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 terrorem, to go on to another law; offering never a word of advice or exhortation to those for whom he is legislating, after the manner of some doctors?  For of doctors, as I may remind you, some have a gentler, others a ruder method of cure; and as children ask the doctor to be gentle with them, so we will ask the legislator to cure our disorders with the gentlest remedies.  What I mean to say is, that besides doctors there are doctors’ servants, who are also styled doctors.

Cleinias:  Very true.