Republic

What of the cabinet-maker? Were you not just now saying that he does not make the idea or form which we say is the real couch, the couch in itself,[*](ὃ ἔστι belongs to the terminology of ideas. Cf. Phaedo 74 D, 75 B, 75 D, Rep. 507 B.) but only some particular couch?Yes, I was.Then if he does not make that which really is, he could not be said to make real being but something that resembles real being but is not that. But if anyone should say that being in the complete sense[*](τελέως . . . ὄν: Cf. 477 A, and Soph. 248 E παντελῶς ὄντι.) belongs to the work of the cabinet-maker or to that of any other handicraftsman, it seems that he would say what is not true.That would be the view, he said, of those who are versed[*](An indirect reference to Plato and his school like the friends of ideas in Soph. 248 A.) in this kind of reasoning. We must not be surprised, then, if this too is only a dim adumbration in comparison with reality. No, we must not. Shall we, then, use these very examples in our quest for the true nature of this imitator? If you please, he said. We get, then, these three couches, one, that in nature[*](Cf. 597 C, 598 A, 501 B φύσει, Phaedo 103 B, Parmen. 132 D.) which, I take it, we would say that God produces,[*](Proclus says that this is not seriously meant (apud Beckmann, Num Plato artifactorum Ideas statuerit, p. 12). Cf. Zeller, Phil. d. Gr. ii. 1, p. 666, who interprets the passage correctly; A. E. Taylor, in Mind, xii. p. 5 Plato’s meaning has been supposed to be adequately indicted by such half-jocular instances as that of the idea of a bed or table in Republic x., etc.) or who else? No one, I think. And then there was one which the carpenter made. Yes, he said. And one which the painter. Is not that so? So be it. The painter, then, the cabinet-maker, and God, there are these three presiding over three kinds of couches. Yes,three. Now God,whether because he so willed or because some compulsion was laid upon him[*](In Tim. 31 A the same argument is used for the creation of one world ἵνα . . . κατὰ τὴν μόνωσιν ὅμοιον ᾖ τῷ παντελεῖ ζώῳ. See my De Plat. Idearum doct. p. 39. Cf. Renan, Dialogues Phil. p. 25: Pour forger les premières tenailles, dit le Talmud, il fallut des tenailles. Dieu les créa.) not to make more than one couch in nature, so wrought and created one only,[*](The famous argument of the third man. Cf. What Plato Said, p. 585, on Parmen. 132 A and Introd. p. xxiii.) the couch which really and in itself is. But two or more such were never created by God and never will come into being. How so? he said. Because, said I, if he should make only two, there would again appear one of which they both would possess the form or idea, and that would be the couch that really is in and of itself, and not the other two. Right, he said. God, then, I take it, knowing this and wishing to be the real author of the couch that has real being and not of some particular couch, nor yet a particular cabinet-maker, produced it in nature unique. So it seems. Shall we, then, call him its true and natural begetter, or something of the kind? That would certainly be right, he said, since it is by and in nature[*](Cf. Soph. 265 E θήσω τὰ μὲν φύσει λεγόμενα ποιεῖσθαι θείᾳ τέχνῃ, Hooker, Eccles. Pol. i. 3. 4 those things which Nature is said to do are by divine art preformed, using nature as an instrument, Browne, apud J. Texte, Etudes de littérature européenne, p. 65 la nature est l’art de Dieu, Cic. De nat. deor. ii. 13 deoque tribuenda, id est mundo, De leg. i. 7. 21, Seneca, De benef. iv. 7 quid enim aliud est natura quam deus? Höffding, Hist. of Mod. Philos. ii. 115 Herder uses the word Nature in his book in order to avoid the frequent mention of the name of God.) that he has made this and all other things. And what of the carpenter? Shall we not call him the creator of a couch? Yes. Shall we also say that the painter is the creator and maker of that sort of thing? By no means. What will you say he is in relation to the couch? This, said he, seems to me the most reasonable designation for him, that he is the imitator of the thing which those others produce. Very good, said I; the producer of the product three removes[*](Cf. 587 C, Phaedr. 248 E, where the imitator is sixth in the scale.) from nature you call the imitator? By all means, he said. This, then, will apply to the maker of tragedies also, if he is an imitator and is in his nature three removes from the king and the truth, as are all other imitators. It would seem so.

We are in agreement, then, about the imitator. But tell me now this about the painter. Do you think that what he tries to imitate is in each case that thing itself in nature or the works of the craftsmen?The works of the craftsmen, he said. Is it the reality of them or the appearance? Define that further point.[*](Cf. Gorg. 488 D, Soph. 222 C.) What do you mean? he said. This: Does a couch differ from itself according as you view it from the side or the front or in any other way? Or does it differ not at all in fact though it appears different, and so of other things? That is the way of it, he said: it appears other but differs not at all. Consider, then, this very point. To which is painting directed in every case, to the imitation of reality as it is[*](Cf. Soph. 263 B, Cratyl. 385 B, Euthydem. 284 C.) or of appearance as it appears? Is it an imitation of a phantasm or of the truth? Of a phantasm,[*](Cf. 599 A, Soph. 232 A, 234 E, 236 B, Prot. 356 D.) he said. Then the mimetic art is far removed[*](Cf. 581 E.) from truth, and this, it seems, is the reason why it can produce everything, because it touches or lays hold of only a small part of the object and that a phantom[*](For εἴδωλον cf. p. 197, note e.); as, for example, a painter, we say, will paint us a cobbler, a carpenter, and other craftsmen, though he himself has no expertness in any of these arts,[*](Commentators sometimes miss the illogical idiom. So Adam once proposed to emend τεχνῶν to τεχνίτων, but later withdrew this suggestion in his note on the passage. Cf. 373 C, Critias 111 E, and my paper in T.A.P.A. xlvii. (1916) pp. 205-234.) but nevertheless if he were a good painter, by exhibiting at a distance his picture of a carpenter he would deceive children and foolish men,[*](Cf. Soph. 234 B.) and make them believe it to be a real carpenter. Why not? But for all that, my friend, this, I take it, is what we ought to bear in mind in all such cases: When anyone reports to us of someone, that he has met a man who knows all the crafts and everything else[*](So Dryden, Essay on Satire: Shakespeare . . . Homer . . . in either of whom we find all arts and sciences, all moral and natural philosophy without knowing that they ever studied them, and the beautiful rhapsody of Andrew Lang, Letters to Dead Authors, p. 238: They believe not that one human soul has known every art, and all the thoughts of women as of men, etc. Pope, pref. to his translation of the Iliad: If we reflect upon those innumerable knowledges, those secrets of nature and physical philosophy which Homer is generally supposed to have wrapped up in his allegories, what a new and ample scene of wonder may this consideration afford us. Cf. Xen. Symp. 4. 6. Brunetière, Epoques, p. 105, says: Corneille . . . se piquait de connaître à fond l’art de la politique et celui de la guerre. For the impossibility of universal knowledge Cf. Soph. 233 A, Charm. 170 B, Friedländer, Platon, ii. p. 146 on Hipp. Min. 366 C ff. Cf. also Ion 536 E, 541 B, 540 B, and Tim. 19 D. Tate, Plato and Allegorical Interpretation, Class. Quarterly, Jan. 1930, p. 2 says: The true poet is for Plato philosopher as well as poet. He must know the truth. This ignores the ἄρα in 598 E. Plato there is not stating his own opinion but giving the arguments of those who claim omniscience for the poet. Wilamowitz, Platon, ii. p. 313 n. 1 completely misunderstands and misinterprets the passage. Cf. Class. Phil. xxvii. (1932) p. 85. E.E. Sikes, The Greek View of Poetry, p. 175, says Rymer held that a poet is obliged to know all arts and sciences. Aristotle from a different point of view says we expect the wise man to know everything in the sense in which that is possible, Met. 982 a 8.) that men severally know, and that there is nothing that he does not know[*](Cf. οὐδενὸς ὅτου οὐχί Charm. 175 C, οὐδὲν ὅτι οὐ Ala. I 105 E, Phil. 54 B, Phaedo 110 E, Euthyph. 3 C, Euthydem. 294 D, Isoc. Panegyr. 14, Herod. v. 97.) more exactly than anybody else, our tacit rejoinder must be that he is a simple fellow, who apparently has met some magician or sleight-of-hand man and imitator and has been deceived by him into the belief that he is all-wise,[*](πάσσοφος is generally ironical in Plato. Cf. What Plato Said, p. 489, on Lysis 216 A.) because of his own inability to put to the proof and distinguish knowledge, ignorance[*](For ἀνεπιστημοσύνην Cf. Theaet. 199 E f.) and imitation. Most true, he said. Then, said I, have we not next to scrutinize tragedy and its leader Homer,[*](For Homer as tragedian cf. on 595 B-C, p. 420, note a.) since some people tell us that these poets know all the arts and all things human pertaining to virtue and vice, and all things divine? For the good poet, if he is to poetize things rightly, must, they argue, create with knowledge or else be unable to create.