"At the gate of the Future, at Delphi, Apollo is associated with Dionysus, and so it has been ever since I came to rule this Universe. Just as good music consists of tones and rhythms, and again of the cessation of all sound, or of measured pauses; even so my Realm consists of Reason, and of the cessation of all Reason, or of Unreason. The Cynics who ignore the latter, misjudge the former. This, I take it, is perfectly clear to all of us.
"But while we here may laugh at the bites of the Cynical ants below, we do not mean to state that in their occupation there is no point, no utility at all. These little ants may be, and undoubtedly are largely sterile mockers. Yet even I have experienced it on myself that the effects of their doings are not always sterile."
And leaning back on his chryselephantine chair, Zeus lowered his voice and said almost in a whisper: "See, friends, why do we meet here in lonely places, in a dead town, during the mysterious hours of night? You know very well who and what has prevailed upon me to choose this temporary darkening of our blissful life."
At this moment there came from the rushes near the sea a plaintive song accompanied by a flute, and a voice of a human sobbed out the cry: "Pan, the Great Pan is dead!"
A sudden silence fell over the divine Assembly. A cloud of deep sadness seemed to hover over all.
The three Graces then betook themselves to dancing, and their beauteous movements and poses so exhilarated the Assembly, that the former serenity was soon re-established.
Zeus now turned to Plato, calling upon him to give his opinion on the Cynics. Zeus reminded Plato that hitherto the Cynics had been treated by him merely incidentally, mostly by hidden allusions to Antisthenes, or by witty remarks on Diogenes. At present Plato might help the gods to pass agreeably the rest of the beautiful night by telling them in connection and fulness what really the ultimate purport of these modern Cynics, Shavian or other is going to be. Everybody turned his or her face towards Plato, who rose from his seat, and bowing, with a smile, towards Diogenes, thus addressed Zeus and the Assembly of gods and heroes at Pompeii:
"It is quite true that in my writings I have not devoted any explicit discussion to the views and tenets of the Cynics. They appeared to me at that time far too grotesque to be worth more than a passing consideration. Of their dramas I had, and still have a very poor opinion. From what I hear from Diogenes, the modern imitators of Cynic dramatists are not a whit better. In addition to all their wearying eccentricities, they add the most unbearable eccentricity of all, to wit, that their dramas and comedies represent a new departure within dramatic literature.
"Shaw's dramas are no more dramas than his Swiss, in Arms and the Man, is a soldier; or his clergyman in Candida a husband, or a man. His pieces are not dramatic in the least; they do not exhibit the most elementary qualities of a comedy. For, whatever the definition of a comedy may be, one central quality can never be missing in it: the persons presented must be types of human beings.