Plato, Critias 121a · 121a
Gold borne lightly, and the divine part fading
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Critias — τὰ παρόντα καὶ ῥᾳδίως ἔφερον οἷον ἄχθος τὸν τοῦ χρυσοῦ τε καὶ τῶν ἄλλων κτημάτων ὄγκον, ἀλλʼ οὐ μεθύοντες ὑπὸ τρυφῆς διὰ πλοῦτον ἀκράτορες αὑτῶν ὄντες ἐσφάλλοντο, νήφοντες δὲ ὀξὺ καθεώρων ὅτι καὶ ταῦτα πάντα ἐκ φιλίας τῆς κοινῆς μετʼ ἀρετῆς αὐξάνεται, τῇ δὲ τούτων σπουδῇ καὶ τιμῇ φθίνει ταῦτά τε αὐτὰ κἀκείνη συναπόλλυται τούτοις. ἐκ δὴ λογισμοῦ τε τοιούτου καὶ φύσεως θείας παραμενούσης πάντʼ αὐτοῖς ηὐξήθη ἃ πρὶν διήλθομεν. ἐπεὶ δʼ ἡ τοῦ θεοῦ μὲν μοῖρα ἐξίτηλος ἐγίγνετο ἐν αὐτοῖς πολλῷ τῷ θνητῷ καὶ
what they had, and bore lightly, as one bears a load, the bulk of gold and other possessions. They were not made drunk by luxury, and they did not, through wealth, lose command of themselves and stumble. Being sober, they saw sharply that all these goods grow out of common friendship together with virtue, but that through eager pursuit of them and honour paid to them they wither, and that friendship perishes along with them. From such reasoning, and because their divine nature remained, everything we described before grew for them. But when the god's portion was fading in them, mixed with much of the mortal, and often
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The setting
The kings carried their wealth like a light load, were not made reckless by luxury, and knew that goods grow from friendship with virtue and perish when pursued for their own sake. When the god's portion began to fade, the sentence runs on into the next section.
A note on this passage
Wealth is described by weight. The kings carried ónkon, the bulk or mass, of gold and other ktēmátōn, possessions, hoîon áchthos, "like a burden," and carried it easily. The next clause picks up the drinking image, methýontes hypò tryphês, "drunk with luxury," and its opposite, nḗphontes, sober, which is the state in which they "saw sharply," oxỳ katheṓrōn. What they saw is a rule about goods: they grow ek philías tês koinês met' aretês, from common friendship with virtue, and they wither, phthínei, when spoudê and timē, eager pursuit and honour, are given to the goods themselves.
The last words of the section begin the decline. Hē toû theoû moîra, "the god's portion," was exítēlos, a word for something that is wearing out, fading away. The moîra is a share or allotted part, so the divine element in the kings is spoken of as an allotted part that is now wearing thin. The sentence is cut here by the section boundary, in the middle of "mixed with much of the mortal, and," and it is finished in 121b. The pronoun in kakeínē, "and that," is feminine, and the Greek leaves open whether it points to friendship or to virtue.
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