Book 7
810
Ath. Your observation is most just. I take it that you are bidding me, now that the path which is abhorrent to many is attractive to others possibly not less numerous (or if less numerous, certainly not less competent),—you are, I say, bidding me adventure myself with the latter company and proceed boldly along the path of legislation marked out in our present discourse, without flinching.
810
Clin. Certainly.
811
Ath. Then I will not flinch. I verily affirm that we have composers of verses innumerable—hexameters, trimeters, and every meter you could mention,—some of whom aim at the serious, others at the comic; on whose writings, as we are told by our tens of thousands of people, we ought to rear and soak the young, if we are to give them a correct education, making them, by means of recitations, lengthy listeners and large learners, who learn off whole poets by heart. Others there are who compile select summaries of all the poets, and piece together whole passages, telling us that a boy must commit these to memory and learn them off if we are to have him turn out good and wise as a result of a wide and varied range of instruction.Cp. Heraclitus’s saying (Frag. 16):πολυμαθίη νόον οὐ διδάσκει; and the contempt shown for the versatile smatterer in Phaedrus 275 A (πολυήκοοι . . . δοξόσοφοι γεγονότες ἀντὶ σοφῶν). Would you have me now state frankly to these poets what is wrong about their declarations and what right?
811
Clin. Of course.
811
Ath. What single statement can I make about all these people that will be adequate? This, perhaps,—in which everyone will agree with me,—that every poet has uttered much that is well, and much also that is ill; and this being so, I affirm that a wide range of learning involves danger to children.
811
Clin. What advice then would you give the Law-warden?
811
Ath. About what?
811
Clin. About the pattern by which he should be guided in respect of the particular subjects which he permits or forbids all the children to learn. Tell us, and without scruple.
