664
Athenian
Ath. First, then, the right order of procedure will be for the Muses’ choir of children to come forward first to sing these things with the utmost vigor and before the whole city; second will come the choir of those under thirty, invoking Apollo Paian i.e. the Healer. Cp. the medicinal sense of ἐπᾴδειν, enchant, in B4 above. Music is to be a medicine of the soul. as witness of the truth of what is said, and praying him of grace to persuade the youth. The next singers will be the third choir, of those over thirty and under sixty; and lastly, there were left those who, being no longer able to uplift the song, shall handle the same moral themes in stories and by oracular speech.
5
Clinias
Clin. Whom do you mean, Stranger, by these third choristers. For we do not grasp very clearly what you intend to convey about them.
Athenian
Ath. Yet they are in fact the very people to whom most of our previous discourse was intended to lead up.
Clinias
Clin. We are still in the dark: try to explain yourself more clearly still.
Athenian
Ath. At the commencement of our discourse we said, if we recollect, that since all young creatures are by nature fiery, they are unable to keep still either body or voice, but are always crying and leaping in disorderly fashion; we said also that none of the other creatures attains a sense of order, bodily and vocal, and that this is possessed by man alone;