If some
imitations, however, have been successful, how many other epics of
ancient and modern times have hurried down the stream of oblivion!
imitations, however, have been successful, how many other epics of
ancient and modern times have hurried down the stream of oblivion!
Camoes - Lusiades
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.
If some
imitations, however, have been successful, how many other epics of
ancient and modern times have hurried down the stream of oblivion! Some
of their authors had poetical merit, but the fault was in the choice of
their subjects. So fully is the strife of war exhausted by Homer, that
Virgil and Tasso could add to it but little novelty; no wonder,
therefore, that so many epics on battles and sieges have been suffered
to sink into utter neglect. Camoens, perhaps, did not weigh these
circumstances, but the strength of his poetical genius directed him. He
could not but feel what it was to read Virgil after Homer; and the
original turn and force of his mind led him from the beaten track of
Helen's and Lavinia's, Achilles's and Hector's sieges and slaughters,
where the hero hews down, and drives to flight, whole armies with his
own sword. Camoens was the first who wooed the modern Epic Muse, and she
gave him the wreath of a first lover; a sort of epic poetry unheard of
before; or, as Voltaire calls it, _une nouvelle espece d'epopee_; and
the grandest subject it is (of profane history) which the world has ever
beheld. [14] A voyage esteemed too great for man to dare; the adventures
of this voyage through unknown oceans deemed unnavigable; the eastern
world happily discovered, and for ever indissolubly joined and given to
the western; the grand Portuguese empire in the East founded; the
humanization of mankind, and universal commerce the consequence! What
are the adventures of an old, fabulous hero's arrival in Britain, what
are Greece and Latium in arms for a woman compared to this! Troy is in
ashes, and even the Roman empire is no more. But the effects of the
voyage, adventures, and bravery of the hero of the Lusiad will be felt
and beheld, and perhaps increase in importance, while the world shall
remain.
Happy in his choice, happy also was the genius of Camoens in the method
of pursuing his subject. He has not, like Tasso, given it a total
appearance of fiction; nor has he, like Lucan, excluded allegory and
poetical machinery. Whether he intended it or not (for his genius was
sufficient to suggest its propriety), the judicious precept of
Petronius[15] is the model of the Lusiad. That elegant writer proposes a
poem on the civil war, and no poem, ancient or modern, merits the
character there sketched out in any degree comparative to the Lusiad. A
truth of history is preserved; yet, what is improper for the historian,
the ministry of Heaven is employed, and the free spirit of poetry throws
itself into fictions which makes the whole appear as an effusion of
prophetic fury, and not like a rigid detail of facts, given under the
sanction of witnesses. Contrary to Lucan, who, in the above rules, drawn
from the nature of poetry, is severely condemned by Petronius, Camoens
conducts his poem _per ambages Deorumque ministeria_.
"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.
If some
imitations, however, have been successful, how many other epics of
ancient and modern times have hurried down the stream of oblivion! Some
of their authors had poetical merit, but the fault was in the choice of
their subjects. So fully is the strife of war exhausted by Homer, that
Virgil and Tasso could add to it but little novelty; no wonder,
therefore, that so many epics on battles and sieges have been suffered
to sink into utter neglect. Camoens, perhaps, did not weigh these
circumstances, but the strength of his poetical genius directed him. He
could not but feel what it was to read Virgil after Homer; and the
original turn and force of his mind led him from the beaten track of
Helen's and Lavinia's, Achilles's and Hector's sieges and slaughters,
where the hero hews down, and drives to flight, whole armies with his
own sword. Camoens was the first who wooed the modern Epic Muse, and she
gave him the wreath of a first lover; a sort of epic poetry unheard of
before; or, as Voltaire calls it, _une nouvelle espece d'epopee_; and
the grandest subject it is (of profane history) which the world has ever
beheld. [14] A voyage esteemed too great for man to dare; the adventures
of this voyage through unknown oceans deemed unnavigable; the eastern
world happily discovered, and for ever indissolubly joined and given to
the western; the grand Portuguese empire in the East founded; the
humanization of mankind, and universal commerce the consequence! What
are the adventures of an old, fabulous hero's arrival in Britain, what
are Greece and Latium in arms for a woman compared to this! Troy is in
ashes, and even the Roman empire is no more. But the effects of the
voyage, adventures, and bravery of the hero of the Lusiad will be felt
and beheld, and perhaps increase in importance, while the world shall
remain.
Happy in his choice, happy also was the genius of Camoens in the method
of pursuing his subject. He has not, like Tasso, given it a total
appearance of fiction; nor has he, like Lucan, excluded allegory and
poetical machinery. Whether he intended it or not (for his genius was
sufficient to suggest its propriety), the judicious precept of
Petronius[15] is the model of the Lusiad. That elegant writer proposes a
poem on the civil war, and no poem, ancient or modern, merits the
character there sketched out in any degree comparative to the Lusiad. A
truth of history is preserved; yet, what is improper for the historian,
the ministry of Heaven is employed, and the free spirit of poetry throws
itself into fictions which makes the whole appear as an effusion of
prophetic fury, and not like a rigid detail of facts, given under the
sanction of witnesses. Contrary to Lucan, who, in the above rules, drawn
from the nature of poetry, is severely condemned by Petronius, Camoens
conducts his poem _per ambages Deorumque ministeria_.
