enough to desire utterly to see facts as they are, but only to see
them as they would wish them to be; and loving themselves rather
than Zeus, have wished to remodel in some things or other his
universe, according to their own subjective opinions. By this, or
by some other act of self-will, or self-conceit, or self-dependence,
they have compelled Zeus, not, as I think, without pity and kindness
to them, to withdraw from them in some degree the sight of his own
beauty. We must, therefore, I fear, liken them to Acharis, the
painter of Lemnos, who, intending to represent Phoebus, painted from
a mirror a copy of his own defects and deformities; or perhaps to
that Nymph, who finding herself beloved by Phoebus, instead of
reverently and silently returning the affection, boasted of it to
all her neighbours, as a token of her own beauty, and despised the
god; so that he, being angry, changed her into a chattering magpie;
or again to Arachne, who having been taught the art of weaving by
Athene, pretended to compete with her own instructress, and being
metamorphosed by her into a spider, was condemned, like the
sophists, to spin out of her own entrails endless ugly webs, which
are destroyed, as soon as finished, by every slave-girl's broom."

P. "But shall we despise and hate such, Oh Socrates?"

S. "No, dearest boy, we will rather pity and instruct them
lovingly; remembering always that we shall become such as they the
moment we begin to fancy that truth is our own possession, and not
the very beauty of Zeus himself, which he shows to those whom he
will, and in such measure as he finds them worthy to behold. But to
me, considering how great must be the condescension of Zeus in
unveiling to any man, even the worthiest, the least portion of his
own loveliness, there has come at times a sort of dream, that the