Simmias agreed, and added that he
himself could hardly imagine the possibility of his ever thinking
differently about that.
But, rejoined Socrates, you will have to think differently, my
Theban friend, if you still maintain that harmony is a compound, and
that the soul is a harmony which is made out of strings set in the
frame of the body; for you will surely never allow yourself to say
that a harmony is prior to the elements which compose the harmony.
No, Socrates, that is impossible.
But do you not see that you are saying this when you say that the
soul existed before she took the form and body of man, and was made up
of elements which as yet had no existence? For harmony is not a sort
of thing like the soul, as you suppose; but first the lyre, and the
strings, and the sounds exist in a state of discord, and then
harmony is made last of all, and perishes first. And how can such a
notion of the soul as this agree with the other?
Not at all, replied Simmias.
And yet, he said, there surely ought to be harmony when harmony is
the theme of discourse.
There ought, replied Simmias.
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