Plato

Imitation or real.

Book III 393-396

-Then if I understand your meaning, there is one form of diction and narration which would be

used by the truly noble and good man when he needed to say anything, and another different

form which a man of the opposite nature and breeding would find congenial, and which he

would use.

'What are these?' he said.

'The man of measured character in the first place, when he came in his narration to the speech

or action of a good man, would, I think, wish to speak in the good man's person, and would

not be ashamed of that kind of imitation.

-And so his manner of speech will all involve imitation of voice and form, with possibly a

little simple narration.

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