20
(2.376e)
[education] has two divisions: gymnastics for the body, and music for the soul:
The word translated as “music” is
mousikê
in Greek, derived from
Mousai,
the generic name of the patron goddesses of music, poetry, dance, etc.
Mousikê
has a far broader range of meaning than its English derivative “music.” It refers to education in poetry, drama, and literature, and thus to general cultural cultivation; hence Socrates’ description of
mousikê
as “education for the soul.” Yet, since most of Greek poetry (including drama) was sung and performed with the accompaniment of instruments such as pipes (
auloi
) and various types of lyres, it was inherently musical in our modem sense of the word. See 3.401d—402a and 8.549b for the importance of
mousikê.
21
(2.377c)
You may find a model of the lesser in the greater ... :
This statement launches a critique of the content and form of poetic (that is, “mimetic”) texts that extends well into book 3. Socrates’ comparison of Homer’s and Hesiod’s works to children’s stories, though somewhat dismissive, reflects the important fact that memorization of passages from
Iliad, Odyssey, Theogony, Works and Days,
and other well-known texts, was a basic component in the education of young boys throughout the classical period and beyond. Glaucon’s and Adeimantus’ detailed descriptions of the popular view of justice, with its many quotations from “the poets,” are plainly designed to leave the impression that these texts exert considerable (and dangerous) moral influence on adults as well as children, as they convey problematic views of justice and its rewards. See, for example, 2.365e: “If the poets speak truly, why, then, we had better be unjust ...”; see also note 1 on 1.331d.
Socrates’ critique begins with the content of poetic works: their representations of the gods (2.379e—383c) and their presentations of heroic figures such as Achilles in
Iliad
(3.386a—391e). Discussion of depictions of mortal men (3.392a-c) is deemed premature, since Socrates and his companions have yet to determine what land of behavior—that is, “just” or “unjust”—merits imitation. The style and manner of representation are next considered, with special attention to the psychological dangers of direct imitation (
mimesis
), as opposed to simple narrative in which performers never assume characters’ identities (3.392d-398c). Further formal considerations involve the modes (harmonies) used in musical accompaniment as well as the choice of instruments (3.398d-399e) and rhythms (3.399e-400e). Socrates’ basic complaints against poetic texts such as
Iliad
are that (1) they set forth inappropriate conceptions of the essence and activities of the gods, and (2) they provide unwholesome models of conduct to young, uncritical, and easily influenced minds. As emerges at 3.410b-412b, the overall goal of the “musical” and gymnastic curricula proposed for young guardians is to cultivate, in an appropriate balance, the qualities of courage (ferocity) and temperance (gentleness); see note 18 on 2.375c.
Socrates’ criticisms of the harmful moral messages conveyed by poetic texts may justifiably strike some readers as simplistic, insofar as they overlook the complexity and sophistication of the perspectives offered in works such as
Iliad
and
Odyssey
on the workings of society and the social responsibilities of individuals. Yet texts such as
Frogs,
a comedy by Aristophanes that was first performed in 405 B.C.E., suggest that the concerns raised in this section of
Republic
about the form and content of poetic texts were influenced by a broader cultural debate. Although he takes his censorship (especially of the content of poems) to an extreme, Plato’s Socrates is by no means alone in voicing anxieties about the psychological and ethical effects of poetry and music. Indeed, musical innovations first in narrative poetry (that is, dithyrambs) and then in the lyric portions of tragedy caused a stir in the late fifth century, and they seem to have been what fomented a concern about poetic propriety that preoccupied certain segments of Athenian society into the fourth century. It is worth noting how adamantly Socrates insists in
Republic
that innovations in music and poetry cannot be tolerated; such proscriptions are reminiscent of the views attributed to the archly conservative “Aeschylus” in Frogs.
22
(2.378b)
the young man should not be told that in committing the worst of crimes he is far from doing anything outrageous:
In
Clouds
(produced 423 B.C.E.), Aristophanes has a young man, who has been educated in Socrates’ “Think-Factory” (
phrontisterion
), justify his abuse of his own father with a reference to Zeus’ mistreatment of Cronus.
Clouds
represents Socrates as an unscrupulous sophist, and in
Apology,
Plato has Socrates blame the comedy for fomenting harmful misconceptions about him. This passage of Republic, in which Socrates vehemently condemns the myths about Uranus, Cronus, and Zeus and the “lessons” they convey, is perhaps meant to counter further Aristophanes’ unflattering representation of Socrates.
23
(2.378d)
these tales must not be admitted into our State, whether they are supposed to have an allegorical meaning or not. For a young person cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal:
Several individuals during the fifth and fourth centuries proposed allegorical readings of passages in Iliad and
Odyssey
that, for example, identified the gods with various elements (fire, air, water, earth) and interpreted stories such as the one about Hephaestus’ efforts to protect Hera in the light of theories about the interactions of elements. At 10.605c-608a, Socrates expresses deep reservations about the discriminatory abilities of (most) adults as well as children.
24
(2.379a)
God is always to be represented as he truly is:
Although Socrates does refer here to “god” (
theos
in Greek) in the singular, Jowett’s use of the capital G is misleading. The god of whom Socrates speaks here and elsewhere should not be identified with the God of today’s monotheistic religions, even though many of the qualities he attributes to god (perfection, immutability, beneficence, truthfulness) are in accordance with the conceptions of monotheistic systems of belief. Overall, Socrates’ conceptions of divinity (as Plato represents them) seem very flexible, at least in terms of number. At times he is content to speak of the traditional pantheon of gods (Zeus, Hera, Apollo, et al.), and at times he speaks of “god” in the singular. This is not unprecedented, however, and Greeks regularly spoke of god in the singular if they did not have a particular deity in mind, or if they wanted to refer to divine power in some general way. Socrates, it is true, was charged in 399 B.C.E. with “impiety” because of his failure to recognize the gods recognized by the Athenian polis, but the verb “to recognize” (
nomizein
) in this context can refer to ritual practice as well as “belief.” It is not clear that a flirtation with monotheism, of the sort that Plato represents here, would have supplied Socrates’ opponents with sufficient grounds for leveling the charge of impiety.
25
(2.380a)
neither will we allow our young men to hear the words of Aeschylus:
It is difficult to imagine that Plato (or Socrates) seriously believed that excision of objectionable material from
Iliad, Odyssey,
and other major poetic works was a practical undertaking. Rather, Socrates’ method of citing passage after passage that “we will not allow our young men to hear” seems intended to point out the pervasive problems in the contents and “messages” of even the most revered works.
26
(2.380a)
the house of Pelops:
Pelops was the son of Tantalus and the father of Atreus and Thyestes, and thus the grandfather (via Atreus) of Agamemnon and Menelaus. The troubles of the many generations in Pelops’ family were popular subjects of tragic drama (for example, the extant
Oresteia
trilogy by Aeschylus). The southern region of Greece in which Sparta and Epi daurus are situated is called the Peloponnese (literally, Pelops’ island) after Pelops.
27
(2.382c)
Whereas the lie in words is in certain cases useful and not hateful:
These reflections on the usefulness of lies in certain limited circumstances anticipates the provision made at 3.414b-415d for “needful falsehoods” in the ideal city-state. Compare 3.387c and 3.389b, and also 1.331c.
Book 3
1
(3.389d)
he will punish him for introducing a practice which is equally subversive and destructive of ship or State:
The metaphorical comparison of the polis to a ship at sea is common in classical literature. “Justice” has already been compared to the piloting of ships at 1.332e, and the affinities of political communities to ships will be underscored again, in a powerful and suggestive image, at 6.488a-489a.
2
(3.391a)
Loving Homer as I do, I hardly like to say:
The Greek literally reads, “I hesitate, indeed, on account of Homer, to say....”: Here and again at 10.595b and 10.607a-608a (compare 2.383a), Plato has Socrates acknowledge the powerful charm and appeal of the poems attributed to Homer and of poetry in general. This does not mean, however, that these works are beneficial to their listeners, or useful to communities; their great charm, according to Socrates, is what renders them dangerous insofar as it makes them so appealing. The seductive power of pleasant things, which makes most people incapable of distinguishing what is truly good from what is immediately pleasurable and gratifying, is a recurrent concern in
Republic
and several other Platonic dialogues, notably
Philebus.
3
(3.392c)
we cannot determine until we have discovered what justice is, and how naturally advantageous to the possessor, whether he seem to be just or not:
Socrates provides some indirect indications at 10.603e-605c as to how mortal men and women are to be represented.
4
(3.392d)
And narration may be either simple narration or imitation, or a union of the two?:
Socrates’ division of poetry into three formal categories—(1) simple narration, in which performers never assume the identities of characters, (2) simple imitation, in which performers always assume the identities of characters, as in dramatic performances, and (3) a mixed, or “double,” form—collapses the established distinctions between genres, such as epic poetry (a “mixed” form) and tragic drama (pure imitation), thus paving the way for his characterizations of Homer as “first of the tragedians” ( 10.595b and 10.607a). It also provides him with additional means for criticizing poetic works such as
Iliad
on the grounds that their imitative element violates the ideal state’s foundational “one person, one job” rule (3.394d—396b; compare 2.370b).
5
(3.397d)
but the mixed style is also very charming: and indeed the pantomimic ... is the most popular style with children and their attendants, and with the world in general:
See note 2 on 3.391a.
6
(3.398e)
The harmonies which you mean are the mixed or tenor Lydian, and the full-toned or bass Lydian, and such like: Harmoniai,
translated by the terms “modes” and also “harmonies,” differ in their arrangements of intervals between notes and also in pitch. Socrates’ judgments about the ethos and ethical effects of different
harmoniai,
especially his high regard for the popular Dorian mode, largely accords with assessments in other sources, except for the fact that he chooses to ignore the Phrygian mode’s secondary association with orgiastic frenzy (compare Aristotle, Politics 8.1342a32-b12).
7
(3.399c-d)
we shall not want multiplicity of notes or a panharmonic scale?
...
Then we shall not maintain the artificers of lyres with three comers and complex scales, or the makers of any other many-stringed, curiously harmonized instruments?:
Musical innovators in late-fifth-century Athens transformed traditional modes by changing the tunings on and adding extra strings to instruments such as lyres. Another contemporary innovation was the more frequent use of instruments such as the triangular harp (
trigonos
), which Jowett misleadingly translates by the phrase “lyre with three corners.” The high-pitched
trigonos
had many strings, and, like the pipe (
aulos
), it was associated with intense emotion, sensuality, and licentiousness.
Music was generally thought in antiquity to have strong ethical effects. Conservative segments of Athenian society accordingly took a dim view of the sorts of innovations described above (as well as experiments with rhythm, described below), on the grounds that they had undesirable effects on conduct and were conducive to “loose behavior” as well as general disregard for traditional norms and standards of decorum. On the topic of music’s ethical influence and the dangers of innovation, Socrates in
Republic
heartily concurs with the traditionalists; “musical training,” he states at 3.401d-402a, “is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten....” His repeated insistence that, to preserve the ideal state, rulers must guard “above all” against innovations in music and poetry (4.424b-e; compare 8.546d), is hardly surprising.
8
(3.399e) The preferring
of
Apollo
and
his instruments to Marsyas
and
his instruments is not
at all strange,
I said: Apollo’s instruments are the cithara and other lyres; the instruments of the satyr Marsyas, who lost a musical contest with Apollo and was flayed for his impudence in challenging the god, are pipes (
auloi
). The music of the
aulos
was generally linked to ecstasy, frenzy, and sensuality, whereas the music of stringed instruments was considered more restrained and dignified. In endorsing the Phrygian mode (3.399a-c), Socrates ignores its association with
auloi;
see note 6 above on 3.398e.