| Well, then, thou paltry wretch, explain |
| What were your own devices? |
Euripides says that he found the Muse
| Puffed and pampered |
| With pompous sentences, a cumbrous huge virago. |
In order to bring her to a more genteel figure:
| I fed her with plain household phrase and cool familiar salad, |
| With water gruel episode, with sentimental jelly, |
| With moral mince-meat, till at length I brought her into compass. |
| I kept my plots distinct and clear to prevent confusion. |
| My leading characters rehearsed their pedigrees for prologues. |
"For all this," says Æschylus, "you ought to have been hanged." Æschylus now speaks of the grand old days, of the great themes and works of early poetry:
| Such is the duty, the task of a poet, |
| Fulfilling in honor his duty and trust. |
| Look to traditional history, look; |
| See what a blessing illustrious poets |
| Conferred on mankind in the centuries past. |
| Orpheus instructed mankind in religion, |
| Reclaimed them from bloodshed and barbarous rites. |
| Musæus delivered the doctrine of medicine, |
| And warnings prophetic for ages to come. |
| Next came old Hesiod, teaching us husbandry, |
| Rural economy, rural astronomy, |
| Homely morality, labor and thrift. |
| Homer himself, our adorable Homer, |
| What was his title to praise and renown? |
| What but the worth of the lessons he taught us, |
| Discipline, arms, and equipment of war. |
And here the poet comes to speak of a question which is surely prominent to-day in the minds of thoughtful people. Æschylus, in his argument against Euripides, speaks of the noble examples which he himself has brought upon the stage, reproaches his adversary with the objectionable stories of Sthenobæus and Phædra, with which he, Euripides has corrupted the public taste.
Euripides alleges in his own defence that he did not invent those stories. "Phædra's affair was a matter of fact." Æschylus rejoins:
| A fact with a vengeance, but horrible facts |
| Should be buried in silence, not bruited abroad, |
| Nor brought forth on the stage, nor emblazoned in poetry. |
| Children and boys have a teacher assigned them; |
| The bard is a master for manhood and youth, |
| Bound to instruct them in virtue and truth |
| Beholden and bound. |