion of a physician applying a remedial opposite (cf. Gorgias 478d1–479c4 with Phaedo 86b5-c2, Aristotle, EN 1104b13–18, and Celsus, de medicina 3.9.2), his approach to Phaedrus is more ambiguously and gradually persuasive – accounting, no doubt, for some varying estimates of Phaedrus’ ability. See Tomin 2000, 374 n1. A similar ambiguity fuels speculation about Plato’s “attitude” toward Isocrates; see Goggin & Long 1993. 42. Narcy 1992 is led to minimize the importance of καιρός in the Phaedrus, but see the fuller consideration in Tordesillas 1992. On the meaning of the term more generally, see Pfister 1938, especially 138–43. 43. For competing “esoteric” interpretations of Plato based on this passage, cf. Szlezák 1992 with Strauss 1964, 52f. (Further in Ausland 2002b) Cf. Thesleff 2002 and (on controversy attending the Tübinger version) La France 2003. 44. See e.g. Rowe’s note on 258e6ff. and cf. the short proem with which the Roman Phaedrus introduces his Latin fables. On the presence of irony in the Phaedrus, see Linck 2003. 45. Cf. Socrates’ use of μῦθος in reference to his own teachings at 237a9, 241e8, and 253c7. 46. See Moors 1982, 45f. 47. On the pervasiveness of this theme, see Ferrari 1990, especially 1–36; but cf. Schenker 2006, 75–79. 48. The translation is from Lundberg 2005, 7–76 – a rendering into contemporary English of Schleiermacher’s more compact German, which here reads “Musse haben wir ja wie es

20

POETRY, RHETORIC,

AND

FICTION

IN

PLATO’S PHAEDRUS

scheint” (1804, 135). See Lundberg’s discussion of principles in his Introduction, and the the comparative examples from the Phaedrus at xli-xlii. Even more elliptical is the Greek (σχολὴ μὲν δή, ὡς ἔοικε), which most English translations made directly from it regularly obscure by rendering “having plenty of (or sparing) time”. More conscious of the importance of the dialogue’s language and imagery, Scully uses “leisure” (2003, 42; cf 89–94), but the term is given voice only tentatively and too late. (“Well, we seem to have leisure time for it now.”) Schleiermacher more faithfully reproduces Socrates’ word order, emphasized further with the collocation μὲν δή. For the significance of the opposition between illiberal and leisurely occupation, see the lengthy note ad loc in Stallbaum’s 2nd edition. 49. On the fable and its manifold interpretation, see Schenker’s references to further literature (2006, 77–79 notes 26–28). On possible implications for Plato’s use of myth in the Phaedrus, see Gottfried 1993. 50. 229c4–230a6. Cf. Isocrates, Helen 5. 51. 274c1-c5. Cf. Cicero, de Leg. 1 (1) 3–5. 52. So Frutiger 1930, 233f. 53. See Ioh. Sard. In Aphthon. Prog. 11.4–20 Rabe. 54. Aphth. Prog. 1.6 Rabe and Hermog. Prog. 2.4f. Rabe. 55. See also Doxopat. In Aphthon. Prog. 144.9–154.14 Rabe. 56. πῶς δ’ ἂν γένοιτο πιθανός; ἂν τὰ προσήκοντα πράγματα τοῖς προσώποις ἀποδίδωμεν. (Hermogenes). 57. For example, consider the different kinds of speeches that Homer assigns to the youthful warrior Achilles and the three different members of the embassy in Book 9 of the Iliad. 58. Compare Cicero’s use of the poetic principle of decorum as a principle of moral consistency in de officiis 1 (27) 93 - (34) 125. Cicero teaches that one must not only observe the propriety required of all men, but also one special to one’s particular persona ([30] 107), so that ultimately the problem culminates in a complicated choice for a life ([32] 117 - 33 119). 59. The ability and knowledge required for this kind of accomplishment are evident in the Homeric Odysseus. Indeed, the entire Odyssey might plausibly be described as Homer’s story about a mythical but representative man, who – by reflecting upon and interpreting the meaning of what might otherwise be interpreted as his random wanderings – is able to establish his own moral persona in fact via the device of artistic and appropriate fiction. See Homer, Od. 11.363–369. 60. See Trimpi 1983, 61f. 61. For this application of the Platonic ideas, see Cicero, orator (1) 7–10. 62. For the association of this proverbial pairing with the principle of verisimilitude, cf. Hesiod, Theog. 26–35 with Cicero, Lucullus 101. 63. See Riddell 1877, xxvii-xxviii and cf. Plato, Epist. 2, 314c2–4.

Bibliography Arnim H., von (1898) Leben und Werke des Dion von Prusa. Berlin: Weidmann. Ast, F. (1801) De Platonis Phaedro. Jena: Goepferdt. Ast, F. (1817) Platon’s Phädros und Gastmahl, übersetzt, erläutert und verbessert von F. A., Jena: Cröckerschen Buchhandlung. Ausland, H. W. (2002a) “Forensic Characteristics of Socratic Argumentation”, in: G. A. Scott (ed.), Does Socrates Have a Method?, pp. 36–60. University Park, PA: Penn. State University Press. Ausland, H. W. (2002b) “On Reading the Platonic Dialogues Esoterically”, in: G. Reale and S. Scolnikov (eds.), New Images of Plato. Dialogues on the Idea of the Good, pp. 69–77. Sankt Augustin: Academia.

21

HAYDEN W. AUSLAND Barwick, K. (1963) “Das Problem der isokrateischen Techne”, Philologus 107: 43–60, [repr. in Seck, 1976, 275–95]. Benardete, S. (1991) The Rhetoric of Morality and Philosophy. Plato’s Gorgias and Phaedrus. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Biese, A. (1882) Die Entwicklung des Naturgefühls bei den Griechen. Kiel: Lipsius & Tischer. Boas, E. v. E. (2002) “Anti-Plagiaat in de Phaedrus”, Opdracht Argumentatief Schrivjen. Giekse en Latijnse Taal en Cultuur (http://www.evertvanemdeboas.nl/Anti.pdf). Brisson, L. (1992) “L’unité du Phèdre de Platon Rhétorique et philosophie dans le Phèdre”, in: Rossetti 1992, 61–76. Burger, R. (1980) Plato’s Phaedrus: A Defense of a Philosophic Art of Writing. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. Burgess, T. C. (1902) Epideictic Literature. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Clavaud, R. (1974) Démosthène. Discours d’apparat. Paris: Société d’édition, “les belles lettres”. Cole, M. (2000) “Admiration’s Double Labor: Phaedrus in the Mirror”, American Imago 57: 121–140. Cole, T. (1991) The Origins of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Conner, W. R. (1988) “Seized by the Nymphs: Nympholepsy and Symbolic Expression in Classical Greece”, CA 7: 155–189. Cook, A. (1985) “Dialectic, Irony, and Myth in Plato’s Phaedrus”, AJP 106: 427–441. Darkow, A. C. (1917) The Spurious Speeches in the Lysianic Corpus, Diss. Bryn Mawr. Demos, M. (1997) “Stesichorus’ Palinode in the Phaedrus”, Classical World 90: 235–249. Demos, M. (1999) Lyric Quotation in Plato. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Diesendruck, Z. (1927) Struktur und Charakter des platonischen Phaidros. Wien & Leipzig: Braumüller. Dušanić, S. (1981) “The Political Context of Plato’s Phaedrus”, Rivista storica dell’ antichita 10: 1–26. Dušanić, S. (1992) “Athenian Politics in Plato’s Phaedrus: Principles and Topical Themes”, in: Rossetti 1992, 229–232. Ellinger, W. (1975) Die Darstellung der Landschaft in der griechischen Dichtung. Berlin & New York: De Gruyter. Erbse, H. (1971) “Platons Urteil Über Isokrates”, Hermes 99: 183–197, [repr. in Seck 1976, 329–48, with “Nachschrift” 1973, 348–52]. Ercoles, M. (2008) Stesicoro: testimonianze, Edizione critica, traduzio, e commento, Bologna (http:// amsdottorato.cib.unibo.it/826/). Ferrari, G. R. W. (1990) Listening to the Cicadas: A Study of Plato’s Phaedrus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fortenbaugh, W. (1966) “Plato Phaedrus 235C3”, C. Phil. 61: 108–109. Frede, M. (2000) “The Philosopher”, in: J. Brunschwig and G. E. R. Lloyd (eds.), Greek Thought. A Guide to Classical Knowledge, pp. 3–19. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Frutiger, P. (1930) Les Mythes de Platon. Paris: Felix Alcan. Gaines, R. N. (1990) “Isocrates, Ep. 6.8”, Hermes 118: 165–170. Geddes, J. (1749) An Essay on the Composition and Manner of Writing of the Antients, particularly Plato. Glasgow: R. Foulis. Goggin, E. and E. Long (1993) “A Tincture of Philosophy, A Tincture of Hope: The Portrayal of Isocrates in Plato’s Phaedrus”, Rhetoric Review 11: 301–324. Gottfried, B. (1993) “Pan, the Cicadas, and Plato’s use of Myth in the Phaedrus”, in: G. Press (ed.), Plato’s Dialogues: New Studies & Interpretations, pp. 179–195. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

22

POETRY, RHETORIC,

AND

FICTION

IN

PLATO’S PHAEDRUS

Griswold, C. (1996) Self-Knowledge in Plato’s Phaedrus. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Gundert, H. (1949) “Enthusiasmos und Logos bei Platon”, Lexis 2: 25–46. Gutzwiller, K. J. (1991) Theocritus’ Pastoral Analogies: The Formation of a Genre. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Hadot, P. (2002) What is Ancient Philosophy? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Halliwell, S. (1997) “Philosophical Rhetoric or Rhetorical Philosophy? The Strange Case of Isocrates”, in: B. D. Schildgen (ed.), The Rhetorical Canon, pp. 109–125. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Heath, M. (1989) “The Unity of Plato’s Phaedrus”, OSAP 7: 151–191. Helmbold, W. C. and W. B. Holther (1952) “The Unity of the ‘Phaedrus’”, University of California Publications in Classical Philology 14.9: 387–417. Hermann, K. F. (1839) Geschichte und System der platonischen Philosophie, 1. Heidelberg: Winter. Hunter, R. L. (1999) Theocritus: A Selection. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jaeger, W. (1955) Paideia. Die Formung des greichischen Menschen, vol. 3, 2nd. ed., Berlin: De Gruyter 1955 [Engl. tr. of 1st. ed. by G. Highet, Paideia: the Ideals of Greek Culture, vol. 3, NewYork: Oxford University Press 1944]. Kastely, J. L. (2002) “Respecting the Rupture: Not Solving the Problem of Unity in Plato’s Phaedrus”, Philosophy and Rhetoric 35: 138–152. Kennedy, G. (1963) The Art of Persuasion in Greece. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Klein, J. (1977) Plato’s Trilogy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Klein, J. (1985) “Phenomenology and the History of Science”, in: R. B. Williamson and E. Zuckerman (eds.), Jacob Klein, Lectures and Essays, pp. 65–84. Annapolis, MD: St. John’s College Press. Kraus, O. (1905) Über eine altüberlieferte Missdeutung der epideiktischen Redegattung bei Aristoteles. Halle: Niemeyer. Kraus, O. (1907) Neue Studien zur aristotelischen Rhetorik, insbesondere über das ΓΕΝΟΣ ΕΠΙΔΕΙΚΤΙΚΟΝ. Halle: Niemeyer. Krische, A. B. (1848) Über Platon’s Phaedros. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht 1848, [repr. from Göttinger Studien 1847, 930–1065]. La France, Y. (2003) “La fin du Phèdre de Platon (274b-279c): ésotérisme et anti-ésotérisme”, Philosophie antique 3: 81–119. Lebeck, A. (1972) “The Central Myth of Plato’s Phaedrus”, GRBS 13: 267–290. Lick, M. S. (2003) “Unmastering Speech: Irony in Plato’s Phaedrus”, Philosophy and Rhetoric 36: 264–276. Livingston, N. (2007) “Writing Politics: Isocrates’ Rhetoric of Philosophy”, Rhetorica 25: 15–34. Lundberg, P. (2005) Tallyho – The Hunt for Beauty, Truth and Goodness. Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse. Meyer, H. W. (1956) “Das Verhältnis von Enthusiasmus und Philosophie bei Platon im Hinblick auf seinen Phaidros”, Archiv für Philosophie 6: 262–277. Moors, K. F. (1982) Platonic Myth. An Introductory Study. Washington, DC: University Press of America. Motte, A. (1963) “Le pré sacré de Pan et des Nymphes dans le Phèdre de Platon”, AC 32: 460–476. Munk, E. (1857) Die natürliche Ordnung der platonischen Schriften. Berlin: Dümmler. Murley, C. (1940) “Plato’s Phaedrus and Theocritean Pastoral”, TAPA 71: 281–295. Narcy, M. (1992) “Platon, l’ecriture et les transformations de la rhétorique”, in: Rossetti 1992, 275–279. Norden, E. (1898) Die antike Kunstprosa, 1, Leipzig: Teubner. O’Sullivan, N. (1993) “Plato and ἡ καλουμένη ῥητορική” Mnemosyne 46: 87–89. Parry, A. (1957) “Landscape in Greek Poetry”, Yale Classical Studies 15: 3–29.

23

HAYDEN W. AUSLAND Pearce, T. (1988) “The Function of the locus amoenus in Theocritus’ Seventh Poem”, Rheinisches Museum 131: 276–304. Pender, E. E. (2007a) “Poetic Allusion in Plato’s Timaeus and Phaedrus”, Göttinger Forum für Altertumswissenschaft 10: 21–57. Pender, E. E. (2007b) “Sappho and Anacreon in Plato’s Phaedrus”, Leeds International Classical Studies 6: 1–57. Pfister, F. (1938) “Kairos und Symmetrie”, in: R. Herbig (ed.), Würzburger Festgabe für Heinrich Bulle. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Philip, A. (1981) “Récurrences thématiques et topologie dans le Phèdre de Platon”, Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 86: 452–476. Pickett, P. (1976) “Sidney’s Use of Phaedrus in The Lady of May”, Studies in English Literature, 1500– 1900: 16.1, The English Renaissance: 33–50. Plass, P. (1968) “The Unity of the Phaedrus”, Symbolae Osloenses 43: 7–38. Pohlenz, M. (1913) Aus Platos Werdezeit. Berlin: Weidemann. Raeder, H. (1905) Platons philosophische Entwicklung. Leipzig: Teubner. Riddell, J. (1877) The Apology of Plato. Oxford: University Press. Riginos, A. S. (1976) Platonica. Leiden: Brill. Rossetti, L. (ed.) (1992) Understanding the Phaedrus. Proceedings of the II Symposium Platonicum. Sankt Augustin: Academia. Rowe, C. J. (1986a) “The Argument and Structure of Plato’s Phaedrus”, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 212: 106–125. Rowe, C. J. (1986b) Plato: Phaedrus. Warminster: Aris & Phillips. Rudberg, G. (1956) Platonica Selecta. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. Schenker, D. J. (2006) “The Strangeness of the Phaedrus”, AJP 127: 67–87. Schiappa, E. (1990) “Did Plato Coin rhetorike?”, AJP 111: 457–470. Schiappa, E. (1999) The Beginnings of Rhetorical Theory in Classical Greece. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Schleiermacher, F. (1804) Platons Werke, 1.1. Berlin: Realschulbuchhandlung [partially translated in Dobson, W. Schleiermacher’s Introductions to the Dialogues of Plato, Cambridge: Pitt 1836]. Schönbeck, G. (1962) Der locus amoenus von Homer bis Horaz, Diss. Heidelberg [repr. Köln: Wasmund, 1964]. Scully, S. (2003) Plato’s Phaedrus. Newburyport: Focus. Sealey, R. (1973) “The Origins of Demokratia”, California Studies in Classical Antiquity 6: 253–295. Seck, F. (ed.) (1976) Isokrates. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1976 (WDF 351). Shelley, P. B. (1891), A Defense of Poetry, ed. A. S. Cook, Boston: Ginn. Shorey, P. (1909) “Φύσις, Μελέτη, Ἐπιστήμη”, TAPA 40: 185–210 (=Selected Papers 1, 1–19). Sidney, P. (1595) An Apologie for Poetrie. London: Henry Olney. Slaveva-Griffin, S. (2003) “Of Gods, Philosophers, and Charioteers: Content and Form in Parmenides’ Proem and Plato’s Phaedrus”, TAPA 133: 227–253. Socher, J. (1820) Über Platons Schriften. München: Lentner. Stallbaum, G. (1832) Platonis Dialogos Selectos, IV.1 Phaedrum. Gotha: Hennings [2nd. ed. 1857]. Steinhart, K. (1854) Platon’s sämmtliche Werke, üb. von H. Müller, mit Einl. begl. v. K. Steinhart, IV, Leipzig: Brockhaus. Stenzel, J. (1917) Studien zur Entwicklung der platonischen Dialektik von Sokrates zu Aristoteles. Breslau: Trewendt & Granier [Engl. from the 2nd. ed. of 1931 in: Plato’s Method of Dialectic, tr. D. J. Allen, Oxford: Clarendon 1940]. Strauss, L. (1964) The City and Man. Chicago, IL: Rand McNally. Suckow, G. F. W. (1855) Die wissenschaftliche und künstlerische Form der platonischen Schriften in ihrer bisher verborgenen Eigenthümlichkeit. Berlin: Dümmler.

24

POETRY, RHETORIC,

AND

FICTION

IN

PLATO’S PHAEDRUS

Sullivan, R. C. (2001) “Eidos/Idea in Isocrates”, Philosophy and Rhetoric 34: 79–92. Switzer, R. (1994) “The Topology of Madness: Philosophic Seduction in Plato’s Phaedrus”, Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 14: 6–36. Szlezak, T. A. (1992) “Was heisst ‘dem Logos zum Hilfe kommen’?”, in: Rossetti 1992, 92–107. Tennemann, W. G. (1792) System der platonischen Philosophie, 1. Leipzig: Barth. Thesleff, H. (1967) “Stimmungsmalerei oder Burlesque? Der Stil von Plat. Phaidr. 230BC und seine Funktion”, Arctos 5: 141–155. Thesleff, H. (2002) “Plato and his Public”, in: J. Mejer and B. Amden (eds.), Noctes Atticae: 34 articles on Graeco-Roman Antiquity and its Nachleben, pp. 289–301. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculum. Thompson, W. H. (1868) The Phaedrus of Plato. London: Whittaker & Co. Timmermann, D. M. (1998) “Isocrates’ Competing Conceptualization of Philosophy”, Philosophy and Rhetoric 31: 145–159. Tomin, J. (1997) “Plato’s First Dialogue”, Ancient Philosophy 17: 31–45. Tomin, J. (2000) “Plato’s Disappointment with his Phaedran Characters and its Impact on his Theory of Psychology”, CQ N.S. 50: 374–383. Tordesillas, A. (1992) “Kairos dialectique, kairos rhétorique. Le projet platonicien de rhétorique philosophique perpetuelle”, in: Rossetti 1992, 77–92. Trimpi, W. (1983) Muses of One Mind. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Vara, J. (1992) “The Sources of Theocritean Bucolic Poetry”, Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, 45: 333–344. Vicaire, P. (1960) Platon, critique littéraire. Paris: Klincksieck. Volquardsen, C. R. (1862) Platon’s Phädros. Erste Schrift Platon’s. Kiel: Schröder & Comp. Walsdorff, F. (1927) Die antiken Urteile über Platons Stil. Bonn: Scheur. Weaver, R. (1953) The Ethics of Rhetoric. Chicago: Regnery. Wendland, P. (1905) Anaximenes von Lampsacus. Studien zur ältesten Geschichte der Rhetorik. Berlin: Weidmann. Werner, D. (2007) “Plato’s Phaedrus and the Problem of Unity”, OSAP 32: 91–137. Wright, M. (2005) Euripides’ Escape-Tragedies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wyller, E. (1991) “Plato’s Concept of Rhetoric in the Phaedrus and its Tradition in Antiquity”, Symbolae Osloenses 66: 51–69. Yunis, H. (2005) “Eros in Plato’s Phaedrus and the Shape of Greek Rhetoric”, Arion 13: 101–125.

25


WRITING, MEMORY, AND WISDOM: THE CRITIQUE OF WRITING IN THE PHAEDRUS ØYVIND RABBÅS

DEPARTMENT

OF

PHILOSOPHY, CLASSICS, HISTORY UNIVERSITY OF OSLO

OF

ART

AND IDEAS,

The paper addresses the scope, ground and force of the critique of writing in the final part of the Phaedrus. It argues that although the critique directly concerns written texts as such, its primary target is rhetorical speeches intended to persuade audiences in matters of ethical and political concern. The ground for this critique is the fixity and under-determination of the written word, features shared by certain non-written “texts”, such as oral poetry, myths and hearsay. These features make these texts problematic for the purpose of instruction in practical wisdom. However, they can to some extent be compensated for by its author ‘s active presence and support.

Among the many puzzling features of the Phaedrus is the so-called critique of writing that appears at the end of the conversation, from 274b onwards. Here Socrates tells the story of Theuth, one of the ancient gods of Naucratis in Egypt. Theuth discovered several news arts, such as arithmetic, geometry and astronomy, and also writing (grammata). When he presents these arts to the king of Egypt, Thamus, the king, not wanting to embrace just any new art at face value, asks about the usefulness of each of these new arts. When it comes to writing Theuth is adamant in his praise (274e4–7) but Thamus is not impressed by this, and it is his reply that states the famous critique of writing (274e7–275b2): the value of writing is exaggerated, because while it appears to enhance men's memory (mnêmê) and hence their wisdom, in reality it weakens their memory and replaces it with a sort of forgetfulness (lêthê). The reason for this is that writing encourages a kind of trust in its powers that it cannot live up to. For the written word is “external and depends on signs that belong to others”. The consequence of putting one's trust in the written word is thus the appearance and reputation of wisdom (sophias doxa), as well as becoming difficult to get along with. There are several features of this critique that require clarification. In particular, what exactly is the scope of this critique? Does it concern all kinds of written texts? Or only written speeches? Or does it cross the distinction between the written and the spoken to include some kinds of non-written utterance as well? Secondly, we should ask what the ground for the critique really is: Exactly what is meant when it is said that writing introduces forgetfulness and therefore provides the appearance DOI: 10.1080/00397679.2010.501195

26

WRITING, MEMORY, AND WISDOM of wisdom, not real wisdom? Finally, what is the precise force of this critique? Is the claim that writing as such is bad? Or is writing only potentially, or tendentially, bad, but there is a possibility to compose written texts that somehow overcome the inherent dangers of writing? I address each of these questions in the three main sections of this paper. In brief, I argue that although the explicit concern of the critique is written texts as such, its real target is rhetorical speeches intended to persuade audiences in matters of ethical and political concern. The ground for this critique is the fixity and under-determination of the written word, features shared by certain non-written “texts”, such as oral poetry, myths and hearsay, as well as political oratory. These features make these texts problematic for the purpose of instruction in practical wisdom. However, they can to some extent be compensated for by its author's active presence and support.

I. The critique of writing: its scope At first glance, the critique of writing formulated by Thamus as reported by Socrates is quite general, without any qualification: all writing is condemned, and nothing is said about words or discourse that is not written. But does that mean that we should take the target of the critique to be the written word as such? Or is the target somewhat different from this, the literal formulation notwithstanding? We get a clue to the solution of our problem when we note how the second part of the dialogue is structured. Once Socrates has given his second speech on Love, his palinode, the question arises “What distinguishes good from bad writing?” (258d7). The following exchange discusses this question but then, some 16 Stephanus pages later, Socrates declares that “that's enough about the artfulness and artlessness in connection with speaking [τὸ μὲν τέχνης τε καὶ ἀτεχνίας λόγων πέρι]” and instead asks about the “aptness and ineptness in connection with writing [τὸ δ᾽ εὐπρεπέιας δὴ γραφῆς πέρι καὶ ἀπρεπείας]: What feature makes writing good [καλῶς] and what inept [ἀπρεπῶς]?” (274b3–7). These are clearly two different questions, one (call this Question I) about the difference between good and bad speech-writing, the other (Question II) about the value of writing as such. The critique of writing, introduced by reference to the legend about Theuth and Thamus and subsequently developed by Socrates, addresses the second of these questions. However, this raises some questions that we need to answer in order to determine the scope of the critique of writing: Exactly what is the relation between these two questions? Why does Question I come first and then lead to Question II? And what, therefore, is the real point of Question II? 27

ØYVIND RABBÅS The Phaedrus, uncontroversially, falls into two distinct parts. The first part consists of three speeches on the nature and value of Love (Eros), one by Lysias as reported by Phaedrus (230e–234c) and two by Socrates (237a–241d and 244a– 257b). In the second part (from 257b7) the topic shifts to a discussion of rhetoric and, in particular, what characterizes good as opposed to bad speech-writing. One of the major questions about this dialogue is how its two parts hang together. Now, however else the two parts may be interconnected, this much seems clear, that the discussion of speech-writing in the second part is a kind of meta-commentary on the speeches on love in the first part. This is not to say that there are no other connections between the two parts, e.g. on the substantive level (between Eros and Logos, for instance), but this ‘meta-connection’ is the one relevant for our purposes. Thus the question introducing the second part of the dialogue is what characterizes good as opposed to bad speech-writing – our Question I. The word for “speech-writing” is logographia, the writing of logoi. While logos can have a wide range of meanings, the primary one here is clearly “speech” in the sense of a speech made by an orator, an organized string of words delivered orally before an audience on a public occasion. And a logographer was somebody who wrote speeches for an orator, for instance a politician appearing in the assembly or a party in a trial before the court. In the highly rhetorical Greek culture, especially in the age of the Athenian democracy, it was common for well-to-do citizens to hire professional speech-writers to compose the speeches for them. But the crucial thing to note in our context is that speeches were composed in advance, to a large extent in writing, whether this was done by a professional speechwriter or by the orator himself. Rhetoric as a technical skill, a technê, has its origin in this culture. In addition to the political and legal speeches, we should follow Aristotle and reckon with a third, somewhat more vaguely defined kind or genre, the epideictic or display speech. This genre would include various kinds of ceremonial speeches, such as the funeral orations given on the occasion of the fallen in some battle. The speeches on love given in the first part of the Phaedrus belong to this genre. Thus, when Question I comes up, about what characterizes good vs. bad speech-writing, this question is not only directly relevant to the conversation in the first part of this dialogue, but it also, at the same time, locates the discussion within the wider context of the rhetorical culture of the Athenian democracy. The problem is simply what it takes to compose a speech well as opposed to badly; what are the requirements that the speech and the speech-writer must satisfy in order for the speech-writing to be good? Now, the scope of this question (our Question I) is very wide. This is explicitly stated by Socrates (see 261a7–b2 on rhetoric in general as “a way of directing the soul by means of speech [ψυχαγωγία τις διὰ λόγων]”; cf. 271c10), but it also becomes clear by the array of examples given to illustrate the sort of speech 28

WRITING, MEMORY, AND WISDOM (logos) in question. These range from the three speeches on Eros given in Part I of the dialogue through the politicians and their speeches (cf. 257d) to legal speeches in specific cases (cf. 272d–273c) and various technical manuals for professions such as rhetoric or medicine (266d, 268b–c, 269c, 271b–c, 275c). Finally, at the very end of his critique of writing, he summarizes its scope by mentioning three kinds of people who in some way are taken to be speech-writers: the orators (such as Lysias), the poets (represented by Homer), and the lawmakers or law-writers (for instance Solon) (278c–d). In general the problem of good speech-making is said to concern anyone “who ever did or will write anything – whether a public or a private document, poetic verse or plain prose” (258d9–11; cf. 261d10–e4, 271c10). Thus, while the scope of rhetoric is indeed wide, it is not indefinite, and there is a certain unity to it. Rhetoric isn't just about any sort of topic, but about some kind of politically, ethically or, in general, normatively significant issue: whether some law should be passed, whether a person should be convicted/ acquitted, whether some dead person is worthy of great praise and emulation, or what the nature of Love is. In these cases the speaker is making claims that some law, course of action, verdict, or person is right, just, good or the like, and these claims will be based on standards of adjudication. In short, the speeches in question convey messages of normative significance. In fact, this is explicitly stated in the dialogue. For instance, Socrates refers to the conventional view that “one who intends to be an able rhetorician has no need to know the truth about the things that are just or good” (272d3–7), and later he talks about “the man who knows what is just, noble, and good” (276c3–5) (see also 261c4–7, 263a9–c2, 277d10–e3, 278a2–5). Socrates describes rhetoric as “a way of directing the soul by means of speech [ψυχαγωγία τις διὰ λόγων]” (261a7–8), and later adds that “the nature of speech [λόγου δύναμις] is in fact to direct the soul [ψυχαγωγία]” (271c10). Two things seem to be included in this “direction of souls”. First, a craftsman, for instance, may use – or maybe even write – a technical manual when he teaches an apprentice his art. Here the purpose of speaking is to help the student to acquire a mastery of the art, i.e. to introduce or initiate him into the art and the community constituted by it. But, secondly, texts such as technical manuals may also have a function for someone who is already part of the community constituted by the art: it may help him solve particularly hard problems that arise in the course of practising the art. In this case what the use of the manual provides is guidance. Thus, the direction of soul that is the power of speech (271c10) is a matter of instruction in the sense of teaching as well as in the sense of guidance. There are several indications that Socrates must have both kinds of direction in mind. First, several of the examples given seem to fit the notion of guidance just as 29

ØYVIND RABBÅS well as that of instruction – in fact, “instruction” seems to cover both cases. Thus, the poets, for instance, “instruct” the Greeks both by teaching them the basics of Greek ethics/mores, and also by providing them with paradigms and guidelines for handling the problems of life in a proper way. Similarly with myths and heroic tales, as well as proverbial hearsay and even laws. (This will prove important in section II.) Secondly, it is conspicuous how often he talks about instruction, from the perspective either of the teacher (various forms of διδάσκω; cf. 277c5, e9, 278a2) or of the learner (forms of μανθάνω; cf. 275a6–7, d9, 276a5, 278a2). Indeed, these pedagogical terms (“teach”/“learn”) are so closely related to the epistemic terms (“explain”/“understand”) that they are often interchangeable: to teach is to explain in order to make someone understand, and to learn is to come to understand as a result of receiving an explanation. These interconnections are nicely brought out in a couple of passages that present a modern translator with impossible choices of terms. Thus, when Socrates comes to talk about an alternative to the written word, he mentions “a discourse that is written down, with knowledge, in the soul of the learner [μετ᾽ ἐπιστήμης γράφεται ἐν τῇ τοῦ μανθάνοντος ψυχῇ]” (276a5–6). It seems that “the learner” here could just as well be called “the one who understands”, since he is the one who has learnt (or is “learned”). Similarly, Socrates later says that “only what is said for the sake of understanding and learning [ἐν τοῖς διδασκομένοις καὶ μαθήσεως χάριν λεγομένοις], what is truly written in the soul concerning what is just, noble, and good can be clear, perfect, and worth serious attention.” (278a2–5) Strictly speaking, what Socrates is talking about here is “what is taught and said for the sake of learning” or, what comes to the same, “what is explained and accounted for for the sake of understanding”. The point is that the choice of terms here shows that what Socrates has in mind is the process of coming to understand some μάθημα, some body of knowledge or discipline. When Question I is raised, it is motivated by a concern with the process of generating and manifesting understanding: good speech-writing is the one that contributes artfully to this end, while bad speech-writing fails to make such a contribution. But that, again, leaves us with Question II about writing as such. Here we should note a change in terminology. Up to the point where the value of writing is thematized – at 274b – Socrates has been talking indiscriminately about speeches (logoi) spoken and written (see 258d1–2, d7, 259e1–2, 264c2–5, 271b7–c1). (In fact, even later on, once the question of the value of writing has been explicitly raised, Socrates still occasionally talks indiscriminately about speaking and writing; see 277a10–b2, b5–6, d1–2.) That is, for a long time the issue of writing as such is not raised; there is talk of speeches that are not only delivered, but also composed, and they are composed in writing, but the fact that it is in writing that they are composed is never taken up until 274b. Then suddenly, at 274b, writing as such becomes the issue. Moreover, this break is 30

WRITING, MEMORY, AND WISDOM marked in terminology. All through to 274b Socrates talks about “writing”, γραφεῖν/γραφή but then, beginning at 274d2, during the list of new arts that Theuth has bequeathed to man, the terminology shifts to γράμματα – literally “letters”, but clearly meant to designate the technê of using letters, the skill of writing. In short, the focus shifts from writing as composition to writing as technology. And the problem in the last part becomes: What is the value, if any, of this new technology (our Question II)? Part II of the Phaedrus is composed by Plato as a critique of contemporary rhetoric and rhetorical culture. But we can now see that this critique has two parts or stages. The first part focuses on the nature of rhetoric: its subject matter and purpose, and its presuppositions. Two points are singled out for criticism. (1) The only problem recognized by conventional rhetoric as genuine is the instrumental problem: how to achieve the end of persuasion. And (2) the need for knowledge is denied: All that is needed for the orator to succeed in his speechmaking is a sense of what will secure persuasion – he doesn't have to know the truth of what he is talking about. In the second part of the critique of rhetoric, from 274b, the focus ostensibly shifts from the nature and presuppositions of rhetoric to its medium: the written word and the technology of writing. However, on closer scrutiny we can see that the real focus of the second part is not really the technology of writing so much as the nature of persuasion: persuasion is the end of rhetoric, but what exactly is it? What is it for a person to be persuaded by a speech (logos)? What is it, really, to believe something? Indeed, what is it, really, to say something: to speak? Thus we could say that the first part of the critique of rhetoric focuses on the art of persuasion, while the second part focuses on the epistemology of being persuaded. Alternatively, we could follow Charles Griswold and say that in the first part the focus is on the technê of rhetoric, while in the second part it is on the telos of rhetoric – its value, sc. its epistemological value.1 And – this is crucial – it is now, in this context, that the art of writing as such becomes a problem and is thematized. Thus, it seems that there is something about the art of writing that exposes it to danger with respect to the telos of speaking: instruction in the good, the just, the noble, etc. If that is so, then the answer to our question about the scope of the critique of writing is that the explicit target of this critique is writing as such. But the critique concerns the potential danger of writing, so it doesn't rule out that some instances of writing can be harmless (and perhaps even beneficial for certain purposes). Moreover, the critique also leaves open the possibility that the critique may apply to forms of discourse that are not strictly speaking written, but that are like the written word in a relevant sense, and therefore exposed to the same potential dangers. In order to see how this can be, we must understand the ground for the critique of writing.

31

ØYVIND RABBÅS

II.

The critique of writing: its ground

Once he has reported Thamus' critique of Theuth's praise of the art of writing, Socrates goes on to explain and support Thamus' critique. He does so in three steps, first by means of a paradigm of the kind of writing he takes to be problematic, viz. technical manuals; secondly, by drawing an analogy between writing and painting; and, thirdly, by contrasting written discourse with another kind of discourse, not written physically but rather in the souls of the learner.

1. Wisdom and technical manuals Writing, according to Thamus, weakens people's memory and thereby introduces forgetfulness instead. That should make us wonder what kind of wisdom he is talking about. We can get an idea of which notion of wisdom is in question if we look at a passage immediately following Thamus' diagnosis of the art of writing. Once he has reported this diagnosis, Socrates proceeds to give an example: Well, then, those who think they can leave written instructions for an art [τέχνην ἐν γράμμασι καταλιπεῖν], as well as those who accept them, thinking that writing can yield results that are clear or certain [ὥς τι σαφὲς καὶ βέβαιον], must be quite naïve and truly ignorant of Ammon's prophetic judgement: otherwise, how could they possibly think that words that have been written down can do more than remind those who already know what the writing is about? (275c5–d2)

This passage is important for two reasons: (1) for itself, as an example or illustration of the general point about writing and wisdom, and (2) for what it exemplifies/illustrates. Let us look at the example itself first. 1. The example: technical manuals. Socrates talks about “leav[ing] written instructions for an art”, and there are two parts to this worth noticing. First, the example concerns a particular kind of knowledge or wisdom, viz. technê: art, craft or technical expertise. Secondly, the example concerns imparting this knowledge to somebody through some kind of instruction. Thus it is clear that what Socrates has in mind is the kind of technical manual that had become fairly widespread in his day. (Socrates has referred to such manuals on several occasions before; see 266d, 268b–c, 269c, 271b–c.) These would include rhetorical manuals, but also manuals for other technai such as medicine. Moreover, there is an assumption in some quarters that such manuals are sufficient for producing and sustaining “results that are clear or certain” – this latter phrase clearly refers to the competent practice of the technê. The idea is that technical manuals alone are sufficient to transmit a technê from teacher to student, as well as to support the competent practice of it. 32

WRITING, MEMORY, AND WISDOM However, Socrates says that people who hold this view “must be quite naïve”; why is that? The explanation must be that this view actually presupposes an inadequate view of what a technê is. Against this, Socrates assumes an alternative view of technê, which is granted by Phaedrus, such that the inadequacy of this “naïve” view of instruction becomes apparent. On this alternative view, a technê is a power (dynamis), a complex set of abilities that are both rational and practical. This power is defined in part by the set of objects or concerns that it is set over, and in part by what it enables its possessor to do with respect to these objects.2 Although a technê certainly involves propositional knowledge, it is in no way reducible to such knowledge, nor is the possession of a technê to be identified with a set of beliefs (i.e. holding a set of propositions to be true). To be, e.g., a mathematician is not to be identified with correctly holding a set of theorems to be true. To possess a technê such as mathematics one must understand these propositions, and this amounts to the possession of a set of abilities to do various things in determinate, intelligent ways. These things include articulating the relevant true propositions when the situation calls for it, as well as explaining why they are true, how they are interrelated in logical relations, and how they are related to reality. This is also why a technê is a holistic structure: you can't have technical expertise on some isolated part of the entire discipline. The one who possesses a technê, an art, can be called wise (sophos): he knows how to perform the art, how to go about things within the relevant field, and he knows how to justify his moves to others, as well as how to teach others to become accomplished practitioners like himself. Thus it is part of possessing a technê that the technitês is able to articulate his knowledge and account for it to others. He can, e.g., justify why he is doing what he is doing, and explain what the likely prospects are of the various choices he makes. This is because possession of a genuine technê involves knowledge of the nature of the things it is set over, and their causal functioning and interrelations. A further point still to note in connection with the notion of technê assumed by Socrates and accepted, albeit not explicitly and particularly knowledgeably, by Phaedrus, is that a technê, like any discipline or subject, can be possessed in degrees. To learn a technê is to go through a process that, roughly speaking, consists in doing the various actions that manifest the power that constitutes the technê, and to do this under guidance from an accomplished practitioner, and to a steadily improving degree of proficiency. This is significant for our purposes. When a technê, such as medicine or rhetoric, is to be passed on from teacher to student, a written manual is not enough. What is needed is the kind of practical instruction and supervision just mentioned. But such instruction involves a lot more than merely supplying a technical manual. A manual can certainly be of some help towards this end, but equally certainly it is inadequate by itself. This should be obvious to anybody who has ever tried to give instructions to 33

ØYVIND RABBÅS somebody in a technê, and that is Socrates' point: the example is powerful because people can recognize their own experience in it. Similarly, most of what was said about instruction qua teaching, also holds for instruction qua guidance. When a practitioner of a technê needs guidance for addressing a particularly difficult task, merely consulting a manual won't do – he needs the practical guidance of a wise and experienced colleague. 2. The exemplified: practical wisdom. As we saw in section I, the scope of the problem of good vs. bad writing included various kinds of speech, ranging from speeches on particular cases in the law-courts via political speeches proposing new laws to funeral orations and poetry. But how can the example of the technical manual and its insufficiency for the purpose of instruction (teaching and guidance) carry over to these other kinds of speech? The poets were, by common consent, the teachers of the Greeks since their poems provided a reservoir for learning the proper mores of society.3 In the absence of a formal education system and a fully worked out code of law, the great works of poetry – and especially Homer – took on a significance that can only be compared to that of the Bible in early European history, before the spread of literacy and general education. The works of poetry did not primarily function as works of literature or art, as we conceive of it, but rather as sources of ethical, political and other kinds of practical wisdom. They provided exemplary situations and paradigm characters by reference to which people could interpret their own lives and deliberate about how to live. A similar function was of course also served by religious myths and heroic legends, as well as by the less clearly demarcated genre of hearsay and proverbs, often referred to – e.g. by the orators – as akousmata, “things heard”.4 The laws had a surprisingly similar role to play. In ancient Greece law was not codified the way it became later, and it was not distinguished from morality the way we take for granted. In this situation laws, although written, acquired a significance they no longer have, as bearers of, and instruments for the propagation of, moral value. That laws could serve such a function may explain why ambitious politicians were so eager to get their proposals accepted: it would gain them immortal status (cf. 257e–258c) – sc. as instructors of the Greeks, on a par with Solon and his like (cf. 278c–d). Finally, and more directly relevant to the discussion in the Phaedrus, we have oratory. The great speeches given by orators and politicians in the assembly or in court, as well as those delivered on other occasions and in other contexts – indeed, Lysias' speech on Love belongs to this class, as do the speeches on Love in the Symposium5 – would not merely tap into and further advance the moral values already existing in democratic culture, but would also contribute to the constant reinterpretation of these values, to bring them to bear on situations never before encountered. Thus the great orators, too, would be teachers of the Greeks. 34

WRITING, MEMORY, AND WISDOM To sum up. A technical manual can provide instructions for a technê, i.e. for becoming and remaining a competent practitioner of this technê. But, in an analogous way, great poems, laws, myths, heroic legends, hearsay, and orations provide instruction – education and guidance – for adequate practice. Which practice? Leading the life of a well-educated, decent Greek citizen! Thus, together these texts provide what we could call the curriculum for ethical citizenship.

2. The analogy with painting: the fixity and under-determination of the written word If written words could convey an art to a man, then they would make him wise in that field. But Socrates' claim, following Thamus' verdict, is that this is something written words cannot do. Why is that? Why is the written word, in the form of technical manuals, poems and the like, insufficient for the purpose of instruction? Socrates gives two arguments for discounting the value of the written word. The first draws on an analogy between writing and painting and points to the fixity and hermeneutic under-determination of the written word, while the second is the claim that writing undermines memory – a point argued by means of a contrast with another and better kind of discourse, the one written in the soul of the learner. Let us review the first argument before concentrating on the second. Socrates' first argument relies on a comparison of writing with painting (275d4– e5). A picture creates the illusion of presenting something that is alive (this is particularly reasonable to think in Greek where the term for “painting” is zôgraphia, literally “drawing of a living being”), while in reality there is nothing living there. Similarly, a written text gives the illusion of being a living logos, while in actual fact there is no such thing there. The explanation Socrates gives is that the written word “remains most solemnly silent”: it just “continues to signify that very same thing forever” without being able to answer for itself when questioned as to its meaning or truth. The written word is dead, it cannot talk or, above all, enter a dialogue, an exchange of words back and forth between two or more minds about the topic under discussion. A living logos, on the other hand, would be one that was part of a dialogue, for only then could it be adjusted to the particular person addressed, and only then could its meaning and implications be clarified and examined through a dialectical exchange. The importance of such exchanges is emphasized by Socrates in several places throughout the dialogues, and the Phaedrus is certainly no exception. We shall see the importance of this when we look at the organic nature of proper speech-making below (section II 3). Moreover, the written word, by its firm fixity, gives the appearance of importance, clarity and completeness (cf. teleon, 278a5) that together gives it an authority it doesn't merit.6 The point is subtle. Not only does the written word 35

ØYVIND RABBÅS appear to embody wisdom, but it also leads us to persuade ourselves that we are in possession of a wisdom that we actually don't have. So the written word not only fails to give us knowledge of the things it talks about, but it also tempts us into a kind of lack of self-understanding: it is almost as if Socrates is claiming that the written word somehow works to flatter us.7 This lack of self-understanding is of course an old Socratic theme, going back to the Apology. We should also note that this point may be intended already at the outset, in Thamus' verdict (275a6–b2). Writing, the king says, produces forgetfulness and thereby the appearance of wisdom (sophias doxa) in those who put their trust in it – it makes them appear to be wise (doxosophoi). This is actually ambiguous in more than one way. First, it may mean that those who trust writing appear – for some reason yet to be specified – to other people to be wise. Secondly, this appearance leads to their reputation in the community for wisdom. But, thirdly, the point may also be that a trust in writing may make the person appear to himself to be wise – it may inflate his self-image. And this, in turn, is of course what makes such a person “difficult to get along with” (275b2). Socrates uses the analogy with painting to make a second point as well. Because the written logos isn't addressed to anyone in particular, it is “roll[ing] about everywhere, reaching indiscriminately” anyone whom it happens upon. From a modern point of view this may seem too harsh; we tend to think that the interpretive under-determination of a text provides it with a kind of hermeneutic openness and fertility that is a virtue rather than a vice in a literary text. But we should then bear in mind that Socrates' point regards texts written for the purpose of instruction, i.e. for application in practice, in the context of some art or other intelligent practice, and then this openness and fertility that we praise in literary texts will imperil rather than facilitate their intended use. The relevant texts in the present context are technical manuals and eminent ethical and political texts – the ones we reviewed in section II 1 – not works of art. And while the latter are seen today as elements of Art as a peculiar institution for the Education of Man, the former are documents to serve the purpose of education and practical guidance. We can perhaps get an idea of what he has in mind if we think about the status that certain texts have acquired once they have become canonized, as Griswold mentions: the Bible or the Koran, or the American Constitution. These texts are treated as if written in stone, although (or because?!) they are open to all sorts of different and more or less starkly opposed readings.

3. “Another kind of discourse”: Writing in the soul The third step in Socrates' exploration of Thamus' critique of writing, and the second argument he develops, is based on a contrast with “another kind of 36

WRITING, MEMORY, AND WISDOM discourse”, one that is written but “with knowledge, in the soul of the learner” (276a1–b1). The crucial premise for this notion of “another kind of discourse” is that the speaker addresses the soul, and not merely the beliefs, of his interlocutor. That is what was meant by talking of rhetoric or the power of speech as a way of “directing the soul [psychagôgia]” (261a7–8, 271c10). We have seen that wisdom is not reducible to a set of beliefs in the truth of a set of propositions. Wisdom is a set of abilities and skills to do things, and these abilities and skills are properties of the soul of the person, not merely part of the content of his or her mind. When Socrates now talks of “another kind of discourse”, the aim of this discourse is to affect the soul of the interlocutor, to change this soul and thereby the person whose soul it is. This points holds for the practical wisdom whose development in the learner is the aim of rhetoric, but it holds equally for the technical instruction given on the basis of written manuals; even here the aim is to change the learner's soul by changing those abilities and capacities that make it up. The idea clearly is that when such discourse succeeds, the interlocutor in some sense becomes a new person: wise as opposed to unwise (whether ignorant or merely opinionated). And when this other kind of discourse succeeds, it is alive and it transfers its life to the interlocutor whose soul is transformed by the communication. This point is brought out in another passage by means of an organic metaphor: speaking is like planting and sowing (276e4–277a4). Now, successful planting and gardening presuppose certain qualities in both the farmer and the soil in which he plants or sows: the soil must be of the right kind, receptive and fertile, so that the seeds can become properly rooted and grow, and the farmer must be patient and let the seeds take the time they need to be rooted and grow. Real farming isn't something that can be done in a hurry (in “seven days”, as Socrates says, 276b4); it takes its time, and it requires proper nourishment and care. When applied to the case of discourse (logos), this means, among other things, that when the interlocutor receives the speech in the proper way, he will make it part of his own soul – it will change him so that he acquires the various abilities and skills that constitute the knowledge that is imparted by the speech. For this to be possible, the orator must organize his speech in the way outlined by Socrates earlier on (cf. 263d–266b), and the interlocutor must go through the same kind of dialectical reasoning that led the orator to compose his speech the way he did. When discourse is properly planted in the soul of the interlocutor, it goes on living in him. And living discourse, or logos, is something active: It will direct the soul of the person, and hence his activities, his life, and it will enable him to account for all that he does and says. Socrates even goes as far as to say that this gives the logos immortality and the interlocutor happiness. The logos acquires immortality because it perpetuates itself irrespective of which (or whose) soul it 37

ØYVIND RABBÅS inheres in; it continues to live and be active in generation after generation of rational beings. And the interlocutor becomes happy because he succeeds in fulfilling his own nature as a rational creature. Happiness, eudaimonia, should here be understood in an objective sense, as success or accomplishment, rather than in a subjective sense, as meaning some kind of experience or feeling. Finally, we should recall the underlying assumption all along that the various kinds of speech that they are talking about, all aim at instruction – either in the sense of teaching (education) or in the sense of guidance (or direction). That is why it is wrong to think that the scope of the discussion is so wide as to include all communication; it encompasses all speech-making, and making speeches is about persuading people, i.e. leading them to grasp the truth about some topic. But grasping the truth is a matter of understanding it, of having the expert understanding that is characteristic of someone in possession of a technê or of wisdom.

4. Writing, wisdom and memory The critique of writing claims that written discourse cannot produce memory – on the contrary, it easily undermines human memory by producing forgetfulness. However, written discourse may, at best, serve as a reminder for the appropriately conditioned soul – it will then be an image or indicator of the real, living logos. But how can writing undermine such memory? The logos in question is the one that embodies the kind of competent or expert knowledge found in technical craftsmen as well as in the practical wisdom of the good citizen. However, this competence or wisdom is not only the product of, but also makes essential reference to, the past history of the person whose wisdom is in question. So wisdom involves memory. The easiest way to see this is probably via the notion of experience: anyone who is wise is experienced in the field on which he is wise. And being experienced has an essential temporal aspect, involving memory, in several ways. First, experienced wisdom is related to memory simply because it consists in a set of practical abilities, and these abilities are themselves a kind of memory: to know how is to remember how. But such wisdom involves memory in further ways as well. To start with, there is an essential temporal relation between, on the one hand, the practical abilities that make up knowledge, and, on the other hand, (i) the initial situations where these abilities were learnt, as well as (ii) earlier occasions where these abilities were (more or less successfully) exercised. This relation is not merely causal – it is intentional: not only does knowledge result from a learning process, but this past experience must somehow be present in and to the knower's mind. The knower needs to remember various instructive earlier occasions when he exercised his knowledge in a successful way, occasions 38

WRITING, MEMORY, AND WISDOM that he can learn from and use as objects of comparison in order to instruct himself (or others) about the right or best thing to do in the present situation. That is why developing wisdom takes time or – as we say – experience. Finally, becoming experienced in this way will also involve the accumulation (learning) of a mass of propositional knowledge of facts relevant for the exercise of one's expertise. Now, there are several ways in which writing can undermine the memory needed for wisdom, some of which are more important than others. Writing may encourage the idea in me that I actually remember more than I in fact do: what I read is not something that I have experienced, but others. The problem here is not so much that these would be false memories, as that they wouldn't do what they are supposed to do: provide me with the epistemic resources that constitute the ability which is my knowledge, and therefore the resources I need to support my practice. The fact that we have been through this kind of challenge successfully before may lead me to think that I can handle the same kind of challenge successfully now and in the future. Secondly, having recorded lots of facts is not by itself sufficient for expertise, for these facts must be retrieved and made available to me in practice, in the relevant way. But since such information retrieval presupposes expertise, this expertise cannot be reduced to such memory. However, the possession of a technological medium that helps keeping records of facts may encourage precisely that misunderstanding, and hence undermine genuine memory and expertise.8 Now, someone who is wise, is able to express or articulate his wisdom – he can communicate it to others, or to himself at a later stage. Such communication involves a process of externalization – that is why we talk of “utterance” (Äusserung). Once uttered, the utterance becomes reified: it becomes a material or physical object that, like all such objects, is external to and independent of the mind of the utterer, or any other particular person. All utterances involve externalization and reification, and as such they are exposed to certain risks. But this is the problem, for it means that it is quite possible for someone uttering words to be uttering mere words. In fact, nothing is easier and, what's worse, nothing is more deceitful. For mere words are easy to remember, especially if one masters various mnemonic techniques. And the one who remembers many words and is clever at uttering them will appear wise, even though he isn't. He will appear to possess the wisdom that is properly expressed by these words, and that once was so expressed – even though he lacks this wisdom. The words won't be his, they will belong to somebody else, those who really possess this wisdom, but he will nevertheless pass himself off as himself a possessor of this wisdom. Indeed, there is an even worse case, where the words don't express any wisdom at all but only appear to do so, and this goes undetected because the audience is as lacking in wisdom as the speaker – or, worst of all, the speaker knows full well that 39

ØYVIND RABBÅS he lacks the wisdom but utters these words nevertheless because he doesn't care about the truth of what he says, but only about its effect: the persuasion of his audience. Now, any logos may be uttered – spoken or written – by somebody to give the impression that it is a genuine expression of their knowledge. But for a speaker really to mean something by the uttering of an utterance, there must be present in him a wisdom, an understanding, that is utterable in this way. For instance, if I utter the formula ‘E = mc2’, I can only do this meaningfully if I know what I am talking about, i.e. if I know physics. If I don't, my utterance will be mere words. In that case the statement that E = mc2 won't be my statement, really – it will be a statement belonging to others: to Einstein, to physicists. Relative to me, this statement is “external and depends on signs that belong to others” (275a3–4). I have no authority over it. It is important to see here that the problem with this lack of authority in speaking is not that what the speaker says is false – though it may on occasion be that – but, rather, that his words aren't his. The words are alien to him: he doesn't understand what he is saying, he is incapable of using them to express himself, of standing behind his words and assuming the responsibility for accounting for them.9 Because of the external materiality of words all utterances are exposed to this risk of alienation. But it seems that written utterances are more exposed to this risk than spoken utterances. For a spoken utterance presupposes the physical presence of its author (at least this was so before the invention of the phonograph), and so there is at least the opportunity for him to interfere with the (mis)appropriation of his utterances by others. But a written utterance, in virtue of being written down, of being embodied as a text, lives its own life, in complete separation from its author, and so is utterly defenceless against the will of those who try to appropriate it and pass it off as their own, as expressive of their wisdom. On the other hand, as we saw earlier, writing has a kind of fixity and permanence that leads us to invest it with a kind of authority that living humans don't have. We can now see that this is because the materiality of the written word ensures that it is unaffected by all those factors that threaten to undermine our confidence or trust in humans, e.g. their susceptibility to tiredness, emotional stress, personal interest, etc. Now, we saw in section II 2 that the kind of logoi that is the main concern of Socrates includes poetry, myths and legends, hearsay, laws as well as oratory. Some of these logoi are written, others not. But even when unwritten they have become entrenched in the ethical tradition and thus have acquired a fixity and permanence that resembles the one pertaining to written logoi. We could say that they have become textualized. But that means that the same kinds of 40

WRITING, MEMORY, AND WISDOM problem that affects the written word, would also affect these “oral texts”. Thus, the critique of writing is really, more precisely, a critique of texts. This is significant when we come to the more specific critique of rhetoric. For the expert orator is somebody who masters – and has to master – the “curriculum for ethical citizenship”, as I called it above. He has to do this in order for his speeches to carry conviction with his audience. In rhetorical manuals there is an assumption that this requirement is met by memorizing and mastering various topoi, endoxa or eikota – commonplaces. By such mastery the orator will appear wise and hence trustworthy. The good orator is thus the one who comes across as the know-it-all, the one who always has something to say, who can recall lots of things that seem pertinent to the situation and that enable him to get the last word. But this is knowledge of texts: it enables its possessor to say lots of things, but not to do anything significant with it: explain it, exemplify it, point out consequences and implications, and apply it to the real world.10 The inability to do these things is precisely what the art of dialectics is designed to reveal; dialectical knowledge is knowledge of how to ask and answer questions. It is along these lines we must understand Thamus' diagnosis of what is wrong with the new art of writing: people “will not practice using their memory [mnêmê] because they will put their trust in writing, which is external and depends on signs that belong to others, instead of trying to remember [anamimnêiskô] from the inside, completely on their own.” (275a3–5)

III. The critique of writing: its force We have now looked at the scope and ground of the critique of writing introduced by Thamus and developed by Socrates. But, as we saw at the outset, we should also get clear about the exact force of this critique: Is the written word really bad per se, or only on certain conditions, under certain circumstances, or when it is of certain kinds? Socrates, following Thamus, says that the written word can only serve as a reminder for the one who already knows, and that it is an image of the discourse written in the soul of the one who knows. Moreover, at the end he also defines philosophy as the adequate appreciation of the true value of these two kinds of discourse. Let us conclude our reading of the last part of the Phaedrus by looking at these two points in turn.

1. The written word as reminder and image Socrates' main argument against the value of writing consisted in a contrast with that other kind of discourse, “written down, with knowledge, in the soul of the learner”. But what exactly is the relation between this authoritative and authentic 41

ØYVIND RABBÅS kind of discourse, on the one hand, and the inauthentic kind embodied in the written word, on the other? Two things are said about written discourse in order to characterize its inferiority: (1) it is, or can at best serve as, a reminder (hypomnêsis), and (2) it is an image (eidôlon). Together they justify a certain attitude to the written word, one not often found but important to take up. We must try to understand what is meant by these points. Let us first look carefully at what is actually said about the written word that makes it inferior. Take the point about reminder first. This characterization is used in three passages. First, in Thamus' original verdict, it is said that Theuth has “not discovered a potion for remembering [μνήμη], but for reminding [ὑπόμνησις]” (275a5–6). Then Socrates picks this up, stating that it would be “quite naïve and truly ignorant … to think that words that have been written down can do more than remind those who already know what the writing [in the soul of the one who knows] is about” (275c5–d2). Finally, Socrates says that “at their very best [written words] can only serve as reminders to those who already know” (278a1). The combined claim of these passages is twofold: the written word is (or can at best serve as) a reminder (a) to those who already know (b) of what the writing in the soul of the one who knows is about – the point concerns both (a) the recipient and (b) the content of the reminder, although (b) the content is only mentioned in one of the three passages (at 275c5–d2). Only one passage talks of the written word being an image. Here it is in fact Phaedrus who says – although Socrates immediately and emphatically endorses this – that the written word is an eidôlon of “the living, ensouled discourse of the man who knows” (276a8–b1). The combined claim thus seems to be this. There are (or could be – this depends on whether there really are some people who satisfy this description) some people who know. These people have written in their souls a discourse (logos), and this discourse is about the truth – say, the truth about the nature of things. The claim is then that words put down in writing can – at best – serve as reminders (a) to these people who know, (b) of what they know (what is written into their souls). Moreover, the written word is thereby an image of (b) what the people who know know, i.e. what is written into their souls. When I am reminded, something, X, reminds me of something else, Y. It is a precondition for such reminding to take place, that what I am being reminded of (Y) is something that I already in some sense know or am familiar with – otherwise there would be no re-minding taking place. Moreover, what reminds me of this (X) must bear a certain non-arbitrary relation to Y – it must in some sense represent Y – otherwise the reminding couldn't take place. Of course, somebody can use X to remind me of Y, so reminders can be actively exploited, but the one being reminded (e.g., me) is crucially passive with respect to the reminding.11 42

WRITING, MEMORY, AND WISDOM However, contrary to what one might think, there doesn't seem to be any systematic distinction between ‘being reminded’ (hypomnêsis) and ‘recollecting’ (anamnêsis) in the Phaedrus. Or if there is, then recollection would seem to be the whole process of retrieving or activating what one knows, while being reminded is what happens in the course of this process when there is an X triggering the retrieving. Moreover, such a process of recollection can be more or less active and deliberate: some people are capable of controlling (driving and directing) the process themselves, in a systematic and determinate way, while others depend on the promptings of the circumstances or of other people helping them along. When X is the eidôlon of Y, it is so in virtue of somehow representing Y. But X can represent Y on several grounds, one of which is by being similar to it. Thus X represents Y in virtue of some of its properties – the representative properties, we could call them. On the other hand, X will also have other properties that are not representative. A portrait, e.g., represents the portrayed person in virtue of a certain resemblance, but it also has properties not found in the object, e.g. flatness and a painted surface. Now, for X to succeed in representing Y to a subject S, S must focus on the representative properties of X rather than on the non-representative ones, for otherwise S won't grasp Y through X. In this case the non-representative properties of X will block S's view of Y. This failure of X to represent Y may be due to some inherent weakness in X: its representative properties just aren't well enough established. Alternatively, it may be due to S: he lacks the ability to see through X's non-representative properties onto Y by means of the representative ones. So what are we to make of this? Let us start with the competent technitês. There are two things to note about him now. First, he must have the ability to activate relevant elements of his memory – all three kinds of memory are relevant here – when the situation and the task confronting him calls for it. This is the ability to recollect (anamnêsis), and this is an active ability, showing that he is in control of his memory. But, secondly, he must also have another ability, viz. to take cues from experience, as we might call it: he must be responsive to relevant parts of reality in such a way that they can stimulate his memory by reminding him of the relevant elements. This is the ability to be reminded (hypomnêsis), which is an essentially passive ability that presupposes a memory on the part of the subject, but not that he is in control of this memory. However, the two abilities are related since the ability of being reminded is part of the ability to recall. In reality any practitioner of a technê will depend on both kinds of process: no one is perfectly in control. But there are degrees of expertise, and the more expert one is, the more active one's memory will be – the less one will depend on the passive process of being reminded. And in any case, true perfection would mean that there was never any need for remembering at all since all one's knowledge would be present in one's mind all the time. 43

ØYVIND RABBÅS It should by now be easy to see how this point can generalize to hold for all fields of expertise, including ethical or practical wisdom: knowledge of the just, the good, etc. Some people, sometimes, are able to understand and handle situations in an active, controlled way; they are wise and intellectually self-sufficient in a way that others are not, those who need the promptings from the situation and from others, perhaps in the form of advice. Alternatively, and this is the direct relevance to our context, they may need “written instructions”. In practical life, we have seen, these will not be textbooks in ethics so much as poetry, laws, great orations, or proverbs. These will all serve as reminders for them, reminders that will enable them to mobilize the practical knowledge that they do have, and thus to handle the problems facing them in life in a rational and justifiable way. So the written word can at best only have a place in the process of reminding. The process of recollection is undertaken by the person himself, of his own active initiative, and does not as such presuppose writings. Being reminded, however, can be the outcome of (or be facilitated by) exposure to the written word, but only on the condition that there is knowledge already present in the audience – otherwise the written word will be barren. Then what about the claim that the written word is an image (eidôlon) of the word written in the soul of the person being instructed? As we saw, X is the eidôlon of Y by representing it, and it does so in virtue of its (X's) representative properties. For X to succeed in representing Y to a subject S, S must focus on the representative properties of X rather than on the non-representative ones, otherwise X will block S's view of Y. This fact makes clear that there is an ambiguity in the way “image” is used here, depending on the epistemic state of S. If S is knowledgeable, X can function as a reminder for him of something he already in some sense knows. This is the way in which writing can be an image: it is a reminder, a representation (or re-presentation) of what he knows, something that points to the known. But if S is ignorant (or opinionated), no writing can remind him of anything. However, it may give the appearance of doing so: the fixity and permanence of the written word may lend an air of wisdom to the person who can cite it. But this “wisdom” is all sham, and the written word is thus a mere simulacrum of the discourse written in the soul of the one who knows – it is something that fails to point to anything known because it lacks the ability to do so. There is an interesting parallel here to a passage (249b–250e) earlier in the Phaedrus, containing a brief allusion to the doctrine of recollection otherwise found in the Meno (81a–86c) and the Phaedo (72e–78b). In that earlier passage, what is said to be images are the phenomena in the world of experience, and that of which they are said to be images (eidôla, eikôna) – or likenesses (homoiômata) – are the forms that the soul has seen in heaven before being embodied. The phenomena are also said to remind the souls of what they have seen in the above, or to make them recollect this. This parallel is interesting because what is 44

WRITING, MEMORY, AND WISDOM said to do the reminding, or to be images, in our passage is the written word, while in the earlier passage it is the phenomena of experience. So it seems that somehow the written word and the phenomena of experience are on the same level and can play the same role in the development of human knowledge or understanding: they are images of the forms, and they can (at best) remind us of these forms. There is no space to probe deeper into this difficult topic here, so I will conclude by saying that Socrates seems to be making a twofold point. First, we humans are embodied beings, so we are destined to approach the forms via the phenomena that are their images – that represent them or imitate them, or that participate in them. This is the point made in the palinode (249b–250e). Secondly, the written word can only be an image of the real written word, the one written in the souls of those who know. But – and this point holds in both cases – the representative relation can be successful in leading the learner towards the real thing: proper understanding, but it may also fail. If it fails, this may be due either to the defects of the written word itself (the X in this case), or it may be due to the learner (S) who is supposed to be led towards the item to be understood.

2. Philosophy and doxosophia Starting from Thamus' verdict on the art of writing, Socrates has argued that written discourse poses a threat to people's memory and hence to their wisdom. But he does also allow for some positive function for the art of writing: it may “serve as reminders to those who already know”. Towards the end of this concluding passage of the Phaedrus, Socrates follows up this verdict with some remarks on the correct, as opposed to the incorrect, attitude to take towards written discourses. These remarks also, in effect, amount to a partial characterization of philosophy. At 277e5–278b4 Socrates outlines two different kinds of discourse, viz. the ones we have met: written discourses and discourses written in the souls of those who know. He then distinguishes two kinds of attitude to the written discourse: either take it to be “worth serious attention” or else regard it as “a great amusement [παιδιά]” (cf. also 276e4). The former of these attitudes is clearly incorrect – indeed, dangerous, since it leads to the appearance of wisdom, and hence to being “difficult to get along with” (275b2). And the reason for the incorrectness of this attitude should be clear by now. The second attitude deserves a comment, however. What is meant by regarding written discourses as “a great amusement”? And what can the effect of these written discourses be? One of the effects, which is clearly positive – although unreliable – is to serve as reminders for those who know. But the other effect is “to produce conviction”, and this 45

ØYVIND RABBÅS seems to be regarded with great suspicion. Why is that? Because this is the ordinary kind of speech-making characteristic of the conventional orators: they aim at persuasion or conviction (peithô), i.e. causing their audience to believe what the orator wants them to believe. But this belief is not knowledge, nor is it based in any knowledge on the part of the audience. On the contrary, it is merely the superficial appearance of knowledge – anyone can cite some “authority” in support of their way of acting or living, but to know that this is the right way to act or live, let alone to justify why it is, that is not for anyone to do. So the rational attitude towards the written word is to regard it as mere amusement: it is and can never be more than a support for the real thing, which is the writing in the soul, and it may be dangerous if improperly used. The only guarantee against such misuse is for the author to be present to defend his writing when challenged and himself make the argument that his writing is of little worth (278c5–7), i.e. to support it like a father coming to the rescue of his offspring (275e3–5). The moral to draw from this is that writings on their own are always potentially dangerous, because they so easily lead to the illusion of knowledge and authority, and that, to counteract this danger, writings are always in need of their author's assistance. This, of course, raises the question about Plato's own writings, e.g. the Phaedrus itself: does it succeed in serving as a reminder? Is it an image or a simulacrum? Here we should distinguish between his dialogues' status in the Academy, under Plato's own tutorship, and its fate afterwards. It seems reasonable to say that the fate of the Phaedrus is somewhat ironical: though written as a warning against the dangers of writing, it has become, in some quarters, the source of Platonic doctrine. This leads Socrates to a final sweeping judgement of the conventional “art” of making speeches “concerning what is just, noble, and good” (278b7–d6): orators, poets, and lawmakers are philosophers only when they practice that other kind of discourse, undertaken “for the sake of understanding and learning” – otherwise they are sophists, doxosophoi, people who appear (to themselves and others) be wise when they are not. *** A final afterthought. One often hears two responses to the second part of the Phaedrus: it expresses a much more positive and nuanced attitude to rhetoric than the one found in the Gorgias, and it addresses the question of the status of Plato's own dialogues as texts. It should be clear from the interpretation I have developed above, that I think both responses are misplaced. The concern is with the difference between good and bad speech-writing, and conventional oratory comes out consistently on the wrong side of this divide – indeed, the purpose of raising and answering the question is to provide a fundamental criticism of such oratory. The difference from the Gorgias is that this criticism is presented in a much more thorough and theoretically worked out way – the 46

WRITING, MEMORY, AND WISDOM Phaedrus' critique of rhetoric is, if anything, harsher than the one found in the Gorgias. Secondly, although the critique of writing as formulated is quite general and so holds for all kinds of writing, including Plato's own dialogues, the intended target is only a more specific kind of writing or text: the kinds mentioned in section II 1. Although the dialogues – including the Phaedrus itself – suffered the fate they did, this is not something that Plato could reasonably have been expected to foresee, and hence it doesn't seem reasonable to take the purpose of the critique of writing to be to address the peculiar status of Plato's own writing.12

Notes 1. C. Griswold, Self-Knowledge in Plato's Phaedrus (New Haven 1986), 160, 202. We can see this in the terminology used to formulate Questions I and II: the questions concern, first, the “artfulness or artlessness [τέχνης τε καὶ ἀτεχνίας]” of speech-writing (274b3–4) and, secondly, its “aptness and ineptness [εὐπρεπέιας καὶ ἀπρεπείας]” (b6–7). 2. For statements of this view of technê or knowledge (epistêmê), see Gorgias 464b–465a and Republic V 476d–478e. In some contexts Plato may be distinguishing between technê and epistêmê, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. In the following I'm assuming a view of technê or epistêmê that is not universally accepted, but I don't have the space to argue for it here. For good studies of the Socratic-Platonic concept of technê and epistêmê, on which I am relying here, see J. Moravcsik, Plato and Platonism (Oxford 1992), ch. 1; A. Smith, “Knowledge and Expertise in the Early Platonic Dialogues”, Archiv für die Geschichte der Philosophie, 21 (2001), 305–23; H.H. Benson, Socratic Wisdom. The Model of Knowledge in Plato's Early dialogues (Oxford 2000), ch. 9. 3. See, e.g., F.A.G. Beck, Greek Education 450–350 BC (New York 1964), for discussion of Greek ethical education, and the poets as the teachers of the Greeks. 4. See A. W. Nightingale, Genres in dialogue. Plato and the construct of philosophy (Cambridge 1995), 136f, 140–2, for a discussion of hearsay, akousmata. 5. The Symposium makes reference to two important institutions for the education of young men: the symposia and pederasty. For a brief review, see F.C.C. Sheffield, Plato's Symposium: The Ethics of Desire (Oxford 2006), 4–7 (with further references). One might also mention the politically and morally important genre of the funeral oration; see the important study by N. Loraux, The Invention of Athens: The Funeral Oration in the Classical City (Cambridge MA 1986). 6. Cf. Griswold, 207. 7. Here one inevitably thinks of Socrates' classification of rhetoric as a form of flattery in the Gorgias; see 463a–465d. 8. The internet provides a modern illustration of this: it stores and makes available to us a vast amount of information, but unlimited access to this in no way ensures knowledge, for which information is relevant? What does a particular piece of information mean? Anyone who has supervised and graded student papers is familiar with this problem. 9. Compare another modern illustration: the pocket calculator. It enables us to produce the solutions to problems of calculation but does it put us in a position to know these solutions? That depends on what we mean by knowing here. If it means that we should also be able to justify the solutions, to explain why they are indeed the right ones, then surely not – indeed,

47

ØYVIND RABBÅS it seems to be increasingly recognized that the widespread of the calculator weakens students' mathematical understanding. 10. Griswold puts this point nicely (206): “Thamus is worried about people whose memories are full, not empty – but full of ‘book knowledge’. This is ‘dead’ as opposed to ‘living’ knowledge, as Socrates will shortly put it.” See also the very good discussion in G.R.F. Ferrari, Listening to the Cicadas (Cambridge 1987), 213–22, esp. 216f and 220–22. 11. This needs to be nuanced, for I can use X to remind myself of Y, e.g. if I write a note to myself – say a grocery list. But what I do then is, in a sense, to manipulate myself by arranging the scene in such a way that I can predict that I will, because of my action now at t1, at a later time t2 be reminded of what I want to remember. 12. I am grateful for useful comments and criticisms from the participants at the conference on the Phaedrus in Bergen in May 2009, as well as at the meeting of the Nordic Plato Society in Reykjavik in June 2009. The paper was written up for publication at the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. I am deeply thankful to the participants there, in the research project Ethics in Antiquity, especially Julia Annas, Eyfi Emilsson, and Svavar Svavarsson, as well as Kristian Larsen, Lone Dybdal, and Franco Trivigno. Finally, thanks to the editors and two anonymous referees for help with preparing the final version.

48


NON-INDIVIDUALITY

IN THE

PHAEDRUS

HALLVARD J. FOSSHEIM

THE ETHICS PROGRAMME, DEPT. OF PHILOSOPHY, CLASSICS, HISTORY OF ART AND IDEAS, UNIVERSITY OF OSLO

The Phaedrus is taken to be a portrayal of how individual souls struggle for their own salvation. Generally overlooked, however, is the fact that Plato here invites us to explore soul not as a principle of individuality, but of community and of an identity over and above individuality. The article argues for the presence and importance of nonindividuality of soul in the Phaedrus by considering the roles in the text of erôs, the structure of the myth, arguments concerning soul as mover, tripartition of soul, the motif of Hestia, and central dramatic and rhetorical features.

The Phaedrus is well-known for its putative portrayal of how individual souls struggle for their own salvation not only in an earthly existence, but in a nonbodily state as well. The choices and actions of each individual codetermine the path of one's immortal soul through the millennia. By an intricate system of cause and effect, there appears to be a sort of cosmic testing of each soul which determines one's chances of bliss. The Phaedrus, then, seems to remind us of our state as individuals, identifiable through time as distinguished from others, and of our responsibility for that individual existence. However, there is also another side to the Phaedrus, although much less conspicuous. Both in the form of argument and of myth, the dialogue is about collectivity and, indeed, non-individuality. A debate about the Phaedrus since Antiquity has been whether the dialogue speaks only of individual soul, or whether it also hints at a world soul like the one keeping the cosmos in order in the Timaeus. What I am going to suggest, however, is that a central topic of the Phaedrus is the human soul as non-individual soul. That is, whether or not there might be something like a world soul as a separate principle in addition to each individual human soul, the human soul is not simply the eternally moving principle of an individual entity. In the Phaedrus, Plato invites us to explore soul not as a principle of individuality, but of community and of an identity over and above individuality. It is this potential of the text that I wish to investigate.

Individuality and non-individuality We would do well to commence by providing a more exact characterization of non-individuality and collectivity. The individuality of which non-individuality DOI: 10.1080/00397679.2010.501196

49

HALLVARD J. FOSSHEIM is the denial is not a conception of the individual as different from all else in the sense of being qualitatively unique; this is in all probability a Romantic notion, and one we would be hard pressed to find in Plato. Rather, the contrasting individuality I have in mind is that according to which the individual is seen as a singular entity in terms of identity and causality. That is, non-individuality of soul entails that one should not ultimately understand souls as individuals when it comes to (1) the ultimate determination of identity or (2) the correct analysis of causal role. On both counts, non-individuality of soul means that the ultimate subject is not this or that individual soul, but the unity or collective to which the soul belongs.1 As flagged in the last sentence, the term “collectivity” is to be taken in the same way as “non-individuality”. That soul is a collective whole means that it is not this or that individual soul which constitutes the identity or causality of which the Phaedrus speaks, but the state of being collective. Logically, “collective” is the weaker term, because it does not go as far as “non-individuality” in denying individuality. (We might, say, build a collective from individuals while allowing them to remain individuals.) However, in the Phaedrus, the phenomena I shall characterize with both terms work in tandem to point towards an image of the world as constituted and ruled by forces beyond the individuals. Thus, individual souls are ultimately to be described as parts in a fashion which denies the individual a status as subject of identity or causality. As we shall see, in the Phaedrus there is much to be said for going all the way and say that “soul” is something like a mass noun. A further complication, relevant to the theory of immortality in the Phaedrus, is whether we should think of the parts or portions of soul as persisting qua parts, or whether there is remixing and fresh division to the effect that there is not even continuity of the parts as identifiable parts. To offer examples from recognized usage, the question is whether soul is then like, say, sand (for the sake of argument, each grain of sand can be said to persist through time) or, rather, like water or air (which in an everyday sense at least do not provide much by way of available persisting parts). I do not think that what I am going to say will hinge on this issue, however. For all practical purposes, the idea is still that immortality is of something that is not in any way me as individual.

Ἔρως Plato's undermining of individuality is perhaps most striking in the theory of erôs. One way in which the Phaedrus reduces the importance of individuality, is by explaining the love of an individual as really being love of something transcending it. Erôs is ultimately for a unity behind apparent individuality. In the words of Gregory Vlastos, “What we are to love in persons is the ‘image’ of the Idea in 50

NON-INDIVIDUALITY

IN THE

PHAEDRUS

them”. Plato's theory does not provide “for love of whole persons, but only for love of that abstract version of persons which consists of the complex of their best qualities. […] were we free of mortal deficiency we would have no reason to love anyone or anything except the Idea” (Vlastos 1981, 31-32). The qualities one thought one loved are really loved qua reflections of something else. Whether or not the theory still allows for the existence of love for the individual qua individual (as for instance White 1990 has argued),2 it is not a theory of that sort of love. So Vlastos’ claim still stands. Of course, the classical system of paederasty that Plato takes as his point of departure too is about socializing the young man into a whole greater than himself, of getting him to function, and see himself as functioning, as a part of a greater whole. The classical paederasty system too is about community and not about individuality. But Plato would appear to go even further, in setting out community in a way that not only frames individuality, but obliterates it. So the Phaedrus quite clearly seems to undermine the status of the individual as individual in its portrayal of erôs. The theory of erôs indicates that our reasons for loving someone do not really concern him or her as an individual at all, or even as a conscious being. And this state of affairs in the Phaedrus does not extend merely to one's relation to the beloved. There is much to be said for the idea that the lover, too, is ultimately only what he or she is qua reflection or part of what really is.3 Now one might think that the portrayal of erôs is at odds with much else in the dialogue. For the portrayal of the soul's immortality as well as other central features of the Phaedrus appear on the contrary to attach a lot of importance to the individual as a constituent of reality. As we shall see, however, the anti-individual streak is a tendency running through much more of the dialogue than just its explicit theory of erôs.

Individuality and immortality Plato presents us with arguments for the immortality of the soul in several dialogues. In her “‘Weaving mortal to immortal’ in the Timaeus” (unpublished manuscript), Sarah Broadie points out that Plato's arguments for the immortality of soul establish not the immortality of souls, but only the immortality of soul. That is, what seems to be the focus of Plato's arguments about immortality is not the survival of the soul of the individual, considered as a separate entity. Rather, what is established is the immortality of the immaterial “soul stuff”, as it were.4 Sarah Broadie articulates the lack of individuality as follows. […] it is clear, I think, that none of these [Plato's] arguments establishes that we have individual souls, loci of personal responsibility, that are immortal. What each argument

51

HALLVARD J. FOSSHEIM establishes (to the extent that it works, and that is often highly dubious) is a general connection between soul and immortality. For all that is shown, what turns out to be immortal is soul considered as some kind of impersonal force or incorporeal element that could even be numerically the same in everybody. Or if, as in some places, the idea is that each of us has or partly consists of a portion of such an element, there is nothing about the nature of these portions of the immortal element that entails individuality and person-hood. (ibid., p 9)

So the arguments may establish that soul is an immortal substance, but not that we are immortal. This goes for the argument at Phaedrus 245c-e as for the other five.5 The vision of the individual soul as, in crucial respects, not really individual has ramifications for how to read the myth in the Phaedrus, as well as for how to understand the drama of that dialogue, and the import of its treatment of various literary or rhetorical genres. I'll have something to say on each of these counts.

Non-individuality in the soul trip What can be made to support a claim that something other than individuality is what is at stake in the so-called central myth as well? At first blush, in the Phaedrus soul trip, the protagonists are individual souls. However, this is not really a tenable position. For there are no individual souls in the Phaedrus. Rather, there are more or less organic units of two horses and a charioteer pinned together. All the elements of the story work to make us see these as separate sources of agency. So if soul, as the Phaedrus argument goes, is immortal because it moves everything in the eternal universe, then soul as moving force should not be simply identified with the identity of individual persons like us. On the contrary, there are several soul forces at work. A division of them, as forces of motion, would cut across each individual, if by “individual” we mean each unit consisting of charioteer-and-horses. The charioteers form the principle that moves in the direction of the ideas (reason), and changes the world in accordance with the ideas. The good horses are directed not towards the ideas, but are driven by a desire to follow right authority and act nobly, and seem to function by sensual experience alone. As Socrates explains it, οὗ δ᾽ ἕνεχ᾽ ἡ πολλὴ σπουδὴ τὸ ἀληθείας ἰδεῖν πεδίον οὗ ἐστιν, ἥ τε δὴ προσήκουσα ψυχῆς τῷ ἀρίστῳ νομὴ ἐκ τοῦ ἐκεῖ λειμῶνος τυγχάνει οὖσα. (“The reason there is so much eagerness to see the plain where truth stands is that this pasture has the grass that is the right food for the best part of the soul”, 248b-c; English translations are from Nehamas and Woodruff 1995. I take it ψθχῆς τῷ ἀρίστῳ, “the best part” of the soul, here refers to the good horse and not to the charioteer.) This is true even of the horses of the gods, which can be separated from the 52

NON-INDIVIDUALITY

IN THE

PHAEDRUS

gods themselves and stabled. For while the gods gaze upon reality, their horses seem quite uninterested in the main event, and get their reward in the form of ambrosia and nectar (247e). Correspondingly, the dark horses together constitute the force that populates our world with a continuum of sensual, mortal beings, whether we relate “populate” to the soul fall or to earthly copulation. These are very different forces. And although they are yoked together in us, it is not we, but these different forces that should be identified as the principles or causes of motion in the world. The tripartition seems to undermine individual soul in a rather radical manner: presumably, the charioteer/reason of each has more in common with the other charioteers than it does with the horses, even with the good one. The same goes for the other two identified forces. Furthermore, whether or not the non-rational soul is portrayed as immortal, or is excluded from immortality, as it is in the Timaeus,6 there are at least two other motifs in the soul trip that undermine the notion that individuality is its main focus. First, there is the partition of charioteer-and-horses units into nine divisions. This is a partition according to way of life or outlook. As outlook, it can be made to correspond partially to what Aristotle will later call ἦθος. In the Phaedrus myth, it is primarily a dramatization of a way of life shared by a certain group. Each group is not simply an association of like minded individuals, but something more like a military unit, defined and ordered by the movement of its commander or leader. It is certainly true that Plato in his work more generally portrays being a philosopher, for instance, as something which requires, and in its turn forms, a certain sort of individual. But the soul trip does not take this perspective. The myth's vision of the world is that of a giant theatre with the periphery as the centre, and each god leading his or her chorus up to the back edge to see reality outside the theatre. Pursuing philosophy here means following Zeus in an ordered phalanx (cf also 250b), to the top edge and to the places in the cosmic theatre where he has his functions. As with each of the other gods, following him is a matter of being allowed to share in some aspect of the divine — φθόνος γὰρ ἔξω θείου χοροῦ ἵσταται (“since jealousy has no place in the gods’ chorus”, 247a). Like chorus members, each follower has a role and an identity only as part of something. Our outlooks and ways of acting in earthly life, not least in erotic matters, are likewise explained in terms of which divine community we belonged to (252c). So after a first life as a follower of Zeus, for instance, one is inspired to “adopt his customs and practices [τὰ ἔθη καὶ τὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα], so far as a human being can share a god's life” (253a). This is further spelled out as imitating the god (253b5), and once more as, to the extent that this is possible, leading the beloved into the god's practices and ἰδέα or type of ordered form of life (253b67). The whole logic here is one of the dynamics of a greater community. Just like each craft among the Greeks customarily traced its origins back to a deity, 53

HALLVARD J. FOSSHEIM forms of life are here depicted as a series of interactions and emulations, with their inspired origins in the activity of the god himself or herself. To put it crudely, the soul trip is all about the ideal of socialization and shared activity. In this, Socrates’ explanation of love and life on earth corresponds to his depiction of the soul trip. We are to envision the entire gigantic vista of motion as one of relative order and harmony directed upwards towards the top of the cosmic theatre, and relative chaos and a turning to downward motion further down along the sides. In this vision, single agents are supposed to be seen as parts or elements: pointillist specks that mean nothing separately, apart from the image they contribute to. The fact of the tripartition of soul forces supports this interpretation, since the dynamics of the motion is crucially determined and explained by forces on another level than that of the individual agent. Second, there is the presentation of the commanders themselves. The gods should not be thought of as simply individuals, but as parts of a yet higher unity — an army, if you will. It is not simply as individuals, however good, that Zeus, Hera, Ares, and the others perform their assignments. Rather, the myth stresses how their function is defined in relation to a whole which transcends them. It is only because they are all organized into what is really one single moving force that they can be made to explain a world order. Each has an allotted assignment, and each has an allotted position on the rim. Together, these make up the task of structuring the world, from the stars to the city and household. It is only because their motions are not separate, but at heart constitute one proper, ordered motion, that soul can really be said to be a principle of movement. That the great swirling motion of all the souls should be seen as one great motion and not merely as an aggregate of motions, is suggested by the fact that the divine motion as a whole, quite literally, is what makes the world go round. As is well known, a central argument of the Phaedrus is that soul is the principle of motion, the principle which explains the fact that there is a world at all. And surely, it is only if this principle ultimately is one principle, one motion, that the argument can explain that there is a cosmos and not chaos. A series of moving principles without ultimate unity would not make up an explanation for the world, from the starry heavens down to the passing of seasons and the structure of cities — for Plato any more than it would for Aristotle. There's even something internal to the Phaedrus argument for the immortality of soul at 245c-246a which bears directly on this, to the extent that the argument only works if motion is construed as not only ordered, but unitary. As Richard Bett has pointed out, on a reasonable interpretation of the argument, “if there was more than one principle of motion, it is not clear why the destruction of any individual principle would result in the collapse of the universe” (1986, 11). That is, not only does the argument not establish the immortality of individual souls. It seems to positively forbid seeing an individual soul as the principle of 54

NON-INDIVIDUALITY

IN THE

PHAEDRUS

eternal motion. Correspondingly, Plato seems to be treating the word ψυχή as a mass term in this connection (ibid., 13f).7

Ἑστία There is a further element in the myth that I would like to elaborate on a little. It is surely significant that Socrates stresses how one of the 12 gods, even for a situation where they're moving towards a sphere divided into 12, stays in the centre. In the Homeric Hymns (5, 24, 25), it transpires that Hestia's being unable to leave the house is not a quirk of Plato's: representing the individual as wedded to the household is Hestia's very essence. As expounded by Jean Francois Mattéi (1996, 165-190), in a way, her place is the symbolic centre of the gods’ home on Mount Olympus. In another, she stands for every home's centre. Her importance in Greek practice is betrayed by the fact that even offerings to other gods, at their shrines, characteristically had to be preceded by an offering to Hestia — “Hestia first”, as Plato sometimes has his characters say (cf ἀφ᾽ Ἑστίας ἀρχώμεθα, Cratylus 401b). Her name, “hearth”, designates the symbolic and practical centre of the household, going all the way back to the megaron of Mycenean times: the centre of the centre was a round hearth or ἑστία. The Greek hearth constitutes the inner circle of the community of family and household. In monarchic times, the hestia was thus the place for all political visitors and for all decisions bearing on the community. And in later, more democratic times, an especially constructed tholos, a round building somehow representing the hestia, had important political functions stressing community. The prytaneion is the symbolic centre of the polis, “housing its communal hearth (κοινή ἑστία), eternal flame, and public diningroom where civic hospitality was offered” (OCD 1268). The fire of the hearth would be sent along to a city's colony, to be the basis of that city's fire. Sharing the fire of the hestia even between cities is symbolic of constituting one continuous community. And the first sacrifices of a new city were always to Hestia. The symbolic and actual structure of the hestia as centre is as important for the household or oikos as it is for the city or polis. The hearth was the place for offerings of meals, and all new participants in the household were initiated to it by a ceremony at the hearth.8 All of this gives some indication of Hestia's relation to the community as something over and above the individual. The hestia or foyer, and its flame, is the quintessence of the community, whether of the house or of the city. Qua place of fire for cooking and warmth, this is furthermore tied to the notion of civilization itself. The hearth means community, common identity, and continuity. I think there is something to be said for the notion that Hestia's position in the middle of the myth's theatrical sphere has her represent human and divine unity as 55

HALLVARD J. FOSSHEIM something over and above individuality, just like any circle according to Ancient mathematics is defined by its centre. Since the entire geography of the sphere, a circular cosmos, remains constantly defined by its quiet centre, this centre of Plato's vision too remains very present throughout the unfolding of the myth. Naturally, as with most interpretations, these suggestions concerning Plato's use of the Hestia motif also come with a risk of backfiring. For another way of taking the image of Hestia as remaining behind, in the oikos or polis at the peripheral centre, is to make it Plato's way of illustrating that the one who wants redemption must leave his community behind. A further development of this reading could also build on an analogy with Socrates and Phaedrus, in their small way, leaving the polis behind for their exchange by the river outside the city walls. The double setting of the drama would then suggest an escape from community. But this does nothing to diminish the stress placed in the Phaedrus on the community of gods, of souls, and of philosophers. As for the import of the dialogue's non-mythological setting, I will present an alternative reading of this feature of the dialogue in what follows.

The drama of the dialogue So far, I have considered the argument, the myth, and the figure of Hestia. The drama and form of the Phaedrus too can be interpreted as an indication of its community-oriented agenda. If we consider the setting for the dialogue apart from the soul trip, we're going where Socrates never went. In contrast to a man who refuses to leave the city unless ordered, this Socrates walks well outside the city walls. And he is even enchanted by what he finds there, as he states in his remarks on the beauty of the spot he and Phaedrus choose for their tête-a-tête. His motivation is equally uncharacteristic. He's walking out of his way for a speech, a genre he has in earlier work been adamant that he does not relate to and cannot tolerate — most famously and fervently in the Gorgias (449b-c, 471e-472d) and the Protagoras (328d-329b, 334e-335b). (Never mind that Socrates himself is often prone to soliloquise.) What is at the heart of Socrates’ transformation? It seems that what is gone now, is Socrates’ characteristic insistence on rational exchange of a form which pits individual against individual. The Socratic elenchus is a form of organized scepticism on the part of a questioner, which tears down all claims that are not backed properly by the other individual, the respondent. (Cf Fossheim 2008 for further arguments for this claim.) This is what sets it apart from the speeches adversaries like Protagoras and Gorgias, to no avail, attempt to make him tolerate. In the Phaedrus, all of a sudden, Socrates is not the hyper-individualized questioner: now, he says it's probably better to believe in the old myths, and 56

NON-INDIVIDUALITY

IN THE

PHAEDRUS

he both listens to speeches and himself gives a long and ultimately communitybuilding speech as a favoured genre of interaction. It is difficult to know how to relate the motif of Socrates going outside Athens to this sudden focus on, and efforts on behalf of, community. Perhaps the very idea of Athens is the idea of urban individuality? Or perhaps the message is that Athens is a hopeless place for creating or upholding a greater community (as indeed it turned out to be for the historical Socrates)? Or perhaps we are even supposed to understand that the focus is all the more on the city, just like the focus, in the myth, on the cosmic hearth as the centre of the world is only all the more emphasized by all the action which takes place in circles defined by it? However this may be, an oration is by its nature a genre for creating and upholding a group, a community, or whole. This is in stark contrast to the Socratic dialegesthai, which is always exclusively pointed towards one unfortunate interlocutor. A dialogue of the Socratic kind keeps reminding one of, and reactualizing, the individual (and his character), and the distance between individuals, while a speech normally works in the contrary direction. According to the traditional criticism of the Phaedrus, the challenge is to find a means of connecting the speeches about erôs with the discussion of rhetoric that follows. But both erôs and the rhetoric of speeches are about community. In the Phaedrus, erôs turns out to be really about partaking in a cosmic community directed towards perfect unity and harmony. And the speeches, too, are about different forms of community, while on yet another level, the very same speeches themselves constitute and exemplify different means of building and sustaining communities. The ensuing rhetorical analysis of the speeches is an analysis of the main community-creating tool. (The rhetoric of speeches is, after all, the glue of Greek political society.) And the Phaedrus’ great speech is neither deliberative nor forensic, but rather epideictic — something like a eulogy or exhortation, the ideal community-building form. In most of Plato's work, the Socratic elenchus, his particular form of dialegesthai, is brought into stark contrast with makrologia or speech-giving. Is the Phaedrus’ stress on non-individuality, then, also a criticism of Socrates’ activity? Whatever the answer, in the Phaedrus, the form (speeches) and the content (collectivity) make for a perfect match. A third genre exemplified in the Phaedrus is collection and division. The very form of collection and division as a procedure constitutes a display of cognitive perfection and harmony, in stark contrast to elenctic activity. (For a more detailed account of this feature of collection and division, cf Fossheim 2010.) While the elenchus always requires a division of roles, and almost always ends in animosity, collection and division — like makrologia — requires and strengthens the community of teacher and student, speaker and audience. Just as the very logic of the elenchus requires a structural conflict played out between the individuals 57

HALLVARD J. FOSSHEIM involved, so the foundation of collection and division is agreement. On the level of content, collection and division ensures that each thing is understood through the harmonious articulation of instances as parts of something greater. But more importantly, collection and division is carried out by someone representing authority and truth, and the interspersed “Yes” and “No” of the interlocutor is there only to emphasize agreement, like-mindedness, and cognitive alignment. It is a form of didactic dialectic, with one person leading another, or several others, to an understanding of a relation between whole and parts. In connection with its formal qualities should finally also be mentioned Plato's uses of metaphors of pouring and filling in the Phaedrus. Again, the image of pouring from one soul into another in the Phaedrus does not seem to be an expression of irony, as it probably is in the highly flirtatious scene in the Symposium (175c-e) where Socrates and Agathon speak of how the wisdom of one might be poured into another. On the contrary, the Phaedrus talks of pouring not in relation to knowledge, but in relation to the desire or striving for it, of that first inspiration or love which makes one engage in something one does not yet know. This state of affairs is nowhere more extreme than when it comes to the beloved's “back-love” (ἀντέρως, 255d-e), but it transfuses the entire speech. At 235c-d, Socrates tries to explain his eloquence by saying that he must have been filled like an empty jar by the words of other people. And later on, Socrates is possessed, that is, he is not master of himself as one separate individual. Ἐνθουσιάζω (241e) means, literally, to be filled with god, with some power greater than the individual. (This is also in contrast to the calculating ἐμαυτοῦ κρατῶν or “master of myself” of Lysias’ speech (233c), the basis for a very different sort of community.) The experience of looking upon one's beloved is couched in the same sort of language, and again, there is something to it besides the possible sexual connotations. Seeing is thought of as being the recipient of a stream of beauty poured in through the eyes (251b). And in one passage dealing with adopting the customs and practices (τὰ ἔθη καὶ τὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα, 253a) of one's god, and with inspiring others to be socialized into them, the state of being possessed by the god is explicitly linked to pouring that inspiration into the beloved (ἐπαντλέω, ibid.). This notion of pouring and flowing as an image of desire is even developed into something like a personification in the shape of a spring which Zeus named “Desire” (Ἔρως, 255c). The prominent place of notions of inspiration and pouring contributes to the vision of soul, as something other than a set of individual souls, which pervades the rest of the text.

The survival of the individual soul: rhetoric and truth A possible obstacle for the present reading is that it would appear difficult to harmonize soul as mass term with the motif of recollection, which seems central to 58

NON-INDIVIDUALITY

IN THE

PHAEDRUS

several arguments in more than one of Plato's dialogues. However, Plato never portrays recollection as including experiences on the level of individuality. Recollection is not about remembering earlier embodiments. Rather, it is precisely about that disembodied state in which portions of soul stuff are in different degrees of closeness to reality. So if we can take recollection, including its perspectival feature, as not requiring individuality, then the reading is still feasible. Recollection aside, does not the survival of the individual soul form part of the inspirational backbone of the myth? It would appear that, if we take away the notion of individual survival, we take away the motivational drive created by the prospect of damnation or salvation. That is so. But it is part of the nature of successful rhetoric, according to the Phaedrus, to take into account the perspective of its audience. Invariably, this will require simplifying certain matters, stressing others, and generally distorting the truth so as to help those far away from it “get a better view” of reality. So if the myth is meant to help persuade someone like Phaedrus, its ostensible audience, it would make perfect sense to choose a mythical form which gives the impression that there is something in philosophy for the individual, as individual (cf 269d-272c, 277b-c). The Timaeus might be designed for another kind of audience, just as the audience it dramatically portrays is of a different kind. And here, as we know, only reason is portrayed as immortal. But for someone as thymetic as Phaedrus, that would probably not have worked. Notice that Phaedrus is someone whose main characteristic is a tendency to take everything as a competition. And competition requires individualities pitted against each other. Socrates gives a speech designed to lift his eyes towards eternity, and what Phaedrus mainly comes away with is that by this speech, Socrates has won a competition with Lysias. Nonindividuality per se is not something a person like Phaedrus, or most of the dialogues’ readers, would latch on to with enthusiasm. Giving concrete mythical form to non-individuality could hardly be handled better than it is in the Phaedrus. But even disregarding this, the dialogue's own advice on rhetoric explicitly warns us about the limits of its own stories. If this reading of the myth has anything going for it, then the myth works by not simply telling the truth. The myth, as it were, tells it both ways.

Concluding remarks To briefly recapitulate, the following constituents are among those that go in the direction of seeing non-individuality of soul as a central message of the Phaedrus. There is the Hestia motif; the soul trip is first and foremost a dramatization of community and socialization both on the level of humans and of gods; erôs is 59

HALLVARD J. FOSSHEIM really a force that goes far beyond the twosomeness it is initially experienced as; the argument for the immortality of soul here as elsewhere is about soul as a nonindividuated force; the rhetoric of speeches normally is directed not at a single individual but at a community; collection and division is ever present as a further substitution for divisive Socratic dialectics; and, soul as cause of cosmic motion can only be seen as unitary. Finally, what is this picture of soul supposed to fit into? I think two spheres in particular are crucial, both of them visible in the Phaedrus itself. The first is explicitly present in the myth, and that is the soul as a basic principle of the cosmos. I see no reason to not take this as an idea held by Plato. The second sphere I have in mind is one we know to be equally central to Plato's thought, and that is the context of politics. It would seem the two spheres constitute unity and collective, respectively, as the whole which is prior to any individual. Few authors and no philosophers know as Plato the importance of seeing and incorporating the perspective of one's interlocutor. Whether in terms of knowledge, desire, or character, each dialogue dramatizes and utilizes this insight. It is baffling, then, that Plato appears to apply this insight primarily with a view to overcoming individuality.9

Notes 1. Of course, many factors can be deemed relevant to an analysis of non-individuality in the context of Plato's suggestions for ψυχή in this dialogue: for instance, whether the object in question is considered as a person or not; as conscious or not; as a whole or as a part of something else; if a part, then whether as part of a minimal collective or of some stronger type of unity; whether the continuity over time amounts to a particular or merely a specific identity; whether the object is considered qua individual or qua nexus of features; and, finally, whether the object is considered to be best spoken of as a thing or by means of mass terms. The present analysis will include claims concerning the final (and strongest) feature. 2. Cf. also McGibbon 1964, Kosman 1976, Dyson 1982, and Blyth 1997. 3. This goes at least for the lover's love for the beloved. As for the subsequent love of the beloved for the lover, I haven't quite been able to work out from the text what its dynamics are. But since this is a function of the lover's love, the same would appear to apply. 4. Furthermore, the apparent presentations of individual souls as immortal are always given in mythical form. One question which arises, is this: Does Plato present immortality as individual because he holds this to be the most likely truth, or because he designs his myths with a view to stirring an audience in the right way? I shall return to this issue. 5. The arguments identified by Broadie are the following. (1) The argument from opposites, Phaedo 70b-72d; (2) from recollection, Phaedo 72e-77a; (3) from affinity, Phaedo 78b-80b; (4) the analytic connection argument, Phaedo 102b-107a; and, (5) the argument taken over from Alcmaeon of Croton, Phaedrus 245c-e. Broadie also mentions a passage in the Philebus where Socrates contends that soul, just like the other four elements, must come from the universe, the implication being that our souls are just tiny portions of the soul of the universe, while most of it functions as the soul of the universe.

60

NON-INDIVIDUALITY

IN THE

PHAEDRUS

6. In the Timaeus, just like in the Phaedrus, a central principle is that there is no jealousy in god (29de). For this is what grounds the entire cosmology, the principle that ensures that the cosmos is somehow ensouled and ordered by intelligence, and that we are as good as we can be. The activity of this immortal cosmic intelligence is evident from the movements of the Sun, Moon, and stars. The created mortals have an immortal part, which is the rational soul, as distinct from mortal soul and from body. Sense-perception and the desire to reproduce belong on the mortal side of the created beings. Our immortal soul is made from leftovers from the creation of the world soul (41d ff). The new mixture is divided into distinct souls. 7. All the word play relating to the mystery cults in the Phaedrus (e.g., 250e-251a) too must be seen to have this double meaning. On the one hand, the Ancient mystery cults appear to have been intimately linked to the participants’ hope of some sort of individual salvation, and this is surely something Plato plays on. On the other hand, the initiation talk in the Phaedrus does focus on communities of insight through its emphasis on levels of initiation. In our everyday world, the chorus in question is the community of philosophers (249c, 250b-c). 8. Again, in the Phaedrus, this motif is realized mainly by a very distinctive vocabulary of initiation to the mystery cults. 9. I would like to thank the organizers of the 2009 Poetry & Philosophy conference at the University of Bergen, Vigdis Songe-Møller and Knut Ågotnes, for their excellent initiative. I would also like to thank the participants at the conference for their remarks. I am especially grateful to Paul Woodruff, who in addition offered written comments.

References Bett, R. (1986) “Immortality and the Nature of the Soul in the Phaedrus”, Phronesis 31. 1: 1–26. Blyth, D. (1997) “The Ever-Moving Soul in Plato's Phaedrus”, American Journal of Philology 118: 185–217. Broadie, S. (unpublished manuscript) “‘Weaving mortal to immortal’ in the Timaeus”. Dyson, M. (1982) “Zeus and Philosophy in the Myth of Plato's Phaedrus”, The Classical Quarterly 32. 2: 307–311. Fossheim, H. J. (2008) “The Limits of Rationality: A Critical Analysis of the Practices of Plato's Socrates”, The European Legacy 13. 7: 851–861. Fossheim, H. J. (2010) “Method in the Philebus”, in: J. Dillon and L. Brisson (eds.), Plato’s Philebus: Selected Papers from the Eighth Symposium Platonicum, pp. 31–35. Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag. Kosman, L. A. (1976) “Platonic Love”, in: W. H. Werkmerster (ed.), Facets of Plato's Philosophy (Phronesis Supplementary Volume 2), 53–69. McGibbon, D. D. (1964) “The Fall of the Soul in Plato's Phaedrus”, The Classical Quarterly 14. 1: 56–63. Mattéi, J.-F. (1996) Platon et le miroir du mythe. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Nehamas, A. and P. Woodruff (1995) Plato: Phaedrus. Indianapolis: Hackett. OCD: Hornblower, S. and A. Spawforth (eds.) (1996) Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vlastos, G. (1981) “The Individual as an Object of Love in Plato”, in: Vlastos (ed.), Platonic Studies, pp. 3–42. Princeton: Princeton University Press (Originally published 1969.) White, F. C. (1990) “Love and the Individual in Plato's Phaedrus”, The Classical Quarterly 40: 396–406.

61


IMAGERY IN THE PHAEDRUS: SEEING, GROWING, NOURISHING CYNTHIA FREELAND

PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT, UNIVERSITY

OF

HOUSTON

This paper explores three connected sets of imagery in the Phaedrus: nourishing, gardening, and seeing, which are linked together by a common emphasis on movement and flowing. The dialogue emphasizes love, beauty, and madness with its unusual setting beside a stream out in nature. Despite this, I argue that Socrates insists in the end that the real work of philosophy is rational and sober and requires a return to the city, where more permanent seeds of knowledge and wisdom can be planted through use of an orderly, non-imagistic method.

Introduction The Phaedrus is a complicated dialogue with an elaborate construction. Its ostensible subject concerns the soul, erotic love, and beauty, but the larger framework provides reflections of a more meta-philosophical nature about speeches, rhetoric, and writing. This is a finely crafted work. It is rich with imagery, that of the soul as charioteer with two horses (one noble and one shabby) being the most vivid and memorable. The setting is unique in the Platonic corpus, a beautiful spot in nature, outside of Athens. Socrates and Phaedrus sit in a grove on the banks of a stream with cool water, whiling away the heat of noontime in the shade of a plane tree while the cicadas chant their songs overhead. Socrates observes that, “The stream is lovely, pure and clear, just right for girls to be playing nearby” (229b).1 This unusually sensual setting seems just right for Socrates's speech in praise of madness. But paradoxically, as I shall show later, despite this paean to madness, the lush natural setting, and the vivid imagery, the dialogue itself is for the most part very restrained and controlled. It is almost disappointing to realize, on closer study of its tightly-knit and carefully-wrought structure, that Plato's method here is rational and analytic, and not the least bit mad. My paper will examine a central nexus of imagery clustered around three basic constellations. First there are images of nourishing, eating, hunger, and feeding. Next there are images of gardening: ones concerning seeds, sowing, planting, tending, growing, and harvesting. And third are images of vision: gazing, seeing, staring, desiring, looking back. These three clusters of images are interlinked in numerous ways, but especially by the common metaphor of flowing, which is itself personified in the lovely stream, the Ilisus, into which Socrates DOI: 10.1080/00397679.2010.501198

62

IMAGERY

IN THE

PHAEDRUS

and Phaedrus dangle their feet while they lie back on the grass and converse. This is a dialogue that is almost saturated with liquids and flowing. There are beams of visual particles, streams of water that nurture crops, speeches flowing in and out of people's ears, streams of desire rushing from and lubricating people's bodies, and lovers drenched in fever and sweat. The stream metaphor that so often gets used elsewhere in Plato to symbolize the kind of Heraclitean flux that typifies unstable and “bad” physical objects in our sensory realm appears here in a positive light. Streams in the Phaedrus, whether of desire, vision, or talking, are good; they keep things fresh and alive, and more importantly, they characterize the sort of reciprocity appropriate to both lovers and philosophers.

Nourishing The final section of the Phaedrus presents a well-known comparison between speaking and writing. It is noteworthy that Socrates describes writing as sharing a “strange feature” with painting. He explains, “The offsprings of painting stand there as if they are alive, but if anyone asks them anything, they remain most solemnly silent. The same is true of written words” (275D6-8). This reminds us of the complaint against paintings of living things at the beginning of the Timaeus. There, the participants launch their new conversation after complaining that the ideal state they sketched the previous day was attractive but inert. It seemed like a beautiful drawing of animals. Now the speakers feel the need to do more—to put the drawing into action, to see it live and move. It is as if they want to turn their sketches of animals into live-action moving pictures to see how they run and behave. In much the same way here, Socrates describes a preference for the living and spoken word over the written word because it can “talk back” and answer questions. The dialogue form of living speech has the qualities of exchange, liveliness, and mutuality that he values. It is a “living, breathing” discourse whereas the written version is only an image (eidolon) (276A9-11). Mutuality requires that the speech-maker have an understanding of the audience and context in which he is addressing them. A good rhetorician should no more throw words about at random than would a good farmer cast seeds willy-nilly into just any soil at just any time and expect a fine harvest in eight days. This suggestion that speeches are like seeds that can bear fruit later on if planted in the right soil and properly tended fits with Socrates' idea that speeches are a kind of nourishment for those in need of sustenance. He jokes about this at the start of the dialogue when he says that Phaedrus could to lure him anywhere with the promise of a speech, just as an animal can led by the promise of food. He remarks, “People lead hungry animals forward by shaking branches of fruit before 63

CYNTHIA FREELAND them, you can lead me all over Attica or anywhere else you like simply by waving in front of me the leaves of a book containing a speech” (230E). Later on, Socrates remarks about how they have spent this day on a “feast of discourses.” This might not necessarily be a good thing, any more than would hold true of a real feast of food, since taking in too much can make you ill if the fare is not healthy. Careful philosophers should attend to their appetites, and Socrates worries at one point that, “Perhaps I was filled like an empty jar by the words of other people streaming in through my ears” (235D). This remark conjures up the Gorgias's image of a hedonist seeking to fill up his jar with pleasures, the more that come in and flow out of his leaky jar, the better. It reinforces the concern about taking in a moderate amount of good or nourishing speeches. Sometimes a speech gets compared to a feast that comes in the ears, rather than the mouth. Thus when Socrates complains about his earlier speech in praise of love, the one he must make amends for, he says he will now have to “wash out bitterness of what was said with a more tasteful speech” (243D). We can recall that rhetoric itself is often compared elsewhere in Plato both to cooking and to medicine. Here too the latter comparison is made at 270B, which says that ideally both medicine and rhetoric should make a person healthy and strong. Metaphors of hunger, fulfillment, and nourishment are also used in Socrates' description of the soul's vision of the Forms. Our souls, when they follow along in their winged lives in the trains of various gods are able to participate, at least partially, in “the divine banquet” (247C-E). There, we, like the gods, take in the vision of circular motion of Forms that provides us with knowledge of what is appropriate, real, and true, and we are described as “feeding on all this and feeling wonderful” (247D). Even the horses of the gods are said to be kept healthy–and presumably in orderly and noble form—through the steady diet in their stables of nectar and ambrosia (247E). The less fortunate or successful souls of humans, those with weak or crooked wings, will fail to attain the highest summit permitting them a vision of the Forms and they will, accordingly, “depend on what they think is nourishment—their own opinions” (248B). They have missed out on “the pasture that has the grass in it that is the right food for the best part of the soul” (248B-C). So, in sum, listening to speeches is like eating, whether good and healthy food (or grass) or food that is bad for you and ill-nourishing. Making speeches is like sowing seeds in good or bad conditions. Sown well, the seeds will give rise to healthy growth and, presumably, a fine harvest full of true nourishment. Speech nourishes the ears and through them, the soul, just as the vision of Beauty and other forms feeds the soul through the eyes. These are all related cases of good and beneficial streams at work, whether of speeches flowing into ears, visual particles into eyes, seeds into well-watered soil, or eating and drinking into healthy bodies. 64

IMAGERY

IN THE

PHAEDRUS

Gardening We have already seen the gardening metaphor mentioned, but it is surprisingly prevalent in the Phaedrus, perhaps a response to the outdoor setting near a stream of sweetly flowing water. In contrast to the hasty and unthinking plowman who is like the unreflective rhetorician, the sensible farmer, says Socrates, “will use knowledge of farming to plant the seeds he cared for when it was appropriate and be content if they bore fruit seven months later….” (276B). If the farmer does not truly care about or look to the end of tending for others with the harvest of his land, he is like a self-enclosed and perhaps aged rhetorician who when he writes “will sow gardens of letters for the sake of amusing himself… and will enjoy seeing them sweetly blooming.” (276D). Socrates obviously frowns on this person who keeps his beautiful bouquets to himself! In contrast, “[The] Dialectician chooses a proper soul and plants and sows within it discourse accompanied by knowledge… not barren but produces a seed from which more discourse grows in the character of others (276E-277A).

Souls themselves are planted into the “seeds” of men according to their merits in previous lives (248D1-3). And of course the notorious feathers and wings of our souls, those not-too-concealed analogues of the male sexual organ, are also said to grow when they are properly “watered and warmed” (251C)—but we shall hear more on this just below, in my discussion of seeing. And, to finish off the discussion of metaphors of planting, seeds, and growing, let us revisit the point made at the very end of the dialogue about the writer versus the dialectician. The writer sows seeds in ink, but as just observed, these are too inert to take root and sprout. In comparison, The dialectician chooses a proper soul and plants and sows within it discourse accompanied by knowledge—discourse capable of helping itself as well as the man who planted it, which is not barren but produces a seed from which more discourse grows in the character of others. Such discourse makes the seed forever immortal and renders the man who has it as happy as any human being can be (276E-277A).

Notice that in this passage Socrates implies that the best speech-maker constructs a living responsive dialogue and that this functions in others to spread the seeds that will grow into very healthy plants, indeed, into plants that will re-seed themselves on into eternity, thus offering immortality. These must be seeds of knowledge and not mere weeds or seeds of ignorance and vice. Interestingly, the eternity on this metaphor would involve new life cycles of planting and tending rather than an escape from earthly cycles of flux and change.

65

CYNTHIA FREELAND

Seeing We have already begun to hear references to some of the crucial analogies or images of seeing that figure into the Phaedrus. Seeing is crucial to the winged souls that apprehend Forms and are nourished by them. And seeing is also vital to the process of erotic love. Seeing is said to be the sharpest sense and it comes the closest to knowledge. Vision enables us to witness the shining radiance of Beauty and to appreciate when its image is replicated in a human being in our acquaintance, thus reminding us of our heavenly experience of divine things. Now it is true that the things above heaven almost transcend possibilities of description. Being without color or shape, they cannot literally be seen but are visible only to the intelligence. Still, Plato uses metaphors of seeing and viewing to describe the contact with them accessible to gods and privileged human souls. He speaks of how the souls “gazed in rapture at sacred revealed objects that were perfect, and simple, and unshakable and blissful (250C). It was an “ultimate vision” seen in “pure light”. In particular, beauty is something closely allied to vision and more accessible through our eyes than any of the other Forms. This explains its crucial role in inspiring erotic passion. The physics of Beauty involves a radiance that shines out, even from its images here on earth, 250B, where our murky senses impede knowledge of true realities. Speaking about the final stage of the education of the philosophers, Socrates notes that, “we shall require them to turn upwards the vision of their souls and fix their gaze on that which sheds light on all,” namely the good itself (540A). Here, Plato describes the philosopher as emitting a “beam of soul that meets the light of the good.”2 There is a sort of mechanical or physical explanation of the effects of beauty. It turns out that there are streams of particles that are emitted from the image of Beauty contained in the young boy and these rush out toward perceivers, including his hapless admirer. The stream of beauty “pours into his eyes” and this “warms him and waters the growth of his wings.” Beauty is the nourishment causing the scabbed-over wing stubs to sprout again. And now something interesting happens—the lover's gaze seems to send the stream of particles rebounding back to the boy like an echo or a bouncing ball, and then the boy too is watered and heated up and feels desire (251C). The flow back and forth between the lovers is compared to the stream that Zeus named “Desire” when he was in love with Ganymede (255C). The boy sees himself in the lover as if in a mirror—again the idea of an echo or rebound is brought up. This discussion of vision as a matter of processing actual streams of particles emitted from things is reminiscent of the Presocratic theory of Empedocles, champion of the perception of like by like. He remarked, as is well-known, “For with earth do we see earth, with water water, with air bright air, with fire 66

IMAGERY

IN THE

PHAEDRUS

consuming fire, with Love do we see Love, Strife with dread Strife.” (B 109) The theory of vision propounded by Empedocles involved “effluences” or fine flowing streams of some sort of natural material particles given off by objects. These emissions were somehow gathered together and focused by the relevant sensory organ. Now, in Empedocles' theory, the eye itself as well as the object it sees constantly gives off effluences. This is the “extromission” theory of vision that remained popular off and on through many later time periods, with various revisions. Empedocles compared the eye to a lantern (B 84). Flame shines through the material of the lantern because the fine particles pass through that material. Similarly, something of an inner flame within the eye can emerge from it through fine openings in its material membranes. Plato's streams of beauty rushing away from Beloveds and bouncing back later to them is thus reminiscent of the two-directional effluent flow that Empedocles described.3 Again, as with the metaphors of planting and eating, there seems here to be an endorsement of these natural processes since they work in essential ways to inspire people, especially lovers, to seek knowledge of the truth and in that process to regain their immortal wings.

On Love: Phaedrus vs. Symposium Of course, to regain their wings in some future form of existence, the most deserving of all lovers must restrain themselves from sexual intercourse and keep their bad horses severely reined in (256B). Still, even those lovers who do give in to the wicked desires or who succumb to those “bad horse” demands, probably when drunk, can have the possibility of an afterlife in which they will ultimately regain wings. “Their lives are bright and happy as they travel together, and thanks to their love they will grow wings together when the time comes” (256D-E). In this section of my paper I want to shift from examining the three interlinked metaphors of nourishing, planting, and seeing, to discuss the key topic of the speeches in the dialogue, Love. Many people have discussed Plato's views of love as presented in both the Phaedrus and the Symposium. Among them are Martha Nussbaum and Luce Irigaray. It may prove interesting to review their assessments of Plato's account of love with a special focus on the relevance of the imagery of streams, flows, and watering that is so central to this dialogue. Irigaray faults Plato for the failures in his Symposium theory of love, offering ironic commentaries on how Socrates and/or Plato distorted the views of Diotima, the one woman discussed in the work but someone who after all “was not there.”4 She sets up Diotima as holding a superior model of love which Socrates distorts. In essence, the superior model sees love as an ongoing process of exchange between two beings, a mediation By contrast, Socrates in 67

CYNTHIA FREELAND the end represents love as aiming not at a process but at a product—the so-called baby—in the case of spiritual love being the production of beauty. Irigaray is well-known for other writings in which she has further advanced the idea of love as a mediation. In An Ethics of Sexual Difference she even gives us a somewhat mind-boggling reading of love as an intermediary that compares it in this sense both to angelic messengers mediating between heaven and earth and at the same time to the bodily mucous that functions as the “in-between” for human lovers.5 She appears to relish this not-solid, not-liquid material that lubricates human love interactions. I suspect that for Irigaray all the talk of moistening and fevers and sweating and lubricating in the Phaedrus would raise no discomfort. This is just the sort of thing that she endorses, along with a deconstruction of the active/passive division that treats the male as an active penetrator of some empty female envelope. Still, we should not rush to conclude that Irigaray might endorse the Phaedrus theory of love. For one thing it is still too wholly male, and does not recognize what she regards as the fundamental source of wonder and mystery in the existence of sexual difference. The only females present in this dialogue, apart from Muses, are those girls who might well be playing a little ways down in the stream. Second, Irigaray would place far greater emphasis on touch as the fundamental sense and not on vision, as Plato does here. Touch involves encounters that truly erase differences between bodies in a way that can never happen for Plato even given his physicalist account of mutually intersecting beams of vision. So she writes that in the act of love, “There is no longer any image there, except for that of letting go and giving of self.”6 Nussbaum does not approach these texts in anything like the deconstructive, psychoanalytic, feminist spirit of Irigaray, and yet it is interesting to note that she too faults the Symposium view of love for certain aspects of its teleological attitude. And she also finds the Phaedrus superior due to its critique of a sharp division between active and passive in the loves' roles. Nussbaum thinks that in the Symposium, the idealized love championed in the work through the personae of Diotima and Socrates is the love of permanence and stability that transcends individuals with their imperfections and vulnerabilities. (There would be more to say in another article about the importance given here to immortality7.) Through their devotion to producing the “baby” that is the end-product of their love relationship, the Platonic lovers in effect give up their love for particular individuals. To this extent, then, Gregory Vlastos was right in his well-known critique of Platonic love in “The Individual as Object of Love in Plato.”8 To be sure, Nussbaum wants to add, there is another important strand of Plato's own thought represented in the Symposium through the persona of Alcibiades, whose speeches protest the value of the particular and idiosyncratic, portraying what she suspects is the author's own passionate love for this one particular, 68

IMAGERY

IN THE

PHAEDRUS

non-repeatable, non-eternal individual, Socrates. She sees the dialogue as weaving the story of Plato's own inner debate or turmoil over which kind of psychological state is superior. What does the Phaedrus add to all this? In Nussbaum's account of it in her article, “This story isn't true,” she argues that it offers a superior and more ethically defensible view of love in which the partners become devoted to one another as particular individuals.9 Their love persists through changes and eventually the lovers can even go on into eternity together. Plato now recognizes more positive dimensions of sexuality and even sees intellect as sexual. Eros includes not just physical passion but a desire for transformation of soul. “Certain sorts of madness are not only not incompatible with insight and stability, they are actually necessary for the highest sort of insight and the best kind of stability.”10 Nussbaum writes, further, Their [the lovers'] search for understanding and goodness is accomplished, throughout life, in the context of a particular relationship with an individual whose distinctive character is nourished within it. Instead of loving one another as exemplars of beauty and goodness, properties which they might conceivably lose without ceasing to be themselves, these lovers love one another's character, memories, and aspirations—which are, as Aristotle too will say, what each person is ‘in and of himself.’11

In summing up the dialogue she emphasizes its difference from the Symposium as follows: He rejects the simplicity of his former ideal—and its associated conception of insight— in favor of a view of creativity and objectivity that expresses itself in imagery of flowing light and illuminated water, of plant growth, of movement and instability, reception and release.

She calls this a “view about the ethical value of passion”.12 Nussbaum even sees in this text a recounting of the story of the mutual love between Plato himself and his young beloved Dion: “It seems virtually certain that Plato is telling us…that Phaedrus in some sense represents Dion”.13 Nussbaum reads Plato as re-imagining the relationship between active and passive, allowing for more interaction and mutuality. The flood of passion that enters the lover releases his own “imprisoned waters”, she notes. Nussbaum comments that passivity was devalued by the Greeks and that this involves an association between the passive homosexual role and the female partner in sex. “He tells us that this hatred of openness leads to a life impoverished in value and knowledge.”14 This brief detour into two recent readings of Plato's views of love in the Symposium and Phaedrus cannot do justice to either thinker, Irigaray or Nussbaum. But for my purposes the point that emerges is the much greater 69

CYNTHIA FREELAND degree of mutuality and interchange that is highlighted in the Phaedrus account by comparison to that of the Symposium. This emerges in connection with the crucial images that I have been examining. Nourishing may seem one-directional, but sometimes the nourisher in return becomes fed by the one he or she tends. This point is brought out in Socrates' exposition of the seed-planting image when he speaks of how the results grow not only in souls of the ones that get “plowed” or developed but also in their planters, who can themselves harvest immortality through these same seeds and their continuance. And finally, it is quite explicit in the theory of vision and seeing in the Phaedrus that the particles emitted by beautiful objects stream into eyes of their admirers and then bounce back to the object, enhancing it in return.

Method in Socrates' Madness Mutuality and reciprocity, then, are very significant aspects of the central imagery of flowing and streaming that plays a role in the Phaedrus. This fits well with Socrates' emphasis on live speech of the dialectician over the inert written word, ungerminated seeds spilled in ink onto dry paper by writers with nothing to harvest from their effort. Of course this leads us to ponder the paradox of why Plato himself would decry the written word at the very same time that he is producing a text that at least ostensibly seems to be one written down in some kind of ink on some kind of paper or parchment. So let us look and try to unwind this puzzle. Surely the key is that the written product here records and enables us to reexperience a genuine dialogue, an exchange of speeches including a lengthy question-and-answer portion near the end. In that section, which inquires into the nature of rhetoric and dialectic, Socrates puts both his own and Lysias' speech under scrutiny. And lo and behold, it turns out that Socrates' second speech, the Palinode, was organized just as he tells Phaedrus any good speech should be, according to the natural definition and “joints” of the subject under discussion (265C10-D3). His speech began with the correct method since he gave a definition of his subject, madness, and proceeded to divide it at its joints by separating its divine form into four natural kinds, prophetic, mystic, artistic or inspirational, and erotic (265A-B). Each has its own patron, respectively, Apollo, Dionysus, the Muses, and Aphrodite with Eros. Socrates professes here, disingenuously, to have stumbled onto the structure of the good speech he made. Unlike the speech of Lysias, his own speech exhibited just the right organizational principles, clearness, and consistency. He credits this to the inspiration of the Muses who linger at the spot with their favorites they have especially honored, the cicadas. But of course, we know that this speech's fortunate structure and clear organization were no coincidence. Nor are we 70

IMAGERY

IN THE

PHAEDRUS

really likely to believe that Socrates was able to give such a wonderful speech because, as he professes, he was under the influence himself of one of the four types of madness, namely, the poetic. I think we are given a reason to doubt this. He asks Phaedrus, in what is surely an example of Socratic irony, whether he had defined his subject, love, at the beginning of the speech, saying “for I was in such an ecstasy that I have quite forgotten” (263D3-4). And then a bit later on Socrates actually refers to what he did in his speech as mere “sportive jest” or “play” (265C10-D1). But what about all of those marvelous images, the horses and charioteer and growing wings and beams of desire? Again, in summing up Socrates treats them dismissively with the comment that they had defined love “in some sort of figurative manner”. “Perhaps it had a measure of truth in it, though it may have also led us astray,” he comments (265B8-9). The summation is that he had come up with “a not altogether implausible discourse” (265B10-C1). All of this is in great contrast to Lysias, who seems unable to “go with the flow”, so to speak. Instead he made his speech “swim upstream on its back” (264A). Thus it turns out that the time spent by the flowing stream in the beauty of the outdoors has been a kind of amusement but that by the end of the story Socrates and Phaedrus must turn back to town—back to serious business, as it were. The message has been delivered both to Phaedrus and, one supposes, to us. We can interpret it by remembering Socrates' own imagery about how the true orator must sow seeds in the right soil by speaking in a way that will enable them to prosper and grow there. Perhaps for many people the appeal of the imagery of souls, streams, wings, nourishing, and flying to heaven will be appealing and inspiring. There is something more dreary and analytic to be done, though, in studying the true natures of things, defining them, sorting them into their natural classifications, and coming to know them in that way. Socrates also sows some seeds of this latter sort, maybe littler drier harder seeds that are probably harder for most of us to swallow, but that would be good for us if we could take them in and let them grow in the right way, in their own time. These are the seeds of true philosophy and I do not think that they require high-flown imagery or madness or poetry. Alas.

Notes 1. Socrates praises the spot at 230b-c, noting that, “From under the plane tree the loveliest spring runs with very cool water….” This and all other quotations from the Phaedrus are from the English translation by Nehamas and Woodruff 1995. 2. Nussbaum 1986. 3. Effluences go in the other direction, as well, from the objects. In a well-known passage of Plato's Meno in which Socrates is supposed to be giving Empedocles' theory of perception, he states that

71

CYNTHIA FREELAND they come from the object of perception to the organ of perception. In this account there is also a way to distinguish the different kinds of perception. Different sized effluences from the object fit similarly shaped openings or pores in the different organs. So colors are effluences from objects fitted to the pores of the eye (Meno 76C). 4. See Irigaray, “Sorceror Love: A Reading of Plato, Symposium, Diotima's Speech,” in Irigaray 1993, 20-33. 5. Irigaray, “Sexual Difference,” in Irigaray 1993, 5-19. 6. Irigaray, “The Fecundity of the Caress,” in Irigaray 1993, 192-3. 7. For some discussion, see Bett 1986. 8. See Vlastos 1973; also see response by White 1990. 9. See Nussbaum, “‘This Story isn't true’: madness, reason, and recantation in the Phaedrus,” in Nussbaum 1986, 200-233. 10. Nussbaum 1986, 201. 11. Nussbaum 1986, 220. 12. Nussbaum 1986, 232. 13. Nussbaum 1986, 229. 14. Nussbaum 1986, 231.

References Bett, R. (1986) “Immortality and the Nature of the Soul in the ‘Phaedrus,’” Phronesis 31.1L: 1–26. Irigaray, L. (1993) An Ethics of Sexual Difference. Translated by C. Burke and G.C. Gill. Cornell. Nehamas, A. and P. Woodruff (1995) Plato: Phaedrus, see Plato (1995). Nussbaum, M. (1986) “‘This Story isn't true: madness, reason, and recantation in the Phaedrus”, in: The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, pp. 200–233. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Plato, Phaedrus (1995) Translated with an Introduction and Notes by A. Nehamas and P. Woodruff. Hackett. Vlastos, G. (1973) “The Individual as Object of Love in Plato's Dialogues”, in: Platonic Studies, pp. 1–34. Princeton. White, F. C. (1990) “Love and the Individual in Plato's Phaedrus”, The Classical Quarterly, New Series 40. 2: 396–406.

72


DIALECTIC

OF EROS AND MYTH OF THE SOUL IN

PLATO'S

PHAEDRUS JENS KRISTIAN LARSEN

DEPARTMENT

OF

MEDIA, COGNITION AND COMMUNICATION, UNIVERSITY COPENHAGEN

OF

In this paper, I question a widespread reading of a passage in the last part of the Phaedrus dealing with the science of dialectic. According to this reading, the passage announces a new method peculiar to the later Plato aiming at defining natural kinds. I show that the Phaedrus itself does not support such a reading. As an alternative reading, I suggest that the science of dialectic, as discussed in the passage, must be seen as dealing primarily with philosophical rhetoric and knowledge of human souls.

Psychês peirata iôn ouk an exeuroio, pasan epiporeuomenos hodon; houo bathyn logon echei -Herclitus, Fr. 45

As is well known the question of the unity of Plato's Phaedrus is a difficult one. The first part of the dialogue seems preoccupied with the topic of eros, the second with rhetoric and logos. Perhaps in some way uniting these parts, we find the overall question of beauty.1 In addition to these broader topics, the question of sophrosyne and hybris looms large, not only through the motive of self-knowledge, which Socrates brings into the dialogue from the very beginning (229e), but also through the notion of eros, defined in Socrates' first speech as a kind of desire, epithymia tis, set over against acquired opinion or judgement (237d).2 We are also confronted with the themes of the immortality of the soul, the relationship between the parts of the soul, of the ecstatic vision of the eternal forms, of the science of dialectic and its relationship to ordinary rhetoric as well as of the question how the written and the spoken word relate to each other. If the Phaedrus is to be regarded as a living animal, it would seem to resemble the howling, many-headed typhoon, which Socrates does not know whether he resembles, far more than the simpler creature with a “share in a divine … nature” (230a) which he hopes to be like. I will not try to tackle this thorny issue here. Instead, I will focus on a – perhaps simpler – problem pertaining to unity. In an often quoted passage in the last part of the dialogue, 265d-266b, where Socrates describes the art of dialectic, the question of unity and its relation to plurality is made into an explicit theme. In this paper, I wish to ask what the point of the passage is. More precisely, I wish to address the problem how one can understand Socrates' description of dialectic DOI: 10.1080/00397679.2010.501199

73

JENS KRISTIAN LARSEN in the last part of the Phaedrus if one focuses on what it is meant to spell out in the context in which it is introduced. In the first part of this paper, I will sketch what I take to be a fairly widespread understanding of the passage, namely that it is the first announcement of a new method which Plato developed in the last period of his work, consisting in conceptual analysis through division of genera (gene¯) into species (eide¯) by means of differentia specifica. By comparing this understanding with the way Socrates' speeches in the first part of the dialogue are composed, since this is what the passage in question purports to tell us something about, I will try to show why I do not find it plausible. In the second part of the paper I shall therefore proceed to take a closer look at Socrates' second speech, since I believe that the content of it, although ‘mythical’ rather than ‘logical’, is of great importance for Socrates' endeavour to reach an understanding of the nature of eros. Since the understanding of eros seems to be what dialectic is supposed to deliver, I will go on to suggest how one can make a possible connection between what is said about dialectic in the 265d-266b passage and what we are told about soul in the great myth. In the final part of my paper, I will try to make this suggested connection more plausible by linking the discussion of rhetoric and dialectic in the second part of the dialogue with the myth of the soul found in Socrates' second speech. This will support my suggestion of regarding dialectic as connected with ‘myths of the soul’ but it will leave us with some paradoxes which are connected with the theme of self-knowledge.

I Let us turn to the passage dealing with dialectic in the Phaedrus. The passage is not very long but rather complex. It is embedded in a larger discussion of the difference between good and bad writing as well as speaking (to me¯ kalo¯s legein te kai graphein; 258d), a question which is raised due to Phaedrus' concern that Socrates, in his second speech on eros, might have outdone Lysias as a speechwriter. The passage describes a procedure carried out in two steps: “The first consists in seeing together (synoro¯nta) things that are scattered about everywhere and collecting them into one kind (mian idean), so that by defining each thing we can make clear the subject of any instruction we wish to give.” (265d) Socrates goes on to illustrates this step by saying that this is what his previous speeches did by defining love, thereby making the speeches, if not true, then at least able to proceed smoothly and consistently with themselves. The second step is “to be able to cut up each kind according to its species [eide¯] along its natural joints, and to try not to splinter any part, as a bad butcher might do.” (265e) This second step Socrates also illustrates by referring to what his 74

DIALECTIC OF

EROS AND MYTH OF THE SOUL IN

PLATO'S PHAEDRUS

previous speeches did, namely that, once they had established “unsoundness of mind to be by nature one single kind”, they proceeded to split up mental derangement, thereby arriving at two kinds of love, one left-handed, as it were, the other right-handed. Such divisions and collections, Socrates goes on to explain, is something he loves, since they make him able to think and to speak, and the practitioners of such a procedure are, he suggests, best called dialecticians (266b-c). So what is this dialectical ability? As we can see, both steps are preoccupied with forms or types, ideai and eide¯, collecting scattered things towards one form, and then dividing this form according to other forms. I believe Hackforth's comment on the passage still captures fairly well how many interpreters read it: “It is in this section that Plato for the first time formally expounds that philosophical method – the method of dialectic – which from now onwards becomes so prominent in his thought, especially in the Sophist, Statesman and Philebus… here we have Plato's first announcement of a new discovery to which he attaches the highest importance.”3 Hackforth goes on to assert (p.136) that this new method cannot be compared with what is said about dialectic in the Republic. The novelty consists in not trying to deduce all knowledge and reality from a highest principle, that is, the idea of the good. Dialectic is now rather a “piecemeal approach to knowledge” which consists “in a mapping out of one field after another by classification per genera et species”.4 This new method is often supposed to be connected with a change in Plato's conception of the ideas, in particular as regards their interrelatedness. However commentators conceive of the ontological status of the ideas in the later dialogues, it seems fair to say that the majority take it for granted that Plato's new method is supposed to define something by placing it, to quote from Notomi's recent commentary on the Sophist “in the network or relationship between kinds”,5 which, to quote another recent commentary on the same dialogue “presupposes that notions or concepts, Begriffe, are species and kinds that are superordinate and subordinate to each other”.6 From Hackforth's comment to the passage it is clear that he regards it as of a programmatic kind, announcing a new method of dialectic which is primarily applied in later works, a view which seems to be shared by many other scholars. Although I do not doubt that it can be fruitful to see the passage in connection with other late dialogues where the science of dialectic is discussed, I have two reasons for not doing this here. My first reason is purely pragmatic. The Phaedrus passage does indeed seem to have a close resemblance to two other methodological passages, namely 253a-e in the Sophist and 14c-18d in the Philebus,7 and these passages may in turn be regarded as closely connected with the divisions that are performed in the Sophist and the Statesman. Nevertheless, it is quite difficult to determine on the one hand what these methodological passages are meant to 75

JENS KRISTIAN LARSEN spell out,8 and on the other how they are related to the divisions found in the dialogues. Thus, if the comparison between the Phaedrus and these other dialogues is to be successful, I take it that a serious interpretation of all these dialogues is needed, which is obviously not possible in this paper. My second reason for not wanting to bring in other dialogues here is of a methodological character. The general tendency of much recent scholarship on Plato is to regard Platonic dialogues as self-contained unities. If one follows this trend, a difficult passage in any dialogue should ideally be explained by the specific context in which it is found, not by reference to other dialogues, which is what I will try to do. It may turn out that the result of doing this will not be fully satisfying, and this may in turn explain why commentators tend to read the Phaedrus passage in light of other dialogues rather than in light of the Phaedrus itself. If we look at the passage 265c-d, which precedes the discussion of the two steps involved in dialectic, we see that Socrates claims that the two speeches he has given on the subject of eros contained two forms (dyoin eidoin), the power (dynamis) of which it would be good to grasp through an art, a techne¯. These two forms are what he then describes as the twofold procedure of collection and division, and dialectic is supposedly the art which captures the power of these activities. As regards the content of his two speeches, Socrates somewhat surprisingly claims that it was all said playfully or by way of a joke, a paidia. How are we are to understand this remark? According to Ernst Heitsch, Socrates' comment signals that it is the methodological prerequisites of the two speeches that are sanctioned as true, not the “mythological exposition built upon their basis.”9 These prerequisites are, according to Heitsch, a “particular way of carrying out conceptual analysis.” Heitsch seems to be right in pointing out that Socrates suggests that the two speeches, seen together and from a more formal perspective, are meant to illustrate the procedure characteristic of dialectic. He also seems to be right in claiming that the illustrations Socrates gives of each of the two steps of dialectical reasoning in the passage 265d-266b give the impression that collection and division is to be found in the way that the two speeches define eros, i.e. in the way they carry out “conceptual analysis”, as Heitsch puts it. If he is also right that the contents of the speeches are not important in this regard, it must be the divisions and collections defining eros which illustrate what dialectic is, and these can be regarded wholly apart from, for instance, what is said (mythically) about the soul. So let us look at how the two speeches actually define eros. At the beginning of the first speech, we find a preliminary definition of eros, namely that it is a kind of desire (epythimia); as Socrates claims at 265d, this definition is what enabled the speech to proceed in good order. Interestingly, in the first speech the definition follows directly upon Socrates' claim that 76

DIALECTIC OF


PLATO'S PHAEDRUS

unless one knows what one is deliberating about, one will miss, harmatanein, one's target; most people, he goes on to say, do not know that they are ignorant of the essence or nature, the ousia, of what they talk about, which explains why they are often mislead (237b-c).10 But once Socrates has stated this – to my mind – sound, Socratic principle,11 which he repeats in the second half of the dialogue (cf. 263a-c, 265d), he immediately goes on to claim that “everybody plainly knows” that “love is some kind of desire”; this ‘fact’, taken together with the commonsensical notion that desire stands in opposition to “acquired judgement that pursues what is best” makes the basis for the entire speech. No attempt is made at determining whether what everybody knows actually corresponds with the nature of eros. This initial determination of eros is then followed by something that may look like a procedure of division. At 238a Socrates claims that desire, when in command of a person, leads to hybris, and that the forms of hybris are as many as the objects of desire. When the object of desire is beauty, the name we have to give this kind of hybris is eros. In the first speech, we thus seem to have a simultaneous and perhaps somewhat circular procedure of division and collection: eros is first defined as a kind of epithymia, and the division of epithymia according to its different objects again leads to a definition of eros. That eros is a hybristic desire for beauty is, as Socrates with veiled head claims, “a definition of the subject” of the discussion, stating what eros “really is” (238d-e). We thus see that, although Socrates' first speech clearly states that one must come to an agreement about the nature or essence of the subject one wishes to discuss instead of following ordinary belief about it, its apparently technical procedure does nothing else than spell out the content of ordinary belief. This problem cannot be explained away simply by saying that Socrates isn't speaking in his own name. It is true that his definition merely seems to echo Lysias' speech (cf. 231d), but nevertheless the speech is supposedly meant to illustrate a specific method. We may wonder if the picture is any better in the second speech. Here eros is no longer defined as epithymia, but rather as madness, mania. But since the first speech has suggested that the non-lover, free from desire, is in control of himself, thereby being sound-minded, that is so¯phro¯n, in opposition to the lover who is mad (cf. 241a), the new definition of eros can be seen as an elaboration of the same common opinion spelled out in the first speech. In fact, if we take it that way we can make sense of Socrates' later claim that both speeches defined eros as a type of madness (265a). Having first defined eros as a kind of madness, the second speech goes on to divide the kinds of madness, first by splitting madness into ordinary madness, “produced by human illness” as Socrates later specifies (also at 265a), and another type of madness that is god-induced, then by dividing divine madness into kinds, where (good) eros is then proclaimed, at 77

JENS KRISTIAN LARSEN 249d, to be a fourth kind of mania. As regards the technical procedure of division and collection, the second speech seems to be as circular as the first: eros is first defined as madness and a specific kind of madness is then said to be eros. We may well wonder if collection and division in the two speeches is not simply a complicated way of postulating something about eros, intended to blur the fact that no conceptual analysis is carried out at all. Of course, one could object that when Socrates at 264e-266a claims that the two speeches together defined two separate kinds of eros, one left-handed, the other right-handed, he is saying that only the two speeches taken as one illustrate the method of collection and division. The two speeches would then exemplify the dialectician's ability to distinguish different forms of something that to the ordinary eye might look identical, by differentiating bad from good eros.12 The problem with this objection is that the impression of dialectic as a kind of activity revealing the essence of something or, to use Heitsch's expression, as a method of conceptual analysis, does not get much better if we do that. Seen as one, the two speeches together define eros as a kind of madness, splits madness in two, one ordinary, another divine. The first speech then goes on to deal with the first type of madness, the other with the other. In effect, we get a definition of two kinds of eros, one brute, the other divine or philosophical. That this division in itself does not require a new, profound way of carrying out conceptual analysis can be seen from the speeches of Pausanias and Eryximachos in the Symposium. In other words, we may seriously wonder whether the method of collection and division teaches us anything new about eros at all. If we disregard the contents of the two speeches and only focus on the formal aspects of the definitions, the method seems simply to consist in focusing on a wider or broader term that people generally believe includes what you want to define, and then ‘dividing’ this general class into sub-classes, pointing out that what you want to define is one of them. This may be adequate for a nominal definition, but it surely seems a rather unconvincing procedure for arriving at real definitions. If the method of dialectic only brings to light what most people already know or believe, it seems to be nothing more than a (rather crude) devise by which one is able to give a speech a clearly stated starting-point. To me, this seems a less than attractive result, if only due to the fact that Socrates declares dialectic to be the foundation of true rhetoric, described as soul-guidance (psychago¯gia) at 261a and 271d, and that he will follow anyone able to carry out dialectical divisions “as if he were a god” (266b-c). If true rhetoric, that is, soul-guidance, is dialectic or at least founded on dialectic, and if dialectic is the knowledge possessed by the philosopher, as the Phaedrus (and other dialogues as well) certainly seem to suggest (cf. 261a), we should expect that dialectic is more than the ability to make nominal definitions. We would seem justified in supposing that it somehow should lead to a real understanding of the essence or nature of 78

DIALECTIC OF


PLATO'S PHAEDRUS

what it contemplates and not stay content with spelling out the opinions that most people have about the matter in question. Of course, I do not mean to say that common opinions, doxai, have no role to play in the endeavour to reach such an understanding,13 but merely that if the procedure of ‘collections’ and ‘divisions’ does not contain – or is not connected with – a critical way of testing whether common opinion is true or not, such a procedure seems to be of little value to a Socratic notion of philosophy. On the other hand, I readily admit that my interpretation of the text so far does not seem fair to the text. Socrates' speeches contain much more than the simple ‘collections’ and ‘divisions’ I have tried to extrapolate from them. In fact, the interpretation given so far seems to reduce Socrates' attempt to define eros to a parody, and that in a rather violently way. Indeed, it does. And this is my point. If we follow Socrates' suggestion in the short passage on dialectic and focus merely on the formal or ‘analytical’ steps of division and collection as what is of importance while disregarding the content of the speeches, we loose the reason for taking the formal elements serious at the same time. For I believe that what I have presented until now is all that can reasonably be described as formal steps of division and collection pertaining to the notion of eros that one can find in the two speeches. If one looks at these steps on their own, without regard for what they divide, they seem to be of little interest. It is therefore worthwhile to point out the – perhaps simple – fact that Socrates didn't say that the content of his speeches was irrelevant, merely that it was playful. Why should what is said playfully not be worth taking seriously? In the Statesman, for instance, at 268d, we find the great myth of the reversed cosmos, which helps correcting the – at that point – shipwrecked procedure of diairetical divisions, and this myth is explicitly referred to as a joke or play. In general, Plato is a humorous writer, a fact which should be taken quite seriously.14 Perhaps it would be better to take a closer look at some of the contents15 of Socrates' speeches then, after all, especially the second.16

II I have already noted that Socrates began his first speech by demanding that the interlocutors in any conversation should reach a common definition of the essence, the ousia, of what they are discussing (237b-c). Apparently, neither the first nor the second speech reaches any such definition of eros through collection or division. Instead, what this procedure seems to do is to spell out different doxai about eros. But in the second speech, at 245c, Socrates tries to define the ousia, not of eros (or, as we shall see, not directly of eros), but of the soul. Moreover, he states that it is exactly in order to show that eros is not a mischievous kind of madness, 79

JENS KRISTIAN LARSEN but indeed god-given, that it is necessary to say what the essence of the soul is by “examining what it does and what is done to it”. This echoes his former demand at 237c8-9 of examining what eros is (ti pot’ estin) as well as what power (dynamis) it has. If the division of divine madness into different kinds is to save eros from condemnation, an investigation of soul is apparently necessary. It is probably this investigation of soul, its nature and form, its doings and sufferings that Socrates later describes as being playful. At the end of the palinode, at 257a, he excuses himself for having used somewhat poetical words. At 253c7 he refers to his description of the soul as a hybrid creature, consisting of a charioteer and a couple of horses that have grown together into a unity, as a myth. His proof that eros is god-given madness will not, he claims at 245c, convince the clever, only the wise. Let me pause on this last point a short while. Such a clever person, a deinos, is perhaps like the one already mentioned by Socrates at 229d, namely the man whose main occupation was to deliver rational reductions of traditional mythological creatures such as the Hippocentaur, the Chimera and the Gorgon. Let us remember that Socrates there claimed to have no spare time for such activities, preoccupied as he is by finding out what he is. It now turns out that he does have time to tell myths of his own, in order to illustrate the nature of the human soul. I believe it is plausible that the myth about the soul is somehow connected to Socrates' quest for self-knowledge and his initial uncertainty concerning what sort of creature he is. Presumably Socrates' quest for self-knowledge is not simply the question who the person Socrates is, but also of what he is, as a man. If what man is, considered as soul, is what Socrates tries to state in the myth contained in the palinode, it may seem that mythology, playfulness, poetic expression or whatever one wants to term it, is at the heart of the Socratic enterprise. I will have to abstain from interpreting Socrates' difficult myth in any detail. Here, I will limit myself to the question: why does Socrates present us with a myth in the first place? And how does this affect the attempted definition of eros? The most obvious answer to the first question, which Socrates explicitly states at 246a3-6, is that it is not possible for a human being to state in detail what the form, the idea, of the human soul is. We may wonder why that is so. I believe that an important reason for this is that the idea of the soul referred to in the passage cannot refer to a Platonic idea.17 If movement is what characterizes the soul, if self-movement is the “very essence” of soul, as is claimed in the argument for the immortality of the soul (245e) that prefigures the myth, the soul cannot be static, unchanging etc., i.e. it cannot posses the qualities that ideas are traditionally ascribed. Indeed, the picture we get from other dialogues as well is that the soul is not itself an idea but rather that which can relate to ideas.18 But if the soul is not an idea, but essentially movement and change, a movement which, in order to understand, relates itself, as much as possible, to 80

DIALECTIC OF


PLATO'S PHAEDRUS

eternal ideas, this seems to explain why Socrates can at best tell what the form of the soul is like, not what it is, i.e. why the soul escapes strict definition and must be the subject of a mythical or poetic account. We may thus suppose that it is not only people who come to the doors of poetry who cannot rely solely on skill but needs the madness of the muses in addition, as Socrates claims 245a, but that this also applies to those who try to enter the halls of philosophy. If this reasoning is sound, we get the following picture of how myth relates to the science of dialectic, as described in the Phaedrus. If the soul is not a Platonic idea, and if any serious definition of eros must include an investigation of the soul, since eros is a movement of the soul, as Socrates' second speech indicates (249d ff.), a definition of eros cannot be attained through a collection and division of Platonic ideas. The division of eros into good and bad eros receives its substance, so to speak, from the grand myth of the soul. Let me try to give some suggestions why this reading appears attractive to me. The meagre result one gets if one focuses solely on what looks like divisions of natural kinds in Socrates' two attempts at defining eros doesn't seem to merit his rather high-strung description of dialectic. Now, this praise may of course be understood as partly ironical, as Griswold seems to take it.19 The point would then be indirect, namely to show that the technical aspect of philosophy, division and collection, is at best a tool, but, as a tool, inferior to the living dialogue characteristic of philosophy. I find this somewhat unconvincing. I grant that it may be difficult to understand what division and collection is meant to do, but it seems clear to me, from what I would call the ‘tone’ of the so-called later dialogues, that Plato did indeed regard the ability to see a scattered manifold, whatever is meant by this, towards a unity, and in turn to see this unity as composed of a manifold, as highly important to philosophy. To put this differently, the ability to see likeness and difference in one and the same ‘look’, as it were, without focusing abstractly on one aspect or the other (the question whether the philosopher is like or unlike the sophist springs to mind), is, I believe, of crucial importance to Plato. In lack of a better explanation of why Plato has Socrates describe this ability in such positive terms in the Phaedrus, I would therefore like to make the following suggestion. What if what Socrates describes by collection and division is something else than the ability to define something, i.e. eros, by genus proximun and differentia specifica? What if the myth of the soul that Socrates gives in his second speech is intimately connected with dialectic, that is, with the ability to perform collections and division? As I pointed out at the beginning of the paper, dialectic consists, according to what Socrates says in the 265d-66b passage, in the ability to see one idea or form (mian idea) through many and to be able to cut this up according to other forms (eide¯). Now, in the palinode, where justice and virtue, among other things, are 81

JENS KRISTIAN LARSEN mentioned, we never find them referred to by the terms idea or eidos. Rather, they are referred to as the things that are, to onta (247e) or the things outside heaven, ta exo¯ tou ouranou (247c). On the other hand, at 246a3-6, Socrates refers to the form of the soul as mian idean. When he then goes on to give the likeness of the soul, i.e. that it is like a charioteer and black and white horse grown into one, he identifies each of these ‘elements’, at 253c7-9, as the eide¯ of the soul. Perhaps it is this part of the myth, rather than a procedure of dividing natural kinds, that Socrates is talking about when he describes dialectic? The idea of identifying the steps of collection and division with the myth about the soul seems to gain further support by a later passage, namely 270d-e, where eide¯ is also used to describe the parts of anything that isn't simple (haploun) but many-formed, as, for instance, the human soul. Finally, at 271d the term of eidos is used to describe two things, on the one hand the elements of the soul, on the other the different kinds of souls that result, presumably, from the choice souls make of following different gods. Perhaps what Socrates is talking about in the passage on dialectic is thus a specific ability to look at human souls, characteristic of philosophically minded people. Let me try to give a sketch of how this would connect the myth of the soul with dialectic, mythos with logos. On the reading suggested here, the one form described in the first step of dialectic as what is seen or collected from a dispersed manifold would be the one soul common to all human beings. This soul is essentially characterized by movement or erotic striving towards something and this is, in some form or other, characteristic for all men. But eros is no simple or gentle force, leading all men to insight or contemplation of the ‘hyperuranian beings’.20 Indeed, eros can direct different men in different directions, partly, one assumes, due to natural inclination, partly (and more importantly) due to upbringing or education (paideia). A way to point this out is by giving a mythical account of the soul, according to which there are different elements in it, so that the unity or entity “soul” is shown to be a complex unity filled with tension and strife. This can be regarded as one way of dividing the unity seen in the first step of dialectical activity. A second kind of division can be found within the myth when Socrates goes on to explain how different souls choose to follow different gods (246e ff, 252c ff).21 To me it seems reasonable to suppose that this is another way of saying that the first picture we get of the soul, as an erotic being, which is somehow a unity characterised by plurality and tension, is ‘abstract’. It is abstract in so far as soul as ‘incarnated’ comes in many different forms due to the fact that the relations in which the ‘elements’ of the soul stand to each other may differ greatly, resulting in different ‘Weltanschaungen’ or conceptions of what goal one should strive towards. I grant that this interpretation has some drawbacks. For instance, one may suppose that idea is simply the term Socrates uses at 265 for something, anything 82

DIALECTIC OF


PLATO'S PHAEDRUS

when regarded as a whole, whereas eidos is the term he uses to designate a part. If that is so, it is only natural that these terms are to be found in the earlier description of the relationship between the form of the soul and its parts, but this does not mean that what Socrates describes as dialectic is specifically preoccupied with the soul. A related objection would be that dialectic is supposed to be a universal method. If it is, one may grant that dialectic is not simply a method for dividing natural kinds, but can also be used to investigate things that are not ideas, natural kinds or whatever one wants to call them, as for instance the human soul. But one could then say that this is merely a special case which becomes important in the Phaedrus because Socrates' speeches are on love. A partial answer to these objections can, I believe, be found in the second part of the dialogue. In the final part of this paper, I will therefore turn to the question how dialectic and rhetoric relate to each other and how this connects with the myth about the soul.

III The general drift of the argument in the second part of the Phaedrus seems to be the following: rhetoric cannot be a techne¯ unless it is founded on a real understanding of the subject it discusses. In order to speak or write beautifully, one must understand what one speaks or writes about. And this insight is supposedly arrived at through adequate philosophizing, i.e. through the exercise of dialectic. Before I elaborate on how this connects with my suggestion that dialectic, as described in the Phaedrus, is primarily concerned with the soul rather than being a universal method for acquiring knowledge, I have to say something about Socrates' claim that philosophy can transform rhetoric into a techne¯. For what he says seems to pose a problem for my suggestion. The drift of Socrates' argument, founding rhetoric on philosophy, may seem like a typical Platonic move. Socrates suggests that if one is interested in rhetoric, one should really care for philosophy and that the truth is more important than opinions, and these suggestions are directed at Phaedrus, in order to turn his unlimited love for speeches into a love for dialectic. In other words, Plato has Socrates make a kind of protreptic argument. But what he actually says, when discussing rhetoric with Phaedrus, is not so obviously Platonic. For it may seem rather surprising that dialectic should be able to transform rhetoric into a real art, i.e. a techne¯, instead of being a mere knack, tribe¯ (260e). In the Gorgias, at least, Socrates claims quite forcefully that rhetoric cannot be a techne¯. To state Socrates' objection in a perhaps oversimplified way, a techne¯ must be something that can be taught to others, and it must have a specific field of objects. Rhetoric seems to violate both principles. It resembles a knack more than a science built on teachable principles, on the one hand. On the other hand, since it claims to be 83

JENS KRISTIAN LARSEN able to induce belief about any given subject, it seems impossible to determine a specific field of objects for it. This is what Socrates now seems to recant.22 Rhetoric may indeed be termed a techne¯ after all, if, that is, it has real knowledge of its subject as its foundation. But since Socrates is to claim that it is the art of dialectic that gives this kind of knowledge, and since rhetoric seems to deal with everything, dialectic seems, after all, to be a universal method which can deliver knowledge on any given subject. Before we accept this conclusion, however, we may stop and ask why Plato should believe that one method, a kind of mathesis universalis, could ever be able to give man knowledge of everything. For it is not only in the Gorgias that we find arguments depending on the notion that an art, a techne¯, is concerned with one specific field of objects only. Such arguments can be found throughout the corpus platonicum. In light of this, it may be worth noting that Socrates' conception of rhetoric in the Phaedrus is radically different from the one espoused by Gorgias, a fact that Phaedrus at once points out. For by rhetoric, Socrates does not simply understand the ability to temporarily produce convictions in others in a law-court or at a political assembly. Rather, he regards it as a “way of directing [or leading] the soul [psychago¯gia] by means of speech”, not only in public but also in private (261a). This notion of rhetoric, which Socrates repeats at 271d, casts interesting light on what Socrates apparently understands by rhetoric turned into real art. Let us therefore take a closer look at it. The ability to lead souls is first described, at 261e, as the art of being able to deceive others as well as to detect others who try to deceive one. According to Socrates, deception relies on two things. First of all, it relies on the fact that certain things that aren't alike, look alike. If anyone is to convince someone else that a course of action that is really harmful is good, that course of action must at least appear good. But this means that the art of deception requires knowledge of which things look alike and which do not, since, according to Socrates, it is only possible to deceive someone about things that differ little from each other (261e). It is no good to try to convince someone that a butcher is in fact a sophist. If someone were to depict Socrates as a sophist, however… It is in order to explain this point that Socrates, at 263a-b, introduces the distinction between words, the meaning of which are evident to all, and words the meaning of which are contested, i.e. words where people do not agree about what they mean, either with others or indeed with themselves. Apparently, contested terms are names designating things that are difficult to understand, or words that have a somewhat blurry connotation or are disputed for some reason or other. The examples Socrates gives are the good, the just and, of course, eros. So, in order to lead people's souls, i.e. in order to deceive them about these things, knowledge is required, and not only a knowledge of which terms are contested 84

DIALECTIC OF


PLATO'S PHAEDRUS

and which are not, but also of what these contested terms really refer to, i.e. what the essence of the contested term is. At least this seems to be the point when Socrates, at 262a9-11, asks Phaedrus whether it “is … really possible for someone who doesn't know what each thing truly is to detect a similarity.” So the ability to lead a soul of someone, through deception, requires real knowledge about the subject matter one wishes to deceive someone about as well as knowledge of which things it resembles. It is not quite clear from the passage what this knowledge consists in, but the fact that Socrates immediately contrasts it with the chasing of mere opinions (262c) clearly suggests that by knowledge Socrates means real, substantive understanding. Socrates' claim must therefore be that only the man who really knows what justice, the good and such things are, i.e. have an understanding of their essence or being, and how they differ from and relate to other things, is able to deceive others. It seems fair to claim that it is this knowledge that dialectic will supposedly give the rhetorician. How does this relate to my problem about the universality of dialectic? Well, it is at least clear that Socrates claims that dialectic can help the rhetorician to acquire understanding of only about a limited number of ‘objects’, such as the just and the good and eros (which is, we should remember, essentially connected with the human soul). This may of course be regarded as a consequence of the claim that real deception is only possible about such notions but it seems – I grant that this is not compelling – that Socrates is suggesting that what he calls disputed terms is what dialectic deal with. But even if I am right about this, we seem to be faced by a number of other paradoxes as a consequence of Socrates' claim that dialectic can deliver a foundation for an art of rhetoric. First of all, Socrates' strategy seems to imply that a man like Lysias or for that matter Gorgias, who only relies on what people in general believe about a subject matter, who merely chase opinions, are not able to deceive anyone at all! Only the philosopher is able to deceive his fellow men. So again, what Socrates seems to say is this: look my fine fellows, Gorgias, Lysias and Phaedrus, if you want to be able to deceive someone about something, you need to turn your attention to philosophy. This can of course be read as another protreptic argument. But even if we do that, Socrates claim is truly surprising. For it implies that Lysias is not really able to deceive anyone. But why is Socrates then so interested in discussing his speech with Phaedrus and why does he end his palinode with the prayer that Lysias should turn to philosophy in order that Phaedrus may stop wandering in two directions (257b)? Are we to conclude that it is Socrates' speeches that are really deceptive and that this deception is founded on his understanding of eros? Socrates suggests as much at 265a and I am inclined to think that this is how Plato meant us to understand the passage.

85

JENS KRISTIAN LARSEN But if this is so, we seem to be faced with a second dilemma. We would perhaps like to say that it must be Socrates' first speech that was deceptive (being, as Socrates said at 242d, a horrible (deinos) speech on eros), whereas his second must be the true one. But this seems to be ruled out. For at 266a Socrates claims that the first speech found “a sort of love that can be called ‘left-handed,’ which it correctly [or with justice] denounced.” If left-handed love is rightly denounced, and we have no good reasons for believing that it isn't, why should we regard Socrates' first speech as deceptive? We may then wonder whether it is the second speech which is deceptive.23 We may ask: has Socrates been trying to deceive Phaedrus into philosophy? By telling his myth about the soul? Is the myth specifically designed as a noble lie about the nature of eros, intended to turn the rather simple-minded Phaedrus away from Lysian-styled rhetoric towards philosophy? And is Socrates only able to compose his myth by having a good understanding of the nature of eros as well as of the nature of the human soul in general and of the soul of Phaedrus in particular? This reading may seem to be exaggerated, and I am not entirely sure whether this is the conclusion to draw. Nevertheless, I think it is worthwhile to consider as a serious suggestion and that there is textual support for it. This will, however, leave us with a final paradox. Through a – perhaps somewhat ironical – argument, running from 270a-271d, Socrates picks up on the notion of rhetoric as a real art, characterized as a leading of souls. It is here defined analogous to medicine and is said to “be able … to supply a soul with reasons and customary rules that will impart to it the convictions and virtues we want.” (270b5-9). So, like Gorgian rhetoric, true rhetoric imparts certain convictions to its ‘victims’, though, we may suppose, it differs from it by the facts that the effect is supposed to be of a more permanent nature, that its goal is ‘noble’ insofar as it is to install virtue in its listener and that it is carried out in private, not in public. Since this kind of rhetoric, like all rhetoric, is directed towards human beings, Socrates at 270e states that it must “demonstrate precisely the essential nature of that to which speeches are to be applied. And that, surely, is the soul.” What is meant by such a precise demonstration has been made clear a few lines above, at 270d. To determine the nature of anything, Socrates there claims, one must first determine whether the object is simple or complex. If it is simple, one should then try to determine the power of the object. If, “on the other hand, it takes many forms, we must enumerate them all and, as we did in the simple case, investigate how each is naturally able to act upon what and how it has a natural disposition to be acted upon by what.” A little later, at 271a4-7, Socrates can therefore conclude that anyone who wishes to “teach the art of rhetoric seriously will, first, describe the soul with absolute precision and enable us to understand what it is: whether it is one and homogeneous by nature or takes many forms”. After that he will have to determine what it does and what it suffers. Finally, he will need to know 86

DIALECTIC OF


PLATO'S PHAEDRUS

each kind of logos, in order to understand which types of speeches will appear convincing to which kinds of souls. Apart from the clear allusion to Socrates' initial question pertaining to his own nature, this passage is indeed a clear reminder of the content of the palinode. The myth of the soul, describing the essence and the form of the soul, seems to be what we need in order to turn rhetoric into art. So perhaps it is not so absurd to say that dialectic, as described in the Phaedrus, is not a universal method which enables us to acquire knowledge, but is really about soul, nor to say that Socrates' second speech delivers knowledge of the soul and that this knowledge enables him to deceive Phaedrus, where the deception must be understood, of course, as a noble lie, implanting reasons and customary rules into Phaedrus, i. e. giving him the convictions and virtues that Socrates want. The paradox this gives us, however, can be spelled out as two serious problems facing this otherwise edifying conclusion. The first concerns the action or drama of the dialogue, the second its argument.24 If we are to regard the palinode as Socrates' rhetorical, or perhaps poetic, attempt to turn the soul of Phaedrus towards philosophy, which at the same time describes the knowledge which enables him to make this speech, we may wonder why it apparently has no effect on Phaedrus. Phaedrus does not at any point comment positively on the content of what Socrates has said. Nor does anything in the second part of the dialogue suggest that Phaedrus has changed his interest from rhetoric to philosophy.25 The second problem is that the palinode itself seems to make Socrates' proposed philosophical rhetoric impossible. For if it is true that it is impossible for a human being to say what form the soul has, if all we can do is to say what it is like, the idea that rhetoric must state with utmost precision what the soul is, how many types of it there are, how they are affected and by what kinds of speeches, how many kinds of speeches there really are (as can be seen from the passage 271d-272b, the list is very long), we may begin to suspect, as Phaedrus seems to do, that the task is impossible. Could Socrates' failure at turning Phaedrus to philosophy be due to the fact that he cannot really know who Phaedrus is? And if so – we should remember that Socrates begins the dialogue by saying that if he has forgotten his Phaedrus, he has forgotten himself (228a, cf. also 236c) – does this mean that Socrates does in fact not really know who he is?

Notes 1. As P. Friedländer, Platon III, Walter de Gruyter: Berlin (1964), 222 points out, this was already a question discussed by the ancient Platonists; cf. Hermias' report on this issue. See also R. Hackforth, Plato's Phaedrus, CUP: Cambridge (1972), 8-9.

87

JENS KRISTIAN LARSEN 2. This is really just spelling out what was already implicit in Lysias' speech, see especially 231a: epeidan te¯s epithymias pauso¯ntai and 233c: ouch hyp' ero¯tos he¯tto¯menos all' emautou krato¯n. 3. Hachforth (1972), 134. 4. This is basically in accordance with the view of dialectic that Cornford expresses in his commentary on the Sophist, which he, by relying on Aristotle's testimony about Socrates, contrasts with the latter's method of induction. Whereas Socratic epago¯ge¯ leads to one idea, the definition of which is supposed to satisfy the Socratic ti estin question, Plato's later dialectical method is characterized by a two-fold operation, 1) a collection of scattered terms into a single genus which is then to be 2) divided “in a downward process from that genus to the definition of the species”, F. M. Cornford, Plato's Theory of Knowledge, Dover Publications: Mineala, 184. According to Cornford, this is due to a change in Plato's interest. Whereas Socratic induction “contemplates a single form”, Plato's later “attention is … transferred to … the relations of Forms among themselves”, p. 185. 5. N. Notomi, The Unity of Plato's Sophist, CUP: Cambridge 1999, 77. 6. Ch. Iber, Platon Sophistes (kommentar), Suhrkamp: Frankfurt a.M. (2007), 223 [daß die Begriffe einander über- und untergeordnete Gattungen und Arten sind]. 7. This has been emphasized by many commentators Cf. for instance J. Stenzel, Studien zur Entwicklung der Platonischen Dialektik von Sokrates zu Aristoteles, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft: Darmstadt (1961), 106 ff. 8. See Gomes-Lobo's criticism of Stenzel's attempt to make a unified reading of Sophist, 253a-e, found in “Plato's Description of Dialectic in the Sophist” in Phronesis, 1977. 9. E. Heitsch, Platon Werke III, 4 Phaidros (Übersetzung und Kommentar), Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (1997), 137 . A similar suggestion is made by A. Nehamas & P. Woodruf, Plato: Phaedrus (translation, introduction and notes, Hackett Publishing Company: Indianapolis (1995), who concludes that Plato, through Socrates' second speech, really says goodbye to his former theory of Forms, which he by now regards as no more than a good story, whereas true philosophy “consists in the austere practice of collection and division”. 10. This principle is not only in accordance with what he later says about the necessity of knowing what one speaks about if rhetoric is to become at techne¯ (262b-c), a knowledge which he there claims that dialectic is able to deliver, it also seems to match the procedure which the Eleatic stranger proposes in the Sophist, when he suggests that he and Theaetetus should move, through discourse, from having merely a name in common to a shared understanding of the matter they discuss, i.e. the sophist (Soph. 218c-d). 11. I cannot enter into the discussion of the so-called Socratic fallacy (so termed by P. Geach) in this paper. Suffice it to say that I find that there is a great difference between claiming that one must know what something is in order to be sure that the ‘attributes’ one believes belong to that something does in fact belong to it, and claiming that one cannot say anything about anything before one has defined it. It is in my opinion only the former view that can be ascribed to Socrates in Plato's dialogues and this view certainly does not exclude the use of examples or ordinary beliefs when searching for a definition of something. 12. For this notion of the power of dialectic, see also Rep. 454a. 13. Cf. note 11. 14. Cf. J. Klein, Plato's trilogy, University of Chicago Press: Chicago (1977), 5. If we accept the sixth letter as genuine, we can see that Plato, at 323d, claims that playfulness is the sister of seriousness. 15. In this paper, I cannot go into any detailed exposition of the speeches. What follows is merely a sketch of how one might connect the content of Socrates' second speech, the so-called palinode, with the procedure of collection and division. 16. In the short interlude between Socrates' first and his second speech, Socrates does not seem to be complaining that his first speech was wrong due to faulty divisions, but rather that his speech, as

88

DIALECTIC OF

17. 18.

19. 20.

21.

22.

23. 24. 25.


PLATO'S PHAEDRUS

well as Lysias', were terrible (deinos, 242d) since they missed what eros was, in determining him as something bad. One could of course argue that the fault is exactly due to a failure in making an adequate analysis of the nature of eros which is the problem of the two speeches, and that the palinode is to remedy this by giving us a conceptual analysis of eros. My respond to this would be that the ‘conceptual analysis’ we find in the palinode derives it's main force from the mythical account Socrates gives of the soul. Put differently, the procedure of division cannot of itself show us that eros is in fact a kind of divine madness, since the ‘proof’ for this rests on the account of the soul as self-motion. In this I follow Ch. Griswold, Self-knowledge in Plato's Phaedrus, Pennsylvania State University Press (1988), 88 ff. See also K. Sorter, Form and Good in Plato's Eleatic Dialogues, University of California Press (1994), 43. This picture of the soul as movement and a sort of middle-being is not only found in the Phaedrus, but also in the account of the soul in the Symposium and in the tenth book of the Laws. Indeed, this very point is used by the Eleatic stranger in the Sophist to argue that, besides unchanging ideas, soul most be counted among the things that really are, if one is to be able to explain the phenomena of cognition (Soph. 248d ff.). Even in the Phaedo, where the erotic striving of the soul (and hence also the soul's complexity) is downplayed due to the subject matter of the dialogue, the soul is never said to be an idea, but only to be most like (homoioteron) an idea (79b). None of these passages are conclusive evidence, I admit, but I believe that it is easier to make sense of them, as well as of the notion of paideia as a kind of forming and changing of souls, if one doesn't suppose that there is an idea of the soul. Griswold (1988), 175. The picture in the palinode is rather complex. On the one hand it is said that no soul that hasn't had any contact with true reality can be incarnated as a human being (249b). It would seem to follow from this that it is natural for all human beings to strive to remember these ideas (or hyperuranian beings) which they have seen in their ‘pre-incarnated’ existence. On the other hand it is more than suggested that it is only a very small group of men who ever, through confrontation with earthly beauty, start to strive for a re-collection or remembrance of true reality. A third ‘division’ can be found in the description of different types of human beings found at 248d ff, where the idea is that people are incarnated as different types as a result of the difference in the amount of knowledge they acquired in the ‘pre-incarnated’ status. If and how this is meant to be connected with the idea that different souls follow different gods does not seem clear to me. In fact, one can get the impression that Socrates in his second speech playfully imitates Lysias' speech by stating the same point more than once, in different wording, and even by stating his points in a rather random manner. This should go some way to make one suspicious of Socrates' claim that the main point about his two speeches was the good order by which they proceeded… To some commentators, this is an indication of Plato's development (supposing that the Phaedrus is later than the Gorgias), so that the Phaedrus represents Plato's more mature understanding of rhetoric. Apart from the problems connected with establishing a chronology by means of which one can trace a development in Plato's thought, I find this reading implausible for reasons that will become clear in what follows. In contrast with what he says about his first speech in the summary at 266a-b, Socrates never says that the praise of divine madness was just. To borrow an expression from L. Strauss. This is strongly emphasised in D. Hyland, The Question of Beauty, Indiana University Press (2008).

89


VERGIL'S INTRODUCTION

TO HIS

EGIL KRAGGERUD

DEPT.

OF

PHILOSOPHY, CLASSICS, HISTORY OSLO

OF

ART

SIXTH ECLOGUE AND IDEAS,

UNIVERSITY

OF

The author deals with various issues in the introduction (1-12), in particular with the function of Prima … Thalea (1-2) and the relation of cum canerem reges et proelia (3) to 1-2 and to 3b-5. The allusion to Callimachus’ Aetia frg. 21-24 is thoroughly analysed. Especially dealt with is the meaning of non iniussa cano and tamen haec quoque (9) within a more comprehensive reading of the introduction.

Attentive readers of the Sixth Eclogue will have to deal with a number of old and often contested issues of a widely different nature in the poem's important introductory part (1-12). As most of these have been treated or at least touched upon in some way or other by Wendell Clausen in his commentary - the last authoritative one to appear -, his interpretations will often be discussed in the following, not in the sense, however, that I have a special bone to pick with an edition that is so eminent and rewarding in many regards. It is regrettable, however, particularly in this passage, that Clausen has paid so little attention to Ernst A. Schmidt's magisterial analysis from 1972. Prima Syracosio dignata est ludere versu nostra neque erubuit silvas habitare Thalea.

1–2

This couplet requires careful grammatical analysis. Clausen has no lemma for it in the running commentary, but has given a rendering of the lines in his introduction to the Eclogue (p. 174): “Virgil's Muse, his Thalea, first condescended to play with Syracusan verse and dwelt unembarrassed in the woods” (my italics), implying the temporal sequence prima (= primum) (1-2), followed by cum canerem and divine warning (3-5), whereupon nunc etc. (6ff.) represents the third and present stage (cf. Coleman).1 One consequence of this succession of events will easily be to misinterpret Apollo's warning in 3b-5. We should no doubt return to the alternative way of taking it, an interpretation which can be paraphrased like this:2 “I as the first (viz. Roman poet) have taken up bucolic poetry after the model of Theocritus”, whereby prima is being highlighted as a predicative.3 To render it the way it might have presented itself to a Roman ear: “As the first she condescended (found it proper) to play in Syracusan verse,/ she our own, and did not feel ashamed to live in the woods, Thalea.” The DOI: 10.1080/00397679.2010.501214

111

EGIL KRAGGERUD emphasis is on the appropriation of a special poetic genre (Syracosio … ludere versu) and on putting it into the landscape belonging to it (silvas).4 Vergil presents himself here as a Theocritus Romanus claiming originality (prima) in this role. The couplet can be compared with a number of similar statements by Roman poets mentioning or alluding to the model's geographical or linguistic place of origin. Vergil's statement differs from them, however, by not specifying the place of destination for the appropriated Greek genre. Nor does he pride himself more explicitly on being the first Roman or the first in ‘Latin tongue’ or similarly.5 This latter omission is perhaps not particularly strange in view of the obvious linguistic fact of the case. That there is no talk of having transferred the genre from Greece to Italy (with a verb like deferre or deducere), may in part be due to the status of Theocritus’ Sicily. The island had become a Roman province as early as in the middle of Hieron II's reign and this king's dependence on the Romans reached as far back as almost to the beginning of the First Punic War (263). Furthermore, the bucolic scene is in Vergil's hands of a conglomerate Graeco-Italic kind. Even on Italian soil the predominance of the genre's Greek elements is striking, especially in Vergil's use of shepherds and farmers with Greek names. The landscape is equally bilateral: Mincius, Sicily and Arcadia are seemingly interchangeable within the geographical framework of the genre. What Vergil does not care to say, however, is that this is his first poetry, as it most probably was. It would have been a trivial fact to mention vis-à-vis contemporary observers of the Roman literary scene. Before leaving these lines the stress on the playful mood of the genre (ludere) is also worth taking notice of, likewise the inherent opposition between the city based poet (Syracosio) and the pastoral landscape of the genre (silvas).6 Cum canerem reges et proelia, Cynthius aurem vellit et admonuit: “Pastorem, Tityre, pinguis pascere oportet ovis, deductum dicere carmen.”

5

To start with the asyndetic Cum canerem reges et proelia etc. - a sweeping and vague reference to epic poetry it seems - and its logical connection with 1-2: Cum with an imperfect subjunctive does not per se indicate a definite temporal fixation in relation to the previous couplet; there is of course a relation to the action of the main sentence with its perfects, that is Cynthius aurem/ vellit et admonuit. The temporal relation of Cum canerem to 1-2 must be seen in the light of its logical connection with the previous period. In cases of asyndetic sequences such a connection is a matter of interpretation. Regardless of the way many understand prima (cf. above) they seem to take a causal connection for granted as e.g.: “ when I was singing.”7 But if we take prima in the way we have advocated above an explicative cum canerem would point back to a time before Vergil had decided to go for bucolic poetry suggesting a time when he was 112


TO HIS

SIXTH ECLOGUE

engaged in an activity, that is writing epic poetry, during which Apollo intervened to stop him and help him find a literary occupation better suited to his abilities: His decision to write bucolic poetry would then be a second choice after a sort of personal failure or at least of misjudgement. But the explicative connection is not a whit better with the modern and in our view misleading rendering of 1-2: The resulting temporal sequence is in no way in tune with the situation: First stage bucolic poetry, then change of plan with epic poetry taking over, followed, eventually, by a return to bucolic poetry. Such an information would be in need of some explanation in the middle of the Bucolics. Had Varus urged him so strongly to write a laudatory poem that Vergil had no other way of fending off the request than by making public Apollo's warning against it? I do not think that this was the way Roman poets and patrons communicated with each other. Some early readers adhered to the first of these alternatives: They thought that Vergil had tried his hand at Roman history before he opted for an easier genre: Servius auctus (on v. 5) tells us that Vergil had chosen a loftier theme about wars and kings before he took up the bucolic genre (ante bucolicum carmen); the poet realized, however, that owing to his immature age and undeveloped talent he had to choose a gentler kind of project in order to strengthen his powers before proceeding to higher themes.8 But as to Vergil's kind of recusatio, it is, as we shall see, not a question of poetic ability or maturity. There was evidently a lot of speculation going on concerning the kind of subject matter that might have been the theme of these early endeavours: Roman history (res Romanae) according to the Vita Donati 19, an Aeneid or the history of the Alban kings according to Servius on v. 3. Servius even thinks he knows that Vergil gave up the last-mentioned project because he was deterred by the rough names of the Alban kings thereby presenting a sort of rationale to supplement or replace the poet's own account of Apollo's intervention. Superfluous to say, these ancient comments smack all too much of unfounded biographical speculation as is so often the case in ancient and medieval exegesis. So far - and so far only - I find myself in full agreement with Clausen's blank rejection of these testimonies. But, astonishingly, Clausen shares the ancient view that Vergil is talking of a prior epic stage of his, the difference being only that in Clausen's view it is definitely a fictive situation because Apollo's intervention is “a literary allusion” to “Callimachus’ rejection of epic”. But the idea of a prior epic stage9 is, as we have shown, based on Cum canerem being taken as an asyndeton explicativum and is not to be derived from Vergil's imitation of Callimachus in the main sentence, a scene that is otherwise far more subtle and nuanced than is borne out by Clausen's analysis. However, the asyndeton Cum canerem is clearly adversativum, based on the contrast between a Walden sort of life (silvas habitare) and a heroic life with warfare and heroic feats at its centre. And should readers miss this point, as 113

EGIL KRAGGERUD they have evidently done en masse, they would have had the chance to correct themselves by paying attention to the fact that Apollo addresses the poet as a shepherd.10 This ‘role’ is not to be seen in an anticipatory way as part of the god's advice for the future, but is evidently a natural consequence of the fact that Vergil's Muse had already entered the bucolic world of Theocritus. The conclusions to be drawn from the adversative character of cum canerem etc. at 3a in relation to 1-2 are fundamental for understanding the whole introduction and relevant to several aspects of it. One may well understand that commentators over the ages - in the wake and ban of Servius - have refrained from adopting a position implying that Vergil - in the middle of his bucolic project - should have entertained the idea of writing epic poetry - if that had been what the poet was saying. We should be careful to beware his words, however: “When I was singing of kings and battles …”. To understand the almost playful nature of this remark we have to look closer at the poet's imitation of both Callimachus and Theocritus. First Callimachus: The partial recovery of Callimachus’ prologue to the Aetia in 192711 has been of great importance for a broader appreciation of the Alexandrian roots of Roman poetry. In his prologue Callimachus focuses on how narrowminded critics, the so-called Telchines, had been carping at his poetry criticising him for not being able to produce “one continuous poem in many thousand lines” (ἓν ἄεισμα διηνεκὲς…/ … ἐν πολλαῖς … χιλιάσιν) on kings (βασιλ[ήων) or heroes (ἥρω]ας) (3-4): In their eyes he is only able to produce an ἔπος … τυτθὸν (5) - an achievement more to be expected from a “child” (6). Whereupon the poet, in somewhat mutilated lines, comes out in defence of small-scale poetry (κατὰ λεπτὸν 11) on the principle that small is beautiful and sweet, and indeed a prerequisite for true art. In the middle of this defence Callimachus adduces, as the highest divine authority, the god who once commanded him to do exactly what he has given his mind to all his life. Here are the lines which Vergil has rendered as one of the more manifest among his literary allusions, at first glance almost a quotation12: καὶ γὰρ ὅτε πρώτιστον ἐμοῖς ἐπὶ δέλτον ἔθηκα γούνασιν, Ἀπόλλων εἶπεν ὅ μοι Λύκιος …………….] ἀοιδέ, τὸ μὲν θύος ὅττι πάχιστον θρέψαι, τὴν μοῦσαν δ’ὠγαθὲ λεπταλέην (21-24).

“Indeed, when I for the first time placed a tablet on my/ knees, Apollo, the Lycian, said this to me: “… poet, feed your thyos as fat as possible, but keep, my dear friend, your Muse slender.”

Vergil's imitation of these lines can be regarded as a nice instance of his way of emulating a famous model. Aemulatio implies of course competitive writing on common ground, vouching for a certain recognizable and indisputable likeness 114


TO HIS

SIXTH ECLOGUE

being involved in the process, but it also means metamorphosis, shift of emphasis, new details and the like, changes often fit to astonish and display the successor's ingenuity and originality. Let us start in the amusing end: It is not only tempting, but probably justified to read the god's pronouncement in both authors with a smile. The Muse - a natural concern of the Apollo Musagetes in Callimachus’ case - should not be allowed to grow fat under the poet's care, unlike the sacrificial victim (θύος) he is asked to feed and set aside as an offer to Apollo (and the Muses). Callimachus is of course the poet Callimachus all through the prologue, but here he may be seen (but perhaps this was never in Callimachus’ thoughts) as the god's own shepherd. And in such a capacity he should of course make his sheep as fat as possible among which a θύος will be offered to the god thereby securing a good relationship and further inspiration for the poet in return.13 Vergil has managed to elicit more humour from the motif by giving edge to this latent double meaning in Callimachus’ lines. Being a more veritable shepherd (i.e. as a bucolic poet!) his professional task will mainly be to tend sheep anyhow. As for Vergil assuming the persona of ‘Tityrus’, the sheep in case will be considered as belonging to another. In such a capacity to tend them is not only to protect them, but to keep them in a thriving condition (pinguis) or to make them fat if they are not so from the beginning. Apollo is himself - in view of his shepherd service for king Admetus (alluded to at G. 3. 2 pastor ab Amphryso) - the expert in this field of husbandry, but Vergil has not incorporated into his imitation what in Callimachus’ scene could be seen as a rather selfish request for a victim on the god's part. Vergil could easily have mentioned only an unspecified shepherd (in the form of only pastorem or o pastor) much to the same effect. Why does he let himself be identified with Tityrus of all? One could perhaps think that the humblest among Vergilian shepherds is a fit choice to mark the distance between god and man. In Theocritus’ Id. 3 Tityros is asked to tend the goats while his shepherd colleague, obviously socially superior, is making off to sing a serenade for Amaryllis. Vergil's Tityrus appears to perform similar humble tasks in various eclogues (3. 20 and 96; 5. 12; 9. 23.) But this cannot provide the whole answer why Vergil has chosen him as his own stand-in here. Our Tityrus depends clearly on his more significant role in the First Eclogue where Vergil, in almost defiant opposition to Id. 3. 2-4 (but see Theocr. 7. 72), has given Tityrus a sort of satisfaction by letting him sing the praises of Amaryllis, who had now, in his later years, become his girlfriend and long-term partner. What we may infer about the date of composition from this, is, I believe, that 6. 1-12 was written after the First Eclogue had found its form, that is in the very last stages of the collection's genesis. This does not necessarily indicate that the whole Sixth Eclogue was equally late. The poem's introduction may well have been added when Vergil was preparing his whole collection for publication. 115

EGIL KRAGGERUD The situation at the time of Apollo's epiphany is somewhat different in the two poets: Callimachus is explicitly at the very start of his career. He does not even seem ever to have contemplated anything like traditional epic. On the contrary: The very moment he put his writing-tablet on his knees for the first time in order to write verses on it, Apollo approached him, not to warn him, but to give him advice. The god's advice is a projection of the poet's thoughts fit to invest his own original decision with the highest authority. In other words: Callimachus and his god are very much in tune with each other. The poet has always had an innate feeling for his poetic vocation and his priorities. That much he could have said in his own name, but with less authority of course, like: “From the start I knew what kind of poetry I should choose in order to write good and valuable poetry.” Vergil, on the other hand, has already made his choice which shows up in his collection, much in keeping with Callimachus’ original choice. But having already made a decision of his own Vergil had temporarily entered upon some different path which evidently is not to be reckoned as a true bucolic one, but as potentially risky and possibly leading him astray whereupon Apollo had to interfere in order to restrain him. The god is no more just a divine voice uttering his oracular wisdom (εῖπε) as in Callimachus’ case, he is taking the poet to task in a palpable way (aurem vellit) ending up with the same advice as he gave to Callimachus: to write slender poetry (cf. Callimachus’ κατὰ λεπτὸν 11, Mοῦσα λεπταλέη 24; Vergil: deductum 5, tenui 8). So the poet's derailment is stopped by divine intervention. Callimachus’ chosen way contrasted with the genre about “kings” and “heroes” extolled by his literary opponents, but he had never complied with the request or for a moment made concessions to their petty and condescending attitude. Vergil has in this perspective in fact already, so to speak, entered the camp of the Telchines by dealing with “kings and battles” seemingly after their ideals, but, unlike Callimachus, done so in disharmony with his ongoing poetical activity. How, then, is Vergil's quite different situation to be explained? First it is important to observe what Vergil does not specify this other ‘extra-bucolic’ literary activity which he allegedly has been practising nor does he talk of many thousand lines thereby pointing to an epic poem on an Homeric scale. The clue to the reference to “kings and battles” (reges et proelia)14 is provided by Theocritus: Whether the collection of Theocritus’ poems known by Vergil was more or less identical with the collection that has reached us, we do not know.15 But as a whole it must have given a heterogeneous impression. By no means all of it we would define as bucolic, and one is bound also to meet difficult border-cases if one should try to define those entitled to be called so. The sequence 1-7 seems to come close to the core of the genre. No. 8 and 9 one would add if the question of authenticity is left aside. No. 10, 11 and 14, 20 and 27 could also be mentioned. But No. 15 falls outside the genre being an urban mime.16 116


TO HIS

SIXTH ECLOGUE

No. 16 and 17 are primarily encomia. No. 16 addresses Hieron II in order to obtain the patronage of this ruler whom the poet sets out to praise in the last part of the poem (76-103). Theocritus asks for setbacks for Hieron's enemies in war (82-100) and success and happiness for the regions of Sicily won back by him. Clearly he dwells on bucolic elements when wishing the king success. Deliberately the poet seems in large measure to eschew the martial sphere as an encomiastic topic. Describing how the envisaged happy state of affairs will turn out, Theocritus conjures up a pipe dream of peace and prosperity: fertile fields tilled by landowners (90) and thousands of well-nurtured sheep (αἱ δ’ ἀνάριθμοι/ μήλων χιλιάδες βοτάνα διαπιανθεῖσαι ἂμ πεδίον βληχῶντο “sheep in countless thousands grow fat upon the pastures and bleat over the plain” 90b-92a) reminding us of Apollo's injunction to Vergil to go on tending sheep to become fat. Furthermore Theocritus praises herds of cows returning to their homestead in the evening (92bf.), music making cicadas entertaining sowers and shepherds who are going about their outdoor business (94-96a) whereby there will be no call for war as spiders are already covering the arms with their web (96b-97a). With such vistas Theocritus 16 has no doubt created a clear affinity to the more bucolic poems, but above all he is singing the laudes of Hieron. The Seventeenth Idyll is even further from the bucolic world in the narrower sense by being a full-blown encomium for king Ptolemaios Philadelphos: The king's prowess is a guarantee that his subjects will enjoy peace and security. In a collection of poems having Theocritus as its primary model one could expect a Roman poet to follow suit and take up the challenge put by these encomiastic poems. Vergil seems indeed to have these poems in mind in the passage. He alludes, as particularly E. A. Schmidt has shown, in line 6 (namque super tibi erunt qui dicere laudes) to Theocritus 16. 101-103 εἷς μὲν ἐγώ, πολλοὺς δὲ Διὸς φιλέοντι καὶ ἄλλους/ θυγατέρες, τοῖς πᾶσι μέλοι Σικελὴν Ἀρέθοισαν/ ὑμνεῖν σὺν λαοῖσι καὶ αἰχμητὴν Ἱέρωνα (“I am but one, and the daughters of Zeus love many others as well; and may they all care to sing of Sicilian Arethusa with her warriors and of the warrior Hiero”). Theocritus includes himself among those eager to praise the ruler; Vergil, on the other hand, excuses himself and is explicitly excluding himself from that number.17 The highlighted reference in the opening lines to Callimachus’ prologue sharpens our awareness that Vergil's lines are meant to have a comparable status: the passage is both a manifesto on the genre and a proem, a so-called “Binnenproömium”.18 But how far does this proem extend? All editors intent on the structure of the poems by marking sections treat 1-12 as one undivided whole. As far as I can see, only Heinrich Naumann had a more nuanced approach in his unassuming edition19 setting off the first five lines as a passage of its own - and rightly so. Lines 1-5 are more than just the introduction to the Sixth Eclogue, they mark a new step and an entry into the second part of the collection and must be read 117

EGIL KRAGGERUD with a view to the whole sequence of eclogues 6-10. So far the reader has been in no doubt that the poet has a special relationship to Asinius Pollio (cf. Ecl. 3. 84 ff.; 4. 3 & 11-14). But only the second half of the Bucolics honours two men by name for their martial achievements, Alfenus Varus and Asinius Pollio. Both are commanders distinguishing themselves in war. As far as I can see, the latter is not only the more important patron of the two20; he had also a much greater claim on a prominent place as honorandus. Although Vergil has reduced the encomiastic side of bucolic poetry to the barest minimum, nobody can be in doubt that Pollio is not simply put off with a recusatio; a comparison will show this. Alfenus Varus is honoured with these lines: Nunc ego - namque super tibi erunt qui dicere laudes, Vare, tuas cupiant et tristia condere bella agrestem tenui meditabor harundine Musam. (6-8)

Having left the laudes of Varus, and the bella he has been involved in, to others as a subject for poetry, Vergil in obedience to the god of poetry continues without flinching in the bucolic manner of the collection as a whole. This seems at first sight to be both praeteritio and recusatio. But the fact that the poet gives the impression that he at one stage had already been far into the process of praising military achievements and soon after mentions Varus in this connection, albeit as a recusatio, is very much like Horace's manner in Carm. 1. 6: The trick of the recusatio is that even to mention one's unwillingness or inability to undertake such a theme is in itself, paradoxically, to honour the person addressed. That the poet had to be stopped from continuing his praise of Varus, is as suggestive as anything: the addressee's accomplishments are certainly worthy of high praise. But as to the victor Asinius Pollio in the Eighth Eclogue21 the poet, though spending no words on the successful campaign Pollio has just finished, announces nonetheless his deeply felt wish to be able to praise his achievements personally at some future date (Ecl. 8. 7-8); this is a temporary recusatio only, a deferment. Non iniussa cano. Si quis tamen haec quoque, si quis captus amore leget, te nostrae, Vare, myricae, te nemus omne canet; nec Phoebo gratior ullast, quam sibi quae Vari praescripsit pagina nomen.

10

No issue is more contested in these lines than the meaning of non iniussa cano (9). The debate turns on non: should it go a) with iniussa or b) with cano? (i.e. = *non cano iniussa). To start with b): Clausen, expatiating on the authoritative verdict of Skutsch (1969, 163) paraphrases the latter alternative in this way: “V. will not sing of what Apollo has forbidden, of kings and battles, high heroic themes - yet he ventures to hope etc.” [my italics]22 But neither Clausen, nor 118


TO HIS

SIXTH ECLOGUE

to my knowledge any other advocate of this reading, has made serious efforts to harmonize it with the context. As to my contextual concern: Why the negative statement (non cano)? Why should Vergil, and particularly at this point, emphasize that he is complying with Apollo's warning? Immediately upon Apollo's words the poet had declared his intention to practice the rustic muse (8) and so he had shown himself fully in tune with Apollo's advice; the future meditabor is in itself a renewal of the poet's manifesto in lines 1-2. Consequently non iniussa cano taken in sense b) seems superfluous: Why should the poet state that he is refraining from what he has promised so well in positive terms and what has been made almost tangible to us by Apollo's intervention, both positively (5b) and negatively (aurem/ vellit)? My preliminary conclusion is then that Vergil's obedience to Apollo's will, or in other words to his own implicit self-correction, has no need of the negative repetition at 9a following from Clausen's interpretation. What, then, about the logical place of non iniussa cano in the context? It would have made some difference in favour of alternative b) if Vergil, just after Apollo's words of warning, had said non iniussa *canam (fut. simpl.). Then it could have been seen as a direct result of the god's epiphany (as an asyndeton conclusivum in Szantyr's terminology). But at 9a one has to take the half-line explicatively, with the feeble informative value such a repeated assurance would have. In semantical respect one could also claim that many native speakers, if not most, would have understood *non cano iniussa according to the usual pattern whereby two negatives result in an affirmative statement, i.e. *cano iussa = “I do not sing unbidden things”. I cannot see that this has been discussed by the supporters of alternative b).23 An unlucky ambiguity would thus attach itself to *non cano iniussa.24 As to a): the positive arguments in favour of a litotes are in fact strong. As is well known, litotes is a common stylistic phenomenon in Vergil. He has quite often non/haud followed by a privative in- as litotes.25 Here is the material: G. 3. 283 miscueruntque herbas et non innoxia verba; 4. 440 ille suae contra non immemor artis/omnia transformat sese in miracula rerum (= bene memor); for other examples of non immemor cf. A. 5. 39f.; 9. 256. See further: A. 1. 630 non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco; 6. 66 non indebita posco/regna meis fatis; 6. 170 non inferiora secutus. Litotes is not always to be reckoned with, however: Ecl. 1. 49 non insueta gravis temptabunt pabula fetas (where non, moreover, corresponds with the following nec); A. 4. 529f. At non infelix animi Phoenissa, neque umquam solvitur in somnos (elliptical at non (sc. placidum carpebat fessa soporem); at non is found 15 times elsewhere in Vergil); 9. 786f. non infelicis patriae veterumque decorum/et magni Aeneae, segnes? (non = nonne); 10. 244 mea si non irrita dicta putaris (where non goes with si). As to the examples with haud followed by adjectives prefixed with in, they are without exception litotes, all in the Aeneid: A. 2. 91 haud ignota loquor. 5 times we 119

EGIL KRAGGERUD find haud ignarus/ -a (vs. one example of non ignara, see above): A. 4. 508 effigiemque toro locat haud ignara futuri (non would not have been metrically possible here; the same holds good for the next example); 5. 284 operum haud ignara Minervae; cf. also 5. 618; 10. 247; 11. 154. Especially revealing are A. 2. 91 (quoted above) and 8. 49 haud incerta cano with substantivated n. pl. as object for respectively loquor and cano, emphasizing that the basis for Vergil's tradition is solidly founded.26 Non iniussa cano, understood as litotes, connects with the preceding lines as an explicative asyndeton: “ < since> what I sing is not unbidden”. But Vergil's statement raises another question: Who is standing behind his poetry as will or agent? Vergil starts off in this poem by mentioning Thalea as a personification of his bucolic poetry. Immediately after the introduction he invokes the Muses (Pierides 13). In between comes their master and authority Apollo showing his concern for the present project by trying to keep it within its proper bounds. Oportet speaks Apollo's authority (this is even more marked in Callimachus’ imperative). So I consider, not surprisingly, the anonymous agent behind the iussa (culled from non iniussa) to be Apollo. In view of this the litotes is in fact a strong enough assertion. Vergil is well aware that he is describing a situation reminding us of the one archetypically described by Hesiod: As the Boeotian shepherd was tending lambs on Mount Helicon (Theogony 22 ff.), the Muses came to him and spoke harsh words about shepherds in general, but emphasized their ability to utter truths (ἀλήθεα γηρύσασθαι 28) whenever they wanted. Hesiod's initiation as a bard is of the most solemn kind and staged by the Muses commanding him to sing (ἐκέλονθ’ ὑμνεῖν 33) - a song Hesiod's audience is enjoying simultaneously. And a little later, after a lofty praise of the Muses, Hesiod states that the gift to be a singer stems from the Muses and Apollo (93-95).27 Vergil's Silenus is a pupil of Apollo. All his songs have ultimately been inspired by the god. It cannot be, then, that the god of poetry despises Vergil's genre or rather the carmina of the shepherd Tityrus. It is actually the gist of non iniussa cano to tell us that Apollo himself orders Tityrus to sing songs that are appropriate for him. Apollo's poetic guidance and inspiration pervade all nature which - in rational terms - means that the music is picked up and echoed by nature. The words originating from the god are a moving factor everywhere (83-84). Twice the verb iubere occurs in the concluding paragraph of our eclogue: as the god by his song exerts a compelling influence over the river Eurotas, it passes on “orders” (iussit 83) to the laurels along its banks to learn them by heart. The spell is finally broken at the end of the poem when Vesper approaches and “orders” (iussit) the young shepherds Chromis and Mnasyllos back to reality and to concern themselves with the number of their sheep.28 The following tamen (9) is a problem in itself. It is commonly taken as referring to non iussa cano. Clausen, arguing against non iussa cano as litotes, considers 120


TO HIS

SIXTH ECLOGUE

tamen his trump: “ … then [if non is taken with iniussa] tamen has no force.”29 In the lemma on tamen, however, he claims that it “goes with what follows” with a reference to Housman.30 It is difficult to see how these comments can be reconciled. The point seems to me that tamen refers to the poet's pronouncement 6-8 that he will go on singing rustic poetry (agrestem musam), leaving behind the ambitious genre he had embarked on (and which counted so much more according to the Telchines). In spite of his humble, unheroic poems, in spite of his leaving to others to sing of Varus’ feats, the addressee can expect honour from Vergil's genre. Hoping after all (tamen) to find someone not disdaining to read (aloud) the poet's bucolic verse, the landscape itself will take part in the praise of Varus by echoing his name, a name heard no less than three times in the course of twelve lines. An issue is also haec quoque in the same line 9, or to be more precise, it is a double one: haec could per se point to the whole collection, alternatively only to the second part of it, as this might seem a good option in view of 9. 27-29. I for one think that it must refer to Vergil's poems as a genre. This is borne out by quoque. It is natural to ask: in addition to what? Hardly previous poems in the collection, but in addition to other poetry, particularly laudatory poems of the kind just mentioned. - captus amore: an elucidation of this is Vergil's own line 3. 84 Pollio amat nostram, quamvis est rustica, musam. The reader “seized by love” for the poems will probably find many of the themes dealt with in Silenus’ songs congenial to his feelings. But being a novelty on the literary scene in Rome it was not a priori to be expected that such humble shepherd poetry should be much respected, let alone loved, especially in view of father Ennius’ derogatory remark on Fauns and bards (Ann. 207 Sk) at home in the silvae of the countryside.

Notes 1. Cf. also Van Sickle (2004) 149: “He spells out three moments in his poetic career - ‘first’ (1-2), ‘when’ (3-5), and ‘now’ (6-8).” 2. See e.g. Jahn (1915) ad loc. (p. 45): “Ich als erster (Römer) habe mich mit Hirtengedichten in Theokrits Art befasst”. Some later commentators are clear on this point, e.g. Büchner (1959) col. 58, Schmidt (1972) 239 f. and Jenkyns (1998) 192, n. 164, but most English translations and commentaries are on the wrong track. 3. In English one could also say: “She was the first to …”, cf. R. Kühner - C. Stegmann, Ausführliche Grammatik der lat. Sprache, II 1, p. 238; on predicative primus in Vergil cf. also author “Two Cases of Emendanda in the Eclogues”, SO 82, 2007, 87. 4. The landscape is more explicitly homely in Ecl. 1. 5. Cf. Lucr. 1. 117: Ennius ut noster cecinit qui primus amoeno/detulit ex Helicone perenni fronde coronam (Ennius bringing his poetry from Helicon); G. 2. 175-176: sanctos ausus recludere fontis (almost = primus)/Ascraeumque cano Romana per oppida carmen (from Ascra to Italy/

121

EGIL KRAGGERUD Rome); G. 3. 10-11: primus ego in patriam mecum, modo vita supersit/Aonio rediens deducam vertice Musas (from Boeotia to his native country); cf. G. 3. 292f. (almost = primus); Horace, Carm. 3. 30. 13-14: Princeps (= Primus) Aeolium carmen ad Italos/ deduxisse modos (from Lesbos to Latin poetry, i.e. Italy). Cf. Ep. 1. 19. 23-24: Parios ego primus iambos/ostendi Latio (from Paros to Latium); somewhat different Prop. 3. 1. 3-4: primus ego ingredior puro de fonte sacerdos/Itala per Graios orgia ferre choros. Cf. Wimmel (1960) 217; Kambylis (1965)159ff. 6. The word silvae functions as a scenic denominator throughout the Bucolics as seen in each of the previous eclogues (11. 5; 2. 5, 31, 60, 62; 3. 46, 57; 4. 3 (bis); 5. 28, 43, 58) as well as in the second half of the collection (66. 2, 39; 7. 65, 68; 8. 56, 58, 97; 10. 8, 52, 63), the ninth eclogue being the only exception. Cf. Schmidt (1972) 243. 7. E.g. Jahn (1915): “denn ich habe meine Unfähigkeit zu epischer Dichtung bald erkannt.” (my italics) Also other defenders of the predicative prima, like Büchner (1959) and Jenkyns (1998), connect v. 3 to 1-2 in the same way. 8. quidam volunt hoc significasse Vergilium, se quidem altiorem de bellis et regibus ante bucolicum carmen elegisse materiam, sed considerata aetatis et ingenii qualitate mutasse consilium et arripuisse opus mollius, quatenus vires suas leviora praeludendo ad altiora narranda praepararet. On such testimonies see, moreover, Cartault (1897) 252–254. 9. The issue was indirectly recognized by L. Herrman, Latomus 11, 1938, 17 when he, among his other transpositions in the Bucolics, pleaded unconvincingly that 1-2 should be put after 3-5. In that way what he believed to be a proper temporal sequence would have been restored for all to see. 10. Schmidt (1972) 248. 11. Pfeiffer (1928) 302-341. 12. Cf. e.g. Holzberger (2006) 31-32. 13. This interpretation is only potential and was probably not intended by the poet: Everybody should have a thyos in store to be offered to a/ his god irrespective of his vocation. Vergil's innovation is to merge the poet and the shepherd into one character in tune with the bucolic genre he is creating. 14. In the light of the above, Vergil's canere reges can be read in two ways - probably as an intentional ambiguity. It will evoke both the βασιλεῖς praised by Theocritus 16 & 17 and those of the Aetiaprologue (v. 3) - the royal heroes of Greek epic and encomia. Transitive canere can be used more or less like Greek ὑμνεῖν or ᾄδειν (= αἰνεῖν, εὐ εἴπειν) (ἄνδρας/ βροτοὺς) to ‘praise men’. But few would call Varus, or for that matter Pollio or Caesar Octavianus, reges; canere reges, especially in combination with proelia, carries a different meaning, viz. to sing in epic fashion of battles which Roman generals fought with foreign kings. In the case of Varus we have no means to decide whether Vergil is referring to previous (which is the most probable alternative), ongoing or future battles. 15. Cf. Dover (1971) p. xvii f. 16. Illuminating observations on Vergil's relation to Theocritus can be found in Du Quesney (1979). 17. There is another subtler pointer to the same encomiastic poem of Theocritus in the first couplet as shown by Schmidt (1972) 244 ff.: In Hesiod's Theogony Thalia is both Muse (v. 77) and Grace (909), the only one to have this double identity. Tracing the motif of the Graces in combination with the ‘Cynthian’ god, via the statue of the Delian Apollo described by Callimachus fr. 114 and Pindar (paean 12), Schmidt is able to demonstrate (pp. 245-247) that Vergil's Thalia via the Graces point to Theocritus 16 where the Graces personify the encomiastic poem. The title preserved for Theocritus 16, XAPITEΣ HIEPΩN, seems to be one of the relevant links in this connection. Vergil has in all probability made titles for his poems (Vita Donati).“Varus” was the title of the Sixth Eclogue (maybe together with “Silenus”). 18. On this topic see Conte (1992).

122


TO HIS

SIXTH ECLOGUE

19. Vergil. Hirtengedichte. Lateinisch und deutsch [Goldmanns gelbe Tachenbücher], München 1968. 20. See now Cairns (2008). 21. The arguments put forward by the supporters of Asinius Pollio as the addressee of Ecl. 8. 6-13 are in my view entirely convincing. 22. In Goold's translation: “Unbidden strains I sing not.” 23. One can make a test in one's own mother tongue or for that matter in English: Unbidden strings I sing not can equally well be understood as: I do not sing strings that somebody/some people have asked for. 24. Iniussus, ‘without order’, can in itself be understood in Vergil's two other examples of the word as 1) as a transgression of a ban (e.g. A. 6. 6. 375 ripam … iniussus adibis) or as something spontaneous (G. 1. 55f. iniussa virescunt/gramina). 25. On this form see Szantyr p. 778. A more thorough study of litotes in Vergil seems to be lacking. 26. As J. Wackernagel, Vorlesungen über Syntax II, Basel 1924, p. 297 pointed out: Tibullus and Propertius use affirmative phrases in similar statements: vera cano Tib. 2. 5. 63; cf. [Tib.] 3. 2. 7; 3. 4. 77); certa loquor Prop. 3. 13. 61. 27. This dominance of the Muses and especially Apollo as the higher authority behind Vergil's Bucolics does not of course exclude that Vergil was writing according to a sort of assignment given him by Asinius Pollio; cf. Ecl. 3. 84. But Pollio as agent for non iniussa would impair the unity of the introduction. 28. Numerus in another sense than it had in v. 27! 29. Skutsch (1969, 163) had said: “only a negatived cano explains the following tamen.” 30. A.E. Housman (with E. Courtney) has pointed to a similar elliptical use of tamen in poetry, on the basis of Juvenal's facinus tamen ipsa peregi (6. 640 “one wouldn't have expected me to do such a thing”), adducing Ov. Fast. 2. 312; Met. 1. 556.

Selected references Breed, B. W. (2006) Pastoral Inscriptions. Reading and Writing Virgil's Eclogues. London. Büchner, K. (1959) P. Vergilius Maro. Der Dichter der Römer, Stuttgart [Sonderdruck aus PaulyWissowa, Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft]. Cairns, F. (2008) “C. Asinius Pollio and the Eclogues”, PCPS 54: 49–76. Cartault, A. (1897) Étude sur les Bucoliques de Virgile. Paris. Clausen, W. (ed.) (1994) Virgil. Eclogues. Oxford. Coleman, R. (ed.) (1977) Vergil. Eclogues. Cambridge. Conte, G. Biagio (1992) “Proems in the middle”, Yale Classical Studies 29. Dover, K. (ed.) (1971) Theocritus. Select poems. Basingstoke and London. Du Quesnay, I.M. Le M. (1979) “From Polyphemus to Corydon. Virgil, Eclogue 2 and the Idylls of Theocritus”, in: D. West and T. Woodman, Creative Imitation and Latin Literature, pp. 35-69+ (notes) 206–221. Cambridge. Holzberger, N. (2006) Vergil. Der Dichter und sein Werk. München. Jenkyns, R. (1998) Virgil's Experience. Nature and Experience: Times, Names, and Places. Oxford. Kambylis, A. (1965) Die Dichterweihe und ihre Symbolik. Heidelberg. Jahn, P. (1915) Ladewig, Th. - Schaper, C. - Deuticke, P. - Jahn, P., Vergils Gedichte. I (Bukolika und Georgika), 9. Aufl., Berlin. Massimilla, G. (ed.) (1996) Callimaco. Aitia. Libri primo e secondo [Bibliotheca di studi antichi 77]. Pisa. Mynors, R. A. B. (1990) Virgil. Georgics. Oxford.

123

EGIL KRAGGERUD Pfeiffer, R. (1928) “Ein neues Altersgedicht des Kallimachos”, Hermes 63: 302–341. Schmidt, E. A. (1972) Poetische Reflexion. Vergils Bukolik. München. Van Sickle, J. B. (2004) The Design of Virgil's Bucolics, London. Skutsch, O. (1969) “Symmetry and Sense in the Eclogues”, HSCPh 73: 153–169. Wimmel, W. (1960) Kallimachos in Rom. Wiesbaden.

124


TEXTUAL ISSUES

IN

HORACE: CARM. 1. 28. 32 EGIL KRAGGERUD

DEPT.

OF


OF

ART

AND

3. 14. 11

AND IDEAS,

The misunderstanding of vices superbae at Carm. 1. 28. 32 has led to complicated interpretations. This article takes superbae as an interesting instance of enallage adiectivi (approximately = poena superbiae tuae). - At Carm. 3. 14. 11 the author discusses nominatis/ ominatis vs. Bentley's conjecture inominatis (adopted by Shackleton Bailey) which he is decidedly in favour of.

I In the last part of the so-called Archytas ode of Horace (Carm. 1. 28) the speaking persona – a drowned, unburied man – addresses an imagined passer-by, an anonymous nauta, entreating him to throw a handful of dust on his human remains and threatening him with serious consequences in case he should fail to do so (30-34): neglegis immeritis nocituram postmodo te natis fraudem committere? fors et debita iura vicesque superbae

30

te maneant ipsum. precibus non linquar inultis, teque piacula nulla resolvent. Text: Shackleton Bailey, 4th ed. 2001.

As to fors et (31), the instances of this combination in Augustan authors should in my view be corrected to forsit; as suspected by some scholars already it has nothing to do with adverbial et (=“even”).1 But vices superbae as well is more of a problem than acknowledged by commentators in general.2 Rendered as “haughty/ high-handed retribution”3 (or somewhat more positively: “proud retribution”) it complicates the threat unnecessarily, the result being that it is taken to express a measure for measure principle somewhat along the following line of thought: if the anonymous passer-by – called nauta in line 22 – should fail to fullfill his religious obligation towards the dead man, he will one day risk suffering the same fate himself, that is not only to be drowned and washed ashore as a forlorn corpse, but in addition to experience himself a repetition of the situation, that another passer-by, showing DOI: 10.1080/00397679.2010.501217

125

EGIL KRAGGERUD the same haughtiness, will refuse him that handful of dust that can make his soul come to rest. In short: haughtiness will be met with haughtiness. Nisbet and Hubbard (1970) seem to read the line in this way: “i.e. because of his own high-handed behaviour the nauta may meet with the same treatment.” Similarly Quinn (1970) expounding his own rendering “suffer arrogance in your turn” says: “the possibility that he may in his turn be left unburied is, therefore, put forward as more likely to give him pause.” But Horace does not say that arrogance shown in return for the possible arrogance of the nauta is a principal element in the punishment nor does context suggest that just retribution needs to be seen as death by drowning. So harsh a retribution would for the rest be most unjust as the passer-by has not caused the man's miserable death or in other ways maltreated him, like e.g. at A.P. 7. 268 where a shipwrecked man has been stripped of his cloak and wishes the perpetrator to go to Hades wearing the stolen rag. A common prayer in epigrams was that a guilty man should experience himself what he has made others suffer: A.P. 7. 310; 7. 359; 7. 516. The rather obvious solution is to take superbae as an instance of transferred adjective. The typical enallage adiectivi is the case where an adjective which normally would have been in the genitive has been transferred instead to the governing noun4 like Vergil A. 8. 183 perpetui tergo bovis. To understand better our case one should look at the cases where the adjective is transferred from the subject or agens to some action originating from the subject like Carm. 1. 3. 38-40 neque/ per nostrum patimur scelus/ iracunda Iovem ponere fulmina: i.e. Jupiter brandishes lightnings in his wrath.5 Some cases are not seldom misunderstood or wrongly emended, e.g. Carm. 1. 37. 6ff. (where Shackleton Bailey is on the wrong track!) dum Capitolio/ regina dementis ruinas/ funus et imperio parabat “when the queen … was planning mad ruin for the Capitol and death for the empire”; dementis has been transferred from regina to ruinas, the point being that the queen was mad when she etc.; in prose this could have been expressed: “in her madness”. A more advanced case is Carm. 3. 4. 6 audire et videor pios/ errare per lucos, where pios has been transferred from the dwellers implied to their dwellings (cf. OLDs.v. pius 1 b)6 like Vergil's lugentes campi (= lugentium campi) A. 6. 441. Another example of the same kind is Carm. 1. 12. 59f. Tu parum castis inimica mittes/ fulmina lucis. (“You will send down your angry lightning on the groves of the impure” West, D. 1997). As can easily be seen there is a double enallage here: in your hostility (inimicus pred.) you will send lightnings on the groves of the impure (f.i.q. incestorum lucis). In vices superbae te maneant ipsum the adjective is not transferred from the gods (not mentioned, but implicit as the more or less obvious avengers of injustice), but from the (potentially) guilty person making retribution a likely event to be expected, i.e. “retribution will overtake you because of your arrogance.” The case is similar to the pseudo-Vergilian sceleratas sumere poenas (A. 2. 576)7, 126

TEXTUAL ISSUES

IN

HORACE: CARM. 1. 28. 32

AND

3. 14. 11

where the adjective is equivalent to an objective genitive going with poenae. The same meaning could have been expressed by poenas sceleris/ scelerum eius (i.e. Helenae) or sceleratae (sc. feminae) poenas.

II …vos, o pueri et puellae non virum expertae, male nominatis parcite verbis. (Carm. 3. 14. 10-12) 11 non Bentley : iam codd. inominatis Bentley : nominatis χΨ : ominatis QBl

In the three first stanzas of Carm. 3. 14 Horaces describes the public celebrations on the occasion of Augustus’ return from a long and relatively uneventful Spanish campaign in 24 B.C. The participation of Livia and Octavia marks the occasion as a grand one. The official mustering of girls and boys from the best families to take part and the vittae decorating the mothers are signs that the religious side of it all is on the highest level. The supplices vittae (cf. 8) and the sacrifice (6) to the gods tell of a thanksgiving ceremony rejoicing in the happy return of Augustus and his army. To replace the unsatisfactory manuscript readings (male nominatis/ male ominatis) conjectures have been numerous8, but only Bentley's male inominatis is worthy of serious discussion. To-day male nominatis is still taken in influential quarters as a ‘calque sémantique’ (see Nisbet and Rudd ad loc. and Nisbet and Hubbard on 1. 27. 9 and 2. 19. 29) based on δυσώνυμος meaning, so it is argued, not only “bearing an unlucky name”, “unmentionable”, but also “of ill omen”. But even assuming that δυσώνυμα ρήματα were a familiar combination with the latter meaning in Greek (which I doubt) it is inescapable that nominata verba is a “unerhörte Verbindung” (Kiessling – Heinze). It is strange to see Nisbet and Rudd (2004 on the suggestion of J. G. F. Powell) adducing verba nuncupare as a possible source of inspiration for verba nominare without seeing that nuncupatis would have been a much better word to use. If on the other hand, nuncupatis had been what Horace wrote here, I do not see how it could end up with nominatis/ominatis. Bentley's palmary emendation inominatis verbis has won far too little recognition in view of its eminence.9 In the last hundred years only Shackleton Bailey has adopted it.10 It is especially disapointing that it is not approved by the authoritative voices of Nisbet – Rudd (Oxf.) and by Rudd in his recent Loeb-edition. Williams 1969 tried, in vain in my view, to discredit this conjecture in his commentary.11 Inominatus is coined after inauspicatus (see TLL VII 1, 842, 27-42)12 Auspicium all but converges with omen in some uses (cf. auspicium OLD s. v. 5 and omen OLD s.v. 1 d and 2 a). For two reasons inominatus is secondary to 127

EGIL KRAGGERUD inauspicatus: 1) it is only recorded by the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae with one example from Horace13 whereas inauspicatus/ non auspicatus is known both from Horace (Carm. 3. 6. 9-10 Iam bis Monaeses et Pacori manus/ inauspicatos contudit impetus) and other authors14 and 2) an adj. ominatus corresponding to the fairly common auspicatus is also rare. Epod. 16.37b-38 mollis et exspes/ inominata perprimat cubilia is rendered well by West, D. (1997): “The weak and hopeless/ let them stay and burden their doomed beds.” Referring to the first part of this article I consider this as a rather obvious case of enallage adiectivi: it is the indocilis grex which is inominatus, “ill-omened”, “doomed”.

Notes 1. See my art. “Fors et inVergil, Horace and Propertius”, Eranos 105, 2008 (sub prelo). 2. Bentley ad l. had much sympathy for J. Passerat's conjecture vices, superbe, te maneant ipsum. In my view such a vocative would state as a fact what is only a possibility. 3. Kiessling - Heinze's position (“die Vergeltung, die dann ebenso superba, hochmütig abweisend sein wird wie du jetzt, erwartet dich selbst schon, nicht erst deine Kinder”) is hardly different from that of the influential Orellius, J.G. (1843): “Quomodo tu superbe reiicis preces meas, aeque in te superba (hybristike, inclemens ac non sine contemptu te puniens) erit etiam vindicta divina.” 4. A collection of the more obvious examples can be found in Bo. D. (1960), p. 134. A similar rather superficial collection was made by A. Engel, De Quinti Horatii Flacci sermone metro accommodato, [Diss.] Vratislaviae 1914, p. 39-40. A modern treatment of adjectives in Latin poetry is a great desideratum. 5. Cf. Carm. 1. 12. 59f. tu parum castis inimica mittes/fulmina lucis, where inimica has been transferred from the pronoun tu, meaning approximately: “As a sign of your enmity etc.”; cf. Epod. 3. 1 Parentis olim si quis impia manu/senile. 6. an effect recently ruined by G. Giardina by his conjecture nigros in stead of pios: “Restauri oraziani. Emendamenti al testo delle Odi di Orazio”, MH 66, 2009, 26f. 7. On which see now N. Horsfall, Virgil, Aeneid 2 [Mnemosyne. Suppl. Vol. 299], Leiden Boston, p. 576 with further references. 8. W. Nötzel, “Zu Horaz c. III. 14”, RhM 101, 1958, 285-287 (male in omen aptis); J. Delz, “Glossen im Horaztext?”, MH 30, 1973, 53-54 (ab inominatis). 9. Among older editions only Meineke (Q. Horatius Flaccus, Berlin 1854) and L. Müller in his Teubner-ed. 1901 seem to have accepted Bentley's emendation. Wickham - Garrod (1906) were rather favourable in their app. crit. Locus vix sanabilis was the verdict of Borzsák (1984). 10. As he nowhere has any comments on this issue to my knowledge, he has evidently nothing to add or detract from Bentley's arguments. 11. Williams says a) that Bentley's strongest parallell Epod. 16. 38 inominata perpremat cubilia does not mean “ill-omened”, but “un-omened” which is quite unconvincing, and b) that intensive male is quite inappropriate because it is not used with negative adjectives. This is patently wrong in view of Horace's own male dispari at Carm. 1. 17. 25 and the examples collected by Nisbet - Hubbard in their note on 1. 9. 24. 12. Probably by Horace himself, cf. Kiessling - Heinze on S. 1. 3. 3.

128

TEXTUAL ISSUES

IN

HORACE: CARM. 1. 28. 32

AND

3. 14. 11

13. But H.Y. McCulloch, “The Ill-omened Murder of Piso (Tac. Hist. 1, 43)”, Hermes 110, 1982, 380384 has in my view convincingly restored it also at Tac. Hist. 1. 43. 2. His argument for inominatus at Carm. 3. 14. 11 should be carefully considered (art. cit. p. 382). 14. See TLL VII, 842, 27ff.

Select references Bo, D. (1960) Q. Horati Flacci opera. Vol. III. De Horati poetico eloquio [Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum Paravianum]. Torino. Horsfall, N. (2008) Virgil, Aeneid 2. A Commentary [Mnemosyne. Suppl. 299]. Leiden-Boston. Kiessling, A. and R. Heinze (1960) Q. Horatius Flaccus. Oden und Epoden, 10. Aufl. Dublin/ Zürich. Nisbet, R.G.M. and M. Hubbard (1970) A Commentary on Horace: Odes. Book I. Oxford. Nisbet, R.G.M. and M. Hubbard (1978) A Commentary on Horace: Odes. Book II. Oxford. Nisbet, R.G.M. and N. Rudd (2004) A Commentary on Horace: Odes. Book III. Oxford. Quinn, K. (1980) Horace. The Odes. London. Orellius, J.C. (1843) Q. Horatius Flaccus, I. Londini - Amstelodami. Rudd, N. (2004) Horace. Odes and Epodes. [Loeb Classical Library]. Cambridge: Mass. Shackleton, B. (2001) Horatius. Opera. Ed. quarta [Bibl. Teubneriana]. Monachii et Lipsiae. West, D. (1997) The Complete Odes and Epodes [The World's Classics]. Oxford - New York. Williams, G. (1969) The Third Book of Horace's Odes. Oxford.

129


FROM ‘OXFORD REDS’ (1964) TO HORSFALL (2008): THE TEXT OF AENEID 2 EGIL KRAGGERUD

DEPT.

OF


OF

ART

AND IDEAS,

The author of this article brings an assessment of some contested textual issues in Aeneid 2 from Austin to Horsfall actualized by the recent appearance of the latter's huge commentary (2008). He finds that Horsfall rightly favours ardere (347 versus audere in Austin), audentem (349 vs. audendi), portare (778 vs. asportare), whereas the comma after relicti (454) and the preference of auxilium (691 vs. augurium) are unconvincing. The issue of comma/ no comma between vices and Danaum (433), videt vs. vident (485) and ex agmine vs. examine (726) are also critically assessed, likewise the problematic forms parent (121), fors et (139) and the warrior names Epy- vs. Iphi-tus (340). In the last paragraph Horsfall's treatment of the Helen Episode (567-588) is dealt with.

Nicholas Horsfall's (= H.) commentary on Vergil's Aeneid 2 appeared at the end of 2008 as his fourth major commentary on separate books of the Aeneid – after Book 7 (2000), 11 (2003) and 3 (2006). By now H. has published about 2200 pages of commentary on a third of the epic. His display of learning is even more breathtaking than the sheer size of it all. With Franz Bömer (on Ovid's Fasti and Metamorphoses) and Stephen Oakley (on Livy's second pentad) H. has become one of our generation's most productive commentators on Augustan literature. The last commentary of scholarly merit on the Second Aeneid to appear was published in 1964 by Roland Austin. That commentary was and is one of the most cherished editions among the so-called Oxford Reds.1 Now, almost half a century later when a much larger edition of the same Aeneid 2 has been published by a scholar as merited as Horsfall, it is tempting to ask: Which particular advances in the text itself are there to be recorded? To restrict a comparison of commentaries to this aspect is certainly not to signal that other qualities are more negligible and should not be taken into account. On the contrary, it is easy to see that a comparison on a broader basis could give rise to interesting and fundamental debates on commentaries' form, function and not least relation to focus groups. But with my preferred perspective, indicated in the article's heading, I will let my syncrisis boil down to a comparison between the texts each of the two eminent Vergilians has ended up with. In short: To what extent have we got a better, more convincing text with H.'s edition? The last DOI: 10.1080/00397679.2010.501219

130

FROM ‘OXFORD REDS’ (1964)

TO

HORSFALL (2008)

one has undoubtedly, as always, the advantage of standing on his predecessors' shoulders spotting their inadequacies and misunderstandings. This is exactly what characterizes H. as a commentator. Ever so often he is playing the role of an arbiter who is keen on deciding age-long issues (as he himself seems to acknowledge when he describes the genesis of his commentary, p. xxxii). Textual issues are of course less important in a poet like Vergil than if we were to compare e.g. Eric Barber's Propertius (Bibl. Oxon. 1953) with Stephen Heyworth's (in the same series 2007) or Roger Mynors' Catullus (Oxf. 1960) with the text John Trappes-Lomax is now voting for (Catullus. A Textual Reappraisal, Swansea 2007). On the basis of the most serious editions of the Aeneid from the past fifty years I have noted 17-18 issues that are more or less worth discussing in the Second Aeneid. We find differences of text and interpretation not only concerning the choice of manuscript readings, but also about punctuation with consequences for the interpretation. I have tried to tabulate these differences synoptically in the following:

114 129 340 347 349 350 392 433 454 455 462 485 645 691 699 727 739 771 778

Austin 1964

Mynors 1969

Williams 1972

Geymonat 1973/22008

scitatum rumpit Epytus audere audendi certa sequi Androgei vices Danaum Priami, postesque a tergo, Achaica vident manu augurium tollit ex agmine lassa ruenti c. h. asportare

scitatum rumpit Epytus ardere audentem certa sequi Androgei vices, Danaum Priami, postesque a tergo, Achaica vident manu auxilium tollit examine lapsa ruenti c. h. portare

scitantem rumpit Epytus audere audendi certa sequi Androgeo vices Danaum Priami, postesque a tergo, Achaica vident manu augurium tollit ex agmine lassa ruenti c. h. asportare

scitantem rupit Epytus audere audendi/audentem certast, qui/certa sequi Androgei vices Danaum Priami postesque a tergo, Achaia videt manum auxilium tollere exagmine/ex agmine lapsa/lassa furenti c. h. portare

Perret 1977 114 129 340

scitatum rumpit Epytus

Paratore 1978 scitantem rumpit Iphitus

Goold 1999 scitatum rumpit Epytus

Horsfall 2008 scitatum rumpit Iphitus (Continued)

131

EGIL KRAGGERUD Continued 347 349 350 392 433 454 455 462 485 645 691 699 727 739 771 778

Perret 1977

Paratore 1978

Goold 1999

Horsfall 2008

ardere audendi certa sequi Androgei vices, Danaum Priami, postesque a tergo, Achaica vident manu auxilium tollit ex agmine lassa furenti c. h. portare

audere audentem certa sequi Androgei vices, Danaum Priami postesque a tergo, Achaica vident manu augurium tollit ex agmine lassa furenti c. h. portare

audere audentem certa sequi Androgei vices, Danaum Priami postesque a tergo, Achaica vident manu auxilium tollit examine lassa furenti c. h. portare

ardere audentem certa sequi Androgei vices Danaum Priami postesque ,a tergo Achaica videt manu auxilium tollit ex agmine lassa ruenti c. h. portare

(As can be seen, 433 and 454f. concern punctuation.) To start from Austin, H. has a different text from him in the following cases: 340, 347, 349, 455, 485, 691, 778, that is altogether 7 divergences of some importance. (In addition they have differing views on the so-called Helen Episode which is known as the greatest critical issue in the whole epic, see below). As can be seen from my lists: With Mynors' text H. is at odds in 7 cases (340, 433, 454, 455, 485, 727, 739), with Goold's in 6 (340, 433, 455, 485, 727, 771) and with Geymonat's revised text in 4 (114, 340, 455, 771). Focussing on Austin, the only real full-blown commentator among my chosen critics, I have divided the discussion in the following into three main groups of issues: I) Is H. right in all 7 cases against Austin? Or are there cases where one would still side with Austin? II) Are there cases where both of them have missed the truth? III) Are there cases where all modern texts can be improved? In this type of textual debates there are of course not always riveted answers. As to I), I find Austin more persuasive than H. in two or three cases. As regards II) both of them seem to miss the mark in two important cases. And apropos of III), I believe that a better text is within reach for future editors in three cases not commonly recognized as deficient to-day. 132


TO

HORSFALL (2008)

On I: I consider H. to be right vis-à-vis Austin at 347 quos ubi confertos ardere in proelia vidi

H. follows Mynors who adopted Johann Friedrich Gronovius' conjecture (instead of audere found in the mss.); Gronovius launched this conjecture in his edition of Seneca's Hercules furens (Lugduni Batav. 1661), p. 59. It was also accepted by Perret. Ardere is supported by A. 12.71 ardet in arma. 349-350 … si vobis audentem extrema cupido certa sequi

H.'s long note is altogether convincing, not least with regard to the syntactical construction resulting from it; audentem can also be found in Mynors, Goold and Geymonat's revised edition. In the following case I fear that H. is in the wrong, however: Note that H. is alone in having a comma after relicti: 453-456 Limen erat caecaeque fores et pervius usus tectorum inter se Priami postesque relicti, a tergo infelix qua se, dum regna manebant, saepius Andromache ferre incomitata solebat ad soceros etc.

H. translates: “There was a doorway, and an entrance, unseen, and a passage through Priam's palace, from one end to the other and a neglected door: so, from the back, poor Andromache, while the kingdom stood (455) used to go, regularly and without a suite, to her parentsin-law …”.

On a tergo H. comments (p. 351): “These words present a difficulty, generally ignored in the comms. Here clearly TCD [i.e. Tiberius Claudius Donatus], James Henry, and many comms. can hardly be right with the claim that the words are to be taken with all the architectural details of 453f.; they do not explain how eye and mind can pass back beyond relicti to what went before. The issue is simpler, and bears on punctuation: are we to understand a tergo as run on, to be understood with relicti, or as introducing a new line of thought, and taken with se… ferre… solebat? The reader who reaches relicti, at v.end will naturally enough assume that the phrase is complete: of course adverbs are often enough postponed (Marouzeau, L'ordre des mots 3, 20ff. […]), and run on too (cf. strikingly nequiquam 8.232): that, however, occurs in cases of particular effect and pathos, which clearly does not apply here to ‘at the back’. Should we not then rather

133

EGIL KRAGGERUD remove the comma at Priami, remove the unnecessary emphasis given to postes, sacrifice the enjambement, and begin anew ‘[it was thus] from the rear that Andromache…’? Paradox, pathos, discretion in Hector's wife using the back entrance, which is here given modest prominence.”

I agree with H.'s first decision, to delete the comma after Priami, which is found in both Geymonat and Goold; cf. moreover Janell (1930), Sabbadini - Castiglioni (1944), Götte (1958); a comma here is confusing: Vergil has four expressions all describing one and the same place, a secret door that can be used from Hector's part of the palace to Priam's, a passage well suited for incognito visits. This door is now, during the chaotic assault, “neglected” (“overlooked”), by the enemies, that is. - Vergil has a tergo 8 times (3 in the Georgics, 5 in the Aeneid). However, a tergo is used in enjambement (“run on”) at A. 1. 185 f. (hos armenta sequuntur/a tergo), but without “particular effect and pathos” (which is exactly what H. invokes as argument against the traditional punctuation!). In such a paratactical series of nouns + adjectives (caecae)/participle (relicti) as seen in our two lines 453-4, the reader/listener will have no problems in taking an adverb next to one of the expressions as belonging to all. This gives excellent sense in our case as well. All three of the nouns in the ecphrasis - limen, fores and pervius usus - refer to the same entrance and a tergo will accordingly be taken with the whole preceding ecphrasis. A more decisive argument against H.'s idea, however, is this: H. offers no comment on the tortuous word order arising from his syntax where the late relative pronoun complicates it all. In his reading one will be led to understand it as *qua infelix Andromache saepius a tergo incomitata se ferre solebat ad soceros. But the combination a tergo … se ferre (which then would be the only possible one, cf. the combination a tergo sequi A. 1. 185 f.) makes us think of a preceding person followed by one or more other persons, an idea ruled out here. At 485 I accept armatosque videt stantis in limine primo though I cannot deny having had some doubts from time to time. Thanks to Geymonat videt was vindicated from a close scrutiny of the 5th century palimpsest V (Veronensis). V had admittedly been examined by Ribbeck, but not diligently enough; videt had also been recorded in some mss. of Servius; cf. Geymonat (1965, 88-89). Geymonat introduced this reading in his own edition 1973. But until H.'s acceptance of it2 videt had been ignored by other editors. H. defends the singular (with Pyrrhus/Neoptolemus as subj.) whereby armatos … in limine primo will refer to the Trojan guards protecting the palace of Priam. A factor in favour of this reading might be the fact that previous commentators were 134


TO

HORSFALL (2008)

divided concerning pl. vident: the subject could in principle be either “the Greeks”, “the Trojans” or the “veterum penetralia regum”. On the other hand one might argue that it is difficult reconcile videt, and the change of subject, with the narrative flow from 483 to 490 (cf. L.M. Fosse, “A note on the interpretation of Vergil's Aen. II 485”, SO 49, 1973, 93-96). But on the whole I would accept videt on the understanding that apparet is approximately apparet <ergo ei (sc. Pyrrho) > : His perspective is dominant. H.'s comment is excellent: “Aen. as narrator here briefly steps aside and the reader looks through the hole at Neopt.'s side into the heart of the palace.” (p. 371). As a consequence of the hole created the interior of Priam's palace is revealed to this mighty foe for the first time. A strong argument in favour of videt is armatos … stantis in limine primo which is quite convincing when applied to the guards appearing on the inside, but much less appropriate in the case of Pyrrhus and his men. The best typographical solution to show that -que (485) connects dedit (482) and videt is to print the text in this way:

485

… ingentem lato dedit ore fenestram - apparet domus intus et atria longa patescunt, apparent Priami et veterum penetralia regum armatosque videt stantis in limine primo.

In my view Austin has scored a winning point concerning one of the most important textual issues in the Second Book: At 691 H. has (with Geymonat, Goold, Perret and Mynors): da deinde auxilium, pater, atque haec omina firma.

Austin (followed by Williams and Paratore): da deinde augurium, pater, atque haec omina firma.

Auxilium is supported by FMPV; augurium is found for the first time in the socalled Probus commentary on Bucolica 6. 31 (Thilo - Hagen Serv. Gramm. (1887) III p. 336, 15). H. observes, correctly, that auxilium dare (not elsewhere in Vergil) is Latin just as good as augurium dare (which Vergil has himself, however, not only at A. 3. 89, but also at 12. 394). To justify his choice H. says: “The Trojans are terrified both by their circumstances and by the flames which gird Iulus' head; naturally, Anch. asks for auxilium, for though the flames are a sign (omina), Anch. is about to ask for confirmation and in a speech so short does not need to do so twice.” (my italics)3

Auxilium at 691 may, however, confuse readers by its lack of precision in as much as Anchises is not asking for “help” in anything like the usual sense: the frail and blind pater familias had long ago abandoned every thought of surviving the fall of his city (637 f.) and is ready to let himself be cut down by the conquerors (645). But owing 135

EGIL KRAGGERUD to the omen on the head of Iulus a sudden change of attitude takes place in the old man (cf. laetus 687): It occurs to him that he is after all not so detested by the gods in general (invisus divis 647) and by Jupiter in particular (648-649) as he had believed shortly before. The three last words in his appeal to Jupiter, haec omina firma, make it clear that auxilium (nota bene, if that had been what Vergil wrote!) would have to be understood as a request for confirmation of the omen surrounding Iulus as a godsent sign.4 Line 703 confirms, from the mouth of Anchises himself, that his prayer has been granted: He is now talking explicitly about an augurium. As auxilium at 691 is imprecise at best, if not misleading, and augurium is clearly the precise notion, the prayer gains by having the proper word initially, that is at 691, where it can exert its full effect. Augurium cannot be discarded as repeating what is said by the second colon haec omina. We are dealing with a typical ‘theme and variation’5-example, very characteristic of Vergil's poetic style: ‘the repetition’ in the paratactic second colon is, as regularly, a variation either explaining or elaborating the preceding notion. Augurium is here an omen asked for in the form of a divine confirmation (according to Servius an augurium impetrativum), but the word augurium has not this sense automatically; it can be used more or less as a synonym of omen. And even more essential for understanding the notion (and for the acceptance of it as the correct reading): all things considered this is an omen about the birth of Rome from the ashes of Troy, a primordial augurium anticipating the augurium of Romulus in advance of the foundation of Rome (cf. Ennius' famous: augusto augurio postquam incluta condita Roma est v. 155 Sk).6 In the light of this the correct terminology is an essential point that can profitably be emphasized by the word firma (sc. haec omina) explaining da … augurium and reiterated as an important term, in the following prayer of thanks addressed to the guardian deities in general (689-691 are addressed to Iuppiter and 702-704 to the di patrii). 778

nec te comitem hinc portare Creusam fas

The line had become metrically deficient by late antiquity. Servius discusses the problems of scansion and their probable solution. Austin follows P and Servius in adopting asportare. The argument against it is the fact that Vergil does not use asportare elsewhere; comitem hinc portare was therefore the choice of Mynors and more recent editors and rightly so (an exception being Williams who chose to follow Austin on this point). Ad II. In one case, 433, H. and Austin have been classified above as in agreement with each other (cf. the synopsis), but the reasons adduced by each of them, are more 136


TO

HORSFALL (2008)

or less unsatisfactory and incompatible. As the issue is an important one and questioned by the supporters of a quite different solution, one may fear that H. has not consolidated his text as much as it in my view deserves. 431-434 are presented in this way by H.: Iliaci cineres et flamma extrema meorum, testor, in occasu uestro nec tela nec ullas uitauisse uices Danaum et - si fata fuissent ut caderem - meruisse manu.

In addition to Austin also Williams and Geymonat understand Danaum with the preceding words.7 Mynors8, Perret, Paratore and Goold, however, have put a comma after vices, taking Danaum with manu as a strongly emphasized hyperbaton and understanding et as an inverted particle. H. translates: “O ashes of Troy, and last pyre of my kin, I call on you to witness that when you fell, I avoided none of the Greeks' weapons, nor the dangers of fighting them, and if my fate had been to die, I deserved to by my actions.” [my italics]

H.'s commentary has mainly this: D. [i.e. Danaum], to be understood with what precedes (infra), created problems of its own (Peerlkamp, Henry), though it may be no more than an accident of survival that leaves us able to cite instances not of vices + proper name/ adj. thereof, as here, but only of vices + pronoun, Cic.Leg.2.48, Fam.4.5.3, 11.19.1, Curt.5.8.15 nec immerito vices eius [sc. Fortunae] exspecto. It seems, therefore, that D. is to be understood primarily with tela, but V. has expanded tela with u. (for this sort of zeugma, cf. LHS, 833); for V.'s use of u., cf. nn. on 3.376, 634. Serv.Dan. glosses ‘pericula’ and Serv.' pugnas', continuing quia per vicissitudinem pugnabatur and citing Sall.Hist.fr.inc.37. Aen. avoided neither the actual fighting (tela) against the Greeks nor the changes and chances (uices; cf. 3.376) of battle against them.

It is not altogether clear to me how H. understands vices. He renders it in the commentary as “changes and chances” (cf. 3. 376 where he translates it with “changes”) and in the translation proper he chooses “dangers” (with reference to Serv. auct.), thus in accordance with Austin's “the hazards of battle” which in its turn is not as clear as one might have wished. At 3. 634 H. renders vices with “turns”. The occurrences of vices in Vergil show that the poet uses the word in different ways, more or less technically9. H. would have acted wisely if he had referred to OLD in the first place; Servius auctus' pericula is not very helpful for a sober appreciation of 2. 433. OLD s.v. uicis 5 gives us without doubt the best semantical heading in our case with the meanings “repayment … requital”; one should preferably add “retribution”, “retaliation” to these terms. In positive contexts vices 137

EGIL KRAGGERUD comes close to “reward”, “remuneration” in sense. Where enmity and hostility are at play, the word must be taken as “revenge”, “punishment”, that is close to ultio or poena. A genitive with such a notion is unproblematic, as its nature is usually borne out by the context, either as subjective or objective. A good example of the latter type is Prop. 1. 13. 10 multarum miseras exiget una vices (“one (girl) will demand unhappy recompense for many” (S.J. Heyworth's translation in: Cynthia. A Companion to the Text of Propertius, Oxford 2007): multarum obj. gen.), a line following upon haec erit illarum contempti poena doloris (“she will be the punishment for the contempt you have shown of the others' pain” (Heyworth): contempti … doloris obj. gen.). H.'s understanding of nec tela … nec vices Danaum as nec tela Danaum nec vices labelling it as a zeugmatic expression is not helpful. Danaum is a possessive genitive to vices. The paratactic combination of a concrete (tela) and an abstract (vices) is not infrequent in poetry. It is more natural to take this as an example of hendiadyoin: Aeneas avows that he has not shunned any retributive action from the Greeks, that is tried (in an unmanly way) to evade their avenging weapons (spears or arrows). In one case, 727, I believe that both Austin and H. have made a bid for the wrong solution: et me, quem dudum non ulla iniecta movebant tela neque adverso glomerati ex agmine Grai

Mynors was the first editor to adopt examine taking the correction of Housman for granted. Housman had launched this idea as his own together with a few selfconfident and disparaging remarks on Conington's comments (1884) in his article “Adversaria orthographica”, CR 5, 1891, 293-296 (= Housman 1972, 175-180). Housman, however, was anticipated by Bährens (1885) in [Fleckeisen's] Jahrbücher 31, p. 401).10 Only Goold (1999) has followed Mynors in this among more recent editors. Geymonat did it admittedly in his own way in 1973 with the orthographical novum “exagmine”, but now, in 2008, he has returned to tradition with “ex agmine”. H. has chosen to defend the traditional ex agmine translating: “Greeks massed from some opposing unit”, referring to 7. 703 f. where the same reading is at stake: nec quisquam aeratas acies ex agmine tanto/misceri putet (“Nor would anyone think that their bronze-armoured lines formed out of so mighty a column”). H. tries to prop up “ex agmine” by quoting 6. 310 f. ad terram gurgite ab alto/ … glomerantur aves where, however, I for one would maintain that ab, signifying direction from, is quite different from the partitive ex involved in our case. Moreover, H. asserts that agmen is “column of march”, acies “the line of battle”; misceri, he claims, is very close to glomerari in sense. I have no objection to this per se, but what is possible in textual criticism, is not always preferable, as shown well enough by this example. In my view the decisive argument, when examine is matched against ex agmine in both Book 2 138


TO

HORSFALL (2008)

and Book 7, is that there is no point in the word agmen: In Book 2 the Greek army has come pouring into the city and overwhelmed it; everywhere groups of Greek soldiers are turning up, but nowhere in regular battle order. In such a situation it is a point of little relevance to talk of a “unit”, viz. an orderly group of soldiers between the army as a whole and a casual smaller group (a *glomeratio militum). Such a notion would imply differentiating between three military entities to be kept apart. The reality is on the contrary the presence of rather unorganized swarms of soldiers characteristic of a nightly fight like the nyctomachia in Troy; the ablative adverso … examine expresses this character of the assault in the best way possible. As to the kind of ablative involved, W. Görler speaks in his EV-article “ablativo” of an ablativo esplicativo as a possible category to put our ablative into. A couple of his examples are good parallels which may help us towards a better understanding: 7. 30-32 fluvio Tiberinus amoeno/ … in mare prorumpit; 3. 28 atro liquuntur sanguine guttae; 1. 164-165 tum silvis scaena coruscis/ desuper horrentique atrum nemus imminet umbra. These ablatives are instrumental as to their origin and can best be categorized as modal (abl. modi) as to their function. A passable rendering in such cases is: “as” or “in the form of”, and accordingly the translation, “the Greeks who had gathered as (in the form of) an opposing swarm”, is my proposal. Ad III. The problem of plural parent at 121 refuses to go away. The captured Sinon discloses in his web of lies to the Trojans that when the Greeks had decided to leave Troy, they were terrified by the winter storms keeping them back and preventing them from departure. In this situation they were compelled to seek advice from Apollo's oracle: suspensi Eurypylum scitatum oracula Phoebi 115 mittimus, isque adytis haec tristia dicta reportat: “sanguine placastis ventos et virgine caesa, cum primum Iliacas, Danai, venistis ad oras: sanguine quaerendi reditus animaque litandum Argolica.” Vulgi quae vox ut venit ad auris, 120 obstipuere animi gelidusque per ima cucurrit ossa tremor, cui fata parent, quem poscat Apollo.

Thus H.'s and others' text. The last sentence (119-121) H. has translated like this: “When this answer reached the army's ears, their spirits were struck dumb and a chill quaking coursed through the depths of their bones: for whom were the oracles making ready and whom did Apollo require?” [my italics] In his commentary H. concentrates particularly on the ellipsis of mortem and adduces some parallels from Latin prose for construing parare without object. But here as well we have 139

EGIL KRAGGERUD an example of a possible answer, i.e. an elliptical construction, that is neither inescapable nor desirable. H. does not mention that the combination fata parare occurs three times in later hexameter poetry (cf. Kraggerud 1996, 109). It means everywhere (with fata as object + a personal dative): “prepare death for somebody”.11 Therefore I venture to claim that if Ovid (cf. Met. 14. 213), Valerius Flaccus (cf. 1. 649) or Statius (cf. Theb. 5. 174) had read the line with plural parent, they would have understood it as: “whom they were preparing death for”. Now there is reason to believe that the three poets mentioned never read the line in this form, but with the verb in the singular as cui fata paret, quem poscat Apollo. This conjecture is necessitated in the first place by the two-stage course that characterises both this (fictitious) and other oracle consultations: The answers given at the oracle seat itself are often more or less elusive. In some cases the answer is in need of interpretation and even ambiguous. In our case the answer has been both terrifying and vague, only clear so far that a human sacrifice is imperative (to overcome the storm preventing the Greeks' homeward voyage). The analogy with the forced delay at Aulis is obvious and moreover highlighted by Sinon. But only the gods' interpreter, the seer Calchas, is entitled to define the oracle in concrete terms and to specify the individual required to serve as the sacrifice to Apollo. Calchas is Apollo's spokesman when the god's recommendation is about to be implemented, a recommendation expressed by means of a gerundive/ gerundium (118): Men (i.e. the Greeks) believe of course that the god's will is operative throughout both stages. Apollo is first claiming an unspecified sacrifice, next somebody is going to correspond to the virgo at Aulis (cf. 116); the question of identity is emphasized by the repeated interrogative pronoun (cui, quem). The first part of line 121 has the same god as agens (but in as much as Sinon is intent on exposing the human rogues behind it all, Calchas is unmasked as a mere instrument in the hands of Ulixes). The line must accordingly be read: cui fata paret, quem poscat Apollo.

And as to the translation I would propose something like: “whom Apollo was preparing death for, whom he required (as sacrifice)”, another clear example of ‘theme and variation’. This originally anonymous conjecture was supported and argued for by Madvig in his Adversaria, but then neglected (cf. my 1996-article “Against the Consensus: Some Problems of Text and Interpretation in Vergil”). All editions print 137-140 in the following way: nec mihi iam patriam antiquam spes ulla videndi, nec dulcis natos exoptatumque parentem, quos illi fors et poenas ob nostra reposcent effugia, et culpam hanc miserorum morte piabunt.

140


TO

HORSFALL (2008)

As I have argued elsewhere (see my art. “Fors et in Vergil, Horace and Propertius”, Eranos 105 forthcoming), the occurrences of fors et (in Vergil at A. 11. 50 as well) show that et is nowhere required in the sense of etiam, and must at best be diagnosed as superfluous here (as already suspected by some commentators on Vergil, among whom H. is one). There are indications in ancient grammarians that the words were often written forset. Thus there is a certain similarity with our problem above under II b (ex agmine versus examine); orthography has in both cases considerable consequences for the interpretation. The variant forset points to an earlier forsit (in fact quite well documented at Horace, S. 1. 6. 49); sit must of course be taken as the potential subjunctive of esse. The phonetic development to be expected for forsit is first forset (inscriptions of the vulgar type have e.g. dedet for dedit). Likewise ‘t’ tends early to disappear at the end of words. Together these phonetic phenomena result in Italian forse. The old explanation of et as the remnant of an old parataxis (“there is a chance and they will claim”) - taken up again by H. - is artificial and superfluous. My conclusion is therefore that fors et in both places in Vergil should be corrected to forsit (and similarly once, probably even twice in Horace, and once in Propertius). c) 339-340: addunt se socios Rhipheus et maximus armis Iphitus, oblati per lunam, Hypanisque Dymasque

When writing Iphitus here H. follows in the steps of Paratore; all other editions have Epytus. The name Iphitus is transmitted above suspicion in line 435: “Given that Rhipheus, Hypanis, Dymas and Coroebus all reappear in the narrative […], the correction here appears to be necessary”, is H.'s argument for bringing Iphitus into line 340 as well. I confess I have still doubts: the warrior in line 340 is maximus armis, i.e. a mighty warrior. The Iphitus of 435 is on the other hand aevo/ iam gravior; from the start he belongs rather to a sort of “dad's army”, and is not by nature at home in a regular unit of defenders. It is tempting to read his name etymologically in the κατ' αντιφρασιν manner: the mighty one is in fact deplorably weak as a fighter. Now Ηπυτος is not attested elsewhere as far as I know. Epytus in Vergil is often supported, however, with a reference to one Epytides12 in Book 5 (v. 547 and 579), a patronymicon that presupposes an *Epytus as his father. But the transmission is not unequivocally for Epytus at 2. 340. For the 123 lines between 314 and 436 we have only two ancient witnesses, M(ediceus) and P(alatinus), but as to the name of our man at 340 only M is at our disposal; P's reading is lost here, though γ, which substitutes it in such cases, has Epytus. M has Aepytus, however. Sabbadini took a fancy to this form, and it is still in Castiglioni's revised edition of Sabbadini from 1944. Αιπυτος is a name belonging to Peloponnesian tradition, both as a name for one of the mythical kings of 141

EGIL KRAGGERUD Arcadia (Pind. Ol. 6. 54; Pausanias 8. 4. 4 & 34. 3) and for one of the youngest sons of Chresphontes and Merope in Messenia. Vergil could have chosen Aepytus because of its etymological associations: “the high one” (from αἰπύς) is suitable for one who is maximus armis.

The Helen Episode (567-588) H. makes a courageous move already by his consistent attitude towards these 22 lines. That much cannot always be said about his forerunners: Austin took the episode as a draft from Vergil's own hand and printed it uniformly with the surrounding text, Mynors marked the lines as spurious13 by means of square brackets, but left them in the text and with the same script as the rest of the text.14 Williams followed Austin devoutly taking the lines as “highly likely Virgilian”. Geymonat, however, printed the lines with smaller characters and square brackets marking them as spurious with a stroke at either end of the text.15 Perret, who with his quotation marks gave them the character of a monologue, keeps them as Vergilian without further warning in the text.16 Paratore printed them just as the surrounding text. Goold,, who already in 1970 had branded them as spurious, had them printed in italics in the text, with the capital letters SERV pointing to their source in the margin. So far I have ascertained that among my chosen editors before H. there were more supporters of the episode as genuine than there were opponents to it (4 to 3). But in a longer perspective the majority becomes a minority. There has accordingly been, as far as editors and commentators are concerned, a certain trend towards a conservative approach in the question in the course of the last fifty years. I am not only praising H. for reaching his conclusion that the episode is not by Vergil in a sober way, but - and in particular - for placing the interpolation in an appendix (pages 553-591, text and translation p. 568-569). He thereby complies with the wish once (in 1975) expressed by this reviewer “that somebody [believing it to be an interpolation that is] would have the courage to ban this episode from the text proper and assign it to its proper place, viz. in the praefatio critica.”17 These lines do not even deserve a place in a good apparatus criticus. To leave interpolations in the text itself should not be in keeping with good editorial practice. Geymonat has in a number of places (in the Second Book in lines 30, 76, 129) left obvious interpolated supplements of Vergil's half-lines (found in some medieval mss.) with square brackets in the text itself. H. is rightly more puristic in this regard. On one important point I am at odds with H.'s analysis. This may in part be due to the fact that H. has defended his position less thoroughly than one should have expected from him. He marks strongly in his main text that there is a longer lacuna after line 566 with his words “desunt multa”. In my view he thereby leaves, 142


TO

HORSFALL (2008)

in a manner of speaking, the key in the door inviting future editors to move in anew with the banished episode. I should have wished that he had given a separate paragraph to this issue in the introductory part (pp. 553-567). What can be seen as his arguments in favour of a relatively considerable lacuna, does not convince me, in particular not his comments on the supposed “stark contradiction” between 560-563 and 596-598. In my view we have here the sort of combination of a human and a divine motivation at play that is so often found in the Homeric epics. Albin Lesky analyzed this whole complex in a thorough and convincing study (Lesky 1961). Lesky displays a keen eye for the varied richness of this complex. The two levels of motivation can be found separately and without interference from the other, but in particular it is interesting to see the different ways they intertwine, not seldom as the most natural thing in the world, although challenging our modern way of thinking. In the Odyssey we can see how Athena time and again represents a kind of divine sanction to decisions and thoughts emanating from the main actors Telemachos, Penelope and Odysseus. Lesky emphasizes that this human and divine interaction does not in the least reduce human responsibility. In an important section (pp. 18-22) he reminds us that there was an ancient exegesis of Homer close to a philosophical approach to the problems caused by the gods' participation in our actions, however much the philosophers themselves favoured the human side of it all. The passage from line 559 to 632 (minus the Helen Episode) deals with the change in Aeneas from a warrior totally absorbed in the fight for his city to a human being feeling responsibility for the safety and survival of his nearest family. This change is highlighted by combining human and divine motivation. Aeneas has reached the nadir of his heroic career. He has been reduced to a passive observer of Priam's death (526-558), but gradually he awakes to the feeling of his responsibility for his family and their rescue. The sight of Priam's miserable corpse evokes an image (imago) in him of his own father, his own wife and his only child (560-563). These images are, according to Lesky's Stoic parallels (cf. art.cit. 18-22) φαντασίαι in need of a συγκατάθεσις (adsensio). The stage of assent is in Vergil “episized” as the intervention of his guardian deity Venus (corresponding to Odysseus' Athena). Thanks to Venus the ideas that have been evoked are being transposed to an emotional and rational response and approval. To bring about a resolute attitude in Aeneas with regard to the family Venus uses moral reproach. This is only seemingly a duplication of the previous images, in reality she is turning the images into the ethical factor necessary for bringing about Aeneas' return to his family as a caring son, father and husband in the following: Anchises, Creusa and Iulus are mentioned again as helpless and forsaken persons dependent on him (595-598). The address of Venus to Aeneas is decisive in inducing this total shift in Aeneas. Aeneas acquires the insight that Troy's fall is the result of divine will and the whole process is made visible to him by means of 143

EGIL KRAGGERUD an apocalyptic vision (608-618). Adsensio expresses itself as based on an order from the goddess (iussa, praecepta 607 + 619). As to the lacuna, then, I for one would accordingly have been content with saying something like Aliquid deesse videtur at most. In accordance with what I expressed in 1975 I do not believe in a more substantial lacuna after 566, only a couple of lines at most. If one should find it possible to accept the syntactical construction deseruere …/ …misere and dedere in lines 565-566 as present perfects, the following cum inversum could be defended as acceptable, though of a more unusual kind. * This fourth volume in H.'s series of commentaries on separate books of the Aeneid has not made me more convinced that H.'s way of presenting Vergil's text is the best possible. Instead of an apparatus criticus he uses three capital letters in the margin: T(ext), O (rthography) and P(unctuation) indicating that the commentary has an informative account to offer. In some cases, however, we are left without any signal, e.g. that Peerlkamp and Madvig uttered disbelief in 121 in its transmitted form. An apparatus criticus, even a meagre one like Mynors', is far superior because of its signals and the information passed on to us during the process of reading. An app. crit. would have allowed us to enjoy the privilege of the critical edition, which is to make our own judgments before consulting the judgements of the commentator. But my own discussions and occasional objections concerning only one limited aspect of the present commentary are by no means meant to downplay the general eminence of H.'s work. The overall high quality of this commentary will surely earn high praise and gratitude from all Vergilians. H. displays stupendous polyhistoric knowledge As to the density and richness of detail, H.'s commentary represents a non plus ultra. It has admittedly its price. The commentary makes hard reading. To digest H.'s learning in greater portions in one go is demanding for anyone. If one should want our students to make themselves acquainted with advanced commentaries one should at least have wished the lemmata to be organized in a more pedagogical way, somewhat in the manner of Barrett's magisterial Hippolytus, that is to say that the lemma should start more often with the quintessential point before unleashing its riches of documentation and argument. A general reaction among admirers of Vergil is bound to be a longing for an updated new “Page” to satisfy the needs of the tiro.18

Notes 1. On these see J. Henderson, ‘Oxford Reds’. Classic Commentaries in Latin Classics, London 2006. 2. However, at 419 (stridunt silvae saevitque tridenti/ spumeus atque imo Nereus ciet aequora fundo), H. does not follow Geymonat in adopting Bährens' aque instead of atque - and rightly so.

144


3.

4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9.

10.

TO

HORSFALL (2008)

Bährens had nothing more to say in favour of his proposal than: “sollemnis confusio vocularum atque et aque adest” which is a monstrous exaggeration, not least in the case of Vergil. As against more than 400 occurrences of atque there is only one uncontested instance of aque (G. 4. 347). The line gains moreover from atque being taken as an inverted particle (like 7. 464f.) thus giving more effect to spumeus. The only case I am able to mention in this connection is Ecl. 6. 63 … atque solo proceras erigit alnos where the Guelferbytanus (γ), often with good readings, has aque. I am at a loss how to interpret the italized statement: augurium at 691 cannot mean that the same thing is said twice in the same line (if that is meant): augurium would refer to a sign to come, omina points back to the sign appearing on Iulus' head. If referring, however, to the repetition caused by augurium occurring twice in less than ten lines, “speech” sounds awkward considering that 689-691 and 701-704 come respectively before and after the divine intervention. For further observations on the difference and the function of the repeated notion see the text above. I find no support for such a use of auxilium in Vergil. The term stems from James Henry; see his Aeneidea, Indices (Vol. IV), Meissen 1892, s.v. Theme and Variation (p. 36). Cf. also K. Quinn, Virgil's Aeneid. A Critical Description, London 1968, 423 ff. According to Suet. Aug. 7. 2 the proposal of Munatius Plancus in the senate concerning the honorary nomen ‘Augustus’ (and not ‘Romulus’) on the 16th of January 27 was approved by an overwhelming majority of senators quod loca quoque religiosa et in quibus augurato quid consecratur augusta dicuntur ab auctu vel ab avium gestu gustuve, sicut etiam Ennius docet scribens ‘augusto etc. From places and objects designated as religiosus and consecratus, the term augustus was transferred to a person for the first time. They are supported by G.B. Townend, “Virgil Unpunctuated”, PVS 9, 1969-70, 80 (= Meminisse Iuvabit ed. by F. Robertson, Bristol 1988, 132 f.). Following after, among others, Paldamus (1854), Ribbeck (1860), Ladewig - Schaper (1882), Thilo (1886), Hirtzel (1900), Sabbadini - Castiglioni (1944). Pl. vices is found 6x in the Aeneid, nowhere else in Vergil. Four of the five remaining occurrences are mutually comparable (3. 634; 9. 164; 175; 222). The three occurrences in the 9th Book point to a relatively homogenous military use and its meaning is approximately “turn”, “guard duty” or quite simply “guard” or “watch”. 3. 634 has sortiti vices (‘having assigned our posts by drawing lots”) in a description of the duties assigned among the men of Ulixes before the assault on Polyphemus. Vices does not here signify successive action, i.e. after each other in time (as in the expression “take one's turn” and the examples from the 9th Book), but “posts”, “roles” or “duties” assigned to several men at the same time. (The other example in the 3rd Book is not relevant for illustrating vices in the Second Book: sic fata deum rex/ sortitur volvitque vices, is vertitur ordo: “Thus the king of the gods apportions the lots of destiny and turns its shifts” (3. 375b376) where one will associate the changing seasons in the cycle of time as an analogy to the world of men. Vitare (OLD 1a) vices in the Second Book must be seen together with the first object mentioned, tela: to evade the enemy's shots. “v. 727 nescio cur noluerint scribendo adverso glomerati examine Grai effugere difficultates haud parvas in scriptura tradita ex agmine obvias.” Mynors, however, has found examine in some recentiores at 2.727 and 7.703. Housman, however much he may have despised Professor Bährens’ hypercriticism (see his Manilius-edition I p. xliii), could hardly have been ignorant of his older colleague's grand series of articles (“Emendationes Vergilianae”, altogether 81 pages between 1884 and 1887) published in a journal in the forefront of German textual criticism. Bährens never finished his series which covered only the Books 1-5 of the Aeneid. He died in 1888 barely forty. On Bährens see D.R. Shackleton Bailey's paper (Selected Classical Papers, Ann Arbor 1997, 346-360).

145

EGIL KRAGGERUD 11. For fatum in this sense see TLL VI 359, 22ff.; with parare: ibid. col. 362, 44-46. Cf. also funus parare Horace, Carm. 1. 37. 8. 12. This name was analysed etymologically by me in SO 36, 1960, 3 n. 1; my observation was approved by J.J. O'Hara, True Names, Ann Arbor 1996, p. 162 and by M. Paschalis, Virgil's Aeneid. Semantic Relations and Proper Names, Oxford 1997, 196, n. 67. On Epytus they have nothing to say. 13. To be noticed among earlier editors with the same view are Peerlkamp (1843), Ribbeck (1860), Conington - Nettleship (1884), Janell (1920), Götte (1958), E. & G. Binder (1994). 14. His independence is noteworthy; his predecessor Hirtzel (1900) had declared them to be valde Vergiliani. 15. Sabbadini - Castiglioni had italicized the passage. 16. In this he follows wholly his Budé-predecessor Goelzer (1925). 17. Cf. “Die interpolierte Helenaszene in der Aeneis (II 567-588)”, SO 50, 1975, 105-119. For some doxography see B. Larosa, “La scena di Elena (rassegna critica 1880-2001)”, Filologia Antica e Moderna, 15, No. 29, 2005, 41-65. 18. A new series of of commentaries on the Aeneid published by R. Pullins Company, Newburyport, MA and designed with a view to this category of students has recently reached me. The one on the Second Book by R.T. Ganiban (2008), however, has neither critical apparatus (Page had at least some rudimentary information) or a paragraph on the textual tradition. The text is based on Hirtzel's Oxford-edition (1900), but adopting a number of changes in punctuation and manuscript readings. Except for 771 ( furenti) his readings are often in accordance with Mynors' edition. But in view of the above discussion it is unnecessary to say that I would have preferred paret (121), Priami postesque (454), videt (485), examine (727), ruenti (771) and portare (778).

Selected references Austin, R. (1964) P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos liber secundus with a commentary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Bährens, E. (1885) “[42] Emendationes Vergilianae”, Jahrbücher für classiche Philologie 31: 385–401. Conington, J. and H. Nettleship (1884) The Works of Virgil with a Commentary. Vol. II, 4th ed. London: Whittaker & Co. and George Bell & Sons. EV=Enciclopedia Virgiliana I-V ([1984-1991]) Roma. Geymonat, M. (1965) “Lezioni e varianti virgiliane”, Studi classici e orientali 14: 86–99. Geymonat, M. (1973) P. Vergili Maronis Opera [Corpus scriptorum Latinorum Paravianum]. Torino. Geymonat, M. (2008) P. Vergili Maronis Opera edita anno MCMLXXIII iterum recensuit M.G. [Temi e testi. Reprint 4]. Roma Götte, J. [& M.] (1958) Vergil. Aeneis und die Vergil-Viten. Lateinisch-Deutsch: Heimeran. Goold, G. P. (1970) “Servius and the Helen Episode”, HSPh 74: 101–168. Goold, G.P. (1999) Virgil. Eclogues. Georgics. Aeneid I-VI with an English Translation by H. Rushton Fairclough revised by G.P. G. [Loeb Classical Library 63]. Cambridge, Mass./ London. Housman (1972) The Classical Papers of A.E. Housman collected and edited by J. Diggle, & F.R.D. Goodyear. vol. I 1882–1897. Cambridge. Horsfall, N. (2008) Virgil, Aeneid 2. A Commentary [Mnemosyne. Supplements. Vol. 299]. Leiden/ Boston. Janell, W. (1920) P. Vergili Maronis Aeneis post Ribbeckium tertium recognovit Gualtherus Ianell. Leipzig. Kraggerud, E. (1996) “Against the Consensus: Some Problems of Text and Interpretation”, SO 71: 102–114.

146


TO

HORSFALL (2008)

Lesky, A. (1961) Göttliche und menschliche Motivation im homerischen Epos [Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. Phil.-hist. Klasse], Heidelberg. Mynors, R.A.B. (1969) P. Vergili Maronis Opera [Scriptorum classicorum bibliotheca Oxoniensis], Oxford. Page, T. E. (1894) The Aeneid of Virgil. Books I-VI. London. Paratore, E. (1978) Virgilio. Eneide. Vol. I (Libri I-II) [Scrittori greci e latini. Fondazione Lorenzo Valla/ Mondadori]. Milano Perret, J. (1977) Virgil. Énéide. Livres I-IV [Collection des Universités de France. “Budé]. Paris. Sabbadini R. - Castiglioni, L. (1944) P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos libri XII. Recensuit R.S. Editionem ad exemplum editionis Romanae (MCMXXX) emendatam curavit L.C. Shackleton Bailey, D. R. (1997) Selected Classical Papers. Ann Arbor. Townend, G.B. (1969-70 ) “Virgil Unpunctuated”, PVS 9: 76-86 (= Memeinisse Iuvabit. Ed. by F. Robertson, Bristol 1988, 128-139). Williams, R. D. (1972) The Aeneid of Virgil. Books 1-6. London.

PS: G. B. Conte’s edition came into my hands after this article was finished.

147


QUOTATION ACROSS

MONTAIGNE'S ESSAIS: COMMUNICATION 1 TIME AND CONTEXTS – A CASE STUDY IN

KIRSTI SELLEVOLD

DEPARTMENT

OF

LITERATURE, AREA STUDIES AND EUROPEAN LANGUAGES, UNIVERSITY OF OSLO

Like many of his contemporaries, Montaigne quotes abundantly from classical sources. But unlike most sixteenth-century writers, he does not use his quotations primarily as a source of authority or as rhetorical ornament. He deploys them in such a way as to make his readers take note not only of the quotation itself but also of its original context. He thus engages in a much deeper and more complex dialogue with his sources, one which may be regarded as a form of cross-cultural communication. As such, his quotation practice illustrates a fundamental (but often overlooked) feature of human communication: a great part of the information transmitted through an utterance or a text is communicated implicitly.2

Introduction Quoting from classical authors, especially poets, is standard practice among late sixteenth-century vernacular humanists. By inserting more than 1300 Latin quotations into his Essais, Montaigne certainly follows the practice of his contemporaries. However, as Mary McKinley has shown in her seminal book, Words in a corner. Studies in Montaigne's Latin quotations,3 he does not merely quote the classics in the standard way, as a kind of rhetorical ornament or as a way of giving authority to his own opinions; his quotation practice “is an essential feature of […] the allusive style which relies on the complicity of an intelligent reader”.4 To regard these imported elements in Montaigne's text as a feature of his style might at first seem bold; several of the editions published in the century following Montaigne's death omitted many of the quotations, and even today, when one is more respectful of the original or authentic text, readers of the Essais are liable to ignore the quotations.5 And yet, McKinley's book shows us not only that Montaigne's quotation practice is an important feature of the Essais, but also that it illustrates a fundamental aspect of the reading process. Drawing on Wolfgang Iser's description of the literary text as consisting not only of linguistic content but also of gaps that must be filled in from context supplied by the reader,6 McKinley shows that the reader is free to take an active part in establishing the meaning of Montaigne's quotations; just as in any text, the reader must infer, or “work out” as Iser would say, the meaning of the quotation from a joint consideration of linguistic content and DOI: 10.1080/00397679.2010.501221

148

QUOTATION

IN

MONTAIGNE'S ESSAIS

context. Furthermore, McKinley tacitly takes Iser's perspective, which focuses primarily on the reader, a step further by also taking into account the writer. As her analyses make clear, Montaigne does not intend the reader to take note only of the borrowed lines inserted into the Essais: “[t]he context from which he borrows is often more relevant to his immediate text than the line or lines he actually incorporates” (p. 20). In this way, the quotation “brings with it the echo of the lines left behind” (ibid.).7 Montaigne thus expects his readers either to turn to the text from which the lines were taken or to evoke it from memory, counting on them to have sufficient cultural preparation to be able to make a temporary detour to the original text.8 In other words, he designs his text to be read as a sort of multi-layered communication across time and contexts. While McKinley characterizes this aspect of Montaigne's quotations as a “curious but frequent” (p. 20) practice, I will argue on the contrary that it exploits a fundamental (yet often overlooked) feature of ordinary human communication: a large part of the information transmitted by means of an utterance or a text is communicated implicitly. When Montaigne expects his readers to use their knowledge of both the Latin quotations in the Essais and the context from which they are taken, he is not doing something odd but exploiting a common feature of everyday communication in a highly inventive way. Furthermore, while agreeing with Iser that a literary text consists of gaps that must be filled in by the reader's ability to match the linguistic content with a relevant context, I will argue that such gaps are not particular to literary texts, although probably more salient in them, but an effect of the underspecified character of human communication that may be manifested both in speaking and in writing. Exactly how the reader goes about filling in the gaps will be illustrated in the third section of this paper by means of the relevance theory model of interpretation. Relevance theory focuses almost exclusively on everyday communication, but as it does not distinguish between oral and written modes, it is equally capable of illustrating the point I argued above, namely that Iser's notion of gap is not exclusively applicable to literary texts, but an effect of the underspecified nature of human communication.9 But first let us look at a cluster of thematically and textually connected examples.

1. Quotation and allusive gaps in On vanity Even if one assumes that Montaigne did in fact expect his readers, in general, to consider not only his quotations and their context in the Essais but also their original context, one would still be rather cautious about the idea that he counted on them to embark on such a complicated interpretation process for all of his 1300 quotations. No one would for instance dispute the fact that some of the quotations merely echo the surrounding text;10 it has even been argued that Montaigne 149

KIRSTI SELLEVOLD in many cases simply piles up disparate quotations.11 Given that Mary McKinley reveals a double play on context in a few key passages from famous works of some of Montaigne's favourite poets,12 one might think that this approach is only valid in a limited number of cases where the passages cited come from works that Montaigne knew well and quoted frequently.13 And yet, one should not rule out the possibility that he also staged an interplay of this kind between his text and quotations from less famous works or from works he seldom quoted, or even in cases where quotation merely seems to function as an echo of the surrounding text. We need to study precisely those types of quotations, and that will indeed be one of the objects of this paper. I shall analyse a set of quotations in two passages from On vanity and On physiognomy, chapters 9 and 12 in the third book of the Essais. The first passage contains quotations from Virgil's Eclogues, Ovid's Tristia and Lucan's Pharsalia (or Belli Civilis), whereas in the second the Eclogues and Tristia reappear along with a quotation from Claudian's In Eutropium.14 The passages we shall be looking at involve a special combination of intimacy and distance in that they allude to a historical context which is strikingly contemporary, while the quotations point towards distant or mythical worlds. The immediate context of the first passage arises from the so-called “wars of religion” of late sixteenth-century France and reflects Montaigne's experience as a Catholic living in an area dominated by Protestants. Completely dependent upon his neighbours' goodwill, he manages to avoid hostilities by keeping his house “always open, easily approached and ever ready to welcome all men”.15 At the moment when he writes this, however, the local people had hardened their attitude as a result of the extreme instability of the situation, and Montaigne is displeased that, if he avoids trouble, it is now rather by fortune and cleverness than by fair dealing. He clearly feels trapped in a situation where no laws can protect him, and his only protection against ruin is a personal obligation between him and his neighbours – created by respect for his loyalty and independence – which they pay off by letting him stay alive (but which does not stop them from burning down churches in the vicinity), and to which he is bound for their protection should the situation change. Having furthermore qualities which predispose him towards “a mortal hatred of being beholden to anyone or through anyone but [him]self” (p. 1097), he finds himself in a situation where “[his] own self does not provide adequate security” (p. 1096). As he tells us immediately before the first quotation, Montaigne had to face the constant prospect of sudden death: “I have gone to bed in my own home hundreds of times thinking that I would be betrayed and killed that night” (p. 1098).16 He is also disturbed by the possibility of being dispossessed of his home, but this anxiety is only communicated indirectly, through the voice of the shepherd Meliboeus, one of the protagonists of Virgil's first Eclogue: 150

QUOTATION

IN

MONTAIGNE'S ESSAIS

impius hæc tam culta novalia miles habebit (Virgil, Eclogues, I.70) (Some impious soldier, then, will get these well-farmed lands)

If we now turn to the first Eclogue, we find that in the opening lines we are confronted with a bucolic landscape which has been invaded, contaminated; Meliboeus has had his land confiscated and is about to leave his beloved fields. The lines surrounding the quotation itself make it clear that it is civil war that has brought about Meliboeus' misfortunes: “en quo discordia civis produxit miseros” (“See where strife has brought our unhappy citizens”, 71-2). There is in other words a strong similarity between the context of the quotation and the original context from which the quotation is taken. It will also be recalled that this first Eclogue stages a conversation between Meliboeus and Tityrus, a freed slave who has returned from Rome, where he has been granted land confiscated by the ruler of the city, and who is now cheerfully playing his pipe, exhibiting none of the worries that haunt Meliboeus. Tityrus is an ambiguous figure: on the one hand he appears as Meliboeus' neighbour and friend; on the other he has been granted confiscated land and might thus be seen to represent the “soldier” who Meliboeus fears will take over his land. In that sense Montaigne may have imagined him as the equivalent of his own Protestant neighbours, who in many ways had a status similar to that of Tityrus: they were his allies and friends (some of them even his family), but threatened also to invade him. As we shall see later, Montaigne had good reason to fear that his property, like that of Meliboeus, would fall into the hands of a neighbour. When Montaigne reflects upon the means he has at his disposal to ease the situation (“What remedy is there?”, p. 1098), leaving is not an option, not for the moment at least. What makes him stay is habit: the fact that “[w]e get hardened to anything to which we are accustomed” (ibid.). But he may have had in mind Meliboeus' prospects of exile when choosing the next quotation: Quam miserum porta vitam muroque tueri Vixque suæ tutum viribus esse domus (Ovid, Tristia, IV.i, 69-70)17 (How pitiful it is to need gates and walls to protect your life and scarcely be able to trust in the strength of your own home)

Given that Ovid's Tristia is a cycle of exile poems, not civil war, there is in this case not as strong a similarity between the quotation and the text as in the previous example. But if we look more closely at the opening of Tristia IV, we find that it describes a situation (whether fictional or not) where the poetic persona is in constant fear for his life, exposed as he is to risks of ambush and attacks from neighbouring enemy tribes – in short a situation so close to that of Montaigne's own that it is likely he saw them as similar. In fact, Montaigne may himself have helped to create a greater similarity between the two contexts, 151

KIRSTI SELLEVOLD in that he replaces the last word of the quotation “loci” (place) with “domus” (home),18 which is present both in the passage of the Essais that precedes the quotation (“his own home”) and in the one that follows it (“in the quiet of your own home”). Whether Montaigne here misquotes from memory or deliberately changes Ovid's text remains an open question, but it is quite likely that he domesticates the quotation in order to make it fit his own text.19 Montaigne seems to have constructed this similarity mainly in order to use Ovid's experiences of exile as a model to spell out his own sense of vulnerability. What makes civil war worse than other wars, he says (p. 1098), is that one has to act as a guard in one's own home, and the quotation spells out what this means: having to trust one's safety to gates and walls which hardly provide the protection one needs. But the fact that the gates and walls do not just refer to a place (a locus), as in Ovid's text, but to Montaigne's home, his own private space, also creates an interesting effect of contrast between the two contexts. As we have seen in this chapter, Montaigne had the policy of precisely not using the walls of his château to protect himself, but keeping an open house for whoever wanted to visit. The contrast suggests in fact that if he adopts the practice opposite to the one indicated in the quotation, his fears will not be realized, consequently that his own behaviour might after all provide enough security. Both quotation and text thus describe an overall sense of insecurity from which not even one's own home is exempt, and which may only be kept at bay by Montaigne's personal behaviour. This is subsequently connected to another important aspect of civil war, namely that even intermittent periods of peace fail to provide relief; where Montaigne lives, “peace never shows her full face” (ibid.). This situation prompts the next quotation, in which Montaigne combines a single line, again from Ovid's Tristia, with some lines from Lucan's Pharsalia: Tum quoque cum pax est, trepidant formidine belli. (Ovid, Tristia, III, x.67) quoties pacem fortuna lacessit, Hac iter est bellis. Melius, fortuna, dedisses Orbe sub Eoo sedem, gelidaque sub Arcto, Errantesque domos. (Lucan, Pharsalia, I, 256-257, and 251-253) (Even when there is peace they tremble for fear of war.20 Every time that Fortune strikes at peace, the road to war passes this way.21 O Fortune, you would have been better advised to give us a dwelling-place beneath the eastern sky or in the frozen North, or amid the nomad peoples.)22

The first thing to note is that Montaigne changes the second word, “Romam”, of the Lucan quotation to “pacem”, which both picks up the theme of Montaigne's own text and creates a close connection between the Ovid quotation and the two Lucan fragments. Secondly, he combines in inverted order lines 256-257 with 251-253, thus changing the sense of Lucan's text. Taken from the first book of 152

QUOTATION

IN

MONTAIGNE'S ESSAIS

Pharsalia, where Caesar has just passed the Rubicon (the river separating Gaul from Italy) and is about to wage war on Italy, the quoted lines are part of a speech by the inhabitants of Ariminium, the first village he comes to (247-257). In the speech the inhabitants lament their fate of always being the first to be plundered at the outbreak of war and wish that Fortune had put them anywhere rather than at the border, on the principal route into Italy: every time Fortune strikes at Rome, it means trouble for them. In the Essais, the end of this speech (256-257) is modified, as we have seen, by the substitution of “pacem” for “Romam”. The inversion and juxtaposition of the two fragments also links the “quoties pacem fortuna” segment to the apostrophe to Fortune (251-253). This reworking of Lucan's text is furthermore introduced by the Ovid quotation, which represents exile as a state of constant fear even during peaceful periods. Combining an experience of exile with that of a first encounter with civil war, Montaigne establishes a similarity between these two experiences within the quotations themselves. More striking, however, is that the modifications of the Lucan lines foreground Fortune's impact on peace. In this way, the cluster provides an interesting contrast to its context in the Essais. As we remember, Montaigne listed fortune along with the goodwill of his neighbours as the main reasons for which he has so far escaped danger. The cluster of quotations, by contrast, brings out a radically different image of fortune: rather than providing protection against invasion and war it appears to unleash them. The modification of line 256, furthermore, takes the situation out of its classical and time-bound context and changes it into a general statement: “every time Fortune strikes at peace…”. It may thus seem that here too the quotations function as a place where Montaigne spells out his sense of insecurity and makes explicit what might happen if his fears are realized. This time, however, the contrast between the quotation and its new context does not suggest a way out: it rather serves to undermine his trust in his luck. If indeed this allows Montaigne to express, through Lucan and Ovid, the anxieties he cannot articulate himself, one may ask whether it is the only function of the cluster. I would argue that a consideration of the original contexts of the quotations reveals that Montaigne is concerned with the psychological aspects or consequences of war on a much broader scale. If we go back to the speech (summarized above) in Lucan, we see that the lines that immediately precede the quoted lines 251-253 read “nos praeda furentum primaque castra sumus” (“we are the prey of the invaders' fury and their first stopping-place”), which corresponds exactly to Montaigne's own experience: “The place where I dwell is always the first and the last to be plundered by the strife” (p. 1098). This demonstrates McKinley's point that the borrowed lines bring with them the echo of the lines left behind, and shows that Montaigne takes on the voice of the conquered villagers; he identifies with their experiences and fears and if anything accentuates 153

KIRSTI SELLEVOLD them – his village being not just the first but also the last to suffer the consequences of civil war. Book III.x of Tristia, from which the line quoted from Ovid is taken, likewise voices the fear of the weak and powerless.23 Just as in the previous example, then, the original contexts of the quotations add an important dimension to the passage. We have now seen some of the strategies that Montaigne uses to domesticate his quotations in order to fit them into his own text. Before moving on to the next set of quotations, taken from On physiognomy, let us therefore pause for a moment and view these domesticating strategies in the light of another passage from that same chapter, where Montaigne explains his reasons for and technique of incorporating textual borrowings into his own text. The setting is that of a reply to an imagined reader who judges the Essais to be just a heap of borrowings (“fleurs estrangeres”), and who views Montaigne's role as only to string them together. Montaigne first counters the implied criticism of having furnished only the thread connecting his borrowings by admitting that he borrows, yes, but only to please common taste. The borrowings are however not intended “to cover [him] up or to hide [him]” (p. 1196); that is, he says, “the very reverse of [his] design”: he “only want[s] to show what is [his]” (ibid.). Another reason is that such a practice might serve a pedagogical purpose, “it might be useful to somebody else” (ibid.). Towards the end it also becomes clear that Montaigne in fact quite likes to incorporate textual loans into his own text: “Among so many borrowings I am glad to be able to hide some, to disguise them and twist them to new uses”,24 and that these twists or (as Montaigne specifies in the following) peculiar slants, are performed at the risk of misunderstanding: “At the risk of letting people say that it is because I failed to understand any of the meanings in context, I give that one some peculiar slant with my own hand, so that they may all be less purely and simply someone else's” (p. 1197). The borrowings thus serve not only as a means to please common taste or as pedagogical devices; they also form an important part of the writing process. Montaigne is of course here mainly talking about looser uses of borrowed materials (“emprunts”) such as imitation, paraphrase and translation.25 But the changes we have seen him make to the lines of Ovid and Lucan fit well with the description of a “peculiar slant”. They do not change the status of the quotations, but they do show that Montaigne uses domesticating strategies within the realm of quotation, and that, to some extent at least, he absorbs the quotation into his own voice.

2. Quotation and allusive gaps in On physiognomy Viewed in the larger framework of On vanity, in which Montaigne's taste for travel (developed during his long voyage to Rome in 1580-81) and his reflections 154

QUOTATION

IN

MONTAIGNE'S ESSAIS

on writing are intertwined as examples of the vanities of human nature, the theme of civil war appears as minor, and may be seen as only one of the several arguments that Montaigne puts forward in favour of travelling. But the chapter was written much later than his voyage to Rome (Villey estimates it to have been put together between 1586 and 1588), closer to the time when Montaigne wrote On physiognomy, the chapter to which we will now turn and in which, as we shall see, travelling is represented as a matter not merely of taste but of life and death. This, together with the reality of the experience referred to in the passage from On vanity suggests that the importance of civil war as a strand in that chapter is greater than it might at first seem. In On physiognomy, at all events, it constitutes a major theme: the chapter was written, Montaigne reports, at a time when “civil disturbances for several months” had been “pressing right down on [him] with all their weight” (p. 1178). Like the one in On vanity, the passage we shall be looking at evokes the difficulties of living in an area dominated by Protestants, and especially of keeping to a moderate line. Perceived as an enemy not just by the Protestants, but also, precisely because of where he lives, by those of his own creed, the Catholics, Montaigne is not welcome in either of the camps. No open accusations are made, but he experiences the mistrust and “unspoken suspicions” (p. 1182) of his neighbours. These thematic links between the two passages are given even greater salience by the quotations. Both contain quotations from (differents parts of) the first Eclogue and from Tristia III.x, lines 67 and 65-66, respectively. Only the last quotation in each passage derives from different authors, Lucan and Claudian respectively. The first quotation is embedded in a sentence evoking the long-term consequences of civil war: “The common people suffered then not merely present ravages undique totis usque adeo turbatur agris (Eclogues, I, 11-12) (the whole countryside is thrown into chaos)

but future ones as well” (p. 1181-82).26 Here, too, again in Meliboeus' voice, the quotation spells out what is implied by present and future disruptions. But in this case it seems that the most serious consequences are detailed in the text itself. We note for instance that Montaigne's identification with the people (the weak, the conquered) is made explicit (“They were robbed of everything, even of hope and so, in consequence was I”, ibid.); in the On vanity passage, this identification could only be recovered via the original context of the Lucan quotation. It is also in the text itself that we find the long-term consequences of civil war, namely the loss of hope. The next two quotations form a cluster: Quae nequeunt secum ferre aut abducere perdunt Et cremat insontes turba scelesta casas.27 (Ovid, Tristia, III.x, 65-66)

155

KIRSTI SELLEVOLD (They smash whatever they cannot carry or cart away; the mob of ruffians burn down innocent cottages.) Muris nulla fides, squallent populatibus agri (Claudian, In Eutropium, 255) (There is no safety within city walls: outside, the fields are ravaged)

Together with the first quotation, which is separated from these by only a couple of sentences, they form a powerful image of the horrors of war. We may note for instance that the content of the Claudian quotation is interestingly similar to the quotation from Tristia, IV.i, in the On vanity passage, but it forms a stronger image in that the city walls here provide no protection; in the Ovid quotation the walls at least gave a scant feeling of security. One might think then that although Montaigne spells out more of the consequences of civil war in the text itself, he all the same uses the quotations here again to set up a powerful model for his anxieties, to visualize what might happen if his luck deserted him and his home was invaded. The wider context of the chapter confirms, however, that the horrors referred to in the quotations have mostly already happened to Montaigne. As he relates later in the chapter, he was at this time assailed by a calamity worse than the ones resulting from civil war (but which often accompanies it), namely the plague, that “raged both inside my home and around it” (p. 1186). Leaving then becomes not an option but a necessity, and for several months Montaigne has to be on the move with his family, his house “unprotected, left to anyone who wanted it”. Viewed in this perspective, the quotations appear to be mere echoes of the horrors described in the text. And yet, I would still suggest that their original contexts may help to bring out a contrast between these and the text, one which we have already touched upon in the On vanity passage, namely Montaigne's use of his personal qualities as a protection against invasion. As we remember, Montaigne held an open house for anyone who wanted to visit, not only for the sake of hospitality but also as a way of reducing the risk that his château will be taken over by neighbouring enemies. In On physiognomy he has come around to thinking that, perhaps because of the pressure of the situation (as echoed in the Claudian quotation), it is only himself that he can trust: “In the end I realized that the surest way was to entrust my needs and my person to my self” (p. 1183). That this strategy actually works is confirmed by the two personal anecdotes that Montaigne recounts at the end of the chapter. In the first story, he lets into his château a neighbour, later followed by his henchmen, who claims to be chased by enemies; in the second, he is caught in an ambush. In the first case, Montaigne quickly understands that the claim of being chased by enemies is merely a pretext for the neighbour to get into the château, and that the real reason is to take over the property. But he keeps his openness and 156

QUOTATION

IN

MONTAIGNE'S ESSAIS

hospitality, and this saves him. The neighbour confirms at a later stage that it was indeed Montaigne's “countenance and frank behaviour” (p. 1203) that made him give up his plan. A similar incident is narrated in the second anecdote: here Montaigne escapes after being held captured for several hours, thanks again only to his “countenance […] and freedom and firmness of speech” (p. 1203). This second story in fact provides a very interesting contrast to the quotation from Tristia, IV.i, in our first set of quotations. There, the ambush was only imagined, whereas here it is a real experience. So in this case it is Montaigne who spells out what may happen if his fears are realized. The anecdotes thus show a contrast between the mythical or distant worlds described in both sets of quotations and Montaigne's own. Whereas Meliboeus is dispossessed of his property and has to leave, Lucan's villagers are plundered and Ovid speaks from exile, Montaigne manages to stay at home and keep his property by relying solely on his own resources. But he still speaks from the position of the conquered party; like Meliboeus, he is facing dispossession; like Ovid, he is threatened by intruders and experiences ambush rather than merely fearing it, and so forth. The worlds described in the quotations thus provide models that are similar to, and yet function in contrast with, Montaigne's personal world. They set him, his choices and his judgements, in relief, and, as the two anecdotes have shown, implicitly emphasize his singularity. I think then that one can infer from this play on contexts that Montaigne expected his readers to understand the quotations in the light not only of their new context but also of their original ones, and to construct an interpretation from this multi-layered context. That Montaigne assumed that his readers would be able to recall the substance of the first Eclogue or Tristia III from just one single line is not especially surprising, as these poems were very well known at the time. Just as Montaigne himself was able to evoke the first Eclogue from a single line, he expected his reader to know Virgil and Ovid's texts and to make use of that knowledge. The problem for us, as modern readers, is that while we certainly share some of Montaigne's broad cultural context, there is a great deal of it that we do not share. Unless we read not just the quotations, but also their context, the enriched context that the quotations represent is lost on us.

3. Allusive gaps: instances of cognitive context By means of these analyses, I have tried to show in what ways Montaigne's practice of quotation may be regarded as a feature of his allusive style. As indicated earlier, such a claim must rely on an understanding of the text, more specifically the literary text, as consisting not just of linguistic content but also of gaps which must be filled in by the reader. I further argued that such gaps are not particular to 157

KIRSTI SELLEVOLD literary texts, but an effect of the underspecified character of language. Now let me illustrate this by means of the account that relevance theory proposes of the interpretation process. According to this account, the hearer constructs her interpretation of an utterance not only on the basis of linguistic content but also from contextual factors.28 It is important to note that the notion of context in question here is not something separate from linguistic content, something which comes into play afterwards and (potentially) modifies it; it constitutes one of the premises from which meaning is inferred.29 The reason why context is such an important part of this process is, once again, that language is underspecified or extremely economical. We have no time when speaking, or space when writing, to spell out every tiny detail of what we mean by what we say or write, so we have to leave out a great deal. Any utterance gives rise to a wide range of potential meanings, and the hearer has to combine the linguistic content of the utterance with context, fill in the gaps, in order to be able to infer the intended one.30 Usually in an exchange the speaker and hearer possess enough context that is mutually manifest to communicate successfully,31 that is to say the speaker is able to predict well enough the context his hearer possesses, to know how explicit it is necessary to be, what to leave out and what to leave in, but it is important to note that the speaker expects the hearer to use her contextual knowledge to derive the meaning he intended. Another key aspect of this process is the way the hearer selects the context the speaker intends her to match with the linguistic content. Among all the contexts that may be evoked by an utterance, how does she know how to pick the right one? This is where the principle that has given name to relevance theory comes into play. Simply because we do not have time to consider in detail all the potential contexts available, we tend to go for the most relevant one.32 More specifically, in looking for the intended meaning, we follow a path of least effort, testing contexts against input or linguistic content in order of accessibility. That is, we tend to select contexts that are easy to access in order to match the linguistic input, and stop when we have a conclusion derivable from input and context that satisfies our expectation of relevance. A relevant interpretation would thus be one where the context that has cost us the least and given us the highest benefit (in terms of contextual effects) is matched with linguistic content. This is of course a very rudimentary description, and it is important to note that the context that your mind will most easily access is not necessarily the one the speaker intended you to match with his input. Processing or interpreting an utterance involves coming up not only with a relevant interpretation of it, but with one that is optimally relevant. In other words, understanding communicative acts (be they written or oral) involves perceiving not merely their relevance, but the relevance they have in the context in which they occur, the one that best approximates to the presumed intention of the speaker or writer. 158

QUOTATION

IN

MONTAIGNE'S ESSAIS

Bearing this point in mind, let us now return to our analyses and observe how this might work in practice. Suppose that, in the first set, we do not read the quotations in their original contexts but simply as a continuous part of their new context: what would we then have to say about them? The line from the first Eclogue might well be seen as a sort of concretization of Montaigne's disquiet, using Virgil to spell out what might happen to him, but the following two quotations from the Tristia seem to be little more than echoes of the surrounding text. In the Claudian case, we would however need no more than the lines themselves (as modified by Montaigne) to see that the quotation brings out a different, and more alarming, image of fortune than the one that emerges from the text itself. Staying at this level, then, would surely give a relevant interpretation of the passage. We would see some of the quotations as mere echoes of the surrounding text (thus functioning as ornament), others as making explicit what is only implicit in the text, and others again as creating contrasts between quotation and text. But would this be the only possible interpretation, and was it the particular one that Montaigne had in mind? Our analyses, which attempted also to take into account the original context of the quotations, argued for instance that Montaigne had the ambiguous figure of Tityrus in mind when he described his relations with his Protestant neighbours. Without this reference, we would perhaps not so easily have grasped the gravity of the situation he was in, and consequently the distinctive character of his decision to trust only himself for protection. We also concluded that knowing the speech of the inhabitants of Ariminium in the Lucan quotation allowed us to see not only that Montaigne identified with the fears of the conquered, but also that he intensified them. Thus, without knowledge of the original contexts, we would probably still be able to imagine that Montaigne in the two passages considered uses Virgil, Ovid and the others as models for his disquiet, but without this knowledge I think we would imagine them to be less powerful than Montaigne intended. It is thus perfectly possible to read and interpret the text on both levels. The point, however, is not so much that the text must or can be read on two distinct levels, but that each reader may come up with more or less relevant readings depending on the contextual knowledge she possesses or is willing to acquire, and also on how much effort she is willing to put into the processing of contexts. What is interesting about Montaigne's quotation practice is that it provides a highly concrete and precise illustration of the difference between a simply relevant interpretation and an optimally relevant one. Establishing such a difference, if only for heuristic purposes, may thus in fact be particularly useful in assessing literary communication. In an ordinary everyday situation, say at breakfast where the scope of exchanged information may be limited to simple remarks such as “Slept well?”, “Don't forget your keys”, etc., what is optimally relevant is grasped very quickly without the need for extra processing effort. In literary 159

KIRSTI SELLEVOLD communication, by contrast, it seems legitimate to argue that an optimally relevant interpretation requires far more processing effort.33 In addition, in the case we are looking at here, a massive change has taken place in what may be assumed by writers and readers to be shared knowledge. A thorough grounding in the Latin language and canonic texts of Latin literature would have been common to many of Montaigne's contemporaries; nowadays, of course, very few people have such skills at their disposal. The processing effort required for an optimally relevant interpretation is thus correspondingly larger. In order to counter modern and postmodern relativistic models of reading, therefore, there is much to be said for making the notion of an optimally relevant interpretation a standard heuristic device in the practical and theoretical analysis of literary communication.

Conclusion That Montaigne expected us, his readers, to invest a great deal of processing effort into the interpretation of his quotations and their place in the Essais, much more than would be necessary if they were simply designed to accredit his own opinions or serve as ornament, seems to be clear from our analyses. This does not of course mean that we in all cases have to make a detour to the original context of the quotations in order to appreciate their full value. Yet it is evident that Montaigne not only set up a two-way interaction between contexts in a few passages containing quotations from his favourite poets; he also did so with works he knew less well or quoted less frequently. In the cases we have looked at, the subject-matter and its multi-layered contexts are too personal and painful for the quotations to have a merely secondary function. Our two sets of quotations constitute a powerful poetic model that spells out Montaigne's disquiet and what would have happened if his fears were realized. They also provide a contrast with Montaigne's own conduct which brings out his particular character and unique circumstances. This spelling-out or “expliciting” function of Montaigne's quoting practice has been pointed out by many critics. What has perhaps not been noted before is that Montaigne here exploits a fundamental aspect of communication, namely its capacity to shift or vary the balance between explicit and implicit information: we have infinite ways of spelling out what we want to say, or alternatively leaving enough clues for readers to infer it themselves. The type of cross-cultural communication that this gives rise to is of course not communication in its ordinary everyday sense: it is a kind of heuristic dialogue between Montaigne and his sources, in which the quoted poets constitute both mediators and privileged interlocuteurs,34 and in which the reader is also invited to take part. In relevance theory terms, I would suggest that the difference between a reading of the Essais that quickly passes over the quotations and one that takes full account of them, is the difference between a relevant interpretation and an optimally relevant one. 160

QUOTATION

IN

MONTAIGNE'S ESSAIS

You will get a relevant interpretation if you cast a swift glance at the quotations, but you will get an optimally relevant one if you allow them their full value. This is a cognitive exercise which requires, as we have seen, a major recalculation of the cost-benefit equation that one uses as a reflex in everyday communicative exchanges. Literary communication thus represents, when successful, not a different type of communication from other types, be they oral or written, but an advanced form of verbal communication. A literary text as complex as that of the Essais demands not merely a relevant reading but an optimally relevant reading, and Montaigne's quotation practice is the litmus test that makes this visible.

Notes 1. This article is based upon a paper given at the workshop “Virgil's Eclogues and Georgics, and their reception”, organized by Dr Juan Christian Pellicer and Professor Monika Asztalos at the University of Oslo in November 2007. 2. I wish to express my gratitude to Terence Cave and Kyrre Vatsend, who read with great care earlier drafts of this article and gave valuable advice on crucial aspects of it. 3. Complete references to the works referred to in the notes will be given in the bibliography. 4. P. 36. This characterization of Montaigne's style is quoted in Sayce R. A. 1972: The Essays of Montaigne: A Critical Exploration (Weidenfield and Nicholson), London, 283. 5. See E. Kraggerud, “Montaignes latinske sitater – et utfordrende prosjekt”, especially pp. 28-29. Kraggerud cites the interesting case of André Gide, who himself had a classical training, yet argued that the quotations were superfluous, mere padding that interrupted and confused the argument. Gide's attitude demonstrates, a fortiori as it were, that to include the quotations of the Essais as part of the reading experience is much more of a conscious act for the modern reader that it was for the early modern one. 6. W. Iser, The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. 7. This point is also amply illustrated by Anna Holland's subtle study of a selection of quotations from Horace in the Essais, “Montaigne et Horace”. 8. This assumed competence on the part of the reader is apparent in Montaigne's consistent omission of the quoted author's name, a feature which, however, also points in a different direction: by dispossessing the authors of their texts, he marks his own appropriation of the quotations and their sense (see below, p. [154]). 9. The theory has been applied to the interpretation of both literary texts and of poetry. See J. Moeschler and A. Reboul, Pragmatique du discours. De l'interprétation de l'énoncé à l'interprétation du discours, chapter IV, and A. Pilkington, Poetic Effects. A relevance theory perspective. 10. See McKinley ibid., p. 62. 11. The point is argued in Lino Pertile “Paper and ink: the structure of unpredictability”. Both this and the previous point help to explain why readers might be tempted to ignore the quotations. 12. Horace's Ars poetica, Virgil's Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses. 13. To my knowledge only Anna Holland has seriously worked along the same lines as Mary McKinley (see note 7). 14. The Essais contain 7 quotations from the Eclogues, 18 from Tristia, 38 from Lucan and 12 from Claudianus.

161

KIRSTI SELLEVOLD 15. Michel de Montaigne. The Complete Essays, 1991: translated by M. A. Screech, p. 1092. Unless otherwise stated, all translations of the French text and the Latin quotations are from this version. In a few cases, I have modified Screech's translation of the French or Latin to make the sense clear. 16. III.9, p. 1515. 17. Modern editions read “Quam miserum est porta…”; Montaigne omits the word “est”, but this does not affect the sense. 18. Without access to the edition that Montaigne used it is impossible to check whether this actually is the case, but the critical edition that I have consulted (see bibliography) indicates no variant for “loci”. 19. Montaigne's remark on his own practice of borrowings, “Je tors bien volontiers une bonne sentence pour la coudre sur moy, que je ne tors mon fil pour l'aller querir” (I.26, p. 171), would support such a view. 20. Screech translates “trepidant” as “we tremble”. I have chosen to stick to the Latin text. 21. Translation modified. 22. Screech curiously translates the implied plural “us” as “me”. He also mistranslates the phrase “errantes domos”; the translation has here been adjusted accordingly. 23. It seems in fact interestingly to function as a context for the lines in Lucan where the invaded inhabitants lament that Fortune has not relegated them to the frozen north. Describing a similar climate, III.x gives no garanty for intruders, however; on the contrary, as soon as the “harsh winter” is over, “the barbarian host attack on swift horses” and no one dares to settle for normal activities. 24. My translation: “Parmy tant d'emprunts je suis bien aise d'en pouvoir desrober quelqu'un, les desguisant et difformant à nouveau service” (p. 1055). 25. Although it is not difficult to distinguish these types from quotation proper, which in the Essais appears in italics and (in the case of verse) is indented, they are not a set of distinct categories but comprise a spectrum; see Cave, “Problems of reading in the Essais”, p. 144. According to Compagnon, Montaigne distinguishes systematically between “emprunt” and “allégation” (citation), although without defining properly their difference. Whereas the “allégation” takes the form of a paraphrase in French of the Latin or Greek text, sometimes acknowledged (“Comme disoit Cléanthe…”, Or disoit Epicharmus, …”) sometimes not, the “emprunt” corresponds to a Latin phrase or verse (the verse most often quoted, the phrase paraphrased), inserted without transition and without the name of the author (La Seconde Main, p. 292-293). 26. Translation modified. 27. Modern editions have “hostica flamma” for “turba scelesta”. 28. As is common in relevance theory accounts, the pronoun “he” will in what follows refer to the speaker and “she” to the hearer. 29. Context is in other words a cognitive phenomenon, defined as the set of mentally represented assumptions, the background knowledge, derived from perception, memory and inference, which is brought to bear in processing an utterance. 30. The gap between what is said (linguistic content) and what is meant by what is said (intended meaning) is thus not bridged by further coding, but by inferences, and is essentially defined as the distance or difference between linguistic content and intended meaning. 31. The notion of mutually manifest context does not imply (as does the perhaps more familiar notion of shared context) that speaker and hearer must possess exactly the same context for communication to be possible. All they need is to possess enough shared context to be able to activate it as part of the communicative act. Of course the writer's ability to predict the contexts his readers might possess is different from that of a speaker engaging in spontaneous communication. But any writer must write with an intention that what he writes is relevant to

162

QUOTATION

IN

MONTAIGNE'S ESSAIS

someone. Some books will of course also be more relevant to some readers than to others. See Pilkington, Poetic Effects, p. 82, for a discussion of this. 32. Relevance theory argues more generally that human cognition is geared towards a maximisation of relevance. 33. Pilkington argues for instance that “in poetry reference assignment and disambiguation are often deliberately made problematic, requiring greater processing effort on the part of the reader”, Poetic Effects, p. 77. 34. The notion of “heuristic dialogue” is borrowed from Anna Holland's article “Montaigne et Horace” (p. 68), and refers to Montaigne's dialogue with (textual representations of) the principal classical schools of ethics about the troubles and anxieties that may hinder the soul from reaching ataraxia. But the notion may plausibly be used more generally as an illustration of Montaigne's engagement with his sources. Holland in fact calls Horace a mediator and a privileged interlocuteur.

References Primary sources Clausen, W. (1994 [2003]) A Commentary on Virgil. Eclogues. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Virgil, Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid I-VI (2006 [1916]) With an English translation by H. Rushton Fairclough, Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Claudian I. (1963 [1922]) In two volumes with an English translation by M. Platnauer, Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Hall, J. B. (1995) P. Ovidi Nasonis Tristia, B. G. Teubner. Stuttgart und Leipzig. Housman, A. E. (1927) M. Annaei Lucani, Belli Civilis, Libri Decem. Oxford: Blackwell. Villey-Saulnier, P. (ed.) (1965 [1988]) Montaigne. Les Essais. Presses Universitaires de France. Michel de Montaigne. The Complete Essays (1991) translated by M. A. Screech. Penguin Classics.

Secondary sources Cave, T. (1982) “Problems of reading in the Essais”, in: I. D. McFarlane and I. Maclean (eds.), Montaigne. Essays in memory of Richard Sayce, pp. 133–167. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Compagnon, A. (1989) La Seconde Main ou le travail de la citation, Editions de Seuil. Paris. Holland, A. (2006) “Montaigne et Horace”, in: Montaigne Studies, vol. XVIII, 67–78. Iser, W. (1979) The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Kraggerud, E. (2009) “Montaignes latinske sitater – et utfordrende prosjekt”, in: Klassisk Forum 1: 28–38. McKinley, M. B. (1981) Words in a Corner. Studies in Montaigne's Latin Quotations. Lexington Kentucky: French Forum Publisher. Moechler, A. and J. Reboul (1998) Pragmatique du discours. De l'interprétation de l'énoncé à l'interprétation du discours. Paris: Armand Colin. Pertile, L. (1977) “Paper and ink: the structure of unpredictability”, in: Raymond C. La Charité (ed.), O un amy! essays on Montaigne in honor of Donald M. Frame, pp. 190–216. Lexington. Pilkington, A. (2000) Poetic Effects. A Relevance Theory Perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Sperber, D. and D. Wilson (1995 [1986]) Relevance. Communication and Cognition. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell.

163


ERRATA

IN

SO 83

Pär Sandin: Herodotus, Dionysus, … p. 3, l. 5: for το ου1 νομα read τὸ οὔνομα p. 3, l. 5: for πρὴγματι read πρήγματι p. 3, l. 6: for δέ read δὲ p. 3, l. 21: for ἐζαγορεύειν read ἐξαγορεύειν p. 3, l. 30: for λίμνῆ ταύτῆ read λίμνῃ ταύτῃ p. 4, l. 5: for Δῆμητρος read Δήμητρος p. 4, l. 5: for τῆν read τὴν p. 4, l. 5: for ‘Έλληνες read Ἕλληνες p. 4, l. 23: for δικαιοῦσι read δικαιεῦσι p. 4, l. 25: for τοὺς ὗν μὲν read τοὺς ὗς ἐν μὲν p. 5, l. 12: for ἱρὸς λόγος read ἱρὸς λόγος, p. 9, l. 33: for αὐτήν read αὐτὴν p. 10, l. 8: for ἦγ read ἦγ᾿ Hayden W. Ausland, Prooemial Prolepsis in Plato's Politeia p. 20, l. 21 for . . . as opposed to that more of treatment . . . read . . . as opposed to that mode of treatment . . . p. 21, third to last line for ἀετοί read ἀετοὶ p. 22, 10th line from bottom for Platos read Plato's p. 25, 3rd line in the quotation for festival's read festivals' p. 35, ninth line from bottom for Plato's use of such the image as the thief read Plato's use of such an image as the thief p. 36, l. 3 for and send it along read and sent it along p. 39, note 39 for “Grundgedank” read “Grundgedanke” p. 42, bibl. entry for Hermann, K. F. (1849) for Altherhumskunde read Altherthumskunde p. 43, bibl. entry for Kahn, C. (2007) for “Why is the Sophist a Sequel to the Theaetetus? read “Why is the Sophist a Sequel to the Theaetetus?” p.43, entry for de Serres for de Serres (1578) read de Serres, J. (1578) Denis M. Searby: Non-Lucian Sources … No. 12, p. 131: τῆ ψυχῇ > τῇ ψυχῇ Νο. 21, p. 135: ἤ > ἢ Νο. 26, p. 136: ἐχθρῷμου > ἐχθρῷ μου Νο. 27, p. 137: ἤ > ἢ / τοὺσ > τοὺς ( C) p. 138: ·ἰσχὺν > · ἰσχὺν ( Ι) p. 139: διά > διὰ DOI: 10.1080/00397679.2010.501222

164


DEPARTMENTS OF GREEK AND LATIN STUDIES IN NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITIES University of Bergen (www.uib.no) DEPT. OF LINGUISTIC , LITERARY AND AESTHETIC STUDIES , LLE, P.O. Box 7805, NO-5020 Bergen, Norway Visiting address: HF-bygget, Sydnesplassen 7 Tel. +47 55 58 24 22, fax +47 55 58 96 60. www homepage: www.hf.uib.no/lle/en University of Oslo (www.uio.no) DEPT. OF PHILOSOPHY , CLASSICS , HISTORY OF ART AND IDEAS , IFIKK, P.O.Box 1020 Blindern, NO–0315 Oslo, Norway Visiting address Niels Henrik Abels v 36 Tel. +47 22 85 69 11, fax +47 24 85 75 51. www-homepage: www.hf.uio.no/ifikk/english/ University of Tromsø (www.uit.no) DEPARTMENT OF CULTURE AND LITERATURE , NO–9037 Tromsø, Norway Tel. +47 77 64 42 40, fax +47 77 64 42 39. www-homepage: www.uit.no/humfak/ikl/ Norwegian University of Science and Technology (www.ntnu.no) DEPT. OF HISTORY AND CLASSICAL STUDIES , NO–7491 Trondheim, Norway Tel. +47 73 59 64 40, fax +47 73 59 64 41. www homepage: www.ntnu.no/historie/english The Norwegian Institute at Athens Address: Tsami Karatasou 5, GR-117 42 Athens, Greece Tel. +30 210 9231 351, 210 9241 420, fax +30 210 9215 993 e-mail [email protected] www homepage: www.norwinst.gr/English/Index_en_frames.htm Istituto di Norvegia a Roma Address: Viale Trenta Aprile 33, IT-00153 Rome, Italy Tel. +39 06.5839.1002, fax +39 06.588.0604 www homepage: www.hf.uio.no/roma/english/index.html DOI: 10.1080/00397679.2010.501225

165


CONTRIBUTORS' ADDRESSES Prof. Hayden W. Ausland, Dept. of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures, The University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812, USA Post Doc. Hallvard J. Fossheim, The Ethics Programme, IFIKK (Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas), University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1020 Blindern, NO-0315 Oslo, Norway Interim Dean Cynthia Freeland, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, 402 Agnes Arnold Hall, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-3000, USA Assistant Professor Ioannis M. Konstantakos, Faculty of Philology, University of Athens, Panepistimioupoli Zografou, 157 84 Athens, Greece <[email protected]> Prof. Egil Kraggerud, Dept. of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1020 Blindern, NO-0315 Oslo, Norway <[email protected]> Jens Kristian Larsen, Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, University of Copenhagen, Njalsgade 80, 2300 København S, Denmark <[email protected]> Prof. Øyvind Rabbås, Dept. of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1020 Blindern, NO-0315 Oslo, Norway Dr. Kirsti Sellevold, Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages, University of Oslo, P. O. Box 1003, Blindern, NO-0315 Oslo, Norway

DOI: 10.1080/00397679.2010.501227

166

Symbolae Osloenses - Volume 84

Symbolae Osloenses - Volume 82

84

Advances in Immunology Volume 84

Advances in Immunology Volume 84

Advances in Agronomy, Volume 84

84

Advances in Cancer Research, Volume 84

Advances in Heterocyclic Chemistry, Volume 84

EUROSAM '84

Приключения-84

SM.84

2001 (84)

SF-Stories 84 v3

بحار الأنوار - الجزء 84

Хоккей 84-85. Уфа

Пригоди. Подорожі. Фантастика - 84

Collected Poems, 1948-84

Художественная галерея № 84. Куинджи

84 (Aspects of mathematics)

Жизнеописания 84 сиддхов

Collected Poems, 1948-84

Nakajima Ki-84

Proceedings EUROSAM'84

The '84 Regress

84. Справочник-календарь. Москва

Кино '84. Начальник Камчатки

Хоккей.Череповец 84-85

84 Charing Cross Road

ДДТ '84. Периферия

Цифровой журнал «Компьютерра» № 84

Symbolae Osloenses - Volume 84

Symbolae Osloenses - Volume 82

84

Advances in Immunology Volume 84

Advances in Immunology Volume 84

Advances in Agronomy, Volume 84

84

Advances in Cancer Research, Volume 84

Advances in Heterocyclic Chemistry, Volume 84

EUROSAM '84

Приключения-84

SM.84

2001 (84)

SF-Stories 84 v3

بحار الأنوار - الجزء 84

Хоккей 84-85. Уфа

Пригоди. Подорожі. Фантастика - 84

Collected Poems, 1948-84

Художественная галерея № 84. Куинджи

84 (Aspects of mathematics)

Жизнеописания 84 сиддхов

Collected Poems, 1948-84

Nakajima Ki-84

Proceedings EUROSAM'84

The '84 Regress

84. Справочник-календарь. Москва

Кино '84. Начальник Камчатки

Хоккей.Череповец 84-85

84 Charing Cross Road

ДДТ '84. Периферия

Цифровой журнал «Компьютерра» № 84

Recommend Documents