"When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men's minds may take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of the brimming mind."
— Wickham, E. C. (1834-1910); Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Horace] (65 BC - 8 BC)
Work Title
Place of Publication
Oxford
Publisher
Clarendon Press
Date
1903
Metaphor
"When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men's minds may take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of the brimming mind."
Metaphor in Context
The aim of the poet is either to benefit, or to amuse or to make his words at once please and give lessons of life. When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men's minds may take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of the brimming mind. Fictions intended to please must keep as near as may be to real life. The plot must not ask our credence for anything that it chooses: it must not draw a live boy from the belly of a Lamia who has just dined on him. The centuries of the elders hunt off the stage what lacks profit. The proud Ramnes will have nothing to say to dry poems. He has gained every vote who has mingled profit with pleasure by delighting the reader at once and instructing him. This is the book that makes the fortune of the Sosii, that crosses the seas, and gives a long life of fame to its author.
(p. 357)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Horace for English Readers, Being a Translation of the Poems of Quintus Horatius Flaccus into English Prose, trans. E.C. Wickham (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903). <Link to Hathi Trust>
Date of Entry
07/09/2015
