Laws
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.