As to the Arab, no one is ignorant of the degree to which he is a slave to rhyme. Already, by a sufficiently happy conjecture, a French writer had made the first use of rhyme in France coincide with the irruption of the Moors into Europe at the beginning of the eighth century.[213]He has said that Provence had been the door by which this novelty was introduced into France. However difficult it may appear of proving rigorously this assertion, lacking monuments, it cannot, however, be denied that it may be very probable, above all considering what influence the Arabs exercised upon the sciences and arts in the south of France after they had penetrated through Spain. Now, there is no country on earth where the poetry that I have called romantic has been cultivated with more constancy and success than in Arabia; rhyme, if she has received it from India, was naturalized there by long usage, in such a way as to appear to have had birth there. If it must be said, the Arab tongue seems more apt at receiving it than the Sanskrit. Rhyme seems more requisite to poetry there, on account of the great quantity and inflexibility of the monosyllables, which joining together only with much difficulty to form the numerous and rhythmic combinations, had need of its assistance to soften their harshness and to supply the harmony which they lacked.Neverthless, whatever may be the pretension of Arabia to the invention of rhyme, and even to that of romantic poetry, one cannot be prevented, when one possesses without prejudice and to a certain extent the distinguishing character of the Asiatic languages, from seeing that there are proofs in the Arabic itself which give evidence in favour of India. Such is, for example, the wordDiwan,[214]by which the Arabs designate the collection of their ancient poetries.[215]This word, which is attached to the Sanskrit expressionDewaorDiwa, designates all that is divine, celestial; all that emanates from the Universal Intelligence[216]: it is the poetry of the Greeks, the language of the gods, or the voice of the Universal Being of the Egyptians and the Phœnicians.However, the ArabicDiwan--that is to say, the poetic collection of that nation, goes back to most ancient times. One finds in it verses attributed to the first Hebrew patriarchs and even to Adam[217]; for since the introduction of Islamism, the cosmogony of Moses has become that of the Mussulmans, as it has been ours since the establishment of Christianity. It is there, in thisdiwan, that the most authentic traditions are preserved: they are all in verse and resemble greatly, as to form and doubtless as to substance, that which the monk of St. André has transmitted to us through the court of Charlemagne. It is the same chivalrous spirit and the same romantic fictions. The Persian poet Firdausi appears to have followed similar traditions concerning the ancient kings of Iran, in his famous poem entitledShah-Namah.[218]The wonders which reign in these traditions have been transmitted no doubt by the Arabs, with the artifice of rhyme: both have the same spirit. The protecting fairies of the knights, the giant persecutors of ladies, the enchanters, the magic, and all those illusions are the fruits of that brilliant and dreamy imagination which characterizes the modern Orientals. We have enthusiastically enjoyed them in the depths of the barbarity where we were plunged; we have allowed ourselves to be drawn by the charms of rhyme, like children in the cradle, whom their nurses put to sleep by the monotonous sound of a lullaby. Escaped from that state of languor, and struck at last with a gleam of real intelligence, we have compared Greece and Arabia, the songs of epopœia and those of the ballads; we have blushed at our choice; we have wished to change it; but owing to the captivating form always more or less the substance, we have only succeeded in making mixtures more or less happy, according to the secondary mode that we follow.Rhyme, brought into Europe by the Arabs more than a thousand years ago, spread by degrees among all nations, in such a way that when one wishes to examine its origin with accuracy, one no longer knows whether it is indigenous there or exotic. One finds on all sides only rhymed verses. The Spanish, Portuguese, Italians, French, Germans of all dialects, Hollanders, Danes, Swedes and Norwegians, all rhyme.[219]The modern Greeks themselves have forgotten their ancient rhythm in order to assume our style.[220]If anything could, however, make one doubt that rhyme may be natural to Europe, it is that ancient Scandinavian, in which are written the precious fragments which have come down to us concerning the mythological cult of the Celts, our ancestors, does not rhyme; also it rises often to the sublimity of Eumolpœia.[221]This observation, which makes us reject Arabia, will take us back to India, if we consider that there is plausible presumption in believing that the Phœnicians and the Egyptians who had so much intercourse with the Arabs, did not rhyme, since the sacred book of the Hebrews, theSepher, that we call theBible, and which appears to have issued from the Egyptian sanctuaries, is written in cadenced rhyme, as theZend-Avestaof the Parsees and theVedasof the Indians.[222]The outline that I have just sketched confirms,Messieurs, what I have wished to prove to you and which is the subject of this discourse, the distinction that should be made between the essence and the form of poetry, and the reciprocal influence that should be recognized between these two parts of the science. You have seen that wherever rhyme has dominated exclusively, as in Asia among the Chinese, Arabians, Persians; as in Europe among all the modern peoples, it has excluded epopœia and has replaced allegorical genius by the spirit of romantic fictions; you have seen that wherever eumolpique poetry has wished to appear, whether moral or rational, theosophical or philosophical, it has been obliged to have recourse to a particular prose, when the form of poetry has resisted it, as has happened in China for theKings, in Persia for theZend-Avesta, in Arabia for theKoran; you have seen that wherever poetry has been preserved purely rhythmical, as in Greece and with the Romans, it has admitted eumolpœia and epopœia without mixture; and finally, that wherever the two forms meet each other with all their modifications, as in India, it gives way in turn to all the different kinds, intellectual and rational, epic, dramatic, and romantic.Now, what Hindustan was for Asia, France should be for Europe. The French tongue, as the Sanskrit, should tend towards universality; it should be enriched with all the learning acquired in the past centuries, so as to transmit it to future generations. Destined to float upon the(débris)of a hundred different dialects, it ought to be able to save from the shipwreck of time all their beauties and all their remarkable productions. Nevertheless, how will it be done, if its poetic forms are not open to the spirit of all the poetries, if its movement, arrested by obstacles cannot equal that of the tongues which have preceded it in the same career? By what means, I ask you, will it succeed to the universal dominion of Sanskrit, if, dragging always after it the frivolous jingling of Arabic sounds, it cannot even succeed to the partial domination of Greek or Latin? Must it be necessary then that it betray its high destinies, and that the providential decree which founds the European empire, exempt it from the glory which it promises to the French name?I have told you,Messieurs, in beginning this discourse, that it was in the interest of science alone, that I entered this career: it is assuredly not by my poor poetic talent that I have aspired to the honour of occupying your attention; but by a generous instinct, which, making me ignore many of the considerations which might have arrested me, has persuaded me that I could be useful. I have dared to conceive the possibility of composing, in French, eumolpique verse, which might neither be measured by musical rhythm foreign to our tongue, nor enchained by rhyme opposed to all intellectual and rational movement, and which however might have neither the harshness, nor the discord of that which has been called, up to this time, blank verse.Many French writers have tried to make verse deprived of rhyme. Some have sought to imitate the measures of the ancients, others have satisfied themselves with copying certain moderns who do not rhyme. Each of them has misunderstood the essential character of his tongue. Vossius alone appears to have foreseen the principles without developing them, when he has said that French verse might be considered as having only one foot.[223]This is exactly true in examining rhythm only in itself, and giving to each hemistich the name of time: but if one considers this one foot, whether hexameter or pentameter, as formed of two times equal or unequal, it is perceived that it participates, through its final, in two natures: the one strong and forceful, that we name masculine; the other soft and languid, that we call feminine. Therefore, French verse having but one rhythmic foot, differs, however, in the style of this foot and can be considered in two relations. Let us take for example the hexameter verse. The rhythmic foot which constitutes it is composed of two equal times distinguished by the cæsura, the last of which is masculine or feminine: Masculine, as in:Rome, l’unique objet de mon ressentiment!Rome, à qui vient ton bras d’immoler mon amant!Feminine, as in:Rome qui t’a vu naître et que ton cœur adore!Rome enfin que je hais parce qu’elle t’honore!In rhymed verses, such as these I have just cited, two feet of the same kind are obliged to follow one another on account of the rhyme which links them; they then form but one whole and, proceeding abreast without being separated, they injure by their forced mass the rapidity of expression and flight of thought. If a third foot of the same kind occur with the other two feet, rhyming together, it would have to rhyme with them to prevent an insupportable discordance, which is not tolerated; a fourth or a fifth foot would submit to the same law, so that, if the poet wished to fill his piece with masculine verses alone, it would be necessary that he should make them proceed upon a single rhyme, as the Arabs do today and as our early troubadours did, following their example. The French poet can vary his rhyme only by varying the style of his verses and by mingling alternately together the masculine and feminine finals.As these two kinds of finals are dissimilar without being opposed, they may be brought together without the need of rhyming; their meeting, far from being disagreeable is, on the contrary, only pleasing; two finals of the same kind, whether masculine or feminine, can never clash without causing the same sound—that is, without rhyming; but it is not thus with the finals of different kinds, since the rhyme is impossible in this case. So that, to make what I call eumolpique verses, it suffices to avoid the meeting of finals of the same kind, whose impact necessitates the rhyme, by making one kind succeed another continually, and opposing alternately the masculine and feminine, the mingling of which is irrelevant to eumolpœia. Here is all the mechanism of my verses: they are fluent as to form; as to the essence which is expedient for them—that is another thing: for it is rarely encountered.Those who have made blank verse in French have spoken justly of it with the greatest contempt; these verses, miserable as to substance, without poetic fire, written as the flattest prose, lacking movement and grace, had, furthermore, the insupportable fault of not recognizing the genius of the French tongue, by making finals of the same kind clash constantly, and by not distinguishing that which is called rhyme from that which repels it.Now that I have made as clear as possible my motives and my means, there remains only,Messieurs, for me to submit to your judgment the translation that I have made, in eumolpique verse, of the piece of Greek poetry which comprises the doctrine of Pythagoras in seventy-one lines called,(par excellence), Golden Verses. This piece, venerable by its antiquity and by the celebrated philosopher whose name it bears, belonging to eumolpœia, without any mixture of passion, is sufficiently known to savants so that I need not speak about what concerns its particular merit. This would mean, moreover, a matter of some explanations. At any rate, I believe it advisable before passing to this final subject, to give you certain examples of the use of my verses as applied to epopœia, so that you may judge, since they are in hands as incapable as mine, what they might become when used by men of superior genius and talent. I will choose, for this purpose, the exposition and invocation of the principal epic poems of Europe, in order to have a fixed subject for comparison. I will translate line by line, and will imitate, as well as is possible for me, the movement and harmony of the poet that I may have before me. This labour, which I hope will not be without some interest for the illustrious academicians whom I am addressing, will furnish me the occasion of showing by certain characteristic traits the genius of the language and poetry of the different modern peoples of Europe; and I will terminate thus the outline that I have sketched touching the poetic conditions of the principal nations of the earth.§ VIII am beginning with the creator of epopœia, with Homer. It is easy to see by the manner in which this divine man blends, from the opening lines of theIliad, the exposition and invocation, that, full of a celestial inspiration that he was the first to receive, he seeks to pour forth the superabundant fire which consumes him, and to throw into the soul of his hearer the impassioned enthusiasm which masters and controls his own. The following lines will suffice to make known the subject of a work which fills twenty-four cantos.Déesse! viens chanter la colère d’Achille,Fatale, et pour les Grecs si fertile en malheurs,Qui, d’avance, aux enfers, précipitant en fouleLes âmes des héros, livra leurs corps sanglantsAux dogues affamés: ainsi Jupiter mêmeLe voulut, quand la haine eut divisé les cœursDu roi des rois Atride et du divin Achille.Lequel des Immortels provoqua ce courroux?Apollon irrité, qui, pour punir Atride,Ravagea son armée: et les peuples mourraient!O Goddess! sing the wrath of Peleus’ son,Achilles; sing the deadly wrath that broughtWoes numberless upon the Greeks, and sweptTo Hades many a valiant soul, and gaveTheir limbs a prey to dogs and birds of air,—For so had Jove appointed,—from the timeWhen the two chiefs, Atrides, King of men,And great Achilles, parted first as foes.Which of the gods put strife between the chiefs,That they should thus contend? Latona’s sonAnd Jove’s. Incensed against the king, he badeA deadly pestilence appear amongThe army, and the men were perishing.Bryant.Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεὰ, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος,οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί’ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε’ ἔθηκεν,πολλὰς δ’ ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψενἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσινοἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι (Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή),ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντεἈτρείδης τε, ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς.Τίς τ’ ἄρ σφωε θεῶν ἔριδι ξυνέηκε μάχεσθαι;Λητοῦς καὶ Διὸς υἱός. Ὁ γὰρ βασιλῆϊ χολωθεὶςνοῦσον ἀνὰ στρατὸν ὦρσε κακὴν, ὀλέκοντο δὲ λαοὶ.I dispense with making any reflection upon the charm of the original verses and upon the admirable sentiment which terminates them. It would be a very strange thing not to be impressed by the beauties of this poetry. Let us pass on to Vergil.Even though I should not say it, it would suffice now to compare the Greek poet with the Latin poet, in order to perceive that the latter received only a second inspiration, transmitted by the inspiring power of the former. Vergil, less ardent, more tender, more correct, admits at once the luminous distinction; far from blending the exposition and invocation, he separates them, affects a tone more simple, promises little, exposes with timidity the subject of his poem, summons his Muse, and seems to persuade it, even less than the reader, to be favourable to him. He employs these lines:Je chante les combats, et ce Héros troyen,Qui, fuyant Ilion aborda l’ItalieLe premier: sur la terre errant, et sur les mers,En butte aux traits cruels de Junon irritée,Il souffrit mille maux; avant qu’il établîtSes Dieux chez les Latins, et fondât une ville,Berceau d’Albe, de Rome et de ses hauts remparts.Muse! rappelle-moi quels motifs de vengeanceExcitaient la Déesse, et pourquoi son courrouxS’obstinait à poursuive un Héros magnanime?Tant de haine entre-t-elle au cœur des Immortels!Arms and the man I sing, who first,By fate of Ilium realm amerced,To fair Italia onward bore,And landed on Lavinium’s shore:—Long tossing earth and ocean o’er,By violence of heaven, to sateFell Juno’s unforgetting hate:Much laboured too in battle-field,Striving his city’s walls to build,And give his Gods a home:Thence come the hardy Latin brood,The ancient sires of Alba’s blood,And lofty-rampired Rome.Say, Muse, for godhead how disdained,Or wherefore worth, Heaven’s queen constrainedThat soul of piety so longTo turn the wheel, to cope with wrong.Can heavenly natures nourish hateSo fierce, so blindly passionate?Conington.Arma virumque cano, Trojæ qui primus ab orisItaliam, fato profugus, Lavinaque venitLitora, multum ille et terris jactatus et altoVi superûm, sævæ memorem Junonis ob iram,Multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbemInferretque deos Latio: genus unde Latinum,Albanique patres atque altæ mœnia Romæ.Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine læso,Quidve dolens, regina deûm tot volvere casusInsignem pietate virum, tot adire laboresImpulerit. Tantæne animis cœlestibus iræ?It can be observed that Vergil, although he places himself foremost and although he says,I sing, begins nevertheless in a manner much less animated, much less sure than the Greek poet, who, transported beyond himself, seems to impose upon his Muse the subject of his songs, interrogates her, and then inspired by her, responds. The Latin poet finishes, like his model, with a sentence; but it is easy to feel that this apostrophe,Can heavenly natures nourish hateSo fierce, so blindly passionate?although very beautiful, contains less depth, less feeling, and holds less intimately to the subject than this sublime reflection:... and the men were perishing!Someone has said that Vergil had imitated in his exposition the commencement of theOdysseyof Homer; this is a mistake. One finds always in the exposition of theOdysseythe real character of a first inspiration blended with the invocation, although more calm and less alluring than in theIliad. Here is the translation:Du plus sage Héros, Muse, dis les traversesSans nombre, après qu’il eut triomphé d’Ilion:Rapelle les cités, les peuples, les usages,Qu’il connut, et les mers où longtemps il erra:À quels soins dévorants, à quels maux l’exposèrentL’amour de la patrie et noble désirD’y mener ses guerriers! Vain désir: ils osèrent,Insensés! du Soleil dévorer les troupeaux;Et ce Dieu, du retour leur ravit la journée.Fais-nous part de ces faits, fille de Jupiter.Tell me, O Muse, of that sagacious manWho, having overthrown the sacred townOf Ilium, wandered far and visitedThe capitals of many nations, learnedThe customs of their dwellers and enduredGreat suffering on the deep; his life was oftIn peril, as he laboured to bring backHis comrades to their homes. He saved them not,Though earnestly he strove; they perished all,Through their own folly; for they banqueted,Madmen! upon the oxen of the Sun,—The all-o’erlooking Sun, who cut them offFrom their return. O Goddess, virgin-childOf Jove, relate some part of this to me.Bryant.Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰπλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσεν,πολλῶν δ’ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω·πολλὰ δ’ ὅ γ’ ἐν πόντῳ πάθεν ἄλγεα ὃν κατὰ θυμόν,ἀρνύμενος ἥν τε ψυχὴν καὶ νόστον ἑταίρων.ἀλλ’ οὐδ’ ὧς ἑτάρους ἐρρύσατο ἱέμενός περ·αὐτῶν γὰρ σφετέρῃσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὄλοντο,νήπιοι, οἳ κατὰ βοῦς Ὑπερίονος Ἠελίοιοἤσθιον· αὐτὰρ ὁ τοῖσιν ἀφείλετο νόστιμον ἦμαρ.τῶν ἁμόθεν γε, θεὰ θύγατερ Διός, εἰπὲ καὶ ἡμῖν.The talent of Homer shows itself completely in theOdyssey; it dominates the genius there, so to speak, as much as the genius had dominated it in theIliad. The fire which animates theIliadhas been, with reason, compared to that of the sun arrived at the height of its course, and the splendour which shines in theOdysseyto that with which the occident is coloured on the evening of a fine day. Perhaps if we had hisThebaid, we would see those brilliant lights which accompany the aurora, developed there, and then we would possess in all its shades this immortal genius who depicted all nature.There are people who, feeling by a sort of intuition that Homer had been created the poetic incentive of Europe, even as I have said, and judging on the other hand that Ariosto had made an epic poem, are convinced that the Italian poet had copied the Greek; but this is not so. Ariosto, who has made only a romanesque poem, has not received the inspiration of Homer; he has simply followed the fictions attributed to Archbishop Turpin and clothing them with forms borrowed from the Arabs by the troubadours makes himself creator in this secondary style. The rhyme is as essential to it as it is harmful to veritable epopœia; this is why the eumolpique verses never conform to it in the slightest degree. To apply them to it, is to make serious what is by nature gay, it is to give a character of force and of truth to what is only light, airy, and fantastic. I am about, however, to translate the beginning of his poem, in order to furnish, by the shocking disparity which exists between the romantic essence of his poetry and the epic form that I here adapt, a new proof of what I have said.Je veux chanter les Dames, les Guerriers,L’amour, l’honneur, et les jeux et les armes,Durant ces temps où les fiers Sarrasins,Des mers d’Afrique, abordèrent en France,Pour seconder les fureurs d’Agramant,Le jeune roi, dont l’orgueilleuse audacePensait venger la mort du vieux Trojan,Sur l’empereur des Romains, Charlemagne.Je veux aussi raconter de Roland,Chose inouïe, autant en vers qu’en prose;Dire l’amour qui rendit furieuxCe paladin, auparavant si sage;Si toutefois celle qui m’a charmé,Qui va minant ma raison d’heure en heure,M’en laisse assez pour remplir dignementMon entreprise et tenir ma promesse.Of Loves and Ladies, Knights and Arms, I sing,Of Courtesies, and many a Daring Feat;And from those ancient days my story bring,When Moors from Afric passed in hostile fleet,And ravaged France, with Agramant their King,Flushed with his youthful rage and furious heat;Who on King Charles’, the Roman emperor’s headHad vowed due vengeance for Troyano dead.In the same strain of Roland will I tellThings unattempted yet in prose or rhyme,On whom strange madness and rank fury fell,A man esteemed so wise in former time;If she, who to like cruel pass has wellNigh brought my feeble wit which fain would climbAnd hourly wastes my sense, concede me skillAnd strength my daring promise to fulfil.W. R. Rose.Le donne, i cavalier, l’arme, gl’amoriLe cortesíe, l’audaci imprese io canto,Che furo al tempo che passaro i MoriD’Africa il mare, e in Francia nocquer tanto,Seguendo l’ire e i giovenil furoriD’Agramante lor re, che si diè vantoDi vendicar la morte di TroianoSopra re Carlo imperator romano.Dirò d’Orlando in un medesmo trattoCosa non detta in prosa mai, nè in rima;Che per amor venne in furore e matto,D’uom che si saggio era stimato prima:Se da colei che tal quasi m’ha fattoChe’l poco ingegno ad or ad or mi lima,Me ne sarà però tanto concesso,Che mi basti a finir quanto ho promesso.It is very easy to see, in reading these two strophes, that there exists in the exposition no sort of resemblance either with that of Homer, or with that of Vergil. It is a third style, wholly foreign to the other two. Homer mingling the exposition and the invocation, commands his Muse to sing what she inspires in him; Vergil distinguishing one from the other, prays his Muse to acquaint him with what he is about to sing; whereas Ariosto, announcing simply the subject of his songs, makes no invocation. It is evident that he relies upon himself, and that in the style that he adopts he understands very well that he has no other Muse, no other guide than his imagination. His subject is in accord with his manner of treating it. If one wishes to reflect upon this decisive point, one will feel and realize, for the first time perhaps, why in the opinion of all the world concerning two works from the same hand,La PucelleandLa Henriade, the one is a poem, whereas the other, composed with a far greater pretension, is not. Voltaire, in imitating Ariosto in a subject that he has rendered romanesque and frivolous, has received the second inspiration; but in imitating Lucan in an historic subject he received nothing, for Lucan, creator of a mixed style, had no inspiration that he could communicate.I have said what I thought of Camoens: it is useless to quote the exposition of his poem that has nothing remarkable, particularly since Tasso has so far surpassed him.Tasso was worthy of receiving a veritable inspiration. His lofty genius, his pure and brilliant imagination brought him nearer to Vergil than to Ariosto; and if he had been inspired even through the Latin poet, he would have shown Europe what the magnetic power of Homer was, although acting only in its third degree. But the prejudices of education working in him even without his knowledge, and the influence that chivalresque poetry had attained in Italy, did not permit him either to forsake entirely the chronicles of Archbishop Turpin, or above all, to make any changes in the consecrated form. All that he could do in a most grave and serious historical subject was to mix a little allegorical genius with a great deal of romanesque fiction; so that, becoming inspired at the same time with Ariosto, Lucan, and Vergil, he made a mixed work, which, under the form of a lengthy song, contained the essence of epopœia, of history, and of romance. This work is one of the most entertaining poems that one can read; the only one perhaps which a translation in prose can harm but little. The inequality of its texture takes away nothing from the interest that it inspires. It pleases, but it does not instruct. If the eumolpique lines were applied to it throughout, it would not sustain them; for it is in substance only a very beautiful ballad; nevertheless, here and there are found parts which could become sublime. His exposition, imitating Vergil, reveals them very well. They are as follows:Je chante les combats pieux, et le GuerrierQui délivra du Christ la tombe renommée.Combien il déploya de génie et d’ardeur!Combien il supporta de maux dans cette guerre!Vainement les enfers s’armèrent; vainementLes peuples de l’Asie aux Africains s’unirent:Favorisé du Ciel, sous ses drapeaux sacrés,Vainqueur, il ramena ses compagnons fidèles.Divine Muse! ô toi dont le front radieuxNe ceint point sur le Pinde un laurier périssable,Mais qui, parmi les chœurs des habitants du Ciel,Chantes, le front orné d’étoiles immortelles,Viens, inspire à mon sein tes célestes ardeurs;Fais briller dans mes vers tes clartés, et pardonneSi, parant quelquefois l’austère vérité,Je mêle à tes attraits des grâces étrangères.I sing the pious arms and Chief, who freedThe Sepulchre of Christ from thrall profane:Much did he toil in thought, and much in deed;Much in the glorious enterprise sustain;And Hell in vain opposed him; and in vainAfric and Asia to the rescue pour’dTheir mingled tribes;—Heaven recompensed his pain,And from all fruitless sallies of the sword,True to the Red-Cross flag his wandering friends restored.O thou, the Muse, that not with fading palmsCirclest thy brows on Pindus, but amongThe Angels warbling their celestial psalms,Hast for the coronal a golden throngOf everlasting stars! make thou my songLucid and pure; breathe thou the flame divineInto my bosom; and forgive the wrong,If with grave truth light fiction I combine,And sometimes grace my page with other flowers than thine!Wiffen.Canto l’armi pietose, e’l CapitanoChe’l gran sepolcro liberò di Christo:Molto egli oprò col senno e con la mano;Molto soffri nel glorioso acquisto:E invano l’Inferno a lui s’oppose, e invanoS’armò d’Asia, e dì Libia il popol misto;Chè il Ciel diè favore, e sotto ai santiSegni ridusse i suoi compagni erranti.O Musa, tu, che di caduchi alloriNon circondi la fronte in EliconaMa su nel Ciel infra i beati cori,Hai di stelle immortali aurea corona,Tu spira al petto mio celesti ardori,Tu rischiara il mio canto, e tu perdona,S’intesso fregi al ver, s’adorno in parteD’altri diletti, che de’ tuoi, le carte.The captivating enthusiasm of Homer, the majestic simplicity of Vergil are not there; there is a sweetness of expression, a purity of imagery which please. This might be greater, but then the melancholy of the romance would exclude it and the reader would demand the full force of epopœia.Besides, the Italians have tried, over and over again, to vary the form of their verses; some have wished to measure them by musical rhythm; others have contented themselves with making blank verse. They have neither succeeded completely nor failed completely. Their language sweet and musical lacks force whether in good or in evil. Its words might indeed, strictly speaking, be composed of long and short syllables; but as they terminate, nearly all, in the soft and languid style that we call feminine, it results, therefore, that in the measured verses the poets lack the long syllables to constitute the last foot and to form the spondee; and that in the blank verse they are obliged to terminate them all in the same style; so that with the measure they create only lame verses, and without the rhyme they make them all equally languid.[224]I recall having sometimes read French writers who, not having investigated the character of their tongue, have reproached it for its feminine syllables and have believed that their concurrence was harmful to its force and its harmony. These writers have scarcely considered what this language would be, deprived of its feminine sounds. For with the little force that it would gain on one side, it would acquire such a harshness on the other, that it would be impossible to draw from it four consecutive lines that would be endurable. If all its finals were masculine, and if nothing could change it otherwise, it would be necessary to renounce poetry, or like the Arabs, be resolved to compose whole poems in the same rhyme.We have just seen that the lack of masculine finals takes away all energy from the Italian tongue; a contrary defect would deprive the French of this(mélange)of sweetness and force which makes it the(première langue)of Europe. The English language is lacking in precisely what the writers of whom I have spoken desired eliminated from the French, without foreseeing the grave disadvantages of their desire: it has no feminine finals[225]; also it is in everything the opposite of the Italian. It is true that it possesses great energy, great boldness of expression, and a grammatical liberty which goes to the full extent; but deprived of sweetness and softness, it is, if I may say it, like those brittle metals whose strength is in stiffness, and which is broken when one would make them flexible. The poverty of its rhymes, denuded for the most part of accuracy of accent and of harmony in consonants, has for a long time engaged the English poets in making blank verse; and it must be admitted that, notwithstanding the defect inherent in their tongue and which consists, as I have just said, in the absolute lack of feminine finals, they have succeeded in this better than any of the poets of other nations. These lines, all imperfect in their harmony, are however, as to form, the only eumolpique verse that they could make. Shakespeare felt it and made use of it in his tragedies.Shakespeare with the creative genius with which nature had endowed him, would have borne dramatic art to its perfection in these modern times, if circumstances had been as favourable to him as they were adverse. Emulator of Æschylus, he might have equalled and perhaps surpassed him, if he had had at his disposal a mine so rich, so brilliant as that of the mysteries of Orpheus; if he had made use of a language so harmonious, if his taste had been able to be refined at the school of Pindar or of Homer. At the epoch of his birth, Europe scarcely emerged from the gloom of barbarism; the theatre, given over to ridiculous mountebanks, profaned in indecent farces the incomprehensible mysteries of the Christian religion, and the English tongue, still crude and unformed, had not succeeded in amalgamating in one single body the opposed dialects of which it was successively formed. In spite of these obstacles, Shakespeare stamped upon England a movement of which Europe felt the influence. Raised by the sole force of his genius to the essence of dramatic poetry, he dared to seek for his subjects in the mythology of Odin, and put upon the stage, inHamletand inMacbeth, tableaux of the highest character.[226]Like Æschylus he conducted one to virtue by terror; but unfortunately the taste of the spectators, upon which he was forced to model his, led him to degrade his tableaux by grotesque figures: the English people were not sufficiently advanced to comprehend the moral end of the tragedy. They must be amused; and Shakespeare succeeded only at the expense of the beauties of the art. Historic facts and trivial scenes replaced the mysterious and sublime subjects.In London, the dramatic muse was turbulent and licentious; as in Madrid it had been chivalrous and gallant. Everywhere the theatre had to accommodate itself to the taste of the people. The first regular tragedy which Pierre Corneille composed in France was derived from a Spanish ballad. Madrid at that time gave the tone to Europe. It needed much of the time and all the prosperity of Louis XIV. to throw off the unseasonable ascendancy that this proud nation had assumed over public opinion.[227]Notwithstanding the efforts of Corneille, of Racine, and of Molière, the Théâtre Français retained always the romanesque tone that it had originally received. All that these three men could do was, by lofty sentiments, by purity of forms, by regularity of the customs and characters, to pass over what was, in reality, defective. They came thus to give to modern dramatic art all the perfection of which it was susceptible. Shakespeare had been in London the successor of Æschylus; Corneille received in France the inspiration of Sophocles; Racine, that of Euripides; and Molière united as in a sheaf the spirit of Menander, of Terence, and of Plautus.When I compare Shakespeare with Æschylus, I want to make it clearly understood that I regard him as the regenerator of the theatre in Europe, and superior to Corneille and Racine as to dramatic essence, although he may be assuredly much inferior to them as to form. Æschylus, in Greek, was inspired by Homer; while, on the contrary, it was Shakespeare who inspired Milton. It is known thatParadise Lostwas at first conceived as the subject of a tragedy, and that it was only after reflection that the English poet saw therein the material for an epic poem. I will tell later on, in speaking of theMessiahof Klopstock, what has prevented these two subjects, which appear equally epics, from attaining wholly to the majesty of epopœia. As many of the motives that I have to offer apply to the two works, I will thus avoid useless repetition. I shall begin by translating the exposition and invocation of Milton, by imitating its movement and its harmony, as I have done with the other poets.De l’homme, viens chanter la disgrâce, et la fruitDe cet arbre fatal, dont le goût homicideLivra le Monde au crime, à la mort, aux malheurs,Et nous ravit Eden, jusqu’au moment qu’un HommePlus grand, par son trépas, racheta le séjourDu bonheur: viens, ô Muse! ô toi qui, sur la cimeSe Sinaï, d’Oreb, en secret inspirasLa Berger d’Israël, quand d’une voix sacréeIl enseignait comment et la terre et des cieuxSortirent du Chaos! ou bien, si tu préfèresLes sommets de Sion, les bords du Siloë,Qui, près du Temple saint, roule ses flots, ô Muse!Viens protéger de là mes chants audacieux,Mes chants qui, surpassant d’un essor non timide,Les monts Aoniens, vont raconter des faitsQue n’ont point encor dits la prose ni la rime.Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruitOf that forbidden tree, whose mortal tasteBrought death into the world, and all our woe,With loss of Eden, till one greater ManRestore us and regain the blissful seat,Sing, heavenly Muse, that, on the secret topOf Oreb or of Sinai, didst inspireThat shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed,In the beginning how the heavens and earthRose out of chaos; or if Sion hillDelight thee more, and Siloa’s brook that flow’dFast by the oracle of God; I thenceInvoke thy aid to my adventurous song,That with no middle flight intends to soarAbove the Aonian mount, while it pursuesThings unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.This invocation is manifestly in imitation of Homer, from whom Milton has received the second inspiration without the intermediary—Vergil. One can observe in the English poet the same movement and almost as much force as in the Greek poet, but much less clarity, precision, and particularly harmony. Nearly all of these defects pertain to his subject and his tongue. Circumstances were not favourable to Milton. His lines could not have been better with the elements that he was forced to employ. All imperfect as they are, they are worth much more than those of Klopstock; for at least they are in the character of his tongue, whereas those of the German poet are not. Milton is satisfied with throwing off the yoke of rhyme, and has made eumolpique lines of one foot only, measured by ten syllables. Their defect, inherent in the English idiom, consists, as I have said, in having all the lines bearing equally the masculine final, jarring continually one with the other. Klopstock has aspired to make, in German, verses measured by the musical rhythm of the Greeks; but he has not perceived that he took as long and short, in his tongue, syllables which were not such in musical rhythm, but by accent and prosody, which is quite different. The German tongue, composed of contracted words and consequently bristling with consonants, bears no resemblance to the Greek, whose words, abounding in vowels, were, on the contrary, made clear by their elongation. The rhythmic lines of Klopstock are materially a third longer than those of Homer, although the German poet has aspired to build them on an equal measure.[228]Their rhythmic harmony, if it exists there, is absolutely factitious; it is a pedantic imitation and nothing more. In order to make the movement of these lines understood in French, and to copy as closely as possible their harmony, it is necessary to compose lines of two cæsuras, or what amounts to the same, to employ constantly a line and a half to represent a single one. Here are the first fourteen lines which contain the exposition and invocation of the Messiah:
As to the Arab, no one is ignorant of the degree to which he is a slave to rhyme. Already, by a sufficiently happy conjecture, a French writer had made the first use of rhyme in France coincide with the irruption of the Moors into Europe at the beginning of the eighth century.[213]He has said that Provence had been the door by which this novelty was introduced into France. However difficult it may appear of proving rigorously this assertion, lacking monuments, it cannot, however, be denied that it may be very probable, above all considering what influence the Arabs exercised upon the sciences and arts in the south of France after they had penetrated through Spain. Now, there is no country on earth where the poetry that I have called romantic has been cultivated with more constancy and success than in Arabia; rhyme, if she has received it from India, was naturalized there by long usage, in such a way as to appear to have had birth there. If it must be said, the Arab tongue seems more apt at receiving it than the Sanskrit. Rhyme seems more requisite to poetry there, on account of the great quantity and inflexibility of the monosyllables, which joining together only with much difficulty to form the numerous and rhythmic combinations, had need of its assistance to soften their harshness and to supply the harmony which they lacked.
Neverthless, whatever may be the pretension of Arabia to the invention of rhyme, and even to that of romantic poetry, one cannot be prevented, when one possesses without prejudice and to a certain extent the distinguishing character of the Asiatic languages, from seeing that there are proofs in the Arabic itself which give evidence in favour of India. Such is, for example, the wordDiwan,[214]by which the Arabs designate the collection of their ancient poetries.[215]This word, which is attached to the Sanskrit expressionDewaorDiwa, designates all that is divine, celestial; all that emanates from the Universal Intelligence[216]: it is the poetry of the Greeks, the language of the gods, or the voice of the Universal Being of the Egyptians and the Phœnicians.
However, the ArabicDiwan--that is to say, the poetic collection of that nation, goes back to most ancient times. One finds in it verses attributed to the first Hebrew patriarchs and even to Adam[217]; for since the introduction of Islamism, the cosmogony of Moses has become that of the Mussulmans, as it has been ours since the establishment of Christianity. It is there, in thisdiwan, that the most authentic traditions are preserved: they are all in verse and resemble greatly, as to form and doubtless as to substance, that which the monk of St. André has transmitted to us through the court of Charlemagne. It is the same chivalrous spirit and the same romantic fictions. The Persian poet Firdausi appears to have followed similar traditions concerning the ancient kings of Iran, in his famous poem entitledShah-Namah.[218]The wonders which reign in these traditions have been transmitted no doubt by the Arabs, with the artifice of rhyme: both have the same spirit. The protecting fairies of the knights, the giant persecutors of ladies, the enchanters, the magic, and all those illusions are the fruits of that brilliant and dreamy imagination which characterizes the modern Orientals. We have enthusiastically enjoyed them in the depths of the barbarity where we were plunged; we have allowed ourselves to be drawn by the charms of rhyme, like children in the cradle, whom their nurses put to sleep by the monotonous sound of a lullaby. Escaped from that state of languor, and struck at last with a gleam of real intelligence, we have compared Greece and Arabia, the songs of epopœia and those of the ballads; we have blushed at our choice; we have wished to change it; but owing to the captivating form always more or less the substance, we have only succeeded in making mixtures more or less happy, according to the secondary mode that we follow.
Rhyme, brought into Europe by the Arabs more than a thousand years ago, spread by degrees among all nations, in such a way that when one wishes to examine its origin with accuracy, one no longer knows whether it is indigenous there or exotic. One finds on all sides only rhymed verses. The Spanish, Portuguese, Italians, French, Germans of all dialects, Hollanders, Danes, Swedes and Norwegians, all rhyme.[219]The modern Greeks themselves have forgotten their ancient rhythm in order to assume our style.[220]If anything could, however, make one doubt that rhyme may be natural to Europe, it is that ancient Scandinavian, in which are written the precious fragments which have come down to us concerning the mythological cult of the Celts, our ancestors, does not rhyme; also it rises often to the sublimity of Eumolpœia.[221]This observation, which makes us reject Arabia, will take us back to India, if we consider that there is plausible presumption in believing that the Phœnicians and the Egyptians who had so much intercourse with the Arabs, did not rhyme, since the sacred book of the Hebrews, theSepher, that we call theBible, and which appears to have issued from the Egyptian sanctuaries, is written in cadenced rhyme, as theZend-Avestaof the Parsees and theVedasof the Indians.[222]
The outline that I have just sketched confirms,Messieurs, what I have wished to prove to you and which is the subject of this discourse, the distinction that should be made between the essence and the form of poetry, and the reciprocal influence that should be recognized between these two parts of the science. You have seen that wherever rhyme has dominated exclusively, as in Asia among the Chinese, Arabians, Persians; as in Europe among all the modern peoples, it has excluded epopœia and has replaced allegorical genius by the spirit of romantic fictions; you have seen that wherever eumolpique poetry has wished to appear, whether moral or rational, theosophical or philosophical, it has been obliged to have recourse to a particular prose, when the form of poetry has resisted it, as has happened in China for theKings, in Persia for theZend-Avesta, in Arabia for theKoran; you have seen that wherever poetry has been preserved purely rhythmical, as in Greece and with the Romans, it has admitted eumolpœia and epopœia without mixture; and finally, that wherever the two forms meet each other with all their modifications, as in India, it gives way in turn to all the different kinds, intellectual and rational, epic, dramatic, and romantic.
Now, what Hindustan was for Asia, France should be for Europe. The French tongue, as the Sanskrit, should tend towards universality; it should be enriched with all the learning acquired in the past centuries, so as to transmit it to future generations. Destined to float upon the(débris)of a hundred different dialects, it ought to be able to save from the shipwreck of time all their beauties and all their remarkable productions. Nevertheless, how will it be done, if its poetic forms are not open to the spirit of all the poetries, if its movement, arrested by obstacles cannot equal that of the tongues which have preceded it in the same career? By what means, I ask you, will it succeed to the universal dominion of Sanskrit, if, dragging always after it the frivolous jingling of Arabic sounds, it cannot even succeed to the partial domination of Greek or Latin? Must it be necessary then that it betray its high destinies, and that the providential decree which founds the European empire, exempt it from the glory which it promises to the French name?
I have told you,Messieurs, in beginning this discourse, that it was in the interest of science alone, that I entered this career: it is assuredly not by my poor poetic talent that I have aspired to the honour of occupying your attention; but by a generous instinct, which, making me ignore many of the considerations which might have arrested me, has persuaded me that I could be useful. I have dared to conceive the possibility of composing, in French, eumolpique verse, which might neither be measured by musical rhythm foreign to our tongue, nor enchained by rhyme opposed to all intellectual and rational movement, and which however might have neither the harshness, nor the discord of that which has been called, up to this time, blank verse.
Many French writers have tried to make verse deprived of rhyme. Some have sought to imitate the measures of the ancients, others have satisfied themselves with copying certain moderns who do not rhyme. Each of them has misunderstood the essential character of his tongue. Vossius alone appears to have foreseen the principles without developing them, when he has said that French verse might be considered as having only one foot.[223]This is exactly true in examining rhythm only in itself, and giving to each hemistich the name of time: but if one considers this one foot, whether hexameter or pentameter, as formed of two times equal or unequal, it is perceived that it participates, through its final, in two natures: the one strong and forceful, that we name masculine; the other soft and languid, that we call feminine. Therefore, French verse having but one rhythmic foot, differs, however, in the style of this foot and can be considered in two relations. Let us take for example the hexameter verse. The rhythmic foot which constitutes it is composed of two equal times distinguished by the cæsura, the last of which is masculine or feminine: Masculine, as in:
Rome, l’unique objet de mon ressentiment!Rome, à qui vient ton bras d’immoler mon amant!
Rome, l’unique objet de mon ressentiment!Rome, à qui vient ton bras d’immoler mon amant!
Rome, l’unique objet de mon ressentiment!
Rome, à qui vient ton bras d’immoler mon amant!
Feminine, as in:
Rome qui t’a vu naître et que ton cœur adore!Rome enfin que je hais parce qu’elle t’honore!
Rome qui t’a vu naître et que ton cœur adore!Rome enfin que je hais parce qu’elle t’honore!
Rome qui t’a vu naître et que ton cœur adore!
Rome enfin que je hais parce qu’elle t’honore!
In rhymed verses, such as these I have just cited, two feet of the same kind are obliged to follow one another on account of the rhyme which links them; they then form but one whole and, proceeding abreast without being separated, they injure by their forced mass the rapidity of expression and flight of thought. If a third foot of the same kind occur with the other two feet, rhyming together, it would have to rhyme with them to prevent an insupportable discordance, which is not tolerated; a fourth or a fifth foot would submit to the same law, so that, if the poet wished to fill his piece with masculine verses alone, it would be necessary that he should make them proceed upon a single rhyme, as the Arabs do today and as our early troubadours did, following their example. The French poet can vary his rhyme only by varying the style of his verses and by mingling alternately together the masculine and feminine finals.
As these two kinds of finals are dissimilar without being opposed, they may be brought together without the need of rhyming; their meeting, far from being disagreeable is, on the contrary, only pleasing; two finals of the same kind, whether masculine or feminine, can never clash without causing the same sound—that is, without rhyming; but it is not thus with the finals of different kinds, since the rhyme is impossible in this case. So that, to make what I call eumolpique verses, it suffices to avoid the meeting of finals of the same kind, whose impact necessitates the rhyme, by making one kind succeed another continually, and opposing alternately the masculine and feminine, the mingling of which is irrelevant to eumolpœia. Here is all the mechanism of my verses: they are fluent as to form; as to the essence which is expedient for them—that is another thing: for it is rarely encountered.
Those who have made blank verse in French have spoken justly of it with the greatest contempt; these verses, miserable as to substance, without poetic fire, written as the flattest prose, lacking movement and grace, had, furthermore, the insupportable fault of not recognizing the genius of the French tongue, by making finals of the same kind clash constantly, and by not distinguishing that which is called rhyme from that which repels it.
Now that I have made as clear as possible my motives and my means, there remains only,Messieurs, for me to submit to your judgment the translation that I have made, in eumolpique verse, of the piece of Greek poetry which comprises the doctrine of Pythagoras in seventy-one lines called,(par excellence), Golden Verses. This piece, venerable by its antiquity and by the celebrated philosopher whose name it bears, belonging to eumolpœia, without any mixture of passion, is sufficiently known to savants so that I need not speak about what concerns its particular merit. This would mean, moreover, a matter of some explanations. At any rate, I believe it advisable before passing to this final subject, to give you certain examples of the use of my verses as applied to epopœia, so that you may judge, since they are in hands as incapable as mine, what they might become when used by men of superior genius and talent. I will choose, for this purpose, the exposition and invocation of the principal epic poems of Europe, in order to have a fixed subject for comparison. I will translate line by line, and will imitate, as well as is possible for me, the movement and harmony of the poet that I may have before me. This labour, which I hope will not be without some interest for the illustrious academicians whom I am addressing, will furnish me the occasion of showing by certain characteristic traits the genius of the language and poetry of the different modern peoples of Europe; and I will terminate thus the outline that I have sketched touching the poetic conditions of the principal nations of the earth.
§ VII
I am beginning with the creator of epopœia, with Homer. It is easy to see by the manner in which this divine man blends, from the opening lines of theIliad, the exposition and invocation, that, full of a celestial inspiration that he was the first to receive, he seeks to pour forth the superabundant fire which consumes him, and to throw into the soul of his hearer the impassioned enthusiasm which masters and controls his own. The following lines will suffice to make known the subject of a work which fills twenty-four cantos.
Déesse! viens chanter la colère d’Achille,Fatale, et pour les Grecs si fertile en malheurs,Qui, d’avance, aux enfers, précipitant en fouleLes âmes des héros, livra leurs corps sanglantsAux dogues affamés: ainsi Jupiter mêmeLe voulut, quand la haine eut divisé les cœursDu roi des rois Atride et du divin Achille.Lequel des Immortels provoqua ce courroux?Apollon irrité, qui, pour punir Atride,Ravagea son armée: et les peuples mourraient!
Déesse! viens chanter la colère d’Achille,Fatale, et pour les Grecs si fertile en malheurs,Qui, d’avance, aux enfers, précipitant en fouleLes âmes des héros, livra leurs corps sanglantsAux dogues affamés: ainsi Jupiter mêmeLe voulut, quand la haine eut divisé les cœursDu roi des rois Atride et du divin Achille.Lequel des Immortels provoqua ce courroux?Apollon irrité, qui, pour punir Atride,Ravagea son armée: et les peuples mourraient!
Déesse! viens chanter la colère d’Achille,
Fatale, et pour les Grecs si fertile en malheurs,
Qui, d’avance, aux enfers, précipitant en foule
Les âmes des héros, livra leurs corps sanglants
Aux dogues affamés: ainsi Jupiter même
Le voulut, quand la haine eut divisé les cœurs
Du roi des rois Atride et du divin Achille.
Lequel des Immortels provoqua ce courroux?
Apollon irrité, qui, pour punir Atride,
Ravagea son armée: et les peuples mourraient!
O Goddess! sing the wrath of Peleus’ son,Achilles; sing the deadly wrath that broughtWoes numberless upon the Greeks, and sweptTo Hades many a valiant soul, and gaveTheir limbs a prey to dogs and birds of air,—For so had Jove appointed,—from the timeWhen the two chiefs, Atrides, King of men,And great Achilles, parted first as foes.Which of the gods put strife between the chiefs,That they should thus contend? Latona’s sonAnd Jove’s. Incensed against the king, he badeA deadly pestilence appear amongThe army, and the men were perishing.Bryant.
O Goddess! sing the wrath of Peleus’ son,Achilles; sing the deadly wrath that broughtWoes numberless upon the Greeks, and sweptTo Hades many a valiant soul, and gaveTheir limbs a prey to dogs and birds of air,—For so had Jove appointed,—from the timeWhen the two chiefs, Atrides, King of men,And great Achilles, parted first as foes.Which of the gods put strife between the chiefs,That they should thus contend? Latona’s sonAnd Jove’s. Incensed against the king, he badeA deadly pestilence appear amongThe army, and the men were perishing.Bryant.
O Goddess! sing the wrath of Peleus’ son,
Achilles; sing the deadly wrath that brought
Woes numberless upon the Greeks, and swept
To Hades many a valiant soul, and gave
Their limbs a prey to dogs and birds of air,—
For so had Jove appointed,—from the time
When the two chiefs, Atrides, King of men,
And great Achilles, parted first as foes.
Which of the gods put strife between the chiefs,
That they should thus contend? Latona’s son
And Jove’s. Incensed against the king, he bade
A deadly pestilence appear among
The army, and the men were perishing.
Bryant.
Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεὰ, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος,οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί’ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε’ ἔθηκεν,πολλὰς δ’ ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψενἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσινοἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι (Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή),ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντεἈτρείδης τε, ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς.Τίς τ’ ἄρ σφωε θεῶν ἔριδι ξυνέηκε μάχεσθαι;Λητοῦς καὶ Διὸς υἱός. Ὁ γὰρ βασιλῆϊ χολωθεὶςνοῦσον ἀνὰ στρατὸν ὦρσε κακὴν, ὀλέκοντο δὲ λαοὶ.
Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεὰ, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος,οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί’ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε’ ἔθηκεν,πολλὰς δ’ ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψενἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσινοἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι (Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή),ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντεἈτρείδης τε, ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς.Τίς τ’ ἄρ σφωε θεῶν ἔριδι ξυνέηκε μάχεσθαι;Λητοῦς καὶ Διὸς υἱός. Ὁ γὰρ βασιλῆϊ χολωθεὶςνοῦσον ἀνὰ στρατὸν ὦρσε κακὴν, ὀλέκοντο δὲ λαοὶ.
Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεὰ, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος,
οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί’ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε’ ἔθηκεν,
πολλὰς δ’ ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν
ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν
οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι (Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή),
ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε
Ἀτρείδης τε, ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν, καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς.
Τίς τ’ ἄρ σφωε θεῶν ἔριδι ξυνέηκε μάχεσθαι;
Λητοῦς καὶ Διὸς υἱός. Ὁ γὰρ βασιλῆϊ χολωθεὶς
νοῦσον ἀνὰ στρατὸν ὦρσε κακὴν, ὀλέκοντο δὲ λαοὶ.
I dispense with making any reflection upon the charm of the original verses and upon the admirable sentiment which terminates them. It would be a very strange thing not to be impressed by the beauties of this poetry. Let us pass on to Vergil.
Even though I should not say it, it would suffice now to compare the Greek poet with the Latin poet, in order to perceive that the latter received only a second inspiration, transmitted by the inspiring power of the former. Vergil, less ardent, more tender, more correct, admits at once the luminous distinction; far from blending the exposition and invocation, he separates them, affects a tone more simple, promises little, exposes with timidity the subject of his poem, summons his Muse, and seems to persuade it, even less than the reader, to be favourable to him. He employs these lines:
Je chante les combats, et ce Héros troyen,Qui, fuyant Ilion aborda l’ItalieLe premier: sur la terre errant, et sur les mers,En butte aux traits cruels de Junon irritée,Il souffrit mille maux; avant qu’il établîtSes Dieux chez les Latins, et fondât une ville,Berceau d’Albe, de Rome et de ses hauts remparts.Muse! rappelle-moi quels motifs de vengeanceExcitaient la Déesse, et pourquoi son courrouxS’obstinait à poursuive un Héros magnanime?Tant de haine entre-t-elle au cœur des Immortels!
Je chante les combats, et ce Héros troyen,Qui, fuyant Ilion aborda l’ItalieLe premier: sur la terre errant, et sur les mers,En butte aux traits cruels de Junon irritée,Il souffrit mille maux; avant qu’il établîtSes Dieux chez les Latins, et fondât une ville,Berceau d’Albe, de Rome et de ses hauts remparts.Muse! rappelle-moi quels motifs de vengeanceExcitaient la Déesse, et pourquoi son courrouxS’obstinait à poursuive un Héros magnanime?Tant de haine entre-t-elle au cœur des Immortels!
Je chante les combats, et ce Héros troyen,
Qui, fuyant Ilion aborda l’Italie
Le premier: sur la terre errant, et sur les mers,
En butte aux traits cruels de Junon irritée,
Il souffrit mille maux; avant qu’il établît
Ses Dieux chez les Latins, et fondât une ville,
Berceau d’Albe, de Rome et de ses hauts remparts.
Muse! rappelle-moi quels motifs de vengeance
Excitaient la Déesse, et pourquoi son courroux
S’obstinait à poursuive un Héros magnanime?
Tant de haine entre-t-elle au cœur des Immortels!
Arms and the man I sing, who first,By fate of Ilium realm amerced,To fair Italia onward bore,And landed on Lavinium’s shore:—Long tossing earth and ocean o’er,By violence of heaven, to sateFell Juno’s unforgetting hate:Much laboured too in battle-field,Striving his city’s walls to build,And give his Gods a home:Thence come the hardy Latin brood,The ancient sires of Alba’s blood,And lofty-rampired Rome.Say, Muse, for godhead how disdained,Or wherefore worth, Heaven’s queen constrainedThat soul of piety so longTo turn the wheel, to cope with wrong.Can heavenly natures nourish hateSo fierce, so blindly passionate?Conington.
Arms and the man I sing, who first,By fate of Ilium realm amerced,To fair Italia onward bore,And landed on Lavinium’s shore:—Long tossing earth and ocean o’er,By violence of heaven, to sateFell Juno’s unforgetting hate:Much laboured too in battle-field,Striving his city’s walls to build,And give his Gods a home:Thence come the hardy Latin brood,The ancient sires of Alba’s blood,And lofty-rampired Rome.Say, Muse, for godhead how disdained,Or wherefore worth, Heaven’s queen constrainedThat soul of piety so longTo turn the wheel, to cope with wrong.Can heavenly natures nourish hateSo fierce, so blindly passionate?Conington.
Arms and the man I sing, who first,
By fate of Ilium realm amerced,
To fair Italia onward bore,
And landed on Lavinium’s shore:—
Long tossing earth and ocean o’er,
By violence of heaven, to sate
Fell Juno’s unforgetting hate:
Much laboured too in battle-field,
Striving his city’s walls to build,
And give his Gods a home:
Thence come the hardy Latin brood,
The ancient sires of Alba’s blood,
And lofty-rampired Rome.
Say, Muse, for godhead how disdained,
Or wherefore worth, Heaven’s queen constrained
That soul of piety so long
To turn the wheel, to cope with wrong.
Can heavenly natures nourish hate
So fierce, so blindly passionate?
Conington.
Arma virumque cano, Trojæ qui primus ab orisItaliam, fato profugus, Lavinaque venitLitora, multum ille et terris jactatus et altoVi superûm, sævæ memorem Junonis ob iram,Multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbemInferretque deos Latio: genus unde Latinum,Albanique patres atque altæ mœnia Romæ.Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine læso,Quidve dolens, regina deûm tot volvere casusInsignem pietate virum, tot adire laboresImpulerit. Tantæne animis cœlestibus iræ?
Arma virumque cano, Trojæ qui primus ab orisItaliam, fato profugus, Lavinaque venitLitora, multum ille et terris jactatus et altoVi superûm, sævæ memorem Junonis ob iram,Multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbemInferretque deos Latio: genus unde Latinum,Albanique patres atque altæ mœnia Romæ.Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine læso,Quidve dolens, regina deûm tot volvere casusInsignem pietate virum, tot adire laboresImpulerit. Tantæne animis cœlestibus iræ?
Arma virumque cano, Trojæ qui primus ab oris
Italiam, fato profugus, Lavinaque venit
Litora, multum ille et terris jactatus et alto
Vi superûm, sævæ memorem Junonis ob iram,
Multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem
Inferretque deos Latio: genus unde Latinum,
Albanique patres atque altæ mœnia Romæ.
Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine læso,
Quidve dolens, regina deûm tot volvere casus
Insignem pietate virum, tot adire labores
Impulerit. Tantæne animis cœlestibus iræ?
It can be observed that Vergil, although he places himself foremost and although he says,I sing, begins nevertheless in a manner much less animated, much less sure than the Greek poet, who, transported beyond himself, seems to impose upon his Muse the subject of his songs, interrogates her, and then inspired by her, responds. The Latin poet finishes, like his model, with a sentence; but it is easy to feel that this apostrophe,
Can heavenly natures nourish hateSo fierce, so blindly passionate?
Can heavenly natures nourish hateSo fierce, so blindly passionate?
Can heavenly natures nourish hate
So fierce, so blindly passionate?
although very beautiful, contains less depth, less feeling, and holds less intimately to the subject than this sublime reflection:
... and the men were perishing!
... and the men were perishing!
... and the men were perishing!
Someone has said that Vergil had imitated in his exposition the commencement of theOdysseyof Homer; this is a mistake. One finds always in the exposition of theOdysseythe real character of a first inspiration blended with the invocation, although more calm and less alluring than in theIliad. Here is the translation:
Du plus sage Héros, Muse, dis les traversesSans nombre, après qu’il eut triomphé d’Ilion:Rapelle les cités, les peuples, les usages,Qu’il connut, et les mers où longtemps il erra:À quels soins dévorants, à quels maux l’exposèrentL’amour de la patrie et noble désirD’y mener ses guerriers! Vain désir: ils osèrent,Insensés! du Soleil dévorer les troupeaux;Et ce Dieu, du retour leur ravit la journée.Fais-nous part de ces faits, fille de Jupiter.
Du plus sage Héros, Muse, dis les traversesSans nombre, après qu’il eut triomphé d’Ilion:Rapelle les cités, les peuples, les usages,Qu’il connut, et les mers où longtemps il erra:À quels soins dévorants, à quels maux l’exposèrentL’amour de la patrie et noble désirD’y mener ses guerriers! Vain désir: ils osèrent,Insensés! du Soleil dévorer les troupeaux;Et ce Dieu, du retour leur ravit la journée.Fais-nous part de ces faits, fille de Jupiter.
Du plus sage Héros, Muse, dis les traverses
Sans nombre, après qu’il eut triomphé d’Ilion:
Rapelle les cités, les peuples, les usages,
Qu’il connut, et les mers où longtemps il erra:
À quels soins dévorants, à quels maux l’exposèrent
L’amour de la patrie et noble désir
D’y mener ses guerriers! Vain désir: ils osèrent,
Insensés! du Soleil dévorer les troupeaux;
Et ce Dieu, du retour leur ravit la journée.
Fais-nous part de ces faits, fille de Jupiter.
Tell me, O Muse, of that sagacious manWho, having overthrown the sacred townOf Ilium, wandered far and visitedThe capitals of many nations, learnedThe customs of their dwellers and enduredGreat suffering on the deep; his life was oftIn peril, as he laboured to bring backHis comrades to their homes. He saved them not,Though earnestly he strove; they perished all,Through their own folly; for they banqueted,Madmen! upon the oxen of the Sun,—The all-o’erlooking Sun, who cut them offFrom their return. O Goddess, virgin-childOf Jove, relate some part of this to me.Bryant.
Tell me, O Muse, of that sagacious manWho, having overthrown the sacred townOf Ilium, wandered far and visitedThe capitals of many nations, learnedThe customs of their dwellers and enduredGreat suffering on the deep; his life was oftIn peril, as he laboured to bring backHis comrades to their homes. He saved them not,Though earnestly he strove; they perished all,Through their own folly; for they banqueted,Madmen! upon the oxen of the Sun,—The all-o’erlooking Sun, who cut them offFrom their return. O Goddess, virgin-childOf Jove, relate some part of this to me.Bryant.
Tell me, O Muse, of that sagacious man
Who, having overthrown the sacred town
Of Ilium, wandered far and visited
The capitals of many nations, learned
The customs of their dwellers and endured
Great suffering on the deep; his life was oft
In peril, as he laboured to bring back
His comrades to their homes. He saved them not,
Though earnestly he strove; they perished all,
Through their own folly; for they banqueted,
Madmen! upon the oxen of the Sun,—
The all-o’erlooking Sun, who cut them off
From their return. O Goddess, virgin-child
Of Jove, relate some part of this to me.
Bryant.
Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰπλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσεν,πολλῶν δ’ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω·πολλὰ δ’ ὅ γ’ ἐν πόντῳ πάθεν ἄλγεα ὃν κατὰ θυμόν,ἀρνύμενος ἥν τε ψυχὴν καὶ νόστον ἑταίρων.ἀλλ’ οὐδ’ ὧς ἑτάρους ἐρρύσατο ἱέμενός περ·αὐτῶν γὰρ σφετέρῃσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὄλοντο,νήπιοι, οἳ κατὰ βοῦς Ὑπερίονος Ἠελίοιοἤσθιον· αὐτὰρ ὁ τοῖσιν ἀφείλετο νόστιμον ἦμαρ.τῶν ἁμόθεν γε, θεὰ θύγατερ Διός, εἰπὲ καὶ ἡμῖν.
Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰπλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσεν,πολλῶν δ’ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω·πολλὰ δ’ ὅ γ’ ἐν πόντῳ πάθεν ἄλγεα ὃν κατὰ θυμόν,ἀρνύμενος ἥν τε ψυχὴν καὶ νόστον ἑταίρων.ἀλλ’ οὐδ’ ὧς ἑτάρους ἐρρύσατο ἱέμενός περ·αὐτῶν γὰρ σφετέρῃσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὄλοντο,νήπιοι, οἳ κατὰ βοῦς Ὑπερίονος Ἠελίοιοἤσθιον· αὐτὰρ ὁ τοῖσιν ἀφείλετο νόστιμον ἦμαρ.τῶν ἁμόθεν γε, θεὰ θύγατερ Διός, εἰπὲ καὶ ἡμῖν.
Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ
πλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσεν,
πολλῶν δ’ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω·
πολλὰ δ’ ὅ γ’ ἐν πόντῳ πάθεν ἄλγεα ὃν κατὰ θυμόν,
ἀρνύμενος ἥν τε ψυχὴν καὶ νόστον ἑταίρων.
ἀλλ’ οὐδ’ ὧς ἑτάρους ἐρρύσατο ἱέμενός περ·
αὐτῶν γὰρ σφετέρῃσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὄλοντο,
νήπιοι, οἳ κατὰ βοῦς Ὑπερίονος Ἠελίοιο
ἤσθιον· αὐτὰρ ὁ τοῖσιν ἀφείλετο νόστιμον ἦμαρ.
τῶν ἁμόθεν γε, θεὰ θύγατερ Διός, εἰπὲ καὶ ἡμῖν.
The talent of Homer shows itself completely in theOdyssey; it dominates the genius there, so to speak, as much as the genius had dominated it in theIliad. The fire which animates theIliadhas been, with reason, compared to that of the sun arrived at the height of its course, and the splendour which shines in theOdysseyto that with which the occident is coloured on the evening of a fine day. Perhaps if we had hisThebaid, we would see those brilliant lights which accompany the aurora, developed there, and then we would possess in all its shades this immortal genius who depicted all nature.
There are people who, feeling by a sort of intuition that Homer had been created the poetic incentive of Europe, even as I have said, and judging on the other hand that Ariosto had made an epic poem, are convinced that the Italian poet had copied the Greek; but this is not so. Ariosto, who has made only a romanesque poem, has not received the inspiration of Homer; he has simply followed the fictions attributed to Archbishop Turpin and clothing them with forms borrowed from the Arabs by the troubadours makes himself creator in this secondary style. The rhyme is as essential to it as it is harmful to veritable epopœia; this is why the eumolpique verses never conform to it in the slightest degree. To apply them to it, is to make serious what is by nature gay, it is to give a character of force and of truth to what is only light, airy, and fantastic. I am about, however, to translate the beginning of his poem, in order to furnish, by the shocking disparity which exists between the romantic essence of his poetry and the epic form that I here adapt, a new proof of what I have said.
Je veux chanter les Dames, les Guerriers,L’amour, l’honneur, et les jeux et les armes,Durant ces temps où les fiers Sarrasins,Des mers d’Afrique, abordèrent en France,Pour seconder les fureurs d’Agramant,Le jeune roi, dont l’orgueilleuse audacePensait venger la mort du vieux Trojan,Sur l’empereur des Romains, Charlemagne.Je veux aussi raconter de Roland,Chose inouïe, autant en vers qu’en prose;Dire l’amour qui rendit furieuxCe paladin, auparavant si sage;Si toutefois celle qui m’a charmé,Qui va minant ma raison d’heure en heure,M’en laisse assez pour remplir dignementMon entreprise et tenir ma promesse.
Je veux chanter les Dames, les Guerriers,L’amour, l’honneur, et les jeux et les armes,Durant ces temps où les fiers Sarrasins,Des mers d’Afrique, abordèrent en France,Pour seconder les fureurs d’Agramant,Le jeune roi, dont l’orgueilleuse audacePensait venger la mort du vieux Trojan,Sur l’empereur des Romains, Charlemagne.Je veux aussi raconter de Roland,Chose inouïe, autant en vers qu’en prose;Dire l’amour qui rendit furieuxCe paladin, auparavant si sage;Si toutefois celle qui m’a charmé,Qui va minant ma raison d’heure en heure,M’en laisse assez pour remplir dignementMon entreprise et tenir ma promesse.
Je veux chanter les Dames, les Guerriers,L’amour, l’honneur, et les jeux et les armes,Durant ces temps où les fiers Sarrasins,Des mers d’Afrique, abordèrent en France,Pour seconder les fureurs d’Agramant,Le jeune roi, dont l’orgueilleuse audacePensait venger la mort du vieux Trojan,Sur l’empereur des Romains, Charlemagne.
Je veux chanter les Dames, les Guerriers,
L’amour, l’honneur, et les jeux et les armes,
Durant ces temps où les fiers Sarrasins,
Des mers d’Afrique, abordèrent en France,
Pour seconder les fureurs d’Agramant,
Le jeune roi, dont l’orgueilleuse audace
Pensait venger la mort du vieux Trojan,
Sur l’empereur des Romains, Charlemagne.
Je veux aussi raconter de Roland,Chose inouïe, autant en vers qu’en prose;Dire l’amour qui rendit furieuxCe paladin, auparavant si sage;Si toutefois celle qui m’a charmé,Qui va minant ma raison d’heure en heure,M’en laisse assez pour remplir dignementMon entreprise et tenir ma promesse.
Je veux aussi raconter de Roland,
Chose inouïe, autant en vers qu’en prose;
Dire l’amour qui rendit furieux
Ce paladin, auparavant si sage;
Si toutefois celle qui m’a charmé,
Qui va minant ma raison d’heure en heure,
M’en laisse assez pour remplir dignement
Mon entreprise et tenir ma promesse.
Of Loves and Ladies, Knights and Arms, I sing,Of Courtesies, and many a Daring Feat;And from those ancient days my story bring,When Moors from Afric passed in hostile fleet,And ravaged France, with Agramant their King,Flushed with his youthful rage and furious heat;Who on King Charles’, the Roman emperor’s headHad vowed due vengeance for Troyano dead.In the same strain of Roland will I tellThings unattempted yet in prose or rhyme,On whom strange madness and rank fury fell,A man esteemed so wise in former time;If she, who to like cruel pass has wellNigh brought my feeble wit which fain would climbAnd hourly wastes my sense, concede me skillAnd strength my daring promise to fulfil.W. R. Rose.
Of Loves and Ladies, Knights and Arms, I sing,Of Courtesies, and many a Daring Feat;And from those ancient days my story bring,When Moors from Afric passed in hostile fleet,And ravaged France, with Agramant their King,Flushed with his youthful rage and furious heat;Who on King Charles’, the Roman emperor’s headHad vowed due vengeance for Troyano dead.In the same strain of Roland will I tellThings unattempted yet in prose or rhyme,On whom strange madness and rank fury fell,A man esteemed so wise in former time;If she, who to like cruel pass has wellNigh brought my feeble wit which fain would climbAnd hourly wastes my sense, concede me skillAnd strength my daring promise to fulfil.W. R. Rose.
Of Loves and Ladies, Knights and Arms, I sing,Of Courtesies, and many a Daring Feat;And from those ancient days my story bring,When Moors from Afric passed in hostile fleet,And ravaged France, with Agramant their King,Flushed with his youthful rage and furious heat;Who on King Charles’, the Roman emperor’s headHad vowed due vengeance for Troyano dead.
Of Loves and Ladies, Knights and Arms, I sing,
Of Courtesies, and many a Daring Feat;
And from those ancient days my story bring,
When Moors from Afric passed in hostile fleet,
And ravaged France, with Agramant their King,
Flushed with his youthful rage and furious heat;
Who on King Charles’, the Roman emperor’s head
Had vowed due vengeance for Troyano dead.
In the same strain of Roland will I tellThings unattempted yet in prose or rhyme,On whom strange madness and rank fury fell,A man esteemed so wise in former time;If she, who to like cruel pass has wellNigh brought my feeble wit which fain would climbAnd hourly wastes my sense, concede me skillAnd strength my daring promise to fulfil.W. R. Rose.
In the same strain of Roland will I tell
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme,
On whom strange madness and rank fury fell,
A man esteemed so wise in former time;
If she, who to like cruel pass has well
Nigh brought my feeble wit which fain would climb
And hourly wastes my sense, concede me skill
And strength my daring promise to fulfil.
W. R. Rose.
Le donne, i cavalier, l’arme, gl’amoriLe cortesíe, l’audaci imprese io canto,Che furo al tempo che passaro i MoriD’Africa il mare, e in Francia nocquer tanto,Seguendo l’ire e i giovenil furoriD’Agramante lor re, che si diè vantoDi vendicar la morte di TroianoSopra re Carlo imperator romano.Dirò d’Orlando in un medesmo trattoCosa non detta in prosa mai, nè in rima;Che per amor venne in furore e matto,D’uom che si saggio era stimato prima:Se da colei che tal quasi m’ha fattoChe’l poco ingegno ad or ad or mi lima,Me ne sarà però tanto concesso,Che mi basti a finir quanto ho promesso.
Le donne, i cavalier, l’arme, gl’amoriLe cortesíe, l’audaci imprese io canto,Che furo al tempo che passaro i MoriD’Africa il mare, e in Francia nocquer tanto,Seguendo l’ire e i giovenil furoriD’Agramante lor re, che si diè vantoDi vendicar la morte di TroianoSopra re Carlo imperator romano.Dirò d’Orlando in un medesmo trattoCosa non detta in prosa mai, nè in rima;Che per amor venne in furore e matto,D’uom che si saggio era stimato prima:Se da colei che tal quasi m’ha fattoChe’l poco ingegno ad or ad or mi lima,Me ne sarà però tanto concesso,Che mi basti a finir quanto ho promesso.
Le donne, i cavalier, l’arme, gl’amori
Le cortesíe, l’audaci imprese io canto,
Che furo al tempo che passaro i Mori
D’Africa il mare, e in Francia nocquer tanto,
Seguendo l’ire e i giovenil furori
D’Agramante lor re, che si diè vanto
Di vendicar la morte di Troiano
Sopra re Carlo imperator romano.
Dirò d’Orlando in un medesmo trattoCosa non detta in prosa mai, nè in rima;Che per amor venne in furore e matto,D’uom che si saggio era stimato prima:Se da colei che tal quasi m’ha fattoChe’l poco ingegno ad or ad or mi lima,Me ne sarà però tanto concesso,Che mi basti a finir quanto ho promesso.
Dirò d’Orlando in un medesmo tratto
Cosa non detta in prosa mai, nè in rima;
Che per amor venne in furore e matto,
D’uom che si saggio era stimato prima:
Se da colei che tal quasi m’ha fatto
Che’l poco ingegno ad or ad or mi lima,
Me ne sarà però tanto concesso,
Che mi basti a finir quanto ho promesso.
It is very easy to see, in reading these two strophes, that there exists in the exposition no sort of resemblance either with that of Homer, or with that of Vergil. It is a third style, wholly foreign to the other two. Homer mingling the exposition and the invocation, commands his Muse to sing what she inspires in him; Vergil distinguishing one from the other, prays his Muse to acquaint him with what he is about to sing; whereas Ariosto, announcing simply the subject of his songs, makes no invocation. It is evident that he relies upon himself, and that in the style that he adopts he understands very well that he has no other Muse, no other guide than his imagination. His subject is in accord with his manner of treating it. If one wishes to reflect upon this decisive point, one will feel and realize, for the first time perhaps, why in the opinion of all the world concerning two works from the same hand,La PucelleandLa Henriade, the one is a poem, whereas the other, composed with a far greater pretension, is not. Voltaire, in imitating Ariosto in a subject that he has rendered romanesque and frivolous, has received the second inspiration; but in imitating Lucan in an historic subject he received nothing, for Lucan, creator of a mixed style, had no inspiration that he could communicate.
I have said what I thought of Camoens: it is useless to quote the exposition of his poem that has nothing remarkable, particularly since Tasso has so far surpassed him.
Tasso was worthy of receiving a veritable inspiration. His lofty genius, his pure and brilliant imagination brought him nearer to Vergil than to Ariosto; and if he had been inspired even through the Latin poet, he would have shown Europe what the magnetic power of Homer was, although acting only in its third degree. But the prejudices of education working in him even without his knowledge, and the influence that chivalresque poetry had attained in Italy, did not permit him either to forsake entirely the chronicles of Archbishop Turpin, or above all, to make any changes in the consecrated form. All that he could do in a most grave and serious historical subject was to mix a little allegorical genius with a great deal of romanesque fiction; so that, becoming inspired at the same time with Ariosto, Lucan, and Vergil, he made a mixed work, which, under the form of a lengthy song, contained the essence of epopœia, of history, and of romance. This work is one of the most entertaining poems that one can read; the only one perhaps which a translation in prose can harm but little. The inequality of its texture takes away nothing from the interest that it inspires. It pleases, but it does not instruct. If the eumolpique lines were applied to it throughout, it would not sustain them; for it is in substance only a very beautiful ballad; nevertheless, here and there are found parts which could become sublime. His exposition, imitating Vergil, reveals them very well. They are as follows:
Je chante les combats pieux, et le GuerrierQui délivra du Christ la tombe renommée.Combien il déploya de génie et d’ardeur!Combien il supporta de maux dans cette guerre!Vainement les enfers s’armèrent; vainementLes peuples de l’Asie aux Africains s’unirent:Favorisé du Ciel, sous ses drapeaux sacrés,Vainqueur, il ramena ses compagnons fidèles.Divine Muse! ô toi dont le front radieuxNe ceint point sur le Pinde un laurier périssable,Mais qui, parmi les chœurs des habitants du Ciel,Chantes, le front orné d’étoiles immortelles,Viens, inspire à mon sein tes célestes ardeurs;Fais briller dans mes vers tes clartés, et pardonneSi, parant quelquefois l’austère vérité,Je mêle à tes attraits des grâces étrangères.
Je chante les combats pieux, et le GuerrierQui délivra du Christ la tombe renommée.Combien il déploya de génie et d’ardeur!Combien il supporta de maux dans cette guerre!Vainement les enfers s’armèrent; vainementLes peuples de l’Asie aux Africains s’unirent:Favorisé du Ciel, sous ses drapeaux sacrés,Vainqueur, il ramena ses compagnons fidèles.Divine Muse! ô toi dont le front radieuxNe ceint point sur le Pinde un laurier périssable,Mais qui, parmi les chœurs des habitants du Ciel,Chantes, le front orné d’étoiles immortelles,Viens, inspire à mon sein tes célestes ardeurs;Fais briller dans mes vers tes clartés, et pardonneSi, parant quelquefois l’austère vérité,Je mêle à tes attraits des grâces étrangères.
Je chante les combats pieux, et le Guerrier
Qui délivra du Christ la tombe renommée.
Combien il déploya de génie et d’ardeur!
Combien il supporta de maux dans cette guerre!
Vainement les enfers s’armèrent; vainement
Les peuples de l’Asie aux Africains s’unirent:
Favorisé du Ciel, sous ses drapeaux sacrés,
Vainqueur, il ramena ses compagnons fidèles.
Divine Muse! ô toi dont le front radieuxNe ceint point sur le Pinde un laurier périssable,Mais qui, parmi les chœurs des habitants du Ciel,Chantes, le front orné d’étoiles immortelles,Viens, inspire à mon sein tes célestes ardeurs;Fais briller dans mes vers tes clartés, et pardonneSi, parant quelquefois l’austère vérité,Je mêle à tes attraits des grâces étrangères.
Divine Muse! ô toi dont le front radieux
Ne ceint point sur le Pinde un laurier périssable,
Mais qui, parmi les chœurs des habitants du Ciel,
Chantes, le front orné d’étoiles immortelles,
Viens, inspire à mon sein tes célestes ardeurs;
Fais briller dans mes vers tes clartés, et pardonne
Si, parant quelquefois l’austère vérité,
Je mêle à tes attraits des grâces étrangères.
I sing the pious arms and Chief, who freedThe Sepulchre of Christ from thrall profane:Much did he toil in thought, and much in deed;Much in the glorious enterprise sustain;And Hell in vain opposed him; and in vainAfric and Asia to the rescue pour’dTheir mingled tribes;—Heaven recompensed his pain,And from all fruitless sallies of the sword,True to the Red-Cross flag his wandering friends restored.O thou, the Muse, that not with fading palmsCirclest thy brows on Pindus, but amongThe Angels warbling their celestial psalms,Hast for the coronal a golden throngOf everlasting stars! make thou my songLucid and pure; breathe thou the flame divineInto my bosom; and forgive the wrong,If with grave truth light fiction I combine,And sometimes grace my page with other flowers than thine!Wiffen.
I sing the pious arms and Chief, who freedThe Sepulchre of Christ from thrall profane:Much did he toil in thought, and much in deed;Much in the glorious enterprise sustain;And Hell in vain opposed him; and in vainAfric and Asia to the rescue pour’dTheir mingled tribes;—Heaven recompensed his pain,And from all fruitless sallies of the sword,True to the Red-Cross flag his wandering friends restored.O thou, the Muse, that not with fading palmsCirclest thy brows on Pindus, but amongThe Angels warbling their celestial psalms,Hast for the coronal a golden throngOf everlasting stars! make thou my songLucid and pure; breathe thou the flame divineInto my bosom; and forgive the wrong,If with grave truth light fiction I combine,And sometimes grace my page with other flowers than thine!Wiffen.
I sing the pious arms and Chief, who freed
The Sepulchre of Christ from thrall profane:
Much did he toil in thought, and much in deed;
Much in the glorious enterprise sustain;
And Hell in vain opposed him; and in vain
Afric and Asia to the rescue pour’d
Their mingled tribes;—Heaven recompensed his pain,
And from all fruitless sallies of the sword,
True to the Red-Cross flag his wandering friends restored.
O thou, the Muse, that not with fading palmsCirclest thy brows on Pindus, but amongThe Angels warbling their celestial psalms,Hast for the coronal a golden throngOf everlasting stars! make thou my songLucid and pure; breathe thou the flame divineInto my bosom; and forgive the wrong,If with grave truth light fiction I combine,And sometimes grace my page with other flowers than thine!Wiffen.
O thou, the Muse, that not with fading palms
Circlest thy brows on Pindus, but among
The Angels warbling their celestial psalms,
Hast for the coronal a golden throng
Of everlasting stars! make thou my song
Lucid and pure; breathe thou the flame divine
Into my bosom; and forgive the wrong,
If with grave truth light fiction I combine,
And sometimes grace my page with other flowers than thine!
Wiffen.
Canto l’armi pietose, e’l CapitanoChe’l gran sepolcro liberò di Christo:Molto egli oprò col senno e con la mano;Molto soffri nel glorioso acquisto:E invano l’Inferno a lui s’oppose, e invanoS’armò d’Asia, e dì Libia il popol misto;Chè il Ciel diè favore, e sotto ai santiSegni ridusse i suoi compagni erranti.O Musa, tu, che di caduchi alloriNon circondi la fronte in EliconaMa su nel Ciel infra i beati cori,Hai di stelle immortali aurea corona,Tu spira al petto mio celesti ardori,Tu rischiara il mio canto, e tu perdona,S’intesso fregi al ver, s’adorno in parteD’altri diletti, che de’ tuoi, le carte.
Canto l’armi pietose, e’l CapitanoChe’l gran sepolcro liberò di Christo:Molto egli oprò col senno e con la mano;Molto soffri nel glorioso acquisto:E invano l’Inferno a lui s’oppose, e invanoS’armò d’Asia, e dì Libia il popol misto;Chè il Ciel diè favore, e sotto ai santiSegni ridusse i suoi compagni erranti.O Musa, tu, che di caduchi alloriNon circondi la fronte in EliconaMa su nel Ciel infra i beati cori,Hai di stelle immortali aurea corona,Tu spira al petto mio celesti ardori,Tu rischiara il mio canto, e tu perdona,S’intesso fregi al ver, s’adorno in parteD’altri diletti, che de’ tuoi, le carte.
Canto l’armi pietose, e’l Capitano
Che’l gran sepolcro liberò di Christo:
Molto egli oprò col senno e con la mano;
Molto soffri nel glorioso acquisto:
E invano l’Inferno a lui s’oppose, e invano
S’armò d’Asia, e dì Libia il popol misto;
Chè il Ciel diè favore, e sotto ai santi
Segni ridusse i suoi compagni erranti.
O Musa, tu, che di caduchi alloriNon circondi la fronte in EliconaMa su nel Ciel infra i beati cori,Hai di stelle immortali aurea corona,Tu spira al petto mio celesti ardori,Tu rischiara il mio canto, e tu perdona,S’intesso fregi al ver, s’adorno in parteD’altri diletti, che de’ tuoi, le carte.
O Musa, tu, che di caduchi allori
Non circondi la fronte in Elicona
Ma su nel Ciel infra i beati cori,
Hai di stelle immortali aurea corona,
Tu spira al petto mio celesti ardori,
Tu rischiara il mio canto, e tu perdona,
S’intesso fregi al ver, s’adorno in parte
D’altri diletti, che de’ tuoi, le carte.
The captivating enthusiasm of Homer, the majestic simplicity of Vergil are not there; there is a sweetness of expression, a purity of imagery which please. This might be greater, but then the melancholy of the romance would exclude it and the reader would demand the full force of epopœia.
Besides, the Italians have tried, over and over again, to vary the form of their verses; some have wished to measure them by musical rhythm; others have contented themselves with making blank verse. They have neither succeeded completely nor failed completely. Their language sweet and musical lacks force whether in good or in evil. Its words might indeed, strictly speaking, be composed of long and short syllables; but as they terminate, nearly all, in the soft and languid style that we call feminine, it results, therefore, that in the measured verses the poets lack the long syllables to constitute the last foot and to form the spondee; and that in the blank verse they are obliged to terminate them all in the same style; so that with the measure they create only lame verses, and without the rhyme they make them all equally languid.[224]
I recall having sometimes read French writers who, not having investigated the character of their tongue, have reproached it for its feminine syllables and have believed that their concurrence was harmful to its force and its harmony. These writers have scarcely considered what this language would be, deprived of its feminine sounds. For with the little force that it would gain on one side, it would acquire such a harshness on the other, that it would be impossible to draw from it four consecutive lines that would be endurable. If all its finals were masculine, and if nothing could change it otherwise, it would be necessary to renounce poetry, or like the Arabs, be resolved to compose whole poems in the same rhyme.
We have just seen that the lack of masculine finals takes away all energy from the Italian tongue; a contrary defect would deprive the French of this(mélange)of sweetness and force which makes it the(première langue)of Europe. The English language is lacking in precisely what the writers of whom I have spoken desired eliminated from the French, without foreseeing the grave disadvantages of their desire: it has no feminine finals[225]; also it is in everything the opposite of the Italian. It is true that it possesses great energy, great boldness of expression, and a grammatical liberty which goes to the full extent; but deprived of sweetness and softness, it is, if I may say it, like those brittle metals whose strength is in stiffness, and which is broken when one would make them flexible. The poverty of its rhymes, denuded for the most part of accuracy of accent and of harmony in consonants, has for a long time engaged the English poets in making blank verse; and it must be admitted that, notwithstanding the defect inherent in their tongue and which consists, as I have just said, in the absolute lack of feminine finals, they have succeeded in this better than any of the poets of other nations. These lines, all imperfect in their harmony, are however, as to form, the only eumolpique verse that they could make. Shakespeare felt it and made use of it in his tragedies.
Shakespeare with the creative genius with which nature had endowed him, would have borne dramatic art to its perfection in these modern times, if circumstances had been as favourable to him as they were adverse. Emulator of Æschylus, he might have equalled and perhaps surpassed him, if he had had at his disposal a mine so rich, so brilliant as that of the mysteries of Orpheus; if he had made use of a language so harmonious, if his taste had been able to be refined at the school of Pindar or of Homer. At the epoch of his birth, Europe scarcely emerged from the gloom of barbarism; the theatre, given over to ridiculous mountebanks, profaned in indecent farces the incomprehensible mysteries of the Christian religion, and the English tongue, still crude and unformed, had not succeeded in amalgamating in one single body the opposed dialects of which it was successively formed. In spite of these obstacles, Shakespeare stamped upon England a movement of which Europe felt the influence. Raised by the sole force of his genius to the essence of dramatic poetry, he dared to seek for his subjects in the mythology of Odin, and put upon the stage, inHamletand inMacbeth, tableaux of the highest character.[226]Like Æschylus he conducted one to virtue by terror; but unfortunately the taste of the spectators, upon which he was forced to model his, led him to degrade his tableaux by grotesque figures: the English people were not sufficiently advanced to comprehend the moral end of the tragedy. They must be amused; and Shakespeare succeeded only at the expense of the beauties of the art. Historic facts and trivial scenes replaced the mysterious and sublime subjects.
In London, the dramatic muse was turbulent and licentious; as in Madrid it had been chivalrous and gallant. Everywhere the theatre had to accommodate itself to the taste of the people. The first regular tragedy which Pierre Corneille composed in France was derived from a Spanish ballad. Madrid at that time gave the tone to Europe. It needed much of the time and all the prosperity of Louis XIV. to throw off the unseasonable ascendancy that this proud nation had assumed over public opinion.[227]Notwithstanding the efforts of Corneille, of Racine, and of Molière, the Théâtre Français retained always the romanesque tone that it had originally received. All that these three men could do was, by lofty sentiments, by purity of forms, by regularity of the customs and characters, to pass over what was, in reality, defective. They came thus to give to modern dramatic art all the perfection of which it was susceptible. Shakespeare had been in London the successor of Æschylus; Corneille received in France the inspiration of Sophocles; Racine, that of Euripides; and Molière united as in a sheaf the spirit of Menander, of Terence, and of Plautus.
When I compare Shakespeare with Æschylus, I want to make it clearly understood that I regard him as the regenerator of the theatre in Europe, and superior to Corneille and Racine as to dramatic essence, although he may be assuredly much inferior to them as to form. Æschylus, in Greek, was inspired by Homer; while, on the contrary, it was Shakespeare who inspired Milton. It is known thatParadise Lostwas at first conceived as the subject of a tragedy, and that it was only after reflection that the English poet saw therein the material for an epic poem. I will tell later on, in speaking of theMessiahof Klopstock, what has prevented these two subjects, which appear equally epics, from attaining wholly to the majesty of epopœia. As many of the motives that I have to offer apply to the two works, I will thus avoid useless repetition. I shall begin by translating the exposition and invocation of Milton, by imitating its movement and its harmony, as I have done with the other poets.
De l’homme, viens chanter la disgrâce, et la fruitDe cet arbre fatal, dont le goût homicideLivra le Monde au crime, à la mort, aux malheurs,Et nous ravit Eden, jusqu’au moment qu’un HommePlus grand, par son trépas, racheta le séjourDu bonheur: viens, ô Muse! ô toi qui, sur la cimeSe Sinaï, d’Oreb, en secret inspirasLa Berger d’Israël, quand d’une voix sacréeIl enseignait comment et la terre et des cieuxSortirent du Chaos! ou bien, si tu préfèresLes sommets de Sion, les bords du Siloë,Qui, près du Temple saint, roule ses flots, ô Muse!Viens protéger de là mes chants audacieux,Mes chants qui, surpassant d’un essor non timide,Les monts Aoniens, vont raconter des faitsQue n’ont point encor dits la prose ni la rime.
De l’homme, viens chanter la disgrâce, et la fruitDe cet arbre fatal, dont le goût homicideLivra le Monde au crime, à la mort, aux malheurs,Et nous ravit Eden, jusqu’au moment qu’un HommePlus grand, par son trépas, racheta le séjourDu bonheur: viens, ô Muse! ô toi qui, sur la cimeSe Sinaï, d’Oreb, en secret inspirasLa Berger d’Israël, quand d’une voix sacréeIl enseignait comment et la terre et des cieuxSortirent du Chaos! ou bien, si tu préfèresLes sommets de Sion, les bords du Siloë,Qui, près du Temple saint, roule ses flots, ô Muse!Viens protéger de là mes chants audacieux,Mes chants qui, surpassant d’un essor non timide,Les monts Aoniens, vont raconter des faitsQue n’ont point encor dits la prose ni la rime.
De l’homme, viens chanter la disgrâce, et la fruit
De cet arbre fatal, dont le goût homicide
Livra le Monde au crime, à la mort, aux malheurs,
Et nous ravit Eden, jusqu’au moment qu’un Homme
Plus grand, par son trépas, racheta le séjour
Du bonheur: viens, ô Muse! ô toi qui, sur la cime
Se Sinaï, d’Oreb, en secret inspiras
La Berger d’Israël, quand d’une voix sacrée
Il enseignait comment et la terre et des cieux
Sortirent du Chaos! ou bien, si tu préfères
Les sommets de Sion, les bords du Siloë,
Qui, près du Temple saint, roule ses flots, ô Muse!
Viens protéger de là mes chants audacieux,
Mes chants qui, surpassant d’un essor non timide,
Les monts Aoniens, vont raconter des faits
Que n’ont point encor dits la prose ni la rime.
Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruitOf that forbidden tree, whose mortal tasteBrought death into the world, and all our woe,With loss of Eden, till one greater ManRestore us and regain the blissful seat,Sing, heavenly Muse, that, on the secret topOf Oreb or of Sinai, didst inspireThat shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed,In the beginning how the heavens and earthRose out of chaos; or if Sion hillDelight thee more, and Siloa’s brook that flow’dFast by the oracle of God; I thenceInvoke thy aid to my adventurous song,That with no middle flight intends to soarAbove the Aonian mount, while it pursuesThings unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruitOf that forbidden tree, whose mortal tasteBrought death into the world, and all our woe,With loss of Eden, till one greater ManRestore us and regain the blissful seat,Sing, heavenly Muse, that, on the secret topOf Oreb or of Sinai, didst inspireThat shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed,In the beginning how the heavens and earthRose out of chaos; or if Sion hillDelight thee more, and Siloa’s brook that flow’dFast by the oracle of God; I thenceInvoke thy aid to my adventurous song,That with no middle flight intends to soarAbove the Aonian mount, while it pursuesThings unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top
Of Oreb or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed,
In the beginning how the heavens and earth
Rose out of chaos; or if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa’s brook that flow’d
Fast by the oracle of God; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
This invocation is manifestly in imitation of Homer, from whom Milton has received the second inspiration without the intermediary—Vergil. One can observe in the English poet the same movement and almost as much force as in the Greek poet, but much less clarity, precision, and particularly harmony. Nearly all of these defects pertain to his subject and his tongue. Circumstances were not favourable to Milton. His lines could not have been better with the elements that he was forced to employ. All imperfect as they are, they are worth much more than those of Klopstock; for at least they are in the character of his tongue, whereas those of the German poet are not. Milton is satisfied with throwing off the yoke of rhyme, and has made eumolpique lines of one foot only, measured by ten syllables. Their defect, inherent in the English idiom, consists, as I have said, in having all the lines bearing equally the masculine final, jarring continually one with the other. Klopstock has aspired to make, in German, verses measured by the musical rhythm of the Greeks; but he has not perceived that he took as long and short, in his tongue, syllables which were not such in musical rhythm, but by accent and prosody, which is quite different. The German tongue, composed of contracted words and consequently bristling with consonants, bears no resemblance to the Greek, whose words, abounding in vowels, were, on the contrary, made clear by their elongation. The rhythmic lines of Klopstock are materially a third longer than those of Homer, although the German poet has aspired to build them on an equal measure.[228]Their rhythmic harmony, if it exists there, is absolutely factitious; it is a pedantic imitation and nothing more. In order to make the movement of these lines understood in French, and to copy as closely as possible their harmony, it is necessary to compose lines of two cæsuras, or what amounts to the same, to employ constantly a line and a half to represent a single one. Here are the first fourteen lines which contain the exposition and invocation of the Messiah: