The Republic
Then about the imitator we are agreed. And what about the painter?—I
would like to know whether he may be thought to imitate that which
originally exists in nature, or only the creations of artists?
The latter.
As they are or as they appear? you have still to determine this.
What do you mean?
I mean, that you may look at a bed from different points of view,
obliquely or directly or from any other point of view, and the bed will
appear different, but there is no difference in reality. And the same
of all things.
Yes, he said, the difference is only apparent.
Now let me ask you another question: Which is the art of painting
designed to be—an imitation of things as they are, or as they appear—of
appearance or of reality?
Of appearance.
Then the imitator, I said, is a long way off the truth, and can do all
things because he lightly touches on a small part of them, and that
part an image. For example: A painter will paint a cobbler, carpenter,
or any other artist, though he knows nothing of their arts; and, if he
is a good artist, he may deceive children or simple persons, when he
shows them his picture of a carpenter from a distance, and they will
fancy that they are looking at a real carpenter.
Certainly.
And whenever any one informs us that he has found a man who knows all
the arts, and all things else that anybody knows, and every single
thing with a higher degree of accuracy than any other man—whoever tells
us this, I think that we can only imagine him to be a simple creature
who is likely to have been deceived by some wizard or actor whom he
met, and whom he thought all-knowing, because he himself was unable to
analyse the nature of knowledge and ignorance and imitation.
Most true.
And so, when we hear persons saying that the tragedians, and Homer, who
is at their head, know all the arts and all things human, virtue as
well as vice, and divine things too, for that the good poet cannot
compose well unless he knows his subject, and that he who has not this
knowledge can never be a poet, we ought to consider whether here also
there may not be a similar illusion. Perhaps they may have come across
imitators and been deceived by them; they may not have remembered when
they saw their works that these were but imitations thrice removed from
the truth, and could easily be made without any knowledge of the truth,
because they are appearances only and not realities? Or, after all,
they may be in the right, and poets do really know the things about
which they seem to the many to speak so well?
The question, he said, should by all means be considered.
Now do you suppose that if a person were able to make the original as
well as the image, he would seriously devote himself to the
image-making branch? Would he allow imitation to be the ruling
principle of his life, as if he had nothing higher in him?
I should say not.
The real artist, who knew what he was imitating, would be interested in
realities and not in imitations; and would desire to leave as memorials
of himself works many and fair; and, instead of being the author of
encomiums, he would prefer to be the theme of them.
Yes, he said, that would be to him a source of much greater honour and
profit.
Then, I said, we must put a question to Homer; not about medicine, or
any of the arts to which his poems only incidentally refer: we are not
going to ask him, or any other poet, whether he has cured patients like
Asclepius, or left behind him a school of medicine such as the
Asclepiads were, or whether he only talks about medicine and other arts
at second-hand; but we have a right to know respecting military
tactics, politics, education, which are the chiefest and noblest
subjects of his poems, and we may fairly ask him about them. ‘Friend
Homer,’ then we say to him, ‘if you are only in the second remove from
truth in what you say of virtue, and not in the third—not an image
maker or imitator—and if you are able to discern what pursuits make men
better or worse in private or public life, tell us what State was ever
better governed by your help? The good order of Lacedaemon is due to
Lycurgus, and many other cities great and small have been similarly
benefited by others; but who says that you have been a good legislator
to them and have done them any good? Italy and Sicily boast of
Charondas, and there is Solon who is renowned among us; but what city
has anything to say about you?’ Is there any city which he might name?
I think not, said Glaucon; not even the Homerids themselves pretend
that he was a legislator.
Well, but is there any war on record which was carried on successfully
by him, or aided by his counsels, when he was alive?
There is not.
Or is there any invention of his, applicable to the arts or to human
life, such as Thales the Milesian or Anacharsis the Scythian, and other
ingenious men have conceived, which is attributed to him?
There is absolutely nothing of the kind.
But, if Homer never did any public service, was he privately a guide or
teacher of any? Had he in his lifetime friends who loved to associate
with him, and who handed down to posterity an Homeric way of life, such
as was established by Pythagoras who was so greatly beloved for his
wisdom, and whose followers are to this day quite celebrated for the
order which was named after him?
Nothing of the kind is recorded of him. For surely, Socrates,
Creophylus, the companion of Homer, that child of flesh, whose name
always makes us laugh, might be more justly ridiculed for his
stupidity, if, as is said, Homer was greatly neglected by him and
others in his own day when he was alive?
Yes, I replied, that is the tradition. But can you imagine, Glaucon,
that if Homer had really been able to educate and improve mankind—if he
had possessed knowledge and not been a mere imitator—can you imagine, I
say, that he would not have had many followers, and been honoured and
loved by them? Protagoras of Abdera, and Prodicus of Ceos, and a host
of others, have only to whisper to their contemporaries: ‘You will
never be able to manage either your own house or your own State until
you appoint us to be your ministers of education’—and this ingenious
device of theirs has such an effect in making men love them that their
companions all but carry them about on their shoulders. And is it
conceivable that the contemporaries of Homer, or again of Hesiod, would
have allowed either of them to go about as rhapsodists, if they had
really been able to make mankind virtuous? Would they not have been as
unwilling to part with them as with gold, and have compelled them to
stay at home with them? Or, if the master would not stay, then the
disciples would have followed him about everywhere, until they had got
education enough?
Yes, Socrates, that, I think, is quite true.
Then must we not infer that all these poetical individuals, beginning
with Homer, are only imitators; they copy images of virtue and the
like, but the truth they never reach? The poet is like a painter who,
as we have already observed, will make a likeness of a cobbler though
he understands nothing of cobbling; and his picture is good enough for
those who know no more than he does, and judge only by colours and
figures.
Quite so.
In like manner the poet with his words and phrases may be said to lay
on the colours of the several arts, himself understanding their nature
only enough to imitate them; and other people, who are as ignorant as
he is, and judge only from his words, imagine that if he speaks of
cobbling, or of military tactics, or of anything else, in metre and
harmony and rhythm, he speaks very well—such is the sweet influence
which melody and rhythm by nature have. And I think that you must have
observed again and again what a poor appearance the tales of poets make
when stripped of the colours which music puts upon them, and recited in
simple prose.
Yes, he said.
They are like faces which were never really beautiful, but only
blooming; and now the bloom of youth has passed away from them?
Exactly.
Here is another point: The imitator or maker of the image knows nothing
of true existence; he knows appearances only. Am I not right?
Yes.
Then let us have a clear understanding, and not be satisfied with half
an explanation.
Proceed.
Of the painter we say that he will paint reins, and he will paint a
bit?
Yes.
And the worker in leather and brass will make them?
Certainly.
But does the painter know the right form of the bit and reins? Nay,
hardly even the workers in brass and leather who make them; only the
horseman who knows how to use them—he knows their right form.
Most true.
And may we not say the same of all things?
What?
That there are three arts which are concerned with all things: one
which uses, another which makes, a third which imitates them?
Yes.
And the excellence or beauty or truth of every structure, animate or
inanimate, and of every action of man, is relative to the use for which
nature or the artist has intended them.
True.
Then the user of them must have the greatest experience of them, and he
must indicate to the maker the good or bad qualities which develop
themselves in use; for example, the flute-player will tell the
flute-maker which of his flutes is satisfactory to the performer; he
will tell him how he ought to make them, and the other will attend to
his instructions?
Of course.
The one knows and therefore speaks with authority about the goodness
and badness of flutes, while the other, confiding in him, will do what
he is told by him?
True.
The instrument is the same, but about the excellence or badness of it
the maker will only attain to a correct belief; and this he will gain
from him who knows, by talking to him and being compelled to hear what
he has to say, whereas the user will have knowledge?
True.
But will the imitator have either? Will he know from use whether or no
his drawing is correct or beautiful? or will he have right opinion from
being compelled to associate with another who knows and gives him
instructions about what he should draw?
Neither.
Then he will no more have true opinion than he will have knowledge
about the goodness or badness of his imitations?
I suppose not.
The imitative artist will be in a brilliant state of intelligence about
his own creations?
Nay, very much the reverse.
And still he will go on imitating without knowing what makes a thing
good or bad, and may be expected therefore to imitate only that which
appears to be good to the ignorant multitude?
Just so.
Thus far then we are pretty well agreed that the imitator has no
knowledge worth mentioning of what he imitates. Imitation is only a
kind of play or sport, and the tragic poets, whether they write in
Iambic or in Heroic verse, are imitators in the highest degree?
Very true.
And now tell me, I conjure you, has not imitation been shown by us to
be concerned with that which is thrice removed from the truth?
Certainly.
And what is the faculty in man to which imitation is addressed?
What do you mean?
I will explain: The body which is large when seen near, appears small
when seen at a distance?
True.
And the same object appears straight when looked at out of the water,
and crooked when in the water; and the concave becomes convex, owing to
the illusion about colours to which the sight is liable. Thus every
sort of confusion is revealed within us; and this is that weakness of
the human mind on which the art of conjuring and of deceiving by light
and shadow and other ingenious devices imposes, having an effect upon
us like magic.
True.
And the arts of measuring and numbering and weighing come to the rescue