Ath. But, my dear friend, let us distinguish between differentcases, and not be hasty in forming a judgment: One way ofconsidering the question will be to imagine a festival at whichthere are entertainments of all sorts, including gymnastic, musical,and equestrian contests: the citizens are assembled; prizes areoffered, and proclamation is made that any one who likes may enter thelists, and that he is to bear the palm who gives the most pleasureto the spectators-there is to be no regulation about the manner how;but he who is most successful in giving pleasure is to be crownedvictor, and deemed to be the pleasantest of the candidates: What islikely to be the result of such a proclamation?
Cle. In what respect?
Ath. There would be various exhibitions: one man, like Homer, willexhibit a rhapsody, another a performance on the lute; one will have atragedy, and another a comedy. Nor would there be anything astonishingin some one imagining that he could gain the prize by exhibiting apuppet-show. Suppose these competitors to meet, and not these only,but innumerable others as well can you tell me who ought to be thevictor?
Cle. I do not see how any one can answer you, or pretend to know,unless he has heard with his own ears the several competitors; thequestion is absurd.
Ath. Well, then, if neither of you can answer, shall I answer thisquestion which you deem so absurd?
Cle. By all means.
Ath. If very small children are to determine the question, they willdecide for the puppet show.
Cle. Of course.
Ath. The older children will be advocates of comedy; educated women,and young men, and people in general, will favour tragedy.
Cle. Very likely.
Ath. And I believe that we old men would have the greatestpleasure in hearing a rhapsodist recite well the Iliad and Odyssey, orone of the Hesiodic poems, and would award the victory to him. But,who would really be the victor?-that is the question.
Cle. Yes.
Ath. Clearly you and I will have to declare that those whom we oldmen adjudge victors ought to win; for our ways are far and away betterthan any which at present exist anywhere in the world.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Thus far I too should agree with the many, that theexcellence of music is to be measured by pleasure. But the pleasuremust not be that of chance persons; the fairest music is that whichdelights the best and best educated, and especially that whichdelights the one man who is pre-eminent in virtue and education. Andtherefore the judges must be men of character, for they will requireboth wisdom and courage; the true judge must not draw hisinspiration from the theatre, nor ought he to be unnerved by theclamour of the many and his own incapacity; nor again, knowing thetruth, ought he through cowardice and unmanliness carelessly todeliver a lying judgment, with the very same lips which have justappealed to the Gods before he judged. He is sitting not as thedisciple of the theatre, but, in his proper place, as theirinstructor, and he ought to be the enemy of all pandering to thepleasure of the spectators. The ancient and common custom of Hellas,which still prevails in Italy and Sicily, did certainly leave thejudgment to the body of spectators, who determined the victor byshow of hands. But this custom has been the destruction of thepoets; for they are now in the habit of composing with a view toplease the bad taste of their judges, and the result is that thespectators instruct themselves;-and also it has been the ruin of thetheatre; they ought to be having characters put before them betterthan their own, and so receiving a higher pleasure, but now by theirown act the opposite result follows. What inference is to be drawnfrom all this? Shall I tell you?
Cle. What?
Ath. The inference at which we arrive for the third or fourth timeis, that education is the constraining and directing of youthtowards that right reason, which the law affirms, and which theexperience of the eldest and best has agreed to be truly right. Inorder, then, that the soul of the child may not be habituated tofeel joy and sorrow in a manner at variance with the law, and thosewho obey the law, but may rather follow the law and rejoice and sorrowat the same things as the aged-in order, I say, to produce thiseffect, chants appear to have been invented, which really enchant, andare designed to implant that harmony of which we speak. And, becausethe mind of the child is incapable of enduring serious training,they are called plays and songs, and are performed in play; just aswhen men are sick and ailing in their bodies, their attendants givethem wholesome diet in pleasant meats and drinks, but unwholesome dietin disagreeable things, in order that they may learn, as they ought,to like the one, and to dislike the other. And similarly the truelegislator will persuade, and, if he cannot persuade, will compelthe poet to express, as he ought, by fair and noble words, in hisrhythms, the figures, and in his melodies, the music of temperateand brave and in every way good men.
Cle. But do you really imagine, Stranger, that this is the way inwhich poets generally compose in States at the present day? As faras I can observe, except among us and among the Lacedaemonians,there are no regulations like those of which you speak; in otherplaces novelties are always being introduced in dancing and inmusic, generally not under the authority of any law, but at theinstigation of lawless pleasures; and these pleasures are so farfrom being the same, as you describe the Egyptian to be, or having thesame principles, that they are never the same.
Ath. Most true, Cleinias; and I daresay that I may have expressedmyself obscurely, and so led you to imagine that I was speaking ofsome really existing state of things, whereas I was only saying whatregulations I would like to have about music; and hence there occurreda misapprehension on your part. For when evils are far gone andirremediable, the task of censuring them is never pleasant, althoughat times necessary. But as we do not really differ, will you let meask you whether you consider such institutions to be more prevalentamong the Cretans and Lacedaemonians than among the other Hellenes?
Cle. Certainly they are.