How the Young Man Should Study Poetry (intro-4)

Plutarch’s essay on the study of poetry is not a discussion of the essentials of poetry, nor an analysis of its various kinds after the manner of Aristotle’s Poetics, but it is concerned with poetry only as a means of training the young in preparation for the study of philosophy later. Some experience with the adumbrations of philosophic doctrines which are to be found in poetry will, in the opinion of the author, make such doctrines seem less strange when they are met later in the actual study of philosophy.

This training is to be imparted, not by confining the reading to selected passages, but by teaching the young to recognize and ignore the false and fabulous in poetry, to choose always the better interpretation, and, in immoral passages where art is employed for art’s sake, not to be deluded into approving vicious sentiments because of their artistic presentation. Such passages may be offset by other passages from the same author or from another author, and, as a last resort, one may try his hand at emending unsavoury lines to make them conform to a higher ethical standard. This last proposal seems to the modern reader a weak subterfuge, but it was a practice not unknown even before Plutarch’s time.

Philology, in the narrower sense, Plutarch says, is a science in itself, and a knowledge of it is not

essential to an unstanding of literature (a fact enunciated from time to time by modern educators as a new discovery). But, on the other hand, Plutarch strongly insists that an exact appreciation of words and of their meanings in different contexts is indispensable to the understanding of any work of poetry.

The various points in the essay are illustrated by plentiful quotations drawn in the main from Homer, Hesiod, Archilochus, Pindar, Simonides, Theognis, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Menander. These are accompanied by many keen and intelligent observations (such, for example, as that regarding Paris), which attest Plutarch’s wide and careful reading in the classical authors.

The fact that Plutarch does not use the methods of historical criticism will not escape the reader, and, although this seems to us a great defect in the essay, it is wholly in keeping with the spirit of Plutarch’s age. On the other hand there is well shown the genial and kindly Plutarch, who wishes to believe only good of all men, including the poets, however much they may fall short of the standards set by the divine Homer.

If, my dear Marcus Sedatus, it is true, as the poet Philoxenus used to say, that of meats those that are not meat, and of fish those that are not fish, have the best flavour, let us leave the expounding of this matter to those persons of whom Cato said that their palates are more sensitive than their minds. And so of philosophical discourses it is clear to us that those seemingly not at all philosophical, or even serious, are found more enjoyable by the very young, who present themselves at such lectures as willing and submissive hearers. For in perusing not only Aesop’s Fables, and Tales from the Poets, but even the Abaris of Heracleides, the Lycon of Ariston, and philosophic doctrines about the soul when these are combined with tales from mythology,[*] they get inspiration as well as pleasure. Wherefore we ought not only to keep the young decorous in the pleasures of eating and drinking, but, even more, in connexion with what they hear and read, by using in moderation, as a relish, that which gives pleasure, we should accustom them to seek what is useful and salutary therein. For close-shut gates do not

preserve a city from capture if it admit the enemy through one; nor does continence in the other pleasures of sense save a young man, if he unwittingly abandon himself to that which comes through hearing. On the contrary, inasmuch as this form of pleasure engages more closely the man that is naturally given to thought and reason, so much the more, if neglected, does it injure and corrupt him that receives it. Since, then, it is neither possible, perhaps, nor profitable to debar from poetry a boy as old as my Soclarus and your Cleander now are, let us keep a very close watch over them, in the firm belief that they require oversight in their reading even more than in the streets. Accordingly, I have made up my mind to commit to writing and to send to you some thoughts on poetry which it occurred to me recently to express. I beg that you will take them and peruse them, and if they seem to you to be no worse than the things called amethysts [*] which some persons on convivial occasions hang upon their persons or take beforehand, then impart them to Cleander, and thus forestall his natural disposition, which, because it is slow in nothing, but impetuous and lively in everything, is more subject to such influences.

Bad may be found in the head of the cuttle-fish; good there is also,[*]

because it is very pleasant to eat but it makes one’s sleep full of bad dreams and subject to strange and disturbing fancies, as they say. Similarly also in the art of poetry there is much that is pleasant and nourishing for the mind of a youth, but quite as much that is disturbing and misleading, unless in the hearing of it he have proper oversight. For it may be said, as it seems, not only of the land of the Egyptians but also of poetry, that it yields

Drugs, and some are good when mixed and others baneful[*]

to those who cultivate it.

Hidden therein are love and desire and winning converse, Suasion that steals away the mind of the very wisest.[*]

For the element of deception in it does not gain any hold on utterly witless and foolish persons. This is the ground of Simonides’ answer to the man who said to him, Why are the Thessalians the only people whom you do not deceive? His answer was, Oh, they are too ignorant to be deceived by me; and Gorgias called tragedy a deception wherein he who deceives is more honest than he who does not deceive, and he who is deceived is wiser than he who is not deceived. Shall we then stop the ears of the young, as those of the Ithacans were stopped, with a hard and unyielding wax, and force them to put to sea in the Epicurean boat, and avoid poetry and steer their course clear of it; or rather shall we set them against some upright standard of reason and there bind them fast, guiding and guarding their judgement, that it may not be carried away from the course by pleasure towards that which will do them hurt?

No, not even Lycurgus, the mighty son of Dryas[*]

had sound sense, because, when many became drunk and violent, he went about uprooting the grapevines instead of bringing the springs of water nearer, and thus chastening the frenzied god, as Plato says, through correction by another, a sober, god. [*] For the tempering of wine with water removes its harmfulness without depriving it at the same time of its usefulness. So let us not root up or destroy the Muses’ vine of poetry, but where the mythical and dramatic part grows all riotous [*] and luxuriant, through pleasure unalloyed, which gives it boldness and obstinacy in seeking acclaim, let us take it in hand and prune it and pinch it back. But where with its grace it approaches a true kind of culture, and the sweet allurement of its language is not fruitless or vacuous, there let us introduce philosophy and blend it with poetry. For as the mandragora, when it grows beside the vine and imparts its influence to the wine, makes this weigh less heavily on those who drink it, so poetry, by taking up its themes from philosophy and blending them with fable, renders the task of learning light and agreeable for the young. Wherefore poetry should not be avoided by those who are intending to pursue philosophy, but they should use poetry as an introductory exercise in philosophy, by training themselves habitually to seek the profitable in what gives pleasure, and to find satisfaction therein; and if there be nothing profitable, to combat such poetry and be dissatisfied with it. For this is the beginning of education,

If one begin each task in proper way So is it likely will the ending be,[*]

as Sophocles says.

First of all, then, the young man should be introduced into poetry with nothing in his mind so

well imprinted, or so ready at hand, as the saying, Many the lies the poets tell, [*] some intentionally and some unintentionally; intentionally, because for the purpose of giving pleasure and gratification to the ear (and this is what most people look for in poetry) they feel that the truth is too stern in comparison with fiction. For the truth, because it is what actually happens, does not deviate from its course, even though the end be unpleasant; whereas fiction, being a verbal fabrication, very readily follows a roundabout route, and turns aside from the painful to what is more pleasant. For not metre nor figure of speech nor loftiness of diction nor aptness of metaphor nor unity of composition has so much allurement and charm, as a clever interweaving of fabulous narrative. But, just as in pictures, colour is more stimulating than line-drawing because it is life-like, and creates an illusion, so in poetry falsehood combined with plausibility is more striking, and gives more satisfaction, than the work which is elaborate in metre and diction, but devoid of myth and fiction. This explains why Socrates, being induced by some dreams to take up poetry, since he was not himself a plausible or naturally clever workman in falsehood, inasmuch as he had been the champion of truth all his life, put into verse the fables of Aesop,[*] assuming that there can be no poetic composition which has no addition of falsehood. It is true that we know of sacrifices without dancing or flute, but we do not know of any poetic composition without fable or without falsehood. The verses of Empedocles and of Parmenides, the Antidotes against Poisons of Nicander, and the maxims of Theognis, are merely compositions which have borrowed from poetic art its metre and lofty style as a vehicle in order to avoid plodding along in prose. Whenever, therefore, in the poems of a man of note and repute some strange and disconcerting statement either about gods or lesser deities or about virtue is made by the author, he who accepts the statement as true is carried off his feet, and has his opinions perverted; whereas he who always remembers and keeps clearly in mind the sorcery of the poetic art in dealing with falsehood, who is able on every such occasion to say to it,

Device more subtly cunning than the lynx,a why knit your brows when jesting, why pretend to instruct when practising deception?[*]

will not suffer any dire effects or even acquire any base beliefs, but he will check himself when he feels afraid of Poseidon [*] and is in terror lest the god rend the earth asunder and lay bare the nether world; he will check himself when he is feeling wroth at Apollo in behalf of the foremost of the Achaeans,

Whose praises he himself did sing, himself Was present at the feast, these words he spoke Himself, and yet himself brought death to him;[*]

he will cease to shed tears over the dead Achilles and over Agamemnon [*] in the nether world, as they stretch out their impotent and feeble arms in their desire to be alive; and if, perchance, he is beginning to be disturbed by their suffering and overcome by the enchantment, he will not hesitate to say to himself,

Hasten eager to the light, and all you saw here Lay to heart that you may tell your wife hereafter.[*]

Certainly Homer has put this gracefully in reference to the visit to the shades, indicating that it is fit stuff for a woman’s ear because of the element of fable in it.

Such things as this are what the poets fabricate intentionally, but more numerous are the things which they do not fabricate, but think and believe in their own hearts, and then impart to us in their false colouring. Take for example what Homer has said relating to Zeus:

In the scales he placed two fates of Death so grievous, One of Achilles and the other of horse-taming Hector; Grasping the middle he poised it, and Hector’s fated day descended. Down to Hades he went, and Phoebus Apollo forsook him.[*]

Now Aeschylus has fitted a whole tragedy to this story, giving it the title of The Weighing of Souls, and has placed beside the scales of Zeus on the one side Thetis, and on the other Dawn, entreating for their sons who are fighting. But it is patent to everybody that this is a mythical fabrication which has been created to please or astound the hearer. But in the lines Zeus, appointed to decide the outcome of men’s fighting[*] and A fault doth God create in men Whene’er he wills to crush a house in woe,[*] we have at last statements in accord with their opinion and belief, as they thus publish to us and try to make us share their delusion and ignorance regarding the gods. Then again the monstrous tales of visits to the shades, and the descriptions, which in awful language create spectres and pictures of blazing rivers and hideous places and grim punishments, do not blind very many people to the fact that fable and falsehood in plenty have been mingled with them like poison in nourishing food. And not Homer nor Pindar nor Sophocles really believed that these things are so when they wrote:

From there the slow-moving rivers of dusky night Belch forth a darkness immeasurable,[*]

and

On past Ocean’s streams they went and the headland of Leucas,[*]

and

The narrow throat of Hades and the refluent depths.[*]

However, take the case of those who, bewailing and fearing death as something piteous, or want of burial as something terrible, have given utterance to sentiments like these: Go not hence and leave me behind unwept, unburied,[*] and

Forth from his body went his soul on wing to Hades, Mourning its fate and leaving its vigour and manhood,[*]

and

Destroy me not untimely; for ’tis sweet To see the light. Compel me not to gaze Upon the regions underneath the earth.[*]

These are the voices of persons affected by emotion and prepossessed by opinions and delusions. For this reason such sentiments take a more powerful hold on us and disturb us the more, inasmuch as we become infected by their emotions and by the weakness from whence they proceed. Against these influences, then, once more let us equip the young from the very outset to keep ever sounding in their ears the maxim, that the art of poetry is not greatly concerned with the truth, and that the truth about these matters, even for those who have made it their sole business to search out and understand the verities, is exceedingly hard to track down and hard to get hold of, as they themselves admit; and let these words of Empedocles be constantly in mind:

Thus no eye of man hath seen nor ear hath heard this, Nor can it be comprehended by the mind,[*]

and the words of Xenophanes:

Never yet was born a man nor ever shall be Knowing the truth about the gods and what I say of all things,[*]

and by all means the words of Socrates, in Plato,[*] when he solemnly disavows all acquaintance with these subjects. For young people then will give less heed to the poets, as having some knowledge of these matters, when they see that such questions stagger the philosophers.

We shall steady the young man still more if, at his first entrance into poetry, we give a general description of the poetic art as an imitative art and faculty analogous to painting. And let him not

merely be acquainted with the oft-repeated saying that poetry is articulate painting, and painting is inarticulate poetry, but let us teach him in addition that when we see a lizard or an ape or the face of Thersites in a picture, we are pleased with it and admire it, not as a beautiful thing, but as a likeness. For by its essential nature the ugly cannot become beautiful; but the imitation, be it concerned with what is base or with what is good, if only it attain to the likeness, is commended. If, on the other hand, it produces a beautiful picture of an ugly body, it fails to give what propriety and probability require. Some painters even depict unnatural acts, as Timomachus painted a picture of Medea slaying her children, and Theon of Orestes slaying his mother, and Parrhasius of the feigned madness of Odysseus, and Chaerephanes of the lewd commerce of women with men. In these matters it is especially necessary that the young man should be trained by being taught that what we commend is not the action which is the subject of the imitation, but the art, in case the subject in hand has been properly imitated. Since, then, poetry also often gives an imitative recital of base deeds, or of wicked experiences and characters, the young man must not accept as true what is admired and successful therein, nor approve it as beautiful, but should simply commend it as fitting and proper to the character in hand. For just as when we hear the squealing of a pig, the creaking of a windlass, the whistling of the winds, and the booming of the sea, we are uneasy and annoyed; but if anybody gives a plausible imitation of these, as Parmeno imitated a pig, and Theodorus a windlass, we are pleased; and just as we avoid a diseased and ulcerous person as an unpleasant sight, but take delight in seeing Aristophon’s Philoctetes and Silanion’s Jocasta, who are represented on the stage as pining away or dying; so too the young man, as he reads what Thersites the buffoon, or Sisyphus the seducer of women, or Batrachus the bawd, is represented as saying or doing, must be taught to commend the faculty and art which imitates these things, but to repudiate and condemn the disposition and the actions which it imitates. For it is not the same thing at all to imitate something beautiful and something beautifully, since beautifully means fittingly and properly and ugly things are fitting and proper for the ugly. Witness the boots made for the crippled feet of Damonidas, who prayed once, when he had lost them, that the man who had stolen them might have feet which they would fit; they were sorry boots, it is true, but they fitted their owner. Consider the following lines:

If one must needs do wrong, far best it were To do it for a kingdom’s sake,[*]

and

Achieve the just man’s good repute, but deeds That fit the knave; therein shall be your gain,[*]

and

A talent dowry! Shall I not accept? Can I still live if I should overlook A talent? Shall I ever sleep again If I should give it up? In Hell shall I Not suffer for impiety to gold? [*]

These, it is true, are wicked and fallacious sentiments, but fitting respectively for Eteocles, Ixion, and an old usurer. If then we remind our sons that authors write them, not because they commend or approve them, but with the idea of investing mean and unnatural characters and persons with unnatural and mean sentiments, they could not be harmed by the opinions of poets; nay, on the contrary, the suspicion felt against the person in question discredits both his actions and words, as being mean because spoken or done by a mean man. Of such sort is the account of Paris in his wife’s arms after his cowardly escape from battle.[*] For since the poet represents no other save this licentious and adulterous man as dallying with a woman in the daytime, it is clear that he classes such sensuality as a shame and reproach.

In these passages, close attention must be given to see whether the poet himself gives any hints against the sentiments expressed to indicate that they are distasteful to himself; just as Menander in the prologue of his Thais has written:

Oh, sing to me, my muse, of such a girl, One bold and fair, and of persuasive tongue, Unjust, exclusive, and demanding much, In love with none, but always feigning love.[*]

But Homer has best employed this method; for he in advance discredits the mean and calls our attention to the good in what is said. His favourable introductions are after this manner: Then at once he spoke; his words were gentle and winning[*] and

He would stand by his side, and speak soft words to restrain him.[*]

But in discrediting in advance, he all but protests and proclaims that we are not to follow or heed the sentiments expressed, as being unjustifiable and mean. For example, when he is on the point of narrating Agamemnon’s harsh treatment of the priest, he says in advance,

Yet Agamemnon, Atreus’ son, at heart did not like it; Harshly he sent him away;[*]

that is to say, savagely and wilfully and contrary to what he should have done; and in Achilles’ mouth he puts the bold words,

Drunken sot, with eyes of a dog and the wild deer’s courage,[*]

but he intimates his own judgement in saying,

Then once more with vehement words did the son of Peleus Speak to the son of Atreus, nor ceased as yet from his anger; [*]

hence it is likely that nothing spoken with anger and severity can be good. In like manner also, he comments upon actions:

Thus he spoke, and Hector divine he treated unseemly, Stretching him prone in the dust by the bier of the son of Menoetius.[*]

He also employs his closing lines to good purpose, as though adding a sort of verdict of his own to what is done or said. Of the adultery of Ares, he represents the gods as saying,

Evil deeds do not succeed: the swift by the slow is taken,[*]

and on the occasion of Hector’s great arrogance and boasting he says,

Thus he spoke in boast; queen Hera’s wrath was kindled[*]

and regarding Pandarus’s archery, Thus Athena spoke, and the mind of the fool she persuaded.[*] Now these declarations and opinions contained in the words of the text may be discovered by anybody who will pay attention, but from the actions themselves the poets supply other lessons: as, for example, Euripides is reported to have said to those who railed at his Ixion as an impious and detestable character, But I did not remove him from the stage until I had him fastened to the wheel. In Homer this form of instruction is given silently, but it leaves room for a reconsideration, which is helpful in the case of those stories which have been most discredited. By forcibly distorting these stories through what used to be termed deeper meanings, but are nowadays called allegorical interpretations, some persons say that the Sun is represented as giving information about Aphrodite in the arms of Ares, because the conjunction of the planet Mars with Venus portends births conceived in adultery, and when the sun returns in his course and discovers these, they cannot be kept secret. And Hera’s beautifying of herself for Zeus’s eyes,[*] and the charms connected with the girdle, such persons will have it, are a sort of purification of the air as it draws near the fiery element;—as though the poet himself did not afford the right solutions. For, in the account of Aphrodite, he teaches those who will pay attention that vulgar music, coarse songs, and stories treating of vile themes, create licentious characters, unmanly lives, and men that love luxury, soft living, intimacy with women, and Changes of clothes, warm baths, and the genial bed of enjoyment.[*] This too is the reason why he has represented Odysseus as bidding the harper Come now, change the theme and sing how the horse was builded,[*] thus admirably indicating the duty of musicians and poets to take the subjects of their compositions from the lives of those who are discreet and sensible. And in his account of Hera, he has shown excellently well how the favour that women win by philters and enchantments and the attendant deceit in their relations with their husbands, not only is transitory and soon sated and unsure, but changes also to anger and enmity, so soon as the pleasurable excitement has faded away. Such, in fact, are Zeus’s angry threats as he speaks to Hera in this wise: So you may see if aught you gain from the love and caresses Won by your coming afar from the gods to deceive me.[*] For the description and portrayal of mean actions, if it also represent as it should the disgrace and injury resulting to the doers thereof, benefits instead of injuring the hearer. Philosophers, at any rate, for admonition and instruction, use examples taken from known facts; but the poets accomplish the same result by inventing actions of their own imagination, and by recounting mythical tales. Thus it was Melanthius who said, whether in jest or in earnest, that the Athenian State was perpetually preserved by the quarrelling and disorder among its public speakers; for they were not all inclined to crowd to the same side of the boat, and so, in the disagreement of the politicians, there was ever some counterpoise to the harmful. And so the mutual contrarieties of the poets, restoring our belief to its proper balance, forbid any strong turning of the scale toward the harmful. When therefore a comparison of passages makes their contradictions evident, we must advocate the better side, as in the following examples:

Oft do the gods, my child, cause men to fail,[*]

as compared with You’ve named the simplest way; just blame the gods; [*] and again

You may rejoice in wealth, but these may not,[*]

as compared with

’Tis loutish to be rich, and know naught else;[*]

and

What need to sacrifice when you must die? [*]

as compared with ’Tis better thus; God’s worship is not toil.[*] For such passages as these admit of solutions which are obvious, if, as has been said, we direct the young, by the use of criticism, toward the better side. But whenever anything said by such authors sounds preposterous, and no solution is found close at hand, we must nullify its effect by something said by them elsewhere to the opposite effect, and we should not be offended or angry at the poet, but with the words, which are spoken in character and with humorous intent. As an obvious illustration, if you wish, over against Homer’s accounts of the gods being cast forth by one another, their being wounded by men, their disagreements, and their displays of ill-temper, you may set the line:

Surely you know how to think of a saying better than this one,[*]

and indeed elsewhere you do think of better things and say more seemly things, such as these:

Gods at their ease ever living,[*]

and

There the blessed gods pass all their days in enjoyment,[*]

and

Thus the gods have spun the fate of unhappy mortals Ever to live in distress, but themselves are free from all trouble.[*]

These, then, are sound opinions about gods, and true, but those other accounts have been fabricated to excite men’s astonishment. Again, when Euripides says,

By many forms of artifice the gods Defeat our plans, for they are stronger far,[*]

it is not bad to subjoin,

If gods do aught that’s base, they are no gods,[*]

which is a better saying of his. And when Pindar very bitterly and exasperatingly has said,

Do what you will, so you vanquish your foe,[*]

Yet, we may reply, you yourself say that

Most bitter the end Must surely await Sweet joys that are gained By a means unfair.

[*] a And when Sophocles has said, Sweet is the pelf though gained by falsity.[*] Indeed, we may say, but we have heard from you that

False words unfruitful prove when harvested.

[*] And over against those statements about wealth:

Clever is wealth at finding ways to reach Both hallowed and unhallowed ground, and where A poor man, though he even gain access, Could not withal attain his heart’s desire. An ugly body, hapless with its tongue, Wealth makes both wise and comely to behold,[*]

he will set many of Sophocles’ words, among which are the following:

E’en without wealth a man may be esteemed,[*]

and

To beg doth not degrade a noble mind,[*]

and In the blessings of plenty What enjoyment is there, If blest wealth owe its increase To base-brooding care?[*] And Menander certainly exalted the love of pleasure, with a suggestion of boastfulness too, in these glowing lines that refer to love:

All things that live and see the self-same sun That we behold, to pleasure are enslaved.[*]

But at another time he turns us about and draws us towards the good, and uproots the boldness of licentiousness, by saying: A shameful life, though pleasant, is disgrace.[*] The latter sentiment is quite opposed to the former, and it is better and more useful. Such comparison and consideration of opposing sentiments will result in one of two ways: it will either guide the youth over toward the better side, or else cause his belief to revolt from the worse.

In case the authors themselves do not offer solutions of their unjustifiable sayings, it is not a bad idea to put on the other side declarations of other writers of repute, and, as in a balance, make the scales incline toward the better side. For example, if Alexis stirs some people when he says, The man of sense must gather pleasure’s fruits, And three there are which have the potency Truly to be of import for this life— To eat and drink and have one’s way in love, All else must be declared accessory,[*] we must recall to their minds that Socrates used to say just the opposite—that base men live to eat

and drink, and good men eat and drink to live. And he who wrote

Not useless ’gainst the knave is knavery,[*]

thus bidding us, in a way, to make ourselves like knaves, may be confronted with the saying of Diogenes; for, being asked how one might defend himself against his adversary, he said, By proving honourable and upright himself. We should use Diogenes against Sophocles, too; for Sophocles has filled hosts of men with despondency by writing these lines about the mysteries:

Thrice blest are they Who having seen these mystic rites shall pass To Hades’ house; for them alone is life Beyond; for others all is evil there.[*]

But Diogenes, hearing some such sentiment as this, said, What! Do you mean to say that Pataecion, the robber, will have a better portion after death than Epaminondas, just because he is initiate? And when Timotheus, in a song in the theatre, spoke of Artemis as Ecstatic Bacchic frantic fanatic,[*] Cinesias at once shouted back, May you have a daughter like that I Neat too is Bion s retort to Theognis, who said:

Any man that is subject to poverty never is able Either to speak or to act; nay, but his tongue is tied.[*]

How is it, then, said Bion, that you, who are poor, can talk much nonsense, and weary us with this rubbish?