[314] Plato, Republic, x. p. 597 A. οὐκ ἂν τὸ ὂν ποιοῖ, ἀλλά τι τοιοῦτον οἷον τὸ ὄν, ὂν δὲ οὔ.
[315] Plato, Republic, x. p. 598 B-C.
Censure of Homer — He is falsely extolled as educator of the Hellenic world. He and other poets only deceive their hearers.
The like is true also of the poets. Homer and the tragedians give us talk and affirmations about everything: government, legislation, war, medicine, husbandry, the character and proceedings of the Gods, the habits and training of men, &c. Some persons even extol Homer as the great educator of the Hellenic world, whose poems we ought to learn by heart as guides for education and administration.[316] But Homer, Hesiod, and the other poets, had no real knowledge of the multifarious matters which they profess to describe. These poets know nothing except about appearances, and will describe only appearances, to the satisfaction of the ignorant multitude.[317] The representations of the painter, reproducing only the appearances to sense, will be constantly fallacious and deceptive, requiring to be corrected by measuring, weighing, counting — which are processes belonging to Reason.[318] The lower and the higher parts of the mind are here at variance; and the painter addresses himself to the lower, supplying falsehood as if it were truth. The painter does this through the eye, the poet through the ear.[319]
[316] Plato, Republic, p. 606 E.
[317] Plato, Republic, x. pp. 600-601 C. 601 B: τοῦ μὲν ὄντος οὐδὲν ἐπαΐει, τοῦ δὲ φαινομένου. 602 B: οἷον φαίνεται καλὸν εἶναι τοῖς πολλοῖς τε καὶ μηδὲν εἰδόσι, τοῦτο μιμήσεται.
[318] Plato, Republic, x. pp. 602-603.
[319] Plato, Republic, x. p. 603 B.
The poet chiefly appeals to emotions — Mischiefs of such eloquent appeals, as disturbing the rational government of the mind.
In the various acts and situations of life a man is full of contradictions. He is swayed by manifold impulses, often directly contradicting each other. Hence we have affirmed that there are in his mind two distinct principles, one contradicting the other: the emotional and the rational.[320] When a man suffers misfortune, emotion prompts him to indulge in extreme grief, and to abandon himself like a child to the momentary tide. Reason, on the contrary, exhorts him to resist, and to exert himself immediately in counsel to rectify or alleviate what has happened, adapting his conduct as well as he can to the actual throw of the dice which has befallen him.[321] Now it is these vehement bursts of emotion which lend themselves most effectively to the genius of the poet, and which he must work up to please the multitude in the theatre: the state of rational self-command can hardly be described so as to touch their feelings. We see thus that the poet, like the painter, addresses himself to the lower department of the mind, exalting the emotional into preponderance over the rational — the foolish over the wise — the false over the true.[322] He introduces bad government into the mind, giving to pleasure and pain the sceptre over reason. Hence we cannot tolerate the poet, in spite of all his sweets and captivations. We can only permit him to compose hymns for the Gods and encomiums for good men.[323]