ave been obedient to the
laws, should receive eulogies; this will be very fitting.

CLEINIAS: Quite true.

ATHENIAN: But to honour with hymns and panegyrics those who are still
alive is not safe; a man should run his course, and make a fair ending,
and then we will praise him; and let praise be given equally to women
as well as men who have been distinguished in virtue. The order of
songs and dances shall be as follows: There are many ancient musical
compositions and dances which are excellent, and from these the
newly-founded city may freely select what is proper and suitable; and
they shall choose judges of not less than fifty years of age, who shall
make the selection, and any of the old poems which they deem sufficient
they shall include; any that are deficient or altogether unsuitable,
they shall either utterly throw aside, or examine and amend, taking
into their counsel poets and musicians, and making use of their poetical
genius; but explaining to them the wishes of the legislator in order
that they may regulate dancing, music, and all choral strains, according
to the mind of the judges; and not allowing them to indulge, except
in some few matters, their individual pleasures and fancies. Now the
irregular strain of music is always made ten thousand times better by
attaining to law and order, and rejecting the honeyed Muse--not however
that we mean wholly to exclude pleasure, which is the characteristic
of all music. And if a man be brought up from childhood to the age of
discretion and maturity in the use of the orderly and severe music,
when he hears the opposite he detests it, and calls it illiberal; but
if trained in the sweet and vulgar music, he deems the severer kind cold
and displeasing. So that, as I was saying before, while he who hears
them gains no more pleasure from the one than from the other, the one
has the advantage of making those who are trained in it better men,
whereas the other makes them worse.

CLEINIAS: Very true.

ATHENIAN: Again, we must distinguish and determine on some general
principle what songs are suitable to women, and what to men, and must
assign to them their proper melodies and rhythms. It is shocking for a
whole harmony to be inharmonical, or for a rhythm to be unrhythmical,
and this will happen when the melody is inappropriate to them. And
therefore the legislator must assign to these also their forms. Now both
sexes have melodies and rhythms which of necessity belong to