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Notes on Some Passages of Plato'S Timaeus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Extract

This famous sentence, which opens the address of the Demiurge to the created gods, has puzzled commentators both ancient and modern. We must, I think, agree with Taylor and Cornford, who both discuss it at length, that no sense can be got out of θεọἰ θε⋯ν taken together, i.e. with a comma after θε⋯ν: I need notreproduce their arguments on this point. Accordingly they punctuate after θεọἰ. Taylor, however, thinks that even so the sentence cannot be translated, and accepts Badham's proposal to read ộδων in place of θε⋯ν ⋯ν. He then takes ộδων ἒπγων as an instance of ‘inverse relative attraction’ and translates ‘Ye gods, works whereof I am maker and father, seeing they were fashioned by my hands, are indissoluble without my consent’. Cornford objects to ộδων on the grounds that it creates an objectionable hiatus between the first two words (and it is true that the Timaeus is very sparing of hiatus), and also that it destroys what he finds to be the dominant rhythm of the whole speech, and particularly of this first sentence. That rhythm is Cretic: θεọἰ θε⋯ν ⋯ν ẻγὠ δημωνπγ⋯ς πατ⋯π ἒπγων: which he compares the famous opening of the De Corona τοῖς θεοῖς ε⋯χομα π⋯δ κα⋯ π⋯δς. I am, however, doubtful about the cogency of this argument from rhythm, as I have noticed a number of places in the dialogue where a similar rhythm occurs to all appearance naturally:

58 A κα⋯ ππ⋯ς αὐτὐν πεφνκνῖα βοὑλεδθα.

66 C ⋯δὺ κα⋯ ποδφλ⋯ς παντ⋯ π⋯ν.

70 A τ⋯ν τε δ⋯ καπδ⋯αν ⋯μμ⋯των.

77 A τ⋯ς γ⋯π ⋯νθπωπ⋯νης δνγγεν⋯

81 δ⋯γκλεν αὐτ⋯ν ππ⋯ς ἂλληλα κ⋯κτηα.

Type
Other
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1944

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References

page 33 note 1 Some people indeed believe ‘that the section (40 D-41 A) about the Olympians is whollyironical, and that in Plato's real opinion there 4594.10 are ‘no such persons’. I do not agree; but if it were so, a discrimination between gods created by the Demiurge's own hands and other gods. would be equally impossible; for then the astral gods would be the only ones.

page 34 note 1 This modest diffidence is re-echoed at 54 A, ἂοὒν τς ἒхη κἒλλον ⋯κλεξ⋯μενος επεῖν ε⋯ς τ⋯ν το⋯των δ⋯δταδν, ⋯κεῖνος οὺκ ⋯χθπ⋯ς ⋯ν ⋯λλ⋯ ηλος κπατεῖ.

page 39 note 1 By the last words of this paraphrase I am seeking to indicate that if an ‘original’ (whether in the higher sense of the Idea or in the lower sense of the sensible thing) is to be presented through an image, such presentation involves motion in space.

page 40 note 1 I do not think C. is right in making τ⋯ μ⋯ν and τ⋯ δ⋯ refer directly to the Forms and space: I take them to mean simply A and not-A.