*394D* In saying this, I intended to imply that we must come to an understanding about the mimetic art,--whether the poets, in narrating their stories, are to be allowed by us to imitate, and if so, whether in whole or in part, and if the latter, in what parts; or should all imitation be prohibited? You mean, I suspect, to ask whether tragedy and comedy shall be admitted into our State? [Sidenote: A hint about Homer (cp. _infra_, bk. x.)] Yes, I said; but there may be more than this in question: I really do not know as yet, but whither the argument may blow, thither we go. And go we will, he said. [Sidenote: Our guardians ought not to be imitators, for one man can only do one thing well;] *394E* Then, Adeimantus, let me ask you whether our guardians ought to be imitators; or rather, has not this question been decided by the rule already laid down that one man can only do one thing well, and not many; and that if he attempt many, he will altogether fail of gaining much reputation in any? Certainly. And this is equally true of imitation; no one man can imitate many things as well as he would imitate a single one? He cannot. *395A* Then the same person will hardly be able to play a serious part in life, and at the same time to be an imitator and imitate many other parts as well; for even when two species of imitation are nearly allied, the same persons cannot succeed in both, as, for example, the writers of tragedy and comedy--did you not just now call them imitations? Yes, I did; and you are right in thinking that the same persons cannot succeed in both. Any more than they can be rhapsodists and actors at once? True. *395B* Neither are comic and tragic actors the same; yet all these things are but imitations. They are so. [Sidenote: he cannot even imitate many things.] And human nature, Adeimantus, appears to have been {80} coined into yet smaller pieces, and to be as incapable of imitating many things well, as of performing well the actions of which the imitations are copies. Quite true, he replied. If then we adhere to our original notion and bear in mind that our guardians, setting aside every other business, are to *395C* dedicate themselves wholly to the maintenance of freedom in the State, making this their craft, and engaging in no work which does not bear on this end, they ought not to practise or imitate anything else; if they imitate at all, they should imitate from youth upward only those characters which are suitable to their profession--the courageous, temperate, holy, free, and the like; but they should not depict or be skilful at imitating any kind of illiberality or baseness, lest from imitation they should come to be what they imitate. Did *395D* you never observe how imitations, beginning in early youth and continuing far into life, at length grow into habits and become a second nature, affecting body, voice, and mind? Yes, certainly, he said. [Sidenote: Imitations which are of the degrading sort.]