The Republic
of Homer, that is to say, his style will be both imitative and
narrative; but there will be very little of the former, and a great
deal of the latter. Do you agree?
Certainly, he said; that is the model which such a speaker must
necessarily take.
But there is another sort of character who will narrate anything, and,
the worse he is, the more unscrupulous he will be; nothing will be too
bad for him: and he will be ready to imitate anything, not as a joke,
but in right good earnest, and before a large company. As I was just
now saying, he will attempt to represent the roll of thunder, the noise
of wind and hail, or the creaking of wheels, and pulleys, and the
various sounds of flutes, pipes, trumpets, and all sorts of
instruments: he will bark like a dog, bleat like a sheep, or crow like
a cock; his entire art will consist in imitation of voice and gesture,
and there will be very little narration.
That, he said, will be his mode of speaking.
These, then, are the two kinds of style?
Yes.
And you would agree with me in saying that one of them is simple and
has but slight changes; and if the harmony and rhythm are also chosen
for their simplicity, the result is that the speaker, if he speaks
correctly, is always pretty much the same in style, and he will keep
within the limits of a single harmony (for the changes are not great),
and in like manner he will make use of nearly the same rhythm?
That is quite true, he said.
Whereas the other requires all sorts of harmonies and all sorts of
rhythms, if the music and the style are to correspond, because the
style has all sorts of changes.
That is also perfectly true, he replied.
And do not the two styles, or the mixture of the two, comprehend all
poetry, and every form of expression in words? No one can say anything
except in one or other of them or in both together.
They include all, he said.
And shall we receive into our State all the three styles, or one only
of the two unmixed styles? or would you include the mixed?
I should prefer only to admit the pure imitator of virtue.
Yes, I said, Adeimantus, but the mixed style is also very charming: and
indeed the pantomimic, which is the opposite of the one chosen by you,
is the most popular style with children and their attendants, and with
the world in general.
I do not deny it.
But I suppose you would argue that such a style is unsuitable to our
State, in which human nature is not twofold or manifold, for one man
plays one part only?
Yes; quite unsuitable.
And this is the reason why in our State, and in our State only, we
shall find a shoemaker to be a shoemaker and not a pilot also, and a
husbandman to be a husbandman and not a dicast also, and a soldier a
soldier and not a trader also, and the same throughout?
True, he said.
And therefore when any one of these pantomimic gentlemen, who are so
clever that they can imitate anything, comes to us, and makes a
proposal to exhibit himself and his poetry, we will fall down and
worship him as a sweet and holy and wonderful being; but we must also
inform him that in our State such as he are not permitted to exist; the
law will not allow them. And so when we have anointed him with myrrh,
and set a garland of wool upon his head, we shall send him away to
another city. For we mean to employ for our souls’ health the rougher
and severer poet or story-teller, who will imitate the style of the
virtuous only, and will follow those models which we prescribed at
first when we began the education of our soldiers.
We certainly will, he said, if we have the power.
Then now, my friend, I said, that part of music or literary education
which relates to the story or myth may be considered to be finished;
for the matter and manner have both been discussed.
I think so too, he said.
Next in order will follow melody and song.
That is obvious.
Every one can see already what we ought to say about them, if we are to
be consistent with ourselves.
I fear, said Glaucon, laughing, that the word ‘every one’ hardly
includes me, for I cannot at the moment say what they should be; though
I may guess.
At any rate you can tell that a song or ode has three parts—the words,
the melody, and the rhythm; that degree of knowledge I may presuppose?
Yes, he said; so much as that you may.
And as for the words, there will surely be no difference between words
which are and which are not set to music; both will conform to the same
laws, and these have been already determined by us?
Yes.
And the melody and rhythm will depend upon the words?
Certainly.
We were saying, when we spoke of the subject-matter, that we had no
need of lamentation and strains of sorrow?
True.
And which are the harmonies expressive of sorrow? You are musical, and
can tell me.
The harmonies which you mean are the mixed or tenor Lydian, and the
full-toned or bass Lydian, and such like.
These then, I said, must be banished; even to women who have a
character to maintain they are of no use, and much less to men.
Certainly.
In the next place, drunkenness and softness and indolence are utterly
unbecoming the character of our guardians.
Utterly unbecoming.
And which are the soft or drinking harmonies?
The Ionian, he replied, and the Lydian; they are termed ‘relaxed.’
Well, and are these of any military use?
Quite the reverse, he replied; and if so the Dorian and the Phrygian
are the only ones which you have left.
I answered: Of the harmonies I know nothing, but I want to have one
warlike, to sound the note or accent which a brave man utters in the
hour of danger and stern resolve, or when his cause is failing, and he
is going to wounds or death or is overtaken by some other evil, and at
every such crisis meets the blows of fortune with firm step and a
determination to endure; and another to be used by him in times of
peace and freedom of action, when there is no pressure of necessity,
and he is seeking to persuade God by prayer, or man by instruction and
admonition, or on the other hand, when he is expressing his willingness
to yield to persuasion or entreaty or admonition, and which represents
him when by prudent conduct he has attained his end, not carried away
by his success, but acting moderately and wisely under the
circumstances, and acquiescing in the event. These two harmonies I ask
you to leave; the strain of necessity and the strain of freedom, the
strain of the unfortunate and the strain of the fortunate, the strain
of courage, and the strain of temperance; these, I say, leave.
And these, he replied, are the Dorian and Phrygian harmonies of which I
was just now speaking.
Then, I said, if these and these only are to be used in our songs and
melodies, we shall not want multiplicity of notes or a panharmonic
scale?
I suppose not.
Then we shall not maintain the artificers of lyres with three corners
and complex scales, or the makers of any other many-stringed
curiously-harmonised instruments?
Certainly not.
But what do you say to flute-makers and flute-players? Would you admit
them into our State when you reflect that in this composite use of
harmony the flute is worse than all the stringed instruments put
together; even the panharmonic music is only an imitation of the flute?
Clearly not.
There remain then only the lyre and the harp for use in the city, and
the shepherds may have a pipe in the country.
That is surely the conclusion to be drawn from the argument.
The preferring of Apollo and his instruments to Marsyas and his
instruments is not at all strange, I said.
Not at all, he replied.
And so, by the dog of Egypt, we have been unconsciously purging the
State, which not long ago we termed luxurious.
And we have done wisely, he replied.
Then let us now finish the purgation, I said. Next in order to
harmonies, rhythms will naturally follow, and they should be subject to
the same rules, for we ought not to seek out complex systems of metre,
or metres of every kind, but rather to discover what rhythms are the
expressions of a courageous and harmonious life; and when we have found
them, we shall adapt the foot and the melody to words having a like
spirit, not the words to the foot and melody. To say what these rhythms
are will be your duty—you must teach me them, as you have already
taught me the harmonies.
But, indeed, he replied, I cannot tell you. I only know that there are
some three principles of rhythm out of which metrical systems are
framed, just as in sounds there are four notes (i.e. the four notes of
the tetrachord.) out of which all the harmonies are composed; that is
an observation which I have made. But of what sort of lives they are
severally the imitations I am unable to say.
Then, I said, we must take Damon into our counsels; and he will tell us
what rhythms are expressive of meanness, or insolence, or fury, or
other unworthiness, and what are to be reserved for the expression of
opposite feelings. And I think that I have an indistinct recollection
of his mentioning a complex Cretic rhythm; also a dactylic or heroic,
and he arranged them in some manner which I do not quite understand,
making the rhythms equal in the rise and fall of the foot, long and
short alternating; and, unless I am mistaken, he spoke of an iambic as
well as of a trochaic rhythm, and assigned to them short and long
quantities. Also in some cases he appeared to praise or censure the
movement of the foot quite as much as the rhythm; or perhaps a
combination of the two; for I am not certain what he meant. These
matters, however, as I was saying, had better be referred to Damon
himself, for the analysis of the subject would be difficult, you know?
(Socrates expresses himself carelessly in accordance with his assumed
ignorance of the details of the subject. In the first part of the
sentence he appears to be speaking of paeonic rhythms which are in the
ratio of 3/2; in the second part, of dactylic and anapaestic rhythms,
which are in the ratio of 1/1; in the last clause, of iambic and
trochaic rhythms, which are in the ratio of 1/2 or 2/1.)
Rather so, I should say.
But there is no difficulty in seeing that grace or the absence of grace
is an effect of good or bad rhythm.
None at all.
And also that good and bad rhythm naturally assimilate to a good and
bad style; and that harmony and discord in like manner follow style;
for our principle is that rhythm and harmony are regulated by the
words, and not the words by them.
Just so, he said, they should follow the words.
And will not the words and the character of the style depend on the
temper of the soul?
Yes.
And everything else on the style?
Yes.
Then beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on
simplicity,—I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered
mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only an
euphemism for folly?
Very true, he replied.
And if our youth are to do their work in life, must they not make these
graces and harmonies their perpetual aim?
They must.
And surely the art of the painter and every other creative and
constructive art are full of them,—weaving, embroidery, architecture,
and every kind of manufacture; also nature, animal and vegetable,—in
all of them there is grace or the absence of grace. And ugliness and
discord and inharmonious motion are nearly allied to ill words and ill
nature, as grace and harmony are the twin sisters of goodness and
virtue and bear their likeness.
That is quite true, he said.
But shall our superintendence go no further, and are the poets only to
be required by us to express the image of the good in their works, on
pain, if they do anything else, of expulsion from our State? Or is the