“And truly,” I said, “many other considerations assure me that we were entirely right in our organization of the state, and especially, I think, in the matter of poetry.1” “What about it?” he said. “In refusing to admit2 at all so much of it as is imitative3; for that it is certainly not to be received is, I think,
1 In Book III. On the whole question see Introd. Max. Tyr. Diss. 23Εἰ καλῶς Πλάτων Ὅμηρον τῆς Πολιτείας παρῃτήσατο, and 32ἔστι καθ᾽ Ὅμηρον αἵρεσις. Strabo i. 2 3. Athenaeus v. 12. 187 says that Plato himself in the Symposium wrote worse things than the poets whom he banishes. Friedländer, Platon, i. p. 138, thinks that the return to the poets in Book X. is intended to justify the poetry of Plato's dialogues. On the banishment of the poets and Homer cf. also Minucius Felix (Halm), pp. 32-33, Tertullian (Oehler), lib. ii. c. 7, Olympiodorus, Hermann vi. p. 367, Augustine, De civ. Dei, ii. xiv.
2 Supra 394 D, 568 B, and on 398 A-B, 607 A.
3 In the narrower sense. Cf. Vol. I. p. 224, note c, on 392 D, and What Plato Said, p. 561.
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