[5] Beattie, 1776.
[6] Boswell.
[7] Ruskin.
CHAPTER VI.
POETRY.
"And here the singer for his Art
Not all in vain may plead;
The song that nerves a nation's heart
Is in itself a deed."
TENNYSON.
CHAPTER VI.
POETRY.
After the disastrous defeat of the Athenians before Syracuse, Plutarch tells us that the Sicilians spared those who could repeat any of the poetry of Euripides.
"Some there were," he says, "who owed their preservation to Euripides. Of all the Grecians, his was the muse with whom the Sicilians were most in love. From the strangers who landed in their island they gleaned every small specimen or portion of his works, and communicated it with pleasure to each other. It is said that upon this occasion a number of Athenians on their return home went to Euripides, and thanked him in the most grateful manner for their obligations to his pen; some having been enfranchised for teaching their masters what they remembered of his poems, and others having procured refreshments, when they were wandering about after the battle, by singing a few of his verses."