Leave this, and sing the horse, out of whose womb
The gallant knights that conquered Troy did come;[35]
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.[36]
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 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;[37]
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 for ever blest
Feel endless joys and undisturbed rest.
The Gods, who have themselves no cause to grieve,
For wretched man a web of sorrow weave.[38]
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,—
we 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 any thing 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.