Amidst these discourses in comes Melissa and sits her down by Periander;

Eumetis followed and came in as we were at supper; then Thales calls to

me (I sat me down above Bias), Why do you not make Bias acquainted with

the problems sent him from the King by Niloxenus this second time, that

he may soberly and warily weigh them? Bias answered, I have been already

scared with that news. I have known that Bacchus is otherwise a powerful

deity, and for his wisdom is termed [Greek omitted] that is, THE

INTERPRETER; therefore I shall undertake it when my belly is full of

wine. Thus they jested and reparteed and played one upon another all the

while they sat at table. Observing the unwonted frugality of Periander

at this time, I considered with myself that the entertainment of

wise and good men is a piece of good husbandry, and that so far from

enhancing a man's expenses in truth it serves to save charge, the charge

(to wit) of costly foreign unguents and junkets, and the waste of the

richest wines, which Periander's state and greatness required him

every day in his ordinary treats to expend. Such costly provisions

were useless here, and Periander's wisdom appeared in his frugality.

Moreover, his lady had laid aside her richer habit, and appeared in an

ordinary, but a very becoming dress.

Supper now ended, and Melissa having distributed the garlands, we

offered sacrifice; and when the minstrel had played us a tune or two,

she withdrew. Then Ardalus inquired of Anacharsis, if there were women

fiddlers at Scythia. He suddenly and smartly replied, There are no vines

there. Ardalus asked a second question, whether the Scythians had any

gods among them. Yes, quoth Anacharsis, and they understand what men

say to them; nor are the Scythians of the Grecian opinion (however these

last may be the better orators), that the gods are better pleased with

the sounds of flutes and pipes than with the voice of men. My friend,

saith Aesop, what would you say if you saw our present pipe-makers

throw away the bones of fawns and hind-calves, to use those of asses,

affirming they yield the sweeter and more melodious sound? Whereupon

Cleobulina made one of her riddles about the Phrygian flute,... in

regard to the sound, and wondered that an ass, a gross animal and so

alien from music should yet supply bones so fit for harmony. Therefore

it is doubtless, quoth Niloxenus, that the people of Busiris blame

us Naucratians for using pipes made of asses' bones it being an

insufferable crime in an of them to listen to the flute or cornet, the

sound thereof being (as they esteem it) so like the braying of an ass;

and you know an ass is hateful to the Egyptians on account of Typhon.

There happening here a short silence, Periander, observing Niloxenus

willing but not daring to speak, said: I cannot but commend the civility

of those magistrates who give audience first to strangers and afterwards

to their own citizens; wherefore I judge it convenient that we

inhabitants and neighbors should proceed no farther at present in our

discourse, and that now attention be given to those royal propositions

sent us from Egypt, which the worthy Niloxenus is commissioned to

deliver to Bias, who wishes that he and we may scan and examine them

together. And Bias said: For where or in what company would a man more

joyfully adventure to give his opinion than here in this? And since

it is his Majesty's pleasure that I should give my judgment first, in

obedience to his commands I will do so, and afterwards they shall come

to every one of you in order.

Then Niloxenus delivered the paper to Bias, who broke up the seal and

commanded it to be read in all their hearing. The contents were these:

Amasis the king of Egypt, to Bias, the wisest of the Grecians, greeting.

There is a contest between my brother of Ethiopia and myself about

wisdom; and being baffled in divers other particulars, he now demands of

me a thing absurd and impracticable; for he requires me to drink up the

ocean dry. If I be able to read this his riddle, divers cities and towns

now in his possession are to be annexed to my kingdom; but if I cannot

resolve this hard sentence, and give him the right meaning thereof, he

requires of me my right to all the towns bordering upon Elephantina.

Consider with speed the premises, and let me receive your thoughts by

Niloxenus. Pray lose no time. If in anything I can be serviceable to

your city or friends, you may command me. Farewell.

Bias, having perused and for a little time meditated upon the letter,

and whispering Cleobulus in the ear (he sat by him), exclaimed: What a

narration is here, O Niloxenus! Will Amasis, who governs so many men and

is seized of so many flourishing territories, drink up the ocean for the

gain of a few paltry, beggarly villages? Niloxenus replied with a smile:

Consider, good sir, what is to be done, if he will obey. Why then, said

Bias, let Amasis require the Ethopian king to stop the stream which from

all parts flow and empty themselves in the ocean, until he have drunk

out the whole remainder; for I conceive he means the present waters, not

those which shall flow into it hereafter. Niloxenus was so overjoyed at

this answer, that he could not contain himself. He hugged and kissed

the author, and the whole company liked his opinion admirably well; and

Chilo laughing desired Niloxenus to get aboard immediately before the

sea was consumed, and tell his master he should mind more how to render

his government sweet and potable to his people, than how to swallow

such a quantity of salt water. For Bias, he told him, understands these

things very well, and knows how to oblige your lord with very useful

instructions, which if he vouchsafe to attend, he shall no more need a

golden basin to wash his feet, to gain respect from his subjects; all

will love and honor him for his virtue, though he were ten thousand

times more hateful to them than he is. It were well and worthily done,

quoth Periander, if all of us did pay him our first-fruits in this kind

by the poll (as Homer said). Such a course would bring him an accession

of profit greater than the whole proceeds of the voyage, besides being

of great use to ourselves.

To this point it is fit that Solon should first speak, quoth Chilo,

not only because he is the eldest in the company and therefore sits

uppermost at table, but because he governs and gives laws to the amplest

and most complete and flourishing republic in the world, that of Athens.

Here Niloxenus whispered me in the ear: O Diocles, saith he, how many

reports fly about and are believed, and how some men delight in lies

which they either feign of their own heads or most greedily swallow

from the mouths of others. In Egypt I heard it reported how Chilo had

renounced all friendship and correspondence with Solon, because he

maintained the mutability of laws. A ridiculous fiction, quoth I, for

then he and we must have renounced Lycurgus, who changed the laws and

indeed the whole government of Sparta.

Solon, pausing awhile, gave his opinion in these words. I conceive that

monarch, whether king or tyrant, were infinitely to be commanded, who

would exchange his monarchy for a commonwealth. Bias subjoined, And who

would be first and foremost in conforming to the laws of his country.

Thales added, I reckon that prince happy, who, being old, dies in his

bed a natural death. Fourthly, Anacharsis, If he alone be a wise man.

Fifthly, Cleobulus said, If he trust none of his courtiers. Sixthly,

Pittacus spake thus, If he could so treat his subjects that they feared

not him but for him. Lastly, Chilo concluded thus, A magistrate ought to

meditate no mortal thing but everything immortal.

When all had given in their judgments upon this point, we requested

Periander to let us know his thoughts. Disorder and discontent appearing

in his countenance, he said, These opinions are enough to scare any

wise man from affecting, empire. These things, saith Aesop after his

reproving way, ought rather to have been discussed privately among

ourselves, lest we be accounted antimonarchical while we desire to be

esteemed friends and loyal counsellors. Solon, gently touching him on

the head and smiling, answered: Do you not perceive that any one would

make a king more moderate and a tyrant more favorable, who should

persuade him that it is better not to reign than to reign? Who would

believe you before the oracle delivered unto you, quoth Aesop which

pronounced that city happy that heard but one crier. Yes, quoth Solon,

and Athens, now a commonwealth, hath but one crier and one magistrate,

the law, though the government be democratical; but you, my friend, have

been so accustomed to the croaking of ravens and the prating of jays,

that you do not hear clearly your own voice. For you maintain it to

be the happiness of a city to be under the command of one man, and yet

account it the merit of a feast if liberty is allowed every man to

speak his mind freely upon what subject he pleases. But you have not

prohibited your servants' drunkenness at Athens, Aesop said, as you have

forbidden them to love or to use dry ointments. Solon laughed at this;

but Cleodorus the physician said: To use dry ointment is like talking

when a man is soaked with wine; both are very pleasant. Therefore, saith

Chilo, men ought the more carefully to avoid it. Aesop proceeds, Thales

seemed to imply that he should soon grow old.

Periander said laughing: We suffer deservedly, for, before we have

perfected any remarks upon the letter, we are fallen upon disputes

foreign to the matter under consideration; and therefore I pray,

Niloxenus, read out the remainder of your lord's letter, and slip not

this opportunity to receive what satisfaction all that are present

shall be able to give you. The command of the king of Ethiopia, says

Niloxenus, is no more and no less than (to use Archilochus's phrase) a

broken scytale; that is, the meaning is inscrutable and cannot be found

out. But your master Amasis was more mild and polite in his queries;

for he commanded him only to resolve him what was most ancient, most

beautiful, greatest, wisest, most common, and withal, what was most

profitable, most pernicious, most strong, and most easy. Did he resolve

and answer every one of these questions? He did, quoth Niloxenus, and

do you judge of his answers and the soundness thereof: and it is my

Prince's purpose not to misrepresent his responses and condemn unjustly

what he saith well, so, where he finds him under a mistake, not to

suffer that to pass without correction. His answers to the foresaid

questions I will read to you.--What is most ancient? Time. What is

greatest? The World. What is wisest? Truth. What is most beautiful? The

light. What is most common? Death. What is most profitable? God. What

is most Pernicious? An evil genius. What is strongest? Fortune. What is

most easy? That which is pleasant.

When Niloxenus had read out these answers, there was a short silence

among them; by and by Thales desires Niloxenus to inform him if Amasis

approved of these answers. Niloxenus said, he liked some and disliked

others. There is not one of them right and sound, quoth Thales, but all

are full of wretched folly and ignorance. As for instance, how can that

be most ancient whereof part is past, part is now present, and part

is yet to come; every man knows it is younger than ourselves and our

actions. As to his answer that truth is the most wise thing, it is as

incongruous as if he had affirmed the light to be an eye if he judged

the light to be the most beautiful how could he omit the sun; as to

his solutions concerning the gods and evil genuises, they are full of

presumption and peril. What he saith of Fortune is void of sense, for

her inconstancy and fickleness proceed from want of strength and power.

Nor is death the most common thing; the living are still at liberty,

it hath not arrested them. But lest we be blamed as having a faculty

to find fault only, we will lay down our opinions of these things, and

compare them with those of the Ethiopian; I offer my self first, if

Niloxenus pleases, to deliver my opinion on every one singly and I will

relate both questions and answers in that method and order in which

they were sent to Ethiopia and read to us. What is most ancient Thales

answered, God, for he had no beginning. What is greatest? Place; the

World contains all other things, this surrounds and contains the world.

What is most beautiful? The world; for whatever is framed artificially

and methodically is a part of it. What is most wise? Time; for it has

found out some things already, it will find out the rest in due time.

What is most common Hope; for they that want other things are masters of

this. What is most profitable? Virtue; for by a right managery of other

things she makes them all beneficial and advantageous. What is most

pernicious? Vice; for it depraves the best things we enjoy. What is most

strong? Necessity; for this alone is insuperable. What is most easy?

That which is most agreeable to nature; for pleasures themselves are

sometimes tedious and nauseating.

All the consult approved of Thale's solutions. Cleodemus said: My friend

Niloxenus, it becomes kings to propound and resolve such questions;

but the insolence of that barbarian who would have Amasis drink the sea

would have been better fitted by such a smart reprimand as Pittacus gave

Alyattes, who sent an imperious letter to the Lesbians. He made him no

other answer, but to bid him spend his time in eating his hot bread and

onions.

Periander, here assumed the discourse, and said: It was the manner of

the ancient Grecians heretofore, O Cleodemus, to propound doubts to

one another; and it hath been told us, that the most famous and

eminent poets used to meet at the grave of Amphidamas in Chalcis. This

Amphidamas was a leading commander, one that had perpetual wars with the

Eretrians, and at last lost his life in one of the battles fought for

the possession of the Lelantine plain. Now, because the writings of

those poets were set to verse and so made the argument more knotty and

the decision more arduous, and the great names of the antagonists,

Homer and Hesiod, whose excellence was so well known, made the umpires

timorous and shy to determine; they therefore betook themselves to these

sorts of questions, and Homer, says Lesches, propounded this riddle:--

Tell me, O Muse, what never was

And never yet shall be.

Hesiod answered readily and extempore in this wise:--

When steeds with echoing hoof, to win

The prize, shall run amain;

And on the tomb of lofty Jove

Their chariots break in twain.

For this reply he was infinitely commended and got the tripod. Pray tell

me, quoth Cleodemus, what difference there is between these riddles and

those of Eumetis, which she frames and invents to recreate herself with

as much pleasure as other virgins make nets and girdles? They may be fit

to offer and puzzle women withal; but for men to beat their brains to

find out their mystery would be mighty ridiculous. Eumetis looked like

one that had a great mind to reply; but her modesty would not permit

her, for her face was filled with blushes. But Aesop in her vindication

asked: Is it not much more ridiculous that all present cannot resolve

the riddle she propounded to us before supper? This was as follows:--

A man I saw, who by his fire

Did set a piece of brass

Fast to a man, so that it seemed

To him it welded was.

Can you tell me, said he, how to construe this, and what the sense of it

may be? No, said Cleodemus, it is no profit to know what it means. And

yet, quoth Aesop, no man understands this thing better and practises it

more judiciously and successfully than yourself. If you deny it, I

have my witnesses ready; for there are your cupping-glasses. Cleodemus

laughed outright; for of all the physicians in his time, none used

cupping-glasses like him, he being a person that by his frequent and

fortunate application thereof brought them first into request in the

world.

Mnesiphilus the Athenian, a friend and favorite of Solon's, said: O

Periander, our discourse, as our wine, ought to be distributed not

according to our power or priority, but freely and equally, as in a

popular state; for what hath been already discoursed concerning kingdoms

and empires signifies little to us who live in a democracy. Wherefore I

judge it convenient that every one of you, commencing with Solon, should

freely and impartially declare his sense of a popular state. The motion

pleased all the company; then saith Solon: My friend Mnesiphilus,

you heard, together with the rest of this good company, my opinion

concerning republics; but since you are willing to hear it again, I hold

that city or state happy and most likely to remain free, in which those

that are not personally injured are yet as forward to try and punish

wrongdoers as that person who is wronged. Bias added, Where all fear the

law as they fear a tyrant. Thirdly, Thales said, Where the citizens are

neither too rich nor too poor. Fourthly, Anacharsis said, Where, though

in all other respects they are equal, yet virtuous men are advanced and

vicious persons degraded. Fifthly, Cleobulus said, Where the rulers fear

reproof and shame more than the law. Sixthly, Pittacus said, Where evil

men are kept from ruling, and good men from not ruling. Chilo, pausing a

little while, determined that the best and most enduring state was

where the subject minded the law most and the lawyers least. Periander

concluded with his opinion, that all of them would best approve that

democracy which came next and was likest to an aristocracy.

After they had ended this discourse, I begged they would condescend to

direct me how to govern a house; for they were few who had cities and

kingdoms to govern, compared with those who had houses and families to

manage. Aesop laughed and said: I hope you except Anacharsis out of your

number; for having no house he glories because he can be contented with

a chariot only, as they say the sun is whirled about from one end of

the heavens to the other in his chariot. Therefore, saith Anacharsis, he

alone, or he principally, is most free among the gods, and ever at his

own liberty and dispose. He governs all, and is governed and subject

to none, but he rides and reigns; and you know not how magnificent

and broad his chariot is; if you did, you would not thus floutingly

depreciate our Scythian chariots. For you seem in my apprehension to

call these coverings made of wood and mud houses, as if you should call

the shell and not the living creature a snail. Therefore you laughed

when Solon told you how, when he viewed Croesus's palace and found it

richly and gloriously furnished, he yet could not yield he lived happily

until he had tried the inward and invisible state of his mind; for

a man's felicity consists not in the outward and visible favors and

blessings of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and

riches of the mind. And you seem to have forgot your own fable of the

fox, who, contending with the leopard as to which possessed more

colors and spots, and having referred the matter in controversy to

the arbitration of an umpire, desired him to consider not so much the

outside as the inside; for, saith he, I have more various and different

fetches and tricks in my mind than he has marks or spots in his

body. You regard only the handiwork of carpenters and masons and

stone-cutters, and call this a house; not what one hath within, his

children, his wife, his friends and attendants, with whom if a man lived

in an emmet's bed or a bird's nest, enjoying in common the ordinary

comforts of life, this man may be affirmed to live a happy and a

fortunate life.

This is the answer I purpose to return Aesop, quoth Anacharsis, and I

tender it to Diocles as my share in this discourse; only let the rest

give in their opinions, if they please. Solon thought that house most

happy where the estate was got without injustice, kept without distrust,

and spent without repentance. Bias said, That house is happy where the

master does freely and voluntarily what the law would else compel him to

do. Thales held that house most happy where the master had most leisure

and respite from business. Cleobulus said, That in which the master

is more beloved than feared. Pittacus said, most that is happy where

superfluities are not required and necessaries are not wanting. Chilo

added, that house is most happy where one rules as a monarch in his

kingdom. And he proceeded, when a certain Lacedaemonian desired Lycurgus

to establish a democracy in the city. Go you, friend, replied he, and

try the experiment first in your own house.

When they had all given in their opinions upon this point, Eumetis and

Melissa withdrew. Then Periander called for a large bowl full of wine,

and drank to Chilo; and Chilo too drank to Bias. Ardalus then standing

up called to Aesop, and said: Will you not hand the cup to your friends

at this end of the table, when you behold those persons there swilling

up all that good liquor, and imparting none to us here as if the cup

were that of Bathycles. But this cup, quoth Aesop, is no public cup,

it hath stood so long by Solon's trenchard. Then Pittacus called

to Mnesiphilus: Why, saith he, does not Solon drink, but act in

contradiction to his own verses?--

I love that ruby god, whose blessings flow

In tides, to recreate my thirsty maw;

Venus I court, the Muses I adore,

Who give us wine and pleasures evermore.

Anacharsis subjoined: He fears your severe law, my friend Pittacus,

wherein you decreed the drunkard a double punishment. You seem, said

Pittacus, a little to fear the penalty, who have adventured heretofore,

and now again before my face, to break that law and to demand a crown

for the reward of your debauch. Why not, quoth Anacharsis, when there

is a reward promised to the hardest drinker? Why should I not demand my

reward, having drunk down all my fellows?--or inform me of any other end

men drive at in drinking much wine, but to be drunk. Pittacus laughed at

this reply, and Aesop told them this fable: The wolf seeing a parcel

of shepherds in their booth feeding upon a lamb, approaching near

them,--What a bustle and noise and uproar would there have been, saith

he, if I had but done what you do! Chilo said: Aesop hath very justly

revenged himself upon us, who awhile ago stopped his mouth; now he

observes how we prevented Mnesiphilus's discourse, when the question was

put why Solon did not drink up his wine.

Mnesiphilus then spake to this effect: I know this to be the opinion of

Solon, that in every art and faculty, divine and human, the work which

is done is more desired than the instrument wherewith it is done, and

the end than the means conducing to that end; as, for instance, a weaver

thinks a cloak or coat more properly his work than the ordering of his

shuttles or the divers motions of his beams. A smith minds the soldering

of his irons and the sharpening of the axe more than those little

things accessory to these main matters, as the kindling of the coals and

preparing the stone-dust. Yet farther, a carpenter would justly blame

us, if we should affirm it is not his work to build houses or ships

but to bore holes or to make mortar; and the Muses would be implacably

incensed with him that should say their business is only to make harps,

pipes and such musical instruments, not the institution and correcting

of manners and the government of those men's passions who are lovers of

singing and masters of music. And agreeably copulation is not the work

of Venus, nor is drunkenness that of Bacchus; but love and friendship,

affection and familiarity, which are begot and improved by and the means

of these. Solon terms these works divine, and he professes he loves and

now prosecutes them in his declining years as vigorously as ever in

his youthful days. That mutual love between man and wife is the work of

Venus, the greatness of the pleasure affecting their bodies mixes and

melts their very souls; divers others, having little or no acquaintance

before, have yet contracted a firm and lasting friendship over a glass

of wine, which like fire softened and melted their tempers, and disposed

them for a happy union. But in such a company, and of such men as

Periander hath invited, there is no need of can and chalice, but the

Muses themselves throwing a subject of discourse among you, as it were

a sober cup, wherein is contained much of delight and drollery and

seriousness too, do hereby provoke, nourish, and increase friendship

among you, allowing the cup to rest quietly upon the bowl, contrary to

the rule which Hesiod (Hesiod, "Works and Days," 744.) gives for those

who have more skill for carousing than for discoursing.

Though all the rest with stated rules we bound

Unmix'd, unmeasured are thy goblets crown'd

("Iliad" iv. 261.)

for it was the old Greek way, as Homer here tells us, to drink one to

another in course and order. So Ajax gave a share of his meat to his

next neighbor.

When Mnesiphilus had discoursed after this manner, in comes Chersias the

poet, whom Periander had lately pardoned and received into favor upon

Chilo's mediation. Saith Cherias: Does not Jupiter distribute to the

gods their proportion and share sparingly and severally, as Agamemnon

did to his commanders when his guests pledged one another? If, O

Chersias, quoth Cleodemus, as you narrate, certain pigeons bring him

ambrosia every meal, winging with a world of hardship through the rocks

called PLANCTAE (or WANDERING), can you blame him for his sparingness

and frugality and dealing out to his guests by measure?

I am satisfied, quoth Chersias, and since we are fallen upon our old

discourse of housekeeping, which of the company can remember what

remains to be said thereof? There remains, if I mistake not, to show

what that measure is which may content any man. Cleobulus answered: The

law has prescribed a measure for wise men; but as touching foolish ones

I will tell you a story I once heard my father relate to my brother. On

a certain time the moon begged of her mother a coat that would fit

her. How can that be done, quoth the mother, for sometime you are full,

sometimes the one half of you seems lost and perished, sometimes only

a pair of horns appear. So, my Chersias, to the desires of a foolish

immoderate man no certain measure can be fitted; for according to the

ebbing and flowing of his lust and appetite, and the frequent or seldom

casualties that befall him, accordingly his necessities ebb and flow,

not unlike Aesop's dog, who, being pinched and ready to starve with the

cold winter, was a mind to build himself a house; but when summer came

on, he lay all along upon the ground, and stretching himself in the sun

thought himself monstrous big, and thought it unnecessary and besides no

small labor to build him a house portionable to that bulk and bigness.

And do you not observe, O Chersias, continues he, many poor men,--how

one while they pinch their bellies, upon what short commons they live,

how sparing and niggardly and miserable they are; and another while you

may observe the same men as distrustful and covetous withal, as if the

plenty of the city and county, the riches of king and kingdom were not

sufficient to preserve them from want and beggary.

When Chersias had concluded this discourse, Cleodemus began thus: We see

you that are wise men possessing these outward goods after an unequal

manner. Good sweet sir, answered Cleobulus, the law weaver-like hath

distributed to every man a fitting, decent, adequate portion, and in

your profession your reason does what the law does here,--when you feed,

or diet, or physic your patient, you give not the quantity he desires,

but what you judge to be convenient for each in his circumstances.

Ardalus inquires: Epimenides, to abstain from all other victuals, and to

content himself with a little composition of his own, which the Greeks

call [Greek omitted] (HUNGER-RELIEVING)? This he takes into his mouth

and chews, and eats neither dinner nor supper. This instance obliged the

whole company to be a little while silent, until Thales in a jesting

way replied, that Epimenides did very wisely, for hereby he saved the

trouble and charge of grinding and boiling his meat, as Pittacus did. I

myself sojourning as Lesbos overheard my landlady, as she was very busy

at her hand-mill, singing as she used to do her work, "Grind mill; grind

mill; for even Pittacus the prince of great Mitylene, grinds" [Greek

footnote ommitted]. Quoth Solon: Ardalus, I wonder you have not read the

law of Epimenides's frugality in Hesiod's writings, who prescribes

him and others this spare diet; for he was the person that gratified

Epimenides with the seeds of this nutriment, when he directed him to

inquire how great benefit a man might receive by mallows and asphodel

(Hesiod, "Works and Days," 41.) Do you believe, said Periander, that

Hesiod meant this literally; or rather that, being himself a great

admirer of parsimony, he hereby intended to exhort men to use mean and

spare diet, as most healthful and pleasant? For the chewing of mallows

is very wholesome, and the stalk of asphodel is very luscious; but this

"expeller of hunger and thirst" I take to be rather physic than natural

food, consisting of honey and I know not what barbarian cheese, and of

many and costly drugs fetched from foreign parts. If to make up this

composition so many ingredients were requisite, and so difficult to

come by and so expensive, Hesiod might have kept his breath to cool

his pottage, and never blessed the world with the discovery. And yet I

admire how your landlord, when he went to perform the great purification

for the Delians not long since, could overlook the monuments and

patterns of the first aliment which the people brought into the

temple,--and, among other cheap fruits such as grow of themselves, the

mallows and the asphodel; the usefulness and innocency whereof Hesiod

seemed in his work to magnify. Moreover, quoth Anacharsis, he affirms

both plants to be great restoratives. You are in the right, quoth

Cleodemus; for it is evident Hesiod was no ordinary physician, who could

discourse so learnedly and judiciously of diet, of the nature of wines,

and of the virtue of waters and baths, and of women, the proper times

for procreation, and the site and position of infants in the womb;

insomuch, that (as I take it) Aesop deserves much more the name of

Hesiod's scholar and disciple than Epimenides, whose great and excellent

wisdom the fable of the nightingale and hawk demonstrates. But I would

gladly hear Solon's opinion in this matter; for having sojourned long at

Athens and being familiarly acquainted with Epimenides, it is more than

probable he might learn of him the grounds upon which he accustomed

himself to so spare a diet.

To what purpose, said Solon, should I trouble him or myself to make

inquiry in a matter so plain? For if it be a blessing next to the

greatest to need little victuals, then it is the greatest felicity

to need none at all. If I may have leave to deliver my opinion, quoth

Cleodemus, I must profess myself of a different judgment, especially now

we sit at table; for as soon as the meat is taken away, what belongs to

those gods that are the patrons of friendship and hospitality has been

removed. As upon the removal of the earth, quoth Thales, there must

needs follow an universal confusion of all things, so in forbidding

men meat, there must needs follow the dispersion and dissolution of the

family, the sacred fire, the cups, the feasts and entertainment's, which

are the principal and most innocent diversions of mankind; and so

all the comforts of society are at end. For to men of business some

recreation is necessary, and the preparation and use of victuals

conduces much thereunto. Again, to be without victuals would tend to

the destruction of husbandry, for want whereof the earth would soon

be overgrown with weeds, and through the sloth of men overflowed with

waters. And together with this, all arts would fail which are supported

and encouraged hereby; nay, more, take away hospitality and the use of

victuals and the worship and honor of the gods will sink and perish; the

sun will have but small and the moon yet smaller reverence if thy afford

men only light and heat. And who will build an altar or offer sacrifices

to Jupiter Pluvius, or to Ceres the patroness of husbandmen, or to

Neptune the preserver of plants and trees? Or how can Bacchus be any

longer termed the donor of all good things, if men make no further use

of the good things he gives? What shall men sacrifice? What first-fruits

shall they offer? In short, the subversion and confusion of the greatest

blessings attend this opinion. Promiscuously and indefatigable to pursue

all sorts of pleasures I own to be brutish, and to avoid all with a

suitable aversion equally blockish, let the mind then freely enjoy such

pleasures as are agreeable to its nature and temper. But for the body,

there is certainly no pleasure more harmless and commendable and fitting

than that which springs from a plentiful table,--which is granted by all

men, for, placing this in the middle, men converse with one another and

share in the provision. As to the pleasures of the bed, men use these in

the dark, reputing the use thereof shameful and beastly as well as the

total disuse of the pleasures of the table.

Cleodemus having finished this long harangue, I began to this effect.

You omit one thing, my friend, how they that decry food decry sleep too,

and they that declaim against sleep declaim against dreams in the same

breath, and so destroy the primitive and ancient way of divination. Add

to this, that our whole life will be of one form and fashion, and our

soul enclosed in a body to no purpose; many and those the principal

parts thereof are naturally so formed and fashioned as to be organs of

nutriment; so the tongue, the teeth, the stomach, and the liver, whereof

none are idle, none framed for other use, so that whosoever hath no need

of nutriment has no need of his body; that is, in other words, no man

hath any need of himself, for every man hath a body of his own. This I

have thought fit to offer in vindication of our bellies; if Solon or any

other has anything to object to what I have said, I am willing to hear

him.

Yea, doubtless, replies Solon, or we may be reputed more injudicious

than the Egyptians. For when any person dies among them, they open

him and show him so dissected to the sun; his guts they throw into the

river, to the remaining parts they allow a decent burial, for they think

the body now pure and clean; and to speak truly they are the foulest

parts of the body, and like that lower hell crammed with dead carcasses

and at the same time flowing with offensive rivers, such as flame

with fire and are disturbed with tempests. No live creature feeds upon

another living creature, but we first take away their lives, and in

that action we do them great wrong. Now the very plants have life in

them,--that is clear and manifest, for we perceive they grow and spread.

But to abstain from eating flesh (as they say Orpheus of old did) is

more a pretence than a real avoiding of an injury proceeding from the

just use of meat. One way there is, and but one way, whereby a man may

avoid offence, namely by being contented with his own, not coveting what

belongs to his neighbor. But if a man's circumstances be such and so

hard that he cannot subsist without wronging another man, the fault

is God's, not his. The case being such with some persons, I would

fain learn if it be not advisable to destroy, at the same time with

injustice, these instruments of injustice, the belly, stomach, and

liver, which have no sense of justice or appetite to honesty, and

therefore may be fitly compared to your cook's implements, his knives

and his caldrons, or to a baker's chimney and bins and kneading-tubs.

Verily one may observe the souls of some men confined to their bodies,

as to a house of correction, barely to do the drudgery and to serve the

necessities thereof. It was our own case but even now. While we minded

our meat and our bellies, we had neither eyes to see nor ears to

hear; but now the table is taken away, we are free to discourse among

ourselves and to enjoy one another; and now our bellies are full, we

have nothing else to do or care for. And if this condition and state

wherein we at present are would last our whole life, we having no wants

to fear nor riches to covet (for a desire of superfluities attends a

desire of necessaries), would not our lives be much more comfortable and

life itself much more desirable?

Yea, but Cleodemus stiffly maintains the necessity of eating and

drinking, else we shall need tables and cups, and shall not be able to

offer sacrifice to Ceres and Proserpina. By a parity of reason there

is a necessity there should be contentions and wars, that men may have

bulwarks and citadels and fortifications by land, fleets and navies

abroad at sea, and that having slain hundreds, we may offer Hecatombs

after the Messenian manner. By this reason we shall find men grudging

their own health, for (they will say) there will be no need of down

or feather beds unless they are sick; and so those healing gods,

and particularly Esculapius, will be vast sufferers, for they will

infallibly lose so many fat and rich sacrifices yearly. Nay, the art of

chirurgery will perish, and all those ingenious instruments that have

been invented for the cure of man will lie by useless and insignificant.

And what great difference is there between this and that? For meat is

a medicine against hunger, and such as use a constant diet are said

to cure themselves,--I mean such as use meat not for wantonness but of

necessity. For it is plain, the prejudices we receive by feeding far

surmount the pleasures. And the enjoyment of eating fills a very small

place in our bodies and very little time. But why should I trouble you

or myself with a catalogue of the many vexations which attend that man

who is necessitated to provide for a family, and the many difficulties

which distract him in his undertaking? For my part, I verily believe

Homer had an eye to this very thing, when, to prove the immortality of

the gods, he made use of this very argument, that they were such because

they used no victuals;

For not the bread of man their life sustains,

Nor wine's inflaming juice supplies their veins;

("Iliad," v. 341.)

intimating meat to be the cause of death as well as the means of

sustaining and supporting life. From hence proceed divers fatal

distempers caused much more by fulness than by fasting; and to digest

what we have eaten proves frequently a harder matter than to provide and

procure what we eat. And when we solicitously inquire beforehand what we

should do or how we should employ ourselves if we had not such care and

business to take up our time, this is as if Danaus's daughters should

trouble their heads to know what they should do if they had no sieves to

fill with water. We drudge and toil for necessaries, for want of better

and nobler occupation. As slaves then who have gained their freedom do

now and then those drudgeries and discharge those servile employments

and offices for their own benefit which they undertook heretofore

for their masters' advantage, so the mind of man, which at present is

enslaved to the body and the service thereof, when once it becomes

free from this slavery, will take care of itself, and spend its time in

contemplation of truth without distraction or disturbance. Such were our

discourses upon this head, O Nicarchus.

And before Solon had fully finished, in came Gorgias, Periander's

brother, who was just returned from Taenarum, whither he had been sent

by the advice of the oracle to sacrifice to Neptune and to conduct a

deputation. Upon his entrance we welcomed him home; and Periander having

among the rest saluted him, Gorgias sat by him upon a bed, and privately

whispered something to his brother which we could not hear. Periander

by his various gestures and motions discovered different affections;

sometimes he seemed sad and melancholic, by and by disturbed and angry;

frequently he looked as doubtful and distrustful men use to do; awhile

after he lifts up his eyes, as is usual with men in a maze. At last

recovering himself, saith he, I have a mind to impart to you the

contents of this embassy; but I scarce dare do it, remembering Thales's

aphorism, how things impossible or incredible are to be concealed and

only things credible and probable are to be related. Bias answered, I

crave leave to explain Thales's saying, We may distrust enemies, even

though they speak things credible, and trust friends, even though they

relate things incredible; and I suppose by enemies he meant vicious men

and foolish, and by friends, wise and good men. Then, brother Gorgias,

quoth Periander, I pray relate the whole story particularly.

Gorgias in obedience to his brother's command began his story thus:--

When we had fasted now for three days and offered sacrifice upon each of

those days, we were all resolved to sit up the third night and spend it

in pastime and dancing. The moon shone very bright upon the water,

and the sea was exceeding calm and still; this we saw, for we sported

ourselves upon the shore. Being thus taken up, all of a sudden we espied

a wonderful spectacle off at sea, making with incredible expedition to

the adjoining promontory. The violence of the motion made the sea foam

again, and the noise was so loud, that the whole company forsook their

sport and ran together toward the place, admiring what the matter should

be. Before we could make a full discovery of the whole, the motion

was so rapid, we perceived divers dolphins, some swimming in a ring or

circle, others hastening amain to that part of the shore which was most

shallow, and others following after and (as it were) bringing up the

rear. In the middle there was a certain heap which we could perceive

above the water; but we could not distinctly apprehend what it was, till

drawing near the shore we saw all the dolphins flocking together, and

having made near the land they safely surrendered their charge, and left

out of danger a man breathing and shaking himself. They returned to the

promontory, and there seemed to rejoice more than before for this their

fortunate undertaking. Divers in the company were affrighted and ran

away; myself and a few more took courage, and went on to see and

satisfy ourselves what this unusual matter might be; there we found and

instantly knew our old acquaintance Arion the musician, who told us his

name. He wore that very garment he used when he strove for mastery. We

brought him into our tent and found he had received no damage in his

passage, save only a little lassitude by the violence of the motion. He

told us the whole story of his adventure,--a story incredible to all but

such as saw it with their eyes. He told us how, when he had determined

to leave Italy, being hastened away by Periander's letters, he went

aboard a Corinthian merchantman then in port and ready to sail; being

off at sea with the winds favorable, he observed the seamen bent to

ruin him, and the master of the vessel told him as much, and that they

purposed to execute their design upon him that very night. In this

distress, the poor man (as if inspired by his good Genius) girds about

him his heretofore victorious, now his mourning cloak, with a brave

resolution to compose and sing his own epitaph, as the swans when

they apprehend the approaches of death are reported to do. Being thus

habited, he told the seamen he was minded to commit the protection of

himself and his fellow-passengers to the providence of the gods in a

Pythian song; then standing upon the poop near the side of the vessel,

and having invoked the help and assistance of all the sea gods, he

strikes up briskly and sings to his harp. Before he had half finished

his carol, the sun set, and he could discern Peloponnesus before him.

The seamen thought it tedious to tarry for the night, wherefore they

resolved to murder him immediately, to which purpose they unsheathed

their swords. Seeing this, and observing the steersman covering his

face, he leaped into the sea as far as he could; but before his body

sunk he found himself supported by dolphins. At first he was surprised

with care and trouble; but by and by, finding himself marching forward

with much ease and security, and observing a whole shoal of dolphins

flocking about him and joyfully contending which should appear most

forward and serviceable in his preservation, and discerning the vessel

at a considerable distance behind, he apprehended the nimbleness of

his porters; then, and not till then, his fears forsook him, and he

professed he was neither so fearful of death nor desirous of life as

he was full of ambitious desire, that he might show to all men that he

stood in the grace and favor of the gods, and that he might himself have

a firm belief in them. In his passage, as he lifted up his eyes toward

heaven, and beheld the stars glittering and twinkling and the moon full

and glorious, and the sea calm all about her as she seemed to rise out

of it, and yielding him (as it were) a beaten track; he declared,

he thought God's justice had more eyes than one, and that with these

innumerable eyes the gods beheld what was acted here below both by

sea and land. With such contemplations he performed his voyage less

anxiously, which much abated the tediousness thereof and was a comfort

and refreshment to him in his solitude and danger. At last, arriving

near the promontory which was both steep and high, and fearing danger

in a straight course and direct line, they unanimously veered about, and

making to shore with a little compass for security they delivered

Arion to us in safety, so that he plainly perceived and with thanks

acknowledged a Providence.

When Arion had finished this narrative of his escape, I asked him (quoth

Gorgias) whither the ship was bound; he told me for Corinth, but it

would not be there very suddenly, for when he leaped out of the ship and

was carried (as he conceived) about five hundred furlongs, he perceived

a calm, which must needs much retard their arrival who were aboard.

Gorgias added that, having learned the names of the pilot and master and

the colors of the ship, he immediately despatched out ships and soldier

to examine all the ports, all this while keeping Arion concealed, lest

the criminals should upon notice of His deliverance escape the pursuit

of justice. This action happened very luckily; for as soon as he arrived

at Corinth, news was brought him that the same ship was in port, and

that his party had seized it and secured all the men, merchants and

others. Whereupon Periander commanded Gorgias's discretion and zeal,

desiring him to proceed and lose no time, but immediately to clap them

in close prison, and to suffer none to come at them to give the least

notice of Arion's miraculous escape.

Gentlemen, quoth Aesop, I remember you derided my dialogue of the daws

and rooks; and now you can admire and believe as improbable a story of

dolphins. You are mightily out, said I, for this is no novel story which

we believe, but it is recorded in the annals of Ino and Athamas above

a thousand years ago. These passages are supernatural, quoth Solon and

much above our reason; what befell Hesiod is of a lower kind, and more

proper for our discourse, and if you have not heard of it before, it is

worth your hearing.

Hesiod once sojourned at the same house in Locris with a certain

Milesian. In this his sojourning time it happened the gentleman's

daughter was got with child by the Milesian which being discovered, the

whole family concluded Hesiod, if not guilty, must be privy to the

fact. His innocence was but a weak fence against their jealousy and

aspersions; and therefore, rashly censuring him guilty, the brothers of

the woman waylaid him in his return home, and slew him and his companion

Troilus near the shrine of Nemean Jove in Locris. Their carcasses they

threw into the sea; that of Troilus was carried into the river Daphnus,

and rested upon a certain rock compassed with waters, just above the

surface of the sea, which rock bears his name to this day. The body of

Hesiod was no sooner fallen upon the surface of the water, but a company

of dolphins received it, and conveyed it to Rhium and Molyeria. It

happened the Locrians were assembled at Rhium that day to feast and make

merry according to the custom which continues still among them. As soon

as they perceived a carcass floating or rather swimming towards them,

they hastened, not without admiration, to see what it was; and knowing

the body to be Hesiod's, they instantly resolved to find out the

murderers. It proved an easy discovery. After conviction they threw them

headlong alive into the sea, and ordered their houses to be demolished

to the very foundations. The body they buried in the grove of the temple

of Jove, that no foreigner might find it out; the reason of this act

was that the Orchomenians had searched far and near for it at the

instigation of the oracle, who promised them the greatest felicity if

they could get the bones of Hesiod and bury them in their city. Now if

dolphins are so favorable to dead men, it is very probable they have

a strong affection for the living, especially for such as delight in

music, whether vocal or instrumental. And this we know undoubtedly, that

these creatures delight infinitely in music; they love it, and if any

man sings or plays, they will quietly come by the side of the ship, and

listen till the music is ended. When children bathe in the water and

sport themselves, you shall have a parcel of them flock together and

sport and swim by them; and they may do it the more securely, since it

is a breach of the law of Nature to hurt them. You never heard of

any man that fishes for them purposely or hurts them wilfully, unless

falling into the nets they spoil the sport, and so, like bad children,

are corrected for their misdemeanors. I very well remember the Lesbians

told me how a maid of their town was preserved from drowning by them.

It was a very true story, quoth Pittacus, and there are divers still

alive who will attest it, if need be. The builders or founders of Lesbos

were commanded by the oracle to sail till they came to a haven called

Mesogaeum, there they should sacrifice a bull to Neptune, and for the

honor of Amphitrite and the sea-nymphs they should offer a virgin. The

principal persons in this colony were seven in number; the eighth was

one Echelaus by name, and appointed head of the rest by the oracle

himself; and he was a bachelor. A daughter of one of these seven was to

be sacrificed, but who it should be was to be decided by lot, and the

lot fell upon Smintheus's sister. Her they dressed most richly, and so

apparelled they conveyed her in abundance of state to the water-side,

and having composed a prayer for her, they were now ready to throw her

overboard. There was in the company a certain ingenuous young gentleman

whose name was Enalus; he was desperately in love with this young lady,

and his love prompted him to endeavor all he could for her preservation,

or at least to perish in the attempt. In the very moment she was to be

cast away, he clasps her in his arms and throws himself and her together

into the sea. Shortly after there was a flying report they were both

conveyed safe to land. A while after Enalus was seen at Lesbos, who

gave out they were preserved by dolphins. I could tell you stories more

incredible than these, such as would amuse some and please others; but

it is impossible to command men's faith. The sea was so tempestuous and

rough, the people were afraid to come too near the waters, when Enalus

arrived. A number of polypuses followed him even to Neptune's temple,

the biggest and strongest of which carried a great stone. This Enalus

dedicated, and this stone is therefore called Enalus to this day. To be

short and to speak all in a few words,--he that knows how to distinguish

between the impossible and the unusual, to make a difference between

the unlikely and the absurd, to be neither too credulous nor too

distrustful,--he hath learned your lesson, Do not overdo. ([Greek

omitted], NE QUID NIMIS.)

Anacharsis after all this discourse spake to this purpose: Since Thales

has asserted the being of a soul in all the principal and most noble

parts of the universe, it is no wonder that the most commendable acts

are governed by an overruling Power; for, as the body is the organ of

the soul, so the soul is an instrument in the hand of God. Now as the

body has many motions of its own proceeding from itself, but the best

and most from the soul, so the soul acts some things by its own power,

but in most things it is subordinate to the will and power of God, whose

glorious instrument it is. To me it seems highly unreasonable--and

I should be but too apt to censure the wisdom of the gods, if I were

convinced--that they use fire, and water, and wind, and clouds, and

rain for the preservation and welfare of some and for the detriment and

destruction of others, while at the same time they make no use of living

creatures that are doubtless more serviceable to their ends than bows

are to the Scythians or harps or pipes to the Greeks.

Chersias the poet broke off this discourse, and told the company of

divers that were miraculously preserved to his certain knowledge, and

more particularly of Cypselus, Periander's father, who being newly born,

his adversary sent a party of bloody fellows to murder him. They found

the child in his nurse's arms, and seeing him smile innocently upon

them, they had not the heart to hurt him, and so departed; but presently

recalling themselves and considering the peremptoriness of their orders,

they returned and searched for him, but could not find him, for his

mother had hid him very carefully in a chest. (Called [Greek omitted] in

Greek, whence the child was named Cypelus.(G.)) When he came to years

of discretion, and understood the greatness of his former danger and

deliverance, he consecrated a temple at Delphi to Apollo, by whose care

he conceived himself preserved from crying in that critical time, and

by his cries from betraying his own life. Pittacus, addressing his

discourse to Periander, said: It is well done of Chersias to make

mention of that shrine, for this brings to my mind a question I several

times purposed to ask you but still forgot, namely,--To what intent all

those frogs were carved upon the palm-tree before the door, and how

they affect either the deity or the dedicator? Periander remitted him to

Chersias for answer, as a person better versed in these matters for he

was present when Cypselus consecrated the shrine. But Chersias smiling

would not satisfy them, until they resolved him the meaning of these

aphorisms; "Do not overdo," "Know thyself," but particularly and

principally this,--which had scared divers from wedlock and others

from suretyship and others for speaking at all,--"promise, and you are

ruined." What need we to explain to you these, when you yourself have

so mightily magnified Aesop's comment upon each of them. Aesop replied:

When Chersias is disposed to jest with me upon these subjects, and to

jest seriously, he is pleased to father such sayings and sentences upon

Homer, who, bringing in Hector furiously flying upon others, yet

at another time represents him as flying from Ajax son of Telamon,

("Iliad," xi. 542.)--an argument that Hector knew himself. And Homer

made Ulysses use the saying "Do not overdo," when he besought his friend

Diomedes not to commend him, too much nor yet to censure him too

much. And for suretyship he exposes it as a matter unsafe, nay highly

dangerous, declaring that to be bound for idle and wicked men is full

of hazard. ("Iliad," x. 249; "Odyssey," viii. 351.) To confirm this,

Chersias reported how Jupiter had thrown Ate headlong out of heaven,

because she was by when he made the promise about the birth of Hercules

whereby he was circumvented.

Here Solon broke in: I advise, that we now give ear to Homer,--

But now the night extends her awful shade:

The Goddess parts you: be the night obeyed.

("Iliad," vii. 282.)

If it please the company then, let us sacrifice to the Muses, to

Neptune, and to Amphitrite, and so bid each adieu for this night.

This was the conclusion of that meeting, my dear Nicarchus.

END OF THIRTEEN----------

HOW A YOUNG MAN OUGHT TO HEAR POEMS.

Though it may be allowed to be a question fit for the determination of

those concerning whom Cato said, Their palates are more sensitive than

their minds, whether that saying of Philoxenus the poet be true or no,

The most savory flesh is that which is no flesh, and fish that is no

fish. Yet this to me, Marcus Sedatus, is out of question, that those

precepts of philosophy which seem not to be delivered with a designed

gravity, such as becomes philosophers, take most with persons that are

very young, and meet with a more ready acceptance and compliance from

them. Whence it is that they do not only read through Aesop's fables and

the fictions of poets and the Abaris of Heraclides and Ariston's Lyco;

but also such doctrines as relate to the souls of men, if something

fabulous be mixed with them, with an excess of pleasure that borders on

enthusiasm. Wherefore we are not only to govern their appetites in the

delights of eating and drinking, but also (and much more) to inure them

to a like temperance in reading and hearing, that, while they make use

of enjoyment as a sauce, they may pursue that which is wholesome and

profitable in those things which they read. For neither can a city be

secure if but one gate be left open to receive the enemy, though all the

rest be shut; nor a young man safe, though he be sufficiently fortified

against the assaults of all other pleasures, whilst he is without any

guard against those of the ear. Yea, the nearer the commerce is betwixt

the delights of that sense and those of the mind and reason, by so much

the more, when he lies open on that side, is he apt to be debauched and

corrupted thereby. Seeing therefore we cannot (and perhaps would not if

we could) debar young men of the size of my Soclarus and thy Cleander

altogether from the reading of poets, yet let us keep the stricter guard

upon them, as those who need a guide to direct them in their reading

more than on their journeys. Upon which consideration, I find myself

disposed to send thee at present in writing that discourse concerning

Poetry which I had lately an occasion to deliver by word of mouth; that,

when thou hast read it over thyself, thou mayst also make such use of

it, if thou judgest it may be serviceable to that purpose, as those

which are engaged to drink hard do of amulets (or preservatives against

drunkenness),--that is, that thou mayst communicate it to Cleander, to

prepossess him therewith; seeing he is naturally endowed with a brisk,

piercing, and daring wit, and therefore more prone to be inveigled by

that sort of study.

They say of the fish called polypus that

His head in one respect is very good,

But in another very naughty food;

because, though it be very luscious to eat, yet it is thought to disturb

the fancy with frightful and confused dreams. And the like observation

may be made concerning poetry, that it affords sweet and withal

wholesome nourishment to the minds of young men, but yet it contains

likewise no less matter of disturbance and emotion to them that want a

right conduct in the study thereof. For of it also, as well as of Egypt,

may it be said that (to those who will use it)

Its over-fertile and luxuriant field

Medicines and poisons intermixt doth yield;

for therein

Love with soft passions and rich language drest

Oft steals the heart out of th' ingenuous breast.

("Odyssey," iv. 230; "Iliad," xiv. 216.)

And indeed such only are endangered thereby, for the charms of that

art ordinarily affect not those that are downright sots and naturally

incapable of learning. Wherefore, when Simonides was asked why of all

men he could not deceive the Thessalians, his answer was, Because

they are not so well bred as to be capable of being cajoled by me. And

Gorgias used to call tragical poems cheats, wherein he that did cheat

was juster than he that did not cheat, and he that was cheated was wiser

than he that was not cheated.

It deserves therefore our consideration, whether we shall put young men

into Epicurus's boat,--wherein, having their ears stopped with wax, as

those of the men of Ithaca were, they shall be obliged to sail by and

not so much as touch at poetry,--or rather keep a guard on them, so

as to oblige their judgments by principles of right reason to use it

aright, and preserve them from being seduced to their hurt by that which

affords them so much delight. For neither did Lycurgus, the valiant

son of Dryas (as Homer calls him) ("Iliad," vi. 130.) act like a man of

sound reason in the course which he took to reform his people that were

much inclined to drunkenness, by travelling up and down to destroy all

the vines in the country; whereas he should have ordered that every vine

should have a well of water near it, that (as Plato saith) the drunken

deity might be reduced to temperance by a sober one. For water mixed

with wine takes away the hurtful spirits, while it leaves the useful

ones in it. Neither should we cut down or destroy the Muses' vine,

poetry; but where we perceive it luxuriates and grows wild through an

ungoverned appetite of applause, there ought we to prune away or keep

under the fabulous and theatrical branches thereof; and where we find

any of the Graces linked to any of the Muses,--that is, where the

lusciousness and tempting charms of language are not altogether barren

and unprofitable,--there let us make use of philosophy to incorporate

with it.

For as, where the mandrake grows near the vine and so communicates

something of its force thereto, the wine that is made of its grapes

makes the sleep of those that drink it more refreshing; so doth the

tempering poetry with the principles of philosophy and allaying their

roughness with its fictions render the study of them more easy and the

relish of them more grateful to young learners. Wherefore those that

would give their minds to philosophical studies are not obliged to avoid

poetry altogether, but rather to introduce themselves to philosophy by

poems, accustoming themselves to search for and embrace that which may

profit in that which pleaseth them, and rejecting and discarding that

wherein they find nothing of this nature. For this discrimination is the

first step to learning; and when this is attained, then, according to

what Sophocles saith,--

To have begun well what we do intend

Gives hope and prospect of as good an end.

Let us therefore in the first place possess those whom we initiate in

the study of poetry with this notion (as one which they ought always to

have at hand), that

'Tis frequently the poet's guise

To intermingle truth with lies;--

which they do sometimes with and sometimes against their wills. They do

it with their wills, because they find strict truth too rigid to comply

with that sweetness and gracefulness of expression, which most are taken

with, so readily as fiction doth. For real truth, though it disgust

never so much, must be told as it is, without alteration; but that which

is feigned in a discourse can easily yield and shift its garb from the

distasteful to that which is more pleasing. And indeed, neither the

measures nor the tropes nor the grandeur of words nor the aptness of

metaphors nor the harmony of the composition gives such a degree of

elegance and gracefulness to a poem as a well-ordered and artificial

fiction doth. But as in pictures the colors are more delightful to the

eye than the lines because those give them a nearer resemblance to the

persons they were made for, and render them the more apt to deceive the

beholder; so in poems we are more apt to be smitten and fall in love

with a probable fiction than with the greatest accuracy that can be

observed in measures and phrases, where there is nothing fabulous or

fictitious joined with it. Wherefore Socrates, being induced by some

dreams to attempt something in poetry, and finding himself unapt, by

reason that he had all his lifetime been the champion of severe truth,

to hammer out of his own invention a likely fiction, made choice of

Aesop's fables to turn into verse; as judging nothing to be true poetry

that had in it nothing of falsehood. For though we have known some

sacrifices performed without pipes and dances, yet we own no poetry

which is utterly destitute of fable and fiction. Whence the verses of

Empedocles and Parmenides, the Theriaca of Nicander, and the sentences

of Theognis, are rather to be accounted speeches than poems, which, that

they might not walk contemptibly on foot, have borrowed from poetry the

chariot of verse, to convey them the more creditably through the world.

Whensoever therefore anything is spoken in poems by any noted and

eminently famous man, concerning gods or daemons or virtue, that is

absurd or harsh, he that takes such sayings for truths is thereby misled

in his apprehension and corrupted with an erroneous opinion. But he that

constantly keeps in his mind and maintains as his principle that the

witchcraft of poetry consists in fiction, he that can at all turns

accost it in this language,--

Riddle of art! like which no sphinx beguiles;

Whose face on one side frowns while th' other smiles!

Why cheat'st thou, with pretence to make us wise,

And bid'st sage precepts in a fool's disguise?--

such a one, I say, will take no harm by it, nor admit from it any absurd

thing into his belief. But when he meets in poetry with expressions of

Neptune's rending the earth to pieces and dicovering infernal regions,

("See Iliad," xx. 57.) he will be able to check his fears of the reality

of any such accident; and he will blame himself for his anger against

Apollo for the chief commander of the Greeks,--

Whom at a banquet, whiles he sings his praise

And speaks him fair, yet treacherously he slays.

("From Aeschylus" The whole passage is quoted in Plato's

"Republic," end of book II. (G.).)

Yea, he will repress his tears for Achilles and Agamemnon, while they

are resented as mourning after their death, and stretching forth their

limber and feeble hands to express their desire to live again. And if

at any time the charms of poetry transport him into any disquieting

passions, he will quickly say to himself, as Homer very elegantly

(considering the propension of that sex to listen after fables) says in

his Necyia, or relation of the state of the dead,--

But from the dark dominions speed thy way,

And climb the steep ascent to upper day;

To thy chaste bride the wondrous story tell,

The woes, the horrors, and the laws of hell.

("Odyssey," xi. 223.)

Such things as I have touched upon are those which the poets willingly

feign. But more there are which they do not feign, but believing

themselves as their own proper judgments, they put fictitious colors

upon them to ingratiate them to us. As when Homer says of Jupiter,--

Jove lifts the golden balances, that show

The faces of mortal men, and things below.

Here each contending hero's lot he tries,

And weighs with equal hand their destinies

Low sinks the scale surcharged with Hector's fate;

Heavy with death it sinks, and hell receives the weight.

("Iliad," xxii. 210.)

To this fable Aeschylus hath accommodated a whole tragedy which he

calls Psychostasia, wherein he introduceth Thetis and Aurora standing

by Jupiter's balances, and deprecating each of them the death of her

son engaged in a duel. Now there is no man but sees that this fable is

a creature of the poet's fancy, designed to delight or scare the reader.

But this other passage,--

Great Jove is made the treasurer of wars;

(Ibid. iv. 84.)

and this other also,--

When a god means a noble house to raze,

He frames one rather than he'll want a cause:

(From the "Niobe" of Aeschylus, Frag. 151.)

these passages, I say, express their judgment and belief who thereby

discover and suggest to us the ignorant or mistaken apprehensions they

had of the Deities. Moreover, almost every one knows nowadays, that the

portentous fancies and contrivances of stories concerning the state of

the dead are accommodated to popular apprehensions,--that the spectres

and phantasms of burning rivers and horrid regions and terrible tortures

expressed by frightful names are all mixed with fable and fiction, as

poison with food; and that neither Homer nor Pindar nor Sophocles ever

believed themselves when they wrote at this rate:--

There endless floods of shady darkness stream

From the vast caves, where mother Night doth teem;

and,

There ghosts o'er the vast ocean's waves did glide,

By the Leucadian promontory's side;

("Odyssey," xxiv. 11.)

and,

There from th' unfathomed gulf th' infernal lake

Through narrow straits recurring tides doth make.

And yet, as many of them as deplore death as a lamentable thing, or the

want of burial after death as a calamitous condition, are wont to break

out into expressions of this nature:--

O pass not by, my friend; nor leave me here

Without a grave, and on that grave a tear;

("Odyssey," xi. 72.)

and,

Then to the ghosts the mournful soul did fly,

Sore grieved in midst of youth and strength to die;

("Iliad," xvi. 856.)

and again,

'Tis sweet to see the light. O spare me then,

Till I arrive at th' usual age of men:

Nor force my unfledged soul from hence, to know

The doleful state of dismal shades below.

(Euripides, "Iphigenia at Aulus," 1218.)

These, I say, are the speeches of men persuaded of these things, as

being possessed by erroneous opinions; and therefore they touch us the

more nearly and torment us inwardly, because we ourselves are full of

the same impotent passion from which they were uttered. To fortify

us therefore against expressions of this nature, let this principle

continually ring in our ears, that poetry is not at all solicitous to

keep to the strict measure of truth. And indeed, as to what that truth

in these matters is, even those men themselves who make it their only

study to learn and search it out confess that they can hardly discover

any certain footsteps to guide them in that inquiry. Let us therefore

have these verses of Empedocles, in this case, at hand:--

No sight of man's so clear, no ear so quick,

No mind so piercing, that's not here to seek;

as also those of Xenophanes:--

The truth about the gods and ghosts, no man

E'er was or shall be that determine can;

and lastly, that passage concerning Socrates, in Plato, where he by the

solemnity of an oath disclaims all knowledge of those things. For those

who perceive that the searching into such matters makes the heads of

philosophers themselves giddy cannot but be the less inclined to regard

what poets say concerning them.

And we shall fix our young men 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 is in many respects like unto painting; not only acquainting

him with that common saying, that poetry is vocal painting and painting

silent poetry, but showing 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 commanded; 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 cleverly 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 man 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 anything, 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 acts 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 poor shoes, but yet fit for him; so we may

say of such expressions as these:--

If t'is necessary an unjust act to do,

It is best to do it for a throne;

(Euripides, "Phoenissae," 524.)

Get the repute of Just,

And in it do all things whence gain may come;

A talent dowry! Could I

Sleep, or live, if thee I should neglect?

And should I not in hell tormented be,

Could I be guilty of such sacrilege?

(From Menander.)

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 a 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;

("Odyssey," vi. 148.)

By him he stood, and with soft speeches quelled

The wrath which in his heated bosom swelled.

("Iliad," ii. 180.)

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;

(Ibid. i. 24.)

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!

(Ibid. i. 225.)

he accompanies it with this censure,--

Nor yet the rage his boiling breast forsook,

Which thus redoubling on Atrides broke;

(Ibid. i. 223.)

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.

("Iliad," xxiii. 24.)

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.

("Odyssey," viii. 329.)

And thus concerning Hector's insolent boasting he says,--

With such big words his mind proud Hector eased,

But venerable Juno he displeased.

("Iliad," viii. 198.)

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.

(Ibid. iv. 104.)

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 [Greek

omitted]), 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 case.

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;

("Odyssey," viii. 249 and 492.)

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.

("Iliad," xv. 32.)

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 same 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;

("Iliad," viii. 358.)

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 forever blest

Feel endless joys and undisturbed rest.

The gods, who have themselves no cause to grieve,

For wretched man a web of sorrow weave.

(Ibid. vi. 138; "Odyssey," vi. 46; "Iliad," xxiv, 526.)

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,--

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 anything 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 talent because his purse is low;

The fair tongue makes, where wealth can purchase it,

The foul face beautiful, the fool a wit:--

against this 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: that they are

bad men who 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 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, singing of the

Goddess Diana, called her furious, raging, possessed, mad, Cinesias

suddenly interrupted him, May thy daughter, Timotheus, be such a

goddess! And witty also was that of Bion to Theognis, who said,--

One cannot say nor do, if poor he be;

His tongue is bound to th' peace, as well as he.

("Theognis," vss. 177, 178.)

How comes it to pass then, said he, Theognis that thou thyself being so

poor pratest and gratest our ears in this manner?

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 are antidotes to the poison itself, 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.

("Odyssey," iv. 197; "Iliad," xxiv. 526.)

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 maybe

transferred to a better sense may be taken from the ordinary 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 unprofitable to him to understand, that

when he meets with [Greek omitted] in a poet, that word means an EVIL

DEATH; for the Macedonians use the word [Greek omitted] to signify

DEATH. So the Aeolians call victory gotten by patient endurance

of hardships [Greek omitted] and the Dryopians call daemons [Greek

omitted].

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 Soul 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 [Greek omitted]

sometimes signifies a MATERIAL HOUSE, as, Into the high-roofed house;

and sometimes ESTATE, as, My house is devoured. So the word [Greek

omitted] sometimes signifies life, and sometimes wealth. And [Greek

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

in

[Greek omitted] ("Iliad," v. 352.)

and elsewhere for boasting and rejoicing, as in

[Greek omitted] ("Odyssey," xviii. 333.)

In like manner [Greek omitted] signifies either to MOVE, as in Euripides

when he saith,

[Greek omitted]--

or TO SIT, as in Sophocles when he writes thus,

[Greek omitted] (Sophocles, "Oedipus Tyranus," 2.)

It is elegant also when they fit to the present matter, as grammarians

teach, the use of words which have another signification. As here:--

[Greek omitted]

For here [Greek omitted] signifies TO PRAISE (instead of [Greek

omitted]), and TO PRAISE is used for TO REFUSE. So in conversation it

is common with us to say, [Greek omitted], IT IS WELL (i.e., NO, I THANK

YOU), and to bid anything FAREWELL [Greek omitted]; 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 [Greek omitted] in the notion of [Greek omitted], 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 what 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 the glorious stars I swear,

And bloody Mars and Jupiter,

(Euripides, "Phoenissae," 1006.)

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.

("Iliad," vii. 329.)

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;

("Iliad," iii. 276.)

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;

(Ibid. i. 3 and 5.)

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.

(From Euripides.)

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,

(Hesiod, "Works and Days," 86.)

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 profitable

to only them who know 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,

(Hesiod "Works and Days," 717.)

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.--

Of violated oaths Jove took no care,

But spitefully both parties crushed by war:--

To Greeks and Trojans both this was the rise

Of Mischief, suitable to Jove's device.

("Iliad," xxiv. 527; vii. 69; "Odyssey," viii. 81.)

These passages we are to interpret as spoken concerning Fortune or Fate,

of the casuality of both which no account can be given by us, nor

do their effects fall under our power. But where anything 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.

("Iliad," xi. 540.)

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 [Greek omitted],

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 [Greek

omitted], and the oak-tree and its acorn [Greek omitted] 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;

(Hesiod, "Works and Days," 289.)

The adverse troops then did the Grecians stout

By their mere virtue profligate and rout;

("Iliad," xi. 90.)

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;

(Ibid. xx. 242; Hesiod "Works and Days," 313.)

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 [Greek omitted], 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;

(Hesiod, "Works and Days," 287.)

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.

("Odyessy," xix. 360.)

So also in the word [Greek omitted], 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;

(Ibid. iv. 93.)

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,--

I do not want a happy life that is tedious;

And, man, why praisest thou

Th' unjust beatitude of tyranny?

(Euripides, "Medea," 598; "Phoenissae," 549.)

except, as I said, we allow him the use of these words in a metaphorical

and abusive meaning. 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 anything 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.

(From the "Aeolus" of Euripides.)

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.

("Iliad," xvi. 97; "Odyssey," xi. 421; "Iliad," ix, 452;

Ibid. iii, 365.)

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

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 unblameable, 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 everything, 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 stammering 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?

(For this and the four following quotations, see

"Iliad," i. 59, 90, 220, 349; ix, 458.)

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 hand some god in kindness held;

And minded me that, Greeks would taunting say,

Lo, here's the man that did his father slay.

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!

("Odyssey," vi. 254.)

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 pleased with

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;

("Odyssey," xvii, 282.)

if that joy were occasioned by greediness and covetousness, he discovers

himself to be a more sordid prostituter of his own life 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;

(Ibid. xiii. 216.)

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 condemn 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 people could not freely converse with. But if his sleep

was but shammed, and he made use of this pretence only of a natural

infirmity, by counterfeiting a nap, to hide the strait he was in at the

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 evil acts good words can never come.

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 anything 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 inquire 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 promulgators of laws 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 inquire in what sense they are

spoken:--

It bodes ill, when vessels you set up,

To put the ladle on the mixing-cup.

Who from his chariot to another's leaps,

Seldom his seat without a combat keeps.

(Hesiod "Works and Days," 744; "Iliad," iv. 306.)

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:

(Euripides, "Hippolytus," 424.)

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 concealed 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 discussion, and the trimming up and furnishing them with

a multitude of instances, to those who write more for display 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;

(For this and the five following quotations,

see "Iliad," i. 163; ii. 226; i. 128; ii. 231;

iv. 402 and 404.)

whereas Thersites to the same person speaks reproachfully in this

manner:--

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

The golden spoil, thine the lovely dames.

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 place. 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.

("Iliad," iv. 357. For the four following, see "Iliad," ix. 34

and 70; iv. 431; x. 325.)

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 distressed,

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 host 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.