Quite possibly the most beautiful piece of Greek I have read in a while

[katealaurel]

I started the day by reading this aloud to someone in Greek, and then stumbling through sightreading the translation. (My more polished translation is below.) It was good.

Ἐπὶ μὲν ἄρα τὸ ἀπολογεῖσθαι ὑπὲρ τῆς ἀδικίας τῆς αὑτοῦ ἢ γονέων ἢ ἑταίρων ἢ παίδων ἢ πατρίδος ἀδικούσης οὐ χρήσιμος ούδὲν ἡ ῥητορικὴ ἡμῖν, ὦ Πῶλε, εἰ μὴ εἴ τις ὑπολάβοι ἐπὶ

Comments

[flourish]

Thank you for posting that! It was lovely.

[countofangels]

I had a lot of fun with the Gorgias in phil. It might be my favorite of the dialogues.

[katealaurel]

I feel like it might be mine, too, although I also have a lot of love for the Phaedrus (which is much more lyrical and fantastical). The Gorgias is just a wonderful, endless series of knotted arguments and rabbit holes to untangle and map out; I feel like I could keep reading it forever. (Especially in the Greek.)

My third chapter-- the one I'm wrestling with revising now-- is on how/why Plato uses medical metaphors for justice/politics in the dialogue, and how that affects his conception of justice/politics' interactions with rhetoric.