Four Texts on Socrates: Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito and Aristophanes' Clouds [Paperback]

Thomas G. West (Author), Grace Starry West (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0801485746 | ISBN-13: 978-0801485749 | Publication Date: October 1998 | Edition: Rev Sub

Widely adopted for classroom use, this book offers translations of four major works of ancient Greek literature which treat the life and thought of Socrates, focusing particularly on his trial and defense (the platonic dialogues Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates, and Crito) and on the charges against Socrates (Aristophanes' comedy Clouds). This is the only collection of the three Platonic dialogues that also includes Clouds, a work that is fundamental for understanding the thought of Socrates in relation to the Athenian political community and to Greek poetry.

Thomas G. West's introduction provides an overview of the principal themes and arguments of the four works. There are extensive explanatory notes to the translations. For this new edition, Thomas West has revised the introduction and updated the annotated bibliography, which includes the best of the secondary literature on Socrates and on the texts included in this book.

In their translations, the Wests capture successfully the simplicity and vigor of straightforward Greek diction. They strive for as high a degree of accuracy as possible, subordinating concerns for elegance and smoothness to the goal of producing the most faithful and most reliable English versions of these texts.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Greek (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Thomas G. West is Professor of Politics, University of Dallas, and a Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. Grace Starry West is Associate Professor and Chairman of Classics, University of Dallas.

Product Details

• Paperback: 190 pages
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr; Rev Sub edition (October 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801485746
• ISBN-13: 978-0801485749
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #25,223 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #11 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Movements & Periods

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Help for Teachers, April 18, 2001

By 

John Russon (Toronto ON Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Four Texts on Socrates: Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito and Aristophanes' Clouds (Paperback)

This is an outstanding translation of these Greek texts. These are texts that many of us regularly teach in introductory classes, and it is a great help to have such a reliable translation: the translation is clear and accessible, but maintains an unusually strict adherence to the form of the original Greek. This makes it useful for advanced study as well. The running footnotes to the text are especially helpful for giving students the relevant points of historical and legal context for understanding Socrates's position, but they are sparse enough that they do not intrude in the interpretation of the text. This is the only translation of these texts that I will use in my courses.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Model translation, February 27, 2000

By 

Alexander Alderman "neophyte classical philol... (Providence, Rhode Island) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Four Texts on Socrates: Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito and Aristophanes' Clouds (Paperback)

This is a real rarity in Platonic scholarship--a synoptic translation of four important works on the life of Socrates; in other words, the translators use the same English words to convey the same important Greek terms in each of their translations in order to aid the reader in recognizing how those terms evolve in meaning and shape the drama of each of the works, or in short, in recognizing the dialogue which exists between the works rather than merely within them. A former reviewer seems to have missed the point of this work: if you want someone to TELL YOU WHAT PLATO MEANS, you can read a two line summary in an encyclopedia, but if you want to find out why Plato went and wrote an entire dialogue rather than a two line summary, you have to pay close attention to what he actually says. These translations are about as close as you can get without having advanced knowledge of Greek, and even then, the Wests note specific usages of key terms which even a native speaker of ancient Greek might not have noticed on a first reading, and which are largely ignored by the scholarly community. This is an ideal translation for students of politics, history, philosophy, and classical literature who want to know why the most profound and poetic civilization of antiquity put the first philosopher to death, and why he let them.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a question, September 23, 2009

By 

Bruno Levy (Milan Italy) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Four Texts on Socrates: Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito and Aristophanes' Clouds (Paperback)

I am very interested in reading Plato in a way that is as close to the original. Unfortunately I don't read ancient gtreek.

So I have a question:

here is the translation provided in this book of a famous passage:

"For there is no human being who will preserve his life if he genuinely opposes either you or any other multitude and prevents many unjust and unlawful things from happening in the city"

here is the translation from Benjamin Jowett
"no man who goes to war with you or any other multitude, honestly striving against the many lawless and unrighteous deeds which are done in a state, will save his life"

now I don't care about whether one is more readable than the other, etc

what I care are answer to the following questions that I would be most grateful to get:
1) is the original speaking of "city" or "state"?
2) which verbal expression is closest to what was originally written: "oppose" or "going to war by honestly striving" ?
3) which expressions is closer to the original: is it "unjust and unlawful things" or "lawless and unrighteous"? Is unrighteous right? wasn't it writtent unjust?

You see i am caring about the translated sentence being as close as possible to the original economy (order of words, structure of the sentence, use of one verb when one was used, etc).

Can someone help me assess whether this translation fit with my goal?