These fanciful appeals to Homer add a charm to Plato's style, and at the same time they have the effect of a satire on the follies of Homeric interpretation.

To us (and probably to himself), although they take the form of arguments, they are really figures of speech.

They may be compared with modern citations from Scripture, which have often a great rhetorical power even when the original meaning of the words is entirely lost sight of.

The real, like the Platonic Socrates, as we gather from the Memorabilia of Xenophon, was fond of making similar adaptations.

Great in all ages and countries, in religion as well as in law and literature, has been the art of interpretation.
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