Again, in p. 160, B., Socrates says to Theodorus:--
'You have capitally expressed my weakness by your simile ([Greek: tên noson mou apeikasas]). I, however, am stouter ([Greek: ischyrikôteros]) than they; for before now many and many a Hercules and Theseus' (meaning, of course, many Sophists), 'on meeting me, men brave at talk, have pounded me right well; but I don't give it up for all that, so strong a passion has taken possession of my soul for this kind of exercise. Therefore, do not refuse on your part to prepare for a contest with me, and so to benefit yourself and me alike.'
We see no reason whatever why the above should have been diluted down to such a version as this:--
'I see, Theodorus, that you perfectly apprehend the nature of my complaint; but I am even more pugnacious than the giants of old, for I have met with no end of heroes. Many a Hercules, many a Theseus, mighty in words, have broken my head; nevertheless, I am always at this rough game, which inspires me like a passion. Please, then, to indulge me with a trial, for your own edification as well as mine.'
The following (p. 175, A.) is not satisfactory:--
'And when some one boasts of a catalogue of twenty-five ancestors, and goes back to Heracles, the son of Amphitryon, he cannot understand his poverty of ideas. Why is he unable to calculate that Amphitryon had a twenty-fifth ancestor, who might have been anybody, and was such as fortune made him, and he had a fiftieth, and so on? He is amused at the notion that he cannot do a sum, and thinks that a little arithmetic would have got rid of his senseless vanity.'
'But, when men pride themselves on a list of five-and-twenty ancestors, and trace them back to Heracles, the son of Amphitryon, it seems to him surprising that they should make these trumpery reckonings; and they should not be able (further) to calculate that the twenty-fifth from Amphitryon backwards was just such a person as fortune chanced to make him, or at least the fiftieth from him, and thus to get rid of the vanity of a senseless mind,--at this he cannot suppress a smile.'
In p. 194, C., the words [Greek: ta ionta dia tôn aisthêseôn, ensêmainomena eis touto to tês psychês kear, ho ephê Homêros], &c., should be rendered, 'the impressions entering us through our senses, leaving their marks on this _heart's core_, as Homer called it, intending to express in allegory the resemblance between [Greek: kêr] and [Greek: kêros],' &c. Mr. Jowett rather loosely turns it,--'the impressions which pass through the senses and _sink into the_ [waxen] _heart of the soul_, as Homer says in a parable,' &c. And just below, the words [Greek: eita ou parallattousi tôn aisthêseôn ta sêmeia], which he renders 'and are not liable to confusion,' might just as well have been brought out in their true sense, 'and further, they do not misapply the impressions of (or left by) the senses;' for [Greek: parallassein] is 'to change wrongly,' and is a word selected as exactly and most happily representing the idea Plato wished to convey, that confused memories owe their confusion to not keeping distinctly apart the impressions formerly received. A few lines further on, [Greek: hotan lasion tou to kear êi, ho dê epênesen ho panta sophos poiêtês, hê hotan koprôdes] &c., there are some points which only a careful rendering will bring out. In taking a delicate impression of a seal or gem on clarified wax, a hair left in it would mar the impression. And the dark yellow colour of natural wax was thought by the Greeks to be made foul by the dirt of the insects; clarifying it, in fact, was 'defæcation.' So we render it thus:--'When, then, a man's heart has hairs in it, which is the state the all-wise poet referred to [in calling it [Greek: lasion kêr]], or when it has dirt left in it, or is made of wax that is not pure [but adulterated], or too soft or too hard, then,' &c. Now this hardly appears in Mr. Jowett's version, 'But when the heart of any one _is shaggy_, as the poet who knew everything says, or muddy and of impure wax, or very soft, or very hard, then,' &c.