How a Young Man Ought to Hear Poems (11-14)

But as, in the same plant, the bee feeds on the flower, the goat on the bud, the hog on the root, and other living creatures on the seed and the fruit; so in reading of poems, one man singleth out the historical part, another dwells upon the elegancy and fit disposal of words, as Aristophanes says of Euripides,—

His gallant language runs so smooth and round,

That I am ravisht with th’ harmonious sound;

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but others, to whom this part of my discourse is directed, mind only such things as are useful to the bettering of manners. And such we are to put in mind that it is an absurd thing, that those who delight in fables should not let any thing slip them of the vain and extravagant stories they find in poets, and that those who affect language should pass by nothing that is elegantly and floridly expressed; and that only the lovers of honor and virtue, who apply themselves to the study of poems not for delight but for instruction’s sake, should slightly and negligently observe what is spoken in them relating to valor, temperance, or justice. Of this nature is the following:—

And stand we deedless, O eternal shame!

Till Hector’s arm involve the ships in flame?

Haste, let us join, and combat side by side.

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For to see a man of the greatest wisdom in danger of being totally cut off with all those that take part with him, and yet affected less with fear of death than of shame and dishonor, must needs excite in a young man a passionate affection for virtue. And this,

Joyed was the Goddess, for she much did prize

A man that was alike both just and wise,

teacheth us to infer that the Deity delights not in a rich or a proper or a strong man, but in one that is furnished with wisdom and justice. Again, when the same Goddess (Minerva) saith that the reason why she did not desert or neglect Ulysses was that he was

Gentle, of ready wit, of prudent mind,

she therein tells us that, of all things pertaining to us, nothing is dear to the Gods and divine but our virtue, seeing like naturally delights in like.

And seeing, moreover, that it both seemeth and really is a great thing to be able to moderate a man’s anger, but a greater by far to guard a man’s self beforehand by prudence, that he fall not into it nor be surprised by it, therefore also such passages as tend that way are not slightly to be represented to the readers; for example, that Achilles himself—who was a man of no great forbearance, nor inclined to such meekness—yet warns Priam to be calm and not to provoke him, thus,

Move me no more (Achilles thus replies,

While kindling anger sparkled in his eyes),

Nor seek by tears my steady soul to bend:

To yield thy Hector I myself intend:

Cease; lest, neglectful of high Jove’s command,

I show thee, king, thou tread’st on hostile land;

and that he himself first washeth and decently covereth the body of Hector and then puts it into a chariot, to prevent his father’s seeing it so unworthily mangled as it was,—

Lest the unhappy sire,

Provoked to passion, once more rouse to ire

The stern Pelides; and nor sacred age,

Nor Jove’s command, should check the rising rage.

For it is a piece of admirable prudence for a man so prone to anger, as being by nature hasty and furious, to understand himself so well as to set a guard upon his own inclinations, and by avoiding provocations to keep his passion at due distance by the use of reason, lest he should be unawares surprised by it. And after the same manner must the man that is apt to be drunken forearm himself against that vice; and he that is given to wantonness, against lust, as Agesilaus refused to receive a kiss from a beautiful person addressing to him, and Cyrus would not so much as endure to see Panthea. Whereas, on the contrary, those that are not virtuously bred are wont to gather fuel to inflame their passions, and voluntarily to abandon themselves to those temptations to which of themselves they are endangered. But Ulysses does not only restrain his own anger, but (perceiving by the discourse of his son Telemachus, that through indignation conceived against such evil men he was greatly provoked) he blunts his passion too beforehand, and composeth him to calmness and patience, thus:—

There, if base scorn insult my reverend age,

Bear it, my son! repress thy rising rage.

If outraged, cease that outrage to repel;

Bear it, my son! howe’er thy heart rebel.

For as men are not wont to put bridles on their horses when they are running in full speed, but bring them bridled beforehand to the race; so do they use to preoccupy and predispose the minds of those persons with rational considerations to enable them to encounter passion, whom they perceive to be too mettlesome and unmanageable upon the sight of provoking objects.

Furthermore, the young man is not altogether to neglect names themselves when he meets with them; though he is not obliged to give much heed to such idle descants as those of Cleanthes, who, while he professeth himself an interpreter, plays the trifler, as in these passages of Homer: Ζεῦ πάτερ Ἴδηθεν μεδέων, and Ζεῦ ἄνα Δωδωωαῖε.[*] For he will needs read the last two of these words joined into one, and make them ἀναδωδωναῖε; for that the air evaporated from the earth by exhalation (ἀνάδοσις) is so called. Yea, and Chrysippus too, though he does not so trifle, yet is very jejune, while he hunts after improbable etymologies. As when he will need force the words εὐρύοπα Κρονίδην to import Jupiter’s excellent faculty in speaking and powerfulness to persuade thereby.

But such things as these are fitter to be left to the examination of grammarians; and we are rather to insist upon such passages as are both profitable and persuasive. Such, for instance, as these:—

My early youth was bred to martial pains,

My soul impels me to the embattled plains!

How skill’d he was in each obliging art;

The mildest manners, and the gentlest heart.

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For while the author tells us that fortitude may be taught, and that an obliging and graceful way of conversing with others is to be gotten by art and the use of reason, he exhorts us not to neglect the improvement of ourselves, but by observing our teachers’ instructions to learn a becoming carriage, as knowing that clownishness and cowardice argue ill-breeding and ignorance. And very suitable to what hath been said is that which is said of Jupiter and Neptune:—

Gods of one source, of one ethereal race,

Alike divine, and heaven their native place;

But Jove the greater; first born of the skies,

And more than men or Gods supremely wise.

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For the poet therein pronounceth wisdom to be the most divine and royal quality of all; as placing therein the greatest excellency of Jupiter himself, and judging all virtues else to be necessarily consequent thereunto. We are also to accustom a young man attentively to hear such things as these:—

Urge him with truth to frame his fair replies:

And sure he will, for wisdom never lies:

The praise of wisdom, in thy youth obtain’d,

An act so rash, Antilochus, has stain’d:

Say, is it just, my friend, that Hector’s ear

From such a warrior such a speech should hear?

I deemed thee once the wisest of thy kind,

But ill this insult suits a prudent mind.

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These speeches teach us that it is beneath wise men to lie or to deal otherwise than fairly, even in games, or to blame other men without just cause. And when the poet attributes Pindarus’s violation of the truce to his folly, he withal declares his judgment that a wise man will not be guilty of an unjust action. The like may we also infer concerning continence, taking our ground for it from these passages:—

For him Antaea burn’d with lawless flame,

And strove to tempt him from the paths of fame:

In vain she tempted the relentless youth,

Endued with wisdom, sacred fear, and truth:

At first, with worthy shame and decent pride,

The royal dame his lawless suit denied !

For virtue’s image yet possessed her mind:

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in which speeches the poet assigns wisdom to be the cause of continence. And when in exhortations made to encourage soldiers to fight, he speaks in this manner:—

What mean you, Lycians? Stand! O stand, for shame !

Yet each reflect who prizes fame or breath,

On endless infamy, on instant death;

For, lo ! the fated time, the appointed shore;

Hark ! the gates burst, the brazen barriers roar !

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he seems to intimate that continent men are valiant men; because they fear the shame of base actions, and can trample on pleasures and stand their ground in the greatest hazards. Whence Timotheus, in the play called Persae, takes occasion handsomely to exhort the Grecians thus:—

Brave soldiers of just shame in awe should stand;

For the blushing face oft helps the fighting hand.

And Aeschylus also makes it a point of wisdom not to be blown up with pride when a man is honored, nor to be moved or elevated with the acclamations of a multitude, writing thus of Amphiaraus:—

His shield no emblem bears; his generous soul

Wishes to be, not to appear, the best;

While the deep furrows of his noble mind

Harvests of wise and prudent counsel bear.

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For it is the part of a wise man to value himself upon the consciousness of his own true worth and excellency.

Whereas, therefore, all inward perfections are reducible to wisdom, it appears that all sorts of virtue and learning are included in it.

Again, boys may be instructed, by reading the poets as they ought, to draw something that is useful and profitable even from those passages that are most suspected as wicked and absurd; as the bee is taught by Nature to gather the sweetest and most pleasant honey from the harshest flowers and sharpest thorns. It does indeed at the first blush cast a shrewd suspicion on Agamemnon of taking a bribe, when Homer tells us that he discharged that rich man from the wars who presented him with his fleet mare Aethe:—

Whom rich Echepolus, more rich than brave,

To ’scape the wars, to Agamemnon gave

(Aethe her name), at home to end his days;

Base wealth preferring to eternal praise.

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Yet, as saith Aristotle, it was well done of him to prefer a good beast before such a man. For, the truth is, a dog or ass is of more value than a timorous and cowardly man that wallows in wealth and luxury. Again, Thetis seems to do indecently, when she exhorts her son to follow his pleasures and minds him of companying with women. But even here, on the other side, the continency of Achilles is worthy to be considered; who, though he dearly loved Briseis—newly returned to him too,—yet, when he knew his life to be near its end, does not hasten to the fruition of pleasures, nor, when he mourns for his friend Patroclus, does he (as most men are wont) shut himself up from all business and neglect his duty, but only bars himself from recreations for his sorrow’s sake, while yet he gives himself up to action and military employments. And Archilochus is not praiseworthy either, who, in the midst of his mourning for his sister’s husband drowned in the sea, contrives to dispel his grief by drinking and merriment. And yet he gives this plausible reason to justify that practice of his,

To drink and dance, rather than mourn, I choose;

Nor wrong I him, whom mourning can’t reduce.

For, if he judged himself to do nothing amiss when he followed sports and banquets, sure, we shall not do worse, if in whatever circumstances we follow the study of philosophy, or manage public affairs, or go to the market or to the Academy, or follow our husbandry. Wherefore those corrections also are not to be rejected which Cleanthes and Antisthenes have made use of. For Antisthenes, seeing the Athenians all in a tumult in the theatre, and justly, upon the pronunciation of this verse,—

Except what men think base, there’s nothing ill,[*]

presently subjoined this corrective,

What’s base is base,—believe men what they will.

And Cleanthes, hearing this passage concerning wealth:

Great is th’ advantage that great wealth attends,

For oft with it we purchase health and friends;

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presently altered it thus:

Great disadvantage oft attends on wealth;

We purchase whores with’t and destroy our health.

And Zeno corrected that of Sophocles,

The man that in a tyrant’s palace dwells

His liberty for’s entertainment sells,

after this manner:

No: if he came in free, he cannot lose

His liberty, though in a tyrant’s house;

meaning by a free man one that is undaunted and magnanimous, and one of a spirit too great to stoop beneath itself. And why may not we also, by some such acclamations as those, call off young men to the better side, by using some things spoken by poets after the same manner? For example, it is said,

’Tis all that in this life one can require,

To hit the mark he aims at in desire.

To which we may reply thus:

’Tis false; except one level his desire

At what’s expedient, and no more require.

For it is an unhappy thing and not to be wished, for a man to obtain and be master of what he desires if it be inexpedient. Again this saying,

Thou, Agamemnon, must thyself prepare

Of joy and grief by turns to take thy share:

Thy father, Atreus, sure, ne’er thee begat,

To be an unchanged favorite of Fate:

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we may thus invert:

Thy father, Atreus, never thee begat,

To be an unchanged favorite of Fate:

Therefore, if moderate thy fortunes are,

Thou shouldst rejoice always, and grief forbear.

Again it is said,

Alas! this ill comes from the powers divine,

That oft we see what’s good, yet it decline.

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Yea, rather, say we, it is a brutish and irrational and wretched fault of ours, that when we understand better things, we are carried away to the pursuit of those which are worse, through our intemperance and effeminacy. Again, one says,

’Tis not the teacher’s speech but practice moves.[*]

Yea, rather, say we, both the speech and practice,—or the practice by the means of speech,—as the horse is managed with the bridle, and the ship with the helm. For virtue hath no instrument so suitable and agreeable to human nature to work on men withal, as that of rational discourse. Again, we meet with this character of some person:

A. Is he more prone to male or female loves ? B. He’s flexible both ways, where beauty moves.

But it had been better said thus:

He’s flexible to both, where virtue moves.

For it is no commendation of a man’s dexterity to be tossed up and down as pleasure and beauty move him, but an argument rather of a weak and unstable disposition. Once more, this speech,

religion damps the courage of our minds,

And ev’n wise men to cowardice inclines,

is by no means to be allowed; but rather the contrary,

Religion truly fortifies men’s minds,

And a wise man to valiant acts inclines,

and gives not occasion of fear to any but weak and foolish persons and such as are ungrateful to the Deity, who are apt to look on that divine power and principle which is the cause of all good with suspicion and jealousy, as being hurtful unto them. And so much for that which I call correction of poets’ sayings.

There is yet another way of improving poems, taught us well by Chrysippus; which is, by accommodation of any saying, to transfer that which is useful and serviceable in it to divers things of the same kind. For whereas Hesiod saith,

If but a cow be lost, the common fame

Upon the next ill neighbor lays the blame;

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the same may be applied to a man’s dog or ass or any other beast of his which is liable to the like mischance. Again, Euripides saith,

How can that man be called a slave, who slights

Ev’n death itself, which servile spirits frights?

the like whereof may be said of hard labor or painful sickness. For as physicians, finding by experience the force of any medicine in the cure of some one disease, make use of it by accommodation, proportionably to every other disease of affinity thereto, so are we to deal with such speeches as are of a common import and apt to communicate their value to other things; we must not confine them to that one thing only to which they were at first adapted, but transfer them to all other of like nature, and accustom young men by many parallel instances to see the communicableness of them, and exercise the promptness of their wits in such applications. So that when Meander says,

Happy is he who wealth and wisdom hath,

they may be able to judge that the same is fitly applicable to glory and authority and eloquence also. And the reproof which Ulysses gives Achilles, when he found him sitting in Scyrus in the apartment of the young ladies,

Thou, who from noblest Greeks deriv’st thy race,

Dost thou with spinning wool thy birth disgrace?

may be as well given to the prodigal, to him that undertakes any dishonest way of living, yea, to the slothful and unlearned person, thus:

Thou, who from noblest Greeks deriv’st thy race,

Dost thou with fuddling thy great birth disgrace ?

or dost thou spend thy time in dicing, or quail-striking,[*] or deal in adulterate wares or griping usury, not minding any thing that is great and worthy thy noble extraction? So when they read,

For Wealth, the God most serve, I little care,

Since the worst men his favors often wear,

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they may be able to infer, therefore, as little regard is to be had to glory and bodily beauty and princely robes and priestly garlands, all which also we see to be the enjoyments of very bad men. Again, when they read this passage,

A coward father propagates his vice,

And gets a son heir to his cowardice,

they may in truth apply the same to intemperance, to superstition, to envy, and all other diseases of men’s minds. Again, whereas it is handsomely said of Homer,

Unhappy Paris, fairest to behold !

and

Hector, of noble form,[*]

for herein he shows that a man who hath no greater excellency than that of beauty to commend him deserves to have it mentioned with contempt and ignominy,—such expressions we should make use of in like cases to repress the insolence of such as bear themselves high upon the account of such things as are of no real value, and to teach young men to look upon such compellations as O thou richest of men, and O thou that excellest in feasting, in multitudes of attendants, in herds of cattle, yea, and in eloquent speaking itself, to be (as they are indeed) expressions that import reproach and infamy. For, in truth, a man that designs to excel ought to endeavor it in those things that are in themselves most excellent, and to become chief in the chiefest, and great in the greatest things. Whereas glory that ariseth from things in themselves small and inconsiderable is inglorious and contemptible. To mind us whereof we shall never be at a loss for instances, if, in reading Homer especially, we observe how he applieth the expressions that import praise or disgrace; wherein we have clear proof that he makes small account of the good things either of the body or Fortune. And first of all, in meetings and salutations, men do not call others fair or rich or strong, but use such terms of commendation as these:

Son of Laertes, from great Jove deriving

Thy pedigree, and skilled in wise contriving;

Hector, thou son of Priam, whose advice

With wisest Jove’s men count of equal price;

Achilles, son of Peleus, whom all story

Shall mention as the Grecians’ greatest glory;

Divine Patroclus, for thy worth thou art,

Of all the friends I have, lodged next my heart.

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And moreover, when they speak disgracefully of any person, they touch not at bodily defects, but direct all their reproaches to vicious actions; as for instance:

A dogged-looking, drunken beast thou art,

And in thy bosom hast a deer’s faint heart;

Ajax, at brawling valiant still,

Whose tongue is used to speaking ill;

A tongue so loose hung, and so vain withal,

Idomeneus, becomes thee not at all;

Ajax, thy tongue doth oft offend;

For of thy boasting there’s no end.

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Lastly, when Ulysses reproacheth Thersites, he objecteth not to him his lameness nor his baldness nor his hunched back, but the vicious quality of indiscreet babbling. On the other side, when Juno means to express a dalliance or motherly fondness to her son Vulcan, she courts him with an epithet taken from his halting, thus,

Rouse thee, my limping son![*]

In this instance, Homer does (as it were) deride those who are ashamed of their lameness or blindness, as not thinking any thing a disgrace that is not in itself disgraceful, nor any person liable to a reproach for that which is not imputable to himself but to Fortune. These two great advantages may be made by those who frequently study poets;—the learning moderation, to keep them from unseasonable and foolish reproaching others with their misfortunes, when they themselves enjoy a constant current of prosperity; and magnanimity, that under variety of accidents they be not dejected nor disturbed, but meekly bear the being scoffed at, reproached, and drolled upon. Especially, let them have that saying of Philemon ready at hand in such cases:

That spirit’s well in tune, whose sweet repose

No railer’s tongue can ever discompose.

And yet, if one that so rails do himself deserve reprehension, thou mayst take occasion to retort upon him his own vices and inordinate passions; as when Adrastus in the tragedy is assaulted thus by Alcmaeon,

Thy sister’s one that did her husband kill,

he returns him this answer,

But thou thyself thy mother’s blood did spill.

For as they who scourge a man’s garments do not touch the body, so those that turn other men’s evil fortunes or mean births to matter of reproach do only with vanity and folly enough lash their external circumstances, but touch not their internal part, the soul, nor those things which truly need correction and reproof.

Moreover, as we have above taught you to abate and lessen the credit of evil and hurtful poems by setting in opposition to them the famous speeches and sentences of such worthy men as have managed public affairs, so will it be useful to us, where we find any things in them of civil and profitable import, to improve and strengthen them by testimonies and proofs taken from philosophers, withal giving these the credit of being the first inventors of them. For this is both just and profitable to be done, seeing by this means such sayings receive an additional strength and esteem, when it appears that what is spoken on the stage or sung to the harp or occurs in a scholar’s lesson is agreeable to the doctrines of Pythagoras and Plato, and that the sentences of Chilo and Bias tend to the same issue with those that are found in the authors which children read. Therefore must we industriously show them that these poetical sentences,

Not these, O daughter, are thy proper cares,

Thee milder arts befit, and softer wars;

Sweet smiles are thine, and kind endearing charms;

To Mars and Pallas leave the deeds of arms;

Jove’s angry with thee, when thy unmanaged rage

With those that overmatch thee doth engage;

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differ not in substance but bear plainly the same sense with that philosophical sentence, Know thyself. And these,

Fools, who by wrong seek to augment their store,

And know not how much half than all is more;

Of counsel giv’n to mischievous intents,

The man that gives it most of all repents;

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are of near kin to what we find in the determination of Plato, in his books entitled Gorgias and Concerning the Commonwealth, to wit, that it is worse to do than to suffer injury, and that a man more endamageth himself when he hurts another, than he would be damnified if he were the sufferer. And that of Aeschylus,

Cheer up, friend; sorrows, when they highest climb,

What they exceed in measure want in time,

we must inform them, is but the same famous sentence which is so much admired in Epicurus, that great griefs are but short, and those that are of long continuance are but small. The former clause whereof is that which Aeschylus here saith expressly, and the latter but the consequent of that. For if a great and intense sorrow do not last, then that which doth last is not great nor hard to be borne. And those words of Thespis,

Seest not how Jove,—because he cannot lie

Nor vaunt nor laugh at impious drollery,

And pleasure’s charms are things to him unknown,—

Among the Gods wears the imperial crown?

wherein differ they from what Plato says, that the divine nature is seated far from both joy and grief? And that saying of Bacchylides,

Virtue alone doth lasting honor gain,

But men of wretched souls oft wealth attain;

and those of Euripides much of the same import,

Hence temperance in my esteem excels,

Because it constantly with good men dwells;

How much soe’er to honor thou aspire,

And strive by riches virtue to acquire,

Still shall thy lot to good men wretched seem;

do they not evidently confirm to us what the philosophers say of riches and other external good things, that without virtue they are fruitless and unprofitable enjoyments?

Now thus to accommodate and reconcile poetry to the doctrines of philosophy strips it of its fabulous and personated parts, and makes those things which it delivers usefully to acquire also the reputation of gravity; and over and above, it inclines the soul of a young man to receive the impressions of philosophical precepts. For he will hereby be enabled to come to them not altogether destitute of some sort of relish of them, not as to things that he has heard nothing of before, nor with an head confusedly full of the false notions which he hath sucked in from the daily tattle of his mother and nurse,—yea, sometimes too of his father and pedant,—who have been wont to speak of rich men as the happy men and mention them always with honor, and to express themselves concerning death and pain with horror, and to look on virtue without riches and glory as a thing of nought and not to be desired. Whence it comes to pass, that when such youths first do hear things of a quite contrary nature from philosophers, they are surprised with a kind of amazement, trouble, and stupid astonishment, which makes them afraid to entertain or endure them, except they be dealt with as those who come out of very great darkness into the light of the bright sun, that is, be first accustomed for a while to behold those doctrines in fabulous authors, as in a kind of false light, which hath but a moderate brightness and is easy to be looked on and borne without disturbance to the weak sight. For having before heard or read from poets such things as these are,—

Mourn at one’s birth, as th’ inlet t’ all that grieves;

But joy at death, as that which man relieves;

Of worldly things a mortal needs but twain;

The spring supplies his drink, the earth his grain:

O tyranny, to barbarous nations dear!

This in all human happiness is chief,

To know as little as we can of grief;

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they are the less disturbed and offended when they hear from philosophers that no man ought to be much concerned about death; that the riches of nature are defined and limited; that the happiness of man’s life doth not consist in the abundance of wealth or vastness of employments or height of authority and power, but in freedom from sorrow, in moderation of passions, and in such a temper of mind as measures all things by the use of Nature.

Wherefore, upon all these accounts, as well as for all the reasons before mentioned, youth stands in need of good government to manage it in the reading of poetry, that being free from all prejudicate opinions, and rather instructed beforehand in conformity thereunto, it may with more calmness, friendliness, and familiarity pass from thence to the study of philosophy.