Socrates “So we must consider whether these critics have not fallen in with such imitators and been deceived by them, so that looking upon their works 599a they cannot perceive that these are three removes from reality, and easy to produce without knowledge of the truth. For it is phantoms,¹ not realities, that they produce. Or is there something in their claim, and do good poets really know the things about which the multitude fancy they speak well?” “We certainly must examine the matter,” he said. “Do you suppose, then, that if a man were able to produce both the exemplar and the semblance, he would be eager to abandon himself to the fashioning of phantoms² and set this in the forefront 599b of his life as the best thing he had?” “I do not.” “But, I take it, if he had genuine knowledge of the things he imitates he would far rather devote himself to real things³ than to the imitation of them, and would endeavor to leave after him many noble deeds⁴ and works as memorials of himself, and would be more eager to be the theme of praise than the praiser.” “I think so,” he said; “for there is no parity in the honor and the gain.” “Let us not, then, demand a reckoning⁵ from Homer 599c or any other of the poets on other matters by asking them, if any one of them was a physician and not merely an imitator of a physician’s talk, what men any poet, old or new, is reported to have restored to health as Asclepius did, or what disciples of the medical art he left after him as Asclepius did his descendants; and let us dismiss the other arts and not question them about them; but concerning the greatest and finest things of which Homer undertakes to speak, wars and generalship⁶ 599d and the administration of cities and the education of men, it surely is fair to question him and ask, “Friend Homer, if you are not at the third remove from truth and reality in human excellence, being merely that creator of phantoms whom we defined as the imitator, but if you are even in the second place and were capable of knowing what pursuits make men better or worse in private or public life, tell us what city was better governed owing to you,⁷ even as Lacedaemon was because of Lycurgus,⁸ and many other cities 599e great and small because of other legislators. But what city credits you with having been a good legislator and having benefited them? Italy and Sicily say this of Charondas and we of Solon.⁹ But who says it of you?” Will he be able to name any?” “I think not,” said Glaucon; “at any rate none is mentioned even by the Homerids themselves.”

“Well, then, 600a is there any tradition of a war in Homer’s time that was well conducted by his command or counsel?” “None.” “Well, then, as might be expected of a man wise in practical affairs, are many and ingenious inventions¹⁰ for the arts and business of life reported of Homer as they are of Thales¹¹ the Milesian and Anacharsis¹² the Scythian?” “Nothing whatever of the sort.” “Well, then, if no public service is credited to him, is Homer reported while he lived to have been a guide in education to men who took pleasure in associating with him 600b and transmitted to posterity a certain Homeric way of life¹³ just as Pythagoras¹⁴ was himself especially honored for this, and his successors, even to this day, denominating a certain way of life the Pythagorean,¹⁵ are distinguished among their contemporaries?” “No, nothing of this sort either is reported; for Creophylos,¹⁶ Socrates, the friend of Homer, would perhaps be even more ridiculous than his name¹⁷ as a representative of Homeric culture and education, if what is said about Homer is true. For the tradition is that Homer was completely neglected in his own lifetime by that friend of the flesh.” 600c

“Why, yes, that is the tradition,” said I; “but do you suppose, Glaucon, that, if Homer had really been able to educate men¹⁸ and make them better and had possessed not the art of imitation but real knowledge, he would not have acquired many companions and been honored and loved by them? But are we to believe that while Protagoras¹⁹ of Abdera and Prodicus²⁰ of Ceos and many others are able by private teaching 600d to impress upon their contemporaries the conviction that they will not be capable of governing their homes or the city²¹ unless they put them in charge of their education, and make themselves so beloved for this wisdom²² that their companions all but²³ carry them about on their shoulders,²⁴ yet, forsooth, that Homer’s contemporaries, if he had been able to help men to achieve excellence,²⁵ would have suffered him or Hesiod to roam about rhapsodizing and would not have clung to them far rather than to their gold,²⁶ and constrained them to dwell with them²⁷ in their homes, 600e or failing to persuade them, would themselves have escorted them wheresoever they went until they should have sufficiently imbibed their culture?” “What you say seems to me to be altogether true, Socrates,” he said.

“Shall we, then, lay it down that all the poetic tribe, beginning with Homer,²⁸ are imitators of images of excellence and of the other things that they “create,²⁹” and do not lay hold on truth? but, as we were just now saying, the painter will fashion, 601a himself knowing nothing of the cobbler’s art, what appears to be a cobbler to him and likewise to those who know nothing but judge only by forms and colors³⁰?” “Certainly.” “And similarly, I suppose, we shall say that the poet himself, knowing nothing but how to imitate, lays on with words and phrases³¹ the colors of the several arts in such fashion that others equally ignorant, who see things only through words,³² will deem his words most excellent, 601b whether he speak in rhythm, meter and harmony about cobbling or generalship or anything whatever. So mighty is the spell³³ that these adornments naturally exercise; though when they are stripped bare of their musical coloring and taken by themselves,³⁴ I think you know what sort of a showing these sayings of the poets make. For you, I believe, have observed them.” “I have,” he said. “Do they not,” said I, “resemble the faces of adolescents, young but not really beautiful, when the bloom of youth abandons them?³⁵” “By all means,” he said. “Come, then,” said I, “consider this point: The creator of the phantom, the imitator, we say, knows nothing of the reality but only the appearance. 601c Is not that so?” “Yes.” “Let us not, then, leave it half said but consider it fully.” “Speak on,” he said. “The painter, we say, will paint both reins and a bit.” “Yes.” “But the maker³⁶ will be the cobbler and the smith.” “Certainly.” “Does the painter, then, know the proper quality of reins and bit? Or does not even the maker, the cobbler and the smith, know that, but only the man who understands the use of these things, the horseman³⁷?” “Most true.” “And shall we not say 601d that the same holds true of everything?” “What do you mean?” “That there are some three arts concerned with everything, the user’s art,³⁸ the maker’s, and the imitator’s.” “Yes.” “Now do not the excellence, the beauty, the rightness³⁹ of every implement, living thing, and action refer solely to the use⁴⁰ for which each is made or by nature adapted?” “That is so.” “It quite necessarily follows, then, that the user of anything is the one who knows most of it by experience, and that he reports to the maker the good or bad effects in use of the thing he uses. 601e As, for example, the flute-player reports to the flute-maker which flutes respond and serve rightly in flute-playing, and will order the kind that must be made, and the other will obey and serve him.” “Of course.” “The one, then, possessing knowledge, reports about the goodness or the badness of the flutes, and the other, believing, will make them.” “Yes.”

“Then in respect of the same implement the maker will have right belief⁴¹ about its excellence and defects from association with the man who knows and being compelled to listen to him, 602a but the user will have true knowledge.” “Certainly.” “And will the imitator from experience or use have knowledge whether the things he portrays are or are not beautiful and right, or will he, from compulsory association with the man who knows and taking orders from him for the right making of them, have right opinion⁴²?” “Neither.” “Then the imitator will neither know nor opine rightly concerning the beauty or the badness of his imitations.” “It seems not.” “Most charming,⁴³ then, would be the state of mind of the poetical imitator in respect of true wisdom about his creations.” “Not at all.” 602b “Yet still he will none the less⁴⁴ imitate, though in every case he does not know in what way the thing is bad or good. But, as it seems, the thing he will imitate will be the thing that appears beautiful to the ignorant multitude.” “Why, what else?” “On this, then, as it seems, we are fairly agreed, that the imitator knows nothing worth mentioning of the things he imitates, but that imitation is a form of play,⁴⁵ not to be taken seriously,⁴⁶ and that those who attempt tragic poetry, whether in iambics or heroic verse,⁴⁷ are all altogether imitators.” “By all means.” 602c

“In heaven’s name, then, this business of imitation is concerned with the third remove from truth, is it not?” “Yes.” “And now again, to what element⁴⁸ in man is its function and potency related?” “Of what are you speaking?” “Of this: The same magnitude, I presume, viewed from near and from far⁴⁹ does not appear equal.” “Why, no.” “And the same things appear bent and straight⁵⁰ to those who view them in water and out, or concave and convex, owing to similar errors of vision about colors, and there is 602d obviously every confusion of this sort in our souls. And so scene-painting in its exploitation⁵¹ of this weakness of our nature falls nothing short of witchcraft,⁵² and so do jugglery and many other such contrivances.” “True.” “And have not measuring and numbering and weighing⁵³ proved to be most gracious aids to prevent the domination in our soul of the apparently⁵⁴ greater or less or more or heavier, and to give the control to that which has reckoned⁵⁵ and numbered or even weighed?” 602e “Certainly.” “But this surely would be the function⁵⁶ of the part of the soul that reasons and calculates.⁵⁷” “Why, yes, of that.” “And often when this has measured⁵⁸ and declares that certain things are larger or that some are smaller than the others or equal, there is at the same time an appearance of the contrary.” “Yes.” “And did we not say⁵⁹ that it is impossible for the same thing at one time to hold contradictory opinions about the same thing?” 603a “And we were right in affirming that.”