[397a]
“the other kind speaker, the more debased he is the less will he
shrink from imitating anything and everything. He will think nothing
unworthy of himself, so that he will attempt, seriously and in the presence
of many,1 to imitate all things, including those we just now
mentioned—claps of thunder, and the noise of wind and hail and
axles and pulleys, and the notes of trumpets and flutes and pan-pipes, and
the sounds of all instruments, and the cries of dogs, sheep, and birds; and
so his style will depend wholly on imitation
1 Cf. Gorgias 487 B, Euthydemus 305 B, Protagoras 323 B.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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