Ryle speculates that Crito, a successful itinerant teacher like the other ‘sophists’, set these narratives as problems for his pupils — that they were exercises in reasoning and moral sensibility. His pupils might perhaps have been required to act out or elaborate the narratives; then, adopting their master’s voice and position in each tale, they had to work out what had really happened —to provide a ‘solution’. According to Ryle, the Mysteries, as we have them, are worked-up versions of these exercises, incorporating the prize solutions of Crito’s students. However, it should be remarked that the mysteries are linked in the texts we have, or as I have presented them, following the guidelines of Dina, rather than being entirely separate stories.
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