Laws: Book II
Book II
ATHENIAN: And now we have to consider whether the insight into human
nature is the only benefit derived from well-ordered potations, or whether
there are not other advantages great and much to be desired. The argument
seems to imply that there are. But how and in what way these are to be
attained, will have to be considered attentively, or we may be entangled
in error.
CLEINIAS: Proceed.
ATHENIAN: Let me once more recall our doctrine of right education; which,
if I am not mistaken, depends on the due regulation of convivial
intercourse.
CLEINIAS: You talk rather grandly.
ATHENIAN: Pleasure and pain I maintain to be the first perceptions of
children, and I say that they are the forms under which virtue and vice
are originally present to them. As to wisdom and true and fixed opinions,
happy is the man who acquires them, even when declining in years; and we
may say that he who possesses them, and the blessings which are contained
in them, is a perfect man. Now I mean by education that training which is
given by suitable habits to the first instincts of virtue in children;--
when pleasure, and friendship, and pain, and hatred, are rightly implanted
in souls not yet capable of understanding the nature of them, and who find
them, after they have attained reason, to be in harmony with her. This
harmony of the soul, taken as a whole, is virtue; but the particular
training in respect of pleasure and pain, which leads you always to hate
what you ought to hate, and love what you ought to love from the beginning
of life to the end, may be separated off; and, in my view, will be rightly
called education.
CLEINIAS: I think, Stranger, that you are quite right in all that you have
said and are saying about education.
ATHENIAN: I am glad to hear that you agree with me; for, indeed, the
discipline of pleasure and pain which, when rightly ordered, is a
principle of education, has been often relaxed and corrupted in human
life. And the Gods, pitying the toils which our race is born to undergo,
have appointed holy festivals, wherein men alternate rest with labour; and
have given them the Muses and Apollo, the leader of the Muses, and
Dionysus, to be companions in their revels, that they may improve their
education by taking part in the festivals of the Gods, and with their
help. I should like to know whether a common saying is in our opinion true
to nature or not. For men say that the young of all creatures cannot be
quiet in their bodies or in their voices; they are always wanting to move
and cry out; some leaping and skipping, and overflowing with sportiveness
and delight at something, others uttering all sorts of cries. But, whereas
the animals have no perception of order or disorder in their movements,
that is, of rhythm or harmony, as they are called, to us, the Gods, who,
as we say, have been appointed to be our companions in the dance, have
given the pleasurable sense of harmony and rhythm; and so they stir us
into life, and we follow them, joining hands together in dances and songs;
and these they call choruses, which is a term naturally expressive of
cheerfulness. Shall we begin, then, with the acknowledgment that education
is first given through Apollo and the Muses? What do you say?
CLEINIAS: I assent.
ATHENIAN: And the uneducated is he who has not been trained in the chorus,
and the educated is he who has been well trained?
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: And the chorus is made up of two parts, dance and song?
CLEINIAS: True.
ATHENIAN: Then he who is well educated will be able to sing and dance
well?
CLEINIAS: I suppose that he will.
ATHENIAN: Let us see; what are we saying?
CLEINIAS: What?
ATHENIAN: He sings well and dances well; now must we add that he sings
what is good and dances what is good?
CLEINIAS: Let us make the addition.
ATHENIAN: We will suppose that he knows the good to be good, and the bad
to be bad, and makes use of them accordingly: which now is the better
trained in dancing and music--he who is able to move his body and to use
his voice in what is understood to be the right manner, but has no delight
in good or hatred of evil; or he who is incorrect in gesture and voice,
but is right in his sense of pleasure and pain, and welcomes what is good,
and is offended at what is evil?
CLEINIAS: There is a great difference, Stranger, in the two kinds of
education.
ATHENIAN: If we three know what is good in song and dance, then we truly
know also who is educated and who is uneducated; but if not, then we
certainly shall not know wherein lies the safeguard of education, and
whether there is any or not.
CLEINIAS: True.
ATHENIAN: Let us follow the scent like hounds, and go in pursuit of beauty
of figure, and melody, and song, and dance; if these escape us, there will
be no use in talking about true education, whether Hellenic or barbarian.
CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: And what is beauty of figure, or beautiful melody? When a manly
soul is in trouble, and when a cowardly soul is in similar case, are they
likely to use the same figures and gestures, or to give utterance to the
same sounds?
CLEINIAS: How can they, when the very colours of their faces differ?
ATHENIAN: Good, my friend; I may observe, however, in passing, that in
music there certainly are figures and there are melodies: and music is
concerned with harmony and rhythm, so that you may speak of a melody or
figure having good rhythm or good harmony--the term is correct enough; but
to speak metaphorically of a melody or figure having a 'good colour,' as
the masters of choruses do, is not allowable, although you can speak of
the melodies or figures of the brave and the coward, praising the one and
censuring the other. And not to be tedious, let us say that the figures
and melodies which are expressive of virtue of soul or body, or of images
of virtue, are without exception good, and those which are expressive of
vice are the reverse of good.
CLEINIAS: Your suggestion is excellent; and let us answer that these
things are so.
ATHENIAN: Once more, are all of us equally delighted with every sort of
dance?
CLEINIAS: Far otherwise.
ATHENIAN: What, then, leads us astray? Are beautiful things not the same
to us all, or are they the same in themselves, but not in our opinion of
them? For no one will admit that forms of vice in the dance are more
beautiful than forms of virtue, or that he himself delights in the forms
of vice, and others in a muse of another character. And yet most persons
say, that the excellence of music is to give pleasure to our souls. But
this is intolerable and blasphemous; there is, however, a much more
plausible account of the delusion.
CLEINIAS: What?
ATHENIAN: The adaptation of art to the characters of men. Choric movements
are imitations of manners occurring in various actions, fortunes,
dispositions,--each particular is imitated, and those to whom the words,
or songs, or dances are suited, either by nature or habit or both, cannot
help feeling pleasure in them and applauding them, and calling them
beautiful. But those whose natures, or ways, or habits are unsuited to
them, cannot delight in them or applaud them, and they call them base.
There are others, again, whose natures are right and their habits wrong,
or whose habits are right and their natures wrong, and they praise one
thing, but are pleased at another. For they say that all these imitations
are pleasant, but not good. And in the presence of those whom they think
wise, they are ashamed of dancing and singing in the baser manner, or of
deliberately lending any countenance to such proceedings; and yet, they
have a secret pleasure in them.
CLEINIAS: Very true.
ATHENIAN: And is any harm done to the lover of vicious dances or songs, or
any good done to the approver of the opposite sort of pleasure?
CLEINIAS: I think that there is.
ATHENIAN: 'I think' is not the word, but I would say, rather, 'I am
certain.' For must they not have the same effect as when a man associates
with bad characters, whom he likes and approves rather than dislikes, and
only censures playfully because he has a suspicion of his own badness? In
that case, he who takes pleasure in them will surely become like those in
whom he takes pleasure, even though he be ashamed to praise them. And what
greater good or evil can any destiny ever make us undergo?
CLEINIAS: I know of none.
ATHENIAN: Then in a city which has good laws, or in future ages is to have
them, bearing in mind the instruction and amusement which are given by
music, can we suppose that the poets are to be allowed to teach in the
dance anything which they themselves like, in the way of rhythm, or
melody, or words, to the young children of any well-conditioned parents?
Is the poet to train his choruses as he pleases, without reference to
virtue or vice?
CLEINIAS: That is surely quite unreasonable, and is not to be thought of.
ATHENIAN: And yet he may do this in almost any state with the exception of
Egypt.
CLEINIAS: And what are the laws about music and dancing in Egypt?
ATHENIAN: You will wonder when I tell you: Long ago they appear to have
recognized the very principle of which we are now speaking--that their
young citizens must be habituated to forms and strains of virtue. These
they fixed, and exhibited the patterns of them in their temples; and no
painter or artist is allowed to innovate upon them, or to leave the
traditional forms and invent new ones. To this day, no alteration is
allowed either in these arts, or in music at all. And you will find that
their works of art are painted or moulded in the same forms which they had
ten thousand years ago;--this is literally true and no exaggeration,--
their ancient paintings and sculptures are not a whit better or worse than
the work of to-day, but are made with just the same skill.
CLEINIAS: How extraordinary!
ATHENIAN: I should rather say, How statesmanlike, how worthy of a
legislator! I know that other things in Egypt are not so well. But what I
am telling you about music is true and deserving of consideration, because
showing that a lawgiver may institute melodies which have a natural truth
and correctness without any fear of failure. To do this, however, must be
the work of God, or of a divine person; in Egypt they have a tradition
that their ancient chants which have been preserved for so many ages are
the composition of the Goddess Isis. And therefore, as I was saying, if a
person can only find in any way the natural melodies, he may confidently
embody them in a fixed and legal form. For the love of novelty which
arises out of pleasure in the new and weariness of the old, has not
strength enough to corrupt the consecrated song and dance, under the plea
that they have become antiquated. At any rate, they are far from being
corrupted in Egypt.
CLEINIAS: Your arguments seem to prove your point.
ATHENIAN: May we not confidently say that the true use of music and of
choral festivities is as follows: We rejoice when we think that we
prosper, and again we think that we prosper when we rejoice?
CLEINIAS: Exactly.
ATHENIAN: And when rejoicing in our good fortune, we are unable to be
still?
CLEINIAS: True.
ATHENIAN: Our young men break forth into dancing and singing, and we who
are their elders deem that we are fulfilling our part in life when we look
on at them. Having lost our agility, we delight in their sports and merry-
making, because we love to think of our former selves; and gladly
institute contests for those who are able to awaken in us the memory of
our youth.
CLEINIAS: Very true.
ATHENIAN: Is it altogether unmeaning to say, as the common people do about
festivals, that he should be adjudged the wisest of men, and the winner of
the palm, who gives us the greatest amount of pleasure and mirth? For on
such occasions, and when mirth is the order of the day, ought not he to be
honoured most, and, as I was saying, bear the palm, who gives most mirth
to the greatest number? Now is this a true way of speaking or of acting?
CLEINIAS: Possibly.
ATHENIAN: But, my dear friend, let us distinguish between different cases,
and not be hasty in forming a judgment: One way of considering the
question will be to imagine a festival at which there are entertainments
of all sorts, including gymnastic, musical, and equestrian contests: the
citizens are assembled; prizes are offered, and proclamation is made that
any one who likes may enter the lists, and that he is to bear the palm who
gives the most pleasure to the spectators--there is to be no regulation
about the manner how; but he who is most successful in giving pleasure is
to be crowned victor, and deemed to be the pleasantest of the candidates:
What is likely to be the result of such a proclamation?
CLEINIAS: In what respect?
ATHENIAN: There would be various exhibitions: one man, like Homer, will
exhibit a rhapsody, another a performance on the lute; one will have a
tragedy, and another a comedy. Nor would there be anything astonishing in
some one imagining that he could gain the prize by exhibiting a puppet-
show. Suppose these competitors to meet, and not these only, but
innumerable others as well--can you tell me who ought to be the victor?
CLEINIAS: I do not see how any one can answer you, or pretend to know,
unless he has heard with his own ears the several competitors; the
question is absurd.
ATHENIAN: Well, then, if neither of you can answer, shall I answer this
question which you deem so absurd?
CLEINIAS: By all means.
ATHENIAN: If very small children are to determine the question, they will
decide for the puppet show.
CLEINIAS: Of course.
ATHENIAN: The older children will be advocates of comedy; educated women,
and young men, and people in general, will favour tragedy.
CLEINIAS: Very likely.
ATHENIAN: And I believe that we old men would have the greatest pleasure
in hearing a rhapsodist recite well the Iliad and Odyssey, or one of the
Hesiodic poems, and would award the victory to him. But, who would really
be the victor?--that is the question.
CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: Clearly you and I will have to declare that those whom we old
men adjudge victors ought to win; for our ways are far and away better
than any which at present exist anywhere in the world.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: Thus far I too should agree with the many, that the excellence
of music is to be measured by pleasure. But the pleasure must not be that
of chance persons; the fairest music is that which delights the best and
best educated, and especially that which delights the one man who is pre-
eminent in virtue and education. And therefore the judges must be men of
character, for they will require both wisdom and courage; the true judge
must not draw his inspiration from the theatre, nor ought he to be
unnerved by the clamour of the many and his own incapacity; nor again,
knowing the truth, ought he through cowardice and unmanliness carelessly
to deliver a lying judgment, with the very same lips which have just
appealed to the Gods before he judged. He is sitting not as the disciple
of the theatre, but, in his proper place, as their instructor, and he
ought to be the enemy of all pandering to the pleasure of the spectators.
The ancient and common custom of Hellas, which still prevails in Italy and
Sicily, did certainly leave the judgment to the body of spectators, who
determined the victor by show of hands. But this custom has been the
destruction of the poets; for they are now in the habit of composing with
a view to please the bad taste of their judges, and the result is that the
spectators instruct themselves;--and also it has been the ruin of the
theatre; they ought to be having characters put before them better than
their own, and so receiving a higher pleasure, but now by their own act
the opposite result follows. What inference is to be drawn from all this?
Shall I tell you?
CLEINIAS: What?
ATHENIAN: The inference at which we arrive for the third or fourth time
is, that education is the constraining and directing of youth towards that
right reason, which the law affirms, and which the experience of the
eldest and best has agreed to be truly right. In order, then, that the
soul of the child may not be habituated to feel joy and sorrow in a manner
at variance with the law, and those who obey the law, but may rather
follow the law and rejoice and sorrow at the same things as the aged--in
order, I say, to produce this effect, chants appear to have been invented,
which really enchant, and are designed to implant that harmony of which we
speak. And, because the mind of the child is incapable of enduring serious
training, they are called plays and songs, and are performed in play; just
as when men are sick and ailing in their bodies, their attendants give
them wholesome diet in pleasant meats and drinks, but unwholesome diet in
disagreeable things, in order that they may learn, as they ought, to like
the one, and to dislike the other. And similarly the true legislator will
persuade, and, if he cannot persuade, will compel the poet to express, as
he ought, by fair and noble words, in his rhythms, the figures, and in his
melodies, the music of temperate and brave and in every way good men.
CLEINIAS: But do you really imagine, Stranger, that this is the way in
which poets generally compose in States at the present day? As far as I
can observe, except among us and among the Lacedaemonians, there are no
regulations like those of which you speak; in other places novelties are
always being introduced in dancing and in music, generally not under the
authority of any law, but at the instigation of lawless pleasures; and
these pleasures are so far from being the same, as you describe the
Egyptian to be, or having the same principles, that they are never the
same.
ATHENIAN: Most true, Cleinias; and I daresay that I may have expressed
myself obscurely, and so led you to imagine that I was speaking of some
really existing state of things, whereas I was only saying what
regulations I would like to have about music; and hence there occurred a
misapprehension on your part. For when evils are far gone and
irremediable, the task of censuring them is never pleasant, although at
times necessary. But as we do not really differ, will you let me ask you
whether you consider such institutions to be more prevalent among the
Cretans and Lacedaemonians than among the other Hellenes?
CLEINIAS: Certainly they are.
ATHENIAN: And if they were extended to the other Hellenes, would it be an
improvement on the present state of things?
CLEINIAS: A very great improvement, if the customs which prevail among
them were such as prevail among us and the Lacedaemonians, and such as you
were just now saying ought to prevail.
ATHENIAN: Let us see whether we understand one another:--Are not the
principles of education and music which prevail among you as follows: you
compel your poets to say that the good man, if he be temperate and just,
is fortunate and happy; and this whether he be great and strong or small
and weak, and whether he be rich or poor; and, on the other hand, if he
have a wealth passing that of Cinyras or Midas, and be unjust, he is
wretched and lives in misery? As the poet says, and with truth: I sing
not, I care not about him who accomplishes all noble things, not having
justice; let him who 'draws near and stretches out his hand against his
enemies be a just man.' But if he be unjust, I would not have him 'look
calmly upon bloody death,' nor 'surpass in swiftness the Thracian Boreas;
' and let no other thing that is called good ever be his. For the goods of
which the many speak are not really good: first in the catalogue is placed
health, beauty next, wealth third; and then innumerable others, as for
example to have a keen eye or a quick ear, and in general to have all the
senses perfect; or, again, to be a tyrant and do as you like; and the
final consummation of happiness is to have acquired all these things, and
when you have acquired them to become at once immortal. But you and I say,
that while to the just and holy all these things are the best of
possessions, to the unjust they are all, including even health, the
greatest of evils. For in truth, to have sight, and hearing, and the use
of the senses, or to live at all without justice and virtue, even though a
man be rich in all the so-called goods of fortune, is the greatest of
evils, if life be immortal; but not so great, if the bad man lives only a
very short time. These are the truths which, if I am not mistaken, you
will persuade or compel your poets to utter with suitable accompaniments
of harmony and rhythm, and in these they must train up your youth. Am I
not right? For I plainly declare that evils as they are termed are goods
to the unjust, and only evils to the just, and that goods are truly good
to the good, but evil to the evil. Let me ask again, Are you and I agreed
about this?
CLEINIAS: I think that we partly agree and partly do not.
ATHENIAN: When a man has health and wealth and a tyranny which lasts, and
when he is pre-eminent in strength and courage, and has the gift of
immortality, and none of the so-called evils which counter-balance these
goods, but only the injustice and insolence of his own nature--of such an
one you are, I suspect, unwilling to believe that he is miserable rather
than happy.
CLEINIAS: That is quite true.
ATHENIAN: Once more: Suppose that he be valiant and strong, and handsome
and rich, and does throughout his whole life whatever he likes, still, if
he be unrighteous and insolent, would not both of you agree that he will
of necessity live basely? You will surely grant so much?
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: And an evil life too?
CLEINIAS: I am not equally disposed to grant that.
ATHENIAN: Will he not live painfully and to his own disadvantage?
CLEINIAS: How can I possibly say so?
ATHENIAN: How! Then may Heaven make us to be of one mind, for now we are
of two. To me, dear Cleinias, the truth of what I am saying is as plain as
the fact that Crete is an island. And, if I were a lawgiver, I would try
to make the poets and all the citizens speak in this strain, and I would
inflict the heaviest penalties on any one in all the land who should dare
to say that there are bad men who lead pleasant lives, or that the
profitable and gainful is one thing, and the just another; and there are
many other matters about which I should make my citizens speak in a manner
different from the Cretans and Lacedaemonians of this age, and I may say,
indeed, from the world in general. For tell me, my good friends, by Zeus
and Apollo tell me, if I were to ask these same Gods who were your
legislators,--Is not the most just life also the pleasantest? or are there
two lives, one of which is the justest and the other the pleasantest?--and
they were to reply that there are two; and thereupon I proceeded to ask,
(that would be the right way of pursuing the enquiry), Which are the
happier--those who lead the justest, or those who lead the pleasantest
life? and they replied, Those who lead the pleasantest--that would be a
very strange answer, which I should not like to put into the mouth of the
Gods. The words will come with more propriety from the lips of fathers and
legislators, and therefore I will repeat my former questions to one of
them, and suppose him to say again that he who leads the pleasantest life
is the happiest. And to that I rejoin:--O my father, did you not wish me
to live as happily as possible? And yet you also never ceased telling me
that I should live as justly as possible. Now, here the giver of the rule,
whether he be legislator or father, will be in a dilemma, and will in vain
endeavour to be consistent with himself. But if he were to declare that
the justest life is also the happiest, every one hearing him would
enquire, if I am not mistaken, what is that good and noble principle in
life which the law approves, and which is superior to pleasure. For what
good can the just man have which is separated from pleasure? Shall we say
that glory and fame, coming from Gods and men, though good and noble, are
nevertheless unpleasant, and infamy pleasant? Certainly not, sweet
legislator. Or shall we say that the not-doing of wrong and there being no
wrong done is good and honourable, although there is no pleasure in it,
and that the doing wrong is pleasant, but evil and base?
CLEINIAS: Impossible.
ATHENIAN: The view which identifies the pleasant and the pleasant and the
just and the good and the noble has an excellent moral and religious
tendency. And the opposite view is most at variance with the designs of
the legislator, and is, in his opinion, infamous; for no one, if he can
help, will be persuaded to do that which gives him more pain than
pleasure. But as distant prospects are apt to make us dizzy, especially in
childhood, the legislator will try to purge away the darkness and exhibit
the truth; he will persuade the citizens, in some way or other, by customs
and praises and words, that just and unjust are shadows only, and that
injustice, which seems opposed to justice, when contemplated by the unjust
and evil man appears pleasant and the just most unpleasant; but that from
the just man's point of view, the very opposite is the appearance of both
of them.
CLEINIAS: True.
ATHENIAN: And which may be supposed to be the truer judgment--that of the
inferior or of the better soul?
CLEINIAS: Surely, that of the better soul.
ATHENIAN: Then the unjust life must not only be more base and depraved,
but also more unpleasant than the just and holy life?
CLEINIAS: That seems to be implied in the present argument.
ATHENIAN: And even supposing this were otherwise, and not as the argument
has proven, still the lawgiver, who is worth anything, if he ever ventures
to tell a lie to the young for their good, could not invent a more useful
lie than this, or one which will have a better effect in making them do
what is right, not on compulsion but voluntarily.
CLEINIAS: Truth, Stranger, is a noble thing and a lasting, but a thing of
which men are hard to be persuaded.
ATHENIAN: And yet the story of the Sidonian Cadmus, which is so
improbable, has been readily believed, and also innumerable other tales.
CLEINIAS: What is that story?
ATHENIAN: The story of armed men springing up after the sowing of teeth,
which the legislator may take as a proof that he can persuade the minds of
the young of anything; so that he has only to reflect and find out what
belief will be of the greatest public advantage, and then use all his
efforts to make the whole community utter one and the same word in their
songs and tales and discourses all their life long. But if you do not
agree with me, there is no reason why you should not argue on the other
side.
CLEINIAS: I do not see that any argument can fairly be raised by either of
us against what you are now saying.
ATHENIAN: The next suggestion which I have to offer is, that all our three
choruses shall sing to the young and tender souls of children, reciting in
their strains all the noble thoughts of which we have already spoken, or
are about to speak; and the sum of them shall be, that the life which is
by the Gods deemed to be the happiest is also the best;--we shall affirm
this to be a most certain truth; and the minds of our young disciples will
be more likely to receive these words of ours than any others which we
might address to them.
CLEINIAS: I assent to what you say.
ATHENIAN: First will enter in their natural order the sacred choir
composed of children, which is to sing lustily the heaven-taught lay to
the whole city. Next will follow the choir of young men under the age of
thirty, who will call upon the God Paean to testify to the truth of their
words, and will pray him to be gracious to the youth and to turn their
hearts. Thirdly, the choir of elder men, who are from thirty to sixty
years of age, will also sing. There remain those who are too old to sing,
and they will tell stories, illustrating the same virtues, as with the
voice of an oracle.
CLEINIAS: Who are those who compose the third choir, Stranger? for I do
not clearly understand what you mean to say about them.
ATHENIAN: And yet almost all that I have been saying has been said with a
view to them.
CLEINIAS: Will you try to be a little plainer?
ATHENIAN: I was speaking at the commencement of our discourse, as you will
remember, of the fiery nature of young creatures: I said that they were
unable to keep quiet either in limb or voice, and that they called out and
jumped about in a disorderly manner; and that no other animal attained to
any perception of order, but man only. Now the order of motion is called
rhythm, and the order of the voice, in which high and low are duly
mingled, is called harmony; and both together are termed choric song. And
I said that the Gods had pity on us, and gave us Apollo and the Muses to
be our playfellows and leaders in the dance; and Dionysus, as I dare say
that you will remember, was the third.
CLEINIAS: I quite remember.
ATHENIAN: Thus far I have spoken of the chorus of Apollo and the Muses,
and I have still to speak of the remaining chorus, which is that of
Dionysus.
CLEINIAS: How is that arranged? There is something strange, at any rate on
first hearing, in a Dionysiac chorus of old men, if you really mean that
those who are above thirty, and may be fifty, or from fifty to sixty years
of age, are to dance in his honour.
ATHENIAN: Very true; and therefore it must be shown that there is good
reason for the proposal.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: Are we agreed thus far?
CLEINIAS: About what?
ATHENIAN: That every man and boy, slave and free, both sexes, and the
whole city, should never cease charming themselves with the strains of
which we have spoken; and that there should be every sort of change and
variation of them in order to take away the effect of sameness, so that
the singers may always receive pleasure from their hymns, and may never
weary of them?
CLEINIAS: Every one will agree.
ATHENIAN: Where, then, will that best part of our city which, by reason of
age and intelligence, has the greatest influence, sing these fairest of
strains, which are to do so much good? Shall we be so foolish as to let
them off who would give us the most beautiful and also the most useful of
songs?
CLEINIAS: But, says the argument, we cannot let them off.
ATHENIAN: Then how can we carry out our purpose with decorum? Will this be
the way?
CLEINIAS: What?
ATHENIAN: When a man is advancing in years, he is afraid and reluctant to
sing;--he has no pleasure in his own performances; and if compulsion is
used, he will be more and more ashamed, the older and more discreet he
grows;--is not this true?
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: Well, and will he not be yet more ashamed if he has to stand up
and sing in the theatre to a mixed audience?--and if moreover when he is
required to do so, like the other choirs who contend for prizes, and have
been trained under a singing master, he is pinched and hungry, he will
certainly have a feeling of shame and discomfort which will make him very
unwilling to exhibit.
CLEINIAS: No doubt.
ATHENIAN: How, then, shall we reassure him, and get him to sing? Shall we
begin by enacting that boys shall not taste wine at all until they are
eighteen years of age; we will tell them that fire must not be poured upon
fire, whether in the body or in the soul, until they begin to go to work--
this is a precaution which has to be taken against the excitableness of
youth;--afterwards they may taste wine in moderation up to the age of
thirty, but while a man is young he should abstain altogether from
intoxication and from excess of wine; when, at length, he has reached
forty years, after dinner at a public mess, he may invite not only the
other Gods, but Dionysus above all, to the mystery and festivity of the
elder men, making use of the wine which he has given men to lighten the
sourness of old age; that in age we may renew our youth, and forget our
sorrows; and also in order that the nature of the soul, like iron melted
in the fire, may become softer and so more impressible. In the first
place, will not any one who is thus mellowed be more ready and less
ashamed to sing--I do not say before a large audience, but before a
moderate company; nor yet among strangers, but among his familiars, and,
as we have often said, to chant, and to enchant?
CLEINIAS: He will be far more ready.
ATHENIAN: There will be no impropriety in our using such a method of
persuading them to join with us in song.
CLEINIAS: None at all.
ATHENIAN: And what strain will they sing, and what muse will they hymn?
The strain should clearly be one suitable to them.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: And what strain is suitable for heroes? Shall they sing a choric
strain?
CLEINIAS: Truly, Stranger, we of Crete and Lacedaemon know no strain other
than that which we have learnt and been accustomed to sing in our chorus.
ATHENIAN: I dare say; for you have never acquired the knowledge of the
most beautiful kind of song, in your military way of life, which is
modelled after the camp, and is not like that of dwellers in cities; and
you have your young men herding and feeding together like young colts. No
one takes his own individual colt and drags him away from his fellows
against his will, raging and foaming, and gives him a groom to attend to
him alone, and trains and rubs him down privately, and gives him the
qualities in education which will make him not only a good soldier, but
also a governor of a state and of cities. Such an one, as we said at
first, would be a greater warrior than he of whom Tyrtaeus sings; and he
would honour courage everywhere, but always as the fourth, and not as the
first part of virtue, either in individuals or states.
CLEINIAS: Once more, Stranger, I must complain that you depreciate our
lawgivers.
ATHENIAN: Not intentionally, if at all, my good friend; but whither the
argument leads, thither let us follow; for if there be indeed some strain
of song more beautiful than that of the choruses or the public theatres, I
should like to impart it to those who, as we say, are ashamed of these,
and want to have the best.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: When things have an accompanying charm, either the best thing in
them is this very charm, or there is some rightness or utility possessed
by them;--for example, I should say that eating and drinking, and the use
of food in general, have an accompanying charm which we call pleasure; but
that this rightness and utility is just the healthfulness of the things
served up to us, which is their true rightness.
CLEINIAS: Just so.
ATHENIAN: Thus, too, I should say that learning has a certain accompanying
charm which is the pleasure; but that the right and the profitable, the
good and the noble, are qualities which the truth gives to it.
CLEINIAS: Exactly.
ATHENIAN: And so in the imitative arts--if they succeed in making
likenesses, and are accompanied by pleasure, may not their works be said
to have a charm?
CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: But equal proportions, whether of quality or quantity, and not
pleasure, speaking generally, would give them truth or rightness.
CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: Then that only can be rightly judged by the standard of
pleasure, which makes or furnishes no utility or truth or likeness, nor on
the other hand is productive of any hurtful quality, but exists solely for
the sake of the accompanying charm; and the term 'pleasure' is most
appropriately applied to it when these other qualities are absent.
CLEINIAS: You are speaking of harmless pleasure, are you not?
ATHENIAN: Yes; and this I term amusement, when doing neither harm nor good
in any degree worth speaking of.
CLEINIAS: Very true.
ATHENIAN: Then, if such be our principles, we must assert that imitation
is not to be judged of by pleasure and false opinion; and this is true of
all equality, for the equal is not equal or the symmetrical symmetrical,
because somebody thinks or likes something, but they are to be judged of
by the standard of truth, and by no other whatever.
CLEINIAS: Quite true.
ATHENIAN: Do we not regard all music as representative and imitative?
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: Then, when any one says that music is to be judged of by
pleasure, his doctrine cannot be admitted; and if there be any music of
which pleasure is the criterion, such music is not to be sought out or
deemed to have any real excellence, but only that other kind of music
which is an imitation of the good.
CLEINIAS: Very true.
ATHENIAN: And those who seek for the best kind of song and music ought not
to seek for that which is pleasant, but for that which is true; and the
truth of imitation consists, as we were saying, in rendering the thing
imitated according to quantity and quality.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: And every one will admit that musical compositions are all
imitative and representative. Will not poets and spectators and actors all
agree in this?
CLEINIAS: They will.
ATHENIAN: Surely then he who would judge correctly must know what each
composition is; for if he does not know what is the character and meaning
of the piece, and what it represents, he will never discern whether the
intention is true or false.
CLEINIAS: Certainly not.
ATHENIAN: And will he who does not know what is true be able to
distinguish what is good and bad? My statement is not very clear; but
perhaps you will understand me better if I put the matter in another way.
CLEINIAS: How?
ATHENIAN: There are ten thousand likenesses of objects of sight?
CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: And can he who does not know what the exact object is which is
imitated, ever know whether the resemblance is truthfully executed? I
mean, for example, whether a statue has the proportions of a body, and the
true situation of the parts; what those proportions are, and how the parts
fit into one another in due order; also their colours and conformations,
or whether this is all confused in the execution: do you think that any
one can know about this, who does not know what the animal is which has
been imitated?
CLEINIAS: Impossible.
ATHENIAN: But even if we know that the thing pictured or sculptured is a
man, who has received at the hand of the artist all his proper parts and
colours and shapes, must we not also know whether the work is beautiful or
in any respect deficient in beauty?
CLEINIAS: If this were not required, Stranger, we should all of us be
judges of beauty.
ATHENIAN: Very true; and may we not say that in everything imitated,
whether in drawing, music, or any other art, he who is to be a competent
judge must possess three things;--he must know, in the first place, of
what the imitation is; secondly, he must know that it is true; and
thirdly, that it has been well executed in words and melodies and rhythms?
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: Then let us not faint in discussing the peculiar difficulty of
music. Music is more celebrated than any other kind of imitation, and
therefore requires the greatest care of them all. For if a man makes a
mistake here, he may do himself the greatest injury by welcoming evil
dispositions, and the mistake may be very difficult to discern, because
the poets are artists very inferior in character to the Muses themselves,
who would never fall into the monstrous error of assigning to the words of
men the gestures and songs of women; nor after combining the melodies with
the gestures of freemen would they add on the rhythms of slaves and men of
the baser sort; nor, beginning with the rhythms and gestures of freemen,
would they assign to them a melody or words which are of an opposite
character; nor would they mix up the voices and sounds of animals and of
men and instruments, and every other sort of noise, as if they were all
one. But human poets are fond of introducing this sort of inconsistent
mixture, and so make themselves ridiculous in the eyes of those who, as
Orpheus says, 'are ripe for true pleasure.' The experienced see all this
confusion, and yet the poets go on and make still further havoc by
separating the rhythm and the figure of the dance from the melody, setting
bare words to metre, and also separating the melody and the rhythm from
the words, using the lyre or the flute alone. For when there are no words,
it is very difficult to recognize the meaning of the harmony and rhythm,
or to see that any worthy object is imitated by them. And we must
acknowledge that all this sort of thing, which aims only at swiftness and
smoothness and a brutish noise, and uses the flute and the lyre not as the
mere accompaniments of the dance and song, is exceedingly coarse and
tasteless. The use of either instrument, when unaccompanied, leads to
every sort of irregularity and trickery. This is all rational enough. But
we are considering not how our choristers, who are from thirty to fifty
years of age, and may be over fifty, are not to use the Muses, but how
they are to use them. And the considerations which we have urged seem to
show in what way these fifty years' old choristers who are to sing, may be
expected to be better trained. For they need to have a quick perception
and knowledge of harmonies and rhythms; otherwise, how can they ever know
whether a melody would be rightly sung to the Dorian mode, or to the
rhythm which the poet has assigned to it?
CLEINIAS: Clearly they cannot.
ATHENIAN: The many are ridiculous in imagining that they know what is in
proper harmony and rhythm, and what is not, when they can only be made to
sing and step in rhythm by force; it never occurs to them that they are
ignorant of what they are doing. Now every melody is right when it has
suitable harmony and rhythm, and wrong when unsuitable.
CLEINIAS: That is most certain.
ATHENIAN: But can a man who does not know a thing, as we were saying, know
that the thing is right?
CLEINIAS: Impossible.
ATHENIAN: Then now, as would appear, we are making the discovery that our
newly-appointed choristers, whom we hereby invite and, although they are
their own masters, compel to sing, must be educated to such an extent as
to be able to follow the steps of the rhythm and the notes of the song,
that they may know the harmonies and rhythms, and be able to select what
are suitable for men of their age and character to sing; and may sing
them, and have innocent pleasure from their own performance, and also lead
younger men to welcome with dutiful delight good dispositions. Having such
training, they will attain a more accurate knowledge than falls to the lot
of the common people, or even of the poets themselves. For the poet need
not know the third point, viz., whether the imitation is good or not,
though he can hardly help knowing the laws of melody and rhythm. But the
aged chorus must know all the three, that they may choose the best, and
that which is nearest to the best; for otherwise they will never be able
to charm the souls of young men in the way of virtue. And now the original
design of the argument which was intended to bring eloquent aid to the
Chorus of Dionysus, has been accomplished to the best of our ability, and
let us see whether we were right:--I should imagine that a drinking
assembly is likely to become more and more tumultuous as the drinking goes
on: this, as we were saying at first, will certainly be the case.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: Every man has a more than natural elevation; his heart is glad
within him, and he will say anything and will be restrained by nobody at
such a time; he fancies that he is able to rule over himself and all
mankind.
CLEINIAS: Quite true.
ATHENIAN: Were we not saying that on such occasions the souls of the
drinkers become like iron heated in the fire, and grow softer and younger,
and are easily moulded by him who knows how to educate and fashion them,
just as when they were young, and that this fashioner of them is the same
who prescribed for them in the days of their youth, viz., the good
legislator; and that he ought to enact laws of the banquet, which, when a
man is confident, bold, and impudent, and unwilling to wait his turn and
have his share of silence and speech, and drinking and music, will change
his character into the opposite--such laws as will infuse into him a just
and noble fear, which will take up arms at the approach of insolence,
being that divine fear which we have called reverence and shame?
CLEINIAS: True.
ATHENIAN: And the guardians of these laws and fellow-workers with them are
the calm and sober generals of the drinkers; and without their help there
is greater difficulty in fighting against drink than in fighting against
enemies when the commander of an army is not himself calm; and he who is
unwilling to obey them and the commanders of Dionysiac feasts who are more
than sixty years of age, shall suffer a disgrace as great as he who
disobeys military leaders, or even greater.
CLEINIAS: Right.
ATHENIAN: If, then, drinking and amusement were regulated in this way,
would not the companions of our revels be improved? they would part better
friends than they were, and not, as now, enemies. Their whole intercourse
would be regulated by law and observant of it, and the sober would be the
leaders of the drunken.
CLEINIAS: I think so too, if drinking were regulated as you propose.
ATHENIAN: Let us not then simply censure the gift of Dionysus as bad and
unfit to be received into the State. For wine has many excellences, and
one pre-eminent one, about which there is a difficulty in speaking to the
many, from a fear of their misconceiving and misunderstanding what is
said.
CLEINIAS: To what do you refer?
ATHENIAN: There is a tradition or story, which has somehow crept about the
world, that Dionysus was robbed of his wits by his stepmother Here, and
that out of revenge he inspires Bacchic furies and dancing madnesses in
others; for which reason he gave men wine. Such traditions concerning the
Gods I leave to those who think that they may be safely uttered (compare
Euthyph.; Republic); I only know that no animal at birth is mature or
perfect in intelligence; and in the intermediate period, in which he has
not yet acquired his own proper sense, he rages and roars without rhyme or
reason; and when he has once got on his legs he jumps about without rhyme
or reason; and this, as you will remember, has been already said by us to
be the origin of music and gymnastic.
CLEINIAS: To be sure, I remember.
ATHENIAN: And did we not say that the sense of harmony and rhythm sprang
from this beginning among men, and that Apollo and the Muses and Dionysus
were the Gods whom we had to thank for them?
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: The other story implied that wine was given man out of revenge,
and in order to make him mad; but our present doctrine, on the contrary,
is, that wine was given him as a balm, and in order to implant modesty in
the soul, and health and strength in the body.
CLEINIAS: That, Stranger, is precisely what was said.
ATHENIAN: Then half the subject may now be considered to have been
discussed; shall we proceed to the consideration of the other half?
CLEINIAS: What is the other half, and how do you divide the subject?
ATHENIAN: The whole choral art is also in our view the whole of education;
and of this art, rhythms and harmonies form the part which has to do with
the voice.
CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: The movement of the body has rhythm in common with the movement
of the voice, but gesture is peculiar to it, whereas song is simply the
movement of the voice.
CLEINIAS: Most true.
ATHENIAN: And the sound of the voice which reaches and educates the soul,
we have ventured to term music.
CLEINIAS: We were right.
ATHENIAN: And the movement of the body, when regarded as an amusement, we
termed dancing; but when extended and pursued with a view to the
excellence of the body, this scientific training may be called gymnastic.
CLEINIAS: Exactly.
ATHENIAN: Music, which was one half of the choral art, may be said to have
been completely discussed. Shall we proceed to the other half or not? What
would you like?
CLEINIAS: My good friend, when you are talking with a Cretan and
Lacedaemonian, and we have discussed music and not gymnastic, what answer
are either of us likely to make to such an enquiry?
ATHENIAN: An answer is contained in your question; and I understand and
accept what you say not only as an answer, but also as a command to
proceed with gymnastic.
CLEINIAS: You quite understand me; do as you say.
ATHENIAN: I will; and there will not be any difficulty in speaking
intelligibly to you about a subject with which both of you are far more
familiar than with music.
CLEINIAS: There will not.
ATHENIAN: Is not the origin of gymnastics, too, to be sought in the
tendency to rapid motion which exists in all animals; man, as we were
saying, having attained the sense of rhythm, created and invented dancing;
and melody arousing and awakening rhythm, both united formed the choral
art?
CLEINIAS: Very true.
ATHENIAN: And one part of this subject has been already discussed by us,
and there still remains another to be discussed?
CLEINIAS: Exactly.
ATHENIAN: I have first a final word to add to my discourse about drink, if
you will allow me to do so.
CLEINIAS: What more have you to say?
ATHENIAN: I should say that if a city seriously means to adopt the
practice of drinking under due regulation and with a view to the
enforcement of temperance, and in like manner, and on the same principle,
will allow of other pleasures, designing to gain the victory over them--in
this way all of them may be used. But if the State makes drinking an
amusement only, and whoever likes may drink whenever he likes, and with
whom he likes, and add to this any other indulgences, I shall never agree
or allow that this city or this man should practise drinking. I would go
further than the Cretans and Lacedaemonians, and am disposed rather to the
law of the Carthaginians, that no one while he is on a campaign should be
allowed to taste wine at all, but that he should drink water during all
that time, and that in the city no slave, male or female, should ever
drink wine; and that no magistrates should drink during their year of
office, nor should pilots of vessels or judges while on duty taste wine at
all, nor any one who is going to hold a consultation about any matter of
importance; nor in the day-time at all, unless in consequence of exercise
or as medicine; nor again at night, when any one, either man or woman, is
minded to get children. There are numberless other cases also in which
those who have good sense and good laws ought not to drink wine, so that
if what I say is true, no city will need many vineyards. Their husbandry
and their way of life in general will follow an appointed order, and their
cultivation of the vine will be the most limited and the least common of
their employments. And this, Stranger, shall be the crown of my discourse
about wine, if you agree.
CLEINIAS: Excellent: we agree.