Greek Texts & Translations

Yes.

Then for their practices it would be most proper that boys should have dancing-masters, and girls mistresses.

I grant it.

Let us once more summon the man who will have most of these duties to perform, 813cthe Director of the Children,—who, in supervising both music and gymnastic, will have but little time to spare.

How will he be able, at his age, to supervise so many affairs?

Quite easily. For the law has granted him, and will continue to grant him, such men or women as he wishes to take to assist him in this task of supervision: he will know himself the right persons to choose, and he will be anxious 813dto make no blunder in these matters, recognizing the greatness of his office and wisely holding it in high respect, and holding also the rational conviction that, when the young have been, and are being, well brought up, all goes “swimmingly,” but otherwise—the consequences are such as it is wrong to speak of, nor will we mention them, in dealing with a new State, out of consideration for the over-superstitious. ^note Concerning these matters also, which relate to dancing and gymnastic movements, we have already spoken at length. ^note We are establishing gymnasia and all physical exercises connected with military training,—the use of the bow and all kinds of missiles, light skirmishing and heavy-armed fighting of every description, 813etactical evolutions, company-marching, camp-formations, and all the details of cavalry training. In all these subjects there should be public instructors, paid by the State; and their pupils should be not only the boys and men in the State, but also the girls and women who understand all these matters—being practiced in all military drill and fighting while still girls and, when grown to womanhood, taking part in evolutions and rank-forming and the piling 814aand shouldering of arms,— and that, if for no other reason, at least for this reason, that, if ever the guards of the children and of the rest of the city should be obliged to leave the city and march out in full force, these women should be able at least to take their place; while if, on the other hand—and this is quite a possible contingency—an invading army of foreigners, fierce and strong, should force a battle round the city itself, 814bthen it would be a sore disgrace to the State if its women were so ill brought up as not even to be willing to do as do the mother-birds, which fight the strongest beasts in defence of their broods, but, instead of facing all risks, even death itself, to run straight to the temples and crowd all the shrines and holy places, and drown mankind in the disgrace of being the most craven of living creatures.

By Heaven, Stranger, if ever this took place in a city, it would be a most unseemly thing, 814capart from the mischief of it.

Shall we, then, lay down this law,—that up to the point stated women must not neglect military training, but all citizens, men and women alike, must pay attention to it?

I, for one, agree.

As regards wrestling, some points have been explained; ^note but we have not explained what is, in my opinion, the most important point, nor is it easy to express it in words without the help of a practical illustration. 814dThis point, then, we shall decide about ^note when word accompanied by deed can clearly demonstrate this fact, among the others mentioned,—that wrestling of this kind is of all motions by far the most nearly allied to military fighting; and also that it is not the latter that should be learned for the sake of the former, but, on the contrary, it is the former that should be practiced for the sake of the latter. ^note

There, at any rate, you are right.

For the present let this suffice as an account of the functions of the wrestling-school. Motion 814eof the whole body, other than wrestling, has for its main division what may be rightly termed dancing ^note; and we ought to consider it as consisting of two kinds,—the one representing the solemn movement of beautiful bodies, the other the ignoble movement of ugly bodies; and of these again there are two subdivisions. Of the noble kind there is, on the one hand, the motion of fighting, and that of fair bodies and brave souls engaged in violent effort; and, on the other hand, there is the motion of a temperate soul living in a state of prosperity and moderate pleasures; and this latter kind of dancing one will call, in accordance with its nature, “pacific.” The warlike division, 815abeing distinct from the pacific, one may rightly term “pyrrhiche” ^note; it represents modes of eluding all kinds of blows and shots by swervings and duckings and side-leaps upward or crouching; and also the opposite kinds of motion, which lead to active postures of offence, when it strives to represent the movements involved in shooting with bows or darts, and blows of every description. In all these cases the action and the tension of the sinews are correct when there is a representation of fair bodies and souls