Lição socrática

Abstract

OST OF us are familiar with the passage of the Phaedo in which Socrates explains to a surprised visitor the activity to which he de-voted himself in prison during the days that preceded his death. The philosopher composed poetry, something curious considering his stubborn rejection of the literary genre. According to Socrates, he was obeying the urgings of a dream vision, which had come to him frequently in his life and bidden him, “O Socrates, compose and practice music!” (60e). He thus devoted his time to complying with the dream admonition, convinced that philosophy was the “supreme music.” However, in prison he decided to compose poems as they were understood by most people (61a). The fact that he had endeavored in the past to “produce” abstract argument (“logos”) rather than narrating “myths”, which in his view would be the very base of poetic activity, led him to resort to Aesop’s fables, which he knew by heart. So, just before swallowing the deadly draught, Socrates versified Aesop’s prose.The episode is indeed surprising. Music would structure rational and poetic thought. The specific organization of the world of music would be the foundation of abstract and concrete reasoning. Socrates, hitherto averse to mimetic language, devotes to it his last moments, not as a critic but as a poet. The philosopher realizes that the knowledge of this subtle expression depends on practice and not on analytical instruments. Whatever the interpretation of the passage in question, it will be difficult to ignore that in the throes of life, still intent on obeying his recurring dream, Socrates accepts that knowledge of poetry has to do with its practice and not with its exegesis.Allow me to incur a sudden change of context before devoting a few lines to the issue of translation of Greek poetry among us. In an essay published in 1996