So that, as I was saying before, while he who hears them gains no more pleasure from the one than from the other, the one has the advantage of making those who are trained in it better men, whereas the other makes them worse.
CLEINIAS: Very true.
ATHENIAN: Again, we must distinguish and determine on some general principle what songs are suitable to women, and what to men, and must assign to them their proper melodies and rhythms.

It is shocking for a whole harmony to be inharmonical, or for a rhythm to be unrhythmical, and this will happen when the melody is inappropriate to them.

And therefore the legislator must assign to these also their forms.

Now both sexes have melodies and rhythms which of necessity belong to them; and those of women are clearly enough indicated by their natural difference.
The grand, and that which tends to courage, may be fairly called manly; but that which inclines to moderation and temperance, may be declared both in law and in ordinary speech to be the more womanly quality.

This, then, will be the general order of them.
Let us now speak of the manner of teaching and imparting them, and the persons to whom, and the time when, they are severally to be imparted.
As the shipwright first lays down the lines of the keel, and thus, as it were, draws the ship in outline, so do I seek to distinguish the patterns of life, and lay down their keels according to the nature of different men's souls; seeking truly to consider by what means, and in what ways, we may go through the voyage of life best.