Ath. And will he who does not know what is true be able todistinguish what is good and bad? My statement is not very clear;but perhaps you will understand me better if I put the matter inanother way.
Cle. How?
Ath. There are ten thousand likenesses of objects of sight?
Cle. Yes.
Ath. And can he who does not know what the exact object is whichis imitated, ever know whether the resemblance is truthfully executed?
I mean, for example, whether a statue has the proportions of a body,and the true situation of the parts; what those proportions are, andhow the parts fit into one another in due order; also their coloursand conformations, or whether this is all confused in the execution:
do you think that any one can know about this, who does not knowwhat the animal is which has been imitated?
Cle. Impossible.
Ath. But even if we know that the thing pictured or sculptured isa man, who has received at the hand of the artist all his proper partsand colours and shapes, must we not also know whether the work isbeautiful or in any respect deficient in beauty?
Cle. If this were not required, Stranger, we should all of us bejudges of beauty.
Ath. Very true; and may we not say that in everything imitated,whether in drawing, music, or any other art, he who is to be acompetent judge must possess three things;-he must know, in thefirst place, of what the imitation is; secondly, he must know thatit is true; and thirdly, that it has been well executed in words andmelodies and rhythms?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Then let us not faint in discussing the peculiar difficultyof music. Music is more celebrated than any other kind of imitation,and therefore requires the greatest care of them all. For if a manmakes a mistake here, he may do himself the greatest injury bywelcoming evil dispositions, and the mistake may be very difficultto discern, because the poets are artists very inferior in characterto the Muses themselves, who would never fall into the monstrous errorof assigning to the words of men the gestures and songs of women;nor after combining the melodies with the gestures of freemen wouldthey add on the rhythms of slaves and men of the baser sort; nor,beginning with the rhythms and gestures of freemen, would theyassign to them a melody or words which are of an opposite character;nor would they mix up the voices and sounds of animals and of menand instruments, and every other sort of noise, as if they were allone. But human poets are fond of introducing this sort of inconsistentmixture, and so make themselves ridiculous in the eyes of those who,as Orpheus says, "are ripe for true pleasure." The experienced see allthis confusion, and yet the poets go on and make still further havocby separating the rhythm and the figure of the dance from themelody, setting bare words to metre, and also separating the melodyand the rhythm from the words, using the lyre or the flute alone.
For when there are no words, it is very difficult to recognize themeaning of the harmony and rhythm, or to see that any worthy object isimitated by them. And we must acknowledge that all this sort of thing,which aims only at swiftness and smoothness and a brutish noise, anduses the flute and the lyre not as the mere accompaniments of thedance and song, is exceedingly coarse and tasteless. The use of eitherinstrument, when unaccompanied, leads to every sort of irregularityand trickery. This is all rational enough. But we are consideringnot how our choristers, who are from thirty to fifty years of age, andmay be over fifty, are not to use the Muses, but how they are to usethem. And the considerations which we have urged seem to show inwhat way these fifty year-old choristers who are to sing, may beexpected to be better trained. For they need to have a quickperception and knowledge of harmonies and rhythms; otherwise, howcan they ever know whether a melody would be rightly sung to theDorian mode, or to the rhythm which the poet has assigned to it?
Cle. Clearly they cannot.
Ath. The many are ridiculous in imagining that they know what isin proper harmony and rhythm, and what is not, when they can only bemade to sing and step in rhythm by force; it never occurs to them thatthey are ignorant of what they are doing. Now every melody is rightwhen it has suitable harmony and rhythm, and wrong when unsuitable.
Cle. That is most certain.
Ath. But can a man who does not know a thing, as we were saying,know that the thing is right?
Cle. Impossible.
Ath. Then now, as would appear, we are making the discovery that ournewly-appointed choristers, whom we hereby invite and, although theyare their own masters, compel to sing, must be educated to such anextent as to be able to follow the steps of the rhythm and the notesof the song, that they may know the harmonies and rhythms, and be ableto select what are suitable for men of their age and character tosing; and may sing them, and have innocent pleasure from their ownperformance, and also lead younger men to welcome with dutiful delightgood dispositions. Having such training, they will attain a moreaccurate knowledge than falls to the lot of the common people, or evenof the poets themselves. For the poet need not know the third point,viz., whether the imitation is good or not, though he can hardlyhelp knowing the laws of melody and rhythm. But the aged chorus mustknow all the three, that they may choose the best, and that which isnearest to the best; for otherwise they will never be able to charmthe souls of young men in the way of virtue. And now the originaldesign of the argument which was intended to bring eloquent aid to theChorus of Dionysus, has been accomplished to the best of ourability, and let us see whether we were right:-I should imagine that adrinking assembly is likely to become more and more tumultuous asthe drinking goes on: this, as we were saying at first, will certainlybe the case.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Every man has a more than natural elevation; his heart isglad within him, and he will say anything and will be restrained bynobody at such a time; he fancies that he is able to rule over himselfand all mankind.
Cle. Quite true.