"And the soul of the man thus attuned is sober and brave?" "Certainly." "And that of the ill adjusted is cowardiy and rude?" "It surely is."
"Now when a man abandons himself to music to play*Cf. 561 C. upon him and pour*Demetrius, Περὶ Ἑρμ. 51, quotes this and the following sentence as an example of the more vivid expression following the less vivid. For the image cf. Blaydes on Aristophanes Thesm. 18, Aeschylus Choeph. 451, Shakespeare, CymbelineIII. ii. 59 Love’s counsellor should fill the bores of hearing. into his soul as it were through the funnel of his ears those sweet, soft, and dirge-like airs of which we were just now*Cf. 398 D-E, where the θρηνώδεις ἁρμονίαι are rejected altogether, while here they are used to illustrate the softening effect of music on a hard temperament. It is misspent ingenuity to harp on such "contradictions." speaking, and gives his entire time to the warblings and blandishments of song, the first result is that the principle of high spirit, if he had it, is softened like iron*For images drawn from the tempering of metals cf. Aeschylus Agamemnon 612 and Jebb on Sophocles Ajax 650. and is made useful instead of useless and brittle. But when he continues*Cf. Theaetetus 165 E ἐπέχων καὶ οὐκ ἀνιείς, and Blaydes on Aristophanes Peace 1121. the practice without remission and is spellbound, the effect begins to be that he melts and liquefies*Cf. Tennyson’s Molten down in mere uxoriousness (Geraint and Enid ). till he completely dissolves away his spirit, cuts out as it were the very sinews of his soul and makes of himself a "feeble warrior."*A familiar Homeric reminiscence (Iliad xvii. 588) quoted also in Symposium 174 C. Cf. Froissart’s un mol chevalier." "Assuredly," he said. "And if," said I, "he has to begin with a spiritless*Etymologically ἄθυμος = deficient in θυμός. nature he reaches this result quickly, but if high-spirited, by weakening the spirit he makes it unstable, quickly irritated by slight stimuli, and as quickly quelled. The outcome is that such men are choleric and irascible instead of high-spirited, and are peevish and discontented." "Precisely so." "On the other hand, if a man toils hard at gymnastics and eats right lustily and holds no truck with music and philosophy, does he not at first get very fit and full of pride and high spirit and become more brave and bold than he was?" "He does indeed." "But what if he does nothing but this and has no contact with the Muse in any way, is not the result that even if there was some principle of the love of knowledge in his soul, since it tastes of no instruction nor of any inquiry and does not participate in any discussion or any other form of culture, it becomes feeble, deaf, and blind, because it is not aroused or fed nor are its perceptions purified and quickened?" "That is so," he said. "And so such a man, I take it, becomes a misologist*A hater of rational discussion, as explained in Laches 188 C, and the beautiful passage in the Phaedo 89 D ff. Cf. Minucius Felix, Octavius 14. 6 Igitur nobis providendum est ne odio identidem sermonum laboremus. John Morley describes obscurantists as sombre hierophants of misology. and stranger to the Muses. He no longer makes any use of persuasion by speech but achieves all his ends like a beast by violence and savagery, and in his brute ignorance and ineptitude lives a life of disharmony and gracelessness." "That is entirely true," he said.