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SUCH then, I said, are our principles of theology --some tales are
to be told, and others are not to be told to our disciples from
their youth upwards, if we mean them to honour the gods and their
parents, and to value friendship with one another.
Yes; and I think that our principles are right, he said.
But if they are to be courageous, must they not learn other
lessons besides these, and lessons of such a kind as will take away
the fear of death? Can any man be courageous who has the fear of death
in him?
Certainly not, he said.
And can he be fearless of death, or will he choose death in battle
rather than defeat and slavery, who believes the world below to be
real and terrible?
Impossible.
Then we must assume a control over the narrators of this class of
tales as well as over the others, and beg them not simply to but
rather to commend the world below, intimating to them that their
descriptions are untrue, and will do harm to our future warriors.
That will be our duty, he said.
Then, I said, we shall have to obliterate many obnoxious passages,
beginning with the verses,
I would rather he a serf on the land of a poor and portionless man
than rule over all the dead who have come to nought.
We must also expunge the verse, which tells us how Pluto feared,
Lest the mansions grim and squalid which the gods abhor should he
seen both of mortals and immortals.
And again:
O heavens! verily in the house of Hades there is soul and ghostly
form but no mind at all!
Again of Tiresias: --
[To him even after death did Persephone grant mind,] that he alone
should be wise; but the other souls are flitting shades.
Again: --
The soul flying from the limbs had gone to Hades, lamentng her fate,
leaving manhood and youth.
Again: --
And the soul, with shrilling cry, passed like smoke beneath the
earth.
And, --
As bats in hollow of mystic cavern, whenever any of the has
dropped out of the string and falls from the rock, fly shrilling and
cling to one another, so did they with shrilling cry hold together
as they moved.
And we must beg Homer and the other poets not to be angry if we strike
out these and similar passages, not because they are unpoetical, or
unattractive to the popular ear, but because the greater the
poetical charm of them, the less are they meet for the ears of boys
and men who are meant to be free, and who should fear slavery more
than death.
Undoubtedly.
Also we shall have to reject all the terrible and appalling names
describe the world below --Cocytus and Styx, ghosts under the earth,
and sapless shades, and any similar words of which the very mention
causes a shudder to pass through the inmost soul of him who hears
them. I do not say that these horrible stories may not have a use of
some kind; but there is a danger that the nerves of our guardians
may be rendered too excitable and effeminate by them.
There is a real danger, he said.
Then we must have no more of them.
True.
Another and a nobler strain must be composed and sung by us.
Clearly.
And shall we proceed to get rid of the weepings and wailings of
famous men?
They will go with the rest.
But shall we be right in getting rid of them? Reflect: our principle
is that the good man will not consider death terrible to any other
good man who is his comrade.
Yes; that is our principle.
And therefore he will not sorrow for his departed friend as though
he had suffered anything terrible?
He will not.
Such an one, as we further maintain, is sufficient for himself and
his own happiness, and therefore is least in need of other men.
True, he said.
And for this reason the loss of a son or brother, or the deprivation
of fortune, is to him of all men least terrible.
Assuredly.
And therefore he will be least likely to lament, and will bear
with the greatest equanimity any misfortune of this sort which may
befall him.
Yes, he will feel such a misfortune far less than another.
Then we shall be right in getting rid of the lamentations of
famous men, and making them over to women (and not even to women who
are good for anything), or to men of a baser sort, that those who
are being educated by us to be the defenders of their country may
scorn to do the like.
That will be very right.
Then we will once more entreat Homer and the other poets not to
depict Achilles, who is the son of a goddess, first lying on his side,
then on his back, and then on his face; then starting up and sailing
in a frenzy along the shores of the barren sea; now taking the sooty
ashes in both his hands and pouring them over his head, or weeping and
wailing in the various modes which Homer has delineated. Nor should he
describe Priam the kinsman of the gods as praying and beseeching,
Rolling in the dirt, calling each man loudly by his name.
Still more earnestly will we beg of him at all events not to introduce
the gods lamenting and saying,
Alas! my misery! Alas! that I bore the harvest to my sorrow.
But if he must introduce the gods, at any rate let him not dare so
completely to misrepresent the greatest of the gods, as to make him
say --
O heavens! with my eyes verily I behold a dear friend of mine chased
round and round the city, and my heart is sorrowful.
Or again: --
Woe is me that I am fated to have Sarpedon, dearest of men to me,
subdued at the hands of Patroclus the son of Menoetius.
For if, my sweet Adeimantus, our youth seriously listen to such
unworthy representations of the gods, instead of laughing at them as
they ought, hardly will any of them deem that he himself, being but
a man, can be dishonoured by similar actions; neither will he rebuke
any inclination which may arise in his mind to say and do the like.
And instead of having any shame or self-control, he will be always
whining and lamenting on slight occasions.
Yes, he said, that is most true.
Yes, I replied; but that surely is what ought not to be, as the
argument has just proved to us; and by that proof we must abide
until it is disproved by a better.
It ought not to be.
Neither ought our guardians to be given to laughter. For a fit of
laughter which has been indulged to excess almost always produces a
violent reaction.
So I believe.
Then persons of worth, even if only mortal men, must not be
represented as overcome by laughter, and still less must such a
representation of the gods be allowed.
Still less of the gods, as you say, he replied.
Then we shall not suffer such an expression to be used about the
gods as that of Homer when he describes how
Inextinguishable laughter arose among the blessed gods, when they
saw Hephaestus bustling about the mansion.
On your views, we must not admit them.
On my views, if you like to father them on me; that we must not
admit them is certain.
Again, truth should be highly valued; if, as we were saying, a lie
is useless to the gods, and useful only as a medicine to men, then the
use of such medicines should be restricted to physicians; private
individuals have no business with them.
Clearly not, he said.
Then if any one at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers
of the State should be the persons; and they, in their dealings either
with enemies or with their own citizens, may be allowed to lie for the
public good. But nobody else should meddle with anything of the
kind; and although the rulers have this privilege, for a private man
to lie to them in return is to be deemed a more heinous fault than for
the patient or the pupil of a gymnasium not to speak the truth about
his own bodily illnesses to the physician or to the trainer, or for
a sailor not to tell the captain what is happening about the ship
and the rest of the crew, and how things are going with himself or his
fellow sailors.
Most true, he said.
If, then, the ruler catches anybody beside himself lying in the
State,
Any of the craftsmen, whether he priest or physician or carpenter.
he will punish him for introducing a practice which is equally
subversive and destructive of ship or State.
Most certainly, he said, if our idea of the State is ever carried
out.
In the next place our youth must be temperate?
Certainly.
Are not the chief elements of temperance, speaking generally,
obedience to commanders and self-control in sensual pleasures?
True.
Then we shall approve such language as that of Diomede in Homer,
Friend, sit still and obey my word,
and the verses which follow,
The Greeks marched breathing prowess,
...in silent awe of their leaders,
and other sentiments of the same kind.
We shall.
What of this line,
O heavy with wine, who hast the eyes of a dog and the heart of a
stag,
and of the words which follow? Would you say that these, or any
similar impertinences which private individuals are supposed to
address to their rulers, whether in verse or prose, are well or ill
spoken?
They are ill spoken.
They may very possibly afford some amusement, but they do not
conduce to temperance. And therefore they are likely to do harm to our
young men --you would agree with me there?
Yes.
And then, again, to make the wisest of men say that nothing in his
opinion is more glorious than
When the tables are full of bread and meat, and the cup-bearer
carries round wine which he draws from the bowl and pours into the
cups,
is it fit or conducive to temperance for a young man to hear such
words? Or the verse
The saddest of fates is to die and meet destiny from hunger?
What would you say again to the tale of Zeus, who, while other gods
and men were asleep and he the only person awake, lay devising
plans, but forgot them all in a moment through his lust, and was so
completely overcome at the sight of Here that he would not even go
into the hut, but wanted to lie with her on the ground, declaring that
he had never been in such a state of rapture before, even when they
first met one another
Without the knowledge of their parents;
or that other tale of how Hephaestus, because of similar goings on,
cast a chain around Ares and Aphrodite?
Indeed, he said, I am strongly of opinion that they ought not to
hear that sort of thing.
But any deeds of endurance which are done or told by famous men,
these they ought to see and hear; as, for example, what is said in the
verses,
He smote his breast, and thus reproached his heart,
Endure, my heart; far worse hast thou endured!
Certainly, he said.
In the next place, we must not let them be receivers of gifts or
lovers of money.
Certainly not.
Neither must we sing to them of
Gifts persuading gods, and persuading reverend kings.
Neither is Phoenix, the tutor of Achilles, to be approved or deemed to
have given his pupil good counsel when he told him that he should take
the gifts of the Greeks and assist them; but that without a gift he
should not lay aside his anger. Neither will we believe or acknowledge
Achilles himself to have been such a lover of money that he took
Agamemnon's or that when he had received payment he restored the
dead body of Hector, but that without payment he was unwilling to do
so.
Undoubtedly, he said, these are not sentiments which can be
approved.
Loving Homer as I do, I hardly like to say that in attributing these
feelings to Achilles, or in believing that they are truly to him, he
is guilty of downright impiety. As little can I believe the
narrative of his insolence to Apollo, where he says,
Thou hast wronged me, O far-darter, most abominable of deities.
Verily I would he even with thee, if I had only the power,
or his insubordination to the river-god, on whose divinity he is ready
to lay hands; or his offering to the dead Patroclus of his own hair,
which had been previously dedicated to the other river-god Spercheius,
and that he actually performed this vow; or that he dragged Hector
round the tomb of Patroclus, and slaughtered the captives at the pyre;
of all this I cannot believe that he was guilty, any more than I can
allow our citizens to believe that he, the wise Cheiron's pupil, the
son of a goddess and of Peleus who was the gentlest of men and third
in descent from Zeus, was so disordered in his wits as to be at one
time the slave of two seemingly inconsistent passions, meanness, not
untainted by avarice, combined with overweening contempt of gods and
men.
You are quite right, he replied.
And let us equally refuse to believe, or allow to be repeated, the
tale of Theseus son of Poseidon, or of Peirithous son of Zeus, going
forth as they did to perpetrate a horrid rape; or of any other hero or
son of a god daring to do such impious and dreadful things as they
falsely ascribe to them in our day: and let us further compel the
poets to declare either that these acts were not done by them, or that
they were not the sons of gods; --both in the same breath they shall
not be permitted to affirm. We will not have them trying to persuade
our youth that the gods are the authors of evil, and that heroes are
no better than men-sentiments which, as we were saying, are neither
pious nor true, for we have already proved that evil cannot come
from the gods.
Assuredly not.
And further they are likely to have a bad effect on those who hear
them; for everybody will begin to excuse his own vices when he is
convinced that similar wickednesses are always being perpetrated by --
The kindred of the gods, the relatives of Zeus, whose ancestral
altar, the attar of Zeus, is aloft in air on the peak of Ida,
and who have
the blood of deities yet flowing in their veins.
And therefore let us put an end to such tales, lest they engender
laxity of morals among the young.
By all means, he replied.
But now that we are determining what classes of subjects are or
are not to be spoken of, let us see whether any have been omitted by
us. The manner in which gods and demigods and heroes and the world
below should be treated has been already laid down.
Very true.
And what shall we say about men? That is clearly the remaining
portion of our subject.
Clearly so.
But we are not in a condition to answer this question at present, my
friend.
Why not?
Because, if I am not mistaken, we shall have to say that about men
poets and story-tellers are guilty of making the gravest misstatements
when they tell us that wicked men are often happy, and the good
miserable; and that injustice is profitable when undetected, but
that justice is a man's own loss and another's gain --these things
we shall forbid them to utter, and command them to sing and say the
opposite.
To be sure we shall, he replied.
But if you admit that I am right in this, then I shall maintain that
you have implied the principle for which we have been all along
contending.
I grant the truth of your inference.
That such things are or are not to be said about men is a question
which we cannot determine until we have discovered what justice is,
and how naturally advantageous to the possessor, whether he seems to
be just or not.
Most true, he said.
Enough of the subjects of poetry: let us now speak of the style; and
when this has been considered, both matter and manner will have been
completely treated.
I do not understand what you mean, said Adeimantus.
Then I must make you understand; and perhaps I may be more
intelligible if I put the matter in this way. You are aware, I
suppose, that all mythology and poetry is a narration of events,
either past, present, or to come?
Certainly, he replied.
And narration may be either simple narration, or imitation, or a
union of the two?
That again, he said, I do not quite understand.
I fear that I must be a ridiculous teacher when I have so much
difficulty in making myself apprehended. Like a bad speaker,
therefore, I will not take the whole of the subject, but will break
a piece off in illustration of my meaning. You know the first lines of
the Iliad, in which the poet says that Chryses prayed Agamemnon to
release his daughter, and that Agamemnon flew into a passion with him;
whereupon Chryses, failing of his object, invoked the anger of the God
against the Achaeans. Now as far as these lines,
And he prayed all the Greeks, but especially the two sons of Atreus,
the chiefs of the people,
the poet is speaking in his own person; he never leads us to suppose
that he is any one else. But in what follows he takes the person of
Chryses, and then he does all that he can to make us believe that
the speaker is not Homer, but the aged priest himself. And in this
double form he has cast the entire narrative of the events which
occurred at Troy and in Ithaca and throughout the Odyssey.
Yes.
And a narrative it remains both in the speeches which the poet
recites from time to time and in the intermediate passages?
Quite true.
But when the poet speaks in the person of another, may we not say
that he assimilates his style to that of the person who, as he informs
you, is going to speak?
Certainly.
And this assimilation of himself to another, either by the use of
voice or gesture, is the imitation of the person whose character he
assumes?
Of course.
Then in this case the narrative of the poet may be said to proceed
by way of imitation?
Very true.
Or, if the poet everywhere appears and never conceals himself,
then again the imitation is dropped, and his poetry becomes simple
narration. However, in order that I may make my meaning quite clear,
and that you may no more say, I don't understand,' I will show how the
change might be effected. If Homer had said, 'The priest came,
having his daughter's ransom in his hands, supplicating the
Achaeans, and above all the kings;' and then if, instead of speaking
in the person of Chryses, he had continued in his own person, the
words would have been, not imitation, but simple narration. The
passage would have run as follows (I am no poet, and therefore I
drop the metre), 'The priest came and prayed the gods on behalf of the
Greeks that they might capture Troy and return safely home, but begged
that they would give him back his daughter, and take the ransom
which he brought, and respect the God. Thus he spoke, and the other
Greeks revered the priest and assented. But Agamemnon was wroth, and
bade him depart and not come again, lest the staff and chaplets of the
God should be of no avail to him --the daughter of Chryses should
not be released, he said --she should grow old with him in Argos.
And then he told him to go away and not to provoke him, if he intended
to get home unscathed. And the old man went away in fear and
silence, and, when he had left the camp, he called upon Apollo by
his many names, reminding him of everything which he had done pleasing
to him, whether in building his temples, or in offering sacrifice, and
praying that his good deeds might be returned to him, and that the
Achaeans might expiate his tears by the arrows of the god,' --and so
on. In this way the whole becomes simple narrative.
I understand, he said.
Or you may suppose the opposite case --that the intermediate
passages are omitted, and the dialogue only left.
That also, he said, I understand; you mean, for example, as in
tragedy.
You have conceived my meaning perfectly; and if I mistake not,
what you failed to apprehend before is now made clear to you, that
poetry and mythology are, in some cases, wholly imitative
--instances of this are supplied by tragedy and comedy; there is
likewise the opposite style, in which the my poet is the only
speaker --of this the dithyramb affords the best example; and the
combination of both is found in epic, and in several other styles of
poetry. Do I take you with me?
Yes, he said; I see now what you meant.
I will ask you to remember also what I began by saying, that we
had done with the subject and might proceed to the style.
Yes, I remember.
In saying this, I intended to imply that we must come to an
understanding about the mimetic art, --whether the poets, in narrating
their stories, are to be allowed by us to imitate, and if so,
whether in whole or in part, and if the latter, in what parts; or
should all imitation be prohibited?
You mean, I suspect, to ask whether tragedy and comedy shall be
admitted into our State?
Yes, I said; but there may be more than this in question: I really
do not know as yet, but whither the argument may blow, thither we go.
And go we will, he said.
Then, Adeimantus, let me ask you whether our guardians ought to be
imitators; or rather, has not this question been decided by the rule
already laid down that one man can only do one thing well, and not
many; and that if he attempt many, he will altogether fall of
gaining much reputation in any?
Certainly.
And this is equally true of imitation; no one man can imitate many
things as well as he would imitate a single one?
He cannot.
Then the same person will hardly be able to play a serious part in
life, and at the same time to be an imitator and imitate many other
parts as well; for even when two species of imitation are nearly
allied, the same persons cannot succeed in both, as, for example,
the writers of tragedy and comedy --did you not just now call them
imitations?
Yes, I did; and you are right in thinking that the same persons
cannot succeed in both.
Any more than they can be rhapsodists and actors at once?
True.
Neither are comic and tragic actors the same; yet all these things
are but imitations.
They are so.
And human nature, Adeimantus, appears to have been coined into yet
smaller pieces, and to be as incapable of imitating many things
well, as of performing well the actions of which the imitations are
copies.
Quite true, he replied.
If then we adhere to our original notion and bear in mind that our
guardians, setting aside every other business, are to dedicate
themselves wholly to the maintenance of freedom in the State, making
this their craft, and engaging in no work which does not bear on
this end, they ought not to practise or imitate anything else; if they
imitate at all, they should imitate from youth upward only those
characters which are suitable to their profession --the courageous,
temperate, holy, free, and the like; but they should not depict or
be skilful at imitating any kind of illiberality or baseness, lest
from imitation they should come to be what they imitate. Did you never
observe how imitations, beginning in early youth and continuing far
into life, at length grow into habits and become a second nature,
affecting body, voice, and mind?
Yes, certainly, he said.
Then, I said, we will not allow those for whom we profess a care and
of whom we say that they ought to be good men, to imitate a woman,
whether young or old, quarrelling with her husband, or striving and
vaunting against the gods in conceit of her happiness, or when she
is in affliction, or sorrow, or weeping; and certainly not one who
is in sickness, love, or labour.
Very right, he said.
Neither must they represent slaves, male or female, performing the
offices of slaves?
They must not.
And surely not bad men, whether cowards or any others, who do the
reverse of what we have just been prescribing, who scold or mock or
revile one another in drink or out of in drink or, or who in any other
manner sin against themselves and their neighbours in word or deed, as
the manner of such is. Neither should they be trained to imitate the
action or speech of men or women who are mad or bad; for madness, like
vice, is to be known but not to be practised or imitated.
Very true, he replied.
Neither may they imitate smiths or other artificers, or oarsmen,
or boatswains, or the like?
How can they, he said, when they are not allowed to apply their
minds to the callings of any of these?
Nor may they imitate the neighing of horses, the bellowing of bulls,
the murmur of rivers and roll of the ocean, thunder, and all that sort
of thing?
Nay, he said, if madness be forbidden, neither may they copy the
behaviour of madmen.
You mean, I said, if I understand you aright, that there is one sort
of narrative style which may be employed by a truly good man when he
has anything to say, and that another sort will be used by a man of an
opposite character and education.
And which are these two sorts? he asked.
Suppose, I answered, that a just and good man in the course of a
narration comes on some saying or action of another good man, --I
should imagine that he will like to personate him, and will not be
ashamed of this sort of imitation: he will be most ready to play the
part of the good man when he is acting firmly and wisely; in a less
degree when he is overtaken by illness or love or drink, or has met
with any other disaster. But when he comes to a character which is
unworthy of him, he will not make a study of that; he will disdain
such a person, and will assume his likeness, if at all, for a moment
only when he is performing some good action; at other times he will be
ashamed to play a part which he has never practised, nor will he
like to fashion and frame himself after the baser models; he feels the
employment of such an art, unless in jest, to be beneath him, and
his mind revolts at it.
So I should expect, he replied.
Then he will adopt a mode of narration such as we have illustrated
out of Homer, that is to say, his style will be both imitative and
narrative; but there will be very little of the former, and a great
deal of the latter. Do you agree?
Certainly, he said; that is the model which such a speaker must
necessarily take.
But there is another sort of character who will narrate anything,
and, the worse lie is, the more unscrupulous he will be; nothing
will be too bad for him: and he will be ready to imitate anything, not
as a joke, but in right good earnest, and before a large company. As I
was just now saying, he will attempt to represent the roll of thunder,
the noise of wind and hall, or the creaking of wheels, and pulleys,
and the various sounds of flutes; pipes, trumpets, and all sorts of
instruments: he will bark like a dog, bleat like a sheep, or crow like
a cock; his entire art will consist in imitation of voice and gesture,
and there will be very little narration.
That, he said, will be his mode of speaking.
These, then, are the two kinds of style?
Yes.
And you would agree with me in saying that one of them is simple and
has but slight changes; and if the harmony and rhythm are also
chosen for their simplicity, the result is that the speaker, if hc
speaks correctly, is always pretty much the same in style, and he will
keep within the limits of a single harmony (for the changes are not
great), and in like manner he will make use of nearly the same rhythm?
That is quite true, he said.
Whereas the other requires all sorts of harmonies and all sorts of
rhythms, if the music and the style are to correspond, because the
style has all sorts of changes.
That is also perfectly true, he replied.
And do not the two styles, or the mixture of the two, comprehend all
poetry, and every form of expression in words? No one can say anything
except in one or other of them or in both together.
They include all, he said.
And shall we receive into our State all the three styles, or one
only of the two unmixed styles? or would you include the mixed?
I should prefer only to admit the pure imitator of virtue.
Yes, I said, Adeimantus, but the mixed style is also very
charming: and indeed the pantomimic, which is the opposite of the
one chosen by you, is the most popular style with children and their
attendants, and with the world in general.
I do not deny it.
But I suppose you would argue that such a style is unsuitable to our
State, in which human nature is not twofold or manifold, for one man
plays one part only?
Yes; quite unsuitable.
And this is the reason why in our State, and in our State only, we
shall find a shoemaker to be a shoemaker and not a pilot also, and a
husbandman to be a husbandman and not a dicast also, and a soldier a
soldier and not a trader also, and the same throughout?
True, he said.
And therefore when any one of these pantomimic gentlemen, who are so
clever that they can imitate anything, comes to us, and makes a
proposal to exhibit himself and his poetry, we will fall down and
worship him as a sweet and holy and wonderful being; but we must
also inform him that in our State such as he are not permitted to
exist; the law will not allow them. And so when we have anointed him
with myrrh, and set a garland of wool upon his head, we shall send him
away to another city. For we mean to employ for our souls' health
the rougher and severer poet or story-teller, who will imitate the
style of the virtuous only, and will follow those models which we
prescribed at first when we began the education of our soldiers.
We certainly will, he said, if we have the power.
Then now, my friend, I said, that part of music or literary
education which relates to the story or myth may be considered to be
finished; for the matter and manner have both been discussed.
I think so too, he said.
Next in order will follow melody and song.
That is obvious.
Every one can see already what we ought to say about them, if we are
to be consistent with ourselves.
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