Plutarch De gloria Atheniensium 4

[4] Poetry also has won favour and esteem because it utters words which match the deeds, as Homer ¹ says, The story is also told that one of Menander’s ² intimate friends said to him, The Dionysian Festival is almost here, Menander; haven’t you composed your comedy? Menander answered, By heaven, I have really composed the comedy: the plot’s all in order. But I still have to fit the lines to it. For even poets consider the subject matter more necessary and vital than the words.

When Pindar was still young, and prided himself on his felicitous use of words. Corinna warned him that his writing lacked refinement, since he did not introduce myths, which are the proper business of poetry, but used as a foundation for his work unusual and obsolete words, extensions of meaning, paraphrases, lyrics and rhythms, which are mere embellishments of the subject matter. ³ So Pindar, ⁴ giving all heed to her words, composed the famous lyric: He showed it to Corinna, but she laughed and said that one should sow with the hand, not with the whole sack. For in truth Pindar had confused and jumbled together a seed-mixture, as it were, of myths, and poured them into his poem. ⁵ That poetry concerns itself with the composition of mythological matters Plato ⁶ also has stated. A myth aims at being a false tale, resembling a true one; wherefore it is far removed from actual events, if a tale is but a picture and an image of actuality, and a myth is but a picture and image of a tale. And thus those who write of imaginative exploits lag as far behind historians as persons who tell of deeds come short of those that do them.

[4] But there is a certain grace and glory of the poetic art, when it resembles the grandeur of the actions themselves; according to that of Homer, It is reported also, that when one of his familiar friends said to Menander, The feasts of Bacchus are at hand, and thou hast made ne’er a comedy; he made him this answer: By all the Gods, I have made a comedy, for I have laid my plot; and there remains only to make the verses and measures to it. So that the poets themselves believe the actions to be more necessary than the words, and the first things to be considered. Corinna likewise, when Pindar was but a young man and made too daring a use of his eloquence, gave him this admonition, that he was no poet, for that he never composed any fables, which was the chiefest office of poetry; in regard that strange words, figures, metaphors, songs, and measures were invented to give a sweetness to things. Which admonition Pindar laying up in his mind, wrote a certain ode which thus begins: Which when he showed to Corinna, she with a smile replied: When you sow, you must scatter the seed with your hand, not empty the whole sack at once. And indeed we find that Pindar intermixes in his poetic numbers a collection of all sorts of fables. Now that poetry employs itself in mythology is agreed by Plato likewise. For a fable is the relation of a false story resembling truth, and therefore very remote from real actions; for relation is the image of action, as fable is the image of relation. And therefore they that feign actions fall as far behind historians as they that speak differ from those that act.