^4 Colorado College Studies. 



be considered next. It is evidently intended, as is brought out 

 by Wagner, to make the two expressions, -siffu- and axo'yro^ anti- 

 thetical, as though the craze for antithesis which reaches its 

 akme in Isocrates had actually taken possession of plain and 

 rugged Socrates who was by no means in the habit of amplify- 

 ing a statement for the sake of making it well balanced. Leav- 

 ing out of the question the harshness of the three sigmas in the 

 emendation, -nVac rr;, which is alone sufficient to condemn it 

 from a Greek standpoint, the question remains as to what he is 

 -anxious to do when, according to the emendation, he says, in the 

 words of Tyler, " I esteem it of great importance to do this with 

 your consent." Remain in the prison, say the commentators. 

 Then in accordance with Greek usage, we may expect to find a 

 statement to that effect in the context immediately preceding; 

 but Socrates has nowhere uttered any such sentiment nor is it 

 at all likely that he would say that he was anxious to stay there. 

 The meaning of the ravTo. must be looked for in the context, not 

 explained by dragging in some outside idea. On this basis, 

 according to the emendation, Socrates would say: I am exceed- 

 ingly anxious to do this, i. e., examine this question with you 

 i^(jy.o-u)ij.v^ . . , xoofj), if you are willing. . . . Taking 

 now the MS. reading, which is followed by Bekker and some 

 others, and looking for the explanation of raora in the context, 

 the passage means, not as Tyler explains it in his old edition, 

 " I am exceedingly desirous to pursue the course I am pursuing;" 

 but 'I am exceedingly desirous to induce you to do this,' i. e., 

 refute me {d<^Tihys) if you can (s;' -v] axsa; avrtXiyeiv) or else stop 

 {^-(vjffat) bringing forward the same old argument {ru-^ auro'^ 

 luyo'^); 'but I do not wish to force it upon you' {aXkd iiij a-/.i>v-(iq). 

 This is evidently the underlying thought in Goebel's emenda- 

 tion to -avGai which IS, however, hardly tenable on other grounds, 

 and the meaning still remains the same in Meiser's proposed 

 change of order, which is unnecessary. This meaning tallies 

 exactly with what has preceded and with all that follows. His 

 whole object and aim has been to do just this, namely to force 



