Republic

For upon harmonies would follow the consideration of rhythms: we must not pursue complexity nor great variety in the basic movements,[*](Practically the feet.) but must observe what are the rhythms of a life that is orderly and brave, and after observing them require the foot and the air to conform to that kind of man’s speech and not the speech to the foot and the tune. What those rhythms would be, it is for you to tell us as you did the musical modes.Nay, in faith, he said, I cannot tell. For that there are some three forms[*](According to the ancient musicians these are the equal as e.g. in dactyls (–⏑⏑), spondees (––) and anapests (⏑⏑–), where the foot divides into two equal quantities; the 3/2 ratio, as in the so-called cretic (⏑–⏑); the 2/1 as in the iamb (⏑–) and trochee (–⏑). Cf. Aristid. Quint. i. pp. 34-35.) from which the feet are combined, just as there are four[*](Possibly the four notes of the tetrachord, but there is no agreement among experts. Cf. Monro, Modes of Ancient Greek Music.) in the notes of the voice whence come all harmonies, is a thing that I have observed and could tell. But which are imitations of which sort of life, I am unable to say.[*](Modern psychologists are still debating the question.) Well, said I, on this point we will take counsel with Damon,[*](The Platonic Socrates frequently refers to Damon as his musical expert. Cf. Laches 200 B, 424 C, Alc. I. 118 C.) too, as to which are the feet appropriate to illiberality, and insolence or madness or other evils, and what rhythms we must leave for their opposites; and I believe I have heard him obscurely speaking[*](There is a hint of satire in this disclaimer of expert knowledge. Cf. 399 A. There is no agreement among modern experts with regard to the precise form of the so-called enoplios. Cf. my review of Herkenrath’s Der Enoplios, Class. Phil . vol. iii. p. 360, Goodell, Chapters on Greek Metric, pp. 185 and 189, Blaydes on Aristophanes Nubes 651.) of a foot that he called the enoplios, a composite foot, and a dactyl and an heroic[*](Possibly foot, possibly rhythm. δάκτυλον seems to mean the foot, while ἡρῷος is the measure based on dactyls but admitting spondees.) foot, which he arranged, I know not how, to be equal up and down[*](ἄνω καὶ κάτω is an untranslatable gibe meaning literally and technically the upper and lower half of the foot, the arsis and thesis, but idiomatically meaning topsy-turvy. There is a similar play on the idiom in Philebus 43 A and 43 B.) in the interchange of long and short,[*](Literally becoming or issuing in long and short, long, that is, when a spondee is used, short when a dactyl.) and unless I am mistaken he used the term iambic, and there was another foot that he called the trochaic, and he added the quantities long and short. And in some of these, I believe, he censured and commended the tempo of the foot no less than the rhythm itself, or else some combination of the two; I can’t say. But, as I said, let this matter be postponed for Damon’s consideration. For to determine the truth of these would require no little discourse. Do you think otherwise? No, by heaven, I do not. But this you are able to determine—that seemliness and unseemliness are attendant upon the good rhythm and the bad. Of course. And, further,[*](Plato, as often, employs the forms of an argument proceeding by minute links to accumulate synonyms in illustration of a moral or aesthetic analogy. He is working up to the Wordsworthian thought that order, harmony, and beauty in nature and art are akin to these qualities in the soul.) that good rhythm and bad rhythm accompany, the one fair diction, assimilating itself thereto, and the other the opposite, and so of the apt and the unapt, if, as we were just now saying, the rhythm and harmony follow the words and not the words these. They certainly must follow the speech, he said. And what of the manner of the diction, and the speech? said I. Do they not follow and conform to the disposition of the soul? Of course. And all the rest to the diction? Yes. Good speech, then, good accord, and good grace, and good rhythm wait upon good disposition, not that weakness of head which we euphemistically style goodness of heart, but the truly good and fair disposition of the character and the mind.[*](Plato recurs to the etymological meaning of εὐήθεια. Cf. on 343 C.) By all means, he said. And must not our youth pursue these everywhere[*](The Ruskinian and Wordsworthian generalization is extended from music to all the fine arts, including, by the way, architecture (οἰκοδομία), which Butcher (Aristotle’s Theory of Poetry, p. 138) says is ignored by Plato and Aristotle.) if they are to do what it is truly theirs to do[*](Their special task is to cultivate true εὐήθεια in their souls. For τὸ αὑτῶν πράττειν here Cf. 443 C-D.)? They must indeed.

And there is surely much of these qualities in painting and in all similar craftsmanship[*](The following page is Plato’s most eloquent statement of Wordsworth’s, Ruskin’s, and Tennyson’s gospel of beauty for the education of the young. He repeats it in Laws 668 B. Cf. my paper on Some Ideals of Education in Plato’s Republic, Educational Bi-monthly, vol. ii. (1907-1908) pp. 215 ff.)—weaving is full of them and embroidery and architecture and likewise the manufacture of household furnishings and thereto the natural bodies of animals and plants as well. For in all these there is grace or gracelessness. And gracelessness and evil rhythm and disharmony are akin to evil speaking and the evil temper but the opposites are the symbols and the kin of the opposites, the sober and good disposition.Entirely so, he said. Is it, then, only the poets that we must supervise and compel to embody in their poems the semblance of the good character or else not write poetry among us, or must we keep watch over the other craftsmen, and forbid them to represent the evil disposition, the licentious, the illiberal, the graceless, either in the likeness of living creatures or in buildings or in any other product of their art, on penalty, if unable to obey, of being forbidden to practise their art among us, that our guardians may not be bred among symbols of evil, as it were in a pasturage of poisonous herbs, lest grazing freely and cropping from many such day by day they little by little and all unawares accumulate and build up a huge mass of evil in their own souls. But we must look for those craftsmen who by the happy gift of nature are capable of following the trail of true beauty and grace, that our young men, dwelling as it were in a salubrious region, may receive benefit from all things about them, whence the influence that emanates from works of beauty may waft itself to eye or ear like a breeze that brings from wholesome places health, and so from earliest childhood insensibly guide them to likeness, to friendship, to harmony with beautiful reason. Yes, he said, that would be far the best education for them. And is it not for this reason, Glaucon, said I, that education in music is most sovereign,[*](Schopenhauer, following Plato, adds the further metaphysical reason that while the other arts imitate the external manifestations of the universal Will, music represents the Will itself.) because more than anything else rhythm and harmony find their way to the inmost soul and take strongest hold upon it, bringing with them and imparting grace, if one is rightly trained, and otherwise the contrary?

And further, because omissions and the failure of beauty in things badly made or grown would be most quickly perceived by one who was properly educated in music, and so, feeling distaste[*](Cf. 362 B, 366 C, 388 A, 391 E, and Ruskin’s paradox that taste is the only morality.) rightly, he would praise beautiful things and take delight in them and receive them into his soul to foster its growth and become himself beautiful and good. The ugly he would rightly disapprove of and hate while still young and yet unable to apprehend the reason, but when reason came[*](Cf. Laws 653 B-C, where Plato defines education by this principle. Aristotle virtually accepts it (Ethics ii. 3. 2). The Stoics somewhat pedantically laid it down that reason entered into the youth at the age of fourteen.) the man thus nurtured would be the first to give her welcome, for by this affinity he would know her.I certainly think, he said, that such is the cause of education in music. It is, then, said I, as it was when we learned our letters and felt that we knew them sufficiently only when the separate letters did not elude us, appearing as few elements in all the combinations that convey them, and when we did not disregard them in small things or great[*](Plato often employs letters or elements (στοιχεῖα) to illustrate the acquisition of knowledge (Theaetetus 206 A), the relation of elements to compounds, the principles of classification (Philebus 18 C, Cratylus 393 D), and the theory of ideas (Politicus 278 A. Cf. Isocrates xiii. 13, Xenophon Memorabilia iv. 4. 7, Blass, Attische Beredsamkeit, ii. pp. 23 f., 348 f., Cicero De or. ii. 130).) and think it unnecessary to recognize them, but were eager to distinguish them everywhere, in the belief that we should never be literate and letter-perfect till we could do this. True. And is it not also true that if there are any likenesses[*](It is of course possible to contrast images with the things themselves, and to speak of forms or species without explicit allusion to the metaphysical doctrine of ideas. But on the other hand there is not the slightest reason to assume that the doctrine and its terminology were not familiar to Plato at the time when this part of the Republic was written. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, pp. 31 ff., 35. Statistics of the use of εἶδος and ἰδέα (Peiper’s Ontologica Platonica, Taylor, Varia Socratica, Wilamowitz, Platon, ii. pp. 249-253), whatever their philological interest, contribute nothing to the interpretation of Plato’s thought. Cf. my De Platonis Idearum Doctrina, pp. 1, 30, and Class Phil . vol. vi. pp. 363-364. There is for common sense no contradiction or problem in the fact that Plato here says that we cannot be true musicians till we recognize both the forms and all copies of, or approximations to, them in art or nature, while in Book X (601) he argues that the poet and artist copy not the idea but its copy in the material world.) of letters reflected in water or mirrors, we shall never know them until we know the originals, but such knowledge belongs to the same art and discipline[*](Plato, like all intellectuals, habitually assumes that knowledge of principles helps practice. Cf. Phaedrus 259 E, 262 B, and 484 D, 520 C, 540 A.)? By all means. Then, by heaven, am I not right in saying that by the same token we shall never be true musicians, either— neither we nor the guardians that we have undertaken to educate—until we are able to recognize the forms of soberness, courage, liberality,[*](Liberality and high-mindedness, or rather, perhaps, magnificence, are among the virtues defined in Aristotle’s list (Eth. Nic. 1107 b 17), but are not among the four cardinal virtues which the Republic will use in Book IV. in the comparison of the indivdual with the state.) and high-mindedness and all their kindred and their opposites, too, in all the combinations that contain and convey them, and to apprehend them and their images wherever found, disregarding them neither in trifles nor in great things, but believing the knowledge of them to belong to the same art and discipline? The conclusion is inevitable, he said. Then, said I, when there is a coincidence[*](Symposium 209 B τὸ συναμφότερον, 210 C, Wilamowitz, vol. ii. p. 192.) of a beautiful disposition in the soul and corresponding and harmonious beauties of the same type in the bodily form—is not this the fairest spectacle for one who is capable of its contemplation[*](Music and beauty lead to the philosophy of love, more fully set forth in the Phaedrus and Symposium, and here dismissed in a page. Plato’s practical conclusion here may be summed up in the Virgilian line (Aeneid v. 344): Gratior et pulchro veniens in corpore virtus.)? Far the fairest. And surely the fairest is the most lovable. Of course. The true musician, then, would love by preference persons of this sort; but if there were disharmony he would not love this. No, he said, not if there was a defect in the soul; but if it were in the body he would bear with it and still be willing to bestow his love. I understand, I said, that you have or have had favorites of this sort and I grant your distinction. But tell me this—can there be any communion between soberness and extravagant pleasure[*](Extravagant pleasure is akin to madness. Cf. Philebus 47 A-C, Phaedo 83 C-D.)? How could there be, he said, since such pleasure puts a man beside himself no less than pain? Or between it and virtue generally?