dare say that you will remember, was the third.

CLEINIAS: I quite remember.

ATHENIAN: Thus far I have spoken of the chorus of Apollo and the Muses,
and I have still to speak of the remaining chorus, which is that of
Dionysus.

CLEINIAS: How is that arranged? There is something strange, at any rate
on first hearing, in a Dionysiac chorus of old men, if you really mean
that those who are above thirty, and may be fifty, or from fifty to
sixty years of age, are to dance in his honour.

ATHENIAN: Very true; and therefore it must be shown that there is good
reason for the proposal.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Are we agreed thus far?

CLEINIAS: About what?

ATHENIAN: That every man and boy, slave and free, both sexes, and the
whole city, should never cease charming themselves with the strains of
which we have spoken; and that there should be every sort of change and
variation of them in order to take away the effect of sameness, so that
the singers may always receive pleasure from their hymns, and may never
weary of them?

CLEINIAS: Every one will agree.

ATHENIAN: Where, then, will that best part of our city which, by reason
of age and intelligence, has the greatest influence, sing these fairest
of strains, which are to do so much good? Shall we be so foolish as
to let them off who would give us the most beautiful and also the most
useful of songs?

CLEINIAS: But, says the argument, we cannot let them off.

ATHENIAN: Then how can we carry out our purpose with decorum? Will this
be the way?

CLEINIAS: What?

ATHENIAN: When a man is advancing in years, he is afraid and reluctant
to sing;--he has no pleasure in his own performances; and if compulsion
is used, he will be more and more ashamed, the older and more discreet
he grows;--is not this true?

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Well, and will he not be yet more ashamed if he has to stand
up and sing in the theatre to a mixed audience?--and if moreover when he
is required to do so, like the other choirs who contend for prizes, and
have been trained under a singing master, he is pinched and hungry, he
will certainly have a feeling of shame and discomfort which will make
him very unwilling to exhibit.

CLEINIAS: No doubt.

ATHENIAN: How, then, shall we reassure him, and get him to sing? Shall
we begin by enacting that boys shall not taste wine at all until they
are eighteen years of age; we will tell them that fire must not be
poured upon fire,