Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Orithya or Boreas?


(As taken from Edith Hamilton's "The Way of The Greeks")

Socrates and Phaedrus are taking a summer stroll....
"Is not the road to Athens made for conversation?" 
The younger man asks if they are not near the place where Boreas is said to have carried off Orithya.
"The little stream is delightfully clear and bright.  I can fancy there might be maidens playing near.  Tell, me, Socrates, do you believe the tale?"
"The wise are doubtful," Socrates answers, "and I should not be singular if, like them, I too, doubted.  I might have a rational explanation that Orithya was playing when a northerly gust carried her over the rocks, and therefore she was said to have been carried off by Boreas.  Now I quite acknowledge that these allegorical explanations are very nice, but he is not to be envied who has to make them up; much labor and ingenuity will be required of him; he will have to go on and rehabilitate Hippo-centaurs and chimeras dire.  Gorgons and winged steeds flow in apace, and numberless inconceivable and portentous natures.  And if he would fain reduce them to rules of probability it will take up a great deal of time.  Now I have no leisure for such inquiries; shall I tell you why?  I must first know myself as the Delphic inscription says; to be curious about things not my concern while I am still in ignorance of my own self would be absurd.  And therefore I bid farewell to all that sort of thing.  I want to know about myself; am I a monster more complicated and swollen with passion than the serpent Typho, or a creature of a gentler and simpler sort, to whom Nature has given a lowlier and diviner destiny?"
- Ms. Hamilton's translation is from Plato's "Phaedrus"

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