“A little Learning is a dang’rous Thing;/ Drink deep or taste not the Pierian Spring.”
This admonition from Alexander Pope (1688-1744), from his Essay on Criticism, is elaborated on by the poet-satirist with metaphors of mountains. The Pierian Spring of Greek mythology was sacred to the Muses as the source of art and science.
from AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM
A little Learning is a dang’rous Thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring:
There shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fir’d at first Sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless Youth we tempt the Heights of Arts,
While from the bounded Level of our Mind,
Short Views we take, nor see the Length behind,
But more advanc’d, behold with strange Surprize
New, distant Scenes of endless Science rise!
So pleas’d at first, the towring Alps we try,
Mount o’er the Vales, and seem to tread the Sky;
Th’ Eternal Snows appear already past,
And the first Clouds and Mountains seem the last;
But those attain’d, we tremble to survey
The growing Labours of the the lengthen’d Way,
Th’ increasing Prospect tires our wandring Eyes,
Hills peep o’er Hills, and Alps on Alps arise!
A perfect Judge will read each Work of Wit
With the same Spirit that its author writ,
Survey the Whole, nor seek slight Faults to find,
Where Nature moves, and Rapture warms the Mind;
Nor lose, for that malignant dull Delight,
The gen’rous Pleasure to be charm’d with Wit.
But in such lays as neither ebb, nor flow,
Correctly cold, and regularly low,
That shunning Faults, one quiet Tenour keep;
We cannot blame indeed – but we may sleep.
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