Mashrabaمشربة

About this text: The Sun, the Line and the Cave

Πολιτεία

Plato (c. 428–348 BCE) · Republic, Book VI 507a–511e and Book VII 514a–521b

Republic VI 507a–511e and VII 514a–521b: the Good as the sun of the intelligible, the divided line, the prisoners in the cave, and education as the turning of the soul's eye.

60 sections · ~65 min · published translation · 3,824 words

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Versions

15 layers, each with its licence

The original

Burnet's Oxford text (Platonis Opera IV)John Burnet · 1902Public domain
By
John Burnet (editor) · 1902
Source:
J. Burnet, Platonis Opera IV (Oxford: Clarendon Press, Oxford Classical Texts, 1902)
In the reader:
In full, 507a–511e and 514a–521b (the Stephanus numbers jump from 511e to 514a: the text runs on)
Licence:
Text public domain
Notes
One word Burnet deletes (519b [περὶ]) is shown in square brackets, greyed, not analysed. Books VI and VII are not separated in the reader. Slings (OCT 2003) is in copyright and was not used; no collation with Slings or Adam (Cambridge 1902) was made.
Perseus Digital Library digitisation of BurnetPerseus Digital Library · UNVERIFIEDOpen licence
By
Perseus Digital Library (digitiser (canonical-greekLit)) · UNVERIFIED
Source:
Perseus Digital Library, canonical-greekLit tlg0059.tlg030.perseus-grc2 (EpiDoc; Stephanus milestones) · link ↗
In the reader:
The Greek as shown, with its paragraphing and speakers
Licence:
CC BY-SA 4.0 (the digitisation; Burnet's text is public domain). Share-alike: this page and the derived data files carry the same licence
UNVERIFIED:
The date (release or commit) of the Perseus canonical-greekLit file used is not recorded in the repo.

Our edition

Our Greek: GLAUx tokens on Perseus's textscripts/plato/build_greek.py · 2026-10-02Open licence
By
scripts/plato/build_greek.py (build) · 2026-10-02
Source:
scripts/plato/build_greek.py republic-sun-line-cave; method in docs/texts/republic-sun-line-cave.md §§3, 5
In the reader:
60 passages, one per Stephanus section (#s-507a … #s-521b); word ids <section>.<n>
Licence:
CC BY-SA 4.0 (share-alike, as derived from Perseus and GLAUx)
Notes
The tokens are GLAUx's, walked back through the Perseus text to recover its 155 paragraph breaks.
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/republic-sun-line-cave.json (`fixes`), listed on the About page with links to each word
In the reader:
7 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/republic-sun-line-cave.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. 508e διανοοῦ, 516b κατιδεῖν, 520a ἐμποιῶν, ἀφιῇ, καταχρῆται, 520c καταβατέον, 521b μαχοῦνται.

Published translations

Jowett (1892): The Republic, Books VI–VIIBenjamin Jowett · 1892Public domain
By
Benjamin Jowett (translator) · 1892
Source:
The Dialogues of Plato, translated into English with analyses and introductions by B. Jowett, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892), vol. 3 · link ↗
In the reader:
In full, divided into sections automatically (a clause either way); 509e has no clause of its own
Licence:
Public domain: published 1892; Jowett died 1893. Project Gutenberg text: not copyrighted in the US.
Notes
Date: 3rd edition, 1892. Text: Project Gutenberg #1497 (Jowett's translation), compared word by word with the archive.org OCR of the 1892 volume 3; 3 Gutenberg readings restored to the 1892 wording. Sections: Automatic and approximate (a clause either way): Jowett's margins give Stephanus pages but not the letters, so each clause is placed in a section by a monotonic best path over its word overlap with Shorey's Loeb English (1935; in copyright, used only to place the clauses, not shown) of that section. Where his wording seems to straddle two sections, read the neighbour too. Books VI and VII run on here: the Stephanus numbering itself jumps from 511e to 514a. Note: Divided into sections automatically; approximate.
Shorey (Loeb 1935), used only for alignmentShorey · 1935Copyrighted: cited only
By
Shorey (translator) · 1935
Source:
Shorey's Loeb English of the Republic (1935), as digitised by Perseus (tlg0059.tlg030.perseus-eng2)
In the reader:
Not shown
Licence:
In copyright: used only to place Jowett's clauses in sections; never shown or stored in the repository

AI layers

Word glossesClaude (AI) · 2026-10-02Our work
By
Claude (AI) (glosses) · 2026-10-02
In the reader:
One gloss per lemma (724 lemmas)
Licence:
Ours; marked AI
Made by:
Claude (Opus; exact version not recorded), 2026-10-02 (first commit of app/src/content/ai/republic-sun-line-cave.json (new glosses in scripts/plato/ai/greek4-glosses-*.tsv))
Notes
Reused from the Symposium and Ennead VI.9 (28 Sept 2026) where the lemma is shared, written on 2 October 2026 for the rest. No AI translation, synthesis or readers-through-the-ages layer for 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/republic-sun-line-cave.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, 14 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 0059-030 (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
Built on the same Perseus text, so every token carries its section (div_stephanus_section). Reported accuracy: morphology 97.2%, lemmas 98.8%.
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; 720 of 724 lemmas matched (not: Γλαύκων, καίτοι, πειθώ, ὁστισοῦν); LSJ cites these sections for 181 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 (195 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); 372 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); 615 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 Perseus, 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

Stephanus sections

Each links to its place in the reader, and ↗ to the same section of Burnet's Greek in the Scaife reader (Perseus).

Published translations

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

Jowett (1892) · English · The Republic, Books VI–VII

Benjamin Jowett, 3rd edition, 1892. The Dialogues of Plato, translated into English with analyses and introductions by B. Jowett, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892), vol. 3

Text: Project Gutenberg #1497 (Jowett's translation), compared word by word with the archive.org OCR of the 1892 volume 3; 3 Gutenberg readings restored to the 1892 wording

Sections: Automatic and approximate (a clause either way): Jowett's margins give Stephanus pages but not the letters, so each clause is placed in a section by a monotonic best path over its word overlap with Shorey's Loeb English (1935; in copyright, used only to place the clauses, not shown) of that section. Where his wording seems to straddle two sections, read the neighbour too. Books VI and VII run on here: the Stephanus numbering itself jumps from 511e to 514a.

Note: Divided into sections automatically; approximate.

Page scan / sourcePublic domain: published 1892; Jowett died 1893. Project Gutenberg text: not copyrighted in the US.

Corrections to the automatic analysis

  • 508e διανοοῦ · διανοοῦ is from διανοέω (-ομαι) 'think', LSJ's headword; GLAUx gave a non-existent διανοόω
  • 516b κατιδεῖν · κατιδεῖν is the aorist of καθοράω 'look down on, discern'; GLAUx gave κατοράω
  • 520a ἐμποιῶν · a participle of ἐμποιέω 'put into'; GLAUx gave a non-existent ἐμποιόω
  • 520a ἀφιῇ · ἀφιῇ is from ἀφίημι 'let go'; GLAUx gave ἀφιέω
  • 520a καταχρῆται · καταχρῆται is from the deponent καταχράομαι 'make use of'
  • 520c καταβατέον · καταβατέον is the verbal adjective of καταβαίνω, 'one must go down'
  • 521b μαχοῦνται · μαχοῦνται is the future of μάχομαι 'fight'

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

  • The Good beyond being, the source of truth and existenceἀγαθόνagathon
  • The sun as the offspring of the Good, and light as the bond of seeingφῶςphōs
  • The divided line: degrees of clarity and truthἐπιστήμηepistēmē
  • The climb out of the caveἀνάβασιςanabasis
  • Education as the turning of an eye that already seesπεριαγωγήperiagōgē
  • The eye of the mind and dialecticνόησιςnoēsis
  • The many things and the single formἰδέαidea
  • The philosopher compelled to go back downκαταβατέονkatabateon
What each theme is here
  • The Good beyond being, the source of truth and existence. The Good gives the known their truth and their being, and is said to exceed being (epekeina tēs ousias) in dignity and power (509b).
  • The sun as the offspring of the Good, and light as the bond of seeing. Light is the third nature that joins the eye and the visible, and the sun, its lord, is the child the Good begat in its own likeness (507e–508b).
  • The divided line: degrees of clarity and truth. A line cut into four gives four states of the soul, from the perception of shadows (eikasia) up to dialectical reason (noēsis), each as clear as its objects are true (509d–511e).
  • The climb out of the cave. The freed prisoner is dragged up a steep road and learns to see in stages, shadows, reflections, things, stars, and at last the sun itself (515e–516b).
  • Education as the turning of an eye that already sees. Teaching cannot put sight into blind eyes; the power to learn is already in the soul, and the whole soul must be turned from becoming toward being (518b–d).
  • The eye of the mind and dialectic. Dialectic uses hypotheses as steps up to an unhypothetical first principle and then descends through forms alone (511b).
  • The many things and the single form. The many beautiful things are seen and not known, while the one form of each is known and not seen (507b).
  • The philosopher compelled to go back down. Those who have seen the Good must return to the cave, take up the labour of ruling, and get used to seeing in the dark (519d–520c).

Connections

Lineage 4

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

  • Plotinus, Enneads I.6 and VI.9: the eye that must become sunlike, and the One beyond beingNeoplatonism · firm

    Plotinus builds on this passage directly: the eye must become sunlike to see the sun (I.6.9, taking up the 'most sunlike' eye of 508b), and the One is grasped neither by knowledge nor by intellection because it lies beyond being (VI.9.4, after 509b).

    Carried byἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσίαςepekeina tēs ousias“beyond being”

    In the library:Ennead I.6, ch. 9Ennead VI.9, ch. 4Path: Seeing with the heart

  • Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Commentary on Plato's RepublicFalsafa (Arabic philosophy) · firm

    With no Arabic Aristotelian Politics available to him, Ibn Rushd commented on the Republic itself, including its account of the philosopher-rulers and their education.

    Carried by“philosopher-ruler”

  • al-Fārābī, The Philosophy of PlatoFalsafa (Arabic philosophy) · firm

    al-Fārābī summarised Plato's dialogues, the Republic among them, and took up its demand that the one who knows must also rule.

    Carried by“the ruler who knows”

  • Martin Heidegger, Plato's Doctrine of TruthPhenomenology and existentialism · firm

    Heidegger reads the cave allegory closely, arguing that here truth as unconcealment (alētheia) begins to give way to truth as correctness of seeing under the idea.

    Carried byἀλήθειαalētheia“truth as unconcealment”

Resonance, not influence 9

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

  • al-Ghazālī, The Niche of Lights: the defects of the outward eyeSufism · probable

    al-Ghazālī lists the failings of bodily sight and sets the intellect above it as the truer eye, close to Plato's move from the bodily eye to the eye of the soul; his own source is the Quran's Light Verse, and no reading of the Republic is claimed.

    Carried by“the two eyes”

    In the library:Mishkāt al-anwār ¶10Mishkāt al-anwār ¶11Path: Seeing with the heart

  • Ibn Ṭufayl, Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān: the man born blind and the coloursFalsafa (Arabic philosophy) · probable

    Ibn Ṭufayl compares knowledge by report to a blind man who knows colours only through their names, and the tasted state to his sudden sight; Plato uses the same figure to deny that teaching can put sight into blind eyes.

    Carried byذوقdhawqroot ذوق“sight in blind eyes”

    In the library:Ḥayy (Ibn Ṭufayl) ¶9Ḥayy (Ibn Ṭufayl) ¶8

  • Suhrawardī, The Occidental Exile: the captives in the well of QayrawānIshraqi philosophy · probable

    Suhrawardī's captives lie chained at the bottom of a dark well and climb to a palace by night to look out toward home, a figure of the soul held below that sits close to Plato's chained prisoners and their way up to the light.

    Carried byبئرbiʾrroot بأرσπήλαιονspēlaion“the underground prison”

    In the library:al-Ghurba al-gharbiyya ¶4al-Ghurba al-gharbiyya ¶7al-Ghurba al-gharbiyya ¶8Path: The fall and the return of the soul

  • The Hymn of the Pearl: the prince who forgets and falls asleep in EgyptGnosticism · suggestive

    The prince eats the Egyptians' food, forgets that he is a king's son and sleeps until a letter wakes him; like Plato's prisoners, he takes the place of his captivity for the whole of reality until something from outside turns him round.

    Carried by“forgetting and waking”

    In the library:Hymn of the Pearl ¶33Hymn of the Pearl ¶43

  • al-Qushayrī, The Epistle: knowledge, eye and truth of certaintySufism · probable

    The Sufi grades of ʿilm al-yaqīn, ʿayn al-yaqīn and ḥaqq al-yaqīn order knowledge by increasing directness, much as the divided line orders states of the soul by increasing clarity.

    Carried byيقينyaqīnroot يقن“degrees of certainty”

    In the library:al-Risāla al-Qushayriyya ¶68

  • al-Qushayrī, The Epistle: al-Junayd urged by al-Sarī to speak to the peopleSufism · probable

    Al-Junayd held back from teaching until his master pressed him to speak to the people; Plato's knowers likewise prefer to stay above and must be compelled to go down, and the best rulers are those least eager to rule.

    Carried by“the reluctant teacher”

    In the library:al-Risāla al-Qushayriyya ¶104

  • Śaṅkara, Advaita Vedānta: the rope taken for a snake, and two levels of realityVedanta and Hindu thought · probable

    Advaita separates conventional reality (vyāvahārika) from the highest (pāramārthika) and treats ignorance (avidyā) as mistaking an appearance for the real, which resembles the prisoners who take shadows for things; there is no historical link.

    Carried by“avidyā; appearance and reality”

  • Zhuangzi, 'Autumn Floods' (Qiushui): the frog in the wellDaoism and Chinese thought · probable

    The frog in a shallow well cannot be told about the sea because it is bound to its place, much as the cave-dwellers mock the one who has seen the sun; the two images arose independently.

    Carried by“the creature confined to its hole”

  • Ibn Sīnā, The Recital of the Bird: the birds in the netFalsafa (Arabic philosophy) · suggestive

    Ibn Sīnā's bird, caught in a snare, sees free birds through the mesh and asks them to lead it out toward the King, a figure of bondage, glimpse and guided ascent that sits close to the freed prisoner led upward.

    Carried by“bondage and the guided way up”

    In the library:Risālat al-Ṭayr ¶6Risālat al-Ṭayr ¶7Path: The fall and the return of the soul

Contrast 1

An instructive opposite: the difference teaches something about both.

  • al-Ghazālī, The Niche of Lights: God alone is light in the true sense (Q 24:35)Quran and hadith · probable

    For Plato light belongs to the sun, the Good's offspring, while the Good stands higher than light; al-Ghazālī, following the verse 'God is the light of the heavens and the earth', gives the name light to God alone and calls every other light borrowed.

    Carried byنورnūrroot نورφῶςphōs“light”

    In the library:Mishkāt al-anwār ¶42Mishkāt al-anwār ¶44Path: Light and its veils

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), built by the same pipeline as the Symposium pilot and Ennead VI.9. Method: docs/EDITORIAL-METHOD.md.

Work / author / datesPlato, Republic (Πολιτεία), Books VI–VII; c. 375 BCE; Plato c. 428–348 BCE
Part added507a–511e (the sun, the divided line) and 514a–521b (the cave, the turning of the soul, the return to the cave). The Stephanus numbering jumps from 511e to 514a (Book VI ends at 511e, Book VII opens at 514a; there are no pages 512–513), so the two passages are one continuous stretch of text and one text here.
Reader route/read/republic-sun-line-cave · about /read/republic-sun-line-cave/about · sections #s-507a … #s-521b
Statusworking edition · reviewed by: —

1. Witnesses

SiglumWitnessKindLicenceLocation
BurnetJ. Burnet, Platonis Opera IV (Oxford Classical Texts, 1902)standard editionpublic domainas digitised by Perseus
PPerseus Digital Library, canonical-greekLit tlg0059.tlg030.perseus-grc2 (EpiDoc; Stephanus milestones, paragraph milestones)digitalCC BY-SA 4.0github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit
GGLAUx corpus, document 0059-030 (A. Keersmaekers): the Perseus text with automatic lemma, morphology and syntaxdigital, analysedCC BY-SA 4.0github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux

Consulted, not used: Slings (OCT 2003) is in copyright and was not used.

2. Base and why

Burnet via Perseus, as for the Symposium: the standard text, openly licensed, divided by Stephanus section; GLAUx is built on the same text, so every token carries its section (div_stephanus_section).

3. Collation

  • Script: scripts/plato/build_greek.py republic-sun-line-cave. The tokens are GLAUx's, in its order, for the 60 sections from 507a to 521b.
  • The tokens were walked back through P to recover its paragraph breaks (155, the turns of the reported dialogue). All tokens were found in order apart from 31 halves of compounds (οὔ+-τε) and quotation marks, which carry no break.
  • No collation with Slings or Adam (Cambridge 1902) was made.

4. Decisions

  • One word Burnet deletes (519b [περὶ]) is shown in square brackets, greyed, and not analysed.
  • Book VI and Book VII are not separated in the reader; the section numbers show where VII begins (514a).
  • Corrections to the automatic analysis (GLAUx), listed on the About page with links: 508e διανοοῦ (διανοόω → διανοέω), 516b κατιδεῖν (κατοράω → καθοράω), 520a ἐμποιῶν (ἐμποιόω → ἐμποιέω), ἀφιῇ (ἀφιέω → ἀφίημι), καταχρῆται (→ καταχράομαι), 520c καταβατέον (→ καταβαίνω), 521b μαχοῦνται (μαχέομαι → μάχομαι). Found by matching every lemma against LSJ and reading the misses; GLAUx's reported accuracy is about 97% (morphology) and 99% (lemmas), so more errors should be expected.

5. Segmentation and word IDs

60 passages, one per Stephanus section, each linkable as #s-<section>. Word IDs are <section>.<n>, n being the GLAUx token's position in the section, punctuation included.

6. Analysis layer

  • Lemma and morphology from GLAUx (corrections in §4), decoded by src/lib/greek.ts.
  • Dictionary: LSJ (Logeion's Perseus LSJ, CC BY-SA 4.0), 720 of 724 lemmas matched (not: Γλαύκων, καίτοι, πειθώ, ὁστισοῦν); the panel says where LSJ cites these sections (181 lemmas).
  • Etymology: Boisacq (372 lemmas), LSJ's derivations (195), Wiktionary (615), by the Symposium method (scripts/plato/boisacq_index.py, lsj_etym.py, fetch_wiktionary.py).
  • Glosses: AI (Claude), one per lemma: reused from the Symposium and VI.9 where the lemma is shared, written on 2 October 2026 for the rest (scripts/plato/ai/greek4-glosses-*.tsv), marked AI.
  • No AI translation, synthesis or readers-through-the-ages layer yet.

7. Translation

Jowett, The Dialogues of Plato, 3rd ed. (Oxford 1892), vol. 3 (app/public/data/plato/tr/republic-sun-line-cave-jowett.json, by scripts/plato/tr_greek_texts.py). Text from Project Gutenberg #1497, compared word by word with the OCR of the 1892 volume (archive.org dialoguesofplat03plat; tr_greek_texts.py --check): apart from OCR noise the two agree, and three Gutenberg readings were restored to 1892 (the Greek οὐρανός, ὁρατός at 509d, which Gutenberg transliterates; "an underground den"; "everybody"). Jowett's margins give Stephanus pages, not letters, so each clause was placed in a section automatically, by a monotonic best path over its word overlap with Shorey's Loeb English of that section (Perseus tlg030.perseus-eng2, 1935, still in copyright: used only to place Jowett's clauses, never shown or stored in the repository). The division is approximate, a clause either way; 509e has no clause of its own.

8. Rights

Share-alike: Perseus, GLAUx, LSJ and Wiktionary are CC BY-SA 4.0, so the derived files carry the same licence. Jowett (d. 1893) is public domain. Nothing in copyright is shown.

9. Open questions / to review

  1. Collate with Slings (OCT 2003) when a library copy is at hand, and note where Burnet's text is no longer read.
  2. Check the automatic division of Jowett at the section edges, especially in the long speeches of 514a–517a.
  3. An AI translation and a readers layer: Proclus' essays on the Republic, and Averroes' commentary, made from an Arabic summary of the Republic (reported; to verify before use), which would be a documented Arabic branch, unlike the Alcibiades and Ennead I.6.

10. Change log

  • 2026-10-02: added: Greek, lemmas (seven corrected), LSJ, Boisacq, Wiktionary, AI glosses, Jowett; the "Seeing with the heart" stop on 518c now opens here.