previous next

[502b]

Socrates
Then what of the purpose that has inspired our stately and wonderful tragic poetry? Are her endeavor and purpose, to your mind, merely for the gratification of the spectators, or does she strive hard, if there be anything pleasant and gratifying, but bad for them, to leave that unsaid, and if there be anything unpleasant, but beneficial, both to speak and sing that, whether they enjoy it or not? To which of these two aims, think you, is tragic poetry devoted ?

Callicles
It is quite obvious, in her case, Socrates, that


Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 3 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967.

The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.

Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Notes (Gonzalez Lodge, 1891)
load focus Greek (1903)
hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide References (18 total)
  • Commentary references to this page (10):
    • Gonzalez Lodge, Commentary on Plato: Gorgias, 447b
    • Gonzalez Lodge, Commentary on Plato: Gorgias, 481a
    • Gonzalez Lodge, Commentary on Plato: Gorgias, 504c
    • Gonzalez Lodge, Commentary on Plato: Gorgias, 509a
    • Gonzalez Lodge, Commentary on Plato: Gorgias, 512a
    • Gonzalez Lodge, Commentary on Plato: Gorgias, 513d
    • Gonzalez Lodge, Commentary on Plato: Gorgias, 520e
    • J. Adam, A. M. Adam, Commentary on Plato, Protagoras, CHAPTER V
    • James Adam, The Republic of Plato, 2.369B
    • James Adam, The Republic of Plato, 6.493D
  • Cross-references to this page (3):
    • William Watson Goodwin, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb, Chapter VI
    • Basil L. Gildersleeve, Syntax of Classical Greek, Tenses
    • Basil L. Gildersleeve, Syntax of Classical Greek, The Article
  • Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (5):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: