Laws
strains, I have already spoken both as to the character of the selection
of them, and the manner in which they are to be amended and consecrated.
But we have not as yet spoken, O illustrious guardian of education,
of the manner in which your pupils are to use those strains which are
written in prose, although you have been informed what martial strains
they are to learn and practise; what relates in the first place to the
learning of letters, and secondly, to the lyre, and also to calculation,
which, as we were saying, is needful for them all to learn, and any
other things which are required with a view to war and the management of
house and city, and, looking to the same object, what is useful in the
revolutions of the heavenly bodies--the stars and sun and moon, and
the various regulations about these matters which are necessary for the
whole state--I am speaking of the arrangements of days in periods of
months, and of months in years, which are to be observed, in order that
seasons and sacrifices and festivals may have their regular and natural
order, and keep the city alive and awake, the Gods receiving the honours
due to them, and men having a better understanding about them: all these
things, O my friend, have not yet been sufficiently declared to you by
the legislator. Attend, then, to what I am now going to say: We were
telling you, in the first place, that you were not sufficiently informed
about letters, and the objection was to this effect--that you were never
told whether he who was meant to be a respectable citizen should apply
himself in detail to that sort of learning, or not apply himself at all;
and the same remark holds good of the study of the lyre. But now we say
that he ought to attend to them. A fair time for a boy of ten years old
to spend in letters is three years; the age of thirteen is the proper
time for him to begin to handle the lyre, and he may continue at this
for another three years, neither more nor less, and whether his father
or himself like or dislike the study, he is not to be allowed to spend
more or less time in learning music than the law allows. And let him who
disobeys the law be deprived of those youthful honours of which we shall
hereafter speak. Hear, however, first of all, what the young ought to
learn in the early years of life, and what their instructors ought to
teach them. They ought to be occupied with their letters until they
are able to read and write; but the acquisition of perfect beauty or
quickness in writing, if nature has not stimulated them to acquire these
accomplishments in the given number of years, they should let alone. And
as to the learning of compositions committed to writing which are not
set to the lyre, whether metrical or without rhythmical divisions,
compositions in prose, as they are termed, having no rhythm or
harmony--seeing how dangerous are the writings handed down to us by
many writers of this class--what will you do with them, O most excellent
guardians of the law? or how can the lawgiver rightly direct you about
them? I believe that he will be in great difficulty.
CLEINIAS: What troubles you, Stranger? and why are you so perplexed in
your mind?
ATHENIAN: You naturally ask, Cleinias, and to you and Megillus, who are
my partners in the work of legislation, I must state the more difficult
as well as the easier parts of the task.
CLEINIAS: To what do you refer in this instance?
ATHENIAN: I will tell you. There is a difficulty in opposing many
myriads of mouths.
CLEINIAS: Well, and have we not already opposed the popular voice in
many important enactments?
ATHENIAN: That is quite true; and you mean to imply that the road which
we are taking may be disagreeable to some but is agreeable to as many
others, or if not to as many, at any rate to persons not inferior to
the others, and in company with them you bid me, at whatever risk,
to proceed along the path of legislation which has opened out of our
present discourse, and to be of good cheer, and not to faint.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: And I do not faint; I say, indeed, that we have a great many
poets writing in hexameter, trimeter, and all sorts of measures--some
who are serious, others who aim only at raising a laugh--and all mankind
declare that the youth who are rightly educated should be brought up in
them and saturated with them; some insist that they should be constantly
hearing them read aloud, and always learning them, so as to get by heart
entire poets; while others select choice passages and long speeches,
and make compendiums of them, saying that these ought to be committed to
memory, if a man is to be made good and wise by experience and learning
of many things. And you want me now to tell them plainly in what they
are right and in what they are wrong.
CLEINIAS: Yes, I do.
ATHENIAN: But how can I in one word rightly comprehend all of them? I
am of opinion, and, if I am not mistaken, there is a general agreement,
that every one of these poets has said many things well and many things
the reverse of well; and if this be true, then I do affirm that much
learning is dangerous to youth.
CLEINIAS: How would you advise the guardian of the law to act?
ATHENIAN: In what respect?
CLEINIAS: I mean to what pattern should he look as his guide in
permitting the young to learn some things and forbidding them to learn
others. Do not shrink from answering.
ATHENIAN: My good Cleinias, I rather think that I am fortunate.
CLEINIAS: How so?
ATHENIAN: I think that I am not wholly in want of a pattern, for when I
consider the words which we have spoken from early dawn until now, and
which, as I believe, have been inspired by Heaven, they appear to me to
be quite like a poem. When I reflected upon all these words of ours,
I naturally felt pleasure, for of all the discourses which I have ever
learnt or heard, either in poetry or prose, this seemed to me to be the
justest, and most suitable for young men to hear; I cannot imagine any
better pattern than this which the guardian of the law who is also the
director of education can have. He cannot do better than advise the
teachers to teach the young these words and any which are of a like
nature, if he should happen to find them, either in poetry or prose, or
if he come across unwritten discourses akin to ours, he should certainly
preserve them, and commit them to writing. And, first of all, he shall
constrain the teachers themselves to learn and approve them, and any of
them who will not, shall not be employed by him, but those whom he finds
agreeing in his judgment, he shall make use of and shall commit to them
the instruction and education of youth. And here and on this wise let my
fanciful tale about letters and teachers of letters come to an end.
CLEINIAS: I do not think, Stranger, that we have wandered out of the
proposed limits of the argument; but whether we are right or not in our
whole conception, I cannot be very certain.
ATHENIAN: The truth, Cleinias, may be expected to become clearer when,
as we have often said, we arrive at the end of the whole discussion
about laws.
CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: And now that we have done with the teacher of letters, the
teacher of the lyre has to receive orders from us.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: I think that we have only to recollect our previous
discussions, and we shall be able to give suitable regulations touching
all this part of instruction and education to the teachers of the lyre.
CLEINIAS: To what do you refer?
ATHENIAN: We were saying, if I remember rightly, that the sixty
years old choristers of Dionysus were to be specially quick in their
perceptions of rhythm and musical composition, that they might be able
to distinguish good and bad imitation, that is to say, the imitation of
the good or bad soul when under the influence of passion, rejecting the
one and displaying the other in hymns and songs, charming the souls
of youth, and inviting them to follow and attain virtue by the way of
imitation.
CLEINIAS: Very true.
ATHENIAN: And with this view the teacher and the learner ought to use
the sounds of the lyre, because its notes are pure, the player who
teaches and his pupil rendering note for note in unison; but complexity,
and variation of notes, when the strings give one sound and the poet or
composer of the melody gives another--also when they make concords and
harmonies in which lesser and greater intervals, slow and quick, or
high and low notes, are combined--or, again, when they make complex
variations of rhythms, which they adapt to the notes of the lyre--all
that sort of thing is not suited to those who have to acquire speedy and
useful knowledge of music in three years; for opposite principles are
confusing, and create a difficulty in learning, and our young men should
learn quickly, and their mere necessary acquirements are not few or
trifling, as will be shown in due course. Let the director of education
attend to the principles concerning music which we are laying down. As
to the songs and words themselves which the masters of choruses are to
teach and the character of them, they have been already described by us,
and are the same which, when consecrated and adapted to the different
festivals, we said were to benefit cities by affording them an innocent
amusement.
CLEINIAS: That, again, is true.
ATHENIAN: Then let him who has been elected a director of music receive
these rules from us as containing the very truth; and may he prosper in
his office! Let us now proceed to lay down other rules in addition to
the preceding about dancing and gymnastic exercise in general. Having
said what remained to be said about the teaching of music, let us speak
in like manner about gymnastic. For boys and girls ought to learn to
dance and practise gymnastic exercises--ought they not?
CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: Then the boys ought to have dancing masters, and the girls
dancing mistresses to exercise them.
CLEINIAS: Very good.
ATHENIAN: Then once more let us summon him who has the chief concern
in the business, the superintendent of youth [i.e. the director of
education]; he will have plenty to do, if he is to have the charge of
music and gymnastic.
CLEINIAS: But how will an old man be able to attend to such great
charges?
ATHENIAN: O my friend, there will be no difficulty, for the law has
already given and will give him permission to select as his assistants
in this charge any citizens, male or female, whom he desires; and he
will know whom he ought to choose, and will be anxious not to make a
mistake, from a due sense of responsibility, and from a consciousness of
the importance of his office, and also because he will consider that
if young men have been and are well brought up, then all things go
swimmingly, but if not, it is not meet to say, nor do we say, what will
follow, lest the regarders of omens should take alarm about our
infant state. Many things have been said by us about dancing and about
gymnastic movements in general; for we include under gymnastics all
military exercises, such as archery, and all hurling of weapons, and the
use of the light shield, and all fighting with heavy arms, and military
evolutions, and movements of armies, and encampings, and all that
relates to horsemanship. Of all these things there ought to be public
teachers, receiving pay from the state, and their pupils should be the
men and boys in the state, and also the girls and women, who are to know
all these things. While they are yet girls they should have practised
dancing in arms and the whole art of fighting--when grown-up women,
they should apply themselves to evolutions and tactics, and the mode of
grounding and taking up arms; if for no other reason, yet in case