The mountains laboured with
prodigious
throes,
And lo!
And lo!
World's Greatest Books - Volume 17 - Poetry and Drama
My strength, or passion, flees,
When I would write with elegance and ease.
Aiming at greatness, some to fustian soar:
Some, bent on safety, creep along the shore.
Thus injudicious, while one fault we shun,
Into its opposite extreme we run.
CHOICE OF THEME
Examine well, ye writers, weigh with care,
What suits your genius, what your strength can bear;
For when a well-proportioned theme you choose,
Nor words, nor method shall their aid refuse.
WORDS OLD AND NEW
The author of a promised work must be
Subtle and careful in word-harmony.
To choose and to reject. You merit praise
If by deft linking of known words a phrase
Strikes one as new. Should unfamiliar theme
Need fresh-invented terms, proper will seem
Diction unknown of old. This licence used
With fair discretion never is refused.
As when the forest, with the bending year,
First sheds the leaves, which earliest appear,
So an old race of words maturely dies,
And some, new born, in youth and vigour rise.
Many shall rise which now forgotten lie;
Others, in present credit, soon shall die,
If custom will, whose arbitrary sway
Words and the forms of language must obey.
WORDS MUST SUIT CHARACTER
'Tis not enough, ye writers, that ye charm
With pretty elegance; a play should warm
With soft concernment--should possess the soul,
And, as it wills, the listeners control.
With those who laugh, our social joy appears;
With those who mourn, we sympathise in tears;
If you would have me weep, begin the strain,
Then I shall feel your sorrow, feel your pain;
But if your heroes act not what they say,
I sleep or laugh the lifeless scene away.
ON LITERARY BORROWING
If you would make a common theme your own,
Dwell not on incidents already known;
Nor word for word translate with painful care,
Nor be confined in such a narrow sphere.
ON BEGINNING A HEROIC POEM
Begin your work with modest grace and plain,
Not in the cyclic bard's bombastic strain:
"I chant the glorious war and Priam's fate----"
How will the boaster keep this ranting rate?
The mountains laboured with prodigious throes,
And lo! a mouse ridiculous arose.
Far better Homer, who tries naught in vain,
Opens his poem in a humbler strain:
"Muse, tell the many who after Troy subdued,
Manners and towns of various nations viewed. "
Right to the great event he speeds his course,
And bears his readers, with impetuous force,
Into the midst of things, while every line
Opens by just degrees his whole design.
ACTION AND NARRATION IN PLAYS
The business of the drama must appear
In action or description. What we hear,
With slower passion to the heart proceeds
Than when an audience views the very deeds.
But let not such upon the stage be brought
Which better should behind the scenes be wrought;
Nor force the unwilling audience to behold
What may with vivid elegance be told.
Let not Medea with unnatural rage
Murder her little children on the stage.
GOOD SENSE A WELL-SPRING OF POETRY
Good sense, the fountain of the muse's art,
Let the strong page of Socrates impart;
For if the mind with clear conceptions glow,
The willing words in just expressions flow.
The poet who with nice discernment knows
What to his country and his friends he owes;
How various nature warms the human breast,
To love the parent, brother, friend, or guest;
What the high duties of our judges are,
Of senator or general sent to war;
He surely knows, with nice self-judging art,
The strokes peculiar to each different part.
Keep nature's great original in view,
And thence the living images pursue.
For when the sentiments and manners please,
And all the characters are wrought with ease,
Your play, though weak in beauty, force, and art,
More strongly shall delight, and warm the heart,
Than where a lifeless pomp of verse appears,
And with sonorous trifles charms our ears.
PERFECTION CANNOT BE EXPECTED
Where beauties in a poem faults outshine,
I am not angry if a casual line
(That with some trivial blot unequal flows)
A careless hand or human frailty shows.
Then shall I angrily see no excuse
If honest Homer slumber o'er his muse?
Yet surely sometimes an indulgent sleep
O'er works of length allowably may creep!
A HIGH STANDARD MUST BE EXACTED
In certain subjects, Piso, be assured,
Tame mediocrity may be endured.
When I would write with elegance and ease.
Aiming at greatness, some to fustian soar:
Some, bent on safety, creep along the shore.
Thus injudicious, while one fault we shun,
Into its opposite extreme we run.
CHOICE OF THEME
Examine well, ye writers, weigh with care,
What suits your genius, what your strength can bear;
For when a well-proportioned theme you choose,
Nor words, nor method shall their aid refuse.
WORDS OLD AND NEW
The author of a promised work must be
Subtle and careful in word-harmony.
To choose and to reject. You merit praise
If by deft linking of known words a phrase
Strikes one as new. Should unfamiliar theme
Need fresh-invented terms, proper will seem
Diction unknown of old. This licence used
With fair discretion never is refused.
As when the forest, with the bending year,
First sheds the leaves, which earliest appear,
So an old race of words maturely dies,
And some, new born, in youth and vigour rise.
Many shall rise which now forgotten lie;
Others, in present credit, soon shall die,
If custom will, whose arbitrary sway
Words and the forms of language must obey.
WORDS MUST SUIT CHARACTER
'Tis not enough, ye writers, that ye charm
With pretty elegance; a play should warm
With soft concernment--should possess the soul,
And, as it wills, the listeners control.
With those who laugh, our social joy appears;
With those who mourn, we sympathise in tears;
If you would have me weep, begin the strain,
Then I shall feel your sorrow, feel your pain;
But if your heroes act not what they say,
I sleep or laugh the lifeless scene away.
ON LITERARY BORROWING
If you would make a common theme your own,
Dwell not on incidents already known;
Nor word for word translate with painful care,
Nor be confined in such a narrow sphere.
ON BEGINNING A HEROIC POEM
Begin your work with modest grace and plain,
Not in the cyclic bard's bombastic strain:
"I chant the glorious war and Priam's fate----"
How will the boaster keep this ranting rate?
The mountains laboured with prodigious throes,
And lo! a mouse ridiculous arose.
Far better Homer, who tries naught in vain,
Opens his poem in a humbler strain:
"Muse, tell the many who after Troy subdued,
Manners and towns of various nations viewed. "
Right to the great event he speeds his course,
And bears his readers, with impetuous force,
Into the midst of things, while every line
Opens by just degrees his whole design.
ACTION AND NARRATION IN PLAYS
The business of the drama must appear
In action or description. What we hear,
With slower passion to the heart proceeds
Than when an audience views the very deeds.
But let not such upon the stage be brought
Which better should behind the scenes be wrought;
Nor force the unwilling audience to behold
What may with vivid elegance be told.
Let not Medea with unnatural rage
Murder her little children on the stage.
GOOD SENSE A WELL-SPRING OF POETRY
Good sense, the fountain of the muse's art,
Let the strong page of Socrates impart;
For if the mind with clear conceptions glow,
The willing words in just expressions flow.
The poet who with nice discernment knows
What to his country and his friends he owes;
How various nature warms the human breast,
To love the parent, brother, friend, or guest;
What the high duties of our judges are,
Of senator or general sent to war;
He surely knows, with nice self-judging art,
The strokes peculiar to each different part.
Keep nature's great original in view,
And thence the living images pursue.
For when the sentiments and manners please,
And all the characters are wrought with ease,
Your play, though weak in beauty, force, and art,
More strongly shall delight, and warm the heart,
Than where a lifeless pomp of verse appears,
And with sonorous trifles charms our ears.
PERFECTION CANNOT BE EXPECTED
Where beauties in a poem faults outshine,
I am not angry if a casual line
(That with some trivial blot unequal flows)
A careless hand or human frailty shows.
Then shall I angrily see no excuse
If honest Homer slumber o'er his muse?
Yet surely sometimes an indulgent sleep
O'er works of length allowably may creep!
A HIGH STANDARD MUST BE EXACTED
In certain subjects, Piso, be assured,
Tame mediocrity may be endured.
