So, the current volume of the Harvard Classics series is Famous Prefaces.

I had wondered why bother with ‘prefaces’ to works. It is explained like this:

“No part of a book is so intimate as the preface. Here, after the long labor of the work is over, the author descends from his platform, and speaks with his reader as man to man, disclosing his hopes and fears, seeking sympathy for his difficulties, offering defense or defiance, according to his temper, against the criticisms he anticipates. It thus happens that a personality which has been veiled by a formal method throughout many chapters, is suddenly seen face to face in the Preface; and this alone, if there were no other reasons, would justify a volume of Prefaces.”

William Caxton was a fifteenth century translator of French works to English. In the preface of his translation of The Sayings of Philosophers, he notes that the translator of Socrates sayings had not translated his sayings about women, by which he hypothesized:

“I suppose that some fair lady hath desired him to leave it out of his book; or else he was amorous on some noble lady, for whose love he would not set it in his book; or else for the very affection, love, and good will that he hath unto all ladies and gentlewomen, he thought that Socrates spared the sooth and wrote of women more than truth;”

I do kind of love the insight into this dynamic, so easily discernable to anyone living today.

Caxton thinks it unfair however and includes them in his preface. A few of these gems are:

“There is none so great empechement unto a man as ignorance and women.”

“He saw a woman that bare fire, of who he said the hotter bore the colder.”

“He saw a woman sick, of whom he said that the evil resteth and dwelleth with the evil.”

“He saw a woman brought to justice, and many other women following her weeping, of whom he said the evil be sorry and angry because the evil shall perish.”

From this sampling, I can surmise Socrates was a bit of a dick. At least with regards to women.

I grew up with two sisters, and learned to love and appreciate women. I feel comfortable in their presence, and I don’t find them particularly mysterious or difficult. I actually prefer their company in many respects, I love talking to them and hearing what they have to say and their insights. Having grown up in a time when women are on equal footing with men, and therein just as educated and given opportunities… I see them as perfectly capable. Add to that the beauty and the feminine touch they bring, and I can’t imagine life being complete without them; and I’m not talking about this on a biological level… I’m talking about on a well-rounded societal level. I would never want women to be excluded from my company.  

So, great philosopher or not, I think Socrates had his head up his biscuits on this one.