STRANGER: Then, now, as I said, let us make the correction and divide

human care into two parts, on the principle of voluntary and compulsory.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.

STRANGER: And if we call the management of violent rulers tyranny, and

the voluntary management of herds of voluntary bipeds politics, may we

not further assert that he who has this latter art of management is the

true king and statesman?

YOUNG SOCRATES: I think, Stranger, that we have now completed the

account of the Statesman.

STRANGER: Would that we had, Socrates, but I have to satisfy myself

as well as you; and in my judgment the figure of the king is not

yet perfected; like statuaries who, in their too great haste, having

overdone the several parts of their work, lose time in cutting them

down, so too we, partly out of haste, partly out of a magnanimous desire

to expose our former error, and also because we imagined that a king

required grand illustrations, have taken up a marvellous lump of fable,

and have been obliged to use more than was necessary. This made us

discourse at large, and, nevertheless, the story never came to an end.

And our discussion might be compared to a picture of some living being

which had been fairly drawn in outline, but had not yet attained the

life and clearness which is given by the blending of colours. Now to

intelligent persons a living being had better be delineated by language