STRANGER: I mean to say that merchants, husbandmen, providers of food, and also training-masters and physicians, will all contend with the herdsmen of humanity, whom we call Statesmen, declaring that they themselves have the care of rearing or managing mankind, and that they rear not only the common herd, but also the rulers themselves. YOUNG SOCRATES: Are they not right in saying so? STRANGER: Very likely they may be, and we will consider their claim. But we are certain of this,--that no one will raise a similar claim as against the herdsman, who is allowed on all hands to be the sole and only feeder and physician of his herd; he is also their match-maker and accoucheur; no one else knows that department of science. And he is their merry-maker and musician, as far as their nature is susceptible of such influences, and no one can console and soothe his own herd better than he can, either with the natural tones of his voice or with instruments. And the same may be said of tenders of animals in general. YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true. STRANGER: But if this is as you say, can our argument about the king be true and unimpeachable? Were we right in selecting him out of ten thousand other claimants to be the shepherd and rearer of the human flock? YOUNG SOCRATES: Surely not. STRANGER: Had we not reason just to now to apprehend, that although we may have described a sort of royal form, we have not as yet accurately worked out the true image of the Statesman? and that we cannot reveal him as he truly is in his own nature, until we have disengaged and separated him from those who hang about him and claim to share in his prerogatives? YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true. STRANGER: And that, Socrates, is what we must do, if we do not mean to bring disgrace upon the argument at its close. YOUNG SOCRATES: We must certainly avoid that. STRANGER: Then let us make a new beginning, and travel by a different road. YOUNG SOCRATES: What road? STRANGER: I think that we may have a little amusement; there is a famous tale, of which a good portion may with advantage be interwoven, and then we may resume our series of divisions, and proceed in the old path until we arrive at the desired summit. Shall we do as I say? YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means. STRANGER: Listen, then, to a tale which a child would love to hear; and you are not too old for childish amusement. YOUNG SOCRATES: Let me hear. STRANGER: There did really happen, and will again happen, like many other events of which ancient tradition has preserved the record, the portent which is traditionally said to have occurred in the quarrel of Atreus and Thyestes. You have heard, no doubt, and remember what they say happened at that time? YOUNG SOCRATES: I suppose you to mean the token of the birth of the golden lamb.