A Defence of Poesie and Poems | Page 6

horse took fright
and galloped back, but the wounded man held to his seat. He was then
carried to his uncle, asked for water, and when it was given, saw a
dying soldier carried past, who eyed it greedily. At once he gave the
water to the soldier, saying, "Thy necessity is yet greater than mine."
Sidney lived on, patient in suffering, until the 17th of October. When
he was speechless before death, one who stood by asked Philip Sidney
for a sign of his continued trust in God. He folded his hands as in
prayer over his breast, and so they were become fixed and chill, when
the watchers placed them by his side; and in a few minutes the stainless
representative of the young manhood of Elizabethan England passed
away.
AN APOLOGIE FOR POETRIE
When the right virtuous Edward Wotton {1} and I were at the
Emperor's court together, we gave ourselves to learn horsemanship of
Gio. Pietro Pugliano; one that, with great commendation, had the place
of an esquire in his stable; and he, according to the fertileness of the
Italian wit, did not only afford us the
demonstration of his practice,
but sought to enrich our minds with the contemplation therein, which
he thought most precious. But with none, I remember, mine ears were
at any time more laden, than when (either angered with slow payment,
or moved with our learner-like admiration) he exercised his speech in
the praise of his faculty.

He said, soldiers were the noblest estate of mankind, and horsemen the
noblest of soldiers. He said, they were the masters of war and
ornaments of peace, speedy goers, and strong abiders, triumphers both
in camps and courts; nay, to so unbelieved a point he
proceeded, as
that no earthly thing bred such wonder to a prince, as to be a good
horseman; skill of government was but a "pedanteria" in comparison.
Then would he add certain praises by telling what a peerless beast the
horse was, the only serviceable courtier, without flattery, the beast of
most beauty, faithfulness, courage, and such more, that if I had not
been a piece of a logician before I came to him, I think he would have
persuaded me to have wished myself a horse. But thus much, at least,
with his no few words, he drove into me, that self love is better than
any gilding, to make that seem gorgeous wherein ourselves be parties.
Wherein, if Pugliano's strong affection and weak arguments will not
satisfy you, I will give you a nearer example of myself, who, I know
not by what mischance, in these my not old years and idlest times,
having slipped into the title of a poet, am provoked to say something
unto you in the defence of that my unelected vocation; which if I
handle with more good will than good reasons, bear with me, since the
scholar is to be pardoned that followeth the steps of his master.
And yet I must say, that as I have more just cause to make a pitiful
defence of poor poetry, which, from almost the highest estimation of
learning, is fallen to be the laughing-stock of children; so have I need to
bring some more available proofs, since the former is by no man barred
of his deserved credit, whereas the silly latter hath had even the names
of philosophers used to the defacing of it, with great danger of civil war
among the Muses. {2}
At first, truly, to all them that, professing learning, inveigh against
poetry, may justly be objected, that they go very near to ungratefulness
to seek to deface that which, in the noblest nations and languages that
are known, hath been the first light-giver to ignorance, and first nurse,
whose milk by little and little enabled them to feed afterwards of
tougher knowledges. And will you play the hedgehog, that being
received into the den, drove out his host? {3} or rather the vipers, that

with their birth kill their parents? {4}
Let learned Greece, in any of her manifold sciences, be able to show
me one book before Musaeus, Homer, and Hesiod, all three nothing
else but poets. Nay, let any history he brought that can say any writers
were there before them, if they were not men of the same skill, as
Orpheus, Linus, and some others are named, who having been the first
of that country that made pens deliverers of their knowledge to
posterity, may justly challenge to be called their fathers in learning. For
not only in time they had this priority (although in itself antiquity be
venerable) but went before them as causes to draw with their charming
sweetness the wild untamed wits to an admiration of knowledge. So as
Amphion was said to move stones with