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English translation
by John Burnet (1892)
 he steeds that bear me carried me as far
as ever my heart
Desired, since they brought me and set me
on the renowned
Way of the goddess, who with her own hands
conducts the man
who knows through all things. On what way
was I borne
along; for on it did the wise steeds carry
me, drawing my car,
and maidens showed the way. And the axle,
glowing in the socket -
for it was urged round by the whirling wheels
at each
end - gave forth a sound as of a pipe, when
the daughters of the
Sun, hasting to convey me into the light,
threw back their veils
from off their faces and left the abode of
Night.
There are the gates of the ways of Night
and Day, fitted
above with a lintel and below with a threshold
of stone. They
themselves, high in the air, are closed by
mighty doors, and
Avenging Justice keeps the keys that open
them. Her did
the maidens entreat with gentle words and
skilfully persuade
to unfasten without demur the bolted bars
from the gates.
Then, when the doors were thrown back,
they disclosed a widepening, when their brazen
hinges swung backwards in the
sockets fastened with rivets and nails. Straight
through them,
on the broad way, did the maidens guide the
horses and the car,
and the goddess greeted me kindly, and took
my right hand
in hers, and spake to me these words: -
Welcome, noble youth, that comest to my abode
on the car
that bears thee tended by immortal charioteers
! It is no ill
chance, but justice and right that has sent
thee forth to travel
on this way. Far, indeed, does it lie from
the beaten track of
men ! Meet it is that thou shouldst learn
all things, as well
the unshaken heart of persuasive truth, as
the opinions of
mortals in which is no true belief at all.
Yet none the less
shalt thou learn of these things also, since
thou must judge
approvedly of the things that seem to men
as thou goest
through all things in thy journey."
Come now, I will tell thee - and do thou
hearken to my
saying and carry it away - the only two ways
of search that
can be thought of. The first, namely, that
It is, and that it is
impossible for anything not to be, is the
way of. conviction,
for truth is its companion.. The other, namely,
that It is not,
and that something must needs not be, - that,
I tell thee, is a
wholly untrustworthy path. For you cannot
know what is
not - that is impossible - nor utter it;
For it is the same thing that can be thought
and that can be.
It needs must be that what can be thought
and spoken of is;
for it is possible for it to be, and it is
not possible for, what is
nothing to be. This is what I bid thee ponder.
I hold thee
back from this first way of inquiry, and
from this other also,
upon which mortals knowing naught wander
in two minds; for
hesitation guides the wandering thought in
their breasts, so that
they are borne along stupefied like men deaf
and blind.
Undiscerning crowds, in whose eyes the same
thing and not the
same is and is not, and all things travel
in opposite directions !
For this shall never be proved, that the
things that are not
are; and do thou restrain thy thought from
this way of inquiry.
Nor let habit force thee to cast a wandering
eye upon this
devious track, or to turn thither thy resounding
ear or thy
tongue; but do thou judge the subtle refutation
of their
discourse uttered by me.
One path only is left for us to
speak of, namely, that It is. In it are very
many tokens that
what is, is uncreated and indestructible,
alone, complete,
immovable and without end. Nor was it ever,
nor will it be; for
now it is, all at once, a continuous one.
For what kind of origin
for it. will you look for ? In what way and
from what source
could it have drawn its increase ? I shall
not let thee say nor
think that it came from what is not; for
it can neither be
thought nor uttered that what is not is.
And, if it came from
nothing, what need could have made it arise
later rather than
sooner ? Therefore must it either be altogether
or be not at
all. Nor will the force of truth suffer aught
to arise besides
itself from that which in any way is. Wherefore,
Justice does
not loose her fetters and let anything come
into being or pass
away, but holds it fast.
" Is it or is it not ? " Surely
it is adjudged, as it needs must
be, that we are to set aside the one way
as unthinkable and
nameless (for it is no true way), and that
the other path is real
and true. How, then, can what is be going
to be in the
future ? Or how could it come into being
? If it came into
being, it is not; nor is it if it is going
to be in the future. Thus is
becoming extinguished and passing away not
to be heard of.
Nor is it divisible, since it is all alike,
and there is no more
of it in one place than in another, to hinder
it from holding
together, nor less of it, but everything
is full of what is.
Wherefore all holds together; for what is;
is in contact with what is.
Moreover, it is immovable in the bonds of
mighty chains, without
beginning and without end; since coming into
being
and passing away have been driven afar, and
true belief has cast them away.
It is the same, and it rests in the self-same
place, abiding in itself.
And thus it remaineth constant in its place;
for hard necessity
keeps it in the bonds of the limit that holds
it fast on every side.
Wherefore it is not permitted to what is
to be infinite; for it is in need of nothing
; while, if it were infinite, it would stand
in need of everything. It is the
same thing that can be thought and for the
sake of which the thought exists ;
for you cannot find thought without something
that is, to which it is
betrothed. And there is not, and never shall
be, any time other, than that which
is present, since fate has chained it so
as to be whole and immovable.
Wherefore all these things are but the names
which mortals
have given, believing them, to be true –
coming into being and passing away, being
and not being,
change of place and alteration of bright
colour.
Where, then, it has its farthest boundary,
it is complete on
every side, equally poised from the centre
in every direction,
like the mass of a rounded sphere; for it
cannot be greater or
smaller in one place than in another. For
there is nothing
which is not that could keep it from reaching
out equally, nor
is it possible that there should be more
of what is in this place
and less in that, since it is all inviolable.
For, since it is equal
in all directions, it is equally confined
within limits.
Here shall I close my trustworthy speech
and thought about the truth.
Henceforward learn the opinions of mortals,
giving ear to the deceptive ordering of my
words.
Mortals have settled in their minds to speak
of two forms, one of which
they should have left out, and that is where
they go astray from the truth.
They have assigned an opposite
substance to each, and marks distinct from
one another. To the
one they allot the fire of heaven, light,
thin, in every direction
the same as itself, but not the same as the
other. The other is
opposite to it, dark night, a compact and
heavy body. Of these
I tell thee the whole arrangement as it seems
to men,
in order that no mortal may surpass thee
in knowledge.
Now that all things have been named light
and night; and the things
which belong to the power of each have been
assigned to these
things and to those, everything is full at
once of light and dark night,
both equal, since neither has aught to do
with the other.
And thou shalt know the origin of all the
things on high,
and all the signs in the sky, and the resplendent
works of the
glowing sun’s clear torch, and whence they
arose. And thou
shalt learn likewise of the wandering deeds
of the round-faced
moon, and of her origin. Thou shalt know,
too, the heavens
that surround us, whence they arose, and
how Necessity took
them and bound them to keep the limits of
the stars . . .
How the earth, and the sun, and the moon,
and the sky that is
common to all, and the Milky Way, and the
outermost Olympos,
and the burning might of the stars
arose.
The narrower circles are filled with unmixed
fire, and those
surrounding them with night, and in the midst
of these rushes
their portion of fire. In the midst of these
circles is the divinity that directs
the course of all things; for she rules over
all painful birth and all begetting,
driving the female to the embrace of the
male, and the male to that of the female.
First of all the gods she contrived Eros.
Shining by night with borrowed light, wandering
round the earth.
Always straining her eyes to the beams of
the sun.
On the right boys; on the left girls.
Thus, according to men’s opinions, did things
comp into
being, and thus they are now. In time (they
think) they will
grow up and pass away. To each of these things
men have
assigned a fixed name.
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the depiction of Socrates in all of Plato's
dialogues is historically accurate, and that
the philosophical views peculiar to Plato
himself are to be found only in the so-called
late dialogues. Burnet also maintained that
Socrates was closely connected to the early
Greek philosophical tradition, now generally
known as Pre-Socratic philosophy; Burnet
believed that Socrates had been in his youth
the disciple of Archelaus, a member of the
Anaxagorean tradition (Burnet 1924, vi).
Burnet's philological work on Plato is still
widely read, and his editions have been considered
authoritative for 100 years. His commentaries
on Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito
and on the Phaedo also remain widely used
and respected by scholars. Myles Burnyeat,
for example, calls Burnet's Plato: Euthyphro,
Apology of Socrates, Crito "the still
unsurpassed edition".