Then will you not establish by law in your city such an art of medicine as we have described in conjunction with this kind of justice? And these arts will care for the bodies and souls of such of your citizens as are truly well born, but of those who are not, such as are defective in body they will suffer to die and those who are evil-natured and incurable Footnote 1Only the incurable suffer a purely exemplary and deterrent punishment in this world or the next. Cf. 615 E, Protagoras 325 A, Gorgias 525 C, Phaedo 113 E. in soul they will themselves Footnote 2ultro, as opposed to ἐάσουσιν. put to death.
This certainly,
he said, has been shown to be the best thing for the sufferers themselves and for the state.
And so your youths,
said I, employing that simple music which we said engendered sobriety will, it is clear, guard themselves against falling into the need of the justice of the court-room.
Yes,
he said. And will not our musician, pursuing the same trail in his use of gymnastics, if he please, get to have no need of medicine save when indispensable Footnote 3Cf. 405 C. Plato always allows for the limitation of the ideal by necessity. ?
I think so.
And even the exercises and toils of gymnastics he will undertake with a view to the spirited part of his nature Footnote 4The welfare of the soul is always the prime object for Plato. (Cf. 591 C) But he cannot always delay to correct ordinary speech in this sense. The correction of 376 E here is of course not a change of opinion, and it is no more a criticism of Isocrates, Antidosis 180-185, than it is of Gorgias 464 B, or Soph. 228 E, or Republic 521 E. to arouse that rather than for mere strength, unlike ordinary athletes, who treat Footnote 5μεταχειρίζονται: this reading of Galen is more idiomatic than the MS. μεταχειριεῖται. Where English says
he is not covetous of honor as other men are,
Greek says he (is) not as other men are covetous of honor.
diet and exercise only as a means to muscle.Nothing could be truer,
he said. Then may we not say, Glaucon,
said I, that those who established Footnote 6Plato half seriously attributes his own purposes to the founders. Cf. 405-406 on medicine and Philebus 16 C on dialectics. an education in music and gymnastics had not the purpose in view that some attribute to them in so instituting, namely to treat the body by one and the soul by the other?
But what?
he said. It seems likely,
I said, that they ordained both chiefly for the soul’s sake.
How so?
Have you not observed,
said I, the effect on the disposition of the mind itself Footnote 7For the thought cf. Euripides Suppl. 882 f. and Polybius’s account of the effect of the neglect of music on the Arcadians (iv. 20). of lifelong devotion to gymnastics with total neglect of music? Or the disposition of those of the opposite habit?
In what respect do you mean?
he said. In respect of savagery and hardness or, on the other hand, of softness and gentleness?
I have observed,
he said, that the devotees of unmitigated gymnastics turn out more brutal than they should be and those of music softer than is good for them.
And surely,
said I, this savagery is a quality derived from the high-spirited element in our nature, which, if rightly trained, becomes brave, but if overstrained, would naturally become hard and harsh.
I think so,
he said. And again, is not the gentleness a quality which the philosophic nature would yield? This if relaxed too far would be softer than is desirable but if rightly trained gentle and orderly?
That is so.
But our requirement, we say, Footnote 8Cf. 375 C. With Plato’s doctrine of the two temperaments cf. the distinction of quick-wits and hard-wits in Ascham’s Schoolmaster. Ascham is thinking of Plato, for he says:
Galen saith much music marreth men’s manners; and Plato hath a notable place of the same thing in his book De rep., well marked also and excellently translated by Tully himself.
is that the guardians should possess both natures.It is.
And must they not be harmoniously adjusted to one another?
Of course.
Book 3