La relación de compatibilidad entre los paradigmas poéticos platónico y tradicional en la anécdota del sueño de Sócrates en el Fedón

LUCAS SOARES

Brasilia

Simposio; XI Symposium Platonicum: Plato?s Phaedo; 2016

International Plato Society / Universidade de Brasília

In the Phaedrus, Plato?s Socrates appears as a type of philosopher who goes beyond or who can comfortably penetrate the eidetic sphere that is above heaven, a place which traditional poets could never reach with their words (Phdr. 247c3-6). It is possible to read in this well-known passage a new outline of Platonic poetic paradigm, different to that revealed in the Republic and later in the Laws. Indeed, in alluding to the possibility of a non-traditional poet describing in his work the sphere belonging to Ideas, that reality (ousía) which is only visible to the intellect (noûs), which somehow real (óntos oûsa) and which constitutes the object of true knowledge (alethés epistéme) or, in other words, of a philosopher expressing himself in poetic terms on matters of a philosophical nature, Plato seeks to establish in Phaedrus a close link between poetry and the eidetic sphere to which philosophical knowledge belongs, or which the philosopher accesses through a practiced synoptic-dialectic understanding. This type of philosophical poetry is perfectly illustrated in the Socratic palinode itself, which Socrates?and ultimately Plato?establishes as a paradigm of the poet philosopher, a palinode by necessity must be uttered ?with certain poetic terms? (toîs onómasin poietikoîs tisin, Phdr. 257a3-6). Working from that palinode as a model, Plato seeks to approach the subject of éros with philosophical discourses fed with poetical terms, that is, through an explicit blend of philosophical and poetic elements, the clearest example of which is the Phaedrus as a whole, or, in more general terms, the Platonic dialogical genre in as much as this puts forward an interaction between the philosophical and poetic registers (Phdr. 257b1-6). Taking into account this relationship of compatibility that Plato establishes in Phaedrus between the poetic-philosophical paradigm and the traditional paradigm?which in books I, III and X of the Republic clearly appeared in tension?in the present work we are interested in supporting such a relationship in the dream anecdote as told by Socrates at the start of the Phaedo. In this anecdote, the philosopher confesses to Simmias and Cebes that since his time in prison, although he had never done such a thing before before, he has been composing poems based on the versification and musicalization of Aesop?s fables and a hymn to Apollo. Following the concern of poet and sophist Euenus of Paros (also mentioned in the Ap. 20b8-c1 and in the Phaedrus as an orator) regarding the reasons that inspired these poems, Cebes returns to the question so that later he can offer Socrates a firm answer when he questions him again on the same matter. Socrates makes it clear that he did not compose these poems to compete with those of Euenus, but in order to decipher the vision and meaning of certain recurring dreams over the course of his life, and above all to confirm whether this was really the music that the dream message ordered him to compose. Through the composition of that kind of popular music he would then be able to purify himself, as he would be fulfilling a religious obligation or precept. ?Compose music and play it? (mousikèn poíei kaì ergázou, Phd. 60e6-7) proclaims the famous dream exhortation that Socrates receives, and about which he offers the following explanation: ?I used to think that it was impelling me and exhorting me to do what I was actually doing [?], that is, producing music (mousikèn poieîn), because I had the idea that philosophy, which was what concerned me, was the greatest music (megístes mousikês). But ever since my trial, while the festival of the god has been delaying my execution, I have felt that perhaps it might be this popular form of music (demóde mousikèn) that the dream intended me to produce, I should not disobey it, but rather on the contrary, make poetry; as for me it was safer not to leave this life before having fulfilled this religious duty (aphosiósasthai), composing poems (poiémata) and obeying the dream? (Phd. 60e7-61b1; along similar lines: La. 188c6-d6, and Ti. 47c7-d7). Here the philosopher recognises that he has composed precisely two poems: one in honour of Apollo, the god for whom the festival was held, and, having realised late that the poet must deal with myths (múthos) in his poems and not reasoning (logoí) and that he himself was not a mythologist (muthologikós), another poem based on a versification of the fables of Aesop that he recalled at that time (Phd. 61b2-7). Socrates had always understood the dream command in a single meaning: as a divine encouragement to continue purifying himself through the exercise of philosophy, an urging for him to continue cultivating philosophical music, which was precisely what he?d been doing until then. But on remembering that dream in his last hours, he discovers a new meaning in this command, as if it was literally ordering him to focus on the composition of popular music. Because of their allegorical and dramatic character and their moral intention, Aesop?s fables lent themselves very well to be put into verse. Regardless of its historical veracity, it is interesting to see this anecdote of Socrates? dream as one of many examples in the Platonic corpus of compatibility (or of a positive relationship) between the two poetic paradigms in play, the Platonic and the traditional-popular. In this regard, the anecdote may reveal how Socrates may, without this implying tension or rivalry, devote himself both to the practice of this ?greatest music? that is philosophy (or to the cultivation of the philosophical Muse as he would later say in the myth of the cicadas in Phaedrus) and to the versification of traditional poetic myths (Aesop?s fables), which, as we shall try to show, do not appear to be typified in a negative sense. Furthermore, Socrates emphasises throughout the dialogue (such as in Phd. 11fc2-6) the clear purifying value found in this type of music?whether philosophical or popular?a value that brings order and harmony to the soul which, as he would later say in Timaeus 47c7-d7, makes use of it intelligently. This purification of the Phaedo can also be tied to the palinode of the second Socratic discourse in the Phaedrus, as in both cases this is a purification in as much as a sacred obligation or religious precept is being fulfilled (hence the use of the verb aphosióo); in the case of the Phaedo, precisely, through the cultivation of philosophical music or the composition of ?popular music? (demódes mousiké) and, in that of the Phaedrus, through the composition of a palinode whose focus was on the atonement of the slander perpetrated against Eros in the first Socratic discourse, just as Stesichorus had composed his as a way of atoning for speaking ill of Helen.