Wrestling is to be pursued as a military exercise, but the meaning of this, and the nature of the art, can only be explained when action is combined with words.  Next follows dancing, which is of two kinds; imitative, first, of the serious and beautiful; and, secondly, of the ludicrous and grotesque.  The first kind may be further divided into the dance of war and the dance of peace.  The former is called the Pyrrhic; in this the movements of attack and defence are imitated in a direct and manly style, which indicates strength and sufficiency of body and mind.  The latter of the two, the dance of peace, is suitable to orderly and law-abiding men.  These must be distinguished from the Bacchic dances which imitate drunken revelry, and also from the dances by which purifications are effected and mysteries celebrated.  Such dances cannot be characterized either as warlike or peaceful, and are unsuited to a civilized state.  Now the dances of peace are of two classes:—­the first of them is the more violent, being an expression of joy and triumph after toil and danger; the other is more tranquil, symbolizing the continuance and preservation of good.  In speaking or singing we naturally move our bodies, and as we have more or less courage or self-control we become less or more violent and excited.  Thus from the imitation of words in gestures the art of dancing arises.  Now one man imitates in an orderly, another in a disorderly manner:  and so the peaceful kinds of dance have been appropriately called Emmeleiai, or dances of order, as the warlike have been called Pyrrhic.  In the latter a man imitates all sorts of blows and the hurling of weapons and the avoiding of them; in the former he learns to bear himself gracefully and like a gentleman.  The types of these dances are to be fixed by the legislator, and when the guardians of the law have assigned them to the several festivals, and consecrated them in due order, no further change shall be allowed.

Thus much of the dances which are appropriate to fair forms and noble souls.  Comedy, which is the opposite of them, remains to be considered.  For the serious implies the ludicrous, and opposites cannot be understood without opposites.  But a man of repute will desire to avoid doing what is ludicrous.  He should leave such performances to slaves,—­they are not fit for freemen; and there should be some element of novelty in them.  Concerning tragedy, let our law be as follows:  When the inspired poet comes to us with a request to be admitted into our state, we will reply in courteous words—­We also are tragedians and your rivals; and the drama which we enact is the best and noblest, being the imitation of the truest and noblest life, with a view to which our state is ordered.  And we cannot allow you to pitch your stage in the agora, and make your voices to be heard above ours, or suffer you to address our women and children and the common people on opposite principles to our own.  Come then, ye children of the Lydian Muse, and present yourselves first to the magistrates, and if they decide that your hymns are as good or better than ours, you shall have your chorus; but if not, not.