The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia INTRODUCTION and CRITICISM
The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, also known simply as the Arcadia, is a pastoral romance written by Sir Philip Sidney towards the end of the 16th century. It has an important place in the history of English literature as it is the first pastoral romance in English just as Spenser's The Shepherd's Calendar is the first verse pastoral romance. Arcadia includes a number of lyrics and eclogues after the classical style though it is written mainly in prose.
ARCADIA is the name of a mountainous district in the Peloponese, the domain of Pan, the god of shepherds. The poem was written solely for the amusement of Sydney's sister, the Countess of Pembroke. There was no intention of making money or literary fame from this creation. Sydney started writing ARCADIA in 1580. Not only did he not publish it but he also expressed his wish to destroy it while on his deathbed. However it was published in 1586 posthumously, and it brought him great fame.
Everything in ARCADIA is on the ideal plane. Both the story and setting are far removed from reality. David Daiches remarks, "Ideal love, ideal friendship, and the ideal ruler are, directly and indirectly, discussed, suggested and embodied." According to Daiches the style of Arcadia is "highly conceited, full of elaborate analogies, balanced parenthetical asides, pathetic fallacies, symmetrically answering clauses, and other devices of an immature prose entering suddenly into the world of conscious literary device." One of Sidney's constant devices is to take a word and toss it till its meaning is fully extracted with all its aesthetic beauty. Sidney's reference to the cool wine which seems "to laugh for joy" as it nears a lady's lips is an example of the pathetic fallacy. There are other examples like the water drops that slip down the bodies of dainty seem to weep for sorrow. When the princesses put on their clothes, the clothes are described as 'gold'.
Sidney was a strong advocate of the THREE DRAMATIC UNITIES OF TIME, PLACE AND ACTION. These three unities must be observed if a play is believed to be a true copy of life. Sidney regretted that, none of the English plays except “Gorboduck” to some extent observed the three dramatic unities.
1)The Unity of Time: requires that the plot or action of a play should not exceed the limit of one natural day of twenty-four hours. If the action exceeds this limit, the play would appear to be highly unnatural. But English dramatists have most hideously violated this unity. The events extend for a long time period are packed in two hours space. Nothing could be more absurd than this.
2)The Unity of Place: requires that the action of the play should not shift frequently from one distant place top another. The English dramatists violated the unity of place equally grossly. “You shall have Asia of the one side, and Africa of the other, and so many other under-kingdoms, that the player must ever begin with telling where he is, or else the tale will not be conceived.” Also the same stage has to be taken for a garden, a graveyard, a place or an island where there is a shipwreck, or a battlefield. This is straining the imagination of the spectator to the breaking point. This should be equally avoided.
3)The Unity of Action: requires that there should be no admixture of the comic and tragic scenes in the most unnatural way. A comedy should be a comedy, and a tragedy should be a tragedy from the beginning to the end. The tragic and comic scenes and situations should not be mixed up. The king and clown should not be mixed up on the stage. It is on this ground that Sidney harshly condemns the vogue of tragi-comedies coming up in English drama.
In the use of verse and metre in poetry, Sidney oscillated between the classical concept and Elizabethan practices.
According to the classical concept verse or metre is not indispensable for poetry, but according to Elizabethan practices metre was desirable, if not indispensable.
Sidney seems to reconcile the two extremes, holding the classical view he says that metre is “but an ornament and no cause to poetry, since there have been many most excellent poets that never versified, and now swarm many versifiers that need never answer to the name of poets.”
Invention is the soul of poetry, and in this sense if prose is inventive, it should be classed with poetry.
Then comes on him the Elizabethan influence. This attracts him to favour the use of verse or metre in poetry, though on other grounds.
He says that verse being sweeter and more appealing to our aesthetic sense should be used in poetry. Verse is a superior form of expression to ordinary prose.
He further says that on account of its sweetness and orderliness verse is fitted for memory, and memory is the treasure-house of knowledge.
Musical verse can be more easily remembered and retained in the mind than prose.
Therefore it s advisable to write poetry in verse and metre.
An Apology for Poetry by Sir Philip Sidney [apology means DEFENCE]
When the right virtuous Edward Wotton and I were at the Emperor's Court together, we gave ourselves to learn horsemanship of John Pietro Pugliano, one that with great commendation had the place of an esquire in his stable. And he, according to the fertileness of the Italian wit, did not only afford us the demonstration of his practice, but sought to enrich our minds with the contemplations there which he thought most precious. But with none I remember mine ears were at any time more loaden, than when (either angered with slow payment, or moved with our learner like admiration) he exercised his speech in the praise of his faculty. He said soldiers were the noblest estate of mankind, and horsemen the noblest of soldiers. He said they were the masters of war and ornaments of peace; speedy goers and strong abiders; triumphers both in camps and courts . Nay, to so unbelieved a point he proceeded, as that no earthly thing bred such wonder to a prince as to be a good horseman. Skill of government was but a pedenteria in comparison. Then would he add certain praises, by telling what a peerless beast a horse was, the only serviceable courtier without flattery, the beast of most beauty, faithfulness, courage, and such more, that, if I had not been a piece of a logician before I came to him, I think he would have persuaded me to have wished myself a horse. But thus much at least with his no few words he drove into me, that self-love is better than any gilding to make that seem gorgeous wherein ourselves are parties. Wherein, if Pugliano's strong affection and weak arguments will not satisfy you, I will give you a nearer example of myself, who (I know not by what mischance) in these my not old years and idlest time s having slipped into the title of a poet, am provoked to say something unto you in the defense of that my unelected vocation, which if I handle with more good wit than good reasons, bear with me, since the scholar is to be pardoned that followeth the step of his master. And yet I must say that, as I have just cause to make a pitiful defense of poor Poetry, which from almost the highest estimation of learning is fallen to be the laughingstock of children, so have I need to bring some more available proofs, since the former is by no man barred of his deserved credit, the silly latter hath had even the names of philosophers used to the defacing of it, with great danger of civil war among the Muses.
And first, truly, to all them that professing learning inveigh against poetry may justly be objected, that they go very near to ungratefulness, to seek to deface that which, in the noblest nations and languages that are known, hath been the first light-giver to ignorance, and first nurse, whose milk by little and little enabled them to feed afterwards of tougher know ledges. And will they now play the hedgehog that, being received into the den, drove out his host, or rather the vipers, that with their birth kill their parents? Let learned Greece in any of her manifold sciences be able to show me one book before Musaeus. Homer, and Hesiod, all three nothing else but poets . Nay, let any history be brought that can say any writers were there before them, if they were not men of the same skill, as Orpheus, Linus, and some other are named, who, having been the first of that country that made pens deliverers of their knowledge to their posterity, may justly challenge to be called their fathers in learning, for not only in time they had this priority (although in itself antiquity be venerable) but went before them, as causes to draw with their charming sweetness the wild untamed wits to an admiration of knowledge, so, as Amphion was said to move stones with his poetry to build Thebes, and Orpheus to be listened to by beasts-indeed stony and beastly people. So among the Romans were Livius Andronicus, and Ennius. So in the Italian language the first that made it aspire to be a treasurehouse of science were the poets
Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch. So in our English were Gower and Chaucer. After whom, encouraged and delighted with their excellent for egoing, others have followed, to beautify our mother tongue , as well in the same kind as in other arts. This did so notably show itself, that the philosophers of Greece durst not a long time appear to the world but under the masks of poets.
So Thales, Empedocles, and Parmenides sang their natural philosophy in verses; so did Pythagoras and Phocylides their moral counsels; so did Tyrtaeus in war matters, and Solon in matters of policy or rather, they, being poets, did exercise their delightful vein in those points of highest knowledge, which before them lay hid to the world . For that wise Solon was directly a poet it is manifest, having written in verse the notable fable of the Atlantic Island, which was continued by Plato .
And truly, even Plato, whosoever well considereth strength were philosophy, the skin as it were and beauty depended most of poetry: for all standeth upon dialogues, wherein he feigneth many honest burgesses of Athens to speak of such matters, that, if they had been set on the rack, they would never have confessed them, besides his poetical describing the circumstances of their meetings, as the well ordering of a banquet, the delicacy of a walk, with interlacing mere tales, as Gyges' Ring, and others, which who knoweth not to be flowers of poetry did never walk into Apollo 's garden .
And even historiographers (although their lips sound of things done, and verity be written in their foreheads) have been glad to borrow both fashion and perchance weight of poets. So Herodotus entitled his history by the name of the nine Muses; and both he and all the rest that followed him either stole or usurped of poetry their passionate describing of passions, the many particularities of battles, which no man could affirm, or, if that be denied me, long orations put in the mouths of great kings and captains, which it is certain they never pronounced. So that, truly, neither philosopher nor historiographer could at the first have entered into the gates of popular judgments, if they had not taken a great passport of poetry, which in all nations at this day, where learning flourisheth not, is plain to be seen, in all which they have some feeling of poetry. In Turkey, besides their law giving divines, they have no other writers but poets. In our neighbor country Ireland, where truly learning goeth very bare, yet are their poets held in a devout reverence. Even
among the most barbarous and simple Indians where no writing is, yet have they their poets, who make and sing songs, which they call areytos, both of their ancestors' deeds and praises of their gods-a sufficient probability that, if ever learning come among them, it must be by having their hard dull wits softened and sharpened with the sweet delights of poetry. For until they find a pleasure in the exercises of the mind, great pro mises of much knowledge will little persuade them that know not the fruits of knowledge. In Wales, the true remnant of the ancient Britons, as there are good authorities to show the long time they had poets, which they called bards, so through all the conquests of Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans, some of whom did seek to ruin all memory of learning fr om among them, yet do their poets, even to this day, last; so as it is not more notable in soon beginning than in long continuing. But since the authors of most of our sciences were the Romans, and before them the Greeks, let us a little stand upon their authorities, but even so far as to see what names they have given unto this now scorned skill.
Among the Romans a poet was called vates, which is as much as a diviner, foreseer, or prophet, as by his conjoined words vaticinium and vaticinari is manifest: so heavenly a title did that excellent people bestow upon this heart-ravishing knowledge. And so far were they carried into the admiration thereof, that they thought in the chanceable hitting upon any such verses great foretokens of their following fortunes were placed. Whereupon grew the word of sortes Virgilianae, when, by sudden opening Virgil's book, they lighted upon any verse of his making: whereof the histories of the emperors' lives are full, as of Albinus, the governor of our island, who in his childhood met with this verse, "Arma amens eapio nee sat rationis in armis and in his age perfonned it: which, although it were a very vain and godless superstition, as also it was to think that spirits were commanded by such verses-whereupon this word channs, derived of cannina, "cometh"-so yet serveth it to show the great reverence those wits were held in. And altogether not without ground, since both the Oracles of Delphos and Sibylla's prophecies were wholly delivered in verses. For that same exquisite observing of number and
measure in words, and that high flying liberty of conceit proper to the poet, did seem to have some divine force in it. And may not I presume a little further, to show the reasonableness of this word vates, and say that the holy David's Psalms are a divine poem? If I do, I shall not do it without the testimony of great learned men, both ancient and modem. But even the name Psalms will speak for me, which, being interpreted, is nothing but "songs"; then that it is fully written in meter, as all learned Hebricians agree, although the rules be not yet fully found; lastly and principally, his handling his prophecy, which is merely poetical. For what else is the awaking his musical instruments, the often and free changing of persons, his notable prosopopeias, when he maketh you, as it were, see God coming in his majesty, his telling of the beasts' joyfulness, and hills' leaping, but a heavenly poesy, wherein almost he showeth himself a passionate lover of that unspeakable and everlasting beauty to be seen by the eyes of the mind, only cleared by faith? But truly now having named him, I fear me I seem to profane that holy name, applying it to poetry, which is among us thrown down to so ridiculous an estimation. But they that with quiet judgments will look a little deeper into it, shall find the end and working of it such as, being rightly applied, deserveth not to be scourged out of the church of God. But now, let us see how the Greeks named it, and how they deemed of it. The Greeks called him "a poet," which name hath, as the most excellent, gone through other languages. It cometh of this word poiein, which is "to make": wherein, I know not whether by luck or wisdom, we Englishmen have met with the Greeks in calling him a maker: which name, how high and incomparable a title it is. I had rather were known by marking the scope of other sciences than by my partial allegation.
There is no art delivered to mankind that hath not the works of nature for his principal object, without which they could not consist, and on which they so depend, as they become actors and players, as it were, of what nature will have set forth. So doth the astronomer look upon the stars, and, by that he seeth, setteth down what order nature hath taken therein. So do the geometrician and arithmetician in their diverse sorts of quantities. So doth the musician in times tell
you which by nature agree, which not. The natural philosopher thereon hath his name, and the moral philosopher standeth upon the natural virtues, vices, and passions of man: and "follow nature" (saith he) "therein, and thou shalt not err." The lawyer saith what men have determined; the historian what men have done. The grammarian speaketh only of the rules of speech; and the rhetorician and logician, considering what in nature will soonest prove and persuade, thereon give artificial rules, which. still are compassed within the circle of a question according to the proposed matter. The physician weigheth the nature of a man's body, and the nature of things helpful or hurtful unto it. And the metaphysic, though it be in the second and abstract notions, and therefore be counted supernatural, yet doth he indeed build upon the depth of nature. Only the poet, disdaining to be tied to any such subjection, lifted up with the vigor of his own invention, doth grow in effect another nature, in making things either better than nature bringeth forth, or, quite anew, fonns such as never were in nature, as the Heroes, Demigods, Cyclopes, Chimeras, Furies, and such like: so as he goeth hand in hand with nature, not enclosed within the narrow warrant of her gifts, but freely ranging only within the zodiac of his own wit.
Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done-neither with pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the too much loved earth more lovely. Her world is brazen, the poets only deliver a golden. But let those things alone, and go to man-for whom as the other things are, so it seemeth in him her uttennost cunning is employed-and know whether she have brought forth so true a lover as Theagenes, so constant a friend as Pylades, so valiant a man as Orlando, so right a prince as Xenophon's Cyrus, so excellent a man every way as Virgil's Aeneas. Neither let this be jestingly conceived, because the works of the one be essential, the other in imitation or fiction; for any understanding knoweth the skill of the artificer standeth in that idea or fore-conceit of the work, and not in the work itself. And that the poet hath that idea is manifest, by delivering them forth in such excellency as he hath imagined them.
Which delivering forth also is not wholly imaginative, as we are wont to say by them that build castles in the air: but so far substantially it worketh, not only to make a Cyrus, which had been but a particular excellency, as nature might have done, but to bestow a Cyrus upon the world, to make many Cyruses, if they will learn aright why and how that maker made him. Neither let it be deemed too saucy a comparison to balance the highest point of man's wit with the efficacy of nature; but rather give right honor to the heavenly Maker of that maker, who, having made man to his own likeness, set him beyond and over all the works of that second nature: which in nothing he showeth so much as in poetry, when with the force of a divine breath he bringeth things forth far surpassing her doings, with no small argument to the incredulous of that first accursed fall of Adam, since our erected wit maketh us know what perfection is, and yet our infected will keepeth us from reaching unto it. But these arguments will by few be understood, and by fewer granted. Thus much (I hope) will be given me, that the Greeks with some probability of reason gave him the name above all names ofa learning. Now let us go to a more ordinary opening of him, that the truth may be more palpable: and so I hope, though we get not so unmatched a praise as the etymology of his names will grant, yet his very description, which no man will deny, shall not justly be barred from a principal commendation. Poesy therefore is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle termeth it in his word mimesis, that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth-to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture; with this end, to teach and delight. Of this have been three several kinds. The chief, both in antiquity and excellency, were they that did imitate the inconceivable excellencies of God. Such were David in his Psalms; Solomon in his Song of Songs, in his Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs; Moses and Deborah in their Hymns; and the writer of Job, which, beside other, the learned Emanuel, Tremellius and Franciscus Junius do entitle the poetical part of the Scripture. Against these none will speak that hath the Holy Ghost in due holy reverence. ' In this kind, though in a full wrong divinity, were Orpheus, Amphion, Homer in his Hymns, and many other, both Greeks and Romans, and this poesy must be used by whosoever will follow St. James's counsel in singing psalms when they are merry, and I know is used with the fruit of comfort by some, when, in sorrowful pangs of their death- bringing sins, they find the consolation of the never-leaving goodness.
The second kind is of them that deal with matters, philosophical: either moral, as Tyrtaeus, Phocylides, and Cato; or natural, as Lucretius and Virgil's Georgics; or astronomical, as Manilius and Pontanus; or historical, as Lucan; which who mislike, the fault is in their judgments quite out of taste, and not in the sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge. But because this second sort is wrapped
within the fold of the proposed subject, and takes not the course of his own invention, whether they properly be poets or no let grammarians dispute; and go to the third, indeed right poets, of whom chiefly this question ariseth, betwixt whom and these second is such a kind of difference as betwixt the meaner sort of painters, who counterfeit only such faces as are set before them, and the more excellent, who, having no law but wit, bestow that in colors upon you which is fittest for the eye to see, as the constant though lamenting look of Lucretia, when she punished in herself another's
fault.
Wherein he painteth not Lucretia whom he never saw, but painteth the outward beauty of such a virtue, For these third be they which most properly do imitate to teach and delight, and to imitate borrow nothing of what is, hath been, or shall be; but range, only reined with learned discretion, into the divine consideration of what may be, and should be. These be they that, as the first and most noble sort may justly be termed vates, so these are waited on in the excellentest languages and best understandings, with the foredescribed name of poets; for these indeed do merely make to imitate, and imitate both to delight and teach, and delight to move men to take that goodness in hand, which without delight they would fly as from a stranger, and teach, to make them know that goodness whereunto they are moved: which being the noblest scope to which ever any learning was directed, yet want there not idle tongues to bark at them, These be subdivided into sundry more special denominations. The most notable be the heroic, lyric, tragic, comic, satiric, iambic, elegiac, pastoral, and certain others, some of
these being termed according to the matter they deal with, some by the sorts of verses they liked best to write in; for indeed the greatest part of poets have appareled their poetical inventions in that numbrous kind of writing which is called verse-indeed but appareled, verse being but an ornament and no cause to poetry, since there have been many most excellent poets that never versified, and now swarm many versifiers that need never answer to the name of poets. For Xenophon, who did imitate so excellently as to give us effigiem usti imperil, "the portraiture of a just empire," under name of Cyrus (as Cicero saith of him), made therein an absolute heroical poem.
So did Heliodorus in his sugared invention of that picture of love in Theagenes and Chariclea; and yet both these writ in prose: which I speak to show that it is not rhyming and versing that maketh a poet-no more than a long gown maketh an advocate, who though he pleaded in armor should be an advocate and no soldier. But it is that
feigning notable images of virtues, vices, or what else, with that delightful teaching, which must be the right describing note to know a poet by, although indeed the senate of poets hath chosen verse as their fittest raiment, meaning, as in matter they passed all in all, so in manner to go beyond them-not speaking (table talk fashion or like men in a dream) words as they chanceably fall from the mouth, but
peising each syllable of each word by just proportion according to the dignity of the subject. Now therefore it shall not be amiss first to weigh this latter sort of poetry by his works, and then by his parts, and, if in neither of these anatomies he be condemnable, I hope we shall obtain a more favorable sentence. This purifying of wit, this enriching of memory, enabling of judgment, and enlarging of conceit, which commonly we call learning, under what name soever it come forth, or to what immediate end soever it be directed, the final end is to lead and draw us to as high a perfection as our degenerate souls, made worse by their clayey lodgings, can be capable of. This, according to the inclination of the man, bred many formed impressions. For some that thought this felicity principally to be gotten by knowledge and no knowledge to be so high and heavenly as acquaintance with the stars, gave themselves to astronomy; others, persuading themselves to be demigods if they knew the causes of things, became natural and supernatural philosophers; some an admirable delight drew to music; and some the certainty of demonstration to the mathematics. But all, one and other, having this scope-to know, and by knowledge to lift up the mind from the dungeon of the body to the enjoying his own divine essence. But when by the balance of experience it was found that the astronomer looking to the stars might fall into a ditch, that the inquiring philosopher might be blind in himself, and the mathematician might draw forth a straight line with a crooked heart, did proof, the over ruler of opinions, make manifest that all these are but serving sciences, which, as they have each a private end in themselves, so yet are they all directed to the highest end of the mistress knowledge, by the Greeks called architectonike, which stands (as I think) in the knowledge of a man's self, in the ethic and politic consideration, with the end of well doing and not of well knowing only--even as the saddler's nex end is to make a good saddle, but his farther end to serve a nobler faculty, which is horsemanship; so the horseman's to soldiery, and the soldier not only to have the skill, but to perform the practice of a soldier. So that, the ending end of all earthly leal'ning being virtuous action, those skills, that most serve to bring forth that, have a most just title to be princes over all the rest. Wherein we can show the poet's nobleness, by setting him before his other competitors, among whom as principal challengers step forth the moral philosophers, whom, me thinketh, I see coming towards me with a sullen gravity, as though they could not abide vice by daylight, rudely clothed for to witness outwardly their contempt of outward things, with books in their hands against glory, whereto they set their names, sophistically speaking against subtlety, and angry with any man in whom they see the foul fault of anger. These men casting largesse as they go of definitions, divisions, and distinctions, with a scornful interrogative do soberly ask whether it be possible to find any path so ready to lead a man to virtue as that which teacheth what virtue is-and teacheth it not only by delivepng forth his very being, his causes, and effects, but also by making known his enemy, vice (which must be destroyed), and his cumbersome servant, passion (which must be mastered), by showing the generalities that containeth it, and the specialities that are derived from it; lastly, by plain setting down, how it extendeth itself out of the limits of a man's own little world to the government of families, and maintaining of public societies.
The historian scarcely giveth leisure to the moralist to say so much, but that he, laden with old mouse-eaten records, authorizing himself (for the most part) upon other histories, whose greatest authorities are built upon the notable foundation of hearsay; having much ado to accord differing writers and to pick truth out of partiality; better acquainted with a thousand years ago than with the present age, and yet better knowing how this world goeth than how his own wit runneth; curious for antiquities and inquisitive of novelties: a wonder to young folks and a tyrant in table talk, denieth, in a great chafe, that any man for teaching of virtue, and virtuous actions, is comparabl to him. "I a 'lux vitae, temporum magistra, vita memoriae, nuntia vetustatis,'" &C. The philosopher (saith he) teacheth a disputative virtue, but I do an active. His virtue is excellent in the dangerJess Academy of Plato, but mine showeth forth her honorable face in the battles of Marathon, Pharsalia, Poitiers, and Agincourt. He teacheth virtue by certain abstract considerations, but I only bid you follow the footing of them that have gone before you. Old-aged experience goeth beyond the finewitted philosopher, but I give the experience of many ages. Lastly, if he make the song book, I put the learner's hand to the lute; and if he be the guide, I am the light. Then would he allege you innumerable examples, conferring story by story, how much the wisest senators and princes have been directed by the credit of history, as Brutus, Alphonsus of Aragon, and who not, if need be? At length the long line of their disputation maketh a point in this, that the one giveth the precept, and the other the example. Now, whom shall we find (since the question standeth for the highest fonn in the school of learning) to be moderator? Truly, as me seemeth, the poet; and if not a moderator, even the man that ought to carry the title from them both, and much more from all other serving sciences. Therefore compare we the poet with the historian, and with the moral philosopher; and, if he go beyond them both, no other human skill can match him. For as for the Divine, with all reverence it is ever to be excepted, not only for having his scope as far beyond any of these as eternity exceedeth a moment, but even for passing each of these in themselves. And for the lawyer, though Jus be the daughter of justice, and justice the chief of virtues, yet because he seeketh ,to make men good rather formidine poenae than virtutis amore, or, to say righter, doth not endeavor to make men good, but that their evil hurt not others, having no care, so he be a good citizen, how bad a man he be: therefore, as our wickedness maketh him necessary, and necessity maketh him honorable, so is he not in the deepest truth to stand in rank with these who all endeavor to take naughtiness away, and plant goodness even in the secretest cabinet of our souls. And these four are all that any way deal in that con-sideration of men's manners, which being the supreme knowledge, they that best breed it deserve the best commendation.
The philosopher therefore and the historian are they which would win the goal, the one by precept, the other by example. But both, not having both, do both halt. For the philosopher, setting down with thorny argument the bare rule, is so hard of utterance, and so misty to be conceived, that one that hath no other guide but him shall wade in him till he be old before he shall find sufficient cause to be honest. For his knowledge standeth so upon the abstract and general, that happy is that man who may understand him, and more happy that can apply what he doth understand. On the other side, the historian, wanting the precept, is so tied, not to what should be but to what is, to the particular truth of things and not to the general reason of things, that his example draweth no necessary consequence, and therefore a less fruitful doctrine. Now doth the peerless poet perfonn both: for whatsoever the philosopher saith should be done, he giveth a perfect picture of it in someone by whom he presupposeth it was done; so as he coupleth the general notion with the particular example. A perfect picture I say, for he yieldeth to the powers of the mind an image of that whereof the philosopher bestoweth but a wordish description: which doth neither strike, pierce, nor possess the sight of the soul so much as that other doth.
For as in outward things, to a man that had never seen , an elephant or a rhinoceros, who should tell him most exquisitely all their shapes, color, bigness, and particular marks, or of a gorgeous palace the architecture, with declaring the full beauties might well make the hearer able to repeat, as it were by rote, all he had heard, yet should never satisfy his inward conceits with being witness to itself of a true lively knowledge: but the same man, as soon as he might see those beasts well painted, or the house well in model, should straightways grow, without need of any description, to a judicial comprehending of them: so no doubt the philosopher with his learned definition-be it of virtue, vices, matters of public policy or private government replenisheth the memory with many infallible grounds of wisdom, which, notwithstanding, lie dark before the imaginative and judging power, if they be not illuminated or figured forth by the speaking picture of poesy. Tully taketh much pains, and many times not without poetical helps, to make us know the force love of our country hath in us. Let us but hear old Anchises speaking in the midst of Troy's flames, or see Ulysses in the fullness of all Calypso's delights bewail his absence from barren and beggarly Ithaca. Anger, the Stoics say, was a short madness: let but Sophocles bring you Ajax on a stage, killing and whipping sheep and oxen, thinking them the army of Greeks, with their chieftains Agamemnon and Menelaus, and tell me if you have not a more familiar insight into anger than finding in the schoolmen his genus and difference. See whether wisdom and temperance in Ulysses and Diomedes, valor in Achilles, friendship in Nisus and Euryalus, even to an ignorant man carry not an apparent shining, and contrarily, the remorse of conscience in Oedipus, the soon repenting pride of Agamemnon, the self-devouring cruelty in his father Atreus, the violence of ambition in the two Theban brothers, the sour-sweetness of revenge in Medea, and, to fall lower, the Terentian Gnatho and our Chaucer's Pandar so expressed that we now use their names to signify their trades; and finally, all virtues, vices, and passions so in their own natural seats laid to the view, that we seem not to hear of them, but clearly to see through them. But even in the most excellent determination of goodness, what philosopher's counsel can so readily direct a prince, as the feigned Cyrus in Xenophon; or a virtuous man in all fortunes, as Aeneas in Virgil; or a whole commonwealth, as the way of Sir Thomas More's Utopia? I say the way, because where Sir Thomas More erred, it was the fault of the man and not of the poet, for that way of patterning a commonwealth was most absolute, though he perchance hath not so absolutely performed it. For the question is, whether the feigned image of poesy or the regular instruction of philosophy hath the more force in teaching: wherein if the philosophers have more rightly showed themselves philosophers than the poets have attained to the high top of their profession, as in truth, "mediocribus esse poetis, / Non dii, non homines, non concessere columnae;! it is. I say again, not the fault of the art, but that by few men that art can be accomplished.
Certainly, even our Saviour Christ could as well have given the moral commonplaces of uncharitableness and humbleness as the divine narration of Dives and Lazarus; or of disobedience and mercy, as that heavenly discourse of the lost child and the gracious father; but that his throughsearching wisdom knew the estate of Dives burning in hell, and of Lazarus being in Abraham's bosom, would more constantly (as it were) inhabit both the memory and judge ment. Truly, for myself, meseems I see before my eyes the lost child's disdainful prodigality, turned to envy a swine's dinner: which by the learned divines are thought not historical acts, but instructing parables. For conclusion, I say the philosopher teacheth, but he teacheth obscurely, so as the learned only can understand him; that is to say, he teacheth them that are already taught. But the poet is the food for the tenderest stomachs, the poet is indeed the right popular philosopher, whereof Aesop's tales give good proof: whose pretty allegories, stealing under the formal tales of beasts, make many, more beastly than beasts, begin to hear the sound of virtue from these dumb speakers.
But now may it be alleged that, if this imagining of matters·be so fit for the imagination, then must the historian needs surpass, who bringeth you images of true matters, such as indeed were done, and not such as fantastically or falsely may be suggested to have been done. Truly, Aristotle himself, in his discourse of poesy, plainly determineth this question, saying that poetry is philosophoteron and spoudaioteron, that is to say, it is more philosophical and more studiously serious than history. His reason is, because poesy dealeth with katholou, that is to say, with the universal consideration, and the history with kathekaston, the particular: "now," saith he, "the universal weighs what is fit to be said or done, either in likelihood or necessity (which the poesy considereth in his imposed names), and the particular only marks whether Alcibiades did, or suffered, this or that." Thus far Aristotle: which reason of his (as all his) is most full of reason. For indeed, if the question were whether it were better to have a particular act truly or falsely set down, there is no doubt which is to be chosen, no more than whether you had rather have Vespasian's picture right as he was, or at the painter's pleasure nothing resembling. But if the question be for your own use and learning, whether it be better to have it set down as it should be, or as it was, then certainly is more doctrinable the feignea Cyrus in Xenophon than the true Cyrus in Justin, and the feigned Aeneas in Virgil than the right Aeneas in Dares Phrygius. As to a lady that desired to fashion her countenance to the best grace, a painter should more benefit her to portrait a most sweet face, writing Canidia upon it, than to paint Canidia as she was, who, Horace sweareth, was foul and ill favored.
If the poet do his part aright, he will show you in Tantalus, Atreus, and such like, nothing that is not to be shunned; in Cyrus, Aeneas, Ulysses, each thing to be followed; where the historian, bound to tell things as things were, cannot be liberal (without he will be poetical) of a perfect pattern, but, as in Alexander or Scipio himself, show doings, some to be liked, some to be misliked. And then how will you discern what to follow but by your own discretion, which you had without reading Quintus CurtiuS? And whereas a man may say, though in universal consideration of doctrine the poet prevaileth, yet that the history, in his saying such a thing was done, doth warrant a man more in that he shall follow.
The answer is manifest: that if he stand upon that was-as if he should argue, because it rained yesterday, therefore it should rain today-then indeed it hath some advantage to a gross conceit; but if he know an example only informs a conjectured likelihood, and so go by reason, the poet doth so far exceed him, as he is to frame his example to that which is most reasonable, be it in warlike, politic, or private matters; where the historian in his bare was hath many times that which we call fortune to overrule the best wisdom. Many times he must tell events whereof he can yield no cause: or, if he do, it must be poetical. For that a feigned example hath as much force to teach as a true example (for as for to move, it is clear, since the feigned may be tuned to the highest key of passion), let us take one example wherein a poet and a historian do concur. Herodotus and Justin do both testify that Zopyrus, King Darius's faithful servant, seeing his master long resisted by the rebellious Babylonians, feigned hillllielf in extreme disgrace of ,his king: for verifying of which, he caused his own nose and ears to be cut off, and so flying to the ,Babylonians, was received, and for his known valor so far credited, that he did find means to deliver them over to Darius. Much like matter doth Livy record of Tarquinius and his son. Xenophon excellently feigneth such another stratagem performed by Abradates in Cyrus's behalf. Now would I fain know, if occasion be presented unto you to serve your prince by such an honest dissimulation, why you do not as well learn it of Xenophon's fiction as of the other's verityand truly so much the better, as you shall save your nose by the bargain; for Abradates did not counterfeit so far. So then the best of the historian is subject to the poet; for whatsoever action, or faction, whatsoever counsel, policy, or war stratagem the historian is bound to recite, that may the poet (if he list) with his imitation make his own, beautifying it both for further teaching, and more delighting, as it pleaseth him, having all, from Dante's heaven to his hell, under the authority of his pen. Which if I be asked what poets have done so, as I might well name some, yet say I, and say again, I speak of the art, and not of the artificer. Now, to that which commonly is attributed to the praise of histories, in respect of the notable learning is gotten by marking the success, as though therein a man should see virtue exalted and vice punished-truly that commendation is peculiar to poetry, and far off from history. For indeed poetry ever setteth virtue so out in her best colors, making Fortune her well-waiting handmaid, that one must needs be enamored of her. Well may you see Ulysses in a storm, and
in other hard plights; but they are but exercises of patience and magnanimity, to make them shine the more in the near following prosperity. And of the contrary part, if evil men come to the stage, they ever go out (as the tragedy writer answered to one that misliked the show of such persons) so manacled as they little animate folks to follow them. But the historian, being captived to the truth of a foolish world, is many times a terror from well doing, and an encouragement to unbridled wickedness.
For see we not valiant Miltiades rot in his fetters: the just Phocion and the accomplished Socrates put to death like traitors; the cruel Severus live prosperously; the excellent Severus miserably murdered; Sylla and Marius dying in their beds; Pompey and Cicero slain then when they would have thought exile a happiness? See we not virtuous Cato driven to kill himself, and rebel Caesar so advanced that his name yet, after 1,600 years, lasteth in the highest honor? And mark but even Caesar's own words of the forenamed Sylla (who in that only did honestly, to put down his dishonest tyranny). Literas nescivit, as if want of learning caused him to do well. He meant it not by poetry, which, not content with earthly plagues, deviseth new punishments in hell for tyrants, nor yet by philosophy, which teacheth Occidendos esse; but no doubt by skill in history, for that indeed can afford your Cypselus, Periander, Phalaris, Dionysius, and I know not how many more of the same kennel, that speed well enough in their abominable injustice or usurpation. I conclude, therefore, that he excelleth history, not only in furnishing the mind with knowledge, but in setting it forward to that which deserveth to be called and accounted good: which setting forward, and moving to well doing, indeed setteth the laurel crown upon the poet as victorious, not only of the historian, but over the philosopher, howsoever in teaching it may be questionable.
For suppose it be granted (that which I suppose with great reason may be denied) that the philosopher, in respect of his methodical proceeding, doth teach more perfectly than the poet, yet do I think that no man is so much philophilosophos as to compare the philosopher, in moving, with the poet. And that moving is of a higher degree than teaching, it may by this appear, that it is well-nigh the cause and the effect of teaching. For who will be taught, if he be not moved with desire to be taught, and what so much good doth that teaching bring forth (I speak still of moral doctrine) as that it moveth one to do that which it doth teach? For, as Aristotle saith, it is not gnosis but praxis must be the fruit. And how praxis cannot be, without being moved to practice, it is no hard matter to consider.
The philosopher showeth you the way, he informeth
you of the particularities, as well of the tediousness of the
way, as of the pleasant lodging you shall have when your
journey is ended, as of the many by-turnings that may divert
you from your way. But this is to no man but to him that will
read him, and read him with attentive studious painfulness;
which constant desire whosoever hath in him, hath already
passed half the hardness of the way, and therefore is beholding
to the philosopher but for the other half. Nay truly,
learned men have learnedly thought that where once reason
hath so much overmastered passion as that the mind hath a
free desire to do well, the inward light each mind hath in itself
is as good as a philosopher's book; seeing in nature we
know it is well to do well, and what is well and what is evil,
although not in the words of art which philosophers bestow
upon us. For out of natural conceit the philosophers drew it;
but to be moved to do that which we know, or to be moved
with desire to know, Hoc opus, hie labor est.
Now therein of all sciences (I speak still of human, and
according to the humane conceits) is our poet the monarch.
For he doth not only show the way, but giveth so sweet a
prospect into the way, as will entice any man to enter into it.
Nay, he doth, as if your journey should lie through a fair
vineyard, at the first give you a cluster of grapes, that, full
of that taste, you may long to pass further. He beginneth not
with obscure definitions, which must blur the margent
with interpretations, and load the memory with doubtfulness;
but he cometh to you with words set in delightful
proportion, either accompanied with, or prepared for, the
well-enchanting skill of music; and with a tale forsooth he
cometh unto you, with a tale which holdeth children from
play, and old men from the chimney corner. And, pretending
no more, doth intend the winning of the mind from
wickedness to virtue: even as the child is often brought to
take most wholesome things by hiding them in such other as
have a pleasant taste: which, if one should begin to tell them
the nature of aloes or rhubarb they should receive, would
sooner take their physic at their ears than at their mouth. So
is it in men (most of which are childish in the best things,
till they be cradled in their graves): glad they will be to hear
the tales of Hercules, Achilles, Cyrus, and Aeneas; and,
hearing them, must needs hear the right description of wisdom,
valor, and justice; which, if they had been barely, that
is to say philosophically, set out, they would swear they be
brought to school again.
That imitation whereof poetry is, hath the most conveniency
to nature of all other, insomuch that, as Aristotle
saith, those things which in themselves are horrible, as cruel
battles, unnatural monsters, are made in poetical imitation
delightful. Truly, I have known men, that even with reading
Amadis de Gaule (which God knoweth wanteth much of a
perfect poesy) have found their hearts moved to the exercise
of courtesy, liberality, and especially courage.
Who readeth Aeneas carrying old Anchises oil" his
back, that wi sheth not it were his fortune to perform so excellent
an act? Whom do not the words of Tumus move, the
tale of Thrnus having planted his image in the imagination?-
"fugientem haec terra videbit? / Usque adeone
mori miserum est? " Where the philosophers, as they scorn
to delight, so must they be content little to move, saving
wrangling whether virtue be the chief or the only good,
whether the contemplative or the active life do excel: which
Plato and Boethius well knew, and therefore made Mistress
Philosophy very often borrow the masking raiment of
Poesy. For even those hardhearted evil men who think
virtue a school name, and know no other good but indulgere
genio, and therefore despise the austere admonitions of the
philosopher, and feel not the inward reason they stand upon,
yet will be content to be delighted-which is all the good
fellow poet seemeth to promise-and so steal to see the
form of goodness, which seen they cannot but love ere
themselves be aware, as if they took a medicine of cherries.
Infinite proofs of the strange effects of this poetical invention
might be alleged; only two shall serve, which are so often
remembered as I think all men know them.
The one of Menenius Agrippa, who, when the whole
people of Rome had resolutely divided themselves from the
Senate, with apparent show of utter ruin, though he were
(for that time) an excellent orator, came not among them
upon trust of figurative speeches or cunning insinuations,
and much less with farfetched maxims of philosophy, which
(especially if they were Platonic) they must have learned
geometry before they could well have conceived; but forsooth
he behaves himself like a homely and familiar poet.
He telleth them a tale, that there was a time when all the
parts ,of the body made a mutinous conspiracy against the
belly, which they thought devoured the fruits of each other's
labor: they concliJded they would let so unprofitable a
spender starve. In the end, to be short (for the tale is notorious,
and as notorious that it was a tale), with punishing the
belly they plagued themselves. This applied by him wrought
such effect in the people, as I never read that ever words
brought forth but then so sudden and so good an alteration;
for upon reasonable conditions a perfect reconcilement ensued.
The other is of Nathan the Prophet, who, when the
holy David had so far forsaken God as to confirm adultery
with murder, when he was to do the tenderest office of a
friend, in laying his own shame before his eyes, sent by God
to call again so chosen a servant, how doth he it but by
telling of a man whose beloved lamb was ungratefully taken
from his bosom?-the application most divinely true, but
the discourse itself feigned. Which made David (I speak of
the'second and instrumental cause) as in a glass to see his
own filthiness, as that heavenly Psalm of Mercy well
testifieth.
By these, therefore, examples and reasons, I think it
may be manifest that the poet, with that same hand of delight,
doth draw the mind more effectually than any other art
doth: and so a conclusion not unfitly ensueth, that, as virtue
is the most excellent resting place for all worldly learning to
make his end of, so poetry, being the most familiar to teach
it, and most princely to move towards it, in the most excellent
work is the most excellent workman. But I am content
not only to decipher him by his works (although works in
commendation or dispraise must ever hold an high authority),
but more narrowly will examine his parts: so that, as in
a man, though all together may carry a presence full of
majesty and beauty, perchance in some one defectious piece
we may find a blemish. Now in his parts, kinds, or species
(as you list to term them), it is to be noted that some poesies
have coupled together two or three kinds, as tragical and
comical, whereupon is risen the tragicomical. Some, in the
like manner, have mingled prose and verse, as Sannazzar
and Boethius. Some have mingled matters heroical and
pastoral. But that cometh all to one in this question, for, if
severed they be good, the conjunction cannot be hurtful.
Therefore, perchance forgetting some, and leaving some as
needless to be remembered, it shall not be amiss in a word
to cite the special kinds, to see what faults may be found in
the right use of them.
Is it then the pastoral poem which is misliked? For perchance
where the hedge is lowest they will soonest leap
over. Is the poor pipe disdained, which sometime out of
Melibaeus' mouth can show the misery of people under hard
lords or ravening soldiers, and again, by Tityrus, what
blessedness is derived to them that lie lowest from the goodness
of them that sit highest; sometimes, under the pretty
tales of wolves and sheep, can include the whole considerations
of wrongdoing and patience; sometimes show that
contention for trifles can get but a trifling victory; where
perchance a man may see that even Alexander and Darius,
when they strave who should be cock of this world's
dunghill, the benefit they got was that the afterlivers may
say, "Haec memini et victum frustra contendere Thirsin: /
Ex illo Coridon, Coridon es tempore nobis " ?
Or is it the lamenting elegiac, which in a kind heart
would move rather pity than blame, who bewails with the
great philosopher Heraclitus the weakness of mankind and
the wretchedness of the world; who surely is to be praised,
either for compassionate accompanying just causes of
lamentation, or for rightly pointing out how weak be the passions
of woefulness? Is it the bitter but wholesome iambic,
which rubs the galled mind, in making shame the trumpet of
villainy with bold and open crying out against naughtiness?
Or the satiric, who "omne vafer vitium ridenti tangit amico
" ; who sportingly never leaveth until he make a man
laugh at folly, and, at length ashamed, to laugh at himself,
which he cannot avoid, without avoiding the folly; who,
while "circum praecordia ludit,"SO giveth us to feel how
many headaches a passionate life bringeth us to; how, when
all is done, "est Ulubris animus si nos non deficit aequus?"Sl
No, perchance it is the comic, whom naughty playmakers
and stage-keepers have justly made odious. To the argument
of abuse I will answer after. Only thus much now is to
be said, that the comedy is an imitation of the common errors
of our life, which he representeth in the most ridiculous
and scornful sort that may be, so as it is impossible that any
beholder can be content to be such a one.
Now, as in geometry the oblique must be known as
well as the right, and in arithmetic the odd as well as the
even, so in the actions of our life who seeth not the filthiness
of evil wanteth a great foil to perceive the beauty of virtue.
This doth the comedy handle so in our private and domestical
matters, as with hearing it we get as it were an experience,
what is to be looked for of a niggardly Demea, of a
crafty Davus, of a flattering Gnatho, of a vainglorious
Thraso; and not only to know what effects are to be expected,
but to know who be such, by the signifying badge
given them by the comedian. And little reason hath any man
to say that men learn evil by seeing it so set out; since, as I
said before, there is no man living but, by the force truth
hath in nature, no sooner seeth these men play their parts,
but wi sheth them in pistrinums although perchance the
sack of his own faults lie so behind his back that he seeth
not himself dance the same measure; whereto yet nothing
can more open his eyes than to find his own actions contemptibly
set forth. So that the right use of comedy will (I
think) by nobody be blamed, and much less of the high and
excellent tragedy, that openeth the greatest wounds, and
showeth forth the ulcers that .are covered with tissue; that
maketh kings fear to be tyrants, and tyrants manifest their
tyrannical humors; that, with stirring the affects of admiration
and commiseration, teacheth the uncertainty of this
world, and upon how weak foundations gilden roofs are
builded; that maketh us know, "Qui sceptra saevus duro imperio
regit, / Timet timentes, metus in auctorem redit."
But how much it can move, Plutarch yieldeth a notable
testimony of the abominable tyrant Alexander Pheraeus,
from whose eyes a tragedy, well made and represented,
drew abundance of tears, who, without all pity, had murdered
infinite numbers, and some of his own blood, so as he,
that was not ashamed to make matters for tragedies, yet
could not resist the sweet violence of a tragedy.
And if it wrought no further good in him, it was that
he, in despite of himself, withdrew himself from hearkening
to that which might mollify his hardened heart. But it is not
the tragedy they do mislike; for it were too absurd to cast
out so excellent a representation of whatsoever is most worthy
to be learned. Is it the lyric that most displeaseth, who
with his turned lyre, and well-accorded voice, giveth praise, .
the reward of virtue, to virtuous acts, who gives moral precepts,
and natural problems, who sometimes raiseth up fiis
voice to the height of the heavens, in singing the lauds of the
immortal God? Certainly, I must confess my own barbarousness.
I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas
that I found not my heart moved more than with a
trumpet; and yet is it sung but by some blind crowder, with
no rougher voice than rude style; which, being so evil appareled
in the dust and cobwebs of that uncivil age, what
would it work, trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindar?
ss In Hungary I have seen it the manner at all feasts, and
other such meetings, to have songs of their ancestors' valor;
which that right soldierlike nation think the chiefest kindlers
of brave courage. The incomparable Lacedaemonians did
not only carry that kind of music ever with them to the field,
but even at home, as such songs were made, so were they all
content to be the singers of them, when the lusty men were
to tell what they did, the old men what they had done" and
the young men what they would do. And where a man may
say that Pindar many times praiseth highly victories of
small moment, matters rather of sport than virtue; as it may
be answered, it was the fault of the poet, and not of the poetry,
so indeed the chief fault was in the time and custom of
the Greeks, who set those toys at so high a price that Philip
of Macedon reckoned a horse race won at Olympus among
his three fearful felicities. But as the inimitable Pindar often
did, so is that kind most capable and most fit to awake the
thoughts from the sleep of idleness, to embrace honorable
enterprises.
There rests the heroical, whose very name (I think)
should daunt all backbiters; for by what conceit can a
tongue be directed to speak evil of that which draweth with
it no less champions than Achilles, Cyrus, Aeneas, Tumus,
Tydeus, and Rinaldo? Who doth not only teach and move to
a truth, but teacheth and moveth to the most high and excellent
truth; who maketh magnanimity and justice shine
throughout all misty fearfulness and foggy desires; who, if
the saying of Plato and Tully be true, that who could see
virtue would be wonderfully ravished with the love of her
beauty-this man sets her out to make her more lovely in
her holiday apparel, to the eye of any that will deign not to
disdain until they understand. But if anything be already
concurreth to the maintaining the heroical, which is not only a kind, but the best and most accomplished kind of poetry. For as the image of each action stirreth and instructeth the mind, so the
lofty image of such worthies most inflameth the mind with
desire to be worthy, and informs with counsel how to be
worthy. Only let Aeneas be worn in the tablet of your memory,
how he governeth himself in the ruin of his country, in
the preserving his old father, and carrying away his religious
ceremonies, in obeying the god's commandment to leave
Dido, though not only all passionate kindness, but even the
human consideration of virtuous gratefulness, would have
craved other of him; how in storms, how in sports, how in
war, how in peace, how a fugitive, how victorious, how besieged,
how besieging, how to strangers, how to allies, how
to enemies, how to his own; lastly, how in his inward self,
and how in his outward government, and I think, in a mind
not prejudiced with a prejudicating humor, he will be found
in excellency fruitful, yea, even as Horace saith, "melius
Chrysippo et Crantore."
But truly I imagine it falleth out with these poetwhippers,
as with some good women, who often are sick, but in
faith they cannot tell where. So the name of poetry is odious
to them, but neither his cause nor effects, neither the sum
that contains him nor the particularities descending from
him, give any fast handle to their carping dispraise.
Since then poetry is of all human learning the most ancient
and of most fatherly antiquity, as from whence other
learnings have taken their beginnings; since it is so universal
that no learned nation doth despise it, nor no barbarous
nation is without it; since both Roman and Greek gave divine
names unto it, the one of prophesying, the other of
making, and that indeed that name of making is fit for him,
considering that whereas other arts retain themselves within
their subject, and receive, as it were, their being from it, the
poet only bringeth his own stuff, and doth not learn a conceit
out of a matter, but maketh matter for a conceit; since
neither his description nor his end containeth any evil, the
thing described cannot be evil; since his effects be so good
as to teach goodness and to delight the learners; since
therein (namely in moral doctrine, the chief of all knowledges)
he doth not only far pass the historian, but, for instructing,
is well-nigh comparable to the philosopher, and,
for moving, leaves him behind him; since the Holy Scripture
(wherein there is no uncleanness) hath whole parts in it poetical,
and that even our Saviour Christ vouchsafed to use
the flowers of it; since all his kinds are not only in their
united forms but in their severed dissections fully commendable;
I think (and think I think rightly) the laurel crown
appointed for triumphing captains doth worthily (of all
other learnings) honor the poet's triumph. But because we
have ears as well as tongues, and that the lightest reasons
that may be will seem to weigh greatly, if nothing be put in
the counterbalance, let us hear, and, as well as we can, ponder,
what objections may be made against this art, which
may be worthy either of yielding or answering.
First, truly I note not only in these mysomousoi, "poethaters,"
but in all that kind of people who seek a praise by
dispraising others, that they do prodigally spend a great
many wandering words in quips and scoffs, carping and
taunting at each thing, which, by stirring the spleen, may
stay the brain from a thorough beholding the worthiness of
the subject.
Those kind of objections, as they are full of very idle easiness, since there is nothing of so sacred a majesty but that an itching tongue may rub itself upon it, so deserve they no other answer, but, instead of laughing at the jest, to laugh at the jester. We know a playing wit can praise the discretion of an ass, the comfortableness of being in debt, and the jolly commodity of being sick of the plague. So of the contrary side, if we will tum Ovid's verse, " Ut lateat virtus proximitate mali," that "good lie hid in nearness of the evil," Agrippa will be as merry in showing the vanity of science as Erasmus was in commending of folly. Neither shall any man or matter escape some touch of these smiling railers. But for Erasmus and Agrippa, they had another foundation than the superficial part would promise. Marry, these other pleasant faultfinders, who will correct the verb before they understand the noun, and confute others' knowledge before they confirm their own, I would have them only remember that scoffing cometh not of wisdom; so as the best title in true English they get with their merriments is to be called good fools, for so have our grave forefathers ever termed that humorous kind of jesters. But that which giveth greatest scope to their scorning humors is rhyming and versing. It is already said (and, as I think, truly said) it is not rhyming and versing that maketh poesy. One may be a poet without versing, and a versifier without poetry. But yet presuppose it were inseparable (as indeed it seemeth Scaliger judgeth) truly it were an inseparable commendation. For if oratio next to ratio, "speech" next to "reason," be the greatest gift bestowed upon mortality, that cannot be praiseless which doth most polish that blessing of speech; which considers each word, not only (as a man may say) by his forcible quality, but by his best measured quantity, carrying even in themselves a harmony (without, perchance, number, measure, order, proportion be in our time grown odious). But lay aside the just praise it hath, by being the only fit speech for music (music, I say, the most divine striker of the senses),
thus much is undoubtedly true, that if reading be foolish without remembering, memory being the only treasurer of knowledge, those words which are fittest for memory are likewise most convenient for knowledge. Now, that verse far exceedeth prose in the knitting up of the memory, the reason is manifest-the words (besides their delight, which hath a great affinity to memory) being so set as one word cannot be lost but the whole work fails; which accuseth itself, calleth the remembrance back to itself, and so most strongly confirmeth it. Besides, one word so, as it were, begetting another, as, be it in rhyme or measured verse, by the former a man shall have a near guess to the follower: lastly, even they that have taught the art of memory have showed nothing so apt for it as a certain room divided into many places well and thoroughly known. Now, that hath the verse in effect perfectly, every word having his natural seat, which seat must needs make the words remembered. But what needeth more in a thing so known to all men? Who is it that ever was a scholar that doth not carry away some verses of Virgil, Horace, or Cato, which in his youth he learned, and even to his old age serve him for hourly lessons? But the fitness it hath for memory is notably proved by all delivery of arts: wherein for the most part, from grammar to logic, mathematic, physic, and the rest, the rules chiefly necessary to be borne away are compiled in verses. So that, verse being in itself sweet and orderly, and being best for memory, the only handle of knowledge, it must be in jest that any man can speak against it. Now then go we to the most important imputations laid to the poor poets. For aught I can yet learn, they are these. First, that there being many other more fruitful knowledges, a man might better spend his time in them than in this. Secondly, that it is the mother of lies. Thirdly, that it is the nurse of abuse, infecting us with many pestilent desires, with a siren's sweetness drawing the mind to the serpent's tale of sinful fancy and herein, especially, comedies give the largest field to ear (as Chaucer saith)-how both in other nations and in ours, before poets did soften us, we were full of courage, given to martial exercises, the pillars of manlike liberty, and not lulled asleep in shady idleness with poets' pastimes. And lastly, and chiefly, they cry out with an open mouth, as if' they outshot Robin Hood, that Plato banished them out" of his commonwealth. Truly, this is much, if there be much truth in it. First, to the first, that a man might better spend his time is a reason indeed: but it doth (as they say) but petere principium; for if it be, as I affirm, that no learning is so good as that which teacheth and moveth to virtue, and that none can both teach and move thereto so much as poetry, then is the conclusion manifest that ink and paper cannot be to a more profitable purpose employed. And certainly,
though a man should grant their first assumption, it should follow (methinks) very unwillingly, that good is not good because better is better. But I still and utterly deny that there is sprung out of earth a more fruitful knowledge. To the second therefore, that they should be the principal liars, I answer paradoxically, but truly, I think truly, that of all writers under the sun the poet is the least liar and, though he would, as a poet can scarcely be a liar. The astronomer, with his cousin the geometrician, can hardly escape, when they take upon them to measure the height of the stars.
How often, think you, do the physicians lie, when they
aver things good for sicknesses, which afterwards send
Charon a great number of souls drowned in a potion before
they come to his ferry? And no less of the rest, which take
upon them to affirm. Now, for the poet, he nothing affirms,
and therefore never lieth. For, as I take it, to lie is to affirm
that to be true which is false; so as the other artists, and especially
the historian, affirming many things, can, in the
cloudy knowledge of mankind, hardly escape from many
lies. But the poet (as I said before) never affirmeth.
The poet never maketh any circles about your imagination, to
conjure you to believe for true what he writes. He citeth not
authorities of other histories, but even for his entry calleth
the sweet Muses to inspire into him a good invention; in
truth, no laboring to tell you what is, or is not, but what
should or should not be. And therefore, though he recount
things not true, yet because he telleth them not for true, he
lieth not-without we will say that Nathan lied in his
speech, before alleged, to David; which as a wicked man
durst scarce say, so think I none so simple would say that
Aesop lied in the tales of his beasts: for who thinks that Aesop
writ it for actually true were well worthy to have his
name chronicled among the beasts he writeth of.
What child is there that, coming to a play, and seeing
Thebes written in great letters upon an old door, doth
believe that it is Thebes? If then a man can arrive, at that
child's age, to know that the poets' persons and doings are
but pictures what should be, and not stories what have been,
they will never give the lie to things not affirmatively but
allegorically and figuratively written. And therefore, as in
history, looking for truth, they go away full fraught with
falsehood, so in poesy, looking for fiction, they shall use the
narration but as an imaginative ground plot of a profitable
invention.
But hereto is replied, that the poets give names to men
they write of, which argueth a conceit of an actual truth, and
so, not being true, proves a falsehood. And doth the lawyer
lie then, when under the names of John a Stile and John a
Noakes he puts his case? But that is easily answered. Their
naming of men is but to make their picture the more lively,
and not to build any history; painting men, they cannot leave
men nameless. We see we cannot play at chess but that we
must give names to our chessmen; and yet, methinks, he
were a very partial champion of truth that would say we lied
for giving a piece of wood the reverend title of a bishop. The
poet nameth Cyrus or Aeneas no other way than to show
what men of their fames, fortunes, and estates should do.
, Their third is, how much it abuseth men's wit, training
it to wanton sinfulness and lustful love: for indeed that is the
- principal, if not the only, abuse I can hear alleged. They say
the comedies rather teach than reprehend amorous conceits.
They say the lyric is larded with passionate sonnets, the elegiac
weeps the want of his mistress, and that even to the
heroical Cupid hath ambitiously climbed. Alas, Love, I
would thou couldst as well defend thyself as thou canst offend
others. I would those on whom thou dost attend could
either put thee away, or yield good reason why they keep
thee. But grant love of beauty to be a beastly fault (although
it be very hard, since only man, and no beast, hath that gift
to discern beauty); grant that lovely name of Love to deserve
all hateful reproaches (although even some of my
masters the philosophers spent a good deal of their lamp-oil
in setting forth the excellency of it); grant, I say, whatsoever
they will have granted; that not only love, but lust, but vanity,
but (if they list) scurrility, possesseth many leaves of the
poet's books: yet think I, when this is granted, they will find
their sentence may with good manners put the last words
foremost, and not say that poetry abuseth man's wit, but that
man's wit abuseth poetry.
For I will not deny but that man's wit may make poesy, which should be eikastike, which some learned have defined, "figuring forth good things," to be phantastike, which doth, contrariwise, infect the fancy with unworthy objects, as the painter, that should give to the eye either some excellent perspective, or some fine picture, fit for building or fortification, or containing in it some notable example, as Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac, Judith killing
Holofernes, David fighting with Goliath, may leave those, and please an ill-pleased eye with wanton shows of better hidden matters. But what, shall the abuse of a thing make the right use odious? Nay truly, though I yield that poesy may not only be abused, but that being abused, by the reason of his sweet charming force, it can do more hurt than any other army of words, yet shall it be so far from concluding that the abuse should give reproach to the abused, that contrariwise it is a good reason, that whatsoever, being
abused, doth most harm, being rightly used (and upon the right use each thing conceiveth his title), doth most good. Do we not see the skill of physic (the best rampire to our often-assaulted bodies), being abused, teach poison, the most violent destroyer? Doth not knowledge of law, whose end is to even and right all things, being abused, grow the crooked fosterer of horrible injuries? Doth not (to go to the highest) God's word abused breed heresy, and his name abused become blasphemy? Truly, a needle cannot do much hurt, and as truly (with leave of ladies be it spoken) it cannot do much good. With a sword thou mayest kill thy father, and with a sword thou may est defend thy prince and country. So that, as in their calling poets the fathers of lies they say nothing, so in this their argument of abuse they prove the commendation.
They allege herewith, that before poets began to be in
price our nation hath set their heart's delight upon action,
and not upon imagination, rather doing things worthy to be
written, than writing things fit to be done. What that beforetime
was, I think scarcely Sphinx can tell, since no memory
is so ancient that hath the precedence of poetry. And certain
it is that, in our plainest homeliness, yet never was the Albion
nation without poetry. Marry, this argument, though it
be leveled against poetry, yet is it indeed a chain-shot
against all learning, or bookishness, as they commonly term
it. Of such mind were certain Goths, of whom it is written
that; having in the spoil of a famous city taken a fair library,
one hangman, belike, fit to execute the fruits of their wits,
who had murdered a great number of bodies, would have set
fire to it. "No," said another very gravely, "take heed what
you do, for while they are busy about these toys, we shall
with more leisure conquer their countries."
This indeed is the ordinary doctrine of ignorance, and
many words sometimes I have heard spent in it: but because
this reason is generally against all learning, as well as poetry,
or rather, all learning but poetry; because it were too
large a digression to handle, or at least too superfluous
(since it is manifest that all government of action is to be
gotten by knowledge, and knowledge best by gathering
many knowledges, which is reading), I only, with Horace, to
him that is of that opinion, "iubeo stultum esse libenter";
for as for poetry itself, it is the freest from this objection.
For poetry is the companion of the camps.
I dare undertake, Orlando Furioso, or honest King
Arthur, will never displease a soldier: but the quiddity of
ens and prima materia will hardly agree with a corselet.
And therefore, as I said in the beginning, even Turks and
Tartars are delighted with poets. Homer, a Greek, flourished
before Greece flourished. And if to a slight conjecture a
conjecture may be opposed, truly it may seem, that, as by
him their learned men took almost their first light of knowledge,
so their active men received their first motions of
courage. Only Alexander's example may serve, who by
Plutarch is accounted of such virtue, that fortune was not
his guide but his footstool; whose acts speak for him,
though Plutarch did not-indeed the Phoenix of warlike
princes. This Alexander left his schoolmaster, living Aristotle,
behind him, but took dead Homer with him. He put the
philosopher Callisthenes to death for his seeming philosophical,
indeed mutinous, stubbornness, but the chief thing
he ever was heard to wish for was that Homer had been
alive. He well found he received more bravery of mind by
the pattern of Achilles than by hearing the definition of fortitude:
and therefore, if Cato misliked Fulvius for carrying
Ennius with him to the field, it may be answered that, if
Cato misliked it, the noble Fulvius liked it, or else he had
not done it: for it was not the excellent Cato Uticensis
(whose authority I would much more have reverenced), but
it was the former, in truth a bitter punisher of faults, but else
a man that had never well sacrificed to the Graces. He misliked
and cried out upon all Greek learning, and yet, being
eighty years old, began to learn it, belike fearing that Pluto
understood not Latin. Indeed, the Roman laws allowed no
person to be carried to the wars but he that was in the soldier's
role, and therefore, though Cato misliked his unmustered
person, he misliked not his work. And if he had, Scipio
Nasica, judged by common consent the best Roman,
loved him. Both the other Scipio brothers, who had by their
virtues no less surnames than of Asia and Afric, so loved
him that they caused his body to be buried in their sepulcher.
So as Cato's authority being but against his person,
and that answered with so far greater than himself, is herein
of no validity. But now indeed my burden is great; now
Plato's name is laid upon me, whom, I must confess, of all
philosophers I have ever esteemed most worthy of reverence,
and with great reason, since of all philosophers he is
the most poetical. Yet if he will defile the fountain out of
which his flowing streams have proceeded, let us boldly examine
with what reasons he did it. First truly, a man might
maliciously object that Plato, being a philosopher, was a
natural enemy of poets. For indeed, after the philosophers
had picked out of the sweet mysteries of poetry the right
discerning true points of knowledge, they forthwith, putting
it in method, and making a school art of that which the poets
did only teach by a divine delightfulness, beginning to
spurn at their guides, like ungrateful 'prentices, were not
content to set up shops for themselves, but sought by all
means to discredit their masters; which by the force of delight
being barred them, the less they could overthrow them,
the more they hated them. For indeed, they found for
Homer seven cities strove who should have him for their
citizen; where many cities banished philosophers as not fit
members to live among them. For only repeating certain of
Euripides' verses, many Athenians had their lives saved of
the Syracusians, when the Athenians themselves thought
many philosophers unworthy to live.
Certain poets, as Simonides and Pindarus, had so prevailed
with Hiero the First, that of a tyrant they made him a
just king; where Plato could do so little with Dionysius, that
he himself of a philosopher was made a slave. But who
should do thus, I confess, should require the objections
made against poets with like cavillation against philosophers;
as likewise one should do that should bid one read
Phaedrus or Symposium in Plato, or the discourse of love in
Plutarch, and see whether any poet do authorize abominable
filthiness, as they do. Again, a man might ask out of what
commonwealth Plato did banish them. In sooth, thence
where he himself alloweth community of women. So as belike
this banishment grew not for effeminate wantonness,
since little should poetical sonnets be hurtful when a man
might have what woman he listed. But I honor philosophical
instructions, and bless the wits which bred them: so as
they be not abused, which is likewise stretched to poetry.
St. Paul himself, who yet, for the credit of poets, allegeth
twice two poets, and one of them by the name of a
prophet, setteth a watchword upon philosophy-indeed
upon the abuse. So doth Plato upon the abuse, not upon poetry.
Plato found fault that the poets of his time filled the
world with wrong opinions of the gods, making light tales
of that unspotted essence, and therefore would not have the
youth depraved with such opinions. Herein may much be
said; let this suffice: the poets did not induce such opinions,
but did imitate those opinions already induced. For all the
Greek stories can well testify that the very religion of that
time stood upon many and many-fashioned gods, not
taught so by the poets, but followed according to their nature
of imitation. Who list may read in Plutarch the discoures of Isis and Osiris, of the cause why oracles ceased,
of the divine providence, and see whether the theology of
that nation stood not upon such dreams which the poets indeed
superstitiously observed, and truly (since they had not
the light of Christ) did much better in it than the philosophers,
who, shaking off superstition, brought in atheism.
Plato therefore (whose authority I had much rather justly
construe than unjustly resist) meant not in general of poets,
in those words of which Julius Scaliger saith, "Qua authoritate
barbari quidam atque hispidi abuti velint ad poetas e
republica exigendos "; but only meant to drive out those
wrong opinions of Deity (whereof now, without further
law, Christianity hath taken away all the hurtful belief),
perchance (as he thought) nourished by the then esteemed
poets. And a man need go no further than to Plato himself
to know his meaning: who, in his dialogue called lon,
giveth high and rightly divine commendation to poetry. So
as 'Plato, banishing the abuse, not the thing, not banishing
_ it, but giving due honor unto it, shall be our patron and not
our adversary. For indeed I had much rather (since truly I
may do it) show their mistaking' of Plato (under whose
lion's skin they would make an asslike braying against
poesy) than go about to overthrow his authority; whom, the
wiser a man is, the more just cause he shall find to have in
admiration; especially since he attributeth unto poesy more
than myself do, namely, to be a very inspiring of a divine
force, far above man's wit, as in the afore-named dialogue
is apparent.
Of the other side, who would show the honors have been by the best sort of judgments granted them, a whole sea of examples would present themselves: Alexanders, Caesars, Sci pi os, all favorers of poets; Laelius, called the Roman Socrates, himself a poet, so as part of Heautontimorumenos in Terence was supposed to be made by him, and even the Greek Socrates, whom Apollo confirmed to be the
only wise man, is said to have spent part of his old time in putting Aesop's fables into verses, And therefore, full evil should it become his scholar Plato to put such words in his master's mouth against poets. But what need more? Aristotle writes the Art of Poesy: and why, if it should not be written? Plutarch teacheth the use to be gathered of them, and how, if they should not be read? And who reads Plutarch's either history or philosophy, shall find he trimmeth both their garments with guards of poesy. But I list not to defend poesy with the help of her underling historiography. Let it suffice that it is a fit soil for praise to dwell upon; and what dispraise may set upon it, is either easily overcome, or transformed into just commendation. So that, since the excellencies of it may be so easily and so justly confirmed, and the low-creeping objections so soon trodden down; it not being an art of lies, but of true doctrine; not of effeminateness, but of notable stirring of courage; not of abusing man's wit, but of strengthening man's wit; not banished, but honored by Plato; let us rather plant more laurels for to engarland our poets' heads (which honor of being laureate, as besides them only triumphant captains wear, is a sufficient authority to show the price they ought to be had in) than suffer the ill favoring breath of such wrong-speakers once to blow upon the clear springs of poesy.
But since I have run so long a career in this matter, methinks, before I give my pen a full stop, it shall be but a little more lost time to inquire why England (the mother of excellent minds) should be grown so hard a stepmother to poets, who certainly in wit ought to pass all other, since all only proceedeth from their wit, being indeed makers of themselves, not takers of others. How can I but exclaim, "Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso! " Sweet Poesy, that hath anciently had kings, emperors, senators, great captains, such as, besides a thousand others, David,
Adrian, Sophocles, Germanicus, not only to favor poets, but
to be poets; and of our nearer times can present for her patrons
a Robert, king of Sicily, the great King Francis of
France, King James of Scotland; such cardinals as Bembus
and Bibbiena: such famous preachers and teachers as Beza
and Melancthon; so learned philosophers as Fracastorius
and Scaliger; so great orators as Pontanus and Muretus; so
piercing wits as George Buchanan; so grave counselors as,
besides many, but before all, that Hospital of France, than
whom (I think) that realm never brought forth a more accomplished
judgment, more firmly builded upon virtue-I
say these, with numbers of others, not only to read others'
poesies, but to poetize for others' reading-that poesy, thus
embraced in all other places, should only find in our time a
hard welcome in England, I think the very earth lamenteth
it, and therefore decketh our soil with fewer laurels than it
was accustomed. For heretofore poets have in England also
flourished, and, which is to be noted, even in those times
when the trumpet of Mars did sound loudest. And now that
an overfaint quietness should seem to strew the house for
poets, they are almost in as good reputation as the mountebanks
at Venice. Truly even that, as of the one side it giveth
great praise to poesy, which like Venus (but to better
purpose) hath rather be troubled in the net with Mars than
enjoy the homely quiet of Vulcan; so serves it for a piece of
a reason why they are less grateful to idle England, which
now can scarce endure the pain of a pen. Upon this necessarily
followeth, that base men with servile wits undertake
it, who think it enough if they can be rewarded of the
printer. And so as Epaminondas is said, with the honor of
his virtue, to have made an office, by his exercising it,
which before was contemptible, to become highly re- .
spected, so these, no more but setting their names to it, by
their own disgracefulness disgrace the most graceful poesy.
For now, as if all the Muses were got with child, to bring
forth bastard poets, without any commission they do post
over the banks of Helicon, till they make the readers more
weary than post-horses, while, in the meantime, they,
"queis meliore luto jinxit praecordia Titan: are better
content to suppress the outflowing of their wit, than, by
publishing them, to be accounted knights of the same order.
But I that, before ever I durst aspire unto the dignity, am admitted
into the company of the paper-blurrers, do find the
very true cause of our wanting estimation is want of desert,
taking upon us to be poets in despite of Pallas. Now,
wherein we want desert were a thankworthy labor to express:
but if I knew, I should have mended myself. But I, as
I never desired the title, so have I neglected the means to
come by it. Only, overmastered by some thoughts, I yielded
an inky tribute unto them. Marry, they that delight in poesy
itself should seek to know what they do, and how they do,
and, especially, look themselves in an unflattering glass of
reason, if they be inclinable unto it. For poesy must not be
drawn by the ears; it must be gently led, or rather it must
lead; which was partly the cause that made the ancientlearned
affirm it was a divine gift, and no human skill; since
all other know ledges lie ready for any that hath strength of
wit; a poet no industry can make, if his own genius be not
carried unto it; and therefore is it an old proverb, Orator fit,
poeta nasciturY Yet confess I always that as the fertilest
ground must be manured, so must the highest-flying wit _
have a Daedalus to guide him. That Daedalus, they say, both
in this and in other, hath three wings to bear itself up into
the air of due commendation: that is, art, imitation, and exercise.
But these, neither artificial rules nor imitative patterns,
we much cumber ourselves withal. Exercise indeed
we do, but that very fore-backwardly: for where we should
exercise to know, we exercise as having known: and so is
our brain delivered of much matter which never was begotten
by knowledge. For, there being two principal partsmatter
to be expressed by words and words to express the
matter-in neither we use art or imitation rightly. Our
matter is quodlibet indeed, though wrongly performing
Ovid's verse, "Quicquic conabar dicere, versus erat ";
never marshaling it into an assured rank, that almost the
readers cannot tell where to find themselves.
Chaucer, undoubtedly, did excellently in his Troilus
and Cressida; of whom, truly, I know nof whether to marvel
more, either that he in that misty time could see so clearly,
or that we in this clear age walk so stumblingly after him.
Yet had he great wants, fit to be forgiven in so reverent antiquity.
I account the Mirror of Magistrates meetly furnished
of beautiful parts, and in the Earl of Surrey's Lyrics
many fhings tasting of a noble birth, and worthy of a noble
mind. The Shepherd 's Calendar hath much poetry in his
eclogues, indeed worthy the reading, if I be not deceived.
That same framing of his style to an old rustic language I
dare not allow, since neither Theocritus in Greek, Virgil in
Latin, nor Sannazzaro in Italian did affect it. Besides these,
do I not remember to have seen but few (to speak boldly)
printed, that have poetical sinews in them: for proof
whereof, let but most of the verses be put in prose, and then
ask the meaning; and it will be found that one verse did but
beget another, without ordering at the first what should be at
the last; which becomes a confused mass of words, with a
tingling sound of rhyme, barely accompanied with reason.
Our tragedies and comedies (not without cause cried
out against), observing rules neither of honest civility nor of
skillful poetry, excepting Gorboduc (again, I say, of those
that I have seen), which notwithstanding, as it is full of
stately speeches and wellsounding phrases, climbing to the
height of Seneca's style, and as full of notable morality,
which it doth most delightfully teach, and so obtain the very
end of poesy, yet in truth it is very defectious in the circumstances,
which grieveth me, because it might not remain as
an exact model of all tragedies. For it is faulty both in place
and time, the two necessary companions of all corporal actions.
For where the stage should always represent but one
place, and the uttermost time presupposed in it should be,
both by Aristotle's precept and common reason, but one day,
there is both many days, and many places, inartificially
imagined. But if it be so in Gorboduc, how much more in
all the rest, where you shall have Asia of the one side, and
Africa of the other, and so many other underkingdoms, that
the player, when he cometh in, must ever begin with telling
where he is, or else the tale will not be conceived? Now ye
shall have three ladies walk to gather flowers and then we
must believe the stage to be a garden. By and by we hear
news of shipwreck in the same place, and then we are to
blame if we accept it not for a rock.
Upon the back of that comes out a hideous monster,
with fire and smoke, and then the miserable beholders are
bound to take it for a cave. While in the meantime two
armies fly in, represented with four swords and bucklers,
and then what hard heart will not receive it for a pitched
field? Now, of time they are much more liberal, for ordinary
it is that two young princes fall in love. After many traverses,
she is got with child, delivered of a fair boy; he is
lost, lgroweth a man, falls in love, and is ready to get another
child; and all this in two hours' space: which, how absurd it
is in sense, even sense may imagine; and art hath taught, and
all ancient examples justified, and, at this day, the ordinary
players in Italy will not err in. Yet will some bring in an example
of Eunuchus in Terence that containeth matter of
two days, yet far short of twenty years. True it is, and so was
it to be played in two days, and so fitted to the time it set
forth. And though Plautus hath in one place done amiss, let
us hit with him, and not miss with him. But they will say,
How then shall we set forth a story, which containeth both
many places and many times? And do they not know that a
tragedy is tied to the laws of poesy, and not of history; not
bound to follow the story, but, having liberty, either to feign
a quite new matter, or to frame the history to the most tragical
conveniency? Again, many things may be told which
cannot be showed, if they know the difference betwixt reporting
and representing. As, for example, I may speak
(though I am here) of Peru, and in speech digress from that
to the description of Calicut; but in action I cannot represent
it without Pacolet's horse. And so was the manner the
ancients took, by some nuncius to recount things done in
former time or other place.
Lastly, if they will represent an
history, they must not (as Horace saith) begin ab OVO, but
they must come to the principal point of that one action
which they will represent. By example this will be best expressed.
I have a story of young Polydorus, delivered for
safety's sake, with great riches, by his father Priam to
Polymnestor, king of Thrace, in the Trojan war time. He, after
some years, hearing the overthrow of Priam, for to make
the treasure his own, murdereth the child. The body of the
child is taken up by Hecuba. She, the same day, findeth a
slight to be revenged most cruelly of the tyrant. Where now
would one of our tragedy writers begin, but with the delivery
of the child? Then should he sail over into Thrace, and
so spend I know not how many years, and travel numbers of
places. But where doth Euripides? Even with the finding of
the body, leaving the rest to be told by the spirit of Polydorus.
This need no further to be enlarged; the dullest wit
may conceive it. But besides these gross absurdities, how all
their plays be neither right tragedies, nor right comedies,
mingling kings arid clowns, not because the matter so carrieth
it, but thrust in clowns by head and shoulders, to play a
part in majestical matters, with neither decency no! discretion,
so as neither the admiration and commiseration, nor
the right sportfulness, is by their mongrel tragicomedy obtained.
I know Apuleius did somewhat so, but that is a
thing recounted with space of time, not represented in one
moment: and I know the ancients have one or two examples
of tragicomedies, as Plautus hath Amphitrio. But, if we
mark them well, we shall find, that they never, or very daintily,
match hornpipes and funerals. So falleth it out that,
having indeed no right comedy, in that comical part of our
tragedy we have nothing but scurrility, unworthy of any
chaste ears, or some extreme show of doltishness, indeed fit
to lift up a loud laughter, and nothing else: where the whole
tract of a comedy should be full of delight, as the tragedy
should be still maintained in a well-raised admiration. But
our comedians think there is no delight without laughter;
which is very wrong, for though laughter may come with
delight, yet cometh it not of delight, as though delight
should be the cause of laughter; but well may one thing
breed both together. Nay, rather in themselves they have, as
it were, a kind of contrariety: for delight we scarcely do but
in things that have a conveniency to ourselves or to the general
nature: laughter almost ever cometh of things most disproportioned
to ourselves and nature. Delight hath a joy in
it, either permanent or present. Laughter hath only a scornful
tickling.
For example, we are ravished with delight to see a fair
woman, and yet are far from being moved to laughter. We
laugh at deformed creatures, wherein certainly we cannot
delight. We delight in good chances, we laugh at mischances;
we delight to hear the happiness of our friends, or
country, at which he were worthy to be laughed at that
would laugh. We shall, contrarily, laugh sometimes to find
a matter quite mistaken and go down the hill against the
bias, in the mouth of some such men, as for the respect of
them one shall be heartily sorry, yet he cannot choose but
laugh; and so is rather pained than delighted with laughter.
Yet deny I not but that they may go well together. For as in
Alexander's picture well set out we delight without laughter,
and in twenty mad antics we laugh without delight, so
in Hercules, painted with his great beard and furious countenance,
in woman's attire, spinning at Omphale's commandment,
it breedeth both delight and laughter. For the
representing of so strange a power in love procureth delight:
and the scornfulness of the action stirreth laughter.
But I speak to this purpose, that all the end of the comical
part be not upon such scornful matters as stirreth laughter
only, but, mixed with it, that delightful teaching which is
the end of poesy. And the great fault even in that point of
laughter, and forbidden plainly by Aristotle, is that they
stir laughter in sinful things, which are rather execrable
than ridiculous; or in miserable, which are rather to be
pitied than scorned. For what is it to make folks gape at a
wretched beggar, or a beggarly clown; or, against the law of
hospitality, to jest at strangers, because they speak not English
so well as we do? What do we learn, since it is certain
"Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se, / Quam quod
ridiculos homines facit" ? But rather a busy loving
courtier, a heartless threatening Thraso, a self-wiseseeming
schoolmaster, an awry-transformed travelerthese
if we saw walk in stage names, which we play naturally,
therein were delightful laughter, and teaching
delightfulness: as in the other, the tragedies of Buchanan do
justly bring forth a divine admiration. But I have lavished
out too many words of this play matter. I do it because, as
they are excelling parts of poesy, so is there none so much
used in England, and none can be more pitifully abused;
which, like an unmannerly daughter showing a bad education,
causeth her mother poesy's honesty to be called in
question. Other sorts of poetry almost have we none, but
that lyrical kind of songs and sonnets: which, Lord, if he .
gave us so good minds, how well it might be employed, and
with how heavenly fruit, both private and public, in singing
the praises of the immortal beauty, the immortal goodness
of that God who giveth us hands to write and wits to conceive;
of which we might well want words, but never matter;
of which we could tum our eyes to nothing, but we
should ever have new budding occasions. But truly many of
such writings as come under the banner of unresistible
love, if I were a mistress, would never persuade me they
were in love; so coldly they apply fiery speeches, as men
that had rather read lovers' writings, and so caught up certain
swelling phrases (which hang together like a man
which once told me the wind was at northwest, and by
south, because he would be Sure to name winds enough),
than that in truth they feel those passions, which easily (as
I think) may be betrayed by that same forcibleness or energia
(as the Greeks call it) of the writer. But let this be a
sufficient though short note, that we miss the right use of
the material point of poesy.
Now, for the outside of it, which is words, or (as I may
term it) diction, it is even well worse. So is that honeyflowing
matron eloquence appareled, or rather disguised, in
a courtesan like painted affectation: one time with so farfetched
words, they may seem monsters, but must seem
strangers, to any poor Englishman; another time, with
coursing of a letter, as if they were bound to follow the
method of a dictionary; another time, with figures and flowers,
extremely winter-starved. But I would this fault were
only peculiar to versifiers, and had not as large possession
among prose-printers, and (which is to be marveled) among
many scholars, and (which is to be pitied) among some
preachers. Truly I could wish, if at least I might be so bold
to wish in a thing beyond the reach of my capacity, the diligent
imitators of Tully and Demosthenes (most worthy to
be imitated) did not so much keep Nizolian paper books of
their figures and phrases, as by attentive translation (as it
were) devour them whole, and make them wholly theirs. For
now they cast sugar and spice upon every dish that is served
to the table, like those Indians, not content to wear earrings
at the fit and natural place of the ears, but they will thrust
jewels through their nose and lips, because they will be sure
to be fine.
Tully, when he was to drive out Catiline, as it were
with a thunderbolt of eloquence, often used that figure of
repetition, "Vivit, Vivit? [rno in Senaturn venit," &c.90 Indeed,
inflamed with a well-grounded rage, he would have
his words (as it were) double out of his mouth, and so do
that artificially which we see men do in choler naturally.
And we, having noted the grace of those words, hale them
in sometime to a familiar epistle, when it were too much
choler to be choleric. Now for similitudes in certain printed
discourses, I think all herberists, all stories of beasts, fowls,
and fishes are rifled up, that they come in multitudes to wait
upon any of our conceits; which certainly is as absurd a surfeit
to the ears as is possible: for the force of a similitude not
being to prove anything to a contrary disputer, but only to
explain to a willing hearer; when that is done, the rest is a
most tedious prattling, rather overswaying the memory from
the purpose whereto they were applied, than any whit informing
the judgment, already either satisfied, or by similitudes
not to be satisfied. For my part, I do not doubt, when
Antonius and Crassus, the great forefathers of Cicero in eloquence,
the one (as Cicero testifieth of them) pretended not
to know art, the other not to set by it, because with a plain
sensibleness they might win credit of popular ears; which
credit is the nearest step to persuasion; which persuasion is
the chief mark of oratory-I do not doubt (I say) that but
they used these knacks very sparingly; which, who doth
.generally use, any man may see doth dance to his own music;
and so be noted by the audience more careful to speak
curiously than to speak truly. '
Undoubtedly (at least to my opinion undoubtedly) I
have found in divers small-learned courtiers a more sound
style than in some professors of learning: of which I can
guess no other cause, but that the courtier, following that
which by practice he findeth fittest to nature, therein (though
he know it not) doth according to art, though not by art:
where the other, using art to show art, and not to hide art (as
in these cases he should do), flieth from nature, and indeed
abuseth art.
But what? Methinks I deserve to be pounded for straying
from poetry to oratory: but both have such an affinity in
this wordish consideration, that I think this digression will
make my meaning receive the fuller understanding-which
is not to take upon me to teach poets how they should do,
but only, finding myself sick among the rest, to show some
one or two spots of the common infection grown among the
most part of writers: that, acknowledging ourselves somewhat
awry, we may bend to the right use both of matter and
manner; whereto our language giveth us great occasion, being
indeed capable of any excellent exerCising of it. I know
some will say it is a mingled language. And why not so
much the better, taking the best of both the other? Another
will say it wanteth grammar. Nay truly, it hath that praise,
that it wanteth grammar: for grammar it might have, but it
needs it not; being so easy of itself, and so void of those
cumbersome differences of cases, genders, moods, and
tenses, which I think was a piece of the Tower of Babylon's
curse, that a man should be put to school to learn his mother
tongue. But for the uttering sweetly and properly the conceits
of the mind, which is the end of speech, that hath it
equally with any other tongue in the world: and is particularly
happy in compositions of two or three words together,
near the Greek, far beyond the Latin: which is one of the
greatest beauties can be in a language.
Now, of versifying there are two sorts, the one ancient,
the other modem: the ancient marked the quantity of each
syllable, and according to that framed his verse; the modern
observing only number (with some regard of the accent), the
chief life of it standeth in that like sounding of the words,
which we call rhyme. Whether of these be the most excellent,
would bear many speeches. The ancient (no doubt)
more fit for music, both words and tune observing qu.antity,
and more fit lively to express divers passions, by the low and
lofty sound of the well-weighed syllable. The latter likewise,
with his rhyme, striketh a certain music to the ear:
and, in fine, since it doth delight, though by another way, it
obtains the same purpose: there being in either sweetness,
and wanting in neither majesty. Truly the English, before
any other vulgar language I know, is fit for both sorts: for,
for the ancient, the Italian is so full of vowels that it must
ever be cumbered with elisions; the Dutch so, of the other
side, with consonants, that they cannot yield the sweet sliding
fit for a verse; the French, in his whole language, hath
not one word that hath his accent in the last syllable saving
two, called antepenultima; and little more hath the Spanish;
and, therefore, very gracelessly may they use dactyls. The
English is subject to none of these defects.
Now, for the rhyme, though we do not observe quantity,
yet we observe the accent very precisely: which other
languages either cannot do, or will not do so absolutely.
That caesura, or breathing place in the midst of the verse,
neither Italian nor Spanish have, the French, and we, never
almost fail of. Lastly, even the very rhyme itself the Italian
cannot put in the last syllable, by the French named the
"masculine rhyme," but still in the next to the last, which
the French call the "female," or the next before that,
which the Italians term sdrucciola. The example of the former
is buono:suono, of the sdrucciola, femina:semina. The
French, of the other side, hath both the male, as bon:son,
and the female, as plaise:taise, but the sdrucciola he
hath not: where the English hath all three, as due: true,
father:rather, motion:potion, with much more which might
be said, but that I find already the triflingness of this discourse
is much too much enlarged. So that since the everpraiseworthy
poesy is full of virtue-breeding delightfulness,
and void of no gift that ought to be in the noble name of
learning; since the blames laid against it are either false or
feeble; since the cause why it is not esteemed in England is
the fault of poet-apes, not poets; since, lastly, our tongue is
most fit to honor poesy, and to be honored by poesy; I
conjure you all that have had the evil luck to read this inkwasting
toy of mine, even in the name of the nine Muses, no
more to scorn the sacred mysteries of poesy, no more to
laugh at the name of poets, as though they were next
inheritors to fools, no more to jest at the reverent title of a
rhymer; but to believe, with Aristotle, that they were the ancient
treasurers of the Grecians' divinity; to believe, with
Bembus, that they were first bringers-in of all civility; to
believe, with Scaliger, that no philosopher's precepts can
sooner make you an honest man than the reading of Virgil;
to believe, with Clauserus, the translator of Cornutus, that it
pleased the heavenly Deity, by Hesiod and Homer, under the
veil of fables, to give us all knowledge, logic, rhetoric, philosophy, natural and moral, and Quid non?; to believe,
with me, that there are many mysteries contained in poetry,
which of purpose were written darkly, least by profane wits
it should be abused; to believe, with Landino, that they are
so beloved of the gods that whatsoever they write proceeds
of a divine fury; lastly, to believe themselves, when they tell
you they will make you immortal by their verses.
Thus doing, your name shall flourish in the printers'
shops; thus doing, you shall be of kin to many a poetical
preface; thus doing, you shall be most fair, most rich, most
wise, most all; you shall dwell upon superlatives. Thus doing,
though you be "libertino patre natus," you shall suddenly
grow "Herculea proles," "si quid mea carmina possunt."
Thus doing, your soul shall be placed with Dante's
Beatrix, or Virgil's Anchises. But if (fie of such a but) you
be born so near the dull-making cataract of Nilus that you
cannot hear the planetlike music of poetry, if you have so
earth-creeping a mind that it cannot lift itself up to look to
the sky of poetry, or rather, by a certain rustical disdain, will
become such a mome as to be a momus of poetry; then,
though I will not wish unto you the ass's ears of Midas, nor
to be driven by a poet's verses (as Bubonax was) to hang
himself, nor to be rhymed to death, as is said to be done in
Ireland; yet thus much curse I must send you, in the behalf
of all poets, that while you live, you live in love, and never
get favor for lacking skill of a sonnet, and, when you die,
your memory die from the earth for want of an epitaph.
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