Full Idea
If you strip a poet's works of their musical colorings and take them by themselves, I think you know what they look like. …We say that a maker of an image - an imitator - knows nothing about that which is but only about its appearance.
Gist of Idea
Without the surface decoration, poetry shows only appearances and nothing of what is real
Source
Plato (The Republic [c.371 BCE], 601a)
Book Reference
Plato: 'Complete Works', ed/tr. Cooper,John M. [Hackett 1997], p.1205
A Reaction
Knowing the appearances well is more than most people can manage, and aspirations to know the true reality may be an idle dream. Poets are, I presume, welcome in the Cave.