presently subjoined this corrective,
What’s base is base,—believe men what they will.
And Cleanthes, hearing this passage concerning wealth:
Great is th’ advantage that great wealth attends,
For oft with it we purchase health and friends;[82]
presently altered it thus:
Great disadvantage oft attends on wealth;
We purchase whores with’t and destroy our health.
And Zeno corrected that of Sophocles,
The man that in a tyrant’s palace dwells
His liberty for’s entertainment sells,
after this manner:
No: if he came in free, he cannot lose
His liberty, though in a tyrant’s house;
meaning by a free man one that is undaunted and magnanimous, and one of
a spirit too great to stoop beneath itself. And why may not we also,
by some such acclamations as those, call off young men to the better
side, by using some things spoken by poets after the same manner? For
example, it is said,
’Tis all that in this life one can require,
To hit the mark he aims at in desire.
To which we may reply thus:
’Tis false; except one level his desire
At what’s expedient, and no more require.
For it is an unhappy thing and not to be wished, for a man to obtain
and be master of what he desires if it be inexpedient. Again this
saying,
Thou, Agamemnon, must thyself prepare
Of joy and grief by turns to take thy share:
Thy father, Atreus, sure, ne’er thee begat,
To be an unchanged favorite of Fate:[83]
we may thus invert:
Thy father, Atreus, never thee begat,
To be an unchanged favorite of Fate:
Therefore, if moderate thy fortunes are,
Thou shouldst rejoice always, and grief forbear.
Again it is said,
Alas! this ill comes from the powers divine,
That oft we see what’s good, yet it decline.[84]
Yea, rather, say we, it is a brutish and irrational and wretched fault
of ours, that when we understand better things, we are carried away
to the pursuit of those which are worse, through our intemperance and
effeminacy. Again, one says,
’Tis not the teacher’s speech but practice moves.[85]
Yea, rather, say we, both the speech and practice,—or the practice
by the means of speech,—as the horse is managed with the bridle, and
the ship with the helm. For virtue hath no instrument so suitable and
agreeable to human nature to work on men withal, as that of rational
discourse. Again, we meet with this character of some person:
A. Is he more prone to male or female loves?
B. He’s flexible both ways, where beauty moves.
But it had been better said thus:
He’s flexible to both, where virtue moves.
For it is no commendation of a man’s dexterity to be tossed up and down
as pleasure and beauty move him, but an argument rather of a weak and
unstable disposition. Once more, this speech,
Religion damps the courage of our minds,
And ev’n wise men to cowardice inclines,
is by no means to be allowed; but rather the contrary,
Religion truly fortifies men’s minds,
And a wise man to valiant acts inclines,
and gives not occasion of fear to any but weak and foolish persons and
such as are ungrateful to the Deity, who are apt to look on that divine
power and principle which is the cause of all good with suspicion and
jealousy, as being hurtful unto them. And so much for that which I call
correction of poets’ sayings.
13. There is yet another way of improving poems, taught us well by
Chrysippus; which is, by accommodation of any saying, to transfer that
which is useful and serviceable in it to divers things of the same
kind. For whereas Hesiod saith,
If but a cow be lost, the common fame
Upon the next ill neighbor lays the blame;[86]
the same may be applied to a man’s dog or ass or any other beast of his
which is liable to the like mischance. Again, Euripides saith,
How can that man be called a slave, who slights
Ev’n death itself, which servile spirits frights?
the like whereof may be said of hard labor or painful sickness. For as
physicians, finding by experience the force of any medicine in the cure
of some one disease, make use of it by accommodation, proportionably to
every other disease of affinity thereto, so are we to deal with such
speeches as are of a common import and apt to communicate their value
to other things; we must not confine them to that one thing only to
which they were at first adapted, but transfer them to all other of
like nature, and accustom young men by many parallel instances to see
the communicableness of them, and exercise the promptness of their wits
in such applications. So that when Menander says,
Happy is he who wealth and wisdom hath,
they may be able to judge that the same is fitly applicable to glory
and authority and eloquence also. And the reproof which Ulysses gives
Achilles, when he found him sitting in Scyrus in the apartment of the
young ladies,
Thou, who from noblest Greeks deriv’st thy race,
Dost thou with spinning wool thy birth disgrace?
may be as well given to the prodigal, to him that undertakes any
dishonest way of living, yea, to the slothful and unlearned person,
thus:
Thou, who from noblest Greeks deriv’st thy race,
Dost thou with fuddling thy great birth disgrace?
or dost thou spend thy time in dicing, or quail-striking,[87] or deal
in adulterate wares or griping usury, not minding any thing that is
great and worthy thy noble extraction? So when they read,
For Wealth, the God most serve, I little care,
Since the worst men his favors often wear,[88]
they may be able to infer, therefore, as little regard is to be had to
glory and bodily beauty and princely robes and priestly garlands, all
which also we see to be the enjoyments of very bad men. Again, when
they read this passage,
A coward father propagates his vice,
And gets a son heir to his cowardice,
they may in truth apply the same to intemperance, to superstition,
to envy, and all other diseases of men’s minds. Again, whereas it is
handsomely said of Homer,
Unhappy Paris, fairest to behold!
and