Plato · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
ATHENIAN: The next thing we need to examine, it seems, is this question about our drinking companions: is the only benefit we get from this that we come to see how our natures really are, or is there also, in the correct use of wine-drinking gatherings, some real advantage worth taking seriously? What shall we say? Our argument seems to want to say there is such a benefit. But let's listen carefully and pay close attention to where and how, so we don't get tripped up by it. CLEINIAS: Go on, then.
ATHENIAN: I want to go back and remind us what we've been saying correct education actually is. As I guess things now, the safety of this whole practice, when it's carried out well, depends on getting that right. CLEINIAS: That's a large claim. ATHENIAN: What I mean is this: a child's very first awareness is pleasure and pain, and it's in these that virtue and vice first arrive in the soul. Wisdom and firm true judgments — a person is lucky if these arrive even by old age. A person who has reached old age possessing all these good things is complete. Now by education I mean the virtue that comes to children first: when pleasure and affection, pain and hatred, arise rightly in souls that are not yet able to grasp reason, and then, once they do grasp reason, come into harmony with it, having been trained by the right habits to feel that harmony — this concord, viewed entire, is virtue. Yet that portion of it which concerns the right training of pleasures and pains, so that a person hates what should be hated from the very start right through to the end, and loves what should be loved — if you cut that piece out and give it a name of its own, calling it education, I think you would be naming it correctly. CLEINIAS: Yes, stranger, both what you said earlier about education and what you're saying now seem right to us. ATHENIAN: Good. Now, since these correctly trained pleasures and pains are the substance of education, they get loosened and corrupted in many ways over the course of people's lives. So the gods, taking pity on the human race, born as it is for toil, established as rest from their labors the cycle of festivals in honor of the gods, and gave us the Muses, with Apollo their leader, and Dionysus as fellow celebrants, so that these festivals, held together with the gods, might set us right again. We should look and see whether the account we're now praising is true to nature, or how it stands. It says that every young creature — practically without exception — is unable to keep its body or its voice still, but is always seeking to move and to make sounds: leaping and bounding as if dancing for joy and playing about, and uttering every kind of noise.
ATHENIAN: Now the beasts have no sense of the order, or the disorder, in their motions — the things we call rhythm and harmony. But to us, the gods we said were given as fellow-dancers are the very ones who gave us the perception of rhythm and harmony together with pleasure, by which they move us and lead us in dance, linking us to one another through songs and dances — and they named these 'choruses' from the word for joy built into that name. Shall we accept this as a starting point — that education first comes to us through the Muses and Apollo? CLEINIAS: Let's accept it. ATHENIAN: So the uneducated person will be one without a chorus for us, and the properly educated person one who has been trained well in the chorus? CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: And the chorus, taken as a whole, consists of dance and song. CLEINIAS: Necessarily. ATHENIAN: So the person who has been well educated would be capable of singing and dancing well. CLEINIAS: So it seems. ATHENIAN: Let's look at what we've just said. CLEINIAS: What exactly? ATHENIAN: We say someone sings well and dances well. Should we add: only if what he sings and dances is itself beautiful — or not? CLEINIAS: Let's add that. ATHENIAN: But what about someone who believes beautiful things are beautiful and ugly things ugly, and treats them accordingly? Will such a person be better educated in chorus and music than one who is able, in body and voice, to serve well whatever he has in mind as beautiful, but who takes no pleasure in beautiful things and feels no hatred for ugly ones? Or is it rather the person who, even if not fully capable of getting it right in voice and body, or in his thinking, nevertheless gets it right in his pleasure and pain — embracing whatever is beautiful and being repelled by whatever is not? CLEINIAS: You're describing a huge difference in education, stranger. ATHENIAN: Well then, if the three of us know what's beautiful in song and dance, we can also correctly recognize who is educated and who is not. But if we're ignorant of that, we won't even know whether there's any safeguard for education, or where to find one. Isn't that so? CLEINIAS: It is. ATHENIAN: So after this, like hounds on a scent, we must track down beautiful form, beautiful melody, song, and dance. And if these things slip past and escape us, any further talk about correct education, whether Greek or foreign, will be pointless. CLEINIAS: True.
ATHENIAN: Well then — what should we say a beautiful form or melody actually is? Consider: when a courageous soul is caught up in hardships, and a cowardly one in the very same circumstances, do the same postures and utterances result in both cases? CLEINIAS: How could they, when not even the complexions are the same? ATHENIAN: Well put, my friend. But in music there are indeed postures and melodies, since music concerns rhythm and harmony, so one can speak correctly of a melody or a posture as rhythmic and well-harmonized — but one can't, the way chorus-trainers do when they liken things to colors, speak of a melody or posture as having 'good color.' But the posture or melody of the coward and of the brave man do exist, and it's correct to call those of brave men beautiful, and those of cowards ugly. And so that we don't get bogged down in a long discussion of all this, let's simply say: everything connected with virtue of soul or body — whether the virtue itself or some image of it — every posture and melody of that kind is beautiful, and everything connected with vice is, on the contrary, altogether the opposite. CLEINIAS: You're right to put it that way, and let's take that as settled for now. ATHENIAN: One more question: do all of us take equal pleasure in every kind of dance, or is that far from true? CLEINIAS: Very far from true. ATHENIAN: What then shall we say has led us astray? Is it that the same things aren't beautiful to all of us, or that they are the same, but don't seem to be? For surely no one will claim that the dances of vice are ever more beautiful than those of virtue, or that he himself takes pleasure in the postures of depravity while everyone else responds to some opposite Muse. And yet most people say that the correctness of music lies in the pleasure it provides to souls. But that claim is neither tolerable nor pious to utter at all — no, something else is more likely to be misleading us. CLEINIAS: What's that? ATHENIAN: Since the performances involved in choral dancing are imitations of characters, occurring amid actions of every sort and amid fortunes, with each performer working through them by disposition and imitation — for those to whom the words, melodies, or dance movements suit their own character, whether by nature or by habit or by both, it is inevitable that they take pleasure in these, praise them, and call them beautiful. But for those to whom they run contrary to nature, character, or some habit, it's impossible for them to take pleasure in them or praise them — they call them ugly instead.
ATHENIAN: But there are those in whom what is correct by nature and what is correct by habit come apart — where nature is right but habit is opposed to it, or habit is right but nature opposed to it — and such people give praise that runs contrary to their pleasures. They say these things are pleasant, yes, but base; and in front of others whom they consider wise, they're ashamed to move their bodies that way, and ashamed to sing such things as though seriously declaring them beautiful — yet privately they enjoy them. CLEINIAS: Perfectly true. ATHENIAN: Does the person who takes pleasure in base postures or melodies suffer any harm from it, and does the person who welcomes the opposite pleasures gain some benefit? CLEINIAS: Probably so. ATHENIAN: Is it merely probable, or actually inevitable, that it works the same way as when someone who keeps company with base characters and wicked men doesn't come to hate them, but takes pleasure in accepting them, criticizing them only half-jokingly, as if dreaming through their depravity? In such a case, surely, the one who takes pleasure is bound to become like whichever kind he takes pleasure in, even if he's ashamed to praise it openly. And yet what greater good or evil could we say results for us, by sheer necessity, than this? CLEINIAS: I don't think there's anything greater. ATHENIAN: In places where laws concerning education and play in the arts of the Muses are well established, or will be so in the future, do we suppose poets will be allowed to teach — in the choruses, to the children and young people of a well-governed city — whatever gives the poet himself pleasure in composing, in rhythm or melody or word, regardless of whether it happens to produce virtue or vice? CLEINIAS: That surely makes no sense at all — how could it? ATHENIAN: Yet at present that's practically what's allowed to happen in nearly every city, except in Egypt. CLEINIAS: And how, exactly, do you say this has been regulated by law in Egypt? ATHENIAN: It's astonishing even to hear about. Long ago, it seems, they came to recognize the very principle we're stating now: that the young people in their cities must be trained, through habitual practice, in beautiful postures and beautiful melodies. Having settled on these, they displayed exactly which ones, and of what kind, in their temples, and beyond these it was not permitted — not for painters, nor for anyone else who produces figures and works of that kind — to innovate or devise anything other than the traditional forms. Nor is it permitted even now, either in these arts or in music as a whole.
ATHENIAN: If you look, you'll find there works painted or sculpted ten thousand years ago — not loosely speaking, but literally ten thousand years — that are no more beautiful and no more ugly than what's produced today; they're made with the very same art. CLEINIAS: That's astonishing. ATHENIAN: It shows exceptional skill in lawgiving and statesmanship. You'd find other things there that are inferior, but this fact about their music is true and worth pondering: it was actually possible to legislate confidently on such matters, fixing melodies that possess correctness by nature. That would take a god, or some divine man — just as they say there that the melodies preserved over that vast stretch of time were compositions of Isis. So, as I was saying, if someone could somehow grasp their correctness, one should confidently turn them into law and fixed order — since the pursuit of pleasure and pain, in always seeking novel forms of music, has hardly any real power to corrupt the dancing once it has been consecrated, merely by claiming it as 'old-fashioned.' At any rate, in that country it doesn't seem to have been able to corrupt it at all — quite the opposite. CLEINIAS: It appears things stand that way, from what you've just said. ATHENIAN: Can we then confidently say that the correct use of music and play together with dance is something like this: we feel pleasure when we think we're doing well, and whenever we feel pleasure, we in turn think we're doing well? Isn't that so? CLEINIAS: It is. ATHENIAN: And indeed, in that state, feeling pleasure, we're unable to keep still. CLEINIAS: That's true. ATHENIAN: So isn't it the case that among us, the young are themselves ready to dance, while we older people think it fitting to spend our time watching them, taking pleasure in their play and festivity, since the nimbleness that was once ours has now left us — and, longing for it and cherishing its memory, we set up contests for those who are most able to rouse us, through memory, back toward our youth? CLEINIAS: Very true. ATHENIAN: Do we think, then, that what most people say about festival-goers is entirely pointless — that the one who gives us the most delight and pleasure should be judged wisest and win the prize? For surely, since we've given ourselves over to play on such occasions, the one who makes the most people feel the most pleasure ought to be honored most highly and, as I just said, carry off the victor's prize.
ATHENIAN: Isn't this rightly said, and would it come about this way if it were done rightly? CLEINIAS: Perhaps. ATHENIAN: But, my good man, let's not judge such a thing too quickly. Let's break it into parts and examine it like this. Suppose someone were to set up a contest with no rules at all — nothing marked off as athletic, or musical, or equestrian — but gathered everyone in the city together and announced, offering prizes, that anyone who wanted could come and compete purely for pleasure, and whoever delighted the spectators most, with no restriction on method, and won simply by producing the most delight, and was judged by the audience to have been the most pleasing of the competitors — what do we suppose would result from such an announcement? CLEINIAS: What are you getting at? ATHENIAN: Presumably one man would perform an epic recitation, like Homer, another would sing to the lyre, another would put on a tragedy, another a comedy, and it wouldn't be surprising if someone doing conjuring tricks thought he had the best chance of winning. With all these kinds of competitors, and countless others, showing up, could we say who ought fairly to win? CLEINIAS: That's a strange question. Who could answer that without having heard each of the performers himself, with his own ears? ATHENIAN: Well then — do you two want me to give you that strange answer myself? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: If it were very small children judging, they'd pick the conjuror, wouldn't they? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: If it were older children, they'd pick the comic performer. Tragedy would be chosen by educated women, young men, and probably most people generally. CLEINIAS: Probably so. ATHENIAN: But the recitation of the Iliad and Odyssey, or something of Hesiod's, done well — we old men would likely hear that with the greatest pleasure and declare it the winner by far. So who would be the rightful winner? That's the next question, isn't it? CLEINIAS: Yes. ATHENIAN: Clearly you and I are bound to say that those judged winners by people our age would be the rightful winners. For it seems to me that the custom of people our generation is by far the best one found in any city, anywhere. CLEINIAS: Of course.
ATHENIAN: Now, I'll concede this much to the majority — that music should be judged by pleasure, though not just anyone's pleasure. Rather, the finest Muse is roughly the one that delights the best people, those adequately educated — and above all the one that delights a single man outstanding in virtue and education. That's why we say the judges of these things need virtue: they must share in good judgment generally, and especially in courage. A true judge shouldn't take his cues from the theater, learning from it, overwhelmed by the noise of the crowd and his own lack of education. Nor, on the other hand, should he, out of cowardice and lack of nerve, declare his judgment carelessly and falsely, straight from the same mouth with which he just called on the gods before judging. For the judge sits there properly not as a pupil of the spectators but as their teacher, and he ought to oppose those who offer the audience pleasure improperly or wrongly. In fact the old Greek law allowed exactly this — unlike the current Sicilian and Italian practice, which hands the matter over to the majority of spectators and picks the winner by show of hands. That practice has corrupted the poets themselves — since they compose to suit the judges' pleasure, which is a poor thing, so that the audience ends up educating itself — and it has corrupted the pleasures of the theater itself. For whereas the audience ought always to be hearing characters better than their own and thereby acquiring better pleasure, in fact the very opposite happens to them from what they themselves have brought about. Now what do we want this line of argument, run through again just now, to point to? Consider whether it's this. CLEINIAS: What? ATHENIAN: It seems to me the argument has circled back, for the third or fourth time, to the same point: that education is the pulling and leading of children toward the right principle, as declared by the law, and agreed by the most respectable and oldest people, through experience, to truly be right. So that the child's soul may not become accustomed to feeling joy and pain in ways contrary to the law and to those persuaded by the law, but may follow along, feeling joy and pain at the same things as the old man does — for this purpose, the things we call songs have really become incantations for souls, earnestly aimed at producing just this kind of harmony we're speaking of. But since young souls can't bear earnestness, these things get called and treated as play and song —
ATHENIAN: — just as with the sick and physically weak, those who care for them try to administer wholesome nourishment in pleasant foods and drinks, while giving harmful things an unpleasant taste, so that patients will embrace the one and rightly learn to hate the other. In just the same way the true lawgiver will persuade the poet — using fine and praiseworthy words, and if persuasion fails, will compel him — to compose rightly, portraying in rhythm the postures, and in harmony the melodies, of temperate, courageous, and altogether good men. CLEINIAS: Now then, by Zeus, stranger, do you think this is actually how things are done in other cities? As far as I can tell, apart from among us and the Spartans, I don't know of what you're describing being practiced anywhere. Instead there are always some new things happening in dancing and in music generally, changed not by laws but by a kind of disorderly pleasure-seeking — nothing like the fixed, unchanging practices you describe from Egypt, but never the same twice. ATHENIAN: Very well put, Cleinias. But if I gave you the impression I was describing what actually happens now, I wouldn't be surprised if that's because I failed to make clear what I actually have in mind. I described things the way I want them to be regarding music, and perhaps put it in such a way that you thought I was describing current practice. Blaming things that are incurable and far gone in error is never pleasant, but sometimes necessary. Since you agree with this much, tell me — do you say that such things happen among your people and the Spartans more than among other Greeks? CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: And what if they happened this way among the others too? Would we say things would be finer that way, or as they actually happen now? CLEINIAS: There's a world of difference, surely, if things happened as they do among us and the Spartans — and even more so if they happened as you just said they should. ATHENIAN: Well then, let's agree on this point now. Isn't the following true of your whole system of education and music? You compel your poets to proclaim the good man — temperate and just as he is — happy and blessed — whether he's big and strong or small and weak, whether he's rich or not. And if he happens to be richer than Cinyras or Midas, but unjust, he's wretched and lives a painful life.
ATHENIAN: And, as your poet says — if he's right — 'I would neither remember nor count as a man worth speaking of anyone who does not do and possess all that is called noble along with justice, and who, being such, reaches for it standing near the enemy line — while if he is unjust, let him neither dare to look on bloody slaughter nor outrun the Thracian north wind in a race, nor may any other so-called good thing ever come to him.' For the things the many call goods are not rightly called so. It is said that health is best, beauty second, wealth third, and countless other things are called goods besides — sharp sight and hearing, and full function of all the senses; and further, being able as a tyrant to do whatever one desires; and the crowning point of all happiness, to have acquired all these things and become immortal as quickly as possible. But you and I, I think, say instead that all these things are the best possessions for just and pious men, but the worst possible things for unjust men, starting with health itself. Indeed, seeing, hearing, perceiving, and simply being alive at all are the greatest evils for one who is immortal for all time and possesses all the so-called goods except justice and virtue entirely — though a lesser evil if such a person lives only a very short time. I believe your poets will, under your persuasion and compulsion, say just what I am saying, and further, matching this with fitting rhythms and harmonies, will educate our young in this way. Isn't that so? Consider it. I say plainly that the things called evils are good for the unjust and bad for the just, while the things called goods are truly good for the good and bad for the wicked. So — to return to my question — do you and I agree, or not? CLEINIAS: In some respects we seem to, in others not at all. ATHENIAN: Suppose a man possesses health, wealth, and absolute power continuously — and I'll add for you outstanding strength and courage, together with immortality, with none of the so-called evils ever coming to him — but he has injustice and insolence alone within him. Living such a life, am I perhaps failing to persuade you that he is not happy but plainly wretched? CLEINIAS: What you say is perfectly true.
ATHENIAN: Very well. What must we say comes next? Surely a man who is courageous, strong, handsome, and rich, and who does whatever he wants his whole life through — don't you think that if he is unjust and insolent, he must necessarily live shamefully? Or would you at least grant this much — that he lives shamefully? CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: And what about living badly as well? CLEINIAS: That one I wouldn't grant so readily. ATHENIAN: And what about living unpleasantly, and to his own disadvantage? CLEINIAS: How could we still grant even that? ATHENIAN: How, indeed — unless some god, my friends, were to grant us harmony, since as things stand we're pretty much singing out of tune with one another. To me these conclusions seem as necessary as anything can be, dear Cleinias — surer, even, than Crete's being an island. And were I the one framing laws, I would set about compelling the poets, and everyone in the city, to speak this way, and I would set nearly the harshest penalty for anyone in the country who declared that there exist wicked people who live pleasantly, or that some things are profitable and advantageous while others are more just — and I would persuade my citizens to say many things at odds with what is currently said by Cretans and Spartans, and, it seems, by everyone else too. Come now, best of men, by Zeus and Apollo — if we were to ask the very gods who gave you your laws: is the most just life also the most pleasant, or are there two lives, one that happens to be most pleasant and another that is most just? If they said there were two, we might, if we questioned rightly, ask them again which of the two we should call the happier — those who live out the most just life, or those who live out the most pleasant one. If they said the most pleasant, that would be a strange thing for them to say. But I'd rather not put this in the mouths of gods — better to put it to fathers and lawgivers instead. So let the earlier question be asked of a father and lawgiver, and let him answer that the man who lives the most pleasant life is the most blessed. Then I would say: Father, didn't you want me to live as happily as possible? Yet you never stopped urging me, all along, to live as justly as possible.
ATHENIAN: So if he sets it up that way, whether he's a lawgiver or a father, I think he'll look absurd and unable to keep his own words consistent. But if instead he declares the most just life to be the happiest, then anyone listening will surely ask what good and beautiful thing, greater than pleasure, the law finds present in it, to make it worthy of such praise. What good could there be for the just man once it's stripped of pleasure? Come now, fame and praise from men and gods—are these good and beautiful, but unpleasant, while disgrace is the opposite? Not at all, dear lawgiver, we'll say. But is neither wronging anyone nor being wronged by anyone unpleasant, though good and beautiful, while the reverse is pleasant but shameful and bad? CLEINIAS: How could it be otherwise? ATHENIAN: So the account that doesn't separate the pleasant from the just and the good and the beautiful is, if nothing else, persuasive enough to make someone willing to live the holy and just life. So for a lawgiver, the ugliest and most contrary thing to say would be to deny that this is how it stands. No one would willingly agree to do anything unless following it brought more joy than pain. Now, things seen from far off make everyone dizzy, so to speak—children especially—but the lawgiver will set our judgment the other way, will strip away that darkness, and will persuade us, somehow, by habits and praises and arguments, that just and unjust things are like a shadow-painting: the unjust looks opposite to the just, and seen from the unjust and evil side of oneself it looks pleasant, while the just looks most unpleasant; but seen from the just side, everything appears the reverse in both respects. CLEINIAS: So it appears. ATHENIAN: And which judgment shall we say holds the truer authority—the one belonging to the worse soul, or the one belonging to the better? CLEINIAS: The better one, surely, must prevail. ATHENIAN: Then it must be that the unjust life is not only more shameful and depraved, but in very truth less pleasant as well than the life that is just and holy. CLEINIAS: It looks that way, friends, at least by the present argument. ATHENIAN: And even if this weren't actually the case—as our argument has now shown that it is—a lawgiver worth anything at all, if he ever dared tell the young a beneficial lie, could hardly tell one more useful than this, nor one better able to make everyone do all that is just willingly rather than by force. CLEINIAS: Truth is a fine thing, stranger, and it lasts. But it doesn't seem easy to make people believe it. ATHENIAN: Well then—was the Sidonian's tale easy to make people believe, improbable as it was, and countless others like it? CLEINIAS: Which ones do you mean?
ATHENIAN: That once, from teeth sown in the ground, armed soldiers sprang up. And yet this is a great example for a lawgiver, showing that he can persuade the souls of the young of anything he undertakes to persuade them of—so that he need look for nothing else than what belief, once instilled, would do the city the greatest good, and then find every device by which the whole community will, as far as possible, keep saying one and the same thing about these matters throughout their whole lives, in songs, in stories, and in speeches. If anyone thinks otherwise, there's no ill will in disputing the point. CLEINIAS: But it doesn't seem to me that either of us could dispute it. ATHENIAN: Then it would fall to me to speak next. I say that everyone must be charmed by all three choruses while the souls of children are still young and tender, telling them all the fine things we've gone through and will yet go through, with this as their central refrain: that the same life is said by the gods to be both the most pleasant and the best. We'll be speaking the truest thing at once, and we'll persuade those we need to persuade far better than if we said things some other way. CLEINIAS: We must agree with what you say. ATHENIAN: First, then, the children's chorus of the Muses would most rightly come forward first, to sing such things in public with all earnestness before the whole city; second would come those up to thirty years old, calling on Paean as witness to the truth of what's said, and praying that he come to the young with grace and persuasion. And a third group, those from thirty up to sixty years old, must also sing. As for those beyond that age—since they can no longer bear to sing—let them be left as tellers of myths about these same characters, through a kind of divine report. CLEINIAS: But which choruses do you mean by this third group, stranger? We don't quite grasp what you intend to say about them. ATHENIAN: And yet these are pretty much the ones for whose sake most of what's been said before was said. CLEINIAS: We still haven't understood—try to explain more clearly. ATHENIAN: We said, if we remember, near the start of our discussion, that the nature of all young creatures is so fiery that it can't keep still, either in body or in voice, but is always crying out and leaping about in disorder, and that no other animal has any sense of order in either of these, while human nature alone has this.
ATHENIAN: Order in movement bears the name rhythm; order in the voice — the blending of high with low — bears the name harmony, and the combination of the two is called dance. We said that the gods, pitying us, gave us Apollo and the Muses as fellow-dancers and chorus-leaders, and, if we remember, a third besides—Dionysus. CLEINIAS: Of course we remember. ATHENIAN: The chorus of Apollo and the Muses has been discussed; the third and remaining chorus must be said to belong to Dionysus. CLEINIAS: How so? Explain—a chorus of old men belonging to Dionysus would sound quite strange to someone hearing it out of the blue, if indeed those over thirty, and even over fifty up to sixty, are going to dance for him. ATHENIAN: What you say is perfectly true. So I think an argument is needed for why this arrangement would make sense. CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: Do we agree on what came before? CLEINIAS: On which point? ATHENIAN: That everyone, grown man and child alike, free and slave, female and male, and the whole city addressing itself to itself, must never stop singing what we've described, changing it somehow again and again and providing every kind of variety, so that the singers never grow tired of the hymns but keep finding pleasure in them. CLEINIAS: Of course it would be agreed that this should be done. ATHENIAN: Then where is that best part of the city, the one most persuasive by both age and judgment among all in the city, going to sing the finest things and so accomplish the greatest good? Or shall we so thoughtlessly let go of the group that would have the most authority over the finest and most useful songs? CLEINIAS: It's impossible to let it go, given what's been said. ATHENIAN: Then how would this be fitting? See if it's this way. CLEINIAS: What way? ATHENIAN: Everyone, as he grows older, becomes more reluctant about singing, and takes less pleasure in doing it, and if compelled, feels more shame about it, the older and more self-controlled he becomes. Isn't that so? CLEINIAS: It is. ATHENIAN: So standing upright to sing in a theater before all sorts of people would embarrass him even more—especially if, like the choruses competing for victory, trained thin and starved for the contest, such men were forced to sing; wouldn't they do it altogether unpleasantly, shamefully, and half-heartedly?
CLEINIAS: That's most certainly true. ATHENIAN: Then how shall we encourage them to be eager for these songs? Shall we not first make a law that children, up to eighteen years, are not to taste wine at all, teaching them that we mustn't pour fire on fire, in body or in soul, before they set out to face hard labor, guarding against the manic disposition of the young? After that, let them taste wine in moderation up to thirty years old, but let the young man abstain entirely from drunkenness and heavy drinking. Once he reaches forty, having feasted in the common messes, let him call on the other gods, and above all invite Dionysus to the rite and pastime of the older men—the very thing wine was given to humankind as a remedy for the harshness of old age, so that we grow young again, and by forgetting our low spirits, the temper of the soul becomes softer instead of harder, just as iron becomes more workable when put into the fire. First, then, wouldn't each man, disposed this way, be willing to sing more eagerly, feeling less shame, not before crowds but among moderate numbers, and not among strangers but among his own people? CLEINIAS: Very much so. ATHENIAN: So as a means of getting them to take part in song with us, this method wouldn't be altogether unseemly. CLEINIAS: Not at all. ATHENIAN: But what tune will these men sing? Some music, obviously, that's fitting for them? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Then what would be fitting for godlike men? Would it be the music of the choruses? CLEINIAS: We ourselves, stranger—both of us here—could sing no other song than the one we learned by growing familiar with it in the choruses. ATHENIAN: Naturally so, for you truly have never gained possession of the finest song. Yours is the constitution of an army camp, not of people settled in cities, and you keep your young men like herds of colts grazing together in a field.
ATHENIAN: None of you, taking his own colt aside, snatching it away from its fellows though it's fiercely wild and resentful, sets a private groom over it and trains it, currying and gentling it, giving it all that's proper for the rearing of the young, from which it would grow to be not only a good soldier, but capable of managing a city and its towns—the very man we said at the start would be more warlike than Tyrtaeus's warriors, honoring courage everywhere and always as the fourth part of virtue, not the first, both for private citizens and for the city as a whole. CLEINIAS: I don't know, stranger, where you're again finding fault with our lawgivers. ATHENIAN: It's not, my good man, that I'm doing this deliberately, if indeed I am; but let's follow the argument wherever it leads, if you're willing. For if we have a music finer than that of the choruses and of the public theaters, let's try to give it to those we say would be ashamed of the other kind, and who are looking for whichever music is finest, so they can share in it. CLEINIAS: By all means. ATHENIAN: Now first, mustn't this hold for everything accompanied by some charm—that either this charm itself is its most important feature, or else there is some correctness in it, or third, some benefit? For instance, I mean that with eating and drinking and food generally, charm accompanies them, which we might call pleasure; but correctness and benefit are what we call the healthfulness of what's consumed each time, and this is exactly what is most correct in such things. CLEINIAS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: And likewise with learning, pleasure follows along as the charm, but correctness and benefit and goodness and excellence are what truth brings to completion in it. CLEINIAS: That's so. ATHENIAN: And what of the arts of image-making, all those that produce likenesses? If they achieve their aim, isn't pleasure, when it occurs as an accompaniment, most rightly called charm? CLEINIAS: Yes. ATHENIAN: And the correctness of such things would, speaking generally, be produced by equality to the thing imitated, in quantity and quality, rather than by pleasure. CLEINIAS: Well put. ATHENIAN: So only that thing could rightly be judged by pleasure which yields neither benefit nor truth nor likeness — though no harm either — but exists only for the sake of that very thing which accompanies the others, the charm, which one might most fittingly call pleasure, when nothing else follows along with it. CLEINIAS: You mean a harmless pleasure only. ATHENIAN: Yes, and I say this same thing is play, whenever it neither harms nor benefits anything worth serious concern or account. CLEINIAS: What you say is very true.
ATHENIAN: So, from what we've just been saying, wouldn't we say that no imitation at all should be judged by pleasure, or by mere opinion that isn't true — and the same goes for equality in general? It isn't the case that something equal becomes equal, or something well-proportioned becomes well-proportioned, just because someone thinks so, or takes pleasure in it. Rather, everything should be judged above all by what's true, and hardly at all by anything else. CLEINIAS: Absolutely. ATHENIAN: And we say that all music is representational and imitative? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: So whenever someone says music should be judged by pleasure, that claim must be rejected outright, and we shouldn't go looking for the kind of music that merely happens to be pleasant — if such a thing even exists — but rather the kind that resembles a truly beautiful thing being imitated. CLEINIAS: Perfectly true. ATHENIAN: And so those who are searching for the finest song and the finest music must look, it seems, not for whatever is pleasant, but for whatever is correct. And correctness in imitation, as we've said, means reproducing the thing imitated in its proper size and character. CLEINIAS: How could it be otherwise? ATHENIAN: And everyone would agree about music, at least on this point — that everything composed in it is imitation and representation. Wouldn't poets, listeners, and performers all agree on that? CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: Then anyone who's going to avoid mistakes about a given composition needs to know what exactly it is. Someone who doesn't grasp its essence — what it's meant to be, and what it's really supposed to be an image of — will hardly be able to tell whether its intention has been carried out correctly or has gone wrong. CLEINIAS: Hardly indeed — how could he? ATHENIAN: And could someone who doesn't know whether something is correct ever be able to tell whether it's good or bad? I'm not putting this very clearly — let me try to say it more plainly. CLEINIAS: How? ATHENIAN: There are, I suppose, countless likenesses available to our sight. CLEINIAS: Yes. ATHENIAN: Well then — suppose someone doesn't know, among these imitations, what each particular body is supposed to represent. Could he ever tell whether it had been made correctly? I mean something like this: whether it has the right proportions of the body and the right placement of each part, how many there are and which lies next to which in the proper arrangement — and further, the colors and shapes — or whether all this has been done in a jumbled, disordered way. Do you think anyone could ever judge that while being totally ignorant of what living creature the image was supposed to represent? CLEINIAS: How could he?
ATHENIAN: But what if we did know that the painted or sculpted figure was a human being, and that it had received all its proper parts, colors, and shapes from the artist's skill? Would someone who knew that much then also be able to readily judge whether it was beautiful, or in what way it fell short of beauty? CLEINIAS: We'd practically all recognize the beautiful ones among living creatures, stranger. ATHENIAN: Quite right. So mustn't anyone who's going to be a sound judge of any image at all — whether in painting, in music, or anywhere else — have these three things: first, knowing what the thing is; second, knowing whether it's been made correctly; and third, whether it's been made well, in whatever words, melodies, and rhythms make up the image? CLEINIAS: So it seems. ATHENIAN: Then let's not give up on discussing the difficult part concerning music. Since it's praised more extravagantly than any other kind of image, it demands the greatest caution of all images. A mistake here does the greatest harm, because it makes people fond of bad character, and it's the hardest mistake to notice, because poets are worse artists than the Muses themselves. The Muses would never make such a mistake as to compose words fit for men and then set them to a woman's tone and melody, or to compose a noble melody and rhythm and then fit it with the gestures of slaves and low men, or to take rhythms and a free man's bearing and then set them to a melody or speech that contradicts those rhythms. Nor would they ever combine the voices of animals, humans, and instruments, and every kind of noise, into one piece as though imitating a single thing. But human poets, weaving such things together and mixing them up thoughtlessly, would make themselves ridiculous to anyone Orpheus says has 'reached the season of delight.' They see all of this jumbled together — and worse, poets tear rhythm and melodic shape apart from words, setting bare speech to meter, and again set melody and rhythm without words, using the bare cithara or flute alone — in which case it's extremely hard to tell, without words, what a given rhythm or harmony means and what worthwhile model it resembles.
ATHENIAN: No — we have to recognize that all of this is full of gross crudeness, insofar as it loves speed, precision, and an animal-like sound, so as to use the flute or cithara for anything beyond accompanying dance and song. Using either instrument on its own, apart from these, is pure lack of taste and mere showmanship. That much makes sense as far as it goes. But we're not asking whether people over thirty, or past fifty, should make use of the Muses at all — we're asking what use they should make of them. From what's been said, this much already seems clear to me: those in their fifties who are called on to sing need to be better trained in the choral art than most people are. They must be keenly sensitive to rhythms and harmonies, and know them well. Otherwise how will anyone judge whether a melody is correct, whether the Dorian mode is fitting for it or not, and whether the rhythm the poet has attached to it is right or wrong? CLEINIAS: Clearly he couldn't, in no way at all. ATHENIAN: It's ridiculous for the ordinary crowd to think they know well enough what's harmonious and rhythmic and what isn't, just because they've been drilled into singing along and keeping time — without realizing that they're doing this without understanding any of it. Every melody that has what belongs to it is correct; one that lacks it is flawed. CLEINIAS: Absolutely necessary. ATHENIAN: Then what about someone who doesn't even know what a piece contains? Could he ever tell, as we said, whether it's correct in any respect? CLEINIAS: How could he possibly? ATHENIAN: So this, it seems, is what we're rediscovering now: that our singers — the ones we're calling on and, in a sense, compelling to sing willingly — must be trained, at the very least, to the point where each of them can follow the steps of the rhythms and the strings of the melodies, so that by perceiving the harmonies and rhythms they're able to select what's fitting — what befits singers of their years and cast of character — and then sing it, taking harmless pleasure in it themselves as they sing, and becoming, for the young, guides to good character worthy of welcome. Trained to this extent, they would have received a more exacting education than one aimed merely at the masses, or than that given to the poets themselves.
ATHENIAN: For a poet has no real need to know the third thing — whether the imitation is beautiful or not — but knowledge of harmony and rhythm is nearly indispensable for him. Our judges, though, need all three, for the sake of choosing what's best and second best — otherwise they could never be a sufficient charm to lead the young toward virtue. And what our argument set out at the start to show — that the help given to the chorus of Dionysus is rightly praised — has, as far as it could, now been shown. Let's consider whether that's really turned out to be so. Such a gathering necessarily grows noisier as the drinking proceeds further, which is exactly what we assumed from the start would happen, in connection with what we're now discussing. CLEINIAS: Necessarily. ATHENIAN: And every man there feels lighter than himself, filled with delight, freedom of speech, and disregard for his neighbors' words — each one thinking himself fit to rule both himself and everyone else. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Didn't we say that when this happens, the souls of the drinkers, like iron heated red-hot, become softer and younger, so that they become easy to guide for anyone who has the skill and knowledge to train and mold them, just as they were when they were actually young? And that this molder is the same one as before — the good lawgiver — whose drinking-laws must be able to take a man who has become hopeful, bold, and more shameless than he should be, unwilling to accept order and his proper turn in silence, speech, drinking, and music, and instead willing to do the exact opposite of all this — and send into him, as he enters with unbecoming boldness, a fitting and opposing fear, fought justly, the fear we've called reverence and shame, the divine fear? CLEINIAS: That's so. ATHENIAN: And the guardians and co-creators of these laws should be the calm and sober men — generals over the unsober — since without them, fighting drunkenness is more formidable than fighting an enemy without sober commanders. And whoever is unwilling to obey these men and the leaders of Dionysus, those over sixty years old, should bear a shame equal to or greater than the man who disobeys the officers of Ares. CLEINIAS: Rightly said.
ATHENIAN: Well then, if drunkenness were like this, and the amusement were like this, wouldn't the drinking companions benefit from it and part from one another as better friends than before, rather than as enemies, as happens now — associating throughout the whole gathering according to law, and following along whenever the sober ones led the unsober? CLEINIAS: Rightly said, if it really were the kind of thing you're now describing. ATHENIAN: Then let's not simply criticize this gift of Dionysus any longer, as though it were bad and unfit to be admitted into a city. One could say still more in its favor. In fact, there's a certain hesitation in speaking, before the general public, about the greatest good it grants — because people tend to take it up wrongly and misunderstand it once it's said. CLEINIAS: What good is that? ATHENIAN: There's a certain story and rumor that circulates, that this god had his wits scattered by his stepmother Hera, and that's why he inflicts Bacchic frenzies and all sorts of mad, frenzied dancing on us in revenge — which is also why he gave us wine for this very purpose. I leave such stories to those who think it's safe to say such things about the gods. But this much I do know: no living creature is ever born already possessing the full measure of reason it's meant to have when mature; rather, in the time before it has acquired its proper understanding, every creature rages and cries out in disorder, and as soon as it manages to stand upright, it leaps about just as disorderly. And let's remember, we said that this was the origin of both music and gymnastics. CLEINIAS: We remember; of course. ATHENIAN: And didn't we also say that this same origin gave human beings the perception of rhythm and harmony, and that Apollo, the Muses, and Dionysus were the gods responsible for it? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And indeed, it seems, the story others tell claims that wine was given to us so we might go mad, as a punishment on mankind. But the account we're now giving says the opposite: that this medicine was given so the soul might come to possess reverence, and the body health and vigor. CLEINIAS: You've recalled that account beautifully, stranger. ATHENIAN: And let this be half of what concerns the chorus finished. The other half — however it still seems best — we'll either finish or leave aside. CLEINIAS: What do you mean, and how are you dividing the two halves? ATHENIAN: The whole choral art, I suppose, was for us the whole of education; and of this, one part concerned rhythms and harmonies — that is, the vocal side. CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: Now, the body's movement and the voice's movement share rhythm between them, but shape is the body's own—whereas with the voice, the movement is melody. CLEINIAS: Very true. ATHENIAN: So the movement of the voice, insofar as it reaches the soul for the training of virtue, we've somehow been calling music. CLEINIAS: Rightly so. ATHENIAN: And the movements of the body, which we called dancing when done in play—if such movement aims at bodily excellence, let's call the skilled guidance toward that goal gymnastics. CLEINIAS: Exactly right. ATHENIAN: As for music, we said we'd covered roughly half of choral performance and finished with it—let's leave it there for now. Shall we go on to the other half, or how and where should we proceed? CLEINIAS: My good man, you're talking with Cretans and Spartans. We've gone through music, but left out gymnastics—what do you suppose either of us would say in answer to that question? ATHENIAN: I'd say that in asking it, you've pretty much already answered it clearly—I understand this question, as I said, to be an answer, and further, an instruction to finish covering gymnastics. CLEINIAS: You've understood perfectly—so do just that. ATHENIAN: It must be done. And it isn't very hard to describe things that both of you know well, since you have far more practical experience in this art than in the other. CLEINIAS: What you say is pretty much true. ATHENIAN: So then, the origin of this form of play is that every animal is naturally accustomed to leap, while the human animal, as we said, gaining a perception of rhythm, generated and gave birth to dancing—and since melody reminds it of rhythm and stirs it up, the two combined with each other and gave birth to choral performance and play. CLEINIAS: Very true. ATHENIAN: And we say we've already covered one part of this subject, and we'll try to go through the rest next. CLEINIAS: By all means. ATHENIAN: Well then, let's first put the capstone on the use of wine, if you two agree. CLEINIAS: What sort of capstone, and what do you mean? ATHENIAN: If a city treats the practice we've just described as a serious matter, governed by laws and order, using it as training for the sake of self-control, and refrains from other pleasures likewise and on the same principle, contriving always for the sake of mastering them—then this practice should be used by everyone in this way.
ATHENIAN: But if it's treated merely as play, and anyone is free to drink whenever he likes, with whomever he likes, alongside whatever other pursuits he likes, then I wouldn't cast my vote that this city, or this man, should ever indulge in drinking at all. Rather, I'd go further than the practice of the Cretans and Spartans, and side with the Carthaginian law: that no one on campaign should ever taste this drink, but should stick to water-drinking the whole time; that inside the city no slave, man or woman alike, should so much as taste it; that no magistrate should taste it during the year he holds office; that helmsmen and jurors on active duty should not taste wine at all while serving; nor should anyone attending a council meeting of any real importance; nor should anyone at all drink in the daytime, except for reasons of physical training or illness; nor at night, when a man or woman intends to conceive a child. One could mention a great many other occasions on which those possessing sound mind and correct law should not drink wine—so that, by this reasoning, no city would need many vineyards at all; the other crops, and the whole regimen of life, would be regulated, and everything to do with wine would turn out to be the most measured and the least of all things. Let this, strangers, if you agree, stand as the capstone to what's been said about wine. CLEINIAS: Well put—we agree.