[378d]
that is the sort of thing that
ought rather to be said by their elders, men and women, to children from the
beginning and as they grow older, and we must compel the poets to keep close
to this in their compositions. But Hera's fetterings1 by her son and the hurling out of heaven of
Hephaestus by his father when he was trying to save his mother from a
beating, and the battles of the gods2 in Homer's verse are things that
we must not admit into our city either wrought in allegory3 or without allegory. For the young are
not able to distinguish what is and what is not allegory, but whatever
opinions are taken into the mind at that age are wont to prove
1 The title of a play by Epicharmus. The hurling of Hephaestus, Iliad i. 586-594.
2 Iliad xx. 1-74; xxi. 385-513.
3 ὑπόνοια: the older word for allegory; Plutarch, De Aud. Poet. 19 E. For the allegorical interpretation of Homer in Plato's time cf. Jebb, Homer, p. 89, and Mrs. Anne Bates Hersman's Chicago Dissertation:Studies in Greek Allegorical Interpretation.
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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