Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry [65]
no better morals.
I have detained your lordship longer than I intended on this objection, which would indeed weigh something in a Spiritual Court;- -but I am not to defend our poet there. The next, I think, is but a cavil, though the cry is great against him, and hath continued from the time of Macrobius to this present age; I hinted it before. They lay no less than want of invention to his charge--a capital charge, I must acknowledge; for a poet is a maker, as the word signifies; and who cannot make--that is, invent--hath his name for nothing. That which makes this accusation look so strong at the first sight is that he has borrowed so many things from Homer, Apollonius Rhodius, and others who preceded him. But in the first place, if invention is to be taken in so strict a sense that the matter of a poem must be wholly new, and that in all its parts, then Scaliger hath made out, saith Segrais, that the history of Troy was no more the invention of Homer than of Virgil. There was not an old woman or almost a child, but had it in their mouths before the Greek poet or his friends digested it into this admirable order in which we read it. At this rate, as Solomon hath told us, there is nothing new beneath the sun. Who, then, can pass for an inventor if Homer as well as Virgil must be deprived of that glory! Is Versailles the less a new building because the architect of that palace hath imitated others which were built before it? Walls, doors and windows, apartments, offices, rooms of convenience and magnificence, are in all great houses. So descriptions, figures, fables, and the rest, must be in all heroic poems; they are the common materials of poetry, furnished from the magazine of nature: every poet hath as much right to them as every man hath to air or water
"Quid prohibetis aquas? Usus communis aquarum est."
But the argument of the work (that is to say, its principal action), the economy and disposition of it--these are the things which distinguish copies from originals. The Poet who borrows nothing from others is yet to be born; he and the Jews' Messias will come together. There are parts of the "AEneis" which resemble some parts both of the "Ilias" and of the "Odysses;" as, for example, AEneas descended into hell, and Ulysses had been there before him; AEneas loved Dido, and Ulysses loved Calypso: in few words, Virgil hath imitated Homer's "Odysses" in his first six books, and in his six last the "Ilias." But from hence can we infer that the two poets write the same history? Is there no invention in some other parts of Virgil's "AEneis?" The disposition of so many various matters, is not that his own? From what book of Homer had Virgil his episode of Nysus and Euryalus, of Mezentius and Lausus? From whence did he borrow his design of bringing AEneas into Italy? of establishing the Roman Empire on the foundations of a Trojan colony? to say nothing of the honour he did his patron, not only in his descent from Venus, but in making him so like her in his best features that the goddess might have mistaken Augustus for her son. He had indeed the story from common fame, as Homer had his from the Egyptian priestess. AEneadum genetrix was no more unknown to Lucretius than to him; but Lucretius taught him not to form his hero, to give him piety or valour for his manners--and both in so eminent a degree that, having done what was possible for man to save his king and country, his mother was forced to appear to him and restrain his fury, which hurried him to death in their revenge. But the poet made his piety more successful; he brought off his father and his son; and his gods witnessed to his devotion by putting themselves under his protection, to be replaced by him in their promised Italy. Neither the invention nor the conduct of this great action were owing to Homer or any other poet; it is one thing to copy, and another thing to imitate from nature. The copier is that servile imitator to whom Horace gives no better a name than that of animal; he will not so much as allow him to be a man. Raffaelle
I have detained your lordship longer than I intended on this objection, which would indeed weigh something in a Spiritual Court;- -but I am not to defend our poet there. The next, I think, is but a cavil, though the cry is great against him, and hath continued from the time of Macrobius to this present age; I hinted it before. They lay no less than want of invention to his charge--a capital charge, I must acknowledge; for a poet is a maker, as the word signifies; and who cannot make--that is, invent--hath his name for nothing. That which makes this accusation look so strong at the first sight is that he has borrowed so many things from Homer, Apollonius Rhodius, and others who preceded him. But in the first place, if invention is to be taken in so strict a sense that the matter of a poem must be wholly new, and that in all its parts, then Scaliger hath made out, saith Segrais, that the history of Troy was no more the invention of Homer than of Virgil. There was not an old woman or almost a child, but had it in their mouths before the Greek poet or his friends digested it into this admirable order in which we read it. At this rate, as Solomon hath told us, there is nothing new beneath the sun. Who, then, can pass for an inventor if Homer as well as Virgil must be deprived of that glory! Is Versailles the less a new building because the architect of that palace hath imitated others which were built before it? Walls, doors and windows, apartments, offices, rooms of convenience and magnificence, are in all great houses. So descriptions, figures, fables, and the rest, must be in all heroic poems; they are the common materials of poetry, furnished from the magazine of nature: every poet hath as much right to them as every man hath to air or water
"Quid prohibetis aquas? Usus communis aquarum est."
But the argument of the work (that is to say, its principal action), the economy and disposition of it--these are the things which distinguish copies from originals. The Poet who borrows nothing from others is yet to be born; he and the Jews' Messias will come together. There are parts of the "AEneis" which resemble some parts both of the "Ilias" and of the "Odysses;" as, for example, AEneas descended into hell, and Ulysses had been there before him; AEneas loved Dido, and Ulysses loved Calypso: in few words, Virgil hath imitated Homer's "Odysses" in his first six books, and in his six last the "Ilias." But from hence can we infer that the two poets write the same history? Is there no invention in some other parts of Virgil's "AEneis?" The disposition of so many various matters, is not that his own? From what book of Homer had Virgil his episode of Nysus and Euryalus, of Mezentius and Lausus? From whence did he borrow his design of bringing AEneas into Italy? of establishing the Roman Empire on the foundations of a Trojan colony? to say nothing of the honour he did his patron, not only in his descent from Venus, but in making him so like her in his best features that the goddess might have mistaken Augustus for her son. He had indeed the story from common fame, as Homer had his from the Egyptian priestess. AEneadum genetrix was no more unknown to Lucretius than to him; but Lucretius taught him not to form his hero, to give him piety or valour for his manners--and both in so eminent a degree that, having done what was possible for man to save his king and country, his mother was forced to appear to him and restrain his fury, which hurried him to death in their revenge. But the poet made his piety more successful; he brought off his father and his son; and his gods witnessed to his devotion by putting themselves under his protection, to be replaced by him in their promised Italy. Neither the invention nor the conduct of this great action were owing to Homer or any other poet; it is one thing to copy, and another thing to imitate from nature. The copier is that servile imitator to whom Horace gives no better a name than that of animal; he will not so much as allow him to be a man. Raffaelle