[146] Plutarch, in this Essay, distinctly places himself in opposition to Plato, whose views, for the purposes of contrast, may be summarized from two well-known passages of the Republic. In 337 B, C, the greater part of the myths current in the popular poets are repudiated. Then, after that famous series of criticisms applied to particular passages taken from Homer and Hesiod and other poets, after his analysis of the various kinds of “narration,” and his implicit inclusion of the great poets of Greece among the masters of that kind of imitative narration which a man will the more indulge in, the more contemptible he is, Plato concludes with that ironical description of the reception which a Homer or a Hesiod would have to meet in a state founded on the Platonic ideal. “_We shall pay him reverence as a sacred, admirable, and charming personage; we shall pour perfumed oil upon his head and crown him with woollen fillets; but we shall tell him that our laws exclude such characters as he, and shall send him away to some other city than ours._”—398 A, B (Davies and Vaughan’s translation). Plutarch, however, takes the world as it is. He admits that poetry is a siren, but refuses to stop the ears of the young people who listen to her fascinating strains. Lycurgus was mad in thinking he could cure drunkenness by cutting down the vineyards; he should rather have brought the water-springs nearer to the vines. It is better to utilize the vine of poetry by checking and pruning its “fanciful and theatrical exuberance” than to uproot it altogether. We must mingle the wine with the pure water of philosophy, or, to use another image, poetry and philosophy must be planted in the same soil, just as the mandragora, which moderates the native strength of the wine, is planted in vineyards (_Quomodo Adolescens_, 15 E). August Schlemm, in his _De fontibus Plutarchi Commentationum De Aud. Poetis et de Fortuna_ (Göttingen, 1893), subjects the structure of the _De Audiendis_ to a very close and careful analysis, and comes to the conclusion that the main sources of Plutarch’s material are to be found in the writings of Stoic and Peripatetic philosophers. He notes that Plutarch’s examples are taken from the same Homeric, verses as Plato’s, and adds, “Quæ cum ita sint, quomodo hæ Plutarchum inter et Platonem similitudines ortæ sint dubium jam esse non potest. Plutarchus, ut in eis quæ antecedunt, ita etiam hic, usus est libro Peripatetici cujusdam, qui, _ut criminationes a Platone poetis factas repelleret_, hujus modi fictiones in natura artis poeticæ positas esse demonstravit et commentationi suæ inseruit poetarum versus a Platone vituperatos.” Chrysippus had composed a work on _How to study Poetry_, Zeno one entitled _On Poetical Study_, and Cleanthes another, called _On the Poet_.