Neither ought our guardians to be given to laughter. For a fit of laughter which has been indulged to excess almost always produces a violent reaction. So I believe. Then persons of worth, even if only mortal men, must not be represented as overcome by laughter, and still less must such a representation of the gods be allowed. Still less of the gods, as you say, he replied. Then we shall not suffer such an expression to be used about the gods as that of Homer when he describes how Inextinguishable laughter arose among the blessed gods, when they saw Hephaestus bustling about the mansion. On your views, we must not admit them. On my views, if you like to father them on me; that we must not admit them is certain. Again, truth should be highly valued; if, as we were saying, a lie is useless to the gods, and useful only as a medicine to men, then the use of such medicines should be restricted to physicians; private individuals have no business with them. Clearly not, he said. Then if any one at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers of the State should be the persons; and they, in their dealings either with enemies or with their own citizens, may be allowed to lie for the public good. But nobody else should meddle with anything of the kind; and although the rulers have this privilege, for a private man to lie to them in return is to be deemed a more heinous fault than for the patient or the pupil of a gymnasium not to speak the truth about his own bodily illnesses to the physician or to the trainer, or for a sailor not to tell the captain what is happening about the ship and the rest of the crew, and how things are going with himself or his fellow sailors. Most true, he said. If, then, the ruler catches anybody beside himself lying in the State, Any of the craftsmen, whether he priest or physician or carpenter. he will punish him for introducing a practice which is equally subversive and destructive of ship or State. Most certainly, he said, if our idea of the State is ever carried out. In the next place our youth must be temperate? Certainly. Are not the chief elements of temperance, speaking generally, obedience to commanders and self-control in sensual pleasures? True. Then we shall approve such language as that of Diomede in Homer, Friend, sit still and obey my word, and the verses which follow, The Greeks marched breathing prowess, ...in silent awe of their leaders, and other sentiments of the same kind. We shall. What of this line, O heavy with wine, who hast the eyes of a dog and the heart of a stag, and of the words which follow? Would you say that these, or any similar impertinences which private individuals are supposed to address to their rulers, whether in verse or prose, are well or ill spoken? They are ill spoken.