Poetry also has won favour and esteem because
it utters words which match the deeds, as Homer
1
says,
Many the lies that he spoke, but he made them all to seem
truthful.
[p. 507]
The story is also told that one of Menander's
2 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.
When Pindar was still young, and prided himself
on his felicitous use of words. Corinna warned him
that his writing lacked refinement, since he did not
introduce myths, which are the proper business of
poetry, but used as a foundation for his work unusual
and obsolete words, extensions of meaning, paraphrases, lyrics and rhythms, which are mere embellishments of the subject matter.
3 So Pindar,
4 giving
all heed to her words, composed the famous lyric :
Ismenus, or Melia of the golden distaff,
Or Cadmus, or the holy race of men that were sown,
Or the mighty strength of Heracles,
Or the gladsome worship of Dionysus.
He showed it to Corinna, but she laughed and said
that one should sow with the hand, not with the whole
sack. For in truth Pindar had confused and jumbled
together a seed-mixture, as it were, of myths, and
poured them into his poem.
5 That poetry concerns
itself with the composition of mythological matters
Plato
6 also has stated. A myth aims at being a false
[p. 509]
tale, resembling a true one ; wherefore it is far removed from actual events, if a tale is but a picture
and an image of actuality, and a myth is but a picture
and image of a tale. And thus those who write of
imaginative exploits lag as far behind historians as
persons who tell of deeds come short of those that
do them.