On the Art of Writing | Page 2

characteristically beautiful setting. The place
is Crete, and the three interlocutors--Cleinias a Cretan, Megillus a
Lacedaemonian, and an Athenian stranger--have joined company on a
pilgrimage to the cave and shrine of Zeus, from whom Minos, first
lawgiver of the island, had reputedly derived not only his parentage but
much parental instruction. Now the day being hot, even scorching, and
the road from Cnossus to the Sacred Cave a long one, our three
pilgrims, who have foregathered as elderly men, take it at their leisure,
and propose to beguile it with talk upon Minos and his laws. 'Yes, and
on the way,' promises the Cretan, 'we shall come to cypress-groves
exceedingly tall and fair, and to green meadows, where we may repose
ourselves and converse.' 'Good,' assents the Athenian. 'Ay, very good
indeed, and better still when we arrive at them. Let us push on.'
So they proceed. I have said that all three are elderly men; that is, men
who have had their opportunities, earned their wages, and so nearly
earned their discharge that now, looking back on life, they can afford to
see Man for what he really is--at his best a noble plaything for the gods.
Yet they look forward, too, a little wistfully. They are of the world,
after all, and nowise so tired of it, albeit disillusioned, as to have lost
interest in the game or in the young who will carry it on. So Minos and
his laws soon get left behind, and the talk (as so often befalls with Plato)
is of the perfect citizen and how to train him--of education, in short;
and so, as ever with Plato, we are back at length upon the old question
which he could never get out of his way--What to do with the poets?

It scarcely needs to be said that the Athenian has taken hold of the
conversation, and that the others are as wax in his hands. 'O Athenian
stranger,' Cleinias addresses him--'inhabitant of Attica I will not call
you, for you seem to deserve rather the name of Athene herself,
because you go back to first principles.' Thus complimented, the
stranger lets himself go. Yet somehow he would seem to have lost
speculative nerve.
It was all very well in the 'Republic,' the ideal State, to be bold and
declare for banishing poetry altogether. But elderly men have given up
pursuing ideals; they have 'seen too many leaders of revolt.' Our
Athenian is driving now at practice (as we say), at a well-governed
State realisable on earth; and after all it is hard to chase out the poets,
especially if you yourself happen to be something of a poet at heart.
Hear, then, the terms on which, after allowing that comedies may be
performed, but only by slaves and hirelings, he proceeds to allow
serious poetry.
And if any of the serious poets, as they are termed, who write tragedy,
come to us and say--'O strangers, may we go to your city and country,
or may we not, and shall we bring with us our poetry? What is your
will about these matters?'--how shall we answer the divine men? I think
that our answer should be as follows:--
'Best of strangers,' we will say to them, 'we also, according to our
ability, are tragic poets, and our tragedy is the best and noblest: for our
whole state is an imitation of the best and noblest life.... You are poets
and we are poets, both makers of the same strains, rivals and
antagonists in the noblest of dramas, which true law alone can perfect,
as our hope is. Do not then suppose that we shall all in a moment allow
you to erect your stage in the Agora, and introduce the fair voices of
your actors, speaking above our own, and permit you to harangue our
women and children and the common people in language other than our
own, and very often the opposite of our own. For a State would be mad
which gave you this license, until the magistrates had determined
whether your poetry might be recited and was fit for publication or not.
Wherefore, O ye sons and scions of the softer Muses! first of all show

your songs to the Magistrates and let them compare them with our own,
and if they are the same or better, we will give you a chorus; but if not,
then, my friends, we cannot.'
Lame conclusion! Impotent compromise! How little applicable, at all
events, to our Commonwealth! though, to be sure (you may say) we
possess a relic of it in His Majesty's Licenser of Plays. As you know,
there has been so much heated talk of late over the composition of the
County Magistracy; yet I give you a countryman's word, Sir, that I