they might fit a diatonic melody and arrange the strings for it, do they not play a prelude for it and practice beforehand, not just once, but as many times as they intend to compete? And those who sing the paean or the dithyrambic song, before they move their tongue for this, do they not expand their chest and, as it were, test their breath? And why should we go through the particular examples, soldiers, in our account, playing at war in an image, and those who arrange processions parading beforehand in formation? And do we not put a war-horse or a processional horse or a race-horse through its paces before the war and the race and the procession? But you, for me, preserve the 'often' in the argument. And the Ethiopians, do they not make their elephants carry burdens before the contests, and the Bacchants with Dionysus, before they attacked the Indians, did they not both act outrageously and shake their thyrsi, and for this reason also have they not been victorious? But since our argument has ended in a myth, I will make this argument the beginning of the argument about myth. For why should myth be dishonored by us, which cries out with its very name what it intends, and has escaped the manner of the treacherous, and is divided into charm and exhortation? For the one part is, as it were, put forth, while the other sits beneath, and one seizes the useful along with the pleasure. And the power of the persuasive is hidden in nothing so much as in myth; for this itself will both be elegant and is like some boastful orator, who has entered as if he will certainly tell lies, but compelling the truth with the things by which he will lie, and tyrannizing over the matter with his speech or the speech with his matter, and conquering by that with which he is conquered, and being conquered by that with which he conquers, seeming to speak truth in what he feigns, but feigning in what he seems to be about to speak truth, and shaping and reshaping the mind as he wishes, and showing from the very preludes how great rhetoric is, boasting of poets and orators as his fathers and tracing himself back to mythical times (just as they say the rule of the Assyrians, after which the affairs of the Medes and Persians flourished), and opening for us, as it were, certain doors of an ark and showing the lions, the elephants, the bees, the gnats, some inhabiting India, others pursuing the northern climate, and some playing the flute, others making melody, and each one performing something different according to its character; and in that he fabricates skillfully, he proceeds from the chambers of rhetoric; in that he investigates characters and natures, he allies himself with the philosophical part; in that he investigates the different climates of the earth, he prides himself on geography; and he delights also in the finest flower of music, as Pindar says, busying himself with intense and harmonious melodies; in that he composes spiders, he seems likely to have emerged from the bounds of geometry; in that he is divided among different nations, he has not been separated from historical inquiry either. How then would one not choose and embrace the myth, which has compacted for itself the best parts of the sciences and arts? I, for one, would rather choose the myth brought to me by rhetoric than the food of knowledge from the Muses, from which the Ascraean indeed made his poetic rebirth; for that, perhaps, was even fabricated, and I marvel at the poet who thought he would deceive us, but the myth's case is proven to be true by the facts themselves. And who of all people would deem its name unworthy? Socrates, being ordered by the dream to make and practice music, applied himself to philosophy, but when the same dream visited him often, he understood what it wanted and, by putting Aesop's fables to verse, he fulfilled his religious duty; thus myth is music itself and better than philosophy among the better sort. And Plato, philosophizing about those in Hades, dignified his account with a myth, not intending to lie, as it seems to me (for otherwise he would have wanted to deceive himself), but honoring the narrative with the name. And the lake in Palestine and the water in Umbria, not being seen with eyes, were named mythical by Aristotle. And what

διάτονον ἐναρμόσαιεν μέλος καὶ πρὸς τοῦτο συντάξαιεν τὰς χορδὰς προοιμιάζονται πρὸς αὐτὸ καὶ προαναβάλλον ται οὐχ ἅπαξ ἀλλὰ τοσαυτάκις ὁσάκις ἀγωνίζεσθαι βούλοιντο; οἱ δὲ τὸν παιᾶνα ἢ τὴν διθύραμβον μελῳδοῦντες ᾠδὴν οὐ πρὶν ἢ τὴν γλῶσσαν πρὸς τοῦτο κινήσαιεν διευρύνουσί τε τὸ στέρνον καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα οἷόν ἐστι βασανίζουσι; καὶ τί ἂν τὰ καθέκαστον διεξίοιμεν [στ]ρατιώτας τῷ λόγῳ παρακινοῦντες ἐπὶ τῆς εἰκόνος τὸν πόλεμον [π]αίζοντας καὶ τοὺς τὰς πομπὰς διατιθέντας ἐπὶ τοῦ σχήματος προπομπεύοντας; ἵππον δὲ πολεμιστήριον ἢ πομπαῖον ἢ κέλητα οὐ πρὸ τοῦ πολέμου καὶ τοῦ δρόμου καὶ τῆς πομπῆς [πρ]ο̣β̣ι̣[β]α´̣ζομεν; σὺ δέ μοι τὸ πολλάκις σῷζε τῷ λόγῳ. τοὺς δ' ἐλέφαντας οἱ Αἰθίοπες οὐκ ἀχθοφοροῦσι πρὸ τῶν ἀγώνων, αἱ δὲ παρὰ ∆ιονύσῳ Βάκχαι οὐ πρὶν ἢ τοῖς Ἰνδοῖς προσβαλεῖν ἐνύβριζόν τε καὶ τοὺς θύρσους ἐκίνουν καὶ διὰ τοῦτο καὶ νενικήκασιν; Ἀλλ' ἐπεὶ εἰς μῦθον ἡμῖν ὁ λόγος κατέληξεν, ἀρχὴν τοῦ περὶ τὸν μῦθον λόγου τὸν λόγον ποιήσομαι. διὰ τί γὰρ ἀτιμαστέος ὁ μῦθος ἡμῖν, ὃς αὐτὸ μὲν τοῦτο ὃ βούλεται τῷ ὀνόματι κέκραγε καὶ τόν γε τοῦ ὑπούλου τρόπον ἐκπέφευγεν, εἰς χάριν δὲ μερίζεται καὶ παραίνεσιν; τὸ μὲν γὰρ οἷον προβέβληται, τὸ δὲ ὑποκάθηται καὶ συναρπάζει τις τῇ ἡδονῇ τὸ ὠφέλιμον. ἡ δὲ τοῦ πιθανοῦ δύναμις οὐκ ἄλλῳ τῳ ὡς τῷ μύθῳ ἐγκέκρυπ ται· τοῦτο γὰρ αὐτὸ καὶ κομψεύσεται καὶ ἔστιν οἷόν τις ἀλαζὼν ῥήτωρ εἰσεληλυθὼς μὲν ὡς πάντως ψευσόμενος, βιαζόμενος δὲ οἷς ψεύσεται τὴν ἀλήθειαν καὶ τὸν λόγον περὶ τὸ πρᾶγμα τυραννῶν ἢ τὸ πρᾶγμα περὶ τὸν λόγον καὶ νικῶν οἷς νικᾶται καὶ νικώμενος οἷς νικᾷ, ἀληθεύειν μὲν δοκῶν ἐν οἷς ὑποκρίνεται, ὑποκρινόμενος δὲ ἐν οἷς ἀληθεύσειν δοκεῖ, πλάττων δὲ καὶ μεταπλάττων ὡς ἂν ἐθέλῃ τὸν νοῦν καὶ τὴν ῥητορικὴν ἐκ προοιμίων δεικνύων ὁπόση, αὐχῶν τε πατέρας ποιητάς τε καὶ ῥήτορας καὶ εἰς τοὺς μυθικοὺς ἀναγόμενος χρόνους (ὡς τὴν Ἀσσυρίων φασὶν ἀρχὴν μεθ' ἣν τὰ Μήδων καὶ Περσῶν ἤκμασεν), ἀνοιγνύς τε οἷόν τινας ἡμῖν κιβωτοῦ θύρας καὶ δεικνὺς τοὺς λέοντας, τοὺς ἐλέφαντας, τὰς μελίσ[σας], τοὺς κώνωπας, τοὺς μὲν τὴν Ἰνδικὴν νεμομένους, τοὺς δὲ τὸ βόρειον κλίμα διώκοντας, καὶ τοὺς μὲν αὐλοῦντας, τοὺς δὲ μελουργοῦντας καὶ ἄλλον ἄλλο τι περὶ τὸ ἦθος διενεργοῦντας· καὶ οἷς μὲν εὐφυῶς πλάττεται ἀπὸ τῶν ῥητορικῆς θαλάμων προέρχεται, οἷς δὲ ἤθη καὶ φύσεις διερευνᾷ τῇ φιλοσόφῳ μερίδι προστίθεται, οἷς δὲ τὰ διάφορα τῆς γῆς ἐρευνᾷ κλίματα τῇ γεωγραφίᾳ σεμνύνεται, ἀγάλλεται δὲ καὶ μουσικῆς ἐν ἀώτῳ, ὅ φησι Πίνδαρος, σύντονα πολυπραγμονῶν μέλη καὶ ἐναρμόνια, οἷς δὲ τὰς ἀράχνας συντίθησι τῶν τῆς γεωμετρίας ὅρων προκύπτειν ἐοικέναι δοκεῖ, οἷς δὲ τοῖς διαφόροις μερίζεται ἔθνεσιν οὐδὲ τῆς ἱστορικῆς πραγματείας ἀπήλλακται. πῶς οὖν οὐκ ἄν τις τὸν μῦθον ἕλοιτό τε καὶ ἐνστερνίσαιτο τὰ τῶν ἐπιστημῶν καὶ τεχνῶν κράτιστα ἑαυτῷ συμπηξάμενον; ἔγωγ' οὖν ἑλοίμην μᾶλλον παρὰ ῥητορικῆς τὸν μῦθόν μοι προσαγόμενον ἢ παρὰ Μουσῶν τὸ βρῶμα τῆς γνώσεως, ἀφ' οὗ δὴ ὁ Ἀσκραῖος τὴν ποιητικὴν ἀνάδοσιν ἐποιήσατο· ἐκεῖνο μὲν γὰρ ἴσως καὶ πέπλασται καὶ θαυμάζω τὸν ποιητὴν ὃς ἐξαπατήσειν ἡμᾶς ᾤετο, τὸ δὲ τοῦ μύθου ἐπ' αὐτῶν τῶν πραγμάτων ἀληθῶς ἔχον ἐλέγχεται. Τὸ δὲ ὄνομα τίς ἂν τῶν ἁπάντων ἀπαξιώσειε; Σωκράτης μουσικὴν ποιεῖν καὶ ἐργάζεσθαι παρὰ τοῦ ἐνυπνίου κελευόμενος τῇ φιλοσοφίᾳ ἐπέτεινεν ἑαυτόν, ὡς δὲ πολλάκις τὸ αὐτὸ ἐφοίτᾳ ἐνύπνιον, ἔγνω ὃ βούλεται καὶ τοὺς τοῦ Αἰσώπου μύθους ἐντείνας ἀφωσιώσατο· οὕτω μουσικὴ ὁ μῦθος αὐτόχρημα καὶ κρείττω[ν] φιλοσοφίας [π]αρὰ τοῖς κρείττοσι. Πλάτων δὲ περὶ τῶν ἐν ᾅδου φιλοσοφῶν μύθῳ τὴν ἱστορίαν ἐσέμνυνεν οὐ ψευσόμενος, ὥς γέ μοι δοκεῖ (ἢ γὰρ ἂν ἀπατᾶν ἐβούλετο ἑαυτόν), ἀλλὰ τῷ ὀνόματι τιμῶν τὴν διήγ[η]σιν. ἡ δὲ ἐν Παλαιστίνῃ λίμνη καὶ τὸ ἐν Ὀμβρικῷ ὕδωρ οὐκ ὀφθαλμοῖς ὁρώμενα μυθικὰ παρὰ ᾿Α̣ρ̣ι̣[σ]τ̣ο̣τέλει ὠνόμασται. Καὶ τί