Hi all. Im currently reading Burnet’s edition with commentary of the Phaedo, having just read his Euthyphro-Apology-Crito as well. I’ve also got an old Adam’s edition of the Republic which I’ll start on soon enough.
My plan for the other dialogues is to gradually buy OCTs (second hand most likely), but I was wondering if anyone would particularly recommend any other editions that you’ve used. I do quite like versions with notes but that’s not essential. The only non-negotiable is that the text has got to be a physical book - I don’t mind going online for commentaries.
I am currently reading Phaedrus using two editions: Paul Ryan’s Plato’s Phaedrus: A Commentary for Greek Readers and Harvey Yunis’s Plato Phaedrus. I find both commentaries useful. Ryan uses Burnet’s text; Yunis has an updated text, but it’s pretty close to Burnet’s. Ryan’s text, being a copy of Burnet’s, has a full apparatus. Yunis has only items which impact the interpretation of the text. I use Ryan’s text as my primary text because Yunis’s font is smaller and margins are very small, leaving little room for notes.
Previously I read the Symposium using Dover’s edition (of which I accidentally have two copies of the hardbound book) and Geoffrey Steadman’s edition. I found both commentaries useful. Steadman’s text lacks an apparatus, but the font is large, the line spacing is generous and my copy is full of notes and underlining. Steadman’s notes aren’t really a commentary, but are a great help in understanding the sentence structures.
I continue to find Plato’s prose a challenge to read and am glad to have the help of two commentaries.
If you don’t need notes you can’t do much better than Burnet. He was an enviably good reader of Plato.
I learnt a tremendous amount from Dodds’ commentary on the Gorgias, as well as from his other books (Greeks and Irrational, and Eur.Bacchae comm.) And yes Dover’s Symposium is another stimulating commentary. Dover was quite out of sympathy with Platonism but he knew Greek as well as anyone.
Hi all, in case helpful, here are the hardcopy editions I use: for First Alcibiades, the version edited by Denyer (2001); for Gorgias, by Dodds (1990); for Ion, by Rijksbaron (2007); for Meno, by Bluck (1964); for Protagoras, by Denyer (2008); for Republic, by Slings (2003); for the other dialogues, the versions in the 5-volume Oxford Classical Texts set of Plato’s works: volume 1 edited by Duke, Hicken, Nicoll, Robinson and Strachan (1995), and volumes 2–5 edited by Burnet.
The commentary by Rijksbaron (2007) on Ion in particular is a rich treasure trove of Platonic idiom.
i have just got David Sansone, Plato: Republic. Book I. Cambridge Greek and Latin classics. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2023. Pp. 320. ISBN 9781108833455.
I got it mainly because it got a good review https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2024/2024.04.22/. I have so far found the notes helpful. I confess to not liking Plato much, although I enjoyed the symposium. I hope to be won over.
Many thanks to all. I’ve ordered Dodds’ Gorgias on Michael and Chad’s recommendations, as I found an affordable old hardback copy for sale online. I think getting through Phaedo has fried my brain a bit, so I’ll probably read something a bit lighter until it arrives!
I’m on vacation and on vacation from Phaedrus as well. I’m reading a different text about Eros – Xenophon of Ephesus’ Ephesian Tale. Quite enjoyable and the prose is a bit easier than Plato’s.
if you just want the text, of course the OCTs are it. The Slings version of the Republic and the new version of the first volume (Euthryphro - Politicus) by Hicken et al are especially nice.
Reeve’s translation of the Republic, which follows the new Slings text, and his excellent commentary “Philosopher-Kings The Argument of Plato’s Republic” are both fantastic.
Scolnicov’s detailed commentary on the Parmenides (which also includes a translation) is also great, but as far as commentaries on the Parmenides, I prefer Proclus
As an OCT reader of Plato – I don’t read him in anything else, anymore – I’ll make a plea for being a little careful of Burnet. Those early 20th century editors were all a bit too pleased with themselves, and being clever would get in the way of being careful.
Burnet’s notes in Euthyphro/Apology/Crito should be a warning to anyone that he is sometimes willing to be carried away by theories of influence that can only lightly evidenced, at best.
The example I’ll give is a passage in (Republic?) where Burnet has πυρίαις, to replace the manuscript’s ἀπορίαις. It’s extremely clever…but doesn’t quite work, and destroys the passage at the cost of showing off.
Marchant’s Xenophon is sometimes like this too. He had Goodwin’s syntax, and the German text studies, and was plowing fresh soil in criticism, and he sometimes takes it as license for creativity. The old German editions, with their Latin discussions of the cruxes, are more careful and consistently useful, imo.
What I would really like for personal reading of Plato would be a copy of Codex Oxoniensis (in bookhand) with an apparatus at the bottom of the page and all the really good suggestions made as marginal notes or red-ink corrections in the text.
