{1} _Edward Wotton_, elder brother of Sir Henry Wotton. He was knighted
by Elizabeth in 1592, and made Comptroller of her Household. Observe the
playfulness in Sidney’s opening and close of a treatise written
throughout in plain, manly English without Euphuism, and strictly
reasoned.
{2} Here the introduction ends, and the argument begins with its § 1.
_Poetry the first Light-giver_.
{3} A fable from the “Hetamythium” of Laurentius Abstemius, Professor of
Belles Lettres at Urbino, and Librarian to Duke Guido Ubaldo under the
Pontificate of Alexander VI. (1492–1503).
{4} Pliny says (“Nat. Hist.,” lib. xi., cap. 62) that the young vipers,
impatient to be born, break through the side of their mother, and so kill
her.
{5} § 2. _Borrowed from by Philosophers_.
{6} Timæus, the Pythagorean philosopher of Locri, and the Athenian
Critias are represented by Plato as having listened to the discourse of
Socrates on a Republic. Socrates calls on them to show such a state in
action. Critias will tell of the rescue of Europe by the ancient
citizens of Attica, 10,000 years before, from an inroad of countless
invaders who came from the vast island of Atlantis, in the Western Ocean;
a struggle of which record was preserved in the temple of Naith or Athené
at Sais, in Egypt, and handed down, through Solon, by family tradition to
Critias. But first Timæus agrees to expound the structure of the
universe; then Critias, in a piece left unfinished by Plato, proceeds to
show an ideal society in action against pressure of a danger that seems
irresistible.
{7} Plato’s “Republic,” book ii.
{8} § 3. _Borrowed from by Historians_.
{9} § 4. _Honoured by the Romans as Sacred and Prophetic_.
{10} § 5. _And really sacred and prophetic in the Psalms of David_.
{11} § 6. _By the Greeks_, _Poets were honoured with the name of
Makers_.
{12} _Poetry is the one creative art_. _Astronomers and others repeat
what they find_.
{13} _Poets improve Nature_.
{14} _And idealize man_.
{15} _Here a Second Part of the Essay begins_.
{16} § 1. Poetry defined.
{17} § 2. _Its kinds_. _a._ _Divine_.
{18} _b._ _Philosophical_, _which is perhaps too imitative_.
{19} Marcus Manilius wrote under Tiberius a metrical treatise on
Astronomy, of which five books on the fixed stars remain.
{20} _c._ _Poetry proper_.
{21} § 3. _Subdivisions of Poetry proper_.
{22} _Its essence is in the thought_, _not in apparelling of verse_.
{23} _Heliodorus_ was Bishop of Tricca, in Thessaly, and lived in the
fourth century. His story of Theagenes and Chariclea, called the
“Æthiopica,” was a romantic tale in Greek which was, in Elizabeth’s
reign, translated into English.
{24} _The Poet’s Work and Parts_. § 1. WORK: _What Poetry does for us_.
{25} _Their clay lodgings_—
“Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.”
(Shakespeare, “Merchant of Venice,” act v., sc. 1)
{26} _Poetry best advances the end of all earthly learning_, _virtuous
action_.
{27} _Its advantage herein over Moral Philosophy_.
{28} _Its advantage herein over History_.
{29} “All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authórising thy trespass with compare.”
Shakespeare, “Sonnet” 35.
{30} “Witness of the times, light of truth, life of memory, mistress of
life, messenger of antiquity.”—Cicero, “De Oratore.”
{31} _In what manner the Poet goes beyond Philosopher_, _Historian_,
_and all others_ (_bating comparison with the Divine_).
{32} _He is beyond the Philosopher_.
{33} Horace’s “Ars Poetica,” lines 372–3. But Horace wrote “Non
homines, non Di”—“Neither men, gods, nor lettered columns have admitted
mediocrity in poets.”
{34} _The moral common-places_. Common Place, “Locus communis,” was a
term used in old rhetoric to represent testimonies or pithy sentences of
good authors which might be used for strengthening or adorning a
discourse; but said Keckermann, whose Rhetoric was a text-book in the
days of James I. and Charles I., “Because it is impossible thus to read
through all authors, there are books that give students of eloquence what
they need in the succinct form of books of Common Places, like that
collected by Stobæus out of Cicero, Seneca, Terence, Aristotle; but
especially the book entitled ‘Polyanthea,’ provides short and effective
sentences apt to any matter.” Frequent resort to the Polyanthea caused
many a good quotation to be hackneyed; the term of rhetoric, “a
common-place,” came then to mean a good saying made familiar by incessant
quoting, and then in common speech, any trite saying good or bad, but
commonly without wit in it.
{35} _Thus far Aristotle_. The whole passage in the “Poetics” runs: “It
is not by writing in verse or prose that the Historian and Poet are
distinguished. The work of Herodotus might be versified; but it would
still be a species of History, no less with metre than without. They are
distinguished by this, that the one relates what has been, the other what
might be. On this account Poetry is more philosophical, and a more
excellent thing than History, for Poetry is chiefly conversant about
general truth; History about particular. In what manner, for example,
any person of a certain character would speak or act, probably or
necessarily, this is general; and this is the object of Poetry, even
while it makes use of particular names. But what Alcibiades did, or what
happened to him, this is particular truth.”
{36} Justinus, who lived in the second century, made an epitome of the
history of the Assyrian, Persian, Grecian, Macedonian, and Roman Empires,
from Trogus Pompeius, who lived in the time of Augustus.
{37} _Dares Phrygius_ was supposed to have been a priest of Vulcan, who
was in Troy during the siege, and the Phrygian Iliad ascribed to him as
early as the time of Ælian, A.D. 230, was supposed, therefore, to be
older than Homer’s.
{38} _Quintus Curtius_, a Roman historian of uncertain date, who wrote
the history of Alexander the Great in ten books, of which two are lost
and others defective.
{39} Not knowledge but practice.
{40} _The Poet Monarch of all Human Sciences_.
{41} In “Love’s Labour’s Lost” a resemblance has been fancied between
this passage and Rosalind’s description of Biron, and the jest:—
“Which his fair tongue—conceit’s expositor—
Delivers in such apt and gracious words,
That agéd ears play truant at his tables,
And younger hearings are quite ravishéd,
So sweet and voluble is his discourse.”
{42} Virgil’s “Æneid,” Book xii.:—
“And shall this ground fainthearted dastard
Turnus flying view?
Is it so vile a thing to die?”
(Phaer’s Translation [1573].)
{43} _Instances of the power of the Poet’s work_.
{44} _Defectuous_. This word, from the French “defectueux,” is used
twice in the “Apologie for Poetrie.”
{45} § II. _The_ PARTS _of Poetry_.
{46} _Can Pastoral be condemned_?
{47} The close of Virgil’s seventh Eclogue—Thyrsis was vanquished, and
Corydon crowned with lasting glory.
{48} _Or Elegiac_?
{49} _Or Iambic_? _or Satiric_?
{50} From the first Satire of Persius, line 116, in a description of
Homer’s satire:
“Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico
Tangit, et admissus circum præcordia ludit,” &c.
Shrewd Flaccus touches each vice in his laughing friend. Dryden thus
translated the whole passage:—
“Unlike in method, with concealed design
Did crafty Horace his low numbers join;
And, with a sly insinuating grace
Laughed at his friend, and looked him in the face:
Would raise a blush where secret vice he found;
And tickle, while he gently probed the wound;
With seeming innocence the crowd beguiled,
But made the desperate passes while he smiled.”
{51} From the end of the eleventh of Horace’s epistles (Lib. 1):
“Coelum non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt,
Strenua nos exercet inertia; navibus atque
Quadrigis petimus bene vivere. Quod petis, hic est,
Est Ulubris, animus si te non deficit æquus.”
They change their skies but not their mind who run across the seas;
We toil in laboured idleness, and seek to live at ease
With force of ships and four horse teams. That which you seek is
here,
At Ulubræ, unless your mind fail to be calm and clear.
“At Ulubræ” was equivalent to saying in the dullest corner of the world,
or anywhere. Ulubræ was a little town probably in Campania, a Roman
Little Pedlington. Thomas Carlyle may have had this passage in mind when
he gave to the same thought a grander form in Sartor Resartus: “May we
not say that the hour of spiritual enfranchisement is even this? When
your ideal world, wherein the whole man has been dimly struggling and
inexpressibly languishing to work, becomes revealed and thrown open, and
you discover with amazement enough, like the Lothario in Wilhelm Meister,
that your America is here or nowhere. The situation that has not its
duty, its ideal, was never occupied by man. Yes, here, in this poor,
miserable hampered actual wherein thou even now standest, here or
nowhere, is thy Ideal: work it out therefrom, believe, live, and be free.
Fool! the Ideal is in thyself, the impediment too is in thyself. Thy
condition is but the stuff thou art to shape that same Ideal out of.
What matter whether such stuff be of this sort or that, so the form thou
give it be heroic, be poetic? O thou that pinest in the imprisonment of
the actual, and criest bitterly to the gods for a kingdom wherein to rule
and create, know this of a truth, the thing thou seekest is already with
thee, here or nowhere, couldest thou only see.”
{52} Or Comic?
{53} _In pistrinum_. In the pounding-mill (usually worked by horses or
asses).
{54} _Or Tragic_?
{55} _The old song of Percy and Douglas_, Chevy Chase in its first form.
{56} _Or the Heroic_?
{57} Epistles I. ii. 4. Better than Chrysippus and Crantor. They were
both philosophers, Chrysippus a subtle stoic, Crantor the first
commentator upon Plato.
{58} _Summary of the argument thus far_.
{59} _Objections stated and met_.
{60} Cornelius Agrippa’s book, “De Incertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum
et Artium,” was first published in 1532; Erasmus’s “Moriæ Encomium” was
written in a week, in 1510, and went in a few months through seven
editions.
{61} _The objection to rhyme and metre_.
{62} The first of these sentences is from Horace (Epistle I. xviii. 69):
“Fly from the inquisitive man, for he is a babbler.” The second, “While
each pleases himself we are a credulous crowd,” seems to be varied from
Ovid (Fasti, iv. 311):—
“Conscia mens recti famæ mendacia risit:
Sed nos in vitium credula turba sumus.”
A mind conscious of right laughs at the falsehoods of fame but towards
vice we are a credulous crowd.
{63} _The chief objections_.
{64} _That time might be better spent_.
{65} Beg the question.
{66} _That poetry is the mother of lies_.
{67} _That poetry is the nurse of abuse_, _infecting us with wanton and
pestilent desires_.
{68} _Rampire_, rampart, the Old French form of “rempart,” was “rempar,”
from “remparer,” to fortify.
{69} “I give him free leave to be foolish.” A variation from the line
(Sat. I. i. 63), “Quid facias illi? jubeas miserum esse libenter.”
{70} _That Plato banished poets from his ideal Republic_.
{71} Which authority certain barbarous and insipid writers would wrest
into meaning that poets were to be thrust out of a state.
{72} Ion is a rhapsodist, in dialogue with Socrates, who cannot
understand why it is that his thoughts flow abundantly when he talks of
Homer. “I can explain,” says Socrates; “your talent in expounding Homer
is not an art acquired by system and method, otherwise it would have been
applicable to other poets besides. It is a special gift, imparted to you
by Divine power and inspiration. The like is true of the poet you
expound. His genius does not spring from art, system, or method: it is a
special gift emanating from the inspiration of the Muses. A poet is
light, airy, holy person, who cannot compose verses at all so long as his
reason remains within him. The Muses take away his reason, substituting
in place of it their own divine inspiration and special impulse . . .
Like prophets and deliverers of oracles, these poets have their reason
taken away, and become the servants of the gods. It is not they who,
bereft of their reason, speak in such sublime strains, it is the god who
speaks to us, and speaks through them.” George Grote, from whose volumes
on Plato I quote this translation of the passage, placed “Ion” among the
genuine dialogues of Plato.
{73} _Guards_, trimmings or facings.
{74} _The Second Summary_.
{75} _Causes of Defect in English Poetry_.
{76} From the invocation at the opening of Virgil’s _Æneid_ (line 12),
“Muse, bring to my mind the causes of these things: what divinity was
injured . . . that one famous for piety should suffer thus.”
{77} The Chancellor, Michel de l’Hôpital, born in 1505, who joined to
his great political services (which included the keeping of the
Inquisition out of France, and long labour to repress civil war) great
skill in verse. He died in 1573.
{78} Whose heart-strings the Titan (Prometheus) fastened with a better
clay. (Juvenal, _Sat._ xiv. 35). Dryden translated the line, with its
context—
“Some sons, indeed, some very few, we see
Who keep themselves from this infection free,
Whom gracious Heaven for nobler ends designed,
Their looks erected, and their clay refined.”
{79} The orator is made, the poet born.
{80} What you will; the first that comes.
{81} “Whatever I shall try to write will be verse.” Sidney quotes from
memory, and adapts to his context, Tristium IV. x. 26.
“Sponte sua carmen numeros veniebat ad aptos,
Et quod temptabam dicere, versus erat.”
{82} _His_ for “its” here as throughout; the word “its” not being yet
introduced into English writing.
{83} _Defects in the Drama_. It should be remembered that this was
written when the English drama was but twenty years old, and Shakespeare,
aged about seventeen, had not yet come to London. The strongest of
Shakespeare’s precursors had not yet begun to write for the stage.
Marlowe had not yet written; and the strength that was to come of the
freedom of the English drama had yet to be shown.
{84} There was no scenery on the Elizabethan stage.
{85} Messenger.
{86} From the egg.
{87} _Bias_, slope; French “bìais.”
{88} Juvenal, _Sat._ iii., lines 152–3. Which Samuel Johnson finely
paraphrased in his “London:”
“Of all the griefs that harass the distrest,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest.”
{89} George Bachanan (who died in 1582, aged seventy-six) had written in
earlier life four Latin tragedies, when Professor of Humanities at
Bordeaux, with Montaigne in his class.
{90} _Defects in Lyric Poetry_.
{91} _Defects in Diction_. This being written only a year or two after
the publication of “Euphues,” represents that style of the day which was
not created but represented by the book from which it took the name of
“Euphuism.”
{92} Nizolian paper-books, are commonplace books of quotable passages,
so called because an Italian grammarian, Marius Nizolius, born at
Bersello in the fifteenth century, and one of the scholars of the
Renaissance in the sixteenth, was one of the first producers of such
volumes. His contribution was an alphabetical folio dictionary of
phrases from Cicero: “Thesaurus Ciceronianus, sive Apparatus Linguæ
Latinæ e scriptis Tullii Ciceronis collectus.”
{93} “He lives and wins, nay, comes to the Senate, nay, comes to the
Senate,” &c.
{94} Pounded. Put in the pound, when found astray.
{95} _Capacities of the English Language_.
{96} _Metre and Rhyme_.
{97} _Last Summary and playful peroration_.