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| タイトル | ： 第11回 |
| 投稿日 | ： 2003/11/29(Sat) 12:47 |
| 投稿者 | ： 惣田正明 <vem13077@nifty.ne.jp> |
第11回テキスト
---はじめ---
Characters
The principal characters in the Republic are Cephalus,
Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, Socrates, Glaucon, and Adeimantus.
Cephalus appears in the introduction only, Polemarchus drops
at the end of the first argument, and Thrasymachus is reduced
to silence at the close of the first book. The main
discussion is carried on by Socrates, Glaucon, and
Adeimantus. Among the company are Lysias (the orator) and
Euthydemus, the sons of Cephalus and brothers of Polemarchus,
an unknown Charmantides --these are mute auditors; also there
is Cleitophon, who once interrupts, where, as in the Dialogue
which bears his name, he appears as the friend and ally of
Thrasymachus.
Cephalus, the patriarch of house, has been appropriately
engaged in offering a sacrifice. He is the pattern of an old
man who has almost done with life, and is at peace with
himself and with all mankind. He feels that he is drawing
nearer to the world below, and seems to linger around the
memory of the past. He is eager that Socrates should come to
visit him, fond of the poetry of the last generation, happy
in the consciousness of a well-spent life, glad at having
escaped from the tyranny of youthful lusts. His love of
conversation, his affection, his indifference to riches, even
his garrulity, are interesting traits of character. He is not
one of those who have nothing to say, because their whole
mind has been absorbed in making money. Yet he acknowledges
that riches have the advantage of placing men above the
temptation to dishonesty or falsehood. The respectful
attention shown to him by Socrates, whose love of
conversation, no less than the mission imposed upon him by
the Oracle, leads him to ask questions of all men, young and
old alike, should also be noted. Who better suited to raise
the question of justice than Cephalus, whose life might seem
to be the expression of it? The moderation with which old age
is pictured by Cephalus as a very tolerable portion of
existence is characteristic, not only of him, but of Greek
feeling generally, and contrasts with the exaggeration of
Cicero in the De Senectute. The evening of life is described
by Plato in the most expressive manner, yet with the fewest
possible touches. As Cicero remarks (Ep. ad Attic. iv. 16),
the aged Cephalus would have been out of place in the
discussion which follows, and which he could neither have
understood nor taken part in without a violation of dramatic
propriety.
---終わり---