III. 25.

THE FOUR ATTRIBUTES OF THE POET

Thus far we have presented the ideas of things in examples drawn from Virgil, just as they might be taken from nature itself. Indeed, I think that the workmanship of his poetry finds an analogy in art, for sculptors and painters take from real life those conceptions which they use in imitating lines, light, shade, and background, and they embody in their own productions the peculiar excellencies of many objects, so that they do not seem to have been taught by nature, but to have vied with it, or even better to have given it its laws. Who, in fact, would say that nature ever produced a woman so beautiful that a connoisseur could not find some flaw in her beauty? For though the archetype of nature is altogether perfect in outline and proportions, the actual product suffers many hindrances through circumstances of parentage, climate, time, and place. So we have not been able to get from nature a single pattern such as the ideas of Virgil furnish us. Accordingly it now remains for us with acuteness and wisdom to consider in systematic order the elements in that divine power of his. This will be our next concern.

The early orators had only one end in view, to persuade and move their hearers, and their language was correspondingly rude; the poets sought only to please, and they whiled away their leisure simply with alluring songs. In due time, however, orator and poet secured from each other that which they lacked respectively. Isocrates is credited with having first given graceful movement to a hitherto rude diction, though deeper students of the literary monuments award this distinction to Thrasymachus, and add that his diligent efforts were furthered by Gorgias, while the work

of Isocrates was to add the finishing touch. As to poetry, on the other hand, it was rendered more thoughtful by being transferred from the country to the town, where plots were added to furnish warning examples, and sentiments to furnish precepts.

Horace most aptly said, 'He carries every vote who mingles the useful with the pleasing,' for poetry bends all its energies to these two ends, to teach and to please. Now to realize these ends one's work must conform to certain principles. In the first place his poem must be deeply conceived, and be unvaryingly self-consistent. Then he must take pains to temper all with variety (varietas), for there is no worse mistake than to glut your hearer before you are done with him. What then are the dishes which would create distaste rather than pleasure? The third poetic quality is found in but few writers, and is what I would term vividness (efficacia); there is also a Greek name for it which will be given in the proper place. By vividness I mean a certain potency and force in thought and language which compels one to be a willing listener. The fourth is winsomeness (suavitas), which tempers the ardency of this last quality, of itself inclined to be harsh. Insight, and fore- / sight (prudentia), variety, vividness, and winsomeness, these, then, are the supreme poetic qualities.

III. 96.

REGULATIONS FOR THE VARIOUS KINDS OF

POETRY: EPIC POETRY

We have already remarked that for objects of every kind there exists one perfect original to which all the rest can be referred as their norm and standard. In epic poetry, which describes the descent, life, and deeds of heroes, all other kinds of poetry have such a norm, so that to it they turn for their regulative principles. Now our First Book has shown into what species poetry is divided. We shall therefore derive from the sovereignty of the epic the universal controlling rules for the composition of each other kind, according to its distinctive subject-matter and nature. Having thus found the laws common to all, we are to determine the privileges of each, making heroic poetry our point of departure.

After one has determined in a general way the events and characters of a poem, has adjusted them to times and places, and has deduced the sequence of action, there remains the composition according to a well-known principle. The precept of Horace to begin ab ovo is by no means to be followed. Rather let the first rule be, to begin with something grand, cognate with the theme, and intimately related. This rule was observed by Lucan, who, in writing of the Civil War, begins with Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon, because for this act the senate adjudged him an enemy, and compelled him to make war. A second rule: Do not repeat and double on your tracks, lest you become tedious. If the same event is often repeated, it is of necessity intrusively forced upon the attention, which is utterly contrary to the general rules heretofore established. The very thing, therefore, which you are going to take as your principal

theme should not be placed first in the narrative, for the mind of the hearer is to be kept in suspense, awaiting that which is to develop. It is obviously a unique and chief virtue to hold the hearer captive. For this reason the greatest of poets so arranged his material that the end of the narrative of Aeneas was in reality the beginning of the action proper: 'Thence me in my wanderings the God has driven to your shores.' From this point the story moves on evenly. To be sure, it is interrupted by novel experiences, but these are constituent parts of it, or closely related. Thus the insertion of the story of Camilla looks to the fact that her death is atoned for by the death of Aruns. The critics have failed to note the nice variation in this passage, for though in this catalogue of warriors he gives the country, parents, and race of many, he only says of Camilla that she was fleet of foot, and the reason is that Diana was to tell the story of her life in a later book. In this instance, Virgil was acting in obvious conformity with the above principle. This principle of arrangement has a most admirable realization in the Aethiopica of Heliodorus, a book, I take it, that should be most carefully conned by the epic poet, as furnishing him the best model.

Another principle is that an author should divide his book into chapters in imitation of nature, which subdivides into parts of parts, all so related that they consitute an organic body. But in doing this, you should so assign each part to its proper place that the book shall seem to have shaped itself inevitably, an achievement perfectly realized only by the divine Maro. If one will read the Aeneid attentively, he will see that it conforms to this principle. To be sure, the Georgics does not, but this exception is due to the nature of the subject-matter. Now the epic story is wholly taken from civil life, and yet the more important parts are assigned to kings and heroes. With mortals, as already stated, the gods associate. Mingled with the affairs of peace, at intervals battles are waged. Variety

dictates other usages. Now to some it has seemed that Sallust showed a vain ambition, because, poet-like, when he undertook to treat of Catiline he omitted the story of the man, but, instead, recalled history from the very beginning of Rome. But it seems to me that a man eminent and even peerless in his class, as was he, did this rightly and from necessity, in order thus to show the corruption of the state of which the worthless Catiline was himself a part, and where he had many confederates in his crime and wickedness. Nor is Musaeus to be condemned because in his altogether charming story of Leander he does not follow the same practice, for that story is, as it were, a tragedy, so that the narrative properly begins and ends with the immediate tale of Leander.