Complete Works of Plutarch Part 70

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 pa.s.sion 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 G.o.ds and ghosts, no man E'er was or shall be that determine can;

and lastly, that pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sions 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 wh.o.r.emaster 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 h.e.l.l 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 d.a.m.nified 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 pa.s.sages 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 wh.o.r.e, 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 pa.s.sionate 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 pa.s.seth like censures on actions. As on Achilles's foul usage of Hector's carca.s.s,--

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 G.o.ds saying, on the occasion of the adultery of Mars and Venus discovered by Vulcan's artifice,--

See the swift G.o.d 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, b.a.s.t.a.r.dly 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 fas.h.i.+ons, 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 a.s.sertion, 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 G.o.ds, my son, deceive poor men oft-times.

ANS. 'Tis easy, sir, on G.o.d 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 G.o.d's service toil's a foul mistake.