Phaedrus
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
//
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
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Phaedrus: Truly (alethes) the strongest way for me, by far, is to speak however I’m able; because you seem to me someone who will in no way let me go, until I say something or other.
// 228ξ
ἐμοὶ ὡς ἀληθῶς πολὺ κράτιστόν ἐστιν οὕτως ὅπως δύναμαι λέγειν, ὥς μοι δοκεῖς σὺ οὐδαμῶς με ἀφήσειν πρὶν ἂν εἴπω ἁμῶς γέ πως
//
Socrates: O Phaedrus — if I fail to know my Phaedrus, I have forgotten my own self.
But really, neither of these is (true).
Well do I know (eu oida) that when he heard Lysias' speech, he didn’t hear it only once. But often and repeatedly, Phaedrus urged him to speak. And Lysias eagerly (prothumos) obliged.
But even that wasn’t enough. And he, managing to take possession of the book, examined what his heart most desired (epithumos).
And doing this, sitting since early morning, he gave it up and went for a walk — knowing the speech thoroughly, I would guess, by the dog; unless it is very long indeed.
And he crossed outside the wall, that he might practice (meleta-o).
And meeting one sick (nosounti) about hearing words (logoi), and seeing him, seeing, it would pleasure him to possess a fellow Corybantic reveler, and he commanded him to lead.
And as the lover (erastes) of words (logoi) was begging him to speak, he broke away, as if it was not his desire (epithume-o) to speak.
But in the end, he was always going to speak, and if someone wouldn’t listen willingly, then by force.
O Phaedrus, anyway — beg yourself to make (poie-o) right now, and quick, the very pleasures (ede / edos) that you will nonetheless make!
ὦ Φαῖδρε, εἰ ἐγὼ Φαῖδρον ἀγνοῶ, καὶ ἐμαυτοῦ ἐπιλέλησμαι. ἀλλὰ γὰρ οὐδέτερά ἐστι τούτων: εὖ οἶδα ὅτι Λυσίου λόγον ἀκούων ἐκεῖνος οὐ μόνον ἅπαξ ἤκουσεν, ἀλλὰ πολλάκις ἐπαναλαμβάνων ἐκέλευέν οἱ λέγειν, ὁ δὲ ἐπείθετο προθύμως. τῷ δὲ οὐδὲ ταῦτα ἦν ἱκανά, ἀλλὰ τελευτῶν παραλαβὼν τὸ βιβλίον ἃ μάλιστα ἐπεθύμει ἐπεσκόπει, καὶ τοῦτο δρῶν ἐξ ἑωθινοῦ καθήμενος ἀπειπὼν εἰς περίπατον ᾔει, ὡς μὲν ἐγὼ οἶμαι, νὴ τὸν κύνα, ἐξεπιστάμενος τὸν λόγον, εἰ μὴ πάνυ τι ἦν μακρός. ἐπορεύετο δ᾽ ἐκτὸς τείχους ἵνα μελετῴη. ἀπαντήσας δὲ τῷ νοσοῦντι περὶ λόγων ἀκοήν, ἰδὼν μέν, ἰδών, ἥσθη ὅτι ἕξοι τὸν συγκορυβαντιῶντα, καὶ προάγειν ἐκέλευε. δεομένου δὲ λέγειν τοῦ τῶν λόγων ἐραστοῦ, ἐθρύπτετο ὡς δὴ οὐκ ἐπιθυμῶν λέγειν: τελευτῶν δὲ ἔμελλε καὶ εἰ μή τις ἑκὼν ἀκούοι βίᾳ ἐρεῖν. σὺ οὖν, ὦ Φαῖδρε, αὐτοῦ δεήθητι ὅπερ τάχα πάντως ποιήσει νῦν ἤδη ποιεῖν.
Socrates: (cont.) O Phaedrus, anyway—beg yourself to create (poie-o) right now, and quick, the very pleasures (ede / edos) that you will nonetheless create!
// 228β
σὺ οὖν, ὦ Φαῖδρε, αὐτοῦ δεήθητι ὅπερ τάχα πάντως ποιήσει νῦν ἤδη ποιεῖν
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