eir ornaments which the
finished picture places before you with great accuracy and brevity; and
to such a representation nothing is wanting save the noise of the
engines, and the cries of the terrifying victors, {123} and the screams
and lamentations of those awe-stricken; neither again can the poet
convey these things to the hearing.

We will say, therefore, that poetry is an art which is supremely potent
for the blind, and the painting has the same result on the deaf.
Painting, therefore, excels poetry in proportion as the sense to which
it ministers is the nobler. The only true function of the poet is to
represent the words of people who talk among each other, and these
alone he represents to the hearing as if they were natural, because
they are natural in themselves and created by the human voice; and in
all other respects he is surpassed by the painter. Still more,
incomparably greater is the width of range of painting than that of
speech, because the painter can accomplish an infinity of things which
speech will not be able to name for want of the appropriate terms. And
seest thou not that if the painter wishes to depict animals and devils
in Hell with what richness of invention he proceeds?

And I once chanced to paint a picture which represented a divine
subject, and it was bought by the lover of her whom it represented, and
he wished to strip it of its divine character so as to be able to kiss
it without offence. But finally his conscience overcame his desire and
his lust and he was compelled to remove the picture from his house.
Now go thou, poet, and describe a beautiful woman without giving the
semblance of {124} the living thing, and with it arouse such desire in
men! If thou sayest: I will describe then Hell and Paradise and other
delights and terrors,--the painter will surpass thee, because he will
set before thee things which in silence will [make thee] give utterance
to such delight, and so terrify thee as to cause thee to wish to take
flight. Painting stirs the senses more readily than poetry. And if
thou sayest that by speech thou canst convulse a crowd with laughter or
tears, I rejoin that it is not thou who stirrest the crowd, it is the
pathos of the orator, and his mirth. A painter once painted a picture
which caused everybody who saw it to yawn, and this happened every time
the eye fell on the picture, which represented a person yawning.
Others have painted libidinous acts of such sensual