Justice -- Early works to 1800; Political science -- Early works to 1800; Utopias -- Early works to 1800
I answered: Of the harmonies I know nothing, but I want to have one
warlike, to sound the note or accent which a brave man utters in the hour
of danger and stern resolve, or when his cause is failing, and he is going
to wounds or *399B* death or is overtaken by some other evil, and at every
such crisis meets the blows of fortune with firm step and a determination
to endure; and another to be used by him in times of peace and freedom of
action, when there is no pressure of necessity, and he is seeking to
persuade God by prayer, or man by instruction and admonition, or on the
other hand, when he is expressing his willingness to yield to persuasion
or entreaty or admonition, and which represents him when by prudent
conduct he has attained his end, not carried away by his success, but
acting moderately and wisely *399C* under the circumstances, and
acquiescing in the event. These {85} two harmonies I ask you to leave; the
strain of necessity and the strain of freedom, the strain of the
unfortunate and the strain of the fortunate, the strain of courage, and
the strain of temperance; these, I say, leave.
And these, he replied, are the Dorian and Phrygian harmonies of which
I was just now speaking.
[Sidenote: The Dorian and Phrygian are to be retained.]
Then, I said, if these and these only are to be used in our songs and
melodies, we shall not want multiplicity of notes or a panharmonic scale?
I suppose not.
Then we shall not maintain the artificers of lyres with three corners and
complex scales, or the makers of any other *399D* many-stringed
curiously-harmonised instruments?
Certainly not.
[Sidenote: Musical instruments--which are to be rejected and which
allowed?]
But what do you say to flute-makers and flute-players? Would you admit
them into our State when you reflect that in this composite use of harmony
the flute is worse than all the stringed instruments put together; even
the panharmonic music is only an imitation of the flute?
Clearly not.
There remain then only the lyre and the harp for use in the city, and the
shepherds may have a pipe in the country.
That is surely the conclusion to be drawn from the argument.
*399E* The preferring of Apollo and his instruments to Marsyas and his
instruments is not at all strange, I said.
Not at all, he replied.
And so, by the dog of Egypt, we have been unconsciously purging the State,
which not long ago we termed luxurious.
And we have done wisely, he replied.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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