Watered Down Wine and Esthetics
“Gretchen Reydams-Shils (“Myth and Poetry in the Timaeus“) deals with Socrates’ puzzling remark that his description of an ideal state was like a painting.” ~ http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/plato-and-the-poets/
Socrates’ description of the ideal
State being like a painting makes us laugh.
It’s like a macho soldier with a squeal-
Like giggle, or an extra tall giraffe
That disapproves of using long, long necks
For grazing in the upper regions of
The trees across the veldt. Things complex
As strict philosophy, esthetics, love,
And all the stuff great thinkers try to cope
With tempt the Platos of this world to use
Mimesis, so it seems. That makes a dope
Of him. Perhaps he had too much of watered booze
The night before. That’s all. If he had thought,
He might have been more careful how he taught.