Page - 280 - in The Complete Plato

of neglect; and they blame their defects far more than they deserve, in order that the odium which is necessarily incurred by them may be increased: but the good man dissembles his feelings, and constrains himself to praise them; and if they have wronged him and he is angry, he pacifies his anger and is reconciled, and compels himself to love and praise his own flesh and blood. And Simonides, as is probable, considered that he himself had often had to praise and magnify a tyrant or the like, much against his will, and he also wishes to imply to Pittacus that he does not censure him because he is censorious. ‘For I am satisfied’ he says, ‘when a man is neither bad nor very stupid; and when he knows justice (which is the health of states), and is of sound mind, I will find no fault with him, for I am not given to finding fault, and there are innumerable fools’ (implying that if he delighted in censure he might have abundant opportunity of finding fault). ‘All things are good with which evil is unmingled.’ In these latter words he does not mean to say that all things are good which have no evil in them, as you might say ‘All things are white which have no black in them,’ for that would be ridiculous; but he means to say that he accepts and finds no fault with the moderate or intermediate state. (‘I do not hope’ he says, ‘to find a perfectly blameless man among those who partake of the fruits of the broad-bosomed earth (if I find him, I will send you word); in this sense I praise no man. But he who is moderately good, and does no evil, is good enough for me, who love and approve every one’) (and here observe that he uses a Lesbian word, epainemi (approve), because he is addressing Pittacus, ‘Who love and APPROVE every one VOLUNTARILY, who does no evil:’ and that the stop should be put after ‘voluntarily’); ‘but there are some whom I involuntarily praise and love. And you, Pittacus, I would never have blamed, if you had spoken what was moderately good and true; but I do blame you because, putting on the appearance of truth, you are speaking falsely about the highest matters.’—And this, I said, Prodicus and Protagoras, I take to be the meaning of Simonides in this poem. Hippias said: I think, Socrates, that you have given a very good explanation of the poem; but I have also an excellent interpretation of my own which I will propound to you, if you will allow me. Nay, Hippias, said Alcibiades; not now, but at some other time. At present 280