The Republic by Plato - Book X - Part 1 of 2

book 10 part 1 of the Republic by Plato of the money excellences which I perceive in the order of our states there is none which upon reflection pleases me better than the rule about poetry to what do you refer to the rejection of imitative poetry which certainly ought not to be received as I see far more clearly now that the parts of the soul have been distinguished what do you mean speaking in confidence for I should not like to have my words repeated to the tragedians and the rest of the imitative tribe but I do not mind saying to you that all poetical imitations are ruinous to the understanding of the hearers and that the knowledge of their true nature is the only antidote to them explain the purport of your remark well I will tell you although I have always from my earliest youth had an all and love of Homer which even now makes the words falter on my lips for he is the great captain and teacher of the whole of that charming tragic company but a man is not to be referenced more than the truth and therefore I will speak out very good he said listen to me then or rather answer me and put your question can you tell me what imitation is for I really do not know a lively thing then that I should know why not for a dollar I may often see a thing sooner than the keener very true he said but in your presence even if I had any faint notion I could not muster courage to utter it will you enquire yourself well then shall we begin the inquiry in our usual manner whenever a number of individuals have a common name we assume them to have also a corresponding idea or form do you understand me I do let us take any common instance there are beds and tables in the world plenty of them are there not yes but there are only two ideas or form of them one the idea of a bed the other of a table true and the maker of either of them makes a bed or he makes a table for our use and accordance with the idea that is our way of speaking in this and similar instances but no artifice sir makes the ideas themselves how could he impossible and there is another artist I should like to know what you would say of him who is he one who is the maker of all the works of all other workmen what an extraordinary man wait a little and there will be more reason for your saying so for this is he who is able to make not only vessels of every kind but plants and animals himself and all other things the earth and heaven and the things which are in heaven and under the earth he makes the gods also he must be a wizard and no mistake oh you are incredulous are you do you mean that there is no such maker or creator or that in one sense there might be a maker of all these things but in another not do you see that there is a way in which you can make them all yourself what way an easy way enough or rather there are many ways in which the feat might be quickly and easily accomplished none quicker than that of turning a mirror round and round you would soon enough make the Sun and the heavens and the earth and yourself and other animals and plants and all the other things of which we were just now speaking in the mirror yes he said but they would be appearances only very good I said you are coming to the point now and the painter too is as I conceive just another a creator of appearances is he not of course but then I suppose you will say that what he creates is untrue and yet there is a sense in which the painter also creates a bed yes he said but not a real bed and one of the maker of the bed were you not saying that he too makes not the idea which according to our view is the essence of the bed but only a particular bed yes I did then if he does not make that which exists he cannot make true existence but only some semblance of existence and if anyone were to say that the work of the maker of the bed or any other workman has real existence he could hardly be supposed to be speaking the truth at any rate he replied philosophers would say that he was not speaking the truth no wonder then that his work too is an indistinct expression of truth no wonder suppose now that by the light of the examples just offered we inquire who this imitator is if you please well then here are three beds one existing in nature which is made by God as I think we may say but no one else can be the maker no there is another which is the work of the carpenter yes and the work of a painter is a third yes beds that then are of three kinds and there are three artists who superintended them God the maker of the bed and the painter yes there are three of them God whether from choice or from necessity made one bed in nature and one only two or more such ideal beds neither ever have been or ever will be made by God why is that because even if he had made but two a third would still appear behind them which both of them would have for their idea and that would be the ideal bed and not the two of us very true he said God knew this and he desired to be the real maker of a real bed not a particular maker of a particular bed and therefore he created a bed which is essentially and by nature one only so we believe shall we then speak of him as the natural author or maker of the bed oh yes he replied in as much as by the natural process of creation he is the author of this and of all other things and what shall we say of the carpenter is he not also the maker of the bed yes but would you call a painter a creator and maker or certainly not yet if he is not the maker what is he in relation to the bed I think he said that we may fairly designate him as the imitator of that which the others make good I said then you call him who is third in the descent from nature and imitator well certainly he said and the tragic poet is an imitator and therefore like all other imitators he is thrice removed from a king and from the truth that appears to be so then about the imitator we are agreed and what about the painter I would like to know whether he may be thought to imitate that which originally exists in nature are only the creations of artists the latter as they are or as they appear you still have to determine this what do you mean I mean that you may look at a bed from different points of view obliquely or directly or from any other point of view and the bed will appear different but there is no difference in reality and the same of all things yes he said the difference is only apparent now let me ask you another question which is the art of painting designed to be an imitation of things as they are or as they appear of appearance or of reality or of appearance then the imitator I said is a long way off the truth and can do all things because he lightly touches on a small part of them and that part an image for example a painter will paint a cobbler carpenter or any other artist though he knows nothing of their arts and if he is a good artist he may deceive children or simple persons when he shows them his picture of a carpenter from a distance and they will fancy that they are looking at a real carpenter certainly and whenever anyone informs us that he has found a man who knows all the arts and all things else that anybody knows and every single thing with a higher degree of accuracy than any other man whoever it tells us this I think that we can only imagine him to be a simple creature who is likely to have been deceived by some wizard or actor whom he met and whom he thought all-knowing because he himself was unable to analyze the nature of knowledge and ignorance and imitation most true and so when we hear persons saying that the tragedians and Homer who is at their head know all the arts and all things human virtue as well as vice and divine things - for that the good poet cannot compose well unless he knows his subject and that he who has not this knowledge can never be a poet we ought to consider whether here also there may not be a similar allusion perhaps they may have come across imitators and been deceived by them they may not have remembered when they saw their works that these were but imitations thrice removed from the truth and could easily be made without any knowledge of the truth because they are appearances only and not realities or after all they may be in the right and poets do really know the things about which they seem to the many to speak so well the question he said should by all means be considered now do you suppose that if a person were able to make the original as well as the image he would seriously devote himself to the image making branch would he allow imitation to be the ruling principle of his life as if he had nothing higher in him I should say not the real artist who knew what he was imitating would be interested in realities and not in imitations and would desire to leave as memorials of himself works many fair and instead of being author of encomiums he would prefer to be the theme of them yes he said that would be to him a source of much greater honor and profit then I said we must put a question to Homer not about medicine or any of the arts to which his poems only incidentally refer we are not going to ask him or any other poet whether he has cured patients like Asclepius or left behind him a school of medicine such as Asclepius were or whether he only talks about medicine and other arts at secondhand but we have a right to know respecting military tactics politics education which are the chiefest and noblest subjects of his poems and we may fairly ask him about them friend Homer then we say to him if you are only in the second remove from truth in what you say of virtue and not in the third not an image maker or imitator and if you are able to discern what pursuits make men better or worse in private or public life tell us what state was ever better governed by your help the good order of like a demon is due to Lycurgus and many other cities great and small have been similarly benefited by others but who says that you have been a good legislator to them and have done them any good Italy and Sicily boast of Karin Das and there is salon who is renowned among us but what city has anything to say about you is there any city which he might name I think not said Glaucon not even the homer Ridge themselves pretend that he was a legislator Wow but is there any war on record which was carried on successfully by him or aided by his counsels when he was alive there is not or is there any invention of his applicable to the arts or to human life such as tally is the Malaysian or Ana Casas the Scythian and other ingenious men have conceived which is attributed to him there is absolutely nothing of the kind but if Homer never did any public service was he privately a guide or teacher of any hadn't he in his lifetime friends who love to associate with him and who handed down to posterity and Homeric way of life such as was established by Pythagoras who was so greatly beloved for his wisdom and whose followers are to this day quite celebrated for the order which was named after him nothing of the kind is recorded of him for surely Socrates kreo fireless the companion of homer that child of flesh whose name always makes us laugh might be more justly ridiculed for his stupidity if as is said homer was greatly neglected by him and others in his own day when he was alive yes I replied that is the tradition but can you imagine Glaucon that if Homer had really been able to educate and improve mankind if he had possessed knowledge and not been a mere imitator can you imagine I say that he would not have had many followers and been honored and loved by them Protagoras of Abdera and prodigious of Sirius and a host of others have only to whisper to their contemporaries you will never be able to manage either your own house or your own state until you appoint us to be your ministers of Education and this ingenious device of theirs has such an effect in making men love them that their companions all but carry them about on their shoulders and is it conceivable that the contemporaries of homer or again of Hesiod would have allowed either of them to go about as rapsa discs if they had really been able to make mankind virtuous will they not have been as unwilling to part with them as with gold and have compelled them to stay at home with them or if the master would not stay then the disciples would have followed him about everywhere until they got education enough yes Socrates that I think is quite true then must we not infer that all these poetical individuals beginning with Homer are only imitators they copy images of virtue and the like but the truth they never reach the poets is like a painter who as we have already observed will make a likeness of a cobbler though he understands nothing of cobbling and his picture is good enough for those who know no more than he does and judge only by colors and figures quite so in like manner the poets with his words and phrases may be said to lay on the covers of the several arts himself understanding their nature only enough to imitate them and other people who are as ignorant as he is and judge only from his words imagine that if he speaks of cobbling or of military tactics or of anything else in meter and harmony and rhythm he speaks very well such is the sweet influence which melody and rhythm by nature have and I think that you must have observed again and again what have poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colors which music puts upon them and recited in simple prose yes he said they are like faces which were never really beautiful but only blooming and now the bloom of youth has passed away from them exactly here is another point the imitator or maker of the image knows nothing of true existence he knows appearances only am I not right yes then let us have a clear understanding and not be satisfied with half an explanation proceed of the painter we saw that he will paint rains and he will paint a bit yes and the worker in leather and brass will make them certainly but does the painter know the right form of the bit and rains they hardly even the workers in brass and leather who make them only the horseman who knows how to use them he knows their right form most true and may we not say the same of all things what that there are three arts which are concerned with all things one which uses another which makes a third which imitates them yes and the excellence or beauty or truth of every structure animate or inanimate and every action of man is relative to the use for which nature or the artist has intended them true then the user of them must have the greatest experience of them and he must indicate to the maker the good or bad qualities which develop themselves in use for example the flute player will tell the flute maker which of his flutes is satisfactory to the performer he will tell him how he ought to make them and the other will attend to his instructions of course the one knows and therefore speaks with authority about the goodness and badness of flutes while the other confiding in him will do what he is told by him true the instrument is the same but about the excellence or badness of it the maker will only attain to a correct belief and this he will gain from him who knows by talking to him and being compelled to hear what he has to say whereas the user will have knowledge true but will the imitator have either will he know from us whether or no his drawing is correct or beautiful or will he have right opinion from being compelled to associate with another who knows and gives him instructions about what he should draw neither then he will no more have true opinion then he will have knowledge about the goodness or badness of his imitations I suppose not the imitative artists will be in a brilliant state of intelligence about his own creations nay very much the reverse and still he will go on imitating without knowing what makes a thing good or bad and may be expected therefore to imitate only that which appears to be good to the ignorant multitude just sir thus far then we are pretty well agreed that the imitator has no knowledge worth mentioning of what he imitates imitation is only a kind of play or sport and the tragic poets whether they write an iambic or in heroic verse are imitators in the highest degree so very true and now tell me I conjure you has not imitation been shown by us to be concerned with that which is thrice removed from the truth certainly and what is the faculty in man to which imitation is addressed or what do you mean I will explain the body which is large when see near appears small when seen at a distance true and the same object appears straight when looked at out of the water and crooked when in the water and the concave becomes convex owing to the illusion about colors to which the side is liable thus every sort of confusion is revealed within us and this is that weakness of the human mind on which the art of conjuring and of deceiving by light and shadow and other ingenious devices imposes having an effect upon us like magic true and the arts of measuring and numbering and weighing come to the rescue of the human understanding there is the beauty of them and the apparent greater or less or more or heavier no longer have the mastery over us but give way before calculation and measure and way most true and this surely must be the work of the calculating and rational principle in the soul to be sure and when this principle measures and certifies that some things are equal and that some are greater or less than others there occurs an apparent contradiction true but were we not saying that such a contradiction is impossible the same faculty cannot have contrary opinions at the same time about the same thing very true then that part of the soul which has an opinion contrary to measure is not the same with that which has an opinion in accordance with measure true and the better part of the soul is like you to be that which trusts to measure and calculation certainly and that which is opposed to them is one of the inferior principles of the soul no doubt this was the conclusion at which I was seeking to arrive when I said that painting or drawing and imitation in general when doing their own proper work are far removed from truth and the companions and friends and associates of a principle within us which is equally removed from reason and that they have no true or healthy aim exactly the imitative art is an inferior who marries an inferior and has inferior offspring very true and is this confined to the site only or doesn't extend to the hearing also relating in fact to what we term poetry probably the same would be true of poetry do not rely I said on a probability derived from the analogy of painting but let us examine further and see whether the Faculty with which poetical imitation is concerned is good or bad from by all means we may state the question thus imitation imitates the actions of men whether voluntary or involuntary on which as they imagine a good or bad result has ensued and they rejoice or sorrow accordingly is there anything more no there is nothing else but in all this variety of circumstances is the man at unity with himself or rather as in the instance of sight there was confusion and opposition in his opinions about the same things so here also is there not strife and inconsistency in his life though I need hardly raise the question again for I remember that all this has been already admitted and the soul has been acknowledged by us to be full of these and 10,000 similar opposition's occurring at the same moment and we were right he said yes I said thus far we were right but there was an omission which must now be supplied what was the omission were we not saying that a good man who has the misfortune to lose his son or anything else which is most dear to him will bear the loss with more equanimity than another yes but will he have no sorrow or shall we say that although he cannot help sorrowing he will moderate his sorrow the ladder he said is the truer statement tell me will he be more likely to struggle and hold out against his sorrow when he has seen by his equals or when he is alone it will make a great difference whether he has seen or not when he is by himself he will not mind saying or doing many things which he would be ashamed of anyone hearing or seeing him do true there is a principle of law and reason in him which bids him resist as well as a feeling of his misfortune which is forcing him to indulge his sorrow true but when the man is drawn in two opposite directions to and from the same object this as we affirm necessarily implies two distinct principles in him certainly one of them is ready to follow the guidance of the law a hon do you mean the law would say that to be patient under suffering is best and that we should not give way to impatience as there is no knowing whether such things are good or evil and nothing is gained by impatience also because no human thing is of serious importance and grief stands in the way of that which at that moment is most required what is most required he asked that we should take counsel about what has happened and when the dice have been thrown order our affairs in the way which reason deems best not like children who have had a fall keeping hold of the part struck and wasting time in setting up a howl but always a custom inga soul forthwith to apply a remedy raising up that which is sickly and fallen banishing the cry of sorrow by the healing art yes he said that is the true way of meeting the attacks of fortune yes I said and the higher principle is ready to follow this suggestion of reason clearly and the other principle which inclines us to recollection of our troubles and to lamentation and can never have enough of them we make all irrational useless and cowardly indeed we may and does not the latter I mean the rebellious principle furnish a great variety of materials for imitation whereas the wise and calm temperaments being always nearly equable is not easy to imitate or to appreciate when imitated especially at a public festival when a promiscuous crowd is assembled in a theatre for the feeling represented is one to which they are strangers certainly then the imitative poet who aims at being popular is not by nature made nor is his art intended to please or to affect the rational principle in the soul but he will prefer the passionate and fitful temper which is easily imitated clearly and now we may fairly take him and place him by the side of the painter for he is like him in two ways first inasmuch as his creations have an inferior degree of truth in this I say he is like him and he is also like him in being concerned with an inferior part of the soul and therefore we shall be right in refusing to admit him into a well-ordered state because he awakens and nourishes and strengthens the feelings and impairs the reason as in a city when the evil are permitted to have authority and the good are put out of the way so in the soul of man as we maintain the imitative poet implants an evil Constitution for he indulges the irrational nature which has no discernment of greater and less but thinks the same thing at one time great and another small he is a manufacturer of images and is very far removed from the truth exactly but we have not yet brought forward the heaviest count in our accusation the power which poetry has of harming even the good and there are very few who are not harmed is surely an awful thing yes certainly if the effect is what do you say here and judge the best of us as I conceive when we listen to a passage of Homer are one of the tragedians in which he represents some pitiful hero who was drawling out his sorrows in a long oration of weeping or smiting his breast the best of us you know delight and giving away to sympathy and are in raptures of the excellence of the poet who stirs our feelings most yes of course I know but when any sorrow of our own happens to us then you may observe that we pride ourselves on the opposite quality we would fain be quiet and patient this is the manly part and the other which delighted us in the recitation is now deemed to be the part of a woman very true he said now can we be right in praising and admiring another who is doing that which any one of us would abominate and be ashamed of in his own person no he said that is certainly not reasonable Hey I said quite reasonable from one point of view one point of view if you consider I said that when in misfortune we feel a natural hunger and desire to relieve our sorrow by weeping and lamentation and that this feeling which is kept under control in our own calamities is satisfied and delighted by the poets the better nature in each of us not having been sufficiently trained by reason or habit allows the sympathetic element to break loose because the sorrow is another's and the spectator fancies that there can be no disgrace to himself in praising and pitying anyone who comes telling him what a good man he is and making a fuss about his troubles he thinks that the pleasure is a gain and why should he be supercilious and lose the and the poem too few persons ever reflect as I should imagine that from the evil of other men something of evil is communicated to themselves and so the feeling of sorrow which has gathered strength at the side of the misfortunes of others is with difficulty repressed in our own how very true and does not the same hold also of the ridiculous there are jests which you would be ashamed to make yourself and yet on the comic stage or indeed in private when you hear them you are greatly amused by them and are not at all disgusted at their unseemliness the case of pity is repeated there is a principle in human nature which is disposed to raise a laugh and this which you once restrained by reason because you were afraid of being thought a buffoon is now let out again and having stimulated the risible faculty at the theatre you are betrayed unconsciously to yourself into playing the comic poet at home quite true he said and the same may be said of lust and anger and all the other affections of desire and pain and pleasure which are held to be inseparable from every action in all of them poetry feeds and waters the passions instead of drying them up she lets them rule although they ought to be controlled if mankind are ever to increase in happiness and virtue I cannot deny it therefore Glaucon I said whenever you meet with any of the eulogists of homer declaring that he has been the educator of Hellas and that he is profitable for education and for the ordering of human things and that you should take him up again and again and get to know him and regulate your whole life according to him we may love and honor those who say these things they are excellent people as far as their lines extend and we are ready to acknowledge that homer is the greatest of poets and first of tragedy writers but we must remain firm in our conviction that hymns to the gods praises of famous men are the only poetry which ought to be admitted into our state for if you go beyond this and allow the honey muse to enter either in epic or lyric verse not law and the reason of mankind which my common consent have ever been deemed best but pleasure and pay will be the rulers in our state that is most true he said and now since we have reverted to the subject of poetry let this our defense serve to show the reasonableness of our former judgment and sending away out of our state and arts having the tendencies which we have described for reason constrained us but that she may not impute to us any harshness or wanted politeness let us tell her that there is an ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry of which there are many proofs such as the saying of the yelping hound howling at her lord or of one mighty in the vain talk of fools than the mob of sages circumventing Zeus and the subtle thinkers who are beggars after all and there are innumerable other signs of ancient enmity between them notwithstanding this let us assure our sweet friend and the sister arts of imitation that if she will only prove her title to exist in a well-ordered state we shall be delighted to receive her we are very conscious of her charms but we may not on that account betray the truth I daresay Glaucon and you are as much charmed by her as I am especially when she appears in Homer yes indeed I am greatly charmed shall I propose then that she be allowed to return from exile but upon this condition only that she make a defense of herself in lyrical or some other metre certainly and we may further grant to those of her defenders who are lovers of poetry and yet not poets the permission to speak in prose on her behalf let them show not only that she is pleasant but also useful to States into human life and we will listen in a kindly spirit for if this can be proved we shall surely be the gayness I mean if there is a use in poetry as well as delight certainly he said we shall be the gayness if her defense fails then my dear friend like other persons who are enamored of something but put a restraint upon themselves when they think their desires are opposed to their interests so too must we after the manner of lovers give her up though not without a struggle we too are inspired by that love of poetry which the education of noble States has implanted in us and therefore we would have her appear at her best and truest but so long as she is unable to make good her defense this argument of ours shall be a charm to us which we will repeat to ourselves while we listen to her strains that we may not fall away into the childish love of her which captivates the many at all events we are well aware that poetry being such as we have described is not to be regarded seriously as a tating to the truth and he who listens to her fearing for the safety of the city which is within him should be on his guard against her seductions and make our words his law yes he said I quite agree with you yes I said My dear Glaucon for great is the issue at stake greater than appears whether a man is to be good or bad and what will anyone be profited if under the influence of Honor or money or power I are under the excitement of poetry he neglect justice and virtue yes he said I have been convinced to buy the argument as I believe that anyone else would have been and yet no mention has been made of the greatest prizes and rewards which await virtue what are there any greater still if there are they must be of inconceivable greatness why I said what was ever great in a short time the whole period of threescore years and ten is surely but a little thing in comparison with eternity say rather nothing he replied and should an immortal being seriously think of this little space rather than of the whole of the whole certainly but why do you ask are you not aware I said that the soul of man is immortal and imperishable he looked at me in astonishment and said no by heaven and are you really prepared to maintain this yes I said I ought to be and you too there is no difficulty in proving it I see a great difficulty but I should like to hear you state this argument of which you make so light listen then I am attending end of book 10 part 1

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Keywords: homeschool, TTS, Text to Speech, Immersion Reading, ESL, English as a second language, Read Along and Listen, Listen and Read Along, Bimodal Reading, Read with highlighted Words

Id: E6cPRMV8hVE

Length: 38min 48sec (2328 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 30 2014