Socrates believed certain sorts of poetry and music would educate boys into living highly ethical lives while other kinds could encourage corrupt lives. In exploring appropriate poetic and musical patterns, Socrates determines the only appropriate subjects for poetry and music to be strictly educational in order to teach the guardians exemplary virtues. In music, a rhythm should stress moderation and self control and in poetry neither god nor man should display evil characteristics. .
Socrates sees a need for the censorship of great pieces of poetry. He challenges the truth and usefulness of Homer's works to his future Guardians. He has many fears of the possible implications of studying such pieces. He fears that the description of Hades and grief of Zeus after finding out Sarpedon is fated to be killed by Patroclus will make the warriors soft and not self-sufficient(387a-b). He also fears the influence of these works will result in the future warriors losing self control (390b), becoming greedy, slavish, and arrogant (391b), suffering from violent mood changes (388b), and using falsehoods (389b). He seems to worry particularly that these characteristics will be a result of young people believing that the "gods bring about evil or that heroes are no better than humans,"(391e). By censoring these works Socrates believes that he will be able to show the future guardians the great attributes of heroes for them to imitate without showing them he heroes and gods in morally questionable or unvirtuos situations. .
There are three approaches to story-telling narrative alone, narrative through imitation or both (392d). Socrates favours narration alone because it requires the least amount of variations because "each individual would do a fine job of one occupation, not of many,"(394e), which in turn means that "a single individual cannot imitate many things as well as he can one,"(394e) and thus he will be better at what he does by concentrating on his narration and not imitations.
