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Rebuttal Of Complaints Towards Poets
Rebuttal Of Complaints Towards Poets
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.^36 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 poesy, 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.
[Footnote 36: Beg the question.]
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 affirmeth, 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 writeth. He citeth not
authorities of other histories, but even for his entry calleth the sweet Muses
to inspire into him a good invention; in troth, not 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 thinketh that
Aesop wrote 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
poet`s 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 may go away full-fraught with falsehood, so in poesy looking
but 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, proveth a falsehood. And doth the lawyer lie then, when,
under the names of John of the Stile, and John of the Nokes, he putteth 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 chess-men; and yet, me thinks, 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 and 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 poets` 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 ElkabrlkN, which some learned have defined, figuring forth good
things, to be pavrabrlkN, 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 receiveth 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 in 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 mayst kill thy father, and with a sword
thou mayst 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 hearts` delight upon action, and not upon imagination; rather
doing things worthy to be written, than writing things fit to be done. What
that before-time 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 levelled against poetry, yet is it indeed a
chainshot 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 in 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
Jubeo stultum esse libenter;^37
[Footnote 37: "I gladly bid him be a fool." - Adapted from Horace, "Sat.," I.,
1, 63.]
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 was ever 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 sacrificed to the Graces. He misliked and cried out
upon all Greek learning; and yet, being fourscore 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 soldiers`
roll. 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 sepulchre. 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 burthen is great, that 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 strave 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 Syracusans, where the Athenians themselves thought many philosophers
unworthy to live. Certain poets as Simonides and Pindar, had so prevailed with
Heiro 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 requite the objections made
against poets with like cavillations 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 doth 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. Saint 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 discourses 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;^38 but only meant to drive out those wrong
opinions of the 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 Ion, giveth high and rightly
divine commendation unto 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 ass
- like 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 forenamed
dialogue is apparent.
[Footnote 38: "Which authority [i. e., Plato`s] some barbarous and rude
persons wish to abuse, in order to banish poets from the state." - Scaliger,
"Poetics," 5. a, 1.]
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, Scipios, all favorers of poets; Laelius, called the Roman
Socrates, himself a poet, so as part of Heautontimoroumenos 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 needs 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^39 of poesy. But I list
not to defend poesy with the help of his 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.
[Footnote 39: Ornaments.]
So that since the exellencies 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 were, is a sufficient authority to show
the price they ought to be held in - than suffer the ill - savored breath of
such wrong speakers once to blow upon the clear springs of poesy.
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