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Title: Laocoon
        An essay upon the limits of painting and poetry. With remarks illustrative of various points in the history of ancient art.

Author: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Translator: Ellen Frothingham

Release date: February 29, 2024 [eBook #73078]

Language: English

Original publication: Boston: Roberts Brothers

Credits: Richard Tonsing, Tim Lindell, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)


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                                LAOCOON.
           =An Essay upon the Limits of Painting and Poetry.=
 WITH REMARKS ILLUSTRATIVE OF VARIOUS POINTS IN THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT
                                  ART.


                                   BY

                       GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING.

                    TRANSLATED BY ELLEN FROTHINGHAM.

[Illustration: [Logo]]

                                BOSTON:
                           ROBERTS BROTHERS.
                                 1890.




       Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by

                           ROBERTS BROTHERS,

       In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.


                           UNIVERSITY PRESS:
                     JOHN WILSON & SON, CAMBRIDGE.




                         TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.


A translation of the Laocoon was given to the English public by E. C.
BEASLEY, one of the tutors of Leamington College, in 1853. Very few
copies found their way to America, and the book is now difficult to
obtain.

The desire of the present translator has been to make a version which
could be easily read by persons ignorant of any language save English.
To this end an attempt was made to banish all foreign languages from the
text, and substitute for the original quotations their equivalents, as
near as possible, in English. This method was found, however, on trial,
to be incompatible with the closeness of Lessing’s criticism, depending,
as that in many cases does, on the shade of meaning of the original
word. For the sake of consistency, therefore, Lessing’s method has been
adhered to in every instance; the words of the author cited being
retained in the text, and a translation given in a foot-note wherever
the meaning was not sufficiently indicated by the context. The same
course has been pursued with the modern as with the ancient languages.

Dryden’s translation of Virgil has been used throughout, and Bryant’s of
Homer in every case but one, where a quotation from the Æneid and the
Odyssey stood in close connection. In this single instance Pope’s
version was preferred; his style being more in harmony with that of
Dryden, and his want of literalness being here not objectionable.

Such notes as were not necessary to the understanding of the text have
been transferred to the end of the book.

The translator would here acknowledge the valuable assistance received
from Mr. W. T. BRIGHAM in the rendering of quotations from the classics.

                                                      ELLEN FROTHINGHAM.


  BOSTON, June, 1873.




                                PREFACE.


The first who compared painting with poetry was a man of fine feeling,
who was conscious of a similar effect produced on himself by both arts.
Both, he perceived, represent absent things as present, give us the
appearance as the reality. Both produce illusion, and the illusion of
both is pleasing.

A second sought to analyze the nature of this pleasure, and found its
source to be in both cases the same. Beauty, our first idea of which is
derived from corporeal objects, has universal laws which admit of wide
application. They may be extended to actions and thoughts as well as to
forms.

A third, pondering upon the value and distribution of these laws, found
that some obtained more in painting, others in poetry: that in regard to
the latter, therefore, poetry can come to the aid of painting; in regard
to the former, painting to the aid of poetry, by illustration and
example.

The first was the amateur; the second, the philosopher; the third, the
critic.

The first two could not well make a false use of their feeling or their
conclusions, whereas with the critic all depends on the right
application of his principles in particular cases. And, since there are
fifty ingenious critics to one of penetration, it would be a wonder if
the application were, in every case, made with the caution indispensable
to an exact adjustment of the scales between the two arts.

If Apelles and Protogenes, in their lost works on painting, fixed and
illustrated its rules from the already established laws of poetry, we
may be sure they did so with the same moderation and exactness with
which Aristotle, Cicero, Horace, and Quintilian, in their still existing
writings, apply the principles and experiences of painting to eloquence
and poetry. It is the prerogative of the ancients in nothing either to
exceed or fall short.

But we moderns have in many cases thought to surpass the ancients by
transforming their pleasure-paths into highways, though at the risk of
reducing the shorter and safer highways to such paths as lead through
deserts.

The dazzling antithesis of the Greek Voltaire, that painting is dumb
poetry, and poetry speaking painting, stood in no text-book. It was one
of those conceits, occurring frequently in Simonides, the inexactness
and falsity of which we feel constrained to overlook for the sake of the
evident truth they contain.

The ancients, however, did not overlook them. They confined the saying
of Simonides to the effect produced by the two arts, not failing to lay
stress upon the fact that, notwithstanding the perfect similarity of
their effects, the arts themselves differ both in the objects and in the
methods of their imitation, ὕλῃ καὶ τρόποις μιμήσεως.

But, as if no such difference existed, many modern critics have drawn
the crudest conclusions possible from this agreement between painting
and poetry. At one time they confine poetry within the narrower limits
of painting, and at another allow painting to fill the whole wide sphere
of poetry. Whatever is right in one must be permitted to the other;
whatever pleases or displeases in one is necessarily pleasing or
displeasing in the other. Full of this idea they, with great assurance,
give utterance to the shallowest judgments, whenever they find that poet
and painter have treated the same subject in a different way. Such
variations they take to be faults, and charge them on painter or poet,
according as their taste more inclines to the one art or the other.

This fault-finding criticism has partially misled the virtuosos
themselves. In poetry, a fondness for description, and in painting, a
fancy for allegory, has arisen from the desire to make the one a
speaking picture without really knowing what it can and ought to paint,
and the other a dumb poem, without having considered in how far painting
can express universal ideas without abandoning its proper sphere and
degenerating into an arbitrary method of writing.

To combat that false taste and those ill-grounded criticisms is the
chief object of the following chapters. Their origin was accidental, and
in their growth they have rather followed the course of my reading than
been systematically developed from general principles. They are,
therefore, not so much a book as irregular _collectanea_ for one.

Yet I flatter myself that, even in this form, they will not be wholly
without value. We Germans suffer from no lack of systematic books. No
nation in the world surpasses us in the faculty of deducing from a
couple of definitions whatever conclusions we please, in most fair and
logical order.

Baumgarten acknowledged that he was indebted to Gesner’s dictionary for
a large proportion of the examples in his “Æsthetics.” If my reasoning
be less close than that of Baumgarten, my examples will, at least, savor
more of the fountain.

Since I made the Laocoon my point of departure, and return to it more
than once in the course of my essay, I wished him to have a share in the
title-page. Other slight digressions on various points in the history of
ancient art, contribute less to the general design of my work, and have
been retained only because I never can hope to find a better place for
them.

Further, I would state that, under the name of painting, I include the
plastic arts generally; as, under that of poetry, I may have allowed
myself sometimes to embrace those other arts, whose imitation is
progressive.




                                LAOCOON.




                                   I.


The chief and universal characteristic of the Greek masterpieces in
painting and sculpture consists, according to Winkelmann, in a noble
simplicity and quiet grandeur, both of attitude and expression. “As the
depths of the sea,” he says,[1] “remain always at rest, however the
surface may be agitated, so the expression in the figures of the Greeks
reveals in the midst of passion a great and steadfast soul.”

“Such a soul is depicted in the countenance of the Laocoon, under
sufferings the most intense. Nor is it depicted in the countenance only:
the agony betrayed in every nerve and muscle,—we almost fancy we could
detect it in the painful contraction of the abdomen alone, without
looking at the face and other parts of the body,—this agony, I say, is
yet expressed with no violence in the face and attitude. He raises no
terrible cry, as Virgil sings of his Laocoon. This would not be
possible, from the opening of the mouth, which denotes rather an anxious
and oppressed sigh, as described by Sadolet. Bodily anguish and moral
greatness are diffused in equal measure through the whole structure of
the figure; being, as it were, balanced against each other. Laocoon
suffers, but he suffers like the Philoctetes of Sophocles. His
sufferings pierce us to the soul, but we are tempted to envy the great
man his power of endurance.”

“To express so noble a soul far outruns the constructive art of natural
beauty. The artist must have felt within himself the mental greatness
which he has impressed upon his marble. Greece united in one person
artist and philosopher, and had more than one Metrodorus. Wisdom joined
hands with art and inspired its figures with more than ordinary souls.”

The remark which lies at the root of this criticism—that suffering is
not expressed in the countenance of Laocoon with the intensity which its
violence would lead us to expect—is perfectly just. That this very
point, where a shallow observer would judge the artist to have fallen
short of nature and not to have attained the true pathos of suffering,
furnishes the clearest proof of his wisdom, is also unquestionable. But
in the reason which Winkelmann assigns for this wisdom, and the
universality of the rule which he deduces from it, I venture to differ
from him.

His depreciatory allusion to Virgil was, I confess, the first thing that
aroused my doubts, and the second was his comparison of Laocoon with
Philoctetes. Using these as my starting-points, I shall proceed to write
down my thoughts in the order in which they have occurred to me.

“Laocoon suffers like the Philoctetes of Sophocles.” How does
Philoctetes suffer? Strange that his sufferings have left such different
impressions upon our minds. The complaints, the screams, the wild
imprecations with which his pain filled the camp, interrupting the
sacrifices and all offices of religion, resounded not less terribly
through the desert island to which they had been the cause of his
banishment. Nor did the poet hesitate to make the theatre ring with the
imitation of these tones of rage, pain, and despair.

The third act of this play has been regarded as much shorter than the
others. A proof, say the critics,[2] that the ancients attached little
importance to the equal length of the acts. I agree with their
conclusion, but should choose some other example in support of it. The
cries of pain, the moans, the broken exclamations, ἆ, ἆ! φεῦ! ἀτταταῖ! ὢ
μοὶ, μοί! the παπαῖ, παπαῖ! filling whole lines, of which this act is
made up, would naturally require to be prolonged in the delivery and
interrupted by more frequent pauses than a connected discourse. In the
representation, therefore, this third act must have occupied about as
much time as the others. It seems shorter on paper to the reader than it
did to the spectator in the theatre.

A cry is the natural expression of bodily pain. Homer’s wounded heroes
not infrequently fall with a cry to the ground. Venus screams aloud[3]
at a scratch, not as being the tender goddess of love, but because
suffering nature will have its rights. Even the iron Mars, on feeling
the lance of Diomedes, bellows as frightfully as if ten thousand raging
warriors were roaring at once, and fills both armies with terror.[4]

High as Homer exalts his heroes in other respects above human nature,
they yet remain true to it in their sensitiveness to pain and injuries
and in the expression of their feelings by cries or tears or revilings.
Judged by their deeds they are creatures of a higher order; in their
feelings they are genuine human beings.

We finer Europeans of a wiser posterity have, I know, more control over
our lips and eyes. Courtesy and decency forbid cries and tears. We have
exchanged the active bravery of the first rude ages for a passive
courage. Yet even our ancestors were greater in the latter than the
former. But our ancestors were barbarians. To stifle all signs of pain,
to meet the stroke of death with unaverted eye, to die laughing under
the adder’s sting, to weep neither over our own sins nor at the loss of
the dearest of friends, are traits of the old northern heroism.[5] The
law given by Palnatoko to the Jomsburghers was to fear nothing, nor even
to name the word fear.

Not so the Greek. He felt and feared. He expressed his pain and his
grief. He was ashamed of no human weakness, yet allowed none to hold him
back from the pursuit of honor or the performance of a duty. Principle
wrought in him what savageness and hardness developed in the barbarian.
Greek heroism was like the spark hidden in the pebble, which sleeps till
roused by some outward force, and takes from the stone neither clearness
nor coldness. The heroism of the barbarian was a bright, devouring
flame, ever raging, and blackening, if not consuming, every other good
quality.

When Homer makes the Trojans advance to battle with wild cries, while
the Greeks march in resolute silence, the commentators very justly
observe that the poet means by this distinction to characterize the one
as an army of barbarians, the other of civilized men. I am surprised
they have not perceived a similar characteristic difference in another
passage.[6]

The opposing armies have agreed upon an armistice, and are occupied, not
without hot tears on both sides (δάκρυα θερμὰ χέοντες), with the burning
of their dead. But Priam forbids his Trojans to weep (οὐδ’ εἴα κλαίειν
Πρίαμος μέγας), “and for this reason,” says Madame Dacier; “he feared
they might become too tender-hearted, and return with less spirit to the
morrow’s fight.” Good; but I would ask why Priam alone should apprehend
this. Why does not Agamemnon issue the same command to his Greeks? The
poet has a deeper meaning. He would show us that only the civilized
Greek can weep and yet be brave, while the uncivilized Trojan, to be
brave, must stifle all humanity. I am in no wise ashamed to weep
(Νεμεσσῶμαί γε μὲν οὐδὲν κλαίειν), he elsewhere[7] makes the prudent son
of wise Nestor say.

It is worthy of notice that, among the few tragedies which have come
down to us from antiquity, there should be two in which bodily pain
constitutes not the least part of the hero’s misfortunes. Besides
Philoctetes we have the dying Hercules, whom also Sophocles represents
as wailing, moaning, weeping, and screaming. Thanks to our well-mannered
neighbors, those masters of propriety, a whimpering Philoctetes or a
screaming Hercules would now be ridiculous and not tolerated upon the
stage. One of their latest poets,[8] indeed, has ventured upon a
Philoctetes, but he seems not to have dared to show him in his true
character.

Among the lost works of Sophocles was a Laocoon. If fate had but spared
it to us! From the slight references to the piece in some of the old
grammarians, we cannot determine how the poet treated his subject. Of
one thing I am convinced,—that he would not have made his Laocoon more
of a Stoic than Philoctetes and Hercules. Every thing stoical is
untheatrical. Our sympathy is always proportionate with the suffering
expressed by the object of our interest. If we behold him bearing his
misery with magnanimity, our admiration is excited; but admiration is a
cold sentiment, wherein barren wonder excludes not only every warmer
emotion, but all vivid personal conception of the suffering.

I come now to my conclusion. If it be true that a cry, as an expression
of bodily pain, is not inconsistent with nobility of soul, especially
according to the views of the ancient Greeks, then the desire to
represent such a soul cannot be the reason why the artist has refused to
imitate this cry in his marble. He must have had some other reason for
deviating in this respect from his rival, the poet, who expresses it
with deliberate intention.




                                  II.


Be it truth or fable that Love made the first attempt in the imitative
arts, thus much is certain: that she never tired of guiding the hand of
the great masters of antiquity. For although painting, as the art which
reproduces objects upon flat surfaces, is now practised in the broadest
sense of that definition, yet the wise Greek set much narrower bounds to
it. He confined it strictly to the imitation of beauty. The Greek artist
represented nothing that was not beautiful. Even the vulgarly beautiful,
the beauty of inferior types, he copied only incidentally for practice
or recreation. The perfection of the subject must charm in his work. He
was too great to require the beholders to be satisfied with the mere
barren pleasure arising from a successful likeness or from consideration
of the artist’s skill. Nothing in his art was dearer to him or seemed to
him more noble than the ends of art.

“Who would want to paint you when no one wants to look at you?” says an
old epigrammatist[9] to a misshapen man. Many a modern artist would say,
“No matter how misshapen you are, I will paint you. Though people may
not like to look at you, they will be glad to look at my picture; not as
a portrait of you, but as a proof of my skill in making so close a copy
of such a monster.”

The fondness for making a display with mere manual dexterity, ennobled
by no worth in the subject, is too natural not to have produced among
the Greeks a Pauson and a Pyreicus. They had such painters, but meted
out to them strict justice. Pauson, who confined himself to the beauties
of ordinary nature, and whose depraved taste liked best to represent the
imperfections and deformities of humanity,[10] lived in the most
abandoned poverty;[11] and Pyreicus, who painted barbers’ rooms, dirty
workshops, donkeys, and kitchen herbs, with all the diligence of a Dutch
painter, as if such things were rare or attractive in nature, acquired
the surname of Rhyparographer,[12] the dirt-painter. The rich
voluptuaries, indeed, paid for his works their weight in gold, as if by
this fictitious valuation to atone for their insignificance.

Even the magistrates considered this subject a matter worthy their
attention, and confined the artist by force within his proper sphere.
The law of the Thebans commanding him to make his copies more beautiful
than the originals, and never under pain of punishment less so, is well
known. This was no law against bunglers, as has been supposed by critics
generally, and even by Junius himself,[13] but was aimed against the
Greek Ghezzi, and condemned the unworthy artifice of obtaining a
likeness by exaggerating the deformities of the model. It was, in fact,
a law against caricature.

From this same conception of the beautiful came the law of the Olympic
judges. Every conqueror in the Olympic games received a statue, but a
portrait-statue was erected only to him who had been thrice victor.[14]
Too many indifferent portraits were not allowed among works of art. For
although a portrait admits of being idealized, yet the likeness should
predominate. It is the ideal of a particular person, not the ideal of
humanity.

We laugh when we read that the very arts among the ancients were subject
to the control of civil law; but we have no right to laugh. Laws should
unquestionably usurp no sway over science, for the object of science is
truth. Truth is a necessity of the soul, and to put any restraint upon
the gratification of this essential want is tyranny. The object of art,
on the contrary, is pleasure, and pleasure is not indispensable. What
kind and what degree of pleasure shall be permitted may justly depend on
the law-giver.

The plastic arts especially, besides the inevitable influence which they
exercise on the character of a nation, have power to work one effect
which demands the careful attention of the law. Beautiful statues
fashioned from beautiful men reacted upon their creators, and the state
was indebted for its beautiful men to beautiful statues. With us the
susceptible imagination of the mother seems to express itself only in
monsters.

From this point of view I think I detect a truth in certain old stories
which have been rejected as fables. The mothers of Aristomenes, of
Aristodamas, of Alexander the Great, Scipio, Augustus, and Galerius,
each dreamed during pregnancy that she was visited by a serpent. The
serpent was an emblem of divinity.[15] Without it Bacchus, Apollo,
Mercury, and Hercules were seldom represented in their beautiful
pictures and statues. These honorable women had been feasting their eyes
upon the god during the day, and the bewildering dream suggested to them
the image of the snake. Thus I vindicate the dream, and show up the
explanation given by the pride of their sons and by unblushing flattery.
For there must have been some reason for the adulterous fancy always
taking the form of a serpent.

But I am wandering from my purpose, which was simply to prove that among
the ancients beauty was the supreme law of the imitative arts. This
being established, it follows necessarily that whatever else these arts
may aim at must give way completely if incompatible with beauty, and, if
compatible, must at least be secondary to it.

I will confine myself wholly to expression. There are passions and
degrees of passion whose expression produces the most hideous
contortions of the face, and throws the whole body into such unnatural
positions as to destroy all the beautiful lines that mark it when in a
state of greater repose. These passions the old artists either refrained
altogether from representing, or softened into emotions which were
capable of being expressed with some degree of beauty.

Rage and despair disfigured none of their works. I venture to maintain
that they never represented a fury.[16] Wrath they tempered into
severity. In poetry we have the wrathful Jupiter, who hurls the
thunderbolt; in art he is simply the austere.

Anguish was softened into sadness. Where that was impossible, and where
the representation of intense grief would belittle as well as disfigure,
how did Timanthes manage? There is a well-known picture by him of the
sacrifice of Iphigenia, wherein he gives to the countenance of every
spectator a fitting degree of sadness, but veils the face of the father,
on which should have been depicted the most intense suffering. This has
been the subject of many petty criticisms. “The artist,” says one,[17]
“had so exhausted himself in representations of sadness that he
despaired of depicting the father’s face worthily.” “He hereby
confessed,” says another,[18] “that the bitterness of extreme grief
cannot be expressed by art.” I, for my part, see in this no proof of
incapacity in the artist or his art. In proportion to the intensity of
feeling, the expression of the features is intensified, and nothing is
easier than to express extremes. But Timanthes knew the limits which the
graces have imposed upon his art. He knew that the grief befitting
Agamemnon, as father, produces contortions which are essentially ugly.
He carried expression as far as was consistent with beauty and dignity.
Ugliness he would gladly have passed over, or have softened, but since
his subject admitted of neither, there was nothing left him but to veil
it. What he might not paint he left to be imagined. That concealment was
in short a sacrifice to beauty; an example to show, not how expression
can be carried beyond the limits of art, but how it should be subjected
to the first law of art, the law of beauty.

Apply this to the Laocoon and we have the cause we were seeking. The
master was striving to attain the greatest beauty under the given
conditions of bodily pain. Pain, in its disfiguring extreme, was not
compatible with beauty, and must therefore be softened. Screams must be
reduced to sighs, not because screams would betray weakness, but because
they would deform the countenance to a repulsive degree. Imagine
Laocoon’s mouth open, and judge. Let him scream, and see. It was,
before, a figure to inspire compassion in its beauty and suffering. Now
it is ugly, abhorrent, and we gladly avert our eyes from a painful
spectacle, destitute of the beauty which alone could turn our pain into
the sweet feeling of pity for the suffering object.

The simple opening of the mouth, apart from the violent and repulsive
contortions it causes in the other parts of the face, is a blot on a
painting and a cavity in a statue productive of the worst possible
effect. Montfaucon showed little taste when he pronounced the bearded
face of an old man with wide open mouth, to be a Jupiter delivering an
oracle.[19] Cannot a god foretell the future without screaming? Would a
more becoming posture of the lips cast suspicion upon his prophecies?
Valerius cannot make me believe that Ajax was painted screaming in the
above-mentioned picture of Timanthes.[20] Far inferior masters, after
the decline of art, do not in a single instance make the wildest
barbarian open his mouth to scream, even though in mortal terror of his
enemy’s sword.[21]

This softening of the extremity of bodily suffering into a lesser degree
of pain is apparent in the works of many of the old artists. Hercules,
writhing in his poisoned robe, from the hand of an unknown master, was
not the Hercules of Sophocles, who made the Locrian rocks and the Eubœan
promontory ring with his horrid cries. He was gloomy rather than
wild.[22] The Philoctetes of Pythagoras Leontinus seemed to communicate
his pain to the beholder, an effect which would have been destroyed by
the slightest disfigurement of the features. It may be asked how I know
that this master made a statue of Philoctetes. From a passage in Pliny,
which ought not to have waited for my emendation, so evident is the
alteration or mutilation it has under gone.[23]




                                  III.


But, as already observed, the realm of art has in modern times been
greatly enlarged. Its imitations are allowed to extend over all visible
nature, of which beauty constitutes but a small part. Truth and
expression are taken as its first law. As nature always sacrifices
beauty to higher ends, so should the artist subordinate it to his
general purpose, and not pursue it further than truth and expression
allow. Enough that truth and expression convert what is unsightly in
nature into a beauty of art.

Allowing this idea to pass unchallenged at present for whatever it is
worth, are there not other independent considerations which should set
bounds to expression, and prevent the artist from choosing for his
imitation the culminating point of any action?

The single moment of time to which art must confine itself, will lead
us, I think, to such considerations. Since the artist can use but a
single moment of ever-changing nature, and the painter must further
confine his study of this one moment to a single point of view, while
their works are made not simply to be looked at, but to be contemplated
long and often, evidently the most fruitful moment and the most fruitful
aspect of that moment must be chosen. Now that only is fruitful which
allows free play to the imagination. The more we see the more we must be
able to imagine; and the more we imagine, the more we must think we see.
But no moment in the whole course of an action is so disadvantageous in
this respect as that of its culmination. There is nothing beyond, and to
present the uttermost to the eye is to bind the wings of Fancy, and
compel her, since she cannot soar beyond the impression made on the
senses, to employ herself with feebler images, shunning as her limit the
visible fulness already expressed. When, for instance, Laocoon sighs,
imagination can hear him cry; but if he cry, imagination can neither
mount a step higher, nor fall a step lower, without seeing him in a more
endurable, and therefore less interesting, condition. We hear him merely
groaning, or we see him already dead.

Again, since this single moment receives from art an unchanging
duration, it should express nothing essentially transitory. All
phenomena, whose nature it is suddenly to break out and as suddenly to
disappear, which can remain as they are but for a moment; all such
phenomena, whether agreeable or otherwise, acquire through the
perpetuity conferred upon them by art such an unnatural appearance, that
the impression they produce becomes weaker with every fresh observation,
till the whole subject at last wearies or disgusts us. La Mettrie, who
had himself painted and engraved as a second Democritus, laughs only the
first time we look at him. Looked at again, the philosopher becomes a
buffoon, and his laugh a grimace. So it is with a cry. Pain, which is so
violent as to extort a scream, either soon abates or it must destroy the
sufferer. Again, if a man of firmness and endurance cry, he does not do
so unceasingly, and only this apparent continuity in art makes the cry
degenerate into womanish weakness or childish impatience. This, at
least, the sculptor of the Laocoon had to guard against, even had a cry
not been an offence against beauty, and were suffering without beauty a
legitimate subject of art.

Among the old painters Timomachus seems to have been the one most fond
of choosing extremes for his subject. His raving Ajax and infanticide
Medea were famous. But from the descriptions we have of them it is clear
that he had rare skill in selecting that point which leads the observer
to imagine the crisis without actually showing it, and in uniting with
this an appearance not so essentially transitory as to become offensive
through the continuity conferred by art. He did not paint Medea at the
moment of her actually murdering her children, but just before, when
motherly love is still struggling with jealousy. We anticipate the
result and tremble at the idea of soon seeing Medea in her unmitigated
ferocity, our imagination far outstripping any thing the painter could
have shown us of that terrible moment. For that reason her prolonged
indecision, so far from displeasing us, makes us wish it had been
continued in reality. We wish this conflict of passions had never been
decided or had lasted at least till time and reflection had weakened her
fury and secured the victory to the maternal sentiments. This wisdom on
the part of Timomachus won for him great and frequent praise, and raised
him far above another artist unknown, who was foolish enough to paint
Medea at the height of her madness, thus giving to this transient access
of passion a duration that outrages nature. The poet[24] censures him
for this, and says very justly, apostrophizing the picture, “Art thou
then for ever thirsting for the blood of thy children? Is there always a
new Jason and a new Creusa to inflame thy rage? To the devil with the
very picture of thee!” he adds angrily.

Of Timomachus’ treatment of the raving Ajax, we can judge by what
Philostratus tells us.[25] Ajax was not represented at the moment when,
raging among the herds, he captures and slays goats and oxen, mistaking
them for men. The master showed him sitting weary after these crazy
deeds of heroism, and meditating self-destruction. That was really the
raving Ajax, not because he is raving at the moment, but because we see
that he has been raving, and with what violence his present reaction of
shame and despair vividly portrays. We see the force of the tempest in
the wrecks and corpses with which it has strewn the beach.




                                  IV.


A review of the reasons here alleged for the moderation observed by the
sculptor of the Laocoon in the expression of bodily pain, shows them to
lie wholly in the peculiar object of his art and its necessary
limitations. Scarce one of them would be applicable to poetry.

Without inquiring here how far the poet can succeed in describing
physical beauty, so much at least is clear, that since the whole
infinite realm of perfection lies open for his imitation, this visible
covering under which perfection becomes beauty will be one of his least
significant means of interesting us in his characters. Indeed, he often
neglects it altogether, feeling sure that if his hero have gained our
favor, his nobler qualities will either so engross us that we shall not
think of his body, or have so won us that, if we think of it, we shall
naturally attribute to him a beautiful, or, at least, no unsightly one.
Least of all will he have reference to the eye in every detail not
especially addressed to the sense of sight. When Virgil’s Laocoon
screams, who stops to think that a scream necessitates an open mouth,
and that an open mouth is ugly? Enough that “clamores horrendos ad
sidera tollit” is fine to the ear, no matter what its effect on the eye.
Whoever requires a beautiful picture has missed the whole intention of
the poet.

Further, nothing obliges the poet to concentrate his picture into a
single moment. He can take up every action, if he will, from its origin,
and carry it through all possible changes to its issue. Every change,
which would require from the painter a separate picture, costs him but a
single touch; a touch, perhaps, which, taken by itself, might offend the
imagination, but which, anticipated, as it has been, by what preceded,
and softened and atoned for by what follows, loses its individual effect
in the admirable result of the whole. Thus were it really unbecoming in
a man to cry out in the extremity of bodily pain, how can this momentary
weakness lower in our estimation a character whose virtues have
previously won our regard? Virgil’s Laocoon cries; but this screaming
Laocoon is the same we know and love as the most far-seeing of patriots
and the tenderest of fathers. We do not attribute the cry to his
character, but solely to his intolerable sufferings. We hear in it only
those, nor could they have been made sensible to us in any other way.

Who blames the poet, then? Rather must we acknowledge that he was right
in introducing the cry, as the sculptor was in omitting it.

But Virgil’s is a narrative poem. Would the dramatic poet be included in
this justification? A very different impression is made by the mention
of a cry and the cry itself. The drama, being meant for a living picture
to the spectator, should therefore perhaps conform more strictly to the
laws of material painting. In the drama we not only fancy we see and
hear a crying Philoctetes, we actually do see and hear him. The more
nearly the actor approaches nature, the more sensibly must our eyes and
ears be offended, as in nature they undoubtedly are when we hear such
loud and violent expressions of pain. Besides, physical suffering in
general possesses in a less degree than other evils the power of
arousing sympathy. The imagination cannot take hold of it sufficiently
for the mere sight to arouse in us any corresponding emotion. Sophocles,
therefore, might easily have overstepped the bounds not only of
conventional propriety, but of a propriety grounded in the very nature
of our sensibilities, in letting Philoctetes and Hercules moan and weep,
scream and roar. The by-standers cannot possibly feel such concern for
their suffering as these excessive outbreaks seem to demand. To us
spectators the lookers-on will seem comparatively cold; and yet we
cannot but regard their sympathy as the measure of our own. Add to this
that the actor can rarely or never carry the representation of bodily
pain to the point of illusion, and perhaps the modern dramatic poets are
rather to be praised than blamed for either avoiding this danger
altogether or skirting it at a safe distance.

Much would in theory appear unanswerable if the achievements of genius
had not proved the contrary. These observations are not without good
foundation, yet in spite of them Philoctetes remains one of the
masterpieces of the stage. For a portion of our strictures do not apply
to Sophocles, and by a disregard of others he has attained to beauties
which the timid critic, but for this example, would never have dreamed
of. The following remarks will make this apparent:—

1. The poet has contrived wonderfully to intensify and ennoble the idea
of physical pain. He chose a wound,—for we may consider the details of
the story dependent upon his choice, in so far as he chose the subject
for their sake,—he chose, I say, a wound and not an inward distemper,
because the most painful sickness fails to impress us as vividly as an
outward hurt. The inward sympathetic fire which consumed Meleager when
his mother sacrificed him in the brand to her sisterly fury, would
therefore be less dramatic than a wound. This wound, moreover, was a
divine punishment. In it a fiercer than any natural poison raged
unceasingly, and at appointed intervals an access of intenser pain
occurred, always followed by a heavy sleep, wherein exhausted nature
acquired the needed strength for entering again upon the same course of
pain. Chateaubrun represents him as wounded simply by the poisoned arrow
of a Trojan. But so common an accident gives small scope for
extraordinary results. Every one was exposed to it in the old wars; why
were the consequences so terrible only in the case of Philoctetes? A
natural poison that should work for nine years without destroying life
is far more improbable than all the fabulous miraculous elements with
which the Greek decked out his tale.

2. But great and terrible as he made the physical sufferings of his
hero, he was well aware that these alone would not suffice to excite any
sensible degree of sympathy. He joined with them, therefore, other
evils, also insufficient of themselves to move us greatly, but receiving
from this connection a darker hue of tragedy, which in turn reacted upon
the bodily pain. These evils were complete loss of human companionship,
hunger, and all the discomforts attendant on exposure to an inclement
sky when thus bereft.[26] Imagine a man under these circumstances, but
in possession of health, strength, and industry, and we have a Robinson
Crusoe, who has little claim to our compassion, though we are by no
means indifferent to his fate. For we are seldom so thoroughly content
with human society as not to find a certain charm in thinking of the
repose to be enjoyed without its pale; more particularly as every one
flatters himself with the idea of being able gradually to dispense
altogether with the help of others. Again, imagine a man suffering from
the most painful of incurable maladies, but surrounded by kind friends
who let him want for nothing, who relieve his pain by all the means in
their power, and are always ready to listen to his groans and
complaints; we should pity him undoubtedly, but our compassion would
soon be exhausted. We should presently shrug our shoulders and counsel
patience. Only when all these ills unite in one person, when to solitude
is added physical infirmity, when the sick man not only cannot help
himself, but has no one to help him, and his groans die away on the
desert air,—then we see a wretch afflicted by all the ills to which
human nature is exposed, and the very thought of putting ourselves in
his place for a moment fills us with horror. We see before us despair in
its most dreadful shape, and no compassion is stronger or more melting
than that connected with the idea of despair. Such we feel for
Philoctetes, especially at the moment when, robbed of his bow, he loses
the only means left him of supporting his miserable existence. Alas for
the Frenchman who had not the sense to perceive this nor the heart to
feel it! or, if he had, was petty enough to sacrifice it all to the
pitiful taste of his nation! Chateaubrun gives Philoctetes companionship
by introducing a princess into his desert island. Neither is she alone,
but has with her a lady of honor: a thing apparently as much needed by
the poet as by the princess. All the admirable play with the bow he has
left out and introduced in its stead the play of bright eyes. The heroic
youth of France would in truth have made themselves very merry over a
bow and arrows, whereas nothing is more serious to them than the
displeasure of bright eyes. The Greek harrows us with fear lest the
wretched Philoctetes should be forced to remain on the island without
his bow, and there miserably perish. The Frenchman found a surer way to
our hearts by making us fear that the son of Achilles would have to
depart without his princess. And this is called by the Parisian critics
triumphing over the ancients. One of them even proposed to name
Chateaubrun’s piece “La difficulté vaincue.”[27]

3. Turning now from the effect of the whole, let us examine the separate
scenes wherein Philoctetes is no longer the forsaken sufferer, but has
hope of leaving the dreary island and returning to his kingdom. His ills
are therefore now confined entirely to his painful wound. He moans, he
cries, he goes through the most hideous contortions. Against this scene
objections on the score of offended propriety may with most reason be
brought. They come from an Englishman, a man, therefore, not readily to
be suspected of false delicacy. As already hinted, he supports his
objections by very good arguments. “All feelings and passions,” he says,
“with which others can have little sympathy, become offensive if too
violently expressed.”[28] “It is for the same reason that to cry out
with bodily pain, how intolerable soever, appears always unmanly and
unbecoming. There is, however, a good deal of sympathy even with bodily
pain. If I see a stroke aimed and just ready to fall upon the leg or arm
of another person, I naturally shriek and draw back my own leg or my own
arm; and when it does fall, I feel it in some measure and am hurt by it
as well as the sufferer. My hurt, however, is no doubt excessively
slight, and, upon that account, if he makes any violent outcry, as I
cannot go along with him, I never fail to despise him.”

Nothing is more deceptive than the laying down of general laws for our
emotions. Their web is so fine and intricate that the most cautious
speculation is hardly able to take up a single thread and trace it
through all its interlacings. And if it could, what should we gain?
There is in nature no single, unmixed emotion. With every one spring up
a thousand others, the most insignificant of which essentially modifies
the original one, so that exception after exception arises until our
supposed universal law shrinks into a mere personal experience in a few
individual cases. We despise a man, says the Englishman, whom we hear
crying out under bodily pain. But not always; not the first time; not
when we see that the sufferer does all in his power to suppress
expressions of pain; not when we know him to be otherwise a man of
resolution: still less when we see him giving proof of firmness in the
midst of his suffering; when we see that pain, though it extort a cry,
can extort nothing further; that he submits to a continuance of the
anguish rather than yield a jot of his opinions or resolves, although
such a concession would end his woes. All this we find in Philoctetes.
To the old Greek mind moral greatness consisted in unchanging love of
friends as well as unfaltering hatred of enemies. This greatness
Philoctetes preserves through all his tortures. His own griefs have not
so exhausted his tears that he has none to shed over the fate of his old
friends. His sufferings have not so enervated him that, to be free from
them, he would forgive his enemies and lend himself to their selfish
ends. And did this man of rock deserve to be despised by the Athenians,
because the waves, that could not shake him, wrung from him a moan?

I confess to having little taste for the philosophy of Cicero in
general, but particularly distasteful to me are his views with regard to
the endurance of bodily pain set forth in the second book of his
Tusculan Disputations. One would suppose, from his abhorrence of all
expressions of bodily pain, that he was training a gladiator. He seems
to see in such expressions only impatience, not considering that they
are often wholly involuntary, and that true courage can be shown in none
but voluntary actions. In the play of Sophocles he hears only the cries
and complaints of Philoctetes and overlooks altogether his otherwise
resolute bearing. Else what excuse for his rhetorical outbreak against
the poets? “They would make us effeminate by introducing the bravest of
their warriors as complaining.” They should complain, for the theatre is
no arena. The condemned or hired gladiator was bound to do and bear with
grace. No sound of lamentation must be heard, no painful contortion
seen. His wounds and death were to amuse the spectators, and art must
therefore teach the suppression of all feeling. The least manifestation
of it might have aroused compassion, and compassion often excited would
soon have put an end to the cruel shows. But what is to be avoided in
the arena is the very object of the tragic stage, and here, therefore,
demeanor of exactly the opposite kind is required. The heroes on the
stage must show feeling, must express their sufferings, and give free
course to nature. Any appearance of art and constraint represses
sympathy. Boxers in buskin can at most excite our admiration. This term
may fitly be applied to the so-called Senecan tragedies. I am convinced
that the gladiatorial shows were the chief reason why the Romans never
attained even to mediocrity in their tragedies. In the bloody
amphitheatre the spectators lost all acquaintance with nature. A Ctesias
might have studied his art there, never a Sophocles. The greatest tragic
genius, accustomed to these artificial death scenes, could not help
degenerating into bombast and rodomontade. But as these were incapable
of inspiring true heroism, so were the complaints of Philoctetes
incapable of producing effeminacy. The complaints are human, while the
deeds are heroic. Both together make the human hero, who is neither
effeminate nor callous, but appears first the one and then the other, as
now Nature sways him, and now principle and duty triumph. This is the
highest type that wisdom can create and art imitate.

4. Sophocles, not content with securing his suffering Philoctetes
against contempt, has even shielded him beforehand from such hostile
criticism as that employed by the Englishman. Though we may not always
despise a man who cries out under bodily pain, we certainly do not feel
that degree of sympathy with him which his cry seems to demand. How then
should those comport themselves who are about this screaming
Philoctetes? Should they appear to be greatly moved? That were contrary
to nature. Should they seem as cold and embarrassed as the by-stander on
such occasions is apt actually to be? Such a want of harmony would
offend the spectator. Sophocles, as I have said, anticipated this and
guarded against it in the following way,—he gave to each of the
by-standers a subject of personal interest. They are not solely occupied
with Philoctetes and his cries. The attention of the spectator,
therefore, is directed to the change wrought in each person’s own views
and designs by the sympathy excited in him, whether strong or weak, not
to the disproportion between the sympathy itself and its exciting cause.
Neoptolemus and the chorus have deceived the unhappy Philoctetes, and
while perceiving the despair they are bringing upon him they behold him
overpowered by one of his accesses of pain. Even should this arouse no
great degree of sympathy in them, it must at least lead them to
self-examination and prevent their increasing by treachery a misery
which they cannot but respect. This the spectator looks for; nor is his
expectation disappointed by the magnanimous Neoptolemus. Had Philoctetes
been master of his suffering, Neoptolemus would have persevered in his
deceit. Philoctetes, deprived by pain of all power of dissimulation,
necessary as that seems to prevent his future travelling companion from
repenting too soon of his promise to take him with him, Philoctetes, by
his naturalness, recalls Neoptolemus to nature. The conversion is
admirable, and all the more affecting for being brought about by unaided
human nature. The Frenchman had recourse again here to the bright eyes.
“De mes déguisements que penserait Sophie?” says the son of Achilles.
But I will think no more of this parody.

Sophocles, in “The Trachiniæ,” makes use of this same expedient of
combining in the by-standers another emotion with the compassion excited
by a cry of physical pain. The pain of Hercules has no enervating
effect, but drives him to madness. He thirsts for vengeance, and, in his
frenzy, has already seized upon Lichas and dashed him in pieces against
the rock. The chorus is composed of women who are naturally overpowered
with fear and horror. Their terror, and the doubt whether a god will
hasten to Hercules’ relief, or whether he will fall a victim to his
misfortune, make the chief interest of the piece with but a slight tinge
of compassion. As soon as the issue has been decided by the oracle,
Hercules grows calm, and all other feelings are lost in our admiration
of his final decision. But we must not forget, when comparing the
suffering Hercules with the suffering Philoctetes, that one is a
demi-god, the other but a man. The man is never ashamed to complain; but
the demi-god feels shame that his mortal part has so far triumphed over
his immortal, that he should weep and groan like a girl.[29] We moderns
do not believe in demi-gods, but require our most insignificant hero to
feel and act like one.

That an actor can imitate the cries and convulsions of pain so closely
as to produce illusion, I neither deny nor affirm. If our actors cannot,
I should want to know whether Garrick found it equally impossible; and,
if he could not succeed, I should still have the right to assume a
degree of perfection in the acting and declamation of the ancients of
which we of to-day can form no idea.




                                   V.


Some critics of antiquity argue that the Laocoon, though a work of Greek
art, must date from the time of the emperors, because it was copied from
the Laocoon of Virgil. Of the older scholars who have held this opinion
I will mention only Bartolomæus Martiani,[30] and of the moderns,
Montfaucon.[31] They doubtless found such remarkable agreement between
the work of art and the poem that they could not believe the same
circumstances, by no means selfsuggesting ones, should have occurred by
accident to both sculptor and poet. The question then arose to whom the
honor of invention belonged, and they assumed the probabilities to be
decidedly in favor of the poet.

They appear, however, to have forgotten that a third alternative is
possible. The artist may not have copied the poet any more than the poet
the artist; but both perhaps drew their material from some older source,
which, Macrobius suggests, might have been Pisander.[32] For, while the
works of this Greek writer were still in existence, the fact was
familiar to every schoolboy that the Roman poet’s whole second book, the
entire conquest and destruction of Troy, was not so much imitated as
literally translated from the older writer. If then Pisander was
Virgil’s predecessor in the history of Laocoon also, the Greek artists
did not need to draw their material from a Latin poet, and this theory
of the date of the group loses its support.

If I were forced to maintain the opinion of Martiani and Montfaucon, I
should escape from the difficulty in this way. Pisander’s poems are
lost, and we can never know with certainty how he told the story of
Laocoon. Probably, however, he narrated it with the same attendant
circumstances of which we still find traces in the Greek authors. Now
these do not in the least agree with the version of Virgil, who must
have recast the Greek tradition to suit himself. The fate of Laocoon, as
he tells it, is quite his own invention, so that the artists, if their
representation harmonize with his, may fairly be supposed to have lived
after his time, and have used his description as their model.

Quintus Calaber indeed, like Virgil, makes Laocoon express suspicion of
the wooden horse; but the wrath of Minerva, which he thereby incurs, is
very differently manifested. As the Trojan utters his warning, the earth
trembles beneath him, pain and terror fall upon him; a burning pain
rages in his eyes; his brain gives way; he raves; he becomes blind.
After his blindness, since he still continues to advise the burning of
the wooden horse, Minerva sends two terrible dragons, which, however,
attack only Laocoon’s children. In vain they stretch out their hands to
their father. The poor blind man cannot help them. They are torn and
mangled, and the serpents glide away into the ground, doing no injury to
Laocoon himself. That this was not peculiar to Quintus,[33] but must
have been generally accepted, appears from a passage in Lycophron, where
these serpents receive the name of “childeaters.”[34]

But if this circumstance were generally accepted among the Greeks, Greek
artists would hardly have ventured to depart from it. Or, if they made
variations, these would not be likely to be the same as those of a Roman
poet, had they not known him and perhaps been especially commissioned to
use him as their model. We must insist on this point, I think, if we
would uphold Martiani and Montfaucon. Virgil is the first and only
one[35] who represents both father and children as devoured by the
serpents; the sculptors have done this also, although, as Greeks, they
should not; probably, therefore, they did it in consequence of Virgil’s
example.

I am well aware that this probability falls far short of historical
certainty. But since I mean to draw no historical conclusions from it,
we may be allowed to use it as an hypothesis on which to base our
remarks. Let us suppose, then, that the sculptors used Virgil as their
model, and see in what way they would have copied him. The cry has been
already discussed. A further comparison may perhaps lead to not less
instructive results.

The idea of coiling the murderous serpents about both father and sons,
tying them thus into one knot, is certainly a very happy one, and
betrays great picturesqueness of fancy. Whose was it? the poet’s or the
artist’s? Montfaucon thinks it is not to be found in the poem;[36] but,
in my opinion, he has not read the passage with sufficient care.

                                Illi agmine certo
            Laocoonta petunt, et primum parva duorum
            Corpora natorum serpens amplexus uterque
            Implicat et miseros morsu depascitur artus.
            Post ipsum, auxilio subeuntem et tela ferentem,
            Corripiunt spirisque ligant ingentibus.[37]

The poet has described the serpents as being of a wonderful length. They
have wound their coils about the boys and seize the father also
(corripiunt) as he comes to their aid. Owing to their great length they
could not in an instant have disengaged themselves from the boys. There
must therefore have been a moment when the heads and forward parts of
the bodies had attacked the father while the boys were still held
imprisoned in the hindmost coils. Such a moment is unavoidable in the
progress of the poetic picture; and the poet makes it abundantly
manifest, though that was not the time to describe it in detail. A
passage in Donatus[38] seems to prove that the old commentators were
conscious of it; and there was still less likelihood of its escaping the
notice of artists whose trained eye was quick to perceive any thing that
could be turned to their advantage.

The poet carefully leaves Laocoon’s arms free that he may have the full
use of his hands.

             Ille simul manibus tendit divellere nodos.[39]

In this point the artist must necessarily have followed him; for nothing
contributes more to the expression of life and motion than the action of
the hands. In representations of passion, especially, the most speaking
countenance is ineffective without it. Arms fastened close to the body
by the serpents’ coils would have made the whole group cold and dead. We
consequently see them in full activity, both in the main figure and the
lesser ones, and most active where for the moment the pain is sharpest.

With the exception of this freedom of the arms, there was, however,
nothing in the poet’s manner of coiling the serpents which could be
turned to account by the artists. Virgil winds them twice round the body
and twice round the neck of Laocoon, and lets their heads tower high
above him.

          Bis medium amplexi, bis collo squamea circum
          Terga dati, superant capite et cervicibus altis.[40]

This description satisfies our imagination completely. The noblest parts
of the body are compressed to suffocation, and the poison is aimed
directly at the face. It furnished, however, no picture for the artist,
who would show the physical effects of the poison and the pain. To
render these conspicuous, the nobler parts of the body must be left as
free as possible, subjected to no outward pressure which would change
and weaken the play of the suffering nerves and laboring muscles. The
double coils would have concealed the whole trunk and rendered invisible
that most expressive contraction of the abdomen. What of the body would
be distinguishable above or below or between the coils would have been
swollen and compressed, not by inward pain but by outward violence. So
many rings about the neck would have destroyed the pyramidal shape of
the group which is now pleasing to the eye, while the pointed heads of
the serpents projecting far above this huge mass, would have been such a
violation of the rules of proportion that the effect of the whole would
have been made repulsive in the extreme. There have been designers so
devoid of perception as to follow the poet implicitly. One example of
the hideous result may be found among the illustrations by Francis
Cleyn.[41] The old sculptors saw at a glance that their art required a
totally different treatment. They transferred all the coils from the
trunk and neck to the thighs and feet, parts which might be concealed
and compressed without injury to the expression. By this means they also
conveyed the idea of arrested flight, and a certain immobility very
favorable to the arbitrary continuance of one posture.

I know not how it happens that the critics have passed over in silence
this marked difference between the coils in the marble and in the poem.
It reveals the wisdom of the artist quite as much as another difference
which they all comment upon, though rather by way of excuse than of
praise,—the difference in the dress. Virgil’s Laocoon is in his priestly
robes, while in the group he, as well as his two sons, appears
completely naked. Some persons, it is said, find a great incongruity in
the fact that a king’s son, a priest, should be represented naked when
offering a sacrifice. To this the critics answer in all seriousness that
it is, to be sure, a violation of usage but that the artists were driven
to it from inability to give their figures suitable clothing. Sculpture,
they say, cannot imitate stuffs. Thick folds produce a bad effect. Of
two evils they have therefore chosen the lesser, and preferred to offend
against truth rather than be necessarily faulty in drapery.[42] The old
artists might have laughed at the objection, but I know not what they
would have said to this manner of answering it. No greater insult could
be paid to art. Suppose sculpture could imitate different textures as
well as painting, would Laocoon necessarily have been draped? Should we
lose nothing by drapery? Has a garment, the work of slavish hands, as
much beauty as an organized body, the work of eternal wisdom? Does the
imitation of the one require the same skill, involve the same merit,
bring the same honor as the imitation of the other? Do our eyes require
but to be deceived, and is it a matter of indifference to them with what
they are deceived?

In poetry a robe is no robe. It conceals nothing. Our imagination sees
through it in every part. Whether Virgil’s Laocoon be clothed or not,
the agony in every fibre of his body is equally visible. The brow is
bound with the priestly fillet, but not concealed. Nay, so far from
being a hinderance, the fillet rather strengthens our impression of the
sufferer’s agony.

               Perfusus sanie vittas atroque veneno.[43]

His priestly dignity avails him nothing. The very badge of it, which
wins him universal consideration and respect, is saturated and
desecrated with the poisonous slaver.

But this subordinate idea the artist had to sacrifice to the general
effect. Had he retained even the fillet, his work would have lost in
expression from the partial concealment of the brow which is the seat of
expression. As in the case of the cry he sacrificed expression to
beauty, he here sacrificed conventionality to expression.
Conventionality, indeed, was held of small account among the ancients.
They felt that art, in the attainment of beauty, its true end, could
dispense with conventionalities altogether. Necessity invented clothes,
but what has art to do with necessity? There is a beauty of drapery, I
admit; but it is nothing as compared with the beauty of the human form.
Will he who can attain to the greater rest content with the lesser? I
fear that the most accomplished master in drapery, by his very
dexterity, proves his weakness.




                                  VI.


My supposition that the artists imitated the poet is no disparagement to
them. On the contrary the manner of their imitation reflects the
greatest credit on their wisdom. They followed the poet without
suffering him in the smallest particular to mislead them. A model was
set them, but the task of transferring it from one art into another gave
them abundant opportunity for independent thought. The originality
manifested in their deviations from the model proves them to have been
no less great in their art than the poet was in his.

Now, reversing the matter, I will suppose the poet to be working after
the model set him by the artists. This is a supposition maintained by
various scholars.[44] I know of no historical arguments in favor of
their opinion. The work appeared to them of such exceeding beauty that
they could not believe it to be of comparatively recent date. It must
have been made when art was at its perfection, because it was worthy of
that period.

We have seen that, admirable as Virgil’s picture is, there are yet
traits in it unavailable for the artist. The saying therefore requires
some modification, that a good poetical description must make a good
picture, and that a poet describes well only in so far as his details
may be used by the artist. Even without the proof furnished by examples,
we should be inclined to predicate such limitation from a consideration
of the wider sphere of poetry, the infinite range of our imagination,
and the intangibility of its images. These may stand side by side in the
greatest number and variety without concealment or detriment to any,
just as the objects themselves or their natural symbols would in the
narrow limits of time or space.

But if the smaller cannot contain the greater it can be contained in the
greater. In other words, if not every trait employed by the descriptive
poet can produce an equally good effect on canvas or in marble, can
every trait of the artist be equally effective in the work of the poet?
Undoubtedly; for what pleases us in a work of art pleases not the eye,
but the imagination through the eye. The same picture, whether presented
to the imagination by arbitrary or natural signs, must always give us a
similar pleasure, though not always in the same degree.

But even granting this, I confess that the idea of Virgil’s having
imitated the artists is more inconceivable to me than the contrary
hypothesis. If the artists copied the poet, I can account for all their
deviations. Differences would necessarily have arisen, because many
traits employed by him with good effect would in their work have been
objectionable. But why such deviations in the poet? Would he not have
given us an admirable picture by copying the group faithfully in every
particular?[45]

I can perfectly understand how his fancy, working independently, should
have suggested to him this and that feature, but I see no reason why his
judgment should have thought it necessary to transform the beauties that
were before his eyes into these differing ones.

It even seems to me that, had Virgil used this group as his model, he
could hardly have contented himself with leaving the general embrace of
the three bodies within the serpents’ folds to be thus guessed at. The
impression upon his eye would have been so vivid and admirable, that he
could not have failed to give the position greater prominence in his
description. As I have said, that was not the time to dwell upon its
details; but the addition of a single word might have put a decisive
emphasis upon it, even in the shadow in which the poet was constrained
to leave it. What the artist could present without that word, the poet
would not have failed to express by it, had the work of art been before
him.

The artist had imperative reasons for not allowing the sufferings of his
Laocoon to break out into cries. But if the poet had had before him in
the marble this touching union of pain with beauty, he would certainly
have been under no necessity of disregarding the idea of manly dignity
and magnanimous patience arising from it and making his Laocoon suddenly
startle us with that terrible cry. Richardson says that Virgil’s Laocoon
needed to scream, because the poet’s object was not so much to excite
compassion for him as to arouse fear and horror among the Trojans. This
I am ready to grant, although Richardson appears not to have considered
that the poet is not giving the description in his own person, but puts
it into the mouth of Æneas, who, in his narration to Dido, spared no
pains to arouse her compassion. The cry, however, is not what surprises
me, but the absence of all intermediate stages of emotion, which the
marble could not have failed to suggest to the poet if, as we are
supposing, he had used that as his model. Richardson goes on to say,
that the story of Laocoon was meant only as an introduction to the
pathetic description of the final destruction of Troy, and that the poet
was therefore anxious not to divert to the misfortunes of a private
citizen the attention which should be concentrated on the last dreadful
night of a great city.[46] But this is a painter’s point of view, and
here inadmissible. In the poem, the fate of Laocoon and the destruction
of the city do not stand side by side as in a picture. They form no
single whole to be embraced at one glance, in which case alone there
would have been danger of having the eye more attracted by the Laocoon
than by the burning city. The two descriptions succeed each other, and I
fail to see how the deepest emotion produced by the first could
prejudice the one that follows. Any want of effect in the second must be
owing to its inherent want of pathos.

Still less reason would the poet have had for altering the serpents’
coils. In the marble they occupy the hands and encumber the feet, an
arrangement not less impressive to the imagination than satisfactory to
the eye. The picture is so distinct and clear that words can scarcely
make it plainer than natural signs.

                                   Micat alter et ipsum
             Laocoonta petit, totumque infraque supraque
             Implicat et rabido tandem ferit ilia morsu.

                    ·       ·       ·       ·       ·

             At serpens lapsu crebro redeunte subintrat
             Lubricus, intortoque ligat genua infima nodo.

These lines are by Sadolet. They would doubtless have come with greater
picturesqueness from Virgil, had his fancy been fired by the visible
model. Under those circumstances he would certainly have written better
lines than those we now have of him.

            Bis medium amplexi, bis collo squamea circum
            Terga dati, superant capite et cervicibus altis.

These details satisfy the imagination, it is true; but not if we dwell
upon them and try to bring them distinctly before us. We must look now
at the serpents, and now at Laocoon. The moment we try to combine them
into one picture, the grouping begins to displease, and appear in the
highest degree unpicturesque.

But these deviations from his supposed model, even if not unfortunate,
were entirely arbitrary. Imitation is intended to produce likeness, but
how can likeness result from needless changes? Such changes rather show
that the intention was not to produce likeness, consequently that there
has been no imitation.

Perhaps not of the whole, some may urge, but of certain parts. Good; but
what are the parts so exactly corresponding in the marble and in the
poem, that the poet might seem to have borrowed them from the sculptor?
The father, the children, and the serpents, both poet and sculptor
received from history. Except what is traditional in both, they agree in
nothing but the single circumstance that father and sons are bound by
the serpents’ coils into a single knot. But this arose from the new
version, according to which father and sons were involved in a common
destruction,—a version, as already shown, to be attributed rather to
Virgil, since the Greek traditions tell the story differently. If, then,
there should have been any imitation here, it is more likely to have
been on the side of the artist than of the poet. In all other respects
their representations differ, but in such a way that the deviations, if
made by the artist, are perfectly consistent with an intention to copy
the poet, being such as the sphere and limitations of his art would
impose on him. They are, on the contrary, so many arguments against the
supposed imitation of the sculptor by the poet. Those who, in the face
of these objections, still maintain this supposition, can only mean that
the group is older than the poem.




                                  VII.


When we speak of an artist as imitating a poet or a poet an artist, we
may mean one of two things,—either that one makes the work of the other
his actual model, or that the same original is before them both, and one
borrows from the other the manner of copying it.

When Virgil describes the shield of Æneas, his imitation of the artist
who made the shield is of the former kind. The work of art, not what it
represents, is his model. Even if he describe the devices upon it they
are described as part of the shield, not as independently existing
objects. Had Virgil, on the other hand, copied the group of the Laocoon,
this would have been an imitation of the second kind. He would then have
been copying, not the actual group, but what the group represents, and
would have borrowed from the marble only the details of his copy.

In imitations of the first kind the poet is an originator, in those of
the second a copyist. The first is part of the universal imitation which
constitutes the very essence of his art, and his work is that of a
genius, whether his model be nature or the product of other arts. The
second degrades him utterly. Instead of the thing itself, he imitates
its imitations, and gives us a lifeless reflection of another’s genius
for original touches of his own.

In the by no means rare cases where poet and artist must study their
common original from the same point of view, their copies cannot but
coincide in many respects, although there may have been no manner of
imitation or emulation between them. These coincidences among
contemporaneous artists and poets may lead to mutual illustrations of
things no longer present to us. But to try to help out these
illustrations by tracing design where was only chance, and especially by
attributing to the poet at every detail a reference to this statue or
that picture, is doing him very doubtful service. Nor is the reader a
gainer by a process which renders the beautiful passages perfectly
intelligible, no doubt, but at the sacrifice of all their life.

This is the design and the mistake of a famous English work by the Rev.
Mr. Spence, entitled, “Polymetis; or, An inquiry concerning the
agreement between the works of the Roman poets and the remains of the
ancient artists, being an attempt to illustrate them mutually from one
another.”[47] Spence has brought to his work great classical learning
and a thorough knowledge of the surviving works of ancient art. His
design of using these as means to explain the Roman poets, and making
the poets in turn throw light on works of art hitherto imperfectly
understood, has been in many instances happily accomplished. But I
nevertheless maintain that to every reader of taste his book must be
intolerable.

When Valerius Flaccus describes the winged thunderbolts on the shields
of the Roman soldiers,—

              Nec primus radios, miles Romane, corusci
              Fulminis et rutilas scutis diffuderis alas,

the description is naturally made more intelligible to me by seeing the
representation of such a shield on an ancient monument.[48] It is
possible that the old armorers represented Mars upon helmets and shields
in the same hovering attitude that Addison thought he saw him in with
Rhea on an ancient coin,[49] and that Juvenal had such a helmet or
shield in mind in that allusion of his which, till Addison, had been a
puzzle to all commentators.

The passage in Ovid where the wearied Cephalus invokes Aura, the cooling
zephyr,—

          “Aura ... venias ...
          Meque juves, intresque sinus, gratissima, nostros,”

and his Procris takes this Aura for the name of a rival,—this passage, I
confess, seems to me more natural when I see that the ancients in their
works of art personified the gentle breezes, and, under the name Auræ,
worshipped certain female sylphs.[50]

I acknowledge that when Juvenal compares an idle patrician to a
Hermes-column, we should hardly perceive the point of the comparison
unless we had seen such a column and knew it to be a poorly cut pillar,
bearing the head, or at most the trunk, of the god, and, owing to the
want of hands and feet, suggesting the idea of inactivity.[51]

Illustrations of this kind are not to be despised, though neither always
necessary nor always conclusive. Either the poet regarded the work of
art not as a copy but as an independent original, or both artist and
poet were embodying certain accepted ideas. Their representations would
necessarily have many points of resemblance, which serve as so many
proofs of the universality of the ideas.

But when Tibullus describes Apollo as he appeared to him in a dream,—the
fairest of youths, his temples wreathed with the chaste laurel, Syrian
odors breathing from his golden hair that falls in ripples over his long
neck, his whole body as pink and white as the cheek of the bride when
led to her bridegroom,—why need these traits have been borrowed from
famous old pictures? Echion’s “nova nupta verecundia notabilis” may have
been in Rome and been copied thousands of times: did that prove virgin
modesty itself to have vanished from the world? Since the painter saw
it, was no poet to see it more save in the painter’s imitation?[52] Or
when another poet speaks of Vulcan as wearied and his face reddened by
the forge, did he need a picture to teach him that labor wearies and
heat reddens?[53] Or when Lucretius describes the alternations of the
seasons and brings them before us in the order of nature, with their
whole train of effects on earth and air, was Lucretius the creature of a
day? had he lived through no entire year and seen its changes, that he
must needs have taken his description from a procession of statues
representing the seasons? Did he need to learn from statues the old
poetic device of making actual beings out of such abstractions?[54] Or
Virgil’s “pontem indignatus Araxes,” that admirable poetic picture of a
river overflowing its banks and tearing down the bridge that spans
it,—do we not destroy all its beauty by making it simply a reference to
some work of art, wherein the river god was represented as actually
demolishing a bridge?[55] What do we want of such illustrations which
banish the poet from his own clearest lines to give us in his place the
reflection of some artist’s fancy?

I regret that this tasteless conceit of substituting for the creations
of the poet’s own imagination a familiarity with those of others should
have rendered a book, so useful as the Polymetis might have been made,
as offensive as the feeblest commentaries of the shallowest quibblers,
and far more derogatory to the classic authors. Still more do I regret
that Addison should in this respect have been the predecessor of Spence,
and, in his praiseworthy desire to make the old works of art serve as
interpreters, have failed to discriminate between those cases where
imitation of the artist would be becoming in the poet, and those where
it would be degrading to him.[56]




                                 VIII.


Spence has the strangest notions of the resemblance between painting and
poetry. He believes the two arts to have been so closely connected among
the ancients that they always went hand in hand, the poet never losing
sight of the painter, nor the painter of the poet. That poetry has the
wider sphere, that beauties are within her reach which painting can
never attain, that she may often see reason to prefer unpicturesque
beauties to picturesque ones,—these things seem never to have occurred
to him. The slightest difference, therefore, between the old poets and
artists throws him into an embarrassment from which it taxes all his
ingenuity to escape.

The poets generally gave Bacchus horns. Spence is therefore surprised
that we seldom see these appendages on his statues.[57] He suggests one
reason and another; now the ignorance of the antiquarians, and again
“the smallness of the horns themselves, which were very likely to be hid
under the crown of grapes or ivy which is almost a constant ornament of
the head of Bacchus.” He goes all round the true cause without ever
suspecting it. The horns of Bacchus were not a natural growth like those
of fauns and satyrs. They were ornaments which he could assume or lay
aside at pleasure.

                    Tibi, cum sine cornibus adstas,
                    Virgineum caput est, ...

says Ovid in his solemn invocation to Bacchus.[58] He could therefore
show himself without horns, and did, in fact, thus show himself when he
wished to appear in his virgin beauty. In this form artists would choose
to represent him, and necessarily omitted all disagreeable
accompaniments. Horns fastened to the diadem, as we see them on a head
in the royal museum in Berlin,[59] would have been a cumbersome
appendage, as would also the diadem itself, concealing the beautiful
brow. For this reason the diadem appears as rarely as the horns on the
statues of Bacchus, although, as its inventor, he is often crowned with
it by the poets. In poetry both horns and diadem served as subtle
allusions to the deeds and character of the god: in a picture or statue
they would have stood in the way of greater beauties. If Bacchus, as I
believe, received the name of Biformis, Δίμορφος, from having an aspect
of beauty as well as of terror, the artists would naturally have chosen
the shape best adapted to the object of their art.

In the Roman poets Minerva and Juno often hurl the thunderbolt. Why are
they not so represented in art? asks Spence.[60] He answers, “This power
was the privilege of these two goddesses, the reason of which was,
perhaps, first learnt in the Samothracian mysteries. But since, among
the ancient Romans, artists were considered as of inferior rank, and
therefore rarely initiated into them, they would doubtless know nothing
of them; and what they knew not of they clearly could not represent.” I
should like to ask Spence whether these common people were working
independently, or under the orders of superiors who might be initiated
into the mysteries; whether the artists occupied such a degraded
position among the Greeks; whether the Roman artists were not for the
most part Greeks by birth; and so on.

Statius and Valerius Flaccus describe an angry Venus with such terrible
features that we should take her at the moment for a fury rather than
for the goddess of love. Spence searches in vain for such a Venus among
the works of ancient art. What is his conclusion? That more is allowed
to the poet than to the sculptor and painter? That should have been his
inference. But he has once for all established as a general rule that
“scarce any thing can be good in a poetical description which would
appear absurd if represented in a statue or picture.”[61] Consequently
the poets must be wrong. “Statius and Valerius Flaccus belong to an age
when Roman poetry was already in its decline. In this very passage they
display their bad judgment and corrupted taste. Among the poets of a
better age such a repudiation of the laws of artistic expression will
never be found.”[62]

Such criticism shows small power of discrimination. I do not propose to
undertake the defence of either Statius or Valerius, but will simply
make a general remark. The gods and other spiritual beings represented
by the artist are not precisely the same as those introduced by the
poet. To the artist they are personified abstractions which must always
be characterized in the same way, or we fail to recognize them. In
poetry, on the contrary, they are real beings, acting and working, and
possessing, besides their general character, qualities and passions
which may upon occasion take precedence. Venus is to the sculptor simply
love. He must therefore endow her with all the modest beauty, all the
tender charms, which, as delighting us in the beloved object, go to make
up our abstract idea of love. The least departure from this ideal
prevents our recognizing her image. Beauty distinguished more by majesty
than modesty is no longer Venus but Juno. Charms commanding and manly
rather than tender, give us, instead of a Venus, a Minerva. A Venus all
wrath, a Venus urged by revenge and rage, is to the sculptor a
contradiction in terms. For love, as love, never is angry, never avenges
itself. To the poet, Venus is love also, but she is the goddess of love,
who has her own individuality outside of this one characteristic, and
can therefore be actuated by aversion as well as affection. What wonder,
then, that in poetry she blazes into anger and rage, especially under
the provocation of insulted love?

The artist, indeed, like the poet, may, in works composed of several
figures, introduce Venus or any other deity, not simply by her one
characteristic, but as a living, acting being. But the actions, if not
the direct results of her character, must not be at variance with it.
Venus delivering to her son the armor of the gods is a subject equally
suitable to artist and poet. For here she can be endowed with all the
grace and beauty befitting the goddess of love. Such treatment will be
of advantage as helping us the more easily to recognize her. But when
Venus, intent on revenging herself on her contemners, the men of Lemnos,
wild, in colossal shape, with cheeks inflamed and dishevelled hair,
seizes the torch, and, wrapping a black robe about her, flies downward
on the storm-cloud,—that is no moment for the painter, because he has no
means of making us recognize her. The poet alone has the privilege of
availing himself of it. He can unite it so closely with some other
moment when the goddess is the true Venus, that we do not in the fury
forget the goddess of love. Flaccus does this,—

                      Neque enim alma videri
          Jam tumet; aut tereti crinem subnectitur auro,
          Sidereos diffusa sinus. Eadem effera et ingens
          Et maculis suffecta genas; pinumque sonantem
          Virginibus Stygiis, nigramque simillima pallam.[63]

And Statius also,—

            Illa Paphon veterem centumque altaria linquens,
            Nec vultu nec crine prior, solvisse jugalem
            Ceston, et Idalias procul ablegasse volucres
            Fertur. Erant certe, media qui noctis in umbra
            Divam, alios ignes majoraque tela gerentem,
            Tartarias inter thalamis volitasse sorores
            Vulgarent: utque implicitis arcana domorum
            Anguibus, et sæva formidine cuncta replerit
            Limina.[64]

Or, we may say, the poet alone possesses the art of so combining
negative with positive traits as to unite two appearances in one. No
longer now the tender Venus, her hair no more confined with golden
clasps, no azure draperies floating about her, without her girdle, armed
with other flames and larger arrows, the goddess hastes downward,
attended by furies of like aspect with herself. Must the poet abstain
from the use of this device because artists are debarred from it? If
painting claim to be the sister of poetry, let the younger at least not
be jealous of the elder, nor seek to deprive her of ornaments unbecoming
to herself.




                                  IX.


When we compare poet and painter in particular instances, we should be
careful to inquire whether both have had entire freedom, and been
allowed to labor for the highest results of their art without the
exercise of any constraint from without.

Religion often exercised such constraint upon the old artists. A work,
devotional in character, must often be less perfect than one intended
solely to produce pleasure. Superstition loaded the gods with symbols
which were not always reverenced in proportion to their beauty.

In the temple of Bacchus at Lemnos, from which the pious Hypsipyle
rescued her father under the guise of the deity,[65] the god was
represented horned. So he doubtless appeared in all his temples, the
horns being symbols typical of his nature and functions. The unfettered
artist, whose Bacchus was not designed for a temple, omitted the symbol.
If, among the statues of the god that remain to us, we find none with
horns,[66] that circumstance perhaps proves that none of them were
sacred statues, representing the god in the shape under which he was
worshipped. We should naturally expect, too, that against such the fury
of the pious iconoclasts in the first centuries of Christianity would
have been especially directed. Only here and there a work of art was
spared, because it had never been desecrated by being made an object of
worship.

But since, among the antiques that have been unburied, there are
specimens of both kinds, we should discriminate and call only those
works of art which are the handiwork of the artist, purely as artist,
those where he has been able to make beauty his first and last object.
All the rest, all that show an evident religious tendency, are unworthy
to be called works of art. In them Art was not working for her own sake,
but was simply the tool of Religion, having symbolic representations
forced upon her with more regard to their significance than their
beauty. By this I do not mean to deny that religion often sacrificed
meaning to beauty, or so far ceased to emphasize it, out of regard for
art and the finer taste of the age, that beauty seemed to have been the
sole end in view.

If we make no such distinction, there will be perpetual strife between
connoisseurs and antiquarians from their failure to understand each
other. When the connoisseur maintains, according to his conception of
the end and aim of art, that certain things never could have been made
by one of the old artists, meaning never by one working as artist from
his own impulse, the antiquarian will understand him to say that they
could never have been fashioned by the artist, as workman, under the
influence of religion or any other power outside the domain of art. He
will therefore think to confute his antagonist by showing some figure
which the connoisseur, without hesitation, but to the great vexation of
the learned world, will condemn back to the rubbish from which it had
been dug.[67]

But there is danger, on the other hand, of exaggerating the influence of
religion on art. Spence furnishes a remarkable instance of this. He
found in Ovid that Vesta was not worshipped in her temple under any
human image, and he thence drew the conclusion that there had never been
any statues of the goddess. What had passed for such must be statues,
not of Vesta, but of a vestal virgin.[68] An extraordinary conclusion!
Because the goddess was worshipped in one of her temples under the
symbol of fire, did artists therefore lose all right to personify after
their fashion a being to whom the poets give distinct personality,
making her the daughter of Saturn and Ops, bringing her into danger of
falling under the ill treatment of Priapus, and narrating yet other
things in regard to her? For Spence commits the further error of
applying to all the temples of Vesta and to her worship generally what
Ovid says only of a certain temple at Rome.[69] She was not everywhere
worshipped as in this temple at Rome. Until Numa erected this particular
sanctuary, she was not so worshipped even in Italy. Numa allowed no
deity to be represented in the shape of man or beast. In this
prohibition of all personal representations of Vesta consisted,
doubtless, the reformation which he introduced into her rites. Ovid
himself tells us that, before the time of Numa, there were statues of
Vesta in her temple, which, when her priestess Sylvia became a mother,
covered their eyes with their virgin hands.[70] Yet further proof that
in the temples of the goddess outside the city, in the Roman provinces,
her worship was not conducted in the manner prescribed by Numa, is
furnished by various old inscriptions, where mention is made of a priest
of Vesta (Pontificis Vestæ).[71] At Corinth, again, was a temple of
Vesta without statues, having only an altar whereon sacrifices were
offered to the goddess.[72] But did the Greeks, therefore, have no
statues of Vesta? There was one at Athens in the Prytaneum, next to the
statue of Peace.[73] The people of Iasos boasted of having one in the
open air, upon which snow and rain never fell.[74] Pliny mentions one in
a sitting posture, from the chisel of Scopas, in the Servilian gardens
at Rome, in his day.[75] Granting that it is difficult for us now to
distinguish between a vestal virgin and the goddess herself, does that
prove that the ancients were not able or did not care to make the
distinction? Certain attributes point evidently more to one than the
other. The sceptre, the torch, and the palladium would seem to belong
exclusively to the goddess. The tympanum, attributed to her by Codinus,
belongs to her, perhaps, only as the Earth. Or perhaps Codinus himself
did not know exactly what it was he saw.[76]




                                   X.


Spence’s surprise is again aroused in a way that shows how little he has
reflected on the limits of poetry and painting.

“As to the muses in general,” he says, “it is remarkable that the poets
say but little of them in a descriptive way; much less than might indeed
be expected for deities to whom they were so particularly obliged.”[77]

What is this but expressing surprise that the poets, when they speak of
the muses, do not use the dumb language of the painter? In poetry,
Urania is the muse of astronomy. Her name and her employment reveal her
office. In art she can be recognized only by the wand with which she
points to a globe of the heavens. The wand, the globe, and the attitude
are the letters with which the artist spells out for us the name Urania.
But when the poet wants to say that Urania had long read her death in
the stars,—

               Ipsa diu positis lethum prædixerat astris
               Urania.[78]

Why should he add, out of regard to the artist,—Urania, wand in hand,
with the heavenly globe before her? Would that not be as if a man, with
the power and privilege of speech, were to employ the signs which the
mutes in a Turkish seraglio had invented to supply the want of a voice?

Spence expresses the same surprise in regard to the moral beings, or
those divinities who, among the ancients, presided over the virtues and
undertook the guidance of human life.[79] “It is observable,” he says,
“that the Roman poets say less of the best of these moral beings than
might be expected. The artists are much fuller on this head; and one who
would know how they were each set off must go to the medals of the Roman
emperors. The poets, in fact, speak of them very often as persons; but
of their attributes, their dress, and the rest of their figure they
generally say but little.”

When a poet personifies abstractions he sufficiently indicates their
character by their name and employment.

These means are wanting to the artist, who must therefore give to his
personified abstractions certain symbols by which they may be
recognized. These symbols, because they are something else and mean
something else, constitute them allegorical figures.

A female figure holding a bridle in her hand, another leaning against a
column, are allegorical beings. But in poetry Temperance and Constancy
are not allegorical beings, but personified abstractions.

Necessity invented these symbols for the artist, who could not otherwise
indicate the significance of this or that figure. But why should the
poet, for whom no such necessity exists, be obliged to accept the
conditions imposed upon the artist?

What excites Spence’s surprise should, in fact, be prescribed as a law
to all poets. They should not regard the limitations of painting as
beauties in their own art, nor consider the expedients which painting
has invented in order to keep pace with poetry, as graces which they
have any reason to envy her. By the use of symbols the artist exalts a
mere figure into a being of a higher order. Should the poet employ the
same artistic machinery he would convert a superior being into a doll.

Conformity to this rule was as persistently observed by the ancients as
its studious violation is by the viciousness of modern poets. All their
imaginary beings go masked, and the writers who have most skill in this
masquerade generally understand least the real object of their work,
which is to let their personages act, and by their actions reveal their
character.

Among the attributes by which the artist individualizes his
abstractions, there is one class, however, better adapted to the poet
than those we have been considering, and more worthy of his use. I refer
to such as are not strictly allegorical, but may be regarded as
instruments which the beings bearing them would or could use, should
they ever come to act as real persons. The bridle in the hand of
Temperance, the pillar which supports Constancy are purely allegorical,
and cannot therefore be used by the poet. The scales in the hand of
Justice are less so, because the right use of the scales is one of the
duties of Justice. The lyre or flute in the hand of a muse, the lance in
the hand of Mars, hammer and tongs in the hands of Vulcan, are not
symbols at all, but simply instruments without which none of the actions
characteristic of these beings could be performed. To this class belong
the attributes sometimes woven by the old poets into their descriptions,
and which, in distinction from those that are allegorical, I would call
the poetical. These signify the thing itself, while the others denote
only some thing similar.[80]




                                  XI.


Count Caylus also seems to require that the poet should deck out the
creatures of his imagination with allegorical attributes.[81] The Count
understood painting better than poetry.

But other points more worthy of remark have struck me in the same work
of his, some of the most important of which I shall mention here for
closer consideration.

The artist, in the Count’s opinion, should make himself better
acquainted with Homer, that greatest of all word painters,—that second
nature, in fact. He calls attention to the rich and fresh material
furnished by the narrative of the great Greek, and assures the painter
that the more closely he follows the poet in every detail, the nearer
his work will approach to perfection.

This is confounding the two kinds of imitation mentioned above. The
painter is not only to copy the same thing that the poet has copied, but
he is to copy it with the same touches. He is to use the poet not only
as narrator, but as poet.

But why is not this second kind of imitation, which we have found to be
degrading to the poet, equally so to the artist? If there had existed
previous to Homer such a series of pictures as he suggests to Count
Caylus, and we knew that the poet had composed his work from them, would
he not lose greatly in our estimation? Why should we not in like manner
cease to admire the artist who should do no more than translate the
words of the poet into form and color?

The reason I suppose to be this. In art the difficulty appears to lie
more in the execution than in the invention, while with poetry the
contrary is the case. There the execution seems easy in comparison with
the invention. Had Virgil copied the twining of the serpents about
Laocoon and his sons from the marble, then his description would lose
its chief merit; for what we consider the more difficult part had been
done for him. The first conception of this grouping in the imagination
is a far greater achievement than the expression of it in words. But if
the sculptor have borrowed the grouping from the poet, we still consider
him deserving of great praise, although he have not the merit of the
first conception. For to give expression in marble is incalculably more
difficult than to give it in words. We weigh invention and execution in
opposite scales, and are inclined to require from the master as much
less of one as he has given us more of the other.

There are even cases where the artist deserves more credit for copying
Nature through the medium of the poet’s imitation than directly from
herself. The painter who makes a beautiful landscape from the
description of a Thomson, does more than one who takes his picture at
first hand from nature. The latter sees his model before him; the former
must, by an effort of imagination, think he sees it. One makes a
beautiful picture from vivid, sensible impressions, the other from the
feeble, uncertain representations of arbitrary signs.

From this natural readiness to excuse the artist from the merit of
invention, has arisen on his part an equally natural indifference to it.
Perceiving that invention could never be his strong point, but that his
fame must rest chiefly on execution, he ceased to care whether his theme
were new or old, whether it had been used once or a hundred times,
belonged to himself or another. He kept within the narrow range of a few
subjects, grown familiar to himself and the public, and directed all his
invention to the introducing of some change in the treatment, some new
combination of the old objects. That is actually the meaning attached to
the word “invention” in the old text-books on painting. For although
they divide it into the artistic and the poetic, yet even the poetic
does not extend to the originating of a subject, but solely to the
arrangement or expression.[82] It is invention, not of the whole, but of
the individual parts and their connection with one another; invention of
that inferior kind which Horace recommended to his tragic poet:

                                Tuque
            Rectius Iliacum carmen deducis in actus,
            Quam si proferres ignota indictaque primus.[83]

Recommended, I say, but not commanded. He recommended it as easier for
him, more convenient, more advantageous: he did not command it as
intrinsically nobler and better.

The poet, indeed, has a great advantage when he treats of familiar
historical facts and well-known characters. He can omit a hundred
tiresome details otherwise indispensable to an understanding of the
piece. And the sooner he is understood, the sooner he can interest his
readers. The same advantage is possessed by the painter when his subject
is so familiar to us that we take in at a glance the meaning and design
of his whole composition, and can not only see that his characters are
speaking, but can even hear what they say. On that first glance the
chief effect depends. If that necessitate a tiresome guessing and
pondering, our readiness to be touched is chilled. We take revenge upon
the unwise artist by hardening ourselves against his expression; and
alas for him, if to that expression he have sacrificed beauty! No
inducement remains for us to linger before his work. What we see does
not please us, and what it means we do not understand.

Considering now these two points: first, that invention and novelty in
the subject are by no means what we chiefly require from the painter;
and secondly, that a familiar subject helps and quickens the effect of
his art, I think we shall find a deeper reason for his avoidance of new
subjects than indolence or ignorance or absorption of his whole industry
and time in the mechanical difficulties of his art, which are the causes
assigned for it by Count Caylus. We may even be inclined to praise as a
wise and, as far as we are concerned, a beneficent forbearance on the
part of the artist, what seemed to us at first a deficiency in art and a
curtailment of our enjoyment.

I have no fear that experience will contradict me. Painters will be
grateful to the Count for his good intentions, but will hardly make as
general use of his advice as he expects. Should such, however, be the
case, a new Caylus would be needed at the end of a hundred years to
remind us of the old themes and recall the artist to a field where
others before him have reaped undying laurels. Or shall we expect the
public to be as learned as the connoisseur with his books, and familiar
with all the scenes of history and fable that offer fit subjects for
art? I grant that artists, since the time of Raphael, would have done
better to take Homer for their manual than Ovid. But since, once for
all, they have not done so, let us leave the public in its old ruts, and
not throw more difficulties in the way of its pleasure than are
necessary to make the pleasure worth having.

Protogenes had painted the mother of Aristotle. I know not how much the
philosopher paid for the picture, but instead of the full payment, or
perhaps over and above it, he gave the painter a piece of advice which
was of more value than the money. Not, as I believe, in the way of
flattery, but because he knew that art needed to make itself universally
intelligible, he advised him to paint the exploits of Alexander. The
whole world was ringing with the fame of them, and he could foresee that
their memory would remain to all posterity. But Protogenes was not wise
enough to follow this counsel. “Impetus animi,” says Pliny, “et quædam
artis libido,”[84] a certain presumption in art, and a craving after
something new and strange, led him to the choice of other subjects. He
preferred the story of Ialysus,[85] of Cydippe, and others of like kind,
whose meaning we can now scarce even conjecture.




                                  XII.


Homer treats of two different classes of beings and actions,—the visible
and the invisible. This distinction cannot be made on canvas, where
every thing is visible, and visible in precisely the same way.

When Count Caylus, therefore, makes pictures of invisible actions follow
immediately upon pictures of visible ones; and in scenes of mixed
actions, participated in by beings of both kinds, does not, and perhaps
cannot, indicate how those figures which only we who look at the picture
are supposed to see, shall be so represented that the characters in the
picture shall not see them, or at least shall not look as if they could
not help seeing them, he makes the whole series, as well as many
separate pictures, in the highest degree confused, unintelligible, and
self-contradictory.

With the book before us this difficulty might finally be overcome. The
great objection would be that, with the loss of all distinction to the
eye between the visible and the invisible beings, all the characteristic
traits must likewise disappear, which serve to elevate the higher order
of beings above the lower.

When, for instance, the gods who take different sides in the Trojan war
come at last to actual blows, the contest goes on in the poem
unseen.[86] This invisibility leaves the imagination free play to
enlarge the scene at will, and picture the gods and their movements on a
scale far grander than the measure of common humanity. But painting must
accept a visible theatre, whose various fixed parts become a scale of
measurement for the persons acting upon it. This scale is always before
the eye, and the disproportionate size of any superhuman figures makes
beings that were grand in the poem monstrous on canvas.

Minerva, on whom Mars had made the first attack, steps backward and with
mighty hand lifts from the ground an enormous stone, black and rough,
which, in old times, had required the strength of many men to be rolled
into its place and set up as a landmark.[87]

          ἡ δ’ ἀναχασσαμένη λίθον εἵλετο χειρὶ παχείῃ
          κείμενον ἐν πεδίῳ, μέλανα τρηχύν τε μέγαν τε,
          τόν ῥ’ ἄνδρες πρότεροι θέσαν ἔμμεναι οὖρον ἀρούρης·

To obtain an adequate idea of the size of this stone, we must remember
that Homer makes his heroes twice as strong as the mightiest men of his
day, yet says they were far surpassed in strength by the men whom Nestor
had known in his youth. Now if Minerva is to hurl at Mars a stone which
it had required, not one man, but many men of the time of Nestor’s youth
to set up as a landmark, what, I ask, should be the stature of the
goddess? If her size be proportioned to that of the stone, all marvel
ceases. A being of thrice my size can, of course, throw three times as
large a stone. But if the stature of the goddess be not proportioned to
the size of the stone, the result is a palpable improbability in the
picture which cannot be atoned for by the cold consideration that a
goddess is necessarily of supernatural strength.

Mars, overthrown by this enormous stone, covered seven hides,—

                     ἑπτὰ δ’ ἐπέσχε πέλεθρα πεσών.

It is impossible for the painter to give the god this extraordinary
size. Yet if he do not, we have no Homeric Mars lying on the ground, but
an ordinary warrior.[88]

Longinus says, it has often seemed to him that Homer’s design was to
raise his men to gods and degrade his deities to men. Painting
accomplishes this. On canvas we lose every thing which in poetry exalts
the gods above mere godlike men. Size, strength, speed,—qualities which
Homer has always in store for his gods in miraculous measure, far
surpassing any thing he attributes to his most famous heroes,[89]—are
necessarily reduced in the picture to the common scale of humanity.
Jupiter and Agamemnon, Apollo and Achilles, Ajax and Mars, are all
kindred beings, only to be distinguished by some arbitrary outward sign.

The expedient to which painters have recourse to indicate that a certain
character is supposed to be invisible, is a thin cloud veiling the side
of the figure that is turned towards the other actors on the scene. This
cloud seems at first to be borrowed from Homer himself. For, when in the
confusion of battle one of the chief heroes becomes exposed to a danger
from which nothing short of divine aid can save him, the poet makes his
guardian deity veil him in a thick cloud or in darkness, and so lead him
from the field. Paris is thus delivered by Venus,[90] Idæus by
Neptune,[91] Hector by Apollo.[92] Caylus never omits strongly to
recommend to the artist this mist or cloud, whenever he is to paint
pictures of such occurrences. But who does not perceive that this
veiling in mist and darkness is only the poet’s way of saying that the
hero became invisible? It always seems strange to me, therefore, to find
this poetical expression embodied in a picture, and an actual cloud
introduced, behind which, as behind a screen, the hero stands hidden
from his enemy. This was not the poet’s meaning. The artist in this
exceeds the limits of painting. His cloud is a hieroglyphic, a purely
symbolic sign, which does not make the rescued hero invisible, but
simply says to the observers,—“You are to suppose this man to be
invisible.” It is no better than the rolls of paper with sentences upon
them, which issue from the mouth of personages in the old Gothic
pictures.

Homer, to be sure, makes Achilles give three thrusts with his lance at
the thick cloud[93] while Apollo is carrying off Hector,—τρὶς δ’ ἠέρα
τύψε βαθεῖαν. But that, in the language of poetry, only means that
Achilles was so enraged that he thrust three times with his lance before
perceiving that his enemy was no longer before him. Achilles saw no
actual cloud. The whole secret of this invisibility lay not in the
cloud, but in the god’s swift withdrawal of the imperilled hero. In
order to indicate that the withdrawal took place so instantaneously that
no human eye could follow the retreating form, the poet begins by
throwing over his hero a cloud; not because the by-standers saw the
cloud in the place of the vanished shape, but because to our mind things
in a cloud are invisible.

The opposite device is sometimes used, and, instead of the object being
made invisible, the subject is smitten with blindness. Thus Neptune
blinds the eyes of Achilles when he rescues Æneas from his murderous
hands by transporting him from the thick of the contest to the rear.[94]
In reality, the eyes of Achilles were no more blinded in the one case
than in the other the rescued heroes were veiled in a cloud. Both are
mere expressions employed by the poet to impress more vividly on our
minds the extreme rapidity of the removal; the disappearance, as we
should call it.

But artists have appropriated the Homeric mist not only in those cases
of concealment or disappearance where Homer himself employed or would
have employed it, but in cases where the spectator was to perceive
something which the characters on the canvas, or some of them at least,
were not to be conscious of. Minerva was visible to Achilles only, when
she restrained him from committing violence against Agamemnon. “I know
no other way of expressing this,” says Caylus, “than to interpose a
cloud between the goddess and the other members of the council.” This is
entirely contrary to the spirit of the poet. Invisibility was the
natural condition of his deities. So far from any stroke of blindness or
intercepting of the rays of light being necessary to render them
invisible,[95] a special illumination, an increased power of human
vision was needed to see them. Not only, therefore, is this cloud an
arbitrary and not a natural symbol in painting, but it does not possess
the clearness which, as an arbitrary sign, it should. It has a double
meaning, being employed as well to make the invisible visible as to
render the visible invisible.




                                 XIII.


If Homer’s works were completely destroyed, and nothing remained of the
Iliad and Odyssey but this series of pictures proposed by Caylus, should
we from these—even supposing them to be executed by the best
masters—form the same idea that we now have of the poet’s descriptive
talent alone, setting aside all his other qualities as a poet?

Let us take the first piece that comes to hand,—the picture of the
plague.[96] What do we see on the canvas? Dead bodies, the flame of
funeral pyres, the dying busied with the dead, the angry god upon a
cloud discharging his arrows. The profuse wealth of the picture becomes
poverty in the poet. Should we attempt to restore the text of Homer from
this picture, what can we make him say? “Thereupon the wrath of Apollo
was kindled, and he shot his arrows among the Grecian army. Many Greeks
died, and their bodies were burned.” Now let us turn to Homer
himself:[96]

            Ὣς ἔφατ’ εὐχόμενος, τοῦ δ’ ἔκλυε Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων,
            βῆ δὲ κατ’ Οὐλύμποιο καρήνων χωόμενος κῆρ,
            τόξ’ ὤμοισιν ἔχων ἀμφηρεφέα τε φαρέτρην.
            ἔκλαγξαν δ’ ἄρ’ ὀϊστοὶ ἐπ’ ὤμων χωομένοιο,
            αὐτοῦ κινηθέντος· ὃ δ’ ἤϊε νυκτὶ ἐοικώς.
            ἕζετ’ ἔπειτ’ ἀπάνευθε νεῶν, μετὰ δ’ ἰὸν ἕηκεν·
            δεινὴ δὲ κλαγγὴ γένετ’ ἀργυρέοιο βιοῖο.
            οὐρῆας μὲν πρῶτον ἐπῴχετο καὶ κύνας ἀργούς,
            αὐτὰρ ἔπειτ’ αὐτοῖσι βέλος ἐχεπευκὲς ἐφιεὶς
            βάλλ’· αἰεὶ δὲ πυραὶ νεκύων καίοντο θαμειαί.

The poet here is as far beyond the painter, as life is better than a
picture. Wrathful, with bow and quiver, Apollo descends from the
Olympian towers. I not only see him, but hear him. At every step the
arrows rattle on the shoulders of the angry god. He enters among the
host like the night. Now he seats himself over against the ships, and,
with a terrible clang of the silver bow, sends his first shaft against
the mules and dogs. Next he turns his poisoned darts upon the warriors
themselves, and unceasing blaze on every side the corpse-laden pyres. It
is impossible to translate into any other language the musical painting
heard in the poet’s words. Equally impossible would it be to infer it
from the canvas. Yet this is the least of the advantages possessed by
the poetical picture. Its chief superiority is that it leads us through
a whole gallery of pictures up to the point depicted by the artist.

But the plague is perhaps not a favorable subject for a picture. Take
the council of the gods,[97] which is more particularly addressed to the
eye. An open palace of gold, groups of the fairest and most majestic
forms, goblet in hand, served by eternal youth in the person of Hebe.
What architecture! what masses of light and shade! what contrasts! what
variety of expression! Where shall I begin, where cease, to feast my
eyes? If the painter thus enchant me, how much more will the poet! I
open the book and find myself deceived. I read four good, plain lines,
which might very appropriately be written under the painting. They
contain material for a picture, but are in themselves none.[97]

              Οἱ δὲ θεοὶ πὰρ Ζηνὶ καθήμενοι ἠγορόωντο
              χρυσέῳ ἐν δαπέδῳ, μετὰ δέ σφισι πότνια Ἥβη
              νέκταρ ἐῳνοχόει· τοὶ δὲ χρυσέοις δεπάεσσιν
              δειδέχατ’ ἀλλήλους, Τρώων πόλιν εἰσορόωντες.

Apollonius, or a more indifferent poet still, would not have said it
worse. Here Homer is as far behind the artist as, in the former
instance, he surpassed him.

Yet, except in these four lines, Caylus finds no single picture in the
whole fourth book of the Iliad. “Rich as this book is,” he says, “in its
manifold exhortations to battle, in the abundance of its conspicuous and
contrasting characters, in the skill with which the masses to be set in
motion are brought before us, it is yet entirely unavailable for
painting.” “Rich as it otherwise is,” he might have added, “in what are
called poetic pictures.” For surely in this fourth book we find as many
such pictures, and as perfect, as in any of the whole poem. Where is
there a more detailed, a more striking picture than that of Pandarus
breaking the truce at the instigation of Minerva, and discharging his
arrow at Menelaus? than that of the advance of the Grecian army? or of
the mutual attack? or of the deed of Ulysses, whereby he avenges the
death of his friend Leucus?

What must we conclude, except that not a few of the finest pictures in
Homer are no pictures for the artist? that the artist can extract
pictures from him where he himself has none? that such of his as the
artist can use would be poor indeed did they show us no more than we see
on the canvas? what, in short, but a negative answer to my question?
Painted pictures drawn from the poems of Homer, however numerous and
however admirable they may be, can give us no idea of the descriptive
talent of the poet.




                                  XIV.


If it, then, be true that a poem not in itself picturesque may yet be
rich in subjects for an artist, while another in a high degree
picturesque may yield him nothing, this puts an end to the theory of
Count Caylus, that the test of a poem is its availability for the
artist, and that a poet’s rank should depend upon the number of pictures
he supplies to the painter.[98]

Far be it from us to give this theory even the sanction of our silence.
Milton would be the first to fall an innocent victim. Indeed, the
contemptuous judgment which Caylus passes upon the English poet would
seem to be the result not so much of national taste as of this assumed
rule. Milton resembles Homer, he says, in little excepting loss of
sight. Milton, it is true, can fill no picture galleries. But if, so
long as I retained my bodily eye, its sphere must be the measure of my
inward vision, then I should esteem its loss a gain, as freeing me from
such limitations.

The fact that “Paradise Lost” furnishes few subjects for a painter no
more prevents it from being the greatest epic since Homer, than the
story of the passion of Christ becomes a poem, because you can hardly
insert the head of a pin in any part of the narrative without touching
some passage which has employed a crowd of the greatest artists. The
evangelists state their facts with the dryest possible simplicity, and
the painter uses their various details while the narrators themselves
manifested not the smallest spark of genius for the picturesque. There
are picturesque and unpicturesque facts, and the historian may relate
the most picturesque without picturesqueness, as the poet can make a
picture of those least adapted to the painter’s use.

To regard the matter otherwise is to allow ourselves to be misled by the
double meaning of a word. A picture in poetry is not necessarily one
which can be transferred to canvas. But every touch, or every
combination of touches, by means of which the poet brings his subject so
vividly before us that we are more conscious of the subject than of his
words, is picturesque, and makes what we call a picture; that is, it
produces that degree of illusion which a painted picture is peculiarly
qualified to excite, and which we in fact most frequently and naturally
experience in the contemplation of the painted canvas.[99]




                                  XV.


Experience shows that the poet can produce this degree of illusion by
the representation of other than visible objects. He therefore has at
his command whole classes of subjects which elude the artist. Dryden’s
“Ode on Cecilia’s Day” is full of musical pictures, but gives no
employment to the brush. But I will not lose myself in examples of this
kind, for they after all teach us little more than that colors are not
tones, and ears not eyes.

I will confine myself to pictures of visible objects, available alike to
poet and painter. What is the reason that many poetical pictures of this
class are unsuitable for the painter, while many painted pictures lose
their chief effect in the hands of the poet?

Examples may help us. I revert to the picture of Pandarus in the fourth
book of the Iliad, as one of the most detailed and graphic in all Homer.
From the seizing of the bow to the flight of the arrow every incident is
painted; and each one follows its predecessor so closely, and yet is so
distinct from it, that a person who knew nothing of the use of a bow
could learn it from this picture alone.[100] Pandarus brings forth his
bow, attaches the string, opens the quiver, selects a well-feathered
arrow never before used, adjusts the notch of the arrow to the string,
and draws back both string and arrow; the string approaches his breast,
the iron point of the arrow nears the bow, the great arched bow springs
back with a mighty twang, the cord rings, and away leaps the eager arrow
speeding towards the mark.

Caylus cannot have overlooked this admirable picture. What, then, did he
find which made him judge it no fitting subject for an artist? And what
in the council and carousal of the gods made that seem more adapted to
his purpose? The subjects are visible in one case as in the other, and
what more does the painter need for his canvas?

The difficulty must be this. Although both themes, as representing
visible objects, are equally adapted to painting, there is this
essential difference between them: one is a visible progressive action,
the various parts of which follow one another in time; the other is a
visible stationary action, the development of whose various parts takes
place in space. Since painting, because its signs or means of imitation
can be combined only in space, must relinquish all representations of
time, therefore progressive actions, as such, cannot come within its
range. It must content itself with actions in space; in other words,
with mere bodies, whose attitude lets us infer their action. Poetry, on
the contrary—




                                  XVI.


But I will try to prove my conclusions by starting from first
principles.

I argue thus. If it be true that painting employs wholly different signs
or means of imitation from poetry,—the one using forms and colors in
space, the other articulate sounds in time,—and if signs must
unquestionably stand in convenient relation with the thing signified,
then signs arranged side by side can represent only objects existing
side by side, or whose parts so exist, while consecutive signs can
express only objects which succeed each other, or whose parts succeed
each other, in time.

Objects which exist side by side, or whose parts so exist, are called
bodies. Consequently bodies with their visible properties are the
peculiar subjects of painting.

Objects which succeed each other, or whose parts succeed each other in
time, are actions. Consequently actions are the peculiar subjects of
poetry.

All bodies, however, exist not only in space, but also in time. They
continue, and, at any moment of their continuance, may assume a
different appearance and stand in different relations. Every one of
these momentary appearances and groupings was the result of a preceding,
may become the cause of a following, and is therefore the centre of a
present action. Consequently painting can imitate actions also, but only
as they are suggested through forms.

Actions, on the other hand, cannot exist independently, but must always
be joined to certain agents. In so far as those agents are bodies or are
regarded as such, poetry describes also bodies, but only indirectly
through actions.

Painting, in its coexistent compositions, can use but a single moment of
an action, and must therefore choose the most pregnant one, the one most
suggestive of what has gone before and what is to follow.

Poetry, in its progressive imitations, can use but a single attribute of
bodies, and must choose that one which gives the most vivid picture of
the body as exercised in this particular action.

Hence the rule for the employment of a single descriptive epithet, and
the cause of the rare occurrence of descriptions of physical objects.

I should place less confidence in this dry chain of conclusions, did I
not find them fully confirmed by Homer, or, rather, had they not been
first suggested to me by Homer’s method. These principles alone furnish
a key to the noble style of the Greek, and enable us to pass just
judgment on the opposite method of many modern poets who insist upon
emulating the artist in a point where they must of necessity remain
inferior to him.

I find that Homer paints nothing but progressive actions. All bodies,
all separate objects, are painted only as they take part in such
actions, and generally with a single touch. No wonder, then, that
artists find in Homer’s pictures little or nothing to their purpose, and
that their only harvest is where the narration brings together in a
space favorable to art a number of beautiful shapes in graceful
attitudes, however little the poet himself may have painted shapes,
attitudes, or space. If we study one by one the whole series of pictures
proposed by Caylus, we shall in every case find proof of the justness of
these conclusions.

Here, then, I leave the Count with his desire to make the painter’s
color-stone the touchstone of the poet, and proceed to examine more
closely the style of Homer.

For a single thing, as I have said, Homer has commonly but a single
epithet. A ship is to him at one time the black ship, at another the
hollow ship, and again the swift ship. At most it is the well-manned
black ship. Further painting of the ship he does not attempt. But of the
ship’s sailing, its departure and arrival, he makes so detailed a
picture, that the artist would have to paint five or six, to put the
whole upon his canvas.

If circumstances compel Homer to fix our attention for a length of time
on any one object, he still makes no picture of it which an artist can
follow with his brush. By countless devices he presents this single
object in a series of moments, in every one of which it assumes a
different form. Only in the final one can the painter seize it, and show
us ready made what the artist has been showing us in the making. If
Homer, for instance, wants us to see the chariot of Juno, Hebe must put
it together piece by piece before our eyes. We see the wheels, the axle,
the seat, the pole, the traces and straps, not already in place, but as
they come together under Hebe’s hands. The wheels are the only part on
which the poet bestows more than a single epithet. He shows us
separately the eight brazen spokes, the golden fellies, the tires of
brass, and the silver nave. It would almost seem that, as there was more
than one wheel, he wished to spend as much more time in the description
as the putting on would require in reality.[101]

            Ἥβη δ’ ἀμφ’ ὀχέεσσι θοῶς βάλε καμπύλα κύκλα,
            χάλκεα ὀκτάκνημα, σιδηρέῳ ἄξονι ἀμφίς.
            τῶν ἤτοι χρυσέη ἴτυς ἄφθιτος, αὐτὰρ ὕπερθεν
            χάλκε’ ἐπίσσωτρα προσαρηρότα, θαῦμα ἰδέσθαι·
            πλῆμναι δ’ ἀργύρου εἰσὶ περίδρομοι ἀμφοτέρωθεν.
            δίφρος δὲ χρυσέοισι καὶ ἀργυρέοισιν ἱμᾶσιν
            ἐντέταται, δοιαὶ δὲ περίδρομοι ἄντυγές εἰσιν.
            τοῦ δ’ ἐξ ἀργύρεος ῥυμὸς πέλεν· αὐτὰρ ἐπ’ ἄκρῳ
            δῆσε χρύσειον καλὸν ζυγόν, ἐν δὲ λέπαδνα
            κάλ’ ἔβαλε, χρύσει’·

When Homer wishes to tell us how Agamemnon was dressed, he makes the
king put on every article of raiment in our presence: the soft tunic,
the great mantle, the beautiful sandals, and the sword. When he is thus
fully equipped he grasps his sceptre. We see the clothes while the poet
is describing the act of dressing. An inferior writer would have
described the clothes down to the minutest fringe, and of the action we
should have seen nothing.[102]

                                μαλακὸν δ’ ἔνδυνε χιτῶνα,
              καλὸν νηγάτεον, περὶ δὲ μέγα βάλλετο φᾶρος·
              ποσσὶ δ’ ὑπὸ λιπαροῖσιν ἐδήσατο καλὰ πέδιλα,
              ἀμφὶ δ’ ἄρ’ ὤμοισιν βάλετο ξίφος ἀργυρόηλον.
              εἵλετο δὲ σκῆπτρον πατρώϊον, ἄφθιτον αἰεί·

How does he manage when he desires to give a more full and minute
picture of the sceptre, which is here called only ancestral and
undecaying, as a similar one in another place is only χρυσέοις ἥλοισι
πεπαρμένον,—golden-studded? Does he paint for us, besides the golden
nails, the wood, and the carved head? He might have done so, had he been
writing a description for a book of heraldry, from which at some later
day an exact copy was to be made. Yet I have no doubt that many a modern
poet would have given such heraldic description in the honest belief
that he was really making a picture himself, because he was giving the
painter material for one. But what does Homer care how far he outstrips
the painter? Instead of a copy, he gives us the history of the sceptre.
First we see it in the workshop of Vulcan; then it shines in the hands
of Jupiter; now it betokens the dignity of Mercury; now it is the baton
of warlike Pelops; and again the shepherd’s staff of peace-loving
Atreus.[103]

             σκῆπτρον, τὸ μὲν Ἥφαιστος κάμε τεύχων·
             Ἥφαιστος μὲν δῶκε Διὶ Κρονίωνι ἄνακτι,
             αὐτὰρ ἄρα Ζεὺς δῶκε διακτόρῳ Ἀργειφόντῃ·
             Ἑρμείας δὲ ἄναξ δῶκεν Πέλοπι πληξίππῳ,
             αὐτὰρ ὃ αὖτε Πέλοψ δῶκ’ Ἀτρέϊ, ποιμένι λαῶν·
             Ἀτρεὺς δὲ θνήσκων ἔλιπεν πολύαρνι Θυέστῃ,
             αὐτὰρ ὃ αὖτε Θυέστ’ Ἀγαμέμνονι λεῖπε φορῆναι,
             πολλῇσιν νήσοισι καὶ Ἄργεϊ παντὶ ἀνάσσειν.

And so at last I know this sceptre better than if a painter should put
it before my eyes, or a second Vulcan give it into my hands.

It would not surprise me to find that some one of Homer’s old
commentators had admired this passage as a perfect allegory of the
origin, progress, establishment, and final inheritance of monarchical
power among men. I should smile indeed were I to read that the maker of
the sceptre, Vulcan, as fire, as that which is of supreme importance to
the maintenance of mankind, typified the removal of the necessities
which induced the early races of men to subject themselves to a single
ruler; that the first king was a son of Time (Ζεὺς Κρονίων), revered and
venerable, who desired to share his power with a wise and eloquent man,
a Mercury (Διακτόρῳ Ἀργειφόντῃ), or to resign it wholly to him; that the
wise speaker, at the time when the young state was threatened by foreign
enemies, delivered his supreme authority to the bravest warrior (Πέλοπι
πληξίππῳ); that the brave warrior, after having subdued the enemies and
secured the safety of the realm, let this power play into the hands of
his son, who, as a peace-loving ruler, a beneficent shepherd of his
people (ποιμὴν λαῶν), introduced comfort and luxury; that thus the way
was opened, after his death, for the richest of his relations (πολύαρνι
Θυέστῃ) to obtain by gifts and bribery, and finally to secure to his
family for ever, as a piece of property obtained by purchase, that
authority which had originally been conferred as a mark of confidence,
and had been regarded by merit rather as a burden than an honor. I
should smile at all this, but it would increase my respect for a poet to
whom so much could be attributed.

But this is a digression. I am now considering the history of the
sceptre as a device for making us linger over a single object, without
entering into a tiresome description of its various parts. Again, when
Achilles swears by his sceptre to be revenged on Agamemnon for his
contemptuous treatment, Homer gives us the history of this sceptre. We
see it still green upon the mountains, the axe severs it from the parent
trunk, strips it of leaves and bark, and makes it ready to serve the
judges of the people, as the token of their godlike office.[104]

          ναὶ μὰ τόδε σκῆπτρον, τὸ μὲν οὔ ποτε φύλλα καὶ ὄζους
          φύσει, ἐπειδὴ πρῶτα τομὴν ἐν ὄρεσσι λέλοιπεν,
          οὐδ’ ἀναθηλήσει· περὶ γάρ ῥά ἑ χαλκὸς ἔλεψεν
          φύλλά τε καὶ φλοιόν· νῦν αὐτέ μιν υἷες Ἀχαιῶν
          ἐν παλάμῃς φορέουσι δικασπόλοι, οἵτε θέμιστας
          πρὸς Διὸς εἰρύαται.

Homer’s object was not so much to describe two staves of different shape
and material, as to give us a graphic picture of the different degrees
of power which these staves represented. One the work of Vulcan, the
other cut upon the hills by an unknown hand; one the old possession of a
noble house, the other destined to be grasped by the first comer; one
extended by a monarch over many islands and over all Argos, the other
borne by one from among the Greeks, who, in connection with others, had
been intrusted with the duty of upholding the laws. This was in fact the
difference between Agamemnon and Achilles; and Achilles, even in the
blindness of his passion, could not but admit it.

Not only when Homer’s descriptions have these higher aims in view, but
even when his sole object is the picture, he will yet break this up into
a sort of history of the object in order that the various parts, which
we see side by side in nature, may just as naturally follow each other
in his picture, and, as it were, keep pace with the flow of the
narrative.

He wants, for instance, to paint us the bow of Pandarus. It is of horn,
of a certain length, well polished, and tipped at both ends with gold.
What does he do? Does he enumerate these details thus drily one after
another? By no means. That would be telling off such a bow, setting it
as a copy, but not painting it. He begins with the hunting of the wild
goat from whose horns the bow was made. Pandarus had lain in wait for
him among the rocks and slain him. Owing to the extraordinary size of
the horns, he decided to use them for a bow. They come under the
workman’s hands, who joins them together, polishes, and tips them. And
thus, as I have said, the poet shows us in the process of creation, what
the painter can only show us as already existing.[105]

                      τόξον ἐύξοον ἰξάλου αἰγὸς
            ἀγρίου, ὅν ῥά ποτ’ αὐτὸς στέρνοιο τυχήσας
            πέτρης ἐκβαίνοντα, δεδεγμένος ἐν προδοκῇσιν,
            βεβλήκει πρὸς στῆθος· ὁ δ’ ὕπτιος ἔμπεσε πέτρῃ.
            τοῦ κέρα ἐκ κεφαλῆς ἑκκαιδεκάδωρα πεφύκει·
            καὶ τὰ μὲν ἀσκήσας κεραοξόος ἤραρε τέκτων,
            πᾶν δ’ εὖ λειήνας, χρυσέην ἐπέθηκε κορώνην.

I should never have done, were I to try to write out all the examples of
this kind. They will occur in numbers to every one familiar with Homer.




                                 XVII.


But, it may be urged, the signs employed in poetry not only follow each
other, but are also arbitrary; and, as arbitrary signs, they are
certainly capable of expressing things as they exist in space. Homer
himself furnishes examples of this. We have but to call to mind his
shield of Achilles to have an instance of how circumstantially and yet
poetically a single object can be described according to its coexistent
parts.

I will proceed to answer this double objection. I call it double,
because a just conclusion must hold, though unsupported by examples, and
on the other hand the example of Homer has great weight with me, even
when I am unable to justify it by rules.

It is true that since the signs of speech are arbitrary, the parts of a
body can by their means be made to follow each other as readily as in
nature they exist side by side. But this is a property of the signs of
language in general, not of those peculiar to poetry. The prose writer
is satisfied with being intelligible, and making his representations
plain and clear. But this is not enough for the poet. He desires to
present us with images so vivid, that we fancy we have the things
themselves before us, and cease for the moment to be conscious of his
words, the instruments with which he effects his purpose. That was the
point made in the definition given above of a poetical picture. But the
poet must always paint; and now let us see in how far bodies, considered
in relation to their parts lying together in space, are fit subjects for
this painting.

How do we obtain a clear idea of a thing in space? First we observe its
separate parts, then the union of these parts, and finally the whole.
Our senses perform these various operations with such amazing rapidity
as to make them seem but one. This rapidity is absolutely essential to
our obtaining an idea of the whole, which is nothing more than the
result of the conception of the parts and of their connection with each
other. Suppose now that the poet should lead us in proper order from one
part of the object to the other; suppose he should succeed in making the
connection of these parts perfectly clear to us; how much time will he
have consumed?

The details, which the eye takes in at a glance, he enumerates slowly
one by one, and it often happens that, by the time he has brought us to
the last, we have forgotten the first. Yet from these details we are to
form a picture. When we look at an object the various parts are always
present to the eye. It can run over them again and again. The ear,
however, loses the details it has heard, unless memory retain them. And
if they be so retained, what pains and effort it costs to recall their
impressions in the proper order and with even the moderate degree of
rapidity necessary to the obtaining of a tolerable idea of the whole.

Let us take an example which may be called a masterpiece of its kind.

        Dort ragt das hohe Haupt vom edeln Enziane
      Weit übern niedern Chor der Pöbelkräuter hin,
      Ein ganzes Blumenvolk dient unter seiner Fahne,
      Sein blauer Bruder selbst bückt sich und ehret ihn.
      Der Blumen helles Gold, in Strahlen umgebogen,
      Thürmt sich am Stengel auf, und krönt sein grau Gewand,
      Der Blätter glattes Weiss mit tiefem Grün durchzogen,
      Strahlt von dem bunten Blitz von feuchtem Diamant.
      Gerechtestes Gesetz! dass Kraft sich Zier vermähle,
      In einem schönen Leib wohnt eine schön’re Seele.

        Hier kriecht ein niedrig Kraut, gleich einem grauen Nebel,
      Dem die Natur sein Blatt im Kreuze hingelegt,
      Die holde Blume zeigt die zwei vergöldten Schnäbel,
      Die ein von Amethyst gebildter Vogel trägt.
      Dort wirft ein glänzend Blatt, in Finger ausgekerbet,
      Auf einen hellen Bach den grünen Wiederschein;
      Der Blumen zarten Schnee, den matter Purpur färbet,
      Schliesst ein gestreifter Stern in weisse Strahlen ein.
      Smaragd und Rosen blühn auch auf zertretner Heide,
      Und Felsen decken sich mit einem Purpurkleide.[106]

The learned poet is here painting plants and flowers with great art and
in strict accordance with nature, but there is no illusion in his
picture. I do not mean that a person who had never seen these plants and
flowers could form little or no idea of them from his description.
Perhaps all poetical pictures require a previous knowledge of their
subject. Neither would I deny that a person possessing such knowledge
might derive from the poet a more vivid idea of certain details. I only
ask how it is with a conception of the whole. If that is to become more
vivid, none of the separate details must stand in undue prominence, but
the new illumination must be equally shared by all. Our imagination must
be able to embrace them all with equal rapidity in order to form from
them in an instant that one harmonious whole which the eye takes in at a
glance. Is that the case here? If not, how can it be said, “that the
most exact copy produced by a painter is dull and faint compared with
this poetical description?”[107] It is far inferior to what lines and
colors can produce on canvas. The critic who bestowed upon it this
exaggerated praise must have regarded it from an entirely false point of
view. He must have looked at the foreign graces which the poet has woven
into his description, at his idealization of vegetable life, and his
development of inward perfections, to which outward beauty serves but as
the shell. These he was considering, and not beauty itself or the degree
of resemblance and vividness of the image, which painter and poet
respectively can give us. Upon this last point every thing depends, and
whoever maintains that the lines,

        Der Blumen helles Gold in Strahlen umgebogen,
        Thürmt sich am Stengel auf, und krönt sein grau Gewand,
        Der Blätter glattes Weiss, mit tiefem Grün durchzogen,
        Strahlt von dem bunten Blitz von feuchtem Diamant,

can vie in vividness of impression with a flowerpiece by a Huysum, must
either never have analyzed his own sensations, or must wilfully ignore
them. It might be very pleasant to hear the lines read if we had the
flowers in our hand; but, taken by themselves, they say little or
nothing. I hear in every word the laborious poet, but the thing itself I
am unable to see.

Once more, then, I do not deny that language has the power of describing
a corporeal whole according to its parts. It certainly has, because its
signs, although consecutive, are nevertheless arbitrary. But I deny that
this power exists in language as the instrument of poetry. For illusion,
which is the special aim of poetry, is not produced by these verbal
descriptions of objects, nor can it ever be so produced. The coexistence
of the body comes into collision with the sequence of the words, and
although while the former is getting resolved into the latter, the
dismemberment of the whole into its parts is a help to us, yet the
reunion of these parts into a whole is made extremely difficult, and not
infrequently impossible.

Where the writer does not aim at illusion, but is simply addressing the
understanding of his readers with the desire of awakening distinct and,
as far as possible, complete ideas, then these descriptions of corporeal
objects, inadmissible as they are in poetry, are perfectly appropriate.
Not only the prose writer, but the didactic poet (for in as far as he is
didactic he is no poet) may use them with good effect. Thus Virgil, in
his Georgics, describes a cow fit for breeding:—

                                           Optima torvæ
           Forma bovis, cui turpe caput, cui plurima cervix,
           Et crurum tenus a mento palearia pendent.
           Tum longo nullus lateri modus: omnia magna:
           Pes etiam, et camuris hirtæ sub cornibus aures.
           Nec mihi displiceat maculis insignis et albo,
           Aut juga detractans interdumque aspera cornu,
           Et faciem tauro propior; quæque ardua tota,
           Et gradiens ima verrit vestigia cauda.[108]

Or a handsome colt:—

                                        Illi ardua cervix,
            Argutumque caput, brevis alvus, obesaque terga,
            Luxuriatque toris animosum pectus, &c.[109]

Here the poet is plainly concerned more with the setting forth of the
separate parts than with the effect of the whole. His object is to tell
us the characteristics of a handsome colt and a good cow, so that we may
judge of their excellence according to the number of these
characteristics which they possess. Whether or not all these can be
united into a vivid picture was a matter of indifference to him.

Except for this purpose, elaborate pictures of bodily objects, unless
helped out by the above-mentioned Homeric device of making an actual
series out of their coexistent parts, have always been considered by the
best critics as ineffective trifles, requiring little or no genius.
“When a poetaster,” says Horace, “can do nothing else, he falls to
describing a grove, an altar, a brook winding through pleasant meadows,
a rushing river, or a rainbow.”

                                 Lucus et ara Dianæ,
         Et properantis aquæ per amœnos ambitus agros,
         Aut flumen Rhenum, aut pluvius describitur arcus.[110]

Pope, when a man, looked back with contempt on the descriptive efforts
of his poetic childhood. He expressly enjoined upon every one, who would
not prove himself unworthy the name of poet, to abandon as early as
possible this fondness for description. A merely descriptive poem he
declared to be a feast made up of sauces.[111] Herr Von Kleist, I know,
prided himself very little on his “Spring.” Had he lived, he would have
refashioned it altogether. He wanted to introduce into it some plan, and
was meditating how he could best make the crowd of pictures, which
seemed to have been drawn at random from the whole vast range of fresh
creation, rise in some natural order and follow each other in fitting
sequence. He would, at the same time, have done what Marmontel,
doubtless with reference to his Eclogues, recommended to several German
poets. He would have converted a series of pictures scantily interwoven
with mental emotions, into a series of emotions sparingly interspersed
with images.[112]




                                 XVIII.


And shall Homer nevertheless have fallen into those barren descriptions
of material objects?

Let us hope that only a few such passages can be cited. And even those
few, I venture to assert, will be found really to confirm the rule, to
which they appear to form an exception.

The rule is this, that succession in time is the province of the poet,
coexistence in space that of the artist.

To bring together into one and the same picture two points of time
necessarily remote, as Mazzuoli does the rape of the Sabine women and
the reconciliation effected by them between their husbands and
relations; or as Titian does, representing in one piece the whole story
of the Prodigal Son,—his dissolute life, his misery, and repentance,—is
an encroachment of the painter on the domain of the poet, which good
taste can never sanction.

To try to present a complete picture to the reader by enumerating in
succession several parts or things which in nature the eye necessarily
takes in at a glance, is an encroachment of the poet on the domain of
the painter, involving a great effort of the imagination to very little
purpose.

Painting and poetry should be like two just and friendly neighbors,
neither of whom indeed is allowed to take unseemly liberties in the
heart of the other’s domain, but who exercise mutual forbearance on the
borders, and effect a peaceful settlement for all the petty
encroachments which circumstances may compel either to make in haste on
the rights of the other.

I will not bring forward in support of this the fact that, in large
historical pictures the single moment of time is always somewhat
extended, and that perhaps no piece, very rich in figures, can be found,
in which every character has exactly the motion and attitude proper to
him at that particular moment. The position of some belongs to a
preceding point of time, that of others to a later. This is a liberty
which the painter must justify by certain subtleties of arrangement,
such as placing his figures more in the foreground or background, and
thus making them take a more or less immediate interest in what is going
on. I will merely quote, in favor of my view, a criticism of Mengs on
Raphael’s drapery.[113] “There is a reason for all his folds, either in
the weight of the material or the tension of the limbs. We can often
infer from their present condition what they had been previously.
Raphael indeed aimed at giving them significance in this way. We can
judge from the folds whether, previously to the present posture, a leg
or an arm had been more in front or more behind, whether a limb had been
bent and is now straightening itself, or whether it had been
outstretched and is now bending.” Here unquestionably the artist unites
into one two distinct points of time. For, since the foot in its motion
forward is immediately followed by that portion of the garment which
rests upon it,—unless indeed the garment be of exceedingly stiff
material, in which case it is ill adapted to painting,—there can be no
moment at which the drapery assumes in the least degree any other fold
than the present posture of the limb demands. If any other be
represented, then the fold is that of the preceding moment while the
position of the foot is that of the present. Few, however, will be
inclined to deal thus strictly with the artist who finds it for his
interest to bring these two moments of time before us at once. Who will
not rather praise him for having had the wisdom and the courage to
commit a slight fault for the sake of greater fulness of expression?

A similar indulgence is due to the poet. The continuity of his imitation
permits him, strictly speaking, to touch at one moment on only a single
side, a single property of his corporeal objects. But if the happy
construction of his language enables him to do this with a single word,
why should he not sometimes be allowed to add a second such word? why
not a third, if it be worth his while, or even a fourth? As I have said,
a ship in Homer is either simply the black ship, or the hollow ship, or
the swift ship; at most the well-manned black ship. That is true of his
style in general. Occasionally a passage occurs where he adds a third
descriptive epithet:[114] Καμπύλα κύκλα, χάλκεα, ὀκτάκνημα, “round,
brazen, eight-spoked wheels.” Even a fourth: ἀσπίδα πάντοσε ἐΐσην,
καλήν, χαλκείην, ἐξήλατον,[115] “a uniformly smooth, beautiful, brazen,
wrought shield.” Who will not rather thank than blame him for this
little luxuriance, when we perceive its good effect in a few suitable
passages?

The true justification of both poet and painter shall not, however, be
left to rest upon this analogy of two friendly neighbors. A mere analogy
furnishes neither proof nor justification. I justify them in this way.
As in the picture the two moments of time follow each other so
immediately that we can without effort consider them as one, so in the
poem the several touches answering to the different parts and properties
in space are so condensed, and succeed each other so rapidly, that we
seem to catch them all at once.

Here, as I have said, Homer is greatly aided by his admirable language.
It not only allows him all possible freedom in multiplying and combining
his epithets, but enables him to arrange them so happily that we are
relieved of all awkward suspense with regard to the subject. Some of the
modern languages are destitute of one or more of those advantages. Those
which, like the French, must have recourse to paraphrase, and convert
the καμπύλα κύκλα, χάλκεα, ὀκτάκνημα of Homer into “the round wheels
which were of brass and had eight spokes,” give the meaning, but destroy
the picture. The sense is here, however, nothing; the picture every
thing. The one without the other turns the most graphic of poets into a
tiresome tattler. This fate has often befallen Homer under the pen of
the conscientious Madame Dacier. The German language can generally
render the Homeric adjectives by equally short equivalents, but it
cannot follow the happy arrangement of the Greek. It can say, indeed,
“the round, brazen, eight-spoked;” but “wheels” comes dragging after.
Three distinct predicates before any subject make but a confused,
uncertain picture. The Greek joins the subject with the first predicate
and lets the others follow. He says, “round wheels, brazen,
eight-spoked.” Thus we know at once of what he is speaking, and learn
first the thing and then its accidents, which is the natural order of
our thoughts. The German language does not possess this advantage. Or
shall I say, what really amounts to the same thing, that, although
possessing it, the language can seldom use it without ambiguity? For if
adjectives be placed after the subject (runde Räder, ehern und
achtspeichigt) they are indeclinable, differing in nothing from adverbs,
and if referred, as adverbs, to the first verb that is predicated of the
subject, the meaning of the whole sentence becomes always distorted, and
sometimes entirely falsified.

But I am lingering over trifles and seem to have forgotten the shield of
Achilles, that famous picture, which more than all else, caused Homer to
be regarded among the ancients as a master of painting.[116] But surely
a shield, it may be said, is a single corporeal object, the description
of which according to its coexistent parts cannot come within the
province of poetry. Yet this shield, its material, its form, and all the
figures which occupied its enormous surface, Homer has described, in
more than a hundred magnificent lines, so circumstantially and precisely
that modern artists have found no difficulty in making a drawing of it
exact in every detail.

My answer to this particular objection is, that I have already answered
it. Homer does not paint the shield finished, but in the process of
creation. Here again he has made use of the happy device of substituting
progression for coexistence, and thus converted the tiresome description
of an object into a graphic picture of an action. We see not the shield,
but the divine master-workman employed upon it. Hammer and tongs in hand
he approaches the anvil; and, after having forged the plates from the
rough metal, he makes the pictures designed for its decoration rise from
the brass, one by one, under his finer blows. Not till the whole is
finished do we lose sight of him. At last it is done; and we wonder at
the work, but with the believing wonder of an eyewitness who has seen it
a-making.

The same cannot be said of the shield of Æneas in Virgil. The Roman poet
either failed to see the fineness of his model, or the things which he
wished to represent upon his shield seemed to him not of such a kind as
to allow of their being executed before our eyes. They were prophecies,
which the god certainly could not with propriety have uttered in our
presence as distinctly as the poet explains them in his work.
Prophecies, as such, require a darker speech, in which the names of
those persons to come, whose fortunes are predicted, cannot well be
spoken. In these actual names, however, lay, it would seem, the chief
point of interest to the poet and courtier.[117] But this, though it
excuse him, does not do away with the disagreeable effect of his
departure from the Homeric method, as all readers of taste will admit.
The preparations made by Vulcan are nearly the same in Homer as in
Virgil. But while in Homer we see, besides the preparations for the
work, the work itself, Virgil, after showing us the god at work with his
Cyclops,

           Ingentem clypeum informant ...
           ... Alii ventosis follibus auras
           Accipiunt, redduntque; alii stridentia tingunt
           Æra lacu. Gemit impositis incudibus antrum.
           Illi inter sese multa vi brachia tollunt
           In numerum, versantque tenaci forcipe massam,[118]

suddenly drops the curtain and transports us to a wholly different
scene. We are gradually led into the valley where Venus appears,
bringing Æneas the arms that in the mean while have been finished. She
places them against the trunk of an oak; and, after the hero has
sufficiently stared at them, and wondered over them, and handled them,
and tried them, the description or picture of the shield begins, which
grows so cold and tedious from the constantly recurring “here is,” and
“there is,” and “near by stands,” and “not far from there is seen,” that
all Virgil’s poetic grace is needed to prevent it from becoming
intolerable. Since, moreover, this description is not given by Æneas,
who delights in the mere figures without any knowledge of their import,

                  ... rerumque ignarus imagine gaudet,

nor by Venus, although she might be supposed to know as much about the
fortunes of her dear grandson as her good-natured husband, but by the
poet himself, the action meanwhile necessarily remains at a stand-still.
Not a single one of the characters takes part; nor is what follows in
the least affected by the representations on the shield. The subtle
courtier, helping out his material with every manner of flattering
allusion, is apparent throughout; but no trace do we see of the great
genius, who trusts to the intrinsic merit of his work, and despises all
extraneous means of awakening interest. The shield of Æneas is
therefore, in fact, an interpolation, intended solely to flatter the
pride of the Romans; a foreign brook with which the poet seeks to give
fresh movement to his stream. The shield of Achilles, on the contrary,
is the outgrowth of its own fruitful soil. For a shield was needed; and,
since even what is necessary never comes from the hands of deity devoid
of beauty, the shield had to be ornamented. The art was in treating
these ornamentations as such, and nothing more; in so weaving them into
the material that when we look at that we cannot but see them. This
could be accomplished only by the method which Homer adopted. Homer
makes Vulcan devise decorations, because he is to make a shield worthy
of a divine workman. Virgil seems to make him fashion the shield for the
sake of the decorations, since he deems these of sufficient importance
to deserve a special description long after the shield is finished.




                                  XIX.


The objections brought against Homer’s shield by the elder Scaliger,
Perrault, Terrasson, and others, are well known, as are also the answers
of Madame Dacier, Boivin, and Pope. But these latter, it seems to me,
have gone somewhat too far, and confiding in the justness of their cause
have asserted things incorrect in themselves and contributing little to
the poet’s justification.

In answer to the chief objection, that Homer had burdened his shield
with more figures than there could possibly have been room for, Boivin
undertook to show in a drawing how the necessary space might be
obtained. His idea of the various concentric circles was very ingenious,
although there is no foundation for it in the poet’s words and nothing
anywhere to indicate that shields divided in this way were known to the
ancients. Since Homer calls it (σάκος πάντοσε δεδαιλωμένον) a shield,
artistically wrought on all sides, I should prefer to gain the required
space by turning to account the concave surface. A proof that the old
artists did not leave this empty is furnished in the shield of Minerva
by Phidias.[119] But not only does Boivin fail to seize this advantage,
but, by separating into two or three pictures what the poet evidently
meant for one, he unnecessarily multiplies the representations while
diminishing the space by one-half. I know the motive which led him to
this, but it was one by which he should not have allowed himself to be
influenced. He should have shown his opponents the unreasonableness of
their demands, instead of trying to satisfy them.

An example will make my meaning clear. When Homer says of one of the two
cities:[120]

           λαοὶ δ’ εἰν ἀγορῇ ἔσαν ἀθρόοι· ἔνθα δὲ νεῖκος
           ὠρώρει δύο δ’ ἄνδρες ἐνείκεον εἵνεκα ποινῆς
           ἀνδρὸς ἀποφθιμένου· ὁ μὲν εὔχετο πάντ’ ἀποδοῦναι,
           δήμῳ πιφαύσκων, ὁ δ’ ἀναίνετο μηδὲν ἑλέσθαι·
           ἄμφω δ’ ἱέσθην ἐπὶ ἴστορι πεῖραρ ἑλέσθαι.
           λαοὶ δ’ ἀμφοτέροισιν ἐπήπυον, ἀμφὶς ἀρωγοί.
           κήρυκες δ’ ἄρα λαὸν ἐρήτυον· οἱ δὲ γέροντες
           εἵατ’ ἐπὶ ξεστοῖσι λίθοις ἱερῷ ἐνὶ κύκλῳ,
           σκῆπτρα δὲ κηρύκων ἐν χέρσ’ ἔχον ἠεροφώνων·
           τοῖσιν ἔπειτ’ ἤϊσσον, ἀμοιβηδὶς δὲ δίκαζον.
           κεῖτο δ’ ἄρ’ ἐν μέσσοισι δύω χρυσοῖο τάλαντα,

he refers, as I understand him, to but a single picture, that of a
public lawsuit about the contested payment of a considerable fine for
the committal of a murder. The artist, who is to execute this design,
can use but a single moment of the action,—that of the accusation, of
the examination of witnesses, of the pronouncing of the sentence, or any
other preceding or following or intervening moment which may seem to him
most fitting. This single moment he makes as pregnant as possible, and
reproduces it with all that power of illusion which in the presentation
of visible objects art possesses above poetry. Left far behind in this
respect, what remains to the poet, if his words are to paint the same
design with any degree of success, but to avail himself of his peculiar
advantages? These are the liberty of extending his representation over
what preceded, as well as what was to follow, the artist’s single point
of time, and the power of showing not only what the artist shows, but
what he has to leave to our imagination. Only by using these advantages
can the poet raise himself to a level with the artist. Their works most
resemble each other when their effect is equally vivid; not when one
brings before the imagination through the ear neither more nor less than
the other presents to the eye. Had Boivin defended the passage in Homer
according to this principle, he would not have divided it into as many
separate pictures as he thought he detected distinct points of time. All
that Homer relates could not, indeed, be united in a single picture. The
accusation and the denial, the summoning of the witnesses and the shouts
of the divided populace, the efforts of the heralds to quiet the tumult
and the sentence of the judges, are things successive in time, not
coexistent in space. But what is not actually in the picture is there
virtually, and the only true way of representing an actual picture in
words is to combine what virtually exists in it with what is absolutely
visible. The poet who allows himself to be bound by the limits of art
may furnish data for a picture, but can never create one of his own.

The picture of the beleaguered city[121] Boivin divides likewise into
three. He might as well have made twelve out of it as three. For since
he has once for all failed to grasp the spirit of the poet, and requires
him to be bound by the unities of a material picture, he might have
discovered many more violations of these unities. In fact he ought
almost to have devoted a separate space on the shield to every separate
touch of the poet. In my opinion Homer has but ten different pictures on
the whole shield, every one of which he introduces with ἐν μὲν ἔτευξε,
or ἐν δὲ ποίησε, or ἐν δ’ ἐτίθει, or ἐν δὲ πόικιλλε Ἀμφιγυήεις, “on it
he wrought,” “on it he placed,” “on it he formed,” “on it Vulcan
skilfully fashioned.”[122] In the absence of these introductory words we
have no right to suppose a distinct picture. On the contrary every thing
which they cover must be regarded as a single whole, wanting in nothing
but the arbitrary concentration into one moment of time, which the poet
was in no way bound to observe. Had he observed this, and, by strictly
limiting himself to it, excluded every little feature which in the
material representation would have been inconsistent with this unity of
time; had he in fact done what his cavillers require,—these gentlemen
would indeed have had no fault to find with him, but neither would any
person of taste have found aught to admire.

Pope not only accepted Boivin’s drawing, but thought he was doing a
special service by showing that every one of these mutilated pieces was
in accordance with the strictest rules of painting, as laid down at the
present day. Contrast, perspective, the three unities, he found, were
all observed in the best possible manner. And although well aware that,
according to the testimony of good and trustworthy witnesses, painting
at the time of the Trojan war was still in its cradle, he supposes
either that Homer, instead of being bound by the achievements of
painting at that time or in his own day, must in virtue of his godlike
genius have anticipated all that art should in future be able to
accomplish, or else that the witnesses could not have been so entirely
worthy of faith that the direct testimony of this artistic shield should
not be preferred to theirs. Whoever will, may accept the former
supposition: the latter, surely, no one will be persuaded to adopt who
knows any thing more of the history of art than the date of the
historians. That painting in the time of Homer was still in its infancy
he believes, not merely on the authority of Pliny, or some other writer,
but chiefly because, judging from the works of art mentioned by the
ancients, he sees that even centuries later no great progress had been
made. The pictures of Polygnotus, for instance, by no means stand the
test which Pope thinks can be successfully applied to Homer’s shield.
The two great works by this master at Delphi, of which Pausanias has
left a circumstantial description,[123] were evidently wholly wanting in
perspective. The ancients had no knowledge of this branch of art, and
what Pope adduces as proof that Homer understood it, only proves that he
has a very imperfect understanding of it himself.[124]

“That Homer,” he says, “was not a stranger to aerial perspective appears
in his expressly marking the distance of object from object. He tells
us, for instance, that the two spies lay a little remote from the other
figures, and that the oak under which was spread the banquet of the
reapers stood apart. What he says of the valley sprinkled all over with
cottages and flocks appears to be a description of a large country in
perspective. And, indeed, a general argument for this may be drawn from
the number of figures on the shield, which could not be all expressed in
their full size; and this is therefore a sort of proof that the art of
lessening them according to perspective was known at that time.” The
mere representing of an object at a distance as smaller than it would be
if nearer the eye, by no means constitutes perspective in a picture.
Perspective requires a single point of view; a definite, natural
horizon; and this was wanting in the old pictures. In the paintings of
Polygnotus the ground, instead of being level, rose so decidedly at the
back that the figures which were meant to stand behind seemed to be
standing above one another. If this was the usual position of the
various figures and groups,—and that it was so may fairly be concluded
from the old bas-reliefs, where those behind always stand higher than
those in front, and look over their heads,—then we may reasonably take
it for granted in Homer, and should not unnecessarily dismember those
representations of his, which according to this treatment might be
united in a single picture. The double scene in the peaceful city,
through whose streets a joyous marriage train was moving at the same
time that an important trial was going on in the market-place, requires
thus no double picture. Homer could very well think of it as one, since
he imagined himself to be overlooking the city from such a height as to
command at once a view of the streets and the market.

My opinion is that perspective in pictures came incidentally from
scene-painting, which was already in its perfection. But the
applications of its rules to a single smooth surface was evidently no
easy matter; for, even in the later paintings found among the
antiquities of Herculaneum, there are many and various offences against
perspective, which would now hardly be excusable even in a
beginner.[125]

But I will spare myself the labor of collecting my desultory
observations on a point whereon I may hope to receive complete
satisfaction from Winkelmann’s promised “History of Art.”[126]




                                  XX.


To return, then, to my road, if a saunterer can be said to have a road.

What I have been saying of bodily objects in general applies with even
more force to those which are beautiful.

Physical beauty results from the harmonious action of various parts
which can be taken in at a glance. It therefore requires that these
parts should lie near together; and, since things whose parts lie near
together are the proper subjects of painting, this art and this alone
can imitate physical beauty.

The poet, who must necessarily detail in succession the elements of
beauty, should therefore desist entirely from the description of
physical beauty as such. He must feel that these elements arranged in a
series cannot possibly produce the same effect as in juxtaposition; that
the concentrating glance which we try to cast back over them immediately
after their enumeration, gives us no harmonious picture; and that to
conceive the effect of certain eyes, a certain mouth and nose taken
together, unless we can recall a similar combination of such parts in
nature or art, surpasses the power of human imagination.

Here again Homer is the model of all models. He says, Nireus was fair;
Achilles was fairer; Helen was of godlike beauty. But he is nowhere
betrayed into a more detailed description of these beauties. Yet the
whole poem is based upon the loveliness of Helen. How a modern poet
would have revelled in descriptions of it!

Even Constantinus Manasses sought to adorn his bald chronicle with a
picture of Helen. I must thank him for the attempt, for I really should
not know where else to turn for so striking an example of the folly of
venturing on what Homer’s wisdom forbore to undertake. When I read in
him:[127]

            ἦν ἡ γυνὴ περικαλλὴς, εὔοφρυς, εὐχρουστάτη,
            εὐπάρειος, εὐπρόσωπος, βοῶπις, χιονόχρους,
            ἑλικοβλέφαρος, ἁβρὰ, χαρίτων γέμον ἄλσος,
            λευκοβραχίων, τρυφερὰ, κάλλος ἄντικρυς ἔμπνουν,
            τὸ πρόσωπον κατάλευκον, ἡ παρειὰ ῥοδόχρους,
            τὸ πρόσωπον ἐπίχαρι, τὸ βλέφαρον ὡραῖον,
            κάλλος ἀνεπιτήδευτον, ἀβάπτιστον, αὐτόχρουν,
            ἔβαπτε τὴν λευκότητα ῥοδόχροια πυρσίνη,
            ὡς εἴ τις τὸν ἐλέφαντα βάψει λαμπρᾷ πορφύρᾳ.
            δειρὴ μακρά, κατάλευκος, ὅθεν ἐμυθουργήθη
            κυκνογενῆ τὴν εὔοπτον Ἑλένην χρηματίζειν,

it is like seeing stones rolled up a mountain,[128] on whose summit they
are to be built into a gorgeous edifice; but which all roll down of
themselves on the other side. What picture does this crowd of words
leave behind? How did Helen look? No two readers out of a thousand would
receive the same impression of her.

But political verses by a monk are, it is true, no poetry. Let us hear
Ariosto describe his enchantress Alcina:[129]—

              Di persona era tanto ben formata,
            Quanto mai finger san pittori industri.
            Con bionda chioma, lunga e annodata,
            Oro non è, che piu risplenda e lustri.
            Spargeasi per la guancia delicata
            Misto color di rose e di ligustri.
            Di terso avorio era la fronte lieta,
            Che lo spazio finia con giusta meta.

              Sotto due negri, e sottilissimi archi
            Son due negri, occhi, anzi due chiari soli
            Pietosi a riguardar, a mover parchi,
            Intorno a cui par ch’ Amor scherzi, e voli,
            E ch’ indi tutta la faretra scarchi,
            E che visibilmente i cori involi.
            Quindi il naso per mezzo il viso scende
            Che non trova l’ invidia ove l’ emende.

              Sotto quel sta, quasi fra due vallette,
            La bocca sparsa di natio cinabro,
            Quivi due filze son di perle elette,
            Che chiude, ed apre un bello e dolce labro;
            Quindi escon le cortesi parolette,
            Da render molle ogni cor rozzo e scabro;
            Quivi si forma quel soave riso,
            Ch’ apre a sua posta in terra il paradiso.

              Bianca neve è il pel collo, e ’l petto latte,
            Il collo è tondo, il petto colmo e largo;
            Due pome acerbe, e pur d’ avorio fatte,
            Vengono e van, come onda al primo margo,
            Quando piacevole aura il mar combatte.
            Non potria l’ altre parti veder Argo,
            Ben si può giudicar, che corrisponde,
            A quel ch’ appar di fuor, quel che s’ asconde.

              Mostran le braccia sua misura giusta,
            Et la candida man spesso si vede,
            Lunghetta alquanto, e di larghezza angusta,
            Dove nè nodo appar, nè vena eccede.
            Si vede al fin de la persona augusta
            Il breve, asciutto, e ritondetto piede.
            Gli angelici sembianti nati in cielo
            Non si ponno celar sotto alcun velo.

Milton, speaking of Pandemonium, says:—

             The work some praise, and some the architect.

Praise of one, then, is not always praise of the other. A work of art
may merit great approbation without redounding much to the credit of the
artist; and, again, an artist may justly claim our admiration, even when
his work does not entirely satisfy us. By bearing this in mind we can
often reconcile contradictory judgments, as in the present case. Dolce,
in his dialogues on painting, makes Aretino speak in terms of the
highest praise of the above-quoted stanzas,[130] while I select them as
an instance of painting without picture. We are both right. Dolce
admires the knowledge of physical beauty which the poet shows: I
consider only the effect which this knowledge, conveyed in words,
produces on my imagination. Dolce concludes from this knowledge that
good poets are no less good painters: I, judging from the effect,
conclude that what painters can best express by lines and colors is
least capable of expression in words. Dolce recommends Ariosto’s
description to all painters as a perfect model of a beautiful woman: I
recommend it to all poets as the most instructive of warnings not to
attempt, with still greater want of success, what could not but fail
when tried by an Ariosto.

It may be that when the poet says,—

                Di persona era tanto ben formata,
                Quanto mai finger san pittori industri,

he proves himself to have had a complete knowledge of the laws of
perspective, such as only the most industrious artist can acquire from a
study of nature and of ancient art.[131]

In the words,—

                   Spargeasi per la guancia delicata
                   Misto color di rose e di ligustri,

he may show himself to be a perfect master of color,—a very Titian.[132]
His comparing Alcina’s hair to gold, instead of calling it golden hair,
may be taken as proof that he objected to the use of actual gold in
coloring.[133] We may even discover in the descending nose the profile
of those old Greek noses, afterwards borrowed by Roman artists from the
Greek masterpieces.[134] Of what use is all this insight and learning to
us readers who want to fancy we are looking at a beautiful woman, and
desire to feel that gentle quickening of the pulses which accompanies
the sight of actual beauty? The poet may know the relations from which
beauty springs, but does that make us know them? Or, if we know them,
does he show them to us here? or does he help us in the least to call up
a vivid image of them?

            A brow that forms a fitting bound,
              Che lo spazio finia con giusta meta;
            A nose where envy itself finds nothing to amend,
              Che non trova l’ invidia, ove l’ emende;
            A hand, narrow, and somewhat long,
              Lunghetta alquanto, e di larghezza angusta;

what sort of a picture do these general formulæ give us? In the mouth of
a drawing-master, directing his pupils’ attention to the beauties of the
academic model, they might have some meaning. For the students would
have but to look at the model to see the fitting bounds of the gay
forehead, the fine cut of the nose, and the slenderness of the pretty
hand. But in the poem I see nothing, and am only tormented by the
futility of all my attempts to see any thing.

In this respect Virgil, by imitating Homer’s reticence, has achieved
tolerable success. His Dido is only the most beautiful (_pulcherrima_)
Dido. Any further details which he may give, have reference to her rich
ornaments and magnificent dress.

            Tandem progreditur ...
            Sidoniam picto chlamydem circumdata limbo:
            Cui pharetra ex auro, crines nodantur in aurum,
            Aurea purpuream subnectit fibula vestem.[135]

If, on this account, any should apply to him what the old artist said to
one of his pupils who had painted a gayly decked Helen,—“Since you could
not paint her beautiful, you have painted her rich,”—Virgil would
answer: “I am not to blame that I could not paint her beautiful. The
fault lies in the limits of my art, within which it is my merit to have
kept.”

I must not forget here the two odes of Anacreon wherein he analyzes the
beauty of his mistress and of Bathyllus.[136] The device which he uses
entirely justifies the analysis. He imagines that he has before him a
painter who is working from his description. “Thus paint me the hair,”
he says; “thus the brow, the eyes, the mouth; thus the neck and bosom,
the thighs and hands.” As the artist could execute but one detail at a
time, the poet was obliged to give them to him thus piecemeal. His
object is not to make us see and feel, in these spoken directions to the
painter, the whole beauty of the beloved object. He is conscious of the
inadequacy of all verbal expression; and for that reason summons to his
aid the expression of art, whose power of illusion he so extols, that
the whole song seems rather a eulogium of art than of his lady. He sees
not the picture but herself, and fancies she is about to open her mouth
to speak.

                       ἀπέχει· βλέπω γὰρ αὐτήν.
                       τάχα, κηρέ, καὶ λαλήσεις.

So, too, in his ode to Bathyllus, the praises of the beautiful boy are
so mingled with praises of art and the artist, that we are in doubt in
whose honor the song was really written. He selects the most beautiful
parts from various pictures, the parts for which the pictures were
remarkable. He takes the neck from an Adonis, breast and hands from a
Mercury, the thighs from a Pollux, the belly from a Bacchus, until he
has the whole Bathyllus as a finished Apollo from the artist’s hand.

                        μετὰ δὲ πρόσωπον ἔστω,
                        τὸν Ἀδώνιδος παρελθὼν,
                        ἐλεφάντινος τράχηλος·
                        μεταμάζιον δὲ ποίει
                        διδύμας τε χεῖρας Ἑρμοῦ,
                        Πολυδεύκεος δὲ μηρούς,
                        Διονυσίην δὲ νηδύν.

                               ·       ·       ·       ·       ·

                        τὸν Ἀπόλλωνα δὲ τοῦτον
                        καθελών, ποίει Βάθυλλον.

Thus Lucian, to give an idea of the beauty of Panthea, points to the
most beautiful female statues by the old sculptors.[137] What is this
but a confession that here language of itself is powerless; that poetry
stammers, and eloquence grows dumb, unless art serve as interpreter.




                                  XXI.


But are we not robbing poetry of too much by taking from her all
pictures of physical beauty?

Who seeks to take them from her? We are only warning her against trying
to arrive at them by a particular road, where she will blindly grope her
way in the footsteps of a sister art without ever reaching the goal. We
are not closing against her other roads whereon art can follow only with
her eyes.

Homer himself, who so persistently refrains from all detailed
descriptions of physical beauty, that we barely learn, from a passing
mention, that Helen had white arms[138] and beautiful hair,[139] even he
manages nevertheless to give us an idea of her beauty, which far
surpasses any thing that art could do. Recall the passage where Helen
enters the assembly of the Trojan elders. The venerable men see her
coming, and one says to the others:[140]—

            Οὐ νέμεσις Τρῶας καὶ ἐϋκνήμιδας Ἀχαιοὺς
            τοιῇδ’ ἀμφὶ γυναικὶ πολὺν χρόνον ἄλγεα πάσχειν·
            αἰνῶς ἀθανάτῃσι θεῇς εἰς ὦπα ἔοικεν.

What can give a more vivid idea of her beauty than that cold-blooded age
should deem it well worth the war which had cost so much blood and so
many tears?

What Homer could not describe in its details, he shows us by its effect.
Paint us, ye poets, the delight, the attraction, the love, the
enchantment of beauty, and you have painted beauty itself. Who can think
of Sappho’s beloved, the sight of whom, as she confesses, robs her of
sense and thought, as ugly? We seem to be gazing on a beautiful and
perfect form, when we sympathize with the emotions which only such a
form can produce. It is not Ovid’s minute description of the beauties of
his Lesbia,—

             Quos humeros, quales vidi tetigique lacertos!
               Forma papillarum quam fuit apta premi!
             Quam castigato planus sub pectore venter!
               Quantum et quale latus! quam juvenile femur!

that makes us fancy we are enjoying the same sight which he enjoyed; but
because he gives the details with a sensuousness which stirs the
passions.

Yet another way in which poetry surpasses art in the description of
physical beauty, is by turning beauty into charm. Charm is beauty in
motion, and therefore less adapted to the painter than the poet. The
painter can suggest motion, but his figures are really destitute of it.
Charm therefore in a picture becomes grimace, while in poetry it remains
what it is, a transitory beauty, which we would fain see repeated. It
comes and goes, and since we can recall a motion more vividly and easily
than mere forms and colors, charm must affect us more strongly than
beauty under the same conditions. All that touches and pleases in the
picture of Alcina is charm. Her eyes impress us not from their blackness
and fire, but because they are—

                  Pietosi a riguardar, a mover parchi,

they move slowly and with gracious glances, because Cupid sports around
them and shoots from them his arrows. Her mouth pleases, not because
vermilion lips enclose two rows of orient pearls, but because of the
gentle smile, which opens a paradise on earth, and of the courteous
accents that melt the rudest heart. The enchantment of her bosom lies
not so much in the milk and ivory and apples, that typify its whiteness
and graceful form, as in its gentle heavings, like the rise and fall of
waves under a pleasant breeze.

                Due pome acerbe, e pur d’ avorio fatte,
                Vengono e van, come onda al primo margo,
                Quando piacevole aura il mar combatte.

I am convinced that such traits as these, compressed into one or two
stanzas, would be far more effective than the five over which Ariosto
has spread them, interspersed with cold descriptions of form much too
learned for our sensibilities.

Anacreon preferred the apparent absurdity of requiring impossibilities
of the artist, to leaving the image of his mistress unenlivened with
these mobile charms.

                        τρυφεροῦ δ’ ἔσω γενείου
                        περὶ λυγδίνῳ τραχήλῳ
                        Χάριτες πέτοιντο πᾶσαι.

He bids the artist let all the graces hover about her tender chin and
marble neck. How so? literally? But that is beyond the power of art. The
painter could give the chin the most graceful curve and the prettiest
dimple, _Amoris digitulo impressum_ (for the ἔσω here seems to me to
mean dimple); he could give the neck the softest pink, but that is all.
The motion of that beautiful neck, the play of the muscles, now
deepening and now half concealing the dimple, the essential charm
exceeded his powers. The poet went to the limits of his art in the
attempt to give us a vivid picture of beauty, in order that the painter
might seek the highest expression in his. Here we have, therefore, a
fresh illustration of what was urged above, that the poet, even when
speaking of a painting or statue, is not bound to confine his
description within the limits of art.




                                 XXII.


Zeuxis painted a Helen, and had the courage to write beneath his picture
those famous lines of Homer wherein the elders express their admiration
of her beauty. Never did painting and poetry engage in closer rivalry.
Victory remained undecided, and both deserved to be crowned.

For as the wise poet showed us only in its effects the beauty which he
felt the impossibility of describing in detail, so the equally wise
painter exhibited beauty solely through its details, deeming it unworthy
of his art to have recourse to any outward aids. His whole picture was
the naked figure of Helen. For it was probably the same that he painted
for the people of Cortona.[141]

Let us, for curiosity’s sake, compare with this Caylus’s picture as
sketched for modern artists from the same lines of Homer.

“Helen, covered with a white veil, appears in the midst of several old
men, Priam among the number, who should be at once recognizable by the
emblems of his royal dignity. The artist must especially exert his skill
to make us feel the triumph of beauty in the eager glances and
expressions of astonished admiration on the countenances of the old men.
The scene is over one of the gates of the town. The background of the
painting may be lost either in the open sky or against the higher
buildings of the town. The first would be the bolder, but the one would
be as suitable as the other.”

Imagine this picture, executed by the greatest master of our time, and
compare it with the work of Zeuxis. Which will show the real triumph of
beauty? This, where I feel it myself, or that, where I am to infer it
from the grimaces of admiring graybeards? “Turpe senilis amor!” Looks of
desire make the most reverend face ridiculous, and an old man who shows
the cravings of youth is an object of disgust. This reproach cannot be
brought against the Homeric elders. Theirs is but a passing spark of
feeling which wisdom instantly stifles; an emotion which does honor to
Helen without disgracing themselves. They acknowledge their admiration,
but add at once,[142]—

             ἀλλὰ καὶ ὣς, τοίη περ ἐοῦσ’, ἐν νηυσὶ νεέσθω,
             μηδ’ ἡμῖν τεκέεσσί τ’ ὀπίσσω πῆμα λίποιτο.

This decision saves them from being the old coxcombs which they look
like in Caylus’s picture. And what is the sight that fixes their eager
looks? A veiled, muffled figure. Is that Helen? I cannot conceive what
induced Caylus to make her wear a veil. Homer, to be sure, expressly
gives her one,

                αὐτίκα δ’ ἀργεννῇσι καλυψαμένη ὀθόνῃσιν
                ὡρμᾶτ’ ἐκ θαλάμοιο,

           “She left her chamber, robed and veiled in white,”

but only to cross the street in. And although he makes the elders
express their admiration before she could have had time to take it off
or throw it back, yet they were not seeing her then for the first time.
Their confession need not therefore have been caused by the present
hasty glance. They might often have felt what, on this occasion, they
first acknowledged. There is nothing of this in the picture. When I
behold the ecstasy of those old men, I want to see the cause, and, as I
say, am exceedingly surprised to perceive nothing but a veiled, muffled
figure, at which they are staring with such devotion. What of Helen is
there? Her white veil and something of her outline, as far as outline
can be traced beneath drapery. But perhaps the Count did not mean that
her face should be covered. In that case, although his words—“Hélène
couverte d’un voile blanc”—hardly admit of such an interpretation,
another point excites my surprise. He recommends to the artist great
care in the expression of the old men’s faces, and wastes not a word
upon the beauty of Helen’s. This modest beauty, approaching timidly, her
eyes moist with repentant tears,—is, then, the highest beauty so much a
matter of course to our artists, that they need not be reminded of it?
or is expression more than beauty? or is it with pictures as with the
stage, where we are accustomed to accept the ugliest of actresses for a
ravishing princess, if her prince only express the proper degree of
passion for her.

Truly this picture of Caylus would be to that of Zeuxis as pantomime to
the most sublime of poetry.

Homer was unquestionably more read formerly than now, yet we do not find
mention of many pictures drawn from him even by the old artists.[143]
They seem diligently to have availed themselves of any individual
physical beauties which he may have pointed out. They painted these,
well knowing that in this department alone they could vie with the poet
with any chance of success. Zeuxis painted besides Helen a Penelope, and
the Diana of Apelles was the goddess of Homer attended by her nymphs.

I will take this opportunity of saying that the passage in Pliny
referring to this picture of Apelles needs correcting.[144] But to paint
scenes from Homer merely because they afforded a rich composition,
striking contrasts, and artistic shading, seems not to have been to the
taste of the old artists; nor could it be, so long as art kept within
the narrow limits of its own high calling. They fed upon the spirit of
the poet, and filled their imagination with his noblest traits. The fire
of his enthusiasm kindled theirs. They saw and felt with him. Thus their
works became copies of the Homeric, not in the relation of portrait to
original, but in the relation of a son to a father,—like, but different.
The whole resemblance often lies in a single trait, the other parts
being alike in nothing but in their harmony with that.

Since, moreover, the Homeric masterpieces of poetry were older than any
masterpiece of art, for Homer had observed nature with the eye of an
artist before either Phidias or Apelles, the artists naturally found
ready made in his poems many valuable observations, which they had not
yet had time to make for themselves. These they eagerly seized upon, in
order that, through Homer, they might copy nature. Phidias acknowledged
that the lines,[145]—

              Ἦ καὶ κυανέῃσιν ἐπ’ ὀφρύσι νεῦσε Κρονίων·
            ἀμβρόσιαι δ’ ἄρα χαῖται ἐπεῤῥώσαντο ἄνακτος
            κρατὸς ἀπ’ ἀθανάτοιο· μέγαν δ’ ἐλέλιξεν Ὄλυμπον,

served him as the model of his Olympian Jupiter, and that only through
their help had he succeeded in making a godlike countenance, “propemodum
ex ipso cœlo petitum.” Whoever understands by this merely that the
imagination of the artist was fired by the poet’s sublime picture, and
thus made capable of equally sublime representations, overlooks, I
think, the chief point, and contents himself with a general statement
where something very special and much more satisfactory is meant.
Phidias here acknowledges also, as I understand him, that this passage
first led him to notice how much expression lies in the eyebrows,
“quanta pars animi” is shown in them. Perhaps it further induced him to
bestow more attention upon the hair, in order to express in some degree
what Homer calls ambrosial curls. For it is certain that the old artists
before Phidias had very little idea of the language and significance of
the features, and particularly neglected the hair. Even Myron was faulty
in both these respects, as Pliny observes,[146] and, according to the
same authority, Pythagoras Leontinus was the first who distinguished
himself by the beauty of his hair. Other artists learned from the works
of Phidias what Phidias had learned from Homer.

I will mention another example of the same kind which has always given
me particular pleasure. Hogarth passes the following criticism on the
Apollo Belvidere.[147] “These two masterpieces of art, the Apollo and
the Antinous, are seen together in the same palace at Rome, where the
Antinous fills the spectator with admiration only, whilst the Apollo
strikes him with surprise, and, as travellers express themselves, with
an appearance of something more than human, which they of course are
always at a loss to describe; and this effect, they say, is the more
astonishing, as, upon examination, its disproportion is evident even to
a common eye. One of the best sculptors we have in England, who lately
went to see them, confirmed to me what has been now said, particularly
as to the legs and thighs being too long and too large for the upper
parts. And Andrea Sacchi, one of the great Italian painters, seems to
have been of the same opinion, or he would hardly have given his Apollo,
crowning Pasquilini the musician, the exact proportion of the Antinous
(in a famous picture of his now in England), as otherwise it seems to be
a direct copy from the Apollo.

“Although in very great works we often see an inferior part neglected,
yet here this cannot be the case, because in a fine statue, just
proportion is one of its essential beauties; therefore it stands to
reason, that these limbs must have been lengthened on purpose, otherwise
it might easily have been avoided.

“So that if we examine the beauties of this figure thoroughly, we may
reasonably conclude, that what has been hitherto thought so
unaccountably excellent in its general appearance, hath been owing to
what hath seemed a blemish in a part of it.”

All this is very suggestive. Homer also, I would add, had already felt
and noticed the same thing,—that an appearance of nobility is produced
by a disproportionate size of the foot and thigh. For, when Antenor is
comparing the figure of Ulysses with that of Menelaus, he says,[148]—

              στάντων μὲν Μενέλαος ὑπείρεχεν εὐρέας ὤμους,
              ἄμφω δ’ ἑζομένω, γεραρώτερος ἦεν Ὀδυσσεύς.

“When both were standing Menelaus overtopped him by his broad shoulders;
but when both were sitting, Ulysses was the more majestic.” Since, when
seated, Ulysses gained in dignity what Menelaus lost, we can easily tell
the proportion which the upper part of the body in each bore to the feet
and thighs. In Ulysses the upper part was large in proportion to the
lower: in Menelaus the size of the lower parts was large in proportion
to that of the upper.




                                 XXIII.


A single incongruous part may destroy the harmonious effect of many
beauties, without, however, making the object ugly. Ugliness requires
the presence of several incongruous parts which we must be able to take
in at a glance if the effect produced is to be the opposite of that
which we call beauty.

Accordingly ugliness in itself can be no subject for poetry. Yet Homer
has described its extreme in Thersites, and described it by its
coexistent parts. Why did he allow himself in the case of ugliness what
he wisely refrained from as regards beauty? Will not the effect of
ugliness be as much hindered by the successive enumeration of its
elements, as the effect of beauty is neutralized by a similar treatment?

Certainly it will, and therein lies Homer’s justification. The poet can
make ugliness his theme only because it acquires through his description
a less repulsive aspect, and ceases in a measure to produce the effect
of ugliness. What he cannot employ by itself, he uses as an ingredient
to excite and strengthen certain mixed impressions, with which he must
entertain us in the absence of those purely agreeable.

These mixed sensations are those of the ridiculous and the horrible.

Homer makes Thersites ugly in order to make him ridiculous. Mere
ugliness, however, would not have this effect. Ugliness is imperfection,
and the ridiculous requires a contrast between perfections and
imperfections.[149] This is the explanation of my friend, to which I
would add that this contrast must not be too sharp and decided, but that
the opposites must be such as admit of being blended into each other.
All the ugliness of Thersites has not made the wise and virtuous Æsop
ridiculous. A silly, monkish conceit sought to transfer to the writer
the γέλοιον of his instructive fables by representing his person as
deformed. But a misshapen body and a beautiful soul are like oil and
vinegar, which, however much they may be stirred together, will always
remain distinct to the taste. They give rise to no third. Each one
produces its own effect,—the body distaste, the soul delight. The two
emotions blend into one only when the misshapen body is at the same time
frail and sickly, a hinderance and source of injury to the mind. The
result, however, is not laughter, but compassion; and the object, which
before we had simply respected, now excites our interest. The frail,
misshapen Pope must have been more interesting to his friends than the
strong, handsome Wycherley.

But although Thersites is not ridiculous on account of his ugliness
alone, he would not be ridiculous without it. Many elements work
together to produce this result; the ugliness of his person
corresponding with that of his character, and both contrasting with the
idea he entertains of his own importance, together with the
harmlessness, except to himself, of his malicious tongue. The last point
is the οὐ φθαρτικόν (the undeadly), which Aristotle[150] takes to be an
indispensable element of the ridiculous. My friend also makes it a
necessary condition that the contrast should be unimportant, and not
interest us greatly. For, suppose that Thersites had had to pay dearly
for his spiteful detraction of Agamemnon, that it had cost him his life
instead of a couple of bloody wales, then we should cease to laugh at
him. To test the justice of this, let us read his death in Quintus
Calaber.[151] Achilles regrets having slain Penthesilea. Her noble
blood, so bravely shed, claims the hero’s respect and compassion,
feelings which soon grow into love. The slanderous Thersites turns this
love into a crime. He inveighs against the sensuality which betrays even
the bravest of men into follies:

                             ἥτ’ ἄφρονα φῶτα τίθησι
                     καὶ πινυτόν περ ἐόντα.

Achilles’ wrath is kindled. Without a word he deals him such a blow
between cheek and ear that teeth, blood, and life gush from the wound.
This is too barbarous. The angry, murderous Achilles becomes more an
object of hate to me than the tricky, snarling Thersites. The shout of
delight raised by the Greeks at the deed offends me. My sympathies are
with Diomedes, whose sword is drawn on the instant to take vengeance on
the murderer of his kinsman. For Thersites as a man is of my kin also.

But suppose that the attempts of Thersites had resulted in open mutiny;
that the rebellious people had actually taken to the ships, and
treacherously abandoned their commanders, who thereupon had fallen into
the hands of a vindictive enemy; and that the judgment of the gods had
decreed total destruction to fleet and nation: how should we then view
the ugliness of Thersites? Although harmless ugliness may be ridiculous,
hurtful ugliness is always horrible.

I cannot better illustrate this than by a couple of admirable passages
from Shakespeare. Edmund, bastard son of the Earl of Gloucester in King
Lear, is no less a villain than Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who, by the
most hideous crimes, paved his way to the throne, which he ascended
under the title of Richard the Third. Why does he excite in us far less
disgust and horror? When the bastard says,[152]—

            Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law
            My services are bound; wherefore should I
            Stand in the plague of custom, and permit
            The curiosity of nations to deprive me,
            For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines
            Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?
            When my dimensions are as well compact,
            My mind as generous, and my shape as true
            As honest Madam’s issue? why brand they thus
            With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
            Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take
            More composition and fierce quality,
            Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
            Go to creating a whole tribe of fops
            Got ’tween asleep and wake?

I hear a devil speaking, but in the form of an angel of light.

When, on the contrary, the Earl of Gloucester says,[153]—

          But I,—that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
          Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
          I, that am rudely stamped, and want love’s majesty;
          To strut before a wanton, ambling nymph;
          I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,
          Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
          Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time
          Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
          And that so lamely and unfashionably,
          That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
          Why I, in this weak piping time of peace,
          Have no delight to pass away the time;
          Unless to spy my shadow in the sun,
          And descant on mine own deformity;
          And, therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
          To entertain these fair, well-spoken days,
          I am determined to prove a villain.

I hear a devil and see a devil, in a shape which only the devil should
wear.




                                 XXIV.


Such is the use which the poet makes of ugliness of form. How can the
painter legitimately employ it?

Painting as imitative skill can express ugliness; painting as a fine art
will not express it. In the former capacity its sphere extends over all
visible objects; in the latter it confines itself to those which produce
agreeable impressions.

But do not disagreeable impressions please in the imitation? Not all. An
acute critic has already remarked this in respect of disgust.[154]
“Representations of fear,” he says, “of sadness, horror, compassion,
&c., arouse painful emotions only in so far as we believe the evil to be
actual. The consideration that it is but an illusion of art may resolve
these disagreeable sensations into those of pleasure. But, according to
the laws of imagination, the disagreeable sensation of disgust arises
from the mere representation in the mind, whether the object be thought
actually to exist or not. No matter how apparent the art of the
imitation, our wounded sensibilities are not relieved. Our discomfort
arose not from the belief that the evil was actual, but from the mere
representation which is actually present. The feeling of disgust,
therefore, comes always from nature, never from imitation.”

The same criticism is applicable to physical ugliness. This also wounds
our sight, offends our taste for order and harmony, and excites aversion
without regard to the actual existence of the object in which we
perceive it. We wish to see neither Thersites himself nor his image. If
his image be the less displeasing, the reason is not that ugliness of
shape ceases to be ugly in the imitation, but that we possess the power
of diverting our minds from this ugliness by admiration of the artist’s
skill. But this satisfaction is constantly disturbed by the thought of
the unworthy use to which art has been put, and our esteem for the
artist is thereby greatly diminished.

Aristotle adduces another reason[155] for the pleasure we take in even
the most faithful copy of what in nature is disagreeable. He attributes
this pleasure to man’s universal desire for knowledge. We are pleased
when we can learn from a copy τί ἕκαστον, what each and every thing is,
or when we can conclude from it ὅτι οὗτος ἐκεῖνος, that it is the very
thing we already know. But this is no argument in favor of the imitation
of ugliness. The pleasure which arises from the gratification of our
desire for knowledge is momentary and only incidental to the object with
regard to which it has been satisfied, whereas the discomfort which
accompanies the sight of ugliness is permanent, and essential to the
object causing it. How, then, can one counterbalance the other? Still
less can the trifling entertainment of tracing a likeness overcome the
unpleasant impression produced by ugliness. The more closely I compare
the ugly copy with the ugly original, the more I expose myself to this
influence, so that the pleasure of the comparison soon disappears,
leaving nothing behind but the painful impression of this twofold
ugliness.

From the examples given by Aristotle he appears not to include ugliness
of form among the disagreeable things which may give pleasure in the
imitation. His examples are wild beasts and dead bodies. Wild beasts
excite terror even when they are not ugly; and this terror, not their
ugliness, may be made to produce sensations of pleasure through
imitation. So also of dead bodies. Keenness of sympathy, the dreadful
thought of our own annihilation, make a dead body in nature an object of
aversion. In the imitation the sense of illusion robs sympathy of its
sharpness, and, by the addition of various palliating circumstances,
that disturbing element may be either entirely banished or so
inseparably interwoven with these softening features, that terror is
almost lost in desire.

Since, then, ugliness of form, from its exciting sensations of pain of a
kind incapable of being converted by imitation into pleasurable
emotions, cannot in itself be a fitting subject for painting as a fine
art, the question arises whether it may not be employed in painting as
in poetry as an ingredient for strengthening other sensations.

May painting make use of deformity in the attainment of the ridiculous
and horrible?

I will not venture to answer this question absolutely in the negative.
Unquestionably, harmless ugliness can be ridiculous in painting also,
especially when united with an affectation of grace and dignity. Equally
beyond question is it that hurtful ugliness excites terror in a picture
as well as in nature, and that the ridiculous and the terrible, in
themselves mixed sensations, acquire through imitation an added degree
of fascination.

But I must call attention to the fact that painting and poetry do not
stand upon the same footing in this respect. In poetry, as I have
observed, ugliness of form loses its disagreeable effect almost entirely
by the successive enumeration of its coexistent parts. As far as effect
is concerned it almost ceases to be ugliness, and can thus more closely
combine with other appearances to produce new and different impressions.
But in painting ugliness is before our eyes in all its strength, and
affects us scarcely less powerfully than in nature itself. Harmless
ugliness cannot, therefore, long remain ridiculous. The disagreeable
impression gains the mastery, and what was at first amusing becomes at
last repulsive. Nor is the case different with hurtful ugliness. The
element of terror gradually disappears, leaving the deformity unchanging
and unrelieved.

Count Caylus was therefore right in omitting the episode of Thersites
from his series of Homeric pictures. But are we justified in wishing it
out of Homer? I perceive with regret that this is done by one critic
whose taste is otherwise unerring.[156] I postpone further discussion of
the subject to a future occasion.




                                  XXV.


The second distinction mentioned by the critic just quoted, between
disgust and other disagreeable emotions, appears in the distaste which
deformity excites in us.

“Other disagreeable passions,” he says,[157] “may sometimes, in nature
as well as in art, produce gratification, because they never arouse pure
pain. Their bitterness is always mixed with satisfaction. Our fear is
seldom devoid of hope; terror rouses all our powers to escape the
danger; anger is mixed with a desire for vengeance; sadness, with the
pleasant recollection of former happiness; and compassion is inseparable
from the tender sentiments of love and good-will. The mind is at liberty
to dwell now on the agreeable, and now on the disagreeable side, and
thus to obtain a mingling of pleasure and pain, more delightful than the
purest pleasure. Very little study of ourselves will furnish us with
abundant instances. Why else is his anger dearer to an angry man and his
sadness to a melancholy one, than all the cheerful images by which we
strive to soothe him? Quite different is the case with disgust and its
kindred sensations. Here the mind is conscious of no perceptible
admixture of pleasure. A feeling of uneasiness gains the mastery, and
under no imaginable conditions in nature or art would the mind fail to
recoil with aversion from representations of this nature.”

Very true; but, since the critic acknowledges the existence of other
sensations nearly akin to that of disgust, and producing, like that,
nothing but pain, what answers more nearly to this description than
emotions excited by the sight of physical deformity? These are not only
kindred to that of disgust, but they resemble it in being destitute of
all admixture of pleasure in art as well as in nature. Under no
imaginable conditions, therefore, would the mind fail to recoil with
aversion from such representations.

This aversion, if I have analyzed my feelings with sufficient care, is
altogether of the nature of disgust. The sensation which accompanies the
sight of physical deformity is disgust, though a low degree of it. This,
indeed, is at variance with another remark of our critic, according to
which only our more occult senses—those of taste, smell, and touch—are
capable of receiving impressions of disgust. “The first two,” he says,
“from an excessive sweetness, and the latter from an extreme softness of
bodies which offer too slight resistance to the fibres coming in contact
with them. Such objects, then, become intolerable to the sight, but
solely through the association of ideas, because we remember how
disagreeable they were to our sense of taste, smell, or touch. For,
strictly speaking, there are no objects of disgust to the eyes.” I
think, however, that some might be mentioned. A mole on the face, a
hare-lip, a flattened nose with prominent nostrils, are deformities
which offend neither taste, smell, nor touch. Yet the sight of them
excites in us something much more nearly resembling disgust than we feel
at sight of other malformations, such as a club-foot or a hump on the
back. The more susceptible the temperament, the more distinctly are we
conscious, when looking at such objects, of those motions in the body
which precede nausea. That these motions soon subside, and rarely if
ever result in actual sickness, is to be explained by the fact that the
eye receives in and with the objects causing them such a number of
pleasing images that the disagreeable impressions are too much weakened
and obscured to exert any marked influence on the body. The more occult
senses of taste, smell, and touch, on the contrary, cannot receive other
impressions when in contact with the repulsive object. The element of
disgust operates in full force, and necessarily produces much more
violent effects upon the body.

The same rules hold of things loathsome as of things ugly, in respect of
imitation. Indeed, since the disagreeable effect of the former is the
more violent, they are still less suitable subjects of painting or
poetry. Only because the effect is softened by verbal expression, did I
venture to assert that the poet might employ certain loathsome traits as
an ingredient in such mixed sensations as can with good effect be
strengthened by the use of ugliness.

The ridiculous may be heightened by an element of disgust;
representations of dignity and propriety likewise become ludicrous when
brought into contrast with the disgusting. Examples of this abound in
Aristophanes. I am reminded of the weasel that interrupted the worthy
Socrates in his astronomical observations.[158]

            ΜΑΘ. πρώην δέ γε γνώμην μεγάλην ἀφῃρέθη
            ὑπ’ ἀσκαλαβώτου. ΣΤΡ. τίνα τρόπον; κάτειπέ μοι.
            ΜΑΘ. ζητοῦντος αὐτοῦ τῆς σελήνης τὰς ὁδοὺς
            καὶ τὰς περιφοράς, εἶτ’ ἄνω κεχηνότος
            ἀπὸ τῆς ὀροφῆς νύκτωρ γαλεώτης κατέχεσεν.
            ΣΤΡ. ἥσθην γαλεώτῃ καταχέσαντι Σωκράτους.

If what fell into the open mouth had not been disgusting, there would be
nothing ludicrous in the story.

An amusing instance of this occurs in the Hottentot story of Tquassouw
and Knonmquaiha, attributed to Lord Chesterfield, which appeared in the
“Connoisseur,” an English weekly, full of wit and humor. The filthiness
of the Hottentots is well known, as also the fact of their regarding as
beautiful and holy what excites our disgust and aversion. The pressed
gristle of a nose, flaccid breasts descending to the navel, the whole
body anointed with a varnish of goat’s fat and soot, melted in by the
sun, hair dripping with grease, arms and legs entwined with fresh
entrails,—imagine all this the object of an ardent, respectful, tender
love; listen to expressions of this love in the noble language of
sincerity and admiration, and keep from laughing if you can.[159]

The disgusting seems to admit of being still more closely united with
the terrible. What we call the horrible is nothing more than a mixture
of the elements of terror and disgust. Longinus[160] takes offence at
the “Τῆς ἐκ μὲν ῥινῶν μύξαι ῥέον (mucus flowing from the nostrils) in
Hesiod’s picture of Sorrow;[161] but not, I think, so much on account of
the loathsomeness of the trait, as from its being simply loathsome with
no element of terror. For he does not seem inclined to find fault with
the μακροὶ δ’ ὄνυχες χείρεσσιν ὑπῆσαν, the long nails projecting beyond
the fingers. Long nails are not less disgusting than a running nose, but
they are at the same time terrible. It is they that tear the cheeks till
the blood runs to the ground:

                                ... ἐκ δὲ παρειῶν
                      αἶμ’ ἀπελείβετ’ ἔραζε....

The other feature is simply disgusting, and I should advise Sorrow to
cease her crying.

Read Sophocles’ description of the desert cave of his wretched
Philoctetes. There are no provisions to be seen, no comforts beyond a
trampled litter of dried leaves, an unshapely wooden bowl, and a
tinder-box. These constitute the whole wealth of the sick, forsaken man.
How does the poet complete the sad and frightful picture? By introducing
the element of disgust. “Ha!” Neoptolemus draws back of a sudden, “here
are rags drying full of blood and matter.”[162]

              NE. ὁρώ κενὴν οἴκησιν ἀνθρώπων δίχα.

              ΟΔ. οὐδ’ ἔνδον οἰκοποιός ἐστί τις τροφή;

              ΝΕ. στείπτή γε φυλλὰς ὡς ἐναυλίζοντί τῳ.

              OΔ. τὰ δ’ ἄλλ’ ἔρημα, κοὔδέν ἐσθ’ ὑπόστεγον;

              ΝΕ. αὐτόξυλόν γ’ ἔκπωμα φαυλουργοῦ τινὸς
                  τεχνήματ’ ἀνδρὸς, καὶ πυρεῖ’ ὁμοῦ τάδε.

              OΔ. κείνου τὸ θησαύρισμα σημαίνεις τόδε.

              ΝΕ. ἰοὺ, ἰού· καὶ ταῦτά γ’ ἄλλα θάλπεται
                  ῥάκη, βαρείας του νοσηλείας πλέα.

So in Homer, Hector dragged on the ground, his face foul with dust, his
hair matted with blood,

            Squalentem barbam et concretos sanguine crines,

(as Virgil expresses it[163]) is a disgusting object, but all the more
terrible and touching.

Who can recall the punishment of Marsyas, in Ovid, without a feeling of
disgust?[164]

          Clamanti cutis est summos direpta per artus:
          Nec quidquam, nisi vulnus erat; cruor undique manat:
          Detectique patent nervi: trepidæque sine ulla
          Pelle micant venæ: salientia viscera possis,
          Et perlucentes numerare in pectore fibras.

But the loathsome details are here appropriate. They make the terrible
horrible, which in fiction is far from displeasing to us; since, even in
nature, where our compassion is enlisted, things horrible are not wholly
devoid of charm.

I do not wish to multiply examples, but this one thing I must further
observe. There is one form of the horrible, the road to which lies
almost exclusively through the disgusting, and that is the horror of
famine. Even in ordinary life we can convey no idea of extreme hunger
save by enumerating all the innutritious, unwholesome, and particularly
disgusting things with which the stomach would fain appease its
cravings. Since imitation can excite nothing of the feeling of actual
hunger, it has recourse to another disagreeable sensation which, in
cases of extreme hunger, is felt to be a lesser evil. We may thus infer
how intense that other suffering must be which makes the present
discomfort in comparison of small account.

Ovid says of the Oread whom Ceres sent to meet Famine,[165]—

          Hanc (Famem) procul ut vidit....
          ... refert mandata deæ; paulumque morata
          Quanquam aberat longe, quanquam modo venerat illuc,
          Visa tamen sensisse famem....

This is an unnatural exaggeration. The sight of a hungry person, even of
Hunger herself, has no such power of contagion. Compassion and horror
and loathing may be aroused, but not hunger. Ovid has not been sparing
of this element of the horrible in the picture of Famine; while both he
and Callimachus,[166] in their description of Erisichthon’s starvation,
have laid chief emphasis upon the loathsome traits. After Erisichthon
has devoured every thing, not sparing even the sacrificial cow, which
his mother had been fattening for Vesta, Callimachus makes him fall on
horses and cats, and beg in the streets for crumbs and filthy refuse
from other men’s tables.

              Καὶ τὰν βῶν ἔφαγεν, τὰν Ἑστίᾳ ἔτρεφε μάτηρ,
              Καὶ τὸν ἀεθλοφόρον καὶ τὸν πολεμήιον ἵππον,
              Καὶ τὰν αἴλουρον, τὰν ἔτρεμε θηρία μικκά—
              Καὶ τόχ’ ὁ τῶ βασιλῆος ἐνὶ τριόδοισι καθῆστο
              αἰτίζων ἀκόλως τε καὶ ἔκβολα λύματα δαιτός.

Ovid represents him finally as biting into his own flesh, that his body
might thus furnish nourishment for itself.

             Vis tamen illa mali postquam consumserat omnem
             Materiam ...
             Ipse suos artus lacero divellere morsu
             Cœpit· et infelix minuendo corpus alebat.

The hideous harpies were made loathsome and obscene in order that the
hunger occasioned by their carrying off of the food might be the more
horrible. Hear the complaints of Phineus in Apollonius:[167]—

            τυτθὸν δ’ ἦν ἄρα δή ποτ’ ἐδητύος ἄμμι λίπωσι,
            πνεῖ τόδε μυδαλέον τε καὶ οὐ τλητὸν μένος ὀδμῆς.
            οὔ κέ τις οὐδὲ μίνυνθα βροτῶν ἄνσχοιτο πελάσσας,
            οὐδ’ εἰ οἱ ἀδάμαντος ἐληλαμένον κέαρ εἴη.
            ἀλλά με πικρὴ δῆτά κε καὶ ἄατος ἐπίσχει ἀνάγκη
            μίμνειν, καὶ μίμνοντα κακῇ ἐν γαστέρι θέσθαι.

I would gladly excuse in this way, if I could, Virgil’s disgusting
introduction of the harpies. They, however, instead of occasioning an
actual present hunger, only prophesy an inward craving; and this
prophecy, moreover, is resolved finally into a mere play upon words.

Dante not only prepares us for the starvation of Ugolino by a most
loathsome, horrible description of him together with his former
persecutor in hell, but the slow starvation itself is not free from
disgusting features, as where the sons offer themselves as food for the
father. I give in a note a passage from a play by Beaumont and Fletcher,
which might have served me in the stead of all other examples, were it
not somewhat too highly drawn.[168]

I come now to objects of disgust in painting. Even could we prove that
there are no objects directly disgusting to the eye, which painting as a
fine art would naturally avoid, it would still be obliged to refrain
from loathsome objects in general, because they become through the
association of ideas disgusting also to the sense of sight. Pordenone,
in a picture of the entombment, makes one of the by-standers hold his
nose. Richardson[169] objects to this on the ground that Christ had not
been long enough dead for corruption to set in. In the raising of
Lazarus, however, he would allow the painter to represent some of the
lookers-on in that attitude, because the narrative expressly states that
the body was already offensive. But I consider the representation in
both cases as insufferable, for not only the actual smell, but the very
idea of it is nauseous. We shun bad-smelling places even when we have a
cold in the head. But painting does not employ loathsomeness for its own
sake, but, like poetry, to give emphasis to the ludicrous and the
terrible. At its peril! What I have already said of ugliness in this
connection applies with greater force to loathsomeness. This also loses
much less of its effect in a visible representation than in a
description addressed to the ear, and can therefore unite less closely
with the elements of the ludicrous and terrible in painting than in
poetry. As soon as the surprise passes and the first curious glance is
satisfied, the elements separate and loathsomeness appears in all its
crudity.




                                 XXVI.


Winkelmann’s “History of Ancient Art” has appeared, and I cannot venture
a step further until I have read it. Criticism based solely upon general
principles may lead to conceits which sooner or later we find to our
shame refuted in works on art.

The ancients well understood the connection between painting and poetry,
and are sure not to have drawn the two arts more closely together than
the good of both would warrant. What their artists have done will teach
me what artists in general should do; and where such a man precedes with
the torch of history, speculation may boldly follow.

We are apt to turn over the leaves of an important work before seriously
setting ourselves to read it. My chief curiosity was to know the
author’s opinion of the Laocoon; not of its merit as a work of art, for
that he had already given, but merely of its antiquity. Would he agree
with those who think that Virgil had the group before him, or with those
who suppose the sculptors to have followed the poet?

I am pleased to find that he says nothing of imitation on either side.
What need is there, indeed, of supposing imitation?

Very possibly the resemblances which I have been considering between the
poetic picture and the marble group were not intentional but accidental,
and, so far from one having served as a model for the other, the two may
not even have had a common model. Had he, however, been misled by an
appearance of imitation, he must have declared in favor of those who
make Virgil the imitator. For he supposes the Laocoon to date from the
period when Greek art was in its perfection: to be, therefore, of the
time of Alexander the Great.

“Kind fortune,” he says,[170] “watching over the arts even in their
extinction, has preserved for the admiration of the world a work of this
period of art, which proves the truth of what history tells concerning
the glory of the many lost masterpieces. The Laocoon with his two sons,
the work of Agesander, Apollodorus,[171] and Athenodorus, of Rhodes,
dates in all probability from this period, although we cannot determine
the exact time, nor give, as some have done, the Olympiad in which these
artists flourished.”

In a note he adds: “Pliny says not a word with regard to the time when
Agesander and his assistants lived. But Maffei, in his explanation of
the ancient statues, professes to know that these artists flourished in
the eighty-eighth Olympiad; and others, like Richardson, have maintained
the same on his authority. He must, I think, have mistaken an
Athenodorus, a pupil of Polycletus, for one of our artists. Polycletus
flourished in the eighty-seventh Olympiad, and his supposed pupil was
therefore referred to the Olympiad following. Maffei can have no other
grounds for his opinion.”

Certainly he can have no other. But why does Winkelmann content himself
with the mere mention of this supposed argument of Maffei? Does it
refute itself? Not altogether. For although not otherwise supported, it
yet carries with it a certain degree of probability unless we can prove
that Athenodorus, the pupil of Polycletus, and Athenodorus, the
assistant of Agesander and Polydorus, could not possibly have been one
and the same person. Happily this is proved by the fact that the two
were natives of different countries. We have the express testimony of
Pausanias[172] that the first Athenodorus was from Clitor in Arcadia,
while the second, on the authority of Pliny, was born at Rhodes.

Winkelmann can have had no object in refraining from a direct refutation
of Maffei by the statement of this circumstance. Probably the arguments
which his undoubted critical knowledge derived from the skill of the
workmanship seemed to him of such great weight, that he deemed any
slight probability which Maffei’s opinion might have on its side a
matter of no importance. He doubtless recognized in the Laocoon too many
of those _argutiæ_[173] (traits of animation) peculiar to Lysippus, to
suppose it to be of earlier date than that master who was the first to
enrich art with this semblance of life.

But, granting the fact to be proved that the Laocoon cannot be older
than Lysippus, have we thereby proved that it must be contemporaneous
with him or nearly so? May it not be a work of much later date? Passing
in review those periods previous to the rise of the Roman monarchy, when
art in Greece alternately rose and sank, why, I ask, might not Laocoon
have been the happy fruit of that emulation which the extravagant luxury
of the first emperors must have kindled among artists? Why might not
Agesander and his assistants have been the contemporaries of
Strongylion, Arcesilaus, Pasiteles, Posidonius, or Diogenes? Were not
some of the works of those masters counted among the greatest treasures
ever produced by art? And if undoubted works from the hand of these men
were still in existence, but the time in which they lived was unknown
and left to be determined by the style of their art, would not some
inspiration from heaven be needed to prevent the critic from referring
them to that period which to Winkelmann seemed the only one worthy of
producing the Laocoon?

Pliny, it is true, does not expressly mention the time when the
sculptors of the Laocoon lived. But were I to conclude from a study of
the whole passage whether he would have them reckoned among the old or
the new artists, I confess the probability seems to me in favor of the
latter inference. Let the reader judge.

After speaking at some length of the oldest and greatest masters of
sculpture,—Phidias, Praxiteles, and Scopas,—and then giving, without
chronological order, the names of the rest, especially of those who were
represented in Rome by any of their works, Pliny proceeds as
follows:[174]—


  Nec multo plurium fama est, quorundam claritati in operibus eximiis
  obstante numero artificum, quoniam nec unus occupat gloriam, nec
  plures pariter nuncupari possunt, sicut in Laocoonte, qui est in Titi
  Imperatoris domo, opus omnibus et picturæ et statuariæ artis
  præponendum. Ex uno lapide eum et liberos draconumque mirabiles nexus
  de consilii sententia fecere summi artifices, Agesander et Polydorus
  et Athenodorus Rhodii. Similiter Palatinas domus Cæsarum replevere
  probatissimis signis Craterus cum Pythodoro, Polydectes cum Hermolao,
  Pythodorus alius cum Artemone, et singularis Aphrodisius Trallianus.
  Agrippæ Pantheum decoravit Diogenes Atheniensis; et Caryatides in
  columnis templi ejus probantur inter pauca operum: sicut in fastigio
  posita signa, sed propter altitudinem loci minus celebrata.


Of all the artists mentioned in this passage, Diogenes of Athens is the
one whose date is fixed with the greatest precision. He adorned the
Pantheon of Agrippa, and therefore lived under Augustus. But a close
examination of Pliny’s words will, I think, determine with equal
certainty the date of Craterus and Pythodorus, Polydectes and Hermolaus,
the second Pythodorus and Artemon, as also of Aphrodisius of Tralles. He
says of them: “Palatinas domus Cæsarum replevere probatissimis signis.”
Can this mean only that the palaces were filled with admirable works by
these artists, which the emperors had collected from various places and
brought to their dwellings in Rome? Surely not. The sculptors must have
executed their works expressly for the imperial palaces, and must,
therefore, have lived at the time of these emperors. That they were
artists of comparatively late date, who worked only in Italy, is plain
from our finding no mention of them elsewhere. Had they worked in Greece
at an earlier day, Pausanias would have seen some work of theirs and
recorded it. He mentions, indeed, a Pythodorus,[175] but Hardouin is
wrong in supposing him to be the same referred to by Pliny. For
Pausanias calls the statue of Juno at Coronæa, in Bœotia, the work of
the former, ἄγαλμα ἀρχαῖον (an ancient idol), a term which he applies
only to the works of those artists who lived in the first rude days of
art, long before Phidias and Praxiteles. With such works the emperors
would certainly not have adorned their palaces. Of still less value is
another suggestion of Hardouin, that Artemon may be the painter of the
same name elsewhere mentioned by Pliny. Identity of name is a slight
argument, and by no means authorizes us to do violence to the natural
interpretation of an uncorrupted passage.

If it be proved beyond a doubt that Craterus and Pythodorus, Polydectes
and Hermolaus, with the rest, lived at the time of the emperors whose
palaces they adorned with their admirable works, then I think we can
assign no other date to those artists, the sculptors of the Laocoon,
whose names Pliny connects with these by the word _similiter_. For if
Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus were really such old masters as
Winkelmann supposes, it would be the height of impropriety for an
author, who makes great account of precision of expression, to leap from
them to the most modern artists, merely with the words “in like manner.”

But it may be urged that this _similiter_ has no reference to a common
date, but to some other circumstance common to all these masters, who
yet in age were widely different. Pliny, it may be said, is speaking of
artists who had worked in partnership, and on this account had not
obtained the fame they merited. The names of all had been left in
neglect, because no one artist could appropriate the honor of the common
work, and to mention the names of all the participators would require
too much time (quoniam nec unus occupat gloriam, nec plures pariter
nuncupari possunt). This had been the fate of the sculptors of the
Laocoon, as well as of the many other masters whom the emperors had
employed in the decoration of their palaces.

But, granting all this, the probabilities are still in favor of the
supposition that Pliny meant to refer only to the later artists whose
labors had been in common. If he had meant to include older ones, why
confine himself to the sculptors of the Laocoon?

Why not mention others, as Onatas and Calliteles, Timocles and
Timarchides, or the sons of this Timarchides, who together had made a
statue of Jupiter at Rome?[176] Winkelmann himself says that a long list
might be made of older works which had more than one father.[177] And
would Pliny have thought but of the single example of Agesander,
Polydorus, and Athenodorus, if he had not meant to confine himself
strictly to the more modern masters?

If ever a conjecture gained in probability from the number and magnitude
of the difficulties solved by it, this one, that the sculptors of the
Laocoon flourished under the first emperors, has that advantage in a
high degree. For had they lived and worked in Greece at the time which
Winkelmann assigns to them, had the Laocoon itself existed earlier in
Greece, then the utter silence of the Greeks with regard to such a work,
“surpassing all the results of painting or statuary” (opere omnibus et
picturæ et statuariæ artis præponendo), is most surprising. It is hard
to believe that such great masters should have created nothing else, or
that the rest of their works should have been, equally with the Laocoon,
unknown to Pausanias. In Rome, on the contrary, the greatest masterpiece
might have remained long concealed. If the Laocoon had been finished as
early as the time of Augustus, there would be nothing surprising in
Pliny’s being the first, and, indeed, the last, to mention it. For
remember what he tells[178] of a Venus by Scopas, which stood in the
temple of Mars at Rome:


  ... “quemcunque alium locum nobilitatura. Romæ quidem magnitudo operum
  eam obliterat, ac magni officiorum negotiorumque acervi omnes a
  contemplatione talium abducunt: quoniam otiosorum et in magno loci
  silentio apta admiratio talis est.”


Those who would fain see in the group an imitation of Virgil’s Laocoon
will readily catch at what I have been saying, nor will they be
displeased at another conjecture which just occurs to me. Why should not
Asinius Pollio, they may think, have been the patron who had Virgil’s
Laocoon put into marble by Greek artists? Pollio was a particular friend
of the poet, survived him, and appears to have written an original work
on the Æneid. For whence but from such a work could the various comments
have been drawn which Servius quotes from that author?[179] Pollio was,
moreover, a lover of art and a connoisseur, possessed a valuable
collection of the best of the old masterpieces, ordered new works from
the artists of his day, and showed in his choice a taste quite likely to
be pleased by so daring a piece as the Laocoon,[180] “ut fuit acris
vehementiæ, sic quoque spectari monumenta sua voluit.”

Since, however, the cabinet of Pollio in Pliny’s day, when the Laocoon
was standing in the palace of Titus, seems to have existed entire in a
separate building, this supposition again loses something of its
probability. Why might not Titus himself have done what we are trying to
ascribe to Pollio?




                                 XXVII.


A little item first brought to my notice by Winkelmann himself confirms
me in my opinion that the sculptors of the Laocoon lived at the time of
the emperors, or at least could not date from so early a period as he
assigns them. It is this:[181] “In Nettuno, the ancient Antium, Cardinal
Alexander Albani discovered in 1717 in a deep vault, which lay buried
under the sea, a vase of the grayish black marble now called _bigio_,
wherein the Laocoon was inlaid. Upon this vase is the following
inscription:—

                         ΑΘΑΝΟΔΩΡΟΣ ΑΓΗΣΑΝΔΡΟΥ
                         ΡΟΔΙΟΣ ΕΠΟΙΗΣΕ.

“Athanodorus of Rhodes, son of Agesander, made it.” We learn from this
inscription that father and son worked on the Laocoon; and probably
Apollodorus (Polydorus) was also a son of Agesander, for this
Athanodorus can be no other than the one mentioned by Pliny. The
inscription also proves that more than three works of art have been
found—the number stated by Pliny—on which the artists have set the word
“made,” in definite past time, ἐποίησε, _fecit_. Other artists, he says,
from modesty, made use of indefinite time, “was making,” ἐποίει,
_faciebat_.

Few will contradict Winkelmann in his conclusion that the Athanodorus of
this inscription can be no other than the Athenodorus whom Pliny
mentions as among the sculptors of the Laocoon. Athanodorus and
Athenodorus are entirely synonymous; for the Rhodians used the Doric
dialect. But the other conclusions which he draws from the inscription
require further comment.

The first, that Athenodorus was a son of Agesander, may pass. It is
highly probable, though by no means certain. Some of the old artists, we
know, called themselves after their teachers instead of taking their
fathers’ names. What Pliny says of the brothers Apollonius and Tauriscus
cannot well be explained in any other way.[182]

But shall we say that this inscription contradicts the statement of
Pliny that there were only three works of art to which their masters had
set their names in definite past time (ἐποίησε instead of ἐποίει)? This
inscription! What need of this to teach us what we might have learned
long ago from a multitude of others? On the statue of Germanicus was
there not the inscription Κλεομένης—ἐποίησε, Cleomenes made? on the
so-called Apotheosis of Homer, Ἀρχέλαος ἐποίησε, Archelaus made? on the
well-known vase at Gaeta, Σαλπίων ἐποίησε, Salpion made? nor are other
instances wanting.[183]

Winkelmann may answer: “No one knows that better than I. So much the
worse for Pliny. His statement has been so much the oftener
contradicted, and is so much the more surely refuted.”

By no means. How if Winkelmann has made Pliny say more than he meant to
say? How if these examples contradict, not Pliny’s statement, but only
something which Winkelmann supposes him to have stated? And this is
actually the case. I must quote the whole passage. Pliny, in the
dedication of his work to Titus, speaks with the modesty of a man who
knows better than any one else how far what he has accomplished falls
short of perfection. He finds a noteworthy example of such modesty among
the Greeks, on the ambitious and boastful titles of whose books
(inscriptiones, propter quas vadimonium deseri possit) he dwells at some
length, and then says:[184]


  Et ne in totum videar Græcos insectari, ex illis nos velim intelligi
  pingendi fingendique conditoribus, quos in libellis his invenies,
  absoluta opera, et illa quoque quæ mirando non satiamur, pendenti
  titulo inscripsisse: ut APELLES FACIEBAT, aut POLYCLETUS: tanquam
  inchoata semper arte et imperfecta: ut contra judiciorum varietates
  superesset artifici regressus ad veniam, velut emendaturo quidquid
  desideraretur, si non esset interceptus. Quare plenum verecundiæ illud
  est, quod omnia opera tanquam novissima inscripsere, et tanquam
  singulis fato adempti. Tria non amplius, ut opinor, absolute traduntur
  inscripta, ILLE FECIT, quæ suis locis reddam: quo apparuit, summam
  artis securitatem auctori placuisse, et ob id magna invidia fuere
  omnia ea.


I desire to call particular attention to the words of Pliny, “pingendi
fingendique conditoribus” (the creators of the imitative arts). Pliny
does not say that it was the habit of all artists of every date to affix
their names to their works in indefinite past time. He says explicitly
that only the first of the old masters—those creators of the imitative
arts, Apelles, Polycletus, and their contemporaries—possessed this wise
modesty, and, by his mention of these alone, he gives plainly to be
understood, though he does not actually say it in words, that their
successors, particularly those of a late date, expressed themselves with
greater assurance.

With this interpretation, which is the only true one, we may fully
accept the inscription from the hand of one of the three sculptors of
the Laocoon without impugning the truth of what Pliny says, that but
three works existed whereon their creators had cut the inscription in
the finished past time; only three, that is, among all the older works,
of the time of Apelles, Polycletus, Nicias, and Lysippus. But then we
cannot accept the conclusion that Athenodorus and his assistants were
contemporaries of Apelles and Lysippus, as Winkelmann would make them.
We should reason thus. If it be true that among the works of the old
masters, Apelles, Polycletus, and others of that class, there were but
three whose inscriptions stood in definite past time, and if it be
further true that Pliny has mentioned these three by name,[185] then
Athenodorus, who had made neither of these three works, and who
nevertheless employs the definite past time in his inscriptions, cannot
belong among those old masters; he cannot be a contemporary of Apelles
and Lysippus, but must have a later date assigned him.

In short, we may, I think, take it as a safe criterion that all artists
who employed the ἐποίησε, the definite past tense, flourished long after
the time of Alexander the Great, either under the empire or shortly
before. Of Cleomenes this is unquestionably true; highly probable of
Archelaus; and of Salpion the contrary, at least, cannot be proved. So
also of the rest, not excepting Athenodorus.

Let Winkelmann himself decide. But I protest beforehand against the
converse of the proposition. If all who employed the ἐποίησε belong
among the later artists, not all who have used the ἐποίει are to be
reckoned among the earliest. Some of the more recent artists also may
have really possessed this becoming modesty, and by others it may have
been assumed.




                                XXVIII.


Next to his judgment of the Laocoon, I was curious to know what
Winkelmann would say of the so-called Borghese Gladiator. I think I have
made a discovery with regard to this statue, and I rejoice in it with
all a discoverer’s delight.

I feared lest Winkelmann should have anticipated me, but there is
nothing of the kind in his work. If ought could make me doubt the
correctness of my conjecture, it would be the fact that my alarm was
uncalled for.

“Some critics,” says Winkelmann,[186] “take this statue for that of a
discobolus, that is, of a person throwing a disc or plate of metal. This
opinion was expressed by the famous Herr von Stosch in a paper addressed
to me. But he cannot have sufficiently studied the position which such a
figure would assume. A person in the act of throwing must incline his
body backward, with the weight upon the right thigh, while the left leg
is idle. Here the contrary is the case. The whole figure is thrown
forward, and rests on the left thigh while the right leg is stretched
backward to its full extent. The right arm is new, and a piece of a
lance has been placed in the hand. On the left can be seen the strap
that held the shield. The fact that the head and eyes are turned upward
and that the figure seems to be protecting himself with the shield
against some danger from above would rather lead us to consider this
statue as representing a soldier who had especially distinguished
himself in some position of peril. The Greeks probably never paid their
gladiators the honor of erecting them a statue; and this work, moreover,
seems to have been made previous to the introduction of gladiators into
Greece.”

The criticism is perfectly just. The statue is no more a gladiator than
it is a discobolus, but really represents a soldier who distinguished
himself in this position on occasion of some great danger. After this
happy guess, how could Winkelmann help going a step further? Why did he
not think of that warrior who in this very attitude averted the
destruction of a whole army, and to whom his grateful country erected a
statue in the same posture?

The statue, in short, is Chabrias.

This is proved by the following passage from Nepos’ life of that
commander:—[187]


  “Hic quoque in summis habitus est ducibus; resque multas memoria
  dignas gessit. Sed ex his elucet maxime inventum ejus in prœlio, quod
  apud Thebas fecit, quum Bœotiis subsidio venisset. Namque in eo
  victoriæ fidente summo duce Agesilao, fugatis jam ab eo conductitiis
  catervis, reliquam phalangem loco vetuit cedere, obnixoque genu scuto,
  projectaque hasta impetum excipere hostium docuit. Id novum Agesilaus
  contuens, progredi non est ausus suosque jam incurrentes tuba
  revocavit. Hoc usque eo tota Græcia fama celebratum est, ut illo statu
  Chabrias sibi statuam fieri voluerit, quæ publice ei ab Atheniensibus
  in foro constituta est. Ex quo factum est, ut postea athletæ,
  ceterique artifices his statibus in statuis ponendis uterentur in
  quibus victoriam essent adepti.”


The reader will hesitate a moment, I know, before yielding his assent;
but, I hope, only for a moment. The attitude of Chabrias appears to be
not exactly that of the Borghese statue. The thrusting forward of the
lance, “projecta hasta,” is common to both; but commentators explain the
“obnixo genu scuto” to be “obnixo genu in scutum,” “obfirmato genu ad
scutum.” Chabrias is supposed to have showed his men how to brace the
knee against the shield and await the enemy behind this bulwark, whereas
the statue holds the shield aloft. But what if the commentators are
wrong, and instead of “obnixo genu scuto” belonging together, “obnixo
genu” were meant to be read by itself and “scuto” alone, or in
connection with the “projectaque hasta,” which follows? The insertion of
a single comma makes the correspondence perfect. The statue is a
soldier, “qui obnixo genu,[188] scuto projectaque hasta impetum hostis
excipit,” who, with firmly set knee, and shield and lance advanced,
awaits the approach of the enemy. It shows what Chabrias did, and is the
statue of Chabrias. That a comma belongs here is proved by the “que”
affixed to the “projecta,” which would be superfluous if “obnixo genu
scuto” belonged together, and has, therefore, been actually omitted in
some editions.

The great antiquity which this interpretation assigns to the statue is
confirmed by the shape of the letters in the inscription. These led
Winkelmann himself to the conclusion that this was the oldest of the
statues at present existing in Rome on which the master had written his
name. I leave it to his critical eye to detect, if possible, in the
style of the workmanship any thing which conflicts with my opinion.
Should he bestow his approval, I may flatter myself on having furnished
a better example than is to be found in Spence’s whole folio of the
happy manner in which the classic authors can be explained by the old
masterpieces, and in turn throw light upon them.




                                 XXIX.


Winkelmann has brought to his work, together with immense reading and an
extensive and subtle knowledge of art, that noble confidence of the old
masters which led them to devote all their attention to the main object,
treating all secondary matters with what seems like studied neglect, or
abandoning them altogether to any chance hand.

A man may take no little credit to himself for having committed only
such errors as anybody might have avoided. They force themselves upon
our notice at the first hasty reading; and my only excuse for commenting
on them is that I would remind a certain class of persons, who seem to
think no one has eyes but themselves, that they are trifles not worthy
of comment.

In his writings on the imitation of the Greek works of art, Winkelmann
had before allowed himself to be misled by Junius, who is, indeed, a
very deceptive author. His whole work is a cento, and since his rule is
to quote the ancients in their very words, he not infrequently applies
to painting passages which in their original connection had no bearing
whatever on the subject. When, for instance, Winkelmann would tell us
that the highest effect in art, as in poetry, cannot be attained by the
mere imitation of nature, and that poet as well as painter should choose
an impossibility which carries probability with it rather than what is
simply possible, he adds: “This is perfectly consistent with Longinus’
requirement of possibility and truth from the painter in opposition to
the incredibility which he requires from the poet.” Yet the addition was
unfortunate, for it shows a seeming contradiction between the two great
art critics which really does not exist. Longinus never said what is
here attributed to him. Something similar he does say with regard to
eloquence and poetry, but by no means of poetry and painting. Ὡς δ’
ἕτερόν τι ἡ ῥητορικὴ φαντασία βούλεται, καὶ ἕτερον ἡ παρὰ ποιηταῖς, οὐκ
ἂν λάθοι σε, οὐδ’ ὅτι τῆς μὲν ἐν ποιήσει τέλος ἐστὶν ἔκπληξις, τῆς δ’ ἐν
λόγοις ἐνάργεια, he writes to his friend Terentian;[189] and again, Οὐ
μὴν ἀλλὰ τὰ μὲν παρὰ τοῖς ποιηταῖς μυθικωτέραν ἔχει τὴν ὑπερέκπτωσιν,
καὶ πάντη τὸ πιστὸν ὑπεραίρουσαν· τῆς δὲ ῥητορικῆς φαντασίας, κάλλιστον
ἀεὶ τὸ ἔμπρακτον καὶ ἐνάληθές.[190]

But Junius interpolates here painting instead of oratory, and it was in
his writings, not in those of Longinus, that Winkelmann read: “Præsertim
cum poeticæ phantasiæ finis sit ἔκπληξις, pictoriæ vero, ἐνάργεια, καὶ
τὰ μὲν παρὰ τοῖς ποιηταῖς, ut loquitur idem Longinus,” &c.[191] The
words of Longinus, to be sure, but not his meaning.

The same must have been the case with the following remark:[192] “All
motions and attitudes of Greek figures which were too wild and fiery to
be in accordance with the character of wisdom, were accounted as faults
by the old masters and classed by them under the general name of
_parenthyrsus_.” The old masters? There can be no authority for that
except Junius. _Parenthyrsus_ was a word used in rhetoric, and, as a
passage in Longinus would seem to show, even there peculiar to
Theodorus.[193] Τούτῳ παρακεῖται τρίτον τι κακίας εἶδος ἐν τοῖς
παθητικοῖς, ὅπερ ὁ Θεόδωρος παρένθυρσον ἐκάλει· ἔστι δὲ πάθος ἄκαιρον
καὶ κενόν, ἔνθα μὴ δεῖ πάθους· ἢ ἄμετρον, ἔνθα μετρίου δεῖ.

I doubt, indeed, whether this word can be translated into the language
of painting. For in oratory and poetry pathos can be carried to extreme
without becoming _parenthyrsus_, which is only the extreme of pathos in
the wrong place. But in painting the extreme of pathos would always be
_parenthyrsus_, whatever its excuse in the circumstances of the persons
concerned.

So, also, various errors in the “History of Art” have arisen solely from
Winkelmann’s haste in accepting Junius instead of consulting the
original authors. When, for instance, he is citing examples to show that
excellence in all departments of art and labor was so highly prized by
the Greeks, that the best workman, even on an insignificant thing, might
immortalize his name, he brings forward this among others:[194] “We know
the name of a maker of very exact balances or scales; he was called
Parthenius.” Winkelmann must have read the words of Juvenal, “lances
Parthenio factas,” which he here appeals to, only in Junius’s catalogue.
Had he looked up the original passage in Juvenal, he would not have been
misled by the double meaning of the word “lanx,” but would at once have
seen from the connection that the poet was not speaking of balances or
scales, but of plates and dishes. Juvenal is praising Catullus for
throwing overboard his treasures during a violent storm at sea, in order
to save the ship and himself. In his description of these treasures, he
says:—

              Ille nec argentum dubitabat mittere, lances
              Parthenio factas, urnæ cratera capacem
              Et dignum sitiente Pholo, vel conjuge Fusci.
              Adde et bascaudas et mille escaria, multum
              Cælati, biberet quo callidus emtor Olynthi.

What can the “lances” be which are here standing among drinking-cups and
bowls, but plates and dishes? And what does Juvenal mean, except that
Catullus threw overboard his whole silver table-service, including
plates made by Parthenius. “Parthenius,” says the old scholiast,
“cœlatoris nomen” (the name of the engraver). But when Grangäus, in his
annotations, appends to this name, “sculptor, de quo Plinius” (sculptor
spoken of by Pliny), he must have been writing at random, for Pliny
speaks of no artist of that name.

“Yes,” continues Winkelmann, “even the name of the saddler, as we should
call him, has been preserved, who made the leather shield of Ajax.” This
he cannot have derived from the source to which he refers his
readers,—the life of Homer, by Herodotus. Here, indeed, the lines from
the Iliad are quoted wherein the poet applies to this worker in leather
the name Tychius. But it is at the same time expressly stated that this
was the name of a worker in leather of Homer’s acquaintance, whose name
he thus introduced in token of his friendship and gratitude.[195]

Ἀπέδωκε δὲ χάριν καὶ Τυχίῳ τῷ σκύτει. ὃς ἐδέξατο αὐτὸν ἐν τῷ Νέῳ τείχει,
προσελθόντα πρὸς τὸ σκύτειον, ἐν τοῖς ἔπεσι καταζεύξας ἐν τῇ Ἰλιάδι
τοῖσδε:

           Αἴας δ’ ἐγγύθεν ἦλθε, φέρων σάκος ἠΰτε πύργον,
           χάλκεον, ἑπταβόειον· ὅ οἱ Τύχιος κάμε τεύχων
           σκυτοτόμων ὄχ’ ἄριστος, Ὕλῃ ἔνι οἰκία ναίων·[196]

Here we have exactly the opposite of what Winkelmann asserts. So utterly
forgotten, even in Homer’s time, was the name of the saddler who made
the shield of Ajax, that the poet was at liberty to substitute that of a
perfect stranger.

Various other little errors I have found which are mere slips of memory,
or concern things introduced merely as incidental illustrations.

For instance, it was Hercules, not Bacchus, who, as Parrhasius boasts,
appeared to him in the same shape he had given him on the canvas.[197]

Tauriscus was not from Rhodes, but from Tralles, in Lydia.[198]

The Antigone was not the first tragedy of Sophocles.[199]

But I refrain from multiplying such trifles.

Censoriousness it could not be taken for; but to those who know my great
respect for Winkelmann it might seem trifling.




                         NOTES TO THE LAOCOON.


                             Note 1, p. 8.

Antiochus (Anthol. lib. ii. cap. 4). Hardouin, in his commentary on
Pliny (lib. xxxv. sect. 36), attributes this epigram to a certain Piso.
But among all the Greek epigrammatists there is none of this name.


                             Note 2, p. 9.

For this reason Aristotle commanded that his pictures should not be
shown to young persons, in order that their imagination might be kept as
free as possible from all disagreeable images. (Polit. lib. viii. cap.
5, p. 526, edit. Conring.) Boden, indeed, would read Pausanias in this
passage instead of Pauson, because that artist is known to have painted
lewd figures (de Umbra poetica comment. 1, p. xiii). As if we needed a
philosophic law-giver to teach us the necessity of keeping from youth
such incentives to wantonness! A comparison of this with the well-known
passage in the “Art of Poesy” would have led him to withhold his
conjecture. There are commentators, as Kühn on Ælian (Var. Hist. lib.
iv. cap. 3), who suppose the difference mentioned by Aristotle as
existing between Polygnotus, Dionysius, and Pauson to consist in this:
that Polygnotus painted gods and heroes; Dionysius, men; and Pauson,
animals. They all painted human figures; and the fact that Pauson once
painted a horse, does not prove him to have been a painter of animals as
Boden supposes him to have been. Their rank was determined by the degree
of beauty they gave their human figures; and the reason that Dionysius
could paint nothing but men, and was therefore called pre-eminently the
anthropographist, was that he copied too slavishly, and could not rise
into the domain of the ideal beneath which it would have been blasphemy
to represent gods and heroes.


                             Note 3, p. 11.

The serpent has been erroneously regarded as the peculiar symbol of a
god of medicine. But Justin Martyr expressly says (Apolog. ii. p. 55,
edit. Sylburgh), παρά παντὶ τῶν νομιζομένων παρ’ ὑμῖν θεῶν, ὄφις
σύμβολον μέγα καὶ μυστήριον ἀναγράφεται; and a number of monuments might
be mentioned where the serpent accompanies deities having no connection
with health.


                             Note 4, p. 12.

Look through all the works of art mentioned by Pliny, Pausanias, and the
rest, examine all the remaining statues, bas-reliefs, and pictures of
the ancients, and nowhere will you find a fury. I except figures that
are rather symbolical than belonging to art, such as those generally
represented on coins. Yet Spence, since he insisted on having furies,
would have done better to borrow them from coins than introduce them by
an ingenious conceit into a work where they certainly do not exist.
(Seguini Numis. p. 178. Spanheim, de Præst. Numism. Dissert. xiii. p.
639. Les Césars de Julien, par Spanheim, p. 48.) In his Polymetis he
says (dial. xvi.): “Though furies are very uncommon in the works of the
ancient artists, yet there is one subject in which they are generally
introduced by them. I mean the death of Meleager, in the relievos of
which they are often represented as encouraging or urging Althæa to burn
the fatal brand on which the life of her only son depended. Even a
woman’s resentment, you see, could not go so far without a little help
from the devil. In a copy of one of these relievos, published in the
‘Admiranda,’ there are two women standing by the altar with Althæa, who
are probably meant for furies in the original, (for who but furies would
assist at such a sacrifice?) though the copy scarce represents them
horrid enough for that character. But what is most to be observed in
that piece is the round disc beneath the centre of it, with the evident
head of a fury upon it. This might be what Althæa addressed her prayers
to whenever she wished ill to her neighbors, or whenever she was going
to do any very evil action. Ovid introduces her as invoking the furies
on this occasion in particular, and makes her give more than one reason
for her doing so.” (Metamorph. viii. 479.)

In this way we might make every thing out of any thing. “Who but
furies,” asks Spence, “would have assisted at such a sacrifice?” I
answer, the maid-servants of Althæa, who had to kindle and feed the
fire. Ovid says (Metamorph. viii.):—

      Protulit hunc (stipitem) genetrix, tædasque in fragmina poni
      Imperat, et positis inimicos admovet ignes.

“The mother brought the brand and commands torches to be placed upon the
pieces, and applies hostile flame to the pile.”

Both figures have actually in their hands these “tædas,” long pieces of
pine, such as the ancients used for torches, and one, as her attitude
shows, has just broken such a piece. As little do I recognize a fury
upon the disc towards the middle of the work. It is a face expressive of
violent pain,—doubtless the head of Meleager himself (Metamorph. viii.
515).

             Inscius atque absens flamma Meleagros in illa
             Uritur; et cæcis torreri viscera sentit
             Ignibus; et magnos superat virtute dolores.

“Meleager, absent and unconscious, is consumed in that fire, and feels
his bowels parched with the unseen flames; yet with courage he subdues
the dreadful pains.”

The artist used this as an introduction to the next incident of the same
story,—the death of Meleager. What Spence makes furies, Montfaucon took
to be fates, with the exception of the head upon the disc, which he also
calls a fury. Bellori leaves it undecided whether they are fates or
furies. An “or” which sufficiently proves that they are neither the one
nor the other. Montfaucon’s further interpretation should have been
clearer. The female figure resting on her elbows by the bed, he should
have called Cassandra, not Atalanta. Atalanta is the one sitting in a
grieving attitude with her back towards the bed. The artist has very
wisely turned her away from the family, as being only the beloved, not
the wife, of Meleager, and because her distress at a calamity of which
she had been the innocent cause must have exasperated his family.


                             Note 5, p. 14.

He thus describes the degrees of sadness actually expressed by
Timanthes: “Calchantem tristem, mæstum Ulyssem, clamantem Ajacem,
lamentantem Menelaum.” Ajax screaming would have been extremely ugly,
and since neither Cicero nor Quintilian, when speaking of this picture,
so describe him, I shall venture with the less hesitation to consider
this an addition with which Valerius has enriched the canvas from his
own invention.


                             Note 6, p. 15.

We read in Pliny (lib. 34, sect. 19): “Eundem [Myro] vicit et Pythagoras
Leontinus, qui fecit statiodromon Astylon, qui Olympiæ ostenditur: et
Libyn puerum tenentem tabulam, eodem loco, et mala ferentem nudum.
Syracusis autem claudicantem: cujus hulceris dolorem sentire etiam
spectantes videntur.” “Pythagoras Leontinus surpassed him (Myro). He
made the statue of the runner, Astylon, which is exhibited at Olympia,
and in the same place a Libyan boy holding a tablet, and a rude statue
bearing apples; but at Syracuse a limping figure, the pain of whose sore
the beholders themselves seem to feel.” Let us examine these last words
more closely. Is there not evident reference here to some person well
known as having a painful ulcer? “Cujus hulceris,” &c. And shall that
“cujus” be made to refer simply to the “claudicantem,” and the
“claudicantem,” perhaps, to the still more remote “puerum?” No one had
more reason to be known by such a malady than Philoctetes. I read,
therefore, for “claudicantem,” “Philoctetem,” or, at least, both
together, “Philoctetem claudicantem,” supposing that, as the words were
so similar in sound, one had crowded out the other. Sophocles represents
him as στίβον κατ’ ἀνάγκην ἕρπειν, compelled to drag his limping gait,
and his not being able to tread as firmly on his wounded foot would have
occasioned a limp.


                             Note 7, p. 24.

When the chorus perceives Philoctetes under this accumulation of
miseries, his helpless solitude seems the circumstance that chiefly
touches them. We hear in every word the social Greek. With regard to one
passage, however, I have my doubts. It is this:—

                 Ἵν’ αὐτὸς ἦν πρόσουρος οὐκ ἔχων βάσιν,
                 οὐδέ τιν’ ἐγχώρων,
                 κακογείτονα παρ’ ᾧ στόνον ἀντίτυπον
                 βαρυβρῶτ’ ἀποκλαύ—
                 σειεν αἱματηρόν.

Lit.: I myself, my only neighbor, having no power to walk, nor any
companion, a neighbor in ill, to whom I might wail forth my echoing,
gnawing groans, bloodstained.

The common translation of Winshem renders the lines thus:—

    Ventis expositus et pedibus captus
    Nullum cohabitatorem
    Nec vicinum ullum saltem malum habens, apud quem gemitum mutuum.
    Gravemque ac cruentum
    Ederet.

The translation of Thomas Johnson differs from this only in the choice
of words:—

       Ubi ipse ventis erat expositus, firmum gradum non habens,
       Nec quenquam indigenarum,
       Nec malum vicinum, apud quem ploraret
       Vehementur edacem
       Sanguineum morbum, mutuo gemitu.

One might think he had borrowed these words from the translation of
Thomas Naogeorgus, who expresses himself thus (his work is very rare,
and Fabricius himself knew it only through Operin’s Catalogue):—

                ... ubi expositus fuit
                Ventis ipse, gradum firmum haud habens,
                Nec quenquam indigenam, nec vel malum
                Vicinum, ploraret apud quem
                Vehementer edacem atque cruentum
                Morbum mutuo.

If these translations are correct, the chorus pronounces the strongest
possible eulogy on human society. The wretch has no human being near
him; he knows of no friendly neighbor; even a bad one would have been
happiness. Thomson, then, might have had this passage in mind when he
puts these words into the mouth of his Melisander, who was likewise
abandoned by ruffians on a desert island:—

             Cast on the wildest of the Cyclad isles
             Where never human foot had marked the shore,
             These ruffians left me; yet believe me, Arcas,
             Such is the rooted love we bear mankind,
             All ruffians as they were, I never heard
             A sound so dismal as their parting oars.

To him, also, the society of ruffians was better than none. A great and
admirable idea! If we could but be sure that Sophocles, too, had meant
to express it! But I must reluctantly confess to finding nothing of the
sort in him, unless, indeed, I were to use, instead of my own eyes,
those of the old scholiast, who thus transposes the words:—Οὐ μόνον ὅπου
καλὸν οὐκ εἶχέ τινα τῶν ἐγχωρίων γείτονα, ἀλλὰ οὐδὲ κακόν, παρ’ οὗ
ἀμοιβαῖον λόγον στενάζων ἀκούσειε. Brumoy, as well as our modern German
translator, has held to this reading, like the translators quoted above.
Brumoy says, “Sans société, même importune;” and the German, “jeder
Gesellschaft, auch der beschwerlichsten, beraubt.” My reasons for
differing from all of these are the following. First, it is evident that
if κακογείτονα was meant to be separated from τιν’ ἐγχώρων and
constitute a distinct clause, the particle οὐδέ would necessarily have
been repeated before it. Since this is not the case, it is equally
evident that κακογείτονα belongs to τίνα, and there should be no comma
after ἐγχώρων. This comma crept in from the translation. Accordingly, I
find that some Greek editions (as that published at Wittenberg of 1585
in 8vo, which was wholly unknown to Fabricius) are without it, but put a
comma only after κακογείτονα, as is proper. Secondly, is that a bad
neighbor from whom we may expect, as the scholiast has it, στόνον
ἀντίτυπον, ἀμοιβαῖον? To mingle his sighs with ours is the office of a
friend, not an enemy. In short, the word κακογείτονα has not been
rightly understood. It has been thought to be derived from the adjective
κακός, when it is really derived from the substantive τὸ κακόν. It has
been translated an evil neighbor, instead of a neighbor in ill. Just as
κακόμαντις means not an evil, in the sense of a false, untrue prophet,
but a prophet of evil, and κακότεχνος means not a bad, unskilful
painter, but a painter of bad things. In this passage the poet means by
a neighbor in ill, one who is overtaken by a similar misfortune with
ourselves, or from friendship shares our sufferings; so that the whole
expression, οὐδ’ ἔχων τιν’ ἐγχώρων κακογείτονα, is to be translated
simply by “neque quenquam indigenarum mali socium habens.” The new
English translator of Sophocles, Thomas Franklin, must have been of my
opinion. Neither does he find an evil neighbor in κακογείτων, but
translates it simply “fellow-mourner.”

               Exposed to the inclement skies,
               Deserted and forlorn he lies,
               No friend nor fellow-mourner there,
               To soothe his sorrow and divide his care.


                             Note 8, p. 34.

Saturnal. lib. v. cap. 2. “Non parva sunt alia quæ Virgilius traxit a
Græcis, dicturumne me putatis quæ vulgo nota sunt? quod Theocritum sibi
fecerit pastoralis operis autorem, ruralis Hesiodum? et quod in ipsis
Georgicis, tempestatis serenitatisque signa de Arati Phænomenis
traxerit? vel quod eversionem Trojæ, cum Sinone suo, et equo ligneo
cæterisque omnibus, quæ librum secundum faciunt, a Pisandro pene ad
verbum transcripserit? qui inter Græcos poetas eminet opere, quod a
nuptiis Jovis et Junonis incipiens universas historias, quæ mediis
omnibus sæculis usque ad ætatem ipsius Pisandri contigerunt, in unam
seriem coactas redegerit, et unum ex diversis hiatibus temporum corpus
effecerit? in quo opere inter historias cæteras interitus quoque Trojæ
in hunc modum relatus est. Quæ fideliter Maro interpretando, fabricatus
est sibi Iliacæ urbis ruinam. Sed et hæc et talia ut pueris decantata
prætereo.”

Not a few other things were brought by Virgil from the Greeks, and
inserted in his poem as original. Do you think I would speak of what is
known to all the world? how he took his pastoral poem from Theocritus,
his rural from Hesiod? and how, in his Georgics, he took from the
Phenomena of Aratus the signs of winter and summer? or that he
translated almost word for word from Pisander the destruction of Troy,
with his Sinon and wooden horse and the rest? For he is famous among
Greek poets for a work in which, beginning his universal history with
the nuptials of Jupiter and Juno, he collected into one series whatever
had happened in all ages, to the time of himself, Pisander. In which
work the destruction of Troy, among other things, is related in the same
way. By faithfully interpreting these things, Maro made his ruin of
Ilium. But these, and others like them, I pass over as familiar to every
schoolboy.


                             Note 9, p. 35.

I do not forget that a picture mentioned by Eumolpus in Petronius may be
cited in contradiction of this. It represented the destruction of Troy,
and particularly the history of Laocoon exactly as narrated by Virgil.
And since, in the same gallery at Naples were other old pictures by
Zeuxis, Protogenes, and Apelles, it was inferred that this was also an
old Greek picture. But permit me to say that a novelist is no historian.
This gallery and picture, and Eumolpus himself, apparently existed only
in the imagination of Petronius. That the whole was fiction appears from
the evident traces of an almost schoolboyish imitation of Virgil. Thus
Virgil (Æneid lib. ii. 199–224):—

           Hic aliud majus miseris multoque tremendum
           Objicitur magis, atque improvida pectora turbat.
           Laocoon, ductus Neptuno sorte sacerdos,
           Solemnis taurum ingentem mactabat ad aras.
           Ecce autem gemini a Tenedo tranquilla per alta
           (Horresco referens) immensis orbibus angues
           Incumbunt pelago, pariterque ad litora tendunt:
           Pectora quorum inter fluctus arrecta, jubæque
           Sanguineæ exsuperant undas: pars cetera pontum
           Pone legit, sinuatque immensa volumine terga.
           Fit sonitus, spumante salo: jamque arva tenebant,
           Ardentesque oculos suffecti sanguine et igni
           Sibila lambebant linguis vibrantibus ora.
           Diffugimus visu exsangues. Illi agmine certo
           Laocoonta petunt, et primum parva duorum
           Corpora natorum serpens amplexus uterque
           Implicat, et miseros morsu depascitur artus.
           Post ipsum, auxilio subeuntem ac tela ferentem,
           Corripiunt, spirisque ligant ingentibus; et jam
           Bis medium amplexi, bis collo squamea circum
           Terga dati, superant capite et cervicibus altis.
           Ille simul manibus tendit divellere nodos,
           Perfusus sanie vittas atroque veneno:
           Clamores simul horrendos ad sidera tollit.
           Quales mugitus, fugit cum saucius aram
           Taurus et incertam excussit cervice securim.

And thus Eumolpus, in whose lines, as is usually the case with
improvisators, memory has had as large a share as imagination:—

             Ecce alia monstra. Celsa qua Tenedos mare
             Dorso repellit, tumida consurgunt freta,
             Undaque resultat scissa tranquillo minor.
             Qualis silenti nocte remorum sonus
             Longe refertur, cum premunt classes mare,
             Pulsumque marmor abiete imposita gemit.
             Respicimus, angues orbibus geminis ferunt
             Ad saxa fluctus: tumida quorum pectora
             Rates ut altæ, lateribus spumas agunt:
             Dat cauda sonitum; liberæ ponto jubæ
             Coruscant luminibus, fulmineum jubar
             Incendit æquor, sibilisque undæ tremunt;
             Stupuere mentes. Infulis stabant sacri
             Phrygioque cultu gemina nati pignora
             Laocoonte, quos repente tergoribus ligant
             Angues corusci: parvulas illi manus
             Ad ora referunt: neuter auxilio sibi
             Uterque fratri transtulit pias vices,
             Morsque ipsa miseros mutuo perdit metu.
             Accumulat ecce liberûm funus parens
             Infirmus auxiliator; invadunt virum
             Jam morte pasti, membraque ad terram trahunt.
             Jacet sacerdos inter aras victima.

The main points are the same in both, and in many places the same words
are used. But those are trifles, and too evident to require mention.
There are other signs of imitation, more subtle, but not less sure. If
the imitator be a man with confidence in his own powers, he seldom
imitates without trying to improve upon the original; and, if he fancy
himself to have succeeded, he is enough of a fox to brush over with his
tail the footprints which might betray his course. But he betrays
himself by this very vanity of wishing to introduce embellishments, and
his desire to appear original. For his embellishments are nothing but
exaggerations and excessive refinements. Virgil says, “Sanguineæ jubæ”;
Petronius, “liberæ jubæ luminibus coruscant”; Virgil, “ardentes oculos
suffecti sanguine et igni”; Petronius, “fulmineum jubar incendit æquor.”
Virgil, “fit sonitus spumante salo”; Petronius, “sibilis undæ tremunt.”
So the imitator goes on exaggerating greatness into monstrosity, wonders
into impossibilities. The boys are secondary in Virgil. He passes them
over with a few insignificant words, indicative simply of their
helplessness and distress. Petronius makes a great point of them,
converting the two children into a couple of heroes.

                                Neuter auxilio sibi
                Uterque fratri transtulit pias vices
                Morsque ipsa miseros mutuo perdit metu.

Who expects from human beings, and children especially, such
self-sacrifice? The Greek understood nature better (Quintus Calaber,
lib. xii.), when he made even mothers forget their children at the
appearance of the terrible serpents, so intent was every one on securing
his own safety.

                                     ... ἔνθα γυναῖκες
               Οἴμωζον, καὶ πού τις ἑῶν ἐπελήσατο τέκνων
               Aὐτὴ ἀλευομένη στυγερὸν μόρον....

The usual method of trying to conceal an imitation is to alter the
shading, bringing forward what was in shadow, and obscuring what was in
relief. Virgil lays great stress upon the size of the serpents, because
the probability of the whole subsequent scene depends upon it. The noise
occasioned by their coming is a secondary idea, intended to make more
vivid the impression of their size. Petronius raises this secondary idea
into chief prominence, describing the noise with all possible wealth of
diction, and so far forgetting to describe the size of the monsters that
we are almost left to infer it from the noise they make. He hardly would
have fallen into this error, had he been drawing solely from his
imagination, with no model before him which he wished to imitate without
the appearance of imitation. We can always recognize a poetic picture as
an unsuccessful imitation when we find minor details exaggerated and
important ones neglected, however many incidental beauties the poem may
possess, and however difficult, or even impossible, it may be to
discover the original.


                            Note 10, p. 36.

Suppl. aux Antiq. Expl. T. i. p. 243. Il y a quelque petite différence
entre ce que dit Virgile, et ce que le marbre représente. Il semble,
selon ce que dit le poëte, que les serpens quittèrent les deux enfans
pour venir entortiller le père, au lieu que dans ce marbre ils lient en
même temps les enfans et leur père.


                            Note 11, p. 37.

Donatus ad v. 227, lib. ii. Æneid. Mirandum non est, clypeo et simulacri
vestigiis tegi potuisse, quos supra et longos et validos dixit, et
multiplici ambitu circumdedisse Laocoontis corpus ac liberorum, et
fuisse superfluam partem. The “non” in the clause “mirandum non est,”
should, it seems to me, be omitted, unless we suppose the concluding
part of the sentence to be missing. For, since the serpents were of such
extraordinary length, it would certainly be surprising that they could
be concealed beneath the goddess’s shield, unless this also were of
great length, and belonged to a colossal figure. The assurance that this
was actually the case must have been meant to follow, or the “non” has
no meaning.


                            Note 12, p. 39.

In the handsome edition of Dryden’s Virgil (London, 1697). Yet here the
serpents are wound but once about the body, and hardly at all about the
neck. So indifferent an artist scarcely deserves an excuse, but the only
one that could be made for him would be that prints are merely
illustrations, and by no means to be regarded as independent works of
art.


                            Note 13, p. 40.

This is the judgment of De Piles in his remarks upon Du Fresnoy:
“Remarquez, s’il vous plaît, que les draperies tendres et légères,
n’étant données qu’au sexe féminin, les anciens sculpteurs ont évité
autant qu’ils out pu, d’habiller les figures d’hommes; parce qu’ils ont
pensé, comme nous l’avons déjà dit qu’en sculpture on ne pouvait imiter
les étoffes, et que les gros plis faisaient un mauvais effet. Il y a
presque autant d’exemples de cette vérité, qu’il y a parmi les antiques,
de figures d’hommes nuds. Je rapporterai seulement celui du Laocoon,
lequel, selon la vraisemblance, devrait être vêtu. En effet, quelle
apparence y a-t-il qu’un fils de roi, qu’un prêtre d’Apollon, se trouvât
tout nud dans la cérémonie actuelle d’un sacrifice? car les serpens
passèrent de l’île de Tenedos au rivage de Troye, et surprirent Laocoon
et ses fils dans le temps même qu’il sacrifiait à Neptune sur le bord de
la mer, comme le marque Virgile dans le second livre de son Enéide.
Cependant les artistes qui sont les auteurs de ce bel ouvrage, ont bien
vu qu’ils ne pouvaient pas leur donner de vêtements convenables à leur
qualité, sans faire comme un amas de pierres, dont la masse
ressemblerait à un rocher, au lieu des trois admirables figures, qui ont
été, et qui sont toujours, l’admiration des siècles. C’est pour cela que
de deux inconveniens, ils out jugé celui des draperies beaucoup plus
fâcheux, que celui d’aller contre la vérité même.”


                            Note 14, p. 42.

Maffei, Richardson, and, more recently, Herr Von Hagedorn.
(Betrachtungen über die Malerei, p. 37. Richardson, Traité de la
Peinture, vol. iii.) De Fontaines does not merit being reckoned in the
same class with these scholars. In the notes to his translation of
Virgil, he maintains, indeed, that the poet had the group in mind, but
he is so ignorant as to ascribe it to Phidias.


                            Note 15, p. 44.

I can adduce no better argument in support of my view than this poem of
Sadolet. It is worthy of one of the old poets, and, since it may well
take the place of an engraving, I venture to introduce it here entire.


              DE LAOCOONTIS STATUA JACOBI SADOLETI CARMEN.

         Ecce alto terræ e cumulo, ingentisque ruinæ
         Visceribus, iterum reducem longinqua reduxit
         Laocoonta dies; aulis regalibus olim
         Qui stetit, atque tuos ornabat, Tite, Penates.
         Divinæ simulacrum artis, nec docta vetustas
         Nobilius spectabat opus, nunc celsa revisit
         Exemptum tenebris redivivæ mœnia Romæ.
         Quid primum summumque loquar? miserumne parentem
         Et prolem geminam? an sinuatos flexibus angues
         Terribili aspectu? caudasque irasque draconum
         Vulneraque et veros, saxo moriente, dolores?
         Horret ad hæc animus, mutaque ab imagine pulsat
         Pectora, non parvo pietas commixta tremori.
         Prolixum bini spiris glomerantur in orbem
         Ardentes colubri, et sinuosis orbibus errant,
         Ternaque multiplici constringunt corpora nexu.
         Vix oculi sufferre valent, crudele tuendo
         Exitium, casusque feros: micat alter, et ipsum
         Laocoonta petit, totumque infraque supraque
         Implicat et rabido tandem ferit ilia morsu.
         Connexum refugit corpus, torquentia sese
         Membra, latusque retro sinuatum a vulnere cernas.
         Ille dolore acri, et laniatu impulsus acerbo,
         Dat gemitum ingentem, crudosque evellere dentes
         Connixus, lævam impatiens ad terga Chelydri
         Objicit: intendunt nervi, collectaque ab omni
         Corpore vis frustra summis conatibus instat.
         Ferre nequit rabiem, et de vulnere murmur anhelum est.
         At serpens lapsu crebro redeunte subintrat
         Lubricus, intortoque ligat genua infima nodo.
         Absistunt suræ, spirisque prementibus arctum
         Crus tumet, obsepto turgent vitalia pulsu,
         Liventesque atro distendunt sanguine venas.
         Nec minus in natos eadem vis effera sævit
         Implexuque angit rapido, miserandaque membra
         Dilacerat: jamque alterius depasta cruentum
         Pectus, suprema genitorem voce cientis,
         Circumjectu orbis, validoque volumine fulcit.
         Alter adhuc nullo violatus corpora morsu,
         Dum parat adducta caudam divellere planta,
         Horret ad aspectum miseri patris, hæret in illo,
         Et jam jam ingentes fletus, lachrymasque cadentes
         Anceps in dubio retinet timor. Ergo perenni
         Qui tantum statuistis opus jam laude nitentes,
         Artifices magni (quanquam et melioribus actis
         Quæritur æternum nomen, multoque licebat
         Clarius ingenium venturæ tradere famæ)
         Attamen ad laudem quæcunque oblata facultas
         Egregium hanc rapere, et summa ad fastigia niti.
         Vos rigidum lapidem vivis animare figuris
         Eximii, et vivos spiranti in marmore sensus
         Inserere, aspicimus motumque iramque doloremque,
         Et pene audimus gemitus; vos extulit olim
         Clara Rhodos, vestræ jacuerunt artis honores
         Tempore ab immenso, quos rursum in luce secunda
         Roma videt, celebratque frequens: operisque vetusti
         Gratia parta recens. Quanto præstantius ergo est
         Ingenio, aut quovis extendere fata labore,
         Quam fastus et opes et inanem extendere luxum.


                       LAOCOON, BY JAMES SADOLET.


  So, from the depths of earth and the bowels of mighty ruins, the
  long-deferred day has brought back the returning Laocoon, who stood of
  old in thy royal halls and graced thy penates, Titus. The image of
  divine art, a work as noble as any produced by the learning of
  antiquity, now freed from darkness, beholds again the lofty walls of
  renovated Rome. With what part shall I begin as the greatest? the
  unhappy father and his two sons? the sinuous coils of the terrible
  serpents? the tails and the fierceness of the dragons? the wounds and
  real pains of the dying stone? These chill the mind with horror, and
  pity, mingled with no slight fear, drives our hearts back from the
  dumb image. Two gleaming snakes cover a vast space with their gathered
  coils, and move in sinuous rings, and hold three bodies bound in a
  many-twisted knot. Eyes scarce can bear to behold the cruel death and
  fierce sufferings. One gleaming seeks Laocoon himself, winding him all
  about, above, below, and attacks his groins at last with poisonous
  bite. The imprisoned body recoils, and you see the limbs writhe and
  the side shrink back from the wound. Forced by the sharp pain and
  bitter anguish, he groans; and, trying to tear out the cruel teeth,
  throws his left hand upon the serpent’s back. The nerves strain, and
  the whole body in vain collects its strength for the supreme effort.
  He cannot endure the fierce torture, and pants from the wound. But the
  slippery snake glides down with frequent folds, and binds his leg
  below the knee with twisted knot. The calves fall in, the tight-bound
  leg swells between the pressing coils, and the vitals grow tumid from
  the stopping of the pulses, and black blood distends the livid veins.
  The same cruel violence attacks the children no less fiercely,
  tortures them with many encircling folds, and lacerates their
  suffering limbs. Now satiated upon the bloody breast of one, who, with
  his last breath, calls upon his father, the serpent supports the
  lifeless body with the mighty circles thrown around it. The other,
  whose body has as yet been hurt by no sting, while preparing to pluck
  out the tail from his foot, is filled with horror at sight of his
  wretched father, and clings to him. A double fear restrains his great
  sobs and falling tears. Therefore ye enjoy perpetual fame, ye great
  artificers who made the mighty work, although an immortal name may be
  sought by better deeds, and nobler talents may be handed down to
  future fame. Yet any power employed to snatch this praise and reach
  the heights of fame is excellent. Ye have excelled in animating the
  rigid stone with living forms, and inserting living senses within the
  breathing marble. We see the movement, the wrath and pain, and almost
  hear the groans. Illustrious Rhodes begot you of old. Long the glories
  of your art lay hid, but Rome beholds them again in a second dawn, and
  celebrates them with many voices, in fresh acknowledgment of the old
  labor. How much nobler, then, to extend our fates by art or toil than
  to swell pride and wealth and empty luxury.


(Leodegarii a Quercu Farrago Poematum, T. ii.) Gruter has introduced
this poem with another one of Sadolet into his well-known collection,
but with many errors. (Delic. Poet. Italorum. Parte alt.)


                            Note 16, p. 45.

De la Peinture, tome iii. p. 516. C’est l’horreur que les Troïens ont
conçue contre Laocoon, qui était nécessaire à Virgile pour la conduite
de son poëme; et cela le mène à cette description pathétique de la
destruction de la patrie de son héros. Aussi Virgile n’avait garde de
diviser l’attention sur la dernière nuit, pour une grand ville entière,
par la peinture d’un petit malheur d’un particulier.


                            Note 17, p. 51.

I say it is possible, but I would wager ten against one that it is not
so. Juvenal is speaking of the early days of the republic, when splendor
and luxury were yet unknown, and the soldier put whatever gold and
silver he got as booty upon his arms and the caparisons of his horse.
(Sat. xi.)

              Tunc rudis et Grajas mirari nescius artes
              Urbibus eversis prædarum in parte reperta
              Magnorum artificum frangebat pocula miles.
              Ut phaleris gauderet equus, cælataque cassis
              Romuleæ simulacra feræ mansuescere jussæ
              Imperii fato, geminos sub rupe Quirinos,
              Ac nudam effigiem clypeo fulgentis et hasta,
              Pendentisque Dei perituro ostenderet hosti.

The soldier broke up the precious cups, the masterpieces of great
artists, to make a she-wolf, a little Romulus and Remus to deck his
helmet with. All is plain down to the last two lines, where the poet
proceeds to describe such a figure on the helmets of the old soldiers.
The figure is meant for the god Mars, but what can the term _pendentis_
mean as applied to him? Rigaltius found in an old gloss the
interpretation “quasi ad ictum se inclinantis.” Lubinus supposes the
figure to have been on the shield, and, as the shield hung from the arm,
the figure might be spoken of as hanging. But this is contrary to the
construction, the subject of “ostenderet” being not “miles” but
“cassis.” According to Britannicus, whatever stands high in the air may
be said to hang, and the expression may be used of this figure perched
above or upon the helmet. Some would read “perdentis” as a contrast to
the following “perituro,” though none but themselves would think the
contrast desirable. What does Addison say to this doubtful passage? He
thinks all the commentators are wrong and maintains this to be the true
meaning. “The Roman soldiers, who were not a little proud of their
founder and the military genius of their republic, used to bear on their
helmets the first history of Romulus, who was begot by the god of war
and suckled by a wolf. The figure of the god was made as if descending
upon the priestess Ilia, or, as others call her, Rhea Silvia. As he was
represented descending, his figure appeared suspended in the air over
the vestal virgin, in which sense the word ‘pendentis’ is extremely
proper and poetical. Besides the antique basso-rilievo (in Bellori) that
made me first think of this interpretation, I have since met with the
same figures on the reverses of a couple of ancient coins, which were
stamped in the reign of Antoninus Pius.” (Addison’s Travels, Rome,
Tonson’s edition, 1745, p. 183.)

Since Spence considers this such a happy discovery on the part of
Addison, that he quotes it as a model of its kind and as the strongest
proof of the value of the works of the old artists in throwing light on
the classic Roman poets, I cannot refrain from a closer examination of
it. (Polymetis, dial. vii.) I must observe, in the first place, that the
bas-relief and the coin would hardly have recalled to Addison the
passage from Juvenal, had he not remembered reading in the old
scholiast, who substituted “venientis” for “fulgentis” in the last line
but one, this interpretation: “Martis ad Iliam venientis ut
concumberet.” Now, instead of this reading of the old scholiast, let us
accept Addison’s, and see if we have then the slightest reason for
supposing the poet to have had Rhea in mind. Would it not rather be a
complete inversion on his part, where he is speaking of the wolf and the
boys, to be thinking of the adventure to which the children owe their
life? Rhea has not yet become a mother, and the boys are already lying
under the rock. Would an hour of dalliance be a fitting emblem for the
helmet of a Roman soldier? The soldier was proud of the divine origin of
the founder of his country, and that was sufficiently typified by the
wolf and the children. What need of introducing Mars at a moment when he
was any thing but the dread-inspiring god? His visit to Rhea may have
been represented on any number of old marbles and coins: did that make
it a fitting ornament for armor? What are the marbles and coins on which
Addison saw Mars in this hovering attitude? The old bas-relief to which
he appeals is said to be in Bellori, but we shall look for it in vain in
the Admiranda, his collection of finest old bas-reliefs. Spence cannot
have found it there or elsewhere, for he makes no mention of it. Nothing
remains, therefore, but the coins, which we will study from Addison
himself. I see a recumbent figure of Rhea, and Mars standing on a
somewhat higher plane, because there was not room for him on the same
level. That is all: there is no sign of his being suspended. Such an
effect is produced very strongly, it is true, in Spence’s copy. The
upper part of the figure is thrown so far forward as to make standing
impossible; so that if the body be not falling, it must be hovering.
Spence says this coin is in his possession. It is hard to question a
man’s veracity, even in a trifle, but our eyes are often greatly
influenced by a preconceived opinion. He may, besides, have thought it
allowable for the good of the reader to have the artist so emphasize the
expression which he thought he saw, that as little doubt might remain on
our mind as on his. One thing is plain: that Spence and Addison refer to
the same coin, which is either very much misrepresented by one or
embellished by the other. But I have another objection to make to this
supposed hovering attitude of Mars. A body thus suspended, without any
visible cause for the law of gravitation not acting upon it, is an
absurdity of which no example can be found in the old works of art. It
is not allowable even in modern painting. If a body is to be suspended
in the air, it must either have wings or appear to rest upon something,
if only a cloud. When Homer makes Thetis rise on foot from the sea-shore
to Olympus, Τὴν μὲν ἄρ’ Οὔλυμπον δὲ πόδες φέρον (Iliad, xviii. 148),
Count Caylus is too well aware of the limitations of art to counsel the
painter to represent her as walking unsupported through the air. She
must pursue her way upon a cloud (Tableaux tirés de l’Iliade, p. 91), as
in another place he puts her into a chariot (p. 131), although exactly
the opposite is stated by the poet. How can it be otherwise? Although
the poet represents the goddess with a human body, he yet removes from
her every trace of coarse and heavy materiality, and animates her with a
power which raises her beyond the influence of our laws of motion. How
could painting so distinguish the bodily shape of a deity from the
bodily shape of a human being, that our eyes should not be offended by
observing it acted upon by different laws of motion, weight, and
equilibrium? How but by conventional signs, such as a pair of wings or a
cloud? But more of this elsewhere; here it is enough to require the
defenders of the Addison theory to show on the old monuments a second
figure floating thus unsupported in the air. Can this Mars be the only
one of its kind? why? Were there some particular conditions handed down
by tradition which would necessitate such exceptional treatment in this
one case? There is no trace of such in Ovid (Fast. lib. i.), but rather
proof that no such conditions ever could have existed. For in other
ancient works of art which represent the same story, Mars is evidently
not hovering, but walking. Examine the bas-relief in Montfaucon (Suppl.
T. i. p. 183), which is to be found, if I am not mistaken, in the
Mellini palace at Rome. Rhea lies asleep under a tree, and Mars
approaches her softly, with that expressive backward motion of the right
hand by which we warn those behind to stay where they are, or to advance
gently. His attitude is precisely the same as on the coin, except that
in one case he holds his lance in the right, in the other in the left
hand. We often find famous statues and bas-reliefs copied on coins, and
the same may well be the case here, only that the cutter of the die did
not perceive the force of the backward motion of the hand, and thought
it better employed in holding the lance. Taking all these arguments into
consideration, what degree of probability remains to Addison’s theory?
Hardly more than a bare possibility. But where can better explanation be
had if this fails? Possibly among the interpretations rejected by
Addison. But if not, what then? The passage in the poet is corrupted,
and so it must remain. It certainly will so remain, if twenty new
conjectures are invented. We might say that “pendentis” here was to be
taken figuratively in the sense of uncertain, undecided. Mars “pendens”
would then be the same as Mars “incertus” or Mars “communis.” “Dii
communes,” says Servius (ad. v. 118, lib. xii. Æneid), are Mars,
Bellona, and Victory, so called from their favoring both parties in war.
And the line,—

         Pendentisque Dei (effigiem) perituro ostenderet hosti,

would mean that the old Roman soldier was accustomed to wear the image
of the impartial god in the presence of his enemy, who, in spite of the
impartiality, was soon to perish. A very subtle idea, making the
victories of the old Romans depend more upon their own bravery than on
the friendly aid of their founder. Nevertheless, “non liquet.”


                            Note 18, p. 51.

“Till I got acquainted with these Auræ (or sylphs),” says Spence
(Polymetis, dial. xiii.), “I found myself always at a loss in reading
the known story of Cephalus and Procris in Ovid. I could never imagine
how Cephalus crying out, ‘Aura venias’ (though in ever so languishing a
manner), could give anybody a suspicion of his being false to Procris.
As I had been always used to think that Aura signified only the air in
general, or a gentle breeze in particular, I thought Procris’s jealousy
less founded than the most extravagant jealousies generally are. But
when I had once found that Aura might signify a very handsome young
woman as well as the air, the case was entirely altered, and the story
seemed to go on in a very reasonable manner.” I will not take back in
the note the approval bestowed in the text on this discovery, on which
Spence so plumes himself. But I cannot refrain from remarking that, even
without it, the passage was very natural and intelligible. We only
needed to know that Aura occurs frequently among the ancients as a
woman’s name. According to Nonnus, for instance (Dionys. lib. xlviii.),
the nymph of Diana was thus named, who, for claiming to possess a more
manly beauty than the goddess herself, was, as a punishment for her
presumption, exposed in her sleep to the embraces of Bacchus.


                            Note 19, p. 52.

Juvenalis Satyr. viii. v. 52–55.

                                                  ... At tu
            Nil nisi Cecropides; truncoque simillimus Hermæ!
            Nullo quippe alio vincis discrimine, quam quod
            Illi marmoreum caput est, tua vivit imago.

“But thou art nothing if not a descendant of Cecrops; in body most like
a Hermes; forsooth the only thing in which you surpass that, is that
your head is a living image, while the Hermes is marble.” If Spence had
embraced the old Greek writers in his work, a fable of Æsop might
perhaps—and yet perhaps not—have occurred to him, which throws still
clearer light upon this passage in Juvenal. “Mercury,” Æsop tells us,
“wishing to know in what repute he stood among men, concealed his
divinity, and entered a sculptor’s studio. Here he beheld a statue of
Jupiter, and asked its value. ‘A drachm,’ was the answer. Mercury
smiled. ‘And this Juno?’ he asked again. ‘About the same.’ The god
meanwhile had caught sight of his own image, and thought to himself,—‘I,
as the messenger of the gods, from whom come all gains, must be much
more highly prized by men.’ ‘And this god,’ he asked, pointing to his
own image, ‘how dear might that be?’ ‘That?’ replied the artist, ‘buy
the other two, and I will throw that in.’” Mercury went away sadly
crestfallen. But the artist did not recognize him, and could therefore
have had no intention of wounding his self-love. The reason for his
setting so small a value on the statue must have lain in its
workmanship. The less degree of reverence due to the god whom it
represented could have had nothing to do with the matter, for the artist
values his works according to the skill, industry, and labor bestowed
upon them, not according to the rank and dignity of the persons
represented. If a statue of Mercury cost less than one of Jupiter or
Juno, it was because less skill, industry, and labor had been expended
upon it. And such was the case here. The statues of Jupiter and Juno
were full-length figures, while that of Mercury was a miserable square
post, with only the head and shoulders of the god upon it. What wonder,
then, that it might be thrown in without extra charge? Mercury
overlooked this circumstance, from having in mind only his own fancied
superiority, and his humiliation was therefore as natural as it was
merited. We look in vain among the commentators, translators, and
imitators of Æsop’s fables for any trace of this explanation. I could
mention the names of many, were it worth the trouble, who have
understood the story literally; that is, have not understood it at all.
On the supposition that the workmanship of all the statues was of the
same degree of excellence, there is an absurdity in the fable which
these scholars have either failed to perceive or have very much
exaggerated. Another point which, perhaps, might be taken exception to
in the fable, is the price the sculptor sets upon his Jupiter. No potter
can make a puppet for a drachm. The drachm here must stand in general
for something very insignificant. (Fab. Æsop, 90.)


                            Note 20, p. 53.

Cretius de R. N. lib. v. 736–747.

          It Ver, et Venus, et Veneris prænuntius ante
          Pinnatus graditur Zephyrus; vestigia propter
          Flora quibus mater præspargens ante viai
          Cuncta coloribus egregiis et odoribus opplet,
          Inde loci sequitur Calor aridus, et comes una
          Pulverulenta Ceres; et Etesia flabra Aquilonum.
          Inde Autumnus adit; graditur simul Evius Evan;
          Inde aliæ tempestates ventique sequuntur,
          Altitonans Vulturnus et Auster fulmine pollens.
          Tandem Bruma nives adfert, pigrumque rigorem
          Reddit, Hyems sequitur, crepitans ac dentibus Algus.

Spring advances and Venus and winged Zephyrus, the herald of Venus,
precedes, whose path mother Flora fills with wondrous flowers and odors.
Then follow in order dry Heat and his companion dusty Ceres, and the
Etesian blasts of the Northwind. Then Autumn approaches, and Evian
Bacchus. Then other tempests and winds, deep-thundering Volturnus and
Auster (south and south-east winds), mighty with lightnings. At length,
the solstice brings snow, and slothful numbness returns; Winter follows,
and cold with chattering teeth.

Spence regards this passage as one of the most beautiful in the whole
poem, and it is certainly one on which the fame of Lucretius as a poet
chiefly rests. But, surely, to say that the whole description was
probably taken from a procession of statues representing the seasons as
gods, is to detract very much from his merit, if not to destroy it
altogether. And what reason have we for the supposition? This, says the
Englishman: “Such processions of their deities in general were as common
among the Romans of old, as those in honor of the saints are in the same
country to this day. All the expressions used by Lucretius here come in
very aptly, if applied to a procession.”

Excellent reasons! Against the last, particularly, we might make many
objections. The very epithets applied to the various personified
abstractions,—“Calor aridus,” “Ceres pulverulenta,” “Volturnus
altitonans,” “fulmine pollens Auster,” “Algus dentibus crepitans,”—show
that they received their characteristics from the poet and not from the
artist. He would certainly have treated them very differently. Spence
seems to have derived his idea of a procession from Abraham Preigern,
who, in his remarks on this passage, says, “Ordo est quasi Pompæ
cujusdam. Ver et Venus, Zephyrus et Flora,” &c. But Spence should have
been content to stop there. To say that the poet makes his seasons move
as in a procession, is all very well; but to say that he learned their
sequences from a procession, is nonsense.


                            Note 21, p. 62.

Valerius Flaccus, lib. ii. Argonaut, v. 265–273.

             Serta patri, juvenisque comam vestisque Lyæi
             Induit, et medium curru locat; æraque circum
             Tympanaque et plenas tacita formidine cistas.
             Ipsa sinus hederisque ligat famularibus artus;
             Pampineamque quatit ventosis ictibus hastam,
             Respiciens; teneat virides velatus habenas
             Ut pater, et nivea tumeant ut cornua mitra,
             Et sacer ut Bacchum referat scyphus.

“The maid clothes her father with the garlands, the locks and the
garments of Bacchus, and places him in the centre of the chariot; around
him the brazen drums and the boxes filled with nameless terror; herself,
looking back, binds his hair and limbs with ivy and strikes windy blows
with the vine-wreathed spear; veiled like the father she holds the green
reins; the horns project under the white turban, and the sacred goblet
tells of Bacchus.”

The word “tumeant,” in the last line but one, would seem to imply that
the horns were not so small as Spence fancies.


                            Note 22, p. 62.

The so-called Bacchus in the garden of the Medicis at Rome (Montfaucon
Suppl. aux Ant. T. 1, p. 254) has little horns growing from the brow.
But for this very reason some critics suppose it to be a faun. And
indeed such natural horns are an insult to the human countenance, and
can only be becoming in beings supposed to occupy a middle station
between men and beasts. The attitude also and the longing looks the
figure casts upward at the grapes, belong more properly to a follower of
the god than to the god himself. I am reminded here of what Clemens
Alexandrinus says of Alexander the Great. (Protrept. p. 48, edit. Pott.)
Ἐβούλετο δὲ καὶ Ἀλέξανδρος Ἄμμωνος υἱὸς εἶναι δοκεῖν, καὶ κερασφόρος
ἀναπλάττεσθαι πρὸς τῶν ἀγαλματοποιῶν, τὸ καλὸν ἀνθρώπου ὑβρίσαι σπεύδων
κέρατι. It was Alexander’s express desire to be represented in his
statue with horns. He was well content with the insult thus done to
human beauty, if only a divine origin might be imputed to him.


                            Note 23, p. 64.

When I maintained in a former chapter that the old artists had never
made a fury, it had not escaped me that the furies had more than one
temple, which certainly would not have been left devoid of their
statues. Pausanias found some of wood in their temple at Cerynea, not
large nor in any way remarkable. It would seem that the art, which had
no opportunity of displaying itself on them, sought to make amends on
the images of the priestesses which stood in the hall of the temple, as
they were of stone and of very beautiful workmanship. (Pausanias Achaic.
cap. xxv. p. 587, edit. Kuhn.) Neither had I forgotten that heads of
them were supposed to have been found on an _abraxas_, made known by
Chiffletius, and on a lamp by Licetus. (Dissertat. sur les Furies par
Bannier; Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscript. T. v. 48.) Neither was I
unacquainted with the Etruscan vase of Gorius (Tabl. 151. Musei Etrusci)
whereon are Orestes and Pylades attacked by furies. But I was speaking
of works of art, under which head I consider none of these to come. If
the latter deserve more than the others to be included under the name,
it would in one aspect rather confirm my theory than contradict it. For,
little as the Etruscan artists aimed at beauty in most cases, they yet
seem to have characterized the furies more by their dress and attributes
than by any terrible aspect of countenance. These figures thrust their
torches at Orestes and Pylades, with such a tranquil expression of face
that they almost seem to be terrifying them in sport. The horror they
inspire in Orestes and Pylades appears from the fear of the two men, not
at all from the shape of the furies themselves.

They are, therefore, at once furies and no furies. They perform the
office of furies, but without that appearance of violence and rage which
we are accustomed to associate with the name. They have not that brow
which, as Catullus says, “expirantis præportat pectoris iras.”
Winkelmann thought lately that he had discovered, upon a cornelian in
the cabinet of Stoss, a fury, running, with streaming hair and garments,
and a dagger in her hand. (Library of the Fine Arts, vol. v.) Von
Hagedorn at once counselled all the artists to turn this discovery to
account, and represent furies thus in their pictures. (Betrachtungen
über die Malerei, p. 222.) But Winkelmann himself presently threw doubt
on his discovery, because he did not find that the ancients ever armed
the furies with daggers instead of torches. (Descript. des Pierres
Gravées, p. 84.) He must then consider the figures on the coins of the
cities of Lyrba and Massaura, which Spanheim calls furies (Les Césars de
Julien, p. 44), to be not such but a Hecate _triformis_. Else here would
be exactly such a fury, with a dagger in each hand, and strangely enough
also with flowing hair, while in the other figures the hair is covered
with a veil. But granting Winkelmann’s first supposition to have been
correct, the same would apply to this engraved stone as to the Etruscan
vase, unless owing to the fineness of the work the features were
indistinguishable. Besides, all engraved stones, from their use as
seals, belong rather to symbolism; and the figures on them are more
often a conceit of the owner than the voluntary work of the artist.


                            Note 24, p. 64.

Fast. lib. vi. 295–98.

               Esse diu stultus Vestæ simulacra putavi:
                 Mox didici curvo nulla subesse tholo.
               Ignis inextinctus templo celatur in illo;
                 Effigiem nullam Vesta, nec ignis, habet.

“I long foolishly thought there were images of Vesta; then I found that
none existed beneath the arching dome. An ever-burning fire is hidden in
that temple. Image there is none either of Vesta or of fire.”

Ovid is speaking only of the worship of Vesta at Rome, and of the temple
erected to her there by Numa, of whom he just before says:

              Regis opus placidi, quo non metuentius ullum
                Numinis ingenium terra Sabina tulit.

“The work of that peaceful king who feared the gods more than any other
offspring of the Sabine land.”


                            Note 25, p. 65.

Fast. lib. iii. v. 45, 46.

               Sylvia fit mater: Vestæ simulacra feruntur
                 Virgineas oculis opposuisse manus.

Spence should thus have compared the different parts of Ovid together.
The poet is speaking of different times; here of the state of things
before Numa, there of the state of things after him. Statues of her were
worshipped in Italy as they were in Troy, whence Æneas brought her rites
with him.

                    Manibus vittas, Vestamque potentem,
              Æternumque adytis effert penetralibus ignem,

says Virgil of the ghost of Hector, after he had warned Æneas to fly.
“He bears in his hands from the innermost shrine garlands, and mighty
Vesta and the eternal fire.” Here the eternal fire is expressly
distinguished from Vesta herself and from her statue. Spence cannot have
consulted the Roman poets with much care, since he allowed such a
passage as this to escape him.


                            Note 26, p. 65.

Plinius, lib. xxxvi. sect. 4. “Scopas fecit.—Vestam sedentem laudatam in
Servilianis hortis.” Lipsius must have had this passage in mind when he
wrote (de Vesta cap. 3): “Plinius Vestem sedentem effingi solitam
ostendit, a stabilitate.” But what Pliny says of a single work by Scopas
he ought not to have taken for a generally accepted characteristic. In
fact, he observes that on coins Vesta was as often represented standing
as sitting. This, however, was no correction of Pliny, but only of his
own mistaken conception.


                            Note 27, p. 66.

Georg. Codinus de Originib. Constant. Τὴν γῆν λέγουσιν Ἑστίαν, καὶ
πλάττουσιν αὐτὴν γυναῖκα, τύμπανον βαστάζουσαν, ἐπειδὴ τοὺς ἀνέμους ἡ γῆ
ὑφ’ ἑαυτὴν συγκλείει. Suidas, following him, or both following some
older authority, says the same thing under the word Ἑστία. “Under the
name of Vesta the Earth is represented by a woman bearing a drum, in
which she is supposed to hold the winds confined.” The reason is
somewhat puerile. It would have sounded better to say that she carried a
drum, because the ancients thought her figure bore some resemblance to
one, σχῆμα αὐτῆς τυμπανοειδὲς εἶναι. (Plutarchus de placitis Philos.
cap. 10, id. de facie in orbe Lunæ.) Perhaps, after all, Codinus was
mistaken in the figure or the name or both. Possibly he did not know
what better name to give to what he saw Vesta holding, than a drum. Or
he might have heard it called tympanum, and the only thing the word
suggested to him was the instrument known to us as a kettle-drum. But
“tympana” were also a kind of wheel.

           Hinc radios trivere rotis, hinc tympana plaustris
           Agricolæ.—(Virgilius Georgic. lib. ii. 444.)

Very similar to such a wheel appears to me the object borne by
Fabretti’s Vesta (ad Tabulam Iliadis, p. 334) which that scholar takes
to be a hand-mill.


                            Note 28, p. 70.

Lib. i. Od. 35.

                   Te semper anteit sæva Necessitas:
                   Clavos trabales et cuneos manu
                   Gestans ahenea; nec severus
                     Uncus abest liquidumque plumbum.

In this picture of Necessity drawn by Horace, perhaps the richest in
attributes of any to be found in the old poets, the nails, the clamps,
and the liquid lead, whether regarded as means of confinement or
implements of punishment, still belong to the class of poetical, rather
than allegorical, attributes. But, even so, they are too crowded; and
the passage is one of the least effective in Horace. Sanadon says:
“J’ose dire que ce tableau, pris dans le détail, serait plus beau sur la
toile que dans une ode héroïque. Je ne puis souffrir cet attirail
patibulaire de clous, de coins, de crocs, et de plomb fondu. J’ai cru en
devoir décharger la traduction, en substituant les idées générales aux
idées singulières. C’est dommage que le poëte ait eu besoin de ce
correctif.” Sanadon’s sentiment was fine and true, but he does not give
the right ground for it. The objection is not that these attributes are
the paraphernalia of the gallows, for he had but to interpret them in
their other sense to make them the firmest supports of architecture.
Their fault is in being addressed to the eye and not to the ear. For all
impressions meant for the eye, but presented to us through the ear, are
received with effort, and produce no great degree of vividness. These
lines of Horace remind me of a couple of oversights on the part of
Spence, which give us no very good idea of the exactitude with which he
has studied the passages he cites from the old poets. He is speaking of
the image under which the Romans represented faith or honesty. (Dial.
x.) “The Romans,” he says, “called her ‘Fides;’ and, when they called
her ‘Sola Fides,’ seem to mean the same as we do by the words ‘downright
honesty.’ She is represented with an erect, open air, and with nothing
but a thin robe on, so fine that one might see through it. Horace
therefore calls her ‘thin-dressed’ in one of his odes, and ‘transparent’
in another.” In these few lines are not less than three gross errors.
First, it is false that “sola” was a distinct epithet applied to the
goddess Fides. In the two passages from Livy, which he adduces as proof
(lib. i. sect. 21, lib. ii. sect. 3), the word has only its usual
signification,—the exclusion of all else. In one place, indeed, the
“soli” has been questioned by the critics, who think it must have crept
into the text through an error in writing, occasioned by the word next
to it, which is “solenne.” In the other passage cited, the author is not
speaking of fidelity at all, but of innocence, Innocentia. Secondly,
Horace, in one of his odes (the thirty-fifth of the first book,
mentioned above), is said to have applied to Fides the epithet
thin-dressed:

                   Te spes, et albo rara fides colit
                   Velata panno.

“Rarus,” it is true, can also mean thin; but here it means only rare,
seldom appearing, and is applied to Fidelity herself, not to her
clothing. Spence would have been right, had the poet said, “Fides raro
velata panno.” Thirdly, Horace is said to have elsewhere called faith or
honesty transparent, in the sense in which friends protest to one
another, “I wish you could read my heart.” This meaning is said to be
found in the line of the eighteenth ode of the First Book:

              Arcanique Fides prodiga, pellucidior vitro.

How can a critic allow himself to be thus misled by a word? Is a faith,
“arcani prodiga,” lavish of secrets, faithfulness? is it not rather
faithlessness? And it is of faithlessness, in fact, that Horace says,
“She is transparent as glass, because she betrays to every eye the
secrets entrusted to her.”


                            Note 29, p. 71.

Apollo delivers the washed and embalmed body of Sarpedon to Death and
Sleep, that they may bring him to his native country. (Iliad, xvi. 681,
682.)

            πέμπε δέ μιν πομποῖσιν ἅμα κραιπνοῖσι φέρεσθαι,
            Ὕπνῳ καὶ Θανάτῳ διδυμάοσιν.

Caylus recommends this idea to the painter, but adds: “It is a pity that
Homer has given us no account of the attributes under which Sleep was
represented in his day. We recognize the god only by his act, and we
crown him with poppies. These ideas are modern. The first is of service,
but cannot be employed in the present case, where even the flowers would
be out of keeping in connection with the figure of Death.” (Tableaux
tirés de l’Iliade, de l’Odyssée d’Homère, et de l’Enéide de Virgile,
avec des observations générales sur le costume, à Paris, 1757–58.) That
is requiring of Homer ornamentations of that petty kind most at variance
with the nobility of his style. The most ingenious attributes he could
have bestowed on Sleep would not have characterized him so perfectly,
nor have brought so vivid a picture of him before us, as the single
touch which makes him the twin brother of Death. Let the artist seek to
express this, and he may dispense with all attributes. The old artists
did, in fact, make Sleep and Death resemble each other, like
twin-brothers. On a chest of cedar, in the Temple of Juno at Elis, they
both lay as boys in the arms of Night. One was white, the other black;
one slept, the other only seemed to sleep; the feet of both were
crossed. For so I should prefer to translate the words of Pausanias
(Eliac. cap. xviii. p. 422, edit. Kuhn), ἀμφοτέρους διεστραμμένους τοὺς
πόδας, rather than by “crooked feet,” as Gedoyn does, “les pieds
contrefaits.” What would be the meaning of crooked feet? To lie with
crossed feet is customary with sleepers. Sleep is thus represented by
Maffei. (Raccol. Pl. 151.) Modern artists have entirely abandoned this
resemblance between Sleep and Death, which we find among the ancients,
and always represent Death as a skeleton, or at best a skeleton covered
with skin. Caylus should have been careful to tell the artists whether
they had better follow the custom of the ancients or the moderns in this
respect. He seems to declare in favor of the modern view, since he
regards Death as a figure that would not harmonize well with a
flower-crowned companion. Has he further considered how inappropriate
this modern idea would be in a Homeric picture? How could its loathsome
character have failed to shock him? I cannot bring myself to believe
that the little metal figure in the ducal gallery at Florence,
representing a skeleton sitting on the ground, with one arm on an urn of
ashes (Spence’s Polymetis, tab. xli.), is a veritable antique. It cannot
possibly represent Death, because the ancients represented him very
differently. Even their poets never thought of him under this repulsive
shape.


                            Note 30, p. 76.

Richardson cites this work as an illustration of the rule that the
attention of the spectator should be diverted by nothing, however
admirable, from the chief figure. “Protogenes,” he says, “had introduced
into his famous picture of Ialysus a partridge, painted with so much
skill that it seemed alive, and was admired by all Greece. But, because
it attracted all eyes to itself, to the detriment of the whole piece, he
effaced it.” (Traité de la Peinture, T. i. p. 46.) Richardson is
mistaken; this partridge was not in the Ialysus, but in another picture
of Protogenes called the Idle Satyr, or Satyr in Repose, Σάτυρος
ἀναπαυόμενος. I should hardly have mentioned this error, which arose
from a misunderstanding of a passage in Pliny, had not the same mistake
been made by Meursius. (Rhodi. lib. i. cap. 14.) “In eadem tabula,
scilicet in qua Ialysus, Satyrus erat, quem dicebant _Anapauomenon_,
tibeas tenens.”

Something of the same kind occurs in Winkelmann. (Von der Nachahm. der
Gr. W. in der Mal. und Bildh. p. 56.) Strabo is the only authority for
this partridge story, and he expressly discriminates between the Ialysus
and the Satyr leaning against a pillar on which sat the partridge. (Lib.
xiv.) Meursius, Richardson, and Winkelmann misunderstood the passage in
Pliny (lib. xxxv. sect. 36), from not perceiving that he was speaking of
two different pictures: the one which saved the city, because Demetrius
would not assault the place where it stood; and another, which
Protogenes painted during the siege. The one was Ialysus, the other the
Satyr.


                            Note 31, p. 79.

This invisible battle of the gods has been imitated by Quintus Calaber
in his Twelfth Book, with the evident design of improving on his model.
The grammarian seems to have held it unbecoming in a god to be thrown to
the ground by a stone. He therefore makes the gods hurl at one another
huge masses of rock, torn up from Mount Ida, which, however, are
shattered against the limbs of the immortals and fly like sand about
them.

                                ... οἱ δὲ κολώνας
              χερσὶν ἀποῤῥήξαντες ἀπ’ οὔρεος Ἰδαίοιο
              βάλλον ἐπ’ ἀλλήλους· αἳ δὲ ψαμάθοισιν ὁμοῖαι
              ῥεῖα διεσκίδναντο θεῶν περὶ δ’ ἄσχετα γυῖα
              ῥηγνύμενα διὰ τυτθά....

A conceit which destroys the effect by marring our idea of the size of
the gods, and throwing contempt on their weapons. If gods throw stones
at one another, the stones must be able to hurt them, or they are like
silly boys pelting each other with earth. So old Homer remains still the
wiser, and all the fault-finding of cold criticism, and the attempts of
men of inferior genius to vie with him, serve but to set forth his
wisdom in clearer light. I do not deny that Quintus’s imitation has
excellent and original points; but they are less in harmony with the
modest greatness of Homer than calculated to do honor to the stormy fire
of a more modern poet. That the cry of the gods, which rang to the
heights of heaven and the depths of hell, should not be heard by
mortals, seems to me a most expressive touch. The cry was too mighty to
be grasped by the imperfect organs of human hearing.


                            Note 32, p. 80.

No one who has read Homer once through, ever so hastily, will differ
from this statement as far as regards strength and speed; but he will
not perhaps at once recall examples where the poet attaches superhuman
size to his gods. I would therefore refer him, in addition to the
description of Mars just quoted, whose body covered seven hides, to the
helmet of Minerva, κυνέην ἑκατὸν πολίων πρυλέεσσ’ ἀραρυῖαν (Iliad, v.
744), under which could be concealed as many warriors as a hundred
cities could bring into the field; to the stride of Neptune (Iliad,
xiii. 20); and especially to the lines from the description of the
shield, where Mars and Minerva lead the troops of the beleaguered city.
(Iliad, xviii. 516–519.)

                   ἦρχε δ’ ἄρά σφιν Ἄρης καὶ Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη,
             ἄμφω χρυσείω, χρύσεια δὲ εἵματα ἕσθην,
             καλὼ καὶ μεγάλω σὺν τεύχεσιν, ὥς τε θεώ περ,
             ἀμφὶς ἀριζήλω· λαοὶ δ’ ὑπ’ ὑπολίζονες ἦσαν.

                                  ... While the youths
          Marched on, with Mars and Pallas at their head,
          Both wrought in gold, with golden garments on,
          Stately and large in form, and over all
          Conspicuous in bright armor, as became
          The gods; the rest were of an humbler size.—BRYANT.

Judging from the explanations they feel called upon to give of the great
helmet of Minerva, Homer’s commentators, old as well as new, seem not
always sufficiently to have borne in mind this wonderful size of the
gods. (See the notes on the above-quoted passage in the edition of
Clarke and Ernesti.) But we lose much in majesty by thinking of the
Homeric deities as of ordinary size, as we are accustomed to see them on
canvas in the company of mortals. Although painting is unable to
represent these superhuman dimensions, sculpture to a certain extent
may, and I am convinced that the old masters borrowed from Homer their
conception of the gods in general as well as the colossal size which
they not infrequently gave them. (Herodot. lib. ii. p. 130, edit.
Wessel.) Further remarks upon the use of the colossal, its excellent
effect in sculpture and its want of effect in painting, I reserve for
another place.


                            NOTE 33, p. 82.

Homer, I acknowledge, sometimes veils his deities in a cloud, but only
when they are not to be seen by other deities. In the fourteenth book of
the Iliad, for instance, where Juno and Sleep, ἠέρα ἐσσαμένω, betake
themselves to Mount Ida, the crafty goddess’s chief care was not to be
discovered by Venus, whose girdle she had borrowed under pretence of a
very different journey. In the same book the love-drunken Jupiter is
obliged to surround himself and his spouse with a golden cloud to
overcome her chaste reluctance.

                πῶς κ’ ἔοι, εἴ τις νῶϊ θεῶν αἰειγενετάων
                εὕδοντ’ ἀθρήσειε....

She did not fear to be seen by men, but by the gods. And although Homer
makes Jupiter say a few lines further on,—

              Ἥρη, μήτε θεῶν τόγε δείδιθι μήτε τιν’ ἀνδρῶν
              ὄψεσθαι· τοῖόν τοι ἐγὼ νέφος ἀμφικαλύψω,
              χρύσεον.

“Fear thou not that any god or man will look upon us,” that does not
prove that the cloud was needed to conceal them from the eyes of
mortals, but that in this cloud they would be as invisible to the gods
as they always were to men. So, when Minerva puts on the helmet of Pluto
(Iliad, v. 485), which has the same effect of concealment that a cloud
would have, it is not that she may be concealed from the Trojans, who
either see her not at all or under the form of Sthenelus, but simply
that she may not be recognized by Mars.


                            NOTE 34, p. 87.

Tableaux tirés de l’Iliade, Avert. p. 5. “On est toujours convenu, que
plus un poëme fournissait d’images et d’actions, plus il avait de
supériorité en poésie. Cette réflexion m’avait conduit à penser que le
calcul des différens tableaux, qu’ offrent les poëmes, pouvait servir à
comparer le mérite respectif des poëmes et des poëtes. Le nombre et le
genre des tableaux que présentent ces grands ouvrages, auraient été une
espèce de pierre de touche, ou, plutôt, une balance certaine du mérite
de ces poëmes et du génie de leurs auteurs.”


                            NOTE 35, p. 88.

What we call poetic pictures, the ancients, as we learn from Longinus,
called “phantasiæ;” and what we call illusion in such pictures, they
named “enargia.” It was therefore said by some one, as Plutarch tells us
(Erot. T. ii. edit. Henr. Steph. p. 1351), that poetic “phantasiæ” were,
on account of their “enargia,” waking dreams: Αἱ ποιητικαὶ φαντασίαι διὰ
τὴν ἐνάργειαν ἐγρηγορότων ἐνύπνια εἰσίν. I could wish that our modern
books upon poetry had used this nomenclature, and avoided the word
picture altogether. We should thus have been spared a multitude of
doubtful rules, whose chief foundation is the coincidence of an
arbitrary term. No one would then have thought of confining poetic
conceptions within the limits of a material picture. But the moment
these conceptions were called a poetic picture, the foundation for the
error was laid.


                            NOTE 36, p. 89.

Iliad, iv. 105.

            αὐτίκ’ ἐσύλα τόξον ἐΰξοον
            καὶ τὸ μὲν εὖ κατέθηκε τανυσσάμενος, ποτὶ γαίῃ
            ἀγκλίνας·...
            αὐτὰρ ὁ σύλα πῶμα φαρέτρης, ἐκ δ’ ἕλετ’ ἰὸν
            ἀβλῆτα πτερόεντα, μελαινέων ἕρμ’ ὀδυνάων·
            αἶψα δ’ ἐπὶ νευρῇ κατεκόσμει πικρὸν ὀϊστὸν,
            ἕλκε δ’ ὁμοῦ γλυφίδας τε λαβὼν καὶ νεῦρα βόεια·
            νευρὴν μὲν μαζῷ πέλασεν, τόξον δὲ σίδηρον.
            αὐτὰρ ἐπειδὴ κυκλοτερὲς μέγα τόξον ἔτεινεν,
            λίγξε βιὸς, νευρὴ δὲ μέγ’ ἴαχεν ἆλτο δ’ ὀϊστὸς
            ὀξυβελὴς, καθ’ ὅμιλον ἐπιπτέσθαι μενεαίνων.

         To bend that bow the warrior lowered it
         And pressed an end against the earth....
         Then the Lycian drew aside
         The cover from his quiver, taking out
         A well-fledged arrow that had never flown,—
         A cause of future sorrows. On the string
         He laid that fatal arrow....
         Grasping the bowstring and the arrow’s notch
         He drew them back and forced the string to meet
         His breast, the arrow-head to meet the bow,
         Till the bow formed a circle. Then it twanged;
         The cord gave out a shrilly sound; the shaft
         Leaped forth in eager haste to reach the host.—BRYANT.


                            NOTE 37, p. 108.

Prologue to the Satires, 340.

              That not in Fancy’s maze he wandered long,
              But stooped to Truth and moralized his song.

Ibid. 148.

                          ... Who could take offence
            While pure description held the place of sense?

Warburton’s remark on this last line may have the force of an
explanation by the poet himself. “He uses _pure_ equivocally, to signify
either chaste or empty; and has given in this line what he esteemed the
true character of descriptive poetry, as it is called,—a composition, in
his opinion, as absurd as a feast made up of sauces. The use of a
picturesque imagination is to brighten and adorn good sense: so that to
employ it only in description, is like children’s delighting in a prism
for the sake of its gaudy colors, which, when frugally managed and
artfully disposed, might be made to represent and illustrate the noblest
objects in nature.”

Both poet and commentator seem to have regarded the matter rather from a
moral than an artistic point of view. But so much the better that this
style of poetry seems equally worthless from whichever point it be
viewed.


                            NOTE 38, p. 108.

Poétique Française, T. ii. p. 501. “J’écrivais ces réflexions avant que
les essais des Allemands dans ce genre (l’Eglogue) fussent connus parmi
nous. Ils ont exécuté ce que j’avais conçu; et s’ils parviennent à
donner plus au moral et moins au détail des peintures physiques, ils
excelleront dans ce genre, plus riche, plus vaste, plus fécond, et
infiniment plus naturel et plus moral que celui de la galanterie
champêtre.”


                            NOTE 39, p. 115.

I see that Servius attempts to excuse Virgil on other grounds, for the
difference between the two shields has not escaped his notice. “Sane
interest inter hunc et Homeri clypeum; illic enim singula dum fiunt
narrantur; hic vero perfecto opere nascuntur; nam et hic arma prius
accipit Æneas, quam spectaret; ibi postquam omnia narrata sunt, sic a
Thetide deferuntur ad Achillem.” There is a marked difference between
this and the shield of Homer: for there events are narrated one by one
as they are done, here they are known by the finished work; here the
arms are received by Æneas before being seen, there, after all has been
told, they are carried by Thetis to Achilles. (Ad. v. 625, lib. viii.
Æneid.) Why? “For this reason,” says Servius: “because, on the shield of
Æneas, were represented not only the few events referred to by the poet,
but,—

                                ... genus omne futuræ
            Stirpis ab Ascanio, pugnataque in ordine bella,

“All the description of his future race from Ascanius, and the battles,
in the order in which they should occur.” It would have been impossible
for the poet, in the same short space of time occupied by Vulcan in his
work, to mention by name the long line of descendants, and to tell of
all their battles in the order of their occurrence. That seems to be the
meaning of Servius’s somewhat obscure words: “Opportune ergo Virgilius,
quia non videtur simul et narrationis celeritas potuisse connecti, et
opus tam velociter expedire, ut ad verbum posset occurrere.” Since
Virgil could bring forward but a small part of “the unnarratable text of
the shield,” and not even that little while Vulcan was at work, he was
obliged to reserve it till the whole was finished. For Virgil’s sake, I
hope that this argument of Servius is baseless. My excuse is much more
creditable to him. What need was there of putting the whole of Roman
history on a shield? With few pictures Homer made his shield an epitome
of all that was happening in the world. It would almost seem that
Virgil, despairing of surpassing the Greek in the design and execution
of his pictures, was determined to exceed him at least in their number,
and that would have been the height of childishness.


                            NOTE 40, p. 118.

“Scuto ejus, in quo Amazonum prœlium cælavit intumescente ambitu parmæ;
ejusdem concava parte deorum et gigantum, dimicationem.”

“Her shield, on the convex side of which he sculptured a battle of the
Amazons, and on the concave side the contest of the gods and giants.”
(Plinius, lib. xxxvi. sect. 4.)


                            NOTE 41, p. 122.

The first begins at line 483 and goes to line 489; the second extends
from 490 to 509; the third, from 510 to 540; the fourth, from 541 to
549; the fifth, from 550 to 560; the sixth, from 561 to 572; the
seventh, from 573 to 586; the eighth, from 587 to 589; the ninth, from
590 to 605; and the tenth, from 606 to 608. The third picture alone is
not so introduced; but that it is one by itself is evident from the
words introducing the second,—ἐν δὲ δύω ποίησε πόλεις,—as also from the
nature of the subject.


                            NOTE 42, p. 123.

Iliad, vol. v. obs. p. 61. In this passage Pope makes an entirely false
use of the expression “aerial perspective,” which, in fact, has nothing
to do with the diminishing of the size according to the increased
distance, but refers only to the change of color occasioned by the air
or other medium through which the object is seen. A man capable of this
blunder may justly be supposed ignorant of the whole subject.


                            NOTE 43, p. 128.

Constantinus Manasses Compend. Chron. p. 20 (edit. Venet). Madame Dacier
was well pleased with this portrait of Manasses, except for its
tautology. “De Helenæ pulchritudine omnium optime Constantinus Manasses;
nisi in eo tautologiam reprehendas.” (Ad Dictyn Cretensem, lib. i. cap.
3, p. 5.) She also quotes, according to Mezeriac (Comment. sur les
Epîtres d’Ovide, T. i. p. 361), the descriptions given by Dares
Phrygius, and Cedrenus, of the beauty of Helen. In the first there is
one trait which sounds rather strange. Dares says that Helen had a mole
between her eyebrows: “notam inter duo supercilia habentem.” But that
could not have been a beauty. I wish the Frenchwoman had given her
opinion. I, for my part, regard the word “nota” as a corruption, and
think that Dares meant to speak of what the Greeks called μεσόφρυον, and
the Latins, “glabella.” He means to say that Helen’s eyebrows did not
meet, but that there was a little space between them. The taste of the
ancients was divided on this point. Some considered this space between
the eyebrows beauty, others not. (Junius de Pictura Vet. lib. iii. cap.
9, p. 245.) Anacreon took a middle course. The eyebrows of his beloved
maiden were neither perceptibly separated, nor were they fully grown
together: they tapered off delicately at a certain point. He says to the
artist who is to paint her (Od. 28):—

                        τὸ μεσόφρυον δὲ μή μοι
                        διάκοπτε, μήτε μίσγε,
                        ἐχέτω δ’ ὅπως ἐκείνη
                        τὸ λεληθότως σύνοφρυν
                        βλεφάρων ἴτυν κελαινήν.

This is Pauer’s reading, but the meaning is the same in other versions,
and has been rightly given by Henr. Stephano:—

                        Supercilii nigrantes
                        Discrimina nec arcus,
                        Confundito nec illos:
                        Sed junge sic ut anceps
                        Divortium relinquas,
                        Quale esse cernis ipsi.

But if my interpretation of Dares’ meaning be the true one, what should
we read instead of “notam?” Perhaps “moram.” For certainly “mora” may
mean not only the interval of time before something happens, but also
the impediment, the space between one thing and another.

                   Ego inquieta montium jaceam mora,

is the wish of the raving Hercules in Seneca, which Gronovius very well
explains thus: “Optat se medium jacere inter duas Symplegades, illarum
velut moram, impedimentum, obicem; qui eas moretur, vetet aut satis
arcte conjungi, aut rursus distrahi.” The same poet uses “laceratorum
moræ” in the sense of “juncturæ.” (Schrœderus ad. v. 762. Thyest.)


                            NOTE 44, p. 131.

Dialogo della Pittura, intitolata l’Aretino: Firenze 1735, p. 178. “Se
vogliono i Pittori senza fatica trovare un perfetto esempio di bella
Donna, legiano quelle Stanze dell’ Ariosto, nelle quali egli discrive
mirabilmente le belezze della Fata Alcina; e vedranno parimente, quanto
i buoni Poeti siano ancora essi Pittori.”


                            NOTE 45, p. 131.

Ibid. “Ecco, che, quanto alla proporzione, l’ingeniosissimo Ariosto
assegna la migliore, che sappiano formar le mani de’ più eccellenti
Pittori, usando questa voce industri, per dinotar la diligenza, che
conviene al buono artefice.”


                            NOTE 46, p. 132.

Ibid. “Qui l’Ariosto colorisce, e in questo suo colorire dimostra essere
un Titiano.”


                            NOTE 47, p. 132.

Ibid. “Poteva l’Ariosto nella guisa, che ha detto chioma bionda, dir
chioma d’oro: ma gli parve forse, che havrebbe havuto troppo del
Poetico. Da che si può ritrar, che ’l Pittore dee imitar l’oro, e non
metterlo (come fanno i Miniatori) nelle sue Pitture, in modo, che si
possa dire, que’ capelli non sono d’oro, ma par che risplendano, come
l’oro.” What Dolce goes on to quote from Athenæus is remarkable, but
happens to be a misquotation. I shall speak of it in another place.


                            NOTE 48, p. 132.

Ibid. “Il naso, che discende giù, havendo peraventura la considerazione
a quelle forme de’ nasi, che si veggono ne’ ritratti delle belle Romane
antiche.”


                            NOTE 49, p. 143.

Pliny says of Apelles (lib. xxxv. sect. 36): “Fecit et Dianam
sacrificantium Virginum choro mixtam; quibus vicisse Homeri versus
videtur id ipsum describentis.” “He also made a Diana surrounded by a
band of virgins performing a sacrifice; a work in which he would seem to
have surpassed the verses of Homer describing the same thing.” This
praise may be perfectly just; for beautiful nymphs surrounding a
beautiful goddess, who towers above them by the whole height of her
majestic brow, form a theme more fitting the painter than the poet. But
I am somewhat suspicious of the word “sacrificantium.” What have the
nymphs of Diana to do with offering sacrifices? Is that the occupation
assigned them by Homer? By no means. They roam with the goddess over
hills and through forest; they hunt, play, dance. (Odyss. vi. 102–106).

               οἵη δ’ Ἄρτεμις εἰσὶ κατ’ οὔρεος ἰοχέαιρα
               ἢ κατὰ Τηΰγετον περιμήκετον, ἢ Ἐρύμανθον
               τερπομένη κάπροισι καὶ ὠκείῃς ἐλάφοισι·
               τῇ δὲ θ’ ἅμα Νύμφαι, κοῦραι Διὸς αἰγιόχοιο
               ἀγρονόμοι παίζουσι·...

         As when o’er Erymanth Diana roves
         Or wide Taygetus’s resounding groves;
         A sylvan train the huntress queen surrounds,
         Her rattling quiver from her shoulder sounds;
         Fierce in the sport along the mountain brow,
         They bay the boar or chase the bounding roe.
         High o’er the lawn with more majestic pace,
         Above the nymphs she treads with stately grace.—POPE.

Pliny, therefore, can hardly have written “sacrificantium,” rather
“venantium” (hunting), or something like it; perhaps “sylvis vagantium”
(roaming the woods), which corresponds more nearly in number of letters
to the altered word. “Saltantium” (bounding), approaches most nearly to
the παίζουσι of Homer. Virgil, also, in his imitation of this passage,
represents the nymphs as dancing. (Æneid, i. 497, 498.)

         Qualis in Eurotæ ripis, aut per juga Cynthi
         Exercet Diana choros....

         Such on Eurotas’ banks or Cynthus’ height
         Diana seems; and so she charms the sight,
         When in the dance the graceful goddess leads
         The choir of nymphs and overtops their heads.—DRYDEN.

Spence gives a remarkable criticism on this passage. (Polymetis, dial.
viii.) “This Diana,” he says, “both in the picture and in the
descriptions, was the Diana Venatrix, though she was not represented,
either by Virgil or Apelles or Homer, as hunting with her nymphs; but as
employed with them in that sort of dances which of old were regarded as
very solemn acts of devotion.” In a note he adds, “The expression of
παίζειν, used by Homer on this occasion, is scarce proper for hunting;
as that of “choros exercere,” in Virgil, should be understood of the
religious dances of old, because dancing, in the old Roman idea of it,
was indecent, even for men, in public, unless it were the sort of dances
used in honor of Mars or Bacchus or some other of their gods.” Spence
supposes that those solemn dances are here referred to, which, among the
ancients, were counted among the acts of religion. “It is in consequence
of this,” he says, “that Pliny, in speaking of Diana’s nymphs on this
very occasion, uses the word “sacrificare” of them, which quite
determines these dances of theirs to have been of the religious kind.”
He forgets that, in Virgil, Diana joins in the dance, “exercet Diana
choros.” If this were a religious dance, in whose honor did Diana dance
it? in her own, or in honor of some other deity? Both suppositions are
absurd. If the old Romans did hold dancing in general to be unbecoming
in a grave person, was that a reason why their poets should transfer the
national gravity to the manners of the gods, which were very differently
represented by the old Greek poets? When Horace says of Venus (Od. iv.
lib. i.),—

            Jam Cytherea choros ducit Venus, imminente luna;
            Junctæque Nymphis Gratiæ decentes
            Alterno terram quatiunt pede....

“Now Cytherean Venus leads the bands, under the shining moon, and the
fair graces, joined with the nymphs, beat the ground with alternate
feet,”—were these, likewise, sacred, religious dances? But it is wasting
words to argue against such a conceit.


                            NOTE 50, p. 145.

Plinius, lib. xxxiv. sect. 19. “Ipse tamen corporum tenus curiosus,
animi sensus non expressisse videtur, capillum quoque et pubem non
emendatius fecisse, quam rudis antiquitas instituisset.

“Hic primus nervos et venas expressit, capillumque diligentius.”


                            NOTE 51, p. 162.

The Connoisseur, vol. i. no. 21. The beauty of Knonmquaiha is thus
described. “He was struck with the glossy hue of her complexion, which
shone like the jetty down on the black hogs of Hessaqua; he was ravished
with the prest gristle of her nose; and his eyes dwelt with admiration
on the flaccid beauties of her breasts, which descended to her navel.”
And how were these charms set off by art? “She made a varnish of the fat
of goats mixed with soot, with which she anointed her whole body as she
stood beneath the rays of the sun; her locks were clotted with melted
grease, and powdered with the yellow dust of Buchu; her face, which
shone like the polished ebony, was beautifully varied with spots of red
earth, and appeared like the sable curtain of the night bespangled with
stars; she sprinkled her limbs with wood-ashes, and perfumed them with
the dung of Stinkbingsem. Her arms and legs were entwined with the
shining entrails of an heifer; from her neck there hung a pouch composed
of the stomach of a kid; the wings of an ostrich overshadowed the fleshy
promontories behind; and before she wore an apron formed of the shaggy
ears of a lion.”

Here is further the marriage ceremony of the loving pair. “The Surri, or
Chief Priest, approached them, and, in a deep voice, chanted the nuptial
rites to the melodious grumbling of the Gom-Gom; and, at the same time
(according to the manner of Caffraria), bedewed them plentifully with
the urinary benediction. The bride and bridegroom rubbed in the precious
stream with ecstasy, while the briny drops trickled from their bodies,
like the oozy surge from the rocks of Chirigriqua.”


                            NOTE 52, p. 166.

The Sea-Voyage, act iii. scene 1. A French pirate ship is thrown upon a
desert island. Avarice and envy cause quarrels among the men, and a
couple of wretches, who had long suffered extreme want on the island,
seize a favorable opportunity to put to sea in the ship. Robbed thus of
their whole stock of provisions, the miserable men see death, in its
worst forms, staring them in the face, and express to each other their
hunger and despair as follows:—

         _Lamure._ Oh, what a tempest have I in my stomach!
         How my empty guts cry out! My wounds ache,
         Would they would bleed again, that I might get
         Something to quench my thirst!

         _Franville._ O Lamure, the happiness my dogs had
         When I kept house at home! They had a storehouse,
         A storehouse of most blessed bones and crusts.
         Happy crusts! Oh, how sharp hunger pinches me!

         _Lamure._ How now, what news?

         _Morillar._ Hast any meat yet?

         _Franville._ Not a bit that I can see.
         Here be goodly quarries, but they be cruel hard
         To gnaw. I ha’ got some mud, we’ll eat it with spoons;
         Very good thick mud; but it stinks damnably.
         There’s old rotten trunks of trees, too,
         But not a leaf nor blossom in all the island.

         _Lamure._ How it looks!

         _Morillar._ It stinks too.

         _Lamure._ It may be poison.

         _Franville._ Let it be any thing,
         So I can get it down. Why, man,
         Poison’s a princely dish!

         _Morillar._ Hast thou no biscuit?
         No crumbs left in thy pocket? Here is my doublet,
         Give me but three small crumbs.

         _Franville._ Not for three kingdoms,
         If I were master of ’em. Oh, Lamure,
         But one poor joint of mutton we ha’ scorned, man!

         _Lamure._ Thou speak’st of paradise;
         Or but the snuffs of those healths,
         We have lewdly at midnight flung away.

         _Morillar._ Ah, but to lick the glasses!

But this is nothing, compared with the next scene, when the ship’s
surgeon enters.

       _Franville._ Here comes the surgeon. What
       Hast thou discovered? Smile, smile, and comfort us.

       _Surgeon._ I am expiring,
       Smile they that can. I can find nothing, gentlemen,
       Here’s nothing can be meat without a miracle.
       Oh, that I had my boxes and my lints now,
       My stupes, my tents, and those sweet helps of nature!
       What dainty dishes could I make of them!

       _Morillar._ Hast ne’er an old suppository?

       _Surgeon._ Oh, would I had, sir!

       _Lamure._ Or but the paper where such a cordial
       Potion, or pills hath been entombed!

       _Franville._ Or the best bladder, where a cooling glister?

       _Morillar._ Hast thou no searcloths left?
       Nor any old poultices?

       _Franville._ We care not to what it hath been ministered.

       _Surgeon._ Sure I have none of these dainties, gentlemen.

       _Franville._ Where’s the great wen
       Thou cut’st from Hugh the sailor’s shoulder?
       That would serve now for a most princely banquet.

       _Surgeon._ Ay, if we had it, gentlemen.
       I flung it overboard, slave that I was.

       _Lamure._ A most improvident villain!


                            NOTE 53, p. 177.

Æneid, lib. ii. 7, and especially lib. xi. 183. We might safely,
therefore, add such a work to the list of lost writings by this author.


                            NOTE 54, p. 179.

Consult the list of inscriptions on ancient works of art in Mar. Gudius.
(ad Phædri fab. v. lib. i.), and, in connection with that, the
correction made by Gronovius. (Præf. ad Tom. ix. Thesauri Antiq. Græc.)


                            NOTE 55, p. 182.

He at least expressly promises to do so: “quæ suis locis reddam” (which
I shall speak of in their proper place). But if this was not wholly
forgotten, it was at least done very cursorily, and not at all in the
way this promise had led us to expect. When he writes (lib. xxxv. sect.
39), “Lysippus quoque Æginæ picturæ suæ inscripsit, ἐνέκαυσεν; quod
profecto non fecisset, nisi encaustica inventa,” he evidently uses
ἐνέκαυσεν to prove something quite different. If he meant, as Hardouin
supposes, to indicate in this passage one of the works whose inscription
was written in definite past time, it would have been worth his while to
put in a word to that effect. Hardouin finds reference to the other two
works in the following passage: “Idem (Divus Augustus) in Curia quoque,
quam in Comitio consecrabat, duas tabulas impressit parieti: Nemeam
sedentem supra leonem, palmigeram ipsam, adstante cum baculo sene, cujus
supra caput tabula bigæ dependet. Nicias scripsit se inussisse; tali
enim usus est verbo. Alterius tabulæ admiratio est, puberem filium seni
patri similem esse, salva ætatis differentia, supervolante aquila
draconem complexa. Philochares hoc suum opus esse testatus est.” (Lib.
xxxv. sect. 10.) Two different pictures are here described which
Augustus had set up in the newly built senate-house. The second was by
Philochares, the first by Nicias. All that is said of the picture by
Philochares is plain and clear, but there are certain difficulties in
regard to the other. It represented Nemea seated on a lion, a
palm-branch in her hand, and near her an old man with a staff: “cujus
supra caput tabula bigæ dependet.” What is the meaning of that? “over
his head hung a tablet on which was painted a two-horse chariot.” That
is the only meaning the words will bear. Was there, then, a smaller
picture hung over the large one? and were both by Nicias? Hardouin must
so have understood it, else where were the two pictures by Nicias, since
the other is expressly ascribed to Philochares? “Inscripsit Nicias
igitur geminæ huic tabulæ suum nomen in hunc modum: Ὁ ΝΙΚΙΑΣ ΕΝΕΚΑΥΣΕΝ:
atque adeo e tribus operibus, quæ absolute fuisse inscripta, ILLE FECIT,
indicavit Præfatio ad Titum, duo hæc sunt Niciae.” I should like to ask
Hardouin one question. If Nicias had really used the indefinite, and not
the definite past tense, and Pliny had merely wished to say that the
master, instead of γράφειν, had used ἐγκαίειν, would he not still have
been obliged to say in Latin, “Nicias scripsit se inussisse?” But I will
not insist upon this point. Pliny may really have meant to indicate here
one of the three works before referred to. But who will be induced to
believe that there were two pictures, placed one above the other? Not I
for one. The words “cujus supra caput tabula bigæ dependet” must be a
corruption. “Tabula bigæ,” a picture of a two-horse chariot, does not
sound much like Pliny, although Pliny does elsewhere use “biga” in the
singular. What sort of a two-horse chariot? Such as were used in the
races at the Nemæan games, so that this little picture should, from its
subject, be related to the chief one? That cannot be; for not two but
four horse chariots were usual in the Nemæan games. (Schmidius in Prol.
ad Nemeonicas, p. 2.) At one time, I thought that Pliny might, instead
of “bigæ,” have written a Greek word, πτυχίον, which the copyists did
not understand. For we know, from a passage in Antigonus Carystius,
quoted by Zenobius (conf. Gronovius, T. ix. Antiquit. Græc. Præf. p. 7),
that the old artists did not always put their name on the work itself,
but sometimes on a separate tablet, attached to the picture or statue,
and this tablet was called πτυχίον. The word “tabula, tabella,” might
have been written in the margin in explanation of the Greek word, and at
last have crept into the text. πτυχίον was turned into “bigæ,” and so we
get “tabula bigæ.” This πτυχίον agrees perfectly with what follows; for
the next sentence contains what was written on it. The whole passage
would then read thus: “cujus supra caput πτυχίον dependet, quo Nicias
scripsit se inussisse.” My correction is rather a bold one, I
acknowledge. Need a critic feel obliged to suggest the proper reading
for every passage that he can prove to be corrupted? I will rest content
with having done the latter, and leave the former to some more skilful
hand. But to return to the subject under discussion. If Pliny be here
speaking of but a single picture by Nicias, on which he had inscribed
his name in definite past time, and if the second picture thus inscribed
be the above-mentioned one of Lysippus, where is the third? That I
cannot tell. If I might look for it elsewhere among the old writers, the
question were easily answered. But it ought to be found in Pliny; and
there, I repeat, I am entirely unable to discover it.


                            NOTE 56, p. 186.

Thus Statius says “obnixa pectora” (Thebaid. lib. vi. v. 863):

                      ... rumpunt obnixa furentes
                      Pectora.

which the old commentator of Barths explains by “summa vi contra
nitentia.” Thus Ovid says (Halievt. v. ii.), “obnixa fronte,” when
describing the “scarus” trying to force its way through the fish-trap,
not with his head, but with his tail.

               Non audet radiis obnixa occurrere fronte.


                            NOTE 57, p. 192.

Geschichte der Kunst, part ii. p. 328. “He produced the Antigone, his
first tragedy, in the third year of the seventy-seventh Olympiad.” The
time is tolerably exact, but it is quite a mistake to suppose that this
first tragedy was the Antigone. Neither is it so called by Samuel Petit,
whom Winkelmann quotes in a note. He expressly puts the Antigone in the
third year of the eighty-fourth Olympiad. The following year, Sophocles
went with Pericles to Samos, and the year of this expedition can be
determined with exactness. In my life of Sophocles, I show, from a
comparison with a passage of the elder Pliny, that the first tragedy of
this author was probably Triptolemus. (Lib. xviii. sect. 12.) Pliny is
speaking of the various excellence of the fruits of different countries,
and concludes thus: “Hæ fuere sententiæ, Alexandro magno regnante, cum
clarissima fuit Græcia, atque in toto terrarum orbe potentissima; ita
tamen ut ante mortem ejus annis fere CXLV. Sophocles poeta in fabula
Triptolemo frumentum Italicum ante cuncta laudaverit, ad verbum
translata sententia:

            Et fortunatam Italiam frumento canere candido.”

He is here not necessarily speaking of the first tragedy of Sophocles,
to be sure. But the date of that, fixed by Plutarch, the scholiast, and
the Arundelian marbles, as the seventy-seventh Olympiad, corresponds so
exactly with the date assigned by Pliny to the Triptolemus, that we can
hardly help regarding that as the first of Sophocles’ tragedies. The
calculation is easily made. Alexander died in the hundred and fourteenth
Olympiad. One hundred and forty-five years cover thirty-six Olympiads
and one year, which subtracted from the total, gives seventy-seven. The
Triptolemus of Sophocles appeared in the seventy-seventh Olympiad; the
last year of this same Olympiad is the date of his first tragedy: we may
naturally conclude, therefore, that these tragedies are one. I show at
the same time that Petit might have spared himself the writing of the
whole half of the chapter in his “Miscellanea” which Winkelmann quotes
(xviii. lib. iii.). In the passage of Pliny, which he thinks to amend,
it is quite unnecessary to change the name of the Archon Aphepsion into
Demotion, or ἀνεψιός. He need only have looked from the third to the
fourth year of the seventy-seventh Olympiad to find that the Archon of
that year was called Aphepsion by the ancient authors quite as often as
Phædon, if not oftener. He is called Phædon by Diodorus Siculus,
Dionysius Halicarnassus, and the anonymous author of the table of the
Olympiads; while the Arundelian marbles, Apollodorus, and, quoting him,
Diogenes Laertius, call him Aphepsion. Plutarch calls him by both names;
Phædon in the life of Theseus and Aphepsion in the life of Cimon. It is
therefore probable, as Palmerius supposes, “Aphepsionem et Phædonem
Archontas fuisse eponymos; scilicet, uno in magistratu mortuo, suffectus
fuit alter.” (Exercit. p. 452.) This reminds me that Winkelmann, in his
first work on the imitation of Greek art, allowed an error to creep in
with regard to Sophocles. “The most beautiful of the youths danced naked
in the theatre, and Sophocles, the great Sophocles, was in his youth the
first to show himself thus to his fellow-citizens.” Sophocles never
danced naked on the stage. He danced around the trophies after the
victory of Salamis, according to some authorities naked, but according
to others clothed. (Athen. lib. i. p. m. 20.) Sophocles was one of the
boys who was brought for safety to Salamis, and on this island it
pleased the tragic muse to assemble her three favorites in a gradation
typical of their future career. The bold Æschylus helped gain the
victory; the blooming Sophocles danced around the trophies; and on the
same happy island, on the very day of the victory, Euripides was born.




                                 INDEX.


 Achilles, sceptre of, 98;
   shield of, 113.

 Action, culminating point of an, not the point to be represented by the
    artist, 16.

 Albani, Cardinal Alexander, his discovery of a vase which illustrated
    the date of the Laocoon, 178 _et seq._

 Anacreon, two odes of, 133, 139.

 Apelles, his picture of Diana, 143.

 Ariosto, his description of Alcina, 128, 138.

 Aristophanes, element of disgust used by, 161.

 Aristotle, advice of, to Protogenes, 76;
   his reason why we receive pleasure from a faithful copy of the
      disagreeable, 154.

 Art should express nothing essentially transitory, 17.

 Arts among the ancients, subject to the control of law, 10.


 Bacchus, how represented in poetry and painting, 56 _et seq._

 Beauty, the supreme law of the imitative arts, 11;
   subordinated in modern art to other ends, 16;
   representations of physical, the province of painting, not of poetry,
      126.

 Boivin, his explanations of Homer, 118, 121.


 Calaber, Quintus, his rendering of the story of Laocoon, 34;
   his account of the death of Thersites, 150.

 Callimachus, his picture of famine, 165.

 Caricature, law against, among the Thebans, 9.

 Caylus, Count, some points in his work considered, 71, 77, 80, 82, 86,
    87, 93;
   his sketch for a picture of Helen, 140.

 Chateaubrun, his representation of Philoctetes, 25.

 Cicero, his views in regard to bodily pain, 28.

 Cleyn, Francis, illustrations by, 39.

 Constancy, how represented in art, 68 _et seq._


 Dacier, Madame, her translation of Homer, 113.

 Dante, his description of the starvation of Ugolino, 166.

 Deformity, physical, in art, produces disgust, 159.

 Disgust produced more through the other senses than through that of
    sight, 160;
   object of, in painting, 167.

 Disgusting, the, its use in expressing the horror of famine, 164.

 Dolce, his dialogue on Painting, 131.

 Drama, expression of suffering in the, 21 _et seq._

 Dryden, his Ode on Cecilia’s Day, 89.


 Flaccus, Valerius, his description of an angry Venus, 57 _et seq._

 French language, not adapted to translation of Homer, 112.


 German language, compared to the Greek, 113.

 Gladiator, Borghese, the author’s theory in regard to the, 184 _et
    seq._

 Gladiatorial shows, effect of, 29.


 Haller, Von, description quoted from his “Alps,” 103.

 Hercules, as represented by Sophocles, 6;
   the, of Sophocles, 31.

 Hogarth, his criticism of the Apollo Belvidere, 145.

 Homer, expressions of pain in his heroes, 4;
   representation of his heroes, 79 _et seq._;
   his descriptions not generally available for pictures, 83, 143;
   his picture of Pandarus, 89;
   style of, 93;
   his description of the chariot of Juno, 94;
   his description of the sceptre of Agamemnon, 95;
   of the shield of Achilles, 98, 113, 118;
   of the bow of Pandarus, 99;
   his indebtedness to the flexibility of the Greek language, 112;
   his description of the beleaguered city, 121;
   avoids detailed description, 127;
   his representation of Helen, 136;
   his Thersites, 148 _et seq._


 Imitations of the poet by the artist and the reverse, 49 _et seq._

 Invention required less of the artist than of the poet, 72 _et seq._


 Junius, Francis, an unsafe authority, 188.

 Juno, how represented in ancient art, 57.


 Kleist, Von, his own judgment of his poem “Spring,” 108.

 Klotzius, on the effects of different forms of the disagreeable in art,
    158.


 Laocoon, of Virgil, 20 _et seq._;
   compared with the statue, 36 _et seq._;
   contains traits unavailable for the artist, 42;
   the group of, possibly suggested by Virgil’s description, 43 _et
      seq._;
   the, probable date of, 170 _et seq._

 Longinus, his remarks in regard to eloquence and poetry, 188.

 Lucian represents physical beauty by comparison with statues, 135.


 Manasses, Constantinus, his pictures of Helen, 127.

 Martiani, his opinion in regard to the date of the Laocoon, 34 _et
    seq._

 Mazzuoli, his “Rape of the Sabines,” 109.

 Mengs, his criticism on Raphael’s drapery, 110.

 Milton furnishes few subjects for a painter, 87.

 Minerva, how represented in ancient art, 57, 78.

 Montfaucon, his want of taste, 14;
   his opinions in regard to the date of the Laocoon, 33 _et seq._


 Olympic judges, law of the, 10.

 Ovid, his description of Lesbia, 137;
   his description of the punishment of Marsyas, 163;
   his picture of famine, 165.


 Pain, expression of, in Sophocles, 3;
   in Homer, 4, 5;
   among Europeans, 4;
   among the Greeks, 5;
   in its disfiguring extreme, not compatible with beauty, 13;
   expression of, among the English, 26.

 Painting among the Greeks confined to imitation of beauty, 8.

 Passion, violent, not expressed in ancient art, 12.

 Pauson, character of his pictures, 9.

 Phidias, his indebtedness to Homer, 144 _et seq._

 Philoctetes of Sophocles, the, his sufferings compared with those of
    Laocoon, 3;
   the, of Pythagoras Leontinus, 14;
   of Sophocles, the embodiment of physical and mental suffering, 23,
      24, 30.

 Picturesque, the, in poetry, 88.

 Pisander, possibly Virgil’s predecessor in the history of Laocoon, 34.

 Pliny, his mention of the Laocoon, 172;
   of famous Greek sculptors, 173 _et seq._

 Poetry, how it surpasses art in description of physical beauty, 137 _et
    seq._

 Polygnotus, pictures of, 123 _et seq._

 Pope, contempt of, for descriptive poems, 108;
   his explanations of Homer, 122 _et seq._

 Pordenone, his picture of the entombment, 167.

 Pyreicus, character of his pictures, 9.


 Religion, influence of, on art, 62 _et seq._

 Richardson, remarks of, on Virgil’s Laocoon, 45;
   his criticism of Pordenone, 167.

 Ridiculous, the, heightened by an element of disgust, 161.


 Sadolet, extract from, 46.

 Shakespeare, his use of ugliness in the character of Richard III., 151.

 Sophocles, a Laocoon among his lost works, 6;
   his description of the desert cave of Philoctetes, 163.

 Spence, Rev. Mr., criticism of his work “Polymetis,” 50;
   notions of, in regard to the resemblance between painting and poetry,
      55, 57.

 Statius, his description of an angry Venus, 57 _et seq._

 Statues, beautiful, produced beautiful men, 10.

 Stoicism not adapted to the drama, 6.

 Stosch, Herr von, his opinion of the Borghese Gladiator, 183.

 Symbols, use of, in poetry and painting, 67 _et seq._


 Temperance, how represented in art, 68 _et seq._

 Timanthes, picture of Iphigenia by, 12.

 Timomachus, his representations of Ajax and Medea, 18.

 Titian, his picture of the Prodigal Son, 109.


 Ugliness, as used in poetry, 149, 156;
   as used in painting, 153, 156.

 Urania, how represented in art, 67.


 Vesta, how worshipped, 64 _et seq._

 Virgil, description from the Georgics, 106;
   his description of the shield of Æneas, 114;
   the Dido of, 133;
   his introduction of the Harpies, 166.


 Winkelmann, quoted, 1;
   soundness of his criticism doubted, 2;
   his opinion of the Laocoon, 168;
   his opinion of the Borghese Gladiator, 183;
   criticism of, 187 _et seq._


 Zeuxis, his picture of Helen, 140 _et seq._

-----

Footnote 1:

  Von der Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in der Malerei und
  Bildhauerkunst, p. 21, 22.

Footnote 2:

  Brumoy Théât. des Grecs, T. ii. p. 89.

Footnote 3:

  Iliad v. 343. Ἡ δὲ μέγα ἰάχουσα.

Footnote 4:

  Iliad v. 859.

Footnote 5:

  Th. Bartholinus. De Causis contemptæ a Danis adhuc Gentilibus Mortis,
  cap. 1.

Footnote 6:

  Iliad vii. 421.

Footnote 7:

  Odyssey iv. 195.

Footnote 8:

  Chateaubrun.

Footnote 9:

  See Appendix, note 1.

Footnote 10:

  See Appendix, note 2.

Footnote 11:

  Aristophanes, Plut. v. 602 et Acharnens. v. 854.

Footnote 12:

  Plinius, lib. xxx. sect. 37.

Footnote 13:

  De Pictura vet. lib. ii. cap. iv. sect. 1.

Footnote 14:

  Plinius, lib. xxxiv. sect. 9.

Footnote 15:

  See Appendix, note 3.

Footnote 16:

  See Appendix, note 4.

Footnote 17:

  Plinius, lib. xxxv. sect. 35. Cum mœstos pinxisset omnes, præcipue
  patruum, et tristitiæ omnem imaginem consumpsisset, patris ipsius
  vultum velavit, quem digne non poterat ostendere.

Footnote 18:

  Valerius Maximus, lib. viii. cap. 2. Summi mœroris acerbitatem arte
  exprimi non posse confessus est.

Footnote 19:

  Antiquit. expl. T. i. p. 50.

Footnote 20:

  See Appendix, note 5.

Footnote 21:

  Bellorii Admiranda, Tab. 11, 12.

Footnote 22:

  Plinius, lib. xxxiv. sect. 19.

Footnote 23:

  See Appendix, note 6.

Footnote 24:

  Philippus, Anthol. lib. iv. cap. 9, ep. 10.

               Ἀιεὶ γὰρ διψᾷς βρέφεων φονον. ἦ τις Ἰήσων
                 Δεύτερος, ἤ Γλαύκη τις πάλι σoὶ πρόφασις;
               Ἐῤῥε καὶ ἐν κηρῷ παιδοκτόνε....

Footnote 25:

  Vita Apoll. lib. ii. cap. 22.

Footnote 26:

  See Appendix, note 7.

Footnote 27:

  Mercure de France, April, 1755, p. 177.

Footnote 28:

  “The Theory of Moral Sentiments,” by Adam Smith, part i. sect. 2, chap
  1. (London, 1761.)

Footnote 29:

  Trach. v. 1088, 1089:

                            ὅστις ὥστε παρθένος
                          Βέβρυχα κλαίων....

Footnote 30:

  Topographiæ Urbis Romæ, lib. iv. cap. 14. Et quanquam hi (Agesander et
  Polydorus et Athenodorus Rhodii) ex Virgilii descriptione statuam hanc
  formavisse videntur, &c.

Footnote 31:

  Suppl. aux Ant. Expliq. T. i. p. 242. Il semble qu’Agésandre,
  Polydore, et Athénodore, qui en furent les ouvriers, aient travaillé
  comme à l’envie, pour laisser un monument qui répondait à
  l’incomparable description qu’a fait Virgile de Laocoon, &c.

Footnote 32:

  See Appendix, note 8.

Footnote 33:

  Paralip. lib. xii. v. 398–408.

Footnote 34:

  Or rather serpent, for Lycophron mentions but one:

                  καὶ παιδοβρῶτος πορκέως νήσους διπλᾶς·

Footnote 35:

  See Appendix, note 9.

Footnote 36:

  See Appendix, note 10.

Footnote 37:

                          Their destined way they take,
      And to Laocoon and his children make;
      And first around the tender boys they wind,
      Then with their sharpened fangs their limbs and bodies grind.
      The wretched father, running to their aid
      With pious haste, but vain, they next invade.—DRYDEN.

Footnote 38:

  See Appendix, note 11.

Footnote 39:

  With both his hands he labors at the knots.

Footnote 40:

           Twice round his waist their winding volumes rolled,
           And twice about his gasping throat they fold.
           The priest thus doubly choked,—their crests divide,
           And towering o’er his head in triumph ride.—DRYDEN.

Footnote 41:

  See Appendix, note 12.

Footnote 42:

  See Appendix, note 13.

Footnote 43:

  His holy fillets the blue venom blots.—DRYDEN.

Footnote 44:

  See Appendix, note 14.

Footnote 45:

  See Appendix, note 15.

Footnote 46:

  See Appendix, note 16.

Footnote 47:

  The first edition was issued in 1747; the second, 1755. Selections by
  N. Tindal have been printed more than once.

Footnote 48:

  Val. Flaccus, lib. vi. v. 55, 56. Polymetis, dial. vi. p. 50.

Footnote 49:

  See Appendix, note 17.

Footnote 50:

  See Appendix, note 18.

Footnote 51:

  See Appendix, note 19.

Footnote 52:

  Tibullus, Eleg. 4, lib. iii. Polymetis, dial. viii.

Footnote 53:

  Statius, lib. i. Sylv. 5, v. 8. Polymetis, dial. viii.

Footnote 54:

  See Appendix, note 20.

Footnote 55:

  Æneid, lib. viii. 725. Polymetis, dial. xiv.

Footnote 56:

  In various passages of his Travels [Remarks on Italy] and his
  Dialogues on Ancient Medals.

Footnote 57:

  Polymetis, dial. ix.

Footnote 58:

  Metamorph. lib. iv. 19, 20. When thou appearest unhorned, thy head is
  as the head of a virgin.

Footnote 59:

  Begeri Thes. Brandenb. vol. iii. p. 242.

Footnote 60:

  Polymetis, dial. vi.

Footnote 61:

  Polymetis, dial. xx.

Footnote 62:

  Polymetis, dial. vii.

Footnote 63:

  Argonaut. lib. ii. v. 102–106. “Gracious the goddess is not emulous to
  appear, nor does she bind her hair with the burnished gold, letting
  her starry tresses float about her. Wild she is and huge, her cheeks
  suffused with spots; most like to the Stygian virgins with crackling
  torch and black mantle.”

Footnote 64:

  Thebaid. lib. v. 61–64. “Leaving ancient Paphos and the hundred
  altars, not like her former self in countenance or the fashion of her
  hair, she is said to have loosened the nuptial girdle and have sent
  away her doves. Some report that in the dead of night, bearing other
  fires and mightier arms, she had hasted with the Tartarean sisters to
  bed-chambers, and filled the secret places of homes with twining
  snakes, and all thresholds with cruel fear.”

Footnote 65:

  See Appendix, note 21.

Footnote 66:

  See Appendix, note 22.

Footnote 67:

  See Appendix, note 23.

Footnote 68:

  Polymetis, dial. vii.

Footnote 69:

  See Appendix, note 24.

Footnote 70:

  See Appendix, note 25.

Footnote 71:

  Lipsius de Vesta et Vestalibus, cap. 13.

Footnote 72:

  Pausanias, Corinth. cap. xxxv. p. 198 (edit. Kuhn).

Footnote 73:

  Pausanias, Attic. cap. xviii. p. 41.

Footnote 74:

  Polyb. Hist. lib. xvi. sect. 2, Op. T. ii. p. 443 (edit Ernest.).

Footnote 75:

  See Appendix, note 26.

Footnote 76:

  See Appendix, note 27.

Footnote 77:

  Polymetis, dial. viii.

Footnote 78:

  Statius, Theb. viii. 551.

Footnote 79:

  Polymetis, dial. x.

Footnote 80:

  See Appendix, note 28.

Footnote 81:

  See Appendix, note 29.

Footnote 82:

  Betrachtungen über die Malerei, p. 159.

Footnote 83:

  Ad Pisones, v. 128–130. “Thou wilt do better to write out in acts the
  story of Troy, than to tell of things not yet known nor sung.”

Footnote 84:

  Lib. xxxv. sect. 36.

Footnote 85:

  See Appendix, note 30.

Footnote 86:

  Iliad xxi. 385.

Footnote 87:

                                She only stepped
              Backward a space, and with her powerful hand
              Lifted a stone that lay upon the plain,
              Black, huge, and jagged, which the men of old
              Had placed there for a landmark.—BRYANT.

Footnote 88:

  See Appendix, note 31.

Footnote 89:

  See Appendix, note 32.

Footnote 90:

  Iliad iii. 381.

Footnote 91:

  Iliad v. 23.

Footnote 92:

  Iliad xx. 444.

Footnote 93:

  Iliad xx. 446.

Footnote 94:

  Iliad xx. 321.

Footnote 95:

  See Appendix, note 33.

Footnote 96:

  Iliad i. 44–53. Tableaux tirés de l’Iliade, p. 70.

                               Down he came,
           Down from the summit of the Olympian mount,
           Wrathful in heart; his shoulders bore the bow
           And hollow quiver; there the arrows rang
           Upon the shoulders of the angry god,
           As on he moved. He came as comes the night,
           And, seated from the ships aloof, sent forth
           An arrow; terrible was heard the clang
           Of that resplendent bow. At first he smote
           The mules and the swift dogs, and then on man
           He turned the deadly arrow. All around
           Glared evermore the frequent funeral piles.—BRYANT.

Footnote 97:

  Iliad iv. 1–4. Tableaux tirés de l’Iliade, p. 30.

              Meantime the immortal gods with Jupiter
              Upon his golden pavement sat and held
              A council. Hebe, honored of them all,
              Ministered nectar, and from cups of gold
              They pledged each other, looking down on Troy.

              BRYANT.

Footnote 98:

  See Appendix, note 34.

Footnote 99:

  See Appendix, note 35.

Footnote 100:

  See Appendix, note 36.

Footnote 101:

  Iliad v. 722.

                                   Hebe rolled the wheels,
           Each with eight spokes, and joined them to the ends
           Of the steel axle,—fellies wrought of gold,
           Bound with a brazen rim to last for ages,—
           A wonder to behold. The hollow naves
           Were silver, and on gold and silver cords
           Was slung the chariot’s seat; in silver hooks
           Rested the reins; and silver was the pole
           Where the fair yoke and poitrels, all of gold,
           She fastened.—BRYANT.

Footnote 102:

  Iliad ii. 43–47.

            He sat upright and put his tunic on,
            Soft, fair, and new, and over that he cast
            His ample cloak, and round his shapely feet
            Laced the becoming sandals. Next, he hung
            Upon his shoulders and his side the sword
            With silver studs, and took into his hand
            The ancestral sceptre, old but undecayed.—BRYANT.

Footnote 103:

  Iliad ii. 101–108.

                                              He held
            The sceptre; Vulcan’s skill had fashioned it,
            And Vulcan gave it to Saturnian Jove,
            And Jove bestowed it on his messenger,
            The Argus-queller Hermes. He in turn
            Gave it to Pelops, great in horsemanship;
            And Pelops passed the gift to Atreus next,
            The people’s shepherd. Atreus, when he died,
            Bequeathed it to Thyestes, rich in flocks;
            And last, Thyestes left it to be borne
            By Agamemnon, symbol of his rule
            O’er many isles and all the Argive realm.—BRYANT.

Footnote 104:

  Iliad i. 234–239.

               By this my sceptre, which can never bear
               A leaf or twig, since first it left its stem
               Among the mountains,—for the steel has pared
               Its boughs and bark away,—to sprout no more,
               And now the Achaian judges bear it,—they
               Who guard the laws received from Jupiter.

               BRYANT.

Footnote 105:

  Iliad iv. 105–111.

                          He uncovered straight
          His polished bow made of the elastic horns
          Of a wild goat, which, from his lurking-place,
          As once it left its cavern lair, he smote,
          And pierced its breast, and stretched it on the rock.
          Full sixteen palms in length the horns had grown
          From the goat’s forehead. These an artisan
          Had smoothed, and, aptly fitting each to each,
          Polished the whole and tipped the work with gold.

          BRYANT.

Footnote 106:

  Von Haller’s Alps.

          The lofty gentian’s head in stately grandeur towers
        Far o’er the common herd of vulgar weeds and low;
        Beneath his banners serve communities of flowers;
        His azure brethren, too, in rev’rence to him bow.
        The blossom’s purest gold in curving radiations
        Erect upon the stalk, above its gray robe gleams;
        The leaflets’ pearly white with deep green variegations
        With flashes many-hued of the moist diamond beams.
        O Law beneficent! which strength to beauty plighteth,
        And to a shape so fair a fairer soul uniteth.

        Here on the ground a plant like a gray mist is twining,
        In fashion of a cross its leaves by Nature laid;
        Part of the beauteous flower, the gilded beak is shining,
        Of a fair bird whose shape of amethyst seems made.
        There into fingers cleft a polished leaf reposes,
        And o’er a limpid brook its green reflection throws;
        With rays of white a striped star encloses
        The floweret’s disk, where pink flushes its tender snows.
        Thus on the trodden heath are rose and emerald glowing,
        And e’en the rugged rocks are purple banners showing.

Footnote 107:

  Breitinger’s kritische Dichtkunst, vol. ii. p. 807.

Footnote 108:

  Georg. lib. iii. 51 and 79.

            If her large front and neck vast strength denote;
            If on her knee the pendulous dewlap float;
            If curling horns their crescent inward bend,
            And bristly hairs beneath the ear defend;
            If lengthening flanks to bounding measure spread;
            If broad her foot and bold her bull-like head;
            If snowy spots her mottled body stain,
            And her indignant brow the yoke disdain,
            With tail wide-sweeping as she stalks the dews,
            Thus, lofty, large, and long, the mother choose.

            DRYDEN.

Footnote 109:

  Georg. lib. iii. 51 and 79.

              Light on his airy crest his slender head,
              His belly short, his loins luxuriant spread;
              Muscle on muscle knots his brawny breast, &c.

              DRYDEN.

Footnote 110:

  De Art. Poet. 16.

Footnote 111:

  See Appendix, note 37.

Footnote 112:

  See Appendix, note 38.

Footnote 113:

  Gedanken über die Schönheit und über den Geschmack in der Malerei, p.
  69.

Footnote 114:

  Iliad v. 722.

Footnote 115:

  Iliad xii. 296.

Footnote 116:

  Dionysius Halicarnass. in Vita Homeri apud Th. Gale in Opusc. Mythol.
  p. 401.

Footnote 117:

  See Appendix, note 39.

Footnote 118:

  Æneid lib. viii. 447.

                          Their artful hands a shield prepare.
            One stirs the fire, and one the bellows blows;
            The hissing steel is in the smithy drowned;
            The grot with beaten anvils groans around.
            By turns their arms advance in equal time,
            By turns their hands descend and hammers chime;
            They turn the glowing mass with crooked tongs.

            DRYDEN.

Footnote 119:

  See Appendix, note 40.

Footnote 120:

  Iliad xviii. 497–508.

                             Meanwhile a multitude
           Was in the forum where a strife went on,—
           Two men contending for a fine, the price
           Of one who had been slain. Before the crowd
           One claimed that he had paid the fine, and one
           Denied that aught had been received, and both
           Called for the sentence which should end the strife.
           The people clamored for both sides, for both
           Had eager friends; the herald held the crowd
           In check; the elders, upon polished stones,
           Sat in a sacred circle. Each one took
           In turn a herald’s sceptre in his hand,
           And rising gave his sentence. In the midst
           Two talents lay in gold, to be the meed
           Of him whose juster judgment should prevail.

           BRYANT.

Footnote 121:

  Iliad xviii. 509–540.

Footnote 122:

  See Appendix, note 41.

Footnote 123:

  Phocic. cap. xxv.-xxxi.

Footnote 124:

  See Appendix, note 42.

Footnote 125:

  Betrachtungen über die Malerei, p. 185.

Footnote 126:

  Written in 1763.

Footnote 127:

  “She was a woman right beautiful, with fine eyebrows, of clearest
  complexion, beautiful cheeks; comely, with large, full eyes, with
  snow-white skin, quick-glancing, graceful; a grove filled with graces,
  fair-armed, voluptuous, breathing beauty undisguised. The complexion
  fair, the cheek rosy, the countenance pleasing, the eye blooming; a
  beauty unartificial, untinted, of its natural color, adding brightness
  to the brightest cherry, as if one should dye ivory with resplendent
  purple. Her neck long, of dazzling whiteness; whence she was called
  the swan-born, beautiful Helen.”

Footnote 128:

  See Appendix, note 43.

Footnote 129:

  Orlando Furioso, canto vii. st. 11–15.

          Her shape is of such perfect symmetry,
            As best to feign the industrious painter knows;
            With long and knotted tresses; to the eye
            Not yellow gold with brighter lustre glows.
            Upon her tender cheek the mingled dye
            Is scattered of the lily and the rose.
            Like ivory smooth, the forehead gay and round
            Fills up the space and forms a fitting bound.

          Two black and slender arches rise above
            Two clear black eyes, say suns of radiant light,
            Which ever softly beam and slowly move;
            Round these appears to sport in frolic flight,
            Hence scattering all his shafts, the little Love,
            And seems to plunder hearts in open sight.
            Thence, through ’mid visage, does the nose descend,
            Where envy finds not blemish to amend.

          As if between two vales, which softly curl,
            The mouth with vermeil tint is seen to glow;
            Within are strung two rows of orient pearl,
            Which her delicious lips shut up or show,
            Of force to melt the heart of any churl,
            However rude, hence courteous accents flow;
            And here that gentle smile receives its birth,
            Which opes at will a paradise on earth.

          Like milk the bosom, and the neck of snow;
            Round is the neck, and full and round the breast;
            Where, fresh and firm, two ivory apples grow,
            Which rise and fall, as, to the margin pressed
            By pleasant breeze, the billows come and go.
            Not prying Argus could discern the rest.
            Yet might the observing eye of things concealed
            Conjecture safely from the charms revealed.

          To all her arms a just proportion bear,
            And a white hand is oftentimes descried,
            Which narrow is and somedeal long, and where
            No knot appears nor vein is signified.
            For finish of that stately shape and rare,
            A foot, neat, short, and round beneath is spied.
            Angelic visions, creatures of the sky,
            Concealed beneath no covering veil can lie.

          WILLIAM STEWART ROSE.

Footnote 130:

  See Appendix, note 44.

Footnote 131:

  See Appendix, note 45.

Footnote 132:

  See Appendix, note 46.

Footnote 133:

  See Appendix, note 47.

Footnote 134:

  See Appendix, note 48.

Footnote 135:

  Æneid iv. 136.

             The queen at length appears;
             A flowered cymar with golden fringe she wore,
             And at her back a golden quiver bore;
             Her flowing hair a golden caul restrains;
             A golden clasp the Tyrian robe sustains.—DRYDEN.

Footnote 136:

  Od. xxviii., xxix.

Footnote 137:

  Εἰκόνες, § 3, T. ii. p. 461 (edit. Reitz).

Footnote 138:

  Iliad iii. 121.

Footnote 139:

  Ibid. 319.

Footnote 140:

  Ibid. 156–158.

              Small blame is theirs if both the Trojan knights
            And brazen-mailed Achaians have endured
            So long so many evils for the sake
            Of that one woman. She is wholly like
            In feature to the deathless goddesses.—BRYANT.

Footnote 141:

  Val. Maximus lib. iii. cap. 7. Dionysius Halicarnass. Art. Rhet. cap.
  12. περὶ λόγων ἐξετάσεως.

Footnote 142:

               So be it; let her, peerless as she is,
               Return on board the fleet, nor stay to bring
               Disaster upon us and all our race.—BRYANT.

Footnote 143:

  Fabricii Biblioth. Græc. lib. ii. cap. 6, p. 345.

Footnote 144:

  See Appendix, note 49.

Footnote 145:

  Iliad i. 528. Valerius Maximus, lib. iii. cap. 7.

             As thus he spoke the son of Saturn gave
             The nod with his dark brows. The ambrosial curls
             Upon the Sovereign One’s immortal head
             Were shaken, and with them the mighty mount
             Olympus trembled.—BRYANT.

Footnote 146:

  See Appendix, note 50.

Footnote 147:

  Hogarth’s Analysis of Beauty, chap. xi.

Footnote 148:

  Iliad iii. 210.

Footnote 149:

  Philos. Schriften des Herrn Moses Mendelssohn, vol. ii. p. 23.

Footnote 150:

  De Poetica, cap. v.

Footnote 151:

  Paralipom. lib. i. 720–778.

Footnote 152:

  King Lear, Act i. scene 2.

Footnote 153:

  King Richard III. Act i. scene 1.

Footnote 154:

  Briefe, die neueste Literatur betreffend, Part v. p. 102.

Footnote 155:

  De Poetica, cap. iv.

Footnote 156:

  Klotzii Epistolæ Homericæ, p. 33 et seq.

Footnote 157:

  Klotzii Epistolæ Homericæ, p. 103.

Footnote 158:

  Nubes, 170–174. _Disciple._ But he was lately deprived of a great idea
  by a weasel. _Strepsiades._ In what way? tell me. _Disciple._ He was
  studying the courses of the moon and her revolutions, and, while
  gazing upward open-mouthed, a weasel in the dark dunged upon him from
  the roof.

Footnote 159:

  See Appendix, note 51.

Footnote 160:

  Περὶ Ὕψους, τμῆμα ή. p. 15 (edit. T. Fabri).

Footnote 161:

  Scut. Hercul. 266.

Footnote 162:

  Philoct. 31–39.

Footnote 163:

  Æneid, lib. ii. 277.

Footnote 164:

  Metamorph. vi. 387. “The skin is torn from the upper limbs of the
  shrieking Marsyas, till he is nought but one great wound: thick blood
  oozes on every side; the bared sinews are visible; and the palpitating
  veins quiver, stripped of the covering of skin; you can count the
  protruding entrails, and the muscles shining in the breast.

Footnote 165:

  Metamorph. lib. viii. 809. “Seeing Famine afar off, she delivers the
  message of the goddess. And after a little while, although she was yet
  at a distance and was but approaching, yet the mere sight produced
  hunger.”

Footnote 166:

  Hym. in Cererem, 111–116.

Footnote 167:

  Argonaut. lib. ii. 228–233. “Scarcely have they left us any food that
  smells not mouldy, and the stench is unendurable. No one for a time
  could bear the foul food, though his stomach were beaten of adamant.
  But bitter necessity compels me to bethink me of the meal, and, so
  remembering, put it into my wretched belly.”

Footnote 168:

  See Appendix, note 52.

Footnote 169:

  Richardson de la Peinture, vol. i. p. 74.

Footnote 170:

  Geschichte der Kunst, p. 347.

Footnote 171:

  Not Apollodorus, but Polydorus. Pliny is the only one who mentions
  these artists, and I am not aware that the manuscripts differ in the
  writing of the name. Had such been the case, Hardouin would certainly
  have noticed it. All the older editions also read Polydorus.
  Winkelmann must therefore have merely made a slight error in
  transcribing.

Footnote 172:

  Ἀθηνόδωρος δὲ καὶ Δαμέας ... οὗτοι δὲ Ἀρκάδες εἰσὶν ἐκ Κλείτορος.
  Phoc. cap. ix. p. 819 (edit. Kuhn).

Footnote 173:

  Plinius, lib. xxxiv. sect. 19.

Footnote 174:

  Lib. xxxvi. sect. 4. “Nor are there many of great repute the number of
  artists engaged on celebrated works preventing the distinction of
  individuals; since no one could have all the credit, nor could the
  names of many be rehearsed at once: as in the Laocoon, which is in the
  palace of the emperor Titus, a work surpassing all the results of
  painting or statuary. From one stone he and his sons and the wondrous
  coils of the serpents were sculptured by consummate artists, working
  in concert: Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus, all of Rhodes. In
  like manner Craterus with Pythodorus, Polydectes with Hermolaus,
  another Pythodorus with Artemon, and Aphrodisius of Tralles by
  himself, filled the palaces of the Cæsars on the Palatine with
  admirable statuary. Diogenes, the Athenian, decorated the Pantheon of
  Agrippa, and the Caryatides on the columns of that temple rank among
  the choicest works, as do also the statues on the pediment, though
  these, from the height of their position, are less celebrated.”

Footnote 175:

  Bœotic. cap. xxxiv. p. 778 (edit. Kuhn).

Footnote 176:

  Plinius, lib. xxxvi. sect. 4, p. 730.

Footnote 177:

  Geschichte der Kunst, part ii. p. 331.

Footnote 178:

  Plinius, xxxvi. sect. 4.... “which would make the glory of any other
  place. But at Rome the greatness of other works overshadows it, and
  the great press of business and engagements turns the crowd from the
  contemplation of such things; for the admiration of works of art
  belongs to those who have leisure and great quiet.”

Footnote 179:

  See Appendix, note 53.

Footnote 180:

  Plinius, xxxvi. sect. 4.

Footnote 181:

  Geschichte der Kunst, part ii. p. 347.

Footnote 182:

  Lib. xxxvi. sect. 4.

Footnote 183:

  See Appendix, note 54.

Footnote 184:

  Prefatio Edit. Sillig. “Lest I should seem to find too much fault with
  the Greeks, I would be classed with those founders of the art of
  painting and sculpture, recorded in these little volumes, whose works,
  although complete and such as cannot be sufficiently admired, yet bear
  a suspended title, as Apelles or Polycletus ‘was making’; as if the
  work were always only begun and still incomplete, so that the artist
  might appeal from criticism as if himself desirous of improving, had
  he not been interrupted. Wherefore from modesty they inscribed every
  work as if it had been their last, and in hand at their death. I think
  there are but three with the inscription, ‘He made it,’ and these I
  shall speak of in their place. From this it appeared that the artists
  felt fully satisfied with their work, and these excited the envy of
  all.”

Footnote 185:

  See Appendix, note 55.

Footnote 186:

  Geschichte der Kunst, part i. p. 394.

Footnote 187:

  Cap. i. “He was also reckoned among their greatest leaders, and did
  many things worthy of being remembered. Among his most brilliant
  achievements was his device in the battle which took place near
  Thebes, when he had come to the aid of the Bœotians. For when the
  great leader Agesilaus was now confident of victory, and his own hired
  troops had fled, he would not surrender the remainder of the phalanx,
  but with knee braced against his shield and lance thrust forward, he
  taught his men to receive the attack of the enemy. At sight of this
  new spectacle, Agesilaus feared to advance, and ordered the trumpet to
  recall his men who were already advancing. This became famous through
  all Greece, and Chabrias wished that a statue should be erected to him
  in this position, which was set up at the public cost in the forum at
  Athens. Whence it happened that afterwards athletes and other artists
  [or persons versed in some art] had statues erected to them in the
  same position in which they had obtained victory.”

Footnote 188:

  See Appendix, note 56.

Footnote 189:

  Περὶ Ὕψους, τμῆμα, ιδ’ (edit. T. Fabri), ρ. 36, 39. “But so it is that
  rhetorical figures aim at one thing, poetical figures at quite
  another; since in poetry emphasis is the main object, in rhetoric
  distinctness.”

Footnote 190:

  “So with the poets, legends and exaggeration obtain and in all
  transcend belief; but in rhetorical figures the best is always the
  practicable and the true.”

Footnote 191:

  De Pictura Vet. lib. i. cap. 4, p. 33.

Footnote 192:

  Von der Nachahmung der griech. Werke, &c., 23.

Footnote 193:

  Τμῆμα, β. “Next to this is a third form of faultiness in pathos, which
  Theodorus calls _parenthyrsus_; it is a pathos unseasonable and empty,
  where pathos is not necessary; or immoderate, where it should be
  moderate.”

Footnote 194:

  Geschichte der Kunst, part i. p. 136.

Footnote 195:

  Herodotus de Vita Homeri, p. 756 (edit. Wessel).

Footnote 196:

  Iliad, vii.

Footnote 197:

  Geschichte der Kunst, part i. p. 176. Plinius, lib. xxxv. sect. 36.
  Athenæus, lib. xii. p. 543.

Footnote 198:

  Geschichte der Kunst, part ii. p. 353. Plinius, lib. xxxvi. sect. 4.

Footnote 199:

  See Appendix, note 57.

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