as attained his end, not carried away by his
success, but acting moderately and wisely under the circumstances, and
acquiescing in the event. These two harmonies I ask you to leave;
the strain of necessity and the strain of freedom, the strain of the
unfortunate and the strain of the fortunate, the strain of courage, and
the strain of temperance; these, I say, leave.

And these, he replied, are the Dorian and Phrygian harmonies of which I
was just now speaking.

Then, I said, if these and these only are to be used in our songs and
melodies, we shall not want multiplicity of notes or a panharmonic
scale?

I suppose not.

Then we shall not maintain the artificers of lyres with three
corners and complex scales, or the makers of any other many-stringed
curiously-harmonised instruments?

Certainly not.

But what do you say to flute-makers and flute-players? Would you admit
them into our State when you reflect that in this composite use of
harmony the flute is worse than all the stringed instruments put
together; even the panharmonic music is only an imitation of the flute?

Clearly not.

There remain then only the lyre and the harp for use in the city, and
the shepherds may have a pipe in the country.

That is surely the conclusion to be drawn from the argument.

The preferring of Apollo and his instruments to Marsyas and his
instruments is not at all strange, I said.

Not at all, he replied.

And so, by the dog of Egypt, we have been unconsciously purging the
State, which not long ago we termed luxurious.

And we have done wisely, he replied.

Then let us now finish the purgation, I said. Next in order to
harmonies, rhythms will naturally follow, and they should be subject to
the same rules, for we ought not to seek out complex systems of metre,
or metres of every kind, but rather to discover what rhythms are the
expressions of a courageous and harmonious life; and when we have found
them, we shall adapt the foot and the melody to words having a like
spirit, not the words to the foot and melody. To say what these rhythms
are will be your duty--you must teach me them, as you have already
taught me the harmonies.

But, indeed, he replied, I cannot tell you. I only know that there
are some three principles of rhythm out of which metrical systems are
framed, just as in sounds there are four notes (i.e. the four notes of
the tetrachord.) out of which all the harmonies are composed; that is
an observation whi