the bed?

I think, he said, that we may fairly designate him as the imitator of
that which the others make.

Good, I said; then you call him who is third in the descent from nature
an imitator?

Certainly, he said.

And the tragic poet is an imitator, and therefore, like all other
imitators, he is thrice removed from the king and from the truth?

That appears to be so.

Then about the imitator we are agreed. And what about the painter?-- I
would like to know whether he may be thought to imitate that which
originally exists in nature, or only the creations of artists?

The latter.

As they are or as they appear? You have still to determine this.

What do you mean?

I mean, that you may look at a bed from different points of view,
obliquely or directly or from any other point of view, and the bed will
appear different, but there is no difference in reality. And the same
of all things.

Yes, he said, the difference is only apparent.

Now let me ask you another question: Which is the art of painting
designed to be--an imitation of things as they are, or as they
appear--of appearance or of reality?

Of appearance.

Then the imitator, I said, is a long way off the truth, and can do all
things because he lightly touches on a small part of them, and that
part an image. For example: A painter will paint a cobbler,
carpenter, or any other artist, though he knows nothing of their arts;
and, if he is a good artist, he may deceive children or simple persons,
when he shows them his picture of a carpenter from a distance, and they
will fancy that they are looking at a real carpenter.

Certainly.

And whenever any one informs us that he has found a man knows all the
arts, and all things else that anybody knows, and every single thing
with a higher degree of accuracy than any other man--whoever tells us
this, I think that we can only imagine to be a simple creature who is
likely to have been deceived by some wizard or actor whom he met, and
whom he thought all-knowing, because he himself was unable to analyse
the nature of knowledge and ignorance and imitation.

Most true.

And so, when we hear persons saying that the tragedians, and Homer, who
is at their head, know all the arts and all things human, virtue as
well as vice, and divine things too, for that the good poet cannot
compose well unless he knows his subject, and that he who has not this
knowledge can never be a poet, we ought to consider whether