- Title
- Where did the mirror go? The text of Plato [?] Alcibiades I 133C1-6
- Creator
- Tarrant, Harrant
- Relation
- Elenchos Vol. 36, Issue 2, p. 361-372
- Relation
- http://bibliopolis.eu/shop/elenchos-2015-2/
- Publisher
- Bibliopolis
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2015
- Description
- At Alcibiades I, 133b-c, the reader expects, but does not according to the MSS find,the return of the mirror-motif that had supposedly explained the true meaning of the Delphic injunction. Hence it remains unclear why anything viewed within the soul should act in any way that resembles a mirror. I argue that the substitution of a single letter in one word, about which the manuscripts and modern scholars in any case disagree, can restore the necessary reference to a reflective surface, though not specifically to a mirror, since the term for a mirror could only be applied to sight. A failure to understand the underlying intertextual allusion to Cratylus 408c had resulted in a safe but unsatisfactory substitution by late antiquity, and other modifications followed thereafter in an effort to give meaning to the text.
- Subject
- Plato; Alcibiades I; mirror; text; Cratylus
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1315881
- Identifier
- uon:23017
- Identifier
- ISSN:0392-7342
- Language
- eng
- Reviewed
- Hits: 1620
- Visitors: 2098
- Downloads: 1
Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format |
---|