Phaedrus
Phaedrus. They also, I fancy, Socrates, would laugh at him, if he imagined that tragedy was anything else than the proper combination of these details in such a way that they harmonize with each other and with the whole composition.
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Socrates
Socrates. But they would not, I suppose, rebuke him harshly, but they would behave as a musician would, if he met a man who thought he understood harmony because he could strike the highest and lowest notes. He would not say roughly, You wretch, you are mad, but being a musician, he would say in gentler tones, My friend, he who is to be a harmonist must know these things you mention, but nothing prevents one who is at your stage of knowledge from being quite ignorant of harmony. You know the necessary preliminaries of harmony, but not harmony itself.
Socrates
Socrates. So Sophocles would say that the man exhibited the preliminaries of tragedy, not tragedy itself, and Acumenus that he knew the preliminaries of medicine, not medicine itself.
