Greek Texts & Translations

Possibly.

But, my dear sir, we must not decide this matter hastily; rather we must analyze it thoroughly and examine it in some such fashion as this: suppose a man were to organize a competition, without qualifying or limiting it to gymnastic, musical or equestrian sports; and suppose that he should assemble the whole population of the State and, proclaiming that this is purely a pleasure-contest in which anyone who chooses may compete, should offer a prize to the competitor who gives the greatest amusement to the spectators,— 658bwithout any restrictions as to the methods employed,—and who excels others just in doing this in the highest possible degree, and is adjudged the most pleasure-giving of the competitors: what do we suppose would be the effect of such a proclamation?

In what respect do you mean?

The natural result would be that one man would, like Homer, show up a rhapsody, another a harp-song, one a tragedy and another a comedy; nor should we be surprised if someone were even to fancy 658cthat he had the best chance of winning with a puppet-show. So where such as these and thousands others enter the competition, can we say who will deserve to win the prize?

An absurd question; for who could possibly pretend to know the answer before he had himself actually heard each of the competitors?

Very well, then; do you wish me to supply you with the answer to this absurd question?

By all means.

If the tiniest children are to be the judges, they will award the prize to the showman of puppets, will they not? 658d

Certainly they will.

And older lads to the exhibitor of comedies; while the educated women and the young men, and the mass of the people in general, will award it to the shower of tragedies.

Most probably.

And we old men would very likely take most delight in listening to a rhapsode giving a fine recitation of the Iliad or the Odyssey or of a piece from Hesiod, and declare that he is easily the winner. Who then would rightly be the winner of the prize? That is the next question, is it not?

Yes. 658e

Evidently we three cannot avoid saying that those who are adjudged the winners by our own contemporaries would win rightly. For in our opinion epic poetry is by far the best to be found nowadays anywhere in any State in the world.

Of course.

Thus much I myself am willing to concede to the majority of men,—that the criterion of music should be pleasure not, however, the pleasure of any chance person; rather I should regard that music which pleases the best men 659aand the highly educated as about the best, and as quite the best if it pleases the one man who excels all others in virtue and education. And we say that the judges of these matters need virtue for the reason that they need to possess not only wisdom in general, but especially courage. For the true judge should not take his verdicts from the dictation of the audience, nor yield weakly to the uproar of the crowd or his own lack of education; nor again, when he knows the truth, should he give his verdict carelessly through cowardice and lack of spirit, thus swearing falsely out of the same mouth with which he invoked Heaven when he first took his seat as judge. ^note 659bFor, rightly speaking, the judge sits not as a pupil, but rather as a teacher of the spectators, being ready to oppose those who offer them pleasure in a way that is unseemly or wrong; and that is what the present law of Sicily and Italy actually does: by entrusting the decision to the spectators, who award the prize by show of hands, not only has it corrupted the poets 659c(since they adapt their works to the poor standard of pleasure of the judges, which means that the spectators are the teachers of the poets), but it has corrupted also the pleasures of the audience; for whereas they ought to be improving their standard of pleasure by listening to characters superior to their own, what they now do has just the opposite effect. What, then, is the conclusion to be drawn from this survey? Is it this, do you suppose?

What?

This is, I imagine, the third or fourth time that our discourse has described a circle 659dand come back to this same point—namely, that education is the process of drawing and guiding children towards that principle which is pronounced right by the law and confirmed as truly right by the experience of the oldest and the most just. So in order that the soul of the child may not become habituated to having pains and pleasures in contradiction to the law and those who obey the law, but in conformity thereto, being pleased and pained at the same things as the old man,— 659efor this reason we have what we call “chants,” which evidently are in reality incantations ^note seriously designed to produce in souls that conformity and harmony of which we speak. But inasmuch as the souls of the young are unable to endure serious study, we term these “plays” and “chants,'' and use them as such,—just as, when people suffer from bodily ailments and infirmities, those whose office it is try to administer to them nutriment that is wholesome in meats