第60章 BOOK VI(11)

The directors of choruses will be the superintendents and regulators of these games,and they,together with the guardians of the law,will legislate in any matters which we have omitted;for,as we said,where there are numerous and minute details,the legislator must leave out something.And the annual officers who have experience,and know what is wanted,must make arrangements and improvements year by year,until such enactments and provisions are sufficiently determined.A ten years experience of sacrifices and dances,if extending to all particulars,will be quite sufficient;and if the legislator be alive they shall communicate with him,but if he be dead then the several officers shall refer the omissions which come under their notice to the guardians of the law,and correct them,until all is perfect;and from that time there shall be no more change,and they shall establish and use the new laws with the others which the legislator originally gave them,and of which they are never,if they can help,to change aught;or,if some necessity overtakes them,the magistrates must be called into counsel,and the whole people,and they must go to all the oracles of the Gods;and if they are all agreed,in that case they may make the change,but if they are not agreed,by no manner of means,and any one who dissents shall prevail,as the law ordains.

Whenever any one over twenty-five years of age,having seen and been seen by others,believes himself to have found a marriage connection which is to his mind,and suitable for the procreation of children,let him marry if he be still under the age of five-and-thirty years;but let him first hear how he ought to seek after what is suitable and appropriate.For,as Cleinias says,every law should have a suitable prelude.

Cle.You recollect at the right moment,Stranger,and do not miss the opportunity which the argument affords of saying a word in season.

Ath.I thank you.We will say to him who is born of good parents-Omy son,you ought to make such a marriage as wise men would approve.

Now they would advise you neither to avoid a poor marriage,nor specially to desire a rich one;but if other things are equal,always to honour inferiors,and with them to form connections;-this will be for the benefit of the city and of the families which are united;for the equable and symmetrical tends infinitely more to virtue than the unmixed.And he who is conscious of being too headstrong,and carried away more than is fitting in all his actions,ought to desire to become the relation of orderly parents;and he who is of the opposite temper ought to seek the opposite alliance.Let there be one word concerning all marriages:-Every man shall follow,not after the marriage which is most pleasing to himself,but after that which is most beneficial to the state.For somehow every one is by nature prone to that which is likest to himself,and in this way the whole city becomes unequal in property and in disposition;and hence there arise in most states the very results which we least desire to happen.Now,to add to the law an express provision,not only that the rich man shall not marry into the rich family,nor the powerful into the family of the powerful,but that the slower natures shall be compelled to enter into marriage with the quicker,and the quicker with the slower,may awaken anger as well as laughter in the minds of many;for there is a difficulty in perceiving that the city ought to be well mingled like a cup,in which the maddening wine is hot and fiery,but when chastened by a soberer God,receives a fair associate and becomes an excellent and temperate drink.Yet in marriage no one is able to see that the same result occurs.Wherefore also the law must let alone such matters,but we should try to charm the spirits of men into believing the equability of their children's disposition to be of more importance than equality in excessive fortune when they marry;and him who is too desirous of making a rich marriage we should endeavour to turn aside by reproaches,not,however,by any compulsion of written law.