whether in the body or in the soul, until they begin
to go to work--this is a precaution which has to be taken against the
excitableness of youth;--afterwards they may taste wine in moderation
up to the age of thirty, but while a man is young he should abstain
altogether from intoxication and from excess of wine; when, at length,
he has reached forty years, after dinner at a public mess, he may invite
not only the other Gods, but Dionysus above all, to the mystery and
festivity of the elder men, making use of the wine which he has given
men to lighten the sourness of old age; that in age we may renew our
youth, and forget our sorrows; and also in order that the nature of
the soul, like iron melted in the fire, may become softer and so more
impressible. In the first place, will not any one who is thus mellowed
be more ready and less ashamed to sing--I do not say before a large
audience, but before a moderate company; nor yet among strangers,
but among his familiars, and, as we have often said, to chant, and to
enchant?

CLEINIAS: He will be far more ready.

ATHENIAN: There will be no impropriety in our using such a method of
persuading them to join with us in song.

CLEINIAS: None at all.

ATHENIAN: And what strain will they sing, and what muse will they hymn?
The strain should clearly be one suitable to them.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And what strain is suitable for heroes? Shall they sing a
choric strain?

CLEINIAS: Truly, Stranger, we of Crete and Lacedaemon know no strain
other than that which we have learnt and been accustomed to sing in our
chorus.

ATHENIAN: I dare say; for you have never acquired the knowledge of the
most beautiful kind of song, in your military way of life, which is
modelled after the camp, and is not like that of dwellers in cities; and
you have your young men herding and feeding together like young colts.
No one takes his own individual colt and drags him away from his fellows
against his will, raging and foaming, and gives him a groom to attend
to him alone, and trains and rubs him down privately, and gives him the
qualities in education which will make him not only a good soldier, but
also a governor of a state and of cities. Such an one, as we said at
first, would be a greater warrior than he of whom Tyrtaeus sings; and
he would honour courage everywhere, but always as the fourth, and not as
the first part of virtue, either in individuals or states.

CLEINIAS: Once more,