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Athenian
Ath. If the tiniest children are to be the judges, they will award the prize to the showman of puppets, will they not?
Clinias
Clin. Certainly they will.
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Athenian
Ath. And older lads to the exhibitor of comedies; while the educated women and the young men, and the mass of the people in general, will award it to the shower of tragedies.
Clinias
Clin. Most probably.
Athenian
Ath. And we old men would very likely take most delight in listening to a rhapsode giving a fine recitation of the Iliad or the Odyssey or of a piece from Hesiod, and declare that he is easily the winner. Who then would rightly be the winner of the prize? That is the next question, is it not?
Athenian
Ath. Evidently we three cannot avoid saying that those who are adjudged the winners by our own contemporaries would win rightly. For in our opinion epic poetry is by far the best to be found nowadays anywhere in any State in the world.
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