Aesopic Conversations by Kurke Leslie;

Author:Kurke, Leslie;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2011-03-24T04:00:00+00:00

II. THE GENERIC AFFILIATIONS OF SŌKRATIKOI LOGOI

Thus the Republic’s feints and occlusions encourage us to focus on the category of mimetic prose; but why bring in Aesop? In fact, Plato himself, in the Phaedo, invites us to see Aesop as a precursor and model for Socrates. Early in this dialogue, Socrates, who has just had his leg-shackles removed in prison, is inspired thereby to tell a “tale” of the inevitable linkage of pleasure and pain:

Socrates sat up on the bed, bent his leg and rubbed it with his hand, and as he rubbed he said: “What a strange thing that which men call pleasure seems to be, and how astonishing the relation it has with what is thought to be its opposite, namely pain! A man cannot have both at the same time. Yet if he pursues and catches the one, he is almost always bound to catch the other also, like two creatures with one head. I think that if Aesop had noted this he would have composed a fable that a god wished to reconcile their opposition but could not do so, so he joined their two heads together, and therefore when a man has the one, the other follows later. This seems to be happening to me. My bonds caused pain in my leg, and now pleasure seems to be following.” (Phd. 60b1–c7, trans. Grube 1997)

Socrates’ mention of Aesop here provokes Cebes, one of his visitors, to “take it up and say ‘O Socrates, you did well to remind me.’ ” Cebes proceeds to ask about the “poems [Socrates] has composed putting the fables of Aesop into verse and composing the hymn to Apollo” ( Phd. 60c9–d2).25 Socrates explains that he was trying to obey the urgings of a dream vision, which had come to him frequently in his earlier life and bidden him, “O Socrates, compose and practice mousikē” ( Phd. 60e6–7). In the past, he had always understood this to be encouragement to do what he was already doing, practicing philosophy “as being the greatest [form of] mousikē” (Phd. 61a3–4). But now, after his trial and the postponement of his execution because of the festival of Apollo:

I thought that, in case my dream was bidding me to practice this popular art I should not disobey it but compose poetry. I thought it safer not to leave here until I had satisfied my conscience by writing poems in obedience to the dream. So I first wrote in honor of the god of the present festival. After that I realized that a poet, if he is to be a poet, must compose muthoi rather than logoi [“fictional tales” or “fables” rather than “rational arguments”].26 Being no teller of fables myself I took the stories I knew and had at hand, the fables of Aesop, and I versified the first ones I came across (Phd. 61a5–b7, trans. Grube 1997, slightly modified)

Let us start with the question, why fable? Why should Socrates be devoting his time to the fables

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