hain, but now pleasure seems to have
succeeded."

Hereupon Cebes, interrupting him, said: "By Jupiter, Socrates, you have
done well in reminding me. With respect to the poems which you made, by
putting into metre those Fables of AEsop and the hymn to Apollo, several
other persons asked me, and especially Evenus recently, with what design
you made them after you came here, whereas before, you had never made
any. If, therefore, you care at all that I should be able to answer
Evenus when he asks me again--for I am sure he will do so--tell me what
I must say to him."

"Tell him the truth then, Cebes," he replied, "that I did not make them
from a wish to compete with him, or his poems, for I knew that this
would be no easy matter; but that I might discover the meaning of
certain dreams, and discharge my conscience, if this should happen to be
the music which they have often ordered me to apply myself to. For they
were to the following purport: often in my past life the same dream
visited me, appearing at different times in different forms, yet always
saying the same thing. 'Socrates,' it said, 'apply yourself to and
practise music.' And I formerly supposed that it exhorted and encouraged
me to continue the pursuit I was engaged in, as those who cheer on
racers, so that the dream encouraged me to continue the pursuit I was
engaged in, namely, to apply myself to music, since philosophy is the
highest music, and I was devoted to it. But now since my trial took
place, and the festival of the god retarded my death, it appeared to me
that, if by chance the dream so frequently enjoined me to apply myself
to popular music, I ought not to disobey it but do so, for that it would
be safer for me not to depart hence before I had discharged my
conscience by making some poems in obedience to the dream. Thus, then, I
first of all composed a hymn to the god whose festival was present, and
after the god, considering that a poet, if he means to be a poet, ought
to make fables and not discourses, and knowing that I was not skilled in
making fables, I therefore put into verse those fables of AEsop, which
were at hand, and were known to me, and which first occurred to me.

"Tell this then to Evenus, Cebes, and bid him farewell, and, if he is
wise, to follow me as soon as he can. But I depart, as it seems, to-day;
for so the Athenians order."

To this Simmias said: "What is this, Socrates, which you exhort Evenus
to do? for I often meet with