younger they are,
the more they will need it (compare Arist. Pol.); infants should live,
if that were possible, as if they were always rocking at sea. This
is the lesson which we may gather from the experience of nurses, and
likewise from the use of the remedy of motion in the rites of the
Corybantes; for when mothers want their restless children to go to sleep
they do not employ rest, but, on the contrary, motion--rocking them in
their arms; nor do they give them silence, but they sing to them and lap
them in sweet strains; and the Bacchic women are cured of their frenzy
in the same manner by the use of the dance and of music.

CLEINIAS: Well, Stranger, and what is the reason of this?

ATHENIAN: The reason is obvious.

CLEINIAS: What?

ATHENIAN: The affection both of the Bacchantes and of the children is
an emotion of fear, which springs out of an evil habit of the soul. And
when some one applies external agitation to affections of this sort, the
motion coming from without gets the better of the terrible and violent
internal one, and produces a peace and calm in the soul, and quiets the
restless palpitation of the heart, which is a thing much to be desired,
sending the children to sleep, and making the Bacchantes, although they
remain awake, to dance to the pipe with the help of the Gods to whom
they offer acceptable sacrifices, and producing in them a sound mind,
which takes the place of their frenzy. And, to express what I mean in a
word, there is a good deal to be said in favour of this treatment.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: But if fear has such a power we ought to infer from these
facts, that every soul which from youth upward has been familiar with
fears, will be made more liable to fear (compare Republic), and every
one will allow that this is the way to form a habit of cowardice and not
of courage.

CLEINIAS: No doubt.

ATHENIAN: And, on the other hand, the habit of overcoming, from our
youth upwards, the fears and terrors which beset us, may be said to be
an exercise of courage.

CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: And we may say that the use of exercise and motion in the
earliest years of life greatly contributes to create a part of virtue in
the soul.

CLEINIAS: Quite true.

ATHENIAN: Further, a cheerful temper, or the reverse, may be regarded as
having much to do with high spirit on the one hand, or with cowardice on
the other.

CLEINIAS: To be sure.

ATHENIAN: Then now we must endeavour to s