The incomparable
Lacedaemonians did not only carry that kind of music ever with them
to the field, but even at home, as such songs were made, so were
they all content to be singers of them; when the lusty men were to
tell what they did, the old men what they had done, and the young
what they would do. And where a man may say that Pindar many times
praiseth highly victories of small moment, rather matters of sport
than virtue; as it may be answered, it was the fault of the poet,
and not of the poetry, so, indeed, the chief fault was in the time
and custom of the Greeks, who set those toys at so high a price,
that Philip of Macedon reckoned a horse-race won at Olympus among
three fearful felicities. But as the inimitable Pindar often did,
so is that kind most capable, and most fit, to awake the thoughts
from the sleep of idleness, to embrace honourable enterprises.
There rests the heroical, {56} whose very name, I think, should
daunt all backbiters. For by what conceit can a tongue be directed
to speak evil of that which draweth with him no less champions than
Achilles, Cyrus, AEneas, Turus, Tydeus, Rinaldo? who doth not only
teach and move to truth, but teacheth and moveth to the most high
and excellent truth: who maketh magnanimity and justice shine
through all misty fearfulness and foggy desires? who, if the saying
of Plato and Tully be true, that who could see virtue, would be
wonderfully ravished with the love of her beauty; this man setteth
her out to make her more lovely, in her holiday apparel, to the eye
of any that will deign not to disdain until they understand.
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