for the same reason that the men of an earlier time made Memory one of the three Muses, these theologians made her the mother. It is the idea which our most learned Virgil has expressed with his wonted chasteness and delicacy in that divine verse: 'And indeed you are mindful of the goddess, and you are able to remember her.'

Philosophy also theorizes as to why Mnemosyne is the mother of the Muses. It argues that habit results from repeated acts, memory from habit, propositions from memory, and conclusions from propositions. Thus the arts are said to be handed down. The Greeks testify to this by their familiar expression υίες ἰατρῶν. For they are not disclosed in writing, but in unwritten secret forms, taught by one generation to another. It is said that this was the custom among the Pythagoreans; historical records prove that it was the method of the Dryads; and we̱ know it is true of the Chaldeans, from the testimony of the word Cabbala. With equal logic it was proposed that Eupheme was the nurse of the Muses, inasmuch as good reputation is the reward of the wise. Thus, in the Laws, Plato prescribed a bad reputation as a punishment to many men. And the same writer says in the Ion, 'That which they themselves are, the poets make others to be.' So, through those arts whereby they render themselves immortal, they immortalize those whom they celebrate in their verse. Thus glories Pindar, thus Theocritus sings, and others after them.

Thus far we have considered the question wholly from its philosophical point of view. Now, with your leave, we should also touch upon certain historical testimonials relating to the antiquity of poetry. The grammarians, with their customary superficiality, argue that poetry is older than prose, because all the writing in temples and on other monuments is metrical. Forsooth, do such records antedate every-day speech? Some think that Pierus, the Macedonian, was the father of the Muses, and gave them

their names.

This was suggested by the tradition that he was the first to compose a poem, and was the father of nine daughters. Others prefer the tradition that the Egyptian Osiris was the father of the Muses, and, as he was identified with Apollo, this coincided with the Greek tradition.

Further, many of the surnames of the Muses are borrowed from those localities in which poems first sprang up, or where poetry was early cultivated or venerated. Thus it is said that Pierus was the first poet and sang to the Thespians, and another tradition says that in Helicon, Otus and Ephialtes, the first sons of Aloeus, originated the divine art for the Muses, in consequence of which the Muses are called Thespiades and Heliconides. Among the Oscans the Muses were called Camenae, because of their prophetic utterances. Also, because of their superior genius and their rapid utterance, they were denominated 'winged'; as Aristotle says, 'Poetry is the product of a genius or of one inspired.' For this reason Homer calls words also winged.

It is related in legendary lore that, at the instigation of Juno, the Sirens contended with the Muses in song, and lost; that then the Muses tore the feathers from the wings of the vanquished ones, and crowned their own heads therewith. Again, since the Muses seemed to be the promoters of a more refined and noble life, a life characterized by that satisfaction which resides in temperate pleasure, they were conceived as the companions of the Graces, or as their kin. This pleasure of which I speak is just the idea expressed by xápis and xaípev (grace and have thy pleasure; often used as a greeting, equivalent to be of good cheer, hail, welcome, etc.), words which usage employs for the second expression of well-wishing in letters and greetings, although Plato prefers ev πρáτтε (to bring one's affairs to a good issue). Pleasure or gladness is a mental condition enjoyed by a perfectly healthy person; it is occasioned by what the philosophers are pleased to call an adequate object of desire. Through poetry, indeed, the spirit is turned back upon itself,

and it draws forth from its inner sanctuary, which is, indeed, an inexhaustible spring, that which inheres therein from the divine life.

That the Graces and pleasure and the Muses and good health are related, may be gathered from the oracle which Plutarch records as delivered to the Argive Telesilla. Though of noble birth, she was afflicted by disease, and, as I understand it, when she found that it was beyond medical aid, she was constrained to seek aid from the gods. The response was that she would only be restored to health if she cultivated the Muses.' She accordingly devoted herself to their service, and in a short time was not only restored to health, but endowed with vigor and the spirit of a general. So the Muses not only sing of arms, but also bestow them, as the career of Tyrtaeus also testifies. Then, as tradition has it, the Athenians made Phrynichus their leader because he performed well the Pyrrhic dance. Indeed, they used rhythm in their military exercises. Telesilla made use of this same oracular aid, mentioned above, against Cleomenes the conqueror. When this Lacedemonian king was attempting to take the city of Argos, she so inspired the women that they thronged the battlements, and drove him away with great loss. And when another king named Demaratus was actually within the city, she expelled him by force of

arms.

We may make a threefold classification of poets, according to poetical inspiration, age, and subjects. Plato first, and then Aristotle, said that there are diversities of inspiration, for some men are born inspired, while others, born ignorant and rude, and even averse to the art, are seized on by the divine madness, and wrested from their lowliness. It is the work of the gods, who, though divine, use even these as their servants. Thus Plato himself, in the Ion, calls such men the interpreters and expounders of the gods. Wherefore the dictum expressed in the Republic, which some crude and insensible men would construe to the exclu

sion of poets from the republic, should be taken less seri- | ously, for though he condemns certain scurrilous passages in the poets, we are not on that account to ignore those other passages which Plato cites times out of mind in support of his own theories. Plato should remark how many impertinent and low stories he himself employs, what filthy thoughts this Greek rogue often forces upon us. Surely the Symposium, the Phaedrus, and other such monstrous productions, are not worth reading.

The poets invoke the Muses, that the divine madness may imbue them to do their work. Of these divinely possessed ones, two classes are to be recognized. The one class are those to whom the divine power comes from above, with no mental effort on their part except the simple invocation. Hesiod classed himself in this category, and Homer is placed there by universal consent. The other class is aroused by the fumes of unmixed wine, which draws out the instruments of the mind, the spirits themselves, from the material parts of the body. Horace said that Ennius was such a poet, and such we consider Horace himself. Tradition says the same of Alcaeus and Aristophanes. Alcman did not escape such censure, and Sophocles applied it to Aeschylus: 'Wine,' he said, 'not Aeschylus, was the author of his tragedies.'

Again, poets may be divided into three classes, according to the age in which they wrote. First, there was that pristine, crude, and uncultivated age, of which only a vague impression remains. No name survives, unless it be that of Apollo, as the originator of poetry. Then there is the second and venerable period, when religion and the mysteries are first sung. Among the poets of this period are numbered Orpheus, Musaeus, and Linus; Plato includes Olympus also. Of the third period Homer is the founder and parent, and it includes Hesiod and other such writers. If it were not for historical records, one could fancy that Musaeus was later than Homer, for he is more polished and

refined. Aelian states that Oroebantius of Troezen, and Dares the Phrygian, flourished before Homer, and that in Homer's time the Iliad of Dares was held in esteem. The same author has it that Syager the poet even antedated Musaeus and Orpheus, and that he was the first to write of the Trojan war.

The third classification is according to subject-matter. This the Greeks call оKEίuevov; our uncultivated philosophers, most correctly, subject; and the Latin philosophers, somewhat inappositely, argument. (Of this class of poets there are as many kinds as there are styles of subjects treated. Yet for the sake of treatment, the poets may be classed under three principal heads. The first is that of the religious poets. Such are Orpheus and Amphion, whose art was so divine that they are believed to have given a soul to inanimate things. The second is that of the philosophical poets, and these again are of two sorts-natural, as Empedocles, Nicander, Aratus, and Lucretius; and moral, including the political, as Solon and Tyrtaeus; the economical, as Hesiod; and the general, as Phocylides, Theognis, and Pythagoras.

Now all that we have been saying may be equally well applied to women authors. They too merit praise. Such authors are Sappho; Corinna, the mistress of Pindar; Hedyle, the mother of the Samian or Athenian poet Hedylus, who excelled in iambic poetry; Megalostrata, whom Alcman loved, and others.

I leave it to the judgment of each one to determine whether or no the poetry of Martius and of the Sibyls should be referred to such categories as the above. My preference is not to do so, for they do not narrate past events, but predict future ones. This part of theology is not simply learning about the gods, but actual utterance of the things disclosed by the gods.

As for our poetry, Gellius is authority for the statement that it was born during the Second Punic War. Let me