Comparison of different translations of Plato's Atlantis
by Benjamin Jowett, R.G. Bury and Sir Desmond Lee

1
Feature Jowett R.G.Bury Desmond Lee
Truth
Then listen, Socrates, to a tale which, though strange, is certainly true Listen then, Socrates, to a tale which, though passing strange, is yet wholly true Listen then, Socrates. The story is a strange one, but Solon, the wisest of the seven wise men, once vouched its truth.
Date
As touching your citizens of nine thousand years ago, Of the citizens, then, who lived 9,000 years ago, the citizens whose laws and whose finest achievement I will now briefly describe to you therefore lived nine thousand years ago.
Date and combattants
that nine thousand was the sum of years which had elapsed since the war which was said to have taken place between those who dwelt outside the Pillars of Heracles and all who dwelt within them Now first of all we must recall the fact that 9000 is the sum of years since the war occurred, as is recorded, between the dwellers beyond the pillars of Heracles and all those that dwelt within them. We must first remind ourselves that in all nine thousand years have elapsed since the declaration of war between those who lived outside and all those who lived inside the Pillars of Heracles
Origins
For these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, For it is related in our records how once upon a time your state stayed the course of a mighty host, which, starting from a distant point in the Atlantic ocean, was insolently advancing to attack the whole of Europe, and Asia to boot. For the ocean there was at that time navigable: for in front of the mouth which you Greeks call, as you say, "the pillars of Heracles" (1), there lay an island which was larger than Libya (2) and Asia together Our records tell how your city checked a great power which arrogantly advanced from its base in the Atlantic ocean to attack the cities of Europe and Asia. For in those days the Atlantic was navigable. There was an island opposite the strait which you call (so you say) the Pillars of Heracles, an island larger than Libya and Asia combined
Confederation and empire
Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. Now in this island of Atlantis there existed a confederation of kings, of great and marvellous power, which held sway over all the island, and over many other island also and parts of the continent; and, moreover, of the lands here within the Straits they ruled over Libya as far as Egypt,and over Europe as far as Tuscany On this island of Atlantis had arisen a powerful andremarkable dynasty of kings, who ruled the whole island, and many other islands and parts of the continent; in addition it controlled, within the strait, Libya up to the borders of Egypt and Europe as far as Tuscany
End of Atlantis
afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune(3) all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea. For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island. At a later time there occurred portentous earthquakes and floods, and one grievous day and night befell them, when the whole body of your warriors was swallowed up by the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner was swallowed up by the sea and vanished; wherefore also the ocean at that spot has now become impassable and unsearcheable, being blocked up by the shoal mud which the island threw up as it settled down. At a later time there were earthquakes and floods of extraordinary violence, and in one single dreadful day and night all your fighting men were swallowed up bvy the earth, and the island of Atlantis was swallowed up by the sea and vanished; this is why the sea in that area is to this day impassable to navigation, which is hindered by mud just below the surface, the remains of the sunken island.
sunk by earthquakes
Of the combatants on the one side, the city of Athens was reported to have been the leader and to have fought out the war; the combatants on the other side were commanded by the kings of Atlantis,(4) which, as was saying, was an island greater in extent than Libya and Asia, and when afterwards sunk by an earthquake, became an impassable barrier of mud to voyagers sailing from hence to any part of the ocean. It was stated that this city of urs was in command of the one side and fought through the whole of the war, and in command of the other side were the kings of the island of Atlantis, which we said was an island larger than Libya and Asia once upon a time, but now lies sunk by earthquakes and has created a barrier of impassable mud which prevents those who are sailing out from here to the ocean beyond from proceding further. The leadership and conduct of the war were on the one side in the hands of our city, and the other in the hands of the kings of Atlantis. At the time, as we said, Atlantis was an island larger than Libya and Asia put together, though it was subsequently overwhelmed by earthquakes and is the source of the impenetrable mud which prevents the free passage of those who sail out from the straits into the open sea.
Location of the Plain
Looking towards the sea, but in the centre of the whole island, there was a plain Bordering on the sea and extending throught the centre of the whole island there was a plain At the centre of the island (ie midway along its greatest length,) near the sea, was a plain
Location of the hill which became the city of Atlantis
Near the plain again, and also in the centre of the island at a distance of about fifty stadia, there was a mountain not very high on any side. and, moreover, near the plain, over against its centre, at a distance of about fifty stades, there stood a mountain that was low on all sides. and near the middle of this plain about fifty stades inland a hill of no great size
zones of land and sea
Poseidon ...breaking the ground, inclosed the hill all round, making alternate zones of sea and land larger and smaller, encircling one another; there were two of land and three of water, which he turned as with a lathe,(5) each having its circumference equidistant every way from the centre, so that no man could get to the island, for ships and voyages were not as yet. Poseidon...to make the hill impregnable he broke it off all round about; and he made circular belts of sea and land enclosing one another alternately, some greater, some smaller, two being of land and three of sea, which he carved as it were out of the midst of the island; and these belts were at even distances on all sides, so as to be impassable for man; for at that time neither ships nor sailing were yet in existence. Poseidon...fortified the hill by enclosing it with concentric rings of sea and land, There were two rings of land and three of sea, like cartwheels, with the island at their centre and equidistant from each other, making the place impassable for man (for there were still no ships or sailing in those days)
plating the walls
The entire circuit of the wall, which went round the outermost zone, they covered with a coating of brass, and the circuit of the next wall they coated with tin, and the third, which encompassed the citadel, flashed with the red light of orichalcum. And they covered with brass, as though with a plaster, all the circumference of the wall which surrunded the outermost circle; and that of the inner one they coated with tin; and that which encompassed the acropolis itself with orichalcum which sparkled like fire And they covered the whole circuit of the outermost wall with a veneer of bronze, they fused tin over the inner wall and orichalc gleaming like fire over the wall of the acropolis itself
Orichalcum
In the first place they dug out of the earth whatever was to be found there, mineral as well as metal, and that which is only a name and was then something more than a name, orichalc, was dug out of the earth in many parts of the island, and except gold was then the most precious of metals.
   (flashed with the red light of orichalc. i.e. "mountain copper", a "sparkling" metal hard to identify)
Metals, to begin with, both the hard kind and the fusible kind, which are extracted by mining, and also that kind which is now known only by name but was more than a name then, there being mines of it in many parts of the island, - I mean "orichalcum" which was the most precious of the metals then known, except gold.
   (orichalcum which sparkled like fire)
It had mineral resources from which were mined both solid materials and metals, including one metal which survives today only in name, but was then mined in quantities in a number of localities in the island, orichalc, in those days the most valuable metal after gold.
   (orichalc gleaming like fire)
Description of the Plain
The whole country was said by him to be very lofty and precipitous on the side of the sea, but the country immediately about and surrounding the city was a level plain, itself surrounded by mountains which descended towards the sea; it was smooth and even, and of an oblong shape, extending in one direction three thousand stadia, but across the centre inland(6) it was two thousand stadia The whole region rose sheer out of the sea to a great height, but the part about the city was all a smooth plain, enclosing it round about, and being itself encircled by mountains which stretched as far as to the sea; and this plain had a level surface and was as a whoe rectangular in shape, being 3000 stades long on either side and 2000 stades wide at its centre, reckoning upwards from the sea. To begin with the region as a whole was said to be high above the level of the sea, from which it rose precipitiously; the city was surrounded by a uniformly flat plain, which was in turn enclosed by mountains which came right down to the sea. This plain was rectangular in shape, measuring three thousand stades in length and at its mid-point two thousand stades in breadth from the coast.
Description of the Plain
I will now describe the plain, as it was fashioned by nature and (7) by the labours of many generations of kings through long ages. It was for the most part rectangular and oblong, Now as a result of natural forces, together with the labours of many kings which extended over many ages, the condition of the plain was this. It was originally a quadrangle, rectilinear for the most part, and elongated; Over a long period of time the work of a number of kings had effected certain modifications in the natural features of the plain. It was naturally a long, regular rectangle;
The plain and the canals
and where falling out of the straight line followed the circular ditch. The depth, and width, and length of this ditch were incredible, and gave the impression that a work of such extent, in addition to so many others, could never have been artificial. Nevertheless I must say what I was told. It was excavated to the depth of a hundred, feet, and its breadth was a stadium everywhere; it was carried round the whole of the plain, and was ten thousand stadia in length. It received the streams which came down from the mountains, and winding round the plain and meeting at the city,(8) was there let off into the sea. Further inland, likewise, straight canals of a hundred feet in width were cut from it through the plain, and again let off into the ditch leading to the sea: these canals were at intervals of a hundred stadia, and by them they brought down the wood from the mountains to the city, and conveyed the fruits of the earth in ships, cutting transverse passages from one canal into another, and to the city. and what it lacked of this shape they made right by means of a trench dug round about it. Now, as regards the depth of this trench and its breadth and length, it seems incredible that it should be so large as the account states, considering that it was made by hand, and in addition to all the other operations, but nonetheless we must report what we heard.: It was dug out to the depth of a plethrum and to a uniform breadth of a stade, and since it was dug round the whole plain its consequent length was 10,000 stades. It received the streams which came down from the mountains and after circling round the plain, and coming towards the city on this side and on that, it discharged them thereabouts into the sea. And on the inland side of the city channels were cut in straight lines, of about 100 feet in width, across the plain, and these discharged themselves into the trench on the seaward side, the distance between each being 100 stades. It was in this way that they conveyed to the city the timber from the mountains and transported also on boats the seasons' products, by cutting transverse passages from one channel to the next and also to the city. and any defects in its shape were corrrected by means of a ditch dug round it. The depth and breadth and length of this may sound incredible for an artificial structure when compared with others of a similar kind, but I must give them as I heard them. The depth was a hundred feet, the width a stade, and the length, since it was dug right round the plain, was ten thousand stades. The rivers which flowed down from the mountains emptied into it, and it made a complete circuit of the plain, running round to the city from both directions, and there discharging into the sea. Channels about a hundred feet broad were cut from the ditch's landward limb straight across the plain, at a distance of a hundred stades from each other, till they ran into it on its seaward side. They cut cross channels between them and alsoto the city, and used the whole complex to float timber down from the mountains and transport seasonal produce by boat.
Feature Jowett R.G.Bury Desmond Lee

footnotes by R.G.Bury
(1) ie the Straits of Gibraltar
(2) ie Africa

the translation by Donnelly is very similar to Jowett with the following differences
(3) the translation by Donnelly uses the word rain
(4) the translation by Donnelly uses the words islands of Atlantis
(5) the translation by Donnelly adds the words out of the centre of the island
(6) the translation by Donnelly adds the words going up the country from the sea
(7) the translation by Donnelly uses the word cultivated
(8) the translation by Donnelly uses the words touching the city at various points

Atlantis by Plato, the Jowett translation

Atlantis by Plato, the R.G. Bury translations

What Plato said - the import lines....

Some excellent information on the various translations of Plato’s Atlantis was provided on the Atlantis Rising forum by Gwen Parker in 2005. Unfortunately her contributions were continuously interrupted by a certain person or people who in the end made Gwen Parkers thread unreadable and destroyed the thread she had begun.

The original postings can be found here, Atlantis Rising translations thread started by Gwen Parker and I have pasted Gwen Parker’s valuable contribution below, without the annoying interruptions which appeared on the original page.

 

Gwen Parker
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Hello again to everyone. I have been following the debate about the language that Plato may or may not have used to describe Atlantis and thought it might be interesting to examine how the translations came to their current state, what may be write and wrong abou them, and just who did the translating.

We hear the names Bury, Jowett, Lee and Taylor a lot in the field of Atlantology, but what do we really know about any of them?

And just what exactly did Plato intend to say with Atlantis?

We tend to focus on only two of Plato's dialogues here, Timaeus and Critias, of course, but I would like to suggest that there is a third that, while not directly mentioning Atlantis, was the preamble to the Atlantis story: the Republic. Let's look at that, as well and try to determine, best as we can, just who and what is right and wrong about all of this.

[ 09-14-2005, 08:26 PM: Message edited by: Gwen Parker ]


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Arabic Plato translations
jwalbrid (jwalbrid@indiana.edu)
Tue, 5 Mar 1996 13:26:59 GMT
There are no surviving complete medieval translations of any work by
Plato and not convincing evidence that any complete works of Plato were
translated into Arabic in the Middle Ages. It was an age in which
scholars liked their sources to give clear answers, not ironic
ambiguity. Therefore, any Arabic translation of the Republic will be
modern.

There is an important commentary on the Republic by Averroes (Ibn Rushd)
that survives in Hebrew. There is a good English translation by Ralph
Lerner.

There are Arabic translations of most of Aristotle's works, though I
don't know whether they have been mined systematically for textual material.
There is also some fragmentary material from the Greek commentators that
survives only in Arabic.

As far as I can tell, Arabic (and, I think Syriac and to a lesser extent
Hebrew) translations are most useful for the texts of Galen. The most
important medieval Arabic translator of Greek works was a Galen
enthusiast and tried systematically to translate all of Galen into
Arabic. There is a significant amount of Galenic material available only
in Arabic.

John Walbridge
Near Eastern Languages, Philosophy
Indiana University

http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/subject/hd/fak7/hist/o1/logs/sophia/log.started960204/0061.html


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A Brief History of Translations.

The development of translations into the English language, especially of the works of Plato. By John Mustain, Rare Book Librarian and Selector for Classics, Stanford University.


The Renaissance has been termed "the great age of translations." The rise of Humanism inspired translators from various European countries to translate many texts, especially those of the ancients. England in the early 16th century lagged far behind the Continent in the production of translations: by 1528, for example, Xenophon, Suetonius, Sallust, Thucydides, and Caesar were all readily-available in French; English translations would come only later.
Nicholas Grimshaw, in his 1558 preface to his English translation of Cicero focused on this phenomenon, criticizing the English for not having done for their country what "Italians, Frenchmenne, Spaniards, Dutchmen and other foreigns have liberally done for theirs."1 Henry Billinglsey stated, in the preface to his 1570 translation of Euclid (Barchas Collection QA31.E87 1570 f), that he hoped that his translation would "excite and stirre up others learned, to do the like... By meanes whereof, our Englishe tongue shall no lesse be enriched with good Authors, then are other straunge tongues: as the Dutch, French, Italian and Spanishe: in which are red all good authors in a maner, found amongest the Grekes or Latines."2
Latin was the reigning universal intellectual language of the day, and the best means of having a text read throughout Europe; for those who wrote in such languages as Flemish, Dutch, or Czech, Latin was almost indispensable in the spreading of texts. If the authors were not fluent in Latin, they hired translators or arranged to have the hiring done by their publishers. Translating a work from a foreign tongue into one's vernacular was seen by many as a noble challenge and a contribution to a national literature. Translation as a phenomenon was so esteemed and widespread during the 16th century that the printer Etienne Dolet's La manière de bien traduire d'une langue en aultre (Lyon, 1540) served not only as a manual on how to translate but also as a sign of the times. Castiglione's The Courtier, for example was first published in Italian in 1528. Latin, French, and German translations were already published when Sir Thomas Hoby, declaring that it was his duty to his fellow countrymen to make available in English so useful and learned a guide, translated Castiglione into English in 1561. English translations gradually increased; indeed, "a study of Elizabethan translations is a study of the means by which the Renaissance came to England."3
Over the next decades appeared such time-honored English efforts as North's Plutarch (1579; translated not from the original Greek but from the French of the remarkable Bishop Amyot), Florio's Montaigne (1603; 1632 [Spec Coll Rare Books KC1632 .M6]), Golding's Ovid (1565; 1612 [Spec Coll Rare Books KC1612 .O8]), Lodge's Seneca (1614) [Spec Coll Rare Books KC1614 .S4 F], Harington's Ariosto (1603; 1607 [Spec Coll Rare Books KC1607 .A7]), Sandy's Ovid (1626 [KC1626 .O8]; 1632 [Spec Coll Rare Books KC1632 .O9 f]; 1640 [Spec Coll Rare Books KC1640 .O9 f]), and the six ancient authors translated by Philemon Holland: Livy (1600) [Spec Coll Rare Books KC1600 .L5 f]), Pliny (1601) [Spec Coll Rare Books KC1601 .P5 f], Plutarch's Moralis (1603) [Spec Coll Rare Books KC 1603 .P5 f], Suetonius (1606) [Spec Coll Rare Books KC1606 .S9], Ammianus Marcellinus (1609) [Spec Coll Rare Books KC1609 .A4], and Xenophon (1632).
Translations from other Greek texts appeared in England during the English Renaissance, but some were based on translations of translations (e.g. North's Plutarch, translated from French into English); others were translated from the original Greek, but generally into Latin, the universal scholarly language. Translations of Plato were practically non-existent in the Middle Ages.
Fifteenth century Italy saw a great revival of interest in Greek texts and translations, fueled by a proliferation of new manuscripts from the East, and culminating in the great Greek printed editions of Aldus Manutius in Venice between 1495 and 1515. England's growing interest in Greek texts derived largely from travel in and trade with Italy. While Manutius produced in 1513 a magnificent Greek text of Plato's works (Spec. Coll. Gunst Z239.9.A36 P71 f), it was two French Protestant refugees that achieved the most influential translation of the century: Henri Estienne and Jean de Serres, who dedicated their magnificent 1578 three volume Greek and Latin edition of Plato to Queen Elizabeth (Barchas Collection PA4279.A2 1578 f). This scholarly masterpiece is still used as a definitive Latin text of Plato's works.
More and more Platonic texts were available in England in the 16th century, but the translations were into Latin, and generally done by foreign scholars. Interest in Plato at this time was never as strong in England as it was on the Continent, and this is clearly reflected in the printing of texts: during the period 1485-1603, one edition of one authentic dialogue of Plato was printed in England, while more than 100 editions were published in France, including several editions of the complete works. While interest in translations in general ran high in England during the Tudor period, Plato was virtually ignored save for reading foreign editions.
The Stuart period of English history, however, saw an almost immediate burgeoning of interest in Plato, especially the theme of Platonic love which runs through so much Stuart literature, though there still did not exist an English translation of any of Plato's works, even as a school text. 1675 saw the appearance of the first English translations of authentic dialogues of Plato: the Apology and Phaedo, translated by an anonymous hand and published in London (Spec Coll Rare Books 870608 00001). Platonisme unveil'd (1700), an English translation of a French work, signaled the end of the high interest in Plato in England.
While general interest in Plato dwindled, the strong tendency in 18th century Britain to link schooling and scholarship with the Classics did result in more English translations of Plato, and approximately twenty Platonic dialogues were translated by different scholars over the course of the century. Also appearing in the 18th century was an English abridged edition of the complete works (Spec Coll Rare Books B358 D33 1719), but this translation was based on the French text of Dacier, rather than the original Greek. It is only in the nineteenth century that Plato's complete works are translated directly from the Greek into English, the first edition being that of Thomas Taylor [consult Special Collections], which is shown below.
1 Quoted in Mathiessen, F.O., Translation: an Elizabethan Art. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931, p. 25
2 Euclid. The elements of geometrie of the most auncient philosopher euclide of Megara. Imprinted at London: By Iohn Daye, 1570, leaf iii
3Mathiessen, p. 3
Sources Consulted:
Clarke, M.L. Greek Studies in England, 1700-1830. Cambridge: University Press, 1945.
Stanford Auxiliary Library 880.7.C599
Jayne, Sears. Plato in Renaissance England. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, c1995.
Green Library Stacks B395.J37 1995
Mathiessen, F.O. Translation: an Elizabethan Art. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931.
Stanford Auxiliary Library 808.06.M443
Rowse, A.L. The Elizabethan Renaissance: the Life of the Society. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, c1971.
Meyer HN385.R66
Green Library Stacks HN385.R66
________________________________________
1804


Title Page

Opening Dialogue
The works of Plato; viz. his fifty-five dialogues, and twelve epistles / translated from the Greek, nine of the dialogues by the late Floyer Sydenham, and the remainder by Thomas Taylor; with occasional annotations on the nine dialogues translated by Sydenham, and copious notes by the latter translator; in which is given the substance of nearly all the existing Greek ms. commentaries on the philosophy of Plato, and a considerable portion of such as are already published. London: Printed for T. Taylor by R. Wilks, and sold by E. Jeffery and R. H. Evans, 1804. 5 v.
Courtesy of Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries.
[Item not yet cataloged; consult Special Collections]
________________________________________
1919


Frontispiece

Title Page

Opening Dialogue
Plato: with an English translation by H.N. Fowler and an introduction by W.R.M. Lamb. London: William Heinemann ; New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1919. 9 v.
Courtesy of Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries.
Classics Dept 888.4 .JF78
Stanford Auxiliary Library 888.4 .JF78
Tanner Philosophy 888.4 .JF78
________________________________________
1952


Title Page

Opening Dialogue
Phaedrus / translated with introd. and commentary by R. Hackforth. Cambridge: University Press, 1952.
©1952, Cambridge University Press.
Green Library Stacks B380.A5H32
Classics Dept B380.A5H32
________________________________________
1995


Title Page

Opening Dialogue
Phaedrus / translated, with introduction and notes, by Alexander Nehamas & Paul Woodruff ; with a selection of early Greek poems and fragments about love, translated by Paul Woodruff. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1995.
©1995, Hackett
Green Library Stacks B380 .A5 N44 1995
How can we go about trying to understand Plato, when so much--the whole history of Western philosophy--separates us from him? How well can we ever hope to understand him? ... It is tempting to answer these questions in a resigned, negative manner. We might think that there is no good method of approaching a thinker who wrote dramatic philosophical works...and who...never spoke in his own voice; no hope that whatever approach we adopt, we will be able to understand at all well an author who lived--socially, intellectually, emotionally, and ideologically--in a world so different from ours... The essays collected in this volume, written roughly over the last twenty-five years, reject these skeptical answers.
From: Nehamas, Alexander. Virtues of Authenticity: Essays on Plato and Socrates. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999: p.[xv].
©1999, Princeton University Press.
The Phaedrus is a dialogue in the most literal sense. Unlike a number of Plato's other works, it is a conversation between two and only two people... [Phaedrus] thinks that life would be unbearable without the pleasures of philosophical conversation [but] it is not clear that he understands the profound effect that philosophical ideas can have on one's life. Socrates' Great Speech may in fact be intended to convince him...that philosophy is life's most serious activity.
From: Nehamas. Virtues of Authenticity. P.332.
©1999, Princeton University Press.
Like rhetoric, the dialogue also cannot produce knowledge but only conviction... Not to take the Phaedrus seriously in the proper sense is to take philosophy seriously. But to take philosophy seriously, perhaps paradoxically but also appropriately for a work that delights in paradoxes and twists of its own, it to take the Phaedrus as well very seriously after all.
From: Nehamas. Virtues of Authenticity. P.353-354.
©1999, Princeton University Press.


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Thomas Taylor, Benjamin Jowett, Desmond Lee and R.G. Bury are the most famous translaters of Plato and have also been some of the most maligned by some of the members here. But do they really deserve all the critcsm they've been receiving? Let's look at each of them, one by one:

Benjamin Jowett

Benjamin Jowett (April 15, 1817 - October 1, 1893) was an English scholar and theologian, master of Balliol College, Oxford.
He was born in Camberwell. His father was one of a Yorkshire family who, for three generations, had been supporters of the Evangelical movement in the Church of England. His mother was a Langhorne, in some way related to the poet John Langhorne. At twelve the boy was placed on the foundation of St Paul's School (then in St Paul's Churchyard), and in his nineteenth year he obtained an open scholarship to Balliol. In 1838 he gained a fellowship, and graduated with first-class honours in 1839. Brought up amongst pious Evangelicals, he came to Oxford at the height of the Tractarian movement, and through the friendship of WG Ward was drawn for a time in the direction of High Anglicanism; but a stronger and more lasting influence was that of the Arnold school, represented by AP Stanley. Jowett was thus led to concentrate his attention on theology, and in the summers of 1845 and 1846, spent in Germany with Stanley, he became an eager student of German criticism and speculation. Amongst the writings of that period he was most impressed by those of FC Baur. But he never ceased to exercise an independent judgment, and his work on St Paul, which appeared in 1855, was the result of much original reflection and inquiry.
He was appointed to the Greek professorship in the autumn of that year. He had been a tutor of Balliol and a clergyman since 1842, and had devoted himself to the work of tuition with unexampled zeal. His pupils became his friends for life. He discerned their capabilities, studied their characters, and sought to remedy their defects by frank and searching criticism. Like another Socrates, he taught them to know themselves, repressing vanity, encouraging the despondent, and attaching all alike by his unobtrusive sympathy. This work gradually made a strong impression, and those who cared for Oxford began to speak of him as "the great tutor." As early as 1839 Stanley had joined with Archibald Campbell Tait, the future Archbishop of Canterbury, in advocating certain university reforms. From 1846 onwards Jowett threw himself into this movement, which in 1848 became general amongst the younger and more thoughtful fellows, until it took effect in the commission of 1850 and the act of 1854.
Another educational reform, the opening of the Indian civil service to competition, took place at the same time, and Jowett was one of the commission. He had two brothers who served and died in India, and he never ceased to take a deep and practical interest in Indian affairs. A great disappointment, his repulse for the mastership of Balliol. also in 1854, appears to have roused him into the completion of his book on The Epistles of St Paul. This work, described by one of his friends as "a miracle of boldness," is full of originality and suggestiveness, but its publication awakened against him a storm of theological prejudice, which followed him more or less through life. Instead of yielding to this, he joined with Henry Bristow Wilson and Rowland Williams, who had been similarly attacked, in the production of the volume known as Essays and Reviews. This appeared in 1860 and gave rise to a strange outbreak of fanaticism. Jowett's loyalty to those who were prosecuted on this account was no less characteristic than his persistent silence while the augmentation of his salary as Greek professor was withheld. This petty persecution was continued until 1865, when EA Freeman and Charles Elton discovered by historical research that a breach of the conditions of the professorship had occurred, and Christ Church College, Oxford raised the endowment from £40 a year to £500.
Meanwhile Jowett's influence at Oxford had steadily increased. It culminated in 1864, when the country clergy, provoked by the final acquittal of the essayists, had voted in convocation against the endowment of the Greek chair. Jowett's pupils, who were now drawn from the university at large, supported him with the enthusiasm which young men feel for the victim of injustice. In the midst of other labours Jowett had been quietly exerting his influence so as to conciliate all shades of liberal opinion, and bring them to bear upon the abolition of the theological test, which was still required for the M.A. and other degrees, and for university and college offices. He spoke at an important meeting upon this question in London on June 10, 1864, which laid the ground for the University Tests Act of 1871.
In connection with the Greek professorship Jowett had undertaken a work on Plato which grew into a complete translation of the Dialogues with introductory essays. At this he laboured in vacation time for at least ten years. But his interest in theology had not abated, and his thoughts found an outlet in' occasional preaching. The university pulpit, indeed, was closed to him, but several congregations in London delighted in his sermons, and from 1866 until the year of his death he preached annually in Westminster Abbey, where Stanley had become dean in 1863. Three volumes of selected sermons have been published since his death. The years 1865-1870 were occupied with assiduous labour. Amongst his pupils at Balliol were men destined to high positions in the state, whose parents had thus shown their confidence in the supposed heretic, and gratitude on this account was added to other motives for his unsparing efforts in tuition. In 1870, by an arrangement which be attributed to his friend Robert Lowe, afterwards Lord Sherbrooke (at that time a member of Gladstone's ministry), Scott was promoted to the deanery of Rochester and Jowett was elected to the vacant mastership by the fellows of Balliol. From the vantage-ground of this long-coveted position the Plato was published in 1871. It had a great and well-deserved success. While scholars criticized particular renderings (and there were many small errors to be removed in subsequent editions), it was generally agreed that he had succeeded in making Plato an English classic.
From 1866 his authority in Balliol had been paramount, and various reforms in college had been due to his initiative. The opposing minority were now powerless, and the younger fellows who had been his pupils were more inclined to follow him than others would have been. There was no obstacle to the continued exercise of his firm and reasonable will. He still knew the undergraduates individually, and watched their progress with a vigilant eye. His influence in the university was less assured. The pulpit of St Mary's was no longer closed to him, but the success of Balliol in the schools gave rise to jealousy in other colleges, and old prejudices did not suddenly give way; while a new movement in favour of "the endowment of research" ran counter to his immediate purposes.
Meanwhile, the tutorships in other colleges, and some of the headships also, were being filled with Balliol men, and Jowett's former pupils were prominent in both houses of parliament and at the bar. He continued the practice, which he had commenced in 1848, of taking with him a small party of undergraduates in vacation time, and working with them in one of his favourite haunts, at Askrigg in Wensleydale, or Tummel Bridget or later at WestMalvern. The new hall (1876), the organ there, entirely his gift (1835) and the cricket ground (1889), remain as external monuments of the master's activity. Neither business nor the many claims of friendship interrupted literary work. The six or seven weeks of the long vacation, during which he had pupils with him, were mainly employed in writing. The translation of Aristotle's Politics, the revision of Plato, and, above all, the translation of Thucydides many times revised, occupied several years. The edition of the Republic, undertaken in 1856, remained unfinished, but was continued with the help of Professor Lewis Campbell.
Other literary schemes of larger scope and deeper interest were long in contemplation, but were not destined to take effect--an Essay on the Religions of the World, a Commentary on the Gospels, a Life of Christ, a volume on Moral Ideas. Such plans were frustrated, not only by his practical avocations, but by his determination to finish what he had begun, and the fastidious self-criticism which it took so long to satisfy. The book on Morals might, however, have been written but for the heavy burden of the vice-chancellorship, which he was induced to accept in 1882, by the hope, only partially fulfilled, of securing many improvements for the university. The vice-chancellor was ex officio a delegate of the press, where he hoped to effect much; and a plan for draining the Thames Valley, which he had now the power of initiating, was one on which his mind had dwelt for many years. The exhausting labours of the vice-chancellorship were followed by an illness (1887); and after this he relinquished the hope of producing any great original writing. His literary industry was thenceforth confined to his commentary on the Republic of Plato, and some essays on Aristotle which were to have formed a companion volume to the translation of the Politics. The essays which should have accompanied the translation of Thucydides were never written. Jowett, who never married, died on the 1st of October 1893. The funeral was one of the most impressive ever seen in Oxford. The pall-bearers were seven heads of colleges and the provost of Eton, all old pupils.
Theologian, tutor, university reformer, a great master of a college, Jowett's best claim to the remembrance of succeeding generations was his greatness as a moral teacher. Many of the most prominent Englishmen of the day were his pupils and owed much of what they were to his precept and example, his penetrative sympathy, his insistent criticism, and his unwearying friendship. Seldom have ideal aims been so steadily pursued with so clear a recognition of practical limitations. Jowett's theological work was transitional, and yet has an element of permanence. As has been said of another thinker, he was "one of those deeply religious men who, when crude theological notions are being revised and called in question seek to put new life into theology by wider and more humane ideas." In earlier life he had been a zealous student of Immanuel Kant and Georg Hegel, and to the end he never ceased to cultivate the philosophic spirit; but he had little confidence in metaphysical systems, and sought rather to translate philosophy into the wisdom of life. As a classical scholar, his scorn of littlenesses sometimes led him into the neglect of minutiae, but he had the higher merit of interpreting ideas. His place in literature rests really on the essays in his Plato. When their merits are fully recognized, it will be found that his worth, as a teacher of his countrymen, extends far beyond his own generation.
Undoubtedly Jowett was a great scholar, but what did the undergraduates think of their master? One H.C.Beeching wrote a rhyme which in various forms has become quite famous. It was published in 1881 in a broadsheet entitled The Masque of B-ll--l :
First come I. My name is J-W-TT.
There's no knowledge but I know it.
I am the Master of this College,
What I don't know isn't knowledge.
See The Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett, by EA Abbott and Lewis Campbell (1897); Benjamin Jowett, by, Lionel Tollemache (1895).
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Jowett"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Jowett

[ 09-10-2005, 02:25 AM: Message edited by: Gwen Parker ]


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Logic is neither a science nor an art, but a dodge.
Benjamin Jowett

Never retreat. Never explain. Get it done and let them howl.
Benjamin Jowett

One man is as good as another until he has written a book.
Benjamin Jowett

The achievements which society rewards are won at the cost of diminution of personality.
Benjamin Jowett

The way to get things done is not to mind who gets the credit for doing them.
Benjamin Jowett

There is a serious defect in the thinking of someone who wants - more than anything else - to become rich. As long as they don't have the money, it'll seem like a worthwhile goal. Once they do, they'll understand how important other things are - and have always been.
Benjamin Jowett

To teach a man how he may learn to grow independently, and for himself, is perhaps the greatest service that one man can do another.
Benjamin Jowett

We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice or kindness in general. Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, unique.
Benjamin Jowett

You must believe in God, in spite of what the clergy say.
Benjamin Jowett

You've got to be success minded. You've got to feel that things are coming your way when you're out selling; otherwise
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/benjamin_jowett.html


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Gwen, you've made some great points. I really like those quotes from Jowett as well. I think there are really only about 10 words out of 1000(1%) that have alternate meanings; eg. Shame: 1-Unfortunate 2-Disgrace.

Jowett's version is the "MOST READABLE" version, and hence the most popular. It is clear though, that he re-arranges words, and combines sentences, etc..., for readability sake, while Bury does not.


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This is an excellent thread, Gwen. How refreshing it is to see a scholarly discussion of Atlantis!

I knew that Jowett's translations had stood the test of time, but I did not realize that he was a giant of a man in his own right, even if he had never translated Timaeus and Critias.

Now, what about Mr. Bury and Mr. Lee?

Tom


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Hi Rich,

I know what you are trying to say, but you leave the impression that the most readable version is the least accurate. This is not necessarily true. Instead of "most accurate" I would prefer to say "most literal."

Take, for example, the expression "It's a shame." Look how much trouble Jose got into by taking that phrase literally! I have to assume that he uses the same techniques when he tries to translates ancient Greek. Now that really is a shame!

Tom


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quote:


Gwen, you've made some great points. I really like those quotes from Jowett as well. I think there are really only about 10 words out of 1000(1%) that have alternate meanings; eg. Shame: 1-Unfortunate 2-Disgrace.

Jowett's version is the "MOST READABLE" version, and hence the most popular. It is clear though, that he re-arranges words, and combines sentences, etc..., for readability sake, while Bury does not.


I totally agree, Rich, that's why I always thought that it was best to compare the three when deciding what Plato intended to say. On the key phrases (time & location), there seems to be little difference. More on that later, though.

We also see Jowett's version more often because it's the easiest to find on the Internet, I think.


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quote:


I knew that Jowett's translations had stood the test of time, but I did not realize that he was a giant of a man in his own right, even if he had never translated Timaeus and Critias.

Now, what about Mr. Bury and Mr. Lee?


Jowett was a giant of a man, Tom, good choice of words, and all of them, Taylor, Lee & Bury were all very great men in their own right, too. I didn't realize just how much each of them had accomplished until I got the idea to research all of this.

Thomas Taylor was especially well-esteemed. More on him in a little bit.

About your second point, people do get in trouble if they mistranslate a word. It throws everything out of context. That is why it's important to do a comparison of many different translations, not just take the ones that suit a particular theory.


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Thomas Taylor (1758 - 1835), known as the English Platonist, was the first to translate into English the complete works of Plato and Aristotle. He also translated many of the later Platonists and also some of the remaining fragments of the earliest Greek writings, such as the Orphics, and the Pythagoreans. These translations, together with his original works, represent the most comprehensive survey of the philosophical thought of European antiquity.

Taylor has always held a special place in the esteem of many of the great artists and thinkers of the last two centuries, - Blake, Shelley and Wordsworth, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, and G.R.S. Mead have all been profoundly influenced by his writings and translations. He still commands a small but enthusiastic following amongst those who have made philosophical mysticism their study.

Secondly, Taylor's place in the history of philosophy means that the many academics involved in this area will find this series an invaluable resource.

Thirdly, as the current re-evaluation of `Neo-Platonism' gathers pace in the
philosophy departments of many universities, Taylor's writings will be seen as an essential aid in the process. The texts from which Taylor worked were even more incomplete than those available today; wherever he found lacunas and errors Taylor used his own understanding of the Platonists to suggest how the original would have read: modern textual research and discoveries have revealed that his suggestions and corrections were largely correct. As a result, Taylor is now beginning to enjoy a greater appreciation amongst academic circles than at any point previously.

http://www.prometheustrust.co.uk/Thomas_Taylor/thomas_taylor.html


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Kritias: Kritias

GREEK TRANSLATION: Criti. 108e

[108e] pantôn dê prôton mnêsthômen hoti to kephalaion ên enakischilia etê, aph' hou gegonôs emênuthê polemos tois th' huper Hêrakleias stêlas exô katoikousin kai tois entos pasin: hon dei nun diaperainein. tôn men oun hêde hê polis arxasa kai panta ton polemon diapolemêsasa elegeto, tôn d' hoi tês Atlantidos nêsou basilês, hên dê Libuês kai Asias meizô nêson ousan ephamen einai pote, nun de hupo seismôn dusan aporon pêlon tois enthende ekpleousin

ENGLISH TRANSLATION: (same passage)

[108e] Now first of all we must recall the fact that 9000 is the sum of years1 since the war occurred, as is recorded, between the dwellers beyond the pillars of Heracles and all that dwelt within them2 ; which war we have now to relate in detail. It was stated that this city of ours was in command of the one side and fought through the whole of the war, and in command of the other side were the kings of the island of Atlantis, which we said was an island larger than Libya and Asia once upon a time, but now lies sunk by earthquakes and has created a barrier of impassable mud

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0180:text=Criti.:section=108e


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Now I'd like to tackle some of the key passages according to when and where the events of Atlantis occurred, according to the three major translations:

Date
Jowett


As touching your citizens of nine thousand years ago,

Bury


Of the citizens, then, who lived 9,000 years ago,

Lee


the citizens whose laws and whose finest achievement I will now briefly describe to you therefore lived nine thousand years ago.


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Date and combattants
Jowett


that nine thousand was the sum of years which had elapsed since the war which was said to have taken place between those who dwelt outside the Pillars of Heracles and all who dwelt within them

Bury

Now first of all we must recall the fact that 9000 is the sum of years since the war occurred, as is recorded, between the dwellers beyond the pillars of Heracles and all those that dwelt within them.

Lee

We must first remind ourselves that in all nine thousand years have elapsed since the declaration of war between those who lived outside and all those who lived inside the Pillars of Heracles.


http://www.geocities.com/atlantisreviews/AtlantisComparisonofTranslations.htm


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Origins
Jowett


For these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together,

Bury


For it is related in our records how once upon a time your state stayed the course of a mighty host, which, starting from a distant point in the Atlantic ocean, was insolently advancing to attack the whole of Europe, and Asia to boot. For the ocean there was at that time navigable: for in front of the mouth which you Greeks call, as you say, "the pillars of Heracles" (1), there lay an island which was larger than Libya (2) and Asia together

Lee


Our records tell how your city checked a great power which arrogantly advanced from its base in the Atlantic ocean to attack the cities of Europe and Asia. For in those days the Atlantic was navigable. There was an island opposite the strait which you call (so you say) the Pillars of Heracles, an island larger than Libya and Asia combined.


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TIMAEUS

GREEK TRANSLATION:

[23e] humin etesin chiliois, ek Gês te kai Hêphaistou to sperma paralabousa humôn, tênde de husteran. tês de enthade diakosmêseôs par' hêmin en tois hierois grammasin oktakischiliôn etôn arithmos gegraptai. peri dê tôn enakischilia gegonotôn etê politôn soi dêlôsô dia bracheôn nomous, kai tôn ergôn autois ho kalliston eprachthê: to d' akribes peri

ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

[23e] and Hephaestus,1 and after that ours. And the duration of our civilization as set down in our sacred writings is 8000 years. Of the citizens, then, who lived 9000 years ago, I will declare to you briefly certain of their laws and the noblest of the deeds they performed:


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Here is the Greek translation of the most famous passage from Plato's dialogues:

TIMAEUS:

[24e] hen huperechei megethei kai aretêi: legei gar ta gegrammena hosên hê polis humôn epausen pote dunamin hubrei poreuomenên hama epi pasan Eurôpên kai Asian, exôthen hormêtheisan ek tou Atlantikou pelagous. tote gar poreusimon ên to ekei pelagos: nêson gar pro tou stomatos eichen ho kaleite, hôs phate, humeis Hêrakleous stêlas, hê de nêsos hama Libuês ên kai Asias meizôn, ex hês epibaton epi tas allas nêsous tois tote egigneto poreuomenois, ek de tôn nêsôn

Here is how it translates into English, per all the scholars of Perseus Tufts:

[24e] both for magnitude and for nobleness. For it is related in our records how once upon a time your State stayed the course of a mighty host, which, starting from a distant point in the Atlantic ocean, was insolently advancing to attack the whole of Europe, and Asia to boot. For the ocean there was at that time navigable; for in front of the mouth which you Greeks call, as you say, 'the pillars of Heracles,'1 there lay an island which was larger than Libya2 and Asia together; and it was possible for the travellers of that time to cross from it to the other islands, and from the islands to the whole of the continent.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0179:text=Tim.:section=24e

[ 09-11-2005, 07:26 PM: Message edited by: Gwen Parker ]


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quote:


The three mentioned translators have committed errors and some as serious as for example, to invent words that do not appear written in the Greek text of Plato or to eliminate other that yes they are written. That is a serious crime. They are not trivialities without importance.

Of all the mentioned English translations, the one of Perseus she is the one that less errors it has and the one that less have omitted words and the one that less have invented words, but also has committed these three types of unforgivable actions in a translator. And proofs exists, and the specialists in Greek Philology are confirming it.


Perseus Tufts is compiled from experts in both Greek and Latin. Perseus Tufts, for the most part, confirms Bury, Jowett & Taylor, it does not bear out any other researcher who, apparently, is coming up with independent translations that have very little to do with both the original Greek material.

(Both Greek and English are printed here, you'll notice).

Here is the material, and I guess the choice would be, who do you want to believe, all the scholars actually trained in Greek, who's translations have, for the most part, stood the test of time, or those who want to suggest some alternate interpretation.

Those who wish to are free to make their own translations from the material I have printed.

Classical Greek has always been with us, unlike Linear A, there has never been a time when it's usage disappeared from the world. There are, contrary to some opinions, many experts at it.


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GREEK

[25a] epi tên katantikru pasan êpeiron tên peri ton alêthinon ekeinon ponton. tade men gar, hosa entos tou stomatos hou legomen, phainetai limên stenon tina echôn eisploun: ekeino de pelagos ontôs hê te periechousa auto gê pantelôs alêthôs orthotat' an legoito êpeiros. en de dê têi Atlantidi nêsôi tautêi megalê sunestê kai thaumastê dunamis basileôn, kratousa men hapasês tês nêsou, pollôn de allôn nêsôn kai merôn tês êpeirou: pros de toutois eti tôn entos têide

ENGLISH:

[25a] over against them which encompasses that veritable ocean. For all that we have here, lying within the mouth of which we speak,1 is evidently a haven having a narrow entrance; but that yonder is a real ocean, and the land surrounding it may most rightly be called, in the fullest and truest sense, a continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there existed a confederation of kings, of great and marvellous power, which held sway over all the island, and over many other islands also and parts of the continent; and, moreover,

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0180:text=Tim.:section=25a


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GREEK:

[25b] Libuês men êrchon mechri pros Aigupton, tês de Eurôpês mechri Turrênias. hautê dê pasa sunathroistheisa eis hen hê dunamis ton te par' humin kai ton par' hêmin kai ton entos tou stomatos panta topon miai pote epecheirêsen hormêi doulousthai. tote oun humôn, ô Solôn, tês poleôs hê dunamis eis hapantas anthrôpous diaphanês aretêi te kai rhômêi egeneto: pantôn gar prostasa eupsuchiai kai technais hosai kata polemon,

ENGLISH:

[25b] of the lands here within the Straits they ruled over Libya as far as Egypt, and over Europe as far as Tuscany. So this host, being all gathered together, made an attempt one time to enslave by one single onslaught both your country and ours and the whole of the territory within the Straits. And then it was, Solon, that the manhood of your State showed itself conspicuous for valor and might in the sight of all the world. For it stood pre-eminent above all

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0179:text=Tim.:section=25b


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GREEK:

[25c] ta men tôn Hellênôn hêgoumenê, ta d' autê monôtheisa ex anankês tôn allôn apostantôn, epi tous eschatous aphikomenê kindunous, kratêsasa men tôn epiontôn tropaion estêsen, tous de mêpô dedoulômenous diekôlusen doulôthênai, tous d' allous, hosoi katoikoumen entos horôn Hêrakleiôn, aphthonôs hapantas êleutherôsen. husterôi de chronôi seismôn exaisiôn kai kataklusmôn genomenôn, mias

ENGLISH:

[25c] in gallantry and all warlike arts, and acting partly as leader of the Greeks, and partly standing alone by itself when deserted by all others, after encountering the deadliest perils, it defeated the invaders and reared a trophy; whereby it saved from slavery such as were not as yet enslaved, and all the rest of us who dwell within the bounds of Heracles it ungrudgingly set free. But at a later time there occurred portentous earthquakes and floods,

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0180:text=Tim.:section=25c


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GREEK:

[25d] hêmeras kai nuktos chalepês epelthousês, to te par' humin machimon pan hathroon edu kata gês, hê te Atlantis nêsos hôsautôs kata tês thalattês dusa êphanisthê: dio kai nun aporon kai adiereunêton gegonen toukei pelagos, pêlou karta bracheos empodôn ontos, hon hê nêsos hizomenê parescheto.”

ta men dê rhêthenta, ô Sôkrates, hupo tou palaiou

ENGLISH:

[25d] and one grievous day and night befell them, when the whole body of your warriors was swallowed up by the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner was swallowed up by the sea and vanished; wherefore also the ocean at that spot has now become impassable and unsearchable, being blocked up by the shoal mud which the island created as it settled down.”

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0179:text=Tim.:section=25d


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Excellent work on this, Miss Parker. Once again we see how the earliest and most respected translations put to shame those who, it seems, simply want to reinvent Plato for their own self-serving purposes.

As for Jowett, Bury and Thomas, I, for one, am apalled at how their reputations have been maligned here after such spendid accomplishments. In retrospect, that shouldn't surprise me. There are others in this world who only feel they can achieve any notoriety themselves by tearing down and casting aspersions on others, much to their shame.


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link to Atlantis rising original Gwen Parker Atlantis translations thread page 2

 

 

 

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Desmond Lee - Cambridge University
Benjamin Jowett - Oxford
R.G. Bury - Cambridge University


These are some of the best universities in the world and these men and these men were among their most distinguished professors. They deserve more consideration than what they are given here. And as for the point about the particulars of Latin to Greek as well as Greek to Latin translations, most language scholars specialize in both, there isn't any mystique about them, and the translations have been going on for many centuries.


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Philosophy Holdings in Oxford University Library Services

Medieval manuscript sources and incunabula


No single collection of medieval manuscripts at the Bodleian is devoted exclusively to philosophy. Although numerous, the manuscripts of philosophical texts are dispersed across many collections, and are best retrieved by a search for authors’ names in the general indexes. Searches by first words can be made in an unpublished source by G.E. Mohan [1]. The general range of authors and texts is surveyed in Repertorium edierter Texte…[2]. Besides those texts recognisable as philosophy in today’s terms, manuscripts in the fields of natural philosophy and grammar are also fruitful sources for the understanding of medieval thought.

Oxford’s most important manuscript of classical philosophy is the Clarke Plato (MS. E. D. Clarke 39), the oldest surviving manuscript for about half of Plato’s dialogues, which was acquired by the University in 1809: it was written in Constantinople in A.D. 895. Philosophical texts from ancient Greece and Byzantium are naturally represented by copies amongst the Bodleian’s Greek manuscripts, though scarcely any of these had reached Britain before the seventeenth century. The Bodleian also holds the oldest surviving manuscript of the Discourses of Epictetus (MS. Auct. T. 4. 13), a twelfth-century text acquired in 1820.

In the early Latin West, echoes of Greek philosophy were available through encyclopaedists such as Martianus Capella, from whom the Bodleian owns two important manuscripts from ninth-century France: a copy of the text itself with gloss (MS. Laud Lat. 118), and a manuscript of the commentary by Johannes Scotus Erigena (MS. Auct. T. 2. 19). Manuscripts of Latin classical and Late Antique philosophers remained accessible, some texts more common than others. Boethius’ De consolatione philosophiae was transcribed with its Carolingian gloss in a superb manuscript made at Canterbury in the late tenth century (MS.
Auct. F. 1. 15, part 1). In the twelfth century, William of Malmesbury searched successfully for the works of Cicero; the Library has his copy of the De officiis (MS. Rawl. G. 139). Philosophical study in twelfth-century Ireland is witnessed by a manuscript which includes Calcidius’ Latin translation of Plato's Timaeus and extensive excerpts from Erigena's Periphyseon (MS. Auct. F. 3. 15).

Latin translations of Aristotle, made either directly from the Greek or via the Arabic, were becoming available from the twelfth century. A collection of early Aristotelian translations, including parts of the Metaphysics and Ethics, was at St. Albans Abbey by the thirteenth century (MS. Selden Supra 24). At the universities from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, Aristotle’s texts and the many commentaries on them provided both the content and the logical tools for philosophical study to progress. The patterns of university exercises and debate have left their mark in the many surviving manuscripts of Quaestiones, Quodlibetica and the like from Oxford and other universities. Oxford itself was producing philosophers of European stature, such as Roger Bacon, Walter Burley and William of Ockham.

In Renaissance Italy, scholars could regain access to ancient philosophical texts in the original Greek. Duke Humfrey of Gloucester was the dedicatee of new Latin translations of both Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Politics. Whilst his own copies of these texts no longer survive in Oxford, the influence of his books and of his encouragement of humanistic scholarship is perceptible, for example in a manuscript of Leonardo Bruni’s translation of Aristotle's Ethics and Politics written by an English scribe in 1452 (New College MS. 228). Manuscripts of Aristotelian translations and commentaries are listed in Lacombe, Lohr and Kristeller [3]. Later Bodleian accessions of Italian manuscripts include a copy of Marsilio Ficino’s commentary on Plato’s Symposium with Ficino’s own autograph corrections (MS. Canon. Class. Lat. 156), one of the many humanistic manuscripts bought in 1817 from the Canonici collection of Venice.

Ancient and medieval philosophy is well represented among the incunable collections. Of the ancients the Library has, for example, approaching 50 incunable editions of the works of Aristotle, and copies of nearly half the pre-1500 printed editions of the works of Plato. Medieval scholastic philosophy is represented by authors such as Duns Scotus and William of Ockham.

Post-medieval and modern collections

In the field of early modern philosophy, the Library’s outstanding collection is that of John Locke (1632-1704). The manuscripts (for the most part bought from the Earl of Lovelace in 1947) include journals, notebooks, correspondence and early drafts of An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. In 1978 Paul Mellon presented his Locke collection which consists of a large part of the ‘King moiety’ of Locke’s library and other books and manuscripts, with the result that the Bodleian now holds over 800 volumes owned by Locke, including all those with the location ‘Oak Spring’ in Harrison and Laslett’s The Library of John Locke [4].

The Bodleian’s modern philosophy holdings reflect the development of the study of philosophy in the University. Until the foundation of the School of Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) in 1920, philosophy was only studied as part of the Literae Humaniores School, with a syllabus that was, until the early nineteenth century, focussed on ancient philosophy and logic, as were Bodleian acquisitions. In the 1830s modern philosophy began to be studied, initially only as a means of illuminating the ancient texts, but gradually, under the influence of Oxford philosophers like F.H. Bradley and T.H. Green, as a subject in its own right.

From the nineteenth century the library of Thomas Fowler (1832-1904), Wykeham Professor of Logic, is now held in the Philosophy Library in Merton Street. The collection combines rare and antiquarian material with the standard journals and textbooks of the period. Fowler was a noted authority on Sir Francis Bacon and on the history of logic, and these books were the tools of his trade. There are a number of late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century volumes from the Aldine Press. The texts of Bacon’s writings include first editions of Sylva Sylvarum and Opuscula varia posthuma. Other rare books of interest include John Milton’s Artis logicae plenior institutio of 1672, and The Game of Logic by Lewis Carroll (1887), with the original counters and an inscription to Fowler by the author.

The chief significance of the Fowler Collection, however, is as a surviving working library, ancient and modern, of one of the major figures of Victorian Oxford. Beyond Fowler’s own research interests, the only modern philosophical texts included are those which were finding reluctant acceptance in the Oxford teaching syllabus of the later nineteenth century as adjuncts to the ancient philosophy course. The Fowler Collection is complemented by another turn-of-the-century collection of philosophy books, those of Shadworth Hollway Hodgson, a friend of Fowler and first President of the Aristotelian Society. Bequeathed to Corpus Christi College, the majority are on loan to the Philosophy Library. The collection is strong in nineteenth-century Continental philosophy, and demonstrates the extent to which new ideas were transforming the Oxford philosophy scene.

The Bodleian’s acquisitions responded to these developments throughout the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, with an increase both in purchases of philosophical works published abroad and of British philosophy acquired through legal deposit. The Library also houses papers of the Positivist Richard Congreve (1818-99); of H.H. Joachim (1868-1938), Wykeham Professor of Logic; of the moral philosopher H.A. Prichard (1871-1947); In 1967 it acquired by gift the typescript of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus logico-philosophicus from which the German text was probably published in 1921 (MS. German d. 6), and in 1969 purchased an early manuscript of the Tractatus (MS. German d. 7). The Library holds the papers of R. G. Collingwood (1889-1943), Waynflete Professor of Metaphysics, which are on deposit from the family. There is a typescript catalogue of these available in Duke Humfrey and in the Modern Papers Reading Room; the papers can be read in Modern Papers, though researchers are asked to consult them on microfilm in the first instance.

The period following the Second World War was one in which Oxford philosophers, and even a branch of philosophy known as ‘Oxford Philosophy’, or ordinary-language philosophy, were pre-eminent. From this period, the library holds some papers of the analytical philosopher J.L. Austin, (1911-1960), including his notes for his lecture Series “Words and Deeds”, and papers of the logician A.N. Prior (1914-69). Further insights into this period may be found in the Jowett Society minute-books for 1920-59 ( MSS. Top. Oxon. d.359/1-3; printed papers at G.A. Oxon 4o 603)and in the minute-books, 1898-1971 of the Oxford University Philosophical Society (MSS. Top. Oxon. e. 369/1-2, Eng. misc. d. 937), and the minute-books of the Origen Society, 1904-29, 1933-59 (MSS. Top. Oxon. d.374/1-4, 6-10). The extensive archive of Sir Isaiah Berlin was given to the Library by the Isaiah Berlin Literary Trust in 1999. It includes a wide range of correspondence, academic, literary and personal papers. A detailed catalogue, due to be completed in 2004, is being made available online [5]. The study of the philosophy of science also expanded greatly in the post-war period, and holdings were built up at the Radcliffe Science Library.

In recent years the scope of acquisitions has widened to include electronic journals and databases, a video collection of contemporary philosophers and the digitisation of primary resources with, for example, the inclusion of the Wittgenstein manuscripts in the Bergen electronic edition. Philosophy Library modern manuscripts include unpublished papers relating to JL Austin , Saul Kripke , HH Price, WV Quine, and Gilbert Ryle (although the majority of Ryle’s papers are held at Linacre College).

Select bibliography
Harrison, John and Laslett, Peter, The Library of John Locke (2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971).

Kristeller, P.O., et al., Catalogus translationum et commentariorum: Medieval and Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries: Annotated Lists and Guides (Washington, D.C., 1960- ).

Lacombe, G., et al., Aristoteles Latinus, Corpus Philosophorum Medii Aevi (vol.I, Rome, 1939; vol.II, incl. Suppl., Cambridge, 1955; Suppl. Altera, ed. L. Minio-Paluello, Bruges & Paris, 1961).

Lohr, C.H., Medieval Latin Aristotle Commentaries (successive articles in Traditio, 23-30 (1967-1974)), and Latin Aristotle Commentaries II, Renaissance Authors (Corpus Philosophorum Medii Aevi, Subsidia 6; Florence, 1988), with III, Index Initiorum – Index Finium (Subsidia 10; Florence, 1995).

Long, Philip, A Summary Catalogue of the Lovelace Collection of the Papers of John Locke in the Bodleian Library (Oxford Bibliographical Society Publications, n.s.8; Oxford, 1959).

Long, Philip, ‘The Mellon Donation of Additional Manuscripts of John Locke from the Lovelace Collection’, Bodleian Library Record, 7/4 (1964), 185-93.

Mohan, G.E., Incipits of Philosophical Writings in Latin of the XIIIth-XVth Centuries [enlargement from microfilm of the original at St Bonaventure University, N.Y., n.d., bound in 4 vols]. Held in Duke Humfrey’s Library at R.5.497/1-4.

Sammut, Alfredo, Unfredo duca di Gloucester e gli umanisti italiani (Medioevo e Umanesimo, 41; Padova: Antenore, 1980).

Schankula, H.A.S., ‘A Summary Catalogue of the Philosophical Manuscript Papers of John Locke’, Bodleian Library Record, 9/1 (1973), 24-35; and ‘Additions and Corrections’, BLR, 9/2 (1974), 81-2.

Schönberger, R. & Kible, B, eds., Repertorium edierter Texte des Mittelalters aus dem Bereich der Philosophie und angrenzender Gebiete, (Berlin, 1994).

Catalogues

Duke Humfrey and English Humanism in the Fifteenth Century [exhibition catalogue] (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 1970).

http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/guides/philosophy/hist.html


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quote:


Jowett, Bury and Lee were all highly qualified to translate Plato, and most importantly they didn't have any hidden agendas. These noted scholars agree in all the essentials about Atlantis--particularly the size, location and date. I see no purpose in examining any off-the-wall translations. When you have prime rib, why settle for a hamburger?


You hit the nail on the head, Tom. None of the original translaters had hidden agendas. They did not seek to place Atlantis in their home country at all costs, and all of them already were professors at the time they performed their translations. They weren't trying to build a reputation, nor were they trying to walk on the bones of others while they did so.


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Thomas Taylor was one of the outstanding translators of the philosophical writings of the Greeks and Romans, and also published several original works on philosophy and mathematics. Many of his important contributions in these fields have been long out-of-print and are extremely difficult to obtain, having been issued in very small editions. Most of Taylor's translations have an archaic elegance which preserves the spirit of the older authors in a manner not evident in more recent translations. Taylor added notes and commentaries which give valuable insight into essential meaning which is often obscure in the actual texts. Thomas Taylor died in November, 1835; for his own epitaph he wrote the following appropriate lines:
"Health, strength and ease, and manhood's active age,
Freely I gave to Pluto's sacred page.
With truth's pure joys, with Fame my days were crown'd,
Tho' Fortune adverse on my labors frown'd."
http://www.prs.org/ttaylor.htm


 

 

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I'd like to apologize to everyone not engaged in the current forum bickering for my earlier outburst here (not to say it won't happen again). The university tradition is very important to me, I have a lot of respect for institutions like Oxford and Cambridge, and I don't like it when people demean their accomplishments. They are two of the oldest universities in the world and the classics section of each is unmatched by most other institutions.

I'd also like to reinforce Brig's earlier point that the thread stay on the research, not engage in personal attacks or wild accusations. In my opinion, when it degenerates into that kind of behavior, this forum is at it's worst.


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Greek language

Greek (Ελληνικά)
Spoken in: Greece, Cyprus, United States, Australia, Germany, Albania, Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Sweden, Italy, Turkey and others
Region: The Balkans
Total speakers: 15 million
Ranking: 74
Genetic classification: Indo-European
Greek
Attic
Modern Greek
Official status
Official language of: Greece, Cyprus (and the European Union)
Regulated by: –
Language codes
ISO 639-1 el
ISO 639-2 gre (B) / ell (T)
SIL GRK
See also: Language – List of languages
Greek (Greek Ελληνικά, IPA /ɛˌliniˈka/ – "Hellenic") constitutes its own branch of the Indo-European languages. It has a documented history of 3,500 years, the longest of any Indo-European language. It is spoken by 15 million people primarily in Greece and Cyprus, but also in many Greek emigrant communities around the world.

Greek is written in the Greek alphabet, the first true alphabet (as opposed to an abjad or abugida) and the ancestor of both the Latin and the Cyrillic alphabets.

History
Main article: History of the Greek language


Greek has been spoken in the Balkan Peninsula since the 2nd millennium BC. The earliest evidence of this is found in the Linear B tablets dating from 1500 BC. The later Greek alphabet is unrelated to Linear B, and was derived from the Phoenician writing system (abjad) in c. 1000 BC and, with minor modifications, is still used today. Greek is conventionally divided into the following periods:

Mycenean Greek: the language of the Mycenean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 16th century BC onwards.
Ancient Greek: In its various forms was the language both of Archaic and Classical periods of Greek civilisation. It has been studied in the Islamic world and Europe since the Middle Ages.
Hellenistic Greek (also known as Koine Greek): The fusion of various ancient Greek dialects with Attic (the dialect of Athens) resulted in the creation of the first common Greek dialect, which gradually turned into one of the world's first international languages. Koine Greek can be initially traced within the armies and conquered territories of Alexander the Great, but after the Hellenistic colonisation of the known world, it was spoken from Egypt to the fringes of India. After the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial diglossy of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. Through Koine Greek it is also traced the origin of Christianity, as the Apostles used it to preach in Greece and the Greek-speaking world. It is also known as the Alexandrian dialect, Post-Classic Greek or even New Testament Greek (after its most famous work of literature).
Medieval Greek: The continuation of Hellenistic Greek during medieval Greek history as the official and vernacular language of the Byzantine Empire. Also known as Byzantine Greek.
Modern Greek: Stemming directly from Koine Greek, Modern Greek can be traced in the late Byzantine period (as early as 11th century).
Two main forms of the language have been in use since the end of the medieval Greek period: Dhimotikí (Δημοτική), the Demotic (vernacular) language, and Katharévusa (Καθαρεύουσα), an imitation of classical Greek, which was used for literary, juridic, and scientific purposes during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Demotic Greek is the official language of the modern Greek state, and the most widely spoken by Greeks today.

Modern Greek differs in many ways from Ancient Greek, but is still recognisably the same language: it is more similar to Ancient Greek than Italian is to Latin, for example. It is claimed that an "educated" speaker of the modern language can understand an ancient text, but this is surely as much a function of education as of the similarity of the languages. Still, Koinē /ciˈni/, the version of Greek used to write the New Testament and the Septuagint, is relatively easy to understand for modern speakers.

Greek words have been widely borrowed into the European languages: astronomy, democracy, philosophy, thespian, etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as a basis for coinages: anthropology, photography, isomer, biomechanics etc. and form, with Latin words, the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary. See English words of Greek origin, and List of Greek words with English derivatives.

Classification
Greek is its own independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient languages which were probably most closely related to it, Ancient Macedonian language (perhaps even a dialect of Greek) and Phrygian, are not well enough documented

Geographic distribution
Modern Greek is spoken by about 15 million people mainly in Greece and Cyprus but also in many other countries where Greeks have settled, including Albania, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Egypt, France, Georgia, Germany, Italy, Turkey, UK, and the USA.

Official status
Greek is the official language of Greece where it is spoken by about 98.5% of the population. It is also, alongside Turkish, the official language of the Republic of Cyprus.

Sounds
This section describes the phonology of the Modern Greek language.

The Modern Greek language contains certain sandhi rules, some written, some not. N (ν) before bilabials and velars becomes /m/ and /ŋ/ respectively, and is written μ (συμπάθεια, "sympathy") and γ (συγχρονίζω, "synchronize").
One should note that, when n (ν) becomes m (μ) it is also pronounced as /m/ in Northern Greece (/sympathia/), whereas Southern Greeks conflate /m/+/p/ to /b/ (/sybathia/).
Pre-velar N changes to (γ) and may be pronounced /ŋ/ or /n/, although the latter is usually indicative of careless enunciation. An exception to this rule is the word συγγνώμη (freely translated "I'm sorry") in which /n/ is phonetically dropped and the word is pronounced "si/ŋ/γ/nomi" (this is actually an older form of the word, the current orthography is συγνώμη in which /n/ is dropped both phonetically and literally).
The word ἐστὶ (estí, IPA /ˌɛsˈti/), which means "is" in Ancient Greek (q.v. Modern Greek είναι), gains a "euphonic" n, and the accusative articles τόν and τήν in Modern Greek lose it, depending on the beginning letter of the next word (if it's a consonant, n is usually dropped). In the phrase "tón patéra" (τον πατέρα), which means "the father" (accusative case), instead of being dropped, n is assimilated into the second word (creating "to npatera") and, following the example above, np is pronounced /mp/ in Northern Greece and /b/ in Southern Greece, thus producing the sound /to batera/.

It should be noted that the latter example is analogous to the English use of "gimme" instead of the correct "give me", and it certainly is not an obligatory phonological rule of the Greek language. Indeed, while everyday spoken Greek sounds artificial if the sandhi rules are not used, a formal or official speech may sound equally awkward if sandhi rules are used. The general concept is described as ευφωνία (euphonia, i.e. beauty of sound) and as such it is largely left upon the intent and taste of each speaker.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language


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Vowels
In the International Phonetic Alphabet:

The systematic distinction between long and short vowels has been lost in Hellenistic Greek.

Front Back
Close i u
Close-mid o
Open-mid ɛ
Open a

Consonants
In the International Phonetic Alphabet:

Bilabial Labiodental Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar
Plosive p b t d c ɟ k g
Nasal m ɱ n ɲ ŋ
Trill r
Fricative f v θ ð s z ç ʝ x ɣ
Affricate ts dz
Approximant j
Lateral approximant l ʎ

Historical sound changes
The main phonetic changes between Classic and post-Classic (Hellenistic) Greek are a simplification in the vowel system and a change of some consonants to fricative values. Ancient Greek had five short vowels, seven long vowels, and numerous diphthongs. This has been reduced to a simple five-vowel system. Most noticeably, the vowels i, ē, y, ei, oi (ι, η, υ, ει, οι) have all become i. The consonants b, d, g (β, δ, γ) became v, dh, gh (dh is /ð/ and gh is /ɣ/). The aspirated consonants pʰ, tʰ, kʰ (φ, θ, χ) became f, th, kh (where the new pronunciation of th is /θ/ and the new pronunciation of kh is /x/). There is scant evidence however that the Dorian pronunciation of θ might have always been /th/.


Grammar
Ancient Greek, like all of the older Indo-European languages, is highly inflected. For example nouns (including proper nouns) have five cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and vocative), three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter), and three numbers (singular, dual and plural). Verbs have four moods (indicative, imperative, subjunctive and optative), three voices (active, middle and passive), as well as three persons (first, second and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated in four main tenses (present, aorist, perfect, and future), with a full complement of moods for each main tense, although there is no future subjunctive or future imperative. (The distinction of the "tenses" in moods other than the indicative is actually mostly of aspect.) In addition, indicative forms of the imperfect and pluperfect exist. There are infinitives and participles for all corresponding finite combinations of tense and voice, excluding the imperfect and pluperfect. However, usage of ancient/obsolete grammatical forms and phrases is becoming increasingly common in current language in the absence of similar modern forms (e.g.: ειρήσθω εν παρόδω, French: a propos ; ευκαιρίας δοθείσης, Latin: data occasione).

Modern Greek has simplified some aspects of this system but is still largely a synthetic language. It is one of the few Indo-European languages that has retained a synthetic passive. The dative is lost except for in a few expressions like εν τάξει (en táxei /ɛn ˈdaˌksi/), which means "OK" (literally: "in order"). Other noticeable changes in its grammar include the loss of the optative, infinitive and the dual number (with the exception of δύο, the numeral two, used undeclined in all cases); the reduction in the number of noun declensions, and the number of distinct forms in each declension; the adoption of the modal particle θα (a corruption of ἐθέλω ἵνα > θέλω να > θε' να > θα) to denote future and conditional tenses; the introduction of auxiliary verb forms for certain tenses; the reduction of participles to only two, one active and one passive; the extension to the future tense of the aspectual distinction between present/imperfect and aorist; the loss of the third person imperative, except in archaicisms such as ζήτω! ('long live!'); and the simplification of the system of grammatical prefixes, such as augmentation and reduplication. Interestingly, modern unaugmented Aorist forms sometimes coincide with Homeric ones.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language


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Writing system

Modern Greek is written in the late Attic variant of the Greek alphabet, which originated in the 8th or 9th Century BCE, assumed its final form in 403 BCE, and displaced other regional variants due to its use for the Koine dialect during the Hellenistic era.

The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with a capital and small form: Α α, Β β, Γ γ, Δ δ, Ε ε, Ζ ζ, Η η, Θ θ, Ι ι, Κ κ, Λ λ, Μ μ, Ν ν, Ξ ξ, Ο ο, Π π, Ρ ρ, Σ σ ς (word-final form), Τ τ, Υ υ, Φ φ, Χ χ, Ψ ψ, Ω ω.

Examples


Some common words and phrases
Greek (man): Έλληνας, IPA /ˈɛliˌnas/
Greek (woman): Ελληνίδα /ˌɛliˈniða/
Greek (language): Ελληνικά /ɛˌliniˈka/
hello: γεια /ʝa/ (informal, literally "health"), you say this only to people that you know well. When you address a stranger you use the more formal "good morning": καλημέρα /ˌkaliˈmɛɾa/
good-bye: αντίο /aˈdiˌo/ (formal), γεια /ʝa/ (informal)
please: παρακαλώ /paˌɾakaˈlo/
I would like ____ please: θα ήθελα ____ παρακαλώ /θa ˈiθɛˌla ____ paˌɾakaˈlo/
sorry: συγγνώμη /ˌsiˈɣnomi/
thank you: ευχαριστώ /ɛˌfxaɾiˈsto/
that/this: αυτό /ˌaˈfto/
how much?: πόσο; /ˈpoˌso/
how much does it cost?: πόσο κοστίζει; /ˈpoˌso ˌkoˈstizi/
yes: ναι /nɛ/
no: όχι /ˈoˌçi/
I don't understand: δεν καταλαβαίνω /ðɛŋ gaˌtalaˈvɛno/ (sandhi - see above) or /ðɛŋ kaˌtalaˈvɛno/
I don't know: δεν ξέρω /ðɛŋ ˈgzɛˌɾo/ (sandhi - see above) or /ðɛŋ ˈksɛˌɾo/
where's the bathroom?: πού είναι η τουαλέτα; /pu ˈiˌnɛ i ˌtuaˈlɛta/
generic toast: εις υγείαν! /is iˈʝiˌan/
juice: χυμός /ˌçiˈmos/
water: νερό /ˌnɛˈɾo/
wine: κρασί /ˌkɾaˈsi/
beer: μπύρα /ˈbiˌɾa/
milk: γάλα /ˈɣaˌla/
Do you speak English?: Μιλάτε Αγγλικά; /miˈlaˌtɛ ˌaŋgliˈka/
I love you: σ’ αγαπώ /ˌsaɣaˈpo/
Help!: Βοήθεια! /voˈiθiˌa/

The Lord's Prayer in Greek (Matt. 6:9-13)
Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου·

ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου· γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου, ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς·

τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡμῖν σήμερον·

καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφελήματα ἡμῶν, ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀφίεμεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡμῶν·

καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν, ἀλλὰ ρῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ.

Ὅτι σοῦ ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία καὶ ἡ δύναμις καὶ ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας·

ἀμήν.

The Lord's Prayer in Greek (Matt. 6:9-13)
Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου·

ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου· γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου, ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς·

τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡμῖν σήμερον·

καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφελήματα ἡμῶν, ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀφίεμεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡμῶν·

καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν, ἀλλὰ ρῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ.

Ὅτι σοῦ ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία καὶ ἡ δύναμις καὶ ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας·

ἀμήν.


References
W. Sidney Allen, Vox Graeca - a guide to the pronunciation of classical Greek. Cambridge University Press, 1968-74. ISBN 0-521-20626-X

Geoffrey Horrocks, Greek: A History of the Language and Its Speakers (Longman Linguistics Library). Addison Wesley Publishing Company, 1997. ISBN 0582307090

Crosby and Schaeffer, An Introduction to Greek, Allyn and Bacon, Inc. 1928.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language


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Some of you probably have this, it's an online dictionary for translating Greek to English or vice versa. It's a great reference tool:

http://www.kypros.org/cgi-bin/lexicon


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A randomly generated typographic filler for Greek:

http://www.lorem-ipsum.info/_greek

Another Greek dictionary:

http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Greek-english/

Lastly, an online dictionary that converts any of the languages of the European Union into one another:

http://europa.eu.int/eurodicautom/Controller


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THE PRINCIPAL SOURCES OF ANCIENT SCIENCE IN
WESTERN CHRISTENDOM BETWEEN A.D. 500 AND A.D. 1300
(1) Early Greek and Latin Sources

Author Work Latin translator and
language of original of
translation Place and date of
Latin translation
Plato
(428-347 B.C.)
Timaeus (first 53 chapters) Calcidius from Greek 4th century

Aristotle
(384-22 B.C.)
Some logical works (logica vetus) Boethius from Greek Italy
6th century

Dioscorides
(1st century A.D.)
Materia Medica from Greek by 6th century
Anon. Physiologus (2nd century A.D. Alexandria) from Greek 5th century
Anon. Various technical Compositiones from Greek sources earliest MSS
8th century

Lucretius
(c. 95-55 B.C.)
De Rerum Natura (knows in excerpts form 9th century; full text recovered 1417) . .
Vitruvius
(1st century B.C.)
De Architectura (known in 12th century) . .
Seneca
(4 B.c. - 65 A.D.)
Questiones Naturales . .
Pliny
(23-79 A.D.)
Histora Naturalis . .
Macrobius
(fl. 395-423)
In Somnium Scipionis . .
Martianus Capella
(5th century)
Satyricon, sive De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii et de Septem Artibus Liberalibus . .
Boethius
(480-524)
Works on the liberal arts, particularly mathematics and astronomy, and commentaries on the logic of Aristotle and Porphyry . .
Cassiodorus
(c. 490-580)
Works on the liberal arts . .
Isidore of Seville
(560-636)
Etymologiarum sive Originum
De Natura Rerum
. .
Bede
(673-735)
De Natura Rerum
De Temporum Ratione
. .

http://inst.santafe.cc.fl.us/~jbieber/HS/trans1.htm


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Calcidius in the Vatican:

quote:


Calcidius's version of Plato's cosmology, produced in the fifth century A.D., was an influential source for medieval ideas about the natural world. In the late sixteenth century, this manuscript belonged to Leiden University professor Daniel Heinsius who gave it to his son Nicholas. Nicholas, whose signature appears on the manuscript, was the librarian of Queen Christina of Sweden, whose collection came to the Vatican Library after her death.


http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/vatican/medicine.html

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/vatican/images/medbio01.jpg


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Leonardo Bruni

An eminent Italian humanist, b. of poor and humble parents at Arezzo, the birthplace of Petrarch, in 1369; d. at Florence, 9 March, 1444. He is also called Aretino from the city of his birth. Beginning at first the study of law, he later, under the patronage of Salutato and the influence of the Greek scholar Chrysoloras, turned his attention to the study of the classics. In 1405 he obtained through his friend Poggio the post of Apostolic secretary under Pope Innocent VII. He remained at Rome for several years, continuing as secretary under Popes Gregory XII and Alexander V. In 1410 he was elected Chancellor of the Republic of Florence, but resigned the office after a few months, returning to the papal court as secretary under John XXIII, whom he afterwards accompanied to the Council of Constance. On the deposition of that pope in 1415, Bruni returned to Florence, where he spent the remaining years of his life.

Here he wrote his chief work, a Latin history of Florence, "Historiarium Florentinarum Libri XII" (Strasburg, 1610). In recognition of this great work the State conferred upon him the rights of citizenship and exempted the author and his children from taxation. In 1427 through the favour of the Medici he was again appointed state chancellor, a post which he held until his death. During these seventeen years he performed many valuable services to the State. Bruni contributed greatly to the revival of Greek and Latin learning in Italy in the fifteenth century and was foremost among the scholars of the Christian Renaissance. He, more than any other man, made the treasures of the Hellenic world accessible to the Latin scholar through his literal translations into Latin of the works of Greek authors. Among these may be mentioned his translations of Aristotle, Plato, Plutarch, Demosthenes, and Æschines. These were considered models of pure Latinity.

His original works include: "Commentarius Rerum Suo Tempore Gestarum"; "De Romae Origine"; "De Bello Italico adversus Gothos"; and ten volumes of letters, "Epistolae Familiares", which, written in elegant Latin, are very valuable for the literary history of the fifteenth century. He was also the author of biographies in Italian of Dante and Petrarch and wrote in Latin the lives of Cicero and Aristotle. So widespread was the admiration for Bruni's talents that foreigners came from all parts to see him. The great esteem in which he was held by the Florentines was shown by the extraordinary public honors accorded him at his death. His corpse was clad in dark silk, and on his breast was laid a copy of his "History of Florence". In the presence of many foreign ambassadors and the court of Pope Eugenius, Manetti pronounced the funeral oration and placed the crown of laurel upon his head. He was then buried at the expense of the State in the cemetery of Santa Croce, where his resting-place is marked by a monument executed by Rossellino.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03011b.htm


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link to original Atlantis Rising original forum

 

Author

Topic: Plato: Translations & Their Histories

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There are only 10 Greek manuscripts in existence of Caesar's Gallic Wars, and none of them are older than the 10th century AD! This means that for 1000 years, copies of the book were made, and mistakes and corrections and emendations were introduced, and parts were rewritten by disagreeing historians. This means that even if all 10 copies of the text that do exist agree with one another, you still could never know if those are the same words Caesar wrote. There are only 2 copies of Tacitus' Annals, and they too are 950 years more recent than when Tacitus originally wrote the document (and it also might be added that great portions of the document are known to be missing). There are only 7 copies of Plato's writings, and 20 of Livy. (It is interesting to note that one of the 20 copies of Livy has a 4th century copy of the book of Hebrews written on the back!)

http://www.christianseparatist.org/ast/hist/textcrit.htm

The oldest manuscripts of Plato’s writings date back to 900 AD, which leaves a time span of 1,200 years between our oldest copy and the original text. For Aristotle the oldest known copies date back to 1100 AD, leaving a gap of approximately 1400 years. Caesar’s Gallic Wars were written in the 1st century BC, but again, the earliest copy is dated to 900 AD, leaving another millennial gap. These are just a few representatives of many ancient authors and texts. The list could go on with notable Greek and Roman historians, statesmen and philosophers.

http://www.rzim.org/publications/slicetran.php?sliceid=165


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Notes for Faculty Colloquium—Anne Collins Smith—October 26, 1998

As Shakespeare is said to have had little Latin and less Greek, so we may say that the medievals had little Plato and less Aristotle.

Until the twelfth century, the medievals relied on a few influential Platonic dialogues such as the Timaeus, known through the translations and commentaries of ancient authorities, and ancient handbooks of Greek philosophical thought, such as the Didaskalikos of Alcinous and the Timaeus commentary of Calcidius. Notoriously arcane, cryptic, and dualistic, these influences gave rise to a philosophy heavily dependent on the notion that this world is neither real or important and that there is another, higher, better dimension of reality, inculturating Christianity with a world-negational attitude that has not been fully overcome.

While Latin Europe struggled along with incomplete texts of Plato and a dearth of Aristotle, scholars dwelling in Islamic countries were more fortunate. Lands conquered by Arabs early in the Islamic period held many Greek texts which were translated into Arabic, including almost all of Aristotle as we known him today.

In the twelfth century, translation centers sprang up in Sicily and Spain and intensive translation activity began. Works of Aristotle and Plato hitherto unknown in the Latin West were translated from Arabic into Latin, along with pseudo-Aristotelian works such as the Liber de Causis. The works of Arabic philosophers and commentators like al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroes were also translated.

Even more texts became available in the 13th century, including early Platonic dialogues like the Phaedo and the Meno, more texts of Aristotle and commentaries on Aristotle.

This had an enormous impact on Western philosophy. Arabic thought provided European thought with new materials, and brought within its purview a whole new world of metaphysics. (W. M. Watt, The Influence of Islam on Medieval Europe. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1972, p. 70)

The infusion of Aristotle was particularly influential. Although Aristotle is difficult to read as a result of the format in which he has been preserved—lecture notes—he is on the whole a philosopher of common sense and practicality, especially when contrasted with the idealism of Plato, and his philosophy is highly world-affirmational. The world we live in is the real world, and it's a good place, too.

To give an idea of the world-affirmational effect of Aristotle's philosophy, it would help to discuss the highest being in the universe. For Plato, this is the Form of the Good, an abstract and incomprehensible entity who is somehow beyond both being and intelligibility. For Aristotle it is the Unmoved Mover or Self-Thinking Thought, who functions as the purpose of the universe (for Aristotle the universe is uncreated) but, since it can think only of itself, is unaware of the rest of the universe. Aquinas blends the two to arrive at a Supreme Being who exists in a manner analogous to the being of creatures, and who, as the self-thinking thought, is fully aware of the Divine Essence, including all the ways in which it may be imitated by finite creatures. This awareness is called the Divine Ideas, and these ideas form the blueprint, the indwelling substantial form, for every created being. Thus, instead of being a poor imitation of reality, every creature in this universe contains within itself the glory of God.

As positive as the effect of Aristotelian philosophy may have been, it was not a painless transition. In the case of Aristotle, Christian scholars were now faced with a powerful metaphysical, psychological, and ethical system that treated of ultimates concerning man and the universe and the 'divine' without any possible concern for the demands of Judeo-Christian orthodoxy. (W&W) Aristotle's philosophy was eventually baptized by Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, who blended it with Platonism to form a unified philosophical system consistent with Christianity.

We could stop here, and we'd have pretty much given the mainstream opinion of the Arab influence on medieval philosophy. By preserving the works of Plato and Aristotle, they filled out the incomplete corpus possessed by the Latin West and brought about an enormous shift in philosophical speculation; indeed some scholars trace the seeds of the Renaissance to this deposit of classical wisdom.

This view is obvious, and easy—and wrong.

To look at the Arabs in that light is to treat them as a kind of handy time capsule, storing material from the ancient European world and transmitting it at an appropriate time to the medieval European world. To treat the influence of the Arab world on medieval Europe in this way is to overlook the contributions made by the Arabs themselves.

S. M. Ghazanfar, chair of the department of Economics at the University of Idaho-Moscow, phrases it thus:

the mainstream paradigm, in general, describes the influence of Islamic scholarship chiefly in terms of its preservation and transmission of portions of ancient Greek philosophy that had been lost to medieval Europe. As some have suggested, the paradigm is too rigid—almost unshakable, despite all the new evidence and literature. George Sarton once criticized those who will glibly say ‘the Arabs simply translated Greek writings, they were industrious imitators...’ This is not absolutely untrue, but it is such a small part of the truth that when it is allowed to stand alone, it is worse than a lie.

And then there is another historian of science, Colin Ronan,

Too often science in Arabia has been seen nothing more than a holding operation. The area has been viewed as a giant storehouse for previously discovered scientific results, keeping them until they could be passed on for use in the West. But this is, of course, a travesty of the truth.

(Note the word science is used in its historic meaning—knowledge, comprehensively defined, including philosophy, etc.)

Medieval Europe did not simply absorb its forgotten Aristotelian heritage from Arabs who functioned purely instrumentally. Islamic scholars also brought their own philosophy to the table, and dialogues between the Islamic and Christian worlds were fruitful on both sides.

Islamic philosophers of the medieval period wrestled with many of the same issues as their Christian and Jewish counterparts. The resolution of tension between faith and reason was immensely important to all philosophers of this period. Greek philosophy was developed independently of the monotheistic religions of the Book, and trying to combine Greek philosophy with Judaism, Christianity, or Islam inevitably led to difficulties. The ways in which Islamic philosophers settled these issues, however, were different from the approaches taken by Christian philosophers, and the dialogues between Islamic and Christian philosophers brought these new perspectives to the Latin West. I'm not saying that the European philosophers wound up agreeing with the Arab philosophers, but rather that the European position was often shaped by their need to refute certain Arab positions.

For example, Siger of Brabant, a dedicated Averroist, was known for his claim, following his Islamic predecessor, that truths of faith and truths of reason can be incompatible and yet both true. This dual-truth theory had been controversial within Islam and was of course also controversial within Christianity; in order to combat it, Aquinas made explicit what is now official Catholic doctrine of the two sources of knowledge, the book of scripture and the book of nature: Scripture rightly interpreted will never contradict reason rightly applied.

Another issue that concerned Islamic scholars of this time was the precise nature and definition of the soul. In the 11th century, Avicenna, strongly influenced by Neoplatonism, argued for a division between the active and passive elements of the human mind. The active elements of the mind were actually the effects of an independent being known as the agent intellect, created by the transcendent Intelligence that governs the world we live in, whose job is to supply forms to matter and to illuminate the passive elements of the human mind, enabling our minds to function. The passive elements, also known as the possible intellects, exist in each person and are unique to each person. Averroes, in the 12th century, apparently argued, following a difficult passage in Aristotle's De Anima, that not only the agent intellect but even the possible intellect were separate entities, thus denying a unique personal and spiritual element to the human soul and thereby denying personal immortality. This was not only a controversial point within Islam and Christianity, but it gave rise to Aquinas' famous treatise De Unitate Intellectus Contra Averroistas in which he was forced to develop and elucidate a view of human cognition which allowed for a recognition of an active and passive element, but which was also consistent with personal immortality.

My specific area of research also illustrates this point. I have been working on a text called the Liber de Causis, a 9th century Arabic synopsis of a neoPlatonic work, Proclus' Elements of Theology. It was Thomas Aquinas, in fact, who first recognized this work as a synopsis of the Elements of Theology, which had only recently become available in Latin; until then, it was generally thought to be a work of Aristotle.

Thomas believed that the LdC was more or less an exact synopsis of the ET, and in his commentary he treats the two works as if they are pretty much equivalent. It is clear, however, that there are certain differences, and recent scholarship has begun to trace these differences to the influence of Islamic scholarship on the author of the LdC. A conjectured source document called the *Plotiniana Arabica is believed to be the source of many of the subtle alterations between the Elements of Theology and the Liber de Causis; scholars such as Richard Taylor and Cristina d'Ancona Costa have recently been investigating this phenomenon. Moreover, as d'Ancona-Costa observes (and I agree) not only does the Liber de Causis show evidence of Plotinian as well as Proclean metaphysics—we're still talking about Greeks here—but also that it substantially transforms the doctrines of its neoplatonic sources (p. 42), particularly in its adaptation of the neoplatonic One to pure creative being which is esse tantum. This treatment of pure creative being is neither strictly Platonic nor Aristotelian, nor does it simply and obviously arise from a synthesis of Plato and Aristotle; it is a product of the unknown Moslem author of the Liber de Causis, and a powerful influence on its Latin readers.

Thus, avoiding the pernicious view that the importance of Islamic scholarship in the Middle Ages was simply its transmission of ancient Greek texts, we can see that Islamic scholars engaged and challenged Christian and Jewish thinkers in the Latin West, influencing their views on critical metaphysical and theological issues such as the relation between faith and reason, the operation of the human soul, and the nature of God.

Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 15:34:04 -0600
Sender: H-NET List on Islamic Lands of the Medieval Periody <H-MIDEAST-MEDIEVAL@H-NET.MSU.EDU>
From: editor, h-mideast medieval <langkh@uwec.edu>
Subject: arab contributions to 13th century science
To: H-MIDEAST-MEDIEVAL@H-NET.MSU.EDU

I hope, when the subject of Arab (meaning Islamic culture, I assume) contributions to science comes up those to East Asian as well as European science are considered. One of of the most impressive achievements of the era, in my view, was the transmission of Arabic medicine to China thanks to the Mongols as witnessed by the Hui-hui yao-fang, Muslim Medicinal Recipes, a Chinese-language (but with Arabic script entries) adaptation of Ibin Sina's Qanun. The HHYF is, moreover, the tip of the iceberg since there is substantial Near Eastern content in books with a less direct provenance, e.g., in the Yin-shan cheng-yao, Proper and Essential Things for the Emperor's Food and Drink, upon which I have worked these last 20 years and which appears more and more Islamic the farther I delve into it. Both of the Chinese works mentioned are, of course, 14th century, but the transmission which made them possible are mostly 13th, dating primarily to Qubilai-qan's time.

Paul D. Buell
pbuell@seanet.com

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/20/014.html


 

 

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Four Texts on Socrates: Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito, and Aristophanes' Clouds:
Translator's Note and Beginning of Introduction

A perfect literal translation from the Greek is impossible.
The Greek words have connotations whose resonances are rarely caught with lexicon equivalents, and many Greek idioms would be unintelligible if translated literally. Furthermore, Plato and Aristophanes often use traditional terms in novel ways, and their deliberate play with the meanings of such terms is integral to the meanings of their works. If the translator tries to capture the particular shade of meaning intended on each occasion a given word appears, the reader remains ignorant that the word recurs at all. But if the word is rendered by a consistent English expression, distortions and awkwardness inevitably mar the translation. Our inelegant and incomplete solution has been to use, wherever possible, consistent translations of important words and phrases supplemented by explanatory notes.

http://www.vindicatingthefounders.com/author/socrates.html


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Practical Presentation of a ``Vanilla'' Aligner
Pernilla Danielsson and Daniel Ridings
Språkbanken
Institutionen för svenska språket
Göteborgs universitet
S-412 98 Göteborg SWEDEN
GU-ISS-97-2
ISSN 1401-5919
pedant@svenska.gu.se



In the Republic there is a very special problem that encoders should be aware of. All Greek editions of Plato print numbers in the margin with letters of the alphabet, usually ``a'' to ``e'', inbetween. These numbers are what we use to refer to sections of Plato's work, much the same way as one refers to the Bible by book, chapter and verse. They are standardized and accepted as reference by all who work with Plato.

If we take a closer look at the numbers and try to figure out what they really stand for it will not be immediately obvious. They do not occur at paragraph breaks, so they are not ``paragraphs'', nor do they occur at page breaks with any perceptible regularity. They are simply a remnant of publishing history. The first printed edition of Plato was by a French scholar, Stephanus. The numbering in modern editions of Plato reflects the page breaks in Stephanus' edition. These page breaks could and did occur in the middle of paragraphs, sentences and dialogues. They reflect the structure of the first printed book but not the structure of the text being printed.

Unfortunately few editors of critical editions have ever seen this editio princeps and fewer, if any, translators have. Why is this important? There is no guarantee that the numbers in editions can be placed more accurately than on the level of a line of printed text. The lines in different editions do not correspond to each other. Therefore, the ``scope'' of the numbers are imprecise. In addition to that, they do not reflect the structure of the text itself, since they do not necessarily fall on any particular linguistic boundary. It is well known that SGML has problems with non-hierarchic units. Therefore there will be a need for a consensus among the TELRI participants: Someone will have to decide on exactly where the pages start and end.

http://nl.ijs.si/telri/Vanilla/doc/ljubljana/

 

 

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GLOSSARY:
The Republic was written in Greek, a language rather different from English, making many of Socrates' ideas terribly tricky to translate. A few of the trickier words are included in the text, italicised in square brackets [techne].
Arete (areth): Appropriateness to or for purpose, translated here as 'goodness' or 'excellence'.
Dikaiosuene (dikaiwsunh): The central theme of The Republic, translated here as 'doing right' or 'justice' or 'morality'.
Episteme (episthmh): Science, specialist knowledge.
Glorious Myth: [414] Sometimes translated as 'The One Royal Lie' or 'A Magnificent Myth'.
God or gods (qeos): Plato refers to 'gods' 'the God' and 'god' apparently without distinction. It is likely that, along with most of his fellows, he believed in a single supreme god together with a multiplicity of other spiritual powers which might be described as subordinate gods.
Goeteuo (goeteuo): [413] 'To cast a spell on' or 'bewitch' has sometimes been translated as 'propaganda', I've said 'to spirit away'
Mimesis (mimhsis): Imitation, copying, reproduction. Representation as found in literary, artistic and dramatic works.
Momus: [487] The traditional Greek personification of mockery and ridicule.
Nomos (nomos): Law, convention, custom, 'that which is expected'.
Paradeigma (paradeigma): Not quite the English 'paradigm'. An example or pattern, especially an outstandingly clear or typical example. In Plato's terms, the 'ideal form'.
Philosopher (jilosojia): Literally, 'friend of wisdom'.
Plato's Divine Sign: [496] "A kind of inner voice which sometimes forbade me to do things" (Apology)
Polis (polis): One of the constituent small, self-governing cities, islands or regions of ancient Greece. Translated here as city, State, society or community.
Psuche (yuch): Originally meaning 'breath of life', it is less neccessarily religious than the English 'soul' as it covers the life principle, the personality, character and the seat of understanding. Translated here as 'mind' 'personality' and 'soul'.
Sophists (sojisths): The professional teachers of public speaking, persuasion and what they, if not Plato, called 'wisdom'.
Techne (tecnh): Technical ability, craft, skill, job, profession.

http://www.btinternet.com/~glynhughes/squashed/plato.htm


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The original Greek of Timaeus, not in it's entirety, but just the passages that concern Atlantis:

quote:


Ἀτλαντὶς κατὰ Ἀθηνῶν
ΚΡ. Ἐγὼ φράσω͵ παλαιὸν ἀκηκοὼς λόγον οὐ νέου ἀνδρός. [21b] ἦν μὲν γὰρ δὴ τότε Κριτίας͵ ὡς ἔφη͵ σχεδὸν ἐγγὺς ἤδη τῶν ἐνενήκοντα ἐτῶν͵ ἐγὼ δέ πῃ μάλιστα δεκέτης· ἡ δὲ Κουρεῶτις ἡμῖν οὖσα ἐτύγχανεν Ἀπατουρίων. τὸ δὴ τῆς ἑορτῆς σύνηθες ἑκάστοτε καὶ τότε συνέβη τοῖς παισίν· ἆθλα γὰρ ἡμῖν οἱ πατέρες ἔθεσαν ῥαψῳδίας. πολλῶν μὲν οὖν δὴ καὶ πολλὰ ἐλέχθη ποιητῶν ποιήματα͵ ἅτε δὲ νέα κατ΄ ἐκεῖνον τὸν χρόνον ὄντα τὰ Σόλωνος πολλοὶ τῶν παίδων ᾔσαμεν. εἶπεν οὖν τις τῶν φρατέρων͵ εἴτε δὴ δοκοῦν αὐτῷ τότε εἴτε καὶ χάριν τινὰ τῷ Κριτίᾳ φέρων͵ [21c] δοκεῖν οἱ τά τε ἄλλα σοφώτατον γεγονέναι Σόλωνα καὶ κατὰ τὴν ποίησιν αὖ τῶν ποιητῶν πάντων ἐλευθεριώτατον. ὁ δὴ γέρων - σφόδρα γὰρ οὖν μέμνημαι - μάλα τε ἥσθη καὶ διαμειδιάσας εἶπεν· Εἴ γε͵ ὦ Ἀμύνανδρε͵ μὴ παρέργῳ τῇ ποιήσει κατεχρήσατο͵ ἀλλ΄ ἐσπουδάκει καθάπερ ἄλλοι͵ τόν τε λόγον ὃν ἀπ΄ Αἰγύπτου δεῦρο ἠνέγκατο ἀπετέλεσεν͵ καὶ μὴ διὰ τὰς στάσεις ὑπὸ κακῶν τε ἄλλων ὅσα ηὗρεν ἐνθάδε ἥκων ἠναγκάσθη καταμελῆσαι͵ [21d] κατά γε ἐμὴν δόξαν οὔτε Ἡσίοδος οὔτε Ὅμηρος οὔτε ἄλλος οὐδεὶς ποιητὴς εὐδοκιμώτερος ἐγένετο ἄν ποτε αὐτοῦ. Τίς δ΄ ἦν ὁ λόγος͵ ἦ δ΄ ὅς͵ ὦ Κριτία; ῏Η περὶ μεγίστης͵ ἔφη͵ καὶ ὀνομαστοτάτης πασῶν δικαιότατ΄ ἂν πράξεως οὔσης͵ ἣν ἥδε ἡ πόλις ἔπραξε μέν͵ διὰ δὲ χρόνον καὶ φθορὰν τῶν ἐργασαμένων οὐ διήρκεσε δεῦρο ὁ λόγος. Λέγε ἐξ ἀρχῆς͵ ἦ δ΄ ὅς͵ τί τε καὶ πῶς καὶ παρὰ τίνων ὡς ἀληθῆ διακηκοὼς ἔλεγεν ὁ Σόλων. [21e] Ἔστιν τις κατ΄ Αἴγυπτον͵ ἦ δ΄ ὅς͵ ἐν τῷ Δέλτα͵ περὶ ὃν κατὰ κορυφὴν σχίζεται τὸ τοῦ Νείλου ῥεῦμα Σαϊτικὸς ἐπικαλούμενος νομός͵ τούτου δὲ τοῦ νομοῦ μεγίστη πόλις Σάις - ὅθεν δὴ καὶ Ἄμασις ἦν ὁ βασιλεύς - οἷς τῆς πόλεως θεὸς ἀρχηγός τίς ἐστιν͵ Αἰγυπτιστὶ μὲν τοὔνομα Νηίθ͵ Ἑλληνιστὶ δέ͵ ὡς ὁ ἐκείνων λόγος͵ Ἀθηνᾶ· μάλα δὲ φιλαθήναιοι καί τινα τρόπον οἰκεῖοι τῶνδ΄ εἶναί φασιν. οἷ δὴ Σόλων ἔφη πορευθεὶς σφόδρα τε γενέσθαι παρ΄ αὐτοῖς ἔντιμος͵ [22a] καὶ δὴ καὶ τὰ παλαιὰ ἀνερωτῶν ποτε τοὺς μάλιστα περὶ ταῦτα τῶν ἱερέων ἐμπείρους͵ σχεδὸν οὔτε αὑτὸν οὔτε ἄλλον Ἕλληνα οὐδένα οὐδὲν ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν εἰδότα περὶ τῶν τοιούτων ἀνευρεῖν. καί ποτε προαγαγεῖν βουληθεὶς αὐτοὺς περὶ τῶν ἀρχαίων εἰς λόγους͵ τῶν τῇδε τὰ ἀρχαιότατα λέγειν ἐπιχειρεῖν͵ περὶ Φορωνέως τε τοῦ πρώτου λεχθέντος καὶ Νιόβης͵ καὶ μετὰ τὸν κατακλυσμὸν αὖ περὶ Δευκαλίωνος καὶ Πύρρας ὡς διεγένοντο μυθολογεῖν͵ [22b] καὶ τοὺς ἐξ αὐτῶν γενεαλογεῖν͵ καὶ τὰ τῶν ἐτῶν ὅσα ἦν οἷς ἔλεγεν πειρᾶσθαι διαμνημονεύων τοὺς χρόνους ἀριθμεῖν· καί τινα εἰπεῖν τῶν ἱερέων εὖ μάλα παλαιόν· Ὦ Σόλων͵ Σόλων͵ Ἕλληνες ἀεὶ παῖδές ἐστε͵ γέρων δὲ Ἕλλην οὐκ ἔστιν. Ἀκούσας οὖν͵ Πῶς τί τοῦτο λέγεις; φάναι. Νέοι ἐστέ͵ εἰπεῖν͵ τὰς ψυχὰς πάντες· οὐδεμίαν γὰρ ἐν αὐταῖς ἔχετε δι΄ ἀρχαίαν ἀκοὴν παλαιὰν δόξαν οὐδὲ μάθημα χρόνῳ πολιὸν οὐδέν. [22c] τὸ δὲ τούτων αἴτιον τόδε. πολλαὶ κατὰ πολλὰ φθοραὶ γεγόνασιν ἀνθρώπων καὶ ἔσονται͵ πυρὶ μὲν καὶ ὕδατι μέγισται͵ μυρίοις δὲ ἄλλοις ἕτεραι βραχύτεραι. τὸ γὰρ οὖν καὶ παρ΄ ὑμῖν λεγόμενον͵ ὥς ποτε Φαέθων Ἡλίου παῖς τὸ τοῦ πατρὸς ἅρμα ζεύξας διὰ τὸ μὴ δυνατὸς εἶναι κατὰ τὴν τοῦ πατρὸς ὁδὸν ἐλαύνειν τά τ΄ ἐπὶ γῆς συνέκαυσεν καὶ αὐτὸς κεραυνωθεὶς διεφθάρη͵ τοῦτο μύθου μὲν σχῆμα ἔχον λέγεται͵ [22d] τὸ δὲ ἀληθές ἐστι τῶν περὶ γῆν κατ΄ οὐρανὸν ἰόντων παράλλαξις καὶ διὰ μακρῶν χρόνων γιγνομένη τῶν ἐπὶ γῆς πυρὶ πολλῷ φθορά. τότε οὖν ὅσοι κατ΄ ὄρη καὶ ἐν ὑψηλοῖς τόποις καὶ ἐν ξηροῖς οἰκοῦσιν μᾶλλον διόλλυνται τῶν ποταμοῖς καὶ θαλάττῃ προσοικούντων· ἡμῖν δὲ ὁ Νεῖλος εἴς τε τἆλλα σωτὴρ καὶ τότε ἐκ ταύτης τῆς ἀπορίας σῴζει λυόμενος. ὅταν δ΄ αὖ θεοὶ τὴν γῆν ὕδασιν καθαίροντες κατακλύζωσιν͵ οἱ μὲν ἐν τοῖς ὄρεσιν διασῴζονται βουκόλοι νομῆς τε͵ [22e] οἱ δ΄ ἐν ταῖς παρ΄ ὑμῖν πόλεσιν εἰς τὴν θάλατταν ὑπὸ τῶν ποταμῶν φέρονται· κατὰ δὲ τήνδε χώραν οὔτε τότε οὔτε ἄλλοτε ἄνωθεν ἐπὶ τὰς ἀρούρας ὕδωρ ἐπιρρεῖ͵ τὸ δ΄ ἐναντίον κάτωθεν πᾶν ἐπανιέναι πέφυκεν. ὅθεν καὶ δι΄ ἃς αἰτίας τἀνθάδε σῳζόμενα λέγεται παλαιότατα·
τὸ δὲ ἀληθές͵ ἐν πᾶσιν τοῖς τόποις ὅπου μὴ χειμὼν ἐξαίσιος ἢ καῦμα ἀπείργει͵ πλέον͵ τοτὲ δὲ ἔλαττον ἀεὶ γένος ἐστὶν ἀνθρώπων. [23a] ὅσα δὲ ἢ παρ΄ ὑμῖν ἢ τῇδε ἢ καὶ κατ΄ ἄλλον τόπον ὧν ἀκοῇ ἴσμεν͵ εἴ πού τι καλὸν ἢ μέγα γέγονεν ἢ καί τινα διαφορὰν ἄλλην ἔχον͵ πάντα γεγραμμένα ἐκ παλαιοῦ τῇδ΄ ἐστὶν ἐν τοῖς ἱεροῖς καὶ σεσωσμένα· τὰ δὲ παρ΄ ὑμῖν καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἄρτι κατεσκευασμένα ἑκάστοτε τυγχάνει γράμμασι καὶ ἅπασιν ὁπόσων πόλεις δέονται͵ καὶ πάλιν δι΄ εἰωθότων ἐτῶν ὥσπερ νόσημα ἥκει φερόμενον αὐτοῖς ῥεῦμα οὐράνιον καὶ τοὺς ἀγραμμάτους τε καὶ ἀμούσους ἔλιπεν ὑμῶν͵ [23b] ὥστε πάλιν ἐξ ἀρχῆς οἷον νέοι γίγνεσθε͵ οὐδὲν εἰδότες οὔτε τῶν τῇδε οὔτε τῶν παρ΄ ὑμῖν͵ ὅσα ἦν ἐν τοῖς παλαιοῖς χρόνοις. τὰ γοῦν νυνδὴ γενεαλογηθέντα͵ ὦ Σόλων͵ περὶ τῶν παρ΄ ὑμῖν ἃ διῆλθες͵ παίδων βραχύ τι διαφέρει μύθων͵ οἳ πρῶτον μὲν ἕνα γῆς κατακλυσμὸν μέμνησθε πολλῶν ἔμπροσθεν γεγονότων͵ ἔτι δὲ τὸ κάλλιστον καὶ ἄριστον γένος ἐπ΄ ἀνθρώπους ἐν τῇ χώρᾳ παρ΄ ὑμῖν οὐκ ἴστε γεγονός͵ [23c] ἐξ ὧν σύ τε καὶ πᾶσα ἡ πόλις ἔστιν τὰ νῦν ὑμῶν͵ περιλειφθέντος ποτὲ σπέρματος βραχέος͵ ἀλλ΄ ὑμᾶς λέληθεν διὰ τὸ τοὺς περιγενομένους ἐπὶ πολλὰς γενεὰς γράμμασιν τελευτᾶν ἀφώνους. ἦν γὰρ δή ποτε͵ ὦ Σόλων͵ ὑπὲρ τὴν μεγίστην φθορὰν ὕδασιν ἡ νῦν Ἀθηναίων οὖσα πόλις ἀρίστη πρός τε τὸν πόλεμον καὶ κατὰ πάντα εὐνομωτάτη διαφερόντως· ᾗ κάλλιστα ἔργα καὶ πολιτεῖαι γενέσθαι λέγονται κάλλισται πασῶν ὁπόσων ὑπὸ τὸν οὐρανὸν ἡμεῖς ἀκοὴν παρεδεξάμεθα.







[23d] Ἀκούσας οὖν ὁ Σόλων ἔφη θαυμάσαι καὶ πᾶσαν προθυμίαν σχεῖν δεόμενος τῶν ἱερέων πάντα δι΄ ἀκριβείας οἱ τὰ περὶ τῶν πάλαι πολιτῶν ἑξῆς διελθεῖν. τὸν οὖν ἱερέα φάναι· Φθόνος οὐδείς͵ ὦ Σόλων͵ ἀλλὰ σοῦ τε ἕνεκα ἐρῶ καὶ τῆς πόλεως ὑμῶν͵ μάλιστα δὲ τῆς θεοῦ χάριν͵ ἣ τήν τε ὑμετέραν καὶ τήνδε ἔλαχεν καὶ ἔθρεψεν καὶ ἐπαίδευσεν͵ [23e] προτέραν μὲν τὴν παρ΄ ὑμῖν ἔτεσιν χιλίοις͵ ἐκ Γῆς τε καὶ Ἡφαίστου τὸ σπέρμα παραλαβοῦσα ὑμῶν͵ τήνδε δὲ ὑστέραν. τῆς δὲ ἐνθάδε διακοσμήσεως παρ΄ ἡμῖν ἐν τοῖς ἱεροῖς γράμμασιν ὀκτακισχιλίων ἐτῶν ἀριθμὸς γέγραπται. περὶ δὴ τῶν ἐνακισχίλια γεγονότων ἔτη πολιτῶν σοι δηλώσω διὰ βραχέων νόμους͵ καὶ τῶν ἔργων αὐτοῖς ὃ κάλλιστον ἐπράχθη· [24a] τὸ δ΄ ἀκριβὲς περὶ πάντων ἐφεξῆς εἰς αὖθις κατὰ σχολὴν αὐτὰ τὰ γράμματα λαβόντες διέξιμεν. τοὺς μὲν οὖν νόμους σκόπει πρὸς τοὺς τῇδε· πολλὰ γὰρ παραδείγματα τῶν τότε παρ΄ ὑμῖν ὄντων ἐνθάδε νῦν ἀνευρήσεις͵ πρῶτον μὲν τὸ τῶν ἱερέων γένος ἀπὸ τῶν ἄλλων χωρὶς ἀφωρισμένον͵ μετὰ δὲ τοῦτο τὸ τῶν δημιουργῶν͵ ὅτι καθ΄ αὑτὸ ἕκαστον ἄλλῳ δὲ οὐκ ἐπιμειγνύμενον δημιουργεῖ͵ τό τε τῶν νομέων καὶ τὸ τῶν θηρευτῶν τό τε τῶν γεωργῶν. [24b] καὶ δὴ καὶ τὸ μάχιμον γένος ᾔσθησαί που τῇδε ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν γενῶν κεχωρισμένον͵ οἷς οὐδὲν ἄλλο πλὴν τὰ περὶ τὸν πόλεμον ὑπὸ τοῦ νόμου προσετάχθη μέλειν· ἔτι δὲ ἡ τῆς ὁπλίσεως αὐτῶν σχέσις ἀσπίδων καὶ δοράτων͵ οἷς ἡμεῖς πρῶτοι τῶν περὶ τὴν Ἀσίαν ὡπλίσμεθα͵ τῆς θεοῦ καθάπερ ἐν ἐκείνοις τοῖς τόποις παρ΄ ὑμῖν πρώτοις ἐνδειξαμένης. τὸ δ΄ αὖ περὶ τῆς φρονήσεως͵ ὁρᾷς που τὸν νόμον τῇδε ὅσην ἐπιμέλειαν ἐποιήσατο εὐθὺς κατ΄ ἀρχὰς περί τε τὸν κόσμον͵ [24c] ἅπαντα μέχρι μαντικῆς καὶ ἰατρικῆς πρὸς ὑγίειαν ἐκ τούτων θείων ὄντων εἰς τὰ ἀνθρώπινα ἀνευρών͵ ὅσα τε ἄλλα τούτοις ἕπεται μαθήματα πάντα κτησάμενος. ταύτην οὖν δὴ τότε σύμπασαν τὴν διακόσμησιν καὶ σύνταξιν ἡ θεὸς προτέρους ὑμᾶς διακοσμήσασα κατῴκισεν͵ ἐκλεξαμένη τὸν τόπον ἐν ᾧ γεγένησθε͵ τὴν εὐκρασίαν τῶν ὡρῶν ἐν αὐτῷ κατιδοῦσα͵ ὅτι φρονιμωτάτους ἄνδρας οἴσοι· [24d] ἅτε οὖν φιλοπόλεμός τε καὶ φιλόσοφος ἡ θεὸς οὖσα τὸν προσφερεστάτους αὐτῇ μέλλοντα οἴσειν τόπον ἄνδρας͵ τοῦτον ἐκλεξαμένη πρῶτον κατῴκισεν. ᾠκεῖτε δὴ οὖν νόμοις τε τοιούτοις χρώμενοι καὶ ἔτι μᾶλλον εὐνομούμενοι πάσῃ τε παρὰ πάντας ἀνθρώπους ὑπερβεβληκότες ἀρετῇ͵ καθάπερ εἰκὸς γεννήματα καὶ παιδεύματα θεῶν ὄντας.

πολλὰ μὲν οὖν ὑμῶν καὶ μεγάλα ἔργα τῆς πόλεως τῇδε γεγραμμένα θαυμάζεται͵ [24e] πάντων μὴν ἓν ὑπερέχει μεγέθει καὶ ἀρετῇ· λέγει γὰρ τὰ γεγραμμένα ὅσην ἡ πόλις ὑμῶν ἔπαυσέν ποτε δύναμιν ὕβρει πορευομένην ἅμα ἐπὶ πᾶσαν Εὐρώπην καὶ Ἀσίαν͵ ἔξωθεν ὁρμηθεῖσαν ἐκ τοῦ Ἀτλαντικοῦ πελάγους. τότε γὰρ πορεύσιμον ἦν τὸ ἐκεῖ πέλαγος· νῆσον γὰρ πρὸ τοῦ στόματος εἶχεν ὃ καλεῖτε͵ ὥς φατε͵ ὑμεῖς Ἡρακλέους στήλας͵ ἡ δὲ νῆσος ἅμα Λιβύης ἦν καὶ Ἀσίας μείζων͵ ἐξ ἧς ἐπιβατὸν ἐπὶ τὰς ἄλλας νήσους τοῖς τότε ἐγίγνετο πορευομένοις͵ [25a] ἐκ δὲ τῶν νήσων ἐπὶ τὴν καταντικρὺ πᾶσαν ἤπειρον τὴν περὶ τὸν ἀληθινὸν ἐκεῖνον πόντον. τάδε μὲν γάρ͵ ὅσα ἐντὸς τοῦ στόματος οὗ λέγομεν͵ φαίνεται λιμὴν στενόν τινα ἔχων εἴσπλουν· ἐκεῖνο δὲ πέλαγος ὄντως ἥ τε περιέχουσα αὐτὸ γῆ παντελῶς ἀληθῶς ὀρθότατ΄ ἂν λέγοιτο ἤπειρος. ἐν δὲ δὴ τῇ Ἀτλαντίδι νήσῳ ταύτῃ μεγάλη συνέστη καὶ θαυμαστὴ δύναμις βασιλέων͵ κρατοῦσα μὲν ἁπάσης τῆς νήσου͵ πολλῶν δὲ ἄλλων νήσων καὶ μερῶν τῆς ἠπείρου· πρὸς δὲ τούτοις ἔτι τῶν ἐντὸς τῇδε Λιβύης μὲν ἦρχον μέχρι πρὸς Αἴγυπτον͵ τῆς δὲ Εὐρώπης μέχρι Τυρρηνίας. αὕτη δὴ πᾶσα συναθροισθεῖσα εἰς ἓν ἡ δύναμις τόν τε παρ΄ ὑμῖν καὶ τὸν παρ΄ ἡμῖν καὶ τὸν ἐντὸς τοῦ στόματος πάντα τόπον μιᾷ ποτὲ ἐπεχείρησεν ὁρμῇ δουλοῦσθαι. τότε οὖν ὑμῶν͵ ὦ Σόλων͵ τῆς πόλεως ἡ δύναμις εἰς ἅπαντας ἀνθρώπους διαφανὴς ἀρετῇ τε καὶ ῥώμῃ ἐγένετο· πάντων γὰρ προστᾶσα εὐψυχίᾳ καὶ τέχναις ὅσαι κατὰ πόλεμον͵ [25c] τὰ μὲν τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἡγουμένη͵ τὰ δ΄ αὐτὴ μονωθεῖσα ἐξ ἀνάγκης τῶν ἄλλων ἀποστάντων͵ ἐπὶ τοὺς ἐσχάτους ἀφικομένη κινδύνους͵ κρατήσασα μὲν τῶν ἐπιόντων τρόπαιον ἔστησεν͵ τοὺς δὲ μήπω δεδουλωμένους διεκώλυσεν δουλωθῆναι͵ τοὺς δ΄ ἄλλους͵ ὅσοι κατοικοῦμεν ἐντὸς ὅρων Ἡρακλείων͵ ἀφθόνως ἅπαντας ἠλευθέρωσεν. ὑστέρῳ δὲ χρόνῳ σεισμῶν ἐξαισίων καὶ κατακλυσμῶν γενομένων͵ μιᾶς ἡμέρας καὶ νυκτὸς χαλεπῆς ἐπελθούσης͵ [25d] τό τε παρ΄ ὑμῖν μάχιμον πᾶν ἁθρόον ἔδυ κατὰ γῆς͵ ἥ τε Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος ὡσαύτως κατὰ τῆς θαλάττης δῦσα ἠφανίσθη· διὸ καὶ νῦν ἄπορον καὶ ἀδιερεύνητον γέγονεν τοὐκεῖ πέλαγος͵ πηλοῦ κάρτα βραχέος ἐμποδὼν ὄντος͵ ὃν ἡ νῆσος ἱζομένη παρέσχετο.

[25e] Τὰ μὲν δὴ ῥηθέντα͵ ὦ Σώκρατες͵ ὑπὸ τοῦ παλαιοῦ Κριτίου κατ΄ ἀκοὴν τὴν Σόλωνος͵ ὡς συντόμως εἰπεῖν͵ ἀκήκοας· λέγοντος δὲ δὴ χθὲς σοῦ περὶ πολιτείας τε καὶ τῶν ἀνδρῶν οὓς ἔλεγες͵ ἐθαύμαζον ἀναμιμνῃσκόμενος αὐτὰ ἃ νῦν λέγω͵ κατανοῶν ὡς δαιμονίως ἔκ τινος τύχης οὐκ ἄπο σκοποῦ συνηνέχθης τὰ πολλὰ οἷς Σόλων εἶπεν. [26a] οὐ μὴν ἐβουλήθην παραχρῆμα εἰπεῖν· διὰ χρόνου γὰρ οὐχ ἱκανῶς ἐμεμνήμην. ἐνενόησα οὖν ὅτι χρεὼν εἴη με πρὸς ἐμαυτὸν πρῶτον ἱκανῶς πάντα ἀναλαβόντα λέγειν οὕτως. ὅθεν ταχὺ συνωμολόγησά σοι τὰ ἐπιταχθέντα χθές͵ ἡγούμενος͵ ὅπερ ἐν ἅπασι τοῖς τοιοῖσδε μέγιστον ἔργον͵ λόγον τινὰ πρέποντα τοῖς βουλήμασιν ὑποθέσθαι͵ τούτου μετρίως ἡμᾶς εὐπορήσειν.

[26b] οὕτω δή͵ καθάπερ ὅδ΄ εἶπεν͵ χθές τε εὐθὺς ἐνθένδε ἀπιὼν πρὸς τούσδε ἀνέφερον αὐτὰ ἀναμιμνῃσκόμενος͵ ἀπελθών τε σχεδόν τι πάντα ἐπισκοπῶν τῆς νυκτὸς ἀνέλαβον. ὡς δή τοι͵ τὸ λεγόμενον͵ τὰ παίδων μαθήματα θαυμαστὸν ἔχει τι μνημεῖον. ἐγὼ γὰρ ἃ μὲν χθὲς ἤκουσα͵ οὐκ ἂν οἶδ΄ εἰ δυναίμην ἅπαντα ἐν μνήμῃ πάλιν λαβεῖν· ταῦτα δὲ ἃ πάμπολυν χρόνον διακήκοα͵ παντάπασι θαυμάσαιμ΄ ἂν εἴ τί με αὐτῶν διαπέφευγεν. [26c] ἦν μὲν οὖν μετὰ πολλῆς ἡδονῆς καὶ παιδιᾶς τότε ἀκουόμενα͵ καὶ τοῦ πρεσβύτου προθύμως με διδάσκοντος͵ ἅτ΄ ἐμοῦ πολλάκις ἐπανερωτῶντος͵ ὥστε οἷον ἐγκαύματα ἀνεκπλύτου γραφῆς ἔμμονά μοι γέγονεν· καὶ δὴ καὶ τοῖσδε εὐθὺς ἔλεγον ἕωθεν αὐτὰ ταῦτα͵ ἵνα εὐποροῖεν λόγων μετ΄ ἐμοῦ. νῦν οὖν͵ οὗπερ ἕνεκα πάντα ταῦτα εἴρηται͵ λέγειν εἰμὶ ἕτοιμος͵ ὦ Σώκρατες͵ μὴ μόνον ἐν κεφαλαίοις ἀλλ΄ ὥσπερ ἤκουσα καθ΄ ἕκαστον· τοὺς δὲ πολίτας καὶ τὴν πόλιν ἣν χθὲς ἡμῖν ὡς ἐν μύθῳ διῄεισθα σύ͵ [26d] νῦν μετενεγκόντες ἐπὶ τἀληθὲς δεῦρο θήσομεν ὡς ἐκείνην τήνδε οὖσαν͵ καὶ τοὺς πολίτας οὓς διενοοῦ φήσομεν ἐκείνους τοὺς ἀληθινοὺς εἶναι προγόνους ἡμῶν͵ οὓς ἔλεγεν ὁ ἱερεύς. πάντως ἁρμόσουσι καὶ οὐκ ἀπᾳσόμεθα λέγοντες αὐτοὺς εἶναι τοὺς ἐν τῷ τότε ὄντας χρόνῳ. κοινῇ δὲ διαλαμβάνοντες ἅπαντες πειρασόμεθα τὸ πρέπον εἰς δύναμιν οἷς ἐπέταξας ἀποδοῦναι. σκοπεῖν οὖν δὴ χρή͵ ὦ Σώκρατες͵ εἰ κατὰ νοῦν ὁ λόγος ἡμῖν οὗτος͵ ἤ τινα ἔτ΄ ἄλλον ἀντ΄ αὐτοῦ ζητητέον.


[26e] ΣΩ. Καὶ τίν΄ ἄν͵ ὦ Κριτία͵ μᾶλλον ἀντὶ τούτου μεταλάβοιμεν͵ ὃς τῇ τε παρούσῃ τῆς θεοῦ θυσίᾳ διὰ τὴν οἰκειότητ΄ ἂν πρέποι μάλιστα͵ τό τε μὴ πλασθέντα μῦθον ἀλλ΄ ἀληθινὸν λόγον εἶναι πάμμεγά που. πῶς γὰρ καὶ πόθεν ἄλλους ἀνευρήσομεν ἀφέμενοι τούτων; οὐκ ἔστιν͵ ἀλλ΄ ἀγαθῇ τύχῃ χρὴ λέγειν μὲν ὑμᾶς͵ ἐμὲ δὲ ἀντὶ τῶν χθὲς λόγων νῦν ἡσυχίαν ἄγοντα ἀντακούειν.

[27a] ΚΡ. Σκόπει δὴ τὴν τῶν ξενίων σοι διάθεσιν͵ ὦ Σώκρατες͵ ᾗ διέθεμεν. ἔδοξεν γὰρ ἡμῖν Τίμαιον μέν͵ ἅτε ὄντα ἀστρονομικώτατον ἡμῶν καὶ περὶ φύσεως τοῦ παντὸς εἰδέναι μάλιστα ἔργον πεποιημένον͵ πρῶτον λέγειν ἀρχόμενον ἀπὸ τῆς τοῦ κόσμου γενέσεως͵ τελευτᾶν δὲ εἰς ἀνθρώπων φύσιν· ἐμὲ δὲ μετὰ τοῦτον͵ ὡς παρὰ μὲν τούτου δεδεγμένον ἀνθρώπους τῷ λόγῳ γεγονότας͵ [27b] παρὰ σοῦ δὲ πεπαιδευμένους διαφερόντως αὐτῶν τινας͵ κατὰ δὲ τὸν Σόλωνος λόγον τε καὶ νόμον εἰσαγαγόντα αὐτοὺς ὡς εἰς δικαστὰς ἡμᾶς ποιῆσαι πολίτας τῆς πόλεως τῆσδε ὡς ὄντας τοὺς τότε Ἀθηναίους͵ οὓς ἐμήνυσεν ἀφανεῖς ὄντας ἡ τῶν ἱερῶν γραμμάτων φήμη͵ τὰ λοιπὰ δὲ ὡς περὶ πολιτῶν καὶ Ἀθηναίων ὄντων ἤδη ποιεῖσθαι τοὺς λόγους.


ΣΩ. Τελέως τε καὶ λαμπρῶς ἔοικα ἀνταπολήψεσθαι τὴν τῶν λόγων ἑστίασιν. σὸν οὖν ἔργον λέγειν ἄν͵ ὦ Τίμαιε͵ τὸ μετὰ τοῦτο͵ ὡς ἔοικεν͵ εἴη καλέσαντα κατὰ νόμον θεούς.


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Once again, the commonly accepted English version:

CRIT. I will tell an old-world story which I heard from an aged man; for Critias, at the time of telling it, was as he said, nearly ninety years of age, and I was about ten. Now the day was that day of the Apaturia which is called the Registration of Youth, at which, according to custom, our parents gave prizes for recitations, and the poems of several poets were recited by us boys, and many of us sang the poems of Solon, which at that time had not gone out of fashion. One of our tribe, either because he thought so or to please Critias, said that in his judgment Solon was not only the wisest of men, but also the noblest of poets. The old man, as I very well remember, brightened up at hearing this and said, smiling: Yes, Amynander, if Solon had only, like other poets, made poetry the business of his life, and had completed the tale which he brought with him from Egypt, and had not been compelled, by reason of the factions and troubles which he found stirring in his own country when he came home, to attend to other matters, in my opinion he would have been as famous as Homer or Hesiod, or any poet. And what was the tale about, Critias? said Amynander. About the greatest action which the Athenians ever did, and which ought to have been the most famous, but, through the lapse of time and the destruction of the actors, it has not come down to us. Tell us, said the other, the whole story, and how and from whom Solon heard this veritable tradition. He replied:-In the Egyptian Delta, at the head of which the river Nile divides, there is a certain district which is called the district of Sais, and the great city of the district is also called Sais, and is the city from which King Amasis came. The citizens have a deity for their foundress; she is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith, and is asserted by them to be the same whom the Hellenes call Athene; they are great lovers of the Athenians, and say that they are in some way related to them. To this city came Solon, and was received there with great honour; he asked the priests who were most skilful in such matters, about antiquity, and made the discovery that neither he nor any other Hellene knew anything worth mentioning about the times of old. On one occasion, wishing to draw them on to speak of antiquity, he began to tell about the most ancient things in our part of the world-about Phoroneus, who is called "the first man," and about Niobe; and after the Deluge, of the survival of Deucalion and Pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of their descendants, and reckoning up the dates, tried to compute how many years ago the events of which he was speaking happened. Thereupon one of the priests, who was of a very great age, said: O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are never anything but children, and there is not an old man among you. Solon in return asked him what he meant. I mean to say, he replied, that in mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with age. And I will tell you why. There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes. There is a story, which even you have preserved, that once upon a time Paethon, the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father's chariot, because he was not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now this has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving in the heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth, which recurs after long intervals; at such times those who live upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable to destruction than those who dwell by rivers or on the seashore. And from this calamity the Nile, who is our never-failing saviour, delivers and preserves us. When, on the other hand, the gods purge the earth with a deluge of water, the survivors in your country are herdsmen and shepherds who dwell on the mountains, but those who, like you, live in cities are carried by the rivers into the sea. Whereas in this land, neither then nor at any other time, does the water come down from above on the fields, having always a tendency to come up from below; for which reason the traditions preserved here are the most ancient.

The fact is, that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of summer does not prevent, mankind exist, sometimes in greater, sometimes in lesser numbers. And whatever happened either in your country or in ours, or in any other region of which we are informed-if there were any actions noble or great or in any other way remarkable, they have all been written down by us of old, and are preserved in our temples. Whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be provided with letters and the other requisites of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you have to begin all over again like children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient times, either among us or among yourselves. As for those genealogies of yours which you just now recounted to us, Solon, they are no better than the tales of children. In the first place you remember a single deluge only, but there were many previous ones; in the next place, you do not know that there formerly dwelt in your land the fairest and noblest race of men which ever lived, and that you and your whole city are descended from a small seed or remnant of them which survived. And this was unknown to you, because, for many generations, the survivors of that destruction died, leaving no written word. For there was a time, Solon, before the great deluge of all, when the city which now is Athens was first in war and in every way the best governed of all cities, is said to have performed the noblest deeds and to have had the fairest constitution of any of which tradition tells, under the face of heaven.

Solon marvelled at his words, and earnestly requested the priests to inform him exactly and in order about these former citizens. You are welcome to hear about them, Solon, said the priest, both for your own sake and for that of your city, and above all, for the sake of the goddess who is the common patron and parent and educator of both our cities. She founded your city a thousand years before ours, receiving from the Earth and Hephaestus the seed of your race, and afterwards she founded ours, of which the constitution is recorded in our sacred registers to be eight thousand years old. As touching your citizens of nine thousand years ago, I will briefly inform you of their laws and of their most famous action; the exact particulars of the whole we will hereafter go through at our leisure in the sacred registers themselves. If you compare these very laws with ours you will find that many of ours are the counterpart of yours as they were in the olden time. In the first place, there is the caste of priests, which is separated from all the others; next, there are the artificers, who ply their several crafts by themselves and do not intermix; and also there is the class of shepherds and of hunters, as well as that of husbandmen; and you will observe, too, that the warriors in Egypt are distinct from all the other classes, and are commanded by the law to devote themselves solely to military pursuits; moreover, the weapons which they carry are shields and spears, a style of equipment which the goddess taught of Asiatics first to us, as in your part of the world first to you. Then as to wisdom, do you observe how our law from the very first made a study of the whole order of things, extending even to prophecy and medicine which gives health, out of these divine elements deriving what was needful for human life, and adding every sort of knowledge which was akin to them. All this order and arrangement the goddess first imparted to you when establishing your city; and she chose the spot of earth in which you were born, because she saw that the happy temperament of the seasons in that land would produce the wisest of men. Wherefore the goddess, who was a lover both of war and of wisdom, selected and first of all settled that spot which was the most likely to produce men likest herself. And there you dwelt, having such laws as these and still better ones, and excelled all mankind in all virtue, as became the children and disciples of the gods.

Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your state in our histories. But one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valour. For these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a boundless continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. This vast power, gathered into one, endeavoured to subdue at a blow our country and yours and the whole of the region within the straits; and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind. She was pre-eminent in courage and military skill, and was the leader of the Hellenes. And when the rest fell off from her, being compelled to stand alone, after having undergone the very extremity of danger, she defeated and triumphed over the invaders, and preserved from slavery those who were not yet subjugated, and generously liberated all the rest of us who dwell within the pillars. But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea. For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island.

I have told you briefly, Socrates, what the aged Critias heard from Solon and related to us. And when you were speaking yesterday about your city and citizens, the tale which I have just been repeating to you came into my mind, and I remarked with astonishment how, by some mysterious coincidence, you agreed in almost every particular with the narrative of Solon; but I did not like to speak at the moment. For a long time had elapsed, and I had forgotten too much; I thought that I must first of all run over the narrative in my own mind, and then I would speak. And so I readily assented to your request yesterday, considering that in all such cases the chief difficulty is to find a tale suitable to our purpose, and that with such a tale we should be fairly well provided.

And therefore, as Hermocrates has told you, on my way home yesterday I at once communicated the tale to my companions as I remembered it; and after I left them, during the night by thinking I recovered nearly the whole it. Truly, as is often said, the lessons of our childhood make wonderful impression on our memories; for I am not sure that I could remember all the discourse of yesterday, but I should be much surprised if I forgot any of these things which I have heard very long ago. I listened at the time with childlike interest to the old man's narrative; he was very ready to teach me, and I asked him again and again to repeat his words, so that like an indelible picture they were branded into my mind. As soon as the day broke, I rehearsed them as he spoke them to my companions, that they, as well as myself, might have something to say. And now, Socrates, to make an end my preface, I am ready to tell you the whole tale. I will give you not only the general heads, but the particulars, as they were told to me. The city and citizens, which you yesterday described to us in fiction, we will now transfer to the world of reality. It shall be the ancient city of Athens, and we will suppose that the citizens whom you imagined, were our veritable ancestors, of whom the priest spoke; they will perfectly harmonise, and there will be no inconsistency in saying that the citizens of your republic are these ancient Athenians. Let us divide the subject among us, and all endeavour according to our ability gracefully to execute the task which you have imposed upon us. Consider then, Socrates, if this narrative is suited to the purpose, or whether we should seek for some other instead.

Soc. And what other, Critias, can we find that will be better than this, which is natural and suitable to the festival of the goddess, and has the very great advantage of being a fact and not a fiction? How or where shall we find another if we abandon this? We cannot, and therefore you must tell the tale, and good luck to you; and I in return for my yesterday's discourse will now rest and be a listener.

Crit. Let me proceed to explain to you, Socrates, the order in which we have arranged our entertainment. Our intention is, that Timaeus, who is the most of an astronomer amongst us, and has made the nature of the universe his special study, should speak first, beginning with the generation of the world and going down to the creation of man; next, I am to receive the men whom he has created of whom some will have profited by the excellent education which you have given them; and then, in accordance with the tale of Solon, and equally with his law, we will bring them into court and make them citizens, as if they were those very Athenians whom the sacred Egyptian record has recovered from oblivion, and thenceforward we will speak of them as Athenians and fellow-citizens.

Soc. I see that I shall receive in my turn a perfect and splendid feast of reason. And now, Timaeus, you, I suppose, should speak next, after duly calling upon the Gods.

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