How a Young Man Ought to Hear Poems (5-6)

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.

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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.

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 ἀλύειω is sometimes taken for being uneasy and disquieted in mind, as in

Ὤς ἔφαθ· ἡ δὐλύουσὐπεβήσατο, τείρετο δαἰνῶς,

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and elsewhere for boasting and rejoicing, as in

Ἤ ὐλείς, ὅτι Ἶρον ἐρνίκησας τόν ἀλήτην

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In like manner θοάζειν signifies either to move, as in Euripides when he saith,

Κῆτος θούζον ἐκ Ἀτλαντικῆς ἁλός—

or to sit, as in Sophocles when he writes thus,

Τίνας πόθἕρας τάσδε μοι θοάζετε,

Ἱκτηρίοις κλάδοισιν ἑξεστεμμένοι.

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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:—

Νῆὀλίγου αἰνεῖν, μεγάλῃ δἐνί φορτία θέσθαι.

For here αἰνεῖν signifies to praise (instead of ἐμαινεῖν), 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,

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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.

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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;

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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;

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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.

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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,

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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,

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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:—

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Of violated oaths Jove took no care,

But spitefully both parties crushed by war:—

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To Greeks and Trojans both this was the rise

Of mischief, suitable to Jove’s device.

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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.

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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;

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The adverse troops then did the Grecians stout

By their mere virtue profligate and rout;

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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;[*]

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;

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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.

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So also in the word εὐδαιμονία, he would be sorely deceived who should imagine that, wheresoever he meets with it in poets, it means (as it does in philosophy) a perfect habitual enjoyment of all good things or the leading a life every way agreeable to Nature, and that they do not withal by the abuse of such words call rich men happy or blessed, and power or glory felicity. For, though Homer rightly useth terms of that nature in this passage,—

Though of such great estates I am possest,

Yet with true inward joy I am not blest;

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and Menander in this,—

So great’s th’ estate I am endowed withal:

All say I’m rich, but none me happy call;—

yet Euripides discourseth more confusedly and perplexedly when he writes after this manner,—

May I ne’er live that grievous blessed life;—

But tell me, man, why valuest thou so high

Th’ unjust beatitude of tyranny ?

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except, as I said, we allow him the use of these words in a metaphorical and abusive sense. But enough hath been spoken of these matters.