23§1. My abbreviated translation of the noun theōriā is ‘sacred journey’. This noun is related to the noun theōros, referring to a person who is officially delegated to embark on such a sacred journey. I will translate this noun as ‘sacred delegate’. And I will translate the corresponding verb theōreîn this way: ‘to journey as a sacred delegate’. Etymologically, theōros means ‘one who sees [root hor-] a vision [theā]’. So, the basic meaning of theōriā can be reconstructed as a ritualized journey undertaken for the purpose of achieving a sacralized vision. This basic meaning is most evident in the context of athletics as a ritual activity. In the wording of Herodotus (1.59.1, 8.26), for example, a theōros is a ‘sacred delegate’ of a given community who is sent out to observe a given athletic competition and who then returns to his community with news of what he has seen. [1] Similarly, this same word theōros can refer to a ‘sacred delegate’ of a given community who is sent out to consult an oracle and who then returns with news of what the oracle said: we see a famous example in the Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles (114), where Creon is sent out as a theōros to consult the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. [2] When a theōros reports to his community what the oracle has said, the content of his report is considered to be visual as well as verbal, since the god of the oracle communicates not so much by saying or by not saying but rather by ‘indicating’, sēmainein, as we saw in an aphorism of Heraclitus (22 B 93 DK) that I quoted in Hour 15 Text J and analyzed in §§64-72 of the same hour (especially in §69). When the god Apollo of the oracle at Delphi engages in the act of sēmainein, ‘indicating’, he is conferring an inner vision {625|626} upon the theōros, who thus becomes worthy of the meaning of this word as ‘the one who sees [root hor-] a vision [theā]’; so, both the encoder and the decoder of the oracular message are operating on the basis of the same inner vision. [3] This relationship between the words sēmainein and theōros is pertinent to the usage of the modern lexical creations semantics or semiotics and theory respectively. [4]

23§2. In the case of the modern word theory, I must add, the lengthy history of its eventual meaning is mediated by philosophical reinterpretations of the words theōriā, theōros, and theōreîn already in ancient times. The most familiar interpretation is Aristotle’s concept of theōriā as a ‘contemplation’ of the divine, especially by the divine (Nicomachean Ethics 10.1174b). From the standpoint of Plato’s philosophical agenda, to go back to a broader understanding, theōriā is the inner vision of the mind, and that is how it can come to mean ‘theory’ or ‘theorizing’, as best represented by the theoretical thinking of Socrates himself when he engages in dialogue (as in Plato Philebus 38b). It is this kind of theoretical thinking, brought to life in dialogue, that Socrates says he adopted as his mission in life after he heard the response of the oracle of Apollo to the question posed by Chaerephon – whether there existed anyone more sophos or ‘wise’ than Socrates. In Hour 22, we have already read about this moment, retold in Plato’s Apology of Socrates (21a). But now there is more to be said about the mission that was launched because of Apollo’s response to this question. That mission, which is the perpetual engagement of Socrates in dialogue with anyone he encounters after he had heard about the response, is the essence of theōriā.

23§3. But such a theōriā of Socrates, in the sense of a dialogic mission, was obviously not sanctioned by the Athenian State. Likewise, Chaerephon had not been given any authorization to become a theōros or ‘sacred delegate’ of the State. It should come as no surprise, then, that the word theōros is not applied to Chaerephon in Plato’s Apology of Socrates. Nor is the word applied to Chaerephon in Xenophon’s Apology of Socrates (14), where we find a parallel version of the story about his consultation of the oracle. I note also an interesting additional detail in Xenophon’s version: that there were many witnesses to this particular consultation of the oracle at Delphi (again, Apology of Socrates 14).

23§4. So, the word theōros, in the sense of a ‘sacred delegate’, would not be an appropriate term for a private agent who consults the oracle at Delphi – at least, not from the standpoint of the Athenian State. In terms of this reasoning, the {626|627} word theōros should apply only to public agents, especially as exemplified by great figures in the past. [5] A case in point is the lawgiver Lycurgus of Sparta, who, according to Herodotus (1.65.4), received from the oracle of Apollo at Delphi the law code that he gave to the people of Sparta. [6] In Xenophon’s Apology of Socrates (15), Socrates himself makes a reference to the visit of Lycurgus to the oracle at Delphi, and the philosopher goes out of his way to contrast what the lawgiver was told and what Chaerephon himself was told by the oracle. In the case of Lycurgus, according to Socrates as mediated in Xenophon’s Apology of Socrates (15), the oracle addressed Lycurgus by professing ambivalence whether the lawgiver is a human or a god; an earlier source, Herodotus (1.65.2-5), also mentions this detail about the consultation of the oracle by Lycurgus. In the case of Socrates, on the other hand, Xenophon’s version of the Apology of Socrates (again, 15) reports a contrast that was highlighted by Socrates himself in his speech: here the philosopher is emphasizing a major difference between himself and the famed lawgiver from Sparta’s glorious past: whereas Apollo’s oracle compared Lycurgus to a god, Socrates was compared only to other mortals.

23§5. Parallel to such an idealization of Lycurgus, lawgiver of Sparta, is the idealization of Solon, lawgiver of Athens. According to a traditional story attested in Herodotus (1.29.1), Solon left Athens for ten years after he gave the Athenians their laws, so that he would not be forced to change any of these laws. Herodotus adds that Solon had made the Athenians swear that they would make no changes in his absence (1.29.2). Herodotus also adds that Solon gave the Athenians a prophasis or ‘pretext’ for his departure and for his subsequent wanderings all over the world, saying that he was embarking on a theōriā or ‘sacred journey’ (θεωρίης πρόφασιν 1.29.2, θεωρίης … εἵνεκεν 1.30.1). [7] The subtext of this pretext, as I have already noted, was that the Athenians were thus bound by oath not to change anything in the laws that Solon had given them – so long as he was away on his theōriā. Solon’s sacred journey or theōriā obligated the Athenians.

23§6. In the course of his wandering all over the world on his sacred journey, Solon comes to the court of Croesus, king of the Lydians, who addresses the Athenian lawgiver with these words: {627|628}

23§7. The wording that describes the philosophical mission of Solon here is most revealing. It helps us understand the wording used by Plato’s Socrates in describing his own philosophical mission:

23§8. As I argued in Hour 22, Hēraklēs and even Odysseus can be seen as heroic models for the metaphor that pictures the planē or ‘wandering’ of Socrates all over the world in the course of his unending spiritual journey. Now we see that Solon too is a comparable model, especially since this idealized lawgiver’s own spiritual journey is described as a philosophical quest: in the wording of Herodotus (1.30.2), Solon is said to love wise things, philosopheîn. The one big difference, however, in describing the spiritual journeys of the lawgiver who acts as a philosopher and of the philosopher who acts as a lawgiver is that the theōriā or ‘sacred journey’ of Solon the lawgiver is explicitly linked with his love of wise things, philosopheîn, whereas the same word theōriā is only implied in the description given by Plato’s Socrates of his own mission as a philosopher. For Socrates, theōriā cannot be made explicit because he is acting as a private {628|629} agent while he wanders around the world, as it were, on his sacred journey. So, the word theōriā is politically inappropriate for someone who does not represent the Athenian State.

23§9. For Socrates in his own lifetime, as we have just seen, the word theōriā was politically off limits. In the fullness of time, however, Plato’s Socrates will have the last word. Ultimately, the philosophical meaning of theōriā as ‘theory’ will be victorious over the political meaning of theōriā as a ‘sacred journey’ undertaken for the good of the Athenian State. Even the meaning of the modern word theory symbolizes the ultimate victory of philosophy, as brought to life in Socratic dialogue, over the politics that brought about the philosopher’s death. In Plato’s Phaedo, as we will now see, the symbolism of this word theōriā as a ‘sacred journey’ vindicates the philosophical mission of Socrates.

23§10. I start by examining the use of this word theōriā in the context of a passage we find at the very beginning of Plato’s Phaedo. The dramatic setting of this dialogue is Phleious, a city in the North Peloponnesus, far away from Athens. The speaker Echecrates is from Phleious, and he is having his own dialogue with another speaker, Phaedo, who is from Athens and who had been a student of Socrates:

23§11. In this passage, we see that Theseus the Athenian hero saves the people of Athens by freeing them from being dominated by the naval empire of Minos, king of the city of Knossos on the island of Crete. In the Athenian myth, as we see it retold briefly by Plutarch in his Life of Theseus (15.1-2), this domination took the form of a seasonally recurring human sacrifice of fourteen young Athenians, seven boys and seven girls, offered to the monster son of Minos, called the Minotaur, who was half man and half bull and who dwelled in Knossos inside a maze known as the laburinthos or ‘Labyrinth’ (15.2). Joining the original ensemble of seven boys and seven girls who are destined for human sacrifice, Theseus sails with them to Knossos in Crete. There Ariadne the daughter of Minos falls in love with Theseus. She helps him penetrate the Labyrinth, where Theseus finds the Minotaur and kills him. Then, retracing his steps by following the thread that Ariadne gave him, Theseus escapes from the Labyrinth and thus ‘saves’ both himself and the other young Athenians. This act of ‘saving’ the Athenians is expressed by the verb sōzein in the passage we have just read in Plato’s Phaedo, where we learn also that Theseus celebrated his salvation and the salvation of the other young Athenians by sailing together with them to Delos, sacred island of Apollo, on a prototypical theōriā or ‘sacred journey’. In Plutarch’s Life of Theseus (21.1-3), we can read further details about that prototypical celebration in Delos. There Theseus and the other young Athenians are transformed into a choral ensemble who sing and dance the story of the hero’s victory over the Minotaur inside the Labyrinth of Crete, and the Labyrinth itself is re-enacted by way of the singing and dancing, which is traditionally called the geranos or ‘crane’. This song and dance of the crane, as traditionally performed at the festival of Apollo at Delos, literally re-enacts the Cretan Labyrinth, since the dance-steps danced by cranes in the course of these birds’ courtship rituals during mating season seem to be re-tracing the patterns of a maze or Labyrinth, as Plutarch says explicitly in his Life of Theseus (21.2), following the report of the antiquarian Dicaearchus (F 85 ed. Wehrli), who lived in the fourth/third century BCE. [11]

23§12. As we see from the Phaedo of Plato, this prototypical theōriā or ‘sacred journey’ of Theseus is re-enacted in an Athenian state festival held in honor of {631|632} Apollo at Delos, marked by a ritualized theōriā or ‘sacred journey’ of the ship of Theseus from Athens to Delos and back. As we learn from Plutarch’s Life of Theseus (23.1) the triākontoros or thirty-oar ship that sailed every year on this ritualized journey to Delos and back was believed to be the same ship on which Theseus had sailed to Delos together with the rest of the young Athenians who had been saved from being sacrificed to the Minotaur. Plutarch in the Life of Theseus (again, 23.1) says that the ancient traditions about this ship could be traced forward in time from the mythical era of Theseus all the way to the historical era of Demetrius of Phaleron, a philosopher who dominated Athens both politically and culturally in the late fourth century BCE: according to these ancient traditions, Plutarch reports, the ship of Theseus had always remained the same ship, except that each and every piece of it had been replaced, one by one, in the course of time. Thus the ship as it existed in the ritual present time of Demetrius in the late fourth century BCE – or, as it existed less than a century earlier, in the year 399 BCE when Socrates died – consisted of parts that included not a single piece that could be dated all the way back to the mythical past when Theseus had sailed to the island of Delos on this same ship. Plutarch in the Life of Theseus (again, 23.1) also says that it had become a philosophical game to debate whether the ship that sailed annually in the ritual was really the same thing as the ship that sailed prototypically in the myth.

23§13. A far more sophisticated form of such a philosophical game is being played out in Plato’s Phaedo, since the theōriā or ‘sacred journey’ of the Athenian Ship of State that sails to Delos and back is an occasion for testing Plato’s Theory of Forms as it plays out in the dramatized dialogue of Socrates with his students in the Phaedo. The Athenian Ship of State that is sailing to Delos and back while Socrates is having the last dialogue of his life is materially the exact replica of the supposedly original ship. The ship of the theōriā or ‘sacred journey’ in myth is the absolute ship, the ideal ship, comparable to an ideal ship in Plato’s Theory of Forms, whereas the ship of the real world is not absolute, not ideal, just as the things of this world are not real in terms of Plato’s Theory of Forms. The word in Greek that we translate as ‘Form’ is ideā, and it is from this Greek word that such English words as idea, ideal, and idealism are borrowed. Of these borrowings, the adjective and noun ideal and the ideal come closest to the philosophical concept that we translate in English as Form.

23§14. So far, we have seen an ideal of salvation that is mythologically launched, as it were, when the ship of Theseus starts sailing on its sacred voyage or theōriā. For Plato’s Socrates, however, there is also a parallel ideal of salvation {632|633} that will be philosophically continued by the theory or theōriā that will forever be fueled by the living word of Socratic dialogue. In what follows, I will start to explore the shaping of such an ideal.

23§15. As we can see from the wording of Plato’s Phaedo (58a and 58c), quoted in Text C, the priest of Apollo attaches garlands to the stern of the Athenian Ship of State as the formal ritual act of launching this ship on its sacred voyage or theōriā to Delos and back. I now focus on the word used in the text of Plato here, stephein, which means ‘to garland, to make garlands for’ (again, 58a and 58c). But what does it really mean, to ‘garland’ a theoric ship? In ancient Greek, the noun that derives from this verb stephein is stephanos, meaning ‘garland’. Both the noun and the verb refer to blossoms or leaves that are strung together and then ritually attached to an object or to a person. In Modern Greek, the noun corresponding to ancient stephanos is stephánē (stepháni), likewise meaning ‘garland’. There is also a neuter plural form of the noun in Modern Greek, stéphana, which can mean ‘wedding garlands’: I note with special interest the metonymy embedded in the phrase used to offer best wishes to newlywed couples: kalá stéphana, meaning literally ‘[may you have] good garlands!’. In one Modern Greek phrasebook for English-speakers, this expression is translated ‘may you have a quick and happy wedding’.

[[The illustrations that follow, plus the captions, are included only in the online version of the book, not in the printed version.]]

23§16. The mind set that corresponds to such a usage in Modern Greek throws light on the fact that the garlanding of objects or of persons is a way of delineating a ritual framework. The attaching of a garland marks the beginning of engagement in a ritual – and a ritual must always have a notionally perfect beginning. So the attaching of a garland to the stern of the theoric ship is meant to be a perfect send-off for the sacred voyage ahead, which must also be notionally perfect and therefore unpolluted. For the Athenian State to execute Socrates while the sacred voyage is in progress would be to pollute the ritual – and to pollute the State. I should add that the ritual practice of garlanding a ship before a sea voyage survives to this day in the Greek-speaking world, and such rituals of garlanding are linked with important festive occasions – including Easter.

23§17. As we take an overall view of the many diverse civilizations that have taken shape in the course of the last four or five thousand years in the islands as well as the mainland coastlines mediated by the Aegean Sea, we can see that the ritual of garlanding the stern of a theoric ship is a custom of the greatest antiq- {633|634} uity. The primary attestation comes from the evidence of pictures painted on the plastered surface of inner walls at the site of Akrotiri on the Aegean island of Santorini, the ancient name of which was Thera. This evidence can be dated back to the time when the prehistoric volcano that once occupied most of this island exploded, some time around the middle of the second millennium BCE, leaving behind a gigantic caldera that now occupies the space where the mountain once stood. The wall paintings to which I refer were preserved by the volcanic ash that buried the site of Akrotiri in the wake of the explosion. I concentrate here on a band of paintings that line the inner walls of “Room 5” in a building known to archaeologists as the West House – although there is currently no agreement about what exactly is meant by the term “house” in this instance. [12] This band of paintings, known as the Miniature Frieze, has been described as “one of the most important monuments in Aegean art.” [13]

23§18. The Miniature Frieze occupies the upper third of the inner walls of Room 5, where the doors and the windows would not interrupt the flow of the narrative that was painted on all four of the inner walls. The narrative of the Frieze moves clockwise, beginning and ending at the same point. The point of beginning, situated at the southernmost end of the west wall, shows part of a harbor city or “Town I,” while the point of ending, situated at the westernmost end of the south wall, shows the other part of the same harbor city, “Town I.” So, the narrative comes full circle back to “Town I.” [14] The north wall shows, again, a coastal city, which is “Town II”; as for “Town III,” which overlaps the north and the east walls, this site is yet another coastal city, and, in this case, it is situated at the mouth of a river; the same can be said for “Town IV,” at the eastern side of the south wall, which is once again a coastal city situated at the mouth of a river; actually, “Town IV” may be another way of looking at one and the same city, “Town III.” [15] Then there is the south wall, showing a fleet of ships sailing from the harbor of “Town IV” toward the “home port,” that is, toward the same place that had also served as a point of departure, which was “Town V.” [16] The fleet consists of seven large ships, only one of which is under sail; [17] the other six ships are being rowed by multitudes of oarsmen; further back to our left, in {634|635} front of “Town IV,” there is also a small boat, equipped with no mast, which is rowed by only five oarsmen. [18] All seven of the large ships are heading from left to right in the direction of the harbor of “Town V.” Located at the stern of each one of these seven large ships is a structure that looks like a cabin, and there is a male figure seated inside each one of these “cabins.”

23§19. The middle zone of wall paintings in Room 4, situated to the south of Room 5 in the same “West House,” shows a variety of close-up pictures featuring enlarged views of the same kinds of decorations that we see attached to the “cabins” located at the sterns of the seven large ships. Of particular interest are two semi-circular garlands of flowers that decorate the “cabin” of the first ship we see on our left in Figure 36 as we view the upper row of large ships pictured on the south wall of the Miniature Frieze in Room 5: this detail matches most closely the two semi-circular garlands of flowers that decorate the wall of the adjacent Room 4, as we see in Figure 61. [19]

The illustrations that follow are included only in the online version of the book, not in the printed version.

23§20. What we see painted on the wall of Room 4 shows the same garlanded frame of vision that we see painted in the Miniature Frieze decorating the south wall of Room 5. But there is a big difference. Whereas the man who is seated in the “cabin” positioned at the stern of the ship in the picture painted on the plaster wall of Room 5 can look through the garlanded frame of vision and see the sights to be seen as he sails ahead on his sea voyage, a viewer who looks at the plaster wall of Room 4 and sees a picture of the same garlanded frame of vision could merely imagine the sights to be seen in the course of such a sea voyage. Having noted this difference, however, I must return to what the two painted details have in common: whether the sights to be seen are really seen or only imagined, these sights could be interpreted as a theōriā or the ‘seeing of a vision’. What is being represented in both paintings, I argue, is a prototype of a theōriā in the sense of a ‘sacred journey’ that leads to the achievement of a mystical vision. And that view of that vision is framed by the two semi-circular garlands through which the viewer views what is seen. To borrow from a modern idiom, the vision is viewed through rose-colored glasses.

23§21. At an earlier point in this book, we have already had a chance to observe another example of theōriā in the sense of a ‘sacred journey’. In this example as well, the theōriā is signaled by the ritual gesture of garlanding. The example I have in {635|636} mind is a seasonally recurring ritual of the Thessalians as described in the wording of Philostratus (Hērōikos 53.9-13) and as quoted in Hour 14 Text K: these Thessalians, representing the Aeolians of Europe who are separated by the Aegean Sea from the Aeolians of Asia Minor, send across the sea to the Asiatic region of Troy an ensemble of ‘twice seven’ theōroi or ‘sacred delegates’ (53.9), who perform the ritual gesture of ‘garlanding’ (53.12 stephanoûn) the tumulus of Achilles while wearing ‘garlands of amaranth’ on their own heads (53.9 stephanoi amarantinoi). In this example, the ideal of ritual perfection is expressed by way of symbolizing the ideal of eternity, since the ritual itself is meant to be recycled year after year into eternity. The ideal of eternity is symbolized by the Greek expression for ‘garlands of amaranth’ (again 53.9, stephanoi amarantinoi), since amaranton or ‘amaranth’ literally means ‘unwilting’, as we saw in Hour 14§§32 and 36.

23§22. So, the ritual act of garlanding, which marks theōriā as a sacred voyage or even as a “vision quest,” is a sign of immortality. For Plato’s Socrates, theōriā is not only a journey of a ship or a journey of a soul: it is also a metaphor for philosophical inquiry through dialogue. That, as we have seen, is the way we get the word theory from theōriā. Such theory is a journey of a soul that is meant to be ongoing forever, through dialogue.

23§23. In arriving at such a formulation, I have all along had in mind the title I gave to this hour and to the hour before, “the living word,” Parts I and II. For Plato’s Socrates, the living word of dialogue can live only if it avoids getting killed by the written word. There are moments in Plato’s Phaedo when Socrates catches himself in the act of talking in a way that makes him imagine that some reader is already reading him as a piece of writing – as what we would call a book. But the very idea of Socrates as the author of a book is something to be resisted. It makes him smile knowingly and say:

23§24. But of course Socrates is in fact mediated here and everywhere by an author, who is none other than his old student Plato. Whatever Socrates says is being written down for him by Plato, who seems to be saying it for him. So, the dialogues that Socrates is having with his students in Plato’s Phaedo, for example, are really mediated by the writings of Plato. That is why Plato has to suppress himself as a writer – if the living word of the dialogues is to come alive and stay alive. That is why it would be best for Plato to stay out of any of these dialogues, avoiding his own presence especially in the last of all the dialogues that Socrates will have with his students while he was still alive. That is why, as Phaedo implies in Plato’s Phaedo – I stress that this speaker only implies it – Plato himself was not there in the course of that last dialogue. He could not be there because he could not be there as an author. Plato would not be up to it. Here is the way Plato’s Phaedo speaks of Plato’s absence, notional or otherwise, while Phaedo is telling about those Athenians who were present when Socrates died:

23§25. This riddling reference to the absence of Plato raises more questions than it answers. Here is the only mention of Plato in the dialogues attributed to Plato’s authorship – other than the reference made by Plato’s Socrates in Plato’s Apology of Socrates to the presence of his supporters on the occasion of his trial (34a, 38b). So, if Plato was really not there to transcribe, as it were, the things that Socrates said in his last days and hours while alive, how can we trust what he says Socrates said? But this question is misleading: except for the letters that are ascribed to Plato, this man does not say anywhere that he is saying anything. Socrates is saying everything, and even Socrates leaves open-ended what Socrates says. The students of Socrates are not getting the last word from their teacher when he engages them in dialogue for the last time. Rather, the students are get- {637|638} ting the latest word, which can ever be renewed whenever the dialogue is re-started.

23§26. Yes, our first impression may be that Socrates speaks to us as if he were a book, and yet, it is the live speech of dialogue that makes the word come alive. What matters is not the wording of Socrates but the words that he is starting in the process of engaging in dialogue, to be continued by his interlocutors and by succeeding interlocutors in generations to come, generation after generation, notionally forever. That is why the dialogues as framed by Plato are not authorial. That is why Socrates is not an author.

23§27. The time frame of the ritual theōriā or sacred voyage of the Athenian Ship of State makes room for three phases: (1) the ship sails from Athens to Delos, bringing celebrants; (2) these Athenian celebrants participate in celebrating the festival of the god Apollo at Delos; and (3) the ship sails back to Athens from Delos, taking back the celebrants. Within this time frame, as we have seen, Socrates will engage in dialogues with his followers, and these dialogues are figured as a philosophical form of theōriā. But Socrates will be engaging not only in philosophy within this time frame but also in poetry, spending some of his remaining time by composing a hymn to Apollo and by turning the prose fables of Aesop into poetry:

23§28. In two other projects, I have analyzed this passage in some detail, and I offer here only an abridged version of that analysis: [23]

23§29. In the analysis that I have just summarized, I used the term swan song in referring to the two kinds of poetry that Socrates composed before his death. But Socrates himself reserves the concept of a swan song for a higher form of expression. As we have just seen in Plato’s Phaedo, as quoted in Text F, the ‘art of the Muses’ or mousikē applies not only to song and poetry but also to philosophy, which for Socrates is the highest form of mousikē. And, as we saw in a passage I quoted earlier, in Hour 22 Text F, the real swan song of Socrates is not poetry. Rather, it is a continued dialogue with his students:

23§30. Just as the ritual journey or theōriā that is undertaken by celebrants who sail to Delos culminates in the hymning of Apollo on his sacred island, so also the philosophical journey or theōriā that is undertaken by Socrates in prison culminates in the hymning of the same god by way of a dialogue that must never end.

23§31. The hymning of Apollo at the cult center of his sacred island of Delos is idealized, as I have argued, in the first part of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (the second part honors the god as worshipped at the rival cult center of Delphi). But the actual hymning of the god takes on other forms in the historical present. Whereas Apollo is hymned by an idealized chorus of Delian Maidens in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (156-178), there is evidence for real choruses that hymned the god at his Delian festival in the historical period of the fifth century BCE and thereafter.

23§32. As we see from the testimony of the fifth-century historian Thucydides (3.104.6), the chorus of the Delian Maidens who are described in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo are to be viewed as prototypes for the choruses that actually performed at the Delia, that is, at the festival of Apollo at Delos in historical times. [24] At the Delia, as Thucydides (3.104.6) observes, city-states participated in the ritual of ‘sending’ (anagein) their local choruses to perform there as part of a ‘sacrifice’, conveyed by the word hiera, ‘sacrificial offerings’. In fact, a traditional word for a festival like the Delia was thusiā, which literally means ‘sacrifice’. [25] There is a most relevant attestation of both these words, hiera or ‘sacrificial offerings’ and thusiā or ‘sacrifice, festival’, in an account concerning the celebration of the Delia at Delos in the glory days of the Athenian empire. This account, as we will now see, gives a full-blown description of the magnificent spectacle of choral performances at the Delia: [26] {641|642}

23§33. This description by Plutarch, composed half a millennium after the events described, which took place in 426 BCE, still features the essential ritual concepts of hier(ei)a, ‘sacrificial offerings’, and thusiā, ‘sacrifice, festival’. [28] And we know that the practice of sending choral groups to perform at Delos, as attested in this narrative about events taking place in the second half of the fifth century, was in full bloom already in the first half of the fifth century, when choruses sang and danced choral songs composed by such master poets as Simonides and Pindar. The primary evidence comes from surviving fragments of their choral songs, [29] and the majority of these songs performed in honor of Apollo can be identified as paiānes or ‘paeans’. [30] We have already noted this kind of choral song in Hour 5§113. And there is an explicit reference to such a paean as chorally performed by the prototypical Delian Maidens themselves at Delos:

23§34. As we can see from this wording, sung and danced in a choral song composed by Euripides, the prototypical Delian Maidens are pictured in the act of performing the kind of choral song that is known as the paiān, ‘paean’, which is equated here with the performing of a humnos. [32] The equation is made clear in the syntax of the wording, which can be analyzed in two steps. First, the verb humneîn, ‘sing a humnos’, takes as its inner object the song that is sung as a humnos, and this song is in fact a pa iān or ‘paean’. Second, the same verb humneîn takes as its outer object the name of the god Apollo, who is both the object of {643|644} praise and the subject of the song that is the humnos. When I use the expression subject of the song here, I mean the subject matter, not the grammatical subject. In the grammar of a humnos as a song, the divinity that figures as the subject of the song is in fact the grammatical object of the verb of singing the song. [33]

23§35. In the passage I have just quoted from the Herakles of Euripides (687-695), Text I, we have seen once again the idea of a swan song with reference to the hymning of the god Apollo. That idea fits the context of the drama here, since the chorus represents a group of elderly men who are on the threshold of death in their old age and who rejoice at the prospect – a sadly false prospect, as it turns out – of happy events awaiting Hēraklēs. So, we see here once again an old man’s song of joy at the prospect of good things to come – in this case, for someone other than the self.

23§36. I find it apt here to return to the swan song of Socrates, who rejoices at the prospect of good things to come – both for himself after his own death and for others, whoever may be listening to the dialogue:

23§37. The devotional tone of the words that Socrates reserves here for his very own ‘art of the Muses’ reminds me of a Lied composed by Schubert as his own personal hymn to Music: {644|645}

23§38. But of course Socrates reserves the concept of a swan song not for “music” as we know it but for an even higher form of human expression. As we have seen in Plato’s Phaedo, quoted in Text F, the ‘art of the Muses’ or mousikē applies not only to song and poetry but also to philosophy, which for Socrates is the highest form of mousikē. And, as we see once again in the passage I quoted in Text J, the real swan song of Socrates is not poetry but continued dialogue with his students.

23§39. For Plato’s Socrates, philosophy is not only the highest art of the Muses. It is also the highest form of all communication, surpassing even the exalted language that reveals the mysteries of immortalization after death. The practice of philosophy can thus become a new way to imagine the mystical experience of being initiated into these mysteries: {645|646}

23§40. A question remains: what kind of immortalization after death can we hope for if we do in fact ‘practice philosophy correctly’? As we will now see, what is at stake here for Plato’s Socrates is not the resurrection of the sōma, the ‘body’, or even the preservation of the psūkhē, the ‘soul’, but simply the idea that the living word of philosophical dialogue must stay alive. [35]

23§41. So, the only thing that should make us mourn or lament is not death pure and simple but the death of dialogue. The prospect of such a death is the thing that is really being lamented by the wife of Socrates in the final moments of his life:

23§42. From a philosophical perspective, the focus has shifted away from the lamenting wife and the helpless child. The poetic perspective had been so different, we may recall, in the Homeric scene in Iliad VI when Hector experiences {647|648} his final moments together with his wife Andromache and his infant son Astyanax. By the time the philosophical contingent reaches the scene of Socrates’ final moments together with his wife and his child, there is no room anymore for hearing and seeing whatever tender words and gestures may or may not have been exchanged.

23§43. From a philosophical perspective, the main thing to lament is the termination of opportunities to have dialogues with Socrates in person. It is this termination that Xanthippe laments in her own way, both for the followers of Socrates and even for herself.

23§44. But the perception of such a termination turns out to be erroneous, as we see from the final passage that I will quote in this hour. At the beginning of this quoted passage, we find something extraordinary going on in the dialogue of Plato’s Phaedo. Starting at section 88c, Echecrates interrupts the narrative of Phaedo containing the dialogue of Socrates with Phaedo and others. The interruption of the narrative is like a derailing of the dialogue contained by the narrative. Then the speaker Phaedo in section 88e responds to the interruption by the speaker Echecrates, and the recontinued dialogue contained by the now recontinued narrative gets the argument back on track. And this argument, as we will see, corrects the erroneous impression that Socratic dialogue will be terminated by the death of Socrates:

23§45. As David Elmer has shown, what we see here is a moment in the inset narrative performed by Phaedo where “the frame narrative breaks into the inset narrative.” [38] This moment happens when Echecrates interrupts, as we have just seen, the narrative of the speaker Phaedo who is reporting the dialogue that took place during the last days and hours of Socrates. As Elmer has also shown, “this moment is just exactly after Socrates has asked someone else to respond to the objections of Simmias; in the inset narrative, Socrates then turns to Phaedo himself, who is the frame narrator to Echecrates.” [39] And it is at this moment that Echecrates interrupts, in exasperation and even despair, the inset narrative containing the inset dialogue. After the two young philosophers Simmias and Cebes complete their logos or ‘argument’ against the logos or ‘argument’ for the {650|651} immortality of the psūkhē or ‘soul’, the other dialogic partners of Socrates are all at a loss, clearly. So, the interruption by Echecrates happens at a moment when the flow of argumentation has in any case been interrupted by the inability of the original dialogic partners to come up with a good response to the argument of Simmias and Cebes. The logos or ‘argument’ for the immortality of the psūkhē or ‘soul’, pictured as the perfect harmoniā or ‘tuning’ of Apollo’s seven-stringed lyre, has been shattered in the course of the dialogue reported by Phaedo. [40] And the same argument is now being shattered for Echecrates, who is just hearing for the first time the content of this dialogue that took place while Socrates was still alive. But Socrates is now dead. So, how can the argument for the immortality of the psūkhē or ‘soul’ have any chance to live on?

23§46. This is where the continuation of the argument comes into the picture. After the interruption of the argument, the argument will begin again, as Phaedo recontinues the inset narrative, and, in this recontinued narrative, the dialogue of Socrates gets a new life. The dialogue is brought back to life again. The dialogue, as Socrates himself implies, is resurrected. His use of the expression ana-biōnai, ‘bring back to life again’, in the text I just quoted conveys the idea of resurrecting the logos, ‘argument’, the literal meaning of which can also be translated, more simply, as ‘word’. The followers of Socrates should lament not for the death of Socrates but for the death of the word. And if the living word stays alive, then there is no need to mourn for Socrates – even if his psūkhē or ‘soul’ were to die along with him. Plato’s Socrates refers in this context to a celebrated story about the men of Argos who refused to wear their hair long until they got a rematch with the long-haired men of Sparta who had defeated them (Herodotus 1.82.7). So also, says Socrates, the followers of Socrates should cut their hair in mourning for his death only if they are ready to fight once again for the argument that the psūkhē or ‘soul’ is immortal. So, maybe Socrates himself has been immortalized after all. It is in such a context that I can understand the argument of those who see traces of a hero cult of Socrates as instituted by Plato and his followers within the space of Plato’s Academy. [41]

23§47. In the passage I have just quoted in Text N from Plato’s Phaedo (88e), we find a most striking metaphor applied to Socrates in the act of defending the logos or ‘argument’: he is said to boētheîn, which means literally that he is re- {651|652} sponding to a ‘cry for help’, a boē, by running, theîn, to the rescue. [42] This metaphor is not only military: it is also heroic, as we see in Homeric contexts (Iliad XIII 477). And, in historical times, when heroes are called upon to help their worshippers in their hour of need, the appropriate word for a positive response is boētheîn, as we see for example in Plutarch’s Life of Nikias (1.3), where the hero Hēraklēs is said to have intervened on behalf of the Syracusans by saving them in their military victory against the Athenians. Moreover, when Socrates is asked to respond to a cry for help from his beleaguered fellow debaters as the argumentation proceeds in Plato’s Phaedo, he is compared to the ultimate hero Hēraklēs. Phaedo wants to ‘summon’ or para-kaleîn Socrates, just as the worshippers of Hēraklēs ‘summon’ that hero. This way, the argument for immortality will be saved.

23§48. Socrates, however, prefers to be ‘summoned’ not as Hēraklēs but as Iolaos, the young nephew and junior partner of Hēraklēs. Socrates wants Phaedo to be his Hēraklēs after Socrates is dead. No, Phaedo will not be able to fight against the likes of Simmias and Cebes if the two of them fight against him as a pair. That would be a one-against-two fight. When Hēraklēs is fighting solo against two, even he needs the help of his nephew Iolaos. But the dialogic partner of Socrates, Phaedo, wants to summon Socrates as if Socrates were Hēraklēs. Phaedo can be Iolaos to Socrates while Socrates is Hēraklēs, although Socrates thinks that he should be Iolaos and should let Phaedo be Hēraklēs in a debate with Simmias and Cebes. Either way, Socrates would be dead, and the living dialogic partner would have to team up with the dead words of Socrates, who is shown engaging in dialogue inside the book that is Plato’s Phaedo. These dead words embedded inside the book can be made to come alive only when the word comes back to life again in a live dialogue. {652|653}