How a Young Man Ought to Hear Poems (13-14)

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.