[606c]
“Most
true,” he said. “Does not the same principle apply to
the laughable,1 namely,that if in comic
representations,2 or for that matter in private talk,3 you take intense pleasure in
buffooneries that you would blush to practise yourself, and do not detest
them as base, you are doing the same thing as in the case of the pathetic?
For here again what your reason, for fear of the reputation of buffoonery,
restrained in yourself when it fain would play the clown, you release in
turn, and so, fostering its youthful impudence, let yourself go so far that
often ere you are aware you become yourself
1 Cf. Vol. I. p. 211, note f, La Bruyère, Des Ouvrages de l'esprit(Oeuvres, ed. M. G. Servois, i. p. 137): “D’où vient que l'on rit si librement au théâtre, et que l'on a honte d'y pleurer?”
2 In the Laws 816 D-E Plato says that the citizens must witness such performances since the serious cannot be learned without the laughable, nor anything without its opposite; but they may not take part in them. That is left to slaves and foreigners. Cf. also Vol. I. p. 239, note B, on 396 E.
3 I.e. as opposed to public performances. Cf. Euthydem. 305 Dἐν δὲ ἰδίοις λόγοις, Theaet. 177 B, Soph. 232 Cἔν γε ταῖς ἰδίαις συνουσίαις, and Soph. 222 Cπροσομιλητικήν with Quintil. iii. 4. 4. Wilamowitz, Antigonos von Karystos, p. 285, fantastically says that it means prose and refers to Sophron. He compares 366 E. But see Laws 935 B-C.
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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