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1340a]
[1]
yet the nature of music is more honorable than corresponds with
the employment of it mentioned, and it is proper not only to participate in the
common pleasure that springs from it, which is perceptible to everybody
(for the pleasure contained in music is of a natural kind, owing to
which the use of it is dear to those of all ages and characters), but
to see if its influence reaches also in a manner to the character and to the
soul. And this would clearly be the case if we are affected in our characters in
a certain manner by it. But it is
clear that we are affected in a certain manner, both by many other kinds of
music and not least by the melodies of
Olympus1; for these admittedly make our souls
enthusiastic, and enthusiasm is an affection of the character of the soul. And
moreover everybody when listening to imitations
2 is thrown into a corresponding state of feeling, even apart
from the rhythms and tunes themselves.
3 And since it is the
case that music is one of the things that give pleasure, and that virtue has to
do with feeling delight and love and hatred rightly, there is obviously nothing
that it is more needful to learn and become habituated to than to judge
correctly and to delight in virtuous characters and noble actions; but rhythms and melodies contain
representations of anger
[20]
and mildness,
and also of courage and temperance and all their opposites and the other moral
qualities, that most closely correspond to the true natures of these qualities
(and this is clear from the facts of what occurs—when we
listen to such representations we change in our soul); and habituation
in feeling pain and delight at representations of reality is close to feeling
them towards actual reality (for example, if a man delights in
beholding the statue of somebody for no other reason than because of its actual
form, the actual sight of the person whose statue he beholds must also of
necessity give him pleasure); and it is the case that whereas the other objects of
sensation contain no representation of character, for example the objects of
touch and taste (though the objects of sight do so slightly, for there
are forms that represent character, but only to a small extent, and not
4 all men participate in visual perception of such
qualities; also visual works of art are not representations of character but
rather the forms and colors produced are mere indications of character, and
these indications are only bodily sensations during the emotions; not but what
in so far as there is a difference even in regard to the observation of these
indications,
5 the young must
not look at the works of Pauson but those of Polygnotus,
6 and of any other moral painter or
sculptor), pieces of music
on the contrary do actually contain in them selves imitations of character; and
this is manifest, for even in the nature of the mere melodies there are
differences, so that people when hearing them are affected differently and have
not the same feelings in regard to each of them, but listen to some in a more
mournful and restrained state,