Phaedrus replies are my ongoing translation of Plato’s dialogue, Phaedrus. A dream told me it was time to do this and I guess I started listening to dreams.

The main rule here is honesty.

Works Cited

This is not an academic project but it takes advantage of some academic resources.

The Perseus Digital Library, for which I hereby express gratitude, provides the Ancient Greek text of Plato’s Phaedrus (originally edited by John Burnet and published by Oxford University Press in 1903), as well as the Greek texts of Plato’s other extant dialogues. I benefit often from use of the Perseus Digital Library’s Greek Word Study Tool. And I occasionally pull entries from the lexicons included in the Study Tool, which are A Greek-English Lexicon (by Liddell and Scott, rev. and aug. by Sir Henry Stuart Jones, ass. by Roderick McKenzie, published by Clarendon Press in 1940) and An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon (by Liddell and Scott, published by Clarendon Press in 1889).

English language translations and interpretations are my own. I’ve occasionally consulted the translations of others. Most often I check the vintage translation included in the Perseus Digital Library, which is by Harold N. Fowler and was published by Harvard University Press in 1925. Also the more sophisticated translation by James H. Nichols, Jr., from his book Gorgias and Phaedrus: Rhetoric, Philosophy, and Politics, published by Cornell University Press in 1998.

Images

I learned to read and write Ancient Greek using the modern-day standard print font. It was fine but when I started brushing up my Greek, I wanted a better writing experience. I wanted the script to have better flow, for my hand specifically, and I wanted it to look nice.

So I did some research on historical variations in Ancient Greek lettering and handwriting, from when handwriting was the primary way to copy and preserve texts. I was inspired by the scrawlings of Byzantine scribes who handwrote with their unique versions of a miniscule script. Some of these are nearly illegible, with idiosyncratic ligatures linking altered and truncated letters, sometimes they are tidy and exact, but they always look personal and self-possessed. I’ve adopted elements of their letters to develop a handwritten style that works for me.

The images that I post are from practice pages and pages-in-progress of my own handwritten edition. The brown paper I write on is re-used food delivery boxes. The pens and markers that I use are whatever is available at the local toko.

Other Notes

Phaedrus replies are works of fiction. Persons and places and institutions represented therein are wholly fictitious, including the author(s), but especially other ones who are not the author(s).

Replies are poetic fragments exploring the limits and possibilities of their specific medium, much of which outside the control of the author(s).

Replies are experimental in nature. They may be read in any order. They may be edited or changed or removed at any time. There is no schedule for posting. The boundaries of the category are blurry, though not on purpose. I realized at some point that the entire blog could fit in here. For that reason, “Phaedrus Replies” is also the secret name of the secret blog that coincides with “The Valley Below”.

Here are tagged entries in reverse chronological order:

Phaedrus replies

Ok that’s it, thanks very much for reading :)

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