Part 2 (1/2)
3 It is absolutely essential, then, first of all to settle the question whence this grandeur of conception arises; and the answer is that true eloquence can be found only in those whose spirit is generous and aspiring. For those whose whole lives are wasted in paltry and illiberal thoughts and habits cannot possibly produce any work worthy of the lasting reverence of mankind. It is only natural that their words should be full of sublimity whose thoughts are full of majesty.
4 Hence sublime thoughts belong properly to the loftiest minds. Such was the reply of Alexander to his general Parmenio, when the latter had observed, ”Were I Alexander, I should have been satisfied”; ”And I, were I Parmenio”...
The distance between heaven and earth[1]--a measure, one might say, not less appropriate to Homer's genius than to the stature of his discord.
[Footnote 1: _Il._ iv. 442.]
5 How different is that touch of Hesiod's in his description of sorrow--if the _s.h.i.+eld_ is really one of his works: ”rheum from her nostrils flowed”[2]--an image not terrible, but disgusting. Now consider how Homer gives dignity to his divine persons--
”As far as lies his airy ken, who sits On some tall crag, and scans the wine-dark sea: So far extends the heavenly coursers' stride.”[3]
He measures their speed by the extent of the whole world--a grand comparison, which might reasonably lead us to remark that if the divine steeds were to take two such leaps in succession, they would find no room in the world for another.
[Footnote 2: _Scut. Herc._ 267.]
[Footnote 3: _Il._ v. 770.]
6 Sublime also are the images in the ”Battle of the G.o.ds”--
”A trumpet sound Rang through the air, and shook the Olympian height; Then terror seized the monarch of the dead, And springing from his throne he cried aloud With fearful voice, lest the earth, rent asunder By Neptune's mighty arm, forthwith reveal To mortal and immortal eyes those halls So drear and dank, which e'en the G.o.ds abhor.”[4]
Earth rent from its foundations! Tartarus itself laid bare! The whole world torn asunder and turned upside down! Why, my dear friend, this is a perfect hurly-burly, in which the whole universe, heaven and h.e.l.l, mortals and immortals, share the conflict and the peril.
[Footnote 4: _Il._ xxi. 388; xx. 61.]
7 A terrible picture, certainly, but (unless perhaps it is to be taken allegorically) downright impious, and overstepping the bounds of decency. It seems to me that the strange medley of wounds, quarrels, revenges, tears, bonds, and other woes which makes up the Homeric tradition of the G.o.ds was designed by its author to degrade his deities, as far as possible, into men, and exalt his men into deities--or rather, his G.o.ds are worse off than his human characters, since we, when we are unhappy, have a haven from ills in death, while the G.o.ds, according to him, not only live for ever, but live for ever in misery.
8 Far to be preferred to this description of the Battle of the G.o.ds are those pa.s.sages which exhibit the divine nature in its true light, as something spotless, great, and pure, as, for instance, a pa.s.sage which has often been handled by my predecessors, the lines on Poseidon:--
”Mountain and wood and solitary peak, The s.h.i.+ps Achaian, and the towers of Troy, Trembled beneath the G.o.d's immortal feet.
Over the waves he rode, and round him played, Lured from the deeps, the ocean's monstrous brood, With uncouth gambols welcoming their lord: The charmed billows parted: on they flew.”[5]
[Footnote 5: _Il._ xiii. 18; xx. 60; xiii. 19, 27.]
9 And thus also the lawgiver of the Jews, no ordinary man, having formed an adequate conception of the Supreme Being, gave it adequate expression in the opening words of his ”Laws”: ”G.o.d said”--what?--”let there be light, and there was light: let there be land, and there was.”
10 I trust you will not think me tedious if I quote yet one more pa.s.sage from our great poet (referring this time to human characters) in ill.u.s.tration of the manner in which he leads us with him to heroic heights. A sudden and baffling darkness as of night has overspread the ranks of his warring Greeks. Then Ajax in sore perplexity cries aloud--
”Almighty Sire, Only from darkness save Achaia's sons; No more I ask, but give us back the day; Grant but our sight, and slay us, if thou wilt.”[6]
The feelings are just what we should look for in Ajax. He does not, you observe, ask for his life--such a request would have been unworthy of his heroic soul--but finding himself paralysed by darkness, and prohibited from employing his valour in any n.o.ble action, he chafes because his arms are idle, and prays for a speedy return of light. ”At least,” he thinks, ”I shall find a warrior's grave, even though Zeus himself should fight against me.”
[Footnote 6: _Il._ xvii. 645.]
11 In such pa.s.sages the mind of the poet is swept along in the whirlwind of the struggle, and, in his own words, he
”Like the fierce war-G.o.d, raves, or wasting fire Through the deep thickets on a mountain-side; His lips drop foam.”[7]
[Footnote 7: _Il._ xv. 605.]