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[424c] lest haply1 it be supposed that the poet means not new songs but a new way of song2 and is commending this. But we must not praise that sort of thing nor conceive it to be the poet's meaning. For a change to a new type of music is something to beware of as a hazard of all our fortunes. For the modes of music3 are never disturbed without unsettling of the most fundamental political and social conventions, as Damon affirms and as I am convinced.4” “Set me too down in the number of the convinced,” said Adeimantus.

1 Cf. Stallbaum on Phaedrus 238 D-E, Forman, Plato Selections, p. 457.

2 The meaning of the similar phrase in Pindar, Ol. iii. 4 is different.

3 μουσικῆς τρόποι need not be so technical as it is in later Greek writers on music, who, however, were greatly influenced by Plato. For the ethical and social power of music cf. Introduction p. xiv note c, and 401 D-404 A, also Laws 700 D-E, 701 A.

4 Cf. Protagoras 316 A, Julian 150 B.

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