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YALE STUDIES IN ENGLISH
ALBERT S. COOK, Editor

ESSAYS ON THE STUDY AND USE
OF POETRY

PLUTARCH AND BASIL THE GREAT

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY

FREDERICK MORGAN PADELFORD, Ph.D.

Professor of the English Language and Literature in the
University of Washington

1 1

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1902

"■^'//.H'tA^'

Frederick Morgan Padelford, Ph.D.

TO
GEORGE DANA BOARDMAN PEPPER

AND

ADONIRAM JUDSON PADELFORD

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface, ......

Introduction, .....

Plutarch's Theory of Poetry, .

The Life of St. Basil and the Address to Young Men,
How A Young Man Should Study Poetry, .

Outline, .....

Translation, .....
Address to Young Men on the Right Use of Greek
TURE, . . . .

Outline, ......

Translation, .....

Appendix, ......

Index, ......

Page

LiTERA

lOI

. '

121

125

PREFACE

The recent very general interest in poetics has led me to
prepare these translations of the essays on poetry by Plu-
tarch and Basil the Great, in the hope that they may prove
useful to students of literature. Although they were not
epoch-making, these essays are worthy of consideration, for,
besides their intrinsic value, they mark interesting stages in
the history of poetic criticism.

The essay on How a Young Man Ought to Study Poetry
was first rendered into English by Philemon Holland, who
made a complete translation of the Morals, which was issued
in octavo from the press of Arnold Hatfield, a London
printer, in 1603. Its title reads as follows: 'The Philoso-
phic, commonlie called The Morals, written by the learned
Philosopher Plutarch of Chaeronea. Translated out of
Greek into English, and conferred with the Latin translations
and the French, by Philemon Holland of Coventrie, Doctor
in Physicke. Whereunto are annexed the Summaries neces-
sary to be read before every Treatise.' This version, though
its archaism possesses an undeniable charm, is not alto-
gether adapted to modern requirements. A second edition,
'newly revised and corrected,' appeared in 1657, and this
was followed not many years later by the translation of the
Morals 'by Several Hands,' published in London in 1684-
1694. To this work Simon Ford contributed the version of
the essay on Hozv a Young Man Ought to Study Poetry.
Ford's translation is clumsy, frequently obscure, and often
wide of the Greek. In 1870 Professor Goodwin offered a
corrected and revised text of this rendering of the Morals,
and the fact that the sixth edition appeared in 1898 attests
the usefulness of this revised version. However, of the
essay under consideration much more than a revision of

Preface

Ford's translation is needed, if the essay is to assume its
proper place in our study of poetics.

There seems to have been one separate translation of
Basil's homily into English, although it is not recorded in
the catalogue of the British Museum. It appeared at the
press of John Cawood in octavo form, and was printed in
black letter. According to Ames and Herbert^ it bore the
following title: 'An Homelye of Basilius Magnus, Howe
Younge Men oughte to reade Poets and Oratours. Trans-
lated out of Greke. Anno M. D. LVII.' Nothing seems
to be known about the author.

It is interesting to find that the two essays of Plutarch
and Basil were associated by Archbishop Potter of Canter-
bury in the first of his learned publications. In 1694, when
barely twenty,^ and just after he was made a Fellow of
Lincoln College, he published at Oxford an octavo volume
with the following title: 'Variantes Lectiones et Notae ad
Plutarchi librum de Audiendis Poetis ; et ad Basilii Magni
Orationem ad Juvenes.' In 1753 a second edition of this
book was issued at Glasgow. Potter, however, was not the
first to associate these essays; in 1600 Martin Haynoccius
published them in an Enchiridion Ethicum, and Grotius
brought out an edition of the two at Paris in 1623.

A German dissertation, De Fontibus Plutarchi Comment,
de Audiendis Poetis et de Fortuna, written by August
Schlemm, and published at Gottingen in 1894, shows the
probable indebtedness of Plutarch's essay to the lost writ-
ings of the Stoics and Peripatetics. I am indebted to Herr
Schlemm for several of my no^es, and offer his conclusions
in an appendix.

In the present renderings an attempt has been made to
express the spirit and style of the originals, and thus to
reproduce the looseness and indirectness of Plutarch's
thought, as well as the conciseness and rapid movement of
Basil's language. The translation of Plutarch follows the

^ Typographical Antiquities, London, 1785-6-90.
^ See Diet. Nat. Biog. s. v. John Potter.

Preface

text of Bernardakis, and the rendering- of Basil the text
of Migne. Acknowledgment should be made of sugges-
tions taken from the earlier English translations of Plutarch,
from the German version of Basil by Kaltwasser, and from
Maloney's school edition of Basil's essay. For the many
quotations from the Iliad and the Odyssey, the translations
by Lang, Leaf, and Myers, and by Butcher and Lang, have
been adopted ; wherever quotations from Plato or from
Aristotle's Poetics have been embodied in the notes, the ver-
sions of Jowett and of Butcher have been followed.

The notes attempt to show the indebtedness of the essays
to earlier Greek literature, and to furnish interesting paral-
lels from the classics, but do not cite the many passages from
modem writers which are similar in thought. Biographical
notices are taken from Johnson's Encyclopaedia, Smith's
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology,
and Miiller's Handbuch der Klassischen Alterthumswissen-
schaft. Fragments from the Greek philosophers, drama-
tists, and lyrists, are referred to the collections of Mullach,
Nauck, Meineke, and Bergk, even when these essays furnish
the sources for the fragments. A few quotations and allu-
sions have escaped me, and I shall be grateful to any reader
who will direct my attention to the originals.

The preparation of this volume was undertaken at the
suggestion of Professor Albert S. Cook, and it owes much
to his interest. Professor George D. B. Pepper, ex-Presi-
dent of Colby College, has read the translations with pains-
taking care, and Dr. Charles Grosvenor Osgood, Jr., of Yale
University, has read both translations and introduction ; to
their suggestions the book, whatever its imperfections, is
greatly indebted. To my colleagues, Dr. Thomas F. Kane
and Dr. Arthur S. Haggett, with whom I have frequently
advised, I also acknowledge my obligations.

F. M. P.

Seattle, Washington.

August i6, 1902.

INTRODUCTION

PLUTARCH'S THEORY OF POETRY

Unless one accepts the theory, playfully or otherwise
advanced in the Ion, that the poet is but the instrument of
an overmastering divinity, he is often at a loss to explain the
inability of many a genius in the world of art and letters to
judge of the relative excellence of his own creations.
Michel Angelo eagerly dropped the brush and resumed the
chisel, with the joy of one who returns to the work he loves
after interruption, and yet succeeding generations have been
unable to tell whether they admire more the frescoes of the
Chapel or the Pieta; Wordsworth, the author of Michael,
the Daffodils, and 'There Was a Boy,' with infinite self-satis-
faction drew out the prolonged monotony of the Excursion
as the supreme work of a lifetime ; and he whose imagination
swept from the Visible darkness' of the throne of Chaos
to the skirts of God, 'dark with excessive bright,' failed
to see how far the intensity, sublimity, and mighty organ-
tones of Paradise Lost excel the unimpassioned finish of
Paradise Regained.

In a similar way Plutarch misjudged his productions,
for although he regarded philosophy as the ideal field for
the mind's activity, he was not profound enough nor subtle
enough to excel as a philosopher, so that the Morals are
hardly known more than by title to the cultivated reader of
to-day, while the Lives, those 'idealized ethical portraits,' as
Professor Perrin calls them, have charmed generations of
English readers by their freshness and spirit, and are found
on many a book-shelf where poverty allows them no other
companions save Shakespeare and the Bible.

And yet the Morals have great value historically. No
other extant writings give so complete and satisfactory a
record of custom and thought in the late Greek period.

Plutarch's Theory of Poetry

Domestic life in its many phases, affairs of government,
questions of religion and ethics, the investigations of science,
and the problems of art, all find a place in the pages of this
multifarious collection of essays.

The student of poetry, and of aesthetics in general, will
find these essays fruitful or barren according to the point
of view from which they are approached. If, in the essay
on poetry, the reader looks for intrinsic excellence in criti-
cism, he will be disappointed, and will find many pages that
are distressingly pedantic, and many that are commonplace
and trivial; thus, when the charming episode of Nausicaa
and Odysseus is made the subject of prudish speculation, the
reader is equally offended by the triteness of the thought
and by the writer's pragmatism. If, however, Plutarch is
regarded as an exponent of the thought and feeling of his
time, the essay is full of significance, for it shows the
attempts of decadent Greece to deal with an art which had
been the glory of the classical period.

Accordingly, the following pages will attempt an analysis
of Plutarch's theory of poetry, the material furnished by the
essay on poetry being supplemented by gleanings here and
there from essays on other subjects. First will be consid-
ered Plutarch's theory of the distinction between poetry and
prose; secondly, his theory of the relation of poetry to
nature and to truth ; thirdly, his theory of the end of fine art.

Wherein do poetry and prose differ? Although Plutarch
does not follow Aristotle in threatening the established
tradition which made metrical form essential to poetry,^
he does agree with him in saying that the nature of its sub-
ject largely determines whether a composition is prose or
poetry.^ With playful disdain he criticizes the early Greek
philosophers and naturalists for presenting didactic sub-
jects metrically: 'The verses of Empedocles and Par-
menides, Nicander's verses on antidotes to poisons, and the
maxims of Theognis, borrowed the poetic form and dignity
only as a sort of riding-carriage to avoid footing it.'^

^ Foei. i. 5; ix. 9. *Ibid. i. 7-8; ix. 2. ^ See p. 53.

Plutarch's Theory of Poetry

This idea is more elaborately developed in the essay entitled
Why the Pythian Priestess Ceases her Oracles in Verse:^
Vanity and love of display, united with a certain racial apti-
tude, led men to clothe history and philosophy in verse,
though these subjects, being of a grave and solid nature, and
designed to teach rather than to move, demand the severity
and directness of prose. Subjects of a didactic nature are
purely intellectual, and demand perfect simplicity in expres-
sion.

Poetry, on the other hand, is the product of intellect and
feeling combined, and hence, because its appeal is quite as
much to the feelings as to the intellect, requires the sensu-
ousness of verse. In the Symposiacs there is a discussion
of why it is commonly said that love makes a man a poet,
and one Sossius offers the following explanation : 'One
would do well to explain it in the light of Theophrastus' dis-
course on music, a book that I have just finished reading.
Theophrastus holds that music has three causes, grief, joy,
and inspiration, since each one of these alters the wonted
tone of the voice. Grief utters its mournful lamentations in
song, which explains why orators in their perorations, and
actors in their lamentings, employ soft and musical cadence.
Intense and excessive joy completely carries away the
lighter-minded fellows, and incites them to hop about and
frisk and keep their steps, even though they know nothing
about dancing ; as Pindar has it, "The frenzy and shouts of
those aroused, and their wild tossings of the head." But
men of taste and refinement, when subject to this emotion,
are incited only to sing and to give voice to verse and mel-
ody. Inspiration most of all changes the customary state
of body and voice. Whence the Bacchae use rhythm, and
the inspired give forth their oracles in metre, and one
sees few madmen who do not utter their insane ravings
in poetry and song. Such being the case, if you should
observe love with a critical eye and examine closely into it,
you would find that no other passion is attended with more

* 23-24.

Plutarch's Theory of Poetry

bitter grief, more intense and excessive joy, or greater
ecstasy and madness. A lover's soul looks like Sophocles'
city, "At the same moment it is full of sacrifices, of paeans,
and of lamentations."^ Wherefore it is not strange or sur-
prising that, since love contains all the causes <^ music —
grief, joy, and inspiration — and is also prone to talk and
babble, it should be more inclined than any other passion
to the making of poetry and songs. But although the
poet must be a man of sensitive emotions, not every man
of sensibility will be a poet. The power to express passion-
ate feeling in language melodious, rhythmical, and nobly
embellished is a gift to rare temperaments. Consequently,
when Euripides says that "Love makes men poets who before
no music knew,"^ he does not mean that love infuses music
and poetry into men that were not already inclined to them,
but that it warms and awakens that disposition which lay
inactive and drowsy before. . . . Poetic rapture, like the
raptures of love, makes use of the ability of its subject.'^
It was because this temperamental aptitude was general
among the early Greeks that they produced such a wealth of
poetry. A people whose civilization favored a natural and
sincere play of the emotions was equipped with a genius for
metrical utterance, and responded to the slightest excitation
with spontaneous and melodious poetry; accordingly their
banquets, where wine flowed and spirits were high, were
graced with charming odes and love-songs.*

But while emotion plays a large part in poetry, as already
stated poetry is the product, not of feeHng alone, but of
intellect as well ; one must therefore not allow such a pas-
sage as that quoted above, which, moreover, is dealing
strictly with lyrics, to cause him to overlook the emphasis
laid upon wisdom and judgment as factors in the production
of poetry. Indeed, by this very word 'enthusiasm,' Plutarch
does not mean that the poet's personality is lost while the

I Oed. Tyr. 4.

* Nauck 666.

* Why the Pythian Priestess Ceases her Oracles in Verse 23.
*Ibid. 23.

Plutarch's Theory of Poetry

god is speaking- through him, for he is too much of a
rationalist to entertain such a theory of divine possession;
rather, that the god uses each poet according to the abiUty
which nature and training have given him. Even the
Pythian priestess, if brought up among the ignorant, must
utter her oracles in prose/

The necessity for this element of judgment in the produc-
tion of works of art is considered at length in the essay On
Miisic.^ The thought is that he is the best musician who
combines the greatest amount of skill with the best judg-
ment. By skill is meant the technical understanding of
the different modes, such as the Dorian, the Ionian, and the
Phrygian, and the ability to play or sing in any one of them
without violating the laws of harmony. Judgment is an
inclusive term, comprising the ability to discover the nature
and genius of the poem, to choose for it the mode which is
most appropriate, and to judge of the coherency of all the
component parts.^ As to the importance of a knowledge of
philosophy for the production, or the appreciation, of music,
Plutarch does not go to the extreme of Pythagoras, who
'rejected the judging of music by the senses, affirming that
the virtue of music could be appreciated only by the intel-
lect,'* yet he does advise him who would be proficient in
this art to acquaint himself with all sciences, and especially
to make philosophy his tutor.^

It is needless to enforce this point further by citing
passages from the essay on poetry; suffice it to say that
Plutarch thought that poetry of real excellence must be
grounded in philosophy.

To summarize the conclusions already reached: while
prose is didactic, and appeals to the intellect, poetry is

^Ibid. 22.

* Among the Greeks music was accessory to poetry. Throughout
this essay the intimate relation of poetry and music is apparent on every
page, at times it being almost impossible to tell whether the writer is
speaking of the one or the other. In this essay Plutarch follows the
theories of Aristoxenus and Heraclides.

*3ifF. * Ibid. 37; see Plato, Zawj ii. 659. * Ibid, 23.

Plutarch's Theory of Poetry

emotional, and the product of feeling as well as of intellect.
Further, poetical power is a gift, but a gift that may be
refined by proper training — indeed, a gift that cannot be pos-
sessed by the altogether untutored.

So much for Plutarch's distinction between prose and
poetry. Let us now consider his theory of the relation of
poetry to nature and to truth.

Does poetry copy nature or transcend it? Is it truthful or
untruthful ? Is it universal or restricted ? We shall find an
answer to these questions in determining Plutarch's use of
the expression 'imitation.' Imitation as applied to the arts
was employed by Greek writers very generally, and widely
differing theories of its nature were held. As both Plato
and Aristotle give much prominence to this term in their
discussions of art, it will be helpful to examine somewhat
carefully their employment of the word, in order that Plu-
tarch's views may be seen against the background of earlier
Greek thought. In the tenth book of the Republic,^ where the
work of poet and painter is discussed, we find the following
train of thought : The artist is one who turns a mirror round
and round, and catches the reflection of objects — of the sun,
the heavens, the earth, plants, animals, men. There is the
ideal world as it exists in the mind of God, for example, the
ideal plant, table, or man ; the actual world which produces
plants, tables, or men imitative of the ideal ; and the world
of the artist, in which are copied the appearances of the
objects in the actual world. Imitative art is therefore an
imitation of an imitation, and further from truth than the
world of nature about us; it is three removes from God.
Useful art is superior to imitative art, for the carpenter who
makes a bed is better employed than the painter who repro-
duces the appearance of the bed, and the general who con-
ducts a campaign than Homer, the poet of battles.^

' 595-607.

^ See Plutarch, Whether the Athenians were More Renowned for their
Warlike Achievements or their Learning cc. vi-viii, for an elaborate
argument that more honor belongs to commanders than to poets,
orators, and historians.

Plutarch's Theory of Poetry

Further light is thrown on this conception of imitation
in the Third Book/ where it is defined as the assimilation
of oneself to another, whose character is assumed. Pre-
cisely because any such assumption of the character of
another is undignified, unnatural, and insincere, because, for /
example, the poet, not being a cobbler, can never really act the j
cobbler, all imitative artists were to leave the Republic, even j
though the banishment included the much loved Homer. \
All art, however, was not excluded, for Plato implies a
distinction between imitative art and true art. The best
art is the sincere and direct expression of a courageous
and harmonious life, not the product of the fancy of some
'pantomimically- versatile' imitator. The Republic is a return
to simplicity, and that poetry alone is permissible which
expresses the simplicity of a mind so nobly ordered that, »
whether in action or repose, it expresses the highest moral '
energy. The temper of this, the true artist-soul, gives char-
acter to the words, and through the words to the rhythm
and harmony. Rhythm and harmony, then, become formal
expressions of the great virtues, bravery and temperance;
they give to the senses graceful and beautiful expression of
true beauty and grace, for, in Plato's very words, 'grace and
harmony are the sisters and images of goodness and vir-
tue.'^ Such rhythm and harmony find their way into the
inmost part of the soul of the listener, and render right the
form of his soul through their rightness of form.^ Such
art is one with the music of the spheres; it is divine
beauty and loveliness.*

In the Poetics of Aristotle imitation is used in two senses.
In an early chapter, where Aristotle simply wishes to show
that the instinct of imitation is universal, occurs the follow-

*393. " 401. *402.

*In Laws vii. 817, in a less severe vein Plato is more generous to
tragedy, speaking of it as above of ideal art : ' Our whole state is an ^
imitation of the best and noblest life, which we affirm to be indeed the
very truth of tragedy.' Likewise, in Laws ii. 667-669, imitative art is
defined as good when it truthfully reproduces the original as to propor-
tions, etc., and is beautiful.

Plutarch's Theory of Poetry

ing statement : 'Poetry in general seems to have sprung from
•sj two causes, each of them lying deep in our nature. First,
the instinct of imitation is implanted in man from childhood,
one difference between him and other animals being that he
is the most imitative of living creatures ; and through imita-
tion he learns his earliest lessons; and no less universal
is the pleasure felt in things imitated. We have evidence
of this in the facts of experience. Objects which in them-
selves we view with pain, we delight to contemplate when
reproduced with minute fidelity, such as the forms of the
most ignoble animals and of dead bodies. The cause of
this again is, that to learn gives the liveliest pleasure, not
only to philosophers, but to men in general, whose capacity
of learning, however, is more limited. Thus the reason why
men enjoy seeing a likeness is that in contemplating it they
find themselves learning or inferring, and saying perhaps,
"Ah, that is he." For if you happen not to have seen the
original, the pleasure will be due not to the imitation as
such, but to the execution, the coloring, or some such
thing.'i

That Aristotle is speaking of imitation in general, and not
of artistic imitation, is at once apparent when one reads in
other chapters that 'Poetry imitates men as they ought to
be ;'^ that it 'is a more philosophical and a higher thing than
history,'^ for the 'one relates what has happened, the other

/ what may happen;'* that 'poetry tends to express the uni-
versal, history the particular.'^ In essence Aristotle says
that poetry is not limited to the actual deeds of men who

\ have lived, but that, freeing itself from the trammels of the
accidental, the temporary, and the local, it portrays men
nobler than nature, though such men as nature's tendencies
toward the ideal would produce. The poet sees through and

Mv. 1-5.

' Foet. i. 5 ; see also xxv. 6 : ' Further, if it be objected that the
description is not true to fact, the poet may perhaps reply, " But the
objects are as they ought to be ; " just as Sophocles said that he drew
men as they ought to be drawn ; Euripides as they are.'

'Ibid. ix. 3. ^ Ibid. ix. 2. *Ibid. ix. 3.

Plutarch's Theory of Poetry

beyond nature to the models of her workmanship. Thus,
good portrait-painters, 'while reproducing the distinctive
form of the original, make a likeness which is true to life,
and yet more beautiful. So, too, the poet, in representing
men quick or slow to anger, or with other defects of charac-
ter, should preserve the type and yet ennoble it. In this
way Achilles is portrayed by Agathon and Homer.'^

Further, artistic imitation does not include the portrayal
of animals and of still life. The objects of aesthetic imita-
tion are vOri, wad-q, and Trpo^cts, which Butcher defines as
'the characteristic moral qualities, transient emotions, and
V actions in their proper and inward sense,'^ meaning by the
last, actions which are the inevitable expression of intellec-
tual and emotional activity. Men acting, therefore, Aristotle
defines as the objects imitated by the fine arts, because such
actions as the artist makes use of spring from a deep source,
and are but the outward manifestations of the movements of
the soul.

Plutarch treats the subject of imitation as follows: 'We
shall still more thoroughly ground the young man, if, on
introducing him to poetry, we explain to him that it is
an imitative art and agent, analogous to painting. Not only
must he be made acquainted with the common saying that
poetry is vocal painting, and painting silent poetry, but we
must teach him also that when we see a painting of a lizard,
an ape, or the face of Thersites, our pleasure and surprise
are occasioned, not by the beauty of the object, but by
its likeness. For it is naturally impossible for the ugly
to be beautiful, but it is the imitation which is praised if it
reproduce to the life either an ugly or a beautiful object.
On the other hand, if an ugly object is represented as beau-
tiful, we deny the truthfulness or the consistency of the
picture. Now there are some artists who paint uncomely
actions; thus Timotheus pictured Medea killing her chil-
^ dren ; Theon showed Orestes murdering his mother ; Parr-

1 Ibid. XV. 8.

* Butcher, Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art c. ii.

Plutarch's Theory of Poetry

hasius, Odysseus counterfeiting madness; and Chaere-
phanes, the unchaste converse of women with men. In such
instances it is especially important that the young man come
to understand that we do not praise the action which is imi-
tated, but the art, provided the subject is treated accurately.
Since now poetry also frequently describes base actions
and depraved emotions and character, the youth must not
confound their artistic admirableness and success with
truth, nor rank them as beautiful, but he is to praise them
only as accurate and natural likenesses of the things treated.
For as we are annoyed when we hear the grunting of a
hog, the noise of pulleys, the whistling of the wind, and
the roaring of the seas, but are pleased if any one imitates
them with naturalness, as Parmenio did the hog,^ and Theo-
dorus the pulleys ; and as we avoid the unpleasant sight of
an unhealthy man with festering sores, but take pleasure
in witnessing the Philoctetes of Aristophon and the Jocasta of
Silanion^ — which are realistic likenesses of wasting and dying

' See Symposiacs v. i : ' For upon what account, for God's sake,
from what external impression upon our organ, should men be moved
to admire Parmenio's sow so much as to pass it into a proverb ? Yet it
is reported, that Parmenio being very famous for imitating the grunting
of a pig, some endeavored to rival and outdo him. And when the
hearers, being prejudiced, cried out, " Very well indeed, but nothing
comparable to Parmenio's sow ;" one took a pig under his arm and came
upon the stage. And when, though they heard the very pig, they still
continued, " This is nothing comparable to Parmenio's sow ;" he threw
his pig amongst them, to show that they judged according to opinion
and not truth.' [This translation is taken from the Goodwin edition.]
See Rep. iii. 397, for Plato's condemnation of this kind of imitation :
' But another sort of character will narrate anything, and the worse he
is the more unscrupulous he will be ; nothing will be beneath him :
moreover he will be ready to imitate anything, not as a joke, but in right
good earnest, and before a large audience. As I was just now saying,
he will attempt to represent the roll of thunder, the rattle of wind and
hail, or the various sounds of pulleys, of pipes, of flutes, and all sorts
of instruments : also he will bark like a dog, bleat like a sheep, and
crow like a cock ; his entire art will consist in imitation of voice and
gesture, and there will be very little narration.'

*Ibid.: ' And therefore, because he that is really affected with grief
or anger presents us with nothing but the common bare passion, but in

Plutarch's Theory of Poetry

persons — so when the youth reads what Thersites the buf-
foon, or Sisyphus the debaucher, or Batrachus the brothel-
keeper says or does, he must be taught to praise the genius
and the art which imitates them, but to censure the subjects
and actions with opprobrium. For the excellence of a
thing and the excellence of its imitation are not the same.
Fitness and naturalness constitute excellence, but to things
base, the base is natural and fit.'^

To this passage two questions address themselves: What
are the subjects of aesthetic imitation, and what is its nature?

The first may be answered without trouble: clearly all
forms of life are legitimate for artistic treatment — inferior
types of animal life, such as a lizard or an ape, as well as
heroic men like Achilles and Hector; and in human con-
duct, immorality and obscenity, as well as self-control and
heroism.

In making all objects proper for artistic reproduction,
Plutarch showed that, in theory at least, he was far from
assigning poetry the exalted place which Aristotle had ij
given it. Not only did Aristotle exclude all but human

the imitation some dexterity and persuasiveness appears, we are nat-
urally inclined to be disturbed at the former, whilst the latter delights
us. It is unpleasant to see a sick man, or one that is at his last gasp ;
yet with content we can look upon the picture of Philoctetes, or the
statue of Jocasta, in whose face it is commonly said that the workmen
mixed silver, so that the brass might represent the face and color of
one ready to faint and yield up the ghost. And this, said I, the Cyre-
niacs may use as a strong argument against you Epicureans, that all
the sense of pleasure which arises from the working of any object on
the ear or eye is not in those organs, but in the intellect itself. Thus
the continued cackling of a hen or cawing of a crow is very ungrateful
and disturbing ; yet he that imitates those noises well pleases the
hearers. Thus to behold a consumptive man is no delightful spec-
tacle ; yet with pleasure we can view the pictures and statues of such
persons, because the very imitating hath something in it very agreeable
to the mind, which allures and captivates its faculties.' [Goodwin ed.]
• See pp. 58-60. See also the Symposiacs i. i, where is discussed the
question of why we take delight in hearing those that represent the
passions of men angry or sorrowful, and yet cannot without concern
behold those who are really so affected.

Plutarch's Theory of Poetry

life from art, but he discriminated between the artistic excel-
lence of noble and of ignoble conduct. To such subjects as
Chaerephanes painted he all but denied the name of art,
for they represent conduct false and temporary, and stand
for nothing permanent nor structural. The nobler the types
of character which the poet imitates the more will his work
be artistic. Aristotle would have had little sympathy with
one who could find matter for artistic approval in the ugly
or in the immoral, however correctly delineated.

We find further evidence that Plutarch did not appre-
ciate Aristotle's conception of the proper subject-matter
for art in his use of the terms T^Orj, wdOr], and Trpa^as, since,
although he employed them freely, he did not appreciate
their combined idea, for he robbed the expression men act-
ing' of its Aristotelian significance by using e/aya, Trpdy/xa,
and 7rpa|is quite interchangeably.'

Turning now to the consideration of the nature of aes-
thetic imitation, we find such expressions in the above
passage as likeness (o/Aotov), truthfulness (iiKos) consist-
ency {Trpiirov) J reproduction to the life {IfftUrftax Trj<i oyLOiortiro^) ^
and naturalness [mOavm) bringing us face to face with
the question of the relation of poetry to truth. Is poetry
a reproduction of life as it appears to the outward eye, or is
it rather a reproduction of that archetypal existence of which
life as we commonly see it is but a reflection ?

The answer is furnished by the chapter of the essay on
poetry which discusses poetic deception (c. ii.). I venture
to outline the thought of this rather incoherent passage:
The poets falsify both intentionally and unintentionally ;
intentionally in two ways, and first through the use of plot.
To gain an audience the poet weaves a fabric of fiction.
This is winsome and engaging in proportion to its illusion

' See the Essay on Poetry c. iii : iv olg jud^iara 6el tov vkov ediCeaOai,
6i6aaK6fi£vov bri t^v npa^iv ovk kiracvoviiev ^g yeyovev tj /j.ifi^aig, aZAd t^v
rtx^vv £t fiefii/UT/rai TrpoaijKdvTug rd VTTOKei/xevov. iirel toIvvv kol noiTjriK^ ttoA-
Ad/cff Ipya 4>o.v'ka koX naOr/ fiox^VP^ i^oX ffirj fii/iriTiKug aTrayyi^2.ei — ; aXXa tov-
vavTiov ^ irpbg rd Trpdauirov inrotpla 6tafia?i2£i kuI to irpay/ia Kot tov Myov — .

Plutarch's Theory of Poetry

and its probability, but illusion and probability must be
secured in spite of a departure from the events of real life
and from the fixed truth. Actual events are not pleasant to
contemplate, but poetry is made attractive by so shaping
events that an agreeable denouement results. This makes
the writer of fiction relatively indifferent to truth, and there-
fore Socrates, the champion of truth, found it impossible to
invent plots, and was forced to borrow the fables of Aesop
when he would write poetry.

Again, the poets falsify intentionally by attributing to
the gods or to the dead, actions which are untrue to their
natures, or by putting faulty moral sentiments in the mouths
of characters. These things they do to secure emotional
effects, wherefore one must not surrender himself unduly to
the influence of poetry, but must remember its deceptive
juggling, and bear in mind that the poet is an enchanter
whose magic it is not safe to trust.

The poets also falsify unintentionally. They are con-
stantly giving utterance to doctrines which are vicious and
dangerous in their tendencies, such as the doctrine that death
is pitiable, and the want of burial a terrible disaster. The
reason for this is that since his productions may be enter-
taining and convincing without much heed to morality, the
poet is not compelled to search out the basic ethical truths.

Returning now to the point of departure, in the light of
this chapter there is little trouble in understanding what
Plutarch means by likeness, truthfulness, consistency, repro-
duction to the life, and naturalness. Evidently he means
nothing more than that poetry reproduces life with an
acceptable degree of probability. There is no hint that
poetry unveils the lovely figure of nature in her essential
truthfulness, nature which, aside from poetry, is seen only
in imperfect outline. Plutarch thinks poetry less truthful
than real life, because it is concerned with what has never
actually taken place. He fails to discriminate between actu-
ality and truth.

Here we are at the opposite pole from Aristotle, who

Plutarch's Theory of Poetry

conceived of poetry as more truthful than history, because
free to present life as it ought to be, life as it would be
under ideal conditions,^ and who held that seriousness is
an essential quality in poetry, since such action as reveals
the inner significance of life must be grave and great.
To the following words in the above passage: 'Since now
poetry also frequently describes base actions, and unseemly
emotions and characters, the youth must not confound their
artistic admirableness and success with truth, or rank them
as beautiful, but is to praise them only as accurate and natu-
ral likenesses of the things treated,' Aristotle would probably
have rejoined: 'One must of necessity confound artistic
admirableness with truth, for there can be no artistic excel-
lence apart from truth; you cannot present an accurate
likeness of an object if truth be absent, else your likeness
will be but a superficial and spiritless semblance.'
I In thus failing to discriminate between actuality and truth,
^1 Plutarch accords with Plato in his idea of imitation. How-
ever, one must bear in mind that the great philosopher's
implied distinction between imitative art and art that is sin-
cere finds no correspondence in Plutarch.

If poetry does not express truth in large measure, if it
is not based upon that underlying reality, that apxV} which
from the time of Thales had stood to the Greeks as both
beginning and end, as source and destiny, whither does Plu-
tarch turn for truth? To that source from which poetry
has derived what measure of truth it possesses, namely, phi-

' Of the relation of poetry to history, Plutarch writes as follows, in
the opening paragraph of the Life of Theseus : 'As geographers, Sosius,
crowd into the edges of their maps parts of the world which they do
not know about, adding notes in the margin to the effect that beyond
this lies nothing but sandy deserts full of wild beasts, unapproachable
bogs, Scythian ice, or a frozen sea, so, in this work of mine, in which I
have compared the lives of the greatest men with one another, after
passing through those periods which probable reasoning can reach
and real history find a footing in, I might very well say of those that are
farther off: Beyond this there is nothing but prodigies and fictions, the
only inhabitants are the poets and inventors of fables ; there is no
credit or certainty any farther.'

Plutarch's Theory of Poetry

losophy. Philosophy is the search for reality; it is the
supreme achievement of the mind.^ With philosophy,
poetry, being relatively independent of truth, has no neces-
sary connection. To be sure, poetry may be measurably
truthful, may be infused with moral feeling, as are the works
of Homer, yet it is none the less poetry if it be false and a
violation of moral teaching, as is much dramatic and lyric
poetry.

Plutarch's unrestricted use of the term poetry explains
what might seem endless contradiction in his writings. Since
poetry is so inclusive a term, embracing indifferently the
bad as well as the good, he can entertain Plato's fears lest
poetry mislead and injure youth, and, on the other hand,
he can commend the Homeric poems as the formative influ-
ence in the life of his favorite hero, Alexander.^ He can

' See 0/ the Training of Children c. x : 'We ought to make philoso-
phy the chief of all our learning. . . . There is but one remedy for the
distempers of the mind, and that is philosophy. For by the advice and
assistance thereof it is that we come to understand what is honest, and
what dishonest ; what is just and what unjust ; in a word, what we are
to seek, and what to avoid. We learn by it how we are to demean our-
selves towards the gods, towards our parents, our elders, the laws,
strangers, governors, friends, wives, children, and servants. That is,
we are to worship the gods, to honor our parents, to reverence our
elders, to be subject to the laws, to obey our governor, to love our
friends, to use sobriety towards our wives, to be affectionate to our
children, and not to treat our servants insolentlj^ ; and, which is the
chiefest lesson of all, not to be overjoyed in prosperity nor too much
dejected in adversity ; not to be dissolute in our pleasures, nor in our
anger to be transported with brutish rage and fury. These things I
account the principal advantages which we gain by philosophy.' Of the
Fortune or Virtue of Alexander the Great, Orat. ii. c. xi : ' And for my
part, I know not how to give a greater applause to the action of Alexan-
der, than by adding the word philosophically, for in that word all other
things are included.' [These translations are taken from the Goodwin
edition.]

^ Of the Fortune or Virtue of Alexander the Great, Orat. ii. c. iv :
'Then again, if any dispute arose or judgment were to be given upon
any of Homer's verses, either in the schools or at meals, this that fol-
lows Alexander always preferred above the rest : " Both a good king,
and far renowned in war (//. iii. 179)," believing that the praise which

Plutarch's Theory of Poetry

even accept the Aristotelian theory^ that the tragic or epic
hero should be a man of noble and heroic parts, one just
enough infected with passion to be vulnerable, for he says :
'Poetry is an imitation of character and of life, and of men
who are not wholly perfect, pure, and blameless, but in
some degree subject to passion, error, and ignorance.'^

If now we summarize this discussion of Plutarch's theory
of the relation of poetry to nature and to truth, we find that
he merely accepted the traditional interpretation of the techni-
cal term, imitation, quite failing to comprehend the peculiar
significance of the word in the criticism of Aristotle, and,
further, that he did not appreciate the distinction which
Plato made by implication between imitative and true poetry.
As the result of so crude a conception of this significant
term in aesthetics, he demanded nothing more of poetry than
that it reproduce character, emotion, and action with reason-
able probability; poetry may be truthful, but truth is a
fundamental requisite only in philosophy.

There remains for consideration Plutarch's theory of the

end of poetry. The traditional Greek view of the mission of

poetry is concretely expressed in the following sentence

I from Strabo : 'The ancients called poetry a kind of elemen-

\ 1 tary philosophy, which introduces us to life while we are

I yet youths, and teaches character, emotion, and action

through pleasure.'^ In accordance with this theory, the

poets, especially Homer, were taught in the schools, the boys

committing choice passages; and, as we know from St.

Chrysostom, this custom was followed among the Greeks

even as late as the fourth century.* That this traditional

another by precedence of time had anticipated was to be a law also
unto himself, and saying that Homer in the same verse had extolled the
fortitude of Agamemnon and prophesied of Alexander.'

' Poet. xiii. 2-3 ; xv. 8. ^ See p. 74. ^i. 2. 3.

■• Orat. xi. p. 308 : ' To accept this inspired and wise man (Homer),
and to teach his words to youth even from infancy.' See also Plato,
Protagoras 326: ' And when the boy has learned his letters and is begin-
ning to understand what is written, . . . they put into his hands the
works of great poets, which he reads at school ; in these are con-
tained many admonitions, and many tales, and praises, and encomia of

Plutarch's Theory of Poetry

and persistent theory of the incidental character of pleasure
in poetry was inherited by the Romans is clear from passages
in Lucretius, Horace, and other writers.^

It is very difficult to determine just how far Plato departs
from this accepted theory of the purpose of poetry. The
moral bias was so great with him that it prevented his recog-
nizing with satisfactory clearness the view to which his poetic
sensitiveness would naturally have made him incline. After
he has declared that art should make men temperate, brave,
and altogether virtuous,^ he yet feels that all has not been
said, and he is ready to admit that the excellence of art may be
gauged by pleasure, provided it is the kind of pleasure that
may be experienced by 'the one man preeminent in virtue
and education,'^ for 'the view which identifies the pleasant
and the just and the good and the noble has an excellent
moral and religious tendency.'^

ancient famous men, which he is required to learn by heart, in order
^\^ that he may imitate or emulate them, and desire to become like them.'
See Isocrates, Panegyricus 95 ; Xenophon, Symposium iii. 5.

' Lucretius i. 936 : ' But as physicians, when they attempt to give
bitter wormwood to children, first tinge the rim round the cup with the
sweet and yellow liquid of honey, that the age of childhood, as yet
unsuspicious, may find its lips deluded, and may in the meantime drink
of the bitter juice of the wormwood, and though deceived, may not be
injured, but rather, being recruited by such a process, may acquire
strength; so now I, since this argument seems generally too severe and
forbidding to those by whom it has not been handled, and since the
multitude shrink back from it, was desirous to set forth my chain of
reasoning to thee, O Memmius, in sweetly-speaking Pierian verse, and,
as it were, to tinge it with the honey of the Muses ; if perchance, by
such a method, I might detain thy attention upon my strains, until thou
lookest through the whole nature of things, and understandest with what
shape and beauty it is adorned.' [Watson.] See Horace, Art of Poetry

333-334 :

To teach — to please — comprise the poet's views.

Or else at once to profit and amuse. [Howes.]

' Laws ii. 660. * Ibid. 659.

* Ibid. 663. See Pater, Plato and Platonism c. x, for the theory that

' art for art's sake ' is anticipated by Plato. Pater bases his opinion

upon this passage : 'Ap' oiv koX kKacTt) tuv texvuv iari ti <jvfi<j>tpov uTiko

^ bri naXiara TtMav eivat ; but see Saintsbury, Hist, of Criticism i. 2.

17-19, for the opposite view.

Plutarch's Theory of Poetry

In Aristotle we find the first critic who declares unquali-
fiedly for the hedonistic theory. Pleasure is, indeed, the end
of fine art, for the subject of all art is the beautiful, and
the beautiful is only perfect when enjoyed.^ A work of art
is excellent in proportion as it furnishes its distinctive
pleasure to the man of good taste,^ and such pleasure, far
from being vulgar, is noble and refined. Pleasure being the
end of fine art, the standard of correctness in poetry and
ethics is therefore not the same; to be sure, the pleasure
afforded by art must not violate moral feeling,^ but this for
aesthetic, rather than for moral, reasons, since action repre-
sented in poetry in which the moral values are wanting is not
correctly delineated, and therefore is not good imitation.*

Plutarch nowhere says what he considers the end of
poetry to be, if indeed it ever occurred to him that poetry
in itself may have an end. However, the opening and
closing chapters of the essay on poetry are an appeal to
those having charge of youth so to direct their reading that
poetry will serve the end of introducing them to philosophy.
Poetry should be the fitting-school for philosophy, the vesti-
bule to its temple; it should 'prepare and predispose the
young man's mind to the teachings of philosophy,' so that,
'without prejudice, he may advance to the study of philoso-
phy in a gracious, friendly, and congenial spirit.'''

Not all poetry, however, may thus be turned to account,
for only a limited number of poems have good moral influ-
ence. Consequently youth must be taught to discriminate
between those which are helpful and those which are
harmful.

Again, lest the youth fail to catch the moral lessons implied
in the better poetry, the teacher must by example encourage
him to discover parallelisms between poetry and philosophy,
as it were wedding the strength of the one to the beauty
of the other.®

' See Erdmann, J/isf. of Philosophy, for a longer discussion of the
relation of beauty and pleasure in Aristotle.

^ Poet. xxvi. I. 7. 2 Ibid. xiii. 2. *Ibid. xxv. 19.

* See pp. 95-96. * See pp. 93-96.

Plutarch's Theory of Poetry

But what of pleasure ? Plutarch takes it for granted that
all poetry furnishes pleasure.^ Why, then, it may be asked,
is not pleasure the end of fine art ? It may be that Plutarch
thinks it is, but, in that case, he considers it an unworthy
end; wherefore poetry should be turned out of its natural
channel, and made to serve an artificial end. Pleasure is to
be regarded as a sauce, as a disguise for making attractive
doctrines which, stated in philosophical and serious form,
would fail to interest the young.^

This subordination of pleasure is by no means an easy
matter, and the temptation to read for the sake of pleasure
alone is great. Consequently, special care must be taken
lest one yield unduly to the charms of poetry, and accept
unawares the false views of life which often lie concealed
beneath its engaging surface.^

Now, having discussed the differences between poetry and
prose, the relation of poetry to nature and to truth, and the
end of poetry, the various conclusions should be brought
together to afford a synthetic view of Plutarch's theory of the
art. First, poetry, a gift of rare temperaments, is the intelli-
gent expression of strong feeling in metrical language;
secondly, it does not necessarily bear any very close relation
to truth, and is therefore inferior to philosophy, the supreme
study ; finally, the element of pleasure must occupy a subor-
dinate place in our study of poetry, for poetry is to be
regarded first and foremost as an introduction to philosophy.

If, in conclusion, we would view this theory of poetry in
the broader light of Plutarch's work as a whole, we can best
do so through the comprehensive summary offered by
Professor Christ: 'Finally, to sum up the writings and the
philosophy of our author, Plutarch was one of the most
accomplished, most amiable, and most prolific writers of
the period of the empire, who, through his astonishing
acquaintance with books, offers us invaluable compensation
for the many and great losses which the Greek literature
of the classical, as of the Alexandrian, period has suffered.

' See §§ i, ii, iii, vii, xiv. ^ See p. 49. ^ See § i.

Plutarch's Theory of Poetry

But he was not simply an illustrious connoisseur of classical
literature and history, for he had also appropriated the spirit
of genuine humanity and Greek culture, and turned it to
account in word and deed. In him with broad culture and
exalted morality were joined extreme moderation in praise
and censure, simple candor, and an optimistic philosophy,
which together make the reading of his works as engaging
as it is elevating.

'But yet these qualities are not enough to make Plutarch
a Greek of the age of Pericles. The vulgarity of the times
and the optimistic tranquillity of his nature suffer in him
no high aspirations and no burning zeal for independence.
The narrowness of his ethical creed prevents him from
appreciating unfettered originality in art and poetry, and his
conservative traditionalism clouds his vision. Not only
do we miss logical sequence of thought, but the power
of creative thought as well, and we can neither praise him
as a critical historian, nor as an original philosopher, nor,
finally, as a good grammarian. . . . One ventures to
call him the classicist of the time of the empire, and yet he
is far, far from possessing the sincere and unadorned grace
and the creative originality of the classical period.'^

' Handbuch d. k. A. vii. 556.

THE LIFE OF ST. BASIL AND THE ADDRESS TO
YOUNG MEN

The Address to Young Men on the Right Use of Greek
Literature is not the anxious admonition of a bigoted eccle-
siastic, apprehensive for the supremacy of the Sacred Writ-
ings. Rather, it is the educational theory of a cultured man,
whose familiarity with classical learning and enthusiasm
for it were second only to his knowledge of the Scriptures
and zeal for righteousness. No student of the classics in
Christian times has been more significantly placed for esti-
mating justly the peculiar excellencies and defects of the
Greek learning, and no other scholar has written with a truer
perspective, and with more sanity, large-mindedness, and
justice. These qualities in the address can be adequately
appreciated only after the reader has become acquainted
with the remarkable life of the author.

Moreover, the appreciation of the address demands not
only that its pages be read in the light of the author's
career, but also that the place of the essay in the develop-
ment of ecclesiastical philosophy be understood.

Accordingly the following pages will attempt to give, first
a survey of the life of Basil, and secondly, a review of the
varieties of attitude assumed toward classical learning by
those ecclesiastics who wrote prior to the time of Basil.

St. Basil was bom at Caesarea in the year 329, in a home
of culture and piety. His father, who came from a family
which had stood high in military and civic affairs, followed
the profession of rhetoric, and was a man of wealth and of
public spirit, noted for his benefactions. His grandmother
Macrina, and mother St. Emmelia, were to him a Lois and
a Eunice, and trained him in the Holy Scriptures from his
infancy. Thus Basil grew up in an atmosphere of gentle-
ness, of learning, and of Christian fervor. It is a sufficient
comment upon this home life that of the ten children four

The Life of St. Basil

became saints, St. Macrina, St. Gregory Nyssen, St. Peter,
and St. Basil ; that three became bishops ; and that St. Basil
is one of thirteen upon whom the Catholic Church has con-
ferred the title of Doctor Ecclesiae.

When a lad, Basil was sent to Byzantium to study under
Libanius, the celebrated rhetorician and sophist, then at the
height of his popularity. Under this teacher the youth was
trained in the felicities of Greek expression, and from him
derived that love for Greek literature which led him, at the
age of twenty-one, to seek the refined atmosphere of Athens,
the centre of learning, and the home of arts and letters. To
this city resorted the most promising young men of Europe
and Asia, and there they devoted themselves to the acquisi-
tion of learning with an intensity which rivaled the most
flourishing days of the schools at Alexandria.

Basil was welcomed to Athens by a Cappadocian youth
who had himself but just arrived, Gregory Nazianzen, and
the two young men soon became fast friends. They were
well adapted to each other, for the judicial exactness of
Basil, and his poise — one might almost say his melancholy —
were happily complemented by Gregory's intellectual bril-
liancy, and his liveliness of disposition. Of this friendship
Gregory wrote as follows : 'It was one soul which had two
bodies. Eloquence, the most inspiring pursuit in the world,
incited us to an equal ardor, yet without creating any jeal-
ousy whatever. We lived in each other. We knew but two
walks: the first and dearest, that which led to the church
and its teachers; the other, less exalted, which led to the
school and its masters.' {Or at. 43.]

A third young man who shared to some extent in this
friendship was Julian, the cousin of Constantius II, then a
scholarly recluse and a Christian, but soon to become
emperor and an apostate.

Within a very short time, their attainments in scholarship
and their remarkable ability as public speakers gave Basil
and Gregory an enviable reputation, not only in Athens
itself, but in every other city where learning was fostered.

The Life of St. Basil

After five years spent in Athens, and when he was giving
every promise of an exceptional career, Basil suddenly an-
nounced his purpose to leave the city ; he had been coming to
feel that, with all of its learning, Athens laid emphasis upon
the less essential things, that, as he expressed it, 'life there was
hollow blessedness.' In this feeling Gregory to some extent
shared, and accordingly decided to leave with his friend.
When the day of departure arrived, companions and even
teachers crowded around and besought them to stay, even
offering violence ; but although they prevailed for the time
upon the more yielding Gregory, Basil was resolute, and
retired to Caesarea.

For a short period he practiced law in his native city,
yet, despite his brilliant debut, his heart was not in his work,
and he decided to escape from business cares and renounce
the world. Accordingly, that he might determine what kind
of retirement would prove most agreeable, 'he traveled over
much sea and land,'^ and visited the hermits in Egypt, Syria,
and Asia Minor. On his return he sought out a wild and
beautiful retreat in Pontus, where, surrounded by lofty
crags, a mountain stream tossing and leaping near by, and
a lovely plain spread out beneath, he erected a monastery,
and established a brotherhood. This was in 358.

For four years he led here a serene and joyous life, devoted
to prayer and psalmody, the study of the inspired writers,
and peaceful labor. In the course of time he experienced
the pleasure of a visit from his beloved friend, and years
later Gregory drew a charming picture of those happy days,
in which he recalled with equal pleasure the songs of praise
in the rustic chapel, and the little plane-tree which he had
planted with his own hands.^

Occasionally Basil left his retreat to preach to the country
people, or to perform deeds of mercy, as when, for example,
in the course of a famine he sold his lands to provide bread
for the starving inhabitants of the province. It was charac-
teristic of the man that Jews, pagans, and Christians were
treated with equal consideration.

' Epistle 204. * Epistle 6.

The Life of St. Basil

But this attractive life was not allowed to be permanent,
for Basil was summoned to Constantinople to aid the bishop
of Ancyrus in his struggle with Eunomius, the new and
forceful exponent of the Arian heresy. Henceforth he was
never long absent from public life.

In 362 occurred an event which occasioned bitter enmity
between Basil and Gregory and their college friend Julian,
and threatened great injury to the cause of the church.
Julian, then emperor, had invited Basil to Rome, and he
was preparing to embark, when word was received that upon
the standards of the army the cross of Christ had been
replaced by the images of the gods. Basil correctly inter-
preted this as indicative of apostasy, and refused to have
any further intercourse with the Emperor. Julian was
greatly angered, and in retaliation decreed that the study of
the classics should be denied to Christians. These were his
haughty and ironical words : 'For us are the eloquence and
the arts of the Greeks, and the worship of the gods; for
you, ignorance and rusticity, and nothing else, I fear; so,
your wisdom.'^ This was indeed bitter revenge, for the
Church had found her hold u|X)n classical learning the most
effective weapon against the pagans. The indignation of
Gregory gives some idea of the consternation which this
decree occasioned, and of the value which he and his friend
placed upon classical learning : 'I forego all the rest, riches,
birth, honor, authority, and all goods here below of which
the charm vanishes like a dream ; but I cling to oratory, nor
do I regret the toil, nor the journeys by land and sea, which
I have undertaken to master it.'^

This announcement promised to be but the beginning of
a series of persecutions, but death providentially cut short
the career of Julian in 363.

In the following year Basil was ordained priest by Euse-
bius, bishop of Caesarea, but the fame which his sermons
upon the death of Julian secured for the young priest aroused

' Villemain, L^ Eloquence Ckr/tienne au Qtiatri^me Silcle 106.
^ Migne, Pair. Graec. xxxv. 636.

The Life of St. Basil

the jealousy of the bishop, and Basil retired to Pontus.
However, by his modest conduct he succeeded in regaining
the friendship of Eusebius, and after three years was recalled
to help check the Arian heresy. His learning, his ability
as an orator, and his fearless but gentle conduct, all fitted
him for such a task.

In 370, despite much bitter opposition, not simply on the
part of strangers, but from his own uncle as well, Basil
was raised to the episcopate of Caesarea. The task which
devolved upon him as bishop was to cultivate a spirit of har-
mony and of whole-hearted service among his clergy, and,
both in his own province and indirectly in the neighboring
provinces, to cherish the orthodox faith as outlined in the
Nicene creed.

In many respects this was the most trying period in the
history of the early Church. Christians were no longer
called upon to be martyrs, as had been the case a century
before, but the wealth and prestige to which the Church had
attained was impairing that simplicity which had made the
Church of the first centuries so effective. As a result, many
selfish and ambitious men were attracted to ecclesiastical
service, and it was more difiicult for even an unselfish
man to lead a godly life. Moreover, the Church was divided
into many warring factions, such as the Arians, the Semi-
Arians, and the Sabellians, the Arians being especially deter-
mined and overbearing, because they had gained the sup-
port of the emperor Valens. It is to the glory of Basil that
at such a time he stood for the Apostolic ideals.

Immediately upon the assumption of his new office Basil
set about gaining the good will and allegiance of those of the
clergy who had opposed his election. This work was pro-
gressing with reasonable expedition, when suddenly he was
confronted by the emperor himself and commanded to
renounce the orthodox faith. This Basil flatly refused to
do, and the cowardly Valens was awed into admiration.
Henceforth Basil had nothing to fear from imperial inter-
vention, and yet, because most of the other bishops of the

The Life of St. Basil

East had complied with the emperor's demands, the task of
supporting the true faith was rendered correspondingly
more difficult. The Arians opposed him at every turn, and,
what was harder to bear, the Sabellians misinterpreted his
motives in trying to win back the Semi- Arians to the true
faith by mildness and sympathy, and accused him of heresy.
Even some of those who professed the orthodox belief, and
who should have supported him in his heroic efforts to
preserve the integrity of the faith, misunderstood him, and,
most distressing of all, his lifelong friend Gregory accused
him of attempting to turn their friendship to selfish ends.
Lastly, even the Pope and the bishops of the West turned a
deaf ear to his appeals for help. Is it any wonder that a
body already weakened by asceticism and wasted by disease
gave way in this unequal struggle?

Basil did not live to behold the triumph of the Catholic
faith. He saw but the dark hour before the dawn. And
yet he was victorious, victorious because he kept the rank
and file of the Church in Cappadocia true to the faith of the
fathers. The simple folk who hungered and thirsted after
righteousness loved and followed him, attracted by his aus-
tere living, the sweetness and integrity of his character, his
singleness of purpose, and his high thoughts. Small wonder
that this was so, for even when oppressed with the duties
of his high office and broken in body, he frequently stole
away to be with these simple people, to comfort them in their
afflictions, and to teach them, in sermons which delight us
to-day equally by their Hebraic fervor and their classical
form and idiom, to behold God in his handiwork. Listen
as he points out to them the glory of the heavens: 'There
is our ancient native seat, from which the murderous demon
has cast us down. If things created for time are so grand,
what will be the things of eternity? If things visible are
so beautiful, what will be the invisible? If the immensity
of the skies surpasses the measure of human thought, what
intelligence can fathom the depths of eternity? If this eye
of nature, which so adorns it, this sun, which, though perish-

The Address to Young Men

able, is yet so beautiful, so rapid in movement, so well
adapted in size to the world, offers us an inexhaustible theme
for contemplation, what will be the beauty of the sun of
divine righteousness ?'^

Or again : 'If the ocean is beautiful and worthy of praise
to God, how much more beautiful is the conduct of this
Christian assembly, where the voices of men, women, and
children, blended and sonorous like the waves that break
upon the beach, rise amidst our prayers to the very presence
of God !'2

Basil's death occurred on January ist, 279, when he was
but fifty years of age. Like many another valiant soldier
of the Cross, he died with these words upon his lips : 'Into
thy hands I commend my spirit.' The scene at his funeral
was an impressive one. The entire province was given
over to grief, and pagans and Jews united with Christians
in their lamentations. As the funeral procession advanced,
many perished in their desire to approach the coffin, but
they were accounted happy to die on such a day, and the
people called them the funeral victims.

So lived and died this scholar and man of God.

Let us now turn from the life of St. Basil to a brief con-
sideration of the Address to Young Men in relation to the
attitude assumed by earlier ecclesiastics toward Greek learn-
ing.

If we condense the thought of the essay into the fewest
words, the result is something as follows: While classi-
cal philosophy, oratory, and poetry even at their best do
not reveal the truth with absolute accuracy, they yet reflect
it as in a mirror; the truth may be seen face to face only
in the Scriptures, yet it is possible in the pagan writings to
trace, as it were, its silhouette. Accordingly, for those who
are not yet prepared for the strong meat of the Scriptures,
the study of Greek literature is a valuable preparatory course.

This is virtually the attitude taken toward classical learn-

' Migne, Patr. Graec. 29, 118-I19. * Ibid. 29. 94.

The Address to Young Men

ing by several of the early Church writers, and, there-
fore a survey of so much of the ecclesiastical philosophy as
concerns Greek poetry and philosophy will help to establish
the antecedents of Basil's essay.

It was inevitable that, when Christianity came in contact
with the speculative genius of the Greeks and the Oriental
pantheistic naturalism, there should be an effort to advance
from Christian faith to Christian knowledge, and to discover
a philosophic basis for the teachings of the Holy Scriptures.
This first effort was made by the so-called Gnostics, who
exerted their greatest influence in the middle of the second
century. The Hellenic Gnostics attempted to employ the
writings of the Greek philosophers to explain the Scriptures,
but the many perplexing questions which they strove to
answer soon led them as far away from the doctrines of
Plato as from those of Paul. Beginning with the attempt
<^ to discover the allegorical significance of the Scriptures,
Gnosticism ended in mere chimerical speculation, in mysti-
cism, mythology, and theosophy. It exerted little perma-
nent influence, and by the time of Basil was no longer a force
in religious controversy.

Contemporaneously with the flourishing of Gnosticism,
however, wrote Justin Martyr, who influenced very much the
ecclesiastical writers of the East during the third and fourth
centuries. As a young man Justin made a thorough study
of the Greek philosophy, being especially attracted to the
writings of Plato and of the Stoics, but as he grew older his
admiration for the fortitude of the Christians, and for their
sublime faith — an admiration which was intensified by his
growing distrust in the sovereignty of human reason — led
him to embrace Christianity. Henceforth he was the cham-
pion of the new religion. This, however, was not at the
expense of Greek philosophy, for his breadth of view enabled
him to recognize the worth both of the profane and of the
Sacred Writings.

Justin bases his philosophy upon the Logos of John's
Gospel. Wherever truth is found, it is an expression of the

The Address to Young Men

divine Lc^os ; Plato, Homer, Pythagoras, and Solon received
partial revelations of it, and indeed it reveals itself some-
what to every man, though the one perfect and complete
revelation is Christ, who is the Logos incarnate.

For our present purpose we need observe in detail only

' that phase of Justin's philosophy which is concerned with
classical literature. Greek philosophy and poetry are to
be esteemed highly, because, to an unusual degree, they
express the divine revelation. Not only did such men as
Homer and Plato experience revelations of the truth, but
they were also familiar with the teachings of Moses, and

i indeed with all of the Old Testament. Such doctrines in
Plato as eternal punishment, the immortality of the soul,
and the freedom of the will, were borrowed from the early
Jewish books.^

Of the other four prominent apologists of the second
century, Tatian, Hermas, and Theophilus condemn and ridi-
cule Greek philosophy, and Athenagoras assumes an atti-
tude similar to that of Justin. Tatian, who was an Assy-
rian, abused all things Greek with barbaric severity,^
Hermas wrote an Abuse of the Pagan Philosophers, and
Theophilus called the doctrines of the Greek philosophers
foolishness.^ Athenagoras, on the other hand, esteemed the
Greek philosophers, and quoted them in support of the unity
of God, a truth which he believed the Spirit had revealed
to them despite the prevailing polytheism of their country.*
The closing years of the second century and the first half
of the third were engrossed in the controversy which the
Gnostics had aroused. Anti-Gnosticism found its most
spirited champion in Tertullian, the foremost Latin ecclesi-
astical writer of the early centuries. Tertullian believed that

' Christianity alone possessed the truth, that philosophy was
the source of all heresies, and that Plato and other Greek
philosophers, though they had stolen certain isolated truths

' See Apology i. 44 ; Cohortatio ad Graecos 14.

* See Oratio ad Graecos 2. ' See Ad Autolycus i. ii. iii.

* See SupplicaHo v,

The Address to Young Men

from Moses, which they arrogated to themselves, were
exponents of falsehood. So extreme was his antipathy to
philosophy that he eventually declared: Credo quia absur-
dum est.

On the other hand Clement of Alexandria and his pupil,
Origen, the founder of the school to which Basil, Gregory
Nyssen, and Gregory Nazianzen adhered, endeavored to
separate the true from the false in Gnosticism. Both of
them laid much stress upon the value of Greek philosophy.

Ueberweg gives the following comprehensive digest of
Clement's views concerning the relation of the pagan writ-
ings to the Scriptures : 'Clement adopts the view of Justin,
that to Christianity, as the whole truth, the conceptions of
ante-Christian times are opposed, not as mere errors, but as
partial truths. The divine Logos, which is everywhere
poured out, like the light of the sun (Stromata v. 3), enlight-
ened the souls of men from the beginning. It instructed the
Jews through Moses and the prophets (Paedagogus i. 7).
Among the Greeks, on the contrary, it called forth wise men,
and gave them, through the mediation of the lower angels,
whom the Logos had app)ointed to be shepherds of the
nations {Strom, vii. 2), philosophy as a guide to righteous-
ness {Strom, i. 5 ; vi. 5). Like Justin, Clement maintains
that the philosophers took much of their doctrine secretly
from the Orientals, and, in particular, from the religious
books of the Jews, which doctrine they then, from desire of
renown, falsely proclaimed as the result of their own inde-
pendent investigations, besides falsifying and corrupting it
{Strom, i. i. 17; Paed. ii. i). Yet some things pertaining
to true doctrine were really discovered by the Greek philoso-
phers, by the aid of the seed of the divine Logos implanted
in them {Cohortatio vi. 59). Plato was the best of the

Greek philosophers (o irdrra a/otoro? IIXaTWV, .... olov

6€o<t}opovfievo<i, Paed. iii. 11; Strom, v. 8). The Chris-
tian must choose out that which is true in the writings of
the different philosophers, i. e., whatever agrees with Chris-
tianity {Strom, i. 7; vi. 17). We need the aid of philoso-

The Address to Young Men

phy in order to advance from faith (irtb-Tt?) to knowledge
(yvwo-is). The Gnostic is to him who merely believes
without knowing as the grown-up man to the child ; having
outgrown the fear of the Old Testament, he has arrived at
a higher stage of the divine plan of man's education. Who-
ever will attain to Gnosis without philosophy, dialectic, and
the study of nature, is like him who expects to gather grapes
without cultivating the grapevine (Strom, i. 9). But the
criterion of true science must always be the harmony of the
latter with faith (Strom, ii. 4).'^

Of Origen, who was the last ecclesiastical philosopher of
influence in the Eastern church prior to the fourth century,
it is enough to say that he assumed the same attitude toward
the Greek writers as did his master.

One who has read Basil's essay will readily appreciate the
similarity between the views of Basil and those of Justin,
Athenagoras, Clement, and Origen. The chapters in the
essay might almost be arranged as expositions of the various
elements in the above digest from Clement's writings.
There is the same belief in the partial inspiration of the
Greek poets and philosophers, the same advocacy of the
study of Hellenic literature as an introduction to the study
of Christianity, the common credence in the indebtedness
of Plato and other philosophers to Moses and the Prophets,
and the like insistence upon life as a growth, and upon
knowledge as the complement of faith.

To summarize this brief review : For at least two centuries
before Basil wrote his Address to Young Men on the Right
Use of Greek Literature efforts had been made to determine
the true relation between Greek learning and Christianity.
Some writers bitterly opposed Hellenic philosophy and
poetry, others recognized that it contained a partial revela-
tion of the truth. To the latter view Justin and his follow-
ers inclined, and among these followers one of the most
pronounced is Basil.

^ Hist, of Philosophy i. 314.

HOW A YOUNG MAN SHOULD STUDY
POETRY

OUTLINE

I. General introduction. Poetry renders philosophy
attractive to young men ; therefore, even though it embraces
things bad as well as good, it is to be studied, and the youth
is to exercise his judgment in discriminating between true
and false ideas,

II. Introductory principle. Poets deceive, sometimes
wittingly, sometimes unwittingly; wittingly, by the use of
invented plots, dramatic devices, and characters who live or
speak untruthfully; unwittingly, by giving expression to
erroneous, though sincere, ideas.

III. Again, poetry is an imitative art, and the imitation
is good or bad according as the object is faithfully or
unfaithfully reproduced.

IV. The young man is to observe whether the poet
indicates his own attitude toward the words and acts of
his characters ; the poet may do this by embodying his own
explanations in the context, or he may make his characters
pass judgment upon one another, or he may teach his lessons
by the fate which attends his characters. Further, dis-
gusting speeches which for any reason are not refuted in the
context may be canceled by contradictory sentiments from
the same author; if this cannot be done, then by contradic-
tory sentiments from other authors.

V. The youth is to study the phrasing in order to get
the exact meaning of a passage.

VI. He is to study a word which admits of more than
one interpretation, as o/oeny, eiScufiovia, in order to discover
in just what sense it is used.

VII. Certain principles from Aristotle. The effective-
ness of poetry as an imitative art lies in probability, and in
likeness to reality. Consequently, to secure variety and

How to Study Poetry

complication, reversals of fortune are employed, and these
necessitate characters capable of error.

VIII. Therefore the youth must not accept unchallenged
the words of a character, nor put his stamp of approval on
all, but must boldly and confidently distinguish between the
good and bad acts of a man.

IX. It is most important to inquire the poet's reason for
every utterance ; if this is not done, the young man will be
victimized by absurd and vicious declarations.

X. He should not overlook the half-hidden excellencies
in a poem, such as the difference between the actions of a
gentleman and of a boor in similar situations, or between the
conduct of Greeks and of barbarians,

XI. While one reads poetry to cull the flowers of his-
tory, and another to enjoy the beauty of the diction, the lover
of honor and virtue should read it to dwell upon examples of
manliness, temperance, and justice.

XII. Passages which look very suspicious from one
point of view, may contain good lessons if viewed from
another; but if they allow of no good interpretation,
what hinders us from so altering the thought that it may
conform to our ideas ?

XIII. Generalizations are not to be confined to the one
specific thing to which they are at first applied by the poet,
but should be transferred to other things of a like character ;
this will help young men to become familiar with truth,
and so teach them self-control and generosity.

XIV. The refined and helpful sentiments found in
poetry should be strengthened by comparison with the teach-
ings of philosophy. Indeed, if we wed poetry to philosophy
we rob it of its fictitious element and lend it seriousness.

Conclusion. Young men need to be guided in their read-
ing, in order that their study of poetry may serve as the
natural and pleasing introduction to philosophy.

HOW A YOUNG MAN SHOULD STUDY POETRY

Whether or not, Marcus Sedatus, the saying of Philoxe-
nus^ the poet be true, that the most savory meat and fish
are those which are not meat and fish at all, we would
leave to the judgment of those to whom Cato said that
their palates were more sensitive than their hearts. But a
statement that strikes me as admitting of no controversy is,
that very young men enjoy the most those philosophical
precepts which are not delivered in philosophical and seri-
ous form, and that such they accept and adopt. For not
only the fables of Aesop and the fictions of poets, but
the Abaris of Heraclides^ and Ariston's^ Lyco, and, if
they are embodied in fiction, the doctrines relating to the
soul, are read with keen zest from cover to cover. Where-
fore not only are they to observe due moderation in the
pleasures of eating and drinking, but still further in their
hearing and reading must they become accustomed to
indulge in pleasure merely as a relish,* and to seek for the
useful and the wholesome. For barred gates do not secure
a city if a single entrance is open to the enemy, nor does
continence in the pleasures of the other senses save a youth
if he unwittingly betrays himself through the ear. And the

' Dithyrambic poet (435-380 B.C.) of Cythera. The Banquet, frag-
ments of which survive, gives an account of the luxury of the Sicilian
table.

'Learned author, born probably 378 B.C., who studied under Plato
and Aristotle, accepted the Pythagorean philosophy, and wrote on
philosophy, natural science, mathematics, music, grammar, history and
poetry.

3 Stoic philosopher, about 275 B.C., who taught at Athens. Ariston
maintained that the chief good consists in indifference to everything
except virtue and vice.

* See Introduction, pp. 29-31 and notes.

How to Study Poetry

better his grasp of the products of thought and reason, the
more, if care be not taken, is he injured and corrupted.^

Since now it is not possible, nor perhaps desirable, to
prevent young men of the size of my Soclarus and your
Cleandrus from reading the poets, let us keep a very careful
watch over them, as they have more need of guidance in
their reading than in their walks. Accordingly it occurred
to me to send you in writing the discourse concerning
poetry which I had occasion to deliver recently. Please run
through it yourself ; and if you find it worth at least as much
as the so-called amethyst-plant, which some men wear in
their drinking-bouts as a charm against drunkenness, then
hand it to Cleandrus, and thus charm him betimes, making
sure of his tastes and affections ; they will prove the more
tractable to such an appeal, since the boy is no dunce, but
thoroughly observant and quick to learn.

'In the head of the polypus dwell both good and ill ;'^ the
plant is very good to eat, but, they say, disturbs one's sleep
with confused and unnatural dreams. Likewise in poetry
there is much good and nutritious food for a young man's
mind, which becomes no less a source of confusion and dis-
traction to him if his study of poetry is not guided aright.
For of poetry as of Egypt it may be said, that, for those
using its products, it yields 'herbs in greatest plenty, many
that are healing in the cup and many baneful.'^ 'Therein
are love, and desire, and loving enticement, that steals the
wits even of the wise.'* Indeed the charms of poetry do
not appeal to those who are altogether stupid and void of
understanding. Wherefore to one who asked Simonides,^

' See Plutarch, Symposiacs vii. 5 ; That we Ought to Preserve Ourselves
from Pleasure arising from Bad Music ; where, though at greater length,
the same ideas are expressed and even the same illustrations are
employed. Schlemm, 8-13, argues that Plutarch is here influenced by
the ideas of the Peripatetics, and quotes at length from Aristotle. See
Plato, Repub. iii. 387. ^ See Plutarch, Symposiacs viii. 10. i.

3 Odys. iv. 230. ^//. xiv. 216.

" One of the great lyric poets (556? — 468? B.C.); noted for the ten-
derness and sympathy of his poems. ' His sunny temper and his easy
philosophy of life made him welcome wherever his vocation called him.'

How to Study Poetry

why, of all men, the Thessalians were the only ones whom
he could not deceive, he replied that they were too stupid
to be cajoled by him. Likewise Gorgias^ called tragedy a
deception, wherein he who deceived was more just than he
who did not deceive, and he who was deceived was wiser
than he who was not deceived. Shall we then stop the ears
of our young men with a hard and impenetrable wax, as
the ears of the Ithacans^ were stopped, and compel them,
as it were, to add the Epicurean sail, and to flee past poetry
under full sail and with all oars out? Rather, shall we not
bind them in subjection to right reason, and guide and
guard their judgments, lest pleasure turn them aside to
their hurt ! 'Nay moreover even Drya's son, mighty Lykur-
gos'^ did not show good judgment when he went about cut-
ting down the vineyards because many were given to drunk-
enness and rioting; instead, he should have seen that wells
were nearer at hand to act as a corrective, so that, as Plato
puts it,* the drunken god would be held in check by the sober
one. For water mixed with wine does not affect its useful-
ness, and removes what is hurtful. Accordingly, we should
not cut down nor utterly destroy the muse's vine, poetry,
but where fiction and drama, bold and presumptuous from
ungovemed delight in popular applause, luxuriate and grow
wild, we must lay hold of them to prune and restrain them,
and where poetry affects one by its poetic grace, and its
sweetness and attractiveness are not fruitless and barren,
there let us introduce philosophy to be mingled with it.

For as when the mandrake grows beside the vineyard it
imparts its influence to the wine, and makes the sleep of
those who drink it more refreshing, so when poetry tempers

' Rhetorician and sophist, contemporary of Socrates ; he inaugurated
an elaborate and artificial style, which was much imitated.

^Odys. xii. 37-101. See p. 104. '//. vi. 130.

* Laws vi. 773 : ' For there is a difficulty in perceiving that the city
ought to be well mingled like a cup, in which the raging draught over-
flows and spills, but when chastened by another god not drunk with
wine, receives a fair admixture and becomes an excellent and temper-
ate drink.'

How to Study Poetry

its fictitious creations with the principles of philosophy, it
makes study easy and attractive to young men. Wherefore
poetry is not to be scrupulously avoided by those who intend
to be philosophers, but they are to make poetry a fitting-
school for philosophy, by forming the habit of seeking and
gaining the profitable in the pleasant, and of utterly resist-
ing and spurning that poetry in which they find no profit.*
For this discrimination is the beginning of education, and,
according to Sophocles, 'If an undertaking begins well, the
chances are it will end well.'^

In introducing the young to the study of poetry, one
should take care that nothing is more thoroughly understood
and kept in mind than that the bards often falsify, sometimes
intentionally, and sometimes unintentionally. This they do
intentionally, since they think that the severity of truth is
less adapted to that pleasing grace of expression which cap-
tivates most people than is fiction. In actual life events do
not change, however unpleasing the outcome, but fiction
steps aside and turns with the greatest ease from that which
distresses to that which gives pleasure. For neither metre,
nor tropes, nor harmony of construction is so winsome and
engaging as a well-woven fabric of fiction.^ Just as color in

' See § 14.

* See Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta 246. Compare the
last two paragraphs with the similar passage in Plutarch's essay Of
Moral Virtue 12,

2 See Aristotle, Poet. vi. 9-1 1 : ' But most important of all is the struc-
ture of the incidents. For tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of
an action and of life, — of happiness and misery ; and happiness and
misery consist in action, the end of human life being a mode of action,
not a quality. Now the characters of men determine their qualities, but
it is by their actions that they are happy or the reverse. Dramatic
action, therefore, is not with a view to the representation of character.
Character comes in as subsidiary to the action. Hence the incidents
and the plot are the end of a tragedy ; and the end is the chief thing of
all. Again, without action there cannot be a tragedy ; there may be
without character.' iv. 14 : ' The Plot, then, is the first principle, and, as
it were, the soul of the tragedy.' viii. 4 : 'As therefore, in the other imita

How to Study Poetry

a painting is more eifective than line, because more lifelike
and illusive/ so in poetry a probable fiction^ is more impres-
sive and acceptable than the fixed truth, which is without
plot, and simple in metre and diction.^ Wherefore, when,
at the instigation of certain dreams, Socrates undertook to
write poetry, of which the fictitious is an essential element,
because he was unable to fabricate plausible and clever fic-
tions, having been the champion of truth all his life, he
undertook to turn into verse the fables of Aesop. And
though we have known of sacrifices without pipes and
dances, we have never known of a poem without plot and
fiction. Thus the verses of Empedocles* and Parmenides,^
Nicander's® verses on antidotes to poisons, and the maxims

tive arts, the imitation is one, when the object imitated is one, so the
plot, being an imitation of an action, must imitate one action and that a
whole, the structural union of the parts being such that if any one of
them is displaced or removed, the whole will be disjointed and dis-
turbed.'

^ Ibid. vi. 5 : ' The most beautiful colors, laid on confusedly, will not
give as much pleasure as the chalk outline of a portrait.'

^ Ibid. viii. 4 : 'The universal tells us how a person of given character
will on occasion speak or act, according to the law of probability or
necessity.'

2 Ibid. vi. 7: 'Every tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which
parts determine its quality — namely. Plot, Character, Diction, Thought,
Scenery, Song.' See also Introd., pp. 24-25.

*Empedocles (about 450 B.C.), who acquired great fame and influence
by his talents and varied attainments in science, maintained that the
world is developed from, or compounded of, four primary elements,
fire, earth, air, and water, and that there are two forces, love and hate
(attraction and repulsion). Of his poem on Nature, important frag-
ments are extant. According to the custom of the time it was written
in dactylic hexameters. See Poet. i. 8.

*The most notable of the philosophers of the Eleatic School (b.
about 519 B.C.). ' His work on Nature was divided into three parts :
(i) an introduction, describing in highly figurative language the manner
in which the philosopher reached the citadel of truth ; (2) a treatise on
Truth ; and (3) a treatise on Opinion.'

" Didactic poet of the second century B.C. The poem here mentioned,
the Theriaca, is extant. ' The author has sought to enliven the ungrate-
ful theme by digressions and descriptions.'

How to Study Poetry

of Theognis,^ borrowed the poetic fonn and dignity only
as a sort of riding-carriage, to avoid footing it.

Once more, when anything absurd or distressing about the
gods, or departed souls, or virtue, is expressed in the poetry
of a famous and illustrious man, he who takes such state-
ment for the truth is misled and corrupted by error,^ but he
who always remembers and keeps clearly in mind the decep-
tive juggling of poetry, and is able to say to it at every
turn, ' "O cunning device, more wily than the lynx,"^ why,
when jesting, dost thou knit thy brows, and why, when
deceiving, dost thou pretend to teach?' such a one, I say,
will not sujffer harm nor be misled in his belief. Rather he
will check his fears lest Poseidon rip open the earth and lay
bare the infernal regions,* and he will restrain his anger
against Apollo for killing the chief of the Achaeans, when
he reads that, 'The man who sang his praises at the banquet
and uttered these words, was the very one who slew him.'^
Likewise he will repress his tears for Achilles and Agamem-
non in Hades,* as they stretch forth impotent and feeble
hands in supplication for life. And if at any time he is dis-
turbed by sufferings, and the enchantment of poetry is
prevailing against him, he will not hesitate to say to himself,
as Homer very aptly said in his Necyia — considering how
attentive women are to fiction — 'But haste with all thine
heart toward the sunlight, and mark all this, that even here-
after thou mayst tell it to thy wife.'^ Such are the things
that the poets purposely invent.

But there are other conceptions not feigned at all, but to
which, since they themselves entertain and believe them, the
poets impart a false color, as when Homer says of Zeus,
that he 'set therein two lots of dreaxy death, one of Achilles,

' Elegiac poet of the sixth century B.C. ' In the verses that have been
preserved under his name, 1,389 in number, we have the creed of a
Doric oligarch set forth for the instruction of a young favorite who
belonged to the same order.'

* See Plato, Rep. ii-iii, where this idea is developd at length.
^Nauck 694. *//. XX. 57 fF. 'Nauck 694.

* Odys. xi. 384 fF. ' Odys. xi. 222.

How to Study Poetry

one of horse-taming- Hector, and held them by the midst
and poised. Then Hector's fated day sank down, and fell
to the house of Hades, and Phoebus Apollo left him.'^
Aeschylus has made a whole tragedy, called Psychostasia,
out of this legend, in which he introduces Thetis and Eos
standing on either side of the balance of Zeus, soliciting
favor for their contending sons. Now of course every one
sees that this is a plot invented by the poet, and designed to
cause the hearer pleasurable fear. But this passage on the
other hand, 'Zeus, that is men's dispenser of battle ;'^ and this
other, 'When 'tis God's will to bring an utter doom upon a
house, he first in mortal men implants what works it out;'^
express the judgments and convictions of those who thus
discover and betray to us how deceived and ignorant they
are concerning the gods.

Again when, in necromancy, conjurations by gruesome
names are employed to call up spectres, visions of burning
rivers, savage wastes, and terrible tortures, very few fail to
perceive that there is here a copious mixture of the fabulous
and false, as of poison with food.* Neither Homer nor Pin-
dar nor Sophocles believed that he was telling the truth
in such passages as 'Thence the sluggish streams of murky

'//. xxii. 2IO, See Plato, I?ep. ii. 379 : 'Then we must not listen to
Homer or any other poet who is guilty of the folly of saying that :
"At the threshold of Zeus lie two cakes full of lots, one of good,

the other of evil ;"
And that he to whom Zeus gives a mixture of the two —

" Sometimes meets with good, at other times with evil fortune;"
But that he to whom is given the cup of unmingled ill —

" Him wild hunger drives over the divine earth."
And again —

"Zeus, who is the dispenser of good and evil to us." '
> //, 4. 84.

* Nauck 39. The translation is after Plumptre.

* See Plato, J?ep. iii. 386-387: ' Well, I said, and if they are to be cour-
ageous, must they not learn, besides these, other lessons also, such as
will have the eflfect of taking away the fear of death? ... I said, we
shall have to obliterate obnoxious passages, beginning with the verse, —
" I would rather be a serf on the land of a poor portionless man who is

How to Study Poetry

might disgorge the endless darkness ;'^ 'Past the streams of
Oceanus and the White Rock . . . they sped;'^ 'The nar-
row straits of Hades and the ebbing of the deeps.'^

On the other hand, whenever the poets deplore death as
pitiable, or the want of burial as terrible, and utter in trem-
bling tones such sentiments as the following : 'Leave me not
unwept and unburied as thou goest hence;'* and 'His soul,
fleeting from his limbs, went down to the house of Hades,
wailing its own doom, leaving manhood and youth ;'** and
'Cut me not off untimely, for sweet it is to see the light;
force me not to see the realms below;'® they express the
convictions of men who have suffered because they have

not well to do, than rule over all the dead who have come to
naught." — {Odys. xi. 489.)
We must also expunge the verse —
" He feared lest the mansions grim and squalid which the gods abhor
should be seen both by mortals and immortals." — (//. xx. 64.)
Or again —
" O heavens ! is there in the house of Hades soul and ghostly form but
no mind ? " — (//. xxiii. 103.)
Again —
" To him (Teiresias) alone had the gods given wisdom ; the other souls
do but flit as shadows." — {Odys. x. 495.)
Again —
"The soul flying from the limbs had gone to Hades, lamenting her
fate, leaving strength and youth." — {II. xvi. 856.)
Again —
"And the soul, with shrilling cry, passed like smoke beneath the
earth." — (//. xxiii. 100.)
And—
"As bats in hollow of mystic cavern, whenever any of them dropping
out of the string falls from the rock, fly shrilling and hold to one
another, so did they with shrilling cry hold together as they
moved." — {Odys. xxiv. 6.)
' Also we shall have to reject all the terrible and appalling names
which describe the world below — Cocytus and Styx, ghosts under the
earth, and sapless shades, and any other words of the same type, the
very mention of which causes a shudder to pass through the inmost
soul of him who hears them.'

' Bergk, Poetae Lyrici i. 426. ' Odys. xxiv. 11.

^ Nauck 246. * Odys. xi. 72.

*//. xvi. 856, « Euripides, Iph. Aul. 1218.

How to Study Poetry

been prepossessed and deceived by error, and such ideas
cling to us and distress us the more because we are filled to
the full with the same impotent passion which gave them
utterance.

Now we may fortify ourselves against such ideas by bear-
ing in mind from the very first that poetry is not much
concerned about the truth; indeed, what the truth is in
regard to these matters, even those men who give their undi-
vided attention to the search for truth confess that they find
it very hard to determine. Therefore let us have these
words of Empedocles at hand, 'So eye hath not seen, nor ear
heard, nor the mind of man comprehended these things;'^
and these of Xenophanes,^ 'No man ever lived, nor ever
shall, who knows the truth about the gods and a thousand
other things;'^ and especially let us remember the passage
from Plato in which Socrates denies knowledge of these
things.* For when young men see that these matters make
the heads of philosophers swim, they will pay less heed to
the poets."

> Mullach, Fr. Phil. Graec. i. 2.

" Founder of the Eleatic School of philosophy ; flourished in the
second half of the sixth century B.C. ' His epic poems have for their
themes, The Founding of Colophon, and The Colonization of Elea, but
his reputation rested on his didactic poem, On Nature, and on his
satires, in which he attacked the doctrines of other philosophers and
poets. He was a zealous upholder of monotheism.'

' Mullach i. 103.

*Phaedo 69 : 'In the number of whom (the philosophers) I have been
seeking, according to my ability, to find a place during my whole life ,
whether I have sought in a right way or not, and whether I have suc-
ceeded or not, I shall truly know in a little while, if God will, when I
myself arrive in the other world : that is my belief.'

* See Introd. pp. 24-28, for discussion of this section.

How to Study Poetry

III

We shall still more thoroughly ground the young man, if,
on introducing him to poetry, we explain to him that it is an
imitative art and agent/ analogous to painting. Not only
must he be made acquainted with the common saying that
poetry is vocal painting, and painting, silent poetry,^ but we
must also teach him that when we see a painting of a lizard,
an ape, or the face of Thersites, our pleasure and surprise
are occasioned, not by the beauty of the object, but by the
likeness of the painting to it. For it is naturally impossible
for the ugly to be beautiful, but it is the imitation which is
praised, if it reproduce to the life either an ugly or a beauti-
ful object. On the contrary, if an ugly object is represented
as beautiful, we deny the truthfulness or the consistency of
the picture. Now there are some artists who paint shameful
actions: thus Timotheus* pictured Medea killing her chil-
dren ; Theon* showed Orestes murdering his mother ; Par-

1 See Introd. pp. 18-24.

* In the essay entitled Whether the Athenians were More Renowned
for their Warlike Achievements or for their Learning c. iii, Plutarch
attributes this saying to Simonides : ' Indeed, Simonides calls painting
silent poetry, and poetry speaking painting. For those actions which
painters represent as occurrent history relates as past. And what the
one sets forth in colors and figures, the other relates in words and sen-
tences ; only they differ in the materials and manner of imitation.' See
also Horace, Art of Poetry 361 ff. :

For poems are like pictures : some appear

Best in the distance, others standing near ;

This loves the shade, while that the light endures,

Nor shuns the nicest ken of connoisseurs ;

This charms for once, and then the charm is o'er,

While that, the more surveyed, still charms the more.
^A statuary and sculptor who belonged to the later Attic school of
the time of Scopas and Praxiteles. He was one of the artists who
executed the bas-relief which adorned the frieze of the mausoleum,
about 352 B.C.

"* Of Samos, a painter who flourished from the time of Philip onward
to that of the successors of Alexander. The peculiar merit of Theon
was his prolific fancy.

How to Study Poetry

rhasius/ Odysseus counterfeiting madness; and Chaere-
phanes,^ the unchaste converse of women with men. In
such instances it is especially important that the young man
come to understand that we do not praise the action
imitated, but the art, provided the subject is treated accu-
rately. Since now poetry also frequently describes base
actions and depraved emotions and character, the youth must
not confound their artistic admirableness and success with
truth, nor rank them as beautiful, but is only to praise them
as accurate and truthful likenesses of the things treated.
For as we are annoyed when we hear the grunting of a
hog, the noise of pulleys, the whistling of the wind, and the
roaring of the seas, but are pleased if any one imitates them
with naturalness, as Parmenio did the hog,^ and Theodorus
the pulleys, and as we avoid the unpleasant sight of an
unhealthy man with festering sores, but take pleasure in
witnessing the Philoctetes of Aristophon* and the Jocasta
of Silanion,^ which are realistic likenesses of wasting and
dying persons, so when the youth reads what Thersites the
fool, or Sisyphus the debaucher, or Batrachus the brothel-
keeper says or does, he must be taught to praise the genius
and the art which imitates, but to censure the subjects and
actions with opprobrium.^ For the excellence of a thing

' A contemporary and rival of Zeuxis, who flourished 400-380 B.C.
Zeuxis deceived the birds by his painted grapes ; Parrhasius deceived
Zeuxis himself by his painting of a curtain.

* Better known as Nicophanes : Greek painter, younger contempo-
rary or successor of Apelles, but inferior to him ; he chose subjects of
a meretricious character for his painting.

2 See Introd. p. 22, note.

^ A painter of some distinction. See Introd. p. 22, note.

^A distinguished statuary in bronze. His statues belonged to two
classes, ideal and actual portraits. Of the former, the most celebrated
was his dying Jocasta, in which a deadly paleness was given to the face
by the mixture of silver with the bronze. His statue of Sappho, which
stood in the Prytaneum at Syracuse in the time of Verres, is alluded to
by Cicero in terms of the highest praise. See Introd. p. 22, note.

* See Milton, Apology for Smectymnuus : ' By the firm settling of these
persuasions, I became, to my best memory, so much a proficient, that

How to Study Poetry

and the excellence of its imitation are not the same ; fitness
and naturalness constitute excellence, but to things base
the base is natural and fit. To be sure, the boots of
Demonides the cripple, which, when they were lost, he
wished might fit the feet of him who stole them, were
sorry objects, but they fitted him. Take also the following
passage, 'If one must needs do wrong, let it be for power's
sake ;'^ and this, 'Gain a reputation for fair dealing, and you
may do the deeds of a knave ;'^ and, 'A talent for my dowry !
Shall I not have it? Can I live if I slight it? Shall I meet
with sleep if I chance to loose it? Will I not suffer hell's
torments if I sin against a silver talent ?'^ these are false and
villainous speeches, but suited to Eteocles, Ixion, and an
old griping usurer. If now we suggest to young men
that the poets do not commend and praise these sentiments,
but assign disgusting and base words to base and disgust-
ing characters, they will not get wrong notions about the
poets. On the contrary, their suspicion of the character
will extend to his acts and words, the assumption being
that the words and acts of a base man must likewise be
base.* Of such a sort is the representation of Paris stealing
away from the battle to lie with Helen; for as this lascivious
and adulterous fellow is the only man whom the poet
represents as lying with a woman in the daytime, it is clear
that he regards incontinence as a shame and a reproach."

if I found those authors anywhere speaking unworthy things of them-
selves, or unchaste of those names which before they had extolled, this
eflfect it wrought with me — from that time forward their art I still
applauded, but the men I deplored.'

' Euripides, Phoeniss 524. See Cicero, De Off. iii. 21. 82 : ' Nam si
violendum est jus, regnandi gratia violandum est.'

^Nauck 652.

3 Meineke, Fragmenta Comicorum Graecorum iv. 668.

*■ See Poet. xxv. 8.

*//. iii. 380-461. See Symposiacs iii. 6, 4, for similar comment on this
episode.

How to Study Poetry

In such passages one must observe very carefully whether
or not the poet gives any intimation that he himself is dis-
pleased with these ignoble sentiments. Instance Menander
in the prologue to his Thetis: 'Now sing to me, goddess, of
such a maid, bold, youthful, and enticing, ever sinning, ever
wronging others, ever shutting her doors to men, and crav-
ing ever, loving no man, though always feigning love.'^
But Homer is the most particular of all the poets in this
respect, for condemnation precedes the expression of base
sentiments, and commendation, of the good. Of commenda-
tion, note the following: 'So straightway he spake a sweet
and cunning word;'^ 'He stood by his side, and refrained
him with gentle words.'^ And as for condemnation, his
testimony is all but a command to us not to use nor heed
disgusting and base speeches. Thus, when he is about to
narrate how uncivilly Agamemnon treated the priest, he pre-
mises, 'Yet the thing pleased not the heart of Agamemnon,
son of Atreus, but he roughly sent him away,'* intimating
that such an act is brutal, hard-hearted, and unbecoming.
And when he attributes these rash words to Achilles, 'Thou
heavy with wine, thou with face of dog and heart of deer,'°
he passes this judgment upon them, 'Then Peleus' son spake
again with bitter words to Atreus' son, and in no wise
ceased from anger,'® for it is against reason that words
spoken in such anger and bitterness should be just. In a
similar way he passes comment upon actions; thus, 'He

' Meineke iv. 131. * Odys. vi. 148.

3//. ii. 189. */l. i. 124.

* See Plato, J?ep. iii. 390 : ' What again of this line, —
" O heavy with wine, who hast the eyes of a dog and the heart of a

stag." (//. i. 225.)
And of the verses which follow ? Would you say that these or any
other impertinent words which private men are supposed to address to
their rulers, whether in verse or prose, are well or ill spoken ?

They are ill spoken.'

•//. i. 223.

How to Study Poetry

said, and devised foul entreatment of noble Hector, stretch-
ing him prone in the dust beside the bier of Menoitios' son.'^
He also makes good use of the criticism which one character
passes upon another, for registering his own opinions of
actions and speeches, as when he makes the gods say of the
adultery of Ares, '111 deed, ill speed ! The slow catcheth the
swift.'^ And notice the intimation in Hera's resentment of
the disdain and arrogance of Hector, 'So spake he boastfully,
and queen Hera had indignation,'^ and observe the following
in the light of Pandarus' shooting, 'So spake Athene, and
persuaded his fool's heart.'* Now every attentive reader
will notice such condemnations, which are expressed in the
very words of the text.^

But other hints are embodied in the actions. Thus Eurip-
ides is said to have replied to those who found fault with his
Ixion as an impious and dirty fellow, 'Nay, but I did not
take him off the stage until I had fastened him to a torturing
wheel.' This teaching by implication is also used by Homer,
and offers helpful and subtle comment upon those very fables
most often misconstrued. For some men distort these
stories, and pervert them into allegories,^ or what the men
of old times called hidden meanings.'^ Thus they say that
the real meaning of the adultery of Aphrodite and Ares,
discovered by Helios,^ is that when the star called Ares
comes in conjunction with Aphrodite, bastardly births are
produced, and that, since the sun rises and discovers them,
they are not concealed. So will they have Hera's arraying
herself for Zeus and the enchantment of the girdle^ to mean
the purification of the air in the vicinity of fire. As if the
poet had not interpreted these episodes! For in the fable
of Aphrodite, he teaches the attentive student that light

' //. xxiii. 24. "^ Odys. viii. 329. ^11. viii. 198. *//. iv. 104.

* See Schrader, Porphyria, Quaestt. Homer. 313-315, for observations
similar to these.

* See Saintsbury, History of Crit. i. 2. 10, and Schlemm, 32-36, for
a discussion of the extent and character of early allegorical interpreta-
tion. Such interpretation is rejected by Plato ; see Hep. ii, and Phaedrus.

"'iirovoiac. ^See Odys. viii. 265-367. '//. xiv. 152-352.

How to Study Poetry

music, wanton songs, and obscene talk make for impure
characters, unmanly lives, and natures given over to luxury
and effeminacy, 'changes of raiment, and the warm bath,
and love, and sleep.'^ And therefore he brings in Odysseus
bidding the bard, 'Come now, change thy strain, and sing
of the fashioning of the horse of wood,'^ thus teaching
rightly that musicians and poets should take their themes
from men of reason and understanding.^ In the fable of
Hera he teaches most effectively that intercourse and favors
secured from men through drugs, sorcery, and cunning not
only are short-lived, inconstant, and soon cloying, but are
quickly turned to displeasure and loathing when once passion
has spent itself. This is exemplified by the way Zeus
threatens Hera, when he says to her 'that thou mayest
know if it profit thee at all, the dalliance and the love
wherein thou didst lie with me, when thou hadst come from
among the gods and didst beguile me.'* For if the disgrace
and harm to the doer is embodied in the representation and
imitation of a base act, the reader is helped rather than
hindered. At any rate, philosophers employ examples from
history for our correction and instruction, and the poets
only differ from them by inventing and presenting fictitious
narratives. Be it in jest or earnest, Melanthius^ was wont
to say that the salvation of Athens depended upon the dis-
sensions and quarrels among the orators ; for thus not all
the citizens took the same view, and in this diversity was a
preventive of harm. Similarly the contradictions in the
poets offset one another, so that the balance cannot incline
unduly toward that which is hurtful. Therefore, when a
comparison of one passage with another exposes a contra-
diction, we ought to adhere to the better sentiment, as in
' Odys. viii. 249. * Odys. viii. 492.

* See like comment in Schrader, 74-75.

* II. XV. 32. See Rep. iii. 390, for Plato's comment on these episodes
of Zeus and Hera and of Ares and Aphrodite.

* An Athenian tragic poet, of whom little is known beyond the attacks
made on him by Aristophanes and the other comic poets. The most
important passage respecting him is in the Peace of Aristophanes (796 ff.).
Several specimens of his celebrated wit are preserved by Plutarch.

How to Study Poetry

these instances : ' "Many times, my son, the gods ruin men ;"
" 'Tis easy to lay blame on the gods ;" '^ and again, ' "Much
wealth is thine, but they are bankrupt ;" "Accursed the rich
fool ;" '^ ' "What then, must you kill yourself with sacrific-
ing?" "Indeed it is no hardship to reverence the gods,'"'
Such contradictions need not trouble a young man, if, as I
have said, we teach him to fix upon the better sentiment.

But when absurd sayings are not refuted in the con-
text, they are to be canceled by contradictory sentiments
occurring elsewhere in the same author, and we are not to
be vexed with the poet because of such absurdities, nor to
judge him harshly, but to accept them as playful masquer-
ading. So, if he wishes, when he hears of the gods hurling
one another from heaven, wounded by mortals, and quarrel-
ing and brawling,* he may say to Homer, ' "Yet thou hast it
in thee to devise other sayings more excellent than this,"®
and certainly you give utterance to far better thoughts else-
where, as "The gods that live at ease ;"^ "Therein the blessed
gods are glad for all their days ;"'' "This is the lot the gods
have spun for miserable men, that they should live in pain ;
yet themselves are sorrowless." '^ For these are sound and
true opinions of the gods, but those above were only feigned
to cause men fear. Again, when Euripides says, 'By many an
artifice the gods, who are our betters, cause us to stumble,''
it is well to return a better answer in the words of Euripides
himself, 'If the gods do anything base, they are no gods.'^**
And when in a very bitter and provoking way Pindar says,
'We must stop at nothing that will enfeeble our enemy, once
our friend,'^^ we shall answer, 'But you yourself say that
"Unrighteous pleasure awaits the bitterest end." '^^ So when
Sophocles says, 'Sweet is the gain which falsehood brings,'"
we shall rejoin, 'But we have heard you say that "False
words produce no fruit." '^*

1 Nauck 345. ^ Ibid 542. ^ Nauck 694.

*See Plato, Rep. ii. 378 ; iii. 390 ; and pp. 104-105. *//. vii. 358.

*//. vi. 138. "^ Odys. vi. 46. ^11. xxii. 525. ^ Nauck 519.

*° Ibid. 355. See Plutarch, The Contradictions of the Stoics jj.
" Isthm. iv. 48. 1** Ibid. vii. 47. '^ Nauck 246. " Ibid. 246.

How to Study Poetry

Again, to what the same author says of riches, 'The
inaccessible and the accessible alike open up to wealth, while
nowhere may the man who earns his daily bread compass
his heart's desire, even by entreaty; riches truly make the
unshapely body fair to see, and cause the ineloquent man to
speak with skilful tongue,'^ may be opposed many of his own
words, such as these : 'From honor, poverty doth not debar ;'^
'Poverty is no reproach to him whose thoughts are noble;''
'Wherein are a multitude of fine things a boon, if the fool's
anxiety is the price paid for blessed wealth?'^ Menander
undoubtedly stirred up and inflamed the love of pleasure by
the following amorous and burning lines, 'Everything that
has life and with us beholds the common sun is the slave of
pleasure ;'° but at another time he pursues a different course
and inclines us to virtue, checking the rage of lust, when he
says, 'An infamous life is a reproach, however sweet it
be.'' These lines are contrary to the former, and both better
and more profitable. Accordingly, such comparison and
critical examination of passages either inclines one to the
better, or at least destroys one's confidence in the worse.

But if any of the poets do not themselves offer an escape
from those things which they have said amiss, it is well to
employ the contrary sentiments of other famous men, so
that the better may outbalance the worse. Thus, when
Alexis'^ tempts people with these words, 'The wise man must
needs heap up pleasures, and three there are which have the
power to make life fully and finally complete: to eat, to
drink, to follow after wanton sports ; and if other pleasures
be added to these, they are to be counted over-measure,'* we
must remember that Socrates, in far different strain, says
that 'Bad men live that they may eat and drink, but good
men eat and drink that they may live.' And to offset the

» Ibid. ii8, « Ibid. 247. » Ibid. 247.

*Ibid. 207. ^ Meineke iv. 266. ^ Ibid. iv. 282.

' Comic poet ; b. B.C. 392. ' One of the most important and prolific
writers of the Middle Attic Comedy, yet living as he did to the age of
io6, he reached far into the period of the New Attic Comedy. The
part of the parasite was considered his special invention.'

* Meineke iii. 518.

How to Study Poetry

sentiment of the man who wrote, 'Against the knave, knav-
ery itself is no bad tool' — as it were commending us to be-
come like the knave — we are to use the words of Diogenes,^
who, being asked how a man might revenge himself upon
an enemy, said, 'by being an honest and upright man him-
self.' Diogenes may also be cited against Sophocles, who
caused utter despair to multitudes of men when he wrote
thus about the mysteries : 'Thrice happy mortals they who
behold these mysteries ere the journey to Hades; to them
alone is it given there to enjoy life's vigor; on others all
ills attend.' For when Diogenes heard some such thing,
'What then,' says he, 'shall Pataecion the thief enjoy a better
lot than Epaminondas,^ simply because he was initiated?'
And when Timotheus* in the theatre was extolling Artemis,
calling her 'mad, inspired, possessed, frenzied,'^ Cinesias^
straightway shouted back, 'May thy daughter be such a one.'
Similarly, when Theognis'^ said, 'Naught may he say or do
who bears the yoke of poverty ; his tongue is bound,'* Bion®
cleverly replied, 'How comes it then that thou thyself, being
so poor, so copiously pratest and chatterest in this manner?'^"

> See pp. 117. * Nauck 247.

^ Statesman and general ; b. at Thebes about 418 B.C. Epaminondas
was the successful leader of the Thebans in their wars with the Spartans,
showing remarkable military genius. ' He left a pure and exalted repu-
tation as a patriot, a statesman, and a sage, and is universally admitted
to have been one of the greatest captains of antiquity. Cicero expressed
the opinion that Epaminondas was the greatest man that Greece had
produced.'

* The most admired Greek musician of his day ; flourished towards
the close of the fourth century, B.C. His innovation consisted in the
use of a chorus in rendering the so-called Nome, and in the employ-
ment of mimetic action to enliven the delivery. ^ Bergk 3. 620.

^ Probably the dithyrambic poet ridiculed by Aristophanes.

■" See p. 54. ® 177. ®A Cyreniac philosopher of the third cen-
tury B.C., noted for his sharp sayings.

"• Schlemm attributes the ridicule of allegory in this chapter, and the
moral interpretation of Homer, to the influence of lost Peripatetic
writings, the discussion of the contradictions in the poets to the Stoics,
and the chronologically impossible anecdotes in the last paragraph to
Plutarch's ingenious association of the famous words of poets and
philosophers.

How to Study Poetry

Nor is the context to be ignored as a factor in correct
interpretation. Just as physicians beheve that, although the
cantharides is deadly, its feet and wings are efficacious in
nullifying the effect of the poison,^ so in poetry if any noun
or verb in the context can make a better case out for a pas-
sage, it should be eagerly taken up with and noted. This
method should be employed in the following verses, *Lo
this is now the only due we pay to miserable men, to cut
the hair and let the tear fall from the cheek ;'^ 'This is the
lot the gods have spun for miserable men, that they should
live in pain.'^ For Homer does not say that for absolutely
every man the gods have woven a painful life, but for those
who are foolish and unreasonable, whom, because wicked-
ness has made them such, he is wont to call wretched and
pitiable.*

We shall be further helped in our efforts to put the best
interpretation upon doubtful passages by observing whether
or not a word is used in its ordinary sense ;' in this a young
man should be better trained than in the study of dialects.
Thus it is a point in philology, and rather an interesting
one too, that piye&ivos {making one shudder) means an evil
death, for the Macedonians use Sapos as a synonym for
death. The Aeolians call victory won through endurance
and persistency Kafiiiovir]^'' (a staying behind), and the Dry-
opians call divinities 7ro7roi(0 strange ones!).

Further, if we wish to be helped rather than hindered by
the poets, it is both profitable and necessary to know how
they use the names of gods, as also the terms for evil and

' See Dioscorides i. 66. ^ Odys. iv. 197. ^ //. xxiv. 526.

* See Aristotle, Foei. xxv. 8-20, for similar suggestions.
^Poet. xxv. 8-20.

* Ep. for Kara/iov^, explained by Schol. ^ ek Kara/ioviji vuiij.

Hozv to Study Poetry

good, what they mean by '^vxh and Moi/aa {Fortune and
Fate), and whether, as in the case of a number of other
words, they use these in one or in many senses. For
oIkos {house, abode) sometimes means a material house,
as, 'into his high-roofed home,'^ and sometimes an estate,
as, * My property' is being devoured.'* Similarly, /Sibros
{life) means life, as, 'But Poseidon of the dark* locks made
his shaft of no avail, grudging him the life.'* but also
wealth, as, 'that others may consume his livelihood.'^
Again aXvav {mental wandering) is also used instead of
the terms for sore vexation and perplexity respectively, as
* So spake he, and she departed in amaze and was sore
troubled,'* and the same word also signifies boasting and
rejoicing, as, 'Art thou beside thyself for joy, because thou
hast beaten the beggar Irus?''^ Likewise dodluv {to move
quickly) means to move, as in Euripides, 'the whale rush-
ing beyond the Atlantic deeps,'^ and again, to sit down and
to remain seated, as in Sophocles, 'Why sit ye here, your
hands thus wreathed with the suppliant's boughs?'*

It is also in good taste, as the grammarians teach, to
adapt words to the matter in hand, by construing them from
their customary meanings, as in this passage, vrl 6\iyrjv
tuvdv, p-eyaXr] S" cvi <f>opTia OivOai {a fresh pittance courteously
to decline, but to store up goods in abundance), '^^ for here
aivetv {to tell or speak of) has the meaning of Imuvdv (to
approve, praise, in the sense of to decline courteously) , and

' Odys. V. 42 : oIkov kg vipdpofov. * B. and L. read dwelling.

' Odys. iv. 318: kadiETai (loi olnog. * II. xiii, 562 :

ufiEPTivcjaev di ol alxfiijv
Kvavoxcura tloaeidduv, fSiSroio fityijpaQ.

* Odys. xiii. 419: fSioTov 6i [loi liXTuoi iSovai.

* //. V. 352 : &r l<paff, 17 (T cikvov(f dne^ijaETO, reipeTO (T alvog.
' Odys. xviii, 332: ^ a^iiEiQ on Ipov Ev'iKTjaag rbv hTJirriv.

* Nauck 523: KfjTog dod^ov If 'ArTiavriK^g d7i6g.

» Oed. Tyr. 2 : ^ ^

Tivag ■Kdff sSpag TaaSs juoi 6od(ETB

iKTfiptoig Kkddoiaiv k^Earefifiivoi.

Hermann interprets the word as meaning, come in haste to this suppliant

posture, or sit in earnest supplication.

JO Hesiod, W. and D. 641.

How to Study Poetry

cTTttimv in turn is used instead of irapaxTturdai (to beg off).
Similarly, in familiar intercourse we say Kokm €x«v (to be
well), and we bid a thing -xaipuv (farezvell), when we do
not care for it nor wish to receive it. So in the expression
cTratv^ Ilep(T€<j>6v€ui (dread Proserpine), some say that the
force of the adjective is that of irafxuTrjnj (to be deprecated).

Now that they may discriminate with equal care in those
words which have to do with the weighty and serious affairs
of the gods, we should begin by teaching young men that
the poets use the names of the gods sometimes to denote
the divine beings themselves, and sometimes without change
to designate certain elements which the gods have given and
control.^ Archilochus illustrates this well. When he prays,
'Hear my petition, King Hephaestus, and be gracious to thy
suppliant and grant his desire,'^ plainly he invokes the god
himself; but when, in dirge-like measure, he bewails the
drowning of his brother-in-law, because he perished without
funeral rites, 'Had Hephaestus but proved a purifying gar-
ment for his dear head and limbs !^ he applies the name to
the fire and not to the god. Again, when Euripides says
with an oath, 'By star-encircled Zeus and bloody Mars,'* he
means the gods, but when Sophocles says, 'For the blind
unseeing Ares, O dames, with swine-like snout stirs up all
ills,'® war is meant. By the same word we are also to under-
stand brazen arms when Homer says, 'Keen Ares hath spilt
their dusky blood about fair-flowing Skamandros.'^

Analogous to these examples, we must recognize that when
the words God and Zeus are employed, the poets some-
times mean the very God himself, sometimes Fortune, and
oftentimes Fate.'' When they say, 'Father Zeus, that rulest
from Ida,'* and, 'O Zeus, who claims to be more wise than
thou?'® it is the god himself. But when they call Zeus the
cause of all results, saying, 'And hurled down into Hades
many strong souls of heroes, so the counsel of Zeus wrought

* Compare Schrader 42. 24. * Bergk. 2. 404. * Ibid. 2. 387.

* Phoen. 1013. ' Nauck 247. * //. vii. 329.

^ Teaching of the Stoics ; compare Gercke, Chrysippus, Frag7nenta 32,
36, 99 ; Plutarch, Contradictions of the Stoics 34. * //. iii. 276.

' Nauck 694.

How to Study Poetry

out its accomplishment,'^ they have Fate in mind. For the
poet does not believe that the god devises ill against men,
but he shows the inevitableness with which prosperity and
victory wait upon cities, armies and leaders who practise
self-control, and with which shame, disaster, and confusion
result to those who, like men divided into wrangling fac-
tions, yield to passion and error.^ Fate is also meant in
the following: 'It is decreed that the evil plans of mortals
shall bear them a full harvest of ills.'^ But when Hesiod
makes Prometheus advise Epimetheus, 'Never receive thou
gifts from the Olympic Zeus, but cast them from thee,'*
the name of the god is used to denote Fortune, for the goods
of Fortune, such as riches, marriages, kingdoms, and in
short every material thing, the possession of which is with-
out profit to those who are unable to use it wisely, he calls
the gifts of Zeus.^ Therefore he believes that Epimetheus,
who is a stupid dolt, must guard against prosperity and
fear it, as that which would injure and destroy him. And
in another instance he calls that which befalls men by
Fortune, God's gift, when he says, 'See that thou never
cast poverty in a man's teeth as a deadly ill, for 'tis ever the
gift of the blessed gods.'® Consequently it is wrong to
censure those whom Fortune has made poor, since poverty
is alone a reproach, a shame, and a disgrace, when it is
attendant upon sloth, impotence, and prodigality. For
before men called it by the name of Fortune, they recog-
nized that there was a powerful cause, irregular and
uncertain in its movements, the inevitableness of which
the human reason could not control, and to define this they
used the names of the gods, just as we are wont to call
deeds and characteristics, and also even maxims and men,
divine and godlike. Thus we may rectify many seemingly
absurd statements concerning Zeus, such as the following
for example: 'For two urns stand upon the floor of Zeus

'//. i. 5. ^Compare Gellius, Nodes AtticaevW. 2. 14; Eusebius,

Praeparatio Evangelica v'\ . 8. 2. ^ Nauck 695. ■* W. and D. 86.

* Compare Plutarch, Of Fortune b ; Schrader 276. 17.
*Ibid. 717.

How to Study Poetry

filled with his evil gifts, and one with blessings ;'^ 'Our
oaths of truce Kronos' son, enthroned on high, accomplished
not; but evil is his intent and ordinance for both our
hosts ;'^ 'For in those days the first wave of woe was rolling
on Trojans and Danaans through the counsel of great
Zeus'* These are spoken of Fortune or of Fate, the causes
of which we cannot reason out, and which, in short, are not
our concern. But when reasonable and probable senti-
ments, such as befit a god, are expressed, we are to suppose
that the name of the god is used in its strict sense. Note
the following instances of this : 'He ranged among the ranks
of other men, but he avoided the battle of Ajax son of
Telamon, for Zeus would have been wroth with him if he
fought with a better man than himself;'* 'For Zeus busies
himself with the great affairs of men, but passes by the
small, and leaves them to the lesser gods.'^

It is also extremely important that we take note of other
words to which, in many cases, the poets by metonymy give
other than their ordinary meanings. Such a word is aperq
{virtue). For since virtue not only makes men discreet,
just, and good, in both word and deed, but without doubt
also secures them honor and power, poets see fit to call
reputation and power, virtue, just as we indiscriminately
call both the olive tree and its fruit cAaia {olive), and the oak
and the acorn ^lyyos {oak). So when a young man reads
such passages as these, 'Then the Danaans by their virtue
brake the battalions;'® 'If death is the common lot of man-
kind let men die nobly, merging life in virtue ;''' he should at
once appreciate that the poet is speaking of that best and
most divine state which we deem to be rightness of reason,
excellence of the rational nature, and a normal condition
of the soul.^ But when he reads, 'But for virtue, Zeus
increaseth it in men or minisheth it;'^ and 'Virtue and

' //. xxiv. 527. See p. 55, note. *//. vii. 69.

^ Odys. viii. 81. *//. xi. 540. ^ Hesiod, W. andD. 289.

*//. xi. 90. L. L. and M. read valour. ' For similar definitions after
Zeno, Chrysippus, and Cleanthes compare Diogenes Laertius vii. 89 ;
Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes iv. 34 ; Stobaeus, Anthologium ii.

* Nauck 529. *//. XX. 242. L. L. and.M. read valour.

How to Study Poetry

honour upon wealth attend ;'^ let him not sit down in gaping
admiration of rich men, as if their silver straightway could
purchase virtue, nor let him think that Fortune may
increase or lessen his wisdom, but rather let him conceive
that the poet used virtue as a synonym for reputation, power,
prosperity, or some such word. Also, at one time the poet
makes KaKvnp (eznl) stand for a wicked and vicious heart,
as in Hesiod, 'For evil is at hand in great abundance,'^
and at another for some misfortune or ill-luck, as in Homer,
'For men quickly age in evil fortune.'^ Then any one would
be sadly deceived who thought that the poets, like phil-
osophers, use the word evBcufwvia (happiness) to denote
a perfect habitual enjoyment of all good things, or the
completeness of life in accordance with nature, and that
they do not frequently misuse the word by calling the rich
man happy, and power and reputation happiness. Homer,
indeed, uses these words correctly, 'Thus look you, I have
no joy of my lordship among these my possessions,'* and
Menander as well, 'For my much possessions I am called
rich by all, but happy by none.'^ But if, as said above,
one does not attend to the metaphorical uses and misuses
of the words, Euripides causes much misunderstanding and
confusion when he writes, 'Let not a life of weal become
a life of woe to me;'^ or, 'Why honorest thou tyranny, injus-
tice triumphant?''^ But enough has been said upon this
point.

VII

Another principle that must be reiterated in teaching
young men is, that while poetry is based upon imitation,
and employs embellishment and richness of diction suited
to the actions and characters in hand,^ it does not resign

' IV. andD. 313, ^ W. and D. 287. ' Odys. xix. 360. *■ Odys. iv. 93.

* Meineke iv. 266. * Medea 598. '' Phoeniss. 549.

^ Poet. vi. 2-3: 'Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is
serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude ; in language embellished
with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in
separate parts of the play. ... By "language embellished," I mean

How to Study Poetry

the likeness of the truth, since the charm of imitation is
probabiHty.^ Wherefore such imitation as does not wholly
ignore the truth weaves a mixture of virtue and vice into
the action. This is done in the poetry of Homer, which
completely renounces the principles of the Stoics, who hold
that nothing bad can be where virtue is, and nothing good
where vice is, but that the ignorant man is ever in error,
and the cultured man always right. Such stuff we hear in
the schools. But in the life and affairs of the mass of
mankind, according to the judgment of Euripides, 'Virtue
and vice are never found alone, but blended, as it were.'

Now since poetry does not keep strictly to truth, it makes
much use of variety and transitions.^ For reversals of for-
tune furnish plots with emotional disturbance, with the unex-
pected and surprising, upon which deep emotion and delight
best attend. But the uncomplicated is not fitted to stir
emotion and serve as fiction. Wherefore the poets do not
make their characters imiformly victorious, successful, or
happy, nor when the gods engage in human affairs are they
represented as free from passion and error, lest, through

language into which rhythm, "harmony," and song enter. By "the
several kinds in separate parts," I mean that some parts are rendered
through the medium of verse alone, others again with the aid of song.'

' See p. 22, note 2.

^ Poet, x-xiii : ' Plots are either Simple or Complicated. . . . An action
which is one and continuous. . . I call Simple, when the turning
point is reached without Reversal of Fortune, or Recognition ; Compli-
cated, when it is reached with Reversal of Fortune or Recognition, or
both. ... A Reversal of Fortune is, as we have said, a change by
which a train of action produces the opposite of the effect intended ;
and that, according to our rule of probability or necessity. ... A
Recognition ... is a change from ignorance to knowledge, producing
love or hate between the persons destined by the poet for good or bad
fortune. ... A perfect tragedy should be arranged, not on the simple,
but on the complicated plan. ... It follows plainly, in the first place,
that the change of fortune presented must not be the spectacle of a
perfectly good man brought from prosperity to adversity : for this
moves neither pity nor fear ; it simply shocks us. Nor, again, that of
a bad man passing from adversity to prosperity ; ... it neither satis-
fies the moral sense, nor calls forth pity or fear.'

How to Study Poetry

absence of peril and conflict, the poem should fail to excite
and astonish.*

VIII

Since this is true, we should so guide a youth in his early-
study of poetry that reverence for names may not lead him
to esteem the fair and stalwart heroes as men of wisdom
and justice, the perfection of princes, and the standard of
all excellence and virtue. For he will suffer harm if he
thinks all their acts astonishingly great, and is quite unwil-
ling to disapprove of them himself, or to accept criticism
from others, even if it be of those who act and speak as
follows : 'For would, O father Zeus, and Athene, and Apollo,
would that not one of all the Trojans might escape death,
nor one of the Argives, but that we twain might avoid
destruction, that alone we might undo the sacred coronal
of Troy ;'^ and, 'Most pitiful of all that I heard was the voice
of the daughter of Priam, of Cassandra, whom hard by me
the crafty Qytemnestra slew;'^ and, 'So she besought me
continually by my knees to go in first unto the concubine,
that the old man might be hateful to her;'* and, 'Father
Zeus, surely none of the gods is cruder than thou.'^ A
young man should not get into the way of praising any
such sentiment, nor of showing his clever powers of persua-
sion in finding excuses and inventing plausible misinterpre-
tations for bad passages ; rather let him keep in mind that
poetry is an imitation of character and life, and of men who
are not wholly perfect, pure, and blameless, but in some
degree subject to passion, error, and ignorance, who, how-

^ See Plutarch's essay Concerning Music i6 : ' The mixed Lydian
moves the affections, and is fit for tragedies. This mood, as Aristoxe-
nus alleges, was invented by Sappho, from whom the tragedians
learned it and joined it with the Doric. The one becomes a majestic,
lofty style, the other mollifies and stirs to pity, both which are the
properties of tragedy.'

* //. xvi. 97. ' Odys. xi. 421.

*//. ix. 452. *//. iii. 365.

How to Study Poetry

ever, through strength of character are often changed for
the better.^ For if his mind is thus prepared, a young man
will receive no harm from his reading, for while he will be
delighted and inspired by wise words and acts, he will not
entertain, but dislike, those which are bad. On the other
hand, the man who admires indiscriminately and accepts
everything, whose judgment is enslaved by his esteem for
the names of heroes, like those who affect Plato's humpback
and the lisping of Aristotle, will take up with much that is
bad before he realizes it.^

So a youth must not be timid, nor, like superstitious people
in a temple, prostrate himself in holy awe of everything, but
must form the habit of pronouncing his judgment with con-
fidence, as, 'This was right and proper ;' 'That was not well.'
For example, chafing at the delays in the campaign, because
he was extremely desirous of winning distinction in arms,
Achilles called together an assembly of the soldiers while
they were suffering from an epidemic. But being a physi-
cian, and noting that the decisive ninth day of the malady
was passed, he perceived that the sickness was not an ordi-
nary one nor produced by usual causes, and hence, on rising
to speak, he did not harangue the crowd, but counseled the
King, 'Son of Atreus, now deem I that we shall return
wandering home again ;'^ and he spake well and with due
moderation. But when the soothsayer professed fear of
the anger of the chief of the Greeks, observing neither wis-
dom nor moderation, Achilles swore that while he himself
were alive no one should lay hands on the old man, 'not
even if thou mean Agamemnon.'* Here he showed con-
tempt and disdain for his commander. And when he was
provoked still more, he unsheathed his sword, thinking to
kill the king, which was neither right nor expedient. But
straightway he repented and 'thrust the great sword back
into the sheath, and was not disobedient to the saying of
Athene.'^ And this last act was right and noble, for

' See Butcher, c. viii, on The Ideal Tragic Hero.

*The attitude taken is Peripatetic ; see Ps. -Plutarch, Of the Life ana
Poetry of Homer 135. ^7/. i. 59. * II. i. 90. *//. i. 220.

How to Study Poetry

although he was not able wholly to quiet his anger, he yet
made it obey the restraints of reason before it was too late.
Again, Agamemnon made a fool of himself by his actions
and words in the assembly, but in the Chryseis affair acted
more as a dignified prince should ; for though Achilles 'wept
anon, and sat him down apart,'^ when Briseis was taken away
from him, Agamemnon put on board ship, gave to the care
of others, and sent away the woman, who, a little before,
he declared was dearer to him than his lawful wife. Simi-
larly, when Phoenix was cursed by his father because of the
concubine, he said, 'Then took I counsel to slay him with the
keen sword ; but some immortal stayed mine anger, bringing
to my mind the people's voice and all the reproaches of men,
lest I should be called a father-slayer amid the Achaians.'^
Aristarchus^ was fearful of the effect of this passage, and
omitted it; but it served a legitimate purpose, for Phoenix
was trying to show Achilles what a thing is wrath, and what
men do in anger, heeding neither reason nor advice. The
poet also introduces Meleager at first highly wroth with the
citizens, and later pacified.^ Thus by rightly disparaging,
he encourages one not to yield to anger, and by praising
repentance as right and expedient, encourages one to battle
against passion and hold sway over it. But where it is no
easy matter to pass judgment, we are to help the young
man to distinguish as follows : If when Nausicaa beheld the
strange Odysseus she felt the passion of Calypso for him,
and because she was passionate and ripe for marriage made
such light talk as this to her maidens, 'Would that such an
one might be called my husband, dwelling here, and that it

1//. i. 349. 2//. ix. 458.

3 Grammarian and critic ; 222-150 B.C. ' His special excellence lay-
in textual criticism, in which he showed great acumen, rare powers of
divination, and soundness of method. His leading principle of exe-
gesis was the explanation of the author out of himself. He published
a large number of corrected texts, with critical signs. The Homeric
scholia derive much of their value from the preservation of the criticisms
of Aristarchus.' * See //. ix. 527-605.

How to Study Poetry

might please him here to abide/^ then her boldness and
incontinence were blameworthy. But if, because she recog-
nized his breeding by his language and was charmed by
his intelligent address, she wished to marry him in prefer-
ence to a dancing fop or seaman of her own people, she
was to be commended.^ Again, Odysseus was pleased that
Penelope conversed in a free and easy way with the suitors,
and that they presented to her robes and other ornaments;
now if his pleasure sprang from covetousness and greed,
'because she drew from them gifts, and beguiled their souls
with soothing words,'^ he was a worse panderer than Polia-
ger, the character in the comedy, 'Happy Poliager, who has
as paramour a gold-bringing Capricorn.'* On the contrary,
if he thought that the hopes which Penelope held forth, by
making the suitors over-confident and blinded to the real
issue, would put them more within his power, his pleasure
and good spirits were quite proper. Again, after the Phaea-
cians had set him ashore with his treasure and departed, if
by counting it over in such a lonely place, where he was
ignorant of the inhabitants, he showed anxiety for his goods,
'lest the men be gone, and have taken back of their gifts
upon their hollow ship,'® his covetousness deserves to be
pitied, or rather, I should say, to be abhorred. But if, as
some think, he was doubtful whether or not the land were
Ithaca, and thought that to find his goods intact would be
proof of the sincerity of the Phaeacians — for, if dishonest,
they would not set him down on a strange shore free of
charge and leave him there with his possessions untouched —
then he used a lawful test, and deserves to be commended
for his good sense. Others find fault with his being put
ashore while asleep, if indeed the incident really happened,
and say that the Tuscans preserve a tradition that he was
naturally a sleepy-head, and not liked on that account. But
if the sleep was not genuine, but was feigned to relieve him

' Odys. vi, 254.

' See p. 107, for St. Basil's comment on this episode.

* Odys. xviii. 282. * Meineke iv. 667. ^ Odys. xiii. 216.

How to Study Poetry

from embarrassment — for he was ashamed to dismiss the
Phaeacians without gifts and feasting, yet knew that such
festivity would discover him to his enemies — they approve of
the episode.^

If then we explain this principle of judgment to young
men, and without hesitation censure some things and praise
others, we shall preserve their characters from corruption,
and arouse their emulation of what is good. And especially
should we do this in the case of all those tragedies in which
actions ignoble and wicked are accompanied by persuasive
and subtle words. For there is not much truth in the say-
ing of Sophocles, 'From acts not good, good words may
ne'er proceed.'^ Indeed he himself was wont to connect
pleasing speeches and philanthropic motives with base char-
acters and irrational actions. And in a fellow-author you
may see Phaedra laying on Theseus the blame of her inter-
course with Hippolytus, on the ground of his maltreatment
of her.^ Also in The Trojan Dames he allows Helen the
same license of speech against Hecuba, who, as Helen thinks,
ought to be punished more than herself, because she gave
birth to her seducer.* Now the young man should not get
into the way of thinking anything of this sort clever and
shrewd, nor of approving such sophistry, but he should dis-
like such words more than the licentious deeds they excuse.

Above all it will be of advantage to inquire the reason
why each idea is expressed. For while Cato was yet a mere
child, though he always minded his tutor, he yet asked
the cause and reason of the commands. To be sure, the
poets are not to be obeyed as tutors and lawgivers, unless
their thought is based on reason. But it will be so based
if it is morally good, and, if bad, its utter emptiness will be
apparent. Now the average man questions sharply the

' Porphyrio offers similar interpretations ; see Schrader 117-118 ;
Schlemm proposes a common Peripatetic source.

' Nauck 247. 2 Nauck, Eurip. Fr. 430*. 113. *9I9-

Hozu to Study Poetry

reasonableness of such words as the following: 'Never at
drinking-bouts should we place the ladle upon the mixing-
bowl;'^ and, 'Whensoever a warrior from the place of his
own car can come at a chariot of the foe, let him thrust
forth with his spear ;'^ while he accepts without question
even worse sentiments, such, for example, as the following:
'The consciousness of a father's or a mother's wrong-doing
makes a slave of any man, be he ever so daring;'^ and,
'He whom fortune has opposed must needs think meanly of
himself.'* And yet these last sentiments affect character and
injure a man by debasing his judgment and begetting sordid
ideas, unless he is accustomed to ask in reply, 'Why now
must he needs think meanly of himself whom fortune has
opposed? Why not rather resist it and rise unhumbled?
And why, if I am a good and wise son of a parent who is
foolish and bad, should I not rather respect myself for my vir-
tue than be dejected and cast down because of his stupidity?'^
He who can thus stand firm against all such sayings, and
not, as it were, surrender himself to every wind of doctrine,
and who can recognize the truth of the proverb, 'The dolt
loves to feeia thrill at every speech,'® will reject such judg-
ments as neither truthful nor profitable. These suggestions
will render harmless the study of poetry."^

' Hesiod, fV. and D. 744. * //. iv. 306.

' Euripides, Hippol. 424. ■* Nauck 695.

* See Of the Training of Children ii, where Plutarch reasons very
differently from this same passage of Euripides : ' For the spirits of
men who are alloyed and counterfeit in their birth are naturally
enfeebled and debased ; as rightly said the poet again, —

A bold and daring spirit is often daunted,
When with the guilt of parents' crimes 'tis haunted.'
[This translation is from the Goodwin edition.]

• MuUach I. 326.

'This style of criticism follows Bion, who attacks this same line from
Euripides; see Diogenes Laertius iv. 51, and Schlemm's comment, 65.

How to Study Poetry

As on a vine the leaves and branches frequently cover
up and conceal the ripe fruit, so the diction of poetry and
its profusion of fictitious narrative conceal many useful and
helpful things from the attention of a young man. Now he
ought not to be thus led astray, but rather to give himself
wholly to those things which make for virtue and exert a
powerful influence upon character. I shall therefore develop
this thought, though briefly and only in outline, leaving it to
more ostentatious writers to verify and illustrate my ideas.
First then, let the youth, knowing well the good and bad
respectively in manners and men, turn his attention to the
words and deeds which the poet attributes to his several
characters. Though he is speaking in anger, Achilles says
to Agamemnon, 'Never win I meed like unto thine, when
the Achaians sack any populous citadel of Trojan men,'^
but Thersites addresses him abusively, 'Surely thy huts are
full of bronze and many women are in thy huts, the chosen
spoils that we Achaians give thee first of all, whene'er we
take a town.'^ Again, Achilles says, 'If ever Zeus grant
us to sack some well-walled town of Troy-land,'^ but Ther-
sites, 'whom I perchance or some other Achaian have led
captive.'* At another time, when Agamemnon, inspecting
the army, speaks abusively to Diomedes, the latter makes no
reply, 'but had respect to the chiding of the king revered,'"
but Sthenelus, a fellow of no account, says, 'Atreides, utter
not falsehood, seeing thou knowest how to speak truly. We
avow ourselves to be better men by far than our fathers
were.'^ If such differences are not overlooked they will
teach a youth to regard modesty and moderation as the
marks of gentility, but to shun boasting and bragging as
vulgar. It is worth while, in this connection to notice the
conduct of Agamemnon ; for he passes Sthenelus by without

»//. i. 163. «//. ii. 226. 3//, j. 128.

*//. ii. 231. '//. iv. 402. •//. iv. 404.

How to Study Poetry

noticing him, yet he does not neglect Odysseus, but answers
him, 'seeing how he was wroth, and took back his saying.'^
Had he apologized to all, he would have appeared undigni-
fied and servile, and had he disdained all, arrogant and
unreasonable. Best of all is the conduct of Diomedes, for
during the battle he bears in silence the king's abuse, but
after the battle deals plainly with him, saying, 'My valour
didst thou blame in chief amid the Danaans.'^

It is also a good idea to take notice of the difference between
the ways in which a discreet man and a pompous soothsayer
addresses a crowd. Thus Calchas, since he lacks a sense
of the fitness of things, scruples not to denounce the King
in public as accountable for the plague. But when Nestor
would conciliate Achilles, in order that before the multitude
he may not seem to accuse the king of erroneous passion,
he advises, 'Spread thou a feast for the councilors ; that is
thy place, and seemly for thee. ... In the gathering of
many shalt thou listen to him that deviseth the most excellent
counsel ;'^ accordingly, after the meal he sends out the elders.
This last course tends to correct the mistake, but the other
was an insulting accusation.

One should notice as well the differences in racial char-
acteristics. For example, the Trojans rush ferociously to
battle with savage cries, but the Greeks 'in silence feared
their captains ;'* for to fear officers in the presence of the
enemy is the mark of heroism and obedience. Wherefore
Plato was wont to fear reproach and shame more than pains
and perils, and Cato said that he liked men who blush better
than those who blanch. Then too, a promise has its own

^11. iv. 357. *//. ix. 34. Compare comments of Porphyrio,

Schrader 75. 4 ; Ps. -Plutarch 168. ^ Jl. ix. 70.

*Il. iv. 431. See Rep. iii. 389 : 'Then would you praise or blame the
injunction of Diomedes in Homer —

"Friends, sit still and obey my word (//. iv. 412),"
and the verses which follow —

"The Greeks marched breathing prowess (//. iii. 8.),"
" In silent awe of their leaders (//. iv. 431),"
and other sentiments of the same kind ?
They are good.'

How to Study Poetry

peculiar worth; Dolon promises, 'I will go straight to the
camp, until I may come to the ship of Agamemnon,'^ but
Diomedes makes no promise, and only says that he will
fear the less if a companion be sent with him. Hence fore-
sight is Grecian and civil; rashness, barbaric and rude; the
one to be emulated, the other to be avoided.^

It is also not unprofitable to notice the state of mind
of the Trojans and of Hector, when he and Ajax are about
to engage in single combat. When a great cry went up
because one of the boxers in the Isthmian games received
a blow in the face, Aeschylus said, 'See what training does
for one; the spectators cry out, but the man who was
struck says not a word !' Likewise, when the poet says that
the Greeks rejoiced when they saw Ajax approaching
resplendent with armor, but that 'sore trembling came upon
the Trojans, on the limbs of every man, and Hector's own
heart beat within his breast,'^ who does not wonder at the
difference? The heart of him who risks himself only beats
inwardly, as of one engaging in a wrestling-match, or rather
in running a race, while the bodies of the spectators tremble
and shake in apprehension for the safety of their beloved
prince.* In the same poet one may observe the difference
between a very brave man and the worst of knaves, for
Thersites 'was hateful to Achilles above all and to Odys-
seus,'® but Ajax, ever friendly to Achilles, says of him to
Hector, 'Now verily shalt thou well know, man to man, what
manner of princes the Danaans likewise have among them,
even after Achilles, render of men, the lion-hearted.'" This
is a veritable panegyric of Achilles, and is followed by hearty
commendation of the soldiers in general, 'Yet are we such
as to face thee, yea, and many of us ;''^ here Ajax does not
say that he is the best and only champion, but one of many
able to do battle.^

1//. X. 325. 'Almost the same words occur in Ps. -Plutarch 149.

8//. vii. 215. ■* Compare Ps. -Plutarch 135. ^//. ii. 220.

•//. vii. 226. '//. vii. 231. * This sentence closely resembles

he scholium of Aristarchus.

How to Study Poetry

Enough now as to this matter of contrasts, unless we wish
to add that many a Trojan was taken alive, but not a single
Greek, and that some of the Trojans begged for mercy, as,
for example, Adrastus, the sons of Antimachus, and Lycaon,
and that even Hector besought Achilles for burial, but that
no one of the Greeks did such a thing; showing that it is
characteristic of barbarians to bow the suppliant knee on
the field, but of Greeks to conquer or die.

As in pastures the bee seeks the flower, the goat seeks the
bud, the hog the root, and other creatures the fruit and
seed, so in reading poetry one man culls the flowers of
history, another dwells upon the beauty and the arrange-
ment of words, as Aristophanes, who says of Euripides, 'I
delight in his imposing rhetoric,'^ and still others — and to
this class I am now addressing myself — are concerned with
those ideas which strengthen character. Such must be
made to see how deplorable it is that the lover of fiction
should allow nothing of novelty and extravagance in narra-
tive to escape him, and the philologist notice the rhetorical
purity of every sentence, but the devotee of honor and virtue,
who studies poetry for instruction rather than for pleasure,
read with careless indifference writings which commend man-
liness, temperance, and justice. Take for example the fol-
lowing : 'Tydeus' son, what ails us that we forget our impet-
uous valor? Nay, come hither, friend, and take thy stand
by me, for verily it will be shame if Hector of the gleaming
helm take the ships. '^ For to see a man of preeminent
wisdom in danger of utter defeat and death, with all his
companions yet fearing the disgrace and dishonor, but not
death, will arouse a young man to passionate devotion to
duty. The following passage, 'And Athene rejoiced in the
wisdom and judgment of the man,'^ shows the author's
sentiment, as he does not make the goddess delight in a man
of wealth, or of bodily beauty or strength, but in one who
is wise and just. And when elsewhere she says that she does

' J^ra^. 397. * //. xi. 313. ' Odjfs. iii. 352.

How to Study Poetry

not disregard nor desert Odysseus, 'So wary art thou, so
ready of wit and so prudent,'^ we are told that of all things
pertaining to us virtue alone is dear to the gods and divine,
for like attracts like.^

To master one's anger not only appears to be a great
achievement, but is so in reality, yet it is a far greater
by forethought to guard against anger, lest one be betrayed
into it or be overpowered by it; therefore it should be
pointed out to readers in no uncertain way that Achilles,
a man who is neither patient nor mild, exhorts Priam to
keep quiet and not provoke him ; 'No longer chafe me, old
sire; of myself am I minded to give Hector back to thee,
for there came to me a messenger from Zeus. . , . Lest I
leave not even thee in peace, old sire, within my hut, albeit
thou art my suppliant, and lest I transgress the command-
ment of Zeus.'^ So he himself washes the body of Hector,
and, covering it, places it upon the car before the father is
allowed to see it, so mutilated is it, 'lest he should not refrain
the wrath at his sorrowing heart when he should look upon
his son, and lest Achilles' heart be vexed thereat, and he slay
him and transgress the commandment of Zeus.'*

It is indeed admirable forethought for the man who is
prone to anger, and of a harsh and hasty disposition, not
to be unmindful of his weakness, but carefully to guard
against the causes of anger, vigilantly anticipating them
by the use of reason, in order not to be betrayed unex-
pectedly. Likewise, the man who is fond of wine must
guard against drunkenness, and the passionate man against
lust, as Agesilaus** did, who would not suffer himself to
be caressed by a beautiful person who approached him,
and as Cyrus, who dared not look upon Panthea.^ On the
other hand, those who do not know themselves gather fuel
for their passions, and are especially hurried on to those

^ Odys. xiii. 332. ^ Eustathius, Comment. adOdyss. 1456. 59,

expresses the same thought. ^11. xxiv. 560. ^11. xxiv. 584.

* Spartan general and king, who began to reign in 398 B.C. Agesilaus
made a successful invasion of Asia Minor, and was leader in the wars
between Sparta and Thebes, when he fought against Epaminondas.

®Xenophon, Cyropaedia. Seep. iii.

How to Study Poetry

which are evil and destructive. Now Odysseus not only
restrains his own wrath, but, seeing from the conversation
that Telemachus is dangerously wroth with the knaves, allays
the anger of his son, and manages to quiet and pacify him,
urging, 'And if they shall evilly entreat me in the house, let
thy heart harden itself to endure while I am shamefully
handled, yea even if they drag me by the feet through the
house to the doors, or cast at me and smite me, still do thou
bear the sight.'^ Just as horses are not bridled during the
race, but before it, so those who are very hot-tempered and
lack self-control should anticipate their temptations, and so
prepare themselves by reason to meet them.^

In interpretation, the etymologies of words are also to
be noticed with some care, though one must refuse such
childish fancies as Cleanthes^ suggests, who, in such pas-
sages as Zev 'Trarep "iStjOev fieSewv (Zeus ruling from Ida),*" and
Zet) ava AtoScDvaic (Zeus, Dodonian King),^ fancifully explains
that the latter should read, dvaStoSavau, from dmSoo-is {upward
giving), referring to exhalation from the earth, which Zeus
by metonymy sometimes denotes. Chrysippus^ also quibbles
a good deal, for his etymologies, while not altogether child-
ish, are improbable, as when he construes tipvowa KpovCSrjs
(far-seeing son of Cronos) to mean Zeus's power of
persuasion and logic. But such discussions are better left
to the grammarians, while we lay hold instead of those ideas
which are both profitable and plausible, such as these, 'More-
over mine own soul forbiddeth me, seeing I have learnt
ever to be valiant ;'"' and, 'for he would be gentle unto all.'*

* Odys. xvi. 274. ^ Self-control was a teaching of the Stoics ; see
Seneca, £>e Ira i. 8. i ; 9. i ; 12. 5.

* Stoic philosopher and disciple of Zeno, whom he succeeded as head
of the Stoic school (260 B.C.). ■*//. iii. 320. ^ //. xvi. 233.

* Eminent Stoic philosopher ; born 280 B.C. Chrysippus was a pupil
of Cleanthes, and was distinguished for his skill in dialectics and his
subtlety as a disputant. He once said to Cleanthes : ' Teach me only
your doctrines, and I will find the arguments to defend them.' He

^ was considered to be the greatest Stoic philosopher except Zeno.

'//. vi. 444. Compare Ps.-Plutarch 144. ^11. xvii. 671.

Hozu to Study Poetry

For the poet demonstrates that a manly bearing may be
acquired, and believes that the ability to converse kindly and
graciously with men comes from experience and attentive
observation ; therefore, since awkwardness and timidity are
expressive of boorishness and ignorance, he urges us not
to be neglectful of ourselves, but to learn nobility from our
teachers. And the following of Zeus and Poseidon is in
strict accord with this thought: 'Verily both were of the
same lineage and the same place of birth, but Zeus was the
elder and the wiser ;'^ for Homer here argues that wisdom
(^pon7<ns) is the most divine and kingly quality, and that
therein consists the supreme preeminence of Zeus, since it is
the source of all the other virtues.

A young man should also become accustomed to give
vigilant heed to such sentiments as these: 'And he will
not lie to thee, for he is very wise ;'^ 'Antilochus, who once
wert wise, what thing is this thou hast done? Thou hast
shamed my skill and made my horses fail ;'^ 'Glaukos, where-
fore hath such an one as thou spoken thus over measure?
Out on it, I verily thought that thou in wisdom wert above
all others.'* For a wise man does not lie, nor take an unfair
advantage in athletic contests, nor bring false accusations
against another man. And when the poet says that Pan-
darus was led by his folly to violate the truce, it is evident
that he believes that a man of wisdom would not do an
unjust act.

The. like is also taught of self-control in such passages"
as the following, 'Now Proitos' wife, goodly Anteia, lusted
after him, to have converse in secret love, but no whit pre-
vailed she, for the uprightness of his heart, on wise Bellero-
phon ;'® 'Verily at the first she would none of the foul deed,
the fair Clytemnestra, for she had a good understanding;'^
for in these the poet represents self-control as resulting
from wisdom. And when in the instances of hortatory
addresses during battles he says, 'Shame, ye Lykians,

'//. xiii. 354. ^ Od}>s. iii. 20. ^//. xxiii. 570.

*//. xvii. 170. *//. vi. 160. ^ Odvs. iii. 265.

How to Sttidy Poetry

whither do ye flee? Now be ye strong;'^ and 'But let each
man conceive shame in his heart, and indignation, for verily
great is the strife that hath arisen ;'2 he declares that the
man of self-control is the brave man, because he is ashamed
to do a base act, and is able to ignore pleasure, and to
encounter dangers. In line with this, in the Persae Timo-
theus spiritedly and well exhorts the Greeks, 'Respect honor
as the soldier's ally.'^ Aeschylus also, in writing of Amphi-
araus, places it to one's credit not to be puffed up and
arrogant, nor to lose one's head at the plaudits of the multi-
tude, 'For his desire is not to seem the bravest, but to be,
and he reaps in thought the deep furrow, whence grows the
fruit of good counsel.'* For it is the part of a wise man
to feel confidence in himself and in his own true worth.
Since, then, all excellencies are reducible to wisdom, it fol-
lows that every kind of virtue is a product of reason and
education.

XII

As the bee instinctively gathers the smoothest and sweet-
est honey from the most bitter blossoms and the sharpest
thistles, so, if trained rightly in the poets, boys will learn
in one way or another to gather something useful and
profitable from suspiciously vulgar and irrational passages.
For example, it certainly looks very much as if Agamemnon
were bribed when he dismisses from the army the rich man
who presented Aethe to him : 'Her unto Agamemnon did
Anchises' son Echepolos give in fee, that he might escape
from following him to windy Ilios and take his pleasure
at home; for great wealth had Zeus given him.'^ Yet,
as Aristotle observes,® he did right in preferring a good
mare to such a man, because a coward weakling, effem-
inate through wealth and luxury, is of less worth than

' //. xvi. 422. *//. xiii. 121, ^Bergk 3. 622,

* Sept. 579. The translation is after Verrall.

* //. xxiii, 297. ^ Probably in the Homeric Questions.

How to Study Poetry

a dog, yea, or even an ass. Again it seems most shame-
ful in Thetis to encourage her son in pleasure, and to
remind him of the delights of love. But, on the other hand,
it is well to compare the self-control of Achilles, for, though
he loves Briseis, who has come back to him, yet because he
knows that his days here are numbered, he does not hasten to
the fruition of pleasure ; further he does not mourn for his
friend by inactivity and neglect of duty, as other men are
wont, for though in his sorrow he refrains from pleasure, he
yet busies himself with the affairs of the army. Again,
Archilochus is not praised because he tries by drinking and
carousing to dispel his grief for a brother-in-law who had
been drowned in the sea; yet he offers a plausible excuse:
'My grief will cure no ill, nor will my pleasure and feasting
make matters worse. '^ Now if he thought he did no harm
in following after pleasure and feasting, how shall we do
worse if we study philosophy, or conduct public affairs, or
visit the market, or descend to the Academy, or engage in
husbandry? Wherefore the corrections of Cleanthes and
Antisthenes^ are not without value. For, seeing the Athe-
nians in an uproar in the theatre because of these words,
'What is base save to those who take it so?'^ Antisthenes
straightway objected, 'The base is base, seem it so or not;'
and Cleanthes, hearing this of wealth, 'To give to one's
friends and to save one's body when diseased,'* altered it to
read, 'To give to harlots and to inflame one's body when
diseased.' Zeno also amended the following of Sophocles,
'Whoever journeys to a tyrant's house becomes his slave,
e'en though he entered free,'" to 'Nay, not a slave, if really
free on entering,' meaning by free independent, high-minded,
and self-respecting.

* Bergk 2. 387.

* Eminent Cynic philosopher ; pupil and friend of Socrates, and the
teacher of Diogenes. ' Antisthenes was simple in life, despised riches
and sensual pleasure, and emphasized practical morality.'

^ Nauck 293 ; Eurip. Frag. 19.

* Eurip. Electra 428. * Nauck 253.

How to Study Poetry

Now what hinders us also from making similar emenda-
tions, in order to influence young men for the better?
Thus, why not change such a passage as this, 'That man
is to be envied, who so aims as to hit his wish,'^ to read,
'who so aims as to hit his advantage?' for to get and have
things wrongly desired merits pity, not envy. When we
read this passage, 'Not to all good without a taste of ill
did Atreus beget thee, Agamemnon; but thou art destined
both to joy and to grieve,'^ let us much rather say, 'It must
be thine to rejoice, but not to grieve, if moderate thy
means, because, "Not to all good, without a taste of ill, did
Atreus beget thee." ' The poet says, 'Alas ! 'tis a curse
sent by the gods on man, to behold the good but accept it
not;'^ rather, 'It is a brutal, unreasonable, and deplorable
thing for one who appreciates the better part to be led
away to the worse through incontinence and effeminacy.'
Again, 'A speaker influences by character, not by speech;'*
nay, 'by both character and speech,' or better, 'by character
through speech,' as does a horseman by the bridle and a
pilot by the rudder, since virtue has no other instrument so
pleasing to people as speech nor so fitted by nature to influ-
ence mankind. This passage, ' "Inclines he more to man
or woman ?" "To each alike, when beauty is present ;" '^
should be altered to read, 'To each alike, when good sense
is present,' as indicating a finely-balanced nature; for
the man so greatly influenced by pleasure and youthful
beauty is weak and unstable. This sentiment, 'The gods
cause men to fear,'" is by no means true, but rather, 'The
gods give courage to men,' and fear only to those who
are senseless, unreasonable, and ungrateful, who are sus-
picious lest that power which is the origin and first princi-
ple of every good be injurious. Such then is the character
of emendation.

' Nauck 695. ^Eurip. /J>A. Aul. 29. * Nauck 449.

■• Meineke iv. 209. * Nauck 288. * Ibid. 695.

How to Study Poetry

XIII

A further use to which poetry may be put is well
explained by Chrysippus, namely, classification or generali-
zation. For, in saying, 'An ox would not be killed unless
its neighbor were bad,'^ Hesiod says the same of a dog,
an ass, or any other animal liable to be lost in the same
way. Also, the saying of Euripides, 'Who then is a slave
if he be indifferent to death P'^ may be applied to toil or
to sickness. As when physicians discover the efficacy of
a drug in curing a case, they assign the drug to all other
cases of the same disease, so a universally applicable gen-
eralization is not to be confined to the one specific thing
to which it was at first applied, but is to be transferred to
all other members of the same category,^ and young men
should become accustomed to recognize the affinities
between things, and to make such transfers of application
with insight, exercising and training their perceptive pow-
ers by constant practice. Thus when Menander says
'Blessed is he who being and wisdom hath,'* they should
recognize that the like may be said of reputation, of
authority, and of eloquence. Also, it should be appre-
ciated that the reproof which Odysseus administers to
Achilles seated amidst the Scyrian maids, 'Dost thou
destroy the splendor of thy birth by carding wool, thou,
sprung from a father noblest of the Greeks?'^ could be
applied to the profligate man, the covetous, the heedless,
or the ignorant; thus, 'Art thou drunken, thou, sprung
from a father noblest of the Greeks?' or, 'Dost thou play
at dice, or strike at quail, or drive a petty trade, or practise
sordid usury, with no thought for those high things worthy

' tV. and D. 348. * Nauck 523.

^ Such illustrations were much employed by the Stoics ; see Cicero,
Tusculanae Disputationes iv. 10. 23 : 'Hoc loco nimium operae con-
sumitur a Stoicis, maxime a Chrysippo, dum morbis corporum com
paratur morborum animi similitudo.' See also Zeller, Gesch. d. Gr. Ph.
ii. I. 285.

* Meineke iv. 103. ^ Nauck 653.

How to Study Poetry

of thy good birth?' When young men read these words:
'Talk not of wealth ; I reverence not a god which even
the worst of men easily obtains,'^ they may infer that
popular esteem is not to be praised, nor physical beauty,
nor military cloaks, nor sacerdotal crowns, all of which
we see to be the possessions of the worst of men. Thus
when they read, 'Cowardice begets base children,'^ they
may say, 'Very true, but so does intemperance, super-
stition, envy, and every other disease.' When Homer,
using the word best in two connections, says, 'Evil Paris,
best in form,^ and, 'Hector, best in form,'* he is teach-
ing that one who has in him nothing good save physical
beauty is worthy of blame and reproach. This sentiment
should be transferred to like faults, to restrain those who
are boastful of fictitious excellencies, and to teach youth
that such expressions as, 'O thou that excellest in wealth,'
'O thou that excellest in feasting,' 'O thou that excellest
in servants and flocks,' and, yea, 'O thou that excellest' —
in everything to the end of the list, imply censure and
reproach; for one should seek preeminence in good deeds
and words, to be first in those things which are first, and
great in those things which are greatest, since reputation
gained from things small and mean is inglorious and dis-
honorable.

Careful observation of instances of censure and praise,
especially in the works of Homer, will impress this upon us,
for he is at pains to show that he esteems lightly the advan-
tages of form and fortune. First of all, in meetings and
salutations, men do not accost one another as fair, or rich,
or strong, but use such expressions of esteem as 'Heaven-
sprung son of Laertes, Odysseus of many devices ;'" 'Hector
son of Priam, peer of Zeus in counsel ;'® 'O Achilles,
Peleus' son, mightest of Achaians far;'^ 'Noble son of

' Nauck 294 ; Eurip. Aeolus. Frag. 20. * Nauck 695.

'//. iii. 39 : this rendering and the following are not taken from L.,
L., and M. '^ II. xvii. 142.

*//. ii. 173. *//. vii. 47. '//. xix. 216.

How to Study Poetry

Menoitios, dear to my heart.'^ And when men censure one
another, they do not call attention to physical defects, but
direct their reproaches at errors, as, 'Thou heavy with
wine, thou with face of dog and heart of deer;'^ 'Ajax,
master of railing, ill-counseled;^ 'Idomeneus, why art thou
a braggart of old? ... It beseemeth thee not to be a
braggart;'* 'Ajax, thou blundering boaster;''* and, lastly,
Thersites is not reviled by Odysseus for his lameness, nor
baldness, nor hunched back, but for his reckless babble,
while the indulgent mother of Hephaestus accosts her son
by referring to his lameness, 'Rise, lame god, O my son.'"
Thus Homer ridicules those who are ashamed of being
lame or blind, maintaining that nothing is an object of
reproach which is not in itself disgraceful, and that nothing
is disgraceful which is not our own doing, but the gift of
fortune. Hence two great benefits accrue to the careful
student of poetry: the one, equanimity, that is, the power
to keep from unreasonably and viciously casting a man's
misfortunes in his teeth; the other, magnanimity, that is,
the power to resist being cast down or disquieted when
fortune deals harshly with us, but rather with meekness to
endure suffering, reproach, and ridicule. This last it is very
easy to do if one has in mind the saying of Philemon,"^
'There is no surer proof of a gentle and harmonious spirit
than the power to endure a railer.'^ But if one appear to
deserve rebuke, let him be attacked for his own errors and
passions, as Adrastus, the tragic character, who, when
accosted by Alcmaeon with, 'Thy sister killed her husband,'
replied, 'Yes, and thou with thine own hand slew the
mother who bore thee.'® For just as those who lash a
man's garments do not touch his body, so those who abuse
a man for his ill fortune or low birth, vainly and foolishly

^//. xi. 608. 2// i 225. 3 // xxiii. 483.

* II. xxiii. 474-479. *//. xiii. 824. *//. xxi. 331.
'Comic poet, born about 361 B.C. Philemon was a successful rival

of Menander, and exerted much influence upon Latin comedy.

* Meineke iv. 9. * Nauck 695.

How to Study Poetry

work themselves up over mere externalities, without touch-
ing the soul or those things which really need a sarcastic
reproof.

XIV

Moreover, just as it is explained above that we should
thwart and check confidence in coarse and hurtful poems by
contrasting with them the maxims and sayings of men of
esteem and of public service, so all refined and helpful sen-
timents we should nurture and strengthen by examples and
testimony from philosophy, giving to it the credit of their
origination,^ This is right and profitable, for one's confi-
dence in the poems and regard for them is strengthened
when he discovers that the doctrines of Pythagoras and of
Plato agree with the words spoken on the stage, or sung
to the harp, or studied in school, and that the precepts of
Chilo^ and Bias^ accord with the books which children read.

Wherefore it is of prime importance to teach young men
that such thoughts as these, which are met with in the
poets, 'Not unto thee, my child, are given the works of
war, but follow thou after the loving tasks of wedlock;'*
and, 'For Zeus would have been wroth with him, if he
fought with a better man than himself;'^ differ not from
the precept, 'Know thyself,'" but express the same thought.
And these again, 'Witless ones, not knowing how much the
half is greater than the whole ;'^ and, 'Bad counsel is worst
of all for him who gives it ;'* accord with the maxims which
Plato expresses in the Gorgias and the Republic, namely;,

^ ^ee Introd. p. 30, on this section.

* A Spartan enumerated among the Seven Wise Men of Greece. He
became one of the ephori of Sparta in 556 B.C. Among the maxims
ascribed to him is, ' Know thyself.'

^Another of the Seven Wise Men, living about 560 B.C. He was dis-
tinguished for eloquence as well as wisdom. One of his witty sayings
was, ' I carry all my goods (or riches) with me.'

^11. V. 428. ^//. xi. 543. The same comparisons exist in the

scholia of Codex B on these passages. * See note 2.

'' W. and D. 40. See also Rep. v. 466 ; Laws 3. 690. * Ibid. 265.

How to Study Poetry

that, To be unjust is worse than to suffer injustice;'^ and,
To harm is more harmful than to be harmed.'^ One
must admit also that the following words of Aeschylus,
'Be of good cheer, intense pain does not last,'^ express but
the famous and oft-quoted maxim of Epicurus, 'Pain if
great is brief; if lasting, slight;' and that the one idea
is stated explicitly by Aeschylus, while the other is only
its corollary; for if great and intense pain does not last,
the pain which does last is not great nor hard to bear.
And wherein do these words of Thespis,* 'Thou seest that
Zeus is supreme among the gods, because no falsehood,
no boastful or idle jesting, comes from his lips, and he alone
knows not pleasure,'^ differ from the saying of Plato, 'The
divine nature is seated far from both joy and grief.'*
Again, this saying of Bacchylides,^ 'Virtue keeps its lustre
untarnished, but wealth associates with worthless men ;'*
and this of Euripides to the same effect, 'I deem nothing
superior to self-control, since its abiding- place is ever with
good men;'^ and this, 'Should you strive for honor, and
seek to acquire virtue through riches, among good men
you would be rated as good for nothing;'^" do they not
confirm what the philosophers say of wealth and external
goods, that, unless virtue is present, they are useless and
unprofitable ?

For thus to unite and wed poetry to the doctrines of
philosophy relieves it of its fictitious and illusive quality,

' Gorgias 473. ^ See Wyttenbach, Lexicon Plutarcheum. '^ Nauck 83.

* ' Inventor of the Greek tragedy, since he introduced between the
dithyrambic chorals at the festival of Dionysus an interlocutor, who
now in monologues, now in dialogues with the leader of the chorus,
narrated, or gave a mimetic representation of, the incidents to which
the songs referred.' See Horace, Art of Poetry 276, for a curious pic-
ture of Thespis strolling from place to place and giving shows from
his wagon.

* Nauck 647. ^ Epist. iii. 315.

' One of the nine canonical Greek lyric poets, about 470 B.C.
Bacchylides was a graceful writer, and a rival of Pindar.

* Bergk 3. 580. * Nauck 523. '•> Ibid. 523.

How to Study Poetry

and invests with seriousness its useful passages. More-
over, it prepares and predisposes the young man's mind to
the teachings of philosophy, so that' he comes to it not
utterly without taste for it or without knowledge of its
teachings, not full of the confused notions which he has
been wont to receive from his mother and his nurse, yea,
and likely enough from his father and his tutor as well,^
esteeming the rich happy and worshipful, dreading death
and suffering, and holding virtue without riches and fame to
be unenviable and a mere nothing. For when young men
brought up in this way hear from the philosophers senti-
ments contradictory to these, they are alarmed, confused,
and bewildered, and they do not accept or test them, unless,
like men accustoming themselves to see the sun on com-
ing out of great darkness, they become accustomed, in an
artificial light whose rays- blend truth with fiction, to see
such truths without dislike or repugnance. For having
heard or read such things as this in poetry, 'Lament
for him who is born to the ills of life, but him who
has died and ended his pain count happy, sending him
hence with congratulations;'^ or this, 'What needs have
mortals save two alone, the earth for grain, the spring
for water ?'^ or this, 'O tyranny, dear to savage men;'* or
this, 'The welfare of mortals consists in having the fewest
possible causes of grief ;'^ I say, if such thoughts are known
to them, they are less disturbed and annoyed when they
hear from philosophers that, 'Death is nothing to us ;' that,
'Nature's wealth is limited ;' and that, 'Happiness and good
fortune do not consist in the abundance of riches, in the
pretentiousness of one's employment, in sovereignty and
power, but in freedom from grief, in equanimity, and in a
mind disposed to conform itself to nature.'

Wherefore, for these reasons, as well as for the others
mentioned above, a young man needs to be carefully guided
in his reading, in order that he may not beforehand be

1 See Hep. ii. 381. ^ Nauck 395, ^ jbid. 507.

4 Ibid. 696. * Ibid. 696.

How to Study Poetry

prejudiced against philosophy, but rather somewhat in-
structed in it, and so, by his study of poetry, may be
advanced to the study of philosophy, in a gracious, friendly,
and congenial spirit.

ADDRESS TO YOUNG MEN ON THE RIGHT
USE OF GREEK LITERATURE

OUTLINE

I. Introduction: Out of the abundance of his experience
the author will advise young men as to the pagan literature,
showing them what to accept, and what to reject.

II. To the Christian the life eternal is the supreme goal,
and the guide to this life is the Holy Scriptures ; but since
young men cannot appreciate the deep thoughts contained
therein, they are to study the profane writings, in which
truth appears as in a mirror.

III. Profane learning should ornament the mind, as
foliage graces the fruit-bearing tree.

IV. In studying pagan lore one must discriminate
between the helpful and the injurious, accepting the one,
but closing one's ears to the siren song of the other.

V. Since the life to come is to be attained through
virtue, chief attention must be paid to those passages in
which virtue is praised; such may be found, for example,
in Hesiod, Homer, Solon, Theognis, and Prodicus.

VI. Indeed, almost all eminent philosophers have ex-
tolled virtue. The words of such men should meet with
more than mere theoretical acceptance, for one must try to
realize them in his life, remembering that to seem to be
good when one is not so is the height of injustice.

VII. But in the pagan literature virtue is lauded in deeds
as well as in words, wherefore one should study those
acts of noble men which coincide with the teachings of the
Scriptures.

VIII. To return to the original thought, young men
must distinguish between helpful and injurious knowledge,
keeping clearly in mind the Christian's purpose in life. So,
like the athlete or the musician, they must bend every
energy to one task, the winning of the heavenly crown.

IX. This end is to be compassed by holding the body

The Right Use of Greek Literature

under, by scorning riches and fame, and by subordinating
all else to virtue.

X. While this ideal will be matured later by the study
of the Scriptures, it is at present to be fostered by the study
of the pagan writers ; from them should be stored up knowl-
edge for the future.

Conclusion: The above are some of the more important
precepts; others the writer will continue to explain from
time to time, trusting that no young man will make the
fatal error of disregarding them.

ADDRESS TO YOUNG MEN ON THE RIGHT USE OF
GREEK LITERATURE

Many considerations, young men, prompt me to recom-
mend to you the principles which I deem most desirable,
and which I believe will be of use to you if you will
adopt them. For my time of life, my many-sided train-
ing, yea, my adequate experience in those vicissitudes
of life which teach their lessons at every tum,^ have
so familiarized me with human affairs, that I am able to
map out the safest course for those just starting upon their
careers. By nature's common bond I stand in the same
relationship to you as your parents, so that I am no whit
behind them in my concern for you. Indeed, if I do not
misinterpret your feelings, you no longer crave your parents
when you come to me. Now if you should receive my
words with gladness, you would be in the second class of
those who, according to Hesiod, merit praise; if not, I
should say nothing disparaging, but no doubt you your-
selves would remember the passage in which that poet says :
'He is best who, of himself, recognizes what is his duty,
and he also is good who follows the course marked out by
others, but he who does neither of these things is of no use
under the sun.'^

Do not be surprised if to you, who go to school every day,
and who, through their writings, associate with the learned
men of old,^ I say that out of my own experience I have

^ See Newman, Historical Sketches, vol. ii. chaps, i. and ii, for an
account of the trials and labors of St. Basil. Also see Fialon, Bio-
graphie de St. Basile, and Wace and Schaif, Select Library of Nicene and
Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. viii, Prolegomena.

« W. and D. 285 fF.

* See Introd. p. 28, on the education of Greek youth.

The Right Use of Greek Literature

evolved something more useful. Now this is my counsel,
that you should not unqualifiedly give over your minds
to these men, as a ship is surrendered to the rudder, to
follow whither they list, but that, while receiving whatever
of value they have to offer, you yet recognize what it is
wise to ignore. Accordingly, from this point on I shall
take up and discuss the pagan writings, and how we are
to discriminate among them.

We Christians, young men, hold that this human life is
not a supremely precious thing, nor do we recognize any-
thing as unconditionally a blessing which benefits us in
this life only.* Neither pride of ancestry, nor bodily
strength, nor beauty, nor greatness, nor the esteem of all
men, nor kingly authority, nor, indeed, whatever of human
affairs may be called great, do we consider worthy of
desire, or the possessors of them as objects of envy; but
we place our hopes upon the things which are beyond, and
in preparation for the life eternal do all things that we do.
Accordingly, whatever helps us towards this we say that
we must love and follow after with all our might, but those
things which have no bearing upon it should be held as
naught. But to explain what this life is, and in what way
and manner we shall live it, requires more time than is at
our command, and more mature hearers than you.

And yet, in saying thus much, perhaps I have made it suf-
ficiently clear to you that if one should estimate and gather
together all earthly weal from the creation of the world,
he would not find it comparable to the smallest part of the
possessions of heaven; rather, that all the precious things
in this life fall further short of the least good in the other
than the shadow or the dream fails of the reality. Or
rather, to avail myself of a still more natural comparison, by

' See Col. iii. 2 : ' Set your affections on things above, not on things
on the earth.'

The Right Use of Greek Literature

as much as the soul is superior to the body in all things,
by so much is one of these lives superior to the other.^

Into the life eternal the Holy Scriptures lead us, which
teach us through divine words. But so long as our
immaturity forbids our understanding their deep thought,
we exercise our spiritual perceptions upon profane writ-
ings, which are not altogether different, and in which
we perceive the truth as it were in shadows and in mir-
rors. Thus we imitate those who perform the exercises
of military practice, for they acquire skill in gymnastics and
in dancing, and then in battle reap the reward of their
training. We must needs believe that the greatest of all
battles lies before us, in preparation for which we must do
and suffer all things to gain power. Consequently we must
be conversant with poets, with historians, with orators,
indeed with all men who may further our soul's salvation.
Just as dyers prepare the cloth before they apply the dye,
be it purple or any other color, so indeed must we also, if
we would preserve indelible the idea of the true virtue,
become first initiated in the pagan lore, then at length
give special heed to the sacred and divine teachings, even
as we first accustom ourselves to the sun's reflection in
the water, and then become able to turn our eyes upon the
very sun itself,^

III

If, then, there is any affinity between the two literatures,
a knowledge of them should be useful to us in our search
for truth ; if not, the comparison, by emphasizing the con-
trast, will be of no small service in strengthening our regard
for the better one. With what now may we compare these
two kinds of education to obtain a simile? Just as it is
the chief mission of the tree to bear its fruit in its season,

' See Rep. x. 614 : ' And yet, I said, all these things are as nothing,
either in number or greatness, in comparison with those other recom-
penses which await both just and unjust after death, which are more
and greater far,' *See p. 95.

103

The Right Use of Greek Literature

though at the same time it puts forth for ornament the
leaves which quiver on its boughs, even so the real fruit
of the soul is truth, yet it is not without advantage for it
to embrace the pagan wisdom, as also leaves offer shelter
to the fruit, and an appearance not untimely. That Moses,
whose name is a synonym for wisdom, severely trained
his mind in the learning of the Egyptians,^ and thus
became able to appreciate their deity.'^ Similarly, in later
days, the wise Daniel is said to have studied the lore of the
Chaldaeans while in Babylon,-'' and after that to have taken
up the sacred teachings.

Perhaps it is sufficiently demonstrated that such heathen
learning is not unprofitable for the soul; I shall then dis-
cuss next the extent to which one may pursue it. To begin
with the poets, since their writings are of all degrees of
excellence, you should not study all of their poems without
omitting a single word. When they recount the words
and deeds of good men, you should both love and imitate
them, earnestly emulating such conduct. But when they
portray base conduct, you must flee from them and stop up
your ears, as Odysseus is said to have fled past the song of
the sirens,* for familiarity with evil writings paves the
way for evil deeds. Therefore the soul must be guarded
with great care, lest through our love for letters it receive
some contamination unawares, as men drink in poison with
honey. We shall not praise the poets when they scoff and
rail, when they represent fornicators and winebibbers, when
they define blissfulness by groaning tables and wanton
songs. Least of all shall we listen to them when they
tell us of their gods, and especially when they represent
them as being many, and not at one among themselves.^
For, among these gods, at one time brother is at variance
with brother, or the father with his children; at another,

' Acts vii. 22. * ovTti izpoaeWelv ry deupig, Tov'Ovrog.

^Daniel i. 3 ff. ^See p. 51; Basil, E^tsi. i. = See p, 64, and notes.

104

The Right Use of Greek Literature

the children engage in truceless war against their parents.
The adulteries of the gods and their amours, and especially
those of the one whom they call Zeus, chief of all and most
high, things of which one cannot speak, even in connection
with brutes, without blushing, we shall leave to the stage.
I have the same words for the historians, and especially
when they make up stories for the amusement of their
hearers. And certainly we shall not follow the example
of the rhetoricians in the art of lying. For neither in the
courts of justice nor in other business affairs will falsehood
be of any help to us Christians, who, having chosen the
straight and true path of life, are forbidden by the gospel
to go to law. But on the other hand we shall receive gladly
those passages in which they praise virtue or condemn vice.
For just as bees know how to extract honey from flowers,
which to men are agreeable only for their fragrance and
color, even so here also those who look for something
more than pleasure and enjoyment in such writers may
derive profit for their souls. Now, then, altogether after
the manner of bees must we use these writings, for the bees
do not visit all the flowers without discrimination, nor
indeed do they seek to carry away entire those upon
which they light, but rather, having taken so much as is
adapted to their needs, they let the rest go. So we,
if wise, shall take from heathen books whatever befits us
and is allied to the truth, and shall pass over the rest. And
just as in culling roses we avoid the thorns, from such
writings as these we will gather everything useful, and guard
against the noxious.^ So, from the very beginning, we
must examine each of their teachings, to harmonize it with
our ultimate purpose, according to the Doric proverb, 'test-
ing each stone by the measuring-line.'^

^ The general attitude taken here toward selectiveness in reading is
Platonic ; see, for instance, frequent passages in the Laws ii, iii, and
vii, and the Republic iii.

* rhv "k'Sov ttotI rdv airdprov ayovrag. Maloney notes that St. Gregory
Nazianzen cites this proverb in Letter xxxviii, and St. John Chrysostom
in Homily xxv.

105

The Right Use of Greek Literature

Since we must needs attain to the life to come through
virtue, our attention is to be chiefly fastened upon those
many passages from the poets, from the historians, and
especially from the philosophers, in which virtue itself is
praised. For it is of no small advantage that virtue become
a habit with a youth,^ for the lessons of youth make a
deep impression, because the soul is then plastic, and there-
fore they are likely to be indelible. If not to incite youth to
virtue, pray what meaning may we suppose that Hesiod
had in those universally admired lines,^ of which the senti-
ment is as follows: 'Rough is the start and hard, and the
way steep, and full of labor and pain, that leads toward
virtue. Wherefore, on account of the steepness, it is not
granted to every man to set out, nor, to the one having set
out, easily to reach the summit. But when he has reached
the top, he sees that the way is smooth and fair, easy and
light to the foot, and more pleasing than the other, which
leads to wickedness,' — of which the same poet said that
one may find it all around him in great abundance.^ Now
it seems to me that he had no other purpose in saying
these things than so to exhort us to virtue, and so to incite
us to bravery, that we may not weaken our efforts before
we reach the goal. And certainly if any other man praises
virtue in a like strain, we will receive his words with pleas-
ure, since our aim is a common one.

Now as I have heard from one skilful in interpreting the
mind of a poet,^ all the poetry of Homer is a praise of

' Plato frequently touches upon the value of habit in the Laws vii, and
the Republic ii.

* W. and D. 285 ff. Plato refers to this same passage in the Repub-
lic ii. 364. * Ibid. 287.

^Libanius, b. at Antioch in 314; studied at Athens, but acquired his
education principally by private study of the old Greek writers, whom
he often imitated with success, and for whom he always showed great
enthusiasm. During the first part of his career as a teacher at Constan-
tinople, he was very popular, and St. Basil was then among his stu-

106

The Right Use of Greek Literature

virtue, and with him all that is not merely accessory tends
to this end. There is a notable instance of this where
Homer first made the princess reverence the leader of the
Cephallenians, though he appeared naked, shipwrecked, and
alone, and then made Odysseus as completely lack embarrass-
ment, though seen naked and alone, since virtue served him
as a garment. And next he made Odysseus so much
esteemed by the other Phaeacians that, abandoning the
luxury in which they lived, all admired and emulated him,
and there was not one of them who longed for anything else
except to be Odysseus, even to the enduring of shipwreck.^
The interpreter of the poetic mind argued that, in this
episode. Homer very plainly says : 'Be virtue your con-
cern, O men, which both swims to shore with the ship-
wrecked man, and makes him, when he comes naked to
the strand, more honored than the prosperous Phaeacians.'
And, indeed, this is the truth, for other possessions belong
to the owner no more than to another, and, as when men
are dicing, fall now to this one, now to that. But virtue is
the only possession that is sure, and that remains with us
whether living or dead. Wherefore it seems to me that
Solon^ had the rich in mind when he said : 'We will not
exchange our virtue for their gold, for virtue is an ever-
lasting possession, while riches are ever changing owners.*
Similarly Theognis'* said that the god, whatever he might

dents. ' His idol was Greek style, and for his time he had rare success
in mastering the secrets of Greek expression. A pagan born and bred,
he was an ardent admirer of the Emperor Julian, but his devotion to the
Apostate did not prevent him from associating on terms of affectionate
intimacy with St. Chrysostom and St. Basil ; for he was above all a
rhetorician, and his tolerant attitude toward Christianity, so far as it did
not interfere with the study of the Greek classics and the attainment of
excellence in Greek composition, may be explained by his shallow
cleverness as well as by his easy temper.' See p. 34.

' See Odys. vi. and vii., and also p. 76, for Plutarch's comment on this
episode.

*The great Athenian law-giver. In the tract, //ow One may Profit by
One's Enemies, Plutarch attributes these lines to Solon, but they occur
among the Gnomes of Theognis, 316-318. See also Plutarch, Life of
Solon. * See p. 54.

107

,^>£-v.a^^

The Right Use of Greek Literature

mean by the god, inclines the balances for men, now this
way, now that, giving to some riches, and to others poverty.^
Also Prodicus, the sophist of Ceos,^ whose opinion we must
respect, for he is a man not to be slighted, somewhere in
his writings expressed similar ideas about virtue and vice.
I do not remember the exact words, but as far as I recollect
the sentiment, in plain prose it ran somewhat as follows:
While Hercules was yet a youth, being about your age, as he
was debating which path he should choose, the one lead-
ing through toil to virtue, or its easier alternate, two
women appeared before him, who proved to be Virtue
and Vice, Though they said not a word, the difference
between them was at once apparent from their mien. The
one had arranged herself to please the eye, while she
exhaled charms, and a multitude of delights swarmed in
her train. With such a display, and promising still more,
she sought to allure Hercules to her side. The other,
wasted and squalid, looked fixedly at him, and bespoke
quite another thing. For she promised nothing easy or
engaging, but rather infinite toils and hardships, and perils
in every land and on every sea. As a reward for these
trials, he was to become a god, so our author has it. The
latter, Hercules at length followed.^

Almost all who have written upon the subject of wisdom
have more or less, in proportion to their several abilities,
extolled virtue in their writings. Such men must one obey,
and must try to realize their words in his life. For he, who
by his works exemplifies the wisdom which with others is

' Gnomes 157-158.

' 'A celebrated sophist of the fifth century, B.C. He was accustomed
to travel through Greece, delivering lectures for money. He paid
special attention to the correct use of words. Although severely criti-
cised by the other sophists, he is mentioned with respect by Xenophon
and Plato, the former of whom has preserved, in The Choice of Her-
cules, the story here used by St. Basil.' ^ See Xenophon, Memorab.
ii. I. 22 ; Cicero, De Off. i. 32 ; Chrysostom, Regnum ; Lucian, Somnium.

108

The Right Use of Greek Literature

a matter of theory alone, 'breathes ; all others flutter about
like shadows.'^ I think it is as if a painter should represent
some marvel of manly beauty, and the subject should
actually be such a man as the artist pictures on the canvas.
To praise virtue in public with brilliant words and with
long drawn out speeches, while in private preferring pleas-
ures to temperance, and self-interest to justice, finds an
analogy on the stage, for the players frequently appear as
kings and rulers, though they are neither, nor perhaps even
genuinely free men. A musician would hardly put up with
a lyre which was out of tune, nor a choregus with a chorus
not singing in perfect harmony. But every man is divided
against himself who does not make his life conform to his
words, but who says with Euripides, 'The mouth indeed
hath sworn, but the heart knows no oath.'^ Such a man
will seek the appearance of virtue rather than the reality.
But to seem to be good when one is not so, is, if we are
to respect the opinion of Plato* at all, the very height of
injustice.

VII

After this wise, then, are we to receive those words from
the pagan authors which contain suggestions of the virtues.
But since also the renowned deeds of the men of old either
are preserved for us by tradition, or are cherished in the
pages of poet or historian, we must not fail to profit by
them. A fellow of the street rabble once kept taunting
Pericles, but he, meanwhile, gave no heed; and they held
out all day, the fellow deluging him with reproaches, but
he, for his part, not caring. Then when it was evening
and dusk, and the fellow still clung to him, Pericles escorted
him with a light, in order that he might not fail in the

' Odys. X. 495.

^ Hippolytus 612; see Cicero, De Off. 3. 29. 108 : 'Juravi lingua,
mentem injuratam gero.'

^Rep. ii, 361 ; see Cicero, De Off. i. 13. 41 : ' Totius autem injustitiae
nulla capitalior est quam eorum qui quum maxime fallunt, id agunt, ut
viri boni esse videantur;' Plutarch, Flatterer and Friend /^.

109

The Right Use of Greek Literature

practice of philosophy.^ Again, a man in a passion threat-
ened and vowed death to EucHd of Megara,- but he in turn
vowed that the man should surely be appeased, and cease
from his hostility to him.

How invaluable it is to have such examples in mind
when a man is seized with anger! On the other hand, one
must altogether ignore the tragedy which says in so many
words : 'Anger arms the hand against the enemy ;'* for it is
much better not to give way to anger at all. But if such
restraint is not easy, we shall at least curb our anger by
reflection, so as not to give it too much rein.

But let us bring our discussion back again to the exam-
ples of noble deeds. A certain man once kept striking
Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus, in the face, yet he did
not resent it, but allowed full play to the ruffian's anger,
so that his face was swollen and bruised from the blows.
Then when he stopped striking him, Socrates did nothing
more than write on his forehead, as an artisan on a statue,
who did it, and thus took out his revenge. Since these
examples almost coincide with our teachings, I hold that
such men are worthy of emulation. For this conduct of
Socrates is akin to the precept that to him who smites you
upon the one cheek, you shall turn the other also* — thus
much may you be avenged; the conduct of Pericles and of
Euclid also conforms to the precept : 'Submit to those who
persecute you, and endure their wrath with meekness ;'^ and
to the other: 'Pray for your enemies and curse them not.'^
One who has been instructed in the pagan examples will no
longer hold the Christian precepts impracticable. But I
will not overlook the conduct of Alexander, who, on taking
captive the daughters of Darius, who were reputed to be
of surpassing beauty, would not even look at them, for he
deemed it unworthy of one who was a conqueror of men

' See Plutarch, Li/e of Pericles v, from which the story is taken.

'See Plutarch, Concerning the Cure of Anger 14.

' Sommer notes that St. Basil has not quoted Euripides correctly ; St.
Basil reads : 'Ett" kxOpovg Ov/ibg SttM^si x^P'^', but Euripides: 'A7r?Mvg kir
kyfipdig (mM^Eiv x^P<^- ■'Matt. v. 39. 'Ibid. v. 44. *Ibid.

The Right Use of Greek Literature

to be a slave to women.^ This is of a piece with the state-
ment that he who looks upon a woman to lust after her,
even though he does not commit the act of adultery, is not
free from its guilt, since he has entertained impure thoughts.^
It is hard to believe that the action of Cleinias,^ one of the
disciples of Pythagoras, was in accidental conformity to our
teachings, and not designed imitation of them. What, then,
was this act of his? By taking an oath he could have
avoided a fine of three talents, yet rather than do so he paid
the fine, though he could have sworn truthfully. I am in-
clined to think that he had heard of the precept which for-
bids us to swear.*

VIII

But let us return to the same thought with which we
started, namely, that we should not accept everything with-
out discrimination, but only what is useful. For it would
be shameful should we reject injurious foods, yet should
take no thought about the studies which nourish our souls,
but as a torrent should sweep along all that came near
our path and appropriate it. If the helmsman does not
blindly abandon his ship to the winds, but guides it toward
the anchorage ; if the archer shoots at his mark ; if also the
metal-worker or the carpenter seeks to produce the objects
for which his craft exists, would there be rime or reason
in our being outclassed by these men, mere artisans as they
are, in quick appreciation of our interests? For is there not
some end in the artisan's work, is there not a goal in human
life, which the one who would not wholly resemble unrea-
soning animals must keep before him in all his words and
deeds? If there were no intelligence sitting at the tiller of
our souls, like boats without ballast we should be borne
hither and thither through life, without plan or purpose.

An analogy may be found in the athletic contests, or, if

' See Plutarch, Of the Fortune or Virtue of Alexander the Great ii.
6 and 12 ; Life of Alexander ; Arrian, Exped. of Alex. i\. 12. The same
story is told of Cyrus in the Cyropaedia. See p. 84.

* Matt. V. 28. ' A contemporary and friend of Plato.

*Lev. xix. 12, or Deut. v. 11.

The Right Use of Greek Literature

you will, in the musical contests; for the contestants pre-
pare themselves by a preliminary training for those events in
which wreaths of victory are offered, and no one by training
for wrestling or for the pancratium would get ready to play
the lyre or the flute. At least Polydamas^ would not, for
before the Olympic games he was wont to bring the rushing
chariot to a halt, and thus hardened himself. Then Milo^
could not be thrust from his smeared shield, but, shoved as
he was, clung to it as firmly as statues soldered by lead. In a
word, by their training they prepared themselves for the
contests. If they had meddled with the airs of Marsyas
or of Olympus, the Phrygians,^ abandoning dust and exer-
cise, would they have won ready laurels or crowns, or
would they have escaped being laughed at for their bodily
incapacity? On the other hand, certainly Timotheus the
musician* did not spend his time in the schools for wrest-
ling, for then it would not have been his to excel all in
music, he who was so skilled in his art that at his pleasure
he could arouse the passions of men by his harsh and
vehement strains, and then by gentle ones, quiet and soothe
them. By this art, when once he played Phrygian airs on
the flute to Alexander, he is said to have incited the general
to arms in the midst of feasting, and then, by milder
music, to have restored him to his carousing friends.'' Such
power to compass one's end, either in music or in athletic
contests, is developed by practice.

I have called to mind the wreaths and the fighters. These

' ' Of Scotussa, conquered in the Pancratium at the Olympic games in
Ol. 93, B.C. 408. His size was immense, and the most marvelous stories
are related of his strength, how he killed without arms a huge and fierce
lion on Mount Olympus, etc' See Pausanias vi. 5 ; Persius i, 4.

* Of Crotona. He was six times victor in wrestling at the Olympic
games, and as often at the Pythian. He is said to have carried a four-
year-old heifer on his shoulders through the stadium at Olympia, and
then to have eaten the whole of it in a single day. See Pausanias vi. 14.

* Olympus was the pupil of Marsyas, Schol. in Aristoph Eq. 9 ; see
also Plutarch, Concerning Music ii; Arist., Pol. viii. 5. 6.

* A celebrated flute-player of Thebes.

* See Plutarch, Of the Fortune or Virtue of Alexander the Great ii. 2;
Cicero, Legg. 2. 12; Dryden, Alexander" s Feast.

The Right Use of Greek Literature

men endure hardships beyond number, they use every
means to increase their strength, they sweat ceaselessly at
their training, they accept many blows from the master,
they adopt the mode of life which he prescribes, though it
is most unpleasant, and, in a word, they so rule all their
conduct that their whole life before the contest is prepara-
tory to it. Then they strip themselves for the arena, and
endure all and risk all, to receive the crown of olive, or of
parsley, or some other branch, and to be announced by the
herald as victor.^

Will it then be possible for us, to whom are held out
rewards so wondrous in number and in splendor that tongue
can not recount them, while we are fast asleep and leading
care-free lives, to make these our own by half-hearted efforts ?
Surely, were an idle life a very commendable thing, Sardana-
palus^ would take the first prize, or Margites^ if you will,
whom Homer, if indeed the poem is by Homer, put down as
neither a farmer, nor a vine-dresser, nor anything else that
is useful. Is there not rather truth in the maxim of Pitta-
cus* which says, 'It is hard to be good?'^ For after we have

' See I Cor. ix. 24-27.

* 'According to an inaccurate classical tradition, the last king of Assy-
ria. He was noted for eflFeminacy and voluptuousness, and in order to
escape falling into the hands of the besiegers of Nineveh, ended his
worthless life by burning himself in his palace. It seems certain that
the original of Sardanapalus is Asshurbanipal, King of Assyria, 668-
626 B.C.'

'The Margites, a poem which is lost, and which ridiculed a man who
was said to know many things, and who knew all badly, was frequently
ascribed by the ancients to Homer, but is of later date. According to
St. Clement of Alexandria, these are the verses of which St. Basil

speaks :

Tov S' ovT ap aKanTTJpa deol diaav, ovt' dpoT^pa.
Obr aAAwf ti aoipSv • irdaffg (T tifiaprave TexvT/g.

' Whom the gods made neither a delver, nor a ploughman,
Nor any other useful thing, but deprived of every craft.'

* One of the Seven Wise Men of Greece ; b. at M)^ilene in Lesbos,
652 B.C. In 589 P. was chosen aesymnetes (ruler with absolute
power), which office he filled for ten years. Of his acts as a ruler noth-
ing is knoyvn ; of his elegiac poems, a few lines are preserved.

' This maxim is preserved in the title of an ode of Simonides, see

113

The Right Use of Greek Literature

actually endured many hardships, we shall scarcely gain
those blessings to which, as said above, nothing in human
experience is comparable. Therefore we must not be light-
minded, nor exchange our immortal hopes for momentary
idleness, lest reproaches come upon us, and judgment befall
us, not forsooth here among men, although judgment here
is no easy thing for the man of sense to bear, but at the bar
of justice, be that under the earth, or wherever else it may
happen to be. While he who unintentionally violates his
obligations perchance receives some pardon from God, he
who designedly chooses a life of wickedness doubtless has
a far greater punishment to endure.

'What then are we to do?' perchance some one may ask.
What else than to care for the soul, never leaving an idle
moment for other things? Accordingly, we ought not to
serve the body any more than is absolutely necessary, but
we ought to do our best for the soul, releasing it from
the bondage of fellowship with the bodily appetites; at the
same time we ought to make the body superior to passion.
We must provide it with the necessary food, to be sure, but
not with delicacies, as those do who seek everywhere for
waiters and cooks, and scour both earth and sea, like those
bringing tribute to some stern tyrant. This is a despicable
business, in which are endured things as unbearable as the
torments of hell, where wool is combed into the fire, or
water is drawn in a sieve and poured into a perforated jar,
and where work is never done.^ Then to spend more time
than is necessary on one's hair and clothes is, in the words
of Diogenes, the part of the unfortunate or of the sinful.
For what difference does it make to a sensible man whether
he is clad in a robe of state or in an inexpensive garment,

Bergk 747, and Plato indulges in a sophistical discussion of the ode
in Protagoras 338. See also Arist. Pol. iii. 14. 9 ; Diog. Laert i. 4.
»See p. 55.

114

The Right Use of Greek Literature

so long as he is protected from heat and cold? Likewise
in other matters we must be governed by necessity, and
only give so much care to the body as is beneficial to the
soul. For to one who is really a man it is no less a dis-
grace to be a fop or a pamperer of the body than to be the
victim of any other base passion. Indeed, to be very zeal-
ous in making the body appear very beautiful is not the
mark of a man who knows himself, or who feels the force of
the wise maxim : 'Not that which is seen is the man,'^ for it
requires a higher faculty for any one of us, whoever he
may be, to know himself. Now it is harder for the man
who is not pure in heart to gain this knowledge than for a
blear-eyed person to look upon the sun.

To speak generally and so far as your needs demand,
purity of soul embraces these things : to scorn sensual
pleasures, to refuse to feast the eyes on the senseless antics
of buffoons, or on bodies which goad one to passion, and
to close one's ears to songs which corrupt the mind. For
passions which are the offspring of servility and baseness
are produced by this kind of music.^ On the other hand,
we must employ that class of music which is better in itself
and which leads to better things, which David, the sacred
psalmist, is said to have used to assuage the madness of
the king.^ Also tradition has it that when Pythagoras
happened upon some drunken revelers, he commanded the
flute-player, who led the merry-making, to change the tune
and to play a Doric air, and that the chant so sobered
them that they threw down their wreaths, and shamefacedly
returned home.* Others at the sound of the fiute^ rave
like Corybantes and Bacchantes. Even so great a differ-

1 Perhaps Ps. -Plato, Axiochus 365 ; cf. the Bohn tr. of Plato 6. 43 ;
Cicero, Somn. Scip. 8 ; Lactantius, Div. Inst. ii. 3. 8.

"See Plato, Rep. iii, 398 fF., for a discussion of the moral eiFects of
the different modes.

2 I Sam. xvi. 14-23.

* Among the Pythagoreans great importance was attached to the
influence of music in controlling the passions ; see Porphyry, Life
of Pythagoras 30.

* In Rep. iii. 399, Plato puts fiute-players out of his ideal society.

The Right Use of Greek Literature

ence does it make whether one lends his ear to healthy
or to vicious music. Therefore you ought to have still
less to do with the music of such influence than with other
infamous things. Then I am ashamed to forbid you to
load the air with all kinds of sweet-smelling perfumes, or
to smear yourselves with ointment. Again, what further
argument is needed against seeking the gratification of one's
appetite than that it compels those who pursue it, like
animals, to make of their bellies a god?^

In a word, he who would not bury himself in the mire
of sensuality must deem the whole body of little worth, or
must, as Plato puts it, pay only so much heed to the body
as is an aid to wisdom,^ or as Paul admonishes somewhere
in a similar passage: 'Let no one make provision for the
flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof.'^ Wherein is there any
difference between those who take pains that the body shall
be perfect, but ignore the soul, for the use of which it is
designed, and those who are scrupulous about their tools,
but neglectful of their trade? On the contrary, one ought
to discipline the flesh and hold it under, as a fierce animal
is controlled, and to quiet, by the lash of reason, the unrest
which it engenders in the soul, and not, by giving full
rein to pleasure, to disregard the mind, as a charioteer is
run away with by unmanageable and frenzied horses. So
let us bear in mind the remark of Pythagoras, who, upon
learning that one of his followers was growing very fleshy
from gymnastics and hearty eating, said to him, 'Will you
, not stop making your imprisonment harder for yourself ?'*
Then it is said that since Plato foresaw the dangerous
influence of the body, he chose an unhealthy part of Athens
for his Academy, in order to remove excessive bodily com-
fort, as one prunes the rank shoots of the vines. Indeed I
have even heard physicians say that over-healthiness is

1 See Phil. iii. 19. * See Rep. iii. 403-412. ^Rom. xiii. 14.

* The plain living of the Pythagoreans is discussed and illustrated in
Porphyry, Life of Pythagoras 32, 34, and lamblichus, Life of Pytha-
goras 96, 98.

116

The Right Use of Greek Literature

dangerous. Since, then, this exaggerated care of the body-
is harmful to the body itself, and a hindrance to the soul,
it is sheer madness to be a slave to the body, and serve it.

If we were minded to disregard attention to the body, we
should be in little danger of prizing anything else unduly.
For of what use, now, are riches, if one scorns the pleasures
of the flesh? I certainly see none, unless, as in the case
of the mythological dragons, there is some satisfaction in
guarding hidden treasure. Of a truth, one who had
learned to be independent of this sort of thing would be
loath to attempt anything mean or low, either in word or
deed. For superfluity, be it Lydian gold-dust,^ or the
work of the gold-gathering ants,^ he would disdain in pro-
portion to its needlessness, and of course he would make
the necessities of life, not its pleasures, the measure of
need. Forsooth, those who exceed the bounds of neces-
sity, like men who are sliding down an inclined plane, can
nowhere gain a footing to check their precipitous flight, for
the more they can scrape together, so much or even more
do they need for the gratification of their desires. As
Solon,^ the son of Execestides, puts it, 'No definite limit is
set to a man's wealth.'* Also, one should hear Theognis,^
the teacher, on this point : 'I do not long to be rich, nor do
I pray for riches, but let it be given me to live with a little,
suffering no ill.'®

I also admire the wholesale contempt of all human posses-
sions which Diogenes expressed, who showed himself richer
than the great Persian king, since he needed less for living.
But we are wont to be satisfied with nothing save with the

' The golden sands of the Pactolus, a small river in Lydia, were pro-
verbial, for this river was one of the sources of Lydia's wealth.
^ Cf. Herod, iii. 102 ; Jacobs on Aelian, Nat. Animal, iv. 27.
^ See p. 107.

* Bergk 327. ^ See p. 54.

* Bergk ii. 218; compare Proverbs xxx. 8 : 'Give me neither poverty
nor riches ; feed me with food convenient for me.'

117

The Right Use of Greek Literature

talents of the Mysian Pythius/ with limitless acres of land,
and more herds of cattle than may be counted. Yet I believe
that if riches fail us we should not mourn for them, and if we
have them, we should not think more of possessing them
than of using them rightly. For Socrates expressed an
admirable thought when he said that a rich, purse-proud
man was never an object of admiration with him until he
learned that the man knew how to use his wealth. If
Phidias and Polycletus^ had been very proud of the gold
and ivory with which the one constructed the statue of the
Jupiter of Elis, the other the Juno of Argos, they would
have been laughed at, because priding themselves in treas-
ure produced by no merit of theirs, and overlooking their
art, from which the gold gained greater beauty and worth.
Then shall we think that we are open to less reproach if we
hold that virtue is not, in and of itself, a sufficient ornament?
Again, shall we, while manifestly ignoring riches and
scorning sensual pleasures, court adulation and fulsome
praise, vying with the fox of Archilochus^ in cunning and
craft? Of a truth there is nothing which the wise man must
more guard against than the temptation to live for praise, and
to study what pleases the crowd. Rather truth should be
made the guide of one's life, so that if one must needs speak
against all men, and be in ill-favor and in danger for virtue's
sake, he shall not swerve at all from that which he con-
siders right; else how shall we say that he differs from the
Egyptian sophist, who at pleasure turned himself into a tree,

' A Lydian of great wealth, which he derived from his gold mines in
the neighborhood of Celaenae, in Phrygia. When Xerxes arrived at
Celaenae, Pythius banqueted him and his whole army (Herod, vii.
27-29).

'A statuary of the fifth century, and a pupil of Phidias. His statue
of the Spear-bearer was studied by other artists as containing the canon
with respect to the proportions of the human body.

^ Poet, ranked by ancients as second only to Homer, flourished 650
B.C. He was a master in odes, in elegies, and in fables, but his great
and formidable gift lay in satire. See Rep. ii. 365 : ' Around and about
me I will draw the simple garb of virtue, but behind I will trail the
subtle and crafty fox, as Archilochus, first of sages, counsels.'

118

The Right Use of Greek Literature

an animal, fire, water, or anything else?^ Such a man now
praises justice to those who esteem it, and now expresses
opposite sentiments when he sees that wrong is in good
repute; this is the fawner's trick. Just as the polypus is
said to take the color of the ground upon which it lies, so
he conforms his opinions to those of his associates.

To be sure, we shall become more intimately acquainted
with these precepts in the sacred writings, but it is incum-
bent upon us, for the present, to trace, as it were, the sil-
houette of virtue in the pagan authors. For those who
carefully gather the useful from each book are wont, like
mighty rivers, to gain accessions on every hand. For the
precept of the poet which bids us add little to little^ must
be taken as applying not so much to the accumulation of
riches, as of the various branches of learning. In line with
this Bias^ said to his son, who, as he was about to set out for
Egypt, was inquiring what course he could pursue to give
his father the greatest satisfaction : 'Store up means for the
journey of old age.'* By means he meant virtue, but he
placed too great restrictions upon it, since he limited its
usefulness to the earthly life. For if any one mentions the
old age of Tithonus,^ or of Arganthonius,^ or of that
Methuselah^ who is said to have lacked but thirty years of
being a millenarian, or even if he reckons the entire period
since the creation, I will laugh as at the fancies of a child,

'Proteus; see Odys. iv. 455, and Vergil, Georg. iv. 386.

* Hesiod, W. and D. 359 : ' If you are ever adding little to little, soon
your store will be great.' ^ See p. 93.

^ See Diogenes Laertius i. 82-88, for this and other of the sayings
and doings of Bias.

* Tithonus obtained immortality from the gods, but not eternal
youth, and so became a shrunken old man.

* King of Tartessus in Spain. According to Herodotus (vii. 21) he
ascended the throne at the age of forty, and reigned eighty years.

'Gen. V. 27.

119

The Right Use of Greek Literature

since I look forward to that long, undying age, of the extent
of which there is no limit for the mind of man to grasp, any-
more than there is of the life immortal. For the journey of
this life eternal I would advise you to husband resources,
leaving no stone unturned,^ as the proverb has it, whence
you might derive any aid. From this task we shall not
shrink because it is hard and laborious, but, remembering the
precept that every man ought to choose the better life, and
expecting that association will render it pleasant, we shall
busy ourselves with those things that are best. For it is
shameful to squander the present, and later to call back the
past in anguish, when no more time is given.

In the above treatise I have explained to you some of the
things which I deem the most to be desired ; of others I shall
continue to counsel you so long as life is allowed me. Now
as the sick are of three classes, according to the degrees
of their sickness, may you not seem to belong to the third,
or incurable, class, nor show a spiritual malady like that of
their bodies ! For those who are slightly indisposed visit
physicians in person, and those who are seized by violent
sickness call physicians, but those who are suffering from
a hopelessly incurable melancholy do not even admit the
physicians if they come. May this now not be your plight,
as would seem to be the case were you to shun these right
counsels !

' Cf. Eur. Heracl. 1002, and Bartlett, Fam. Quot. (gth ed.), p. 809.

APPENDIX

For those readers who care to know the immediate antecedents of Plutarch's essay,
the following pages offer a translation of the concluding paragraphs of Schlemm's
dissertation De Fontibus Plutarchi Commentationum de Audiendis Poetis. Inci-
dentally, the writer would say that he is of the opinion that Herr Schlemm has made
too little allowance for the direct influence of Aristotle and Plato upon Plutarch. The
numerals indicate the pages and lines of my translation.

Now that we have treated the chapters of this essay in detail, let us
briefly survey it as a whole, in order that we may see what plan Plutarch
followed in its composition. It is very evident that, although he fre-
quently interpolated extraneous matter, he started out with a certain
definite plan of treatment in mind.

The entire matter falls into two parts. The former explains what
restrictions must be placed upon the student of the poets, lest his
morals or his views on fundamentally important questions be corrupted,
and extends to the end of chapter IX. The latter embraces the remain-
ing chapters, and considers those methods which the reader should
employ to turn the study of the poets to the greatest possible account.

In the former part of the treatise first place is given to those maxims
which may be deduced from the nature of the art of poetry (chapters
II-III). Chapter II is concerned with certain Peripatetic principles,
and, as shown above, Plutarch had taken these from the writings of
some Peripatetic, who, to counteract the influence of Plato's uncer-
tainty on that point, maintained that the fictitious is a legitimate element
in poetry. The illustrations show that he must have had the book be-
fore his eyes as he wrote, and his plan seems to have been to incorpo-
rate here and there in his text those things which he read in this book.

Similarly, in the first part of chapter III Plutarch used the book of
another Peripatetic, who likewise had written on the nature of the
arts, and Plutarch either had made excerpts from this book, or actually
had it at hand at the time of writing. The latter part of this chapter is
concerned with those false sentiments from the poets which may be
corrected by mere observation. These passages fall into two classes:
one embraces those verses in which the poets themselves oflfer the
means for correcting unfortunately expressed sentiments ; the other,
those verses which, though no escape therefrom is offered by the author,
may yet be amended by the sayings of other illustrious men.

In the first part of chapter IV, in addition to his own illustrations (for
example, the one taken from Menander), he employed some commen-
tary on Homer, and even went so far as to accept illustrations which

121

Appendix

were foreign to his subject. The examples in the last part of the chap-
ter he himself brought together. In the first part, he presented the dis-
cussion on Aints (lfi<l>a<ng) in Homer, in which he quoted Antisthenes'
two interpretations of the fables of the gods in Homer, which were
doubtless known to Plutarch through Homeric studies. In that which
followed, on the contradictions in the poets, he seemed to pursue the
plan of dividing into two groups those passages from the comic and
tragic poets which he had borrowed from the writings of the Stoics —
chiefly indeed from Chrysippus — and of adding independently several
illustrations taken from Homer (64. 13-21).

The third method which Plutarch proposed for removing the stum-
bling-blocks in the poets is to be sure of the correct interpretation of
every word. Of this he gave most numerous and diverse examples,
some of which he collected himself (68. 3iF. ; 69. 15-28; 71. 16 ff.; 72.
25, where, perhaps from memory, he interwove Stoic fragments with
his own), and some of which, drawn from the writings of others, of the
Grammarians (68. 20-69. ^)> of Zeno and Chrysippus, the Stoics (67. i-
15; 69. 29-71. 15), he explained and elaborated.

After he had explained and fully illustrated how one may be on his
guard lest his morals be corrupted by reading poetry, suddenly he
again began to analyze the nature of the art of poetry, and to consider
what must be looked for in poetic undertakings, and as above, with
here and there something of his own (74. 10-19; 75- 2-14), he cited and
explained those ideas which, with ample illustrations (75. 14 ff.), he
found in the book of some Peripatetic. To these he added other ex-
amples, in part taken from the Homeric studies of the Grammarians
(76. 3-20), and in part from those of the Peripatetics (76. 23-78. 4), and
also an original precept concerning the reading of tragedies (78. 8 fT.).
In like manner he turned Bion's theory of the treatment of poets to his
own use, by saying that the reason for every utterance of a poet should
be ascertained.

In the latter half of the treatise, of all the theories which he advanced
by which the reader may get the greatest good from the truthful utter-
ances of the poets, the best are those drawn from the writings of the
Stoics. From them he took the matter included between 84. 14 and
85. 12, with the exception of a very few lines from 84. 22-85. i- AH of
this, and notably the illustrations — the application of which has been
shown to agree with the teachings of the Stoics — undoubtedly is to be
traced to the similar works of Zeno (Trept itoLTjTiKfjg uKpodaeug — Concerning
the Study of Poetry), of Cleanthes {^epi tov ttoltitov — Concerning the Poet),
and of Chrysippus {rcepl tov Trwf del tuv noiTjfiaTuv clkoveiv — Ifow One
Should Study Poetry).

The latter part of chapter XI (85. lir^l. 17) is based on Zeno's dis-
cussion of the relative place of wisdom (^pdvricng) among the virtues in

Appendix

the Homeric writings. Plutarch was here either drawing upon Zeno's
essay Concerning the Study of Poetry, or upon some other of his writ-
ings, and with the original he mingled certain ideas of his own (86. 14-
23), and others drawn from still another source {87. 6-14).

In composing the first part of chapter XIII, Plutarch unquestionably
had at hand the book of Chrysippus on How One Should Study Poetry,
the title of which, we have good reason to believe, Plutarch imitated.

He quotes other passages which are not so arranged as to be able to
be traced to such and such a work of such a Stoic, but must have been
taken from his note-books compiled while reading the Stoics. Among
these are those corrections of passages on page 88 (19-31), which he
followed up with some similar suggestions of his own (88 entire), and
also the instances of censure and praise in Homer (91. 25-92. 22), to
which he likewise made not a few additions (92. 22-93. 3).

Besides these ideas borrowed from others, he also advanced certain
of his own, and illustrated them by examples drawn in part from most
diverse sources, and in part original with himself. To this division
must be assigned, first of all, those reflections on the diversity of mor-
als and habits among the different heroes and peoples in Homer, from
which, as Plutarch thinks, may be determined what should be avoided
and what emulated. One illustration only in this chapter is not
Homeric (82. 6-13), and that is taken from the select works of the
Alexandrian grammarians. Here also are to be assigned the two illus-
trations at the beginning of chapter XII, obtained from other sources
(II. xxiii. 297 from the Peripatetics), the illustration taken from
Archilochus, and lastly the theory of the mission of poetry (ea poeta-
rum pertractandorum ratio), for which he found some of his illustra-
trations elsewhere (93. 18-22), and invented some himself.

123

INDEX

[c is the abbreviation for cited, q for quoted.]

Academy, 88, ii6.

Achilles, 23, 54, 61, 75, 76, 79, 80, 82, 83, 84, 88, 90.

Action, relative importance of, in tragedy, 52.

Actuality, its relation to truth, 25-26.

Address to Young Men, epitomized, 39; closely follows Justin,

Athenagoras, Clement, and Origen, 43.
Adrastus, 83, 92.

Adulation, not to be cultivated, 118.
Aeschylus, c. or q., 55, 87, 94.
Aesop, 49; Socrates employed fables of, 53.
Aethe, 87.

Agamemnon, 54, 61, 75, 76, 79, 87, 89.
Agesilaus, anecdote of, 84; biographical notice of, 84.
Alvecv, peculiar use of, 68.
Ajax, 71, 82, 92.
Alcmaeon, 92.

Alexander, anecdotes of, 27, 112.
Alexis, q., 65 ; biographical notice of, 65.
Allegories, defined, 62.

'AXiJeiv, various meanings of, considered, 68.
Amethyst, a charm against drunkenness, 50.
Amphiaraus, 87.

Angelo, Michel, no judge of his own work, 13.
Anteia, 86.

Anti-Gnosticism, see Gnosticism.
Antilochus, 86.
Antimachus, 83.

Antisthenes, q., 88; biographical notice of, 88.
Ants, habits of gold-gathering, 117.
Aphrodite, 62.
Apollo, 54, 55, 74.
Appetites, to be controlled, 114.
Archer, simile of, iii.

Archilochus, q., 69, 88; fox of, 118, 123; biographical notice of, 118.
Ares, 62, 69.

'AperiJ, metaphorical uses of, 71.

Arganthonius, old age of, 119; biographical notice of, 119.
Arianism, championed by Eunomius, 36; opposed by Basil, 36-38;

fostered by Valens, 37.

125

Index

Arianistn, Semi-, a warring faction in the church, 37.

Aristarchus, c, 76, 82; biographical notice of, 76.

Ariston, c, 49; biographical notice of, 49.

Aristophanes, c, 63, 83.

Aristophon, c, 22, 59.

Aristotle, c. or q., 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 52, 53, 60,
67> 72, 73. 75. 87, 112, 114; his indifference to metre, 14; his
theory of imitation, 19-21 ; his theory of the mission of poetry,
30.

Aristoxenus, c, 74.

Art, useful and imitative, compared, 18; imitative and sincere com-
pared, 19.

Artist, Plato's conception of, 18; simile of, 109.

Asshurbanipal, 113.

Athenagoras, attitude toward Greek philosophy, 41 ; c, 43.

Athene, 62, 74, 75, 83.

Athens, 35, 63.

Athletics, analogies drawn from, iii, 112- 113.

Atreus, 89.

Bacchantes, why they use rhythm, 15; ravings of, 115.

Bacchylides, q., 94; biographical notice of, 94.

Basil, St., date and place of birth, 33 ; his parentage and relatives,
33-34 'j his home life, Zi '■> studied under Libanius in Byzantium,
34, 107; studied at Athens, 35; formed friendships with
Gregory Nazianzen and Julian, 34; returned from Athens to
Caesarea, 35 ; practiced law at Caesarea, 35 ; visited hermits in
Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor, 35; erected a monastery at
Pontus, 35 ; visited by Gregory, 35 ; cared for famine-stricken
people, 35; opposed Eunomius, 36; estranged from Julian, 36;
ordained priest, 36; raised to the episcopate of Caesarea, 37;
defied Valens, Z7) opposed by warring sects, 38; his noble
struggle for the faith, 38; his hold upon the common people,
38 ; his eloquence, 38-39 ; wherein he triumphed, 38 ; his death,
39; his funeral, 39; c, 77, 104.

Batrachus, 23, 59.

Battle, the Christian life a, 103.

Bee, similes of, 83, 87, 105.

Bellerophon, 86.

Bias, c. or q., 93, 119; biographical notice of, 93.

Bion, c, 79; anecdote of, 66; biographical notice of, 66.

B/oTos, various meanings of, 68.

Body, to be made superior to appetites, 114-119; care for, cause of
most sins, 117.

Boxer, anecdote of, 83.

126

Index

Briseis, 76, 88.

Buffoons, antics of, to be ignored, 115.

Butcher, c. or q., 21, 75.

Byzantium, 34.

Caesarea, birthplane of Basil, 33 ; Basil practiced law in, 35.

Calchas, 81.

Calypso, 76.

Cantharides, cures its own poison, 67.

Carpenter, simile of, iii.

Cassandra, 74.

Cato, c, 49, 81 ; anecdote of, 78.

Chaerephanes, subjects painted by, 22, 59; biographical notice of, 59.

Character, relative importance of, in tragedy, 52 ; one of the six parts

of tragedy, 53.
Charioteer, simile of, 116.
Chilo, c, 93; biographical notice of, 93.
Chryseis, 76.
Chrysippus, fanciful etymologies of, 85 ; biographical notice of, 85 ;

c. or q. (Gercke), 69, 71, 90, 91, 122, 123.
Chrysostom, c. or q., 28, 105 ; intimate with Libanius, 107.
Church, of first and fourth centuries compared, 37.
Cicero, c. and q., 60, 66, 71, 90, 108, 109, 112, 115.
Cinesias, q., 66; biographical notice of, 66.
Classics, studied by Basil and Gregory, 34; esteemed by Christians,

36; Gregory's tribute to, 36; a partial expression of truth, 39;

adapted to the immature student, 103 ; fitting-school for study

of Scriptures, 103; compared with Scriptures, 103-104; praise

virtue by noble words, 106-109; by noble deeds, 109-111; see

also Philosophy.
Cleanthes, fanciful etymologies of, 85 ; biographical notice of, 85 ;

c. or q., 71, 88, 122, 123.
Cleinias, anecdote of, m; biographical notice of, iii.
Clement, St., of Alexandria, Greek philosophy appreciated by, 42;

on inspired and profane writings, 42; c, 43, 113.
Clothes, not to receive undue attention, 114.
Clytemnestra, 74, 86.
Color, more effective than line in painting, 52; laid on confusedly,

not pleasing, 53; simile of, 103.
Context, important in interpretation, 67.
Corybantes, ravings of, 115.
Cyrus, continence of, 84.

Daniel, trained in Chaldean lore, 104.
David, effect of his music, 115.

127

Index

Deception, intentionally employed by poets, 24-25; unintentionally

employed, 24-25.
Demonides, 60.
Diction, richness of, desirable in poetry, 72; often conceals useful

suggestions, 80.
Diogenes, c, or q., 66, 88, 114, 117.
Diogenes Laertius, c, 71, 79, 114, iig.
Diomedes, 80, 81, 82, 83.
Dioscorides, c, 67.
Dolon, 82.

Dorian mode, see Mode.
Dragon, simile of, 117.
Driver, simile of, 89.
Dryas, 51.
Dryden, c, 112.
Dyer, simile of, 103.

Echepolos, 87.

Education, of Greek youth, 28-29, loi.
Egypt, yields both good and bad herbs, 50.
'EXa/a, metonymically used, 71.

Emendations, to be made in bad passages, 89; character of, illus-
trated, 89.
Emmelia, St., mother of Basil, her influence upon him, 33.
Empedocles, not really a poet, 14, 53; biographical notice of, 53;

q-, 57.

Enthusiasm, explained, 16.

Eos, 55.

'Ettoij^, meaning of, in expression iiraiv^ TLep<ye<j>6vei.a, 69.

Epaniinondas, lauded by Diogenes, 66; biographical notice of, 66',

fought against Agesilaus, 84.
Epicurus, q., 94.
Epimetheus, 70.

Equanimity, cultivated by study of poetry, 92; defined, 92.
Eteocles, 60.

Etymology, study of, important, 65.

Euclid, of Megara, anecdote of, no; biographical notice of, no.
EidaiiMvla, metonymically used, 72.
Eunomius, his zeal for Arianism, 36.
Euripides, c. or q., 16, 56, 60, 64, 69, 73, 78, 79, 83, 88, 89, 90, 91,

94, 109, no.
Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, ordained Basil, 36; cooperated with

Basil in opposing Arianism, 37; c, 70.
Eustathius, c, 84.

128

Index

Faith, Basil's loyalty to the Catholic, 38; criterion of true science,

harmony with, 43.
Fate, ZeiJs metonymically used for, 69-70.
Fialon, c, loi.
Fiction, see Plot.

Flute, induces Bacchanalian revelry, 115.
Flute-players, banished from Plato's Republic, 115.

Gellius, c, 70.

Generalisation, to be employed in studying poetry, 90; character
of, explained and illustrated, 90-93.

Glaukos, 86.

Gnosticism, its genesis, 40; its treatment of Greek philosophy and
of the Scriptures, 40; its logical results, mj^hology, mysticism,
and theosophy, 40; partially accepted by Clement and Origen,
42.

Gnosticism, Anti-, championed by TertuUian, 41.

Goat, simile of, 83.

Gods, conflicting sentiments concerning, 64; names of, used to de-
note Fortune and Fate, 69, 71.

Gold-dust, tradition of Lydian, explained, 117.

Gorgias, q., 51 ; biographical notice of, 51.

Grammarians, c, 122, 123.

Greeks, compared with Trojans, 80-83.

Gregory Naziansen, St., friendship of, for Basil, 34; disposition of,
34 ; scholarship of, 34, 2>^ ; reluctance of, to leave Athens, 35 ;
visited Basil in Pontus, 35 ; quarrel of, with Basil, 38 ; c, 105.

Gregory Nyssen, St., brother of Basil, 34.

Grief, a cause of music, 15.

Gymnastics, simile of, 103.

Hades, 54, 55, 56, 66; torments of, described, 114.

Hair, not to receive undue attention, 114.

Harmony, function of, in true art, 19.

Hector, 23, 55, 62, 82, 83, 84, 91.

Hecuba, 78.

Helen, 60, 78.

Helios, 62.

Hephaestus, 69, 92.

Hera, 62, 63.

Heraclides, c, 49; biographical notice of, 49.

Hercules, episode of, 108.

Hermas, attitude of, toward philosophy, 41.

Herodotus, c, 117, 118, 119.

Hesiod, q., 71, 7.2, 79, 90, 93, loi, 119; wrote to incite virtue, 106.

129

Index

History, inferior to poetry, 20; distinguished from painting, 58;
to be read discriminatingly, 105 ; contains examples of virtuous
deeds, 109.

Hog, imitated by Parmenio, 22, 59 ; simile of, 83.

Homer, c. or q., 27, 41, 50, 51, 54, 55, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 67, 69, 70, 71,
72, 73, 74. 75. 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 91, 92, 93,
106, 107, 109, 113, 119, 122, 123; works of, infused with moral
feeling, 27 ; received partial revelation of the Logos, 41 ; weaves
mixture of virtue and vice in characters, 73 ; careful to com-
mend, or condemns characters and actions, 61-63; shows slight
regard for externalities, 91-92; all poetry of, a praise of virtue,
106.

Horace, c. or q., 29, 94.

Idomeneus, 92.

Illusion, place of, in poetry, 24-25.

Imitation, meaning of, in Greek criticism, 18; Plato's interpretation
of, 18-19; Aristotle's interpretation of, 19-21; Plutarch's inter-
pretation of, 21-26, 58-60; an imitation of an imitation, 18; the
assumption of another's character, 19; an inborn instinct, 20;
an idealizing of life, 20; objects of, 21, 22, 23; nature of, 24;
fundamental in poetry and painting, 21, 58, 72; weaves a mix-
ture of virtue and vice, 73.

Inspiration, a cause of music, 15.

Ionian mode, see Mode.

Isocrates, q., 29.

Ithacans, 51.

Ixion, 60.

Jacobs, c, 117.

Joy, a cause of music, 15.

Judgment, function of, in music, 17 ; function of, in poetic interpre-
tation, 75.

Julian, Emperor, friendship of, for Basil and Gregory, 34; invited
Basil to Rome, 36; replaced the images of the gods upon the
standards, 36; denied study of classics to Christians, 2^; ad-
mired by Libanius, 107.

Juno, of Argos, 118.

Jupiter, of Elis, 118.

Justin Martyr, his early study of Greek philosophy, 40; his accept-
ance of Christianity, 40; his synthetic philosophy, 40; c, 42, 43-

"KaK&rrii, metonymically used, 72.

KaXws ^x"". philologically considered, 69,

KaniMvlr), philologically considered, 67.

130

Index

Lactantius, c, 115.

Libanius, instructed Basil, 34; c, 106; biographical notice of, 106.

Life, human, not supremely precious, 102 ; divine, the supreme thing,

102; Scriptures lead to, 103; should conform to professions,

109; eternal, the great journey, 120.
Lives, Plutarch's, always popular, 13.
Logos, the basis of Justin's philosophy, 40; partially revealed to

Greek writers, 41, 42.
Lucian, c, io8.
Lucretius, q., 29.
Lycaon, 83.

Lydian mode, see Mode.
Lykurgos, folly of, in destroying vineyards, 51.

Macrina, grandmother of Basil, taught him Scriptures, 33.

Macrina, St., sister of Basil, 34.

Magnanimity, cultivated by study of poetry, 92; defined, 92.

Mandrake, imparts influence to wine, 51.

Manners, good and bad to be distinguished in poetry, 8o-8i.

Margites, 113; note explaining the, 113.

Marsyas, music of, 112.

Medea, 21, 58.

Melanthius, c, 63 ; biographical notice of, 63.

Meleager, 76.

Menander, q., 61, 65, 72, 90, 121.

Metal-worker, simile of, iii.

Methuselah, old age of, 119.

Metre, not the sole requisite of poetry, 14.

Milo, anecdote of, 112; biographical notice of, 112.

Milton, no judge of his own work, 13; q., 59.

Modes, enumeration of, 17; mixed Lydian, moves affections, 74;
mixed Lydian, defined, 74; Dorian, defined, 74; Dorian, joined
with mixed Lydian, by tragedians, 74; mixed Lydian, invented
by Sappho, 74; air in Phrygian, played to Alexander by Timo-
theus, 112; air in Dorian, sobered revellers, 115.

Musical contest, analogy drawn from, 112.

Musician, simile of, 109.

Mysticism, a result of Gnosticism, 40.

Mythology, a result of Gnosticism, 40.

Names, not to blind one to character, 74.

Nature, relation of poetry to, 18-28; divine, seated far from joy or

grief, 94; conformity to, secret of happiness, 95.
Nausicaa, 76.
Nestor, 81.

131

Index

Newman, c, loi.

Nicander, not really a poet, 14, 53; biographical notice of, 53.

Nobility, may be learned from poetry, 85-87.

Odysseus, 63, 76, 77, 84, 85, 90, 91, 92, 107 ; Parrhasius's picture of,

22, 59.
OIkos, various meanings of, considered, 68.
Ointments, not to be used, 116.

Olympus, the Phrygian, music of, 112; biographical notice of, 112.
Orestes, Theon's picture of, 21, 58.
Origen, his adherence to views of Clement, 42-43.

Painting, silent poetry, 21, 58; distinguished from history, 58.

Pandarus, 62, 86.

Panthea, 84.

Paris, licentiousness of, 60, 91.

Parmenides, not really a poet, 14, 53; biographical notice 9f, 53.

Parnienio, hog imitated by, 22, 59.

Parrhasius, his picture of Odysseus, 22, 59; biographical notice of,

59-

Pataecion, 66.

Pater, q., 29.

Paul, c. or q., 40, 116.

Pausanias, c, 112.

Penelope, 77.

Perfumes, not to be used, 116.

Pericles, anecdote of, 109- no.

Peripatetics, c, 66, 75, 121-123.

Persius, c, 112.

Peter, St., brother of Basil, 34.

Phaeacians, 107.

Phaedra, 78.

*7n'6s> metonymically used, 71.

Phidias, illustration from his Jupiter, 118.

Philemon, q., 92; biographical notice of, 92.

Philosophy, relation of, to truth, 26-27; to poetry, 27; place of,
in education, 27; Greek, employed by the Gnostics, 40; of Jus-
tin, analyzed, 41 ; condemned by Tatian, Hermas, Theophilus,
41 ; esteemed by Athenagoras and Clement, 41 ; not attractive
to young unless garnished, 49; poetry to be tempered by, 51-
52, 93-96 ; the source of right ideas, 93 ; poetry fitting- school for,
52; 95-96.

Philoxenus, q., 49; biographical notice of, 49.

Phoenix, 76.

Phrygian mode, see Mode.

132

Index

Pilot, simile of, 89, iii.

Pindar, c. or q., 55, 64, 94.

Pittacus, q., 113; biographical notice of, 113.

Plato, his theory of inspiration, 13; of imitation, 18-19; of the mis-
sion of poetry, 29 ; received partial revelation of the Logos, 41 ;
c. and q., 17, 18, 19, 22, 26, 27, 28, 29, 40, 41, 50, 51, 54, 55, 56,
57, 62, 63, 64, 75, 81, 93, 94, 103, 105, 106, 108, 109, 114, 115,
116, 121.

Plato, Pseudo-, c, 115.

Pleasure, place of, in poetry, 28-31 ; should be merely a relish, 49.

Plot, more engaging than metre or tropes, 52; one of the six parts
of tragedy, 53 ; most essential element in poetry, 53 ; designed
to cause pleasurable fear, 55 ; kinds of, 72> ! must appear prob-
ble, 73 ; employs reversal of fortune, y^ ; conceals useful sug-
gestions, 80.

Plutarch, no judge of his own work, 13; his triteness and prag-
matism, 14; his theory of poetry, 13-32; summary of his work
by Professor Christ, 31-32; c. and q., 15, 16, 18, 22, 23, 26, 27,
52, 58, 60, 63, 64, 70, 74, 79, 107, 109, no, 112, 121-123.

Plutarch, Pseudo-, c, 75, 81, 82, 85.

Poetry, how different from prose, 14-18; the product of both intel-
lect and feeling, 15 ; a gift to rare temperaments, 16 ; nature of
lyric, 16; relation of, to music, 17; to philosophy, 17; to nature
and to truth, 18-28; is vocal painting, 21, 58; an imitative art,
20, 21, 58; imitates men as they ought to be, 20; deception in,
24-25 ; Plutarch's unrestricted use of the term, 27-28 ; relatively
independent of truth, 27; traditional view of its mission, 28;
Plato's theory of its mission, 29; Aristotle's theory, 30; Plu-
tarch's theory, 30-31; place of pleasure in, 28-30; both helpful
and injurious, 50; to be tempered by philosophy, 51-52, 93-96;
the fitting-school for philosophy, 52, 95-96; deceptive juggling
of, 54; should embody commendation and condemnation of
words and acts, 61-62; themes of, to be taken from men of
understanding, 63 ; contradictions in, modify its influence, 63-
64; must employ probable plots, 72; uses variety and transi-
tions, 73 ; defined, 74 ; to be accepted in proportion to its moral
soundness, 78, 104, in; may teach virtue, nobility, wisdom, and
self-control, 83-86, 106; carefully studied teaches equanimity
and magnanimity, 92.

Poliager, 77.

Polycletus, illustration from his Juno, 118; biographical notice of,
118.

Polydamas, anecdote of, 112; biographical notice of, 112.

Polypus, good to eat, but causes bad dreams, 50; changeable colors
of, 119;

133

Index

Pontus, seat of Basil's monastery, 35.

Pope, deaf to Basil's requests, 38.

n^TTot, a philological illustration, 67.

Porphyria (Schrader), c, 62, 63, 69, 70, 81.

Porphyry, c, 115, 116.

Poseidon, 54, 86.

Poverty, honest, no disgrace, 70.

Priam, 84.

Probability, importance of, in plot, 24-25, 53; universality condi-
tioned upon it, 53.

Prodicus, q., 108.

Prometheus, 70.

Prose, see Poetry.

Proserpine, 69.

Proteus, 118.

Pythagoras, received partial revelation of the Logos, 41 ; anecdote
of, 115; c. and q., 93, iii, 116.

Pythian Priestess, subject to education, 17.

Pythius, biographical notice of, 118.

Races, characteristics of different, 81-83.

Reversal of Fortune, in plot, defined, 73.

Rhetoricians, to be read discriminatingly, 105.

Rhythm, function of, in art, 19.

Riches, conflicting sentiments concerning, 64, 65 ; useless without
virtue, 94 ; happiness does not consist in, 95 ; of nature, limited,
95 ; earthly, inferior to heavenly, 102 ; opinions of philosophers
upon, 117-118.

Pt7e5a»'6s, philologically considered, 67.

Roses, simile of, 105.

Sabellianism, warring faction in the church, 37.

Saintsbury, c, 29, 62.

Sappho, invented mixed Lydian mode, 74.

Sardanapalus, idleness of, 113; biographical notice of, 113.

Schlemm, c, 62, 66, 75, 121-123.

Scriptures, taught Basil by mother and grandmother, 33; perfect
revelation of truth, 39; interpreted allegorically by Gnostics,
40 ; only source of truth, 41 ; have much in common with Greek
philosophy, 42-43; conduct to the divine life, 103; need mature
students, 103 ; classics prepare one for study of, 103 ; compared^
with classics, 103-104; c. and q., 102, 104, no, in, 113, 115,
117, 119.

Self-control, may be learned from poetry, 84, 86, 87, no.

Seneca, c, 85.

134

Index

Ship, simile of, 102, iii.

Sickness, three kinds of, described, 120.

Silanion, c, 22, 59.

Simonides, c. or q., 51, 58, 113; biographical notice of, 50.

Sisyphus, 23, 59.

Skill, in art, defined, 17.

Socrates, could not invent plots, 53; anecdote of, no; c, 57, 65,

88, 118.
Solon, received partial revelation of the Logos, 41 ; biographical

notice of, 107; q., 107, 117.
Sophistry, condemned, 78.
Sophocles, q., 16, 56, 64, 65, 66, 69, 70, 88.

Soul, care of, the supreme interest, 114; purity of, defined, 115.
Stage, simile of, 109.
Sthenelus, 80.
Stobaeus, c, 71.

Stoics, c, 66, 85, 91 ; vice, how treated by, 7Z-
Sun, simile of, 95, 103, 105.

Tatian, attitude of, toward philosophy, 41.

Telemachus, 85.

Theodorus, his imitation of sound of pulleys, 22, 59.

Theognis, not really a poet, 14, 54; biographical notice of, 54; c.
and p., 66, 107, 117.

Theon, his picture of Orestes, 21, 58; biographical notice of, 58.

Theophilus, attitude of, toward philosophy, 41.

Theophrastus, his discussion of music, 15.

Theosophy, a result of Gnosticism, 40.

Thersites, face of, in art, 21 ; representations of, how praiseworthy,
23, 59, 80, 82.

Theseus, 78.

Thespis, q., 94; biographical notice of, 94.

Thessalians, stupidity of, 51.

Thetis, 55, 88.

Qod^eiv, meaning of, considered, 68.

Timotheus, the statuary, picture of Medea by, 21, 58; biographical
notice of, 58.

Timotheus, the dithyrambic poet, anecdote of, 66; biographical
notice of, 66; c, 87.

Timotheus, the flute-player of Thebes, anecdote of, 112; biographi-
cal notice of, 112.

Tithonus, old age of, 119; biographical notice of, 119.

Tragedy, defined, 53 ; parts of, 53 ; employs the mixed Lydian mode,

74.
Tree, simile of, 103.

135

Index

Trojans, compared with Greeks, 80-83.

Truth, relation of, to poetry, 18-28, 95; to philosophy, 25-26; per-
fectly revealed in Scriptures, 39; partially expressed in Greek
literature, 39 ; its severity not attractive in poetry, 52 ; not to be
confounded with artistic excellence, 59; to be the guide of life,
118.

Ueherweg, analysis of Clement's philosophy by, 42-43.
Useful, the, how gained from suspicious passages, 88.

Valens, the emperor, Arianism supported by, 37.

Vergil, c, 119.

Verrall, q., 87.

Vice, how treated by Homer and Euripides, 73 ; how by the Stoics,
JZ't episode of, 108.

Villemain, q., 36.

Vine, simile of, 80, 116.

Virtue, how treated by Homer and Euripides, yz 5 how by the Stoics,
yz ; may be learned from poetry, 83, 106 ; product of reason and
education, 87; quotations extolling, 94; should become a habit,
106; all poetry of Homer praises, 106; the only sure posses-
sion, 107; episode of, 108; extolled by writers upon wisdom,
108; a sufficient ornament, 118; silhouette of, in pagan authors,
119.

Wace and S chaff , c, loi.

Water, should be mixed with wine, 51.

Wisdom, may be learned from poetry, 86 ; writers on, praise virtue,

108.
Words, meanings of, to be carefully determined, 67-72.
Wordsworth, no judge of his own work, 13,
Wyttenbach, c, 94.

Xenophanes, q., 57; biographical notice of, 57.
Xenophon, c. or q., 29, 84, 108.

Youth, an impressionable period, 106.

Zeller, c, 91.

Zeno, c. or q., 71, 85, 88.

Zei5s, meanings of, considered, 69-70, 85.

Zeus, 54, 55, 62, 63, 69, 70, 7h 74, 80, 84, 85, 86, 87, 93, 122, 123.

136

PN Padelford, Frederick Morgan

104-0 Essays on the study and use

P3 of poetry

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