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—
Thou drunkard, shameless as a dog, and fearful as a deer:
but commend—
Good father, sit in silence, and hearken to what I say.