[606d]
a comedian in private.” “Yes,
indeed,” he said. “And so in regard to the emotions of
sex and anger, and all the appetites and pains and pleasures of the soul
which we say accompany all our actions,1 the effect of poetic imitation is the same. For it
waters2 and fosters
these feelings when what we ought to do is to dry them up, and it
establishes them as our rulers when they ought to be ruled, to the end that
we may be better and happier men instead of worse and more
miserable.” “I cannot deny it,” said he.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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