Καὶ οὕτως, ὦ Γλαύκων, μῦθος ἐσώθη καὶ οὔκ ἀπώλετο, καὶ ἡμᾶς ἂν σώσειεν ἂν πειθὠμεθα αὐτῷ.

With these words Plato ends the myth of Er. The modern commentators, Adam and the rest, give parallels from elsewhere in his works for the phrase and cite the explanation of Proclus and the scholiast, that it was customary in antiquity to end a story with μῦθος ἀπώλɛτο, “as they wished to show that fables tell what is not so, and as soon as they are spoken they are not.”