The works of Plato · Plato
ARGUMENT.
In this case, then, Glaucon, said I;—is not musical training of the utmost importance, inasmuch as rhythm and harmony enter largely into the inward part of the soul, and most powerfully affect it, at the same time introducing decorum, and rendering every one becoming, if properly trained, and, if not so, the reverse?—Moreover, the man, who has thus been brought up as he ought, very soon perceives whatever workmanship is defective and badly executed, or what productions are of such description,—and through a right feeling of disgust will praise and rejoice in the beautiful, and receiving it in his soul will be fostered thereby, and thus become a worthy, good man,—while, as to all that is base, he will rightly despise and hate it, even from early youth, and before he can partake of reason; and again, when reason comes, having been thus trained, he will heartily embrace it, because he clearly recognises it from its intimate familiarity with himself. This appears to me, replied he, the very reason, why there should be musical training.
Just as in learning our letters, said I, we are only then sufficiently instructed, when we are acquainted, on meeting them, with the few elementary letters through their various combinations, and do not more or less despise them as unnecessary to be learnt, but take all pains to understand them thoroughly,—as we cannot be good grammarians till we do so. True. And supposing the images of letters were seen anywhere, either in water or in mirrors, should we not recognise them before the letters themselves?—or is this a part of the same art and study? Surely. Is it then true, what I say, by the gods, that in this case we shall never become musicians, neither ourselves nor the guardians we talk of training, unless we understand the ideas of temperance, fortitude, liberality, and magnificence, and whatever are akin to these, are acquainted also with their contraries, so familiar to all, and unless, wheresoever they are, we observe both the virtues themselves and the images thereof, and despise them neither in small nor great instances, but conceive them to be rather a part of the same art and study. It must be so, said he.
Must not that person, then, said I, whose lot it is to have virtuous habits in his soul, and what is proportioned and corresponding thereto in his appearance, partake of the same impression and be a fine spectacle to any one who is able to behold him? Quite so. Yet, what is most beautiful is most lovely? Of course. He, then, who is most musical should surely love those men, who are most eminent in this way; but if a man be unmusical, he will not love them? He will not, replied he, if he be at all defective in his soul: still, if it were in his body, he would bear with it, and be willing to associate with him. I understand, said I, that your favourites are or have been of this kind: and I too agree to that; but tell me this,—is there any communion between temperance and excessive pleasure? How can there? said he, for such pleasure causes a privation of intellect, not less than grief. But has it communion with any other virtue? Not at all. What then,—has it communion with insolence and intemperance? Most certainly. Can you mention a greater and more acute pleasure than what respects the matters of love? I cannot, said he, nor yet one that is more insane.
But right love is of a nature to love the beautiful and the good temperately and harmoniously? Certainly. Nothing, then, which is mad, or allied to intemperance, may approach real and right love. It may not approach it. Nor may pleasure approach it; neither may the lover and the person he loves have communion with it, if they are rightly to love and be beloved? No, truly, said he; they may not, Socrates. Thus, then, it seems, you will lay down a law in the city you are establishing, that the lover shall love, converse, and associate with the objects of his love, as with a son,—from a virtuous motive and with his consent; and as to everything else, every one will so converse with him whose love he solicits, as never to wish to associate for any other purpose but what we have said;—for otherwise he would undergo the reproach of being unmusical and unacquainted with the beautiful. It must be so, replied he. Do not you think then, said I, that our discourse concerning music is now concluded?—For it has now terminated where it ought,—as what is concerned with the art of music somehow ought to terminate in the love of the beautiful. I agree, said he.
CHAP. XIII.—After music, then, our youths must be trained in gymnastics. What then? In this likewise they must needs be accurately trained, from infancy upwards through their whole life:—For the matter, methinks, stands somehow thus;—and do you also consider.—I do not think that any sound body can, by its own virtue, render the soul good; and contrariwise, that a good soul can, by its own virtue, render the body the best possible: what think you? I think so too, replied he. If then, after having sufficiently trained the intellect, we commit to it the careful management of what concerns the body, shall we not, as we are only laying down patterns, (that we may not be tedious,) act in a right manner? Entirely so. We say then, that they must abstain from drunkenness; for any one, rather than a guardian, might be allowed to get drunk, and not know where he is. It were ridiculous, said he, for a guardian to need a guardian himself. But what as respects meats;—for these men are wrestlers in most important combats;—are they not? Yes. Would not then the bodily state of the wrestlers suit such as these? Perhaps so.
But, said I, they are a sluggish set, and of dubious health:—do you not observe, that they sleep out their life; and, that if they only ever so little depart from their regular diet, such wrestlers become extensively and deeply diseased? I do observe it. But a more elegant kind of exercise, said I, is required for our military wrestlers,—who, as dogs, ought to be wakeful, and see and hear most acutely, and endure, in their expeditions, many changes of water and food, of heat and cold, that so they may not fail in their health? I think so. Is not then the best kind of gymnastic exercise very like the simple music which we just before described? How mean you? That the gymnastics should be simple and moderate, and of that kind most especially which concern war. Of what kind? Even from Homer, said I, one may learn such things as these: for you know, that in their military expeditions, at their heroes’ banquets, he never feasts them with fish, not even while they were by the sea at the Hellespont, nor yet with boiled flesh, but only with roast meat, as what soldiers can most easily procure: for, in short, one can everywhere more easily use fire, than carry vessels about? Yes.
Neither does Homer, I think, make any mention of seasonings: and this is what every wrestler knows,—that the body, to be in good condition, must abstain from these. They are right, said he, and do abstain. You do not then approve, friend, it would seem, of the Syracusan table, and the various Sicilian made-dishes, since you think the other right? It seems I do not. You will disapprove also of a Corinthian girl, as a mistress, for such as would be in good bodily condition? By all means. And likewise of those celebrated delicacies of Attic confections? Surely. As respects all such feeding and dieting, if we compare it to the melody and song produced in full harmony and universal rhythm, will not the comparison hold good? Of course. And does not that diversity cause insubordination in this case—disease in the other? But simplicity in music, engenders temperance in the soul,—and in gymnastics, bodily health. True, said he. And when insubordination and diseases multiply in a city, must not many law-courts and medicine-halls be opened; and will not the forensic and medicinal arts be in request, when many, even of the free, will earnestly apply to them? Of course.
CHAP. XIV.—Can you then adduce any greater proof of bad and shameful training in a city, than the fact of their needing physicians and supreme magistrates, and these too, not only for base and low craftsmen, but for those also, who boast of having been liberally educated;—and again, does it not seem base, and a great proof of defective education, to be obliged to see justice pronounced on us by others, as our masters and judges, and yet to have no sense of it in ourselves? This, replied he, is of all things the most base. And deem you not this far more base, said I; when a person not only spends a great part of his life in courts of justice, as defendant or plaintiff,—but, from ignorance of the beautiful, thinks he is renowned for his very dexterity in doing injustice, and his cleverness at turning through all sorts of windings, and using every kind of subterfuge, with the idea of evading justice,—and all this for the sake of small and contemptible things,—ignorant how much better and more noble it were so to regulate life as not to need a sleepy judge? This, replied he, is still baser than the other.
And to need the medicinal art, said I, not on account of wounds, or some incidental epidemic complaint, but through sloth, and such diet as we mentioned, being filled with rheums and wind, like lakes, and obliging the skilful sons of Æsculapius to invent new names for diseases,—such as dropsies and catarrhs:—do not you think this abominable? Truly, replied he, those are very new and strange names of diseases. Such, said I, as I think, existed not in the days of Æsculapius: and I guess so from this, that when Eurypylus was wounded at Troy, and was getting Pramnian wine to drink with much flour sprinkled in it, and cheese grated (all which seem to be of inflammatory tendency), the sons of Æsculapius neither blamed the woman who presented it, nor reproved Patroclus, for presenting the cure. Surely such a potion, said he, is absurdly improper for one in such a case. Not so, said I, if you consider, that the descendants of Æsculapius, as they tell us, did not, before the time of Herodicus, practise the method of cure now in use, which puts the patient on a regimen;—whereas Herodicus, being a teacher of youth, and in weak health too, confounded gymnastics and medicine, and made himself first very uncomfortable, and afterwards many others besides.
How was that? said he. By procuring himself a lingering death, said I; for while he was constantly attending to his disease, which was mortal, he was not able, as I imagine, to cure himself; though, to the neglect of everything else, he was constantly using medicines, and thus passed his life, always most uneasy, if he departed in the least from his usual diet; and through this wisdom of his, struggling long with death, he arrived at old age. A mighty reward, said he, he reaped for his cleverness! Such as became one, said I, who was unconscious that it was not from ignorance or inexperience of this method of cure, that Æsculapius did not discover it to his descendants, but simply because he was aware, that in all well-regulated states there every one had a certain work enjoined him, necessary to be done, and no one could be permitted to have time or leisure to get sick throughout life, or busy himself with taking medicine;—a fact that we amusingly discover in the case of labouring people, but do not see it in that of the rich, and those reputed happy. How? said he.
CHAP. XV.—A builder, replied I, when he falls sick, gets from the physician some potion for throwing up his disease, or purging it downwards, or else, by means of caustic or amputation, for getting freed from trouble; but if any one prescribe him a system of regimen, putting caps on his head and so on, he quickly tells him that he has no leisure to lie sick, and it does not suit him to live in that manner, attending to his troubles, and neglecting his duty; and so, bidding the physician farewell, he returns to his ordinary diet, and, should he recover, he goes on managing his affairs, but should his body be unable to bear up against the disease, he dies, and gets rid of his troubles. Such an one, said he, ought to use the art of medicine just in this manner. Is it not, said I, because he has a certain business,—and which, if he does not do it, it is no profit for him to live? Plainly, replied he. But the rich man, as we say, has no such work allotted him, from which, when compelled to refrain, life is not worth the having? It is said so of him, at least.
You do not mind, said I, what Phocylides says,—that one ought, throughout life, to practise virtue. I think, replied he, we attended to that formerly. We shall not differ on this point, said I. But let us learn, whether excessive attention to one’s disease is to be the business of the rich, and life is not worth keeping, if he does not give this attention; inasmuch, as such a life hinders the mind from attending to building and other arts,—but, as respects the exhortation of Phocylides, it is no hinderance. Yes, by Zeus, said he, it is, and that in the greatest degree, when this unusual care of the body goes beyond gymnastics. It agrees neither with attention to private economy, or military expeditions, or sedentary magistracies in the city. But what is of most importance is, that such application to health ill suits any sort of learning and inquiry and solitary study, because one is then perpetually dreading certain pains and swimmings of the head, and blaming philosophy as the cause thereof,—so that, where there is this attention to health, it greatly hinders the practice of virtue and improvement therein, as it makes us always imagine that we are ill and ailing. Very probably, said he.
And shall we not say, that Æsculapius too understood these things, when to persons in health, and such as used a wholesome diet, but were afflicted by some particular disease, to these and such kind of constitution he prescribed medicine, resisting their ailments by drugs and incisions, but still ordering them their usual diet, that the public might not be injured; but he did not attempt, either by low or nourishing diet, to cure thoroughly diseased systems; and so to afford a long and miserable life to the man himself, and his descendants too, who would probably be of the same kind: for he did not think that a man ought to be cured, who could not live in the ordinary course, as in that case he would be of no service either to himself or the state. You make Æsculapius, a politician, observed he. Plainly so, said I; and his sons may evince that he was so.[136] See you not again, that at Troy they proved their bravery in war, and, as I say, practised medicine likewise? And do not you remember, that when Menelaus was wounded by Pandarus,— ... they sucked the wound, then spread it o’er With drugs of balmy power;[137]— but as for what he wanted to eat or drink afterwards, they prescribed for him no more than for Eurypylus, because they deemed external applications sufficient to heal men, who, before they were wounded, had been healthy and moderate in their diet, whatever potion they might have drunk at the time, but conceived, that a diseased constitution and an intemperate life were beneficial neither to the men themselves nor to others, and that their art ought not to be employed on, nor minister to them, even were they richer than Midas.[138] How vastly clever, said he, you are making the sons of Æsculapius!
Physicians, replied I, would become extremely skilled, if, from childhood upwards, they would, in course of learning their art, gain experience from a large number of bodies, and these too of a very sickly character,—especially if they should be themselves afflicted with all kinds of maladies, and not be altogether of a healthy constitution,—for it is not by the body, methinks, that they cure the body (else their own bodies would never be allowed to be diseased, or become so), but they cure the body by the soul, which, while in a diseased state, or becoming so, is incapable of properly performing any cure whatever. Right, said he. But as for the judge, friend, said I, he governs the soul by the soul; and if it has been bred up from childhood with depraved souls, has constantly associated with them, and has itself committed all sorts of crime, it cannot so far emancipate itself, as of itself to judge correctly about others’ ill deeds, just as happens with respect to bodily ailments:—no, it must even in youth be unacquainted with and unpolluted by bad habits, if it would be fair and honourable itself and judge correctly of what is just.
Hence, therefore, the virtuous, even in youth, appear simple, and easily deceived by the unjust, because they have within them, forsooth, no dispositions corresponding in sentiment with those of the wicked. Aye, indeed, said he, this very often happens to them. For this reason, said I, the good judge must not be a youth, but old,—one who has been late in learning the nature of wickedness, which he apprehends not as a peculiar quality resident in his own soul, but from having, as a foreign one, long studied it in the souls of others, and from having ascertained the nature of its evil by positive science, rather than personal experience. Such an one as this, said he, is likely to be a very noble judge. And a good one too, said I; the very thing you required: for the man with a good soul is good;—while on the other hand, the clever, slyly suspicious man,—he, namely, who has himself committed much sin, and is deemed subtle and wise when in the society of his equals, has the repute of being a clever, wary kind of person, because he has constantly in his eye those models that reside within himself:—but whenever he approaches the good, who are his seniors, he appears mightily inferior, unseasonably suspicious, and wholly ignorant of moral integrity, having within him no models of any such quality; but, on the other hand, as he has more frequent intercourse with the wicked than with the wise, he appears, both to himself and others, unusually wise, rather than ignorant. Quite true, said he.
As respects your youths, however, it is quite plain, said I, that they will be cautious in calling in the aid of judicial science, so long as they are employed on that simple music, which, we said, generates temperance. Of course, said he. Will not then, the musician who pursues gymnastics, on the very same principles as his own art, prefer doing so in such a way as not to want medicine except when absolutely necessary? I think so. His exercises too, and his labours, he will perform with reference more to the spirited portion[140] of his nature thus stirred into action, than to mere physical strength,—differently, indeed, from all other wrestlers, who take food and undergo toil with a view to the promotion of bodily strength? Most true, said he. In that case, said I, Glaucon, they who propose to teach music and gymnastics, propose them, not for what some imagine, namely, to cure the body by the one, and the soul by the other. If not, what is their motive? asked he. They seem to propose them both, said I, chiefly on the soul’s account. As how?
Perceive you not, said I, how those persons have regulated their intellect itself, who have all their life been conversant with gymnastics, yet never studied music,—or how those are affected who have lived in a manner quite the reverse of this? What are you speaking about? said he. Of savageness and fierceness, said I, and again of effeminacy and mildness. Yes, I understand, said he;—that is, persons who apply themselves to unmixed gymnastics become more savage than they ought; and those again [who attend] to music alone, are softer than becomes them. And moreover, said I, this very savageness imparts probably a certain spirit to the disposition, and, if rightly disciplined, will become fortitude; but when stretched too far, it will probably become indecently fierce and troublesome. So I think, said he. But what;—will not the philosophic nature partake of the mild also; and when this disposition is carried to excess, may it not prove softer than it ought, and if rightly disciplined, both mild and modest? Just so. We say also, that our guardians ought naturally to be possessed of both. They ought. Ought they not, then, to be made to suit one another? Of course. And the soul of the person thus suited is temperate and brave? Certainly. But the soul of a person not so suited is cowardly and savage? Especially so.
But what;—if a man labour much in gymnastics and live on extremely good diet, but pay no attention to music and philosophy; is he not first of all, from having his body in good condition, abundantly filled with prudence and spirit, and does he not become braver than he was before? Surely. But what;—supposing he does nothing else, and has no commerce with the Muses, not even if he had any love of learning in his soul, as neither having a taste for investigation, nor sharing in any inquiry or reasoning, or other musical pursuit whatever, does it not become feeble, deaf, and blind, as being neither awakened, nor nurtured, nor his perceptions purified? Just so. Such an one then becomes, I suppose, a hater of argument, and indisposed to music,—one who cannot at all be reasoned into anything, but conducts himself in all matters with violence and ferocity, like a wild beast; and thus he lives in ignorance and barbarity, out of measure, and unpolished? Quite so, said he.
Corresponding then to these two tempers, it seems, I would say, that some deity has furnished men with two arts,—music and gymnastics,—relating respectively to the high-spirited and the philosophic nature,—not indeed, for the soul and body, otherwise than as a by-work and accessory, but with a view to those two tempers, that they may be mutually suitable to each other by being tightened and loosened at pleasure. Aye,—it seems so. Whoever then can most cleverly mingle gymnastics with music, and introduce them in justest measure into the soul, this person we may most properly call completely musical, and most harmoniously disposed,—far more, indeed, than the man who puts in tune the strings of an instrument. Very likely, Socrates, said he. Shall we not then, always need, Glaucon, such a president in our city, if its government is to be kept entire? It will indeed be quite needful, as far at least as we can. ----- Footnote 141: Gr. ὅταν μέν τις μουσικῇ παρεχῇ καταυλεῖν καὶ καταχεῖν διὰ τῶν ὤτων, ὥσπερ διὰ χώνης, ἃς νῦν δὴ ἡμεῖς ἐλέγομεν τὰς γλυκείας τε καὶ μαλακὰς καὶ θρηνώδεις ἁρμονίας καὶ μινυρίζων τε καὶ γεγανωμένος ὑπὸ τῆς ᾠδῆς διατελῇ τὸν βίον ὅλον, &c. The verb μινυρίζειν signifies _to sing in a high and plaintive key_,—sometimes, also, _to whine_; γανοῦν is derived from γάνος, _splendour_, _joy_, and hence means _to be radiant with pleasure, to be of joyful countenance_.
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