Ath. Well, and will he not be yet more ashamed if he has to stand upand sing in the theatre to a mixed audience?-and if moreover when heis required to do so, like the other choirs who contend for prizes,and have been trained under a singing master, he is pinched andhungry, he will certainly have a feeling of shame and discomfort whichwill make him very unwilling to exhibit.
Cle. No doubt.
Ath. How, then, shall we reassure him, and get him to sing? Shall webegin by enacting that boys shall not taste wine at all until they areeighteen years of age; we will tell them that fire must not bepoured upon fire, whether in the body or in the soul, until they beginto go to work-this is a precaution which has to be taken against theexcitableness of youth;-afterwards they may taste wine in moderationup to the age of thirty, but while a man is young he should abstainaltogether from intoxication and from excess of wine; when, at length,he has reached forty years, after dinner at a public mess, he mayinvite not only the other Gods, but Dionysus above all, to the mysteryand festivity of the elder men, making use of the wine which he hasgiven men to lighten the sourness of old age; that in age we may renewour youth, and forget our sorrows; and also in order that the natureof the soul, like iron melted in the fire, may become softer and somore impressible. In the first place, will not any one who is thusmellowed be more ready and less ashamed to sing-I do not say beforea large audience, but before a moderate company; nor yet amongstrangers, but among his familiars, and, as we have often said, tochant, and to enchant?
Cle. He will be far more ready.
Ath. There will be no impropriety in our using such a method ofpersuading them to join with us in song.
Cle. None at all.
Ath. And what strain will they sing, and what muse will they hymn?
The strain should clearly be one suitable to them.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And what strain is suitable for heroes? Shall they sing achoric strain?
Cle. Truly, Stranger, we of Crete and Lacedaemon know no strainother than that which we have learnt and been accustomed to sing inour chorus.
Ath. I dare say; for you have never acquired the knowledge of themost beautiful kind of song, in your military way of life, which ismodelled after the camp, and is not like that of dwellers in cities;and you have your young men herding and feeding together like youngcolts. No one takes his own individual colt and drags him away fromhis fellows against his will, raging and foaming, and gives him agroom to attend to him alone, and trains and rubs him downprivately, and gives him the qualities in education which will makehim not only a good soldier, but also a governor of a state and ofcities. Such an one, as we said at first, would be a greater warriorthan he of whom Tyrtaeus sings; and he would honour courageeverywhere, but always as the fourth, and not as the first part ofvirtue, either in individuals or states.
Cle. Once more, Stranger, I must complain that you depreciate ourlawgivers.
Ath. Not intentionally, if at all, my good friend; but whither theargument leads, thither let us follow; for if there be indeed somestrain of song more beautiful than that of the choruses or thepublic theatres, I should like to impart it to those who, as we say,are ashamed of these, and want to have the best.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. When things have an accompanying charm, either the best thingin them is this very charm, or there is some rightness or utilitypossessed by them;-for example, I should say that eating and drinking,and the use of food in general, have an accompanying charm which wecall pleasure; but that this rightness and utility is just thehealthfulness of the things served up to us, which is their truerightness.
Cle. Just so.
Ath. Thus, too, I should say that learning has a certainaccompanying charm which is the pleasure; but that the right and theprofitable, the good and the noble, are qualities which the truthgives to it.
Cle. Exactly.
Ath. And so in the imitative arts-if they succeed in makinglikenesses, and are accompanied by pleasure, may not their works besaid to have a charm?
Cle. Yes.
Ath. But equal proportions, whether of quality or quantity, andnot pleasure, speaking generally, would give them truth or rightness.
Cle. Yes.
Ath. Then that only can be rightly judged by the standard ofpleasure, which makes or furnishes no utility or truth or likeness,nor on the other hand is productive of any hurtful quality, but existssolely for the sake of the accompanying charm; and the term "pleasure"is most appropriately applied to it when these other qualities areabsent.
Cle. You are speaking of harmless pleasure, are you not?
Ath. Yes; and this I term amusement, when doing neither harm norgood in any degree worth speaking of.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. Then, if such be our principles, we must assert thatimitation is not to be judged of by pleasure and false opinion; andthis is true of all equality, for the equal is not equal or thesymmetrical symmetrical, because somebody thinks or likes something,but they are to be judged of by the standard of truth, and by no otherwhatever.
Cle. Quite true.
Ath. Do we not regard all music as representative and imitative?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Then, when any one says that music is to be judged of bypleasure, his doctrine cannot be admitted; and if there be any musicof which pleasure is the criterion, such music is not to be sought outor deemed to have any real excellence, but only that other kind ofmusic which is an imitation of the good.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. And those who seek for the best kind of song and music oughtnot to seek for that which is pleasant, but for that which is true;and the truth of imitation consists, as we were saying, in renderingthe thing imitated according to quantity and quality.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And every one will admit that musical compositions are allimitative and representative. Will not poets and spectators and actorsall agree in this?
Cle. They will.
Ath. Surely then he who would judge correctly must know what eachcomposition is; for if he does not know what is the character andmeaning of the piece, and what it represents, he will never discernwhether the intention is true or false.
Cle. Certainly not.