James Adam, The Republic of Plato

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ὑέος. The fortitude of Pericles on receiving the news of the death of his two sons was a case in point, and may have been known to Plato. It is commemorated in a fine fragment of Protagoras preserved by Plut. Consol. ad Apoll. 33. 118 E, F.

ὀδύρεται, φέρει. See cr. n. The infinitives ὀδύρεσθαι and φέρειν are explained by Stallbaum as dependent on λέγομεν, but this is too harsh. The rhetorical repetition of ἥκιστ᾽ ἄρα proves that like στερηθῆναι they should be under the government either of δεινόν itself, or of some notion supplied out of δεινόν. As the former alternative gives the wrong sense we must, if the text is sound, take refuge in the latter. Hartman by a tour de force resolves ἥκιστα δεινόν into ἥκιστα εἰκὸς αὐτὸν δεδιέναι, and carries on the εἰκός. It would be somewhat easier, I think, though still very harsh, to supply δεινός out of δεινόν, δεινός being used as in δεινὸς καταράσασθαι τῷ λίθῳ (Theophr. Char. 15, cf. infra 395 C): but it is difficult not to believe that the text is corrupt. In q, καί has been corrected to χρή, and the insertion of δεῖ before καί is suggested by Hartman. The question however is not what the good man ought to do, but what he actually does, and for this reason Richards' ἔοικε after ὀδύρεσθαι is better, although otherwise unlikely. Stallbaum's alternative proposal to read ὀδύρεται, φέρει δέ seems to me far the best both in point of sense, and because it might easily pass into ὀδύρεσθαι, φέρειν δέ under the influence of στερηθῆναι. For these reasons I have printed it in the text. Cf. Introd. § 5.