Greek Texts & Translations

By all means ordain it so; for that is a law carried by a unanimous vote.

What then, next to auspicious speech, should be the second law of music? Is it not that prayers should be made on each occasion to those gods to whom offering is made?

Certainly.

The third law, I suppose, will be this,—that the poets, knowing that prayers are requests addressed to gods, must take the utmost care lest unwittingly 801bthey request a bad thing as though it were a good thing; for if such a prayer were made, it would prove, I fancy, a ludicrous blunder.

Of course.

Did not our argument convince us, a little while ago, ^note that no Plutus either in gold or in silver should dwell enshrined within the State?

It did.

What then shall we say that this statement serves to illustrate? Is it not this,—that the tribe of poets is not wholly capable of discerning 801cvery well what is good and what not? For surely when a poet, suffering from this error, composes prayers either in speech or in song, he will be making our citizens contradict ourselves in their prayers for things of the greatest moment; yet this, as we have said, ^note is an error than which few are greater. So shall we also lay down this as one of our laws and typical cases regarding music?

What law? Explain it to us more clearly.

The law that the poet shall compose nothing which goes beyond the limits of what the State holds to be legal and right, fair and good; nor shall he show 801dhis compositions to any private person until they have first been shown to the judges appointed to deal with these matters, and to the Law-wardens, and have been approved by them. And in fact we have judges appointed in those whom we selected to be the legislators of music and in the supervisor of education. Well then, I repeat my question,—is this to be laid down as our third law, typical case, and example? What think you?

Be it laid down by all means.

Next to these, it will be most proper to sing hymns and praise to the gods, coupled with prayers; and after the gods will come prayers combined with praise to daemons and heroes, as is befitting to each.

To be sure. 801e

This done, we may proceed at once without scruple to formulate this law:—all citizens who have attained the goal of life and have wrought with body or soul noble works and toilsome, and have been obedient to the laws, shall be regarded as fitting objects for praise.

Certainly. 802a

But truly it is not safe to honor with hymns and praises those still living, before they have traversed the whole of life and reached a noble end. All such honors shall be equally shared by women as well as men who have been conspicuous for their excellence. As to the songs and the dances, this is the fashion in which they should be arranged. Among the compositions of the ancients there exist many fine old pieces of music, and likewise dances, from which we may select without scruple for the constitution we are founding such as are fitting and proper. 802bTo examine these and make the selection, we shall choose out men not under fifty years of age; and whichever of the ancient songs are approved we shall adopt, but whichever fail to reach our standard, or are altogether unsuitable, we shall either reject entirely or revise and remodel. For this purpose we shall call in the advice of poets and musicians, and make use of their poetical ability, without, however, trusting to their tastes or their wishes, 802cexcept in rare instances; and by thus expounding the intentions of the lawgiver, we shall organize to his satisfaction dancing, singing, and the whole of choristry. In truth, every unregulated musical pursuit becomes, when brought under regulation, a thousand times better, even when no honeyed strains are served up: all alike provide pleasure. ^note For if a man has been reared from childhood up to the age of steadiness and sense in the use of music that is sober and regulated, then he detests the opposite kind whenever he hears it, and 802dcalls it “vulgar”; whereas if he has been reared in the common honeyed kind of music, he declares the opposite of this to be cold and unpleasing. Hence, as we said just now, in respect of the pleasure or displeasure they cause neither kind excels the other; where the superiority lies is in the fact that the one kind always makes those who are reared in it better, the other worse.

Finely spoken!

Further, it will be right for the lawgiver to set apart suitable songs for males and females by making a rough division of them; and he must necessarily adapt them to harmonies and rhythms, 802efor it would be a horrible thing for discord to exist between theme and tune, meter and rhythm, as a result of providing the songs with unsuitable accompaniments. So the lawgiver must of necessity ordain at least the outline of these. And while it is necessary for him to assign both words and music for both types of song as defined by the natural difference of the two sexes, he must also clearly declare wherein the feminine type consists. Now we may affirm that what is noble and of a manly tendency is masculine, while that which inclines rather to decorum and sedateness is to be regarded rather as feminine both in law and in discourse.