nterlocutors--Cleinias a Cretan, Megillus a
Lacedaemonian, and an Athenian stranger--have joined company on a
pilgrimage to the cave and shrine of Zeus, from whom Minos, first
lawgiver of the island, had reputedly derived not only his parentage but
much parental instruction. Now the day being hot, even scorching, and the
road from Cnossus to the Sacred Cave a long one, our three pilgrims, who
have foregathered as elderly men, take it at their leisure, and propose
to beguile it with talk upon Minos and his laws. 'Yes, and on the way,'
promises the Cretan, 'we shall come to cypress-groves exceedingly tall
and fair, and to green meadows, where we may repose ourselves and
converse.' 'Good,' assents the Athenian. 'Ay, very good indeed, and
better still when we arrive at them. Let us push on.'

So they proceed. I have said that all three are elderly men; that is, men
who have had their opportunities, earned their wages, and so nearly
earned their discharge that now, looking back on life, they can afford to
see Man for what he really is--at his best a noble plaything for the
gods. Yet they look forward, too, a little wistfully. They are of the
world, after all, and nowise so tired of it, albeit disillusioned, as to
have lost interest in the game or in the young who will carry it on. So
Minos and his laws soon get left behind, and the talk (as so often
befalls with Plato) is of the perfect citizen and how to train him--of
education, in short; and so, as ever with Plato, we are back at length
upon the old question which he could never get out of his way--What to do
with the poets?

It scarcely needs to be said that the Athenian has taken hold of the
conversation, and that the others are as wax in his hands. 'O Athenian
stranger,' Cleinias addresses him--'inhabitant of Attica I will not call
you, for you seem to deserve rather the name of Athene herself, because
you go back to first principles.' Thus complimented, the stranger lets
himself go. Yet somehow he would seem to have lost speculative nerve.

It was all very well in the 'Republic,' the ideal State, to be bold and
declare for banishing poetry altogether. But elderly men have given up
pursuing ideals; they have 'seen too many leaders of revolt.' Our
Athenian is driving now at practice (as we say), at a well-governed State
realisable on earth; and after all it is hard to chase out the poets,
especially if you yourself happen to be something of a poet at heart.
Hear, then,