How a Young Man Ought to Hear Poems (6-10)

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.

Nevertheless, this principle is not once only but often to be inculcated and pressed on young men, that poetry, when it undertakes a fictitious argument by way of imitation, though it make use of such ornament and illustration as suit the actions and manners treated of, yet disclaims not all likelihood of truth, seeing the force of imitation, in order to the persuading of men, lies in probability. Wherefore such imitation as does not altogether shake hands with truth carries along with it certain signs of virtue and vice mixed together in the actions which it doth represent. And of this nature is Homer’s poetry, which totally bids adieu to Stoicism, the principles whereof will not admit any vice to come near where virtue is, nor virtue to have any thing to do where any vice lodgeth, but affirms that he that is not a wise man can do nothing well, and he that is so can do nothing amiss. Thus they determine in the schools. But in human actions and the affairs of common life the judgment of Euripides is verified, that

Virtue and vice ne’er separately exist,

But in the same acts with each other twist.

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Next, it is to be observed that poetry, waiving the truth of things, does most labor to beautify its fictions with variety and multiplicity of contrivance. For variety bestows upon fable all that is pathetical, unusual, and surprising, and thereby makes it more taking and graceful; whereas what is void of variety is unsuitable to the nature of fable, and so raiseth no

passions at all. Upon which design of variety it is, that the poets never represent the same persons always victorious or prosperous or acting with the same constant tenor of virtue;—yea, even the Gods themselves, when they engage in human actions, are not represented as free from passions and errors;—lest, for the want of some difficulties and cross passages, their poems should be destitute of that briskness which is requisite to move and astonish the minds of men.

These things therefore so standing, we should, when we enter a young man into the study of the poets, endeavor to free his mind from that degree of esteem of the good and great personages in them described as may incline him to think them to be mirrors of wisdom and justice, the chief of princes, and the exemplary measures of all virtue and goodness. For he will receive much prejudice, if he shall approve and admire all that comes from such persons as great, if he dislike nothing in them himself, nor will endure to hear others blame them, though for such words and actions as the following passages import:—

Oh! would to all the immortal powers above,

Apollo, Pallas, and almighty Jove!

That not one Trojan might be left alive,

And not a Greek of all the race survive.

Might only we the vast destruction shun,

And only we destroy the accursed town!

Her breast all gore, with lamentable cries,

The bleeding innocent Cassandra dies,

Murdered by Clytemnestra’s faithless hand:

Lie with thy father’s whore, my mother said,

That she th’ old man may loathe; and I obeyed:

Of all the Gods, O father Jove, there’s none

Thus given to mischief but thyself alone.

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Our young man is to be taught not to commend such things as these, no, nor to show the nimbleness of his wit or subtlety in maintaining an argument by finding out plausible colors and pretences to varnish over a bad matter. But

we should teach him rather to judge that poetry is an imitation of the manners and lives of such men as are not perfectly pure and unblamable, but such as are tinctured with passions, misled by false opinions, and muffled with ignorance; though oftentimes they may, by the help of a good natural temper, change them for better qualities. For the young man’s mind, being thus prepared and disposed, will receive no damage by such passages when he meets with them in poems, but will on the one side be elevated with rapture at those things which are well said or done, and on the other, will not entertain but dislike those which are of a contrary character. But he that admires and is transported with every thing, as having his judgment enslaved by the esteem he hath for the names of heroes, will be unawares wheedled into many evil things, and be guilty of the same folly with those who imitate the crookedness of Plato or the lisping of Aristotle. Neither must he carry himself timorously herein, nor, like a superstitious person in a temple, tremblingly adore all he meets with; but use himself to such confidence as may enable him openly to pronounce, This was ill or incongruously said, and, That was bravely and gallantly spoken. For example, Achilles in Homer, being offended at the spinning out that war by delays, wherein he was desirous by feats of arms to purchase to himself glory, calls the soldiers together when there was an epidemical disease among them. But having himself some smattering skill in physic, and perceiving after the ninth day, which useth to be decretory in such cases, that the disease was no usual one nor proceeding from ordinary causes, when he stands up to speak, he waives applying himself to the soldiers, and addresseth himself as a councillor to the general, thus:—

Why leave we not the fatal Trojan shore,

And measure back the seas we cross’d before?

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And he spake well, and with due moderation and decorum. But when the soothsayer Chalcas had told him that he feared the wrath of the most potent among the Grecians, after an oath that while he lived no man should lay violent hands on him, he adds, but not with like wisdom and moderation,

Not e’en the chief by whom our hosts are led,

The king of kings, shall touch that sacred head;

in which speech he declares his low opinion or rather his contempt of his chief commander. And then, being farther provoked, he drew his weapon with a design to kill him, which attempt was neither good nor expedient. And therefore by and by he repented his rashness,—

He said, observant of the blue-eyed maid;

Then in the sheath returned the shining blade;

wherein again he did rightly and worthily, in that, though he could not altogether quell his passion, yet he restrained and reduced it under the command of reason, before it brake forth into such an irreparable act of mischief. Again, even Agamemnon himself talks in that assembly ridiculously, but carries himself more gravely and more like a prince in the matter of Chryseis. For whereas Achilles, when his Briseis was taken away from him,

In sullenness withdraws from all his friends,

And in his tent his time lamenting spends;

Agamemnon himself hands into the ship, delivers to her friends, and so sends from him, the woman concerning whom a little before he declared that he loved her better than his wife; and in that action did nothing unbecoming or savoring of fond affection. Also Phoenix, when his father bitterly cursed him for having to do with one that was his own harlot, says,

Him in my rage I purposed to have killed,

But that my land some God in kindness held;

And minded me that Greeks would taunting say,

Lo, here’s the man that did his father slav.

It is true that Aristarchus was afraid to permit these verses to stand in the poet, and therefore censured them to be expunged. But they were inserted by Homer very aptly to the occasion of Phoenix’s instructing Achilles what a pernicious thing anger is, and what foul acts men do by its instigation, while they are capable neither of making use of their own reason nor of hearing the counsel of others. To which end he also introduceth Meleager at first highly offended with his citizens, and afterwards pacified; justly therein reprehending disordered passions, and praising it as a good and profitable thing not to yield to them, but to resist and overcome them, and to repent when one hath been overcome by them.

Now in these instances the difference is manifest. But where a like clear judgment cannot be passed, there we are to settle the young man’s mind thus, by way of distinction. If Nausicaa, having cast her eyes upon Ulysses, a stranger, and feeling the same passion for him as Calypso had before, did (as one that was ripe for a husband) out of wantonness talk with her maidens at this foolish rate,—

O Heaven ! in my connubial hour decree

This man my spouse, or such a spouse as he!

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she is blameworthy for her impudence and incontinence. But if, perceiving the man’s breeding by his discourse, and admiring the prudence of his addresses, she rather wisheth to have such a one for a husband than a merchant or a dancing gallant of her fellow-citizens, she is to be commended. And when Ulysses is represented as rejoicing at Penelope’s jocular conversation with her wooers, and at their presenting her with rich garments and other ornaments,

Because she cunningly the fools cajoled,

And bartered light words for their heavy gold;

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if that joy were occasioned by greediness and covetous ness, he discovers himself to be a more sordid prostituter of his own wife than Poliager is wont to be represented on the stage to have been, of whom it is said,—

Happy man he, whose wife, like Capricorn,

Stores him with riches from a golden horn !

But if through foresight he thought thereby to get them the more within his power, as being lulled asleep in security for the future by the hopes she gave them at present, this rejoicing, joined with confidence in his wife, was rational. Again, when he is brought in numbering the goods which the Phaeacians had set on shore together with himself and departed; if indeed, being himself left in such a solitude, so ignorant where he was, and having no security there for his own person, he is yet solicitous for his goods, lest

The sly Phaeacians, when they stole to sea,

Had stolen some part of what they brought away;

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the covetousness of the man deserved in truth to be pitied, or rather abhorred. But if, as some say in his defence, being doubtful whether or no the place where he was landed were Ithaca, he made use of the just tale of his goods to infer thence the honesty of the Phaeacians,—because it was not likely they would expose him in a strange place and leave him there with his goods by him untouched, so as to get nothing by their dishonesty,—then he makes use of a very fit test for this purpose, and deserves commendation for his wisdom in that action. Some also there are who find fault with that passage of the putting him on shore when he was asleep, if it really so happened, and they tell us that the people of Tuscany have still a traditional story among them concerning Ulysses, that he was naturally sleepy, and therefore a man whom many men could not freely converse with. But if his sleep was but feigned, and he made use of this pretence only of a natural infirmity, by counterfeiting a nap, to hide the strait he was in at that time in his thoughts, betwixt the shame of sending away the Phaeacians without giving them a friendly collation and hospitable gifts, and the fear he had of being discovered to his enemies by the treating such a company of men together, they then approve it.

Now, by showing young men these things, we shall preserve them from being carried away to any corruption in their manners. and dispose them to the election and imitation of those that are good, as being before instructed readily to disapprove those and commend these. But this ought with the most care to be done in the reading of tragedies wherein probable and subtle speeches are made use of in the most foul and wicked actions. For that is not always true which Sophocles saith, that

From naughty acts good words can ne’er proceed.

For even he himself is wont to apply pleasant reasonings and plausible arguments to those manners and actions which are wicked or unbecoming. And in another of his fellow-tragedians, we may see even Phaedra herself represented as justifying her unlawful affection for Hippolytus by accusing Theseus of ill-carriage towards her. And in his Troades, he allows Helen the same liberty of speech against Hecuba, whom she judgeth to be more worthy of punishment than herself for her adultery, because she was the mother of Paris that tempted her thereto. A young man therefore must not be accustomed to think any thing of that nature handsomely or wittily spoken, nor to be pleased with such colorable inventions; but rather more to abhor such words as tend to the defence of wanton acts than the very acts themselves.

And lastly, it will be useful likewise to enquire into the cause why each thing is said. For so Cato, when he was a boy, though he was wont to be very observant of all his master’s commands, yet withal used to ask the cause

or reason why he so commanded. But poets are not to be obeyed as pedagogues and lawgivers are, except they have reason to back what they say. And that they will not want, when they speak well; and if they speak ill, what they say will appear vain and frivolous. But nowadays most young men very briskly demand the reason of such trivial speeches as these, and enquire in what sense they are spoken:

It bodes ill luck, when vessels you set up,

To place the ladle on the mixing-cup.

Who from his chariot to another’s leaps,

Seldom his seat without a combat keeps.

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But to those of greater moment they give credence without examination, as to those that follow:

The boldest men are daunted oftentimes,

When they’re reproached with their parents’ crimes:

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When any man is crushed by adverse fate,

His spirit should be low as his estate.

And yet such speeches relate to manners, and disquiet men’s lives by begetting in them evil opinions and unworthy sentiments, except they have learned to return answer to each of them thus: Wherefore is it necessary that a man who is crushed by adverse fate should have a dejected spirit? Yea, why rather should he not struggle against Fortune, and raise himself above the pressures of his low circumstances? Why, if I myself be a good and wise son of an evil and foolish father, does it not rather become me to bear myself confidently upon the account of my own virtue, than to be dejected and dispirited because of my father’s defects? For he that can encounter such speeches and oppose them after this manner, not yielding himself up to be overset with the blast of every saying, but approving that speech of Heraclitus, that

Whate’er is said, though void of sense and wit,

The size of a fool’s intellect doth fit,

will reject many such things as falsely and idly spoken.

These things therefore may be of use to preserve us from the hurt we might get by the study of poems. Now, as on a vine the fruit oftentimes lies shadowed and hidden under its large leaves and luxuriant branches, so in the poet’s phrases and fictions that encompass them there are also many profitable and useful things concealed from the view of young men. This, however, ought not to be suffered; nor should we be led away from things themselves thus, but rather adhere to such of them as tend to the promoting of virtue and the well forming of our manners. It will not be altogether useless therefore, to treat briefly in the next place of passages of that nature. Wherein I intend to touch only at some particulars, leaving all longer discourses, and the brimming up and furnishing them with a multitude of instances, to those who write more for show and ostentation.

First, therefore, let our young man be taught to understand good and bad manners and persons, and from thence apply his mind to the words and deeds which the poet decently assigns to either of them. For example, Achilles, though in some wrath, speaks to Agamemnon thus decently:

Nor, when we take a Trojan town, can I

With thee in spoils and splendid prizes vie;

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whereas Thersites to the same person speaks reproachfully in this manner:—

’Tis thine whate’er the warrior’s breast inflames,

The golden spoil, and thine the lovely dances.

With all the wealth our wars and blood bestow,

Thy tents are crowded and thy chests o’erflow.

Again, Achilles thus:—

Whene’er, by Jove’s decree, our conquering powers

Shall humble to the dust Troy’s lofty towers;

but Thersites thus:—

Whom I or some Greek else as captive bring.

Again, Diomedes, when Agamemnon taking a view of the army spoke reproachfully to him,

To his hard words forbore to make reply,

For the respect he bare to majesty;

whereas Sthenelus, a man of small note, replies on him thus:—

Sir, when you know the truth, what need to lie?

For with our fathers we for valor vie.

Now the observation of such difference will teach the young man the decency of a modest and moderate temper, and the unbecoming nauseousness of the contrary vices of boasting and cracking of a man’s own worth. And it is worth while also to take notice of the demeanor of Agamemnon in the same passage. For he passeth by Sthenelus unspoken to; but perceiving Ulysses to be offended, he neglects not him, but applies himself to answer him:—

Struck with his generous wrath, the king replies.[*]

For to have apologized to every one had been too servile and misbecoming the dignity of his person; whereas equally to have neglected every one had been an act of insolence and imprudence. And very handsome it is that Diomedes, though in the heat of the battle he answers the king only with silence, yet after the battle was over useth more liberty towards him, speaking thus:—

You called me coward, sir, before the Greeks.

It is expedient also to take notice of the different carriage of a wise man and of a soothsayer popularly courting the multitude. For Chalcas very unseasonably makes no scruple to traduce the king before the people, as having been the cause of the pestilence that was befallen them. But Nestor, intending to bring in a discourse concerning the reconciling Achilles to him, that he might not seem to charge Agamemnon before the multitude with the miscarriage his passion had occasioned, only adviseth him thus:—

But thou, O king, to council call the old....

Wise weighty counsels aid a state distress’d,

And such a monarch as can choose the best;

which done, accordingly after supper he sends his ambassadors. Now this speech of Nestor tended to the rectifying of what he had before done amiss; but that of Chalcas, only to accuse and disparage him.

There is likewise consideration to be had of the different manners of nations, such as these. The Trojans enter into battle with loud outcries and great fierceness; but in the army of the Greeks,

Sedate and silent move the numerous bands;

No sound, no whisper, but the chief’s commands;

Those only heard, with awe the rest obey.

For when soldiers are about to engage an enemy, the awe they stand in of their officers is an argument both of courage and obedience. For which purpose Plato teacheth us that we ought to inure ourselves to fear blame and disgrace more than labor and danger. And Cato was wont to say that he liked men that were apt to blush better than those that looked pale.

Moreover, there is a particular character to be noted of the men who undertake for any action. For Dolon thus promiseth:—

I’ll pass through all their lost in a disguise

To their flag-ship, where she at anchor lies.

But Diomedes promiseth nothing, but only tells them he shall fear the less if they send a companion with him; whereby is intimated, that discreet foresight is Grecian and civil, but rash confidence is barbarous and evil; and the former is therefore to be imitated, and the latter to be avoided.

It is a matter too of no unprofitable consideration, how the minds of the Trojans and of Hector too were affected when he and Ajax were about to engage in a single combat. For Aeschylus, when, upon one of the fighters at fisticuffs in the Isthmian games receiving a blow on the face, there was made a great outcry among the people, said: What a thing is practice! See how the lookers-on only cry out, but the man that received the stroke is silent. But when the poet tells us, that the Greeks rejoiced when they saw Ajax in his glistering armor, but

The Trojans’ knees for very fear did quake,

And even Hector’s heart began to ache;

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who is there that wonders not at this difference,—when the heart of him that was to run the risk of the combat only beats inwardly, as if he were to undertake a mere wrestling or running match, but the very bodies of the spectators tremble and shake, out of the kindness and fear which they had for their king?

In the same poet also we may observe the difference betwixt the humor of a coward and a valiant man. For Thersites

Against Achilles a great malice had,

And wise Ulysses he did hate as bad;

but Ajax is always represented as friendly to Achilles; and particularly he speaks thus to Hector concerning him:—

Hector! approach my arm, and singly know

What strength thou last, and what the Grecian foe.

Achilles shuns the fight; yet some there are

Not void of soul, and not unskill’d in war:

wherein he insinuates the high commendation of that valiant man. And in what follows, he speaks like handsome things of his fellow-soldiers in general, thus:—

Whole troops of heroes Greece has yet to boast,

And sends thee one, a sample of her host;

wherein he doth not boast himself to be the only or the best champion, but one of those, among many others, who were fit to undertake that combat.

What hath been said is sufficient upon the point of dissimilitudes; except we think fit to add this, that many of the Trojans came into the enemy’s power alive, but none of the Grecians; and that many of the Trojans supplicated to their enemies,—as (for instance) Adrastus, the sons of Antimachus, Lycaon,—and even Hector himself entreats Achilles for a sepulture; but not one of these doth so, as judging it barbarous to supplicate to a foe in the field, and more Greek-like either to conquer or die.