Timaeus

​Critias: I did not, however, wish to speak immediately, because after so much time I did not remember it sufficiently. I realized, therefore, that it was necessary for me first to recover everything sufficiently by myself and only then to speak. Hence I quickly agreed to your instructions yesterday, thinking that we should be moderately well supplied for what is the greatest task in all such matters—namely, to lay down a fitting proposal for our intentions. Thus, as he said, yesterday as soon as I left here I began to relate these things to them, recalling them, and after I went away, by reviewing almost everything during the night, I recovered them. How indeed, as the saying goes, what we learn as children has a wonderful way of remaining in the memory! I do not know if I could recall in memory all that I heard yesterday, but as for these things which I heard a very long time ago, I should be completely amazed if any of them had escaped me. They were heard then with great pleasure and amusement, and since the old man was teaching me eagerly as I repeatedly questioned him, they have become fixed in me like the encaustic burnings of an indelible writing. And indeed, I was telling these very things to them early this morning, so that they might be well supplied with words along with me. Now, therefore, to come to the point for which all this has been said, I am ready to speak, Socrates, not only in summary but in detail, just as I heard it. And the citizens and the city which you described to us yesterday as if in a myth, we shall now transfer to reality and place here, assuming that that city is this one, and we shall say that the citizens you were conceiving are those true ancestors of ours whom the priest spoke of. They will harmonize in every way, and we shall not be out of tune in saying that they are the ones who existed at that time. Taking up our parts in common, we shall all try, as far as we can, to return a fitting response to your instructions. We must therefore consider, Socrates, whether this plan is to our mind, or whether we must still seek some other instead of it.

​Socrates: And what other, Critias, should we take in place of this one, which, because of its affinity, would be most appropriate for the present sacrifice to the goddess, and above all, because it is not a fabricated myth but a true history, which is of greatest importance? How and from where indeed shall we find others if we abandon these? It is not possible; rather, with good fortune, you must speak, while I, in return for yesterday’s words, must now keep quiet and listen in turn. Critias: Consider now, Socrates, the arrangement of our guest-gifts to you, how we have arranged them. For we decided that Timaeus, since he is the most astronomical of us and has made it his chief task to know about the nature of the universe, should speak first, beginning from the generation of the cosmos and ending with the nature of humans; and that I, after him, receiving from him the humans who have been created in speech, and from you some of them who have been exceptionally educated, and bringing them, in accordance with the account and law of Solon, as if before us as judges, should make them citizens of this city, on the ground that they are those Athenians of that time whom the report of the sacred writings revealed to have disappeared, and that we should make the rest of our speeches on the assumption that they are already our citizens and Athenians. Socrates: It seems I am going to receive a complete and splendid feast of words in return. It would be your task to speak next, Timaeus, as it seems, after having called upon the gods according to custom. Timaeus: But, Socrates, all who possess even a small share of wisdom always call upon a god at the beginning of any undertaking, whether small or great. And we who are about to make our speeches somehow concerning the universe—how it has generated or even if it is ungenerated—unless we are completely out of our minds, must pray to the gods and goddesses, invoking them that we may speak everything above all in accordance with their mind, and consequently in a way that is consistent for us. Let this be our invocation concerning the gods; but we must also invoke our own side, so that you may learn most easily, and I may best exhibit my thoughts on the proposed subjects.