Ars Poetica
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
73.p8
73.p8
Homer has instructed us in what measure the achievements
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73.p8
of kings, and chiefs, and direful war might be written.
73.p9
73.p9
Plaintive strains originally were appropriated to the unequal numbers [of the elegiac]:
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73.p9
afterward [love and] successful desires were included. Yet what author first published humble
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73.p9
elegies, the critics dispute, and the controversy still waits the determination of a judge.
73.p10
73.p10
Rage armed Archilochus with the iambic of his own invention. The sock and the majestic buskin assumed this measure as adapted for dialogue, and to silence the noise of the populace, and calculated for action.
73.p11
73.p11
To celebrate gods, and the sons of gods, and the victorious wrestler, and the steed foremost in the race, and the inclination of youths, and the free joys of wine, the muse has allotted to the lyre.
73.p12
73.p12
If I am incapable and unskillful to observe the distinction described, and the complexions of works [of genius], why am I accosted by the name of "Poet?" Why, out of false modesty, do I prefer being ignorant to being learned?
73.p13
73.p13
A comic subject will not be handled in tragic verse:
73.p13
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73.p13
in like manner the banquet of Thyestes will not bear to be held in familiar verses, and such as almost suit the sock. Let each peculiar species [of writing] fill with decorum its proper place. Nevertheless sometimes even comedy exalts her voice, and passionate Chremes rails in a tumid strain: and a tragic writer generally expresses grief in a prosaic style. Telephus and Peleus, when they are both in poverty and exile, throw aside their rants and gigantic expressions if they have a mind to move the heart of the spectator with their complaint.