ds will, against any creature however strong, and die or undergo
any danger, but must instantly rush to the temples and crowd at the
altars and shrines, and bring upon human nature the reproach, that of
all animals man is the most cowardly!

CLEINIAS: Such a want of education, Stranger, is certainly an unseemly
thing to happen in a state, as well as a great misfortune.

ATHENIAN: Suppose that we carry our law to the extent of saying that
women ought not to neglect military matters, but that all citizens, male
and female alike, shall attend to them?

CLEINIAS: I quite agree.

ATHENIAN: Of wrestling we have spoken in part, but of what I should
call the most important part we have not spoken, and cannot easily speak
without showing at the same time by gesture as well as in word what we
mean; when word and action combine, and not till then, we shall explain
clearly what has been said, pointing out that of all movements wrestling
is most akin to the military art, and is to be pursued for the sake of
this, and not this for the sake of wrestling.

CLEINIAS: Excellent. ATHENIAN: Enough of wrestling; we will now proceed
to speak of other movements of the body. Such motion may be in general
called dancing, and is of two kinds: one of nobler figures, imitating
the honourable, the other of the more ignoble figures, imitating the
mean; and of both these there are two further subdivisions. Of the
serious, one kind is of those engaged in war and vehement action, and is
the exercise of a noble person and a manly heart; the other exhibits a
temperate soul in the enjoyment of prosperity and modest pleasures,
and may be truly called and is the dance of peace. The warrior dance is
different from the peaceful one, and may be rightly termed Pyrrhic; this
imitates the modes of avoiding blows and missiles by dropping or giving
way, or springing aside, or rising up or falling down; also the opposite
postures which are those of action, as, for example, the imitation of
archery and the hurling of javelins, and of all sorts of blows. And when
the imitation is of brave bodies and souls, and the action is direct and
muscular, giving for the most part a straight movement to the limbs of
the body--that, I say, is the true sort; but the opposite is not right.
In the dance of peace what we have to consider is whether a man bears
himself naturally and gracefully, and after the manner of men who duly
conform to the law. But before proceeding I must di