So as Cato, his authority being but against his person, and that
answered with so far greater than himself, is herein of no validity.
But now, indeed, my burden is great; now Plato his name is laid upon
me, whom I must confess, of all philosophers, I have ever esteemed
most worthy of reverence, and with great reason, sith of all
philosophers he is the most poetical. Yet if he will defile the
fountain, out of which his flowing streams have proceeded, let us
boldly examine with what reasons he did it. First, truly, a man might
maliciously object that Plato, being a philosopher, was a natural enemy
of poets; for, indeed, after the philosophers had picked out of the
sweet mysteries of poetry the right discerning true points of knowledge,
they forthwith putting it in method, and making a school-art of that
which the poets did only teach by a divine delightfulness, beginning
to spurn at their guides like ungrateful 'prentices, were not content
to set up shops for themselves, but sought by all means to discredit
their masters. Which by the force of delight being barred them, the
less they could overthrow them, the more they hated them.
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