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These fanciful appeals to Homer add a charm to Plato's style, and

at the same time they have the effect of a satire on the follies

of Homeric interpretation. To us (and probably to himself),

although they take the form of arguments, they are really figures

of speech. They may be compared with modern citations from

Scripture, which have often a great rhetorical power even when

the original meaning of the words is entirely lost sight of. The

real, like the Platonic Socrates, as we gather from the

Memorabilia of Xenophon, was fond of making similar adaptations.

Great in all ages and countries, in religion as well as in law

and literature, has been the art of interpretation.