Complete Works of Plutarch — Volume 3 · Plutarch
AMMONIUS AND THRASYBULUS.
He that Medusa slew, and flies in air; and Pindar of a horse, When by the smooth Alpheus's banks He ran the race, and never felt the spur; and Homer of a race, The chariots, overlaid with tin and brass, By fiery horses drawn ran swiftly on. (Euripedes, Frag. 975; Pindar, "Olympian," i. 31; "Iliad," xxiii. 503.) So in dancing, the [Greek omitted] represents the shape and figure, the [Greek omitted] shows some action, passion, or power; but by the [Greek omitted] are properly and significatively shown the things themselves, for instance, the heaven, earth, or the company. Which, being done in a certain order and method, resembles the proper names used in poetry, decently clothed and attended with suitable epithets. As in these lines, Themis the venerable and admired, And Venus beauteous with her bending brows, Fair Dione, and June crowned with gold. (Hesiod, "Theogony," 16.) And in these, From Hellen kings renowned for giving laws, Great Dorus and the mighty Xuthus sprang, And Aeolus, whose chief delight was horse. For if poets did not take this liberty, how mean, how grovelling and flat, would be their verse! As suppose they wrote thus, From this sprung Hercules, from the other Iphitus. Her father, husband, and her son were kings, Her brother and forefathers were the same; And she in Greece Olympias was called.
I fear lest, losing fame amongst the gods, I shall receive respect from men alone. For having associated to itself a mean paltry sort of music, and falling from that divine sort of poetry with which it was formerly acquainted, it rules now and domineers amongst foolish and inconsiderate spectators, like a tyrant, it hath subjected nearly all music, but hath lost all its honor with excellent and wise men. These, my Sossius Senecio, were almost the last discourses which we had at Ammonius's house during the festival of the Muses.
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