Page:The Defence of Poesie - Sidney (1595).djvu/16

 So Thales, Empedocles, and Parmenides, sang their naturall Philosophie in verses. So did Pithagoras and Phocillides, their morall Councels. So did Tirteus in warre matters, and Solon in matters of pollicie, or rather they being Poets, did exercise their delightfull vaine in those points of highest knowledge, which before them laie hidden to the world. For, that wise Solon was directly a Poet, it is manifest, hauing written in verse the notable Fable of the Atlantick Iland, which was continued by Plato. And truly euen Plato who so euer well considereth, shall finde that in the body of his worke though the inside & strength were Philosophie, the skin as it were and beautie, depended most of Poetrie. For all stands vpon Dialogues, wherein hee faines many honest Burgesses of Athens speak of such matters, that if they had bene set on the Racke, they would neuer haue confessed them: besides his Poeticall describing the circumstances of their meetings, as the well ordering of a banquet, the delicacie of a walke, with enterlacing meere Tales, as Gyges Ring and others, which, who knowes not to bee flowers of Poetrie, did neuer walke into Appollos Garden. And euen Historiographers, although their lippes sound of things done, and veritie be written in their foreheads, haue bene glad to borrow both fashion and perchance weight of the Poets. So Herodotus entituled his Historie, by the name of the nine Muses, and both he and all the rest that followed him, either stale, or vsurped of Poetrie, their passionate describing of passions, the many particularities of battels which no man could affirme, or if that be denied me, long Orations put