A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

288 Greek Life and Thought
have it in your power to requite by kindness the wellbehaved
whose presence is a blessing to your house; oi
maybe to chasten the bad character, should such an one
The reward, appear. But the greatest joy of all will be to prove yourself
my better; to make me your faithful follower; knowing
no dread lest as the years advance you should decline in
honor in your household, but rather trusting that, though
your hair turn gray, yet in proportion as you come to be a
better helpmate to myself and to the children, a better
guardian of our home, so will your honor increase throughout
the household as mistress, wife, and mother, daily
more dearly prized. Since," I added, "it is not through
excellence of outward form, but by reason of the lustre
of virtues shed forth upon the life of man, that increase
is given to things beautiful and good."
II. The Decline in Music and its Demoralizing
Effects
Formerly law Athenian. Under the ancient laws, my friends, the
Plato,^Laz..,
HI. 700.
people was not as now the master, but rather the wiUing
servant of the laws.
Megillus. What laws do you mean?
Ath. In the first place let us speak of the laws about
music,—that is to say, such music as then existed,—in
order that we may trace the growth of the excess of freedom
from the beginning. Now music was early divided
among us into certain kinds and manners. One sort consisted
of prayers to the Gods, which were called hymns;
and there was another and opposite sort called lamentations,
and another termed pseans, and another celebrating
the birth of Dionysus, called, I believe, "dithyrambs."
And they used the actual word "laws" (i^o/xot) for another
kind of song; and to this they added the term