So socrates and crito walked in to a jail...
April 26, 2006 8:10 PM Subscribe
"Whatever inconvicence ensue, nothing is to be preferred before justice. These things I hear like pipes and drums whose sound make me deaf to everything you say."What book is this from?
Emerson quotes it in Representative Men: Nature, Addresses and Lectures, but I can't seem to where he got if from.
Emerson quotes it in Representative Men: Nature, Addresses and Lectures, but I can't seem to where he got if from.
Oh sorry: should be The Crito, see here. But not here, oddly...
posted by RJ Reynolds at 8:32 PM on April 26, 2006
posted by RJ Reynolds at 8:32 PM on April 26, 2006
Response by poster: Yeah, I can't seem find it in crito either.
posted by bigmusic at 8:38 PM on April 26, 2006
posted by bigmusic at 8:38 PM on April 26, 2006
Grr. Okay: It's not any of the Socrates-related works by Xenophon, I think I've ruled those out. It could be from a dramatic work; next stop, Aristophanes!
posted by RJ Reynolds at 8:45 PM on April 26, 2006
posted by RJ Reynolds at 8:45 PM on April 26, 2006
I just went through the Plato so don't bother there.
posted by tellurian at 8:51 PM on April 26, 2006
posted by tellurian at 8:51 PM on April 26, 2006
Okay. Probably isn't Aristophanes. (Not Clouds, not Wasps.) Couldn't be Aristotle, no? Was Emerson working from some weird translation? So we're just not finding the quote as written?
Where oh where is jessamyn when we need a master librarian?
(Nothing on Nexis results, by the way.)
posted by RJ Reynolds at 8:52 PM on April 26, 2006
Where oh where is jessamyn when we need a master librarian?
(Nothing on Nexis results, by the way.)
posted by RJ Reynolds at 8:52 PM on April 26, 2006
Response by poster: These things I hear like pipes and drums whose sound make me deaf to everything you say.
Something similar is said at the end of Crito ~
Soc. to crito:
This is the voice which I seem to hear murmuring in my ears, like the sound of the flute in the ears of the mystic; that voice, I say, is humming in my ears, and prevents me from hearing any other. And I know that anything more which you will say will be in vain. Yet speak, if you have anything to say.
posted by bigmusic at 9:07 PM on April 26, 2006
Something similar is said at the end of Crito ~
Soc. to crito:
This is the voice which I seem to hear murmuring in my ears, like the sound of the flute in the ears of the mystic; that voice, I say, is humming in my ears, and prevents me from hearing any other. And I know that anything more which you will say will be in vain. Yet speak, if you have anything to say.
posted by bigmusic at 9:07 PM on April 26, 2006
Response by poster: I can't find the damn justice part though... which is the part that I am really looking for.
posted by bigmusic at 9:17 PM on April 26, 2006
posted by bigmusic at 9:17 PM on April 26, 2006
It's probably a different translation or a rather liberal quote. The final paragraphs of the Crito (as quoted here) are probably what you're looking for, since they say the exact same thing in slightly different words.
posted by themel at 12:07 AM on April 27, 2006
posted by themel at 12:07 AM on April 27, 2006
Best answer: I know little of Plato -- certainly less than anyone else posting here -- but I think the previous posts, including your own, have already given you right answer. But the posters may not quite think so, due to the vagaries of translation and artistic or literary license.
One of the previously described Google book searches on the "preferred before justice" phrase coughs up a link to the limited preview of "Essays & Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson - Page 313 by Ralph Waldo Emerson - Literary Collections - 2004 - 528 pages" (no direct linky there). The exact quote you're interested in is asterisked, with the cite Compare Crito 54 D.. 54 D being, of course, Stephanus notation for the end of Crito. Besides the quote you listed, and the roughly equivalent quote of the second part you later listed (not surprisingly also a 54d reference), I found this translation of 54d at the Perseus Digital Library:
"Be well assured, my dear friend, Crito, that this is what I seem to hear, as the frenzied dervishes of Cybele seem to hear the flutes, and this sound of these words re-echoes within me and prevents my hearing any other words. And be assured that, so far as I now believe, if you argue against these words you will speak in vain. Nevertheless, if you think you can accomplish anything, speak."
From the blog "Mumblings of a Platonist", one gets the (partial) translation:
"Crito, dear friend, be assured that these are the words I seem to hear, as the Corybants seem to hear the music of their flutes, and the echo of these words resounds in me, and makes it impossible for me to hear anything else. As far as my present beliefs go, if you speak in opposition to them, you will speak in vain..."
All showing a same general pattern of meaning represented by seriously divergent word-for-word translations. Search on the phrase "plato crito 54-d" and you will likely uncover more versions and variants.
And, if you look at the immediately preceding paragraph in Crito, a quote of which I conveniently lift from Project Gutenberg's copy of Crito as translated by Benjamin Jowett, you get the overblown text:
"Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought you up. Think not of life and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice first, that you may be justified before the princes of the world below. For neither will you nor any that belong to you be happier or holier or juster in this life, or happier in another, if you do as Crito bids. Now you depart in innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil; a victim, not of the laws, but of men. But if you go forth, returning evil for evil, and injury for injury, breaking the covenants and agreements which you have made with us, and wronging those whom you ought least of all to wrong, that is to say, yourself, your friends, your country, and us, we shall be angry with you while you live, and our brethren, the laws in the world below, will receive you as an enemy; for they will know that you have done your best to destroy us. Listen, then, to us and not to Crito."
Which a talented writer in need of a more direct or punchy quote might be highly tempted to reduce to "Whatever inconvenience ensue, nothing is to be preferred before justice." The last piece of evidence for this is the contiguity of the two paragraphs in Crito as with the two quoted lines by Emerson. Weak evidence alone perhaps, but in conjunction with the rest of the findings, perhaps not.
So the learned AskMeta, in even the solipsistic sense, has already answered you properly. That's my theory anyway, and I'm sticking to it. (Uhh, barring compelling evidence to the contrary). Or did you want the exact translator's name who distilled the quote to two lines, assuming it wasn't Emerson himself? In which case I just ran about a mile in the wrong direction, not that I couldn't use the exercise anyway...
posted by mdevore at 12:17 AM on April 27, 2006
One of the previously described Google book searches on the "preferred before justice" phrase coughs up a link to the limited preview of "Essays & Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson - Page 313 by Ralph Waldo Emerson - Literary Collections - 2004 - 528 pages" (no direct linky there). The exact quote you're interested in is asterisked, with the cite Compare Crito 54 D.. 54 D being, of course, Stephanus notation for the end of Crito. Besides the quote you listed, and the roughly equivalent quote of the second part you later listed (not surprisingly also a 54d reference), I found this translation of 54d at the Perseus Digital Library:
"Be well assured, my dear friend, Crito, that this is what I seem to hear, as the frenzied dervishes of Cybele seem to hear the flutes, and this sound of these words re-echoes within me and prevents my hearing any other words. And be assured that, so far as I now believe, if you argue against these words you will speak in vain. Nevertheless, if you think you can accomplish anything, speak."
From the blog "Mumblings of a Platonist", one gets the (partial) translation:
"Crito, dear friend, be assured that these are the words I seem to hear, as the Corybants seem to hear the music of their flutes, and the echo of these words resounds in me, and makes it impossible for me to hear anything else. As far as my present beliefs go, if you speak in opposition to them, you will speak in vain..."
All showing a same general pattern of meaning represented by seriously divergent word-for-word translations. Search on the phrase "plato crito 54-d" and you will likely uncover more versions and variants.
And, if you look at the immediately preceding paragraph in Crito, a quote of which I conveniently lift from Project Gutenberg's copy of Crito as translated by Benjamin Jowett, you get the overblown text:
"Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought you up. Think not of life and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice first, that you may be justified before the princes of the world below. For neither will you nor any that belong to you be happier or holier or juster in this life, or happier in another, if you do as Crito bids. Now you depart in innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil; a victim, not of the laws, but of men. But if you go forth, returning evil for evil, and injury for injury, breaking the covenants and agreements which you have made with us, and wronging those whom you ought least of all to wrong, that is to say, yourself, your friends, your country, and us, we shall be angry with you while you live, and our brethren, the laws in the world below, will receive you as an enemy; for they will know that you have done your best to destroy us. Listen, then, to us and not to Crito."
Which a talented writer in need of a more direct or punchy quote might be highly tempted to reduce to "Whatever inconvenience ensue, nothing is to be preferred before justice." The last piece of evidence for this is the contiguity of the two paragraphs in Crito as with the two quoted lines by Emerson. Weak evidence alone perhaps, but in conjunction with the rest of the findings, perhaps not.
So the learned AskMeta, in even the solipsistic sense, has already answered you properly. That's my theory anyway, and I'm sticking to it. (Uhh, barring compelling evidence to the contrary). Or did you want the exact translator's name who distilled the quote to two lines, assuming it wasn't Emerson himself? In which case I just ran about a mile in the wrong direction, not that I couldn't use the exercise anyway...
posted by mdevore at 12:17 AM on April 27, 2006
Response by poster: I thought that too mdevore, but the problem with the last part about justice is that it's not spoken by the man on death's doorstep. =/
posted by bigmusic at 12:58 AM on April 27, 2006
posted by bigmusic at 12:58 AM on April 27, 2006
Best answer: I agree with mdevore: Emerson is summarizing the argument from Crito, and the quote marks should not be taken in the literal sense ("these are someone's exact words") but as a signal that another person's thoughts are being summarized.
posted by languagehat at 7:16 AM on April 27, 2006
posted by languagehat at 7:16 AM on April 27, 2006
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 8:27 PM on April 26, 2006