The Roles of Various Modes
Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in story-telling, and
our story shall be the education of our heroes.
By all means.
And what shall be their education? Can we find a better than the
traditional sort? -- and this has two divisions, gymnastic for the
body, and music for the soul.
…
We were saying, when we spoke of the subject-matter, that we had
no need of lamentations and strains of sorrow?
True.
And which are the harmonies expressive of sorrow? You are musical,
and can tell me.
The harmonies which you mean are the mixed or tenor Lydian, and
the full-toned or bass Lydian, and such like.
These then, I said, must be banished; even to women who have a character
to maintain they are of no use, and much less to men.
Certainly.
In the next place, drunkenness and softness and indolence are utterly
unbecoming the character of our guardians.
Utterly unbecoming.
And which are the soft or drinking harmonies?
The Ionian, he replied, and the Lydian; they are termed "relaxed."
Well, and are these of any military use?
Quite the reverse, he replied; and if so the Dorian and the Phrygian
are the only ones which you have left.
I answered: Of the harmonies I know nothing, but I want to have
one warlike, to sound the note or accent which a brave man utters
in the hour of danger and stern resolve, or when his cause is failing,
and he is going to wounds or death or is overtaken by some other
evil, and at every such crisis meets the blows of fortune with firm
step and a determination to endure; and another to be used by him
in times of peace and freedom of action, when there is no pressure
of necessity, and he is seeking to persuade God by prayer, or man
by instruction and admonition, or on the other hand, when he is
expressing his willingness to yield to persuasion or entreaty or
admonition, and which represents him when by prudent conduct he
has attained his end, not carried away by his success, but acting
moderately and wisely under the circumstances, and acquiescing in
the event. These two harmonies I ask you to leave; the strain of
necessity and the strain of freedom, the strain of the unfortunate
and the strain of the fortunate, the strain of courage, and the
strain of temperance; these, I say, leave.
And these, he replied, are the Dorian and Phrygian harmonies of
which I was just now speaking.
Then, I said, if these and these only are to be used in our songs
and melodies, we shall not want multiplicity of notes or a panharmonic
scale?
I suppose not.
Then we shall not maintain the artificers of lyres with three corners
and complex scales, or the makers of any other many-stringed curiously-harmonised
instruments?
Certainly not.
But what do you say to flute-makers and flute-players? Would you
admit them into our State when you reflect that in this composite
use of harmony the flute is worse than all the stringed instruments
put together; even the panharmonic music is only an imitation of
the flute?
Clearly not.
There remain then only the lyre and the harp for use in the city,
and the shepherds may have a pipe in the country.
That is surely the conclusion to be drawn from the argument.
The preferring of Apollo and his instruments to Marsyas and his
instruments is not at all strange, I said.
Not at all, he replied.
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