Geography

​Now rhetoric is, of course, wisdom concerning words, which Odysseus displays throughout the whole poetry in the trial, in the prayers, and in the embassy, in which the poet says: ‘But when indeed he uttered his great voice from his chest, and words like winter snowflakes, then no other mortal could contend with Odysseus.’ Who then could suppose that the poet who is able to introduce others speaking rhetorically and acting as generals and displaying the other works of virtue is himself one of the babblers and wonder-workers, capable only of entertaining and flattering the listener, but of helping nothing? And we would not call any other virtue of a poet prior to that of imitating life through words. How then could he imitate who is inexperienced in life and foolish? For we do not speak of the virtue of poets in the same way as that of carpenters or blacksmiths; for the latter does not hold on to anything noble and grand, but that of the poet is coupled with that of the human being, and it is not possible to become a good poet without first becoming a good man.

​And indeed to deprive the poet completely of rhetoric is characteristic of one who treats us with utter disregard. For what is so rhetorical as style? And what is so poetical? And who is better than Homer at expressing himself? Yes, by Zeus, but they might say: ‘Poetic style is different.’ Yes, in species, just as in poetry itself there is the tragic and the comic, and in prose the historical and the forensic. For is not language itself a genus, of which metrical and prose language are species? Or is language a genus, but rhetorical language, style, and the virtue of language are not a genus? To speak generally, prose language, at least that which is constructed with care, is an imitation of the poetical. For first of all, poetic construction came into the open and won renown; then, imitating that, losing the meter but keeping the other poetic elements, Cadmus, Pherecydes, Hecataeus, and their circles wrote; then later writers, always removing something of this kind, brought it down to the present species, as if from some height; just as one might say that comedy took its constitution from tragedy and, being brought down from its height, came to what is now called the prose-like. And the fact that ‘to sing’ was used instead of ‘to speak’ by the ancients bears witness to this very thing, because the source and origin of constructed and rhetorical style was poetry. For this made use of melody in its exhibitions; and this was a song or melodious language, from which indeed they spoke of rhapsody, tragedy, and comedy. So, since ‘to speak’ was first used of poetic style, and this was with song, * ‘to sing’ was for them the same as ‘to speak’ among those ancients. And when they used one of the terms also for prose language, the usage crossed over to the other term as well. And the fact that language without meter is itself called ‘pedestrian’ indicates that it descended from some height and carriage to the ground.