Autobulus. Leonidas, being asked the question what
he thought of Tyrtaeus, made answer, that he was a good
poet to whet minds of young men; as a person who,
by the vigor and spirit of his poetical raptures, kindled
that wrathful indignation and ambition of honor, which
emboldened them in combat to the contempt of death and
danger. Which makes me afraid, my dearest friends, lest
the encomium of hunting yesterday recited may have inflamed our young gentlemen beyond the bounds of moderation, so as to deem all other things fruitless and of little
worth, while they rendezvous from all parts to this exercise. So much the rather, because I myself, when I was
but very young, even beyond the strength of my age,
seemed to be more than became me addicted to this sport,
and to be over desirous with Phaedra in Euripides,
With hounds and horn and merry hollow,
The spotted hart and hind to follow.
So did that discourse affect me, fortified with many and
probable arguments.
SOCLARUS. You say very truly, Autobulus. For that
same poet seems to me to have awakened the force of
rhetoric, for a long time lulled asleep, to gratify the inclinations
[p. 158]
of the youthful gentry, and to make himself their
spring companion. But I am most pleased with him for
introducing the example of single combatants, from whence
he takes occasion to praise the sport of hunting, as being
that which for the most part draws to itself whatever is
natural in us, or what we have by use acquired, of that delight which men take in fighting with single weapons one
against another, thus affording an evident prospect of artifice and daring courage, endued with understanding, encountering brutish force and strength, and applauding that
of Euripides:
Small is the nerveless strength of feeble man,
Yet through the cunning of his reaching brain,
By various slights and sundry stratagems,
Whatever land or th' Ocean breeds he tames.
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