Euxesthai in Plato's Republic
Reminder: The intention of such word exercises is to give you the opportunity to think through how Plato is using an important term within the dialogue. We will give you our take later this month.
Euxesthai (prayer)
327a2: 327b1: Down I went to the Pireaus yesterday with Glaucon, son of Ariston, to pray to the goddess; and, at the same time, I wanted to observe how they were now holding it for the first time. Now, it seems to me, the procession of the native inhabitants was fine; but the one the Thracians conducted was no less fitting a show. After we had prayed and looked on, we went off toward town. [Socrates]
393e1: It would be something like this—I’ll speak without meter; I’m not poetic: The priest came and prayed that the gods grant them the capture of Troy and their own safety, and that they accept compensation and free his daughter out of reverence for the god. [Socrates]
394a3: The old man heard and was frightened; he went away in silence. But when he had withdrawn from the camp, he made a great prayer to Apollo, calling upon the god with his special names, reminding him and asking a return if anything he had ever given had been pleasing, whether it was in the building of temples or the sacrifice of victims. In return for them he called down the god’s arrows on the Achaeans in payment for his tears. [Socrates]
399b5: “I don’t know the modes,” I [Socrates] said. “Just leave that mode which would appropriately imitate the sounds and accents of a man who is courageous in warlike deeds and every violent work, and who in failure or when going to face wounds or death or falling into some other disaster, in the face of all these things stands up firmly and patiently against chance. And, again, leave another mode for a man who performs a peaceful deed, one that is not violent but voluntary, either persuading someone of something and making a request—whether a god by prayer or a human being by instruction and exhortation—or, on the contrary, holding himself in check for someone else who makes requests or instructs him or persuades him to change, and as a result acting intelligently, not behaving arrogantly, but in all things acting moderately and in measure and being content with the consequences.
432c5: “So then, Glaucon, we must, like hunters, now station ourselves in a circle around the thicket and pay attention so that justice doesn’t slip through somewhere and disappear into obscurity. Clearly it’s somewhere hereabouts. Look to it and make every effort to catch sight of it; you might somehow see it before me and could tell me.” / “If only I could,” he [Glaucon] said. “However, if you use me as a follower and a man able to see what’s shown him, you’ll be making quite sensible use of me.” / “Follow,” I said, “and pray with me.” [Socrates]
450d1: “…So that is why there’s a certain hesitation about getting involved in it, for fear that the argument might seem to be a prayer, my dear comrade.” [Socrates]
456b12: “The we weren’t giving laws that are impossible or like prayers, since that law we were setting down is according to nature. Rather, the way things are nowadays proves to be, as it seems, against nature.” [Socrates]
461a6: 461a7: “Then, if a man who is older than this, or younger, engages in reproduction for the commonwealth, we shall say that it’s a fault neither holy nor just. For he begets for the city a child that, if it escapes notice, will come into being without being born under the protection of the sacrifices and prayers which priestesses, priests, and the whole city offer [pray for] at every marriage to the effect that ever better and more beneficial offspring may come form good and beneficial men. This child is born, rather, under cover of darkness in the company of terrible incontinence.” [Socrates]
499c4: “Well, it was on account of this,” I [Socrates] said, “foreseeing it then, that we were frightened; but, all the same, compelled by the truth, we said that neither city nor regime will ever become perfect, nor yet will a man become perfect in the same way either, before some necessity chances to constrain those few philosophers who aren’t vicious, those now called useless, to take charge of a city to obey; or a true erotic passion for true philosophy flows form some divine inspiration into the sons of those who hold power or the office of king, or into the fathers themselves. I deny that there is any reason why either or both of these things is impossible. If that were the case we would justly be laughed at for uselessly saying things that are like prayers.
540d2: “What then?” I [Socrates] said. “Do you agree that the things we have said about the city and the regime are not in every way prayers; that they are hard but in a way possible; and that it is possible in no other way than the one stated: when true philosophers, either one or more, come to power in a city, they will despise the current honors and believe them to be illiberal and worth nothing. Putting what is right and the honors coming from it above all, while taking what is just as the greatest and the most necessary, and serving and fostering it, they will provide for their own city.”
545d8: “Then Glaucon,” I [Socrates] said, “how will our city be moved and in what way will the auxiliaries and the rulers divide into faction against each other and among themselves? Or do you want us, as does Homer, to pray to the Muses to tell us how ‘faction first attacked,’ and shall we say that they speak to us with high tragic talk, as though they were speaking seriously, playing and jesting with us like children?”