Laws — Book 7

Plato · a new plain-English translation from the Greek

ATHENIAN: Once boys and girls have been born, the next topic for us to take up, most properly, is their nurture and education. It's simply impossible to pass over this in silence, yet in speaking of it we'll sound more like people giving instruction and advice than people laying down laws. In private life, within individual households, all sorts of small things happen that aren't visible to everyone, and under the pull of each person's private pains, pleasures, and desires they easily drift away from the lawgiver's counsel, producing characters among the citizens that are wildly various and unlike one another. That's bad for cities. Because these things are so small and so frequent, making them punishable by law would be both unseemly and undignified, and it would also undermine the laws we have put in writing, since people get into the habit of breaking the law over small, frequent matters. So we're at a loss how to legislate about them, yet we can't just say nothing either. Let me try to show what I mean by bringing forward some examples into the light, since as it stands what I'm saying is groping around in a kind of darkness. CLEINIAS: Very true. ATHENIAN: Well, we've already said, correctly I think, that the right nurture, whether of bodies or of souls, must plainly be able to produce the finest and best results. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And the finest bodies, I imagine — to put it most simply — are the ones that grow up straightest from earliest infancy. CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: Now here's something more: don't we notice that in every living creature the first growth is by far the greatest and most rapid — so much so that many people have disputed whether a human being's height even doubles between age five and the following twenty years? CLEINIAS: True.

ATHENIAN: Well then — when a great deal of growth pours in without a correspondingly great deal of exercise, don't we know that this produces countless ills in the body? CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: So the time when a body most needs exercise is precisely when the most nourishment is being added to it. CLEINIAS: What do you mean by that, stranger? Surely you're not going to prescribe the most exercise for newborns, the very youngest of all? ATHENIAN: Not at all — rather, for those still being nourished inside their own mothers, even earlier than that. CLEINIAS: What are you saying, my good man? Do you mean the unborn, still in the womb? ATHENIAN: Yes. It's no wonder you're unfamiliar with the gymnastics appropriate to creatures of that age — a strange subject, but I'd like to explain it to you anyway. CLEINIAS: Please do. ATHENIAN: Well, it's something we notice more readily where we come from, because certain people there carry a particular game further than they should. Among us, you see, not only children but even some grown men keep birds for fighting each other. Now people who train these creatures for such combat are very far from thinking the exercise they need is a matter of casual, moderate stirring-about; on top of whatever workouts they give the birds, each man tucks his bird under his arm — the smaller ones in the hand, the bigger ones held close beneath the armpit — and off they go, walking mile after mile, not for their own bodies' fitness but for that of these creatures. And to anyone capable of drawing the lesson, this makes one thing plain enough: that all bodies benefit, and rest easier, from being shaken and set in motion — whether the motion comes from themselves, or from swinging, or from being carried over the sea, or riding on horseback, or however else a body is borne along and stirred. Because of this, such bodies can also digest their food and drink and pass on to us health, good looks, and strength generally. Given all this, what should we say we ought to do next? Shall we say it, even at the risk of sounding comic, laying down as law that the pregnant woman should walk about, that the newborn should be molded like wax while it's still soft, and swaddled up to the age of two? And shall we further compel the nurses, on pain of legal penalty, to keep carrying the infants somewhere or other — to the fields, to the temples, to relatives' houses — until they're able to stand well on their own; and even then, taking care, while they're still young, that their limbs don't get twisted by being forced to bear weight too soon, keep on carrying them, with real effort, until the child turns three?

ATHENIAN: And the nurses themselves need to be as strong as possible, and more than one of them — and shall we write a fine into the law for any who fail in each of these duties? Or is that going much too far? Because what I just described a moment ago would then happen many times over, and without limit. CLEINIAS: Meaning what? ATHENIAN: That we would bring down a flood of ridicule on ourselves, on top of the fact that the nurses, with their womanish and slavish habits of mind, would never agree to obey us anyway. CLEINIAS: Then why did we say all this needed to be spoken of in the first place? ATHENIAN: For this reason: the habits of masters and free people alike in our cities, on hearing it, might well be brought round to the correct way of thinking — namely, that unless private households are run rightly, it's futile to expect the public affairs of the city to rest on any firm foundation of law. Anyone who keeps this in mind will use, in his own life, the rules we've just stated, and by using them, and managing both his household and his city well at the same time, will live a happy life. CLEINIAS: What you say is quite reasonable. ATHENIAN: So let's not yet leave off this kind of legislating, until we've dealt in the same way with the practices concerning the souls of very young children, following the same method by which we began to work through the tales about their bodies. CLEINIAS: Quite right. ATHENIAN: Let's then take this as a common starting point for both body and soul of the very young: that their nurture and stirring, kept up as continuously as possible through every night and day, is beneficial to everyone, but most of all to the very youngest — and that ideally they should live, so to speak, as though perpetually at sea; but since that's not possible, we must come as close to it as we can with newborn infants. We should draw evidence for this from the following: both the nurses of small children and the priestesses who perform the healing rites of the Corybantes have learned from experience, and know well, that this is beneficial. When mothers want to lull to sleep children having trouble sleeping, what they bring to bear is not stillness but the opposite — motion, rocking them constantly in their arms — and not silence but a kind of song, literally piping a tune to the children, just as with the cures for frenzied, Bacchic states, using this same combination of movement and dance together with music. CLEINIAS: Well then, stranger, what do you suppose is the real cause of this? ATHENIAN: It isn't very hard to work out. CLEINIAS: How so?

ATHENIAN: Both these conditions are, in a sense, forms of fright, and frights arise from some poor state of the soul. So whenever someone applies an external shaking to conditions of this kind, the motion applied from outside overpowers the fearful, frenzied motion within, and by overpowering it produces a calm stillness visible in the soul, in place of the harsh pounding each person had been feeling around the heart — a thoroughly welcome result. In some it brings on sleep; in others, while still awake, it brings about dancing and piping accompanied by whichever gods each is offering favorable sacrifice to, and so, instead of manic states, it produces in us settled, sound states of mind. And this account, put briefly like this, has at least some plausibility. CLEINIAS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: And if these things really do have some such power, then we ought to bear this in mind about ourselves: that any soul that lives among frights from childhood on is more likely to grow accustomed to becoming fearful — and everyone would agree that this amounts to training in cowardice, not in courage. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Whereas the opposite practice, we'd say, is the training for courage right from childhood — conquering the frights and fears that come at us. CLEINIAS: Correct. ATHENIAN: So let's say that this — the exercising of quite young children through movement — contributes a great deal toward one part of the soul's virtue. CLEINIAS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: And further, a soul's not being ill-tempered, as against being ill-tempered, would count as no small part of good spirit or bad spirit respectively. CLEINIAS: How could it not? ATHENIAN: So we must try to say by what means we might, from the start, implant in the newborn whichever of these two we wish — and to what degree we have the resources to do it. CLEINIAS: Naturally. ATHENIAN: Well, the view held where we come from is this: luxury makes the characters of the young ill-tempered, irritable, and quick to be set off by trifles; while the opposite of this — harsh, savage subjection — makes them servile, mean-spirited, and full of hatred for other people, and turns them into unsuitable companions to live with. CLEINIAS: Then how must the whole city rear children who don't yet understand speech, and aren't yet capable of tasting any other form of education? ATHENIAN: Something like this: every newborn creature, and not least the human kind, tends to cry out at once with a wail; and indeed human infants are gripped by weeping, on top of crying out, more than other creatures. CLEINIAS: Quite so.

ATHENIAN: So the nurses judge what a child wants by watching for these very things in what they offer it: when it falls silent at something offered, they think they've offered rightly; when it cries and wails, they think they haven't. For infants, crying and wailing are the signs of what they love and hate — by no means fortunate signs. And this period lasts no less than three years — no small portion of a life to spend worse rather than better. CLEINIAS: Rightly said. ATHENIAN: And don't the two of you think that the person who is ill-tempered and never cheerful tends to be given to lament, and generally more full of complaints than a good person ought to be? CLEINIAS: I certainly think so. ATHENIAN: Well then — if during those three years someone tried every possible means to see that the child we're raising has as little as possible to do with pain, fear, and grief of any kind, don't we suppose that would make the soul of the child, at that stage, cheerful and more good-humored? CLEINIAS: Clearly so — and most of all, stranger, if one arranged for it to have many pleasures. ATHENIAN: There I can no longer go along with Cleinias, my good man. Such a course would in fact be, for us, the very worst corruption of all — because it happens right at the outset of nurture. Let's see whether what I'm saying makes sense. CLEINIAS: Tell me what you mean. ATHENIAN: What's at stake in our discussion right now isn't a small matter. You watch too, Megillus, and help judge between us. My own view is that the right life should neither pursue pleasures nor, on the other hand, wholly flee pains, but should embrace the middle state — the one I just called 'cheerful' — a disposition which, by a kind of prophetic report, we all quite rightly ascribe to god as well. I say that anyone among us who is to become godlike must pursue this same state: he must not become one who rushes headlong after pleasures altogether, on the assumption that he'll thereby be free of pains either; nor should he allow anyone else — old or young, man or woman — to undergo that same thing, and least of all, so far as possible, the newborn infant. Because it's precisely then that the whole character, through habituation, becomes most decisively fixed in everyone. And further — though I risk sounding as if I'm joking — I would say that of all women, those carrying a child in the womb ought above all to be looked after during that year, so that the pregnant woman doesn't indulge in a great many wild pleasures, nor again in griefs, but instead spends that time honoring what is cheerful, kindly, and gentle.

CLEINIAS: There's no need for you to ask Megillus which of us has argued more correctly, Stranger. I myself grant you that everyone must avoid a life of unmixed pain or unmixed pleasure, and always cut a middle course. So you've spoken well, and heard well too. ATHENIAN: Quite rightly, Cleinias. Now, the three of us together, let's think through this next point. CLEINIAS: What point? ATHENIAN: That everything we've been going through just now is what most people call unwritten customs. And what people call ancestral laws are nothing other than exactly this sort of thing. And what's more, what we said just now — that we shouldn't call these things laws, but shouldn't leave them unspoken either — was well said. For these are the bonds of every constitution, standing between all the things that have been written down and laid in place as law and the things still to be enacted — quite literally ancestral, wholly ancient customs. When these are well established and habituated, they wrap the written laws of the time in complete safekeeping. But if they wander outside what is right, and go wrong, then — like the props builders set beneath a house, when they slip out from the middle — they bring everything crashing down together, one thing collapsing under another, both the old supports and whatever was later well built on top of them, once the old foundations give way. Keeping this in mind, Cleinias, you must bind your city, which is entirely new, together on every side, leaving out nothing, great or small, so far as possible, that anyone would call laws, customs, or practices. For a city is bound together by all such things, and neither laws nor customs can last without each other. So we shouldn't be surprised if a great many things that seem to be minor customs or habits keep flowing in and making our laws longer. CLEINIAS: What you say is right, and that's how we'll think about it. ATHENIAN: Well then, as for the age of three years, for both boy and girl, if someone carries out precisely and doesn't apply carelessly what we've described, it would be no small benefit for those newly being reared.

ATHENIAN: When a child is three, then four, then five and even six years old, the soul in its character will still need play, but by now indulgent softness must be checked with punishment — not in a way that dishonors the child, but as we said about slaves: those who punish shouldn't do it with violence and stir up anger in the ones punished, nor should they let unruly softness run free either. The same must be done with free children too. Children of this age have their own natural games, which they mostly invent themselves once they get together. All children from three to six years old should now gather at the shrines in their villages, each village's children brought together in one place. Their nurses should watch over the good order and misbehavior of children this age, while over the nurses themselves and the whole flock, one of the twelve women appointed each year by the Guardians of the Law should be set in charge of each group. These women are to be chosen by the officials in charge of marriages, one from each tribe, women of similar age to themselves. Whoever is appointed should go to the shrine every day and take up her post, always punishing any wrongdoer — for a slave, male or female, or a foreigner, male or female, she may punish through some of the city's public servants; but for a citizen who disputes the punishment, she must bring the case before the city-wardens for judgment, while a citizen who does not dispute it she may punish herself. After the sixth year, the sexes should now be separated — boys spending their time with boys, and girls likewise with one another — and both should turn to their studies. The boys should go to instructors for horsemanship, archery, javelin-throwing, and sling-throwing, and the girls too, if they agree to it, at least up through basic instruction, especially in what concerns the use of weapons. For what's now the common practice on this matter is, in almost every case, misunderstood. CLEINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: That our right and left hands differ by nature in their usefulness for the various tasks done with the hands — whereas the feet and lower limbs show no such difference for exertion. But in the case of the hands, through the folly of nurses and mothers, each of us has become as if lame. For the nature of both limbs is roughly balanced, but we ourselves, through habit, have made them unequal by using them incorrectly.

ATHENIAN: In tasks where it makes no great difference — holding the lyre in the left hand, say, and the pick in the right, and things like that — there's no problem. But to take such examples and apply the same reasoning where it doesn't belong is close to folly. The law of the Scythians shows this: they don't merely draw the bow with the left hand and bring the arrow forward with the right alone, but use both hands equally for both tasks. There are a great many other examples like this too, in chariot-driving and elsewhere, from which one can learn that those who make the left weaker than the right are working against nature. As we said, this makes no great difference with plectrums of horn and instruments of that kind; but when it comes to using iron weapons in war, it makes a great difference — with bows, javelins, and each such weapon — and the greatest difference of all when weapons must be used against weapons. There's a vast difference between the one who has learned and the one who hasn't, between the one who has trained and the one who hasn't. Just as someone thoroughly trained in the pankration, or boxing, or wrestling isn't incapable of fighting from the left side, but still limps and drags along awkwardly whenever someone forces him to switch over and work from the other side — the same, I think, should rightly be expected in the use of weapons and in everything else: whoever possesses two hands, with which to defend and to attack others, should let neither of them lie idle or untrained, so far as possible. If someone had the nature of Geryon, or of Briareus, he ought to be able to hurl a hundred missiles with his hundred hands. The oversight of all this must belong to both the women officials and the men officials — the women watching over play and rearing, the men over studies — so that all the boys and girls, becoming sound of foot and hand alike, do not through habit damage their natures more than can be helped. As for their studies, these are, roughly speaking, twofold: those concerned with the body belong to gymnastics, those concerned with courage of soul belong to the arts of the Muses. Gymnastics divides, in its turn, into dance and wrestling. One branch of dance renders the utterance of the Muse in movement, guarding its dignity and its free bearing at once; the other, for the sake of good condition, lightness, and beauty, concerns the proper bending and stretching of the body's own limbs and parts, giving each of them its own rhythmic movement, spread throughout and following along fittingly through the whole dance.

ATHENIAN: As for wrestling, the holds that Antaeus or Cercyon devised in their own arts for the sake of useless rivalry, or the boxing of Epeius or Amycus, are no use for any partnership in war, and aren't worth dwelling on. But the holds of upright wrestling — freeing neck, hands, and sides from a grip — worked at with rivalry and steady footing, for the sake of graceful strength and health, these are useful for everything and mustn't be neglected. They should be prescribed for both students and the teachers who will teach them, when we reach that point in our laws — the teachers to give all such things generously, the students to receive them gratefully. Nor should we neglect the fitting imitations found in dances — in this region the armed games of the Curetes, in Lacedaemon those of the Dioscuri. And our own Maiden and Mistress, delighted by the play of the dance, thought it wrong to play with empty hands, and instead, adorned in full armor, carried out her dance that way. Boys and girls alike would do well to imitate this completely, honoring the goddess's grace, both for the needs of war and for festivals. Children, from the very start and for as long as they haven't yet gone to war, should always be adorned with weapons and horses when they approach and process before all the gods, performing their supplications to the gods and the children of gods in dances and marches, sometimes quicker, sometimes slower. And contests and preliminary contests, if there are to be any, should be undertaken for no other purpose than this — for these are useful both in peace and in war, both for the constitution and for private households, while other exertions, games, and pursuits of the body are not fit for free people, Megillus and Cleinias. What I said at the outset needed to be gone through under the name of gymnastics, I have now more or less gone through, and this account of it is complete. But if either of you has something better than this, put it forward for us all to consider. CLEINIAS: It isn't easy, Stranger, to set this aside and say something better about gymnastics and athletic contests. ATHENIAN: What comes next in order concerns what the Muses and Apollo have bestowed. Earlier, supposing everything had been said, we imagined that gymnastics alone remained; but now it's clear both what these gifts are and that they must be spoken of before anything else. Let's discuss them next, then. CLEINIAS: Yes, we certainly must.

ATHENIAN: Listen to me, though you've heard something like this before. Still, whether speaking or listening, one must be especially wary of anything strikingly strange and unfamiliar, and that holds now too. For I'm about to say something not without risk to say, yet even so, having found some courage, I won't hold back. CLEINIAS: What is it you mean, Stranger? ATHENIAN: I say that in every city, everyone has failed to recognize that the business of children's games is of supreme importance for whether the laws that are laid down remain stable or not. For when the same games are fixed and made a shared custom, so that the same children always play in the same way with the same toys and find their delight in the same things, this allows the customs established in earnest to remain undisturbed as well. But when these games are disturbed and constantly made new, always subject to further change, and the young never call the same things dear, and there's no agreement among them about what is fitting and unfitting, whether in the bearing of their own bodies or in other equipment, but instead whoever is always innovating something new and introducing something different from what's customary in shapes, colors, and all such things is especially honored — nothing, we would say, and say most correctly, does greater damage to a city than this. For it secretly shifts the character of the young and makes what is old dishonored among them, and what is new honored. And I say again that no penalty is greater for any city than this saying and this belief. Listen to how great an evil I say this is. CLEINIAS: Do you mean the disparaging of what is ancient in our cities? ATHENIAN: Precisely. CLEINIAS: Then you'll find us no poor audience for this very argument, but as favorably disposed as possible. ATHENIAN: That's likely enough. CLEINIAS: Just say it. ATHENIAN: Come then, let's listen to it more fully from ourselves and say this to one another: we'll find that change in anything, except what is bad, is by far the most treacherous thing there is — in every season, in winds, in the regimen of bodies, in the dispositions of souls — in short, in nothing at all is it not so, except, as I just said, in what is bad. So that if one looks at bodies, how they grow accustomed to all foods, all drinks, and all exertions — even though at first disturbed by them — and then, from these very things, over time, grow flesh suited to them, becoming friendly, familiar, and well known, so that this whole regimen produces the best results for pleasure and health,

ATHENIAN: And if a person is ever forced to change again to some other approved regimen, one who was at first thrown into disorder by illness and only settled down again once he recovered his familiar diet — we must think the same thing happens with people's minds and with the natures of their souls. Whatever laws people are raised on, if by some divine good fortune those laws stay unshaken for long stretches of time, so that not a soul remembers, or has even heard tell, that things ever stood otherwise than they now stand, the whole soul reveres and fears disturbing any of the established order. So the lawgiver needs to find some device, by whatever means, for making this happen in the city. Here is how I find it. Everyone thinks that the games children play as they grow up are simply games, as we said before, and that no great harm or seriousness comes from them, so instead of steering children away from their innovations, people go along, giving in — and they don't reckon with this: that children who introduce novelties into their games are bound to grow into men unlike the men before them, and being different, they will look for a different way of life, and looking for that, they will crave different pursuits and different laws, and after that none of them will fear the arrival of what we just now called the greatest evil for cities. Now changes in other things — the sort that affect mere styles — would produce lesser harm, but whatever shifts often in matters of praise and blame concerning character is, I think, the gravest of all and needs the greatest caution. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Well then — do we trust our earlier arguments, where we said that matters of rhythm and all music are imitations of the characters of better and worse people? Or how is it? CLEINIAS: That could not possibly be otherwise, at least by our reckoning. ATHENIAN: So then, we say, every device must be devised so that our children will neither desire to take up other patterns of dance or song, nor will anyone persuade them by offering pleasures of every kind. CLEINIAS: Quite right.

ATHENIAN: Does any of us have a better craft for such things than that of the Egyptians? CLEINIAS: What craft do you mean? ATHENIAN: That of consecrating every dance and every song — first arranging the festivals, working out for the year which ones should occur at which times for each of the gods and their children and the spirits, and after that, for each of the sacrifices to the gods, what hymn must be sung, and with what choral dances that particular sacrifice is to be honored — having certain people first lay this down, and then, once it is laid down, the whole citizen body joins in sacrifice, pouring libations to the Fates together with the rest of the gods, and consecrates each song to each god and the rest of the divine beings. And if anyone, apart from this arrangement, introduces other hymns or dances for some god, the priests and priestesses, together with the Guardians of the Laws, are to exclude him — righteously and lawfully — and the one excluded, if he will not be excluded willingly, is to be liable for the rest of his life to a charge of impiety brought by anyone who wishes. CLEINIAS: Rightly said. ATHENIAN: Now that we've arrived at this point in the argument, let's do what is fitting for us. CLEINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: Any young person — let alone an older one — who sees or hears anything out of the ordinary, anything wholly unfamiliar, would never agree to settle the puzzle about it just by rushing ahead so readily. Instead he would stop, as if he'd come to a crossroads and didn't quite know the way — whether traveling alone or with others — and he would ask himself and the others about the puzzle, and would not set off before he had somehow confirmed by inquiry which way the road actually led. We ought to do the same thing now. Since a strange topic concerning laws has just come up, we surely must give it every consideration, and not, at our age, glibly assert with great confidence that we can say anything clear about such important matters on the spot. CLEINIAS: Very true. ATHENIAN: So we'll give this time, and confirm it only once we've examined it adequately. But so we aren't prevented, for nothing, from completing the sequence of laws we're now engaged with, let's go on to their conclusion. For perhaps, god willing, this entire exposition, once brought fully to its end, might also clarify the very point now in question. CLEINIAS: Excellently said, Stranger — let's do just as you say.

ATHENIAN: Let it be settled, then, we say, this strange thing — that our songs have become laws, and that, as it seems, the ancients in their day gave that same name, in a way, to their citharodic performances — so that perhaps even they were not entirely far from what is now being said, someone dreaming it, so to speak, in sleep, or even divining it half-awake. Let this, then, be our judgment on it: beyond the public songs, the sacred ones, and the whole choral performance of the young, no one is to utter any other song, nor move in any other dance, more than he would break any other law. Whoever complies goes free of penalty; the disobedient, as we just said, the Guardians of the Laws shall chastise, together with the priestesses and priests. Shall this now be laid down by us in argument? CLEINIAS: Let it be laid down. ATHENIAN: In what way, then, could someone legislate about these matters without becoming utterly ridiculous? Let's look further at this point. The safest thing is to first mold, in speech, certain models for them, as if casting a mold. Let me say that one such model is something like this: when a sacrifice has taken place and the offerings have been burned according to law, if — we say — someone standing there privately by the altars and offerings, a son or a brother, utters every kind of blasphemy, wouldn't we say he instills despair and an evil omen and foreboding in his father and the rest of the household? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Well, in our own regions this happens in cities, one might almost say, in nearly all of them: whenever some magistracy holds a public sacrifice, afterward not one chorus but a multitude of choruses arrives, and standing not far from the altars but sometimes right beside them, they pour out every kind of blasphemy upon the sacred rites, straining the souls of the listeners with words and rhythms and the most mournful harmonies — and whoever manages to make the sacrificing city burst into tears on the spot carries off the prize. Shall we not vote this custom down? And if citizens must ever be exposed to such lamentations, on days that are not pure but rather ill-omened, then surely it would be more fitting for some hired choruses to come in from outside, singers hired for the purpose, the way people hire mourners to escort the dead with a Carian kind of music. Something of that sort would be fitting for such songs too, and indeed the proper dress for funeral dirges would surely not be garlands or gilded ornaments, but quite the opposite — so that I can be done with the subject as quickly as possible. But I still want to ask this much again — shall this be our first point of agreement among the models for songs? CLEINIAS: Which point?

ATHENIAN: Good omen — let the very type of our song be, in every respect, of good omen throughout? Or should I not even ask, but simply lay this down as settled? CLEINIAS: Lay it down without question — this law carries every single vote. ATHENIAN: What, then, would be the second law of music after good omen? Surely that there be prayers to the gods to whom we sacrifice on each occasion? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: The third law, I think, is this — that poets, knowing that prayers are requests addressed to the gods, must take great care never unknowingly to ask for something bad while thinking it good; for it would be a ridiculous predicament, I think, if such a prayer were actually granted. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Weren't we persuaded a little earlier in our discussion that neither silver wealth nor gold ought to be established and dwell within a city? CLEINIAS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: For what, then, shall we say that argument was given as an example? Isn't it this — that the tribe of poets is not, as a whole, capable of adequately discerning what is good and what is not? So a poet, having composed something mistaken in this respect, in words or even in melody — improper prayers — will have our citizens asking the gods for the very reverse of what they ought, in matters of the greatest weight. And yet, as we said, we won't find many mistakes graver than this one. Shall we then set this down too as one of our laws and models concerning music? CLEINIAS: Which one? Tell us more clearly. ATHENIAN: That the poet is to compose nothing contrary to what the city holds lawful, just, noble, or good, and that what he composes may not be shown to any private person before it has been shown to and approved by the judges appointed for these matters and by the Guardians of the Laws — and we have already, more or less, appointed as such the men we chose as lawgivers over music and the overseer of education. Well then — as I keep asking — shall this be laid down as our third law and model? CLEINIAS: Let it be laid down — of course. ATHENIAN: After this, hymns to the gods and encomia joined together with prayers would most rightly be sung, and after the gods, in the same way, prayers joined with encomia would be fitting for spirits and heroes as well. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And right after this, the following law could arise at once, free of ill will: whichever citizens have reached the end of life, having accomplished noble and laborious deeds of body or of soul, and having been obedient to the laws, it would be fitting for them to receive encomia. CLEINIAS: Of course.

ATHENIAN: But it is not safe to honor with encomia and hymns those who are still living, before someone has run the whole course of life and brought it to a noble close. Let all this be held in common for men and women alike who have shown themselves manifestly good. As for songs and dances, they should be established in this way. There exist many fine poems, old works of the old poets, in music, and likewise dances for the body, from which there is no ill will in selecting whatever is fitting and suited to the constitution now being established. Those chosen to judge these should make their selection being no younger than fifty years old, and whatever among the old poems seems adequate they should approve, while whatever falls short or is altogether unsuitable they should either reject entirely or, upon reconsideration, revise — bringing in poets and musicians to help, making use of their poetic gifts, but not entrusting matters to their pleasures and desires except in a few cases, and explaining to them the lawgiver's wishes, so that they may compose dance, song, and every choral performance as much as possible according to his intent. Any pursuit of music, even one lacking the sweet Muse's seasoning, is immeasurably better once it has taken on order, rather than disorder — for pleasantness is common to all kinds alike. For whoever lives from childhood to a settled and sensible age amid a disciplined and orderly music, and then hears its opposite, hates it and calls it ignoble; but one raised on the common, sweet kind calls the opposite of that cold and unpleasant. So, as was just said, neither type has the advantage in terms of pleasure or unpleasantness — but one type, beyond that, makes those raised in it better, and the other makes them worse. CLEINIAS: Well said. ATHENIAN: Further, it would be necessary to distinguish, by some sort of pattern, which songs are fitting for women and which for men, and it is necessary to fit them to harmonies and rhythms accordingly; for it is a terrible thing to clash with an entire harmony, or to be out of rhythm, by assigning to melodies elements that don't belong to them at all. So it is necessary to legislate the outlines of these things too. Both sexes must, by necessity, be assigned certain elements common to both, but the elements proper to women, differing by the very nature of each sex, must be made clear as such. So the grand and the inclination toward courage must be called masculine, while what leans more toward the orderly and the modest must be handed down, in law and in speech, as more characteristically feminine.

ATHENIAN: That, then, is a kind of arrangement. Next let's talk about how these things are taught and handed down—in what manner, by whom, and when each of them should be practiced. Take a shipbuilder: when he lays the keel to begin building a ship, he sketches out the shape of the vessel first. That's exactly what I seem to be doing—trying to lay out the shapes that lives take, according to the different characters of souls, truly laying down their keels, asking by what device and in what ways, living together, we might best make our way across through this voyage of life. That's the question to look at properly. Now, human affairs aren't worth taking all that seriously, yet we're forced to take them seriously—and that's not a happy state of affairs. But since we find ourselves here, if we could somehow do this in a fitting way, that might suit us well enough. What do I mean by that? Someone might reasonably catch me up on it. CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: I say we should take seriously what's serious, and not take seriously what isn't; and that by nature god is worthy of all blessed seriousness, while man, as we said before, has been devised as a kind of plaything of god—and that is in fact the best thing about him. Every man and woman, then, should live out life following this pattern, playing the finest games possible, holding the opposite view from what's held now. CLEINIAS: How so? ATHENIAN: Nowadays people think serious pursuits should exist for the sake of play—they think the business of war, being serious, must be conducted well for the sake of peace. But in fact war never was, and never will be, either play or genuine education worth the name—and education is what we say is most serious of all for us. Each of us must live out the life of peace as fully and as well as possible. What's the right way to do that? To live playing at certain games—sacrificing, singing, and dancing—so as to be able to win the gods' favor and to ward off enemies and win when fighting them.

ATHENIAN: As for what songs and dances one should perform to do both these things, the outline has been given, and the paths, so to speak, have been cut for us to follow, trusting also that the poet spoke well when he said: 'Telemachus, some things you will think out yourself in your own heart, and other things a god will suggest; for I do not think you were born and raised without the will of the gods.' Our young charges should think in just this way: that what has already been said should be considered sufficient, but that a guiding spirit—a god—will also suggest to them further things about sacrifices and dances, telling them for which gods and when they should perform each rite, playing and propitiating according to the way of their nature, since they are, for the most part, mere playthings, yet sharing in some small measure of truth. MEGILLUS: Stranger, you're running down the human race altogether! ATHENIAN: Don't be surprised, Megillus, but forgive me: I said what I said just now with my eye and my feeling fixed on god. Let our race, if you like, not be a trivial thing, but one worthy of some seriousness. As for what comes next: we've spoken of building shared gymnasiums and schoolhouses in three places at the center of the city, and outside, near the town, three riding-grounds and open spaces equipped for archery and other missile practice, for the learning and training of the young. If these weren't described adequately before, let them now be set down in the account, along with the laws. In all these places, there should be teachers, persuaded by pay to live there as resident foreigners, teaching everything relating to war to those who attend, and everything relating to music too—not that a boy attends if his father wishes it and stays away if he doesn't, but rather, as the saying goes, every man and child, so far as possible, must be educated by necessity, since they belong to the city more than to their parents. My law would say the very same applies to females as to males—that women should be trained equally in the same things. And I'd say this without any fear, regarding both horsemanship and gymnastics: that what's fitting for men would be fitting for women too.

ATHENIAN: From hearing old stories I've come to believe it, and as for the present day, I know—one might almost say—that there are countless thousands of women around the Black Sea, called Sauromatians, who are assigned, equally with the men, a share not only in horsemanship but in archery and other weapons, and who practice these equally. And beyond that I have this further reasoning to offer on the matter: I say that if these things can actually happen as described, then it's the height of folly that in our own regions men and women don't, with all their strength and with one accord, pursue the very same practices. For as things stand, nearly every city is, in effect, only half a city instead of double what it could be, given the same expenses and labors—and yet this would be a truly astonishing mistake for a lawgiver to make. CLEINIAS: So it seems. Still, we have a great many customs, Stranger, that go against what's usually said in cities today. But since you said you'd let the argument run its course, and once it had run well, then decide what seems right—you put that quite gracefully, and you've made me now reproach myself for having said what I did. So go on and say what comes next, whatever pleases you. ATHENIAN: What pleases me, Cleinias, is what I said before: if this hadn't been sufficiently proven in practice to be possible, then perhaps there'd be room to object to the argument. But as it stands, whoever refuses to accept this law must look for some other objection, while our own charge in these matters won't be silenced—that the female sex must share as fully as possible in education and in everything else with the male sex. And here's how we should think about it: if women don't share the whole of life in common with men, isn't there necessarily some other arrangement for them? CLEINIAS: There must be. ATHENIAN: Then which of the arrangements we've already described should we set up for them, in place of the sharing we're now prescribing? Should it be the one the Thracians use for their women, and many other peoples too—farming, herding cattle, tending sheep, and serving, no differently from slaves? Or the one that we and everyone around our region use? As things stand with us, this is how it goes: we've gathered all the property into one household, so to speak, and handed it over to the women to manage—to control the shuttle and all the wool-work.

ATHENIAN: Or shall we say, Megillus, that the Laconian way falls between these two? Girls should live sharing in gymnastics and music alike, while grown women should be freed from wool-work but should weave a life of exercise that's neither trivial nor cheap, arriving at some middle course between housekeeping, managing the stores, and raising children—yet not sharing in war, so that if some necessity ever arose to fight for the city and for their children, they wouldn't be able to handle a bow, as certain Amazons do, or take part with skill in any other kind of missile-throwing, nor could they take up shield and spear to imitate the goddess, standing nobly against the enemy if their homeland were being ravaged, and so at least strike fear, if nothing more, into their enemies by being seen drawn up in some formation. Such women could never even dare to imitate the Sauromatian way of life; compared to their own women, the men there would look like women! So let whoever wishes praise your lawgivers for this; my own view can be put no other way: the lawgiver must be whole, not half, when he legislates—he shouldn't let the female half go soft and wasteful, living carelessly, while taking care only of the male, and so leave the city with only half of a happy life instead of double. MEGILLUS: Cleinias, how are we to respond? Are we simply going to let the stranger trample our Sparta this way? CLEINIAS: Yes—since we've given him freedom of speech, we must let it be until we've gone through the laws fully and adequately. MEGILLUS: You're right. ATHENIAN: Then is it now my turn to try to state what comes next? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: What way of life, then, would be fitting for people whose basic needs are modestly provided for, whose crafts have been handed over to others, whose farming is entrusted to slaves who render a sufficient portion of the produce of the land to people living in an orderly way, and who have common meals set up—separate ones for the men, and nearby, close by, the ones for their own household members, for the girls together with their mothers—

ATHENIAN: while the men and women officials are charged with dismissing each of these common meals every day, once they've observed and looked over the conduct of the gathering, and then, after pouring libations to whatever god the current night and day happen to be dedicated to, along with the official presiding, everyone proceeds home in that fashion? For people arranged in this way, is there truly no necessary and altogether fitting work left for them, but must each of them simply live fattening himself like cattle? We say that's neither just nor good, nor is it possible for someone living that way to fail to get what's fitting for him—and what's fitting for a lazy, idly-fattened creature is pretty much to be torn apart by some other creature, one that's been thoroughly toughened through courage and hard labor. Now, if we sought this out with full precision, as we're doing now, it could perhaps never be fully realized, so long as women and children and private homes exist, and everything of that sort is set up privately for each of us. But if what comes next as a second-best could be achieved for us, it would come about quite reasonably. We say that for people living this way, the task left to them is not the smallest or least significant, but the greatest of all, imposed by a just law: for while the pursuit of victory at Pytho or Olympia leaves a person no leisure at all for anything else, the life devoted—quite rightly—to the care of body and soul together for the sake of virtue is filled with twice that much occupation, and far more besides. No side-task should be allowed to hinder the other tasks proper to the body, in repaying its labors and nourishment, nor those proper to the soul, in learning and habituation—indeed, nearly every night and day together is not enough for someone pursuing this very thing, to grasp it fully and adequately. Given that this is how things stand by nature, there must be an order established for all free people covering the whole of their time, beginning roughly at dawn and continuing right through to the next dawn and sunrise. A lawgiver would appear rather unseemly going on at great length about many small details of household management, including matters of nighttime wakefulness, appropriate for those who are going to guard the whole city with precision throughout.

ATHENIAN: For any citizen at all to sleep through an entire night without ever being seen awake and up before all the household staff — this must be considered shameful, unworthy of a free person, whether we call such a rule a law or simply a practice. And a mistress of the house being woken by her maidservants, instead of being the first to wake the others — this is something a male slave, a female slave, and a child should all say to themselves is shameful, and indeed the whole household, every member of it, if that were possible. Once awake at night, everyone should attend to a good share of both public and private business — officials in their posts across the city, masters and mistresses in their own homes. Too much sleep suits neither our bodies nor our souls, nor the actions bound up with them, if we're speaking naturally. A sleeping person is worth nothing, no more than someone who isn't alive at all; but whoever among us cares most about living and thinking clearly stays awake as long as possible, keeping back only what sleep is useful for health — and that isn't much, once it becomes a settled habit. Officials awake at night in a city are frightening to wrongdoers, both enemies and citizens alike, but admired and honored by the just and self-controlled, and a benefit to themselves and to the whole city together. A night spent in this way, on top of everything else we've said, would instill a kind of courage in the soul of everyone in the city. When day comes and people rise at dawn, children should head off to their teachers — no flock of sheep, or anything else, should go about without a shepherd, and certainly children should not go about without some attendants, nor slaves without masters. Of all creatures the child is the hardest to handle, precisely because the spring of reasoning in him is not yet regulated — he becomes the most cunning, sharp, and unruly of all creatures. That's why he must be curbed, as it were, with many kinds of reins: first, once he's taken from his nurses and mother, by attendants for the sake of his childishness and immaturity, and further by teachers in whatever subject or lesson, treating him as a free person — yet also as a slave, in the sense that any free man who comes upon him should punish the child himself, along with his attendant or teacher, if any of them does something wrong.

ATHENIAN: And if, on the other hand, someone who comes upon such a case fails to punish it as it deserves, let him first be subject to the greatest reproach; and let the guardian of the laws chosen to oversee the rearing of children keep watch on this bystander we're speaking of, whether he fails to punish when he should, or punishes in the wrong way — let him look sharply and, taking particular care over the upbringing of children, straighten out their natures, always turning them toward the good in accordance with the laws. But how could the law itself adequately train this official? As it stands, the law has said nothing clear or sufficient on this — some things, yes, others no. It must, so far as possible, leave nothing out for him, but spell out every point fully, so that he in turn can serve as both interpreter and nurturer for the rest. Now, regarding choral dance — songs and dancing — we've said what form they should take when chosen, corrected, and consecrated. But as for writings — prose, without meter — what kind, and in what manner, you ought to handle them for those in your care, best of guardians of children, we have not yet said. And yet, as for what pertains to war, what they must learn and practice, you have that in what's already been said, and as for letters, first, and second, the lyre and calculation, which we said each of them needs to grasp so far as it bears on war, household management, and the administration of the city — and beyond these, whatever is useful concerning the cycles of the heavens, the stars, sun and moon, whatever a city must necessarily manage regarding them — what do we mean by this? The ordering of days into cycles of months, and months into each year, so that the seasons, sacrifices, and festivals, each receiving what belongs to it, conducted according to nature, keep the city alive and awake, rendering the gods their honors and making people more thoughtful about these things — none of this, my friend, has yet been adequately laid out for you by the lawgiver. So pay attention to what's about to be said next. We said you weren't yet adequately equipped concerning letters, the first subject — what fault did we find with the statement? This: that it hasn't yet told you whether the future citizen of moderate means should pursue precision in this subject, or not take it up at all; and the same for the lyre. But we do say now that it should be taken up.

ATHENIAN: For letters, roughly three years is right for a ten-year-old child; for taking up the lyre, the proper time to begin is at thirteen, and to continue for another three years. Neither the father nor the child himself, whether the child loves the subject or hates it, is permitted, in defiance of the law, either to lengthen this time or to shorten it. Whoever disobeys shall be deprived of the honors due to education, which we'll state a little later. But what exactly the young must learn in this time, and what the teachers in turn must teach — learn this yourself first. As for letters, the aim should be to become capable of writing and reading; but as for speed or beauty of hand being perfected in those whose nature hasn't caught up within the years set, let that go. As for the subjects composed in writing without the lyre — some in meter, others without the divisions of rhythm, works of prose set down as bare statements, lacking rhythm and harmony — these writings, left to us by many such ordinary people, are treacherous. What will you do with them, best of guardians of the laws? Or what would the lawgiver rightly prescribe that you use? I expect he'll be quite at a loss. CLEINIAS: What is this, stranger — you seem genuinely at a loss with yourself as you say this? ATHENIAN: You've understood correctly, Cleinias. Since you are partners with me in this matter of laws, I have no choice but to say both what seems easy and what I can't yet say clearly. CLEINIAS: Well then — what exactly do you mean, and what is troubling you here? ATHENIAN: I'll tell you. It's never easy to speak against countless mouths at once. CLEINIAS: What? Do you think what we've said so far about the laws is some small, minor thing, contrary to popular opinion? ATHENIAN: What you say is quite true. You're urging me — or so it seems to me — since the same path has already made many enemies, and perhaps no fewer friends among others (and if fewer, certainly no worse), to press on boldly, taking the risk, along this path of lawgiving now cut by our present arguments, without holding back. CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Well then, I won't hold back. I say this: there are poets among us, quite a number of them, composing in hexameters, in trimeters, and in every so-called meter, some aiming at seriousness, others at comedy, in whose works, the countless many say, those being properly educated among the young ought to be raised and saturated, made well-read through constant recitation and widely learned, memorizing whole poets word for word. Others, selecting the chief points from all of them and gathering certain whole passages into one collection, say these must be memorized and committed to memory, if a person is to turn out good and wise through wide experience and broad learning. Are you now telling me to speak frankly and declare what these people say rightly and what not? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: What single statement, then, could I make about all of this that would be adequate? I think it's roughly this, and everyone would agree with me: every one of these poets has spoken finely in many places and, in many others, quite the reverse. And if that's so, I say wide learning brings danger for children. CLEINIAS: Then what would you advise the guardian of the laws? ATHENIAN: Concerning what, exactly? CLEINIAS: Concerning what model he should look to in deciding to let all the young learn one thing, and to forbid another. Speak, and don't hold back from saying it. ATHENIAN: My good Cleinias, it seems I've been rather fortunate in one respect. CLEINIAS: In what way? ATHENIAN: In not being entirely at a loss for a model. For now, looking back at the discussions we've gone through from dawn until this very moment — and it seems to me, not without some inspiration from the gods — they struck me as remarkably like a kind of poetry. And perhaps it's no wonder some feeling came over me, seeing our own words gathered together all at once, and taking great pleasure in it; for of all the many discourses I've learned and heard, in poems or spoken so freely in prose, these seemed to me by far the most measured and the most fitting for young people to hear. I couldn't propose a better model to the guardian of children and the teacher than this: to instruct the teachers to teach the children these very words, and whatever is akin and similar to them, and if they should happen upon poets' poems, or things written in prose, or even just things spoken plainly without being written down, akin to these discourses of ours, never to let them go, but to have them written down.

ATHENIAN: And first, to compel the teachers themselves to learn and approve of them, and not to employ as colleagues any of the teachers who don't please them, but to use those who agree with their approval, handing the young over to them to teach and educate. Let this be the end of my account here, spoken about both letter-teachers and letters together. CLEINIAS: As far as the plan goes, stranger, it doesn't seem to me that we've strayed outside the arguments we set out; but whether we're getting it entirely right or not is perhaps hard to say for certain. ATHENIAN: Yes, Cleinias — that will become clearer, as is likely, when, as we've often said, we reach the end of the whole survey concerning the laws. CLEINIAS: Rightly said. ATHENIAN: After the letter-teacher, shouldn't we now turn to the lyre-teacher? CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: I think we should recall our earlier discussions and assign to the lyre-teachers the appropriate share of both the teaching itself and of the whole education connected with such things. CLEINIAS: What are you referring to? ATHENIAN: We said, I believe, that the sixty-year-old singers of Dionysus need to have become especially keen in perceiving rhythms and the structures of harmonies, so that someone able to select, among the imitations of melody — the well-imitated and the badly imitated — when the soul is caught up in the feelings represented, the likenesses of the good and of its opposite, could reject the latter, and bring the former forward into the open, singing and chanting them into the souls of the young, calling on each of them to follow after the acquisition of virtue by way of these imitations. CLEINIAS: Very true. ATHENIAN: For this purpose, then, both the lyre-teacher and the pupil must make use of the notes of the lyre for the sake of clarity in the strings, matching note to note in unison. But as for the lyre's variation and elaboration — when the strings sound one melody and the poet who composed the song another, producing concord and discord by setting density against sparseness, speed against slowness, high pitch against low, and likewise fitting all sorts of rhythmic variations to the notes of the lyre — none of this should be brought to those who are to grasp the useful part of music within three years, and quickly. For opposites clashing with each other make learning difficult, and the young must be as capable of learning as possible; for the required lessons imposed on them are neither few nor small, as the argument will show as it proceeds in time.

ATHENIAN: So, on those terms, let our educator take charge of music for us. As for the tunes themselves and the words — what the chorus-masters are to teach, and what sort of pieces — all of that too we went through fully earlier: the pieces we said must be consecrated, each fitted to its festival, so as to hand cities a fortunate pleasure and do them good. CLEINIAS: True — you have gone through that as well. ATHENIAN: Perfectly true, then. Let the man elected to preside over the Muse take this over and attend to it, with kindly fortune at his side; and let us, in addition to what has been said before, deal now with dance and the whole gymnastic training of the body. Just as we supplied what was still missing on the teaching side of music, let us do the same for gymnastics. The boys and the girls must learn to dance and to exercise, must they not? CLEINIAS: Yes. ATHENIAN: Then for the boys, dancing-masters, and for the girls, dancing-mistresses, would be none the less suitable for putting them through their work. CLEINIAS: Let it be so. ATHENIAN: Then let us call back the man who will have the most business on his hands, the supervisor of children, who, in caring for both music and gymnastics, will not have much leisure. CLEINIAS: How will he be able, at his age, to oversee so much? ATHENIAN: Easily, my friend. The law has given him, and will give him, leave to take on for this supervision whichever of the citizens he wishes, men and women; he will know whom he needs, and he will want to make no false step here, sensibly respecting and recognizing the magnitude of his office, and holding to the reasoning that when the young have been and are being well brought up, everything sails on course for us — but if not... it is not worth saying, and we do not say it, about a new city, out of regard for the great lovers of omens. On these subjects too we have already said a great deal — about dancing and about all gymnastic movement; for we count as gymnastics all bodily exercise bearing on war: archery and every kind of throwing, skirmishing with the light shield and every form of fighting in heavy arms, tactical maneuvers, every sort of marching of armies and pitching of camps, and all the studies that bear on horsemanship.

ATHENIAN: For all these there must be public teachers, drawing pay from the city, and their pupils must be the boys and men in the city — and the girls and women too must understand all of it: while still girls they should have practiced every dance and combat in armor, and as women they should have a grasp of maneuvers and formations and the laying down and taking up of arms — if for nothing else, then for this: should the entire fighting force ever be compelled to march out of the city in full strength, those left behind to guard the children and the rest of the city would at least be equal to that task. Or the opposite — and none of this can be sworn off as impossible — enemies from outside, barbarian or Greek, bursting in with some great strength and violence, and forcing the decisive fight for the city itself: it would surely be a great vice in a constitution if its women had been raised so disgracefully that they would not even do what mother-birds do, fighting the strongest beasts for their chicks — willing to die and to run every risk — but instead rushed straight to the shrines, crowding every altar and temple, and poured over the human race the reputation of being by nature the most cowardly of all creatures. CLEINIAS: No, by Zeus, stranger — quite apart from the harm, that would be an unseemly thing wherever in a city it happened. ATHENIAN: Then shall we lay down this law — that women must not neglect the business of war to at least that degree, and that all citizens, men and women, must attend to it? CLEINIAS: I, for one, agree. ATHENIAN: Now, wrestling: we have spoken of parts of it, but what is greatest, as I would put it, we have not said — nor is it easy to state in words without showing it with the body at the same time. This, then, we shall judge when word can follow deed and make something clear — both about the other points we have raised, and that this kind of wrestling is truly, of all movements, by far the closest kin to fighting in war; and further, that it must be practiced for war's sake, not war learned for wrestling's sake. CLEINIAS: Well said, that. ATHENIAN: Then let this be the limit, for now, of what we say about the powers of the wrestling-ground. As for the rest of the movement of the whole body — the greater part of which one would rightly call a kind of dancing — we must consider it to have two forms: one imitating finer bodies with a view to dignity, the other imitating uglier bodies with a view to the base; and again two subdivisions of the base and two of the serious.

ATHENIAN: Of the serious kind, one imitates fine bodies and a courageous soul entangled in war and in violent labors; the other, a temperate soul in prosperity, amid measured pleasures — this one a person would naturally call, by its nature, the peaceful dance. The warlike one, distinct from the peaceful, one would rightly name the pyrrhic: it imitates the evasion of all blows and missiles — by swerving, by every kind of yielding, by leaping high and by crouching low — and also the movements opposite to these, carried into aggressive postures, attempting the mimicry of the shooting of bows and of javelins and of blows of every sort. In these dances, when the imitation is of good bodies and souls, the upright and the taut is right — the limbs of the body held for the most part in straight lines; such carriage is correct, and what is contrary to it we do not accept as correct. As for the peaceful dance, this is the way to examine it in each case: whether a performer, grasping the nature of fine dancing correctly or not, keeps it up in his choruses in the manner befitting law-abiding men. First, then, we must cut the disputed dancing apart from the undisputed. What is the disputed kind, and how should the two be separated? All Bacchic dancing and what goes with it, in which, naming Nymphs and Pans and Silenuses and Satyrs — so they say — people imitate drunken revelers while performing certain purifications and initiations: this whole class of dancing cannot easily be defined either as peaceful or as warlike, or as to what it does mean. The most correct way to define it, it seems to me, is this: setting it apart from the warlike and apart from the peaceful, to say that this class of dancing is not civic; and having left it lying there where it lies, let us now return to the warlike and the peaceful together, as belonging to us beyond dispute. Now what belongs to the unwarlike Muse — people honoring the gods and the children of the gods in dances — would form one whole class, arising in the conviction of faring well; and this we may divide in two: one part, of those who have escaped out of toils and dangers into good things, holds greater pleasures; the other, where former goods are being preserved and increased, possesses pleasures gentler than those.

ATHENIAN: In such states, I suppose, every human being moves the body's motions more largely when the pleasures are greater, and less when they are smaller; and the more orderly a man is, and the better trained toward courage, the smaller his motions, while the coward, and the man untrained in temperance, produces greater and more violent swings of movement. In general, no one giving voice, whether in song or in speech, is quite able to keep his body still. That is why the imitation of what is spoken, carried out through gestures, produced the whole art of dancing. In all this, one of us moves in tune, another out of tune. And indeed many of the old names deserve to be reflected on and praised as well and naturally given; among them is the one for the dances of people who fare well and keep measure toward their pleasures — how rightly and how musically he named them, whoever he was, who reasonably gave a name to them all together and called them emmeleiai, the graceful measures. And he set down two forms of the fine dances: the warlike, the pyrrhic; and the peaceful, the emmeleia — giving each the fitting and harmonious name. These the lawgiver must set out in outline, and the guardian of the laws must search for; and having tracked them down, he must combine the dancing with the rest of the music, assign to every festival of the sacrifices the portion appropriate to each, and, having consecrated it all in fixed order, must thereafter change nothing that pertains to either dance or song. In the same pleasures, in the same fashion, the city and its citizens are to pass their days, remaining as alike as possible, and so live well and happily. What concerns the choruses of fine bodies and noble souls, then — what we said such performances must be like — is now complete. But the doings of ugly bodies and ugly thoughts, and of performers turned to comic mockery in laughter — mocking in speech, song, and dance, and in the caricatures all these afford — these it is necessary to observe and to recognize. For without the ridiculous the serious cannot be learned, nor any opposite without its opposite, if a man is to be wise; but one cannot do both, if one is to share in even a small piece of virtue. That is precisely why one must learn these things: so as never, through ignorance, to do or say what is ridiculous when there is no need. Such mimicry must be assigned to slaves and hired foreigners; no serious attention is ever to be paid to it in any way; no free person, woman or man, is to be found learning it; and there must always be something new in the show of these imitations.

ATHENIAN: So, as for the amusements of laughter, which we all call comedy, let that stand as settled by law and by argument. As for our so-called serious poets, the tragedians — suppose some of them came to us one day and put a question something like this: Strangers, may we visit your city and your country, or not? And may we bring our poetry along and perform it? Or how have you decided to act about such things? What would be the right answer for us to give these inspired men? In my view, this: Best of strangers, we ourselves are poets of a tragedy — the finest and best we can achieve. Our whole constitution stands as an imitation of the finest and best life, which we at least assert to be, in reality, the truest tragedy. You are poets, then — but we too are poets of the same things: your rivals in art and your competitors in the finest drama, which true law alone is fitted by nature to bring to completion — such is our hope. So do not imagine that we will ever lightly permit you to pitch your stages in our marketplace and bring on your fine-voiced actors, out-shouting us, and let you harangue our children and women and the whole crowd — saying about the very same practices not what we say, but for the most part the exact opposite. We should be all but stark mad, we and the entire city, if it allowed you to do what you now propose, before the magistrates had judged whether your compositions are fit and proper to be spoken in public or not. So now, you children, offspring of the soft Muses: first show your songs to the rulers alongside ours, and if what you say proves the same as ours or better, we will grant you a chorus; but if not, friends, we never could. Such, then, are the practices the law shall establish around all choral performance and the learning of these things — those of slaves kept separate from those of masters — if you agree. CLEINIAS: How could we not agree, now at least, on these terms?

ATHENIAN: Now then, there are three further subjects of learning for free people: calculation and the study of numbers form one subject; measuring length, surface, and depth forms a second; and third is the study of how the stars naturally move in relation to one another. Not everyone needs to pursue all these with precision, but only a select few — who those should be, we'll say as we go along, since that's the fitting place for it. But for the mass of people, it's shameful not to know whatever of these subjects is necessary and, in a sense, most correctly stated, while to seek precision in all of it is neither easy nor entirely possible. The necessary part of it, though, can't simply be set aside. It seems the man who first coined the saying about god had this in mind when he said that not even god is ever seen fighting against necessity — meaning, I think, those necessities that are divine; as for the human kind of necessity, the kind most people have in mind when they use that phrase, that's by far the silliest thing anyone could say. CLEINIAS: Then which necessities in these studies are not of that human sort, but divine, Stranger? ATHENIAN: I think they're the ones such that, if a person neither practices nor learns them at all, he could never become a god among men, nor a spirit, nor a hero capable of taking earnest care of human beings. A man would fall far short of becoming divine if he can't recognize one, two, or three, or odd and even numbers generally, if he has no idea how to count at all, if he can't even count night and day, and has no acquaintance with the revolutions of the moon, the sun, and the other stars. It's utter foolishness to think that all this isn't necessary learning for someone who's going to know virtually any of the finest subjects. But which of these particular topics, how much of each, and when they should be learned, and what should be studied together with what, and what separately from the rest, and the whole blending of them — these are the things one must first get right, and then, guided by them, go on to learn the rest. That's simply how necessity, by nature, has laid hold of things — the necessity we say no god fights against now or ever will. CLEINIAS: What you're saying now does seem, Stranger, to be correctly said and in keeping with nature. ATHENIAN: Yes, that's how it is, Cleinias — but it's difficult to set these things down first and then legislate in that manner. Let's, if you agree, legislate about them more precisely at another time. CLEINIAS: You seem to us, Stranger, to be wary of our habitual inexperience in such matters. But you're wrong to be wary — try to speak without holding anything back on that account.

ATHENIAN: I am indeed wary of what you just mentioned, but I'm even more afraid of those who've taken up these very subjects, but taken them up badly. Nowhere is sheer inexperience of everything a terrible or serious thing, nor the greatest evil — rather, wide experience and much learning combined with bad upbringing turn out to be a far greater harm than that. CLEINIAS: True. ATHENIAN: Well then, we should say that free people need to learn as much of each subject as the vast crowd of children in Egypt learn alongside their letters. First, in the matter of calculation, there are lessons devised expressly for children, to be learned with play and pleasure — distributing some apples or wreaths among larger or smaller numbers of people using the same total, or arranging in turn and in sequence the byes and pairings of boxers and wrestlers, according to how these naturally fall out. And in their games, too, mixing together bowls of gold, bronze, silver, and other such metals, or sometimes handing out whole sets — as I said, fitting the uses of the necessary numbers into play — they benefit those who learn them, both for arranging and marching and campaigning with armies, and again for household management, and in general they render a person handier in his own affairs and more wide awake. After that, in matters of measurement — of lengths, widths, and depths — they free people from an ignorance that's naturally present in absolutely everyone, and that's both ridiculous and shameful. CLEINIAS: Ignorance of what sort, exactly? ATHENIAN: Dear Cleinias, when I myself heard about our condition in this regard, quite late in life, I was utterly astonished, and it seemed to me not the sort of thing that befits human beings at all, but rather some kind of pig-like creatures, and I felt ashamed — not only for myself, but for all the Greeks. CLEINIAS: About what? Tell me what you mean, Stranger. ATHENIAN: I will tell you — or rather, I'll show you by questioning you. Just answer me a small question: you know what length is? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And width? CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: And that these are two things, and depth is a third besides them? CLEINIAS: Naturally. ATHENIAN: Now don't you think all of these are measurable against one another? CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: And length against length, and width against width, and depth likewise — these, I think, can naturally be measured against their own kind. CLEINIAS: Very much so. ATHENIAN: But if some of them can be measured against each other only in some cases and not in others — while you suppose all of them can — how do you think you stand with regard to this? CLEINIAS: Clearly, in poor shape. ATHENIAN: And what about length and width measured against depth, or width and length against each other? Don't all of us Greeks think, on this matter, that they can somehow be measured against one another? CLEINIAS: We certainly do. ATHENIAN: But if this is in fact nowhere and in no way possible, and yet all Greeks, as I said, think it is possible, isn't it worth feeling ashamed on behalf of everyone and saying to them: Best of the Greeks, isn't this one of those things we said it was shameful not to know, while knowing the merely necessary things is nothing especially fine? CLEINIAS: Of course it is. ATHENIAN: And besides this there are other, related matters, in which we fall into further mistakes akin to those. CLEINIAS: What sort? ATHENIAN: The question of the natural relation between measurable and unmeasurable quantities. Anyone who examines these matters must learn to distinguish them, or else be utterly base — proposing such problems to one another constantly, spending time on a pastime far more graceful than old men's game of checkers, and competing eagerly in leisure hours worthy of the effort. CLEINIAS: Perhaps so — at any rate checkers and these studies don't seem terribly far apart from one another. ATHENIAN: Well then, Cleinias, I say the young must learn these things; for they're neither harmful nor difficult, and learned alongside play they'll benefit us and do our city no harm at all. But if anyone thinks otherwise, we should hear him out. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Well, if it turns out that these matters stand as I've described, clearly we'll admit them into the curriculum; if they turn out not to stand that way, they'll be rejected. CLEINIAS: Clearly — of course. ATHENIAN: Then, Stranger, shall we now set these down as being among the required subjects, so our laws aren't left with gaps? Let them be set down, though, as pledges that can be redeemed out of the rest of the constitution, in case they fail to satisfy either us who laid them down, or you who adopted them. CLEINIAS: A fair way to put it. ATHENIAN: Next, look at the teaching of astronomy for the young, and see whether what's said pleases us or not. CLEINIAS: Just say it. ATHENIAN: Well, there's a great marvel about these matters, one that's in no way, in no respect, tolerable.

CLEINIAS: What sort of thing? ATHENIAN: We say that no one should investigate or busy himself searching out the causes concerning the greatest god and the whole cosmos — since that wouldn't even be reverent — yet it seems the exact opposite of this would be the right course. CLEINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: What I'm saying sounds paradoxical, and one wouldn't think it fitting for old men to say — but the fact is, once someone believes some subject is fine and true, beneficial to the city, and altogether pleasing to god, there's no way he can then keep from speaking of it. CLEINIAS: That's reasonable. But what such subject shall we find concerning the stars? ATHENIAN: Good friends, we — practically all of us Greeks — are telling lies about the great gods, the Sun and the Moon together. CLEINIAS: What lie do you mean? ATHENIAN: We say that they never travel the same path, and along with them certain other stars, and we call them 'wanderers.' CLEINIAS: By Zeus, Stranger, that's true — in my own life I've often watched Phosphorus and Hesperus, the morning and evening stars, with certain others besides, never holding to one course, but wandering every which way, while the sun and moon, I think, do the things we all recognize consistently. ATHENIAN: This, then, Megillus and Cleinias, is what I say our citizens and our young people need to learn about the gods of the heavens, up to this point regarding all of them: up to the point of not speaking irreverently about them, but always speaking well of them, both when sacrificing and when praying devoutly. CLEINIAS: That's right, at least if what you say can in fact be learned; and further, if what we now say about them isn't correct, but once we've learned we'll say it correctly, then I too agree that a subject of this scope and character should be learned. So, given that this is how things stand, try to explain it thoroughly, and we'll follow along as we learn from you. ATHENIAN: What I'm describing isn't easy to learn, but it isn't entirely difficult either, nor does it take an enormously long time. Here's proof: I myself, though I heard of these things neither in my youth nor long ago, could still explain them to the two of you now without taking a great deal of time. Yet if they were truly difficult, I could never have explained them, old as I am, to men as old as you.

CLEINIAS: True. But what is this subject you call marvelous, and fitting for the young to learn, yet one we ourselves don't know? Try to state at least this much about it as clearly as possible. ATHENIAN: I'll try. For it isn't correct, best of men, this common belief about the moon, the sun, and the other stars — that they ever wander. The truth is quite the opposite: each of them travels the same path, not many but always one, in a circle, though it appears to move along many paths. And the one among them that's actually fastest is wrongly believed to be slowest, and vice versa. Now if this is how things naturally stand, but we believe otherwise — well, if we thought this way about horses racing at Olympia, or long-distance runners, and called the fastest one slowest and the slowest one fastest, and sang hymns of praise crowning the loser as though he'd won, our praises directed at these human runners would be neither correct nor, I think, welcome to the runners themselves. Yet here we are making these very same mistakes concerning the gods — don't we suppose that what would have been ridiculous and wrong there is, here and now, in this case, not ridiculous at all, yet certainly not pleasing to the gods either, since we're singing false reports about the gods? CLEINIAS: Most true, if indeed that's how things are. ATHENIAN: So then, if we can show that this is in fact how things stand, all such matters must be learned up to that point; but if it can't be shown, they must be left aside. Shall we agree to leave it on that footing? CLEINIAS: By all means. ATHENIAN: Now, then, we should say the legal provisions concerning subjects of education are complete. As for hunting, we must think along the same lines, and likewise for everything of that sort. For it seems the task facing a lawgiver is greater than simply laying down laws and being done with it — there's something else, in addition to the laws, occupying a middle ground between admonition and law, something that has repeatedly come up in our discussions, as for instance regarding the rearing of very young children; for we say these matters shouldn't be left unspoken, and yet in speaking of them we'd be quite foolish to think we were laying down laws. Once the laws and the whole constitution have been written down along these lines, the praise given to the citizen who excels in virtue isn't complete when one merely says that this man, who has served the laws best and obeyed them most, is the good man;

ATHENIAN: It would be put more completely this way — that whoever obeys the lawgiver's writings, both when he legislates and when he praises or blames, and lives out his life accordingly, is unmixed in his virtue. This is the truest account for praising a citizen, and it means the lawgiver really must not only write the laws, but alongside the laws write in, woven together with them, whatever he judges to be honorable and what not, and the citizen at his best must hold to these no less firmly than to the things bound by penalties under the laws. Now if we bring in what's before us at the moment as a kind of witness, we can show more clearly what we mean. Hunting is an enormously varied business, nearly all wrapped up now under a single name. There's a great deal of it in the water, a great deal among winged creatures, and a vast amount concerning creatures of the land — not only wild beasts, but one should also reckon the hunting of human beings as worth considering, both the hunting done in war, and a great deal done in the name of friendship, one kind bringing praise and the other blame; and there is thieving, and the raiding of pirates, and the hunting of armed camps by other armed camps. It is not possible for a lawgiver laying down laws about hunting to leave all this unaddressed, nor is it possible for him to impose on every case ordinances backed by threats and penalties. What, then, is to be done about such things? The lawgiver must praise and blame hunting as it bears on the labors and pursuits of the young, and the young in turn, on hearing this, must obey, and let neither pleasure nor toil bar him from it; and where particular practices have been threatened with penalty and legislated against, he should hold in greater honor those spoken of with praise, and carry out what is enjoined upon him. Once these things have been said in advance, next would come a measured praise and blame of hunting — praise for whatever kind makes the souls of the young better, blame for whatever kind does the opposite. Let us, then, say what comes next, addressing the young as if in a prayer: Friends, may no desire or longing for hunting at sea ever take hold of you, nor for angling, nor for hunting water creatures at all, whether waking or sleeping, toiling away at that idle hunting with wicker traps.

ATHENIAN: And may no craving for hunting men at sea come over you either — for piracy, which would turn you into brutal and lawless hunters; and as for thieving in country and city, may it never so much as cross your mind to touch it. And may no cunning passion for hunting birds — hardly a fitting one for a free man — ever come over any of the young. What remains, then, for our athletes is only the hunting and pursuit of land creatures, and of these, the hunting of sleeping creatures, done in shifts and called night-hunting, is the work of lazy men and does not deserve praise, nor is there anything admirable in overcoming, by nets and traps rather than by the victory of a hard-working spirit, the wild strength of beasts. What alone remains, then, for everyone, and is best, is the hunting of four-footed creatures with horses and dogs and one's own body, in which the hunters themselves, by running and blows and throws, master all these creatures with their own hands — all those, that is, who care for a hunting worthy of divine courage. Concerning all these kinds, then, the account already given stands as the praise and the blame; and here is the law: let no one hinder these truly sacred hunters, wherever and however they wish to hunt; but the night-hunter who trusts to nets and woven snares must never, anywhere, be allowed to hunt at all. As for the fowler, let no one hinder him in untilled land and on the mountains, but whoever comes upon him must keep him off cultivated land and sacred wild land; and as for the hunter of water creatures, he may hunt everywhere except in harbors and sacred rivers and marshes and lakes, provided only that he does not use anything that muddies the water. So now, finally, we may say that everything concerning the laws of education has been dealt with. CLEINIAS: You may well say so.

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