Those poets have all been of practical use who have been supreme in their art.
First, Orpheus withheld us from bloodshed impure, and vouchsafed us the great revelation;
Musaeus was next, with wisdom to cure diseases and teach divination.
Then Hesiod showed us the season to plough, to sow, and to reap. And the laurels
That shine upon Homer's celestial brow are equally due to his morals!
He taught men to stand, to march, and to arm. . . .
Dionysus.
So that was old Homer's profession?
Then I wish he could keep his successors from harm, like Pantacles in the procession,
Who first got his helmet well strapped on his head, and then tried to put in the plume!
Aeschylus.
There be many brave men that he fashioned and bred, like Lamachus, now in his tomb.
And in his great spirit my plays had a part, with their heroes many and brave—
Teucers, Patrocluses, lions at heart; who made my citizens crave
To dash like them at the face of the foe, and leap at the call of a trumpet!—
But no Stheneboia I've given you, no; no Phaedra, no heroine-strumpet!
If I've once put a woman in love in one act of one play, may my teaching be scouted!
