expression of joy and triumph
after toil and danger; the other is more tranquil, symbolizing the
continuance and preservation of good. In speaking or singing we
naturally move our bodies, and as we have more or less courage or
self-control we become less or more violent and excited. Thus from the
imitation of words in gestures the art of dancing arises. Now one man
imitates in an orderly, another in a disorderly manner: and so the
peaceful kinds of dance have been appropriately called Emmeleiai, or
dances of order, as the warlike have been called Pyrrhic. In the latter
a man imitates all sorts of blows and the hurling of weapons and the
avoiding of them; in the former he learns to bear himself gracefully
and like a gentleman. The types of these dances are to be fixed by the
legislator, and when the guardians of the law have assigned them to the
several festivals, and consecrated them in due order, no further change
shall be allowed.

Thus much of the dances which are appropriate to fair forms and noble
souls. Comedy, which is the opposite of them, remains to be considered.
For the serious implies the ludicrous, and opposites cannot be
understood without opposites. But a man of repute will desire to
avoid doing what is ludicrous. He should leave such performances to
slaves,--they are not fit for freemen; and there should be some element
of novelty in them. Concerning tragedy, let our law be as follows: When
the inspired poet comes to us with a request to be admitted into our
state, we will reply in courteous words--We also are tragedians and your
rivals; and the drama which we enact is the best and noblest, being the
imitation of the truest and noblest life, with a view to which our state
is ordered. And we cannot allow you to pitch your stage in the agora,
and make your voices to be heard above ours, or suffer you to address
our women and children and the common people on opposite principles
to our own. Come then, ye children of the Lydian Muse, and present
yourselves first to the magistrates, and if they decide that your hymns
are as good or better than ours, you shall have your chorus; but if not,
not.

There remain three kinds of knowledge which should be learnt by
freemen--arithmetic, geometry of surfaces and of solids, and thirdly,
astronomy. Few need make an accurate study of such sciences; and of
special students we will speak at another time. But most persons must be
content with the study of them which is abs