There endless floods of shady darkness stream From the vast caves, where mother Night doth teem; and, There ghosts o’er the vast ocean’s waves did glide, By the Leucadian promontory’s side;[20] and, There from th’ unfathomed gulf th’ infernal lake Through narrow straits recurring tides doth make. And yet, as many of them as deplore death as a lamentable thing, or the want of burial after death as a calamitous condition, are wont to break out into expressions of this nature:— O pass not by, my friend; nor leave me here Without a grave, and on that grave a tear;[21] and, Then to the ghosts the mournful soul did fly, Sore grieved in midst of youth and strength to die;[22] and again, ’Tis sweet to see the light. O spare me then, Till I arrive at th’ usual age of men: Nor force my unfledged soul from hence, to know The doleful state of dismal shades below.[23] These, I say, are the speeches of men persuaded of these things, as being possessed by erroneous opinions; and therefore they touch us the more nearly and torment us inwardly, because we ourselves are full of the same impotent passion from which they were uttered. To fortify us therefore against expressions of this nature, let this principle continually ring in our ears, that poetry is not at all solicitous to keep to the strict measure of truth. And indeed, as to what that truth in these matters is, even those men themselves who make it their only study to learn and search it out confess that they can hardly discover any certain footsteps to guide them in that enquiry. Let us therefore have these verses of Empedocles, in this case, at hand:— No sight of man’s so clear, no ear so quick, No mind so piercing, that’s not here to seek; as also those of Xenophanes:— The truth about the Gods and world, no man E’er was or shall be that determine can; and lastly, that passage concerning Socrates, in Plato, where he by the solemnity of an oath disclaims all knowledge of those things. For those who perceive that the searching into such matters makes the heads of philosophers themselves giddy cannot but be the less inclined to regard what poets say concerning them.