Nobody who has read the Apology—and everyone who can rise
above cinema captions ought to have read it—can have missed its dramatic quality. Yet, so far as the present reviewer is aware, the drama has in all these centuries not been written until now. Socrates, by Clifford Bax (Victor Gollancz, 3s: 6d. paper, 5s. cloth) is amazingly good to read. Mr. Bax has had the wisdom to use all he can of the original material of Plato for the trial, and, being clearly steeped in the style of the Socratic dialogues, has preserved their flavour in those parts of the play which are entirely original. Xantippe, of course, provides the -comic relief, but the whole play moves to its tragic conclusion with a certainty of craftsmanship that is unerring. Such an interlude as the dialogue of the faun and the dryad is pure, poetic fancy, but perfectly in place. Mr. Bax has made a beautiful thing in great measure because he is sensible, as was Plato, of-the tender and delicate beauty of the mind of that plain-spoken and pbysically coarse creature that was Socrates.
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