Art. VI.—The Dialogues of Plato. Translated into English, with Analyses and Introductions, by B. Jowett, M.A., Master of Balliol College, Oxford and Regius Professor of Greek. Four vols. 8vo. Oxford, 1871.
Professor Jowett has accomplished a great feat in giving to the world a complete English translation of Plato's 'Dialogues;' for it certainly is no small matter to have placed Plato in the hands of all, conveyed in language, divested, as far as possible, of mere technicalities and scholasticism, and put in a form equally accessible and alluring to average students of ancient or modern philosophy. And as this is a real benefit to non-classical readers, so the work itself is a real translation, in so far as nothing is intentionally omitted. We have the genuine Platonic dialogues in their integrity, without foot-note or comment, in the place of the excerpts or extracts which the nature of Mr. Grote's great work rendered necessary, and of the occasional and somewhat too frequent omissions of passages in Dr. Whewell's equally laudable, but, perhaps, not equally successful, endeavour to present Plato—in part, at least—in a popular form to the English reader. From the very nature of Plato's philosophy, which is to a considerable extent tentative and progressive, and which is constantly working out with variations the same leading ideas, it is essential to the English student to have the work complete. The Republic, of which an excellent version by Messrs. Davies and Vaughan has for some time been before the world, is to a considerable extent a résumé of Plato's earlier views—an epitome of Platonism, in fact; but a student may know the Republic fairly well, and yet have a vast deal to learn from such dialogues as the Theætetus, the Philebus, the Parmenides, the Timæus—all very difficult in their way; or from the more genial Protagoras, Phædo, and Gorgias; or the more transcendental and imaginative Phædrus and Symposium, which last may be called the most fascinating and brilliant of the dialogues, excepting always the Republic itself. Some of the minor, easier, and shorter dialogues, which fall within the range of average school reading—the Apology, the Crito, the Menexenus, the Lysis, the Charmides, the Ion—hardly touch the Socratic philosophy in its deeper sense; they are genial sketches of the idiosyncrasies of the wise old man, or deal with matters distinct from dialectics properly so called. Very little of Plato proper (so to speak) will be learnt from these alone. But the subtle reasonings of Plato, in some of his greater works, are sufficiently difficult to make even the best Greek scholars glad to have occasional recourse to studied English versions, on which they can with tolerable confidence rely.
Mr. Jowett has not given us a general introductory dissertation on Plato, or Socrates, or on the Sophists, or on the influence of ῥητορικὴ, or on the progress of Greek philosophy—subjects in themselves, as he doubtless felt, almost interminable, and already so well discussed in Mr. Grote's great work, 'Plato and the other Companions of Socrates,' and his 'History of Greece.' His preface, comprised in the modest limits of four pages of large print, might seem intended as a protest against the licence of writing long introductions, which, after all, are, perhaps, seldom read. We could have wished, indeed, to see some opinion expressed on a point of not less interest than importance—how far the Socrates of Plato, who differs so widely from the Socrates of Aristophanes, partook of the Platonic ideality, and was a typical and imaginary talker, used as a peg, so to speak, to hang speculative opinions upon, rather than the real author of all or any of the conversations attributed to him by his pupil. Mr. Jowett, however, though he has given us no general introduction, has been liberal, even to diffuseness, in the special introductions to the separate dialogues. In these, which are drawn with a masterly hand, and are of great value and interest, he gives us the object and scope, as well as the condensed and analyzed matter of each dialogue, so as to form a most useful summary to the right understanding of it. Such introductions, though they add greatly to the bulk of the work, are necessary, and all editors and translators of single dialogues have adopted them, e.g., Dr. Thompson in his Phædrus and Georgias, Mr. Cope in his translation of the latter dialogue, Mr. Campbell in his Theætetus, Messrs. Davies and Vaughan in their translation of the Republic, Professor Geddes in his edition of the Phædo, and Stallbaum in all his dialogues. In fact, the diffuseness and almost desultoriness of some dialogues—the ποικιλία, or variety of matter introduced—render a clear and well-arranged analysis of each absolutely necessary for the right understanding of it. Such a work, with the further advantage of a good index of Platonic words and topics, by Dr. Alfred Day, had been published the year before (Bell and Daldy, 1870). By such aids, we more easily attain the real scope of a dialogue than by the perusal of the dialogue itself. A casual reader would think that the Phædrus and the Symposium are primarily essays on 'Platonic Love,' or the Gorgias a satire upon the vanity of the Sophists, and that each of these ends with a topic totally alien from that with which it commenced. Thus Plato might appear a desultory essayist rather than a close thinker. But when a student is forewarned that the Phædrus is, in fact, a critical and psychological essay on the true principles of rhetoric, or, rather, of dialectic as distinct from rhetoric; that the point of the Gorgias (in the words of the Master of Trinity) is 'a discussion of the ethical principles which conduct to political well-being,' or, as Mr. Jowett somewhat differently puts it, 'not to answer questions about a future world, but to place in antagonism the true and false life, and to contrast the judgments and opinions of men with judgment according to the truth;' and that the Symposium is a sketch of the course of transcendental thought and education in the science of abstract beauty, which can alone fit man for the inheritance and enjoyment of a blessed eternity;—when all this is made perfectly clear to a reader at the outset, he not only sees each dialogue in quite a new light, but what is far more important, he then only realizes why it was written, and what it was really designed to inculcate. Thus much we have said, almost apologetically, for the addition of so very much introductory matter in four octavo volumes, already of a bulk sufficient to discourage some of the less enterprising class of readers.
Viewed as a literary composition, and as emanating from one who has the highest reputation for Greek scholarship, as well as for Platonism, we must plainly say that Professor Jowett's work has its serious demerits as well as its merits. The style is somewhat jaunty rather than closely faithful to the original. It is throughout far more of a paraphrase than of a translation, in the accurate sense of the word. Over the verbal difficulties, the subtle syntactical niceties, even the grammatical meaning of the more involved sentences, the author passes very lightly. He shows that unconcern for Greek, as mere Greek, that ῥᾳστώνη of an interpreter of philosophy rather than of a philosopher's very words, which we should hardly have looked for in a professor of the language. The grammarian, in fact, is so merged in the philosopher that his peculiar province has become quite secondary. No doubt considerable latitude must be conceded to those who would win the attention of purely English readers. Between the Greek and the English idioms, where no compromise can be made, the preference must be given to the latter; otherwise, the version will be, or, at least, is liable to be, somewhat stiff, pedantic, awkward, and wanting in that brilliant and genial spirit of talk that the original undoubtedly had to a Greek, and which, in truth, gives the chief fascination to the exquisite and perfect language of Plato.
With all this, and more that might be pleaded in Mr. Jowett's defence or excuse, there are certainly very many of his renderings which show a laxity that is neither necessary for the relief of the English reader nor satisfactory to the accurate Greek scholar. There seem to us even indications of haste, which, though not, perhaps, to be wondered at, when the vastness of the whole work is considered, must certainly be set down as a blemish in the performance of it. We may go considerably further, and express our fears that actual errors in the rendering are by no means very infrequent. We say this, not in a random way, nor from a casual inspection, but after having carefully gone over five of the dialogues (Phædo, Phædrus, Theætetus, Philebus, Symposium) verbatim with Plato and Mr. Jowett's translation. Some passages we have noted for critical remark, not, of course, as exhausting all that could be said with truth, but as examples of the kind of incompleteness, or vagueness, or faultiness of rendering of which we have taken occasion rather seriously to complain.
Let us take first the opening of the Symposium, of which the following is a close translation, made with due regard to tenses, moods, arrangement of words, and other niceties of the original:
'Apollodorus. I flatter myself I am pretty well practised in the matter you are asking about. The fact is, only the day before yesterday I chanced to be going up to town from my house at Phalerum, when an acquaintance of mine, who had caught sight of me from behind, called to me from a distance, and with a joke on my name as he called, exclaimed, "Ho there! you, Apollodorus, of Phalerum, wait for me!" So I stopped till he came up. "Why, Apollodorus!" he said, "I was looking for you just now, as I wanted to hear a full account about the party Agathon gave to Socrates and Alcibiades and the rest of the company who were present at the feast,—in a word, to learn what was said in their speeches about Love. Another friend did indeed essay to give me some account—he had heard it from Phœnix, the son of Philippus, and he said that you also knew—but, to confess the truth, he had nothing definite to tell. Do you, therefore, give me information in full; for none so fit as yourself to report the conversations of your bosom-friend. But first tell me," he said, "Were you present yourself at this party, or not?"'
We do not think that the above, though quite a literal version, strikes on the English ear as in any way harsh. Whether the much looser rendering of Professor Jowett has a more truly English ring, or any other advantage, as a set-off to the evident laxity of it, we leave as an open question for others to decide. Here it is in extenso:—
'I believe that I am prepared with an answer. For the day before yesterday I was coming from my own home at Phalerum to the city, and one of my acquaintances who had caught a sight of the back of me at a distance, in a merry mood commanded me to halt. "Apollodorus," he cried, "O thou man of Phalerum, halt!" So I did as I was bid; and then he said, "I was looking for you, Apollodorus, only just now, that I might hear about the discourses in praise of love, which were delivered by Socrates, Alcibiades, and others, at Agathon's supper. Phœnix, the son of Philip, told another person who told me of them, and he said that you knew; but he was himself very indistinct, and I wish that you would give me an account of them. Who but you should be the reporter of the words of your friend? And first tell me," he said, "were you present at this meeting?"'