Complete Works (376 page)

3
. Accepting the conjectural deletion of
aiphnidiou
.

4
. Prodicus of Ceos was a philosopher and teacher; see
Protagoras
315d, 337a ff.

5
. A fifth-century-
B.C.
comic poet.

6
. Callias was a wealthy Athenian noted for his patronage of philosophers (
Apology
20a); the events in Plato’s
Protagoras
and Xenophon’s
Symposium
take place in his house.

7
. Reading
chronos
in a2.

8
. Ephebes were members of an Athenian military college established in the late fourth century
B.C.

9
. Reading
dia
for
kai
before
touto
in b7.

10
. Omitting
kai
in c1.

11
. Omitting
H
ē
ras
in c5.

12
.
Iliad
xxiv.525–26 and xvii.446–47 and
Odyssey
xv.245–46, respectively (translations by R. Lattimore).

13
. Euripides, in his lost play
Cresphontes
(frg. 452 Dindorf).

14
. Omitting
eleoumenon
in d4.

15
. Three fifth-century-
B.C.
leaders under the Athenian democracy.

16
. The naval commanders at Arginusae were illegally prosecuted en masse; cf. Xenophon,
Memoirs of Socrates
I.1.18, and Plato,
Apology
32a–c.

17
. Accepting the emendation
mete
ō
ropor
ō
or -
pol
ō
in e3.

18
. Demeter, whose cult at Eleusis was the most important of the Greek mystery cults; those initiated there were promised a happy survival in the underworld after death.

EPIGRAMS

Translated by J. M. Edmonds, revised by John M. Cooper. Text:
Elegy and Iambus
(Harvard University Press, Loeb Classical Library, 1931), vol. II.

Before Socrates enticed him into philosophy—so an ancient tradition goes—Plato was active for a time as a composer of tragedies and dithyrambs (Dionysian choral songs). If that is true, nothing of his work in those genres survives. Even apart from his sometimes very poetical prose, for example in Socrates’ second speech of
Phaedrus,
we do, however, have evidence of Plato’s work as a poet. A number of “epigrams” attributed to him—poems suitable for inscription on a funerary monument or for other dedicatory purposes—survive in one or both of two collections of short Greek poems dating from medieval times, the “Palatine” and “Planudean” Anthologies. The edition of J. M. Edmonds, which we follow, prints seventeen poems from these sources, plus an eighteenth—in praise of the comic poet Aristophanes—that Olympiodorus (sixth century
A.D.
neo-Platonist philosopher) quotes as Plato’s (as does Thomas Magister in his
Life of Aristophanes).
The first ten poems are also quoted as Plato’s work in Diogenes Laertius’ life of Plato, and many of the eighteen are quoted under Plato’s name by one or more additional ancient authors. They are all in the form of elegiac couplets (a dactyllic hexameter, the meter of the Homeric epics, followed by a dactyllic pentameter), mostly a single couplet each (but numbers 4, 5, 7, 11, and 13 are double couplets, and 3 consists of three).

The first two poems are addressed to a young man, as it seems a student of astronomy, named Ast
ē
r (or perhaps only affectionately so called by his admirer)—a Greek word for ‘star’. Diogenes Laertius reports that the third was actually inscribed on the tomb at Syracuse of its dedicatee, Plato’s friend and associate in Syracusan political affairs, Dion (prominent in so many of the Platonic
Letters).
The
Anthologies
also give other attributions than to Plato in the case of some four of these poems, and Plato’s authorship has reasonably been doubted in other cases as well. It is odd to find Plato in numbers 4 and 6 speaking in erotic terms of Agathon and Phaedrus as desirable youths—these are historical persons appearing as characters in Plato’s dialogues on eros, but they were two decades Plato’s senior; and one notes that the object of the poet’s affection in number 8, Xanthippe, has the same name as Socrates’ wife. Nonetheless, there seems no reason to doubt that some of these poems—above all number 3, and perhaps others, including especially 1, 2, and 7—are actually by him.

For ease of identification we add for each poem (except the last) its position in Hermann Beckby’s edition of the
Anthologia Graeca
(Munich, 1957).

J.M.C.

[1]

You gaze at the stars, my Star; would that I were Heaven, that I might look at you with many eyes!

Greek Anthology
vii 669

[2]

Even as you shone once the Star of Morning among the living, so in death you shine now the Star of Evening among the dead.

Greek Anthology
vii 670

[3]

The Fates decreed tears to Hecuba and the women of Troy right from their birth;
¹
but for you, Dion, the gods spilled your widespread hopes upon the ground after you had triumphed in the doing of noble deeds. And so in your spacious homeland you lie honored by your fellow citizens, O Dion, you who made my heart mad with love.

Greek Anthology
vii 99

[4]

Now, when I have but whispered that Alexis is beautiful, he is the observed of all observers. O my heart, why show dogs a bone? You’ll be sorry for it afterwards: was it not so that we lost Phaedrus?

Greek Anthology
vii 100

[5]

My mistress is Archeanassa of Colophon, on whose very wrinkles there is bitter love. Hapless are all you who met such beauty on its first voyage; through what a burning did you pass!

Greek Anthology
vii 217

[6]

When I kiss Agathon my soul is on my lips, where it comes, poor thing, hoping to cross over.

Greek Anthology
v 78

[7]

I throw the apple at you, and if you are willing to love me, take it and share your girlhood with me; but if your thoughts are what I pray they are not, even then take it, and consider how short-lived is beauty.
²

Greek Anthology
v 79

[8]

I am an apple; one who loves you throws me at you. Say yes, Xanthippe; we fade, both you and I.

Greek Anthology
v 80

[9]

We are Eretrians of Euboea,
³
but we lie near Susa, alas, how far from home!

Greek Anthology
vii 259

[10]

A man who found some gold left a noose, and the one who did not find the gold he had left tied on the noose he found.

Greek Anthology
ix 44

[11]

I, Laïs, who laughed so disdainfully at Greece and once kept a swarm of young lovers at my door, dedicate this mirror to the Paphian
⁴
—for I do not wish to see me as I am, and cannot see me as I was.

Greek Anthology
vi 1

[12]

This man was pleasing to foreigners and dear to his fellow citizens—Pindar, servant of the melodious Muses.

Greek Anthology
vii 35

[13]

We once left the sounding waves of the Aegean to lie here amidst the plains of Ecbatana. Fare thee well, renowned Eretria, our former country. Fare thee well, Athens, Euboea’s neighbor. Fare thee well, dear Sea.

Greek Anthology
vii 256

[14]

I am the tomb of a ship’s captain; the tomb opposite is a farmer’s: for beneath the land and beneath the sea is the same place of Death.

Greek Anthology
vii 265

[15]

Sailors, be safe, by sea and on land; I would have you know that the tomb you pass is a shipwrecked man’s.

Greek Anthology
vii 269

[16]

Some say there are nine Muses. How thoughtless! Look at Sappho of Lesbos; she makes a tenth.

Greek Anthology
ix 506

[17]

When Cypris saw Cypris at Cnidus, “Alas!” said she; “where did Praxiteles see me naked?”
⁵

Greek Anthology
xvi 162

[18]

The Graces, seeking for themselves a shrine that would not fall, found the soul of Aristophanes.

1
. Reading
tote
in line 2.

2
. The apple was dear to Aphrodite; to throw an apple at someone was to declare one’s love; to catch and hold it, to show one’s acceptance.

3
. They were deported to Susa, King Darius’ capital, by the Persians in 490
B.C.
See also no. 13.

4
. I.e., Aphrodite; the poem was inscribed on a mirror for dedication by Laïs to her.

5
. Cypris is Aphrodite, of whom there was a famous nude statue by Praxiteles at Cnidus.

ABBREVIATIONS OF TITLES

“+” = “and following.” For example, “R. 327a+” means “
Republic
327a and following”; i.e., section 327a plus one or more of the sections immediately following.

INDEX

A

Abaris: Chrm. 158b

Abdera: Prt. 309c; R. 10.600c

abortion: R. 5.461c; Tht.149d

Academy: Ax. 367a; Ly. 203a

Acarnania(ns): Euthd. 271c

Acesimbrotus: Cra. 394c

Achaeans: Alc. 112b; L. 3.682d+, 3.685e, 3.706d+; R. 3.389e, 3.390e, 3.393+

Achaemenes: Alc. 120e

Acharnae: Grg. 495d

Achelous: Phdr. 230b, 263d

Acheron: Ax. 371b; Phd. 112e, 113d

Acherousian Lake: Phd. 113+

Achilles: Ap. 28c; Cra. 428c; G.Hp. 292e; L.Hp. 363b, 364b+, 364e, 365b, 369a+, 370b, 370e+, 371a+, 371d; Ion 535b; Prt. 340a; R. 3.388a+, 3.390e+, 3.391c; Smp. 178a, 179e+, 180a, 208d, 221c

Acragas: Thg. 127e

acropolis of Athens: Criti. 112a; Eryx. 398e; Euthphr. 6b; M. 89b

acropolis of Atlantis: Criti. 115d, 116c+

acropolis of Syracuse: Ltr. 3.315e, 7.329e, 7.348a, 7.349d, 7.350a

acropolis of the model city: L. 5.745, 6.778c

actors:
see
theater

Acumenus: Phdr. 227a, 268a, 269a; Prt. 315c; Smp. 176b

Acusilaus: Smp. 178b

Adeimantus, son of Ariston: interlocutor in
Parmenides
(126a+) and
Republic
(1.328a, 2.362d+, 2.376d+, 4.419a+, 5.449b+, 6.487a+, 8.548d+); Ap. 34a; Prm. 126a+; R. 1.327c, 2.362d, 2.368a, 2.368d, 2.376d, 4.419, 5.449b+, 6.487a, 8.548d

Adeimantus, son of Cepis: Prt. 315e

Adeimantus, son of Leucolophides: Prt. 315e

Admetus: Smp. 179b, 208d

Adonis, gardens of: Phdr. 276b

adoption: L. 9.878a+, 11.923c+, 11.929c

Adrastea: R. 5.451a;
see also
Destiny, law of

Adrastus: Phdr. 269a

adultery: Eryx. 396e–397a; L. 6.784e, 8.841d+; R. 461a; Smp. 181e

advice/adviser: Alc. 106c–107e, 108e– 109c, 113b, 116d, 125e–126a, 127d; 2Alc. 144e–145c; Def. 413c; Dem. 380a–382e; Eryx. 394e; Ltr. 5.322a+, 7.330c+; Prt. 313a+; Thg. 122a–122c

Aeacus: Alc. 121b; Ap. 41a; G.Hp. 292e; Grg. 523e+, 526c+, 526e; Thg. 124c

Aeantodorus: Ap. 34a

Aegean Sea: Epgr. 13

Aegina (nymph): Grg. 526e

Aegina/Aeginetan (place): Alc. 121b; Cra. 433a; Grg. 511d; L. 4.708a; Ltr. 4.321b, 13.362b; Phd. 59c

Aegisthus: Thg. 124c

Aegyptus: Mx. 245d

Aeneas: Lch. 191a+

Aeolus: Halc. 1

Aeschines: Ap. 33e; Phd. 59b

Aeschylus: Smp. 180a; quoted: Euthd. 291d; Phd. 108a; R. 2.361b, 2.361e– 362a, 3.380a, 3.381d, 3.383b, 3.391e, 8.550c, 8.563c

Aesop’s fables: Alc. 123a; Phd. 60c+, 61b+

aether: Ax. 366a; Epin. 981c, 984d+; Halc. 7; Phd. 98c, 109c, 111b; Ti. 58d

Aexone: Lch. 197c; Ly. 204e

Agamedes: Ax. 367c