Page:1888 Cicero's Tusculan Disputations.djvu/80

74 XI. A. Hitherto you are on my side; I will see to that by-and-by; and, in the mean while, whence are those verses? I do not remember them.

M. I will inform you, for you are in the right to ask. Do you see that I have much leisure?

A. What, then?

M. I imagine, when you were at Athens, you attended frequently at the schools of the philosophers.

A. Yes, and with great pleasure.

M. You observed, then, that though none of them at that time were very eloquent, yet they used to mix verses with their harangues.

A. Yes, and particularly Dionysius the Stoic used to employ a great many.

M. You say right; but they were quoted without any appropriateness or elegance. But our friend Philo used to give a few select lines and well adapted; and in imitation of him, ever since I took a fancy to this kind of elderly declamation, I have been very fond of quoting our poets; and where I cannot be supplied from them, I translate from the Greek, that the Latin language may not want any kind of ornament in this kind of disputation.

But do you not see how much harm is done by poets? They introduce the bravest men lamenting over their misfortunes: they soften our minds; and they are, besides, so entertaining, that we do not only read them, but get them by heart. Thus the influence of the poets is added to our want of discipline at home, and our tender and delicate manner of living, so that between them they have deprived virtue of all its vigor and energy. Plato, therefore, was right in banishing them from his commonwealth, where he required the best morals, and the best form of government. But we, who have all our learning from Greece, read and learn these works of theirs from our childhood; and look on this as a liberal and learned education.

XII. But why are we angry with the poets? We may find some philosophers, those masters of virtue, who have taught that pain was the greatest of evils. But you, young man, when you said but just now that it appeared so to you, upon being asked by me what appeared greater than infamy, gave up that opinion at a word. Suppose I ask