This text is part of:
ἐμφυλίου αἵματος. Cf. Pind. Pyth. II 32 ἐμφύλιον αἷμα πρώτιστος οὐκ ἄτερ τέχνας ἐπέμιξε θνατοῖς. The style rises into poetry as usual in passages of solemn import and sustained emotion; cf. 560 B, D notes ἀνδρός is poetic for ἀνθρώπου: cf. Aesch. Ag. 1020 f. ἀνδρὸς μέλαν αἷμα τίς ἂν πάλιν | ἀγκαλέσαιτ᾽ ἐπαείδων; and often in Pindar (Ol. I 35, 66 etc.). γλώττῃ τε καὶ -- ξυγγενοῦς. The blood of fellow-citizens is kindred blood: for all are sons of the same fatherland. ‘The unholy tongue and lips’ is an eloquent amplification of γευόμενος, in harmony with the story to which Plato has referred in D above. J. and C. seem to me to mar the effect of Plato's eloquence by remarking that “the tongue and lips which make the slanderous accusation are vividly imagined as actually tasting blood.” ἀνδρηλατῇ κτλ. Cf. Gorg. 466 C τί δέ; οὐχ ὥσπερ οἱ τύραννοι ἀποκτιννύασί τε (sc. οἱ ῥήτορες) ὃν ἂν βούλωνται, καὶ ἀφαιροῦνται χρήματα καὶ ἐκβάλλουσιν ἐκ τῶν πόλεων ὃν ἂν δοκῇ αὐτοῖς; Νὴ τὸν κύνα. The unscrupulous mob-orator is a budding tyrant.
The Republic of Plato. James Adam. 1902. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.