Couch City: Socrates against Simonides by Harry Berger

Author:Harry Berger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Published: 2021-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

Division VII. Socrates Overthrown. 346c–347a

As he approaches the parrhesiastic climax of the ode, Socrates’s voicing becomes more complex. He continues the practice of embedding the ode in an oration against Pittacus. But instead of separating short passages between stretches of commentary, he reverses the procedure, firing off a complete strophe punctuated by short bursts of interpolation. The comments now penetrate the strophe and mingle with the verses. That move not only quickens the pace and raises the rhetorical temperature of the performance. It also further obscures the boundary between the words attributed to an actual poet and those Socrates places in the mouth or mind of a speaker he invents.

Socrates prefaces his recital by refocusing the rhetorical situation: “So he proceeds to tell Pittacus” (346c). He then steps back into the role of Simonides aiming verses at Pittacus. But after the sixth division this move has a different resonance, for we’ve been reminded that the poem is (and therefore was) addressed to Scopas. In that context it seems more to extenuate than to praise. But it may merely reflect the poet’s unwilling response to the “necessity” of patronage.

The approach to the final strophe is thus clouded by the possibly dubious circumstances and motives that occasion it. Given these shadows, how can the address to Pittacus be articulated with the address to Scopas?

<I do not reproach you, Pittacus, because I like reproaching, since> I am indeed content with whoever is not bad or not too apalamnos. He who knows the justice that profits the city is a sound man. I do not blame him. <For I am not fond of blaming.> The race of fools is infinite. <So that whoever delights in reproaching could have his fill blaming them.> Surely all things are fair with which shameful things are not mingled. (346c)

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