How a Young Man Ought to Hear Poems (3-4)

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;

[*]

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?

[*]

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.

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;

[*]

By him he stood, and with soft speeches quelled

The wrath which in his heated bosom swelled.

[*]

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;

[*]

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!

[*]

he accompanies it with this censure,—

Nor yet the rage his boiling breast forsook,

Which thus redoubling on Atrides broke;

[*]

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.

[*]

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.

[*]

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

With such big words his mind proud sector eased,

But venerable Juno lie displeased.

[*]

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.

[*]

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;

[*]

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.

[*]

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;

[*]

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.

[*]

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.

[*]

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