For,
indeed, they found for Homer seven cities strove who should have him
for their citizen, where many cities banished philosophers as not
fit members to live among them. For only repeating certain of
Euripides' verses many Athenians had their lives saved of the
Syracusans, where the Athenians themselves thought many of the
philosophers unworthy to live. Certain poets, as Simonides and
Pindar, had so prevailed with Hiero the First, that of a tyrant they
made him a just king; where Plato could do so little with Dionysius
that he himself, of a philosopher, was made a slave. But who should
do thus, I confess, should requite the objections raised against
poets with like cavillations against philosophers; as likewise one
should do that should bid one read Phaedrus or Symposium in Plato,
or the discourse of Love in Plutarch, and see whether any poet do
authorise abominable filthiness as they do.
Again, a man might ask, out of what Commonwealth Plato doth banish
them? In sooth, thence where he himself alloweth community of
women. So, as belike this banishment grew not for effeminate
wantonness, since little should poetical sonnets be hurtful, when a
man might have what woman he listed. But I honour philosophical
instructions, and bless the wits which bred them, so as they be not
abused, which is likewise stretched to poetry. Saint Paul himself
sets a watchword upon philosophy, indeed upon the abuse.
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