Republic

If a man, then, it seems, who was capable by his cunning of assuming every kind of shape and imitating all things should arrive in our city, bringing with himself the poems which he wished to exhibit, we should fall down and worship him as a holy and wondrous and delightful creature, but should say to him that there is no man of that kind among us in our city, nor is it lawful for such a man to arise among us, and we should send him away to another city, after pouring myrrh down over his head and crowning him with fillets of wool, but we ourselves, for our souls’ good, should continue to employ the more austere and less delightful poet and tale-teller, who would imitate the diction of the good man and would tell his tale in the patterns which we prescribed in the beginning, when we set out to educate our soldiers. We certainly should do that if it rested with us. And now, my friend, said I, we may say that we have completely finished the part of music that concerns speeches and tales. For we have set forth what is to be said and how it is to be said. I think so too, he replied. After this, then, said I, comes the manner of song and tunes? Obviously. And having gone thus far, could not everybody discover what we must say of their character in order to conform to what has already been said? I am afraid that everybody does not include me, laughed Glaucon; I cannot sufficiently divine off-hand what we ought to say, though I have a suspicion. You certainly, I presume, said I, have sufficient a understanding of this—that the song is composed of three things, the words, the tune, and the rhythm? Yes, said he, that much. And so far as it is words, it surely in no manner differs from words not sung in the requirement of conformity to the patterns and manner that we have prescribed? True, he said. And again, the music and the rhythm must follow the speech. Of course. But we said we did not require dirges and lamentations in words. We do not. What, then, are the dirge-like modes of music? Tell me, for you are a musician. The mixed Lydian, he said, and the tense or higher Lydian, and similar modes. These, then, said I, we must do away with. For they are useless even to women who are to make the best of themselves, let alone to men. Assuredly. But again, drunkenness is a thing most unbefitting guardians, and so is softness and sloth. Yes. What, then, are the soft and convivial modes? There are certain Ionian and also Lydian modes that are called lax.