We were wondering what the theatre was for.

DEXIMENES

Need it be for anything?

CALLISTOS

Everything is for something, isn’t it, Socrates?

DEXIMENES

What are you for?

MANTIAS

Need you ask?

SOCRATES

He is young and will have many uses!

ACASTOS

Deximenes says the theatre is false. Can one say that art is true or false?

MANTIAS

I’d rather say good or bad, that is, good or bad for us.

ACASTOS

But you’re assuming –

SOCRATES

Wait, wait, not so fast. This is a difficult question. Shall we try to sort it out?

DEXIMENES

You sort it out, Socrates, we’ll listen.

SOCRATES

Shall I ask questions and get someone to answer?

DEXIMENES

Who is to stop you, my dear?

SOCRATES

Who shall answer? Let us have the youngest, then if he makes mistakes he need not blush.

DEXIMENES

Who is the youngest?

MANTIAS

Callistos is.

CALLISTOS alarmed

No, no, Plato is younger.

SOCRATES

I think Plato is communing with a god and we should not interrupt him. You shall answer.

CALLISTOS

Well, all right, but please don’t be cross if–

DEXIMENES

Socrates is never cross.

SOCRATES

Dear child! Perhaps we should start by considering art in general, and then move from the general to the particular. Do you agree?

MANTIAS

Yes, yes, yes.

SOCRATES

We speak, don’t we, of ‘the arts’ as a family. But isn’t it odd that we should classify them together when they are so unlike? It seems that we can see a common quality. Shall we attempt a definition of art?

ACASTOS

Oh yes!

SOCRATES

Then later we can see whether it can be called true or false, or good or bad, or whether it has a use. This won’t be easy, I think. Now since you are the victim today, how would you define art?

CALLISTOS

Well, art is the Odyssey and the Agamemnon and the Antigone and the statue of Athena in the Parthenon and music and –

SOCRATES

Wait a moment, this list could go on for ever! These are examples of art. But what is the ‘artiness’ which makes all these different things art?

CALLISTOS

You mean all art, any art?

SOCRATES

Yes.

CALLISTOS

Well – art is copying.

MANTIAS

Why do you suddenly say that?

SOCRATES

What do you mean by copying?

CALLISTOS

I mean like – like paintings – or like imitations of men and animals like you see on the Acropolis. Art tries to be like what things are really like.

SOCRATES

And the best art is the most like?

CALLISTOS

Yes.

MANTIAS

You’re contradicting what you said just now –

SOCRATES

So is sculpture a better art than painting?

CALLISTOS

Well – er –

SOCRATES

Painters represent men in two dimensions whereas sculptors represent them in three dimensions.

DEXIMENES

Be brave!

CALLISTOS

Yes, that’s better – and the theatre is the best of all because the actors are real men imitating real men.

ACASTOS very fast