Phaedrus — Plato
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
p. 236And when a beautiful soul harmonizes with a beautiful form, and the two are cast in one mould, that will be the fairest of sights to him who has the eye to contemplate the vision ? The fairest indeed. And the fairest are also the loveliest ? That may be assumed.
And the man who has music in his soul will be most in love with the loveliest ; but if they are inharmonious in soul he ^ will not love them ? ^ That is true, he replied, if the deformity be in the soul, but any merely personal defect hS will be willing to regard with complacency. ^ Thus much then is said of music which makes a fair ending, for what should be the end of music if not the love of ^ beauty ? I agree, he said.
After music comes gymnastic,'' in which our youth are next to be trained. Certainly. And gymnastic as well as music should receive careful at- Iteiition in childhood, and continue through life. Now my belief is, — and this is a matter upon which I should like to have your opinion, but my own belief is, — not that the good body improves the soul, but that the good soul improves the ^body. What do you say ? Yes, I agree.
Then, if we have educated the mind, the minuter care of the body may properly be committed to the mind, and we need only indicate general principles for brevity's sake. » •' According to the scheme of studies in Book VII., the gymnastic training was to be pursued by itself from the age of seventeen or eighteen to twenty.
This provision probably indicated the nature of the training in question, for these were the years in which a young Athenian discharged military or patrol duty within the borders of Attica as a foretaste of the full military '^ service which was one great aspect of citizen life.
Thus we are not here to think merely of ' gymnastics ' with ropes and bars or of ' athletic sports,' but also of drill, riding, hunthig, the practice of arms, and some limited share in actual campaigning." — Bosanquet, p. no. Bosanquet quotes Aristotle's Politics as criticising the current methods of gymnastic training. Some of the States he says gave a physical training fit rather for professional athletes than for future citizens. The Spartans trained men to be fierce, wild, and wolf-like, supposing mistakenly that this temper went with courage.
THE REPUBLIC 23/ Very good. That they must abstain from intoxication has been already remarked by us, for ot all persons a guardian should be the last to get drunk and not know where in the world he is. Yes, he said ; that a guardian should require another to guard him is ridiculous indeed. But next, what shall we say of their fgy^ > ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^e athletes in the great contest of all, are they not ? Yes, he said.
And will gymnastic exercises be a suitable training for them ? ^^^ I cannot say. I am afraid, I said, that such exercise is but a sleepy sort of thing, and rather perilous to health. Do you not observe that athletes sleep away their lives, and are liable to most dangerous illnesses if they depart, in ever so slight a degree, from their customary regimen ? Yes, I observe that.
Then, I said, a finer sort of training will be required for our warrior athletes, who are to be like wakeful dogs, and to see and hear with the utmost keenness ; they will have to endure many changes of water and also of food, of summer heat and winter cold, and yet they must not be liable to break down in health. That is quite my view, he said. The really excellent gymnastic is twin sister of that simple music which we were just now describing.
How is that ? Why, I conceive that there is a gymnastic also which is simple and good ; and that such ought to be the military fi;ymn^stic. What do you mean?
My meaning may be learned from Homer ; he, you know, feeds his heroes when they are campaigning on soldiers* fare ; they have no fish, although they are on the shores of the Hellespont, and they are allowed nothing but roast meat — which only requires fire, and is therefore the most convenient diet for soldiers — and not boiled, as this would involve a carrying about of pots and pans. True. And I can hardly be mistaken in saying that sweet sauces are not even mentioned by him.
In this, however, he is not singular, as all professional athletes know that a man who is to be in good condition should take nothing of that sort. |[The effects of luxurious living upon thebody may be likened to the effects of complex music upon the soul.] There complexity engendered license, and here disease; whereas simplicity in music was the parent of temperance in the soul, and simplicity in gymnastic, of health in the body.
Most true, he said. [But when intemperance and diseases multiply in a State, halls of justice and medicine are always being opened; and the J arts of the doctor and the lawyer begin to give them- ^06* ^^^^^ ^^^' finding how keen is the interest which the ^ very freemen of a city take about them. /Most true. *Xnd yet what greater proof can there be of a bad and dis- ^graceful state of education than this, that not only the meaner [classes and the artisans are in need of the high skill of physi- Icians and judges, but also those who would tell us that they Ihave had a liberal education?
Is not this disgraceful, and a Igreat sign of the want of education, that a man should have to (go abroad for his law and ph}'sic because he has none of his own at home, and must therefore surrender himself into the hands of others ? Nothing, he said, can be more disgraceful.
Would you say that, I replied, when you consider that there is a further stage of the evil in which a man is not only a lifelong litigant, passing his days always in the courts either as plaintiff or defendant, but is led by his bad taste even to pride himself on this; he is ready to fancy that he is a master in cunning ; and he will take every crooked turn and wriggle into and out of every hole, bending-like a withy and getting away, and all for what ? in order that he may gain small points not worth mentioning, not knowing that so to order his life as to be able to do without a nodding judge is a far higher and nobler sort of thing.
Is not that still more disgraceful ? Yes, he said, that is still more disgraceful. Well, I said, and to require the help of medicine, not when a wound has to be cured, or on occasion of an epidemic, but
No commentary for this page under the selected tracks.
There is commentary on page 1.