Chapter XXIV. That Even in Banquets the Odes Should Be Adopted for Laws as it Were of the Banquet

[P] [1]’Now the original purpose of my argument, to exhibit in becoming language the aid that should be given to the Chorus of Dionysus, has been stated to the best of my power. Let us then consider whether this has been rightly done. I suppose that an assembly of this kind necessarily ends by becoming ever more tumultuous as the drinking goes on, just what we supposed at the outset must necessarily occur in the circumstances now under discussion.

‘Necessarily.

‘Yes, and every man is lifted with lighter heart above himself, and is gladdened, and grows full of loud confidence, and of unwillingness in such a state to listen to his neighbours, and claims to be competent to govern both himself and every one else.

‘Certainly.

‘Did we not say then that in these circumstances the souls of the drinkers, becoming like iron heated in the fire, grow softer and younger, so as to be found tractable by one who has both the knowledge and the power to train and mould them just as when they were young? And that this modeller is the same as in their youth, namely the good legislator, who must make laws for the banquet, able to give an entirely opposite turn to the will of the man who is growing confident and bold and impudent beyond bounds, and refuses to submit to order and to his turn of silence, and speech, and drinking, and singing; laws able also justly to inspire that noblest fear, which stoutly resists the entrance of unbecoming boldness, that divine fear to which we have given the names of reverence and shame?

‘That is true.

‘We said too that the quiet and sober must be guardians of these laws and aid their operation.’

With good reason therefore it has been made a traditional custom for us also in our feasts to sing songs and hymns composed in honour of God, the proper order being under the charge of those who are guardians among us.