Athenian:  The truth, Cleinias, may be expected to become clearer when, as we have often said, we arrive at the end of the whole discussion about laws.

Cleinias:  Yes.

Athenian:  And now that we have done with the teacher of letters, the teacher of the lyre has to receive orders from us.

Cleinias:  Certainly.

Athenian:  I think that we have only to recollect our previous discussions, and we shall be able to give suitable regulations touching all this part of instruction and education to the teachers of the lyre.

Cleinias:  To what do you refer?

Athenian:  We were saying, if I remember rightly, that the sixty years old choristers of Dionysus were to be specially quick in their perceptions of rhythm and musical composition, that they might be able to distinguish good and bad imitation, that is to say, the imitation of the good or bad soul when under the influence of passion, rejecting the one and displaying the other in hymns and songs, charming the souls of youth, and inviting them to follow and attain virtue by the way of imitation.

Cleinias:  Very true.

Athenian:  And with this view the teacher and the learner ought to use the sounds of the lyre, because its notes are pure, the player who teaches and his pupil rendering note for note in unison; but complexity, and variation of notes, when the strings give one sound and the poet or composer of the melody gives another—­also when they make concords and harmonies in which lesser and greater intervals, slow and quick, or high and low notes, are combined—­or, again, when they make complex variations of rhythms, which they adapt to the notes of the lyre—­all that sort of thing is not suited to those who have to acquire speedy and useful knowledge of music in three years; for opposite principles are confusing, and create a difficulty in learning, and our young men should learn quickly, and their mere necessary acquirements are not few or trifling, as will be shown in due course.  Let the director of education attend to the principles concerning music which we are laying down.  As to the songs and words themselves which the masters of choruses are to teach and the character of them, they have been already described by us, and are the same which, when consecrated and adapted to the different festivals, we said were to benefit cities by affording them an innocent amusement.

Cleinias:  That, again, is true.

Athenian:  Then let him who has been elected a director of music receive these rules from us as containing the very truth; and may he prosper in his office!  Let us now proceed to lay down other rules in addition to the preceding about dancing and gymnastic exercise in general.  Having said what remained to be said about the teaching of music, let us speak in like manner about gymnastic.  For boys and girls ought to learn to dance and practise gymnastic exercises—­ought they not?