Notes on Some Passages of Plato'S Timaeus

Extract

This famous sentence, which opens the address of the Demiurge to the created gods, has puzzled commentators both ancient and modern. We must, I think, agree with Taylor and Cornford, who both discuss it at length, that no sense can be got out of θεọἰ θε⋯ν taken together, i.e. with a comma after θε⋯ν: I need notreproduce their arguments on this point. Accordingly they punctuate after θεọἰ. Taylor, however, thinks that even so the sentence cannot be translated, and accepts Badham's proposal to read ộδων in place of θε⋯ν ⋯ν. He then takes ộδων ἒπγων as an instance of ‘inverse relative attraction’ and translates ‘Ye gods, works whereof I am maker and father, seeing they were fashioned by my hands, are indissoluble without my consent’. Cornford objects to ộδων on the grounds that it creates an objectionable hiatus between the first two words (and it is true that the Timaeus is very sparing of hiatus), and also that it destroys what he finds to be the dominant rhythm of the whole speech, and particularly of this first sentence. That rhythm is Cretic: θεọἰ θε⋯ν ⋯ν ẻγὠ δημωνπγ⋯ς πατ⋯π ἒπγων: which he compares the famous opening of the De Corona τοῖς θεοῖς ε⋯χομα π⋯δ κα⋯ π⋯δς. I am, however, doubtful about the cogency of this argument from rhythm, as I have noticed a number of places in the dialogue where a similar rhythm occurs to all appearance naturally:

58 A κα⋯ ππ⋯ς αὐτὐν πεφνκνῖα βοὑλεδθα.

66 C ⋯δὺ κα⋯ ποδφλ⋯ς παντ⋯ π⋯ν.

70 A τ⋯ν τε δ⋯ καπδ⋯αν ⋯μμ⋯των.

77 A τ⋯ς γ⋯π ⋯νθπωπ⋯νης δνγγεν⋯

81 δ⋯γκλεν αὐτ⋯ν ππ⋯ς ἂλληλα κ⋯κτηα.