Plato, Republic, Paul Shorey (Translator), 3.399

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[399] Will you make any use of them for warriors? None at all, he said; but it would seem that you have left the Dorian and the Phrygian. I don’t know¹ the musical modes, I said, but leave us that mode² that would fittingly imitate the utterances and the accents of a brave man who is engaged in warfare or in any enforced business, and who, when he has failed, either meeting wounds or death or having fallen into some other mishap, 399b in all these conditions confronts fortune with steadfast endurance and repels her strokes. And another for such a man engaged in works of peace, not enforced but voluntary,³ either trying to persuade somebody of something and imploring him—whether it be a god, through prayer, or a man, by teaching and admonition—or contrariwise yielding himself to another who petitioning or teaching him or trying to change his opinions, and in consequence faring according to his wish, and not bearing himself arrogantly, but in all this acting modestly and moderately 399c and acquiescing in the outcome. Leave us these two modes—the forced and the voluntary—that will best imitate the utterances of men failing or succeeding, the temperate, the brave—leave us these. Well, said he, you are asking me to leave none other than those I just spoke of. Then, said I, we shall not need in our songs and airs instruments of many strings or whose compass includes all the harmonies. Not in my opinion, said he. Then we shall not maintain makers of triangles and harps and all other 399d many stringed and poly-harmonic⁴ instruments. Apparently not. Well, will you admit to the city flute-makers and flute-players? Or is not the flute the most many-stringed of instruments and do not the pan-harmonics⁵ themselves imitate it? Clearly, he said. You have left, said I, the lyre and the cither. These are useful⁶ in the city, and in the fields the shepherds would have a little piccolo to pipe on.⁷ So our argument indicates, he said. 399e We are not innovating, my friend, in preferring Apollo and the instruments of Apollo to Marsyas and his instruments. No, by heaven! he said, I think not. And by the dog,⁸ said I, we have all unawares purged the city which a little while ago we said was wanton.⁹ In that we show our good sense, he said.
Come then, let us complete the purification.

Republic. Plato. Paul Shorey (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1935-37.

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Current edition Perseus

Republic (English) (Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 5-6. Shorey, Paul, translator. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1935-37 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Πολιτεία Perseus (Platonis Opera Tomus IV: Tetralogia VIII. Burnet, John, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.) — 3.399 focus

[399] 399a
ταύταις οὖν, ὦ φίλε, ἐπὶ πολεμικῶν ἀνδρῶν ἔσθʼ ὅτι χρήσῃ;
οὐδαμῶς, ἔφη· ἀλλὰ κινδυνεύει σοι δωριστὶ λείπεσθαι καὶ φρυγιστί.
οὐκ οἶδα, ἔφην ἐγώ, τὰς ἁρμονίας, ἀλλὰ κατάλειπε ἐκείνην τὴν ἁρμονίαν, ἣ ἔν τε πολεμικῇ πράξει ὄντος ἀνδρείου καὶ ἐν πάσῃ βιαίῳ ἐργασίᾳ πρεπόντως ἂν μιμήσαιτο φθόγγους τε καὶ προσῳδίας, καὶ ἀποτυχόντος ἢ εἰς τραύματα ἢ εἰς 399b θανάτους ἰόντος ἢ εἴς τινα ἄλλην συμφορὰν πεσόντος, ἐν πᾶσι τούτοις παρατεταγμένως καὶ καρτερούντως ἀμυνομένου τὴν τύχην· καὶ ἄλλην αὖ ἐν εἰρηνικῇ τε καὶ μὴ βιαίῳ ἀλλʼ ἐν ἑκουσίᾳ πράξει ὄντος, ἢ τινά τι πείθοντός τε καὶ δεομένου, ἢ εὐχῇ θεὸν ἢ διδαχῇ καὶ νουθετήσει ἄνθρωπον, ἢ τοὐναντίον ἄλλῳ δεομένῳ ἢ διδάσκοντι ἢ μεταπείθοντι ἑαυτὸν ἐπέχοντα, καὶ ἐκ τούτων πράξαντα κατὰ νοῦν, καὶ μὴ ὑπερηφάνως ἔχοντα, ἀλλὰ σωφρόνως τε καὶ μετρίως ἐν πᾶσι τούτοις 399c πράττοντά τε καὶ τὰ ἀποβαίνοντα ἀγαπῶντα. ταύτας δύο ἁρμονίας, βίαιον, ἑκούσιον, δυστυχούντων, εὐτυχούντων, σωφρόνων, ἀνδρείων ἁρμονίας αἵτινες φθόγγους μιμήσονται κάλλιστα, ταύτας λεῖπε.
ἀλλʼ, ἦ δʼ ὅς, οὐκ ἄλλας αἰτεῖς λείπειν ἢ ἃς νυνδὴ ἐγὼ ἔλεγον.
οὐκ ἄρα, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, πολυχορδίας γε οὐδὲ παναρμονίου ἡμῖν δεήσει ἐν ταῖς ᾠδαῖς τε καὶ μέλεσιν.
οὔ μοι, ἔφη, φαίνεται.
τριγώνων ἄρα καὶ πηκτίδων καὶ πάντων ὀργάνων ὅσα 399d πολύχορδα καὶ πολυαρμόνια, δημιουργοὺς οὐ θρέψομεν.
οὐ φαινόμεθα.
τί δέ; αὐλοποιοὺς ἢ αὐλητὰς παραδέξῃ εἰς τὴν πόλιν; ἢ οὐ τοῦτο πολυχορδότατον, καὶ αὐτὰ τὰ παναρμόνια αὐλοῦ τυγχάνει ὄντα μίμημα;
δῆλα δή, ἦ δʼ ὅς.
λύρα δή σοι, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, καὶ κιθάρα λείπεται καὶ κατὰ πόλιν χρήσιμα· καὶ αὖ κατʼ ἀγροὺς τοῖς νομεῦσι σῦριγξ ἄν τις εἴη.
ὡς γοῦν, ἔφη, ὁ λόγος ἡμῖν σημαίνει. 399e
οὐδέν γε, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, καινὸν ποιοῦμεν, ὦ φίλε, κρίνοντες τὸν Ἀπόλλω καὶ τὰ τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος ὄργανα πρὸ Μαρσύου τε καὶ τῶν ἐκείνου ὀργάνων.
μὰ Δία, ἦ δʼ ὅς, οὔ μοι φαινόμεθα.
καὶ νὴ τὸν κύνα, εἶπον, λελήθαμέν γε διακαθαίροντες πάλιν ἣν ἄρτι τρυφᾶν ἔφαμεν πόλιν.
σωφρονοῦντές γε ἡμεῖς, ἦ δʼ ὅς.
ἴθι δή, ἔφην, καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ καθαίρωμεν.

Notes on the current edition

Republic

1. Plato, like a lawyer or popular essayist, affects ignorance of the technical details; or perhaps rather he wishes to disengage his main principle from the specialists’ controversy about particular modes of music and their names.

2. ἐκείνην may mean, but does not say, Dorian, which the Laches (188 D) pronounces the only true Greek harmony. This long anacoluthic sentence sums up the whole matter with impressive repetition and explicit enumeration of all types of conduct in peace and war, and implied reference to Plato’s doctrine of the two fundamental temperaments, the swift and the slow, the energetic and the mild. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, nn. 59, 70, 481.

3. Cf. Laws 814 E.

4. Metaphorically. The

many-toned instrumentation of the flutes,

as Pindar calls it, Ol. vii. 12, can vie with the most complex and many-stringed lyre of musical innovation.

5. Cf. 404 D, the only other occurrence of the word in Plato.

6. Cf. my note on Timaeus 47 C, in A.J.P. vol. x. p. 61.

7. Ancient critics noted this sentence as an adaptation of sound to sense. Cf. Demetr. Περὶ ἑρμ. 185. The sigmas and iotas may be fancied to suggest the whistling notes of the syrinx. So Lucretius v. 1385

tibia quas fundit digitis pulsata canentum.

Cf. on Catullus 61. 13

voce carmina tinnula.

8. The so-called Rhadamanthine oath to avoid taking the names of the gods in vain. Cf. 592 A, Apology 21 E, Blaydes on Aristophanes Wasps 83.

9. Cf. 372 E. Dummler, Proleg. p. 62, strangely affirms that this is an express retraction of the ἀληθινὴ πόλις. This is to misapprehend Plato’s method. He starts with the indispensable minimum of a simple society, develops it by Herbert Spencer’s multiplication of effects into an ordinary Greek city, then reforms it by a reform of education and finally transforms it into his ideal state by the rule of the philosopher kings. Cf. Introduction p. xiv.

Commentary

Commentary on Plato, Republic (Plato. The Republic, Vol 1-2. Adam, James, editor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902-1903.) focus

ἄλλην : viz. Phrygian. Aristotle blames Plato for retaining the Phrygian mode, while rejecting the αὐλός, with which it was usually associated: ἄμφω γὰρ ὀργιαστικὰ καὶ παθητικά ( Pol. Θ 7. 1342^{b} 3). Plato, however, rejects the flute, not because it is orgiastic, but because it is πολυαρμόνιον (399 D). In Plato's opinion the Phrygian mode expressed sobriety and resignation: Aristotle thought it ecstatic and purgative (l.c. 1341^{a} 23). The difference of view is interesting and important as shewing that the ethical effect of different modes was a disputed point even among the ancients.

ἢ εὐχῇ ‐‐ ἄνθρωπον is subordinate to πείθοντός τε καὶ δεομένου.

ὑπέχοντα . ἐπέχοντα—see cr. n.— cannot, I think, be right. ἐπέχειν τὴν διάνοιαν ( Laws 926 B) certainly does not justify ἐπέχειν ἑαυτόν, and even if it did, ‘submitting to’ and not merely ‘attending to’ is the sense required. With ὑπέχοντα cf. Gorg. 497 B ὑπόσχες Σωκράτει ἐξελέγξαι ὅπως ἄν βούληται, where the reflexive pronoun is omitted, as often with παρέχειν. Here it is better to take ἑαυτόν with ὑπέχοντα than with μεταπείθοντι. By changing the construction and writing accusatives instead of genitives, Plato makes the man himself rather than his φθόγγοι appear the object of imitation (cf. 397 D note). This is natural enough, because the situations described in ἢ τοὐναντίον—ἀγαπῶντα give less scope for φθόγγοι. Stephanus wished to read the genitive throughout ( ὑπέχοντος, πράξαντος etc.: so also v and two Florentine MSS), but there is also inscriptional evidence for a genitive or dative participle followed by an accusative in the course of a long sentence: see Meisterhans^{3} p. 205.

κατὰ νοῦν : ‘to his liking’: cf. εὐτυχούντων below.

Plato Republic 3.399

Paul Shorey (Translator)

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