Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/41

 CHAP, n, 5, 6. INTRODUCTION. " I with my well-bent sickle in my hand, Thou arm'd with, one as keen." l And also in tillage, " Then shonldst thou see How straight my furrow should be cut and true." 2 And Homer was not singular in his opinion regarding these matters, for all educated people appeal to him in favour of the idea that such practical knowledge is one of the chief means of acquiring understanding. 5. That eloquence is regarded as the wisdom of sgeech, Ulysses manifests throughout the whole poem, both in the Trial, 3 the Petitions, 4 and the Embassy. 5 Of him it is said by Antenor, " But when he spake, forth from his breast did flow A torrent swift as winter's feather'd snow." 6 Who can suppose that a poet capable of effectively intro- ducing into his scenes rhetonCfens, generals, and various other characters, each displacing some peculiar excellence, was na- thing more than a dipll or juggler, "capable only of cheating or flattering his hearer, and notjof instructing hjm. Are we not all agreed that the chiej^merit of a poej; con ^ sists in his accurate representation of the antics of litp ? Can this be done by a mere driveller, unacquainted with the world ? The excellence of a goej is not to be measured by the sajoe standard asTEat of a mecjianic or a blacksmith, where hojiour and~"vTrtue have nothing to do with our_estimate. But the poet and the individual are connected, and he only can be- come a good_j)oet, who is in the firsj^ instance a worthy man. ^6. To denytKat our poet possesses the graces of oratory is using us hardly indeed. What is so befitting an orator, what so poetical as eloquence, and who so sweetly eloquent as Ho- mer ? But, by heaven ! you'll say, there are other styles of eloquence than those peculiar to poetry. Of course [I admit this] ; in poetry itself there is the tragic and the comic style ; in prose, the historic and the forensic. But is not language 1 Odyssey xviii. 367. 2 Ib. xviii. 374. 3 The second book of the Iliad. 4 The ninth book of the Iliad. 5 The deputation of Menelaus and Ulysses to demand back Helen, alluded to by Antenor, in the third book of the Iliad. 6 But when he did send forth the mighty voice from his breast, and words like unto wintry flakes of snow, no longer then would another mortal contend with Ulysses. Iliad iii. 221.