Book 6
768
Clin. The previous subject, Stranger, you have treated to our entire satisfaction; but we welcome still more heartily the way you have linked up your past statements with your future statements—the end with the beginning.
769
Ath. It seems, then, that up to now our ancients’ game of reasoni.e. the game of legislation, cp. Plat. Laws 685a, Plat. Laws 712b. has been finely played.
769
Clin. You are showing, I think, how fine is the serious work of our citizens.
769
Ath. Very probably: but let us see whether you agree with me about another point.
769
Clin. What is it, and whom does it concern?
769
Ath. You know how, for instance, the painter’s art in depicting each several subject seems never to get to an end, and in its embellishing it seems as if it would never stop laying on colors or taking them off—or whatever the professional painters term the process—and reach a point where the picture admits of no further improvement in respect of beauty and lucidity.
769
Clin. I, too, remember hearing something of the fact you mention, although I am by no means practised in that kind of art.
769
Ath. You are none the worse for that. We may still use this fact, which it has occurred to us to mention, to illustrate the following point. Suppose that a man should propose to paint an object of extreme beauty, and that this should never grow worse, but always better, as time went on, do you not see that, since the painter is mortal, unless he leaves a successor who is able to repair the picture if it suffers through time, and also in the future to improve it by touching up any deficiency left by his own imperfect craftsmanship, his interminable toil will have results of but short duration?
769
Clin. True.
