ublic advantage, and then use all
his efforts to make the whole community utter one and the same word in
their songs and tales and discourses all their life long. But if you do
not agree with me, there is no reason why you should not argue on the
other side.

CLEINIAS: I do not see that any argument can fairly be raised by either
of us against what you are now saying.

ATHENIAN: The next suggestion which I have to offer is, that all our
three choruses shall sing to the young and tender souls of children,
reciting in their strains all the noble thoughts of which we have
already spoken, or are about to speak; and the sum of them shall be,
that the life which is by the Gods deemed to be the happiest is also the
best;--we shall affirm this to be a most certain truth; and the minds of
our young disciples will be more likely to receive these words of ours
than any others which we might address to them.

CLEINIAS: I assent to what you say.

ATHENIAN: First will enter in their natural order the sacred choir
composed of children, which is to sing lustily the heaven-taught lay to
the whole city. Next will follow the choir of young men under the age
of thirty, who will call upon the God Paean to testify to the truth of
their words, and will pray him to be gracious to the youth and to turn
their hearts. Thirdly, the choir of elder men, who are from thirty to
sixty years of age, will also sing. There remain those who are too old
to sing, and they will tell stories, illustrating the same virtues, as
with the voice of an oracle.

CLEINIAS: Who are those who compose the third choir, Stranger? for I do
not clearly understand what you mean to say about them.

ATHENIAN: And yet almost all that I have been saying has been said with
a view to them.

CLEINIAS: Will you try to be a little plainer?

ATHENIAN: I was speaking at the commencement of our discourse, as you
will remember, of the fiery nature of young creatures: I said that they
were unable to keep quiet either in limb or voice, and that they called
out and jumped about in a disorderly manner; and that no other animal
attained to any perception of order, but man only. Now the order of
motion is called rhythm, and the order of the voice, in which high and
low are duly mingled, is called harmony; and both together are termed
choric song. And I said that the Gods had pity on us, and gave us
Apollo and the Muses to be our playfellows and leaders in the dance; and
Dionysus, as I