Page:The Earliest Lives of Dante (Smith 1901).djvu/55

Rh exist as yet, but according to a natural equity, whereof one had more knowledge than another. Being naturally more enlightened, they ordered their lives and habits, and resisted by bodily force every opposition as it arose. They began, also, to call themselves kings, to appear before the people with slaves and ornaments, neither of which had been found heretofore among men. They began to make themselves obeyed, and ultimately to make themselves worshiped; which, if only one presumed so far, came about without much difficulty. For to the rude peoples who saw these actions of theirs they seemed not men, but gods.

Not wishing to trust overmuch to their mere strength, these men began to magnify the religions, and to overawe the subjects through their faith therein; and to secure by oaths the obedience of those whom they could not have constrained by force. Furthermore, they took care to deify their fathers, their grandfathers, and their ancestors, in order that they themselves should the more be feared and held in reverence by the multitude. These things could not suitably be done without the service of poets; who, in order to spread abroad their own fame, please their lords, delight the subjects, and persuade every one to act virtuously, made the people believe that which the princes wished they should believe. Under cover of various and masterly fictions—hardly to be understood by the vulgar of to-day, not to mention those of that time—they wrote things that, had they been spoken openly, would have had the opposite effect.

Both for the new gods and for the men who feigned that they were born of gods, these poets employed the same style that the first people used in reference to the true God only, and for his praise. From this the deeds of able men came to be paralleled with those of the gods, and hence arose the chant in lofty verse of the battles and other notable acts of men, mingled with those of the gods. This, then, was and is to-day, together with the other things above mentioned, the office and function of every poet. But since many ignorant persons believe that poetry is naught but