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Then the same person will hardly be able to play a serious part

in life, and at the same time to be an imitator and imitate many

other parts as well; for even when two species of imitation are

nearly allied, the same persons cannot succeed in both, as, for

example, the writers of tragedy and comedy-did you not just now

call them imitations?

Yes, I did; and you are right in thinking that the same persons

cannot succeed in both.

Any more than they can be rhapsodists and actors at once?

True.

Neither are comic and tragic actors the same; yet all these

things are but imitations.

They are so.

And human nature, Adeimantus, appears to have been coined into

yet smaller pieces, and to be as incapable of imitating many

things well, as of performing well the actions of which the

imitations are copies.

Quite true, he replied.