Yes, the Favour of the Muses!—What Homer says on this point goes right to our heart, so true, so terrible is it:

“The Muse loved him with all her heart and gave him good and evil, for she took away his eyes and vouchsafed him sweet song.”

This is an endless text for thinking men: she gives good and evil, that is her manner of loving with all her heart and soul! And each man will interpret specially for himself why we poets and thinkers have to give up our eyes in her service.13