prohibetis

Updated: June 21, 2025

So descriptions, figures, fables, and the rest, must be in all heroic poems; they are the common materials of poetry, furnished from the magazine of nature: every poet hath as much right to them as every man hath to air or water "Quid prohibetis aquas? Usus communis aquarum est." The Poet who borrows nothing from others is yet to be born; he and the Jews' Messias will come together.

John Dryden - Discourses on Satire and on Epic Poetry