A Defence of Poesie and Poems [42]
Horace's epistles (Lib. 1):
"Coelum non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt, Strenua nos exercet inertia; navibus atque Quadrigis petimus bene vivere. Quod petis, hic est, Est Ulubris, animus si te non deficit aequus."
They change their skies but not their mind who run across the seas; We toil in laboured idleness, and seek to live at ease With force of ships and four horse teams. That which you seek is here, At Ulubrae, unless your mind fail to be calm and clear.
"At Ulubrae" was equivalent to saying in the dullest corner of the world, or anywhere. Ulubrae was a little town probably in Campania, a Roman Little Pedlington. Thomas Carlyle may have had this passage in mind when he gave to the same thought a grander form in Sartor Resartus: "May we not say that the hour of spiritual enfranchisement is even this? When your ideal world, wherein the whole man has been dimly struggling and inexpressibly languishing to work, becomes revealed and thrown open, and you discover with amazement enough, like the Lothario in Wilhelm Meister, that your America is here or nowhere. The situation that has not its duty, its ideal, was never occupied by man. Yes, here, in this poor, miserable hampered actual wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere, is thy Ideal: work it out therefrom, believe, live, and be free. Fool! the Ideal is in thyself, the impediment too is in thyself. Thy condition is but the stuff thou art to shape that same Ideal out of. What matter whether such stuff be of this sort or that, so the form thou give it be heroic, be poetic? O thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the actual, and criest bitterly to the gods for a kingdom wherein to rule and create, know this of a truth, the thing thou seekest is already with thee, here or nowhere, couldest thou only see."
{52} Or Comic?
{53} In pistrinum. In the pounding-mill (usually worked by horses or asses).
{54} Or Tragic?
{55} The old song of Percy and Douglas, Chevy Chase in its first form.
{56} Or the Heroic?
{57} Epistles I. ii. 4. Better than Chrysippus and Crantor. They were both philosophers, Chrysippus a subtle stoic, Crantor the first commentator upon Plato.
{58} Summary of the argument thus far.
{59} Objections stated and met.
{60} Cornelius Agrippa's book, "De Incertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum et Artium," was first published in 1532; Erasmus's "Moriae Encomium" was written in a week, in 1510, and went in a few months through seven editions.
{61} The objection to rhyme and metre.
{62} The first of these sentences is from Horace (Epistle I. xviii. 69): "Fly from the inquisitive man, for he is a babbler." The second, "While each pleases himself we are a credulous crowd," seems to be varied from Ovid (Fasti, iv. 311):-
"Conscia mens recti famae mendacia risit: Sed nos in vitium credula turba sumus."
A mind conscious of right laughs at the falsehoods of fame but towards vice we are a credulous crowd.
{63} The chief objections.
{64} That time might be better spent.
{65} Beg the question.
{66} That poetry is the mother of lies.
{67} That poetry is the nurse of abuse, infecting us with wanton and pestilent desires.
{68} Rampire, rampart, the Old French form of "rempart," was "rempar," from "remparer," to fortify.
{69} "I give him free leave to be foolish." A variation from the line (Sat. I. i. 63), "Quid facias illi? jubeas miserum esse libenter."
{70} That Plato banished poets from his ideal Republic.
{71} Which authority certain barbarous and insipid writers would wrest into meaning that poets were to be thrust out of a state.
{72} Ion is a rhapsodist, in dialogue with Socrates, who cannot understand why it is that his thoughts flow abundantly when he talks of Homer. "I can explain," says Socrates; "your talent in expounding Homer is not an art acquired by system and method, otherwise it would have been applicable to other poets besides. It is a special gift, imparted to you by Divine power and inspiration. The like is true of the poet you expound.
"Coelum non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt, Strenua nos exercet inertia; navibus atque Quadrigis petimus bene vivere. Quod petis, hic est, Est Ulubris, animus si te non deficit aequus."
They change their skies but not their mind who run across the seas; We toil in laboured idleness, and seek to live at ease With force of ships and four horse teams. That which you seek is here, At Ulubrae, unless your mind fail to be calm and clear.
"At Ulubrae" was equivalent to saying in the dullest corner of the world, or anywhere. Ulubrae was a little town probably in Campania, a Roman Little Pedlington. Thomas Carlyle may have had this passage in mind when he gave to the same thought a grander form in Sartor Resartus: "May we not say that the hour of spiritual enfranchisement is even this? When your ideal world, wherein the whole man has been dimly struggling and inexpressibly languishing to work, becomes revealed and thrown open, and you discover with amazement enough, like the Lothario in Wilhelm Meister, that your America is here or nowhere. The situation that has not its duty, its ideal, was never occupied by man. Yes, here, in this poor, miserable hampered actual wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere, is thy Ideal: work it out therefrom, believe, live, and be free. Fool! the Ideal is in thyself, the impediment too is in thyself. Thy condition is but the stuff thou art to shape that same Ideal out of. What matter whether such stuff be of this sort or that, so the form thou give it be heroic, be poetic? O thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the actual, and criest bitterly to the gods for a kingdom wherein to rule and create, know this of a truth, the thing thou seekest is already with thee, here or nowhere, couldest thou only see."
{52} Or Comic?
{53} In pistrinum. In the pounding-mill (usually worked by horses or asses).
{54} Or Tragic?
{55} The old song of Percy and Douglas, Chevy Chase in its first form.
{56} Or the Heroic?
{57} Epistles I. ii. 4. Better than Chrysippus and Crantor. They were both philosophers, Chrysippus a subtle stoic, Crantor the first commentator upon Plato.
{58} Summary of the argument thus far.
{59} Objections stated and met.
{60} Cornelius Agrippa's book, "De Incertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum et Artium," was first published in 1532; Erasmus's "Moriae Encomium" was written in a week, in 1510, and went in a few months through seven editions.
{61} The objection to rhyme and metre.
{62} The first of these sentences is from Horace (Epistle I. xviii. 69): "Fly from the inquisitive man, for he is a babbler." The second, "While each pleases himself we are a credulous crowd," seems to be varied from Ovid (Fasti, iv. 311):-
"Conscia mens recti famae mendacia risit: Sed nos in vitium credula turba sumus."
A mind conscious of right laughs at the falsehoods of fame but towards vice we are a credulous crowd.
{63} The chief objections.
{64} That time might be better spent.
{65} Beg the question.
{66} That poetry is the mother of lies.
{67} That poetry is the nurse of abuse, infecting us with wanton and pestilent desires.
{68} Rampire, rampart, the Old French form of "rempart," was "rempar," from "remparer," to fortify.
{69} "I give him free leave to be foolish." A variation from the line (Sat. I. i. 63), "Quid facias illi? jubeas miserum esse libenter."
{70} That Plato banished poets from his ideal Republic.
{71} Which authority certain barbarous and insipid writers would wrest into meaning that poets were to be thrust out of a state.
{72} Ion is a rhapsodist, in dialogue with Socrates, who cannot understand why it is that his thoughts flow abundantly when he talks of Homer. "I can explain," says Socrates; "your talent in expounding Homer is not an art acquired by system and method, otherwise it would have been applicable to other poets besides. It is a special gift, imparted to you by Divine power and inspiration. The like is true of the poet you expound.