hope,
into the belief of this by tales and sayings and songs?

CLEINIAS: Of what victory are you speaking?

ATHENIAN: Of the victory over pleasure, which if they win, they will
live happily; or if they are conquered, the reverse of happily. And,
further, may we not suppose that the fear of impiety will enable them to
master that which other inferior people have mastered?

CLEINIAS: I dare say.

ATHENIAN: And since we have reached this point in our legislation,
and have fallen into a difficulty by reason of the vices of mankind, I
affirm that our ordinance should simply run in the following terms:
Our citizens ought not to fall below the nature of birds and beasts in
general, who are born in great multitudes, and yet remain until the age
for procreation virgin and unmarried, but when they have reached the
proper time of life are coupled, male and female, and lovingly pair
together, and live the rest of their lives in holiness and innocence,
abiding firmly in their original compact: surely, we will say to them,
you should be better than the animals. But if they are corrupted by the
other Hellenes and the common practice of barbarians, and they see
with their eyes and hear with their ears of the so-called free love
everywhere prevailing among them, and they themselves are not able to
get the better of the temptation, the guardians of the law, exercising
the functions of lawgivers, shall devise a second law against them.

CLEINIAS: And what law would you advise them to pass if this one failed?

ATHENIAN: Clearly, Cleinias, the one which would naturally follow.

CLEINIAS: What is that?

ATHENIAN: Our citizens should not allow pleasures to strengthen with
indulgence, but should by toil divert the aliment and exuberance of them
into other parts of the body; and this will happen if no immodesty be
allowed in the practice of love. Then they will be ashamed of frequent
intercourse, and they will find pleasure, if seldom enjoyed, to be a
less imperious mistress. They should not be found out doing anything of
the sort. Concealment shall be honourable, and sanctioned by custom and
made law by unwritten prescription; on the other hand, to be detected
shall be esteemed dishonourable, but not, to abstain wholly. In this way
there will be a second legal standard of honourable and dishonourable,
involving a second notion of right. Three principles will comprehend all
those corrupt natures whom we call inferior to themselves, and