ATHENIAN: The next suggestion which I have to offer is, that all our
three choruses shall sing to the young and tender souls of children,
reciting in their strains all the noble thoughts of which we have
already spoken, or are about to speak; and the sum of them shall be,
that the life which is by the Gods deemed to be the happiest is also the
best;--we shall affirm this to be a most certain truth; and the minds of
our young disciples will be more likely to receive these words of ours
than any others which we might address to them.
CLEINIAS: I assent to what you say.
ATHENIAN: First will enter in their natural order the sacred choir
composed of children, which is to sing lustily the heaven-taught lay to
the whole city. Next will follow the choir of young men under the age
of thirty, who will call upon the God Paean to testify to the truth of
their words, and will pray him to be gracious to the youth and to turn
their hearts. Thirdly, the choir of elder men, who are from thirty to
sixty years of age, will also sing. There remain those who are too old
to sing, and they will tell stories, illustrating the same virtues, as
with the voice of an oracle.
CLEINIAS: Who are those who compose the third choir, Stranger? for I do
not clearly understand what you mean to say about them.
ATHENIAN: And yet almost all that I have been saying has been said with
a view to them.
CLEINIAS: Will you try to be a little plainer?
ATHENIAN: I was speaking at the commencement of our discourse, as you
will remember, of the fiery nature of young creatures: I said that they
were unable to keep quiet either in limb or voice, and that they called
out and jumped about in a disorderly manner; and that no other animal
attained to any perception of order, but man only. Now the order of
motion is called rhythm, and the order of the voice, in which high and
low are duly mingled, is called harmony; and both together are termed
choric song. And I said that the Gods had pity on us, and gave us
Apollo and the Muses to be our playfellows and leaders in the dance; and
Dionysus, as I dare say that you will remember, was the third.
CLEINIAS: I quite remember.
ATHENIAN: Thus far I have spoken of the chorus of Apollo and the Muses,
and I have still to speak of the remaining chorus, which is that of
Dionysus.
CLEINIAS: How is that arranged? There is something strange, at any rate
on first hearing, in a Dionysiac chorus of old men, if you really mean
that those who are above thirty, and may be fifty, or from fifty to
sixty years of age, are to dance in his honour.
ATHENIAN: Very true; and therefore it must be shown that there is good
reason for the proposal.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: Are we agreed thus far?
CLEINIAS: About what?