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Updated: May 8, 2025
It is not only the "temperance of Diomedes" though temperance too may be conceived as an active virtue but the wisdom of Ulysses, the patriotism of Aneas, "the soon repenting pride of Agamemnon", the valour of Achilles it is courage, above all courage, that stirs his soul in the great works of ancient poetry. It is the same quality that moves him in the ballads and romances of the moderns.
This is what is there said of the wonderful steel chair: "It was made by Thomas Rukers at the city of Augsburgh, in the year 1575, and consists of more than 130 compartments, all occupied by groups of figures representing a succession of events in the annals of the Roman Empire, from the landing of Aneas to the reign of Rodolphus the Second."
Her world is brazen, the poets only deliver a golden: but let those things alone and go to man, for whom as the other things are, so it seemeth in him her uttermost cunning is employed, and know whether she have brought forth so true a lover as Theagenes, so constant a friend as Pylades, so valiant a man as Orlando, so right a prince as Xenophon's Cyrus: so excellent a man every way, as Virgil's Aneas.
We see we cannot play at chess, but that we must give names to our chessmen; and yet methinks he were a very partial champion of truth that would say we lied for giving a piece of wood the reverend title of a bishop. The poet nameth Cyrus or Aneas no other way than to show what men of their fames, fortunes, and estates should do.
That imitation, whereof poetry is, hath the most conveniency to Nature of all other, insomuch, that as Aristotle saith, those things which in themselves are horrible, as cruel battles, unnatural monsters, are made in poetical imitation delightful. Who readeth Aneas carrying old Anchises on his back, that wisheth not it were his fortune to perform so excellent an act?
But even in the most excellent determination of goodness, what philosopher's counsel can so readily detect a prince, as the feigned Cyrus in Xenophon? or a virtuous man in all fortunes, as Aneas in Virgil? or a whole commonwealth, as the way of Sir Thomas More's Utopia?
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