[187]
And so not merely is all medicine governed, as I propound it, through the influence of this god, but likewise athletics and agriculture.
187a
Music also, as is plain to any the least curious observer, is in the same sort of case: perhaps Heracleitus intends as much by those perplexing words,
The One at variance with itself is drawn together, like harmony of bow or lyre.
1
Now it is perfectly absurd to speak of a harmony at variance, or as formed from things still varying. Perhaps he meant, however, that
187b
from the grave and acute which were varying before, but which afterwards came to agreement, the harmony was by musical art created. For surely there can be no harmony of acute and grave while still at variance: harmony is consonance, and consonance is a kind of agreement; and agreement of things varying, so long as they are at variance, is impossible. On the other hand, when a thing varies with no disability of agreement, then it may be harmonized; just as rhythm
187c
is produced by fast and slow, which in the beginning were at variance but later came to agree. In all these cases the agreement is brought about by music which, like medicine in the former instance, introduces a mutual love and unanimity. Hence in its turn music is found to be a knowledge of love-matters relating to harmony and rhythm. In the actual system of harmony or rhythm we can easily distinguish these love-matters; as yet the double Love is absent: but when we come to the application
187d
of rhythm and harmony to social life, whether we construct what are called
melodies or render correctly, by what is known as
training, tunes and measures already constructed, we find here a certain difficulty and require a good craftsman. Round comes the same conclusion: well-ordered men, and the less regular only so as to bring them to better order, should be indulged in this Love, and this is the sort we should preserve; this is the noble, the Heavenly Love,
187e
sprung from the Heavenly Muse. But the Popular Love comes from the Queen of Various Song; in applying him we must proceed with all caution, that no debauchery be implanted with the reaping of his pleasure, just as in our craft we set high importance on a right use of the appetite for dainties of the table, that we may cull the pleasure without disease.Symposium. Plato. Walter Rangeley Maitland Lamb (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1925.
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