Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: (lines 3-4)
The speaker thinks highly of the urn’s skills as a historian and storyteller and compares them favorably with his own. But we have no basis on which to judge, because we only hear about the urn through the poem. Wisdom never seems to come directly from the source. The wisdom of the Ancient Greeks is filtered through a piece of marble and then through the poet’s verses.