[607a]
we
must love1
and salute them as doing the best they can,2 and concede to them that Homer is the most poetic3 of poets and
the first of tragedians,4 but we must know the truth, that we can admit no poetry into our
city save only hymns to the gods and the praises of good men.5 For if you grant admission to the honeyed muse6 in
lyric or epic, pleasure and pain will be lords of your city instead of law
and that which shall from time to time have approved itself to the general
reason as the best.” “Most true,” he said.
1 For the μέν Cf. Symp. 180 E, Herod. vii. 102.
2 The condescending tone is that of Euthydem. 306 C-D.
3 Aristotle, Poet. 1453 a 29, says that Euripides is τραγικώτατος of poets.
4 Cf. 605 C, 595 B-C.
5 Cf. Laws 801 D-E, 829 C-D, 397 C-D, 459 E, 468 D, Friedländer, Platon, i. p. 142, and my review of Pater, Plato and Platonism, in The Dial, 14 (1893) p. 211.
6 Cf. Laws 802 Cτῆς γλυκείας Μούσης. See Finsler, Platon u. d. aristot. Poetik, pp. 61-62.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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