Many of Plato’s dialogues seem to contain (mis)quotations of poetry. Sometimes a word or words are altered; other times re-contextualizing shifts the original meaning of the quoted line or lines. But what constitutes “shifting,” especially when it comes to the oral tradition? One may begin innocently by asking: could Plato have mixed up lines accidentally? Was he aware of variants that were later lost? Or could there be some intentionality present in the changes?
[…]
Each of the contributions to this special volume of Classics@ in its own way suggests that Plato’s misquoting is somehow poetically philosophical, even and perhaps precisely when every word seems to have been rendered justly. Where words find their owners eluding them, one notices the strangeness of their apparitions, a reflection of that peculiar argument about learning that ties it to recollection, wherein one hears the foreign lines of a familiar song. Indeed, the perfection of quotability would be the death of truth-seeking, for then we could never dream of reality and would cease to listen.
