Stranger, I must complain that you depreciate our
lawgivers.

ATHENIAN: Not intentionally, if at all, my good friend; but whither
the argument leads, thither let us follow; for if there be indeed some
strain of song more beautiful than that of the choruses or the public
theatres, I should like to impart it to those who, as we say, are
ashamed of these, and want to have the best.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: When things have an accompanying charm, either the best
thing in them is this very charm, or there is some rightness or utility
possessed by them;--for example, I should say that eating and drinking,
and the use of food in general, have an accompanying charm which we call
pleasure; but that this rightness and utility is just the healthfulness
of the things served up to us, which is their true rightness.

CLEINIAS: Just so.

ATHENIAN: Thus, too, I should say that learning has a certain
accompanying charm which is the pleasure; but that the right and the
profitable, the good and the noble, are qualities which the truth gives
to it.

CLEINIAS: Exactly.

ATHENIAN: And so in the imitative arts--if they succeed in making
likenesses, and are accompanied by pleasure, may not their works be said
to have a charm?

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: But equal proportions, whether of quality or quantity, and not
pleasure, speaking generally, would give them truth or rightness.

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: Then that only can be rightly judged by the standard of
pleasure, which makes or furnishes no utility or truth or likeness,
nor on the other hand is productive of any hurtful quality, but exists
solely for the sake of the accompanying charm; and the term 'pleasure'
is most appropriately applied to it when these other qualities are
absent.

CLEINIAS: You are speaking of harmless pleasure, are you not?

ATHENIAN: Yes; and this I term amusement, when doing neither harm nor
good in any degree worth speaking of.

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: Then, if such be our principles, we must assert that imitation
is not to be judged of by pleasure and false opinion; and this is
true of all equality, for the equal is not equal or the symmetrical
symmetrical, because somebody thinks or likes something, but they are to
be judged of by the standard of truth, and by no other whatever.

CLEINIAS: Quite true.

ATHENIAN: Do we not regard all music as representative and imitative?

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: Then, when any