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    Plato - The Republic Book III

    Uploaded by

    Alice Muller

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as pdf
    of 6
    Republic : Bol eemenementeengie te The great ancient Greek philosopher was born ca 429 8ce. and died in 347. Although he may have derived his main ideas and method from the te ois eminent master Socrates (469-399 b,c), Plato asked and ans mously important questions about beauty and the arts, and his writings are fun damental to later aesthetic theory ' death, Plato devoted the next twelve years to extensive jour s, including perhaps Egypt but certainly Itly and Sicily in 387, where he met Dion of Syr fean Arclytas of Tarentum. He then retumed to Athens and began his carser as a phi osopher at the “Academy, located abe Je outside the city walls A crowd of students and enthusiastic Followers gathered around him, and in his writings, he attacked the fallacious €edlucation propagated by the sophists. Pleto made two other visits to se, where he attempted unsuccessfully to put sorre of his political theo. Fes into practice Plato's chief philosophical in systematic form but take the sh ic and often dramatically vivid dialogues. The important figures of Greek public lf in Plato’ time appear in them as represen tatives oftheir respective ideas. Socrates is regularly introduced as the moder- ator (One of the most famous dialogues f lep In this work, te philosopier expounds his deas atout the organization of the ideal state. In such a state, as Plato conceives it, education is paramount and art lerives its main value as a means of ataining this educational ideal. In this nection, Plato regards music as highly important; its lofty purpc superficial entertainment, but t help in building up a harmonious per onality and in calming the human passions. Book ill, a section of whi presented here, contains the most detailed discussion FROM THE Republic 18 (398b-405a and 410a—412 And now, my friend,” said 1, “we may say that we have completely finished he part of music that concerns speeches and tales. For we have set forth what Reprints by permission ofthe publishers en the Loeb edie Volumes, ve. 5, The Repallc,Baoks 1, trans, Paul Shon 257 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Univers Pres. 1968) 245-69 and ctnote, wire Thave retsned tet, are flowed by [Te Tnaddt ment onthe tet, my own footnotes wil cor any sigifcunt depar 10 1 pLato is to be said and how it is to be said.” “I think so too," he replied. then,” said I, “comes the manner of song *nd mele?* “Obv.- And having gone thus far, could not everybody discover what we must say of their character in order to conform to what has already been said?” “I am afraid that ‘everybody’ does not include me,” laughed Glancon; “T cannot sufficiently divine offhand what we ought to say, though I have a sus “You certainly, I presume,” said I, “have a sufficient understanding of this— that melos is composed of three things, the text, the harmonia, and the rhythm?" "Yes," said ho, “that much.” “And so far as itis text, it surely in no manner differs from text not sung in the requirement of conformity to the pattems and maine Uist we have preseribed?” “Truc,” ho onid. “And agin, the harmonia and the rhythm must follow the text."*“OF course.” “But we said wwe did not require dirges and lamentations in words.” “We do not.” “What, then, are the dirge-like harmoniai? Tell me, for you are @ mmusician."* “The Mixolydian,” he said, “and the intense Lydian, and others similar to them.” “These, then,” said I, “we must do away with, Hor they are useless even to ‘women who are to make the best of themselves, lt alone to men.” “Assured.” “But again, drunkenness isa thing most unbefiting guardians, and so is soft- ness and sloth.” “Yes.” “What, then, are the soft and convivial harmoniai?” 1. Plato use of dialogue males his discussion ofthe euational value af music especially vii ‘The dialogue et round 4101.2, onthe day sorte feast of Bens. prepa speaker Js Socrates, wh lel the dscusion with his companions. In Book I, Chacon and Adeiman- tus, brothers of Pato, respand to Socrates: remarks and rae virius questions sath Greek term 3 au feels) have bv tie posal (ancle) Chore taolated the wom oe “melodies,” ut mel isthe whole complex of tet, rythm, and pitches and their fonetional relationships, as Plato hse explains just few lines later inthis paragraph. {have mexifed ‘Shorey various transitions ofthis term to melas throughout the excorpt. On melas, cf, Ars tides Quintlianss, On Maste (De masica) 112 (se pp. 62-66). 43. Shong: “the word, the tune, and the rhythm" “Harmonia” (puavic}, however, has dhe much Four sense of enue compe oF reanonshps ag ples, essay wowed by iter at paradlgmati of large universal relationships. CE Plato own Tinaens (pp. 18-23). 1 ‘he plore “harmon” oflen refer to particular complexes associated with ethnic names (such ts Dorian hartoaia, Phrygian harmaria, and soon) orto particular scalar puters such os the Dorian octave species). Eventually those bogin to bo elstly associated wit the so-alled tnoi (or tropr (ef Clemides, Hermonie Introduction [Harmonica introdutio; pp. 35-46), Aristides ‘Quintin, On Mase pp 47-86, and Gaudentus, HlarnonteTntroduetn [Par noneninror ‘tl: pp. 66-85), which in tum evelve into the modes as explained by liter Latin wer, including Boethins ‘This pot ie retorted in section 11, These remarks are frequently cited inthe stteenth and Seventeenth centuries a8 arguments agaist what Monteverd all “The Fint Practice’ se pp. 535-4, FP rmsican(ouotxde) to the Greck vitor wat one who understood muse in Dom scene nd prcticl forms, Fao later (3.18) draw adtinetion between one who is rest musical ind Doe who fs a mere artisan, CL. Bosthiars contrat berween the musics andthe cater in ‘The Punamntal of Musi (De istitatione music) 134 (pp. 142-49). Inthe following passage, Socrates describes the harinona. rejecting fur of them as unsuitable for elcation, CE the treatment in Avstole’s Polite (Polite; p. 29) and Sextus Empiicuss Against the Meets (auarss musica, pp. 4-109). Republic a “There are certain Jonian and also Lydian ones that are ed” " Pee eet ae came ae Seem that you have left the Dorian and the Phrygian.” “I don't know the har- ‘moniai,” Tsaid, “but leave us that® harmonia that would fittingly imitate the utterances and the accents of a brave man who is engaged in warfare” or in any enforced business, and who, when he has failed, either meeting wounds or

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