On Joan of Arc, who is called "La pucelle d'Orleans"
French Amazon of never-dying fame,
Virgin untouched by men and by men feared,
Nor Venus in her eyes nor young Desire
But Mars and Terror and the bloody Weird—
France owes the Salic Law to her alone,
And hers is the true king on the true throne.
Let none lament her death who was all fire
And never, or by fire alone, should die.[8]
I have ventured to cite this that the reader may see quite clearly what is involved in this kind of falsehood and how much it is repugnant to nature: namely, that something is alleged the contrary of which might as plausibly be affirmed. For Grotius might have written no less foolishly:
Justly lament her death: she who was fire
Should not by fire but by cold water die.
Actually, if we wish to get to the bottom of this fault we will find that men are not led to it by nature but driven to it by lack of skill. For they would not fly to the refuge of falsehood for any other reason than that they are not vigorous enough to elicit beauty from the subject itself. Truth, indeed, is limited and defined, but the realm of lies is unlimited and undefined. Hence the one offers difficulties for invention, the other is obvious and easy, and for that reason also is to be scorned.
Moreover, falsehood occurs not only in propositions but also in the delineation of feeling, as, for instance, when feelings are ascribed to a character other than those which nature and the subject-matter demand. You will find this fault in an epigram by Vulteius, which was for this reason rejected:
I viewed one day the marble stone
That hides a man in sin well-known.
I sighed and said, "What is the point
Of such expense? This tomb might serve
To house kings and the blood of kings
That now conceals a villainous corpse."
I burst in tears that copiously
Flowed from my eyes down both my cheeks.
A stander-by took me to task
In some such words, I think, as these:
"Aren't you ashamed, be who you may,
To mourn the burial of this plague?"
But I replied, "My tears are shed
For the lost tomb, not his lost head."[9]
It was surely foreign to nature to represent a man weeping copiously because a villain and scoundrel had been buried in a noble tomb, for the funeral honors paid to scoundrels excite anger and indignation rather than pity and tears. The poet, consequently, adopted an erroneous feeling when he wept where he should have been angry and wrathful.