Athenian
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?
Athenian
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.