Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

in this particular. Even inter reges atque tetrarchas there is frequently room for it, and no opportunity is lost of introducing it. Whoever recollects how Andromache was employed, when from the top of the tower she beheld the fate of her husband, will in vain seek to find the simplicity of that passage which describes her employment any where equalled.

αλοχος δ' έπω τι πεπυστο

Εκτορος" & γαρ οι τις ετητυμος αγγελος ελθων
Ηγγείλ', οττι ρα οι ποσις εκτοθι μιμνε πυλάων
Αλλ' ηγ' ιστον υφαινε, μυχῳ δομα υψηλοιο,
Διπλακα, μαρμαρέην, εν δε προνα ποικιλ' επασσε
Κεκλετο δ' αμφιπόλοισιν ευπλόκαμοις κατα δωμα
Αμφι πυρι στησαι τριποδα μεγαν, οφρα πελοιτο
Εκτορι θερμα λοετρα μαχης εκνοστήσαντι
Νηπιη, εδ' ενόησεν ο μιν μαλα τηλε λοετρων
Χερσιν Αχιλληος δαμασεν γλαυκωπις Αθήνη.
Κωκυτε δ' ηκεσε και οιμωγης απο πυργό,
Της δ' ελελιχθη γυια, χαμαι δε οι εκπεσε κερκίς.

Il. xxii. 440.

But not as yet the fatal news had spread
To fair Andromache, of Hector dead, &c.

Pope, xxii. 462, 40.

Criticism has no language to describe the exqui

site tenderness and simplicity of the

Κεκλετο δ' αμφιπόλοισιν ευπλόκαμοις κατα δωμα
Αμφι πυρι στησαι τριποδα μεγαν, οφρα πελοίτο
Εκτορι θερμα λοετρα, δε

Mr. Pope's translation of which passage will give the English reader a very faint idea of the beauties

of his original. The general originality of Thomson will not be impeached, if I subjoin a passage from his Winter, which bears a beautiful resemblance of the foregoing lines in Homer:

In vain for him the officious wife prepares
The fire fair blazing, and the vestment warm;
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling storm, demand their sire
With tears of artless innocence. Alas!
Nor wife, nor children more shall he behold,
Nor friends, nor sacred home.

[ocr errors]

"If the fairest examples," proceeds the Adventurer, ought to be placed before us in an age prone to imitation, if patriotism be preferable to implacability, if an eager desire to return to one's country and family, be more manly and noble, than an eager desire to be revenged of an enemy; then should our eyes be fixed rather on Ulysses than Achilles. Unexperienced minds, too easily captivated with the fire and fury of a gallant general, are apt to prefer courage to constancy, and firmness to humanity." It is one of the acute Dr. Clarke's observations, that Homer has represented the character of Achilles, qualis fuit, non qualis esse debuerit, The remark, however obvious it may appear when inade, would not, perhaps, have occurred to the mind of a common reader. The conduct of the son of Peleus is related, but not defended; the cause of virtue does not suffer by the exhibition of a character, in most respects amiable, in all illustrious, yet sometimes giving way to the gratifications of lust, and sometimes to an inordinate thirst for

[blocks in formation]

revenge. Its proper stigma is inflicted upon each deviation from virtue, by placing it in an odious light. His affectionate lamentation over his dead friend Patroclus, does not prevent the poet from stigmatising the cruelty he exercised upon the slain Hector.

From a contemplation of the character of Ulysses and Achilles, very different sentiments arise. When we are observing the former, the mind is wrapped in unwearied admiration; it is scarce awakened to observation from a continued series of praise-worthy actions, but slumbers in the fulsomeness of perpetual panegyric. If we would examine thoroughly the character of the latter, the mind must be ever at work. There is much to praise, and much to condemn, through a variety of good and bad circumstances; we must "pick our nice way." His well-placed affection, his warm friendship, will create love; his revenge odium, and his cruelty abhorrence. Doubts will arise, and inquiry must be made, whether the one is more to be approved, or the other more to be avoided. Thus are we kept for ever on the watch: if our vigilance be for a moment abated, we have passed over some leading feature in the character of the hero, or lost the recital of some circumstance, by which we might determine whether the virtues or the vices of Achilles preponderate. When Ulysses comes forward, the mind is already prepared, and knows what to expect : he is either the πολύμητις διος Οδυσσeus, the wise and divine Ulysses, or the dog evaAlyxios audny, Ulysses godlike in voice.-But upon the appearance of Achilles, we are uncertain whe

ther he has broken his resolution of not going out to battle, or whether he is meditating the destruction of the Trojan bulwark.

The meeting between Achilles and Hector, which is terminated by the death of the latter, is replete with variety sufficient to arrest the attention of every one, and ornament sufficient to please every attention it engages. That defiance which each hurls at the other, marks the bravery of both; and when the latter falls, the prowess of the former is confirmed. The scene now alters. In his speech over the dead body of Hector, Achilles assigns to the gods the honour of his victory—επειδη τονδε ανα δρα θεοι δαμασασθαι εδωκαν, &c.

Since now at length the powerful will of Heaven
The dire destroyer to our arm has given.

Pope, xxii. 275.

Yet this generosity cannot deprecate our abhorrence of the cruelty which follows. Hector is dragged at the wheels of his conqueror's chariot

-Αμφι δε χαιται

Κυανεαι πίλναντο καρη δ' απαν εν κονίησι
Κει το παρος χαριεν

"His hair is clotted, and that countenance, heretofore so beautiful, is all polluted in the dust."

Now lost is all that formidable air;

The face divine, the long descending hair,
Purple the ground, and streak the sable sand.

Pope, xxii. 505.

This is done amid the lamentations of the Trojans,
and it may be presumed the silent acquiescence of
the Greeks. Yet the distress of this scene is still
to be heightened. Who can bear the appearance
and voice of the old king Priam, without heaping
curses upon the author of his distress
άνερα τουτον ατασθαλον οβριμοεργον, &c.

I, only I, will issue from your walls,
(Guide or companion, friends, I ask ye none)
And bow before the murderer of my son.

λισσομαι

Pope, xxii. 531.

"The remaining reasons why the Odyssey is equal, (says the Adventurer) if not superior to the Iliad, and why more peculiarly proper for the perusal of youth, are because the great variety of events and scenes it contains, interest and engage the attention more than the Iliad; because characters and images drawn from familiar life are more useful to the generality of readers, and are also more difficult to be drawn; and because the conduct of this poem (considered as the most perfect of epopees) is more artful and judicious than that of the other." The first of these remaining reasons, namely, that the Odyssey must interest and engage the attention more than the Iliad, I fear is a declaration which will go near to overturn what was advanced in the beginning of the critique, "that unexperienced minds, too easily captivated with the fire and fury of a gallant general, are apt to prefer courage to constancy, and firmness to humanity." The difficulty of drawing a character is perhaps no where so happily surmounted as in the 2d book of

« AnteriorContinuar »