th is the order of the day,
ought not he to be honoured most, and, as I was saying, bear the palm,
who gives most mirth to the greatest number? Now is this a true way of
speaking or of acting?

CLEINIAS: Possibly.

ATHENIAN: But, my dear friend, let us distinguish between different
cases, and not be hasty in forming a judgment: One way of considering
the question will be to imagine a festival at which there are
entertainments of all sorts, including gymnastic, musical, and
equestrian contests: the citizens are assembled; prizes are offered,
and proclamation is made that any one who likes may enter the lists,
and that he is to bear the palm who gives the most pleasure to the
spectators--there is to be no regulation about the manner how; but he
who is most successful in giving pleasure is to be crowned victor, and
deemed to be the pleasantest of the candidates: What is likely to be the
result of such a proclamation?

CLEINIAS: In what respect?

ATHENIAN: There would be various exhibitions: one man, like Homer, will
exhibit a rhapsody, another a performance on the lute; one will have a
tragedy, and another a comedy. Nor would there be anything astonishing
in some one imagining that he could gain the prize by exhibiting a
puppet-show. Suppose these competitors to meet, and not these only, but
innumerable others as well--can you tell me who ought to be the victor?

CLEINIAS: I do not see how any one can answer you, or pretend to know,
unless he has heard with his own ears the several competitors; the
question is absurd.

ATHENIAN: Well, then, if neither of you can answer, shall I answer this
question which you deem so absurd?

CLEINIAS: By all means.

ATHENIAN: If very small children are to determine the question, they
will decide for the puppet show.

CLEINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: The older children will be advocates of comedy; educated
women, and young men, and people in general, will favour tragedy.

CLEINIAS: Very likely.

ATHENIAN: And I believe that we old men would have the greatest pleasure
in hearing a rhapsodist recite well the Iliad and Odyssey, or one of
the Hesiodic poems, and would award the victory to him. But, who would
really be the victor?--that is the question.

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: Clearly you and I will have to declare that those whom we old
men adjudge victors ought to win; for our ways are far and away better
than any which at present exist anywhere in the world.

CLEINIAS: