)
And corresponding to it is Virgil's AEneid, bk.
And corresponding to it is Virgil's AEneid, bk.
Camoes - Lusiades
The main design which the Portuguese are supposed to
have (next to promoting their trade) is to propagate Christianity; yet
Jupiter, Bacchus, and Venus, have in their hands all the management of
the voyage. So incongruous a machinery casts a blemish upon the whole
poem; yet it shows at the same time how prevailing are its beauties
since the Portuguese like it with all its faults. "
The Lusiad, says Voltaire, contains "a sort of epic poetry unheard of
before. No heroes are wounded a thousand different ways; no woman
enticed away, and the world overturned for her cause. " But the very want
of these, in place of supporting the objection intended by Voltaire,
points out the happy judgment and peculiar excellence of Camoens. If
Homer has given us all the fire and hurry of battles, he has also given
us all the uninteresting, tiresome detail. What reader but must be
tired with the deaths of a thousand heroes, who are never mentioned
before, nor afterwards, in the poem. Yet, in every battle we are wearied
out with such _Gazette_-returns of the slain and wounded as--
"Hector Priamides when Zeus him glory gave,
Assaeus first, Autonous, he slew;
Ophites, Dolops, Klytis' son beside;
Opheltius also, Agelaus too,
AEsymnus, and the battle-bide
Hipponous, chiefs on Danaian side,
And then, the multitude. "
HOMER'S Iliad, bk. xi. 299, et seq. ,
(W. G. T. BARTER'S translation.
)
And corresponding to it is Virgil's AEneid, bk. x. line 747, et seq. :--
"By Caedicus Alcathous was slain;
Sacrator laid Hydaspes on the plain;
Orses the strong to greater strength must yield,
He, with Parthenius, were by Rapo killed.
Then brave Messapus Ericetes slew,
Who from Lycaon's blood his lineage drew. "
DRYDEN'S version.
With, such catalogues is every battle extended; and what can be more
tiresome than such uninteresting descriptions, and their imitations! If
the idea of the battle be raised by such enumeration, still the copy and
original are so near each other that they can never please in two
separate poems. Nor are the greater part of the battles of the AEneid
much more distant than those of the Iliad. Though Virgil with great art
has introduced a Camilla, a Pallas, and a Lausus, still, in many
particulars, and in the action upon the whole, there is such a sameness
with the Iliad, that the learned reader of the AEneid is deprived of the
pleasure inspired by originality. If the man of taste, however, will be
pleased to mark how the genius of a Virgil has managed a war after
Homer, he will certainly be tired with a dozen epic poems in the same
style. Where the siege of a town and battles are the subject of an epic,
there will, of necessity, in the characters and circumstances, be a
resemblance to Homer; and such poem must therefore want originality.
Happily for Tasso, the variation of manners, and his masterly
superiority over Homer in describing his duels, has given to his
Jerusalem an air of novelty. Yet, with all the difference between
Christian and pagan heroes, we have a Priam, an Agamemnon, an Achilles,
etc. , armies slaughtered, and a city besieged. In a word, we have a
handsome copy of the Iliad in the Jerusalem Delivered.
have (next to promoting their trade) is to propagate Christianity; yet
Jupiter, Bacchus, and Venus, have in their hands all the management of
the voyage. So incongruous a machinery casts a blemish upon the whole
poem; yet it shows at the same time how prevailing are its beauties
since the Portuguese like it with all its faults. "
The Lusiad, says Voltaire, contains "a sort of epic poetry unheard of
before. No heroes are wounded a thousand different ways; no woman
enticed away, and the world overturned for her cause. " But the very want
of these, in place of supporting the objection intended by Voltaire,
points out the happy judgment and peculiar excellence of Camoens. If
Homer has given us all the fire and hurry of battles, he has also given
us all the uninteresting, tiresome detail. What reader but must be
tired with the deaths of a thousand heroes, who are never mentioned
before, nor afterwards, in the poem. Yet, in every battle we are wearied
out with such _Gazette_-returns of the slain and wounded as--
"Hector Priamides when Zeus him glory gave,
Assaeus first, Autonous, he slew;
Ophites, Dolops, Klytis' son beside;
Opheltius also, Agelaus too,
AEsymnus, and the battle-bide
Hipponous, chiefs on Danaian side,
And then, the multitude. "
HOMER'S Iliad, bk. xi. 299, et seq. ,
(W. G. T. BARTER'S translation.
)
And corresponding to it is Virgil's AEneid, bk. x. line 747, et seq. :--
"By Caedicus Alcathous was slain;
Sacrator laid Hydaspes on the plain;
Orses the strong to greater strength must yield,
He, with Parthenius, were by Rapo killed.
Then brave Messapus Ericetes slew,
Who from Lycaon's blood his lineage drew. "
DRYDEN'S version.
With, such catalogues is every battle extended; and what can be more
tiresome than such uninteresting descriptions, and their imitations! If
the idea of the battle be raised by such enumeration, still the copy and
original are so near each other that they can never please in two
separate poems. Nor are the greater part of the battles of the AEneid
much more distant than those of the Iliad. Though Virgil with great art
has introduced a Camilla, a Pallas, and a Lausus, still, in many
particulars, and in the action upon the whole, there is such a sameness
with the Iliad, that the learned reader of the AEneid is deprived of the
pleasure inspired by originality. If the man of taste, however, will be
pleased to mark how the genius of a Virgil has managed a war after
Homer, he will certainly be tired with a dozen epic poems in the same
style. Where the siege of a town and battles are the subject of an epic,
there will, of necessity, in the characters and circumstances, be a
resemblance to Homer; and such poem must therefore want originality.
Happily for Tasso, the variation of manners, and his masterly
superiority over Homer in describing his duels, has given to his
Jerusalem an air of novelty. Yet, with all the difference between
Christian and pagan heroes, we have a Priam, an Agamemnon, an Achilles,
etc. , armies slaughtered, and a city besieged. In a word, we have a
handsome copy of the Iliad in the Jerusalem Delivered.
