Disguised as human strangers, in many a changing guise, Gods roam about the cities, to spy iniquities,
and the tales of Proteus and other metamorphoses, are false. Consequently mothers should not tell their children that a god may always be present in disguise, for it is a lie and is also likely to make the children cowardly. Lying is only useful in dealing with enemies, for managing lunatics, and for making a satisfactory explanation where certainty is impossible. God has no such reason for lying or deception.
The character of the Deity having been thus purged of mythological accretions, Plato passes on to the treatment of the future state. This must not be described as in any way terrible, or the children will learn to prefer dishonourable life to honourable death. So reject――
O better be a poor man’s serf, and share his scanty bread, Than be the crownèd king of all the nations of the dead.
From him his soul bewailing her hapless fortunes fled, Her youth and beauty leaving, to the kingdoms of the dead!
All such passages must be expurgated from school editions; nor is it right to admit the fearful scenery of Hell, the rivers of Hate (Styx) and Wailing (Kokutos), ghosts, banshees, and other terrible words, for fear of making the children nervous.
Then comes the discussion of the ideal man, in which Achilles falls from the pedestal which he had previously occupied as the ideal of Hellenic manhood. Great men must not indulge in immoderate lamentations for their dead friends. The lament of Achilles for Patroklos and of Priam for Hektor, when he rolled in the dust and the dungheap, must be rejected. “For if the young should take such stories seriously and not laugh them to scorn as contemptibly improbable, they would be most unlikely to consider such lamentations degrading, or to check themselves when they felt any impulse to act in such a way, but, without shame or restraint, they would whine out many dirges over tiny misfortunes.”[671]
Nor must the heroes be made too fond of laughing. For immoderate laughter leads by reaction to immoderate grief. So reject――
Then rose among the blessed gods a laugh unquenchable.
The myths must instil self-control, obedience to rulers and elders and to the better instincts. This leads Plato to expurgate――