Essays in Portraiture Defended (18-21)

But all this, no doubt, is apart from the issue and has nothing to do with the case; and the charge to which I must answer is that in making my sketch of you I likened you in beauty to Cnidian Aphrodite and Our Lady in the Gardens and Hera and Athena. That seemed to you extravagant and presumptuous. I shall address myself precisely to that point.

It is an ancient saying, however, that poets and painters are not to be held accountable;[*] still less, I think, eulogists, even if they fare humbly afoot like me, instead of being borne on the wings of song. For praise is an unshackled thing, and has

ESSAYS IN PORTRAITURE DEFENDED no limit, whether upper or lower, prescribed for it. The only object that it ever has in view is to excite high admiration and to maké its subject enviable. Nevertheless, I shall not take this course, for fear you may think that I do so for want of a better.

This, however, I do say; the conditions that govern us in these laudatory writings are such that the eulogist must employ comparisons and similes, and really the most important part of it is to make successful comparisons. And success would be most likely to be held attained, not if a man compares like to like, or if he makes his comparison with something that is inferior, but if he approximates, in so far as he may, what he is praising to something that surpasses it.

For example, if in praising a dog someone were to say that it was larger than a fox or a cat, does it seem to you that he knows how to praise? You will not say so! But even if he should say it was as large as a wolf, he has not praised it generously. Well, at what point will the special end of praise be achieved? When the dog is said to resemble a lion in size and in strength. So the poet who praised Orion’s dog[*] called him “lion-daunting.”’ That, of course, in the case of a dog is perfect praise.

Again, if someone who wished to praise Milo of Croton or Glaucus of Carystus or Polydamas[*] should say of any one of them that he was stronger than a woman, do not you suppose that he would be laughed at for the senselessness of his praise?

Indeed, if it had been said that he was better than any single man, that would not have sufficed for praise. Come, how did a famous poet? praise Glaucus when he said: “Not even mighty Polydeuces” could have held up his hands against that man, “nor yet the iron-hard son of Alemene!” You see what gods he likened him to—nay, actually avouched him better than those gods themselves! And it cannot be said either that Glaucus became indignant when he was praised in opposition to the gods who are the overseers of athletes, or that they punished either Glaucus or the poet as guilty of sacrilege in the matter of that praise. On the contrary, both enjoyed good fame and were honoured by the Greeks, Glaucus for his strength and the poet especially for this very song!

Do not wonder then, that I myself, desiring to make comparisons, as one who sought to praise was bound to do, used an exalted counterfoil, since my theme demanded it.

Since you mentioned flattery, let me say that I praise you for hating flatterers; I would not have it otherwise. But I wish to make a distinction and a difference for you between the achievement of one who praises, and its exaggeration on the part of one who flatters.

The flatterer, since he praises for a selfish reason and has little regard for truth, thinks that he must praise everything to excess, telling falsehoods and contributing a great deal on his own account, so that he would not hesitate to declare Thersites had a better figure than Achilles, and that of all who took part in the expedition against Troy, Nestor was the youngest; he would take his oath upon

it that the son of Croesus had sharper ears than Melampus,[*] and Phineus sharper sight than Lynceus,[*] if only he hoped to gain something by the lie. But the other, in praising the self-same object, instead of telling any lie or adding any quality that did not belong to it, would take the good points that it had by nature, even if they were not very great, and would amplify them and make them greater. He would venture to say, when he wished to praise a horse, which is the lightest of foot and the best runner of all the animals that we know.

Over the top of the flowers he ran without bending them downward.

Iliad20, 227, of the horses of Erichthonius, sired by Boreas. And again he would not hesitate to speak of

the swiftness of wind-footed horses.

Source unknown, if δρόμον is part of the quotation. But for “wind-footed horses,” see Hymn to Venus217, Pindar, frag. 221. And if he were to praise a house that was beautiful and handsomely furnished, he would say:

Surely like this, inside, is the palace of Zeus on Olympus.

Odyssey4, 74, said by Telemachus to his friend, admiring the palace of Menelaus. The flatterer, however, would express himself in that way even about the swineherd’s hut, if only he hoped to get something from the swineherd! Take Cynaethus, the toady of Demetrius Poliorcetes; when he had used up all his means of flattery, he praised Demetrius, who was troubled with a cough, because he cleared his throat melodiously!

That flatterers do not hesitate to lie for the sake of pleasing the objects of their praise, whereas those who really praise try to magnify what actually exists, is not the only distinguishing mark of each. They differ in a further point, and not a trivial one, that flatterers use hyperbole to the full extent of their powers, while those who really praise are discreet in precisely that particular and remain within their bounds.

These are a few out of many earmarks of flattery and of genuine praise which I give you so that you may not suspect all who praise you, but may distinguish between them and gauge each by his proper standard.