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First of all, then, the young man should be introduced into poetry with nothing in his mind so well imprinted, or so ready at hand, as the saying, Many the lies the poets tell, Proverbial; cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics, i. 2. some intentionally and some unintentionally; intentionally, because for the purpose of giving pleasure and gratification to the ear (and this is what most people look for in poetry) they feel that the truth is too stern in comparison with fiction. For the truth, because it is what actually happens, does not deviate from its course, even though the end be unpleasant; whereas fiction, being a verbal fabrication, very readily follows a roundabout route, and turns aside from the painful to what is more pleasant. For not metre nor figure of speech nor loftiness of diction nor aptness of metaphor nor unity of composition has so much allurement and charm, as a clever interweaving of fabulous narrative. But, just as in pictures, colour is more stimulating than line-drawing because it is life-like, and creates an illusion, so in poetry falsehood combined with plausibility is more striking, and gives more satisfaction, than the work which is elaborate in metre and diction, but devoid of myth and fiction. This explains why Socrates, being induced by some dreams to take up poetry, since he was not himself a plausible or naturally clever workman in falsehood, inasmuch as he had been the champion of truth all his life, put into verse the fables of Aesop, Cf. Plato, Phaedo, 60 A. assuming that there can be no poetic composition which has no addition of falsehood. It is true that we know of sacrifices without dancing or flute, but we do not know of any poetic composition without fable or without falsehood. The verses of Empedocles and of Parmenides, the Antidotes against Poisons of Nicander, and the maxims of Theognis, are merely compositions which have borrowed from poetic art its metre and lofty style as a vehicle in order to avoid plodding along in prose. Whenever, therefore, in the poems of a man of note and repute some strange and disconcerting statement either about gods or lesser deities or about virtue is made by the author, he who accepts the statement as true is carried off his feet, and has his opinions perverted; whereas he who always remembers and keeps clearly in mind the sorcery of the poetic art in dealing with falsehood, who is able on every such occasion to say to it, Device more subtly cunning than the lynx,a why knit your brows when jesting, why pretend to instruct when practising deception?Nauck,Trag.Graec. Frag., Adesp., No. 349. will not suffer any dire effects or even acquire any base beliefs, but he will check himself when he feels afraid of Poseidon Homer, Iliad, xx. 60. and is in terror lest the god rend the earth asunder and lay bare the nether world; he will check himself when he is feeling wroth at Apollo in behalf of the foremost of the Achaeans, Whose praises he himself did sing, himself Was present at the feast, these words he spoke Himself, and yet himself brought death to him;Spoken by Thetis of the death of her son Achilles, as we are told by Plato, Republic, ii. p. 383 B, who quotes the passage more fully. Cf. Nauck,Trag. Graec. Frag., Aeschylus, No. 350. he will cease to shed tears over the dead Achilles and over Agamemnon Homer, Od. xi. 470 and 360. in the nether world, as they stretch out their impotent and feeble arms in their desire to be alive; and if, perchance, he is beginning to be disturbed by their suffering and overcome by the enchantment, he will not hesitate to say to himself, Hasten eager to the light, and all you saw here Lay to heart that you may tell your wife hereafter.Homer, Od. xi. 223. Certainly Homer has put this gracefully in reference to the visit to the shades, indicating that it is fit stuff for a woman’s ear because of the element of fable in it.
