Zeus now turned to Plato, calling upon him to give his opinion on the Cynics. Zeus reminded Plato that hitherto the Cynics had been treated by him merely incidentally, mostly by hidden allusions to Antisthenes, or by witty remarks on Diogenes. At present Plato might help the gods to pass agreeably the rest of the beautiful night by telling them in connection and fulness what really the ultimate purport of these modern Cynics, Shavian or other is going to be. Everybody turned his or her face towards Plato, who rose from his seat, and bowing, with a smile, towards Diogenes, thus addressed Zeus and the Assembly of gods and heroes at Pompeii: * * * * * "It is quite true that in my writings I have not devoted any explicit discussion to the views and tenets of the Cynics. They appeared to me at that time far too grotesque to be worth more than a passing consideration. Of their dramas I had, and still have a very poor opinion. From what I hear from Diogenes, the modern imitators of Cynic dramatists are not a whit better. In addition to all their wearying eccentricities, they add the most unbearable eccentricity of all, to wit, that their dramas and comedies represent a new departure within dramatic literature. "Shaw's dramas are no more dramas than his Swiss, in _Arms and the Man_, is a soldier; or his clergyman in _Candida_ a husband, or a man. His pieces are not dramatic in the least; they do not exhibit the most elementary qualities of a comedy. For, whatever the definition of a comedy may be, one central quality can never be missing in it: the persons presented must be types of human beings. "Shaw's persons are no humans whatever. They are _homunculi_ concocted in a chemical laboratory of pseudo-science and false psychology. They crack, from time to time, brave jokes; so do clowns in a circus. That alone does not make a wax figure into a human. "There may be very interesting comic scenes amongst bees, wasps, or beavers; but we cannot appreciate them. We can only appreciate human comicality, even when it is presented to us in the shape of dialogues between animals, as Aristophanes, the fabulists, and so many other writers have done. "Who would care to sit through a comedy showing the comic aspects of life in a Bedlam? If madmen have humour, as undoubtedly they have, we do not want to see it on a public stage. The fact that it is a madman's humour deprives it of all humour.