Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

Hesiod was once entertained at the same house in Locris with a certain Milesian. In this his sojourning time it happened the gentleman’s daughter was got with child by the Milesian; which being discovered, the whole family concluded Hesiod, if not guilty, must be privy to the fact. His innocence was but a weak fence against their jealousy and aspersions; and therefore, rashly censuring him guilty, the brothers of the woman waylaid him in his return home, and slew him and his companion Troilus near the temple of Nemean Jove in Locris. Their carcasses they threw into the sea; that of Troilus was carried into the river Daphnus, and rested upon a certain rock compassed with waters, just above the surface of the sea, which rock bears his name to this day. The body of Hesiod was no sooner fallen upon the surface of the water, but a company of dolphins received it, and conveyed it to Rhium and Molycria. It happened the Locrians were assembled at Rhium that day to feast and make merry, according to the custom which continues still among them. As soon as they perceived a carcass floating or rather swimming towards them, they hastened, not without admiration, to see what it was; and knowing the body to be Hesiod’s, they instantly resolved to find out the murderers. It proved an easy discovery. After conviction they threw them headlong alive into the sea, and ordered their houses to be demolished to the very foundations. The body they buried in the grove of the temple of Jove, that no foreigner might find it out; the reason of this act was that the Orchomenians had searched far and near for it at the instigation of the oracle, who promised them the greatest felicity if they could get the bones of Hesiod and bury them in their city. Now if dolphins are so favorable to dead men, it is very probable they have a strong affection for the living, especially for such as delight in music, whether vocal or instrumental. And this we know undoubtedly, that these creatures delight infinitely in music; they love it, and if any man sings or plays as he sails along in fair weather, they will quietly swim by the side of the ship, and listen till the music is ended. When children bathe in the water and sport themselves, you shall have a parcel of them flock together and sport and swim by them; and they may do it the more securely, since it is a breach of the law of Nature to hurt them. You never heard of any man that fishes for them purposely or hurts them wilfully, unless falling into the nets they spoil the sport, and so, like naughty children, are corrected for their misdemeanors. I very well remember the Lesbians told me how a maid of their town was preserved from drowning by them.

20. It was a very true story, quoth Pittacus, and there are divers still alive who will attest it, if need be. The builders or founders of Lesbos were commanded by the oracle to sail till they came to a haven called Mesogaeum, there they should sacrifice a bull to Neptune, and for the honor of Amphitrite and the sea-nymphs they should offer a virgin. The principal persons in this colony were seven in number; the eighth was one Echelaus by name, and appointed head of the rest by the oracle himself; and he was a bachelor. A daughter of one of these seven was to be sacrificed, but who it should be was to be decided by lot, and the lot fell upon Smintheus’s sister. Her they dressed most richly, and so apparelled they conveyed her in abundance of state to the water-side, and having composed a prayer for her, they were now ready to throw her overboard. There was in the company a certain ingenuous young gentleman whose name was Enalus; he was desperately in love with this young lady, and his love prompted him to endeavor all he could for her preservation, or at least to perish in the attempt. In the very moment she was to be cast away, he clasps her in his arms and throws himself and her together into the sea. Shortly after there was a flying report they were both conveyed safe to land. A while after Enalus was seen at Lesbos, who gave out they were preserved by dolphins. I could tell you stories more incredible than these, such as would amuse some and please others; but it is impossible to command men’s faith. The sea was so tempestuous and rough, the people were afraid to come too near the waters, when Enalus arrived. A number of polypuses followed him even to Neptune’s temple, the biggest and strongest of which carried a great stone. This Enalus dedicated, and this stone is therefore called Enalus to this day. To be short and to speak all in a few words,—he that knows how to distinguish between the impossible and the unusual, to make a difference between the unlikely and the absurd, to be neither too credulous nor too distrustful,—he hath learned your lesson, Do not overdo.[7]

21. Anacharsis after all this discourse spake to this purpose: Since Thales has asserted the being of a soul in all the principal and most noble parts of the universe, it is no wonder that the most commendable acts are governed by an over-ruling Power; for, as the body is the organ of the soul, so the soul is an instrument in the hand of God. Now as the body has many motions of its own proceeding from itself, but the best and most from the soul, so the soul acts some things by its own power, but in most things it is subordinate to the will and power of God, whose glorious instrument it is. To me it seems highly unreasonable—and I should be but too apt to censure the wisdom of the Gods, if I were convinced—that they use fire, and water, and wind, and clouds, and rain for the preservation and welfare of some and for the detriment and destruction of others, while at the same time they make no use of living creatures that are doubtless more serviceable to their ends than bows are to the Scythians or harps or pipes to the Greeks.

Chersias the poet broke off this discourse, and told the company of divers that were miraculously preserved to his certain knowledge, and more particularly of Cypselus, Periander’s father, who being newly born, his adversary sent a party of bloody fellows to murder him. They found the child in his nurse’s arms, and seeing him smile innocently upon them, they had not the heart to hurt him, and so departed; but presently recalling themselves and considering the peremptoriness of their orders, they returned and searched for him, but could not find him, for his mother had hid him very carefully in a chest.[8] When he came to years of discretion, and understood the greatness of his former danger and deliverance, he consecrated a chapel at Delphi to Apollo, by whose care he conceived himself preserved from crying in that critical time, and by his cries from betraying his own life. Pittacus, addressing his discourse to Periander, said: It is well done of Chersias to make mention of that chapel, for this brings to my mind a question I several times purposed to ask you but still forgot, namely,—To what intent all those frogs were carved upon the palm-tree before the door, and how they affect either the Deity or the dedicator? Periander remitted him to Chersias for answer, as a person better versed in these matters, for he was present when Cypselus consecrated the chapel. But Chersias smiling would not satisfy them, until they resolved him the meaning of these aphorisms; “Do not overdo,” “Know thyself,” but particularly and principally this,—which had scared divers from wedlock and others from suretyship and others from speaking at all,—“Promise, and you are ruined.” What need we to explain to you these, when you yourself have so mightily magnified Esop’s comment upon each of them. Esop replied: When Chersias is disposed to jest with me upon these subjects, and to jest in earnest, he is pleased to father such sayings and sentences upon Homer, who, bringing in Hector furiously flying upon others, yet at another time represents him as flying from Ajax son of Telamon,[9]—an argument that Hector knew himself. And Homer made Ulysses approve the saying “Do not overdo,” when he besought his friend Diomedes not to commend him too much nor yet to censure him too much. And for suretyship he exposes it as a matter unsafe, nay highly dangerous, saying that to be bound for idle and wicked men is full of hazard.[10] To confirm this, Chersias reported how Jupiter had thrown Ate headlong out of heaven, because she was by when he made the promise about the birth of Hercules whereby he was circumvented.

Here Solon interrupted: I am of this mind, that we now give ear to the most wise Homer,—

But now the night extends her awful shade:
The Goddess parts you: be the night obeyed.[11]

If it please the company then, let us sacrifice to the Muses, to Neptune, and to Amphitrite, and so bid each adieu for this night.

This was the conclusion of that meeting, my dear Nicarchus.

HOW A YOUNG MAN OUGHT TO HEAR POEMS.

1. It may be allowed to be a question fit for the determination of those concerning whom Cato said, Their palates are more sensitive than their hearts, whether that saying of Philoxenus the poet be true or no. The most savory flesh is that which is no flesh, and fish that is no fish. Yet this to me, Marcus Sedatus, is out of question, that those precepts of philosophy which seem not to be delivered with a designed gravity, such as becomes philosophers, take most with persons that are very young, and meet with a more ready acceptance and compliance from them. Whence it is that they do not only read through Esop’s fables and the fictions of poets and the Abaris of Heraclides and Ariston’s Lyco; but they also read such doctrines as relate to the souls of men, if something fabulous be mixed with them, with an excess of pleasure that borders on enthusiasm. Wherefore we are not only to govern their appetites in the delights of eating and drinking, but also (and much more) to inure them to a like temperance in reading and hearing, that, while they make use of pleasure as a sauce, they may pursue that which is wholesome and profitable in those things which they read. For neither can a city be secure if but one gate be left open to receive the enemy, though all the rest be shut; nor a young man safe, though he be sufficiently fortified against the assaults of all other pleasures, whilst he is without any guard against those of the ear. Yea, the nearer the commerce is betwixt the delights of that sense and those of the mind and reason, by so much the more, when he lies open on that side, is he apt to be debauched and corrupted thereby. Seeing therefore we cannot (and perhaps would not if we could) debar young men of the size of my Soclarus and thy Cleander altogether from the reading of poets, yet let us keep the stricter guard upon them, as those who need a guide to direct them in their reading more than in their walks. Upon which consideration, I find myself disposed to send thee at present in writing that discourse concerning Poetry which I had lately an occasion to deliver by word of mouth; that, when thou hast read it over thyself, thou mayst also make such use of it, if thou judgest it may be serviceable to that purpose, as those which are engaged to drink hard do of amethysts (or preservatives against drunkenness),—that is, that thou mayst communicate it to Cleander, to prepossess him therewith; seeing he is naturally endowed with a brisk, piercing, and daring wit, and therefore more prone to be inveigled by that sort of study.

They say of the fish called polypus that

His head in one respect is very good,
But in another very naughty food;

because, though it be very luscious to eat, yet it is thought to disturb the fancy with frightful and confused dreams. And the like observation may be made concerning poetry, that it affords sweet and withal wholesome nourishment to the minds of young men, but yet it contains likewise no less matter of disturbance and emotion to them that want a right conduct in the study thereof. For of it also, as well as of Egypt, may it be said that (to those who will use it)

Its over-fertile and luxuriant field
Medicines and poisons intermixt doth yield;

for therein

Love with soft passions and rich language drest
Oft steals the heart out of th’ ingenuous breast.[12]

And indeed such only are endangered thereby, for the charms of that art ordinarily affect not those that are downright sots and naturally incapable of learning. Wherefore, when Simonides was asked why of all men he could not deceive the Thessalians, his answer was, Because they are not so well bred as to be capable of being cajoled by me. And Gorgias used to call tragical poems cheats, wherein he that did cheat was juster than he that did not cheat, and he that was cheated was wiser than he that was not cheated.

It deserves therefore our consideration, whether we shall put young men into Epicurus’s boat,—wherein, having their ears stopped with wax, as those of the men of Ithaca were, they shall be obliged to sail by and not so much as touch at poetry,—or rather keep a guard on them, so as to oblige their judgments by principles of right reason to use it aright, and preserve them from being seduced to their hurt by that which affords them so much delight. For neither did Lycurgus, the valiant son of Dryas (as Homer[13] calls him) act like a man of sound reason in the course which he took to reform his people that were much inclined to drunkenness, by travelling up and down to destroy all the vines in the country; whereas he should have ordered that every vine should have a well of water near it, that (as Plato saith) the drunken deity might be reduced to temperance by a sober one. For water mixed with wine takes away the hurtful spirits, while it leaves the useful ones in it. Neither should we cut down or destroy the Muses’ vine, poetry; but where we perceive it luxuriates and grows wild through an ungoverned appetite of applause, there ought we to prune away or keep under the fabulous and theatrical branches thereof; and where we find any of the Graces linked to any of the Muses,—that is, where the lusciousness and tempting charms of language are not altogether barren and unprofitable,—there let us bring in philosophy to incorporate with it.

For as, where the mandrake grows near the vine and so communicates something of its force thereto, the wine that is made of its grapes makes the sleep of those that drink it more refreshing; so doth the tempering poetry with the principles of philosophy and allaying their roughness with its fictions render the study of them more easy and the relish of them more grateful to young learners. Wherefore those that would give their minds to philosophical studies are not obliged to avoid poetry altogether, but rather to prepare themselves for philosophy by poems, accustoming themselves to search for and embrace that which may profit in that which pleaseth them, and rejecting and discarding that wherein they find nothing of this nature. For this discrimination is the first step to learning; and when this is attained, then, according to what Sophocles saith,—

To have begun well what we do intend
Gives hope and prospect of as good an end.

2. Let us therefore in the first place possess those whom we initiate in the study of poetry with this notion (as one which they ought always to have at hand), that

’Tis frequently the poet’s guise
To intermingle truth with lies;—

which they do sometimes with and sometimes against their wills. They do it with their wills, because they find strict truth too rigid to comply with that sweetness and gracefulness of expression, which most are taken with, so readily as fiction doth. For real truth, though it disgust never so much, must be told as it is, without alteration; but that which is feigned in a discourse can easily yield and shift its garb from the distasteful to that which is more pleasing. And indeed, neither the measures nor the tropes nor the grandeur of words nor the aptness of metaphors nor the harmony of the composition gives such a degree of elegance and gracefulness to a poem as a well-ordered and artificial fiction doth. But as in pictures the colors are more delightful to the eye than the lines, because those give them a nearer resemblance to the persons they were made for, and render them the more apt to deceive the beholder; so in poems we are more apt to be smitten and fall in love with a probable fiction than with the greatest accuracy that can be observed in measures and phrases, where there is nothing fabulous or fictitious joined with it. Wherefore Socrates, being induced by some dreams to attempt something in poetry, and finding himself unapt, by reason that he had all his lifetime been the champion of severe truth, to hammer out of his own invention a likely fiction, made choice of Esop’s fables to turn into verse; as judging nothing to be true poetry that had in it nothing of falsehood. For though we have known some sacrifices performed without pipes and dances, yet we own no poetry which is utterly destitute of fable and fiction. Whence the verses of Empedocles and Parmenides, the Theriaca of Nicander, and the sentences of Theognis, are rather to be accounted speeches than poems, which, that they might not walk contemptibly on foot, have borrowed from poetry the chariot of verse, to convey them the more creditably through the world. Whensoever therefore any thing is spoken in poems by any noted and eminently famous man, concerning Gods or Daemons or virtue, that is absurd or harsh, he that takes such sayings for truths is thereby misled in his apprehension and corrupted with an erroneous opinion. But he that constantly keeps in his mind and maintains as his principle that the witchcraft of poetry consists in fiction, he that can at all turns accost it in this language,—

Riddle of art! like which no sphinx beguiles;
Whose face on one side frowns while th’ other smiles!
Why cheat’st thou, with pretence to make us wise,
And bid’st sage precepts in a fool’s disguise?—

such a one, I say, will take no harm by it, nor admit from it any absurd thing into his belief. But when he meets in poetry with expressions of Neptune’s rending the earth to pieces and discovering the infernal regions,[14] he will be able to check his fears of the reality of any such accident; and he will rebuke himself for his anger against Apollo for the chief commander of the Greeks,—

Whom at a banquet, whiles he sings his praise
And speaks him fair, yet treacherously he slays.[15]

Yea, he will repress his tears for Achilles and Agamemnon, while they are represented as mourning after their death, and stretching forth their limber and feeble hands to express their desire to live again. And if at any time the charms of poetry transport him into any disquieting passions, he will quickly say to himself, as Homer very elegantly (considering the propension of women to listen after fables) says in his Necyia, or relation of the state of the dead,—

But from the dark dominions speed thy way,
And climb the steep ascent to upper day;
To thy chaste bride the wondrous story tell,
The woes, the horrors, and the laws of hell.[16]

Such things as I have touched upon are those which the poets willingly feign. But more there are which they do not feign, but believing them themselves as their own proper judgments, they put fictitious colors upon them to ingratiate them to us. As when Homer says of Jupiter,—

Jove lifts the golden balances, that show
The fates of mortal men, and things below.
Here each contending hero’s lot he tries,
And weighs with equal hand their destinies.
Low sinks the scale surcharged with Hector’s fate;
Heavy with death it sinks, and hell receives the weight.[17]

To this fable Aeschylus hath accommodated a whole tragedy which he calls Psychostasia, wherein he introduceth Thetis and Aurora standing by Jupiter’s balances, and deprecating each of them the death of her son engaged in a duel. Now there is no man but sees that this fable is a creature of the poet’s fancy, designed to delight or scare the reader. But this other passage,—

Great Jove is made the treasurer of wars;[18]

and this other also,—

When a God means a noble house to raze,
He frames one rather than he’ll want a cause:[19]

these passages, I say, express the judgment and belief of poets who thereby discover and suggest to us the ignorant or mistaken apprehensions they had of the Deities. Moreover, almost every one knows nowadays, that the portentous fancies and contrivances of stories concerning the state of the dead are accommodated to popular apprehensions,—that the spectres and phantasms of burning rivers and horrid regions and terrible tortures expressed by frightful names are all mixed with fable and fiction, as poison with food; and that neither Homer nor Pindar nor Sophocles ever believed themselves when they wrote at this rate:—

There endless floods of shady darkness stream
From the vast caves, where mother Night doth teem;

and,

There ghosts o’er the vast ocean’s waves did glide,
By the Leucadian promontory’s side;[20]

and,

There from th’ unfathomed gulf th’ infernal lake
Through narrow straits recurring tides doth make.

And yet, as many of them as deplore death as a lamentable thing, or the want of burial after death as a calamitous condition, are wont to break out into expressions of this nature:—

O pass not by, my friend; nor leave me here
Without a grave, and on that grave a tear;[21]

and,

Then to the ghosts the mournful soul did fly,
Sore grieved in midst of youth and strength to die;[22]

and again,

’Tis sweet to see the light. O spare me then,
Till I arrive at th’ usual age of men:
Nor force my unfledged soul from hence, to know
The doleful state of dismal shades below.[23]

These, I say, are the speeches of men persuaded of these things, as being possessed by erroneous opinions; and therefore they touch us the more nearly and torment us inwardly, because we ourselves are full of the same impotent passion from which they were uttered. To fortify us therefore against expressions of this nature, let this principle continually ring in our ears, that poetry is not at all solicitous to keep to the strict measure of truth. And indeed, as to what that truth in these matters is, even those men themselves who make it their only study to learn and search it out confess that they can hardly discover any certain footsteps to guide them in that enquiry. Let us therefore have these verses of Empedocles, in this case, at hand:—

No sight of man’s so clear, no ear so quick,
No mind so piercing, that’s not here to seek;

as also those of Xenophanes:—

The truth about the Gods and world, no man
E’er was or shall be that determine can;

and lastly, that passage concerning Socrates, in Plato, where he by the solemnity of an oath disclaims all knowledge of those things. For those who perceive that the searching into such matters makes the heads of philosophers themselves giddy cannot but be the less inclined to regard what poets say concerning them.

3. And we shall fix our young man yet the more if, when we enter him in the poets, we first describe poetry to him, and tell him that it is an imitating art and doth in many respects correspond to painting; not only acquainting him with that common saying, that poetry is vocal painting and painting silent poetry, but teaching him, moreover, that when we see a lizard or an ape or the face of a Thersites in a picture, we are surprised with pleasure and wonder at it, not because of any beauty in the things, but for the likeness of the draught. For it is repugnant to the nature of that which is itself foul to be at the same time fair; and therefore it is the imitation—be the thing imitated beautiful or ugly—that, in case it do express it to the life, is commended; and on the contrary, if the imitation make a foul thing to appear fair, it is dispraised because it observes not decency and likeness. Now some painters there are that paint uncomely actions; as Timotheus drew Medea killing her children; Theon, Orestes murdering his mother; and Parrhasius, Ulysses counterfeiting madness; yea, Chaerephanes expressed in picture the unchaste converse of women with men. Now in such cases a young man is to be familiarly acquainted with this notion, that, when men praise such pictures, they praise not the actions represented but only the painter’s art, which doth so lively express what was designed in them. Wherefore, in like manner, seeing poetry many times describes by imitation foul actions and unseemly passions and manners, the young student must not in such descriptions (although performed never so artificially and commendably) believe all that is said as true or embrace it as good, but give its due commendation so far only as it suits the subject treated of. For as, when we hear the grunting of hogs and the shrieking of pulleys and the rustling of wind and the roaring of seas, we are, it may be, disturbed and displeased, and yet when we hear any one imitating these or the like noises handsomely (as Parmenio did that of an hog, and Theodorus that of a pulley), we are well pleased; and as we avoid (as an unpleasing spectacle) the sight of sick persons and of a lazar full of ulcers, and yet are delighted to be spectators of the Philoctetes of Aristophon and the Jocasta of Silanion, wherein such wasting and dying persons are well acted; so must the young scholar, when he reads in a poem of Thersites the buffoon or Sisyphus the whoremaster or Batrachus the bawd speaking or doing any thing, so praise the artificial managery of the poet, adapting the expressions to the persons, as withal to look on the discourses and actions so expressed as odious and abominable. For the goodness of things themselves differs much from the goodness of the imitation of them; the goodness of the latter consisting only in propriety and aptness to represent the former. Whence to foul actions foul expressions are most suitable and proper. As the shoes of Demonides the cripple (which, when he had lost them, he wished might suit the feet of him that stole them) were but unhandsome shoes, but yet fit for the man they were made for; so we may say of such expressions as these:—

’Tis worth the while an unjust act to own,
When it sets him that does it on a throne;[24]

Get the repute of Just for a disguise,
And in it do all things whence gain may rise,

A talent dowry! Could I close my eyes
In sleep, or live, if thee I should despise?
And should I not in hell tormented be,
Could I be guilty of profaning thee?[25]

These, it is true, are wicked as well as false speeches, but yet are decent enough in the mouth of an Eteocles, an Ixion, and an old griping usurer. If therefore we mind our children that the poets write not such things as praising and approving them, but do really account them base and vicious and therefore accommodate such speeches to base and vicious persons, they will never be damnified by them from the esteem they have of the poets in whom they meet with them. But, on the contrary, the suspicions insinuated into them of the persons will render the words and actions ascribed to them suspected for evil, because proceeding from such evil men. And of this nature is Homer’s representation of Paris, when he describes him running out of the battle into Helen’s bed. For in that he attributes no such indecent act to any other, but only to that incontinent and adulterous person, he evidently declares that he intends that relation to import a disgrace and reproach to such intemperance.

4. In such passages therefore we are carefully to observe whether or not the poet himself do anywhere give any intimation that he dislikes the things he makes such persons say; which, in the prologue to his Thais Menander does, in these words:—

Therefore, my Muse, describe me now a whore,
Fair, bold, and furnished with a nimble tongue;
One that ne’er scruples to do lovers wrong;
That always craves, and denied shuts her door;
That truly loves no man, yet, for her ends,
Affection true to every man pretends.

But Homer of all the poets does it best. For he doth beforehand, as it were, bespeak dislike of the evil things and approbation of the good things he utters. Of the latter take these instances:—

He readily did the occasion take,
And sweet and comfortable words he spake;[26]

By him he stood, and with soft speeches quelled
The wrath which in his heated bosom swelled.[27]

And for the former, he so performs it as in a manner solemnly to forbid us to use or heed such speeches as those he mentions, as being foolish and wicked. For example, being to tell us how uncivilly Agamemnon treated the priest, he premises these words of his own,—

Not so Atrides: he with kingly pride
Repulsed the sacred sire, and thus replied;[28]

intimating the insolency and unbecomingness of his answer. And when he attributes this passionate speech to Achilles,—

O monster, mix’d of insolence and fear,
Thou dog in forehead, and in heart a deer![29]

he accompanies it with this censure,—

Nor yet the rage his boiling breast forsook,
Which thus redoubling on Atrides broke;[30]

for it was unlikely that speaking in such anger he should observe any rules of decency.

And he passeth like censures on actions. As on Achilles’s foul usage of Hector’s carcass,—

Gloomy he said, and (horrible to view)
Before the bier the bleeding Hector threw.[31]

And in like manner he doth very decently shut up relations of things said or done, by adding some sentence wherein he declares his judgment of them. As when he personates some of the Gods saying, on the occasion of the adultery of Mars and Venus discovered by Vulcan’s artifice,—

See the swift God o’ertaken by the lame!
Thus ill acts prosper not, but end in shame.[32]

And thus concerning Hecter’s insolent boasting he says,—

With such big words his mind proud Hector eased,
But venerable Juno he displeased.[33]

And when he speaks of Pandarus’s shooting, he adds,—

He heard, and madly at the motion pleased,
His polish’d bow with hasty rashness seized.[34]

Now these verbal intimations of the minds and judgments of poets are not difficult to be understood by any one that will heedfully observe them. But besides these, they give us other hints from actions. As Euripides is reported, when some blamed him for bringing such an impious and flagitious villain as Ixion upon the stage, to have given this answer: But yet I brought him not off till I had fastened him to a torturing wheel. This same way of teaching by mute actions is to be found in Homer also, affording us useful contemplations upon those very fables which are usually most disliked in him. These some men offer force to, that they may reduce them to allegories (which the ancients called ὑπόνοιαι), and tell us that Venus committing adultery with Mars, discovered by the Sun, is to be understood thus: that when the star called Venus is in conjunction with that which hath the name of Mars, bastardly births are produced, and by the Sun’s rising and discovering them they are not concealed. So will they have Juno’s dressing herself so accurately to tempt Jupiter, and her making use of the girdle of Venus to inflame his love, to be nothing else but the purification of that part of the air which draweth nearest to the nature of fire. As if we were not told the meaning of those fables far better by the poet himself. For he teacheth us in that of Venus, if we heed it, that light music and wanton songs and discourses which suggest to men obscene fancies debauch their manners, and incline them to an unmanly way of living in luxury and wantonness, of continually haunting the company of women, and of being

Given to fashions, that their garb may please,
Hot baths, and couches where they loll at ease.

And therefore also he brings in Ulysses directing the musician thus,—

Leave this, and sing the horse, out of whose womb
The gallant knights that conquered Troy did come;[35]

evidently teaching us that poets and musicians ought to receive the arguments of their songs from sober and understanding men. And in the other fable of Juno he excellently shows that the conversation of women with men, and the favors they receive from them procured by sorcery, witchcraft, or other unlawful arts, are not only short, unstable, and soon cloying, but also in the issue easily turned to loathing and displeasure, when once the pleasure is over. For so Jupiter there threatens Juno, when he tells her,—

Hear this, remember, and our fury dread,
Nor pull the unwilling vengeance on thy head;
Lest arts and blandishments successless prove
Thy soft deceits and well dissembled love.[36]

For the fiction and representation of evil acts, when it withal acquaints us with the shame and damage befalling the doers, hurts not but rather profits him that reads them. For which end philosophers make use of examples for our instruction and correction out of historical collections; and poets do the very same thing, but with this difference, that they invent fabulous examples themselves. There was one Melanthius, who (whether in jest or earnest he said it, it matters not much) affirmed that the city of Athens owed its preservation to the dissensions and factions that were among the orators, giving withal this reason for his assertion, that thereby they were kept from inclining all of them to one side, so that by means of the differences among those statesmen there were always some that drew the saw the right way for the defeating of destructive counsels. And thus it is too in the contradictions among poets, which, by lessening the credit of what they say, render them the less powerful to do mischief; and therefore, when comparing one saying with another we discover their contrariety, we ought to adhere to the better side. As in these instances:—

The Gods, my son, deceive poor men oft-times.
_Ans._ ’Tis easy, sir, on God to lay our crimes.

’Tis comfort to thee to be rich, is’t not!
_Ans._ No, sir, ’tis bad to be a wealthy sot.

Die rather than such toilsome pains to take.
_Ans._ To call God’s service toil’s a foul mistake.

Such contrarieties as these are easily solved, if (as I said) we teach youth to judge aright and to give the better saying preference. But if we chance to meet with any absurd passages without any others at their heels to confute them, we are then to overthrow them with such others as elsewhere are to be found in the author. Nor must we be offended with the poet or grieved at him, but only at the speeches themselves, which he utters either according to the vulgar manner of speaking or, it may be, but in drollery. So, when thou readest in Homer of Gods thrown out of heaven headlong one by another, or Gods wounded by men and quarrelling and brawling with each other, thou mayest readily, if thou wilt, say to him,—

Sure thy invention here was sorely out,
Or thou hadst said far better things, no doubt;[37]

yea, and thou dost so elsewhere, and according as thou thinkest, to wit, in these passages of thine:—

The Gods, removed from all that men doth grieve,
A quiet and contented life do live.

Herein the immortal Gods for ever blest
Feel endless joys and undisturbed rest.

The Gods, who have themselves no cause to grieve,
For wretched man a web of sorrow weave.[38]

For these argue sound and true opinions of the Gods; but those other were only feigned to raise passions in men. Again, when Euripides speaks at this rate,—

The Gods are better than we men by far,
And yet by them we oft deceived are,—

we may do well to quote him elsewhere against himself, where he says better,—

If Gods do wrong, surely no Gods there are.

So also, when Pindar saith bitterly and keenly,

No law forbids us any thing to do,
Whereby a mischief may befall a foe,

tell him: But, Pindar, thou thyself sayest elsewhere,

The pleasure which injurious acts attends
Always in bitter consequences ends.

And when Sophocles speaks thus,

Sweet is the gain, wherein to lie and cheat
Adds the repute of wit to what we get,

tell him: But we have heard thee say far otherwise,

When the account’s cast up, the gain’s but poor
Which by a lying tongue augments the store.

And as to what he saith of riches, to wit

Wealth, where it minds to go, meets with no stay;
For where it finds not, it can make a way;
Many fair offers doth the poor let go,
And lose his prize because his purse is low;
The fair tongue makes, where wealth can purchase it,
The foul face beautiful, the fool a wit:—

here the reader may set in opposition divers other sayings of the same author. For example,

From honor poverty doth not debar,
Where poor men virtuous and deserving are.

Whate’er fools think, a man is ne’er the worse
If he be wise, though with an empty purse

The comfort which he gets who wealth enjoys,
The vexing care by which ’tis kept destroys.

And Menander also somewhere magnifies a voluptuous life, and inflames the minds of vain persons with these amorous strains,

The glorious sun no living thing doth see,
But what’s a slave to love as well as we.

But yet elsewhere, on the other side, he fastens on us and pulls us back to the love of virtue, and checks the rage of lust, when he says thus,

The life that is dishonorably spent,
Be it ne’er so pleasant, yields no true content.

For these lines are contrary to the former, as they are also better and more profitable; so that by comparing them considerately one cannot but either be inclined to the better side, or at least flag in the belief of the worse.

But now, supposing that any of the poets themselves afford no such correcting passages to solve what they have said amiss, it will then be advisable to confront them with the contrary sayings of other famous men, and therewith to sway the scales of our judgment to the better side. As, when Alexis tempts to debauchery in these verses,

The wise man knows what of all things is best,
Whilst choosing pleasure he slights all the rest.
He thinks life’s joys complete in these three sorts,
To drink and eat, and follow wanton sports;
And what besides seems to pretend to pleasure,
If it betide him, counts it over measure,

we must remember that Socrates said the contrary, to wit: Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live. And against the man that wrote in this manner,

He that designs to encounter with a knave,
An equal stock of knavery must have,

seeing he herein advises us to follow other vicious examples, that of Diogenes may well be returned, who being asked by what means a man might revenge himself upon his enemy, answered, By becoming himself a good and honest man. And the same Diogenes may be quoted also against Sophocles, who, writing thus of the sacred mysteries, caused great grief and despair to multitudes of men:

Most happy they whose eyes are blest to see
The mysteries which here contained be,
Before they die! For only they have joy
In th’ other world; the rest all ills annoy.

This passage being read to Diogenes, What then! says he, shall the condition of Pataecion, the notorious robber, after death be better than that of Epaminondas, merely for his being initiated in these mysteries? In like manner, when one Timotheus on the theatre, in the praise of the Goddess Diana, called her furious, raging, possessed, mad, Cinesias presently cried out to him aloud, May thy daughter, Timotheus, be such a Goddess! And witty also was that of Bion to Theognis, who said,—

One can not say nor do, if poor he be;
His tongue is bound to th’ peace, as well as he.[39]

How comes it to pass then, said he, Theognis, that thou thyself being so poor pratest and gratest our ears in this manner?

5. Nor are we to omit in our reading those hints which, from some other words or phrases bordering on those that offend us, may help to rectify our apprehensions. But as physicians use cantharides, believing that, though their bodies be deadly poison, yet their feet and wings are medicinal and can even kill the poison of the flies themselves, so must we deal with poems. If any noun or verb near at hand may assist to the correction of any such saying, and preserve us from putting a bad construction upon it, we should take hold of it and employ it to assist a more favorable interpretation. As some do in reference to those verses of Homer,—

Sorrows and tears most commonly are seen
To be the Gods’ rewards to wretched men:—

The Gods, who have no cause themselves to grieve,
For wretched man a web of sorrow weave.[40]

For, they say, he says not of men simply, or of all men, that the Gods weave for them the fatal web of a sorrowful life; but he affirms it only of foolish and imprudent men, whom, because their vices make them such, he therefore calls wretched and miserable.

6. Another way whereby those passages which are suspicious in poets may be transferred to a better sense may be taken from the common use of words, which a young man ought indeed to be more exercised in than in the use of strange and obscure terms. For it will be a point of philology which it will not be unpleasant to him to understand, that when he meets with ῥιγεδανή in a poet, that word signifies an _evil death_; for the Macedonians use the word δάνος to signify _death_. So the Aeolians call victory gotten by patient endurance of hardships καμμονίη; and the Dryopians call daemons πόποι.

But of all things it is most necessary, and no less profitable if we design to receive profit and not hurt from the poets, that we understand how they make use of the names of Gods, as also of the terms of Evil and Good; and what they mean by Fortune and Fate; and whether these words be always taken by them in one and the same sense or rather in various senses, as also many other words are. For so the word οἶκος sometimes signifies a _material house_, as, Into the high-roofed house; and sometimes _estate_, as, My house is devoured. So the word βίοτος sometimes signifies _life_, and sometimes _wealth_. And ἀλύειν is sometimes taken for being _uneasy_ and _disquieted in mind_, as in

Ὡς ἔφαθ’· ἡ δ’ ~ἀλύουσ~’ ἀπεβήσατο,
τείρετο δ’ αἰνῶς,[41]

and elsewhere for boasting and rejoicing, as in

Ἢ ~ἀλύεις~, ὅτι Ἶρον ἐνίκησας τὸν ἀλήτην.[42]

In like manner θοάζειν signifies either _to move_, as in Euripides when he saith,

Κῆτος ~θοάζον~ ἐκ Ἀτλαντικῆς ἁλός,—

or _to sit_, as in Sophocles when he writes thus,

Τίνας πόθ’ ἕδρας τάσδε μοι ~θοάζετε~,
Ἱκτηρίοις κλάδοισιν ἐξεστεμμένοι.[43]

It is elegant also when they adapt to the present matter, as grammarians teach, the use of words which are commonly of another signification. As here:—

Νῆ’ ὀλίγην αἰνεῖν, μεγάλῃ δ’ ἐνὶ φορτία θέσθαι.

For here αἰνεῖν signifies _to praise_ (instead of ἐπαινεῖν), and _to praise_ is used for _to refuse_. So in conversation it is common with us to say, καλῶς ἔχει, _it is well_ (i.e., _No, I thank you_), and to bid any thing _fare well_ (χαίρειν); by which forms of speech we refuse a thing which we do not want, or receive it not, but still with a civil compliment. So also some say that Proserpina is called ἐπαινή in the notion of παραιτητή, _to be deprecated_, because death is by all men shunned.

And the like distinction of words we ought to observe also in things more weighty and serious. To begin with the Gods, we should teach our youth that poets, when they use the names of Gods, sometimes mean properly the Divine Beings so called, but otherwhiles understand by those names certain powers of which the Gods are the donors and authors, they having first led us into the use of them by their own practice. As when Archilochus prays,

King Vulcan, hear thy suppliant, and grant
That which thou’rt wont to give and I to want,

it is plain that he means the God himself whom he invokes. But when elsewhere he bewails the drowning of his sister’s husband, who had not obtained lawful burial, and says,

Had Vulcan his fair limbs to ashes turned,
I for his loss had with less passion mourned,

he gives the name of Vulcan to the fire and not to the Deity. Again, Euripides, when he says,

No; by great Jove I swear, enthroned on high,
And bloody Mars,[44]

means the Gods themselves who bare those names. But when Sophocles saith,

Blind Mars doth mortal men’s affairs confound,
As the swine’s snout doth quite deface the ground,

we are to understand the word Mars to denote not the God so called, but war. And by the same word we are to understand also weapons made of hardened brass, in those verses of Homer,

These are the gallant men whose noble blood
Keen Mars did shed near swift Scamander’s flood.[45]

Wherefore, in conformity to the instances given, we must conceive and bear in mind that by the names of Jupiter also sometimes they mean the God himself, sometimes Fortune, and oftentimes also Fate. For when they say,—

Great Jupiter, who from the lofty hill
Of Ida govern’st all the world at will;[46]

That wrath which hurled to Pluto’s gloomy realm
The souls of mighty chiefs:—
Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove;[47]

For who (but who himself too fondly loves)
Dares lay his wisdom in the scale with Jove’s?—

they understand Jupiter himself. But when they ascribe the event of all things done to Jupiter as the cause, saying of him,—

Many brave souls to hell Achilles sent,
And Jove’s design accomplished in th’ event,—

they mean by Jove no more but Fate. For the poet doth not conceive that God contrives mischief against mankind, but he soundly declares the mere necessity of the things themselves, to wit, that prosperity and victory are destined by Fate to cities and armies and commanders who govern themselves with sobriety, but if they give way to passions and commit errors, thereby dividing and crumbling themselves into factions, as those of whom the poet speaks did, they do unhandsome actions, and thereby create great disturbances, such as are attended with sad consequences.

For to all unadvised acts, in fine,
The Fates unhappy issues do assign.[48]

But when Hesiod brings in Prometheus thus counselling his brother Epimetheus,

Brother, if Jove to thee a present make,
Take heed that from his hands thou nothing take,[49]

he useth the name of Jove to express Fortune; for he calls the good things which come by her (such as riches, and marriages, and empires, and indeed all external things the enjoyment whereof is unprofitable to them who know not how to use them well) the gifts of Jove. And therefore he adviseth Epimetheus (an ill man, and a fool withal) to stand in fear of and to guard himself from prosperity, as that which would be hurtful and destructive to him.

Again, where he saith,

Reproach thou not a man for being poor;
His poverty’s God’s gift, as is thy store,[50]

he calls that which befalls men by Fortune God’s gift, and intimates that it is an unworthy thing to reproach any man for that poverty which he falls into by Fortune, whereas poverty is then only a matter of disgrace and reproach when it is attendant on sloth and idleness, or wantonness and prodigality. For, before the name of Fortune was used, they knew there was a powerful cause, which moved irregularly and unlimitedly and with such a force that no human reason could avoid it; and this cause they called by the names of Gods. So we are wont to call divers things and qualities and discourses, and even men themselves, divine. And thus may we rectify many such sayings concerning Jupiter as would otherwise seem very absurd. As these, for instance:—

Before Jove’s door two fatal hogsheads, filled
With human fortunes, good and bad luck yield:—

Of violated oaths Jove took no care,
But spitefully both parties crushed by war:—

To Greeks and Trojans both this was the rise
Of mischief, suitable to Jove’s device.[51]

These passages we are to interpret as spoken concerning Fortune or Fate, of the causality of both which no account can be given by us, nor do their effects fall under our power. But where any thing is said of Jupiter that is suitable, rational, and probable, there we are to conceive that the names of that God is used properly. As in these instances:—

Through others’ ranks he conquering did range,
But shunned with Ajax any blows t’ exchange;
But Jove’s displeasure on him he had brought,
Had he with one so much his better fought.[52]

For though great matters are Jove’s special care,
Small things t’ inferior daemons trusted are

And other words there are which the poets remove and translate from their proper sense by accommodation to various things, which deserve also our serious notice. Such a one, for instance, is ἀρετή, _virtue_. For because virtue does not only render men prudent, just, and good, both in their words and deeds, but also oftentimes purchaseth to them honor and power, therefore they call likewise these by that name. So we are wont to call both the olive-tree and the fruit ἐλαία, and the oak-tree and its acorn φηγός, communicating the name of the one to the other. Therefore, when our young man reads in the poets such passages as these,—

This law th’ immortal Gods to us have set,
That none arrive at virtue but by sweat;[53]

The adverse troops then did the Grecians stout
By their mere virtue profligate and rout;[54]

If now the Fates determined have our death,
To virtue we’ll consign our parting breath;—

let him presently conceive that these things are spoken of that most excellent and divine habit in us which we understand to be no other than right reason, or the highest attainment of the reasonable nature, and most agreeable to the constitution thereof. And again, when he reads this.

Of virtue Jupiter to one gives more,
And lessens, when he lifts, another’s store;

and this,

Virtue and honor upon wealth attend;[55]

let him not sit down in an astonishing admiration of rich men, as if they were enabled by their wealth to purchase virtue, nor let him imagine that it is in the power of Fortune to increase or lessen his own wisdom; but let him conceive that the poet by virtue meant either glory or power or prosperity or something of like import. For poets use the same ambiguity also in the word κακότης, _evil_, which sometimes in them properly signifies a wicked and malicious disposition of mind, as in that of Hesiod,

Evil is soon acquired; for everywhere
There’s plenty on’t and t’all men’s dwellings near;[56]

and sometimes some evil accident or misfortune, as when Homer says,

Sore evils, when they haunt us in our prime,
Hasten old age on us before our time.[57]