[595a]
Socrates
“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.
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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