Alcibiades 2
Plato (428–347 BC)
Plato's Alcibiades 2 in the Greek text edited by John Burnet.
Section 138
Section 139
Section 140
Section 141
Section 142
Section 143
Section 144
Section 145
Section 146
Section 147
[147] Soc. The state or the soul, therefore, which wishes to have a right existence must hold firmly to this knowledge, just as the sick man clings to the physician, or the passenger depends for safety on the pilot. And if the soul does not set sail until she have obtained this she will be all the safer in the voyage through life. But when she rushes in pursuit of wealth or bodily strength or anything else, not having the knowledge of the best, so much the more is she likely to meet with misfortune. And he who has the love of learning, and is skilful in many arts, and does not possess the knowledge of the best, but is under some other guidance, will make, as he deserves, a sorry voyage:—he will, I believe, hurry through the brief space of human life, pilotless in mid-ocean, and the words will apply to him in which the poet blamed his enemy:— ‘... Full many a thing he knew; But knew them all badly.’
Al. How in the world, Socrates, do the words of the poet apply to him? They seem to me to have no bearing on the point whatever.
Soc. Quite the contrary, my sweet friend: only the poet is talking in riddles after the fashion of his tribe. For all poetry has by nature an enigmatical character, and it is by no means everybody who can interpret it. And if, moreover, the spirit of poetry happen to seize on a man who is of a begrudging temper and does not care to manifest his wisdom but keeps it to himself as far as he can, it does indeed require an almost superhuman wisdom to discover what the poet would be at. You surely do not suppose that Homer, the wisest and most divine of poets, was unaware of the impossibility of knowing a thing badly: for it was no less a person than he who said of Margites that ‘he knew many things, but knew them all badly.’ The solution of the riddle is this, I imagine:—By ‘badly’ Homer meant ‘bad’ and ‘knew’ stands for ‘to know.’ Put the words together;—the metre will suffer, but the poet’s meaning is clear;—‘Margites knew all these things, but it was bad for him to know them.’ And, obviously, if it was bad for him to know so many things, he must have been a good-for-nothing, unless the argument has played us false.
Al. But I do not think that it has, Socrates: at least, if the argument is fallacious, it would be difficult for me to find another which I could trust.
Soc. And you are right in thinking so.
Al. Well, that is my opinion.