[452d]
and then with the
Lacedaemonians, it was open to the wits of that time to make fun of these
practices, don't you think so?” “I do.”
“But when, I take it, experience showed that it is better to strip
than to veil all things of this sort, then the laughter of the eyes1 faded away before that which reason
revealed to be best, and this made it plain that he talks idly who deems
anything else ridiculous but evil, and who tries to raise a laugh by looking
to any other pattern of absurdity than
1 Lit. “what (seemed) laughable to (in) the eyes.”
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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