Laws

Ath. In the next place, we probably ought to enquire, regarding this subject, whether the discerning of men’s natural dispositions is the only gain to be derived from the right use of wine-parties, or whether it entails benefits so great as to be worthy of serious consideration. What do we say about this? Our argument evidently tends to indicate that it does entail such benefits; so how and wherein it does so let us now hear, and that with minds attentive, lest haply we be led astray by it.

Clin. Say on.

Ath. I want us to call to mind again our definition of right education. For the safekeeping of this depends, as I now conjecture, upon the correct establishment of the institution mentioned.

Clin. That is a strong statement!

Ath. What I state is this,—that in children the first childish sensations are pleasure and pain, and that it is in these first that goodness and badness come to the soul; but as to wisdom and settled true opinions, a man is lucky if they come to him even in old age and; he that is possessed of these blessings, and all that they comprise, is indeed a perfect man. I term, then, the goodness that first comes to children education. When pleasure and love, and pain and hatred, spring up rightly in the souls of those who are unable as yet to grasp a rational account; and when, after grasping the rational account, they consent thereunto that they have been rightly trained in fitting practices:—this consent, viewed as a whole, is goodness, while the part of it that is rightly trained in respect of pleasures and pains, so as to hate what ought to be hated, right from the beginning up to the very end, and to love what ought to be loved, if you were to mark this part off in your definition and call it education, you would be giving it, in my opinion, its right name.

Clin. You are quite right, Stranger, as it seems to us, both in what you said before and in what you say now about education.

Ath. Very good. Now these forms of child-training, which consist in right discipline in pleasures and pains, grow slack and weakened to a great extent in the course of men’s lives; so the gods, in pity for the human race thus born to misery, have ordained the feasts of thanksgiving as periods of respite from their troubles; and they have granted them as companions in their feasts the Muses and Apollo the master of music, and Dionysus, that they may at least set right again their modes of discipline by associating in their feasts with gods. We must consider, then, whether the account that is harped on nowadays is true to nature? What it says is that, almost without exception, every young creature is able of keeping either its body or its tongue quiet, and is always striving to move and to cry, leaping and skipping and delighting in dances and games, and uttering, also, noises of every description.

Ath. Now, whereas all other creatures are devoid of any perception of the various kinds of order and disorder in movement (which we term rhythm and harmony), to men the very gods, who were given, as we said, to be our fellows in the dance, have granted the pleasurable perception of rhythm and harmony, whereby they cause us to move and lead our choirs, linking us one with another by means of songs and dances; and to the choir they have given its name from the cheer implanted therein.[*](Here χορός is fancifully derived from χαρά, joy. For similar etymologies, see the Cratylus, passim.) Shall we accept this account to begin with, and postulate that education owes its origin to Apollo and the Muses?

Clin. Yes.

Ath. Shall we assume that the uneducated man is without choir-training, and the educated man fully choir-trained?

Clin. Certainly.

Ath. Choir-training, as a whole, embraces of course both dancing and song.

Clin. Undoubtedly.

Ath. So the well-educated man will be able both to sing and dance well.

Clin. Evidently.

Ath. Let us now consider what this last statement of ours implies.

Clin. Which statement?

Ath. Our words are,—he sings well and dances well: ought we, or ought we not, to add,—provided that he sings good songs and dances good dances?

Clin. We ought to add this.

Ath. How then, if a man takes the good for good and the bad for bad and treats them accordingly? Shall we regard such a man as better trained in choristry and music when he is always able both with gesture and voice to represent adequately that which he conceives to be good, though he feels neither delight in the good nor hatred of the bad,—or when, though not wholly able to represent his conception rightly by voice and gesture, he yet keeps right in his feelings of pain and pleasure, welcoming everything good and abhorring everything not good.

Clin. There is a vast difference between the two cases, Stranger, in point of education.

Ath. If, then, we three understand what constitutes goodness in respect of dance and song, we also know who is and who is not rightly educated but without this knowledge we shall never be able to discern whether there exists any safeguard for education or where it is to be found. Is not that so?

Clin. It is.

Ath. What we have next to track down, like hounds on the trail, is goodness of posture and tunes in relation to song and dance; if this eludes our pursuit, it will be in vain for us to discourse further concerning right education, whether of Greeks or of barbarians.

Clin. Yes.

Ath. Well then, however shall we define goodness of posture or of tune? Come, consider: when a manly soul is beset by troubles, and a cowardly soul by troubles identical and equal, are the postures and utterances that result in the two cases similar?

Clin. How could they be, when even their complexions differ in color?

Ath. Well said, my friend. But in, fact, while postures and tunes do exist in music,[*](Music comprises both dance and song (including instrumental accompaniment), whether executed by single performers or by groups (χορεία). The postures are those of the dancer, the tunes those of the singer.) which deals with rhythm and harmony, so that one can rightly speak of a tune or posture being rhythmical or harmonious, one cannot rightly apply the choir masters metaphor well-colored to tune and posture; but one can use this language about the posture and tune of the brave man and the coward, and one is right in calling those of the brave man good, and those of the coward bad. To avoid a tediously long disquisition, let us sum up the whole matter by saying that the postures and tunes which attach to goodness of soul or body, or to some image thereof, are universally good, while those which attach to badness are exactly the reverse.

Clin. Your pronouncement is correct, and we now formally endorse it.

Ath. Another point:—do we all delight equally in choral dancing, or far from equally?

Clin. Very far indeed.

Ath. Then what are we to suppose it is that misleads us? Is it the fact that we do not all regard as good the same things, or is it that, although they are the same, they are thought not to be the same? For surely no one will maintain that the choric performance of vice are better than those of virtue, or that he himself enjoys the postures of turpitude, while all others delight in music of the opposite kind. Most people, however, assert that the value of music consists in its power of affording pleasure to the soul.[*]( i.e. music is commonly judged solely by the amount of pleasure it affords, without any regard to the quality of the pleasure. The Athenian proceeds to show how dangerous a doctrine this is: music, he maintains, should not be used merely to pander to the low tastes of the populace, but rather treated as an educational instrument for the elevation of public morals.) But such an assertion is quite intolerable, and it is blasphemy even to utter it. The fact which misleads us is more probably the following—

Clin. What?

Ath. Inasmuch as choric performances are representations of character, exhibited in actions and circumstances of every kind, in which, the several performers enact their parts by habit and imitative art, whenever the choric performances are congenial to them in point of diction, tune or other features (whether from natural bent or from habit, or from all these causes combined), then these performers invariably delight in such, performances and extol them as excellent; whereas those who find them repugnant to their nature, disposition or habits cannot possibly delight in them or praise them, but call them bad.

Ath.And when men are right in their natural tastes but wrong in those acquired by habituation, or right in the latter but wrong in the former, then by their expressions of praise they convey the opposite of their real sentiments; for whereas they say of a performance that it is pleasant but bad, and feel ashamed to indulge in such bodily motions before men whose wisdom they respect, or to sing such songs (as though they seriously approved of them), they really take a delight in them in private.

Clin. Very true.

Ath. Does the man who delights in bad postures and tunes suffer any damage thereby, or do those who take pleasure in the opposite gain therefrom any benefit?

Clin. Probably.

Ath. Is it not probable or rather inevitable that the result here will be exactly the same as what takes place when a man who is living amongst the bad habits of wicked men, though he does not really abhor but rather accepts and delights in those habits, yet censures them casually, as though dimly aware of his own turpitude? In such a case it is, to be sure, inevitable that the man thus delighted becomes assimilated to those habits, good or bad, in which he delights, even though he is ashamed to praise them. Yet what blessing could we name, or what curse, greater than that of assimilation which befalls us so inevitably?

Clin. There is none, I believe.

Ath. Now where laws are, or will be in the future, rightly laid down regarding musical education and recreation, do we imagine that poets will be granted such licence that they may teach whatever form of rhythm or tune they best like themselves to the children of law-abiding citizens and the young men in the choirs, no matter what the result may be in the way of virtue or depravity?

Clin. That would be unreasonable, most certainly.

Ath. But at present this licence is allowed in practically every State, with the exception of Egypt.

Clin. How, then, does the law stand in Egypt?

Ath. It is marvellous, even in the telling. It appears that long ago they determined on the rule of which we are now speaking, that the youth of a State should practise in their rehearsals postures and tunes that are good: these they prescribed in detail and posted up in the temples, and outside this official list it was, and still is, forbidden to painters and all other producers of postures and representations to introduce any innovation or invention, whether in such productions or in any other branch of music, over and above the traditional forms.

Ath. And if you look there, you will find that the things depicted or graven there 10,000 years ago (I mean what I say, not loosely but literally 10,000) are no whit better or worse than the productions of today, but wrought with the same art.

Clin. A marvellous state of affairs!

Ath. Say rather, worthy in the highest degree of a statesman and a legislator. Still, you would find in Egypt other things that are bad. This, however, is a true and noteworthy fact, that as regards music it has proved possible for the tunes which possess a natural correctness to be enacted by law and permanently consecrated. To effect this would be the task of a god or a godlike man,—even as in Egypt they say that the tunes preserved throughout all this lapse of time are the compositions of Isis. Hence, as I said, if one could by any means succeed in grasping no principle of correctness in tune, one might then with confidence reduce them to legal form and prescription, since the tendency of pleasure and pain to indulge constantly in fresh music has, after all, no very great power to corrupt choric forms that are consecrated, by merely scoffing at them as antiquated. In Egypt, at any rate, it seems to have had no such power of corrupting,—in fact, quite the reverse.

Clin. Such would evidently be the case, judging from what you now say.

Ath. May we confidently describe the correct method in music and play, in connection with choristry, in some such terms as this: we rejoice whenever we think we are prospering, and, conversely, whenever we rejoice we think we are prospering? Is not that so?

Clin. Yes, that is so.

Ath. Moreover, when in this state of joy we are unable to keep still.

Clin. True.

Ath. Now while our young men are fitted for actually dancing themselves, we elders regard ourselves as suitably employed in looking on at them, and enjoying their sport and merrymaking, now that our former nimbleness is leaving us; and it is our yearning regret for this that causes us to propose such contests for those who can best arouse in us through recollection, the dormant emotions of youth.

Clin. Very true.

Ath. Thus we shall not dismiss as entirely groundless the opinion now commonly expressed about merrymakers,—namely, that he who best succeeds in giving us joy and pleasure should be counted the most skilful and be awarded the prize. For, seeing that we give ourselves up on such occasions of recreation, surely the highest honor and the prize of victory, as I said just now, should be awarded to the performer who affords the greatest enjoyment to the greatest number.

Ath. Is not this the right view, and the right mode of action too, supposing it were carried out?

Clin. Possibly.

Ath. But, my dear sir, we must not decide this matter hastily; rather we must analyze it thoroughly and examine it in some such fashion as this: suppose a man were to organize a competition, without qualifying or limiting it to gymnastic, musical or equestrian sports; and suppose that he should assemble the whole population of the State and, proclaiming that this is purely a pleasure-contest in which anyone who chooses may compete, should offer a prize to the competitor who gives the greatest amusement to the spectators,— without any restrictions as to the methods employed,—and who excels others just in doing this in the highest possible degree, and is adjudged the most pleasure-giving of the competitors: what do we suppose would be the effect of such a proclamation?

Clin. In what respect do you mean?

Ath. The natural result would be that one man would, like Homer, show up a rhapsody, another a harp-song, one a tragedy and another a comedy; nor should we be surprised if someone were even to fancy that he had the best chance of winning with a puppet-show. So where such as these and thousands others enter the competition, can we say who will deserve to win the prize?

Clin. An absurd question; for who could possibly pretend to know the answer before he had himself actually heard each of the competitors?

Ath. Very well, then; do you wish me to supply you with the answer to this absurd question?

Clin. By all means.

Ath. If the tiniest children are to be the judges, they will award the prize to the showman of puppets, will they not?

Clin. Certainly they will.

Ath. And older lads to the exhibitor of comedies; while the educated women and the young men, and the mass of the people in general, will award it to the shower of tragedies.

Clin. Most probably.

Ath. And we old men would very likely take most delight in listening to a rhapsode giving a fine recitation of the Iliad or the Odyssey or of a piece from Hesiod, and declare that he is easily the winner. Who then would rightly be the winner of the prize? That is the next question, is it not?

Clin. Yes.

Ath. Evidently we three cannot avoid saying that those who are adjudged the winners by our own contemporaries would win rightly. For in our opinion epic poetry is by far the best to be found nowadays anywhere in any State in the world.

Clin. Of course.

Ath. Thus much I myself am willing to concede to the majority of men,—that the criterion of music should be pleasure not, however, the pleasure of any chance person; rather I should regard that music which pleases the best men and the highly educated as about the best, and as quite the best if it pleases the one man who excels all others in virtue and education. And we say that the judges of these matters need virtue for the reason that they need to possess not only wisdom in general, but especially courage. For the true judge should not take his verdicts from the dictation of the audience, nor yield weakly to the uproar of the crowd or his own lack of education; nor again, when he knows the truth, should he give his verdict carelessly through cowardice and lack of spirit, thus swearing falsely out of the same mouth with which he invoked Heaven when he first took his seat as judge.[*]( Judges at musical and gymnastic contests, like all state officials, took an oath to discharge their duties with fidelity. See further, Plat. Laws 6.764.) For, rightly speaking, the judge sits not as a pupil, but rather as a teacher of the spectators, being ready to oppose those who offer them pleasure in a way that is unseemly or wrong; and that is what the present law of Sicily and Italy actually does: by entrusting the decision to the spectators, who award the prize by show of hands, not only has it corrupted the poets (since they adapt their works to the poor standard of pleasure of the judges, which means that the spectators are the teachers of the poets), but it has corrupted also the pleasures of the audience; for whereas they ought to be improving their standard of pleasure by listening to characters superior to their own, what they now do has just the opposite effect. What, then, is the conclusion to be drawn from this survey? Is it this, do you suppose?

Clin. What?

Ath. This is, I imagine, the third or fourth time that our discourse has described a circle and come back to this same point—namely, that education is the process of drawing and guiding children towards that principle which is pronounced right by the law and confirmed as truly right by the experience of the oldest and the most just. So in order that the soul of the child may not become habituated to having pains and pleasures in contradiction to the law and those who obey the law, but in conformity thereto, being pleased and pained at the same things as the old man,— for this reason we have what we call chants, which evidently are in reality incantations[*](i.e. charms or magic formulae, canted over sick persons (or over snakes, Euthyd. 290A): cp. 664 B.) seriously designed to produce in souls that conformity and harmony of which we speak. But inasmuch as the souls of the young are unable to endure serious study, we term these plays and chants, and use them as such,—

Ath.just as, when people suffer from bodily ailments and infirmities, those whose office it is try to administer to them nutriment that is wholesome in meats and drinks that are pleasant, but unwholesome nutriment in the opposite, so that they may form the right habit of approving the one kind and detesting the other. Similarly in dealing with the poet, the good legislator will use noble and laudable phrases to persuade him—and, failing persuasion, he will compel him—to portray by his rhythms the gestures, and by his harmonies the tunes, of men who are temperate, courageous, and good in all respects, and thereby to compose poems aright.

Clin. In Heaven’s name, Stranger, do you believe that that is the way poetry is composed nowadays in other States? So far as my own observation goes, I know of no practices such as you describe except in my own country and in Lacedaemon; but I do know that novelties are always being introduced in dancing and all other forms of music, which changes due not to the laws, but to disorderly tastes and these are so far from being constantly uniform and stable—like the Egyptian ones you describe—that they are never for a moment uniform.

Ath. Nobly spoken, O Clinias! If, however, I seemed to you to say that the practices you refer to are in use now, very likely our mistake arose from my own failure to express my meaning clearly; probably I stated my own desires with regard to music in such a way that you imagined me to be stating present facts. To denounce things that are beyond remedy and far gone in error is a task that is by no means pleasant; but at times it is unavoidable. And now that you hold the same opinion on this subject, come, tell me, do you assert that such practices are more general among the Cretans and the Lacedaemonians than among the other Greeks?

Clin. Certainly.

Ath. Suppose now that they were to become general among the rest also,—should we say that the method of procedure then would be better than it is now?

Clin. The improvement would be immense, if things were done as they are in my country and in that of our friends here, and as, moreover, you yourself said just now they ought to be done.

Ath. Come now, let us come to an understanding on this matter. In all education and music in your countries, is not this your teaching? You oblige the poets to teach that the good man, since he is temperate and just, is fortunate and happy, whether he be great or small, strong or weak, rich or poor; whereas, though he be richer even

than Cinyras or Midas,

Ath.Your poet says—if he speaks the truth—I would spend no word on the man, and hold him in no esteem, who without justice performs or acquires all the things accounted good; and again he describes how the just man drives his spear against the foe at close quarters, whereas the unjust man dares not to look upon the face of bloody death, nor does he outpace in speed of foot the north wind out of Thrace, nor acquire any other of the things called good. For the things which most men call good are wrongly so described. Men say that the chief good is health, beauty the second, wealth the third; and they call countless other things goods—such as sharpness of sight and hearing, and quickness in perceiving all the objects of sense; being a king, too, and doing exactly as you please; and to possess the whole of these goods and become on the spot an immortal, that, as they say, is the crown and top of all felicity. But what you and I say is this,—that all these things are very good as possessions for men who are just and holy, but for the unjust they are (one and all, from health downwards) very bad; and we say too that sight and hearing and sensation and even of itself are very great evils for the man endowed with all the so-called goods, but lacking in justice and all virtue, if he is immortal forever, but a lesser evil for such a man if he survives but a short time. This, I imagine, is what you (like myself) will persuade or compel your poets to teach, and compel them also to educate your youth by furnishing them with rhythms and harmonies in consonance with this teaching. Am I not right? Just consider: what I assert is that what are called evils are good for the unjust, but evil for the just, while the so-called goods are really good for the good, but bad for the bad. Are you in accord with me, then,—that was my question,—or how stands the matter?

Clin. We are, apparently, partly in accord, but partly quite the reverse.

Ath. Take the case of a man who has health and wealth and absolute power in perpetuity,—in addition to which I bestow on him, if you like, matchless strength and courage, together with immortality and freedom from all the other evils so called,—but a man who has within him nothing but injustice and insolence: probably I fail to convince you that the man who lives such a life is obviously not happy but wretched?

Clin. Quite true.

Ath. Well, then, what ought I to say next? Do you not think that if a man who is courageous, strong, beautiful, and rich, and who does exactly as he likes all his life long, is really unjust and insolent, he must necessarily be living a base life? Probably you will agree at any rate to call it base?

Clin. Certainly.

Ath. And also a bad life[*](κακῶς ζῆν, to live badly may mean either to live wickedly or to live wretchedly: Clinias takes it in this latter sense.)?

Clin. We would not go so far as to admit that.

Ath. Well, would you admit the epithets unpleasant and unprofitable to himself?

Clin. How could we agree to such further descriptions?

Ath.How? do you ask? Only (as it seems, my friend) if some god were to grant us concord, since at present we are fairly at discord one with another. In my opinion these facts are quite indisputable even more plainly so, my dear Clinias, than the fact that Crete is an island; and were I a legislator, I should endeavor to compel the poets and all the citizens to speak in this sense; and I should impose all but the heaviest of penalties on anyone in the land who should declare that any wicked men lead pleasant lives, or that things profitable and lucrative are different from things just; and there are many other things contrary to what is now said, as it seems, by Cretans and Lacedaemonians,—and of course by the rest of mankind,—which I should persuade my citizens to proclaim. For, come now, my most excellent sirs, in the name of Zeus and Apollo, suppose we should interrogate those very gods themselves who legislated for you, and ask: Is the most just life the most pleasant; or are there two lives, of which the one is most pleasant, the other most just? If they replied that there were two, we might well ask them further, if we were to put the correct question; Which of the two ought one to describe as the happier, those that live the most just or those that live the most pleasant life? If they replied, Those that live the most pleasant life, that would be a monstrous statement in their mouths. But I prefer not to ascribe such statements to gods, but rather to ancestors and lawgivers: imagine, then, that the questions I have put have been put to an ancestor and lawgiver, and that he has stated that the man who lives the most pleasant life is the happiest. In the next place I would say to him this: O father, did you not desire me to live as happily as possible? Yet you never ceased bidding me constantly to live as justly as possible.

Ath. And hereby, as I think, our lawgiver or ancestor would be shown up as illogical and incapable of speaking consistently with himself, but if, on the other hand, he were to declare the most just life to be the happiest, everyone who heard him would, I suppose, enquire what is the good and charm it contains which is superior to pleasure, for which the lawgiver praises it. For, apart from pleasure, what good could accrue to a just man? Come, tell me, is fair fame and praise from the mouths of men and gods a noble and good thing, but unpleasant, while ill-fame is the opposite? By no means, my dear lawgiver, we shall say. And is it unpleasant, but noble and good, neither to injure anyone nor be injured by anyone, while the opposite is pleasant, but ignoble and bad?

Clin. By no means.

Ath. So then the teaching which refuses to separate the pleasant from the just helps, if nothing else, to induce a man to live the holy and just life, so that any doctrine which denies this truth is, in the eyes of the lawgiver, most shameful and most hateful; for no one would voluntarily consent to be induced to commit an act, unless it involves as its consequence more pleasure than pain. Now distance has the effect of befogging the vision of nearly everybody, and of children especially; but our lawgiver will reverse the appearance by removing the fog,[*]( i.e. the lawgiver will make justice clear and distinct by bringing citizens close up to it: discipline in just actions will give them a near and true view of it, and correct the wrong impression due to distance.) and by one means or another—habituation, commendation, or argument—will persuade people that their notions of justice and injustice are illusory pictures, unjust objects appearing pleasant and just objects most unpleasant to him who is opposed to justice, through being viewed from his own unjust and evil standpoint, but when seen from the standpoint of justice, both of them appear in all ways entirely the opposite.

Clin. So it appears.

Ath. In point of truth, which of the two judgements shall we say is the more authoritative,—that of the worse soul or that of the better.

Clin. That of the better, undoubtedly.

Ath. Undoubtedly, then, the unjust life is not only more base and ignoble, but also in very truth more unpleasant, than the just and holy life.

Clin. It would seem so, my friends, from our present argument.

Ath. And even if the state of the case were different from what it has now been proved to be by our argument, could a lawgiver who was worth his salt find any more useful fiction than this (if he dared to use any fiction at all in addressing the youths for their good), or one more effective in persuading all men to act justly in all things willingly and without constraint?

Clin. Truth is a noble thing, Stranger, and an enduring; yet to persuade men of it seems no easy matter.

Ath. Be it so; yet it proved easy to persuade men of the Sidonian fairy-tale,[*]( About Cadmus; cp. Plat. Rep. 414c.) incredible though it was, and of numberless others.

Clin. What tales?

Ath. The tale of the teeth that were sown, and how armed men sprang out of them. Here, indeed, the lawgiver has a notable example of how one can, if he tries, persuade the souls of the young of anything, so that the only question he has to consider in his inventing is what would do most good to the State, if it were believed; and then he must devise all possible means to ensure that the whole of the community constantly, so long as they live, use exactly the same language, so far as possible, about these matters, alike in their songs, their tales, and their discourses. If you, however, think otherwise, I have no objection to your arguing in the opposite sense.

Clin. Neither of us, I think, could possibly argue against your view.

Ath. Our next subject I must handle myself. I maintain that all the three choirs[*]( At Spartan festivals it was customary to have three choirs—of boys, young men, and older men.) must enchant the souls of the children, while still young and tender, by rehearsing all the noble things which we have already recounted, or shall recount hereafter; and let this be the sum of them: in asserting that one and the same life is declared by the gods to be both most pleasant and most just, we shall not only be saying what is most true, but we shall also convince those who need convincing more forcibly than we could by any other assertion.

Clin. We must assent to what you say.

Ath. First, then, the right order of procedure will be for the Muses’ choir of children to come forward first to sing these things with the utmost vigor and before the whole city; second will come the choir of those under thirty, invoking Apollo Paian[*]( i.e. the Healer. Cp. the medicinal sense of ἐπᾴδειν, enchant, in B4 above. Music is to be a medicine of the soul.) as witness of the truth of what is said, and praying him of grace to persuade the youth. The next singers will be the third choir, of those over thirty and under sixty; and lastly, there were left those who, being no longer able to uplift the song, shall handle the same moral themes in stories and by oracular speech.

Clin. Whom do you mean, Stranger, by these third choristers. For we do not grasp very clearly what you intend to convey about them.

Ath. Yet they are in fact the very people to whom most of our previous discourse was intended to lead up.

Clin. We are still in the dark: try to explain yourself more clearly still.

Ath. At the commencement of our discourse we said, if we recollect, that since all young creatures are by nature fiery, they are unable to keep still either body or voice, but are always crying and leaping in disorderly fashion; we said also that none of the other creatures attains a sense of order, bodily and vocal, and that this is possessed by man alone;

Ath. and that the order of motion is called rhythm, while the order of voice (in which acute and grave are blended together) is termed harmony, and to the combination of these two the name choristry is given. We stated also that the gods, in pity for us, have granted to us as fellow-choristers and choir-leaders Apollo and the Muses,—besides whom we mentioned, if we recollect, a third, Dionysus.

Clin. Certainly we recollect.

Ath. The choir of Apollo and that of the Muses have been described, and the third and remaining choir must necessarily be described, which is that of Dionysus.

Clin. How so? Tell us; for at the first mention of it, a Dionysiac choir of old men sounds mighty strange,—if you mean that men over thirty, and even men over fifty and up to sixty, are really going to dance in his honor.

Ath. That is, indeed, perfectly true. It needs argument, I fancy, to show how such a procedure would be reasonable.

Clin. It does.

Ath. Are we agreed about our previous proposals?

Clin. In what respect?

Ath. That it is the duty of every man and child—bond and free, male and female,—and the duty of the whole State, to charm themselves unceasingly with the chants we have described, constantly changing them and securing variety in every way possible, so as to inspire the singers with an insatiable appetite for the hymns and with pleasure therein.

Clin. Assuredly we would agree as to the duty of doing this.

Ath. Then where should we put the best element in the State,—that which by age and judgment alike is the most influential it contains,—so that by singing its noblest songs it might do most good? Or shall we be so foolish as to dismiss that section which possesses the highest capacity for the noblest and most useful songs?

Clin. We cannot possibly dismiss it, judging from what you now say.

Ath. What seemly method can we adopt about it? Will the method be this?

Clin. What?

Ath. Every man as he grows older becomes reluctant to sing songs, and takes less pleasure in doing so; and when compelled to sing, the older he is and the more temperate, the more he will feel ashamed. Is it not so?

Clin. It is.

Ath. Surely, then, he will be more than ever ashamed to get up and sing in the theater, before people of all sorts. Moreover, if old men like that were obliged to do as the choristers do, who go lean and fasting when training their voices for a competition, they would assuredly find singing an unpleasant and degrading task, and they would undertake it with no great readiness.

Clin. That is beyond a doubt.

Ath. How then shall we encourage them to take readily to singing? Shall we not pass a law that, in the first place, no children under eighteen may touch wine at all, teaching that it is wrong to pour fire upon fire either in body or in soul, before they set about tackling their real work, and thus guarding against the excitable disposition of the young? And next, we shall rule that the young man under thirty may take wine in moderation, but that he must entirely abstain from intoxication and heavy drinking. But when a man has reached the age of forty, he may join in the convivial gatherings and invoke Dionysus, above all other gods, inviting his presence at the rite (which is also the recreation) of the elders, which he bestowed on mankind as a medicine potent against the crabbedness of old age, that thereby we men may renew our youth, and that, through forgetfulness of care, the temper of our souls may lose its hardness and become softer and more ductile, even as iron when it has been forged in the fire. Will not this softer disposition, in the first place, render each one of them more ready and less ashamed to sing chants and incantations (as we have often called them), in the presence, not of a large company of strangers, but of a small number of intimate friends?

Clin. Yes! much more ready.

Ath. So then, for the purpose of inducing them to take a share in our singing, this plan would not be altogether unseemly.

Clin. By no means.

Ath. What manner of song will the men raise? Will it not, evidently, be one that suits their own condition in every case?

Clin. Of course.

Ath. What song, then, would suit godlike men? Would a choric song[*]( i.e. a song suited for singing by a chorus at a festival or other public occasion.)?

Clin. At any rate, Stranger, we and our friends here would be unable to sing any other song than that which we learnt by practice in choruses.

Ath. Naturally; for in truth you never attained to the noblest singing. For your civic organization is that of an army rather than that of city-dwellers, and you keep your young people massed together like a herd of colts at grass:

Ath. none of you takes his own colt, dragging him away from his fellows, in spite of his fretting and fuming, and puts a special groom in charge of him, and trains him by rubbing him down and stroking him and using all the means proper to child-nursing, that so he may turn out not only a good soldier, but able also to manage a State and cities—in short, a man who (as we said at the first) is more of a warrior than the warriors of Tyrtaeus, inasmuch as always and everywhere, both in States and in individuals, he esteems courage as the fourth in order of the virtues, not the first.

Clin. Once again, Stranger, you are—in a sort of a way—disparaging our lawgivers.

Ath. It is not intentionally, my friend, that I do so—if I am doing it but whither the argument leads us, thither, if you please, let us go. If we know of a music that is superior to that of the choirs or to that of the public theaters, let us try to supply it to those men who, as we said, are ashamed of the latter, yet are eager to take a part in that music which is noblest.

Clin. Certainly.

Ath.[*]( The following passage (down to 669 B) deals with the considerations of which a competent judge must take account in the sphere of music and art. He must have regard to three things—correctness (the truth of the copy to the original), moral effect or utility, and charm or pleasure. Though this last, by itself, is no criterion of artistic excellence, it is a natural concomitant (in the mind of the competent judge) when the work of art in question possesses a high degree of both utility and correctness.) Now, in the first place, must it not be true of everything which possesses charm as its concomitant, that its most important element is either this charm in itself, or some form of correctness, or, thirdly, utility? For instance, meat and drink and nutriment in general have, as I say, for concomitant that charm which we should term pleasure; but as regards their correctness and utility, what we call the wholesomeness of each article administered is precisely the most perfect element they contain.

Clin. Certainly.

Ath. Learning, too, is accompanied by the element of charm, which is pleasure; but that which produces its correctness and utility, its goodness and nobleness, is truth.

Clin. Quite so.

Ath. Then how about the imitative arts which produce likenesses? If they succeed in their productions, should not any concomitant pleasure which results therefrom be most properly called charm?

Clin. Yes.

Ath. But, speaking generally, the correctness of these things would be the result not, primarily, of pleasure, but of equality in respect of both quality and quantity.[*]( i.e. a likeness must be equal to its original both in character and size.)

Clin. Excellent.

Ath. Then we shall rightly judge by the criterion of pleasure that object only which, in its effects, produces neither utility nor truth nor similarity, nor yet harm, and which exists solely for the sake of the concomitant element of charm,—which element will best be named pleasure whenever it is accompanied by none of the other qualities mentioned.

Clin. You mean only harmless pleasure.

Ath. Yes, and I say that this same pleasure is also play, whenever the harm or good it does is negligible.

Clin. Very true.

Ath. Should we not then assert, as a corollary, that no imitation should be judged by the criterion of pleasure or of untrue opinion, nor indeed should any kind of equality be so judged? The reason why the equal is equal, or the symmetrical symmetrical, is not at all because a man so opines, or is charmed thereby, but most of all because of truth, and least of all for any other reason.

Clin. Most certainly.

Ath. We assert, do we not, that all music is representative and imitative?

Clin. Of course.

Ath. So whenever a man states that pleasure is the criterion of music, we shall decisively reject his statement; and we shall regard such music as the least important of all (if indeed any music is important) and prefer that which possesses similarity in its imitation of the beautiful.

Clin. Very true.

Ath. Thus those who are seeking the best singing and music must seek, as it appears, not that which is pleasant, but that which is correct; and the correctness of imitation consists, as we say, in the reproduction of the original in its own proper quantity and quality.

Clin. Of course.

Ath. And this is certainly true of music, as everyone would allow,—that all its productions are imitative and representative;[*]( Cp. Plat. Laws 655d, above. The music (songs and tunes) of dramatic compositions is specially alluded to.) that much, at least, they would all admit,—poets, audience, and actors alike, would they not?

Clin. They would.

Ath. Now the man who is to judge a poem[*]( Or musical composition.) unerringly must know in each particular case the exact nature of the poem; for if he does not know its essence,—what its intention is and what the actual original which it represents,—then he will hardly be able to decide how far it succeeds or fails in fulfilling its intention.

Clin. Hardly, to be sure.

Ath. And would a man who does not know what constitutes perfection be able to decide as to the goodness or badness of a poem? But I am not making myself quite clear: it might be clearer if I put it in this way—

Clin. In what way?

Ath. As regards objects of sight we have, of course, thousands of representations.

Clin. Yes.

Ath. How, then, if in this class of objects a man were to be ignorant of the nature of each of the bodies represented could he ever know whether it is perfectly executed? What I mean is this: whether it preserves the proper dimensions and the positions of each of the bodily parts, and has caught their exact number and the proper order in which one is placed next another, and their colors and shapes as well,—or whether all these things are wrought in a confused manner. Do you suppose that anyone could possibly decide these points if he were totally ignorant as to what animal was being represented?

Clin. How could he?

Ath. Well, suppose we should know that the object painted or moulded is a man, and know that art has endowed him with all his proper parts, colors, and shapes,—is it at once inevitable that the person who knows this can easily discern also whether the work is beautiful, or wherein it is deficient in beauty?

Clin. If that were so, Stranger, practically all of us would know what animals are beautiful.

Ath. You are quite right. In regard, then, to every representation—whether in painting, music or any other art—must not the judicious critic possess these three requisites: first, a knowledge of the nature of the original; next, a knowledge of the correctness of the copy; and thirdly, a knowledge of the excellence with which the copy is executed?

Clin. It would seem so, certainly.

Ath. Let us not hesitate, then, to mention the point wherein lies the difficulty of music. Just because it is more talked about than any other form of representation, it needs more caution than any. The man who blunders in this art will do himself the greatest harm, by welcoming base morals; and, moreover, his blunder is very hard to discern, inasmuch as our poets are inferior as poets to the Muses themselves.[*]( In what follows, the main features censured are—incongruity, when the words, tunes and gestures of an acted piece of music are out of harmony; senselessness, when tunes and gestures are divorced from words; barbarousness, when the thing represented is paltry or uncouth (such as a duck’s quack); virtuosity, when the performer makes a display of the control he has over his limbs and instruments, like a mountebank or contortionist. All these are marks of bad music from the point of view of the educationist and statesman, since they are neither correct nor morally elevating.) For the Muses would never blunder so far as to assign a feminine tune and gesture to verses composed for men, or to fit the rhythms of captives and slaves to gestures framed for free men, or conversely, after constructing the rhythms and gestures of free men, to assign to the rhythms a tune or verses of an opposite style. Nor would the Muses ever combine in a single piece the cries of beasts and men, the clash of instruments, and noises of all kinds, by way of representing a single object; whereas human poets, by their senselessness in mixing such things and jumbling them up together, would furnish a theme for laughter to all the men who, in Orpheus’ phrase, have attained the full flower of joyousness. For they behold all these things jumbled together, and how, also, the poets rudely sunder rhythm and gesture from tune, putting tuneless words into meter, or leaving time and rhythm without words, and using the bare sound of harp or flute, wherein it is almost impossible to understand what is intended by this wordless rhythm and harmony, or what noteworthy original it represents.

Ath. Such methods, as one ought to realize, are clownish in the extreme in so far as they exhibit an excessive craving for speed, mechanical accuracy, and the imitation of animals’ sounds, and consequently employ the pipe and the harp without the accompaniment of dance and song; for the use of either of these instruments by itself is the mark of the mountebank or the boor. Enough, then, of that matter: now as to ourselves. What we are considering is, not how those of us who are over thirty years old, or beyond fifty, ought not to make use of the Muses, but how they ought to do so. Our argument already indicates, I think, this result from our discussion,—that all men of over fifty that are fit to sing ought to have a training that is better than that of the choric Muse. For they must of necessity possess knowledge and a quick perception of rhythms and harmonies; else how shall a man know which tunes are correct?

Clin. Obviously he cannot know this at all.

Ath. It is absurd of the general crowd to imagine that they can fully understand what is harmonious and rhythmical, or the reverse, when they have been drilled to sing to the flute or step in time; and they fail to comprehend that, in doing each of these things, they do them in ignorance. But the fact is that every tune which has its appropriate elements is correct, but incorrect if the elements are inappropriate.

Clin. Undoubtedly.

Ath. What then of the man who does not know in the least what the tune’s elements are? Will he ever know about any tune, as we said, that it is correct?

Clin. There is no possible means of his doing so.

Ath. We are now once more, as it appears, discovering the fact that these singers of ours (whom we are now inviting and compelling, so to say, of their own free will to sing) must almost necessarily be trained up to such a point that every one of them may be able to follow both the steps[*]( i.e. dance-steps and gestures: chords nearly equals notes, with which the steps should keep time.) of the rhythms and the chords of the tunes, so that, by observing the harmonies and rhythms, they may be able to select those of an appropriate kind, which it is seemly for men of their own age and character to sing, and may in this wise sing them, and in the singing may not only enjoy innocent pleasure themselves at the moment, but also may serve as leaders to the younger men in their seemly adoption of noble manners. If they were trained up to such a point, their training would be more thorough than that of the majority, or indeed of the poets themselves.

Ath. For although it is almost necessary for a poet to have a knowledge of harmony and rhythm, it is not necessary for him to know the third point also—namely, whether the representation is noble or ignoble[*]( i.e. the composer, as such, is not concerned with the moral (or psychological) effect of the piece.); but for our older singers a knowledge of all these three points is necessary, to enable them to determine what is first, what second in order of nobility; otherwise none of them will ever succeed in attracting the young to virtue by his incantations. The primary intention of our argument, which was to demonstrate that our defence of the Dionysiac chorus was justifiable, has now been carried out to the best of our ability. Let us consider if that is really so. Such a gathering inevitably tends, as the drinking proceeds, to grow ever more and more uproarious; and in the case of the present day gatherings that is, as we said at the outset, an inevitable result.

Clin. Inevitable.

Ath. Everyone is uplifted above his normal self, and is merry and bubbles over with loquacious audacity himself, while turning a deaf ear to his neighbors, and regards himself as competent to rule both himself and everyone else.

Clin. To be sure.

Ath. And did we not say that when this takes place, the souls of the drinkers turn softer, like iron, through being heated, and younger too; whence they become ductile, just as when they were young, in the hands of the man who has the skill and the ability to train and mould them. And now, even as then, the man who is to mould them is the good legislator; he must lay down banqueting laws, able to control that banqueter who becomes confident and bold and unduly shameless, and unwilling to submit to the proper limits of silence and speech, of drinking and of music, making him consent to do in all ways the opposite,— laws able also, with the aid of justice, to fight against the entrance of such ignoble audacity, by bringing in that most noble fear which we have named modesty and shame.

Clin. That is so.

Ath. And as law-wardens of these laws and cooperators therewith, there must be sober and sedate men to act as commanders over the un-sober; for to fight drunkenness without these would be a more formidable task than to fight enemies without sedate leaders. Any man who refuses willingly to obey these men and the officers of Dionysus (who are over sixty years of age) shall incur as much disgrace as the man who disobeys the officers of Ares, and even more.

Clin. Quite right.