ve conceived my meaning perfectly; and if I mistake not, what you
failed to apprehend before is now made clear to you, that poetry and
mythology are, in some cases, wholly imitative--instances of this are
supplied by tragedy and comedy; there is likewise the opposite style,
in which the poet is the only speaker--of this the dithyramb affords
the best example; and the combination of both is found in epic, and in
several other styles of poetry. Do I take you with me?

Yes, he said; I see now what you meant.

I will ask you to remember also what I began by saying, that we had done
with the subject and might proceed to the style.

Yes, I remember.

In saying this, I intended to imply that we must come to an
understanding about the mimetic art,--whether the poets, in narrating
their stories, are to be allowed by us to imitate, and if so, whether
in whole or in part, and if the latter, in what parts; or should all
imitation be prohibited?

You mean, I suspect, to ask whether tragedy and comedy shall be admitted
into our State?

Yes, I said; but there may be more than this in question: I really do
not know as yet, but whither the argument may blow, thither we go.

And go we will, he said.

Then, Adeimantus, let me ask you whether our guardians ought to be
imitators; or rather, has not this question been decided by the rule
already laid down that one man can only do one thing well, and not many;
and that if he attempt many, he will altogether fail of gaining much
reputation in any?

Certainly.

And this is equally true of imitation; no one man can imitate many
things as well as he would imitate a single one?

He cannot.

Then the same person will hardly be able to play a serious part in life,
and at the same time to be an imitator and imitate many other parts as
well; for even when two species of imitation are nearly allied, the same
persons cannot succeed in both, as, for example, the writers of tragedy
and comedy--did you not just now call them imitations?

Yes, I did; and you are right in thinking that the same persons cannot
succeed in both.

Any more than they can be rhapsodists and actors at once?

True.

Neither are comic and tragic actors the same; yet all these things are
but imitations.

They are so.

And human nature, Adeimantus, appears to have been coined into yet
smaller pieces, and to be as incapable of imitating many things well, as
of performing well the actions of which the imitations