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Poetry also has won favour and esteem because it utters words which match the deeds, as HomerHomer, Od. xix. 203; cf. Moralia 16 a. says, Many the lies that he spoke, but he made them all to seem truthful. The story is also told that one of Menander’s Cf. the Scholia Cruquiana on Horace, Ars Poetica, 311. intimate friends said to him, The Dionysian Festival is almost here, Menander; haven’t you composed your comedy? Menander answered, By heaven, I have really composed the comedy: the plot’s all in order. But I still have to fit the lines to it. For even poets consider the subject matter more necessary and vital than the words.
