Jowett: old man

Soc. You are outrageous, Meno, in thus plaguing a poor OLD MAN to give you an answer, when you will not take the trouble of remembering what is Gorgias’ definition of virtue. MENO

Soc. O that is noble of him ! I wish that he would say the poor man rather than the rich, and the OLD MAN rather than the young one ; then he would meet the case of me and of many a man ; his words would be quite refreshing, and he would be a public benefactor. For my part, I do so long to hear his speech, that if you walk all the way to Megara, and when you have reached the wall come back, as Herodicus recommends, without going in, I will keep you company. PHAEDRUS  

Soc. Yes, rules of correct diction and many other fine precepts ; for the “sorrows of a poor OLD MAN,” or any other pathetic case, no one is better than the Chalcedonian giant ; he can put a whole company of people into a passion and out of one again by his mighty magic, and is first-rate at inventing or disposing of any sort of calumny on any grounds or none. All of them agree in asserting that a speech should end in a recapitulation, though they do not all agree to use the same word. PHAEDRUS

Soc. No, that is not likely — in the garden of letters he will sow and plant, but only for the sake of recreation and amusement ; he will write them down as memorials to be treasured against the forgetfulness of old age, by himself, or by any other OLD MAN who is treading the same path. He will rejoice in beholding their tender growth ; and while others are refreshing their souls with banqueting and the like, this will be the pastime in which his days are spent. PHAEDRUS

Soc. My reason is that I have a kind of reverence ; not so much for Melissus and the others, who say that “All is one and at rest,” as for the great leader himself, Parmenides  , venerable and awful, as in Homeric language he may be called ; — him I should be ashamed to approach in a spirit unworthy of him. I met him when he was an OLD MAN, and I was a mere youth, and he appeared to me to have a glorious depth of mind. And I am afraid that we may not understand his words, and may be still further from understanding his meaning ; above all I fear that the nature of knowledge, which is the main subject of our discussion, may be thrust out of sight by the unbidden guests who will come pouring in upon our feast of discourse, if we let them in — besides, the question which is now stirring is of immense extent, and will be treated unfairly if only considered by the way ; or if treated adequately and at length, will put into the shade the other question of knowledge. Neither the one nor the other can be allowed ; but I must try by my art of midwifery to deliver Theaetetus   of his conceptions about knowledge. THEAETETUS

Str. Very good, Socrates   ; and, if you continue to be not too particular about names, you will be all the richer   in wisdom when you are an OLD MAN. And now, as you say, leaving the discussion of the name, — can you see a way in which a person, by showing the art of herding to be of two kinds, may cause that which is now sought amongst twice the number of things, to be then sought amongst half that number ? STATESMAN

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.” TIMAEUS  

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. TIMAEUS

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. TIMAEUS

Ath. I will not at present determine whether he who censures the Cretan or Lacedaemonian polities is right or wrong. But I believe that I can tell better than either of you what the many say about them. For assuming that you have reasonably good laws, one of the best of them will be the law forbidding any young men to enquire which of them are right or wrong ; but with one mouth and one voice they must all agree that the laws are all good, for they came from God ; and any one who says the contrary is not to be listened to. But an OLD MAN who remarks any defect in your laws may communicate his observation to a ruler or to an equal in years when no young man is present. LAWS BOOK I

Ath. Then not only an OLD MAN but also a drunkard becomes a second time a child ? LAWS BOOK I

Ath. And yet must be answered when we are enquiring about laws, this being our OLD MAN’s sober game of play, whereby we beguile the way, as I was saying when we first set out on our journey. LAWS BOOK III

Cle. But how will OLD MAN be able to attend to such great charges ? LAWS BOOK VII

Ath. The natures of commensurable and incommensurable quantities in their relation to one another. A man who is good for a thing ought to be able, when he thinks, to distinguish them ; and different persons should compete with one another in asking questions, which will be a fair, better and more graceful way of passing their time than the OLD MAN’s game of draughts. LAWS BOOK VII

All the preceding injuries and every kind of assault are deeds of violence ; and every man, woman, or child ought to consider that the elder has the precedence of the younger in honour, both among the Gods and also among men who would live in security and happiness. Wherefore it is a foul thing and hateful to the Gods to see an elder man assaulted by a younger in the city ; and it is reasonable that a young man when struck by an elder should lightly endure his anger, laying up in store for himself a like honour when he is old. Let this be the law : — Every one shall reverence his elder in word and deed ; he shall respect any one who is twenty years older than himself, whether male or female, regarding him or her as his father or mother ; and he shall abstain from laying hands on any one who is of an age to have been his father or his mother, out of reverence to the Gods who preside over birth ; similarly he shall keep his hands from a stranger, whether he be an old inhabitant or newly arrived ; he shall not venture to correct such an one by blows, either as the aggressor or in self-defence. If he thinks that some stranger has struck him out of wantonness or insolence, and ought to be punished, he shall take him to the wardens of the city, but let him not strike him, that the stranger may be kept far away from the possibility of lifting up his hand against a citizen, and let the wardens of the city take the offender and examine him, not forgetting their duty to the God of Strangers, and in case the stranger appears to have struck the citizen unjustly, let them inflict upon him as many blows with the scourge as he has himself inflicted, and quell his presumption. But if he be innocent, they shall threaten and rebuke the man who arrested him, and let them both go. If a person strikes another of the same age or somewhat older than himself, who has no children, whether he be an OLD MAN who strikes an OLD MAN or a young man who strikes a young man, let the person struck defend himself in the natural way without a weapon and with his hands only. He who, being more than forty years of age, dares to fight with another, whether he be the aggressor or in self defence, shall be regarded as rude and ill-mannered and slavish ; — this will be a disgraceful punishment, and therefore suitable to him. The obedient nature will readily yield to such exhortations, but the disobedient, who heeds not the prelude, shall have the law ready for him : — If any man smite another who is older than himself, either by twenty or by more years, in the first place, he who is at hand, not being younger than the combatants, nor their equal in age, shall separate them, or be disgraced according to law ; but if he be the equal in age of the person who is struck or younger, he shall defend the person injured as he would a brother or father or still older relative. Further, let him who dares to smite an elder be tried for assault, as I have said, and if he be found guilty, let him be imprisoned for a period of not less than a year, or if the judges approve of a longer period, their decision shall be final. But if a stranger or metic smite one who is older by twenty years or more, the same law shall hold about the bystanders assisting, and he who is found guilty in such a suit, if he be a stranger but not resident, shall be imprisoned during a period of two years ; and a metic who disobeys the laws shall be imprisoned for three years, unless the court assign him a longer term. And let him who was present in any of these cases and did not assist according to law be punished, if he be of the highest dass, by paying a fine of a mina ; or if he be of the second class, of fifty drachmas ; or if of the third class, by a fine of thirty drachmas ; or if he be of the fourth class, by a fine of twenty drachmas ; and the generals and taxiarchs and phylarchs and hipparchs shall form the court in such cases. LAWS BOOK IX

When peace had been made, he began sending for me ; he requested that Dion should wait for another year, but begged that I should by all means come. Dion now kept urging and entreating me to go. For persistent rumours came from Sicily that Dionysios was now once more possessed by an extraordinary desire for philosophy. For this reason Dion pressed me urgently not to decline his invitation. But though I was well aware that as regards philosophy such symptoms were not uncommon in young men, still it seemed to me safer at that time to part company altogether with Dion and Dionysios ; and I offended both of them by replying that I was an OLD MAN, and that the steps now being taken were quite at variance with the previous agreement. LETTERS LETTER VII

I will tell you, Socrates, he said, what my own feeling is. Men of my age flock together ; we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says ; and at our meetings the tale of my acquaintance commonly is : I cannot eat, I cannot drink ; the pleasures of youth and love are fled away ; there was a good time once, but now that is gone, and life is no longer life. Some complain of the slights which are put upon them by relations, and they will tell you sadly of how many evils their old age is the cause. But to me, Socrates, these complainers seem to blame that which is not really in fault. For if old age were the cause, I too, being old, and every other OLD MAN would have felt as they do. But this is not my own experience, nor that of others whom I have known. How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the question, How does love suit with age, Sophocles — are you still the man you were ? Peace, he replied ; most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak ; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master. His words have often occurred to my mind since, and they seem as good to me now as at the time when he uttered them. For certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom ; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many. The truth is, Socrates, that these regrets, and also the complaints about relations, are to be attributed to the same cause, which is not old age, but men’s characters and tempers ; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden. THE REPUBLIC BOOK I

Or, if the poet everywhere appears and never conceals himself, then again the imitation is dropped, and his poetry becomes simple narration. However, in order that I may make my meaning quite clear, and that you may no more say, “I don’t understand,” I will show how the change might be effected. If Homer had said, “The priest came, having his daughter’s ransom in his hands, supplicating the Achaeans, and above all the kings ;” and then if, instead of speaking in the person of Chryses, he had continued in his own person, the words would have been, not imitation, but simple narration. The passage would have run as follows (I am no poet, and therefore I drop the metre) : “The priest came and prayed the gods on behalf of the Greeks that they might capture Troy and return safely home, but begged that they would give him back his daughter, and take the ransom which he brought, and respect the god. Thus he spoke, and the other Greeks revered the priest and assented. But Agamemnon was wroth, and bade him depart and not come again, lest the staff and chaplets of the god should be of no avail to him — the daughter of Chryses should not be released, he said — she should grow old with him in Argos. And then he told him to go away and not to provoke him, if he intended to get home unscathed. And the OLD MAN went away in fear and silence, and, when he had left the camp, he called upon Apollo by his many names, reminding him of everything which he had done pleasing to him, whether in building his temples, or in offering sacrifice, and praying that his good deeds might be returned to him, and that the Achaeans might expiate his tears by the arrows of the god” — and so on. In this way the whole becomes simple narrative. THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

And if the OLD MAN and woman fight for their own, what then, my friend ? Will the creature feel any compunction at tyrannizing over them ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK IX