Chapter 13: Mimesis and Emulation
Though Plato (you see, I return to him) flows on without disturbing a pebble, he is no less great. Having read in the Republic, you are not ignorant of his type of form: he says that
Those in wisdom and excellence inexperienced, but in feasting and the like always present, are carried down ward, it seems. and wander there throughout life, but towards the truth they never gaze nor raise themselves, nor do they taste a safe and pure pleasure, but like cattle gazing downwards and bent towards the ground and pasture they feed and fatten themselves and copulate, and from greed for these things, kicking and butting with iron horns and hooves, they kill each other on account of their insatiate greed.
2. This man demonstrates to us, if we do not wish to disregard him, how another way, besides those mentioned, stretches to the sublime. It is the mimesis and emulation of the great prose writers and poets who came before us. And to this aim, of course, dearest friend, let us hold fast. Many, you see, are divinely uplifted by another’s spirit, in the same way that the story says the Pythian priestess approaches the tripod: there, where there is a rift in the earth, she breathes in a divine exhalation from the ground; standing on the same place, impregnated by the daemonic power, he at once begins to prophesy throughout the period of inspiration. In the same way, from the natural greatness of the ancients, as if out of holy orifices, kinds of effluences are carried into the souls of those emulating them; even those who are not given to the oracular and Apollonian are breathed into by these and become inspired by their greatness. 3. Was Herodotus alone thoroughly Homeric? Even before him Stesichorus and Archilochus, and, of all, Plato especially channeled off to himself thousands of such sluices from the Homeric stream. And perhaps we ought to have demonstrated this, if the school of Ammonius had not actually selected and compiled the references by species.
4. But there is no theft in the matter; rather, it is a type of forming one’s work after fine characterizations or molds or works of art. And, in my opinion, Plato would not have reached such an acme in the doctrinal opinions of his philosophy, and he would not have kept pace with such poetic material and phrasing as we find in him, if he had not competed against Homer for the first prize with (by heaven) all his soul, like a youngster matching himself against a man whom all wonder at-though, perhaps, he was too much a lover of contention, and, as it were, of breaking lances-still, not without benefit. 5. According to Hesiod, you see, “This kind of strife is good for mortals.” And the contest for glorious reputation is really a fine thing, and the crown is worthy of the victory in which being worsted by those born before you is not without glory.
