DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5596#0091
THE BEAUTIFUL.
67
valour ; it is this which makes everything valuable,
which without it would be mean and contemptible.
Vulcan, the famous artificer, was said never to have
succeeded in his art, unless the youngest of the
Graces attended him. It was an ancient practice
to make the good as good as possible, but to con-
ceal and diminish the bad. The Theban law, indeed,
if we may trust iElian, not only confined works of art
to the beautiful, but inflicted a fine for delineating
anything offensive to the eye. Plato prescribes to
the artists of his republic that they should create
nothing illiberal or deformed, as well as nothing
immoral or loose, but should everywhere strive to
attain to the nature of the beautiful and the
becoming: while Aristotle, in like manner, strove
to guard from the view of youth all objects capable
of exciting a low and degraded taste.1 In con-
formity with this precept the Greeks avoided all
1 On the same principle the poets sought to invest every-
thing with a glorious aspect. Do base intriguers seek to corrupt
the fidelity of a lovely wife—they are the illustrious suitors, god-
like suitors ; do a mutinous crew rebel against their captain—their
noble mind is persuaded; does a wicked enchantress turn men
into swine—she is the venerable Circe, the immortal Circe, the
fair-haired Circe, the divine one of goddesses ; does terrible
Charybdis engulf ones companions—it is the divine Charybdis;
does a poor blind minstrel sing—it is the hero Demedocus, the
divine bard; is a pigsty described—it is a lofty abode, beautiful
and large, and the swineherd is divine, chieftain of men. So too
in the Iliad, the ruthless slayer of Eetion and her seven brothers
is designated by Andromache as the divine Achilles.
67
valour ; it is this which makes everything valuable,
which without it would be mean and contemptible.
Vulcan, the famous artificer, was said never to have
succeeded in his art, unless the youngest of the
Graces attended him. It was an ancient practice
to make the good as good as possible, but to con-
ceal and diminish the bad. The Theban law, indeed,
if we may trust iElian, not only confined works of art
to the beautiful, but inflicted a fine for delineating
anything offensive to the eye. Plato prescribes to
the artists of his republic that they should create
nothing illiberal or deformed, as well as nothing
immoral or loose, but should everywhere strive to
attain to the nature of the beautiful and the
becoming: while Aristotle, in like manner, strove
to guard from the view of youth all objects capable
of exciting a low and degraded taste.1 In con-
formity with this precept the Greeks avoided all
1 On the same principle the poets sought to invest every-
thing with a glorious aspect. Do base intriguers seek to corrupt
the fidelity of a lovely wife—they are the illustrious suitors, god-
like suitors ; do a mutinous crew rebel against their captain—their
noble mind is persuaded; does a wicked enchantress turn men
into swine—she is the venerable Circe, the immortal Circe, the
fair-haired Circe, the divine one of goddesses ; does terrible
Charybdis engulf ones companions—it is the divine Charybdis;
does a poor blind minstrel sing—it is the hero Demedocus, the
divine bard; is a pigsty described—it is a lofty abode, beautiful
and large, and the swineherd is divine, chieftain of men. So too
in the Iliad, the ruthless slayer of Eetion and her seven brothers
is designated by Andromache as the divine Achilles.