If the description, however, be neither
true nor of the thing as it ought to be, the answer must be then, that
it is in accordance with opinion. The tales about Gods, for instance,
may be as wrong as Xenophanes thinks, neither true nor the better
thing to say; but they are certainly in accordance with opinion. Of
other statements in poetry one may perhaps say, not that they are
better than the truth, but that the fact was so at the time; e.g. the
description of the arms: 'their spears stood upright, butt-end upon
the ground'; for that was the usual way of fixing them then, as it is
still with the Illyrians. As for the question whether something said
or done in a poem is morally right or not, in dealing with that one
should consider not only the intrinsic quality of the actual word or
deed, but also the person who says or does it, the person to whom he
says or does it, the time, the means, and the motive of the
agent--whether he does it to attain a greate.g.od, or to avoid a
greater evil.)
III. Other criticisms one must meet by considering the language of the
poet: (1) by the assumption of a strange word in a passage like
_oureas men proton_, where by _oureas_ Homer may perhaps mean not
mules but sentinels.
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