.

@Paine

It seems the thread is turning towards poetry and Homer's Iliad. I'm enjoying it but not too sure where we're heading.

Is it about a poetic continuation in Plato? He isn't breaking away from poetry in any radical sense. The poets' influence seems clear. There is intertextuality.
I feel like I'm missing a deeper connection. Help?

Re: Emily Wilson's translation of the Iliad. Some interesting views:

Emily Wilson's 5 crucial decisions she made in her Iliad translation
https://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-forum/viewtopic.php?t=72989

Emily Wilson's Translation of The Iliad
https://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-forum/viewtopic.php?t=72905

My focus remains on where Plato has taken us in Book 10 after showing the poets in a new light. To that end, I am trying to get a better handle on the version of Er that Plato tells. Getting a clear view of the three daughters is difficult because there are other stories than those given by Hesiod who names them with different parents than spoken of in Er. I will keep looking around.

It does seem safe to say that the connection between 'spinning a thread' and mortality was well established in Homer. One example:

Nor shall he meanwhile suffer any evil or harm, until he sets foot upon his own land; but thereafter he shall suffer whatever fate and the dread spinners spun with their thread for him at his birth, when his mother bore him. — Homer, Odessey, Book 7, 193, translated by A. T. Murray

The plural spinners are κλῶθές in Greek. That matches the name of Clotho, the middle sister, in the Er story.

The discussion of Homer translations is interesting. But I need to stay focused on the architecture of mortality and a surprise plumbing malfunction.

It does seem safe to say that the connection between 'spinning a thread' and mortality was well established in Homer. One example: — Paine

OK. I think I begin to see what you're getting at. Plural sisters acting in unison.
Fate encircling the life and death of body and mind.

What do you mean by the 'architecture of mortality' ?

Is this a daimonic determination of destiny. A web being spun.
I've read that:

Homer speaks of Fate (moira) in the singular as an impersonal power and sometimes makes its functions interchangeable with those of the Olympian gods. From the time of the poet Hesiod (8th century BC) on, however, the Fates were personified as three very old women who spin the threads of human destiny. Their names were Clotho (Spinner), Lachesis (Allotter), and Atropos (Inflexible). Clotho spun the “thread” of human fate, Lachesis dispensed it, and Atropos cut the thread (thus determining the individual’s moment of death).  — Britannica - Fate - Greek and Roman mythology

So, the connection to Plato's Myth of Er is a structure of morality.
After death, judgement day.
The moral, the good and the just are rewarded > Heaven
The immoral, the bad and unjust are punished > Hell
But that's not the end of it...
If you believe the myth.

Be a wise, little philosopher, or else ?!

The discussion of Homer translations is interesting. But I need to stay focused on the architecture of mortality and a surprise plumbing malfunction. — Paine

:smile: That's fine. I was just going with the flow...

Is this a daimonic determination of destiny. A web being spun. — Amity

The role of the daimon is not as clearly set out as the powers that make a life a certain length. The most terrible idea of the spinning thread is that much is determined at birth.

Socrates is presented as receiving instruction from his daimon at particular times. Those moments are not presented as unavoidable fate. It sounds more like thinking for oneself.

Socrates is presented as receiving instruction from his diamon at particular times. Those moments are not presented as unavoidable fate. It sounds more like thinking for oneself. — Paine

Socrates had a daimonion. This was an inner voice which gave Socrates warnings. If the daimonion was silent, then this was taken as approval.

Like an inner advisor, I suppose it could be interpreted as talking/thinking to yourself.
Perhaps an inner dialogue...asking questions, awaiting response. From the universe?
Or an auditory hallucination!