Cleinias:  That is very good, Stranger; but I wish you would tell me more clearly what you mean.

Athenian:  O Cleinias, many things of old time were well said and sung; and the saying about the Fates was one of them.

Cleinias:  What is it?

Athenian:  The saying that Lachesis or the giver of the lots is the first of them, and that Clotho or the spinster is the second of them, and that Atropos or the unchanging one is the third of them; and that she is the preserver of the things which we have spoken, and which have been compared in a figure to things woven by fire, they both (i.e.  Atropos and the fire) producing the quality of unchangeableness.  I am speaking of the things which in a state and government give not only health and salvation to the body, but law, or rather preservation of the law, in the soul; and, if I am not mistaken, this seems to be still wanting in our laws:  we have still to see how we can implant in them this irreversible nature.

Cleinias:  It will be no small matter if we can only discover how such a nature can be implanted in anything.

Athenian:  But it certainly can be; so much I clearly see.

Cleinias:  Then let us not think of desisting until we have imparted this quality to our laws; for it is ridiculous, after a great deal of labour has been spent, to place a thing at last on an insecure foundation.

Athenian:  I approve of your suggestion, and am quite of the same mind with you.

Cleinias:  Very good:  And now what, according to you, is to be the salvation of our government and of our laws, and how is it to be effected?

Athenian:  Were we not saying that there must be in our city a council which was to be of this sort:  The ten oldest guardians of the law, and all those who have obtained prizes of virtue, were to meet in the same assembly, and the council was also to include those who had visited foreign countries in the hope of hearing something that might be of use in the preservation of the laws, and who, having come safely home, and having been tested in these same matters, had proved themselves to be worthy to take part in the assembly—­each of the members was to select some young man of not less than thirty years of age, he himself judging in the first instance whether the young man was worthy by nature and education, and then suggesting him to the others, and if he seemed to them also to be worthy they were to adopt him; but if not, the decision at which they arrived was to be kept a secret from the citizens at large, and, more especially, from the rejected candidate.  The meeting of the council was to be held early in the morning, when everybody was most at leisure from all other business, whether public or private—­was not something of this sort said by us before?

Cleinias:  True.

Athenian:  Then, returning to the council, I would say further, that if we let it down to be the anchor of the state, our city, having everything which is suitable to her, will preserve all that we wish to preserve.