For him Antaea burn’d with lawless flame, And strove to tempt him from the paths of fame. In vain she tempted the relentless youth, Endued with wisdom, sacred fear, and truth: At first, with worthy shame and decent pride, The royal dame his lawless suit denied! For virtue’s image yet possessed her mind:[77] in which speeches the poet assigns wisdom to be the cause of continence. And when in exhortations made to encourage soldiers to fight, he speaks in this manner:— What mean you, Lycians? Stand! O stand, for shame! Yet each reflect who prizes fame or breath, On endless infamy, on instant death; For, lo! the fated time, the appointed shore; Hark! the gates burst, the brazen barriers roar![78] he seems to intimate that continent men are valiant men; because they fear the shame of base actions, and can trample on pleasures and stand their ground in the greatest hazards. Whence Timotheus, in the play called Persae, takes occasion handsomely to exhort the Grecians thus:— Brave soldiers of just shame in awe should stand; For the blushing face oft helps the fighting hand. And Aeschylus also makes it a point of wisdom not to be blown up with pride when a man is honored, nor to be moved or elevated with the acclamations of a multitude, writing thus of Amphiaraus:— His shield no emblem bears; his generous soul Wishes to be, not to appear, the best; While the deep furrows of his noble mind Harvests of wise and prudent counsel bear.[79] For it is the part of a wise man to value himself upon the consciousness of his own true worth and excellency. Whereas, therefore, all inward perfections are reducible to wisdom, it appears that all sorts of virtue and learning are included in it. 12. Again, boys may be instructed, by reading the poets as they ought, to draw something that is useful and profitable even from those passages that are most suspected as wicked and absurd; as the bee is taught by Nature to gather the sweetest and most pleasant honey from the harshest flowers and sharpest thorns. It does indeed at the first blush cast a shrewd suspicion on Agamemnon of taking a bribe, when Homer tells us that he discharged that rich man from the wars who presented him with his fleet mare Aethe:— Whom rich Echepolus, more rich than brave, To ’scape the wars, to Agamemnon gave (Aethe her name), at home to end his days; Base wealth preferring to eternal praise.[80]