Phaedrus
Phaedrus: then do you see that lofty platanos tree?
// 229a
ὁρᾷς οὖν ἐκείνην τὴν ὑψηλοτάτην πλάτανον;
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Platanus orientalis, known for its longevity and spreading crown; whose name is similar to that of the poet.
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Socrates: go ahead then and look for anyplace we might sit
// 229a
πρόαγε δή καὶ σκόπει ἅμα ὅπου καθιζησόμεθα
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Socrates: turning aside there, let’s go along the Ilissus; and then we’ll sit down wherever it seems (doke-o) to be in a stillness (hesuchia).
// 229a
δεῦρ᾽ ἐκτραπόμενοι κατὰ τὸν Ἰλισὸν ἴωμεν, εἶτα ὅπου ἂν δόξῃ ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ καθιζησόμεθα
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Phaedrus: (cont.) but where do you wish us to sit down and read? (anagignosko)
// 228ε
ἀλλὰ ποῦ δὴ βούλει καθιζόμενοι ἀναγνῶμεν;
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Phaedrus: (cont.) you’ve beaten me back (ekkrou-o) from my hope, O Socrates, that i would get to exercise (eggymnaz-o) on you
// 228ε
ἐκκέκρουκάς με ἐλπίδος, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἣν εἶχον ἐν σοὶ ὡς ἐγγυμνασόμενος
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triptych of the dog
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a cicak dropped a souvenir on me
yesterday, savasana; it was
all happening, pure rejeki, a speck
for playing dead; the simmering night, the sawah
was fizzing and burping boggy chemistry
the gamelan deliberated depth
of banjar space, a soup of bronze and spittle
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up i, cocks crowing death to rest, dark mind
the cat was sick again, shit cleaned, cats fed
the breath of rain, half-there, in vomit stepped
scrubbed vinegar again, who made the bed
i squinted past the dawn to wash a dish
the load of towels, it was not a test
the shape of chasing weather for a bone
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and would the three of them have made a city—
Lysias, Lysias, Lysias; he wasn’t there
he wasn’t here, until bumbu for our sambal
did rain down from the sky, and i said Lord
i still deny that you’re an onion seller
how practice held like density, as though
svanasana could house the dog itself
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🌒
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see also Rabia Basri
Socrates: (cont.) that while i love (phile-o) you completely, if Lysias too is present, it hasn’t seemed completely right (doke-o) to supply myself for you to practice on (emmeleta-o).
// 228ε
ὡς ἐγώ σε πάνυ μὲν φιλῶ, παρόντος δὲ καὶ Λυσίου, ἐμαυτόν σοι ἐμμελετᾶν παρέχειν οὐ πάνυ δέδοκται
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Socrates: (cont.) and if this is so, then think (dianoe-o) about me in this way—
// 228δ
εἰ δὲ τοῦτό ἐστιν, οὑτωσὶ διανοοῦ περὶ ἐμοῦ
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wildlife documentary //
before Phaedrus can speak, Socrates makes an accusation inside a demand:
if you would first disclose, O friend (philotes), what it is you have (echeis) in the left hand (aristeros) under your cloak.
here, echeis could be either a conjugation of echo/echein (to have/hold) or the plural nominative/accusative declension of echis (viper). exchanging echis for echein yields the alternative translation,
if you would first disclose, O friend, what vipers are in the left hand under your cloak.
the common verb (to have/hold) makes more sense than the uncommon noun (vipers) in explicit context; or what Phaedrus calls the dianoia, i.e. the reduction of written speech to a kind of thought-content. but the local environs (poetic) of this echeis call for circumspection. on one side, there’s the sinister aristeros, “the left (hand)"; and on the other, the concealment, “under your cloak”. while the word spoken aloud makes the sound of a snake’s hiss—echeisss. and then, its natural sound is concealed by its being written.
Socrates invokes the concealed, present absence, or possibility of snakes; as he demands revelation of—?
English “echo” isn’t descended from echein (to have/hold), but from eche (sound). The best word built from echein might be Aristotle’s entelecheia (en + telos + echein), translated as “having or holding itself in its end or completion”; a talisman is an external container for, or reminder of, entelecheia.
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Socrates:
if you would first disclose
O friend (philotes)
what it is you have (echo / echis)
in the left hand (aristeros)
under your cloak
// 228ξ
δείξας γε πρῶτον ὦ φιλότης
τί ἄρα ἐν τῇ ἀριστερᾷ ἔχεις ὑπὸ τῷ ἱματίῳ
Phaedrus: (cont.)
and really
O Socrates
it’s mostly that i haven’t thoroughly learned the sayings (rhema);
but actually the thought (dianoia)
of nearly all the ways he asserted that the lover (era-o)
differs from the non-;
I shall go through the chief points of each in order
beginning from the first
// 228ξ
τῷ ὄντι γάρ
ὦ Σώκρατες
παντὸς μᾶλλον τά γε ῥήματα οὐκ ἐξέμαθον
τὴν μέντοι διάνοιαν σχεδὸν ἁπάντων
οἷς ἔφη διαφέρειν τὰ τοῦ ἐρῶντος ἢ τὰ τοῦ μή
ἐν κεφαλαίοις ἕκαστον ἐφεξῆς δίειμι
ἀρξάμενος ἀπὸ τοῦ πρώτου
//