Nevertheless I shall not fail to defend my poetry against you. It is not, I think, proper to examine poetry in minute detail, nor to demand complete perfection down to every syllable of what is said, nor again to criticise bitterly any unconscious oversight in the flow of the composition. No, you must realise that we include much for the sake of both metre and euphony, and often the verse itself has somehow let in some things, they fit so smoothly. But you are robbing us of our greatest possession—I mean freedom and poetic licence. You are blind to the other beauties of poetry, and pick out a few splinters and thorns and seek out handles for captious criticism. You are not alone in this, nor am I the only victim. Many others pick the poetry of my fellow-craftsman Homer utterly to pieces, pointing out similar niggling details, the merest trifles.
Well, if I have to come to grips with the charge, and make a clear-cut defence, read my Works and Days, my man. You will see how much, like a real seer and prophet, I foretold in that poem, predicting the outcome of right and timely action and the penalties of neglect. Remember my“you will carry it in a basket, and few there’ll be to admire” Works and Days, 482; i.e., “your harvest will be poor.” and again the blessings that follow right farming—this should be thought a prophecy most useful for living.
