[2] 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,” [10] 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,[11] 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?[12] ”will not suffer any dire effects or even acquire any base beliefs, but he will check himself when he feels afraid of Poseidon [13] 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;[14] ” he will cease to shed tears over the dead Achilles and over Agamemnon [15] 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.[16] ” 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.
Such things as this are what the poets fabricate intentionally, but more numerous are the things which they do not fabricate, but think and believe in their own hearts, and then impart to us in their false colouring. Take for example what Homer has said relating to Zeus: “In the scales he placed two fates of Death so grievous, One of Achilles and the other of horse-taming Hector; Grasping the middle he poised it, and Hector’s fated day descended. Down to Hades he went, and Phoebus Apollo forsook him.[17] ” Now Aeschylus has fitted a whole tragedy to this story, giving it the title of The Weighing of Souls, and has placed beside the scales of Zeus on the one side Thetis, and on the other Dawn, entreating for their sons who are fighting. But it is patent to everybody that this is a mythical fabrication which has been created to please or astound the hearer. But in the lines “Zeus, appointed to decide the outcome of men’s fighting[18] ” and “A fault doth God create in men Whene’er he wills to crush a house in woe,[19] ” we have at last statements in accord with their opinion and belief, as they thus publish to us and try to make us share their delusion and ignorance regarding the gods. Then again the monstrous tales of visits to the shades, and the descriptions, which in awful language create spectres and pictures of blazing rivers and hideous places and grim punishments, do not blind very many people to the fact that fable and falsehood in plenty have been mingled with them like poison in nourishing food. And not Homer nor Pindar nor Sophocles really believed that these things are so when they wrote: “From there the slow-moving rivers of dusky night Belch forth a darkness immeasurable,[20] ” and “On past Ocean’s streams they went and the headland of Leucas,[21] ” and “The narrow throat of Hades and the refluent depths.[22] ” However, take the case of those who, bewailing and fearing death as something piteous, or want of burial as something terrible, have given utterance to sentiments like these: “Go not hence and leave me behind unwept, unburied,[23] ” and “Forth from his body went his soul on wing to Hades, Mourning its fate and leaving its vigour and manhood,[24] ” and “Destroy me not untimely; for ’tis sweet To see the light. Compel me not to gaze Upon the regions underneath the earth.[25] ” These are the voices of persons affected by emotion and prepossessed by opinions and delusions. For this reason such sentiments take a more powerful hold on us and disturb us the more, inasmuch as we become infected by their emotions and by the weakness from whence they proceed. Against these influences, then, once more let us equip the young from the very outset to keep ever sounding in their ears the maxim, that the art of poetry is not greatly concerned with the truth, and that the truth about these matters, even for those who have made it their sole business to search out and understand the verities, is exceedingly hard to track down and hard to get hold of, as they themselves admit; and let these words of Empedocles be constantly in mind: “Thus no eye of man hath seen nor ear hath heard this, Nor can it be comprehended by the mind,[26] ” and the words of Xenophanes: “Never yet was born a man nor ever shall be Knowing the truth about the gods and what I say of all things,[27] ” and by all means the words of Socrates, in Plato,[28] when he solemnly disavows all acquaintance with these subjects. For young people then will give less heed to the poets, as having some knowledge of these matters, when they see that such questions stagger the philosophers.