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not by the tasting faculties of the mouth; just as the hand is employed indeed in the case of painting, but not for its faculties of touch. Words are less worthy than actions. But thou, writer of science, dost thou not copy with thy hand, and write what is in thy mind, as the painter does? And if thou wast to say that music is formed of proportion, by proportion have I wrought painting, as thou shalt see.

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There is the same difference between the repre- sentation of the embodied works of the painter and those of the poet as there is between com- plete and dismembered bodies, because the poet in describing the beauty or the ugliness of any body reveals it to you limb by limb and at di- verse times, and the painter shows the whole at the same time. The poet cannot express in words the true likeness of the limbs which compose a whole, as can the painter, who places it before you with the truth of nature. And the same thing befalls the poet as the musician, who sings by himself a song composed for four singers; and he sings the treble first, then the tenor, then the alto and then the bass, whence there results no grace of harmonious concord such as harmonious rhythms produce. And the poet is like a beautiful countenance which reveals itself to you feature by feature, that by so doing you may never be

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