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Then let us now finish the purgation, I said. Next in order to

harmonies, rhythms will naturally follow, and they should be

subject to the same rules, for we ought not to seek out complex

systems of metre, or metres of every kind, but rather to discover

what rhythms are the expressions of a courageous and harmonious

life; and when we have found them, we shall adapt the foot and

the melody to words having a like spirit, not the words to the

foot and melody. To say what these rhythms are will be your

duty-you must teach me them, as you have already taught me the

harmonies.

But, indeed, he replied, I cannot tell you. I only know that

there are some three principles of rhythm out of which metrical

systems are framed, just as in sounds there are four notes (i.e.

the four notes of the tetrachord.) out of which all the harmonies

are composed; that is an observation which I have made. But of

what sort of lives they are severally the imitations I am unable

to say.