sweat of labour,
and long and steep is the way thither, and rugged at first; but when
you have reached the top, although difficult before, it is then easy.'
(Works and Days.)

CLEINIAS: Yes; and he certainly speaks well.

ATHENIAN: Very true: and now let me tell you the effect which the
preceding discourse has had upon me.

CLEINIAS: Proceed.

ATHENIAN: Suppose that we have a little conversation with the
legislator, and say to him--'O, legislator, speak; if you know what we
ought to say and do, you can surely tell.'

CLEINIAS: Of course he can.

ATHENIAN: 'Did we not hear you just now saying, that the legislator
ought not to allow the poets to do what they liked? For that they would
not know in which of their words they went against the laws, to the hurt
of the state.'

CLEINIAS: That is true.

ATHENIAN: May we not fairly make answer to him on behalf of the poets?

CLEINIAS: What answer shall we make to him?

ATHENIAN: That the poet, according to the tradition which has ever
prevailed among us, and is accepted of all men, when he sits down on the
tripod of the muse, is not in his right mind; like a fountain, he allows
to flow out freely whatever comes in, and his art being imitative, he is
often compelled to represent men of opposite dispositions, and thus to
contradict himself; neither can he tell whether there is more truth in
one thing that he has said than in another. This is not the case in a
law; the legislator must give not two rules about the same thing, but
one only. Take an example from what you have just been saying. Of three
kinds of funerals, there is one which is too extravagant, another is too
niggardly, the third in a mean; and you choose and approve and order the
last without qualification. But if I had an extremely rich wife, and she
bade me bury her and describe her burial in a poem, I should praise
the extravagant sort; and a poor miserly man, who had not much money to
spend, would approve of the niggardly; and the man of moderate means,
who was himself moderate, would praise a moderate funeral. Now you in
the capacity of legislator must not barely say 'a moderate funeral,'
but you must define what moderation is, and how much; unless you are
definite, you must not suppose that you are speaking a language that can
become law.

CLEINIAS: Certainly not.

ATHENIAN: And is our legislator to have no preface to his laws, but
to say at once Do this, avoid that--and then holding the penalty in