drink in public? They will defy the legislator
to drag them out of their holes. And in any other state such a proposal
would be drowned in clamour, but in our own I think that I can show the
attempt to be just and reasonable. 'There is nothing which we should
like to hear better.' Listen, then; having plenty of time, we will
go back to the beginning of things, which is an old subject with us.
'Right.' Either the race of mankind never had a beginning and will never
have an end, or the time which has elapsed since man first came into
being is all but infinite. 'No doubt.' And in this infinity of time
there have been changes of every kind, both in the order of the seasons
and in the government of states and in the customs of eating and
drinking. Vines and olives were at length discovered, and the blessings
of Demeter and Persephone, of which one Triptolemus is said to have been
the minister; before his time the animals had been eating one another.
And there are nations in which mankind still sacrifice their fellow-men,
and other nations in which they lead a kind of Orphic existence, and
will not sacrifice animals, or so much as taste of a cow--they offer
fruits or cakes moistened with honey. Perhaps you will ask me what is
the bearing of these remarks? 'We would gladly hear.' I will endeavour
to explain their drift. I see that the virtue of human life depends on
the due regulation of three wants or desires. The first is the desire
of meat, the second of drink; these begin with birth, and make us
disobedient to any voice other than that of pleasure. The third and
fiercest and greatest need is felt latest; this is love, which is a
madness setting men's whole nature on fire. These three disorders of
mankind we must endeavour to restrain by three mighty influences--fear,
and law, and reason, which, with the aid of the Muses and the Gods of
contests, may extinguish our lusts.

But to return. After marriage let us proceed to the generation of
children, and then to their nurture and education--thus gradually
approaching the subject of syssitia. There are, however, some other
points which are suggested by the three words--meat, drink, love.
'Proceed,' the bride and bridegroom ought to set their mind on having a
brave offspring. Now a man only succeeds when he takes pains; wherefore
the bridegroom ought to take special care of the bride, and the bride
of the bridegroom, at the time when their children are about to be born.
And let