Plays of children should be made a means of instruction, 4. 425 A; 7. 537 A [cp. Laws 1. 643 B].
Pleasure, not akin to virtue, 3. 402, 403; pleasure and love, ibid.; defined as knowledge or good, 6. 505 B, 509 B; the highest, 9. 583; caused by the cessation of pain, ib. D [cp. Phaedo 60 A; Phil. 51]; a motion of the soul, ib. E;
—real pleasure unknown to the tyrant, ib. 587;
—pleasure of learning, 6. 486 C (cp. 9. 581, 586, and Laws 2. 667);
—sensual pleasure, 7. 519; 9. 586; a solvent of the soul, 4. 430 A [cp. Laws 1. 633 E]; not desired by the philosopher, 6. 485 E:
—Pleasures, division of, into necessary and unnecessary, 8. 558, 559, 561 A; 9. 572, 581 E; honourable and dishonourable, 8. 561 C; three classes of, 9. 581; criterion of, ib. 582; classification of, ib. 583;
—pleasures of smell, ib. 584 B;
—pleasures of the many, 585; of the passionate, ib. 586; of the philosopher, ib. 586, 587.
Pluto, 8. 554 B.
Poetry, styles of, 3. 392–394, 398; in the state, ib. 392–394, 398; 8. 568 B; 10. 595 foll., 605 A, 607 A [cp. Laws 7. 817]; effect of, 10. 605; feeds the passions, ib. 606; poetry and philosophy, ib. 607 [cp. Laws 12. 967]:
—‘colours’ of poetry, ib. 601 A.
Poetry. [The Republic is the first of Plato’s works in which he seriously examines the value of poetry in education, and the place of the poets in the state. The question could hardly be neglected by the philosopher who proposed to construct an ideal polity or government of the best. For poetry played a great part in Hellenic life: the children learned whole poems by heart in their schools (Protag. 326 A; Laws 7. 810 C); the rhapsode delighted the crowds at the festivals (Ion 535); the theatres were free, or almost free, to all, ‘costing but a drachma at the most’ (Apol. 26 D); *the intervals