80
Now that I have spoken of the strong points of dancers, let me tell you also of their defects. Those of the body, to be sure, I have already set forth; those of the mind I think you will be able to note with this explanation. Many of them, through ignorance—for it is impossible that they should all be clever—exhibit dreadful solecisms, so to speak, in their dancing. Some of them make senseless movements that have nothing to do with the harpstring, as the saying goes; for the foot says one thing and the music another. Others suit their movements to the music, but bring in their themes too late or too soon, as in a case which I remember to have seen one time. A dancer who was presenting the birth of Zeus, with Cronus eating his children, went off into presenting the misfortunes of Thyestes because the similarity led him astray. And another, trying to enact Semele stricken by the thunderbolt, assimilated her to Glauce, who was of a later generation.The reason for confusing the two parts lay in the. fact that both were burned to death, since Glauce perished by the poisoned robe which Medea sent her. But we should not condemn the dance itself, I take it, or find fault with the activity itself on account of such dancers; we should consider them ignorant, as indeed they are, and should praise those who do everything satisfactorily, in accordance with the regulations and the rhythm of the art.Compare Astrology 2, where the same argument (borrowed from Plato’s Gorgias, 456 p-457 E) is employed in defence of astrology.
