But How Differs a Poem From What We Call Poesy?
Poesis.—Artium regina.—Poet. differentiæ.—Grammatic.—Logic.—Rhetoric.—Ethica.—A poem, as I have told you, is the work of the poet; the end and fruit of his labour and study. Poesy is his skill or craft of making; the very fiction itself, the reason or form of the work. And these three voices differ, as the thing done, the doing, and the doer; the thing feigned, the feigning, and the feigner; so the poem, the poesy, and the poet. Now the poesy is the habit or the art; nay, rather the queen of arts, which had her original from heaven, received thence from the Hebrews, and had in prime estimation with the Greeks transmitted to the Latins and all nations that professed civility. The study of it (if we will trust Aristotle) offers to mankind a certain rule and pattern of living well and happily, disposing us to all civil offices of society. If we will believe Tully, it nourisheth and instructeth our youth, delights our age, adorns our prosperity, comforts our adversity, entertains us at home, keeps us company abroad, travels with us, watches, divides the times of our earnest and sports, shares in our country recesses and recreations; insomuch as the wisest and best learned have thought her the absolute mistress of manners and nearest of kin to virtue. And whereas they entitle philosophy to be a rigid and austere poesy, they have, on the contrary, styled poesy a dulcet and gentle philosophy, which leads on and guides us by the hand to action with a ravishing delight and incredible sweetness. But before we handle the kinds of poems, with their special differences, or make court to the art itself, as a mistress, I would lead you to the knowledge of our poet by a perfect information what he is or should be by nature, by exercise, by imitation, by study, and so bring him down through the disciplines of grammar, logic, rhetoric, and the ethics, adding somewhat out of all, peculiar to himself, and worthy of your admittance or reception.
1. Ingenium.—Seneca.—Plato.—Aristotle.—Helicon.—Pegasus.—Parnassus.—Ovid.—First, we require in our poet or maker (for that title our language affords him elegantly with the Greek) a goodness of natural wit. For whereas all other arts consist of doctrine and precepts, the poet must be able by nature and instinct to pour out the treasure of his mind, and as Seneca saith, Aliquando secundum Anacreontem insanire jucundum esse; by which he understands the poetical rapture. And according to that of Plato, Frustrà poeticas fores sui compos pulsavit. And of Aristotle, Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixturâ dementiæ fuit. Nec potest grande aliquid, et supra cæteros loqui, nisi mota mens. Then it riseth higher, as by a divine instinct, when it contemns common and known conceptions. It utters somewhat above a mortal mouth. Then it gets aloft and flies away with his rider, whither before it was doubtful to ascend. This the poets understood by their Helicon, Pegasus, or Parnassus; and this made Ovid to boast,
“Est deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo
Sedibus æthereis spiritus ille venit.” 139a
Lipsius.—Petron. in. Fragm.—And Lipsius to affirm, Scio, poetam neminem præstantem fuisse, sine parte quadam uberiore divinæ auræ. And hence it is that the coming up of good poets (for I mind not mediocres or imos) is so thin and rare among us. Every beggarly corporation affords the State a mayor or two bailiffs yearly; but Solus rex, aut poeta, non quotannis nascitur. To this perfection of nature in our poet we require exercise of those parts, and frequent.
2. Exercitatio.—Virgil.—Scaliger.—Valer. Maximus.—Euripides.—Alcestis.—If his wit will not arrive suddenly at the dignity of the ancients, let him not yet fall out with it, quarrel, or be over hastily angry; offer to turn it away from study in a humour, but come to it again upon better cogitation; try another time with labour. If then it succeed not, cast not away the quills yet, nor scratch the wainscot, beat not the poor desk, but bring all to the forge and file again; torn it anew. There is no statute law of the kingdom bids you be a poet against your will or the first quarter; if it comes in a year or two, it is well. The common rhymers pour forth verses, such as they are, ex tempore; but there never comes from them one sense worth the life of a day. A rhymer and a poet are two things. It is said of the incomparable Virgil that he brought forth his verses like a bear, and after formed them with licking. Scaliger the father writes it of him, that he made a quantity of verses in the morning, which afore night he reduced to a less number. But that which Valerius Maximus hath left recorded of Euripides, the tragic poet, his answer to Alcestis, another poet, is as memorable as modest; who, when it was told to Alcestis that Euripides had in three days brought forth but three verses, and those with some difficulty and throes, Alcestis, glorying he could with ease have sent forth a hundred in the space, Euripides roundly replied, “Like enough; but here is the difference: thy verses will not last these three days, mine will to all time.” Which was as much as to tell him he could not write a verse. I have met many of these rattles that made a noise and buzzed. They had their hum, and no more. Indeed, things wrote with labour deserve to be so read, and will last their age.
3. Imitatio.—Horatius.—Virgil.—Statius.—Homer.—Horat.—Archil.—Alcæus, &c.—The third requisite in our poet or maker is imitation, to be able to convert the substance or riches of another poet to his own use. To make choice of one excellent man above the rest, and so to follow him till he grow very he, or so like him as the copy may be mistaken for the principal. Not as a creature that swallows what it takes in crude, raw, or undigested, but that feeds with an appetite, and hath a stomach to concoct, divide, and turn all into nourishment. Not to imitate servilely, as Horace saith, and catch at vices for virtue, but to draw forth out of the best and choicest flowers, with the bee, and turn all into honey, work it into one relish and savour; make our imitation sweet; observe how the best writers have imitated, and follow them. How Virgil and Statius have imitated Homer; how Horace, Archilochus; how Alcæus, and the other lyrics; and so of the rest.
4. Lectio.—Parnassus.—Helicon.—Arscoron.—M. T. Cicero.—Simylus.—Stob.—Horat.—Aristot.—But that which we especially require in him is an exactness of study and multiplicity of reading, which maketh a full man, not alone enabling him to know the history or argument of a poem and to report it, but so to master the matter and style, as to show he knows how to handle, place, or dispose of either with elegancy when need shall be. And not think he can leap forth suddenly a poet by dreaming he hath been in Parnassus, or having washed his lips, as they say, in Helicon. There goes more to his making than so; for to nature, exercise, imitation, and study art must be added to make all these perfect. And though these challenge to themselves much in the making up of our maker, it is Art only can lead him to perfection, and leave him there in possession, as planted by her hand. It is the assertion of Tully, if to an excellent nature there happen an accession or conformation of learning and discipline, there will then remain somewhat noble and singular. For, as Simylus saith in Stobæus, Ουτε φύσις ίκανη yινεται τεχνης ατερ, ουτε παν τέχνη μη φυσιν κεκτημένη, without art nature can never be perfect; and without nature art can claim no being. But our poet must beware that his study be not only to learn of himself; for he that shall affect to do that confesseth his ever having a fool to his master. He must read many, but ever the best and choicest; those that can teach him anything he must ever account his masters, and reverence. Among whom Horace and (he that taught him) Aristotle deserved to be the first in estimation. Aristotle was the first accurate critic and truest judge—nay, the greatest philosopher the world ever had—for he noted the vices of all knowledges in all creatures, and out of many men’s perfections in a science he formed still one art. So he taught us two offices together, how we ought to judge rightly of others, and what we ought to imitate specially in ourselves. But all this in vain without a natural wit and a poetical nature in chief. For no man, so soon as he knows this or reads it, shall be able to write the better; but as he is adapted to it by nature, he shall grow the perfecter writer. He must have civil prudence and eloquence, and that whole; not taken up by snatches or pieces in sentences or remnants when he will handle business or carry counsels, as if he came then out of the declaimer’s gallery, or shadow furnished but out of the body of the State, which commonly is the school of men.
Virorum schola respub.—Lysippus.—Apelles.—Nævius.—The poet is the nearest borderer upon the orator, and expresseth all his virtues, though he be tied more to numbers, is his equal in ornament, and above him in his strengths. And (of the kind) the comic comes nearest; because in moving the minds of men, and stirring of affections (in which oratory shows, and especially approves her eminence), he chiefly excels. What figure of a body was Lysippus ever able to form with his graver, or Apelles to paint with his pencil, as the comedy to life expresseth so many and various affections of the mind? There shall the spectator see some insulting with joy, others fretting with melancholy, raging with anger, mad with love, boiling with avarice, undone with riot, tortured with expectation, consumed with fear; no perturbation in common life but the orator finds an example of it in the scene. And then for the elegancy of language, read but this inscription on the grave of a comic poet:
“Immortales mortales si fas esset fiere,
Flerent divæ Camœnæ Nævium poetam;
Itaque postquam est Orcino traditus thesauro,
Obliti sunt Romæ linguâ loqui Latinâ.” 146a
L. Ælius Stilo.—Plautus.—M. Varro.—Or that modester testimony given by Lucius Ælius Stilo upon Plautus, who affirmed, “Musas, si Latinè loqui voluissent, Plautino sermone fuisse loquuturas.” And that illustrious judgment by the most learned M. Varro of him, who pronounced him the prince of letters and elegancy in the Roman language.
Sophocles.—I am not of that opinion to conclude a poet’s liberty within the narrow limits of laws which either the grammarians or philosophers prescribe. For before they found out those laws there were many excellent poets that fulfilled them, amongst whom none more perfect than Sophocles, who lived a little before Aristotle.
Demosthenes.—Pericles.—Alcibiades.—Which of the Greeklings durst ever give precepts to Demosthenes? or to Pericles, whom the age surnamed Heavenly, because he seemed to thunder and lighten with his language? or to Alcibiades, who had rather Nature for his guide than Art for his master?
Aristotle.—But whatsoever nature at any time dictated to the most happy, or long exercise to the most laborious, that the wisdom and learning of Aristotle hath brought into an art, because he understood the causes of things; and what other men did by chance or custom he doth by reason; and not only found out the way not to err, but the short way we should take not to err.
Euripides.—Aristophanes.—Many things in Euripides hath Aristophanes wittily reprehended, not out of art, but out of truth. For Euripides is sometimes peccant, as he is most times perfect. But judgment when it is greatest, if reason doth not accompany it, is not ever absolute.
Cens. Scal. in Lil. Germ.—Horace.—To judge of poets is only the faculty of poets; and not of all poets, but the best. Nemo infeliciùs de poetis judicavit, quàm qui de poetis scripsit. 148a But some will say critics are a kind of tinkers, that make more faults than they mend ordinarily. See their diseases and those of grammarians. It is true, many bodies are the worse for the meddling with; and the multitude of physicians hath destroyed many sound patients with their wrong practice. But the office of a true critic or censor is, not to throw by a letter anywhere, or damn an innocent syllable, but lay the words together, and amend them; judge sincerely of the author and his matter, which is the sign of solid and perfect learning in a man. Such was Horace, an author of much civility, and (if any one among the heathen can be) the best master both of virtue and wisdom; an excellent and true judge upon cause and reason, not because he thought so, but because he knew so out of use and experience.
Cato, the grammarian, a defender of Lucilius. 149a
“Cato grammaticus, Latina syren,
Qui solus legit, et facit poetas.”
Quintilian of the same heresy, but rejected. 149b
Horace, his judgment of Chœrillus defended against Joseph Scaliger. 149c And of Laberius against Julius. 149d
But chiefly his opinion of Plautus 149e vindicated against many that are offended, and say it is a hard censure upon the parent of all conceit and sharpness. And they wish it had not fallen from so great a master and censor in the art, whose bondmen knew better how to judge of Plautus than any that dare patronise the family of learning in this age; who could not be ignorant of the judgment of the times in which he lived, when poetry and the Latin language were at the height; especially being a man so conversant and inwardly familiar with the censures of great men that did discourse of these things daily amongst themselves. Again, a man so gracious and in high favour with the Emperor, as Augustus often called him his witty manling (for the littleness of his stature), and, if we may trust antiquity, had designed him for a secretary of estate, and invited him to the palace, which he modestly prayed off and refused.
Terence.—Menander. Horace did so highly esteem Terence’s comedies, as he ascribes the art in comedy to him alone among the Latins, and joins him with Menander.
Now, let us see what may be said for either, to defend Horace’s judgment to posterity and not wholly to condemn Plautus.
The parts of a comedy and tragedy.—The parts of a comedy are the same with a tragedy, and the end is partly the same, for they both delight and teach; the comics are called διδάσκαλοι, of the Greeks no less than the tragics.
Aristotle.—Plato.—Homer.—Nor is the moving of laughter always the end of comedy; that is rather a fowling for the people’s delight, or their fooling. For, as Aristotle says rightly, the moving of laughter is a fault in comedy, a kind of turpitude that depraves some part of a man’s nature without a disease. As a wry face without pain moves laughter, or a deformed vizard, or a rude clown dressed in a lady’s habit and using her actions; we dislike and scorn such representations which made the ancient philosophers ever think laughter unfitting in a wise man. And this induced Plato to esteem of Homer as a sacrilegious person, because he presented the gods sometimes laughing. As also it is divinely said of Aristotle, that to seen ridiculous is a part of dishonesty, and foolish.
The wit of the old comedy.—So that what either in the words or sense of an author, or in the language or actions of men, is awry or depraved does strangely stir mean affections, and provoke for the most part to laughter. And therefore it was clear that all insolent and obscene speeches, jests upon the best men, injuries to particular persons, perverse and sinister sayings (and the rather unexpected) in the old comedy did move laughter, especially where it did imitate any dishonesty, and scurrility came forth in the place of wit, which, who understands the nature and genius of laughter cannot but perfectly know.
Aristophanes.—Plautus.—Of which Aristophanes affords an ample harvest, having not only outgone Plautus or any other in that kind, but expressed all the moods and figures of what is ridiculous oddly. In short, as vinegar is not accounted good until the wine be corrupted, so jests that are true and natural seldom raise laughter with the beast the multitude. They love nothing that is right and proper. The farther it runs from reason or possibility with them the better it is.
Socrates.—Theatrical wit.—What could have made them laugh, like to see Socrates presented, that example of all good life, honesty, and virtue, to have him hoisted up with a pulley, and there play the philosopher in a basket; measure how many foot a flea could skip geometrically, by a just scale, and edify the people from the engine. This was theatrical wit, right stage jesting, and relishing a playhouse, invented for scorn and laughter; whereas, if it had savoured of equity, truth, perspicuity, and candour, to have tasten a wise or a learned palate,—spit it out presently! this is bitter and profitable: this instructs and would inform us: what need we know any thing, that are nobly born, more than a horse-race, or a hunting-match, our day to break with citizens, and such innate mysteries?
The cart.—This is truly leaping from the stage to the tumbril again, reducing all wit to the original dung-cart.