one says that music is to be judged of by
pleasure, his doctrine cannot be admitted; and if there be any music of
which pleasure is the criterion, such music is not to be sought out or
deemed to have any real excellence, but only that other kind of music
which is an imitation of the good.

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: And those who seek for the best kind of song and music ought
not to seek for that which is pleasant, but for that which is true; and
the truth of imitation consists, as we were saying, in rendering the
thing imitated according to quantity and quality.

CLEINIAS: Certainly.

ATHENIAN: And every one will admit that musical compositions are all
imitative and representative. Will not poets and spectators and actors
all agree in this?

CLEINIAS: They will.

ATHENIAN: Surely then he who would judge correctly must know what
each composition is; for if he does not know what is the character and
meaning of the piece, and what it represents, he will never discern
whether the intention is true or false.

CLEINIAS: Certainly not.

ATHENIAN: And will he who does not know what is true be able to
distinguish what is good and bad? My statement is not very clear; but
perhaps you will understand me better if I put the matter in another
way.

CLEINIAS: How?

ATHENIAN: There are ten thousand likenesses of objects of sight?

CLEINIAS: Yes.

ATHENIAN: And can he who does not know what the exact object is which
is imitated, ever know whether the resemblance is truthfully executed?
I mean, for example, whether a statue has the proportions of a body, and
the true situation of the parts; what those proportions are, and how
the parts fit into one another in due order; also their colours and
conformations, or whether this is all confused in the execution: do
you think that any one can know about this, who does not know what the
animal is which has been imitated?

CLEINIAS: Impossible.

ATHENIAN: But even if we know that the thing pictured or sculptured is a
man, who has received at the hand of the artist all his proper parts and
colours and shapes, must we not also know whether the work is beautiful
or in any respect deficient in beauty?

CLEINIAS: If this were not required, Stranger, we should all of us be
judges of beauty.

ATHENIAN: Very true; and may we not say that in everything imitated,
whether in drawing, music, or any other art, he who is to be a competent
judge must possess three things;--he must k