[599a]
they cannot
perceive that these are three removes from reality, and easy to produce
without knowledge of the truth. For it is phantoms,1 not realities, that they produce. Or is
there something in their claim, and do good poets really know the things
about which the multitude fancy they speak well?” “We
certainly must examine the matter,” he said. “Do you
suppose, then, that if a man were able to produce both the exemplar and the
semblance, he would be eager to abandon himself to the fashioning of
phantoms2 and set this
in the forefront
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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