Chapter 6

59.Murtherous. The obsolete spelling ofmurderous, still used in Gray's time.

61.The fury Passions. The passions, fierce and cruel as the mythical Furies. Cf. Pope,Essay on Man, iii. 167: "The fury Passions from that blood began."

66.Mitford quotes Spenser,F. Q.:

68.Wakefield quotes Milton,Sonnet to Mr. Lawes:"With praise enough for Envy to look wan."

69.Grim-visag'd, comfortless Despair. Cf. Shakes.Rich. III. i. 1: "Grim-visag'd War;" andC. of E.v. 1: "grim and comfortless Despair."

76.Unkindness' altered eye. "An ungraceful elision" of the possessive inflection, as Mason calls it. Cf. Dryden,Hind and Panther, iii.: "Affected Kindness with an alter'd face."

79.Gray quotes Dryden,Pal. and Arc.:"Madness laughing in his ireful mood." Cf. Shakes.Hen. VI.iv. 2: "But rather moody mad;" and iii. 1: "Moody discontented fury."

81.The vale of years. Cf.Othello, iii. 3: "Declin'd Into the vale of years."

82.Grisly. Not to be confounded withgrizzly. See Wb.

83.The painful family of death. Cf. Pope,Essay on Man, ii. 118: "Hate, Fear, and Grief, the family of Pain;" and Dryden,State of Innocence, v. 1: "With all the numerous family of Death." On the whole passage cf. Milton,P. L.xi. 477-493. See also Virgil,Æn.vi. 275.

86.That every labouring sinew strains. An example of the "correspondence of sound with sense." As Pope says (Essay on Criticism, 371),

"The line too labours, and the words move slow."

90.Slow-consuming Age. Cf. Shenstone,Love and Honour:"His slow-consuming fires."

95.As Wakefield remarks, we meet with the same thought inComus, 359:

97.Happiness too swiftly flies. Perhaps a reminiscence of Virgil,Geo.iii. 66:

98.Thought would destroy their paradise. Wakefield quotes Sophocles,Ajax, 554: [Greek: En tôi phronein gar mêden hêdistos bios] ("Absence of thought is prime felicity").

99.Cf. Prior,Ep. to Montague, st. 9:

and Davenant,Just Italian:"Since knowledge is but sorrow's spy, it is not safe to know."

This Ode, as we learn from one of Gray's letters to Walpole, was finished, with the exception of a few lines, in 1755. It was not published until 1757, when it appeared withThe Bardin a quarto volume, which was the first issue of Walpole's press at Strawberry Hill. In one of his letters Walpole writes: "I send you two copies of a very honourable opening of my press—two amazing odes of Mr. Gray. They are Greek, they are Pindaric, they are sublime, consequently I fear a little obscure; the second particularly, by the confinement of the measure and the nature of prophetic vision, is mysterious. I could not persuade him to add more notes." In another letter Walpole says: "I found Gray in town last week; he had brought his two odes to be printed. I snatched them out of Dodsley's hands, and they are to be the first-fruits of my press." The title-page of the volume is as follows:

ODESBYMR. GRAY.[Greek: PHÔNANTA SUNETOISI]—PINDAR, Olymp, II.PRINTEDATSTRAWBERRY-HILL,for R. and J. DODSLEYin Pall-Mall.MDCCLVII.

Both Odes were coldly received at first. "Even my friends," writes Gray, in a letter to Hurd, Aug. 25, 1757, "tell me they do notsucceed, and write me moving topics of consolation on that head. In short, I have heard of nobody but an Actor [Garrick] and a Doctor of Divinity [Warburton] that profess their esteem for them. Oh yes, a Lady of quality (a friend of Mason's) who is a great reader. She knew there was a compliment to Dryden, but never suspected there was anything said about Shakespeare or Milton, till it was explained to her, and wishes that there had been titles prefixed to tell what they were about."1In a letter to Dr. Wharton, dated Aug. 17, 1757, he says: "I hear we are not at all popular. The great objection is obscurity, nobody knows what we would be at. One man (a Peer) I have been told of, that thinks the last stanza of the 2d Ode relates to Charles the First and Oliver Cromwell; in short, the [Greek: Sunetoi] appear to be still fewer than even I expected." A writer in theCritical Reviewthought that "Æolian lyre" meant the Æolian harp. Coleman the elder and Robert Lloyd wrote parodies entitled Odes to Obscurity and Oblivion. Gray finally had to add explanatory notes, though he intimates that his readers ought not to have needed them.2

1Forster remarks that Gray might have added to the admirers of the Odes "the poor monthly critic ofThe Dunciad"—Oliver Goldsmith, then beginning his London career as a bookseller's hack. In a review of the Odes in theLondon Monthly Reviewfor Sept., 1757, after citing certain passages ofThe Bard, he says that they "will give as much pleasure to those who relish this species of composition as anything that has hitherto appeared in our language, the odes of Dryden himself not excepted."

2In a foot-note he says: "When the author first published this and the following Ode, he was advised, even by his friends, to subjoin some few explanatory notes; but had too much respect for the understanding of his readers to take that liberty."

In a letter to Beattie, dated Feb. 1, 1768, referring to the new edition of his poems, he says: "As to the notes, I do it out of spite, because the public did not understand the two Odes (which I have called Pindaric), though the first was not very dark, and the second alluded to a few common facts to be found in any sixpenny history of England, by way of question and answer, for the use of children." And in a letter to Walpole, Feb. 25, 1768, he says he has added "certain little Notes, partly from justice (to acknowledge the debt where I had borrowed anything), partly from ill temper, just to tell the gentle reader that Edward I. was not Oliver Cromwell, nor Queen Elizabeth the Witch of Endor."

Mr. Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, said that "if the Bard recited his Ode onlyonceto Edward, he was sure he could not understand it." When this was told to Gray, he said, "If he had recited it twenty times, Edward would not have been a bit wiser; but that was no reason why Mr. Fox should not."

"The metre of these Odes is constructed on Greek models. It is not uniform but symmetrical. The nine stanzas of each ode form three groups. A slight examination will show that the 1st, 4th, and 7th stanzas are exactly inter-correspondent; so the 2d, 5th, and 8th; and so the remaining three. The technical Greek names for these three parts were [Greek: strophê] (strophe), [Greek: antistrophê] (antistrophe), and [Greek: epôdos] (epodos)—the Turn, the Counter-turn, and the After-song—names derived from the theatre; the Turn denoting the movement of the Chorus from one side of the [Greek: orchêstra] (orchestra), or Dance-stage, to the other, the Counter-turn the reverse movement, the After-song something sung after two such movements. Odes thus constructed were called by the Greeks Epodic. Congreve is said to have been the first who so constructed English odes. This system cannot be said to have prospered with us. Perhaps no English ear would instinctively recognize that correspondence between distant parts which is the secret of it. Certainly very many readers ofThe Progress of Poesyare wholly unconscious of any such harmony" (Hales).

1.Awake, Æolian lyre. The blunder of the Critical Reviewers who supposed the "harp of Æolus" to be meant led Gray to insert this note: "Pindar styles his own poetry with its musical accompaniments, [Greek: Aiolis molpê, Aiolides chordai, Aiolidôn pnoai aulôn], Æolian song, Æolian strings, the breath of the Æolian flute."

Cf. Cowley,Ode of David:"Awake, awake, my lyre!" Gray himself quotesPs.lvii. 8. The first reading of the line in the MS. was, "Awake, my lyre: my glory, wake." Gray also adds the following note: "The subject and simile, as usual with Pindar, are united. The various sources of poetry, which gives life and lustre to all it touches, are here described; its quiet majestic progress enriching every subject (otherwise dry and barren) with a pomp of diction and luxuriant harmony of numbers; and its more rapid and irresistible course, when swollen and hurried away by the conflict of tumultuous passions."

2.And give to rapture. The first reading of the MS. was "give to transport."

3.Helicon's harmonious springs. In the mountain range of Helicon, in Boeotia, there were two fountains sacred to the Muses, Aganippe and Hippocrene, of which the former was the more famous.

7.Cf. Pope,Hor. Epist.ii. 2, 171:

andOde on St. Cecilia's Day, 11:

"The deep, majestic, solemn organs blow;"

also Thomson,Liberty, ii. 257:

9.Cf. Shenstone,Inscr.:"Verdant vales and fountains bright;" also Virgil,Geo.i. 96: "Flava Ceres;" and Homer,Il.v. 499: [Greek: xanthê Dêmêtêr].

10.Rolling. Spelled "rowling" in the 1st and other early editions.

Amain. Cf.Lycidas, 111: "The golden opes, the iron shuts amain;"P. L.ii. 165: "when we fled amain," etc. Also Shakes.Temp.iv. 1: "Her peacocks fly amain," etc. The word means literallywith main(which we still use in "might and main"), that is, with force or strength. Cf. Horace,Od.iv. 2, 8: "Immensusque ruit profundo Pindarus ore."

11.The first MS. reading was, "With torrent rapture see it pour."

12.Cf. Dryden,Virgil's Geo.i.: "And rocks the bellowing voice of boiling seas resound;" Pope,Iliad:"Rocks rebellow to the roar."

13."Power of harmony to calm the turbulent sallies of the soul. The thoughts are borrowed from the first Pythian of Pindar" (Gray).

14.Solemn-breathing airs. Cf.Comus, 555: "a soft and solemn-breathing sound."

15.Enchanting shell. That is, lyre; alluding to the myth of the origin of the instrument, which Mercury was said to have made from the shell of a tortoise. Cf. Collins,Passions, 3: "The Passions oft, to hear her shell," etc.

17.On Thracia's hills. Thrace was one of the chief seats of the worship of Mars. Cf. Ovid,Ars Am.ii. 588: "Mars Thracen occupat." See also Virgil,Æn.iii. 35, etc.

19.His thirsty lance. Cf. Spenser,F. Q.i. 5, 15: "his thristy [thirsty] blade."

20.Gray says, "This is a weak imitation of some beautiful lines in the same ode;" that is, in "the first Pythian of Pindar," referred to in the note on 13. The passage is an address to the lyre, and is translated by Wakefield thus:

21.The feather'd king. Cf. Shakes.Phoenix and Turtle:

23.Dark clouds. The first reading of MS. was "black clouds."

24.The terror. This is the reading of the first ed. and also of that of 1768. Most of the modern eds. have "terrors."

25."Power of harmony to produce all the graces of motion in the body" (Gray).

26.Temper'd. Modulated, "set." Cf.Lycidas, 33: "Tempered to the oaten flute;" Fletcher,Purple Island:"Tempering their sweetest notes unto thy lay," etc.

27.O'er Idalia's velvet-green.Idaliaappears to be used forIdalium, which was a town in Cyprus, and a favourite seat of Venus, who was sometimes calledIdalia. Pope likewise usesIdaliafor the place, in hisFirst Pastoral, 65: "Celestial Venus haunts Idalia's groves."

Dr. Johnson finds fault withvelvet-green, apparently supposing it to be a compound of Gray's own making. But Young had used it in hisLove of Fame:"She rears her flowers, and spreads her velvet-green." It is also among the expressions of Pope which are ridiculed in theAlexandriad.

29.Cythereawas a name of Venus, derived fromCythera, an island in the Ægean Sea, one of the favourite residences of Aphrodite, or Venus. Cf. Virgil,Æn.i. 680: "super alta Cythera Aut super Idalium, sacrata sede," etc.

30.With antic Sports. This is the reading of the 1st ed. and also of the ed. of 1768. Some eds. have "sport."

Anticis the same word asantique. The association between what is old or old-fashioned and what is odd, fantastic, or grotesque is obvious enough. Cf. Milton,Il Pens.158: "With antick pillars massy-proof." InS. A.1325 he uses the word as a noun: "Jugglers and dancers, anticks, mummers, mimicks." Shakes. makes it a verb inA. and C.ii. 7: "the wild disguise hath almost Antick'd us all."

31.Cf. Thomson,Spring, 835: "In friskful glee Their frolics play."

32, 33.Cf. Virgil,Æn.v. 580 foll.

35.Gray quotes Homer,Od.ix. 265: [Greek: marmarugas thêeito podôn thaumaze de thumôi]. Cf. Catullus's "fulgentem plantam." See also Thomson,Spring, 158: "the many-twinkling leaves Of aspin tall."

36.Slow-melting strains, etc. Cf. a poem by Barton Booth, published in 1733:

37.Cf. Dryden,Flower and Leaf, 191: "For wheresoe'er she turn'd her face, they bow'd."

39.Cf. Virgil,Æn.i. 405: "Incessu patuit dea." The gods were represented as gliding or sailing along without moving their feet.

41.Purple light of love. Cf. Virgil,Æn.i. 590: "lumenque juventae Purpureum." Gray quotes Phrynichus,apudAthenæum:

See also Dryden,Brit. Red.133: "and her own purple light."

42."To compensate the real and imaginary ills of life, the Muse was given to mankind by the same Providence that sends the day by its cheerful presence to dispel the gloom and terrors of the night" (Gray).

43foll. See onEton Coll.83. Cf. Horace,Od.i. 3, 29-33.

46.Fond complaint. Foolish complaint. Cf. Shakes.M. of V.iii. 3:

Milton,S. A.812: "fond and reasonless," etc. This appears to be the original meaning of the word. In Wiclif's Bible. 1Cor.i. 27, we have "the thingis that benfonnydof the world." InTwelfth Night, ii. 2, the word is used as a verb=dote:

49.Hurd quotes Cowley:

Wakefield cites Milton,Hymn on Nativity, 233 foll.: "The flocking shadows pale," etc. See alsoP. R.iv. 419-431.

50.Birds of boding cry. Cf. Green'sGrotto:"news the boding night-birds tell."

52.Gray refers to Cowley,Brutus:

The following variations on 52 and 53 are found in the MS.:

The accent ofHyperionis properly on the penult, which is long in quantity, but the English poets, with rare exceptions, have thrown it back upon the antepenult. It is thus in the six instances in which Shakes. uses the word: e.g.Hamlet, iii. 4: "Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself." The word does not occur in Milton. It is correctly accented by Drummond (of Hawthornden),Wand. Muses:

by West,Pindar's Ol.viii. 22:

also by Akenside, and by the author of the old playFuimus Troes(A.D.1633):

Hyperion was a Titan, the father of Helios (the Sun), Selene (the Moon), and Eos (the Dawn). He was represented with the attributes of beauty and splendor afterwards ascribed to Apollo. His "glittering shafts" are of course the sunbeams, the "lucida tela diei" of Lucretius. Cf. a very beautiful description of the dawn in Lowell'sAbove and Below:

We may quote also hisVision of Sir Launfal:

54.Gray's note here is as follows: "Extensive influence of poetic genius over the remotest and most uncivilized nations; its connection with liberty and the virtues that naturally attend on it. [See the Erse, Norwegian, and Welsh fragments; the Lapland and American songs.]" He also quotes Virgil,Æn.vi. 796: "Extra anni solisque vias," and Petrarch,Canz.2: "Tutta lontana dal camin del sole." Cf. also Dryden,Thren. August.353: "Out of the solar walk and Heaven's highway;"Ann. Mirab.st. 160: "Beyond the year, and out of Heaven's highway;"Brit. Red.:"Beyond the sunny walks and circling year;" also Pope,Essay on Man, i. 102: "Far as the solar walk and milky way."

56.Twilight gloom. Wakefield quotes Milton,Hymn on Nativ.188: "The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn."

57.Wakefield says, "It almost chills one to read this verse." The MS. variations are "buried native's" and "chill abode."

60.Repeat[their chiefs, etc.]. Sing of them again and again.

61.In loose numbers, etc. Cf. Milton,L'All.133:

and Horace,Od.iv. 2, 11:

62.Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs. Cf.P. L.ix. 1115:

64.Glory pursue. Wakefield remarks that this use of a plural verb after the first of a series of subjects is in Pindar's manner. Warton compares Homer,Il.v. 774:

Dugald Stewart(Philos. of Human Mind)says: "I cannot help remarking the effect of the solemn and uniform flow of verse in this exquisite stanza, in retarding the pronunciation of the reader, so as to arrest his attention to every successive picture, till it has time to produce its proper impression."

65.Freedom's holy flame. Cf. Akenside,Pleas. of Imag.i. 468: "Love's holy flame."

66."Progress of Poetry from Greece to Italy, and from Italy to England. Chaucer was not unacquainted with the writings of Dante or of Petrarch. The Earl of Surrey and Sir Thomas Wyatt had travelled in Italy, and formed their taste there; Spenser imitated the Italian writers; Milton improved on them: but this school expired soon after the Restoration, and a new one arose on the French model, which has subsisted ever since" (Gray).

Delphi's steep. Cf. Milton,Hymn on Nativ.178: "the steep of Delphos;"P. L.i. 517: "the Delphian cliff." Both Shakes. and Milton prefer the mediæval formDelphosto the more usualDelphi. Delphi was at the foot of the southern uplands of Parnassus which end "in a precipitous cliff, 2000 feet high, rising to a double peak named the Phædriades, from their glittering appearance as they faced the rays of the sun" (Smith'sAnc. Geog.).

67.Isles, etc. Cf. Byron:

68.Ilissus. This river, rising on the northern slope of Hymettus, flows through the east side of Athens.

69.Mæander's amber waves. Cf. Milton,P. L.iii. 359: "Rolls o'er Elysian flowers her amber stream;"P. R.iii. 288: "There Susa by Choaspes, amber stream." See also Virgil,Geo.iii. 520: "Purior electro campum petit amnis." Callimachus (Cer.29) has [Greek: alektrinon hudôr].

70.Ovid,Met.viii. 162, describes the Mæander thus:

Cf. also Virgil's description of the Mincius (Geo.iii. 15):

"The first great metropolis of Hellenic intellectual life was Miletus on the Mæander. Thales, Anaximander, Anaximines, Cadmus, Hecatæus, etc., were all Milesians" (Hales).

71foll. Cf. Milton,Hymn on Nativ.181:

75.Hallowed fountain. Cf. Virgil,Ecl.i. 53: "fontes sacros."

76.The MS. has "Murmur'd a celestial sound."

80.Vice that revels in her chains. In hisOde for Music, 6, Gray has "Servitude that hugs her chain."

81.Hales quotes Collins,Ode to Simplicity:

84.Nature's darling. "Shakespeare" (Gray). Cf. Cleveland,Poems:

Ongreen lap, cf. Milton,Song on May Morning:

85.Lucid Avon. Cf. Seneca,Thyest.129: "gelido flumine lucidus Alpheos."

86.The mighty mother. That is, Nature. Pope, in theDunciad, i. 1, uses the same expression in a satirical way: