Mashrabaمشربة

About this text: On Beauty

Περὶ τοῦ καλοῦ

Plotinus (c. 204/5–270 CE) · Enneads, chapters 1–9

Ennead I.6, Plotinus' first treatise: beauty as form mastering matter, the soul made beautiful by purification, and the inner eye that must become sunlike to see.

9 chapters · ~55 min · published translation · 3,121 words

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Versions

16 layers, each with its licence

The original

Volkmann's Teubner text (Plotini Enneades vol. 1)R. Volkmann · 1883Public domain
By
R. Volkmann (editor) · 1883
Source:
R. Volkmann, Plotini Enneades vol. 1 (Leipzig: Teubner 1883), pp. 84–96 (Volkmann's page numbers shown per chapter) · link ↗
In the reader:
In full, chapters 1–9; words Volkmann deletes shown in brackets, not analysed
Licence:
Text public domain
Notes
8 deleted tokens (1 [τὸ], [τὰ]; 2 [εἰ]; 3 [τε], [αἳ]; 5 [τὸ]; 6 [αἰσχρὸν]; 8 [καὶ]), greyed. Henry–Schwyzer and Armstrong (Loeb) are in copyright and were not used; no collation with Henry–Schwyzer. (The archive.org volume is the one the Symposium's readers cite for I.6 and III.5.) The Arabic branch: none. Ennead I.6 is not among the treatises that reached Arabic (the 'Theology of Aristotle' draws on Enneads IV–VI); its echoes in al-Ghazālī and Ibn ʿArabī are resonances, not influence.
First1KGreek digitisation of VolkmannFirst1KGreek (Open Greek and Latin, Leipzig) · UNVERIFIEDOpen licence
By
First1KGreek (Open Greek and Latin, Leipzig) (digitiser) · UNVERIFIED
Source:
First1KGreek (Open Greek and Latin), tlg2000.tlg001.1st1K-grc1 (TEI) · link ↗
In the reader:
The Greek as shown
Licence:
CC BY-SA 4.0 (the digitisation; Volkmann's text is public domain). Share-alike: this page and the derived data files carry the same licence
Notes
Volkmann's page numbers kept as <pb n="1.NN"/>. A few encoding slips visible in this treatise (e.g. 1 ʽτὂ κάλλος, δἰ, παῤ) are left as they are, to check against Volkmann's page images.
UNVERIFIED:
The date (release or commit) of the First1KGreek file used is not recorded in the repo.

Our edition

Our Greek: GLAUx tokens per chapterscripts/plato/build_greek.py · 2026-10-02Open licence
By
scripts/plato/build_greek.py (build) · 2026-10-02
Source:
scripts/plato/build_greek.py plotinus-1-6; method in docs/texts/plotinus-1-6.md §§3, 5
In the reader:
9 passages, one per chapter (#s-1 …, shown as 'ch. N'); word ids <chapter>.<n>
Licence:
CC BY-SA 4.0 (share-alike, as derived from First1KGreek and GLAUx)
Corrections to the automatic analysisClaude (AI) · 2026-10-02Our work
By
Claude (AI) (found by matching every lemma against LSJ and reading the misses) · 2026-10-02
Source:
app/src/data/plotinus-1-6.json (`fixes`), listed on the About page with links to each word
In the reader:
8 corrections, each with its reason, on the About page; the corrected lemma in the word panel
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-10-02 (first commit of app/src/data/plotinus-1-6.json)
Notes
Made by AI in this edition and open to review; the Greek text itself is unchanged. GLAUx's reported accuracy is about 97% for morphology and 99% for lemmas, so more errors should be expected. 6, 9 κεκαθαρμένον/-ος (καθαίρω), 6, 8 ᾅδου (ᾍδης), 7 προέσθαι (προΐημι), 8, 9 ἀγλαΐα (diaeresis), 9 ἀμέτρητον (accent).

Published translations

Taylor (1792): Concerning the BeautifulThomas Taylor · 1792Public domain
By
Thomas Taylor (translator) · 1792
Source:
An Essay on the Beautiful, from the Greek of Plotinus, translated by Thomas Taylor (London 1792; reprinted London: John M. Watkins, 1917) · link ↗
In the reader:
In full, chapter by chapter, beside the Greek or in columns (Translations and Compare in the reader)
Licence:
Public domain: published 1792; Taylor died 1835. The 1917 reprint and the Project Gutenberg text are also public domain.
Notes
Date: published 1787 as Concerning the Beautiful; revised 1792 as An Essay on the Beautiful; reprinted by Watkins, 1917. Text: Project Gutenberg #29510 (from the 1917 Watkins reprint); the transcriber notes minor changes to punctuation and two corrected misprints. Chapters: Taylor has no chapter numbers: the text is cut where each of Volkmann's chapters begins, found by reading Taylor against the Greek (AI; checked against MacKenna and Guthrie). Taylor often runs Greek sentences together, so an edge is right to a sentence, not to a word. Note: Taylor's footnotes (Proclus, Olympiodorus and others) are omitted. His translation is free and often expands Plotinus; it was the first English Plotinus, read by Blake, Wordsworth and Emerson. Taylor's Select Works (1817), used for VI.9, does not contain I.6. The chapter starts in Taylor were found by AI reading him against the Greek (TAYLOR_STARTS in scripts/plato/tr_greek_texts.py).
MacKenna (1917): Beauty (First Ennead, Sixth Tractate)Stephen MacKenna · 1917Public domain
By
Stephen MacKenna (translator) · 1917
Source:
Plotinus: The Ethical Treatises, being the Treatises of the First Ennead, with Porphyry's Life of Plotinus, and the Preller-Ritter Extracts forming a conspectus of the Plotinian system, translated from the Greek by Stephen MacKenna (London: Philip Lee Warner, publisher to the Medici Society, 1917; The Library of Philosophical Translations), vol. 1, pp. 77 ff. · link ↗
In the reader:
In full, chapter by chapter, beside the Greek or in columns (Translations and Compare in the reader)
Licence:
Public domain: published 1917 (public domain in the US); MacKenna died 1934, so also public domain in life+70 countries (since 2005). Volume 1 is MacKenna's alone (B. S. Page joined only for volume 5). Wikisource transcription CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notes
Date: published 1917. Text: The proofread English Wikisource transcription (Plotinus (MacKenna)/Volume 1/Ennead 1.6; CC BY-SA 4.0), compared word by word with the OCR of the archive.org scan plotinustranslat01burkuoft. Chapters: By MacKenna's own chapter numbers (1–9), which match Volkmann's chapters. Note: Paragraphing as printed. No footnotes in this tractate. Compared word by word with the OCR: 4,403 of 4,432 words agree; every difference is an OCR split or a hyphenated compound.
Guthrie (1918): Of Beauty (First Ennead, Book Sixth)Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie · 1918Public domain
By
Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie (translator) · 1918
Source:
Plotinos: Complete Works, in Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods, by Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie, vol. 1 (Alpine, N.J.: Comparative Literature Press; London: G. Bell and Sons, 1918), pp. 40 ff. (Porphyry's chronological no. 1, the first treatise Plotinus wrote) · link ↗
In the reader:
In full, chapter by chapter, beside the Greek or in columns (Translations and Compare in the reader)
Licence:
Public domain: published 1918 (public domain in the US); Guthrie died 1940, so also public domain in life+70 countries (since 2011). Project Gutenberg text: not copyrighted in the US.
Notes
Date: published 1918. Text: Project Gutenberg #42930 (Distributed Proofreaders transcription of the University of Toronto scan). Chapters: By Guthrie's own chapter numbers (1–9), which match Volkmann's chapters; in ch. 3 Guthrie puts the numeral 4 inside a paragraph, and the split follows him. Note: Guthrie's small-capital side-headings (his own summaries) are omitted, as in VI.9; his paragraph breaks are kept. Footnote markers and footnotes omitted. Words in round brackets are Guthrie's own insertions and are kept. Double hyphens rendered as em dashes.

AI layers

Word glossesClaude (AI) · 2026-10-02Our work
By
Claude (AI) (glosses) · 2026-10-02
In the reader:
One gloss per lemma (606 lemmas)
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-10-02 (first commit of app/src/content/ai/plotinus-1-6.json (new glosses in scripts/plato/ai/greek4-glosses-*.tsv))
Notes
Shared with Ennead VI.9 and the Symposium (347 lemmas, written 28 Sept 2026) or written on 2 October 2026 (259). No AI translation of this text yet.
Word familiesClaude (AI) · 2026-09-28Our work
By
Claude (AI) (word-families) · 2026-09-28
In the reader:
In the word panel: stems grouped from the etymologies
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (the families were made for the Symposium (first commit of app/src/content/ai/symposium-diotima.json); this text shows those of its lemmas)
Notes
AI groupings of lemmas by stem (e.g. ἐρ-: ἔρως, ἐράω, ἐραστής …), made from the etymologies for the Symposium; each text shows the 24 Symposium stems filtered to its own lemmas.
Resonances (themes and connections)Claude (AI) · 2026-10-02Our work
By
Claude (AI) (resonances) · 2026-10-02
In the reader:
Per passage in the reader and on the About page
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-10-02 (generatedOn in app/src/content/resonances/plotinus-1-6.json; made headless, without web access, by docs/RESONANCES-METHOD.md)
Notes
AI (Claude) map of themes and connections, made by the method in docs/RESONANCES-METHOD.md. Every connection states its kind; parallels are resonances, not claims of influence. External references were proposed by the model without web access and are shown only after an agent verified them with a web search (see _refs.json). 8 themes, 15 connections.

Automatic analysis

Lemmas and morphology (GLAUx)Alek Keersmaekers (KU Leuven) · UNVERIFIEDOpen licence
By
Alek Keersmaekers (KU Leuven) (GLAUx corpus: automatic annotation) · UNVERIFIED
Source:
GLAUx corpus, document 2000-001 (A. Keersmaekers, KU Leuven): automatic lemma, morphology and syntax · link ↗
In the reader:
Per word, marked as automatic; corrections listed on the About page
Licence:
CC BY-SA 4.0
Notes
Section div_section 1.6.N; an automatic annotation of the First1KGreek text. Reported accuracy about 97% (morphology) and 99% (lemmas).
UNVERIFIED:
The GLAUx release or commit used is not recorded in the repo.
Liddell–Scott–Jones (dictionary)Liddell–Scott–Jones, Perseus Digital Library, H. Dik (Logeion) · 1940Open licence
By
Liddell–Scott–Jones (dictionary, 9th ed. (1940)); Perseus Digital Library (digitisation); H. Dik (Logeion) (edited digitisation) · 1940
Source:
Liddell–Scott–Jones, A Greek–English Lexicon, 9th ed. (1940), Perseus digitisation as edited for Logeion (H. Dik) · link ↗
In the reader:
The entry (first 1,500 characters), its opening senses, and where LSJ cites this passage; 603 of 606 lemmas matched (not: καίτοι, μάγος, οἷον); LSJ cites I.6 by chapter for 13 lemmas
Licence:
CC BY-SA 4.0 (the Perseus/Logeion digitisation)
Notes
Matched by headword, as for the Symposium.
LSJ's own derivationsscripts/plato/lsj_etym.py · 1940Open licence
By
scripts/plato/lsj_etym.py (automatic extraction from the LSJ entry) · 1940
Source:
Liddell–Scott–Jones, 9th ed. (1940): the derivation given after the headword and occasional cognate notes, extracted automatically (scripts/plato/lsj_etym.py) · link ↗
In the reader:
Where LSJ gives one (188 lemmas)
Licence:
CC BY-SA 4.0
Notes
LSJ's <etym> tags were checked and are too inconsistent to use, so the derivation is taken from the text of the entry.
Boisacq, Dictionnaire étymologique (the primary etymology)Émile Boisacq, Tesseract (tessdata_best grc+fra), scripts/plato/boisacq_index.py · 1916Public domain
By
Émile Boisacq (author); Tesseract (tessdata_best grc+fra) (OCR); scripts/plato/boisacq_index.py (automatic matching) · 1916
Source:
É. Boisacq, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque (Heidelberg/Paris 1916), archive.org dictionnairety00bois: OCR of the page scan (Tesseract, Ancient Greek + French models, 300 dpi), matched to the lemmas automatically · link ↗
In the reader:
The entry as machine-read, marked unchecked, with the page image one tap away (the image is authoritative); 326 lemmas found
Licence:
Public domain
Notes
Method in docs/texts/symposium-diotima.md §8: entries found by the dictionary's alphabetical order, then matched accents aside (the lemma's own entry, a line or paragraph it opens, the entry that treats it, or, when LSJ derives the lemma from a base word, Boisacq's entry for that base, labelled as such). Printed page = PDF page − 34. Known weaknesses: OCR noise in small Greek; occasionally the matched paragraph belongs to a neighbouring entry.
Wiktionary etymologies (via kaikki.org)Wiktionary contributors, kaikki.org (Wiktextract), scripts/plato/fetch_wiktionary.py · UNVERIFIEDOpen licence
By
Wiktionary contributors (etymologies); kaikki.org (Wiktextract) (extraction); scripts/plato/fetch_wiktionary.py (lookup) · UNVERIFIED
Source:
Wiktionary, Ancient Greek entries, via kaikki.org (Wiktextract) JSONL · link ↗
In the reader:
Secondary, labelled: the etymology and Proto-Indo-European forms, credited and linked (collapsed when Boisacq has the word); 516 lemmas have an entry
Licence:
CC BY-SA 4.0 and GFDL (kaikki states no licence of its own; Wiktionary's is inferred)
UNVERIFIED:
The date on which the kaikki.org extracts were fetched is not recorded in the repo.
Beekes, Chantraine and Frisk (cited only)R. Beekes, P. Chantraine, H. Frisk · UNVERIFIEDCopyrighted: cited only
By
R. Beekes (Etymological Dictionary of Greek (2010)); P. Chantraine (Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque (DELG)); H. Frisk (Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (GEW)) · UNVERIFIED
Source:
Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek (2010); Chantraine, DELG; Frisk, GEW
In the reader:
A citation s.v. in the word panel
Licence:
In copyright: cited only ("see Beekes s.v. …"), never quoted
UNVERIFIED:
Publication years of Chantraine's DELG and Frisk's GEW are not given in the repo (Beekes: 2010).

✦ marks AI that no person has reviewed yet; ✧ marks AI reviewed by a named person. Copyrighted works are cited, never shown. All sources · How texts are established

Share-alike: the First1KGreek, GLAUx, LSJ and Wiktionary layers are CC BY-SA, so this page, and anything made from those layers, is shared under the same terms, with credit. Nothing in copyright is shown. Audio is off for this text; background music is available. All sources · How texts are established

Chapters

Each links to its place in the reader; the page numbers are Volkmann's (1883), as First1KGreek records them.

Published translations

Public-domain English, chapter by chapter, to read beside the Greek or compare in columns (Translations and Compare in the reader).

Taylor (1792) · English · Concerning the Beautiful

Thomas Taylor, published 1787 as Concerning the Beautiful; revised 1792 as An Essay on the Beautiful; reprinted by Watkins, 1917. An Essay on the Beautiful, from the Greek of Plotinus, translated by Thomas Taylor (London 1792; reprinted London: John M. Watkins, 1917)

Text: Project Gutenberg #29510 (from the 1917 Watkins reprint); the transcriber notes minor changes to punctuation and two corrected misprints

Sections: Taylor has no chapter numbers: the text is cut where each of Volkmann's chapters begins, found by reading Taylor against the Greek (AI; checked against MacKenna and Guthrie). Taylor often runs Greek sentences together, so an edge is right to a sentence, not to a word.

Note: Taylor's footnotes (Proclus, Olympiodorus and others) are omitted. His translation is free and often expands Plotinus; it was the first English Plotinus, read by Blake, Wordsworth and Emerson. Taylor's Select Works (1817), used for VI.9, does not contain I.6.

Page scan / sourcePublic domain: published 1792; Taylor died 1835. The 1917 reprint and the Project Gutenberg text are also public domain.

MacKenna (1917) · English · Beauty (First Ennead, Sixth Tractate)

Stephen MacKenna, published 1917. Plotinus: The Ethical Treatises, being the Treatises of the First Ennead, with Porphyry's Life of Plotinus, and the Preller-Ritter Extracts forming a conspectus of the Plotinian system, translated from the Greek by Stephen MacKenna (London: Philip Lee Warner, publisher to the Medici Society, 1917; The Library of Philosophical Translations), vol. 1, pp. 77 ff.

Text: The proofread English Wikisource transcription (Plotinus (MacKenna)/Volume 1/Ennead 1.6; CC BY-SA 4.0), compared word by word with the OCR of the archive.org scan plotinustranslat01burkuoft

Sections: By MacKenna's own chapter numbers (1–9), which match Volkmann's chapters.

Note: Paragraphing as printed. No footnotes in this tractate.

Page scan / sourcePublic domain: published 1917 (public domain in the US); MacKenna died 1934, so also public domain in life+70 countries (since 2005). Volume 1 is MacKenna's alone (B. S. Page joined only for volume 5). Wikisource transcription CC BY-SA 4.0.

Guthrie (1918) · English · Of Beauty (First Ennead, Book Sixth)

Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie, published 1918. Plotinos: Complete Works, in Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods, by Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie, vol. 1 (Alpine, N.J.: Comparative Literature Press; London: G. Bell and Sons, 1918), pp. 40 ff. (Porphyry's chronological no. 1, the first treatise Plotinus wrote)

Text: Project Gutenberg #42930 (Distributed Proofreaders transcription of the University of Toronto scan)

Sections: By Guthrie's own chapter numbers (1–9), which match Volkmann's chapters; in ch. 3 Guthrie puts the numeral 4 inside a paragraph, and the split follows him.

Note: Guthrie's small-capital side-headings (his own summaries) are omitted, as in VI.9; his paragraph breaks are kept. Footnote markers and footnotes omitted. Words in round brackets are Guthrie's own insertions and are kept. Double hyphens rendered as em dashes.

Page scan / sourcePublic domain: published 1918 (public domain in the US); Guthrie died 1940, so also public domain in life+70 countries (since 2011). Project Gutenberg text: not copyrighted in the US.

Corrections to the automatic analysis

  • ch. 6 κεκαθαρμένον · a perfect participle of καθαίρω 'cleanse'; GLAUx's lemma is garbled
  • ch. 6 ᾅδου · the god's name, Hades, as LSJ heads it
  • ch. 7 προέσθαι · the diaeresis of προΐημι 'let go' restored
  • ch. 8 ἀγλαίας · the diaeresis of ἀγλαΐα 'splendour' restored
  • ch. 8 ᾅδου · the god's name, Hades, as LSJ heads it
  • ch. 9 ἀγλαία · the diaeresis of ἀγλαΐα 'splendour' restored
  • ch. 9 ἀμέτρητον · the accent of ἀμέτρητος 'unmeasured' restored
  • ch. 9 κεκαθαρμένος · a perfect participle of καθαίρω 'cleanse'; GLAUx's lemma is garbled

Made by AI in this edition and open to review; the Greek text itself is unchanged. GLAUx's reported accuracy is about 97% for morphology and 99% for lemmas, so more errors should be expected.

Themes & resonances

What the text is about, and what it connects to across the history of thought. Every connection says what kind of claim it is: a documented lineage, a shared source, a resonance with no influence claimed, or a contrast. Mapped by AI; references are shown only once checked. Across the library

Themes

  • Beauty as form mastering matterجمالjamālroot جملκάλλοςkallos
  • Virtue as purificationتزكيةtazkiyaroot زكوκάθαρσιςkatharsis
  • Descent into body and the flight to the Fatherlandغربةghurbaroot غربπατρίςpatris
  • The ascent through beauties to the Goodمعراجmiʿrājroot عرجἄνοδοςanodos
  • The sting of love for unseen beautyعشقʿishqroot عشقἔρωςerōs
  • The inner eye that must become sunlikeبصيرةbaṣīraroot بصرἡλιοειδήςhēlioeidēs
  • Withdraw into yourself and lookمعرفة النفسmaʿrifat al-nafsroot عرفἀγάλμαagalma
  • The Good as the fountain of beautyخيرkhayrroot خيرἀγαθόνagathon
What each theme is here
  • Beauty as form mastering matter. Beauty in bodies comes when Ideal-Form gathers scattered matter into a unity, so symmetry is a result of beauty and does not define it.
  • Virtue as purification. The soul is ugly through a crust of alien matter, and every virtue, wisdom included, is a cleansing that leaves it like gold with gold alone.
  • Descent into body and the flight to the Fatherland. Ugliness comes by a fall into body, and the way back is a flight to 'the beloved Fatherland' made without feet or ship.
  • The ascent through beauties to the Good. The soul climbs from bodies to conduct, to virtues, to Intellect and the Ideas, and finally to the Good that radiates beauty before it.
  • The sting of love for unseen beauty. Beauty provokes wonder, longing and a 'delicious trouble', felt most sharply by those who are called lovers.
  • The inner eye that must become sunlike. The eye must be made like what it sees: no eye sees the sun unless it has become sunlike, and no soul sees Beauty unless it is beautiful.
  • Withdraw into yourself and look. The soul must look inward and carve itself like a statue until the light of virtue shines from it and it becomes vision.
  • The Good as the fountain of beauty. The Good beyond Intellect is the source and principle of beauty, and the Ideas are its first beauty.

Connections

Lineage 5

Documented transmission: a chain of reading, teaching, translation or citation, grounded in a verified reference or in the later text itself.

  • Plato, Symposium 210a–212a: Diotima's ladder to the beautiful itselfPlatonism · firm

    Plotinus's ascent from bodies to conduct to souls to Beauty itself, 'pure and unmingled', follows Diotima's ladder and her language of the final mysteries, which he read and interpreted as a Platonist.

    Carried byαὐτὸ τὸ καλόνauto to kalon“the beautiful itself”

    In the library:Symposium 210aSymposium 211ePath: Love: the soul's longing back

  • Plato, Phaedrus 250b–251c: beauty shining through sight and the lover's woundPlatonism · firm

    The soul recognising beauty 'as from an ancient knowledge', the shudder and awe at the sight, and the lovers who 'feel the keener wound' take up the Phaedrus account of recollection and the regrowth of wings.

    Carried byἔρωςerōs“love as recognition of beauty”

    In the library:Phaedrus 250dPhaedrus 251a

  • Plato, Republic VI 508b and VII 518c: the eye as the most sunlike organ, and education as turning the eyePlatonism · firm

    The closing rule that no eye sees the sun unless it has become sunlike reuses Plato's word hēlioeidēs from the sun analogy, and the inner vision that all possess but few use echoes the claim that the power of sight is already in the soul and needs turning.

    Carried byἡλιοειδήςhēlioeidēs“sunlike”

    In the library:Republic VI–VII 508bRepublic VI–VII 518cPath: Seeing with the heart

  • Augustine, City of God and Confessions: the flight to the FatherlandEarly Christianity and the Fathers · firm

    Augustine read 'books of the Platonists' in Latin translation and echoes this treatise's flight to the Fatherland, a journey made without feet or ship, in his own account of the soul's return to God.

    Carried byπατρίςpatris“the Fatherland”

  • Marsilio Ficino, Latin translation and commentary of the Enneads (1492)Renaissance Platonism · firm

    Ficino translated the whole of Plotinus into Latin, and his theory of beauty as a light of form shining through matter rests on this treatise and on the Symposium.

    Carried byκάλλοςkallos“beauty as the splendour of form”

Resonance, not influence 6

Resonance, not influence: a structural or thematic likeness. No influence is claimed.

  • al-Ghazālī, The Niche of Lights: the defects of the outward eye and the eye of the intellectSufism · probable

    Both distinguish a bodily eye from an inner eye and hold that only the inner one, once freed of its defects, can see the highest light. Ennead I.6 was not among the treatises that reached Arabic, so the likeness is not claimed as influence.

    Carried byبصيرةbaṣīraroot بصر“inner sight”

    In the library:Mishkāt al-anwār ¶11Mishkāt al-anwār ¶12Path: Seeing with the heart

  • Suhrawardī, The Temples of Light: the soul cleansed to rejoin the lightsIshraqi philosophy · probable

    Suhrawardī says the rational soul is kept from its world by bodily attachments and comes to resemble the lights by drawing near them, as heated iron resembles fire. Plotinus likewise says the cleansed soul becomes all Idea and Reason and like God.

    Carried byκάθαρσιςkatharsis“likeness through purification”

    In the library:Hayākil al-nūr ¶28Hayākil al-nūr ¶29Path: Purification: polishing the mirror

  • Ibn Sīnā, The Ode on the Soul: the dove's descent into the bodyFalsafa (Arabic philosophy) · probable

    Both describe the soul falling from a high home into bodily matter that soils and binds it, and its longing to return. The ode asks why the descent happened at all, a question this treatise leaves aside.

    Carried byهبوطhubūṭroot هبط“descent”

    In the library:al-ʿAyniyya ¶1al-ʿAyniyya ¶15Path: The fall and the return of the soul

  • Ibn ʿArabī, The Ringstone of Adam: the unpolished mirror of the worldAkbarian tradition (after Ibn Arabi) · probable

    Plotinus's soul must be scoured of an alien crust before it can see, and Ibn ʿArabī's cosmos is a mirror that waits for its polish in the human being. Both make cleansing the condition of showing what is there.

    Carried byجلاءjalāʾroot جلو“polish”

    In the library:Faṣṣ Ādam ¶2Path: The mirror

  • Michelangelo: sculpture as taking awayRenaissance Platonism · suggestive

    Plotinus tells the soul to cut away what is excessive until a face appears, and Michelangelo described sculpture as freeing a figure by removal. The image is set side by side here without a claim that he took it from this text.

    Carried byἄγαλμαagalma“the statue”

  • Zhuangzi, chapter 4: the fasting of the heart (xinzhai)Daoism and Chinese thought · suggestive

    Both ask the person to stop relying on ears and eyes and to empty out what clutters the inner self so that a truer perception can arise. The Daoist emptiness has no ladder of beauties leading to a Good.

    Carried by“inner emptying”

Contrast 4

An instructive opposite: the difference teaches something about both.

  • The Hymn of the Pearl: the shining robe put on at the returnGnosticism · firm

    Both have the soul strip off a soiled garment from the lower world. In Plotinus the ascent ends in nakedness, as at the mysteries, while the prince of the Hymn is clothed again in a robe that is a mirror of himself.

    Carried by“the garment”

    In the library:Hymn of the Pearl ¶62Hymn of the Pearl ¶76

  • Ibn ʿArabī, The Interpreter of Desires X: the lover who sees himself in the mirrorAkbarian tradition (after Ibn Arabi) · probable

    Plotinus reads the beautiful shape on water as the trap that drowned Narcissus, while the closing lines of Ibn ʿArabī's poem make seeing oneself in the mirror of another the point of love.

    Carried byمرآةmirʾātroot رأي“reflection”

    In the library:Tarjumān al-ashwāq ¶63Tarjumān al-ashwāq ¶64

  • Hadith: 'God is beautiful and loves beauty'Quran and hadith · probable

    For Plotinus the First is the source of beauty and the object of every soul's love, but it gives without taking and is not said to love. The hadith gives God the name Beautiful and says He loves beauty.

    Carried byجميلjamīlroot جمل“the Beautiful”

    In the library:Path: Love: the soul's longing back

  • Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment: disinterested pleasure in the beautifulGerman Idealism · probable

    Kant separates the judgement of beauty from desire and from any knowledge of what the object is. Plotinus makes beauty the presence of real being and the beginning of a love that seeks union.

    Carried by“desire and beauty”

Claude (opus) via Claude Code, headless, no web access, 2026-10-02. A reference with a check was found and checked with a web search.

The text record

Our working notes on this edition: sources, decisions and what AI supplied. Show the notes

Added to the Greek reader on 2 October 2026 for the theme path "Seeing with the heart" (docs/research/heart-sight.md), by the pipeline of Ennead VI.9 (docs/texts/plotinus-6-9.md). Method: docs/EDITORIAL-METHOD.md.

Work / author / datesPlotinus, Enneads I.6 (Περὶ τοῦ καλοῦ), no. 1 in Porphyry's chronological list: the first treatise Plotinus wrote (reported); Plotinus c. 204/5–270 CE
Part addedthe whole treatise, chapters 1–9
Reader route/read/plotinus-1-6 · about /read/plotinus-1-6/about · chapters #s-1 … #s-9
Statusworking edition · reviewed by: —

1. Witnesses

SiglumWitnessKindLicenceLocation
VolkmannR. Volkmann, Plotini Enneades vol. 1 (Leipzig: Teubner 1883), pp. 84–96editionpublic domainarchive.org scans of the Teubner volumes
FFirst1KGreek, tlg2000.tlg001.1st1K-grc1 (Volkmann's page numbers kept as <pb n="1.NN"/>)digitalCC BY-SA 4.0github.com/OpenGreekAndLatin/First1KGreek
GGLAUx corpus, document 2000-001, div_section 1.6.Ndigital, analysedCC BY-SA 4.0github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux

Consulted, not used: Henry–Schwyzer and Armstrong (Loeb) are in copyright.

2. Base and why

As for VI.9: Volkmann via First1KGreek is public domain, openly digitised, and the text GLAUx analysed.

3. Collation

Script: scripts/plato/build_greek.py plotinus-1-6. The tokens are GLAUx's, per chapter; Volkmann's pages per chapter are recorded in the data (pages) and shown on the About page. No collation with Henry–Schwyzer.

4. Decisions

  • Words Volkmann deletes (8 tokens: 1 [τὸ], [τὰ]; 2 [εἰ]; 3 [τε], [αἳ]; 5 [τὸ]; 6 [αἰσχρὸν]; 8 [καὶ]) are shown in brackets, greyed, not analysed.
  • The First1KGreek transcription has a few encoding slips visible in this treatise (e.g. 1 ʽτὂ κάλλος, δἰ, παῤ): left as they are, to check against Volkmann's page images.
  • Corrections to the automatic analysis: 6, 9 κεκαθαρμένον/-ος (a garbled lemma → καθαίρω), 6, 8 ᾅδου (→ ᾍδης), 7 προέσθαι (→ προΐημι), 8, 9 ἀγλαΐα (diaeresis), 9 ἀμέτρητον (accent).

5. Segmentation and word IDs

9 passages, one per chapter (#s-1 …, shown as "ch. N"); word IDs <chapter>.<n>. The theme path's stop is #s-9, word 9.316 (ἡλιοειδής).

6. Analysis layer

  • LSJ: 603 of 606 lemmas matched (not: καίτοι, μάγος, οἷον); LSJ cites I.6 by chapter for 13 lemmas.
  • Etymology: Boisacq 326, LSJ's derivations 188, Wiktionary 516.
  • Glosses: AI, shared with VI.9 and the Symposium (347 lemmas) or written on 2 October 2026 (259).

7. The Arabic branch

None. Ennead I.6 is not among the treatises that reached Arabic (the so-called Theology of Aristotle adapts Enneads IV–VI); its echoes in al-Ghazālī and Ibn ʿArabī are resonances, not influence, as the path says.

8. Translation

Published English, by chapter (scripts/plato/tr_greek_texts.py):

  • MacKenna (1917), Plotinus: The Ethical Treatises (Medici Society), vol. 1, pp. 77 ff. Text: the proofread English Wikisource transcription (CC BY-SA 4.0), compared word by word with the OCR of the archive.org scan plotinustranslat01burkuoft: 4,403 of 4,432 words agree, and every difference is an OCR split (sym metrical) or a hyphenated compound. Public domain (1917; MacKenna d. 1934). Volume 1 is MacKenna's alone.
  • Guthrie (1918), Plotinos: Complete Works vol. 1: Project Gutenberg #42930, side-headings and footnotes removed as for VI.9. The numeral for ch. 4 stands inside a paragraph of ch. 3 in Guthrie, and the split follows him.
  • Taylor (1792), An Essay on the Beautiful (reprinted 1917), Project Gutenberg #29510. Taylor's Select Works (1817), used for VI.9, does not contain I.6. Taylor has no chapter numbers: each chapter's first sentence in Taylor was found by reading him against the Greek (AI; TAYLOR_STARTS), right to a sentence. His footnotes are omitted.

9. Rights

Share-alike: First1KGreek, GLAUx, LSJ, Wiktionary and the Wikisource transcription are CC BY-SA 4.0. All three translations are public domain. Nothing in copyright is shown.

10. Open questions / to review

  1. Check §4's encoding slips against Volkmann's page images; collate with Henry–Schwyzer.
  2. An AI translation, and readers through the ages (Ficino's Latin of I.6, 1492; Goethe's "Wär nicht das Auge sonnenhaft", which the path quotes).

11. Change log

  • 2026-10-02: added: Greek, lemmas (five corrected), LSJ, Boisacq, Wiktionary, AI glosses, MacKenna, Guthrie and Taylor; the "Seeing with the heart" stop on I.6.9 is no longer "coming" and opens here.