actors

Soc. O that we were wise, Ion, and that you could truly call us so ; but you rhapsodes and ACTORS, and the poets whose verses you sing, are wise ; whereas I am a common man, who only speak the truth. For consider what a very commonplace and trivial thing is this which I have said — a thing which any man might say : that when a man has acquired a knowledge of a whole art, the enquiry into good and bad is one and the same. Let us consider this matter ; is not the art of painting a whole ? ION

I should be strangely forgetful, Agathon, replied Socrates, of the courage and magnanimity which you showed when your own compositions were about to be exhibited, and you came upon the stage with the ACTORS and faced the vast theatre altogether undismayed, if I thought that your nerves could be fluttered at a small party of friends. SYMPOSIUM

Crit. I will tell an old-world story which I heard from an aged man ; for Critias, at the time of telling it, was as he said, nearly ninety years of age, and I was about ten. Now the day was that day of the Apaturia which is called the Registration of Youth, at which, according to custom, our parents gave prizes for recitations, and the poems of several poets were recited by us boys, and many of us sang the poems of Solon, which at that time had not gone out of fashion. One of our tribe, either because he thought so or to please Critias, said that in his judgment Solon was not only the wisest of men, but also the noblest of poets. The old man, as I very well remember, brightened up at hearing this and said, smiling : “Yes, Amynander, if Solon had only, like other poets, made poetry the business of his life, and had completed the tale which he brought with him from Egypt, and had not been compelled, by reason of the factions and troubles which he found stirring in his own country when he came home, to attend to other matters, in my opinion he would have been as famous as Homer or Hesiod, or any poet.” “And what was the tale about, Critias ?” said Amynander. “About the greatest action which the Athenians ever did, and which ought to have been the most famous, but, through the lapse of time and the destruction of the ACTORS, it has not come down to us.” “Tell us, said the other, the whole story, and how and from whom Solon heard this veritable tradition.” TIMAEUS

Ath. And every one will admit that musical compositions are all imitative and representative. Will not poets and spectators and ACTORS all agree in this ? LAWS BOOK II

I have described the dances which are appropriate to noble bodies and generous souls. But it is necessary also to consider and know uncomely persons and thoughts, and those which are intended to produce laughter in comedy, and have a comic character in respect of style, song, and dance, and of the imitations which these afford. For serious things cannot be understood without laughable things, nor opposites at all without opposites, if a man is really to have intelligence of either ; but he can not carry out both in action, if he is to have any degree of virtue. And for this very reason he should learn them both, in order that he may not in ignorance do or say anything which is ridiculous and out of place — he should command slaves and hired strangers to imitate such things, but he should never take any serious interest in them himself, nor should any freeman or freewoman be discovered taking pains to learn them ; and there should always be some element of novelty in the imitation. Let these then be laid down, both in law and in our discourse, as the regulations of laughable amusements which are generally called comedy. And, if any of the serious poets, as they are termed, who write tragedy, come to us and say — “O strangers, may we go to your city and country or may we not, and shall we bring with us our poetry — what is your will about these matters ?” — how shall we answer the divine men ? I think that our answer should be as follows : — Best of strangers, we will say to them, we also according to our ability are tragic poets, and our tragedy is the best and noblest ; for our whole state is an imitation of the best and noblest life, which we affirm to be indeed the very truth of tragedy. You are poets and we are poets, both makers of the same strains, rivals and antagonists in the noblest of dramas, which true law can alone perfect, as our hope is. Do not then suppose that we shall all in a moment allow you to erect your stage in the agora, or introduce the fair voices of your ACTORS, speaking above our own, and permit you to harangue our women and children, and the common people, about our institutions, in language other than our own, and very often the opposite of our own. For a state would be mad which gave you this licence, until the magistrates had determined whether your poetry might be recited, and was fit for publication or not. Wherefore, O ye sons and scions of the softer Muses, first of all show your songs to the magistrates, and let them compare them with our own, and if they are the same or better we will give you a chorus ; but if not, then, my friends, we cannot. Let these, then, be the customs ordained by law about all dances and the teaching of them, and let matters relating to slaves be separated from those relating to masters, if you do not object. LAWS BOOK VII

Then we must enlarge our borders ; for the original healthy State is no longer sufficient. Now will the city have to fill and swell with a multitude of callings which are not required by any natural want ; such as the whole tribe of hunters and ACTORS, of whom one large class have to do with forms and colors ; another will be the votaries of music — poets and their attendant train of rhapsodists, players, dancers, contrACTORS ; also makers of divers kinds of articles, including women’s dresses. And we shall want more servants. Will not tutors be also in request, and nurses wet and dry, tirewomen and barbers, as well as confectioners and cooks ; and swineherds, too, who were not needed and therefore had no place in the former edition of our State, but are needed now ? They must not be forgotten : and there will be animals of many other kinds, if people eat them. THE REPUBLIC BOOK II

Any more than they can be rhapsodists and ACTORS at once ? THE REPUBLIC BOOK III

Neither are comic and tragic ACTORS the same ; yet all these things are but imitations. THE REPUBLIC BOOK III