¹ I examined in vain 30 translations: 15 English, 7 Italian, 3 German, 2 French, and 1 Russian directly, plus 1 Bulgarian and 1 Japanese through the kind offices of Ivan Christov and Noburu Notomi respectively.

² Guthrie, W.K.C., Plato: Protagoras and Meno (Harmondsworth, 1956)Google Scholar. I choose Guthrie as my exemplary translator because of his command of Greek and his good, flexible English style.

³ The exceptions involve indirect discourse or the presence of ἄν. For a full elucidation, see Goodwin, W.W., Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb (London, 1897), 22–47Google Scholar. Although he does not use the term ‘aspect’, that is what he is describing. A helpful study, which does speak of aspect, is Sicking, C.M.J., ‘The distribution of aorist and present tense stem forms in Greek, especially in the imperative’, Glotta 69 (1991), 14–43 and 154–70Google Scholar. Aspect is a strongly marked feature of the verb in Slav languages (cf. n. 6 below).

⁴ Compare Socrates' ironical use of the same form διαλεχθῆναι at Gorgias 447c1, as if all he wants from Gorgias is that he answer a couple of utterly straightforward questions that won't take a minute to deal with. In context the verb refers to question and answer dialectic as contrasted with rhetorical epideixis of the type that Gorgias has just delivered, so an apt rendering might be, ‘Would he be willing to join us in a spot of dialectic?’ In the event, of course, the two straightforward questions give rise to a major discussion, the first of a lengthy three-part dialogue.

⁵ The difference between Protagoras' μετὰ τῶν ἄλλων and Socrates' μετ' ἄλλων may also be significant. Socrates does not care who is listening, but at 317c–d he suspects that Protagoras wants to put on a display – note the perfective infinitives ἐνδείξασθαι καὶ καλλωπίσασθαι – in front of Prodicus and Hippias. Congratulations to Jowett for noticing the perfective verbs and translating, ‘As I suspected that he would like to have a little display and glorification in the presence of Prodicus and Hippias …’.

⁶ It was Heda Šegvić who first alerted me to the aspectual contrast between Protagoras and Socrates at 316b–c. I dedicate this piece to her memory. Pavel Gregorić tells me that in her native Croatia teachers of Greek make a point of emphasizing the aspectual difference I have been labouring here, and he found me two Croatian translations of the Protagoras (Rac 1915, thoroughly revised by Sironić 1975) which give a faultless rendering of all the passages discussed in this note. She would applaud. The same passages are equally well rendered in the recent Slovenian translation of all Plato by Gorazd Kocijančič (Celje, 2004).