k and ailing in their
bodies, their attendants give them wholesome diet in pleasant meats and
drinks, but unwholesome diet in disagreeable things, in order that they
may learn, as they ought, to like the one, and to dislike the other. And
similarly the true legislator will persuade, and, if he cannot persuade,
will compel the poet to express, as he ought, by fair and noble words,
in his rhythms, the figures, and in his melodies, the music of temperate
and brave and in every way good men.

CLEINIAS: But do you really imagine, Stranger, that this is the way in
which poets generally compose in States at the present day? As far as I
can observe, except among us and among the Lacedaemonians, there are no
regulations like those of which you speak; in other places novelties are
always being introduced in dancing and in music, generally not under the
authority of any law, but at the instigation of lawless pleasures; and
these pleasures are so far from being the same, as you describe the
Egyptian to be, or having the same principles, that they are never the
same.

ATHENIAN: Most true, Cleinias; and I daresay that I may have expressed
myself obscurely, and so led you to imagine that I was speaking of
some really existing state of things, whereas I was only saying what
regulations I would like to have about music; and hence there occurred
a misapprehension on your part. For when evils are far gone and
irremediable, the task of censuring them is never pleasant, although at
times necessary. But as we do not really differ, will you let me ask you
whether you consider such institutions to be more prevalent among the
Cretans and Lacedaemonians than among the other Hellenes?

CLEINIAS: Certainly they are.

ATHENIAN: And if they were extended to the other Hellenes, would it be
an improvement on the present state of things?

CLEINIAS: A very great improvement, if the customs which prevail among
them were such as prevail among us and the Lacedaemonians, and such as
you were just now saying ought to prevail.

ATHENIAN: Let us see whether we understand one another:--Are not the
principles of education and music which prevail among you as follows:
you compel your poets to say that the good man, if he be temperate and
just, is fortunate and happy; and this whether he be great and strong or
small and weak, and whether he be rich or poor; and, on the other hand,
if he have a wealth passing that of Cinyras or Midas, and be unjust,
he is wr