scorn to do the like.
That will be very right.
Such are the laments of Achilles, and Priam, Then we will once more entreat Homer and the other poets not to depict Achilles8, who is the son of a goddess, first lying on his side, then on his back, and then on his face; then starting up and sailing in a frenzy along the shores of the barren sea; now taking the sooty ashes in both his hands9 and pouring them over his head, or weeping and wailing in the various modes which Homer has delineated. Nor should he describe Priam the kinsman of the gods as praying and beseeching,
‘Rolling in the dirt, calling each man loudly by his name10.’
Still more earnestly will we beg of him at all events not to introduce the gods lamenting and saying,
‘Alas! my misery! Alas! that I bore the bravest to my sorrow11.’
and of Zeus when he beholds the fate of Hector or Sarpedon. But if he must introduce the gods, at any rate let him not dare so completely to misrepresent the greatest of the gods, as to make him say—
‘O heavens! with my eyes verily I behold a dear friend of mine chased round and round the city, and my heart is sorrowful12.’
Or again:—
‘Woe is me that I am fated to have Sarpedon, dearest of men to me, subdued at the hands of Patroclus the son of Menoetius13.’
For if, my sweet Adeimantus, our youth seriously listen to such unworthy representations of the gods, instead of laughing at them as they ought, hardly will any of them deem