[243a]
they put on airs as though they amounted to something, if they could cheat some mere manikins and gain honor among them. Now I, my friend, must purify myself; and for those who have sinned in matters of mythology there is an ancient purification, unknown to Homer, but known to Stesichorus. For when he was stricken with blindness for speaking ill of Helen, he was not, like Homer, ignorant of the reason, but since he was educated, he knew it and straightway he writes the poem:“That saying is not true; thou didst not go within the well-oared ships, nor didst thou come to the walls of Troy” Stesichorus Frag. 32 Bergk
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925.
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