[788]
788a
Ath.
Now that our children, of both sexes, are born, our proper course will be to deal in the next place with their nurture and education. This is a subject which it is wholly impossible to pass over; but obviously it can be treated more suitably by way of precept and exhortation than by legislation. For in the private life of the family many trivial things are apt to be done which escape general notice,—things which are the result of individual feelings of pain, pleasure, or desire, 788b and which contravene the instructions of the lawgiver; and these will produce in the citizens a multiplicity of contradictory tendencies. This is bad for a State. For while, on the one hand, it is improper and undignified to impose penalties on these practices by law, because of their triviality and the frequency of their occurrence, on the other hand, it detracts from the authority of the law which stands written when men grow used to breaking the law in trivial matters repeatedly. 788c Hence, while it is impossible to pass over these practices in silence, it is difficult to legislate concerning them. The practices I refer to I will try to make clear by bringing some specimens, as it were, to the light; for at present my words rather resemble a dark speech.Clin.
That is quite true.Ath.
When we said 1 that right nurture must be manifestly capable of making both bodies and souls in all respects as beautiful and good as possible, we spoke, I presume, truly?Clin.
Certainly we did. 788dAth.
And I suppose that (to take the simplest point) the most beautiful bodies must grow up from earliest infancy as straight as possible.Clin.
Most certainly.Ath.
Well then, do we not observe that in every living creature the first shoot makes by far the largest and longest growth; so that many people stoutly maintain that in point of height men grow more in the first five years of life than in the next twenty?Clin.
That is true.[789]
Ath.
But we know, don’t we, that when growth occurs rapidly, 789a without plenty of suitable exercise, it produces in the body countless evils?Clin.
Certainly.Ath.
And when bodies receive most food, then they require most exercise?Clin.
What is that, Stranger? Are we to prescribe most exercise for new-born babes and tiny infants?Ath.
Nay, even earlier than that,—we shall prescribe it for those nourished inside the bodies of their mothers.Clin.
What do you mean, my dear sir? Is it unborn babes you are talking of? 789bAth.
It is. Still it is by no means surprising that you know nothing of this pre-natal gymnastic; but, strange though it is, I should like to explain it to you.Clin.
By all means do so.Ath.
In our country it is easier to understand a practice of this kind, because there are people there who carry their sports to excess. At Athens we find not only boys but sometimes old men rearing birds and training such creatures to fight one another. 789c But they are far from thinking that the training they give them by exciting their pugnacity provides sufficient exercise; in addition to this, each man takes up his bird and keeps it tucked away in his fist, if it is small, or under his arm, if it is large, and in this way they walk many a long mile in order to improve the condition, not of their own bodies, but of these creatures. Thus clearly do they show to any observant person that all bodies benefit, as by a tonic, when they are moved by any kind of shaking or motion, 789d whether they are moved by their own action—as in a swing or in a rowing-boat—or are carried along on horseback or by any other rapidly moving bodies; and that this is the reason why bodies can deal successfully with their supplies of meat and drink and provide us with health and beauty, and strength as well. This being the state of the case, what does it behove us to do in the future? Shall we risk ridicule, 789e and lay down a law that the pregnant woman shall walk, and that the child, while still soft, shall be molded like wax, and be kept in swaddling clothes till it is two years old? And shall we also compel the nurses by legal penalties to keep carrying the children somehow, either to the fields or to the temples or to their relatives, all the time until they are able to stand upright; and after that, still to persevere in carrying them until they are three years old, as a precaution against the danger of distorting their legs by over-pressure while they are still young?[790]
Ath.
And that the nurses shall be 790a as strong as possible? And shall we impose a written penalty for every failure to carry out these injunctions? Such a course is quite out of the question; for it would lead to a superabundance of that consequence which we mentioned a moment ago.Clin.
What was that?Ath.
The consequence of our incurring ridicule in abundance, in addition to meeting with a blank refusal to obey on the part of the nurses, with their womanish and servile minds.Clin.
What reason, then, had we for saying that these rules ought to be stated?Ath.
The reason was this: the minds of the masters and of the freemen 790b in the States may perhaps listen, and so come to the right conclusion that, unless private affairs in a State are rightly managed, it is vain to suppose that any stable code of laws can exist for public affairs; and when he perceives this, the individual citizen may of himself adopt as laws the rules we have now stated, and, by so doing and thus ordering aright both his household and his State, may achieve happiness.Clin.
Such a result seems quite probable.Ath.
Consequently we must not desist from this kind of legislation until we have described in detail the treatment suited for the souls 790c of young children in the same manner as we commenced our advice regarding their bodies.Clin.
You are quite right.Ath.
Let us take this, then, as a fundamental assumption in both cases,—that for both body and soul of the very young a process of nursing and moving, that is as continuous as possible both by day and by night, is in all cases salutary, and especially in the case of the youngest: it is like having them always rocked— 790d if that were possible—on the sea. As it is, with new-born infants one should reproduce this condition as nearly as possible. Further evidence of this may be seen in the fact that this course is adopted and its usefulness recognized both by those who nurse small children and by those who administer remedies in cases of Corybantism. 2 Thus when mothers have children suffering from sleeplessness, and want to lull them to rest, the treatment they apply is to give them, not quiet, but motion, for they rock them constantly in their arms; and instead of silence, 790e they use a kind of crooning noise; and thus they literally cast a spell upon the children (like the victims of Bacchic frenzy) by employing the combined movements of dance and song as a remedy.Clin.
And what, Stranger, are we to suppose is the main cause of this?Ath.
It is easy enough to see.Clin.
How so?[791]
Ath.
Both these affections are forms of fright; and frights are due to a poor condition of soul. So whenever one applies an external shaking 791a to affections of this kind, the external motion thus applied overpowers the internal motion of fear and frenzy, and by thus overpowering it, it brings about a manifest calm in the soul and a cessation of the grievous palpitation of the heart which had existed in each case. Thus it produces very satisfactory results. The children it puts to sleep; the Bacchants, who are awake, it brings into a sound state of mind instead of a frenzied condition, by means of dancing and playing, with the help of whatsoever gods 791b they chance to be worshipping with sacrifice. This is—to put it shortly—quite a plausible account of the matter.Clin.
Most plausible.Ath.
Seeing, then, that these causes produce the effects described, in the case of the people mentioned one should observe this point,—that every soul that is subjected to fright from youth will be specially liable to become timid: and this, as all would aver, is not to practice courage, but cowardice.Clin.
Of course it is. 791cAth.
The opposite course, of practicing courage from youth up, consists, we shall say, in the conquering of the frights and fears that assail us.Clin.
That is true.Ath.
Let us say, then, that this factor—namely, the exercise of quite young children by the various motions—contributes greatly towards developing one part of the soul’s virtue.Clin.
Certainly.Ath.
Moreover, cheerfulness of soul and its opposite will constitute no small part of stoutheartedness and faintheartedness.Clin.
Of course. 791dAth.
What way can we find, then, for implanting at once in the new-born child whichever of these qualities we desire? We must endeavor to indicate how and to what extent we have them at our command.Clin.
By all means.Ath.
The doctrine held amongst us, I may explain, is this,—that whereas luxurious living renders the disposition of the young morose and irascible and too easily moved by trifles, its opposite (which is uttermost and cruel enslavement) makes them lowly and mean-spirited and misanthropic, and thus unfit to associate with others. 791eClin.
In what way, then, should the State at large rear up infants that are still incapable of understanding speech or receiving other kinds of education?Ath.
In this way: it is usual for every creature that is born—and the human child as much as any— to utter at once a loud outcry; and, what is more, the child is the most liable of them all to be afflicted with tears as well as outcries.Clin.
Quite true.[792]
Ath.
When nurses are trying to discover what a baby wants, they judge by these very same signs in offering it things. 792a If it remains silent when the thing is offered, they conclude that it is the right thing, but the wrong thing if it weeps and cries out. Thus infants indicate what they like by means of weepings and outcries—truly no happy signals!—and this period of infancy lasts not less than three years, which is no small fraction of one’s time to spend ill or well.Clin.
You are right.Ath.
When a man is peevish and not cheerful at all, do you not regard him 792b as a doleful person and more full, as a rule, of complaints than a good man ought to be?Clin.
I certainly regard him as such.Ath.
Well then, suppose one should try to secure by every available means that our nursling should experience the least possible amount of grief or fear or pain of any kind, may we not believe that by this means the soul of the nursling would be rendered more bright and cheerful?Clin.
Plainly it would, Stranger; and most of all if one should provide him 792c with many pleasures.Ath.
There, my good sir, I must part company with Clinias. For in our eyes such a proceeding is the worst possible form of corruption, for it occurs in every instance at the very beginning of the child’s nurture. 3 But let us consider whether I am right.Clin.
Explain your view.Ath.
I believe that the issue before us is one of extreme importance. You also, Megillus, consider the matter, I pray, and lend us the aid of your judgment. What I maintain is this: that the right life ought neither to pursue pleasures nor to shun pains entirely; 792d but it ought to embrace that middle state of cheerfulness (as I termed it a moment ago), which—as we all rightly suppose, on the strength of an inspired utterance—is the very condition of God himself. And I maintain that whosoever of us would be godlike must pursue this state of soul, neither becoming himself prone at all to pleasures, even as he will not be devoid of pain, not allowing any other person—old or young, man or woman—to be in this condition and least of all, 792e so far as possible, the new-born babe. For because of the force of habit, it is in infancy that the whole character is most effectually determined. 4 I should assert further—were it not that it would be taken as a jest—that women with child, above all others, should be cared for during their years of pregnancy, lest any of them should indulge in repeated and intense pleasures or pains, instead of cultivating, during the whole of that period, a cheerful, bright and calm demeanor.[793]
Clin.
There is no need for you, Stranger, to ask Megillus 793a which of us two has made the truer statement. For I myself grant you that all men ought to shun the life of unmixed pain and pleasure, and follow always a middle path. So all is well both with your statement and with my reply.Ath.
You are perfectly right, Clinias. So then let the three of us together consider this next point.Clin.
What is that?Ath.
That all the regulations which we are now expounding are what are commonly termed unwritten laws. And these as a whole are just the same as 793b what men call ancestral customs. Moreover, the view which was recently 5 impressed upon us, that one should neither speak of these as laws nor yet leave them without mention, was a right view. For it is these that act as bonds in every constitution, forming a link between all its laws (both those already enacted in writing and those still to be enacted), exactly like ancestral customs of great antiquity, which, if well established and practiced, serve to wrap up securely the laws already written, whereas if they perversely 793c go aside from the right way, like builders’ props that collapse under the middle of a house, they bring everything else tumbling down along with them, one thing buried under another, first the props themselves and then the fair superstructure, once the ancient supports have fallen down. Bearing this in mind, Clinias, we must clamp together this State of yours, which is a new one, by every possible means, omitting nothing great or small 793d in the way of laws, customs and institutions; for it is by all such means that a State is clamped together, and neither kind of law is permanent without the other. Consequently, we need not be surprised if the influx of a number of apparently trivial customs or usages should make our laws rather long.Clin.
What you say is quite true, and we will bear it in mind.Ath.
If one could carry out these regulations methodically, and not merely apply them casually, 793e in the case of girls and boys up to the age of three, they would conduce greatly to the benefit of our infant nurslings.[794]
Ath.
To form the character of the child over three and up to six years old there will be need of games: by then punishment must be used to prevent their getting pampered,—not, however, punishment of a degrading kind, but just as we said before, 6 in the case of slaves, that one should avoid enraging the persons punished by using degrading punishments, or pampering them by leaving them unpunished, 794a so in the case of the free-born the same rule holds good. Children of this age have games which come by natural instinct; and they generally invent them of themselves whenever they meet together. As soon as they have reached the age of three, all the children from three to six must meet together at the village temples, those belonging to each village assembling at the same place. Moreover, the nurses of these children must watch over their behavior, whether it be orderly or disorderly; and over the nurses themselves and the whole band of children 794b one of the twelve women already elected must be appointed annually to take charge of each band, the appointment resting with the Law-wardens. These women shall be elected by the women who have charge of the supervision of marriage, 7 one out of each tribe and all of a like age. The woman thus appointed shall pay an official visit to the temple every day, and she shall employ a State servant and deal summarily with male or female slaves and strangers, 794c but in the case of citizens, if the person protests against the punishment, she shall bring him for trial before the city stewards; but if no protest is made, she shall inflict summary justice equally on citizens. After the age of six, each sex shall be kept separate, boys spending their time with boys, and likewise girls with girls; and when it is necessary for them to begin lessons, the boys must go to teachers of riding, archery, javelin-throwing and slinging, and the girls also, if they agree to it, must share in the lessons, 794d and especially such as relate to the use of arms. For, as regards the view now prevalent regarding these matters, it is based on almost universal ignorance.Clin.
What view?Ath.
The view that, in the case of hands, right and left are by nature different in respect of their utility for special acts; but, as a matter of fact, in the case of the feet and the lower limbs there is plainly no difference in working capacity; 794e and it is due to the folly of nurses and mothers that we have all become limping, so to say, in our hands. For in natural ability the two limbs are almost equally balanced; but we ourselves by habitually using them in a wrong way have made them different.[795]
Ath.
In actions of trifling importance this does not matter—as for example, whether a man uses the left hand for the fiddle and the right hand for the bow, and things of that sort; but to follow these precedents and to use the hands in this way on other occasions, when there is no necessity, is very like foolishness. 795a This is shown by the Scythian custom not only of using the left hand to draw the bow and the right to fit the arrow to it, but also of using both hands alike for both actions. And there are countless other instances of a similar kind, in connection with driving horses and other occupations, which teach us that those who treat the left hand as weaker than the right are confuted by nature. But this, as we have said, matters little in the case of fiddle-bows of horn 795b and similar implements; but when it is a case of using iron instruments of war—bows, darts and the like—it matters a great deal, and most of all when weapon is to be used against weapon at close quarters. There is a vast difference here between the taught and the untaught, the trained and the untrained warrior. For just as the athlete who is thoroughly practiced in the pancratium or in boxing or wrestling is capable of fighting on his left side, and does not move that side as if it were numb 795c or lame, whenever he is compelled to bring it into action through his opponent shifting to the other side,—in precisely the same way, I take it, in regard to the use of weapons of war and everything else, it ought to be considered the correct thing that the man who possesses two sets of limbs, fit both for offensive and defensive action, should, so far as possible, suffer neither of these to go unpracticed or untaught. Indeed, if a man were gifted by nature with the frame of a Geryon or a Briareus, with his hundred hands he ought to be able to throw a hundred darts. So all these matters must be the care of 795d the male and female officers, the women overseeing the games and the feeding of the children, and the men their lessons, to the intent that all the boys and girls may be sound of hand and foot, and may in no wise, if possible, get their natures warped by their habits. The lessons may, for practical convenience, be divided under two heads—the gymnastical, which concern the body, and the musical, which aim at goodness of soul. Of gymnastic there are two kinds, dancing 795e and wrestling. Of dancing there is one branch in which the style of the Muse is imitated, preserving both freedom and nobility, and another which aims at physical soundness, agility and beauty by securing for the various parts and members of the body the proper degree of flexibility and extension and bestowing also the rhythmical motion which belongs to each, and which accompanies 796a the whole of dancing and is diffused throughout it completely.[796]
Ath.
As to the devices introduced by Antaeus or Cercyon 8 in the art of wrestling for the sake of empty glory, or in boxing by Epeius or Amycus, since they are useless in the business of war, they merit no eulogy. But the exercises of stand-up wrestling, with the twisting free of neck, hands and sides, when practiced with ardor and with a firm and graceful pose, and directed towards strength and health,—these must not be omitted, since they are useful for all purposes; but we must charge both the pupils and their teachers— 796b when we reach this point in our legislation—that the latter should impart these lessons gently, and the former receive them gratefully. Nor should we omit such mimic dances as are fitting for use by our choirs,—for instance, the sword-dance of the Curetes 9 here in Crete , and that of the Dioscori 10 in Lacedaemon ; and at Athens , too, our Virgin-Lady 11 gladdened by the pastime of the dance deemed it not seemly to sport with empty hands, 796c but rather to tread the measure vested in full panoply. These examples it would well become the boys and girls to copy, and so cultivate the favor of the goddess, alike for service in war and for use at festivals. It shall be the rule for the children, from the age of six until they reach military age, whenever they approach any god and form processions, to be always equipped with arms and horses, and with dance and march, now quick, now slow, to make their supplications to the gods and the children of gods. 796d Contests, too, and preliminary trials must be carried out with a view to the objects stated, if at all; for these objects are useful both in peace and war, alike for the State and for private families; but all other kinds of work and play and bodily exercise are not worthy of a gentleman. And now, O Megillus and Clinias, I have pretty fully described that gymnastic training which—as I said 12 early in our discourse—requires description: here it is in its full completeness. So if you know of a better gymnastic than this, 796e disclose it.Clin.
It is no easy thing, Stranger, to reject your account of gymnastic training and competition, and produce a better one.Ath.
The subject which comes next to this, and deals with the gifts of Apollo and the Muses, is one which we previously 13 thought we had done with, and that the only subject left was gymnastic; but I plainly see now, not only what still remains to be said to everybody, but also that it ought to come first. Let us, then, state these points in order.Clin.
By all means let us do so.[797]
797a
Ath.
Give ear to me now, albeit ye have already done so in the past. None the less, one must take great heed, now as before, both in the telling and in the hearing of a thing that is supremely strange and novel. To make the statement that I am going to make is an alarming task; yet I will summon up my courage, and not shrink from it.Clin.
What is the statement you refer to, Stranger?Ath.
I assert that there exists in every State a complete ignorance about children’s games—how that they are of decisive importance for legislation, as determining whether the laws enacted are to be permanent or not. 797b For when the program of games is prescribed and secures that the same children always play the same games and delight in the same toys in the same way and under the same conditions, it allows the real and serious laws also to remain undisturbed; but when these games vary and suffer innovations, amongst other constant alterations the children are always shifting their fancy from one game to another, so that neither in respect of their own bodily gestures nor in respect of their equipment have they any fixed and acknowledged standard of propriety and impropriety; but the man they hold in special honor is he who is always innovating or introducing some novel device 797c in the matter of form or color or something of the sort; whereas it would be perfectly true to say that a State can have no worse pest than a man of that description, since he privily alters the characters of the young, and causes them to contemn what is old and esteem what is new. And I repeat again that there is no greater mischief a State can suffer than such a dictum and doctrine: just listen while I tell you how great an evil it is. 797dClin.
Do you mean the way people rail at antiquity in States?Ath.
Precisely.Clin.
That is a theme on which you will find us no grudging listeners, but the most sympathetic possible.Ath.
I should certainly expect it to be so.Clin.
Only say on.Ath.
Come now, let us listen to one another and address one another on this subject with greater care than ever. Nothing, as we shall find, is more perilous than change in respect of everything, save only what is bad,—in respect of seasons, winds, bodily diet, mental disposition, everything in short with the solitary exception, as I said just now, of the bad. 797e Accordingly, if one considers the human body, and sees how it grows used to all kinds of meats and drinks and exercises, even though at first upset by them, and how presently out of these very materials it grows flesh that is akin to them, and acquiring thus a familiar acquaintance with, 798a and fondness for, all this diet, lives a most healthy and pleasant life;[798]
Ath.
and further, should a man be forced again to change back to one of the highly-reputed diets, how he is upset and ill at first, and recovers with difficulty as he gets used again to the food,—it is precisely the same, we must suppose, with the intellects of men and the nature of their souls. For if there exist laws under which men have been reared up and which (by the blessing of Heaven) have remained unaltered 798b for many centuries, so that there exists no recollection or report of their ever having been different from what they now are,—then the whole soul is forbidden by reverence and fear to alter any of the things established of old. By hook or by crook, then, the lawgiver must devise a means whereby this shall be true of his State. Now here is where I discover the means desired:—Alterations in children’s games are regarded by all lawgivers (as we said above 14 ) as being mere matters of play, and not as the causes of serious mischief; 798c hence, instead of forbidding them, they give in to them and adopt them. They fail to reflect that those children who innovate in their games grow up into men different from their fathers; and being thus different themselves, they seek a different mode of life, and having sought this, they come to desire other institutions and laws; and none of them dreads the consequent approach of that result which we described just now as the greatest of all banes 798d to a State. The evil wrought by changes in outward forms would be of less importance; but frequent changes in matters involving moral approval and disapproval are, as I maintain, of extreme importance, and require the utmost caution.Clin.
Most certainly.Ath.
Well, then, do we still put our trust in those former statements of ours, 15 in which we said that matters of rhythm and music generally are imitations of the manners of good 798e or bad men? Or how do we stand?Clin.
Our view at least remains unaltered.Ath.
We assert, then, that every means must be employed, not only to prevent our children from desiring to copy different models in dancing or singing, but also to prevent anyone from tempting them by the inducement of pleasures of all sorts.Clin.
Quite right.[799]
799a
Ath.
To attain this end, can any one of us suggest a better device than that of the Egyptians? 16Clin.
What device is that?Ath.
The device of consecrating all dancing and all music. First, they should ordain the sacred feasts, by drawing up an annual list of what feasts are to be held, and on what dates, and in honor of what special gods and children of gods and daemons; and they should ordain next what hymn is to be sung at each of the religious sacrifices, and with what dances 799b each such sacrifice is to be graced; these ordinances should be first made by certain persons, and then the whole body of citizens, after making a public sacrifice to the Fates and all the other deities, should consecrate with a libation these ordinances—dedicating each of the hymns to their respective gods and divinities. And if any man proposes other hymns or dances besides these for any god, the priests and priestesses will be acting in accordance with both religion and law when, with the help of the Law-wardens, they expel him from the feast; and if the man resists expulsion, he shall be liable, so long as he lives, to be prosecuted for impiety by anyone who chooses.Clin.
That is right. 799cAth.
Since we find ourselves now dealing with this theme, let us behave as befits ourselves. 17Clin.
In what respect?Ath.
Every young man—not to speak of old men—on hearing or seeing anything unusual and strange, is likely to avoid jumping to a hasty and impulsive solution of his doubts about it, and to stand still; just as a man who has come to a crossroads and is not quite sure of his way, if he be travelling alone, will question himself, or if travelling with others, 799d will question them too about the matter in doubt, and refuse to proceed until he has made sure by investigation of the direction of his path. We must now do likewise. In our discourse about laws, the point which has now occurred to us being strange, we are bound to investigate it closely; and in a matter so weighty we, at our age, must not lightly assume or assert that we can make any reliable statement about it on the spur of the moment.Clin.
That is very true. 799eAth.
We shall, therefore, devote some time to this subject, and only when we have investigated it thoroughly shall we regard our conclusions as certain. But lest we be uselessly hindered from completing the ordinance which accompanies the laws with which we are now concerned, let us proceed to their conclusion. For very probably (if Heaven so will) this exposition, when completely brought to its conclusion, may also clear up the problem now before us.Clin.
Well said, Stranger: let us do just as you say.[800]
Ath.
Let the strange fact be granted, we say, that our hymns are now made into nomes (laws), 18 just as the men of old, it would seem, gave this name to harp-tunes,— 800a so that they, too, perhaps, would not wholly disagree with our present suggestion, but one of them may have divined it vaguely, as in a dream by night or a waking vision: anyhow, let this be the decree on the matter:—In violation of public tunes and sacred songs and the whole choristry of the young, just as in violation of any other nome (law), no person shall utter a note or move a limb in the dance. He that obeys shall be free of all penalty; but he that disobeys shall (as we said just now) be punished by the Law-wardens, the priestesses and the priests. 800b Shall we now lay down these enactments in our statement?Clin.
Yes, lay them down.Ath.
How shall we enact these rules by law in such a way as to escape ridicule? Let us consider yet another point concerning them. The safest plan is to begin by framing in our discourse some typical cases, 19 so to call them; one such case I may describe in this way. Suppose that, when a sacrifice is being performed and the offerings duly burned, some private worshipper—a son or a brother —when standing beside the altar 800c and the offering, should blaspheme most blasphemously, would not his voice bring upon his father and the rest of the family a feeling of despair and evil forebodings?Clin.
It would.Ath.
Well, in our part of the world this is what happens, one may almost say, in nearly every one of the States. Whenever a magistrate holds a public sacrifice, the next thing is for a crowd of choirs— not merely one—to advance and take their stand, not at a distance from the altars, 800d but often quite close to them; and then they let out a flood of blasphemy over the sacred offerings, racking the souls of their audience with words, rhythms and tunes most dolorous, and the man that succeeds at once in drawing most tears from the sacrificing city carries off the palm of victory. Must we not reject 20 such a custom as this? For if it is ever really necessary that the citizens should listen to such doleful strains, it would be more fitting that the choirs that attend should be hired from abroad, and that not on holy days but only on fast-days— 800e just as a corpse is escorted with Carian music by hired mourners. Such music would also form the fitting accompaniment for hymns of this kind; and the garb befitting these funeral hymns would not be any crowns nor gilded ornaments, but just the opposite, for I want to get done with this subject as soon as I can. Only I would have us ask ourselves again 21 this single question,—are we satisfied to lay this down as our first typical rule for hymns?Clin.
What rule?[801]
Ath.
That of auspicious speech; and must we have a kind of hymn that is 801a altogether in all respects auspicious? Or shall I ordain that it shall be so, without further questioning?Clin.
By all means ordain it so; for that is a law carried by a unanimous vote.Ath.
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?Clin.
Certainly.Ath.
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 801b they 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.Clin.
Of course.Ath.
Did not our argument convince us, a little while ago, 22 that no Plutus either in gold or in silver should dwell enshrined within the State?Clin.
It did.Ath.
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 801c very 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, 23 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?Clin.
What law? Explain it to us more clearly.Ath.
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 801d his 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?Clin.
Be it laid down by all means.Ath.
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.Clin.
To be sure. 801eAth.
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.Clin.
Certainly.[802]
802a
Ath.
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. 802b To 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, 802c except 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. 24 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 802d calls 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.Clin.
Finely spoken!Ath.
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, 802e for 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.[803]
803a
Ath.
Such then is our regulation of the matter. We have next to discuss the question of the teaching and imparting of these subjects—how, by whom, and when each of them should be practiced. Just as a shipwright at the commencement of his building outlines the shape of his vessel by laying down her keel, so I appear to myself to be doing just the same—trying to frame, that is, the shapes of lives according to the modes of their souls, and thus literally 803b laying down their keels, by rightly considering by what means and by what modes of living we shall best navigate our barque of life through this voyage of existence. And notwithstanding that human affairs are unworthy of earnest effort, necessity counsels us to be in earnest; and that is our misfortune. Yet, since we are where we are, it is no doubt becoming that we should show this earnestness in a suitable direction. But no doubt 803c I may be faced—and rightly faced—with the question, What do I mean by this?Clin.
Certainly.Ath.
What I assert is this,—that a man ought to be in serious earnest about serious things, and not about trifles; and that the object really worthy of all serious and blessed effort is God, while man is contrived, as we said above, 25 to be a plaything of God, and the best part of him is really just that; and thus I say that every man and woman ought to pass through life in accordance with this character, playing at the noblest of pastimes, being otherwise minded than they now are. 803dClin.
How so?Ath.
Now they imagine that serious work should be done for the sake of play; for they think that it is for the sake of peace that the serious work of war needs to be well conducted. But as a matter of fact we, it would seem, do not find in war, either as existing or likely to exist, either real play or education worthy of the name, which is what we assert to be in our eyes the most serious thing. It is the life of peace that everyone should live as much and as well as he can. What then is the right way? We should live out our lives playing 803e at certain pastimes—sacrificing, singing and dancing—so as to be able to win Heaven’s favor and to repel our foes and vanquish them in fight.[804]
Hom. Od. 3.26
It behoves our nurslings also to be of this same mind, and to believe that what we have said is sufficient, and that the heavenly powers will suggest to them all else that concerns sacrifice and the dance,—
804b
in honor of what gods and at what seasons respectively they are to play and win their favor, and thus mold their lives according to the shape of their nature, inasmuch as they are puppets
26
for the most part, yet share occasionally in truth.
Ath.
By means of what kinds of song and dance both these aims may be effected,—this has been, in part, stated in outline, and the paths of procedure have been marked out, in the belief that the poet is right when he says— 804aTelemachus, thine own wit will in part
Instruct thee, and the rest will Heaven supply;
For to the will of Heaven thou owest birth
And all thy nurture, I would fain believe.
Meg.
You have a very mean opinion, Stranger, of the human race.Ath.
Marvel not, Megillus, but forgive me. For when I spoke thus, I had my mind set on God, and was feeling the emotion to which I gave utterance. Let us grant, however, if you wish, 804c that the human race is not a mean thing, but worthy of serious attention. To pursue our subject,—we have described 27 buildings for public gymnasia as well as schools in three divisions within the city, and also in three divisions round about the City training-grounds and race-courses for horses, arranged for archery and other long-distance shooting, and for the teaching and practicing of the youth: if, however, our previous description of these was inadequate, let them now be described and legally regulated. In all these establishments there should reside teachers 804d attracted by pay from abroad for each several subject, to instruct the pupils in all matters relating to war and to music; and no father shall either send his son as a pupil or keep him away from the training-school at his own sweet will, but every man jack of them all (as the saying goes) must, so far as possible, be compelled to be educated, inasmuch as they are children of the State even more than children of their parents. For females, too, my law will lay down the same regulations as for men, and training of an identical kind. 804e I will unhesitatingly affirm that neither riding nor gymnastics, which are proper for men, are improper for women.[805]
Ath.
I believe the old tales I have heard, and I know now of my own observation, that there are practically countless myriads of women called Sauromatides, in the district of Pontus , upon whom equally with men is imposed the duty of handling bows and other weapons, 805a as well as horses, and who practice it equally. In addition to this I allege the following argument. Since this state of things can exist, I affirm that the practice which at present prevails in our districts is a most irrational one—namely, that men and women should not all follow the same pursuits with one accord and with all their might. For thus from the same taxation and trouble there arises and exists half a State only instead of a whole one, in nearly every instance; yet surely this would be a surprising blunder 805b for a lawgiver to commit.Clin.
So it would seem; yet truly a vast number of the things now mentioned, Stranger, are in conflict with our ordinary polities.Ath.
Well, but I said 28 that we should allow the argument to run its full course, and when this is done we should adopt the conclusion we approve.Clin.
In this you spoke most reasonably; and you have made me now chide myself for what I said. So say on now what 805c seems good to you.Ath.
What seems good to me, Clinias, as I said before, 29 is this,—that if the possibility of such a state of things taking place had not been sufficiently proved by facts, then it might have been possible to gainsay our statement; but as it is, the man who rejects our law must try some other method, nor shall we be hereby precluded from asserting in our doctrine that the female sex 805d must share with the male, to the greatest extent possible, both in education and in all else. For in truth we ought to conceive of the matter in this light. Suppose that women do not share with men in the whole of their mode of life, must they not have a different system of their own?Clin.
They must.Ath.
Then which of the systems now in vogue shall we prescribe in preference to that fellowship which we are now imposing upon them? Shall it be that of the Thracians, and many other tribes, 805e who employ their women in tilling the ground and minding oxen and sheep and toiling just like slaves? Or that which obtains with us and all the people of our district? The way women are treated with us at present is this—we huddle all our goods together, as the saying goes, within four walls, and then hand over the dispensing of them to the women, together with the control of the shuttles and all kinds of wool-work.[806]
Ath.
Or again, shall we prescribe for them, Megillus, that midway system, the Laconian? 806a Must the girls share in gymnastics and music, and the women abstain from wool-work, but weave themselves instead a life that is not trivial at all nor useless, but arduous, advancing as it were halfway in the path of domestic tendance and management and child-nurture, but taking no share in military service; so that, even if it should chance to be necessary for them to fight in defence of their city and their children, they will be unable to handle with skill either a bow 806b (like the Amazons) or any other missile, nor could they take spear and shield, after the fashion of the Goddess, 30 so as to be able nobly to resist the wasting of their native land, and to strike terror—if nothing more—into the enemy at the sight of them marshalled in battle-array? If they lived in this manner, they certainly would not dare to adopt the fashion of the Sauromatides, whose women would seem like men beside them. So in regard to this matter, let who will commend your Laconian lawgivers: 806c as to my view, it must stand as it is. The lawgiver ought to be whole-hearted, not half-hearted,—letting the female sex indulge in luxury and expense and disorderly ways of life, 31 while supervising the male sex; for thus he is actually bequeathing to the State the half only, instead of the whole, of a life of complete prosperity.Meg.
What are we to do, Clinias? Shall we allow the Stranger to run down our Sparta in this fashion? 806dClin.
Yes: now that we have granted him free speech we must let him be, until we have discussed the laws fully.Meg.
You are right.Ath.
May I, then, endeavor without more delay to proceed with my exposition?Clin.
By all means.Ath.
What manner of life would men live, supposing that they possessed a moderate supply of all the necessaries, and that they had entrusted all the crafts to other hands, 806e and that their farms were hired out to slaves, and yielded them produce enough for their modest needs? Let us further suppose that they had public mess-rooms—separate rooms for men, and others close by for their households, including the girls and their mothers—[807]
Ath.
and that each of these rooms was in charge of a master or mistress, to dismiss the company and to watch over their behavior daily; and, at the close of the meal, that the master and all the company poured a libation 807a in honor of those gods to whom that night and day were dedicated, and so finally retired home. Supposing them to be thus organized, is there no necessary work, of a really appropriate kind, left for them, but must every one of them continue fattening himself like a beast? 32 That, we assert, is neither right nor good; nor is it possible for one who lives thus to miss his due reward; and the due reward of an idle beast, fattened in sloth, is, as a rule, 807b to fall a prey to another beast—one of those which are worn to skin and bone through toil hardily endured. Now it is probable that if we look to find this state of leisure fully realized exactly as described, we shall be disappointed, so long as women and children and houses remain private, and all these things are established as the private property of individuals; but if the second-best State, 33 as now described, 807c could exist, we might be well content with it. And, we assert, there does remain for men living this life a task that is by no means small or trivial, but rather one that a just law imposes upon them as the weightiest task of all. For as compared with the life that aims at a Pythian or Olympian victory and is wholly lacking in leisure for other tasks, that life we speak of—which most truly deserves the name of life—is doubly (nay, far more than doubly) lacking in leisure, seeing that it is occupied with the care 807d of bodily and spiritual excellence in general. For there ought to be no other secondary task to hinder the work of supplying the body with its proper exercise and nourishment, or the soul with learning and moral training: nay, every night and day is not sufficient for the man who is occupied therein to win from them their fruit in full and ample measure. So this being nature’s law, a program must be framed for all the freeborn men, prescribing how they shall pass their time continuously, 807e from dawn to dawn and sunrise on each successive day. It would be undignified for a lawgiver to mention a host of petty matters connected with the domestic arrangements—such as, in particular, the rules about that wakefulness at night which is proper for men who propose to guard a whole State adequately and continuously.[808]
Ath.
That any citizen, indeed, should spend the whole of any night in sleep, instead of setting an example to his household by being himself 808a always the first to awaken and rise—such a practice must be counted by all a shameful one, unworthy of a free man, whether it be called a custom or a law. Moreover, that the mistress of a house should be awakened by maids, instead of being herself the first to wake up all the others—this is a shameful practice; and that it is so all the servants must declare to one another—bondman and bondmaid and boy, yea, even (were it possible) every stone in the house. And, when awake by night, they must certainly transact a large share of business, 808b both political and economical, the magistrates in the city, and the masters and mistresses in their own houses. For much sleep is not naturally suitable either to our bodies or souls, nor yet to employment on any such matters. For when asleep no man is worth anything, any more than if he were dead: on the contrary, every one of us who cares most greatly for life and thought keeps awake as long as possible, only reserving so much time for sleep as his health requires— 808c and that is but little, once the habit is well formed. And rulers that are watchful by night in cities are a terror to evil-doers, be they citizens or enemies, but objects of respect and admiration to the just and temperate; and they confer benefit alike on themselves and on the whole State. The night, if spent in this way, will—in addition to all the other benefits described—lend greater fortitude to the souls of all who reside in these States. With the return of daylight the children should go to their teachers; 808d for just as no sheep or other witless creature ought to exist without a herdsman, so children cannot live without a tutor, nor slaves without a master. And, of all wild creatures, the child is the most intractable; for in so far as it, above all others, possesses a fount of reason that is as yet uncurbed, it is a treacherous, sly and most insolent creature. Wherefore the child must be strapped up, as it were, 808e with many bridles—first, when he leaves the care of nurse and mother, with tutors, to guide his childish ignorance, and after that with teachers of all sorts of subjects and lessons, treating him as becomes a freeborn child. On the other hand, he must be treated as a slave; 34 and any free man that meets him shall punish both the child himself and his tutor or teacher, if any of them does wrong.[809]
Ath.
And if anyone thus meets them and fails to punish them duly, he shall, in the first place, be liable to the deepest degradation; and the Law-warden who is chosen as 809a president over the children shall keep his eye on the man who has met with the wrong-doings mentioned and has failed either to inflict the needed punishment at all, or else to inflict it rightly. Moreover, this Law-warden shall exercise special supervision, with a keen eye, over the rearing of the children, to keep their growing natures in the straight way, by turning them always towards goodness, as the laws direct. But how is the law itself to give an adequate education to this Law-warden of ours? For, up to the present, the law has not as yet made any clear or 809b adequate statement: it has mentioned some things, but omitted others. But in dealing with this warden it must omit nothing, but fully expound every ordinance that he may be both expositor and nurturer to the rest. Matters of choristry of tunes and dancing, and what types are to be selected, remodelled, and consecrated—all this has already been dealt with; 35 but with regard to the kind of literature that is written but without meter we have never put the question—O excellent supervisor of children, of what sort ought this prose to be, and in what fashion are your charges to deal with it? 809c You know from our discourse 36 what are the military exercises they ought to learn and to practice, but the matters that have not as yet, my friend, been fully declared to you by the lawgiver are these—first, literature, next, lyre-playing; also arithmetic, of which I said that there ought to be as much as everyone needs to learn for purposes of war, house-management and civic administration; together with what it is useful for these same purposes to learn about the courses of the heavenly bodies—stars and sun and moon—in so far as every State 809d is obliged to take them into account. What I allude to is this—the arranging of days into monthly periods, and of months into a year, in each instance, so that the seasons, with their respective sacrifices and feasts, may each be assigned its due position by being held as nature dictates, and that thus they may create fresh liveliness and alertness in the State, and may pay their due honors to the gods, and may render the citizens more intelligent about these matters. These points, my friend, have not all as yet been explained to you sufficiently by the lawgiver. 809e Now attend carefully to what is next to be said. In the first place, you are, as we said, insufficiently instructed as yet concerning letters. The point we complain of is this—that the law has not yet told you clearly whether the man who is to be a good citizen must pursue this study with precision, or neglect it altogether; and so likewise with regard to the lyre. That he must not neglect them we now affirm.[810]
Ath.
For the study of letters, about three years is a reasonable period for a child of ten years old; 810a and for lyre-playing, he should begin at thirteen and continue at it for three years. And whether he likes or dislikes the study, neither the child nor his father shall be permitted either to cut short or to prolong the years of study contrary to the law; and anyone who disobeys shall be disqualified for the school honors which we shall mention presently. 37 And, during these periods, what are the subjects which the children must learn and the teachers teach—this you yourself must learn first. 810b They must work at letters sufficiently to be able to read and write. But superior speed or beauty of handwriting need not be required in the case of those whose progress within the appointed period is too slow. With regard to lessons in reading, there are written compositions not set to music, whether in meter or without rhythmical divisions—compositions merely uttered in prose, void of rhythm and harmony; 810c and some of the many composers of this sort have bequeathed to us writings of a dangerous character. How will you deal with these, O my most excellent Law-wardens? Or what method of dealing with them will the lawgiver rightly ordain? He will be vastly perplexed, I verily believe.Clin.
What does this mean, Stranger? Evidently you are addressing yourself, and are really perplexed.Ath.
You are right in your supposition, Clinias. As you are my partners in this investigation of laws, I am bound to explain to you both what seems easy and what hard. 810dClin.
Well, what is it about them that you are now alluding to, and what has come over you?Ath.
I will tell you: it is no easy matter to gainsay tens of thousands of tongues.Clin.
Come now,—do you believe that the points in which our previous conclusions about laws contradicted ordinary opinion were few and trifling?Ath.
Your observation is most just. I take it that you are bidding me, now that the path which is abhorrent to many is attractive to others possibly not less numerous 810e (or if less numerous, certainly not less competent),—you are, I say, bidding me adventure myself with the latter company and proceed boldly along the path of legislation marked out in our present discourse, without flinching.Clin.
Certainly.[811]
Ath.
Then I will not flinch. I verily affirm that we have composers of verses innumerable—hexameters, trimeters, and every meter you could mention,—some of whom aim at the serious, others at the comic; on whose writings, as we are told by our tens of thousands of people, we ought to rear and soak the young, if we are to give them a correct education, making them, by means of recitations, lengthy listeners 811a and large learners, who learn off whole poets by heart. Others there are who compile select summaries of all the poets, and piece together whole passages, telling us that a boy must commit these to memory and learn them off if we are to have him turn out good and wise as a result of a wide and varied range of instruction. 38 Would you have me now state frankly to these poets what is wrong about their declarations and what right?Clin.
Of course.Ath.
What single statement can I make about all these people 811b that will be adequate? This, perhaps,—in which everyone will agree with me,—that every poet has uttered much that is well, and much also that is ill; and this being so, I affirm that a wide range of learning involves danger to children.Clin.
What advice then would you give the Law-warden?Ath.
About what?Clin.
About the pattern by which he should be guided in respect of the particular subjects which he permits or forbids all the children to learn. 811c Tell us, and without scruple.Ath.
My good Clinias, I have had, it would seem, a stroke of luck.Clin.
How so?Ath.
In the fact that I am not wholly at a loss for a pattern. For in looking back now at the discussions which we have been pursuing from dawn up to this present hour—and that, as I fancy, not without some guidance from Heaven—it appeared to me that they were framed exactly like a poem. And it was not surprising, perhaps, 811d that there came over me a feeling of intense delight when I gazed thus on our discourses all marshalled, as it were, in close array; for of all the many discourses which I have listened to or learnt about, whether in poems or in a loose flood of speech like ours, they struck me as being not only the most adequate, but also the most suitable for the ears of the young. Nowhere, I think, could I find a better pattern than this to put before the Law-warden who is educator, that he may charge the teachers to teach the children these discourses of ours, and such as resemble 811e and accord with these; and if it should be that in his search he should light on poems of composers, or prose-writings, or merely verbal and unwritten discourses, akin to these of ours, he must in no wise let them go, but get them written down.[812]
Ath.
In the first place, he must compel the teachers themselves to learn these discourses, and to praise them, and if any of the teachers fail to approve of them, he must not employ them as colleagues; only those who agree with his praise of the discourses should he employ, and entrust to them the teaching and training of the youth. 812a Here and herewith let me end my homily concerning writing-masters and writings.Clin.
Judged by our original intention, Stranger, I certainly do not think that we have diverged from the line of argument we intended; but about the matter as a whole it is hard, no doubt, to be sure whether or not we are right.Ath.
That, Clinias, (as we have often said) will probably become clearer of itself 39 when we arrive at the end of our whole exposition concerning laws. 812bClin.
Very true.Ath.
After the writing-master, must we not address the lyre-master next?Clin.
Certainly.Ath.
When assigning to the lyre-masters their proper duties in regard to the teaching and general training in these subjects, we must, as I think, bear in mind our previous declarations. 40Clin.
Declarations about what?Ath.
We said, I fancy, that the sixty-year-old singers of hymns to Dionysus ought to be exceptionally keen of perception 812c regarding rhythms and harmonic compositions, in order that when dealing with musical representations of a good kind or a bad, by which the soul is emotionally affected, they may be able to pick out the reproductions of the good kind and of the bad, and having rejected the latter, may produce the other in public, and charm the souls of the children by singing them, and so challenge them all to accompany them in acquiring virtue by means of these representations.Clin.
Very true. 812dAth.
So, to attain this object, both the lyre-master and his pupil must use the notes of the lyre, because of the distinctness of its strings, assigning to the notes of the song notes in tune with them; 41 but as to divergence of sound and variety in the notes of the harp, when the strings sound the one tune and the composer of the melody another, or when there results a combination of low and high notes, of slow and quick time, of sharp and grave, 812e and all sorts of rhythmical variations are adapted to the notes of the lyre,—no such complications should be employed in dealing with pupils who have to absorb quickly, within three years, the useful elements of music. For the jarring of opposites with one another impedes easy learning; and the young should above all things learn easily, since the necessary lessons imposed upon them are neither few nor small,—which lessons our discourse will indicate in time as it proceeds.[813]
Ath.
So let our educator regulate these matters in the manner stated. As regards the character of the actual tunes and words which the choir-masters ought to teach, 813a all this we have already 42 explained at length. We stated that in each case they should be adapted to a suitable festival and dedicated, and thus prove a benefit to the States, by furnishing them with felicitous enjoyment.Clin.
This, too, you have explained truly.Ath.
Yes, most truly. These matters also let the man who is appointed our Director of Music take over and supervise, with the help of kindly fortune; and let us supplement our former statements concerning dancing and bodily gymnastics in general. 813b Just as, in the case of music, we have supplied the regulations about tuition that were missing, so also let us now do in the case of gymnastics. Shall we not say that both girls and boys must learn both dancing and gymnastics?Clin.
Yes.Ath.
Then for their practices it would be most proper that boys should have dancing-masters, and girls mistresses.Clin.
I grant it.Ath.
Let us once more summon the man who will have most of these duties to perform, 813c the Director of the Children,—who, in supervising both music and gymnastic, will have but little time to spare.Clin.
How will he be able, at his age, to supervise so many affairs?Ath.
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 813d to 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. 43 Concerning these matters also, which relate to dancing and gymnastic movements, we have already spoken at length. 44 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, 813e tactical evolutions, company-marching, camp-formations, and all the details of cavalry training.[814]
Ath.
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 814a and 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, 814b then 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.Clin.
By Heaven, Stranger, if ever this took place in a city, it would be a most unseemly thing, 814c apart from the mischief of it.Ath.
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?Clin.
I, for one, agree.Ath.
As regards wrestling, some points have been explained; 45 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. 814d This point, then, we shall decide about 46 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. 47Clin.
There, at any rate, you are right.Ath.
For the present let this suffice as an account of the functions of the wrestling-school. Motion 814e of the whole body, other than wrestling, has for its main division what may be rightly termed dancing 48 ; 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.[815]
Ath.
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, 815a being distinct from the pacific, one may rightly term pyrrhiche 49 ; 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 815b in which most of the limbs of the body are extended straight: this kind of representation is right, but the opposite kind we pronounce to be wrong. In pacific dancing, the point we must consider in every case is whether the performer in his dances keeps always rightly, or improperly, to the noble kind of dancing, in the way that befits law-abiding men. So, in the first place, we must draw a line between questionable dancing and dancing that is above question. 815c All the dancing that is of a Bacchic kind and cultivated by those who indulge in drunken imitations of Pans, Sileni and Satyrs (as they call them), when performing certain rites of expiation and initiation,—all this class of dancing cannot easily be defined either as pacific or as warlike, or as of any one distinct kind. The most correct way of defining it seems to me to be this— 815d to separate it off both from pacific and from warlike dancing, and to pronounce that this kind of dancing is unfitted for our citizens: and having thus disposed of it and dismissed it, we will now return to the warlike and pacific kinds which do beyond question belong to us. That of the unwarlike Muse, in which men pay honor to the gods and the children of the gods by dances, will consist, broadly speaking, of all dancing performed under a sense of prosperity: of this we may make two subdivisions— 815e the one being of a more joyful description, and proper to men who have escaped out of toils and perils into a state of bliss,—and the other connected rather with the preservation and increase of pre-existent blessings, and exhibiting, accordingly, joyousness of a less ardent kind.[816]
Ath.
Under these conditions every man moves his body more violently when his joys are greater, less violently when they are smaller; also, he moves it less violently when he is more sedate and better trained in courage, 816a but when he is cowardly and untrained in temperance, he indulges in greater and more violent changes of motion; and in general, no one who is using his voice, whether in song or in speech, is able to keep his body wholly at rest. Hence, when the representation of things spoken by means of gestures arose, it produced the whole art of dancing. In all these instances, one man of us moves in tune with his theme, another out of tune. 816b Many of the names bestowed in ancient times are deserving of notice and of praise for their excellence and descriptiveness: one such is the name given to the dances of men who are in a prosperous state and indulge in pleasures of a moderate kind: how true and how musical was the name so rationally bestowed on those dances by the man (whoever he was) who first called them all Emmeleiai, 50 and established two species of fair dances—the warlike, termed pyrrhiche, 816c and the pacific, termed emmeleia—bestowing on each its appropriate and harmonious name. These dances the lawgiver should describe in outline, and the Law-warden should search them out and, having investigated them, he should combine the dancing with the rest of the music, and assign what is proper of it to each of the sacrificial feasts, distributing it over all the feasts; and when he has thus consecrated all these things in due order, he should thenceforth make no change in all that appertains to either dancing or singing, but this 816d one and the same city and body of citizens should continue in one and the same way, enjoying the same pleasures and living alike in all ways possible, and so pass their lives happily and well. What concerns the actions of fair and noble souls in the matter of that kind of choristry which we have approved as right has now been fully discussed. The actions of ugly bodies and ugly ideas and of the men engaged in ludicrous comic-acting, in regard to both speech and dance, and the representations given by all these comedians—all this subject we must necessarily consider and estimate. For it is impossible to learn the serious without the comic, 816e or any one of a pair of contraries without the other, if one is to he a wise man; but to put both into practice is equally impossible, if one is to share in even a small measure of virtue; in fact, it is precisely for this reason that one should learn them,—in order to avoid ever doing or saying anything ludicrous, through ignorance, when one ought not; we will impose such mimicry on slaves and foreign hirelings, and no serious attention shall ever be paid to it, nor shall any free man or free woman be seen learning it, and there must always be some novel feature in their mimic shows. 51[817]
Ath.
Let such, then, be the regulations for all those laughable amusements which we all call comedy, 817a as laid down both by law and by argument. Now as to what are called our serious poets, the tragedians,—suppose that some of them were to approach us and put some such question as this,— O Strangers, are we, or are we not, to pay visits to your city and country, and traffic in poetry? Or what have you decided to do about this? What would be the right answer to make to these inspired persons regarding the matter? In my judgment, this should be the answer, 52 — Most excellent of Strangers, 817b we ourselves, to the best of our ability, are the authors of a tragedy at once superlatively fair and good; at least, all our polity is framed as a representation of the fairest and best life, which is in reality, as we assert, the truest tragedy. Thus we are composers of the same things as yourselves, rivals of yours as artists and actors of the fairest drama, which, as our hope is, true law, and it alone, is by nature competent to complete. 817c Do not imagine, then, that we will ever thus lightly allow you to set up your stage beside us in the marketplace, and give permission to those imported actors of yours, with their dulcet tones and their voices louder than ours, to harangue women and children and the whole populace, and to say not the same things as we say about the same institutions, but, on the contrary, things that are, for the most part, just the opposite. In truth, both we ourselves and the whole State 817d would be absolutely mad, were it to allow you to do as I have said, before the magistrates had decided whether or not your compositions are deserving of utterance and suited for publication. So now, ye children and offspring of Muses mild, do ye first display your chants side by side with ours before the rulers; and if your utterances seem to be the same as ours or better, then we will grant you a chorus, 53 but if not, my friends, we can never do so. 817e Let such, then, be the customs ordained to go with the laws regarding all choristry and the learning thereof—keeping distinct those for slaves and those for masters,—if you agree.Clin.
Of course we now agree to it.[818]
Ath.
There still remain, for the freeborn, three branches of learning: of these the first is reckoning and arithmetic; the second is the art of measuring length and surface and solid; the third deals with the course of the stars, and how they naturally travel in relation to one another. 818a All these sciences should not be studied with minute accuracy by the majority of pupils, but only by a select few—and who these are we shall say when we have come near the end,—since that will be the proper place: 54 but for the bulk of the pupils, while it would be shameful for most of them not to understand all those parts of them that are most truly termed necessary, yet it is not easy nor even at all possible for every student to go into them minutely. The necessary part of them it is impossible to reject, and probably this is what was in the mind 818b of the original author of the proverb, 55 Not even God will ever be seen fighting against Necessity,—meaning by this, I suppose, all kinds of necessity that are divine, since in relation to human necessities (to which most people apply the saying when they quote it) it is of all sayings far and away the most fatuous.Clin.
What necessities then, Stranger, belong to these sciences, that are not of this sort, but divine?Ath.
Those, as I believe, which must be practiced and 818c learned by every god, daemon, and hero, if he is to be competent seriously to supervise mankind: a man certainly would be far from becoming godlike if he were incapable of learning the nature of one and of two, and of even and odd numbers in general, and if he knew nothing at all about counting, and could not count even day and night as distinct objects, and if he were ignorant of the circuit of the sun and moon and all the other stars. 818d To suppose, then, that all these studies 56 are not necessary for a man who means to understand almost any single one of the fairest sciences, is a most foolish supposition. The first thing we must grasp correctly is this—which of these branches of study must be learnt, and how many, and at what periods, and which of them in conjunction with which, and which by themselves apart from all others, and the method of combining them; this done, and with these studies as introductory, we may proceed to the learning of the rest. For such is the natural order of procedure as determined by Necessity, 818e against whom, as we declare, no god fights now, nor ever will fight.Clin.
Yes, Stranger, this account of yours does seem to be in accord with nature, and true.Ath.
That is indeed the truth of the matter, Clinias; but to give legal enactment to this program of ours is difficult. We will, if you agree, enact this more precisely on a later occasion.Clin.
You appear to us, Stranger, to be scared by the neglect of such studies which is the habit in our countries; but you are wrong to be scared. Do not be deterred on that account, but try to proceed with your statement.[819]
819a
Ath.
I am indeed scared about the habit you mention, but I am still more alarmed about the people who take up these very sciences for study, and do so badly. 57 Complete and absolute ignorance of them is never alarming, nor is it a very great evil; much more mischievous is a wide variety of knowledge and learning combined with bad training.Clin.
That is true.Ath.
One ought to declare, then, that the freeborn children should learn as much of these subjects as the innumerable crowd of children in Egypt 58 learn along with their letters. 819b First, as regards counting, lessons have been invented for the merest infants to learn, by way of play and fun,—modes of dividing up apples and chaplets, so that the same totals are adjusted to larger and smaller groups, and modes of sorting out boxers and wrestlers, in byes and pairs, taking them alternately or consecutively, in their natural order. Moreover, by way of play, the teachers mix together bowls made of gold, bronze, 819c silver and the like, and others distribute them, as I said, by groups of a single kind, adapting the rules of elementary arithmetic to play; and thus they are of service to the pupils for their future tasks of drilling, leading and marching armies, or of household management, and they render them both more helpful in every way to themselves and more alert. 819d The next step of the teachers is to clear away, by lessons in weights and measures, a certain kind of ignorance, both absurd and disgraceful, which is naturally inherent in all men touching lines, surfaces and solids.Clin.
What ignorance do you mean, and of what kind is it?Ath.
My dear Clinias, when I was told quite lately of our condition in regard to this matter, I was utterly astounded myself: it seemed to me to be the condition of guzzling swine rather than of human beings, and I was ashamed, not only of myself, but of all the Greek world. 59 819eClin.
Why? Tell us what you mean, Stranger.Ath.
I am doing so. But I can explain it better by putting a question. Answer me briefly: you know what a line is?Clin.
Yes.Ath.
And surface?Clin.
Certainly.Ath.
And do you know that these are two things, and that the third thing, next to these, is the solid?Clin.
I do.Ath.
Do you not, then, believe that all these are commensurable one with another?Clin.
Yes.[820]
Ath.
And you believe, I suppose, that line is really commensurable with line, surface with surface, 820a and solid with solid?Clin.
Absolutely.Ath.
But supposing that some of them are neither absolutely nor moderately commensurable, some being commensurable and some not, whereas you regard them all as commensurable,—what do you think of your mental state with respect to them?Clin.
Evidently it is a sorry state.Ath.
Again, as regards the relation of line and surface to solid, or of surface and line to each other—do not all we Greeks imagine that these are somehow commensurable with one another? 820bClin.
Most certainly.Ath.
But if they cannot be thus measured by any way or means, while, as I said, all we Greeks imagine that they can, are we not right in being ashamed for them all, and saying to them, O most noble Greeks, this is one of those necessary things which we said 60 it is disgraceful not to know, although there is nothing very grand in knowing such things.Clin.
Of course.Ath.
In addition to these there are other matters, closely related to them, 820c in which we find many errors arising that are nearly akin to the errors mentioned.Clin.
What are they?Ath.
Problems concerning the essential nature of the commensurable and the incommensurable. For students who are not to be absolutely worthless it is necessary to examine these and to distinguish the two kinds, and, by proposing such problems one to another, to compete in a game that is worthy of them,—for this is a much more refined pastime than draughts for old men. 820dClin.
No doubt. And, after all, draughts and these studies do not seem to be so very far apart.Ath.
I assert, then, Clinias, that these subjects must be learnt by the young; for they are, in truth, neither harmful nor hard, and when learnt by way of play they will do no damage at all to our State, but will do it good. Should anyone disagree, however, we must listen to him.Clin.
Of course.Ath.
Well then, if this is clearly the case, obviously we shall adopt these subjects; but if it seems clearly to be otherwise, we shall rule them out. 820eClin.
Yes, obviously.Ath.
Shall we not, then, lay these down as necessary subjects of instruction, so that there may be no gap in our code of laws? Yet we ought to lay them down provisionally—like pledges capable of redemption—apart from the rest of our constitution, in case they fail to satisfy either us who enact them or you for whom they are enacted.Clin.
Yes, that is the right way to lay them down.Ath.
Consider next whether or not we approve of the children learning astronomy.Clin.
Just tell us your opinion.Ath.
About this there is a very strange fact—indeed, quite intolerable.[821]
821a
Clin.
What is that?Ath.
We commonly assert that men ought not to enquire concerning the greatest god and about the universe, nor busy themselves in searching out their causes, since it is actually impious to do so; whereas the right course, in all probability, is exactly the opposite.Clin.
Explain yourself.Ath.
My statement sounds paradoxical, and it might be thought to be unbecoming in an old man; but the fact is that, when a man believes that a science is fair and true and beneficial to the State and altogether well-pleasing to God, 821b he cannot possibly refrain any longer from declaring it. 61Clin.
That is reasonable; but what science of this kind shall we find on the subject of stars?Ath.
At present, my good sirs, nearly all we Greeks say what is false about those mighty deities, the Sun and Moon.Clin.
What is the falsehood?Ath.
We assert that they, and some other stars along with them, never travel along the same path; and we call them planets. 62 821cClin.
Yes, by Zeus, Stranger, that is true; for I, during my life, have often noticed how Phosphorus and Hesperus and other stars never travel on the same course, but wander all ways; but as to the Sun and Moon, we all know that they are constantly doing this.Ath.
It is precisely for this reason, Megillus and Clinias, that I now assert that our citizens and our children ought to learn so much concerning all these facts about the gods of Heaven 821d as to enable them not to blaspheme about them, but always to speak piously both at sacrifices and when they pray reverently at prayers.Clin.
You are right, provided that, in the first place, it is possible to learn the subject you mention; and provided also that learning will make us correct any mistakes we may be making about them now,—then I, too, agree that a subject of such importance should be learned. This being so, do you make every effort to expound the matter, and we will endeavor to follow you and learn. 821eAth.
Well, the matter I speak of is not an easy one to learn; nor yet is it altogether difficult and demanding very prolonged study. In proof of this—although I was told of it neither in the days of my youth nor long ago, I may be able to explain it to you in a comparatively short time. Whereas, if it had been a difficult subject, I should never have been able to explain it to you at all—I at my age to you at yours.[822]
Clin.
Very true. But what is this science which you describe as marvellous and fitting for the young to learn, and which we are ignorant about? 822a Do try to tell us thus much, at least, about it, with all possible clearness,Ath.
I must try. The opinion, my friends, that the Sun and Moon and the rest of the stars wander is not correct; the truth is precisely the opposite: each of them always travels in a circle one and the same path,—not many paths, although it appears to move along many paths; and the quickest of the stars is wrongly opined to be the slowest, and vice versa. 63 822b If these are the real facts and we imagine otherwise,—well, suppose we held a similar notion about horses racing at Olympia , or about long-distance runners, and proclaimed the quickest to be slowest and the slowest quickest, and sang chants lauding the loser as the winner, why, then, the laudations we bestowed on the runners would be neither right nor acceptable, though they were but mortal men. But in the present case, when we commit the same error 822c about gods, do we not think that what would have been ludicrous and wrong there and then is, here and now and in dealing with this subject, by no means ludicrous and assuredly not pleasing to the gods, when concerning gods we repeat a tale that is false?Clin.
Very true, if the facts are as you say.Ath.
Then, if we demonstrate that they really are so, shall all these subjects be learnt up to the point mentioned, and, failing that demonstration, be left alone? Is that to be our agreement? 822dClin.
Certainly.Ath.
We may now say that our regulations concerning subjects of education have been completed. The subject of hunting, and similar pursuits, must now be dealt with in a similar manner. The duty laid upon the lawgiver probably goes further than the bare task of enacting laws: in addition to laws, there is something else which falls naturally between advice and law— 822e a thing which has often cropped up in the course of our discussion, 64 as, for example, in connection with the nurture of young children: such matters, we say, should not be left unregulated, but it would be most foolish to regard those regulations as enacted laws. When, then, the laws and the whole constitution have been thus written down, our praise of the citizen who is preeminent for virtue will not be complete when we say that the virtuous man is he who is the best servant of the laws and the most obedient;[823]
Ath.
a more complete statement will be this,—that the virtuous man is he who passes through life consistently obeying the written rules of the lawgiver, as given in his legislation, approbation and disapprobation. 65 823a This statement is the most correct way of praising the citizen; and in this way, moreover, the lawgiver must not only write down the laws, but in addition to the laws, and combined with them, he must write down his decisions as to what things are good and what bad; and the perfect citizen must abide by these decisions no less than by the rules enforced by legal penalties. The subject now before us we may adduce as a witness 823b to show more clearly what we mean. Hunting is a large and complex matter, all of which is now generally embraced under this single name. Of the hunting of water-animals there are many varieties, and many of the hunting of fowls; and very many varieties also of hunts of land-animals—not of beasts only, but also, mark you, of men, both in war and often, too, in friendship, a kind of hunt that is partly approved and partly disapproved; 66 and then there are robberies and hunts carried on by pirates and by bands. 823c When the lawgiver is making laws about hunting, he is necessarily bound to make this point clear, and to lay down minatory directions by imposing regulations and penalties for all these kinds. What then ought to be done about these matters? The lawgiver, for his part, will be right in praising or blaming hunting with an eye to the toils and pursuits of the young; and the young man will be right in listening and obeying, and in allowing neither pleasure nor toil to hinder him, and in holding in greater respect the orders that are sanctioned by praise, 823d and carrying them out, rather than those which are enacted by law under threat of penalties. After these prefatory observations there will follow adequate praise and blame of hunting—praise of the kind which renders the souls of the young better, and blame of the kind which does the opposite. Our next step will be to address the young people with prayer— O friends, would that you might never be seized with any desire or craving for hunting by sea, or for angling, 823e or for ever pursuing water-animals with creels that do your lazy hunting for you, whether you sleep or wake.[824]
Ath.
And may no longing for man-hunting by sea and piracy overtake you, and render you cruel and lawless hunters; and may the thought of committing robbery in country or city not so much as cross your minds. Neither may there seize upon any of the young the crafty craving for snaring birds— 824a no very gentlemanly pursuit! Thus there is left for our athletes only the hunting and capture of land-animals. Of this branch of hunting, the kind called night-stalking, which is the job of lazy men who sleep in turn, is one that deserves no praise; nor does that kind deserve praise in which there are intervals of rest from toil, when men master the wild force of beasts by nets and traps instead of doing so by the victorious might of a toil-loving soul. Accordingly, the only kind left for all, and the best kind, is the hunting of quadrupeds with horses and dogs and the hunter’s own limbs, when men hunt in person, and subdue all the creatures by means of their own running, striking and shooting—all the men, that is to say, who cultivate the courage that is divine. Concerning the whole of this subject, the exposition we have now given will serve as the praise and blame; and the law will run thus,— None shall hinder these truly sacred hunters from hunting wheresoever and howsoever they wish; but the night-trapper who trusts to nets and snares no one shall ever allow to hunt anywhere. The fowler no man shall hinder on fallow land or mountain; but he that finds him on tilled fields or on sacred glebes shall drive him off. The fisherman shall be allowed to hunt in all waters except havens and sacred rivers and pools and lakes, but only on condition that he makes no use of muddying juices. 67 So now, at last, we may say that all our laws about education are complete.Clin.
You may rightly say so.Laws. Plato. Robert Gregg Bury (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1926.
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