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Egypt
and the
Pre-Homeric Greeks.
OMER has been called by a very late Greek poet of the Antho
logy, ‘ the second sun of the life of Hellas.’ In the warm light
of his poem a world of men is alive, a world that we know from no
Other source. The sunshine of Homer breaks for a moment through
the darkness of time, and the Achaeans and Danaans, when that light
is withdrawn, fade back again into the obscurity that shrouded them
before, like Children of the Mist. Of their history and of the de
velopment of their civilisation before the Homeric age, we have no
authentic account, and of what befell them when the epics fail us, up
to the moment when Greek literary records begin, we learn but vaguely
from legend and tradition. Yet it is plain that a people so essentially
civilised as the people amidst whom Homer sung, must have had a
long training in experience of life, and in the knowledge of foreign
culture. On the nature of that training and that early history, it has
for some time been believed that light was cast by the Egyptian
monuments. Within the last year, however, the ‘ History of Egypt,’
by Dr. Brugsch, has been published and translated into English.
The aim of some chapters in that learned work is to destroy the idea
that the prehistoric Greeks had any connection with Egypt. The
present article will be devoted to a consideration of the arguments
for and against the opinions that the ancestors of Homer’s Greeks
were well acquainted with the empire on the Nile. It may be as
well, in the first place, to sketch a picture of what that empire was
like, in the distant years when the Achaeans and Danaans did not yet
possess their sacred poet.
When we read Homer, we find ourselves in the morning of the
world. Society has not yet fixed, by hard and fast limits, the special
duties and conditions of human existence. The division of labour is
still all but unknown. The king of one island may become the thrall,
the swineherd, in another. The leader in war is a carpenter, a ship
wright, a mason in time of peace. The merchant is a pirate on
occasion, and the pirate a merchant. Each day brings variety and
adventure to men who are ready for every vicissitude, and who still
find in all experience, in war, storm, and shipwreck, in voyage of
discovery, in the marvels of great towns, and in the peril of enchanted
islands, something delightfully fresh and strange. The Homeric
Greeks, in spite of the orderliness of their public and domestic life,
are still like children, easily moved to wonder, easily adapting them
selves to every change of fortune, and only impatient of dull drill, and
of routine.
With Homer’s men, we live in a young world ; but on their very
border, and within their knowledge, there existed a world already
H
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Egypt and the Pre-Homeri$ Greeks.
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old, rich, artificial, and the slave of habit. The island of Crete was a
part of heroic Greece; it owned Agamemnon as its over-lord, and
from Crete he drew some of his bravest warriors. Within five days’
sail of the island (if a ship had a fair nortll wind in her sails), were
the mouths of ‘ the River of Egypt,’ and the i most fruitful fields of
the Egyptian men ’ (Odyssey, xiv. 257). In Egypt, when Homer
sung, civilisation had passed its noon, and was declining to its even
ing. Thus in 4 Hundred-gated Thebes, where lies the greatest store
of wealth in the houses’ (Iliad, ix. 381 ; Odyssey, iv. 127), were
already found the extremes of wealth and poverty, and the fixed
divisions of society. Already the day-long and life-long labour which
the Greeks detested deformed the bodies of the artisans.
The weaver, within his four walls, is more wretched than a woman; his
knees are fitted to the height of his heart, he never breathes the free air.
.... The armourer has great toil and labour when he carries his wares
into far-off countries. A heavy price he must pay for his beasts of burden
when he sets out on his journey, and scarce has he returned to his home
when again he must depart............ Every worker in metals fares more
hardly than the delvers in the fields. His fields are the wood he works on,
his tools the metal wherewith he toils. In the night, when he should be
free, he is labouring still, after all that his hands have wrought during the
day. Yes, through the night he toils by the light of the burning torches.
.... Thus all arts and trades are toilsome; but do thou, my son, love
letters and cleave to them. Letters alone are no vain word in this world;
he who betakes himself to them is honoured by all men, even from his
childhood. He it is that goes forth on embassies and that knows not
poverty.—(Maspero, ‘ Histoire Ancienne de l’Orient,’p. 127. Translation
of Egyptian epistle.)
What a modern picture this is ! How unlike anything that Homer
has to draw, though he, too, pities the toil of the woman who lives by
her loom, and of the woman grinding at the millI The letter from
which this sketch of Egyptian life is quoted was written by a certain
scribe under the Nineteenth Dynasty, some fourteen hundred years
before the birth of Christ. It was written, probably, at the very time
when the children of Israel were suffering from cruel taskmasters,
who 4 made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and brick,
and all manner of service in the field ; all their service, wherein they
made them serve, was with rigour.’ To that Egypt, where the
Hebrews were bond-slaves, the ancestors of Homer’s Greeks may have
come as pirates, or as hostile settlers, and may have remained as
mercenary soldiers, or as labourers. Thus when Odysseus tells a
feigned tale about his adventures in Egypt, he declares that he
invaded the country, that his men were defeated, ‘and some the
Egyptians slew, and some they led away alive, to toil for them
perforce’ (Odyssey, xiv. 272). The monuments of an age much
earlier than that of Homer, of an age between the dates of Joseph
and of the Exodus, have been generally interpreted in the same sense
as the story of Odysseus. They have been supposed to prove that,
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Egypt and tke Pre-Homeric Greeks.'
173
while the Israelites were yet in Egypt, or had but recently left it, the
prehistoric Greeks fought there, were defeated, and became the
mercenaries of the Pharaohs. There can scarcely be a more inte
resting or romantic moment in history than this was, if the usual
reading of the monuments is correct. The early Greeks are learning
a sense of their own national unity, and are gaining their first sight
of an advanced civilisation, on the same soil as that where the
Hebrews learned the same lessons. The romantic interest of this
theory must not, however, lead us to neglect the arguments urged
against it by Dr. Brugsch. Let us examine, then, the foreign re
lations of Egypt at this period, and the evidence as to Homer’s know
ledge of one of the peoples who have bequeathed to us our art, our
politics, science, philosophy, and our religion.
The Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties of Egypt
bore sway, widely speaking, during the centuries which passed between
1700 B.C. and 1100 B.C. In these ages the Egyptian empire reached
the summit, of her wealth and power. Her arms were carried victoriously northward, into Asia Minor, southwards down the Nile
valley, and the Arabian Gulf, and across the ‘ great sea ’ to Cyprus.
On the walls of her temples may still be seen the painted procession
of captive or tributary races. These races are mentioned by names
which it is not always possible to attach, with certainty, to known
peoples, but the pictures themselves often afford the clearest evidence
as to types of race. The Egyptians, broadly speaking, knew four
races. These were the black men, negroes, whose type is unchanged;
the hook-nosed Semitic peoples, whose features survive in the Jews ;
the Egyptians themselves, painted in a conventional victorious red,
and lastly, the white non-Asiatic races of northern Africa, and of
the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean. It was chiefly with
the thick-lipped and curly-haired blacks of the interior, or with the
Phoenicians and other Semitic races, that the Egyptians of the
sixteenth century before Christ had to do. From the Hittites of the
Orontes valley and other Asiatic tribes, conquered in the great battle
of Megiddo, Thothmes III. took as tribute all those marvels of Sidonian art that Homer is never weary of extolling. The representations
of the gold and silver vases on the monuments prove that Homer did
not exaggerate the merit of the Phoenician craftsmen. Thothmes III.
boasts how he took ‘many golden dishes, and a large jug with a
double handle, a Phoenician work.’ He also acquired ‘ chairs with
the foot-stools to them of ivory and cedar wood ’ (Brugsch, i. 327).
We are reminded of Homer’s description of the chair which Icmalius
£ wrought with ivory and silver, and joined thereto a footstool that
was part of the chair itself’ (Odyssey, xix. 57). The horses,of the
Asiatic enemy also fell into the hands of Thothmes with the goldenstudded chariots which had been framed in the isle of Cyprus, ‘ the
land of the Asebi,’ the very country where Homer places his most
skilful artificers. It was thus that the Pharaohs dealt with their
Semitic enemies, while from the negroes they took, as tribute,
,
, <,
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Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
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leopards and apes, incense and fragrant woods, and slaves, and tusks
of ivory.
Such were the relations of the Egyptians with two out of the four
races into which they divided the dwellers in the world. From the
white-skinned peoples of Northern Africa, and from their allies, also
white, who came from the isles and coasts of the great sea, Egypt
took little by way of tribute. They rather came to seek her; it was
not she who wished to attack them. As early as the reign of Thothmes III., the victor over the Asiatics at Megiddo, the monuments
speak of the Tamahu, the ‘people of the North,’ and of the ‘ tribes of
the islands.’ Among these the most conspicuous at first were called
Tahennu, the ‘ white men ’ of Northern Africa. Early in the reign
of Ramses II. (about 1450 B.c.) the monarch boasts of conquests over
‘ the barbarians of the north, and the Libyans, and the warriors of the
great sea’ (Chabas, ‘ Etudes,’p. 184). It is among these ‘warriors
of the great sea’ that we seem to recognise those indubitably
powerful Mediterranean peoples, the ruins of whose vast Cyclopean
cities, built before the dawn of history, crown many an isolated rocky
height, and command many a harbour and creek, on the shores of
Greece, Italy, and the islands. These warriors, in short, were in all
probability the ancestors of Homer’s more than half-mythical heroes.
For more than two centuries Egypt was exposed to the attacks
and invasions of these northern peoples. Her wealth, her rich soil,
her soft climate, and the beginnings of her decrepitude, attracted the
maritime tribes, and the races of the Lybian mainland. As we read
the accounts of these invasions in the inscriptions, we are irresistibly
reminded of the similar excursions of the Northmen ‘ on viking.’ The
very language of the monuments reads like the language of the
English chroniclers who went in fear of Danish pirates. The first
recorded inroad on a large scale by the confederated forces of Libya
and the maritime powers was made in the time of Ramses II. This
king began his reign by an exploit which brought him into collision,
according to some authorities, with the tribes which later succoured
Ilion. In the battle of Kadesh he checked the power of the Kbita
or Hittites, with their allies, the Leku, the Dardani, the warriors of
Carchemish, ‘ all the peoples from the extremest end of the sea, to
the land of the Khita.’ In the Khita some authorities see the other
wise mysterious Keteians who were led to fight for Troy by Eurypylus
the son of Telephus (Odyssey, xi. 519). In the Dardani they remark
the familiar Dardanians of Homer, and in the ‘ Leku ’ the no less
familiar Lycians. Dr. Brugsch, the determined opponent of views so
easy and so pleasing, is not content with these identifications. He
thinks that the Leku are not the Lycians, but a much less powerful
and important tribe, ‘the Legyes mentioned by Herodotus as a
people of Asia Minor’ (Herodotus, vii. 72). Now the Greeks
called all the wide-spread Ligurians of the north Mediterranean coast
‘ Legyes,’ so it is not easy to see why, if ‘ Leku ’ is ‘ Legyes,’ the
allies of the Khita may not have come from Trieste or from the
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Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
175
shores under the Maritime Alps. The Dardanians again are not, so Dr.
Brugsch holds, the Dardanians with whom we are all familiar, but a
sept named once by Herodotus (i. 189). Yet even the Dardanians of.
Herodotus were next neighbours of the Paphlagonians, who, in their
turn, are numbered by Homer among the allies of Priam. Thus, even
on the showing of Dr. Brugsch, the Asiatic enemies of Agamemnon,
and the Asiatic enemies of Ramses II. drew their allies from the same
districts. But why should we look for an obscure sept of Dardani
on the Tigris, people only casually alluded to by Herodotus, writing a
thousand years later ? We might as plausibly identify the Dardani
who fought against Ramses II. with the Dardani who, according
to Strabo, lived in dens excavated under dunghills in Illyria, but
possessed an unaffected taste for music.
When he attacked the Leku, Khita, and Dardani, Ramses II. was
aided by some foreign mercenaries, called the Shardana 4 of the sea.’
These men are called 4 the King’s prisoners,’ and it is probable that
they had first been made captives in some war with North Africa, and
afterwards trained to bear arms with the native Egyptian soldiery.
The name of the Shardana, with that of other maritime peoples, was
soon to be terrible to the Egyptians. The reign of Ramses II. lasted
very long—no less than sixty-eight years—and it is possible that the
government of Egypt shared the weakness of the king’s old age.
-However that may be, Ramses II. had not long lain within his
Strangely humble tomb when the Libyans, with the peoples of the
Mediterranean, invaded the empire. The story of the invasion is
told by reliefs and inscriptions on the walls of a little court to the
south of the precinct of the chief temple at Carnac. The inscriptions
are described by Champoilion, who partly deciphered them (1828),
but did not identify the names of the races mentioned as hostile to
Egypt. As read by the late Vicomte de Rouge, and (with occasional
variations) by M. Chabas and Dr. Brugsch, they describe the war
between the Libyan king and his allies on the one part, and Meneptah,
son of Ramses II. (the Pharaoh of Exodus), on the other. The names
of the allied powers are thus written by Dr. Brugsch: 4 The A-qaua-sha, the Tulisha, or Turisha, the Liku, the Shair-dan, the Shaka-li-sha, peoples of the north which came hither out of all countries.’
{Brugsch, ii. 116.) The Vicomte de Rouge spelled the names,
4 Akaiusa, Tuir’sa, Leku, Shairdina, S4akalesha.’ (4 Memoire sur les
Attaques,’ etc., p. 11.) Both authorities agree that the Rebu (Li
byans) and Mashuasha (Maxyes, an African people who, in Herod
otus’ time, claimed Trojan ancestry) were among the invaders. All
authorities agree in saying that these allies had for months pitched
hostile camps in Egypt, did violence, 4 plundered, loved death, and
hated life.’ In this inscription (translated also by Dr. Birch,4 Records
of the Past,’ vol. iv. p. 36), one seems to hear Hildas grumbling
•about the Saxons, or the English chroniclers denouncing the Danish
pirates. Though Meneptah refused (on the pretence of a warning
vision) to lead his troops into action, the charioteers of Egypt utterly
No. 596 (no. CXV». N. s.)
N
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Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
[August
routed the confederate hosts. Of the Libyans there fell over six
thousand men, of the Shakalsha more than two hundred, many of the
Shardana, whose kinsmen fought against them in the ranks of Egypt,
and many of the Aqaiusha. The bloody trophies of victory, frag
ments and hands of the mutilated dead, were counted over before the
king.
The all-important question must now be asked, who were these
maritime nations, these enemies of Egypt ? The spelling of their
names by various interpreters does not vary so much, but that a ready
answer rises to the lips. When the Vicomte de Rouge published his
celebrated 4 Memoire ’ in 1866, he identified, as most people would be
prone to do, the Aqaiusha with the Achaeans, who, in Homer’s time,
were the chief race in Greece. In the Shakalusha he saw the Sicilians,
whom Homer frequently alludes to as slave merchants, and therefore,
probably, as pirates. The Shardana were taken for the Sardinians
and the Tuirsha for the Tyrrhenians or Etrurians ; these famous sea
farers, an identification favoured by the spelling of the Tyrsenian, or
Tyrrhenian name in Oscan inscriptions. Even if these natural sugges
tions are adopted, it does not follow that the Tyrrhenian, Sardinian,
Sicilian, and other tribes had as yet established themselves in Etruria,
Sardinia, and Sicily. De Rouge’s system was adopted by Maspero,
Chabas, Lenormant, and (provisionally) by Dr. Birch. It has been
disturbed by the theory of Dr. Brugsch (‘ History of Egypt,’ vol. ii.p. 124). According to Dr. Brugseh, the invaders were 4 Colchio-Cretan
tribes.’ They came from the distant Caucasus, and from Crete, where,
as Homer tells us, dwelt Achaeans, native Cretans, Cydonians, Dorians,
and Pelasgians. (Odyssey, xix. 175.) Dr. Brugsch, however, says
little about the Cretans among the invaders. It is from the spurs of
the Caucasus and the coasts of the Black Sea that he brings the allies
of the Libyans. Let us examine his reasons.
Dr. Brugsch’s system is based, partly on a point of Egyptian verbal
scholarship, in which no one agrees with him ; secondly, on ethnolo
gical conjecture. He interprets the inscriptions about the Egyptian
victory to mean that the dead Aqaiusha and Shakalsha, whose hands
were cut off and brought to Meneptah, were circumcised men. No
other translator, neither Dr. Birch, nor M. Chabas, nor De Rouge (and
their combined opinion is of immense weight) has understood the in
scription in this sense. Dr.Brugsch holds that theLibyans were despised
by the Egyptians as an uncircumcised race, while the circumcised
Aqaiusha and Shakalsha were comparatively respected. He argues
that ‘to identify circumcised tribes, as some have done, with the
Achaeans, Sicilians, Sardinians, &c., is to introduce a serious error
into the primitive history of the classical nations.’ Here, then, is the
negative argument; the Aqaiusha conformed to the Egyptian and the
Jewish rite, therefore, they were not the Achaeans of Greece. Here
two obvious answers suggest themselves; first, the translation on which
Dr. Brugsch reposes is not, as yet, accepted by other scholars ; second,
we have no means of knowing whether the prehistoric ancestors of
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Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
177
the Greeks did or did not practise a rite which is widely spread, espe
cially among savage races. We only know that, in the age of
Herodotus, a thousand years after this period, no tradition that the
Greeks had ever practised the rite seems to have survived. It is per
fectly possible that races with the Hellenic instinct for refinement at
one time conformed to, but later, and long before the time of Herodotus,
abandoned a custom which, in origin, seems essentially savage. In pre
cisely the same way, the Phoenicians gave up this trait of manners
when theybecame acquainted with the Greeks (Herodotus, ii. 104), and
many Polynesian peoples are abandoning it in our own time. Again,
it must be noted that Dr. Brugsch declares the Mashuasha (Maxyes)
to have conformed to the Egyptian manners in this respect. Now,
Herodotus, on whose evidence Dr. Brugsch elsewhere relies, omits to
L
.mention the Maxyes in his catalogue of circumcised races, while, in
his account of the Maxyes, he says nothing about circumcision. Did
Dr. Brugsch assume that the Maxyes conformed to the rite, because
he found that their hands were cut off, after a battle, like the hands
of the Aqaiusha ? Singularly enough, the mutilation of a hand is the
punishment now inflicted in Socotra, on persons who are not circum
cised. Many other arguments derived from the practice of Polynesian
race» might here be adduced. It is enough to say that, even if Dr.
Brugsch’s translation is accepted, the authentic history of manners
permits us to suppose that the Achaeans of the thirteenth century
before our era may have conformed to the descriptions of the Aqaiusha
in the Egyptian texts, as translated by Dr. Brugsch.
The learned German is dissatisfied with the old identification. What
reasons lead him to put forward his new theory ? At a first glance,
■ it does seem very unlikely that the tribes of4 remotest Caucasus,’ that
‘ wall of the world’s end,’ as the Greeks thought it, should ally them
selves with Libya, and invade Egypt. No Greek tradition or legend
p
speaks of such an alliance, while Greek legendary history starts from
a. supposed constant intercourse between Libya, Egypt, Sardinia,
Sicily, and Greece. Herodotus however assures us, that, whether the
Caucasian tribes came to Egypt or not, the Egyptians went to the
Caucasus. This expedition was made, he says, under Sesostris, that
is, Ramses II., the monarch on whose death the Caucasians (teste
t
Brugsch) in their turn invaded Egypt I This was a singular turning
of the. tables. Herodotus thinks that the Colchian tribes learned
K,
Egyptian manners from the soldiers of Ramses II. Is it probable
that the practice became at once so general that they could send a
circumcised army to invade the realms of the son of Ramses ? Here,
at least, is the argument of Dr. Brugsch ; the maritime invaders of
-Egypt conformed to the Egyptian rite, therefore, they were not the
ancestors of the famous Achaeans. But the tribes of the Caucasus
(a thousand years later), practised the rite, therefore it is proper to
look among them for the invaders of Egypt. Yet even Dr. Brugsch
has to come down to much later times for his facts. He wishes to
find, among the Colchian and Caucasian mountaineers, names of tribes
m
2
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Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
[Augus!
that correspond to the names of invaders on the monuments, and
these names he finds, more than a thousand years later, in the pages
of Strabo, a writer of the time of Augustus. As Dr. Brugsch goes
to the Caucasus, and to Colchis, to find the invaders of Egypt, it
may be as well to. quote Herodotus’s account of the Colchians, and
of their apparent ethnological connections with the Egyptians.
Thereafter he (Sesostris, Ramses II.) went all through the continent,
even till he crossed out of Asia into Europe, where he overcame the
Scythians and the Thracians. So far, and no further, methinks, came the
Egyptian host, for in the land of these peoples are the memorial pillars set,
and still to be seen, but beyond these they are no longer to be found.
Thence he turned about, and went back, and when he came to the Phasis
river, I have thereafter no clear story to tell, as to whether the King
Sesostris himself sundered a portion of his army, and planted them there,
or whether certain of the soldiers, being weary of wandering, chose to
abide there about the River Phasis. For the Colchians seem to be of
Egyptian race, and this I say as one that noted it myself, before I heard it
from others. But when the thing came into my mind I made inquiry of
both peoples, and the Colchians remember the Egyptians better than the
Egyptians remember the Colchians. The Egyptians said they reckoned the
Colchians to be in the host of Sesostris, but I guessed at the matter by this,
that both Egyptians and Colchians are dark-skinned and curly haired, And
this proves nothing, for other men so far resemble them; but by this I
was more led to my guess, namely, that the Colchians, Aegyptians, and
Aethiopians, and they alone, have always from the beginning practised
circumcision.................. Come, now, I will mention other Colchian matters,
to show how like they are to the Egyptians. They and the Egyptians are
the only peoples that weave linen (in the same way), and all their manner
of life, and the tongue they speak, resemble each other. And Colchian linen
the Greeks call Sardonikon, but that which comes from Egypt they call
Egyptian. (Herodotus, ii. 1*03, 104.)
So far Herodotus goes, and by aid of his evidence Dr. Brugseh
recognises his circumcised Shardana in the Colchian makers of Sardonian linen (Xlvov 'ZapSovticov'). The Tursha of the sea, Brugsch calls
people from Mount Taurus, but it appears that philological reasoning
(‘ if anyone is inclined to trust that,’ as Herodotus would say) strongly
favours De Rouge’s identification of the Tuirsha with the Tyrseni,
or Etruscans. The Leku, or Luku, as we have already seen, Dr.
Brugsch believes to be, not Lycians, but Legyes. The Aqaiusha
are Achaeans with Dr. Brugsch, as well as with De Rouge and Chabas,
but then they are not the Achaeans of Greece or Crete, but the
Achaeans of the Caucasus. This interesting tribe (the ancestors of
the gallant Lazi ’) are mentioned by Strabo, some thirteen hundred
years after their appearance on the monuments. According to
•Strabo, the Achaeans of the Caucasus were not unlike the m od ern
buccaneers of Batoum. In his time, they dwelt near the rugged
•and harbourless coasts of the Black Sea. They lived somewhat inland,
in the forests and glens, in which they dragged up the canoes
(capable of holding about twenty-five men each), in which they made
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tEgypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
179
buccaneering expeditions. When an expedition was over, they re
turned to their fastnesses, and drank, and feasted till all was spent.
It is in the ancestors of these semi-savage neighbours of the degraded
‘ lice-eaters,’ that Dr. Brugsch recognises the allies of Libya, the men
who shook the empire of Egypt. Few other students will be inclined to
overlook the claims of the Achaean race, which was certainly, within
four centuries, so powerful in the Levant, in favour of a remote and
obscure set of savages, without history, traditions, or architectural
remains. The remains of Mycenae, Orchomenos, and scores of other
towns, attest the prehistoric homes of the dwellers in Greek coasts
and isles. The legends of Libya, Sardinia, Sicily, Egypt, and Greece,
as' Pausanias shows, are all in undesigned coincidence with the
Egyptian monuments, as read by De Rouge and Chabas. The con
tents of the oldest graves in Greek and in Sardinian soil, speak to a
prehistoric intercourse with Egypt. The very sculptures on the
sepulchral sieZae, found in the Acropolis of Mycenae, are most easily
explained as rude and debased imitations of the familiar Egyptian
group, in which the king fights from his chariot. In face of all this
tangible evidence which connects prehistoric Greece with Egypt,
it seems superfluous to seek for casual similarities of name among the
obscure tribes of the remote Caucasus.
The next mention of the people of the Mediterranean coasts and
islands is found in the monument of Ramses III. (1200—1166 B.C.)
On the walls of Medinet Habou in Western Thebes are depicted the
chief events in the history of an invasion of Egypt, in the eighth
year of Ramses. The inscriptions declare that ‘ the people quivered
with desire of battle in all their limbs, they came up leaping from
their coasts and islands, and spread themselves all at once over the
lands.’ (Brugsch, vol. ii. p. 147.) They were moved by the irresistible
attraction of the south, by the force that draws the Slavonic races
towards India and the Mediterranean, the force that led the North
men to Byzantium and the Goths to Rome. 4 It came to pass,’ says
another inscription, ‘ that the people of the northern regions, who
reside in their islands and on their coasts, shuddered [with eagerness
for battle] in their bodies. They entered into the lakes of the
mouths of the Nile. Their nostrils snuffed up the wind, their desire
was to breathe a soft air.’ (Brugsch, vol. ii. p. 149.) From the
reliefs and inscriptions we learn that the invasion was attempted
both by land and sea. Some of the Northerners landed on the coast
of Canaan, defeated the Khita, the people of Kadi (Galilee), and
of Karchemish, and so advanced on Egypt. Others sailed round to
the mouths of the Nile. By the rapidity of his movements Ramses
III. discomfited the double attack. In the reliefs of Medinet
Habou, we see the king distributing arms, we accompany the army
on the march, and behold the destruction of the islanders and men of
the Mediterranean coasts. A fourth picture represents the return
march of the Egyptians to encounter the hostile navy, and the fifth
shows us the earliest extant view of a naval battle. Ramses had
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Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
[August
formed a cordon of ships and boats to protect the great water-gate of
Egypt. ‘ A defence was built on the water, like a strong wall, of
ships of war, of merchantmen, of boats and skiffs. They (who had
reached the boundary of my country never more reaped harvest. . . .
Their ships and all their possessions lay strewn on the mirror of the
waters.’ (Brugsch, vol. ii. p. 148.)
Who were the islanders and coastmen who thus failed to make
good their enterprise ? The inscriptions give their names, the basreliefs present pictures of their ships, costumes, and weapons. First
let us examine the names. They are read thus by Dr. Brugsch:
‘ Their home was in the land of the Purosatha, the Zakkar, the
Shalkalsha, the Daanau, and the Uashuash.’ (‘The Tuirsha of the
sea,’ Brugsch’s Taurians, and the Tyrrhenians of De Rouge, were
also engaged.) For Purosatha, M. Chabas, with almost all other
scholars, reads Pelesta, vaguely identified with Pelasgians, or Phi
listines. For Zakkar, it is usual to read Tekkri, or Tekkariu, sup
posed to be the classical Teucri. There is a general agreement as to the
spelling of Shakalsha or Shalkulsha, Taanau or Daanau, and Uas
huash, though not about the peoples mentioned under these names.
Now here the method of Dr. Brugsch is well worth attending to ; it is
so extraordinary as to be almost incredible. He protests that the
Shakalsha are not Sicilians, but the people of Zagylis (vol. ii. p.
124). Now what was Zagylis? It was ‘a village in the time of
the Romans.’ There ‘ the last remnant of the Shakalsha still re
mained.’ Obviously this tells us nothing. The Shakalsha are the
people of Zagylis, and the people of Zagylis (some fourteen hundred
years later), are—the remnant of the Shakalsha! Take another
example: the Shardana are ‘ the Chartani,’ and the Chartani are-—
the remains of the Shardana. Here, however, we have at least
some clue as to who the, Shardana were: they were not the Sardi
nians, but Colchians, linen-manufacturing people, inferred to exist
from the term ‘Sardonian linen,’ in Herodotus. Let us try the
Daanau; these are the classic Danai, or the Daunians, according to
other students. Dr. Brugsch says they are the people of Taineia,
mentioned by the geographer Ptolemy. And who are the people of
Taineia ? They are the remains of the Daanau. Finally, theZakkar are identified with the Zygritae (vol. ii. p. 151), and when we
ask who the Zygritae were, we find that they were a small tribe, who
perpetuated the name of the Zakkar. Surely it is not a very scien
tific process to identify a powerful ancient race with a small one
first heard of a thousand years later, and then to explain that the
weak tribe is the descendant of the strong one. We think it is suf
ficiently obvious that Dr. Brugsch’s theory is no satisfactory substi
tute for the older system, which recognised powerful and historical
peoples of the Levant in powerful prehistoric races of almost iden
tical names, only slightly altered by Egyptian orthography.
Let us now turn from the record of names in his inscriptions to
the record of facts in the bas-reliefs. In these representations
�1879]
Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
181
preserved to us through three thousand years, we may admire, with
absolute confidence, the lively pictures of the old masters of the
Mediterranean. From the representations of the battle on land, it is
plain that the Tekkri and Pelesta were in the same social con
ditions as the Cimbri who were defeated by Marius, and the Tartars
who invaded Russia in the thirteenth century. Like the Tartars,
they came to conquer and settle; they brought their wives and chil
dren with them in huge wains of wicker work, with solid wheels,
■each wain being drawn by four oxen. The descriptions of the
Russian annalist might serve for an account of these inroads of the
Tekkri. The Egyptians, like the Slavs, must have been dismayed
by ‘ the grinding of the wheels of the wooden chariots, the bellowings of the buffaloes, the howling of the barbarians.’ While the
warriors of the Tekkri and Pelesta were fighting in open chariots
like those of the Egyptians and Greeks, the wains with the women
and children were drawn up in the rear. The van of the foreign
army was routed, and in the pictures of Medinet Habou we see
the Egyptians falling on the waggons, and slaying the children
whom the women in vain endeavour to rescue. It is a singular
fact that the Tekkri who took the lead of the land-forces also
supplied many mariners to the confederate navy. In the sea-piece
which preserves the events of the naval battle, we recognise the
Tekkri by their peculiar head-piece, which is not absolutely unlike
a rude form of the later Greek helmet. This head-piece is also
worn by Pelesta, Daanau, and Uashuash.
The picture of the sea-fight throws a great deal of light on the
civilisation of the predecessors (we dare not say ‘ ancestors ’) of
Agamemnon. The artist has been most careful to mark the differ
ence between the ships of the Shalkalsha, Shardana, and Daanau, and
those of his own countrymen. The Egyptian vessels are low at prow
and stern, either extremity is tipped by a carved lion’s head, and it
is easy for a warrior to have one foot on deck, and the other on the
figure head of his ship. The bulwarks are slightly raised at each
extremity, and the ships must have been half-decked. The confede
rates on the other hand fight in barques which are lofty in prow
and stern. Either extremity is finished off with a bird’s beak,
which rises high out of the water. The reader of Homer at once
recognises the v^val KopwvLCL. the ships with beaks at either end,
the vsas apbfybsXMT&as, vessels curved at prow and stern (recurvatae)
of the poet. The later barques of the Greeks, as we see them
painted on vases of the sixth century, were quite unlike these. The
prow was by that time constructed for ramming purposes, for which
these high birds’ beaks of the early Mediterranean vessels were not at
all adapted. That the people of the Mediterranean did use such
vessels as those which they man in the Egyptian pictures, is proved by
a very old Cyprian vase in the Cesnola collections (Cesnola’s ‘ Cyprus,’
pl. xlv.). On this vase is painted a ship with the arrangement of mast
and sail common to the barques of the Egyptians and their enemies.
�182
Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
[August
The prow and stern, however, are built high out of the water,
and protected, as in the reliefs, by lofty bulwarks. This is good
evidence to the accuracy of the Egyptian draughtsmen, who were
careful to mark all these distinctions, as they were engaged in com
piling historical records, rather than in producing mere works of art.
In the sea-fight the Egyptians are, of course, having the best of'
the battle. The masts of the Tuirsha, Tekkri, and Shakalsha are
going by the board; the Egyptians shower in their arrows with
deadly effect; the Tekkri, with drawn swords, in vain attempt to
drive back the boarders. The face of the sea is covered with the
bodies of men who have fallen from the decks, and the Egyptians,
with the clemency which was peculiar to them, help the wounded
to reach the shore, or take them on board their own vessels. In some
of the ships of the allied invaders are soldiers who wear a peculiar
helmet. It so far resembles the helmets of the Shardana, that it has
a curved horn on each side, but, unlike them, it has no spike and
ball in the centre. A horned helmet of the same sort (but probably
much later) has been found in an Italian grave, and may be seen in
the British Museum. In other ships of the allies appear the Tekkri,
with their crested bonnets, mingled with allies who wear the conical cap
of the Greek and Etruscan sailors, the cap, or fez, which, in Greek art, is
worn by Odysseus. The wearers of these caps are, probably with justice,
recognised as the Tuirsha, whom Dr. Brugsch calls the Taurians,
but whom we prefer to call Etrurians or Tyrrhenians. The striped
tunics worn by these two last classes of allies are the same as those
in which the Shardana were still dressed, even after they had become
allies of the Egyptians.
We have now caught a glimpse of the races in whom it seems not
unreasonable to recognise Mediterranean peoples, the ancestors of
Homer’s heroes. We may say, then, with some confidence, that for
centuries before the period dealt with in the Homeric poems, the dwellers
on the borders of the midland sea, the Tuirsha, Shakalsha, Aqaiusha,.
Tekkri, and the rest, were adventurous warriors, capable of forming
such large confederacies as those which took part in the siege of
Troy. About the Tekkri, we may say with certainty that they had
not passed the period of great national migrations. Unless a whole
people had moved, or had at least sent out a ver sacrum, they would
not have led with them women and children, in the wains drawn by
oxen. About the sea-faring Aqaiusha, Shakalsha, and Shardana, we
cannot speak so certainly. ‘ They desired to breathe a soft air,’ they
were eager to plunder the Egyptians, but it does not seem that they
brought their women with them, or definitely meant to settle. When
we turn from the monuments to Homer, we certainly find in him a
picture of an established society contented with secure habitations.
The Achaeans and Argives of the poems are deeply attached to
home; their thoughts always go back from the leaguer under Troy
to wives, children, and aged fathers, who now and again send them
news of their welfare, from Phthia, Crete, or Argos. Homer knows
�i
1879]
Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
183
nothing of combined Achaean invasions of Egypt. The more recent
feuds of the eastern and western shores of the Aegean have put apy
t
such adventures out of memory. Only here and there the roaming
spirit of the older pirates survives in such men as Odysseus feigned
himself to be, in the story told to Eumaeus (Odyssey, xiv. 240-300).
When he there describes himself as a Cretan pirate who ventured to
make a raid on Egypt, he also declares that such adventurous persons
are now rare. His joy, he says, is in all that other men hold in horror.
Though Homer knows nothing of confederated invasions of Egypt,
le his acquaintance with the manners of the country is tolerably exact.
He knows Thebes as the richest city in the world, full of stored wealth,
of chariots, and horses. Mr. Gladstone and others have tried to show
that this description could only apply to Thebes in the days of its im
perial prosperity. We cannot possibly say, however, how long the
memory of Thebes as the 4 mickle-garth’ of the world might survive its
actual decline. It is unnecessary to discuss Dr. Lauth’s bold attempt
>■
to find Ramses III., 4 the old man of the sea,’ in the Proteus of the
fourth book of the Odyssey. Proteus is merely the Homeric form
of the marchen which in Scotland becomes the ballad of Tamlane.
Setting aside these far-fetched conjectures, it is certain that Homer
knows 4 the River Aegyptus,’ which in Hesiod has already become 4 the
Nile.’ He knows Thebes and its wealth ; he knows the island Pharos.
He is familiar with the clemency of the Egyptians. The king, in
, the story of Odysseus, conveys the pirate chief safely away in his own
t
chariot, just as the sailors, on the monuments, rescue their drowning
E
enemies. Homer is also aware that the Egyptians had friendly relations
with Cyprus and Phoenicia (Odyssey, xvii. 440). He knows the
V
Egyptian reputation for skill in medicine. 4 There each man is a
physician skilled beyond all others, for they are of the race of Paeaeon.’
(Od. iv. 211, 213.) To be brief, Egypt is to Homer a land within
the limits of the real world ; it is beyond Libya that the enchanted
isles and shores come into the ken of his wandering hero.
We have tried to show reason for maintaining the opinion that
the Egyptian monuments reveal to us a moment in the national
education of the early Greeks. Egypt probably gave them their first
glimpse of a settled and luxurious civilisation, first taught them to
take delight in other things than 4 swords, shafts, and spears, and
ships with long oars.’ What manner of life would Greek prisoners or
mercenaries see in Egypt ? There they would find towns wealthier
than the fabled city of the Phaeacians. Thebes alone they knew
of as a dim rich city that rose on the borders of the world, as did
Byzantium on the horizon of the Danes. In Thebes and the other
cities of Egypt they beheld 4 the fields full of good things, the canals
rich in fish, the lakes swarming with wild fowl, the meadows green
with herbs. There are lentils in endless abundance, and melons
honey-sweet grow in the well-watered fields. The barns are full of
wheat, and reach as high as heaven; the vine, the almond, and the
fig-tree grow in the gardens. Sweet is their wine, and with honey do
�184
Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
[August
they -mingle it. The youths are clacl always in festive array, the fine oil
is poured upon their curled locks.’ It is thus that an Egyptian scribe
depicts one of the towns of his country. The picture is precisely that
which Homer draws of ideal luxury and comfort. Even in trifling
details the Homeric domestic life is like that of Egypt. In Phaeacia, as
in the monuments, kings’ daughters drive chariots. In Ithaca, as in
Thebes, kings and queens are fond of geese, of all birds1 In the tribute
brought to Thutmes III. from the Phoenician land are 4 two geese.
These were dearer to the king than anything else’ (Brugsch, i. 334).
Compare Penelope’s story of her dream: 4 Twenty geese have I in the
house that eat wheat out of the water-trough, and it gladdens me to
look on them.’ (Odyssey, xix. 540.) In the Egyptians’ 4 Garden of
Flowers ’ the northern mercenaries may have seen the strange tamed
beasts, and have undergone (as some romances in the papyri show us)
the magic wiles of Circe. (See 4 Records of the Past,’ vi. 152, iv. 129 ;
where there are ancient Egyptian stories in the style of the 4 Arabian
Nights.’) If the stranger passed through the temple precincts he
saw the walls covered with signs, which perhaps were deciphered for
him. He then listened to chants like those which the minstrels of
his own lands were soon to recite. There are some curious, though
probably accidental resemblances, in the style of Egyptian and
Greek epic poetry. The similes are often identical. Thus the
slaughtered Khita, under the walls of Kadesh, are said by the
Egyptian poet to lie kicking in heaps, like fishes on the ground.
Compare the slain wooers in the Odyssey (xxii. 384) : 4 He
found all the host of them fallen in their blood, in the dust, like
fishes that the fishermen have drawn forth in the net, into a
hollow of the beach, from out of the grey sea .... and the
sun shines forth and takes their life away.’ In the account of the
battles with the invaders, the Egyptian warriors 4 come down like
lions of the hills, like hawks stooping upon birds.’ The Khita,
before Ramses II., are 4 like the foals of mares, which tremble before
the grim lions.’ But the Egyptian poet most closely resembles
Homer when he dilates on the valour and piety of Ramses II., when
cut off from his army at Kadesh. The religious sentiment, the
relations between Amon and Ramses, are precisely like those between
Odysseus and Athene. Ramses, with his charioteer, is alone in the
crowd of foes. Then he calls to Amon, as Aias calls to Zeus, or
Odysseus to Athene, reminding the god of all the honours he has
paid him. 4 Shall it be for nothing that I have dedicated to thee
many temples, and sacrificed tens of thousands of oxen? Nay, I
find that Amon is better to me than millions of warriors, than
hundreds of thousands of horses.......................... Amon heard my voice,
and came at my cry (saying), 441 am with thee, and am more to thee
than hundreds of thousands of warriors.” ’ This is like the reply of
Athene to Odysseus : 4 And now I will tell thee plainly, even though
fifty companies of men should compass us about, and be eager to slay
us in battle, their kine shouldst thou drive off, and their brave flocks.’
�1879]
Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks.
185
These resemblances, and many others, are, no doubt, the result
of similar ideas prevailing in societies not wholly uninfluenced by
each other. The point we have tried to prove is, that the Homeric
civilisation had been influenced by occasional contact with Egypt.
The pre-Homeric Greeks seem to have mixed, in their years of
youthful audacity and unsettled temper, with the most civilised
people of the earlier world, and to have looked, with their eager eyes
and teachable minds, on the marvels of the empire of Ramses.
They were in connection, in short, with the highly developed art and
culture which the Phoenicians spread from the Euphrates to Egypt,
and through the islands to the Hellenic coasts. Centuries of these
oriental influences gradually ripened society into the free and flexible
organisation which we meet in the lays of Homer.
A. Lang.
Sonnet
SUGGESTED BY THE PICTURE OF THE ANNUNCIATION,
BY E. BURNE JONES.
Woman, whose lot hath alway been to bear
Love’s load beneath the heart, set there to hold
It high, and keep it resolute and bold
To clasp God’s feet, and hang on to the fair
Wide skirts of light,—thy sealed sense can spare
The open vision, thou being called to fold
From time’s mischance, and from the season’s cold,
The wonder in thy breast, and nurse it there.
What though thy travail hath been long and sore,
Love being borne in so great heaviness,
Through loss and labour, joy shall be the more
Of love that living shall the nations bless :
Love that shall set man’s bounden spirit free,
The ‘ holy thing’ that still is born of thee.
Emily Pjfeiffer.
cv
A
�
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Egypt and the Pre-Homeric Greeks
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Lang, Andrew [1844-1912]
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THE
WESTMINSTER
AND
FOREIGN
QUARTERLY
REVIEW.
JANUARY 1, 1873.
Art. I.—Sophokles.
1. Sophokles, erlddrt wnF. W. Schneid ewin. Sechste Avflage,
besorgt von A..HKUGK., Berlin. 1871.
2. The Tragedies of Sophocles, with a Biographical Essay.
By E. H. Plumptre, M.A. London. 1867.
3. Die Religosen und Sittlichen Vorstellungen des Aeschylos
und Sopholdes. Von Gustav Dronke. Leipzig. 1861.
4. Sopholdes und seine Tragodien. Von 0. Ribbeck. Heft
83 in der Sammlung gemeinverstdndlicher wissenschaftlicher Vortrdge. Berlin. 1869.
ENGLISH scholarship has not done much for the better
J’j understanding of Sophokles. He is not a poet who has
taken close hold of the English mind. His works are studied of
course in the general university curriculum ; but he has not become
a poet often read and oftener quoted as have some of the classic
writers. Those who really find in him a source of intellectual
delight read his works in a German edition. But of what classical
writer may not this be said ? It is very seldom that an English
editor has the patience to make a complete presentation of a
classical author—to do for him what Professor Munro has done for
Lucretius—with that loving study and exhaustive research which
characterize the labours of the German editor. So far the case
of Sophokles is not single. But perhaps there is no instance of
an author of such renown as Sophokles, with so general a con
sensus of people willing to admit his claims, who has made so
little impression upon the majority of cultivated minds. The
[Vol. XCIX. No. CXCV.J—New Series, Vol. XLIII. No. I.
B
�2
Sophokles.
reason is that the majority of cultivated people never bring them
selves under his influence. The English scholar is for the
most part satisfied with a textual or critical knowledge: the
whole field of classical literature must be hurried through rather
than any part explored. And the result of this is scholarship
rather than knowledge.
Now with many authors this may be sufficient; it cannot be
so with all. Homer, for instance, will give up his. beauties in
broad and easily taken bands of continuous narrative. . Apart
from the necessities of philological studies, which are beside the
present question, Homer, like Chaucer, is easy reading. Those
that run may read the alto rilievo of the Iliad or Odyssey. But
before a group of statuary you must stand. And the difficulty
is that the intellectual life of the present day does not admit of
long standing. The progress of science and the march of new
ideas are continually urging on the student mind. And to almost
all the doubt must occasionally present itself, Is it worth while
to spend this time before these works of ancient art? . Now,
whatever the answer to this question may be, it is certain that
the. secret of Sophokles cannot be won without loving and
leisurely study. For in his works exists the highest form of one
species of art; and that an art which will yield its essence to no
hurried student. It is a significant circumstance that few English
translations of the works of Sophokles have been attempted.
The version of Mr. Plumptre is the fourth of its kind. Those
that have preceded it are of little importance. It is true that no
author suffers more from translation than Sophokles : but that
is the least element in the unpopularity of his dramas amongst
English readers. The reader unacquainted with the Greek
language may yet be fascinated by the “ tale of Troy divine
in the musical and monotonous lines of Pope, or the inadequate
interpretations of Cowper and Lord Derby : he may even, if.he
be a Keats, find his vision dazzled by the misty prospect which
he catches of the vast Homeric continent; but he is not at all
likely to be charmed with Sophokles. To understand Sophokles
one must place oneself in the intellectual position of ^n average
Athenian of the time of Perikles. Mr. Galton says : “ The
*
average ability of the Athenian race is, on the lowest possible
estimate, very nearly two grades higher than our own—that is,
about as much as our race is above that of the African negro?
The average English reader, therefore, whose knowledge of
Sophokles is derived from Mr. Plumptre’s very creditable version,
will probably lay down the book without any extraordinary
interest in the subject. He will miss the plaintive clink and
Hereditary Genius,” p. 3&2.
�Sophokles.
- 3
jingle of subjective sentimentality which he has been accustomed
to associate with poetry, and he will probably wonder at the
renown of the poet. But the earnest student of Sophokles will
find in the original enough to reward him. His mind will be
strengthened by the contemplation of perfect types of character,
bold, severe, and beautiful. He will pass .into a gallery of
statuary where he will see sights that can never leave his inner
eye. Serene faces, familiar, yet unusual in their lofty humanity,
will look down upon him •, voices, more divine than human,
though rising from the depths of the human heart, will speak to
him, and his ears will be filled with a holy and awful music.
The best guides to the higher knowledge of Sophokles are the
German works whose titles are given at the head of the present
*
paper. Schneidewin’s edition is known to students of Sophokles ;
so ought also to be the essay by G. Dronke, snatched from his
friends and from literature by an all too early death. Dr. Bib
beck’s paper, though short, is a concise estimate of the extant
dramas, and is written in a genial and scholarly style. The
present essay is an attempt to connect the works of Sophokles
with the periods of the poet’s life, and to point out the chief
dramatic characteristics of the several plays.
It was in the year 469 before our era, at the spring festival
of the greater Dionysia, that Athens saw the first trilogy of
Sophokles. The city was then full of new life ; it was the charmed
period when future greatness lay in bud, and not yet in blossom.
The terror of the Persian had been changed into an immortal
memory, and Athens was winning for herself the hegemony of
more than the Grecian race. This spring festival had drawn
many strangers to the city. The islands had not yet learned to
dread her power or doubt her justice, and sent their loyal visitors
to join in her rejoicing.
Two days of the festival had already passed, and a trilogy or
rather tetralogy had been presented each day. One was the
work of Aeschylus, for fourteen years the master of the Athenian
stage. Upon the third day a trilogy by a new poet was presented.
What thi^work really was is uncertain; it has, however, been
inferred from a passage in Pliny, that one drama was the Triptolemus. It was a subject that had never before been chosen for
the stage, but it was well adapted to win favour at Athens at the
present time. Already the city had conceived the design of
* No writer upon the life of Sophokles can forget the obligation which he
is under to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing—Mr. Plumptre most unaccountably
(p. xxii.) calls him Gottfried Lessing—whose splendid fragment of a ‘‘Life ot
Sophokles ” remains to show later writers what the great German critic might
have done in this direction.
B 2
�4
Sophokles.
uniting under a central power the scattered members of the Ionian
race, and the confederacy of Delos was in part a realization of
her desire. In the subject which he chose, Sophokles would
have an opportunity of idealizing the national aspiration.
Triptolemus was the youthful hero of Eleusis, the herald of
agriculture and peace, the friend and host of Demeter. He was
a traveller too, and where he lighted from his winged car, he
left a blessing of corn and wheat behind him. Thus Sophokles
was enabled to depict, as we know from Pliny he did depict, far
lands and foreign places, gladdened by the gifts that came from
Attica.
Whether he fully indicated such a mission for the new Attica
we cannot know; he was certainly too wise to miss the op
portunity altogether. It may well be that this power of repre
senting the national feeling, formed the distinctive characteristic of
the first trilogy of Sophokles; it is at least easier to believe this,
than that he surpassed the veteran JEschylus in technical ex
cellence. There was, however, a large section of the audience,
who preferred the JEschylean trilogy. Never, perhaps, in such
a cause, had party-feeling run so high. JEschylus was himself from
Eleusis; the new writer had won the suffrages of the elder poet’s
own townsmen. But the victory was not to be adjudged by
popular acclamation. The custom was that ten judges should be
elected by lot, one from each tribe. Why the ordinary mode of
decision was not retained, it is not easy to ascertain. At any
rate the presiding archon Aphepsion did not venture, in the
excited state of popular feeling, to follow the ordinary practice,
and this accident inaugurated a change in the method of electing
the tragic judges.
Kimon and his nine colleagues representing the Attic tribes
were at this moment the popular heroes. They had but newly
returned from their victorious contest with the Persians atEurymedon, and they had brought back from Skyros the bones of
Theseus to be laid in Attic soil. Moreover, they had been absent
during the preparation of the competing choruses, and, if any,
they were free from bias and prejudice Whatever their decision
might be, it would be accepted by the Athenians. With happy
tact, Aphepsion chose them as judges, and they were at once
sworn into the office. Their verdict was for Sophokles. Erom the
fact that henceforth only those who had seen service were allowed
to adjudge the tragic prizes, we may infer that the decision was
both memorable and satisfactory. Such at least seems to be the
sentiment with which Plutarch speaks of it : “ eOevto c’ dp
fj.v/]jur]v avrov Kai tt)v to>v rpaywcMv Kpiatv ovopacrrrjv ytvoplvriv.”
Whether it was the subject, the poetical handling, or the grace
and beauty of the principal actor, Sophokles himself, that turned
�Sophokles.
5
the scale in favour of the Triptoleinus, we miss the play with
regret. The result of the decision was that for many years
Sophokles became the favourite actor of the Athenian stage. There
is greater importance to be attached to this fact than at first sight
appears. It means not only that the successful dramatist was able,
to present his views cf art and ethics to the Athenian people ; but
that he was able to mould and perfect the form of presentation.
Nor must we forget the rival interests of the several tribes as an
element of success. The Choragus who had assisted in the pro
duction of a successful trilogy was rewarded even more than the
author. The actors were chosen for the same places in the
representations of the ensuing year, and we know that Sophokles
not only established a society of the best actors, but also wrote
his plays with special reference to their powers and capacities.
One success, therefore, was earnest of farther renown, and a
stepping-stone to it. The Choragus naturally granted to his
successful author more liberty than would be conceded to an
untried competitor, and it was this feeling of confidence in the
poet, which enabled Sophokles, as it had already enabled
.zEschylus, to achieve his ideal of dramatic art upon the stage.
But before we pass on to relate the gradual growth of the drama
in the hands of Sophokles, it will be well to speak of the young
poet in his personal relations to the Athenian people, who had
just crowned him with the ivy-chaplet.
If tradition is to be believed, he was not unknown to them. He
was not born of low or ignoble parents, for in this case the comic
stage would have rung with jesting allusions to his parentage.
His father, Sophillus, was undoubtedly a man of respectable rank,
a knight it may be. Plutarch speaks of Sophokles as a person
of good birth, and other writers attribute to him an excellent and
complete education. Probably with truth, for it is undoubted
that he possessed in a high degree those elegant personal accom
plishments which were deemed necessary accessories to an
Athenian gentleman. As the promising son of a well-known
citizen, he would be a youth who claimed attention ; and the
story of Athenaeus, which speaks of his surpassing beauty, is a'
record of the influence of his boyish grace upon his contem
poraries. It declares that he of all the Athenian youths, was
chosen to lead the choir of boys who danced round the trophies
in Salamis, after the defeat of the Persians. Aftertimes gladly
recalled the happy coincidence which linked the three great
names of Attic tragedy around the memorable victory of Salamis,
for Aeschylus fought in the battle, Sophokles led the paean, and
Euripides was born on the day of victory, within the fortunate
isle. The years which immediately followed the victory formed a
bright era in the history of the Athenians. They feared no more
�Sophokles.
6
for the barbarian invader, nor, by the prudence of Themistokles,
for the treachery of the selfish Spartans. At home there was room
in every sphere for the development of genius, and genius was
not absent. Under the hands of ./Eschylus the drama was
growing towards perfection, and the people built the great stone
theatre of Dionysus. A tradition says that ZEschylus was the
teacher of Sophokles in the dramatic art: it is most likely he
was his teacher only as he was the teacher of every Athenian
who had the right to hear his dramas. In this sense, each one
of his audience was his pupil, and not with regard to art alone.
It was his province to bring the minds of men from the dim
religious darkness of old theogonies into a fuller light, though a
light by no means so full as it was hereafter to be. Great
questions had been asked, and there was none to answer them ;
men’s minds were troubled with the inconsequence of virtue and
sorrow, and the polytheistic heaven of Homer was dark and
silent above them. The leading ideas of the tragedies of Adschylus
were the supremacy of Zeus, and the moral order of the Universe.
By chains, not always of gold, the world is bound about the
throne of Zeus. Vice leads to punishment in this generation,
and the next, and the third. Yet no voluntarily pure man can
come to ruin :
3’ avdyicaQ arep
(Action tiv ovk avoXfioQ
ekmv
carat.
H>vp.
550.
The contest of Destiny and Free-will is a mystery which finds
its solution only in this moral order. ’ wQpoavvir or moderation is
S
a conscious voluntary submission to the moral order. Any trans
gression of the line between Bight and Wrong is vfiptQ, and leads
to ruin. It is a disorder of the mind, a disease, a distemper,
without expiation and without cure. ZEschylus does not repre
sent the gods as leading man into the commission of guilt. In
the choice between good and evil, man is free. A good deed
must be, as an evil one is, dvdyaa^ drtp. No one is punished by
the Divine hand without fault of his own. But sin once com
mitted is followed by a judicial blindness which leads to other
and greater guilt. This dangerous downfall is accelerated by
means of a divine power known simply as “ Daimon,” or as
“ Alastor,” or sometimes “ Ate/’ whose influence may extend to a
whole race. This brings us to the subject of “family guilt,”
which is frequently a motive in the Greek dramas. The idea
that guilt was hereditary sprang from the notion that it was
inexpiable. Hence a house fell from one crime to another,
until the anger of the gods swept it away root and branch. It
is an extension of the primitive “ lex talionis murder brings
murder, rvppa TvppaTL rival, and guilt gives birth to guilt. And
�Sophokles.
7
what Ate or Alastor is to the individual, that Erinnys is to the
family, working it madness and blindness, and involving it
deeper and deeper in the slough of crime.
/3oct yap Xotyog ILpivvv
7rapa tGjv Trporspov (pQtpevwv drrjv
tTEpcw iTrayovaav £7r' dry.—Cho. 402.
Yet the individual is free. If he belongs to a doomed raise,
then it is true there is in him an hereditary tendency which
shall lead him to guilt and ruin, but the decision rests with him
self. He is not given over to Ate until he has himself been
guilty of sin (vj3ptc). In much of this ethical system 2Eschylus
has taken and arranged prevailing popular beliefs. By his
monotheism, which made Zeus supreme, he attained to the idea
of order in the universe. His conception of sin is one which
is not alien from some forms of modern thought, and his belief
in free-will and individual responsibility, exercised considerable
influence upon later philosophy.
Sophokles did not remain unaffected by the teaching of his
contemporary, though his nature was essentially different. His
works are to the works of Aeschylus, as the clear light succeeding
to a thunderstorm. He took the gain and added to it. We
shall see in what way.
Whatever had been the progress made by JEschylus, Sophokles
at once perceived that the mechanical and technical appliances
of the art, of which he now held supreme command, were by no
means perfect. It would be strange if they had been, while the
art itself was so young. The old monologue with the chorus as
interlocutor, gave place to the drama, when the earlier poet
introduced a second actor, and made dialogue possible. But
this, it is clear, left room for farther changes. Sophokles
availed himself of the opportunity. His first change was the
separation of the functions of author and actor. It is said that
he took this course for a personal reason, the weakness of his
own voice, which could not fill the vast space occupied by his
audience. But there was probably another reason also, the feeling
namely, that each character would more readily attain to its ade
quate excellence if separated from the other. He himself did
not take any leading character after the appearance of the
Triptolemus, but the care with which he trained his actors,
testifies to the importance which he attached to this branch of
the art. A more significant change was the introduction of a
third actor upon the stage. That this improvement was made
by Sophokles we have the testimony of Aristotle. It is possible
that even earlier, AEschylus may have used three actors, and it is
difficult to understand how some of the scenes of his earlier plays
�8
Sophokles.
could have been represented by two actors only, but the adoption
of this number as a permanent feature of each play, is due to
Sophokles. Besides these greater changes, no matter of detail
escaped him; we learn from the same source that he carefully
directed the arrangement of the scenery and the stage. The
palace of 2Eschylus, with doors central, right and left, gave place
to a more elaborate stage, and much art must have been required
in fitting the theatre for the scenery of the (Edipus at Kolonus.
Yet the greatest innovation was the mode which Sophokles
adopted in treating a subject itself. 2Eschylus wrote his dramas,
and treated the subject in the form of a trilogy. When Sophokles
abandoned this form of composition, and chose to develop his
subject in a single play, it is certain he risked much. But his
artistic sense could not err. What the poetical material lost in
breadth and depth, it gained in concentration and intensity. It
followed, that in the plays of Sophokles first was seen the real
spirit of Greek dramatic art, the perfect statuesque poise of form
and expression which we have learnt to look upon as the chief
characteristic of the Athenian drama.
We return to the year of the first victory of Sophokles, from
which these improvements have led us. It was a year marked
by an event of more importance for mankind than the supremacy
of Sophokles, the birth of Sokrates. Herodotus was then a boy
of sixteen years, Thukydides an infant of three, and Euripides a
child of twelve. Seven years later Perikles rose to the height
of his power, and Athens of her glory. This is the date of the
appearance of the Oresteian trilogy, a trilogy worthy of JEschylus
and of Athens, and the only one we possess. But it unquestion
ably exhibits marks of the influence of Sophokles. A third actor
appears in every play. Three years later fiEschylus died in Sicily,
and for the next fifteen years we know nothing of the personal
history of Sophokles. History has not much to say even about
the silent growth and development of the city under the govern
ing hands of Perikles, nor is it necessary that much should be
said when the memorials are imperishable. At the end of this
period, by some caprice of popular taste Euripides was allowed to
gain the first prize.
The next year Sophokles exhibited his Antigone.
It is almost as fatal to an author’s reputation to write too
much as it is to write too little. We learn that Sophokles had
written one-and-thirty dramas before he composed the Antigone;
yet if any of these lost dramas approached at all in majesty or
power the thirty-second, which remains to us, we may well
lament the irreparable theft of time. Perhaps they, as well as
the Antigone, aided in securing the election of Sophokles to a
general’s rank. The time at which it was exhibited has not
�Sophokles.
9
been fully illustrated by the luminous pen of Thukydides, but
some rays of historical light allow us to see the internal political
activity of the city. The establishment of a complete democracy
by Perikles and Ephialtes was not accomplished without much
resistance, and it was difficult to keep aloof from party strife.
The conservative or stationary faction, under the leadership of
Kimon, drew around them the wealthy Athenians, who saw
their oligarchical power passing away with the old order of
things. The centre of their union was the Council of the
Areopagus, and any change in that institution appeared to them
as sacrilege and profanity. But the victorious cause was with
their opponents. The Areopagites were stripped of their timehallowed privileges, which were certainly not in Accordance with
the spirit of a pure democracy. 2Eschylus had been a vigorous
partisan of the conservative party, and took occasion in his
Oresteian trilogy to inculcate popular respect for that court and
the other decaying institutions whose power Perikles and
Ephialtes sought to banish or curtail. And the artistic effect of
the poem is lessened by the zeal of the partisan. Muller says
with truth, that JEschylus seems almost to forget Orestes in the
establishment of the Areopagus and the religion of the Erinnys.
Sophokles never forgot that his first duty was to his art. And
so far is the
above the atmosphere of controversy
and dispute which blurred the Eumenides of ^Eschylus, that it
was actually claimed by both parties as a witness to their views,
and was received by both with un mixed applause. We cannot
wonder at it. No play of Sophokles seizes with such over
mastering power the human heart, no play is so full of noble
thought, and in no play is the lyric element so harmoniously
blended with the maich of events, accompanying it as with the
sound of serene and divine music.
The plot is as follows :—Eteokles and Polyneikes have fallen
at the gates of Thebes in contest: Eteokles fighting for the
Thebans, Polyneikes, with seven great princes, against them.
Both brothers perish, and Kreon is made king in the place of
Eteokles. At- once he issues a decree that Eteokles shall be
buried with due honours, and that the body of Polyneikes shall
be left unburied and exposed. When the drama opens, Antigone
has just heard of the proclamation of the decree. She therefore
suggests to her sister, Ismene, that they should bury the body of
their brother. Ismene shrinks from the attempt, and is met by
the full scorn of Antigone, who goes forth, daring “ a holy crime.”
Shortly the news is brought to Kreon that his authority has
been defied, and that rites of sepulture have been performed
upon the body. As yet the offender is unknown. But this is
soon revealed, and Antigone appears, led in by the guard. A
�10
Sophokles.
great scene follows, when Antigone appeals to > the divine
unwritten laws against human ordinances. Kreon pronounces
her doom ; she is to be buried in a living sepulchre—a bloodless
but horrible fate, not unknown of old. The action is, however,
delayed by the entrance of Hremon, Kreon’s son and Antigone’s
affianced husband, who pleads for her. Yet it is not to Kreon’s
paternal affection that he appeals, but to the principle which
the new king has set before himself—the safety and unanimity
of the state. There are already murmurs, indistinct but deep,
heard in the city against the severity of the king’s decree.
Kreon’s passion and blindness grow more intense as he listens to
his son, and before the king’s fiery words Hee mon is driven away,
crying that his father shall see his face no more. From the
depths of this-darkness the audience are lifted by the strains of
the Chorus, who sing, “ Love, ever victor in war and as their
music dies away, Antigone is led across the stage to her lingering
doom. Again the Chorus waken to music, but it is music in the
minor key, and can no longer lighten or delay the growing
terror. Teiresias, the blind but infallible prophet, appears, and
describes the imminence of the divine anger for Kreon’s crime.
His prophetic utterances terrify the king, who hurries to undo
the wrong he has committed. In vain. Upon reaching the tomb
of Antigone, he finds her hanging dead by her girdle to the
vaulted roof, and is in time only to receive the passionate curse
of his son, and to witness his self-inflicted death. When Kreon
reaches home, bearing the corpse of Haemon, he finds that
Rumour, swifter than his laden steps, has already told all to the
ears of his wife, and that she has slain herself in anguish and
despair. So all the fountains of feeling, young love and parental
affection, which can never be long pent up, have broken loose,
and are all the more terrible for the unholy obstructions which
they have swept away.
The character of the chief person, Antigone, stands forth
in just and magnificent proportions. All that is beautiful
in womanly nature—nay, rather in human nature—shine
forth from that supreme ideal, a mind that sees the right,
and a soul that dares to do it in the face of death. Never had
love and strength been so combined upon the Athenian stage,
and the Athenian spectators must have experienced the same
feeling in gazing upon that representation as pilgrims did when
they were ushered into the presence of the Olympian Zeus of
Phidias. We have lost the one? we can still be taught by the
other. The heart of man has not ceased to be shaken by the
contest which is waged between temporary expediency and selfish
interests on the one side, and on the other the unchanging
laws of higher duty, for these laws “ are not of to-day, nor of
�Sophokles.
11
yesterday, but they live always, and their footsteps are not
known.”
The secondary characters throw the figure of Antigone into
bolder relief. Ismene, who knows what is right, follows the way
which leads to personal security. The grandeur of Antigone dwarfs
even the natural nobility of her sister when she seeks to share the
death she has not earned. Kreon errs through insolence. He is
wanting in the vision which has made the path of Antigone clear ;
he has forgotten the rights of the gods, and his own way leads
to ruin. Only when this ruin is full in view does he perceive
that he has gone astray, and discover that there is something
higher than love to the state and to his country—loyalty to the
great unwritten laws. Nor does the character of Hsemon, noble as
it is, disturb the unity of the impression which we receive from
Antigone. She stands the central commanding figure of the
group. And as she thus stands alone, so in her the one promi
nent feature is her heroic allegiance to duty. Other traits there
are, but they serve to bring out this one characteristic. She is
no unwomanly person, portrayed in rough masculine lines. Her
language to Ismene, if it seems harsh, is forgotten when she says
to Kreon :
ou rot tnwEyOetv dXXd avp,^>iXAv tcpuv,
for we know that these words come from the depth of her nature.
Then, when the work which she has set herself has been accom
plished, when the expression of her natural feelings can no longer
mar or render equivocal her devotion to the dead, she breaks
into lamentations like those of the Hebrew daughter, which show
how tender and womanly alife is about to be sacrificed. Once only
before has she shown any indication of the mental struggle
through w’hich she has passed, and that is when strung by Kreon’s
unconcern she breathes forth the sighing complaint, “ 0 dearest
Hsemon, how thy sire dishonours thee !”* The delicacy with
which Sophokles has treated the ove of Hsemon and Antigone
secures still farther the predominant effect. It is hard to imagine
such restraint in modern art.
The Chorus, of whose surpassing melody mention has already
been made, had certain peculiarities in this play. It did not, like
most choruses, consist of persons of the same age and sex as the
principal actor, but of Theban elders. Nor did it at once take
part with Antigone. Even here she is left alone. But by its
submission to Kreon it serves to deepen the impression of the
* The MSS. gives this line (572) to Ismene. Schneidewin has rightly,
and for unanswerable reasons, assigned it to Antigone.
Dindorf and
Ribbeck agree with him.
�12
Sophokles.
monarch’s irresistible power : and by not participating at once in
the action, it is enabled to rise to a higher atmosphere of wisdom,
which culminates in the choric song,
7roXXa ra Seiva k.t.X.
So, too, in its last songs, the painful instances of suffering which
are recalled added to the darkness of Antigone’s fate.
The effect of this perfect drama upon the Athenians was great,
and as has been said, universal. Although Sophokles had hitherto
taken only that share in public life which was the duty of
every Athenian citizen, they now elected him as one of the
college of generals, at whose head was Perikles. It happened to
be the time of the war with Samos, which had revolted from
Athens, and the ten generals with sixty triremes sailed for that
island. Sophokles took sixteen of these ships and proceeded to
Chios and Lesbos, to procure a further contingent. At the former
island we hear of him through Athenreus, who records the opinion
of Ion, that he was not able nor energetic in political affairs, but
behaved as any other virtuous Athenian might have done.
(Ath. xiii. 81.) This assertion probably had its origin in the
playful self-depreciation with which Sophokles spoke of his own
strategic power ; and it is quite possible that Perikles treated his
poet-colleague with a good-humoured irony, which he accepted in
the same spirit. This view is borne out by the story which
Atnenseus tells of Sophokles : that, having snatched a kiss from
a fair face at Chios, he exclaimed amidst the laughter of the
company, “ Perikles says that I know how to compose poetry,
but have no strategic power; now, my friends, did not my
stratagem succeed ?” It is certain, however, that, whatever his
power as a general, he did not lose the confidence and affection
of his fellow citizens ; for, five years later, he was treasurer of the
common fund of the Greek Confederacy. Afterwards for nearly
thirty years we do not hear of his taking any part in public life.
But it was no time to him of intellectual inactivity. During this
period he wrote eighty-one plays, which is almost at the rate of a
trilogy a year. If we remember all that this includes—the com
position and the instruction of actors for so many and so fre
quently successfuldramas—we shall cease to wonder that Sophokles
did not seek to meddle with statesmanship. And once more we
shall regret that so little has come down to us of that abundant
intellectual wealth.
The commencement of the Peloponnesian war, and the
death of Perikles, turned one page of Athenian history ; but
Sophokles to the end of his long life continued to live in the
spirit of the Periklean age. Ten year after the appearance of the
Antigone he published the (Edipus Rex. The general outlines
of the story are easily told. Laius, King of Thebes, and J okasta
�Sophokles.
13
his wife, were told by the God at Delphi, that should they have
a son, Laius would be slain by his hand, and Jokasta would
become his wife. Therefore, when their son CEdipus was born,
they determined to destroy him, and gave him to a herdsman
that he might be cast out upon Mount Kithoeron. This herds
man, however, smitten with pity, gave the child to a comrade
shepherd, who carried him to Corinth, where the boy was adopted
as son by the king of that city. Many years afterwards, CEdipus
at Corinth heard the oracle which had been delivered concerning
him ; but he was still in ignorance as to his parentage. Think
ing, however, that he was the son of the king of Corinth, he left
Corinth lest the oracle should come true, and travelled towards
Thebes. Upon his way he met his real father, and a quarrel
having arisen, a contest ensued in which his father fell and all
those who accompanied him save one. (Edipus then arrived at
the kingless city of Thebes, which was ravaged by the murderous
Sphinx. He freed the city from the Sphinx and accepted the prof
fered throne, and with it the hand of the widowed queen, little
dreaming that she was his own mother. For years the city was
prosperous, and four children were born to him. Then a plague
fell upon the people. All this was before the action of the play
begins. An oracle now declares that the pestilence is sent because
Laius has been forgotten. His murderer must be ejected.
(Edipus pronounces a curse upon the unknown assassin, and
sends for Teiresias the blind seer, if peradventure he may be
able to declare the man. Teiresias, enlightened by his art,
scarce dares to tell what he knows, and is evilly treated by
CEdipus. Then Jokasta complicates the confusion. She openly
asserts her disbelief in oracles ; for her own son had been destined
by these lying witnesses to marry her; whereas he was slain, and
she was wedded to GEdipus. Yet out of this security
“ Surgit amari aliquid,”
Laius was slain at a “triple way
terrible words that
set sounding a sullen chord in the breast of (Edipus, for
long ago he slew a man upon a triple way. One witness there
was, and he is now summoned. Meanwhile a messenger
arrives to say that the king of Thebes, the reputed father of
(Edipus, is dead. This is a gleam of light upon the eyes of
CEdipus, for the oracle has been proved false.
The mes
senger has still farther comfort. CEdipus need not dread the
fulfilment of the oracle at all, since he is not the son of the king
and queen of Corinth, a fact dimly hinted before, but now for
the first time clearly told. Then whose son is he ? A new pas
sion seizes the king, and he is determined to unravel the mystery
of his birth. The messenger is able to aid him in this, for he
received the king as a foundling at the hands of a servant of
�14
Sophokles.
Laius. All is now ready for the catastrophe, which Jokasta, more
quickwitted than her son, at once foresees. The witness of his
murder of Laius, who at this moment comes up, is no other than
the herdsman who had given him as an infant to the Corinthians.
The electric circle is completed, the spark shatters the divine
edifice of royal prosperity and the hearts of the audience, and the
oracles of the gods are evidently true. Jokasta has already
ended her existence; and (Edipus. unable to endure the sight of
his own misery and that of his family, puts out his eyes.
There are several reasons why this drama should be assigned
to this period, notwithstanding the absence of authoritative data.
The vivid description of a pestilence was probably written by one
who had witnessed the virulence of the Athenian scourge. Some
commentators have believed the chorus tt poi
k.t.X. to have
reference to the mutilation of the Hermse. If this be true, the play
must necessarily be of later date than that supposed above. It
probably refers to the reckless spirit of licence w’hich exhibiteditself
in Athens as a reaction against the popular superstitions of the
earlier period, and which eventually led to the profanation. The
drama is in fact a protest against the disregard of religion, and a
magnificent exhibition of the vanity of human attempts to cross the
decrees of fate. In this respect it stands alone amongst the plays
of Sophokles. It depicts the contest of an honourable and noble
character with a foregone destiny. To add to the interest of the
picture, the man who is unable to solve the riddle of his own
history, is the one who alone was able to unravel the enigma
of human life proposed by the Sphinx, and it is only when the
eyes of his corporal vision are darkened for ever that the organs
of his spiritual sight are unclosed. At first his house is the only
one spared in the pestilence, and all eyes are directed to him as the
saviour of the state ; yet it is his house which is the cause of the
plague. Then his own blind eagerness to discover the regicide,
the curse which he unwittingly imprecates upon himself, 'the
gradual lifting of the curtain fold by fold till he breaks into the
exclamation,
lov, toil, ra navr av
<ra<p7j,
are terrible instances of the irony which Sophokles is accustomed
to ascribe to destiny, but nowhere so powerfully as in this play.
Surely but slowly the end approaches. Now the progress of
events is delayed by some joyous choric song like the imp tyii>
ptavriQ dpi, k.t.X. ; now there falls upon the play some beam of
hope which makes us believe that the gathering thunderstorm
will be dispersed or break up into sunny tears and the dewy
delight of averted calamity. But the vain hopes and the vanish
ing glory serve only as preludes to the complete darkness of the
catastrophe, which, at last, suddenly envelopes the w'hole heaven.
�Sophokles.
15
It is not only modern admiration which the play has won.
Aristotle has taken it as the model of a drama, and its effect
upon contemporary minds must have been great. It is equally
admirable as a whole and in single passages. The choruses are
generally like the atmosphere of the play, of a lurid and broken
colour, so that we know not whether light or darkness will
prevail. The earlier choruses approach in thought and expression
to the language of Milton, or of modern poetry. Thus the description of the rapid deaths in time of pestilence, so different as
it is from the picture given by Homer (II. 1) has that touch
about it which belonged later to Dante.
aXXor
av aXXp irpoffibote airep
kv7TTEpOV bpvcv,
Kpei&aoy apatpaKerov irupoQ Sp/ievoy
Q.KTCLV WpQQ ECTTTEpOU .&EOIK
“ And one soul after another might be discerned flitting like
strong-winged bird with greater force than invincible fire, to the
shore of the Western God.”
It recalls, too, the half-mediseval, wholly beautiful lines of Mr.
Rossetti in his poem of the “ Blessed Damozel.”
i
“ Heard hardly, some of her new friends
Amid their loving games
Spake evermore among themselves
Their virginal chaste names ;
And the souls mounting up to God,
Went big her like thinflames”
Another passage (lines 476 et seq.) is more Hebrew than
Greek in its description of the Cain-like homicide.
ipoird yap vir aypiciv
vXav, ava r ayrpa Kai
vrerpas are ravpos,
peXeo^ peXeip ~6ct ygripeviav,
ra. petropipaXa yaQ dirovoapiliiav
pavreia' rd 8’ dec
ZUvra irepcrrordrai.
"For sullenly turning his sullen step, he wanders moodily
under the wildwood, or amid caves and rocks, like a bull, and
avoids the divine voices that rise from the central oracle of the
land. But they live, and are whispered around him.”
Yet this incomparable poem won only the second prize; the
first was gained by the work of Philokles. Time, in preserving
this alone, has reversed the decision of the judges. The reason
of that decision may lie in the nature of the play itself. To the
Athenians, who after the taking of Miletus could not endure
�16
Sophokles.
the scenic shadow of their loss, the unsoftened representation of
their sufferings in the Theban plague, and the direct promulgation
of the doctrine of irresistible destiny may have seemed unwelcome
and ill-timed. And the conclusion of the play is less relieved
than that of any other. It is not broken up into those short
cries and natural lamentations, with which many tragedies
close, but solemnly and sadly to the beat of throbbing trochaics
the figures pass from the stage like the muffled pomp of a
funeral procession, and the curtain rises upon a silent- and awe
struck audience.
It is far otherwise with the (Edipus at Kolonus. Like the
Rhiloktetes, it has a plot which depends upon divine interven
tion, and one in which the sequence of the episodes is not
absolutely perfect in connexion, though each episode is perfect in
its own characteristic beauty. After the events depicted in
(Edipus Rex, the blind king with his daughters remained at
Thebes, until he and Antigone were thrust forth by Kreon. For
many long months they wandered through Greece, whilst Eteokles,
the younger son of CEdipus, drove out from Thebes Polyneikes
the elder, who betook himself to Argos and gathered an army to
make him king again. At last CEdipus and Antigone came to
the plain of Kolonus, near Athens. Here, beneath the shade of
an olive-grove, the aged king sits down to rest, and here an inward
confidence tells him that he is approaching the term of his suffer
ings. This olive-grove is sacred to the Furies, and it is sacrilege
for ordinary men to approach it. The news reaches Theseus that
stranger has set foot within the lioly precincts, and he hastens
to the place. Before his arrival Ismene comes in haste to tell
her father of the fratricidal war upon which her brothers have
entered, and that Kreon is hurrying to carry back CEdipus, since
an oracle has declared that his presence will bring victory on
either side. CEdipus pronounces a curse upon his son, and reveals
his intention of blessing Athens by remaining within her territory.
Theseus now arrives, and not ignorant of the responsibility he is
incurring, assures CEdipus of a courteous and secure hospitality.
CEdipus in return acquaints him with the benefits which his
presence will confer upon Athens, and the calamity which will
ensue to Thebes. Theseus accepts with confidence the divine
privilege which CEdipus offers, and once more assures him of his
protection. If ever a situation made a supreme demand upon
an Athenian chorus, it is the present. We have come to the
middle point between the beginning and the end of the action.
The Acropolis of Athens, though as yet unblessed by the works
of Phidias, rises within sight of the beholder. Kephissus draws
her silvery threads through the foreground, and the hero-prince
of Athens, in accepting the charge of CEdipus, unites the new and
�Sophokles.
17
the old, and links historic to heroic times. The music which
shall not mar the harmonious suspense of this situation must be
subtie indeed. But the music of Sophokles is never of a nega
tive kind. It increases and enhances the dramatic feeling.
Accordingly it is here that we find the greatest choric ode of the
Greek drama. The undying chords of the poem which follows
raise the mind of the hearer to a level with the exaltation of
CEdipus himself.
Pahttttov, Rve, raffle ^(ijpag.
“ Guest, thou art come to the noblest spot
Of all this chivalrous land.”
But this lofty tranquillity is broken by the entrance of Kreon,
who endeavours to persuade CEdipus to return to Thebes. Upon
his refusal, Kreon has recourse to violence, and carries off Anti
gone, Ismene having been previously secured. Theseus however
restores his daughters to the blind king. The next scene brings
upon the stage Polyneikes, who seeks reconciliation with his
father. This he does not succeed in obtaining, and he leaves
the stage begging for the kind offices of Antigone in his burial.
The play now draws to a close. The euthanasia of CEdipus is all
that remains. The hour of destiny has come, and the Passing
of CEdipus—no man knows where or whither—completes the
purpose of the gods.
A question so debated as the date of this play can scarcely be
Answered satisfactorily here. Critics both ancient and modern have
connected it with the latest period of the author’s life; but there
are portions of the drama which seem to belong to an earlier date,
and. to have reference to that period of reactionary licence which
was marked by the mutilation of the Hermse. By its subject it is
closely connected with the CEdipus Rex, and there is nothing im
probable in the supposition that even if it were first produced after
the author’s death, it was begun whilst the subject of CEdipus was
fresh in his mind. And if any parallelism is to be drawn
between Sophokles and the great German poet, this work may
well be compared with the “Faust,” from which the summa
manus was so long withheld. The allusions in the poem itself
do not fix it to any definite date. ' All that can be said with
certainty is that it is subsequent to the Antigone; for while
both plays that have CEdipus for their subject contain references
to the Antigone, that drama has not a single allusion to the
action of the other two. Whether, however, we are to credit it
with an earlier or later origin, we sh^ild be doing an injustice to
the spirit of Sophoklean poetry if we were to Suppose that
political allusions brought down the drama into a realistic atmo
sphere.’ It is idle to attempt to connect the Theban and Athenian
[Vol. XCIX. No. CXCV.J—New Series, Vol. XLIII. No. I.
C
�18
Sophokles.
struggle which the poet mentions, with any special date.
*
It is
more profitable to win the freedom of that ideal land in which
are brought together the blind old king and the hero of Athens.
In some respects the (Edipus at Kolonus differs from the
other dramas. There is in it a perplexing mixture of manner
which suggests both a return to the style of Aeschylus and a
concession to the growing influence of Euripides. The self
completion and perfection of outline, which marked the Antigone
and the (Edipus Rex are wanting here. The drama is the
fragment of a trilogy of Aeschylean breadth ; it is rhetorical and
lyric in the style of Euripides. The real Sophoklean charac
teristics are not, however, absent, sweetness and power of
expression, lofty and graceful sentiment, and a perfection of
rhythm and vivid delineation. But it is a series of linked
scenes rather than a drama proper. Of scenes that begin with
the peaceful olive grove, and end in the euthanasia of the
world-worn (Edipus. Nothing could be finer or more effective
than that touch of the pen of Sophokles which paints, not
indeed the death of (Edipus, but Theseus, who alone saw it,
with his face shaded by his hand, as though to shut out some
stupendous revelation. To this history of (Edipus Sophokles
has given the only satisfactory and worthy conclusion which
was possible. In his life he was a contradiction to the laws that
regulate human affairs ; he remained a contradiction in his
death. Others passed by the grove of the Eumenides with
bated breath and averted faces—he found there rest and a
conclusion of his toils. The grove trodden by Bacchus, nymphtraversed and nightingale-haunted, was to him, upon whom all
tempestuous airs had broken, a haven “ windless of all storms.”
And here the troubled life at length ceases, and peace is found
at last. In the choruses of this play the poet’s love of Athens
finds expression. Many poets had spoken with enthusiasm of
the “ violet-crowned city,” but never with such beauty and
exalted passion as does Sophokles in the ode, zviirirov,
k.t.X.
The legends connected with it are probably false, but they bear
witness to the opinion of the ancients concerning'it. Sophokles,
unlike his rivals in the dramatic art, remained true to his native
city. No offer of foreign patronage could tempt him to leave
Athens. Aeschylus died in Sicily, Euripides in Macedonia.
There were many princes who would gladly have welcomed
Sophokles to their courts—indeed, there were many who invited
him thither; but he remained unmoved by their offers, and
never left his city except to do her service and to further
* Schneidewin suggests the i7F7ro/xa^ta rts Bpax/ia ev Qpvpois, mentioned
Thukyd. ii. 22, as a possible occasion.
�Sophokles.
19
aer interests. The anonymous biographer says that he was
^adrivaioTaTOQ, (t most enamoured, of Athens.
And the city
repaid his affection. The same biographer says, “In a word,
such was the grace of his nature that he was beloved by all.
It is unfortunate—it is more than unfortunate—that of the
personal history of the poet we know so little. Few and far
between are the dates that we can assign to the events of his
life. The seventeenth year after the supposed date of the
(Edipus Rex saw the calamitous termination of the Sicilian
expedition. Amongst the names of the ten elderly men elected
Probuli to meet the emergency of the crisis, we find that ot
Sophokles. If this be indeed our poet, we have here another
instance of the confidence and love which the city felt towards
the tragedian, who was now eighty years old. The seventeen
years to which reference has been made are important in the
history of Greek literature. They include the birth of Plato, the
exhibition by Aristophanes of the Knights, the Clouds, and the
Peace, but they cannot definitely be connected with any play of
Sophokles. Possibly the Elektra falls within this period. It is
at any rate marked by the best characteristics of the poet. It
.dispenses with the breadth of treatment which a trilogy allows,
and concentrates the interest upon the action of a single play.
In the trilogy upon the same subject which AEschylus exhibited,
probably thirty years earlier, the death of Klytemnestra forms
an episode of the middle drama, and the ethical problem of
filial duty in antagonism to divinely-directed justice is sketched
only in outlines which leave much to be filled in.
Sophokles treated the subject as follows :—During the absence
of Agamemnon in the Trojan campaign, his wife Klytemnestra
formed an adulterous union with AEgisthus, and upon the return
of Agamemnon, slew her husband and wedded with AEgisthus.
Elektra, daughter of Agamemnon, fearing foul treatment for
her brother Orestes, then a child, sent him out of the country,
whilst she herself remained, together with her sister Chrysothenis,
at Argos, waiting for the manhood and return of Orestes to
claim his hereditary throne. When due time arrives, Orestes,
under the direction of Apollo, comes back to Argos unheralded
and unknown. He is accompanied by his faithful attendant the
Peedagogus, who brings to Klytemnestra an account of the death
of Orestes at the Pythean chariot contest. The play opens with
the arrival of Orestes and his attendant at Argos. Elektra comes
forth to bewail the death of her father and the delay of Orestes,
and is comforted by such consolation Us the chorus can offer her.
Next, Klytemnestra, who has been terrified by a dream, appears,
and
angry altercation takes place between her and Elektra.
When this is concluded, the Psedagogus enters and announces the
c 2
�20
Sophokles.
death of Orestes. The grief of Elektra occupies the attention of
the spectators until the entrance of the disguised Orestes and
Pylades his friend, bearing an urn which contains the pretended
ashes of Orestes. In the interview between Orestes and Elektra
which, follows, a recognition takes place, and nothing remains
to be done but to effect the revenge. Orestes therefore enters
the house and slays his mother, and ffEgisthus, upon his arrival,
shares the same fate.
The work of Sophokles is finer and fuller of artistic power
than the work of 2Eschylus. The character of Elektra is un
borrowed, and forms a contrast to that of the Aeschylean Elektra.
She, and not Orestes, is the centre of the action, and though
not the actual avenger, is really the prompter and promoter of
the deed. In the Choephorce we are perpetually reminded that
the death of Klytemnestra was the work of the gods; Elektra
falls into the background, a weak, suffering woman, whose
strongest trait is love for her brother, and he, a mere tool in the
hands of the deity, after numerous hesitations and delays in
accomplishing the divine purpose, becomes a victim of madness
and terror. The Sophoklean drama is more valuable than the
Aeschylean trilogy. In the Elektra we have, as in the Antigone,
a distinct and noble type of character set in full light and drawn
in clear lines of power. Elektra is the personification of justice
and fidelity, as Antigone is of love and strength. Like justice,
she never wavers from her purpose. When all hope of the
return of Orestes has ceased and his death seems certain, she
herself undertakes the work which should have been his, for
vengeance must be done, and the house of Agamemnon must
be freed from the accursed and abiding crime. And when
Orestes reveals himself as her brother, she does not leave the
central position of the group. One short burst of natural joy,
and she is ready to take any measures which may bring about
the punishment of the murderess. Nay, she stands on guard
while the deed is being done, and to the prayers of Klytemnestra
her answers are stern and inexorable as destiny. With subtle
words of double meaning she leads AEgisthus into the prepared
snare, and then forbids parley or delay—dXX’ wq rax^ra ktzivs,
she says—and the house of Athens is freed from its long and
intolerable servitude.
The character of Elektra, as we see it in its final manifestion, is
as terrible as it is grand. Klytemnestra endeavours to justify her
owm conduct, and to represent it as righteous; but Elektra strikes
the key-note in her long nightingale lament, when she says,
ooXoc r/i' 6 (ppaaac, tpoc o tcrtlvac.
Chrysothenis, weak and vacillating, ready to condone the past
�Sophokles.
21
and enjoy the present, serves as a foil to the stronger character
of her sister. The same may be said of the Chorus,, which
although sympathetic, does not rise to the same heights of
sublimity or lyric sweetness as in the other plays of Sophokles.
Dr. Ribbeck sees here a reason for believing the Elektra to be
an early work. Yet it is not the lyric element which we should
expect to see failing in a younger work, and the conception and
delineation of character in the Elektra is of the highest kind.
The balance of proportion between the brother and sister is
admirably kept. Orestes is not the instrument of the gods,
though under their protection, but of Elektra. By her side he
must not waver, he must proceed at once to vengeance.
That portion of the ethical question which yEschylus has
indicated in the Eumenides does not come into the drama of
Sophokles.
The description of the chariot race has always been regarded
with justice as a masterpiece of art, and there is scarcely any
thing more touching in literature than the scene which describes
the recognition of brother and sister, and the rapid change of
mood, which, in broken iambics, passes from hopeless sorrow into
Overpowering joy.
In the Elektra, Sophokles presents before us a character,
which, as it were, wrestles with destiny, and conquers ; in the
Ajax we have a character ennobled by its very defeat.
Ajax was the most distinguished of the Greek generals in the
Trojan war, next to Achilles, and upon the death of Achilles a
dispute arose for the arms of that hero. The claimants were
Ajax and Ulysses, and the arms were adjudged to the latter. Full
of anger at this decision, Ajax determined to slay both Ulysses
and the Atridse, who had acted as arbitrators; but as he was
going by night to accomplish his revenge, he was inspired with
madness by Athene, whose aid he had previously rejected. In
this madness he fell upon the flocks of cattle around the camp,
and slew some and carried others to his tent, thinking he had
captured in them his rival and his enemies. When day dawns
his right mind returns, and he is overwhelmed with the ignominy
of his position and resolves to put an end to his life. This he
accomplishes by falling upon his sword. The Atridee command
that his body should be left unburied, but Teucer resists
them, and he is honourably buried. This drama is placed
here, not because it certainly belongs to this period, but
because its date is undetermined and undeterminable. Schneidewin and others assign it to an earlier period, make it indeed
nearly contemporary with the Antigone, both on account
of its resemblance in lyric measures to the 2Eschylean dramas,
and on. account of the rarity with which a third actor is brought
�22
Sophokles.
forward. But the Antigone sufficiently shows that Sophokles
had passed this stage. Others see in the speeches which follow
the suicide of Ajax an approximation to the rhetorical style of
Euripides. Those who adopt a middle course, will place it rather
in the long undated period, when the literary activity of
Sophokles was at its height. It is a poem in which the national
feeling of Athens was likely to find especial gratification. Of all the
heroes celebrated in the Iliad, Ajax was the only one that Athens
could claim as connected with herself. Salamis had been in
close union with Athens from immemorial time, and one Athenian
tribe took its name from Ajax. Herodotus tells us (viii. 64), that
before the battle of Salamis, the Athenians prayed to all the
gods, and to Ajax and Telamon. This connexion gives rise to
the beautiful ode
<j) tcXeiva 'SiaXap.tQ k.t.X.
The drama opens with a scene which breathes the frenzy of fierce
hatred and lust for murder that mark Northern poetry rather
than Greek. Yet it serves to set a stamp upon the character of
Ajax, and to indicate his disposition, not without a warning note
of admonition. The degradation into which Ajax has fallen is a
punishment for the excess of that self-reliance which forms a
heroic character, the first sin which he commits is insolence
(w/3pic). When setting out to battle, he rejected the pious prayer
of his father, that he might wish to be victorious by the help of
the gods, and added the vaunt, “With a god’s help, even a
man of nought may win the victory; but I, I trust, without
God’s help shall be victorious.” And in the battle itself, when
Athene proffered aid, he bade her go elsewhere, for he would
none of it. Such is the disposition of the man who finds too late
that he is powerless against the gods. But against disgrace his
unyielding mind still contends. The real interest of the drama
lies in the moral conflict between heroic independence and the
necessity of submission to higher authority. The motives for
submission are forcibly brought out, the agony of disgrace, and
the strength of domestic affection. The turning point is reached
when Ajax says—“ I, once as strong as steel, have now been
softened by the words of this woman as steel is softened by the
bath, and I shrink from leaving amongst my enemies, her a
widow, and my son fatherless.” Yet from the shame there is
now but one escape, and from that he does not shrink—death.
But ere he goes to the baths of ocean and the sea-marge, where
he may appease the wrath of the goddess by his death, he freely
acknowledges his error. Honour and authorrty are worthy of
submission. Snowfooted winter yields to blooming spring, and
dark-tiaraed night gives place to bright-crowned day. Life is full
of change, so he too bends to authority, fears God and honours
�Sophokles.
23
the Atridse. Another scene reveals Ajax about to put an end
to the life he can no longer honourably cherish. His last prayer
is earnest and simple—That Teucer' may first raise his body,
and give it rites of sepulture; that Hermes may grant him
funeral escort; and that Helios may rein in his golden car, and
tell the sad news to his aged father and mother. Then follows
the farewell of the Greek to the bright sun, a long adieu to
Salamis and illustrious Athens, and all the plains and crystal
founts of Troy.
It is perhaps worth pointing out that this drama has severa
Shaksperian peculiarities. As in the works of our own drama
tist, overflowing sorrow finds relief in a play upon words.
aiai, r/c av ~or we0’ wi’ £7rwrvjuor
TOVjJ.OV
OVO/J-Cl TOIQ EpLOLQ KCLKOLQ j
The speech already referred to (line 646), which describes in the
form of a soliloquy a moral crisis, is in the manner of the English
writer, and the final monologue of Ajax recalls the meditation
of Hamlet.
Minuter resemblances might be noted. The cry of the sailors
in their search for their lost chief—ttovoq Trouw ttovov <pep&c—may
almost be translated by the “ Double, double toil and trouble
of the Witches in. Macbeth.
But a more characteristic peculiarity of the drama is the sea
air which blows through it, and the number of nautical allusions
which must have been grateful to a seafaring people. Sophokles
never forgets the mariners of Athens in his eulogies of the city.
In the great choric song of the (Edipus at Kolonus, the crowning
glory of the land is “ the well-used oar fitted to skilful hands,
that leaps through the sea in the train of the hundred-footed
Nereids,” and here from the first we are thrown into sailor
company. It is to the “ shipmates of Ajax, from over the sea/’
that Tecmessa turns in her trouble, and it is they who search
for their lost leader at the last, though Sophokles with poetic
propriety reserves the discovery of his body for Tecmessa herself.
And to the sea the thoughts of Ajax turn in his despair :
“ 0 ye paths of the watery reach,
O ye caves of the sea,
O ye groves of the Ocean beach,
Where my steps were wont to be.”
By the death of the hero atonement for all his sins is made,
and his body is honourably buried by' the sea he loved.
It is a real satisfaction to arrive at a period when we can
attach a date to a play of Sophokles. In B. C. 409 appeared the
Philoktetes. Before this time Athens had passed through
�24
Sophokles.
the conspiracy of the Four Hundred, and had seen the recall
of Alkibiades. In the measures of the oligarchical body we are
told Sophokles concurred, not because they were good, but
because they were expedient. “ ov yap vjv aXXa /BeXn'w/’ are
the words attributed to him. The anecdote, however, may
possibly refer to another Sophokles. It is possible also that
Sophokles had little sympathy with the later democracy, which
may have alienated amongst others the mind of the poet. But
his poetry retained the astonishing energy and freshness of his
younger days. The Philoktetes shows no sign of the, decay of in
tellectual power. It is worthy of the first prize which it received.
The subject was not a new one upon the Attic stage. kEschylus
and Euripides had handled it before, and other tragedians
had aided in making it familiar to an Athenian audience.
Sophokles, while adopting the well' known mythical outlines
as the groundwork, succeeded in lending the drama a new
and powerful motive. These outlines are to be found in
Homer. (II. 2. 716). Philoktetes, carrying the arrows of Her
cules, joined the expedition against Troy, but being wounded
in the foot by a serpent, he was left in the island of Lemnos.
In the tenth year of the war it was predicted by a Trojan
prophet that Troy could only be taken by the arrows of
Hercules, then in the possession of Philoktetes. Accordingly
Ulysses and Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, were sent to Lemnos
to bring Philoktetes with his arrows to Troy. The play opens
with the landing of these messengers upon the island of Lemnos.
Ulysses tutors Neoptolemus in deceit, and urges him to gain
possession of the arrows by falsehood. Neoptolemus obeys, and
having persuaded the suffering Philoktetes that he is about to
take him home is entrusted with the arrows. When Philoktetes
discovers the treachery that has been practised upon him, he
endeavours to commit suicide, but is prevented. Feelings of pity
and compassion now come upon Neoptolemus, and he restores
the arrows in spite of the angry remonstrances of Ulysses. The
mission has thus nearly failed of its object, when Hercules de
scends from heaven, and bids Philoktetes proceed to Troy, where
he shall win renown and be healed of his sore disease. The
interest of the play does not centre in the person whose name
it bears, but in the person of Neoptolemus. It is his character
that Sophokles has brought out from the massive block of
tradition in proportions of exceeding beauty. Between Philok
tetes hardened by suffering, and Ulysses wily and wise, the openhearted son of Achilles stands forth a contrast to both. This
contrast of character, together with the dramatic development of
natural nobility in the person of Neoptolemus, is the work of
Sophokles alone, and bears his stamp. The minor characters
�Sophokles.
25
are powerfully drawn. Philoktetes is immovable in his love to
his friends and in his hatred to his enemies. The extreme
agonies of physical suffering which wring from him cries and
groans, leave him still tears for the misfortunes of his friends
and imprecations for his foes. He is, in the words of Lessing,
a rock of a man,”* a hero still, though life has lost all that is
worth living for, except constancy and submission to the gods.
The Ulysses of this drama is differently portrayed from the
Ulysses of the Ajax, and the Ulysses of Homer. He is brought
forward in an ungracious part, and one more in accordance
with the role he takes in the plays of Euripides. He counsels
deceit and is willing to attain his end by means honourable or
dishonourable. We must not however forget that this end is
the well-being of the Greeks, and that the means are poetically
justified by his knowledge that neither persuasion nor violence
will avail to shake the firmness of Philoktetes. The psycholo
gical interest lies then in the struggle through which the mind
of Neoptolemus has to pass. On the one hand, with the bow of
Philoktetes he may win undying renown by the taking of Troy,
but he must desert and deceive his father’s friend, leaving him
doubly desolate and deprived of the means of supporting his
piteous existence. On the other hand he must bear the bitter
reproaches of Ulysses, the loss of the promised glory, and the
failure of the Achaean arms, but he will have respected the
rights of a suppliant and his plighted word. How will the
struggle end ? The sincerity of a noble nature prevails. Already
the treachery inspired by Ulysses has been successful; the bow
of Philoktetes is in his hand, but he can no longer endure the
part he has been compelled to play: he leaves the path of deceit
into which he has been misled, and assumes the character which
he has already shown to be his. The intervention of the “ deus
ex xnachina ” serves only to j ustify what has happened, it neither
diminishes the interest nor interferes with the action of the play.
The psychological question has been already answered.
The Trachinice is to be considered a later work than the
Philoktetes. Otherwise it is probable that Sophokles would
have used the connexion that lies in their subjects. For the bow
of Philoktetes was none other than that bequeathed him by
Hercules at his death. The Trachinice tells the story how
the death of Hercules was unwittingly brought about by his wife
Deianeira. Many years before the opening of the play, Hercules
had slain the Centaur Nessus by means of his unerring and
poisoned arrows. As he was dying, the Centaur bade Deianeira
take of the blood of his wound and the poison of the arrow, and
* “Laokoon,” ch. iv. p. 34.
�26
Sophokles.
preserve it, for it would prove an unfailing philtre to recover her
husband’s affection if he ever forsook her for another woman.
When the play opens, Hercules has been long absent, but is now
returning with captives, the reward of his victorious arms.
Amongst these captives, who arrive at Trachis before Hercules,
is the beautiful Iole, and Deianeira is not long in learning that
she it is who now possesses the affections of her husband. There
fore she imbues a garment with the philtre she had received
from Nessus, and sends it to Hercules, bidding him wear it whilst
transacting the sacred rites of Zeus. The venom of the mixture
does not fail in its efficacy. It seizes at once upon the body of
Hercules, who is consumed with intolerable burnings. In the
agony of death he orders himself to be borne home, but the news
flies before, and Deianeira ends her life with her own hand. Upon
his arrival, Hercules bids his son Hyllus erect a funeral pile for
him on Mount Oeta, and after his father’s death marry Iole.
The drama concludes with the promise of Hyllus to obey his
father.
The opinions as to the value of the drama have been
various. A. W. Schlegel deemed it of far inferior merit to that
of the other plays, and many modern readers have agreed with
him. Schneidewin, a critic of weightier authority, places it ex
ceedingly high amongst the works of ancient art. In looking at
it, however, we must regard it as a diptych rather than a single
picture. From this circumstance it suffers perhaps when compared
with the other works by the same author. Nevertheless each
part has its own merit. In the first part the figure of Deianeira
forms the centre; in the second, the half-divine half-savage cha
racter of Hercules exercises a strange imperious fascination upon
the spectator. Nothing can be more delicately and finely
represented than the amiable character of Deianeira, the faithful
and forgiving wife. It is in the true colour of Sophoklean irony
that the sympathy of a tender nature which leads her to express
pity for the captive woman, draws her most closely to Iole, who
is the cause of her misfortune. And it is the very strength of her
love for Hercules which brings about his ruin and her own. The
first part of the Trachinice may indeed be ranked with the best
dramatic exhibitions of character. Nor is it deficient in those
cross lights and special excellences in which the best abound. The
self-devotion and feminine dignity of Deianeira reaches its climax
when she implores Lichas to tell her the whole truth :—
ph 'ttvQegQu.i tovto p aXyovsiEV av‘
c’ EtSevat tI Seivov ; ov^l ^ciTEpas
teXelcetciq dv^p eiq HpaKXrjg EyypE c)/;;
kovttii) tlq avT(Sv ek y Epov Xoyov KOKOV
TJVEyKa.T' ovZ' ovelZoq.
to
to
�27
Sophokles.
This is in the very spirit of mediaeval devotion, and almost
in the words of the “ Nut-browne Mayde
“ Though in the wode I understode
Ye had a paramour,
All this may nought remove my thought
But that I will be your.
And she shall find me soft and kynde,
And courteys every hour.”
*
For vigorous word-painting, the passage which describes the
virulent corruption of the poisoned wool rotting away into nothing
ness, is unsurpassed. (Lines 695 et seq.)
The second portion of the diptych is less agreeable to modern
feeling, since the character of Hercules seems little fitted for the
tragic stage. By his semi-divinity he is above humanity, by his
semi-brutality he is below it. Hercules suffering is most likely
to gain our sympathy ; for the picture of excessive suffering is
redeemed from the peril of awaking horror or disgust by the
consistency and firmness of Hercules. He meets death with his
spiritual strength still unbroken, and his self-possession when he
recognises his real position changes the grief of the spectator into
admiration of his undaunted fortitude.
The marriage which he is represented as proposing between
Hyllus and Iole, however repugnant to modern, feeling, was too
firmly an article of popular belief rooted in popular tradition to
be neglected in the drama.
Nor does Herodotus (vi. 52) deem the tradition unworthy of
notice, since it was from Hyllus that he traced the descent of the
Dorian invaders of the Peloponnese.
The link which binds together the two portions of the drama
and preserves the unity of the action is the magic poison of the
Centaur. In the first part we have the motives which lead up
to its use; in the second we see its effects. The same protagonist
took the parts both of Deianeira and of Hercules.
The long and illustrious life of Sophokles was now drawing to
a close—a life more enviable, perhaps, than that of any man
who has lived so long. He had seen the growth of the Athenian
state ; he was spared the sight of her last declining days. He
was the contemporary of all the great men who had made Athens
glorious ; and he was the personal friend of many of them. Ten
years older than Euripides, he yet survived him, and lived to see
his own son Iophon wearing the ivy crown. One pleasing anec
dote is told of the last year of the poet’s life. When the news of
the death of Euripides in Macedonia reached Athens, Sophokles
was preparing a tragedy for exhibition. As a last tribute of
respect to the memory of his rival, he himself appeared in
mourning at the head of his chorus, and the choral company
�28
Sophokles.
were without the wreaths which they were accustomed to
wear. The wife of Sophokles was a native of Athens and was named
Nikostrate. By her he had one son, Iophon, already mentioned.
By Theoria of Sikyon he was the father of Ariston, whose son,
Sophokles, reproduced the (Edipus ad Kolonus two years after
the death of his grandfather. A story related by Cicero, and
often repeated, asserts that Iophon brought his father before the
Phratores on the ground of mental incapacity to manage his own
affairs. There is much improbability in the story and we may
well discredit any tradition of dissension in the family of
Sophokles. Hardly, if the story be true, could the comic writer
Phrynikus have written, as he did, a few months after the poet’s
death, a lament with the concluding words—
KaXwg
eteXeudjct’
inrop-EivaQ micov.
The immediate occasion of his death is unknown, and various
accounts are extant. One tradition asserts that it was joyous
excitement at again winning the tragic prize. Beit so. kuXwq
S’ EreXEurr/crEv. In the year B.C. 406, the year of the battle of
Arginusse, Athens lost her two great tragic writers, Sophokles
and Euripides.
Our consideration of the plays will be more than imperfect
unless we examine briefly the religious views with which they
are interpenetrated and coloured. What was the religious
position of the mind that conceived and brought them forth?
Art and religion have often been combined, but never more
intimately than in the dramas of Sophokles. rsyovs Ss koI
Oeo([>lXt)G o
wc
ovk. aXXoq,
says the anonymous
biographer: “ Sophokles was beloved of the gods as no other.”
And the attitude of the poet’s mind was one of reverent, almost
superstitious, adoration of the gods. ZEschylus, no less than
Sophokles, believed in the nothingness of human nature and the
omnipotence of Zeus. For man he marked out a narrow path
beyond which he could not go without offending those unsleeping
powers which punish the insolence of men to the third and fourth
generation of them that transgress. This narrow path he named
crw^poo-vvz/; Sophokles called it tvKpjtta, reverence.
In the Elektra the chorus says to Elektra (1093)
“ Thus have I found thee not in prosperous case
Advancing, but of all the highest laws
Wearing the crown by reverence (suth/SEta) of Zeus.”
And in the same play, commending her language, the chorus
says (464)
“ The maiden speaks with reverence.”
�Sopholdes.
29
In the chorus of the (Edipus Rex (863) the doctrine of
tvatflua is laid down at length. And in the praise which CEdipus
gives to Athens ((Ed. Koi. 1125) the highest is that she is the city
where Reverence dwells:—
E7TEI TO y EVffefjEC
povotQ irap vpiv -qvpov avOpuiruv Eya>.
How comes it then, if this be a chief article in the religion of
Sophokles, that so many of his characters are found speaking
against the gods ? The number of characters who so speak is
not very great. Tecmessa accuses Pallas of working the bane of
Ajax (Ag. 652). Philoktetes doubts the justice of the gods
(Phil. 447), and again (1035). Hyllus (Trach. 1266) speaks
Still more harshly of their unkindness, and reproaches (1272)
Zeus himself. But it is to be remembered that Sophokles him
self does not always speak by the mouth of his characters. Their
verisimilitude lends a force and warmth to the personification
which is absent from the poems of ZEschylus. It is quite in keep
ing with the Sophoklean stage that his dramatispersonce should
not be without a tinge of popular superstition. Instances may be
selected. Thus, Teucer is persuaded that the sword of Hector
was fabricated by the Erinnys ; Hercules calls the fatal robe
which takes away his life a web of the Erinnys ; Deianeira is
the victim of a popular superstition when she sets her hopes upon
a love-charm ; and the guardians of the corpse of Polyneikes are
instances of a similar delusion, when they believe that the unseen
burial was supernatural.
But Sophokles, as he bad received from the hands of ZEschylus
the drama already formed, so, too, he accepted from him a body
of religious doctrines already in advance of popular belief. Nor
was the progress which he inaugurated in this line of thought
less striking than his development of the dramatic art—as far
as the liberation of human thought is concerned it was more
important. ZEschylus, as we have seen, attributed the misfortunes
of mortals to a judicial blindness, the consequence of previous
guilt whereby a man falls into greater sin and supreme destruc
tion. His teaching is the teaching of Eliphaz the Temanite ;
* Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished being innocent ? or
when were the righteous cut off?” (Job iv. 7.) Sophokles dis
tinguished between the guilty blindness and involuntary crime.
With regard to the former he held the same position as did
ZEschylus. When a mortal willingly, and with full intent, com
mits a crime, the Deity punishes him with moral madness ; he
is delivered over to Alastor. Yet for all the actions committed
in this madness, he, and none other, is responsible. It is so with
Ajax. He deliberately rejects the aid of Athene, and falls into
a madness from which there is no escape. It is so with Kreon.
�Sophokles.
30
He designedly neglects the honour due to the gods below, and
pursues a course which is the result of madness. The chorus
recognise the chastisement of a divine hand when -ne.y speak
Kreon as—
ayfjp ettiirppov c/,a ytipoc
<■ idspiQ enrEiv, ovic aXXoTplav
li-ry aXX avrOQ anaorcov.
and he himse acknowledges it (1272),
paQibv cdXacoc. ev 3’ ejjm
Kapa
Oeoq tot apa tote piya fodpoc p
£7raicrEr.
But from this frenzy, involuntary guilt is separated by a wide
interval. As Ajax is a striking instance of the one condition, so
CEdipus is of the other. The contrast between the two is sharp
and complete. CEdipus is presented to us as a righteous prince,
wise above the common standard of humanity, for he alone could
solve the riddle of the Sphinx—as god-fearing, for he never doubts
the oracles of the gods. When he hears of the death of his sup
posed father, Polybus, there is mingled with his first cry of
wonder a note of distress for the credit of the oracle.
(pEu' (p£i>, ri cfjT ay w yvvat., <tkotto~it6 tiq
Trjv HvdopayTtv EGTiav ((Ed. R. 966.)
The sins which he committed were all involuntary, and he
repeatedly asserts it.
TTEirovdor
egti
ra y spya pov
paXXoy 7/ CECpaKOTa.
Yet upon him descend the heaviest misfortunes. What is the
conception which Sophokles designs to express by this ? There
is n'o answer in the CEdipus Rex ; it is found in the CEdipus at
Kolonus. It is this answer withheld that so closely unites the
former and the latter dramas. In the latter, CEdipus comes
before us under the guidance and protection of the gods. They
have used him for their purpose, a divine one, an unknown and
mysterious one, but a just one ; and now, having drunk the cup
of sorrow to the dregs, he is their sacred and especial care. He
himself says (287)
77/cw yap tpoc ev'teI'ji'iq te Kai (bepivv
OV'fjO’lV aOTOlQ TO~l(TC)E.
And therefore his passage from life is gentle and kindly. He
is not, for God takes him. As his life has been beyond all others
wretched though morally guiltless, so his death has beyond all
others a fuller promise of happiness.
If we gather up the teaching of Sophokles upon this point, we
find —That the gods have a great progressive plan of the
�Sophokles.
31
Universe, which they carry out in spite of, or sometimes by
means of individual suffering. That every man who seeks to do
right is, notwithstanding his misfortunes, under their protection,
and will finally be rewarded according to his merit. That volun
tary guilt tends to worse, and lastly to ruin. This advance from
the religious position of JUschylus is great, but it leads to results
no less important. It leads, firstly, to the possibility of making
a consciousness of right and justice an acting moral power. Thus
CEdipus sets before his daughters (Gild. K. 1613) as a recompense
for their laboursand sufferings on his behalf, the consciousness
that they had done their duty and won his love. Elektra and
Antigone are penetrated with this feeling. Elektra says (352)
“ Be it my only reward that 1 am conscious of doing my hard
duty?’ The sentiment of Antigone is the same (460) :
“ That I shall die I know without thy words,
And if before my time ’tis gain to me.”
This teaching of Sophokles is a herald of the truth declared
by Plato, that the moral consciousness of right in a man’s own
heart is the measure of his happiness.
Secondly, and here we must touch upon the mystic side of the
religion of Sophokles, it imbues his dramas with a lofty spiritual
ism. It stands in opposition to the religion of rite and profession.
It calls for the spirit and not the letter. CEdipus (CEd. K. 498)
declares that the sacrifice of one pure soul rightly offered, avails
more than ten thousand which are not so given. It adds a sig
nificance to the sincere unspoken prayer, for the god hears it
before it is said. Klytemnestra will not utter her prayer (El. 637)
for the god knows her desire, though she may not put it into
words. And the voice of the god speaks within the breast of
man to guide and direct him. This inward voice brought
CEdipus to the grove of the Eumenides, as he himself says (CEd.
K. 96) and led him—adtKrov riyprripo^—to his last restingplace.
°
And thirdly, it finds a place in the religion of Sophokles for
the doctrine of the immortality of the soul.
This doctrine was only dimly present to the popular mind ; it
was no active moral power. The motive to justice and righteous
ness lay in the fear of punishment in this life—of punishment at
the hands of the civil magistrate or the offended deity. True, in
Hades the unholy were unholy still, and suffered a shadowy
retribution for their crimes, but the real punishment was in this
life. Sophokles recognised a purer motive for human action, the
love of right for its own sake, and for the sake of the divine
approval. Antigone can look forward to a long and joyous
Existence with the dead (Ant. 73-76), for with them she will
*
�32
Sophokles.
dwell for ever. And so the highest duty is the duty of living
in accordance with the will of the gods, careless of praise or blame,
reward or punishment, from any but Their hands, and with eyes
directed to that other life, where wrongs are righted and where
j ustice is done.
ETTEl TtXeI(i)V XPOVOQ,
ov c?t p apEffKELV toIq Kara tojv oEvdai>E,
ekei yap asi KEi.trop.ai.
The monologue of Ajax sets this point of view rstill farther in
contrast with that of fiEschylus. 2Eschylus has exemplified the
terrors of conscience with appalling power in the persons of
Klytemnestra and Orestes, but the passion which he represents
is rather that of remorse than that of penitence. The fear of
punishment is the moving cause of terror. In the ethics of
Sophokles, conscience leads to a penitent recognition of personal
guilt and a desire of amendment—
ypsle ce irait; ov yvcvaopsaOa triotppovsiv;
is the cry of Ajax when he seeks to atone for his crimes by a
voluntary death. And the same moral revolution is exhibited
in the case of Kreon. (Ant. 1319.)
Thus in the hands of Sophokles, religion passed from a nega
tive to a positive phase. It was no longer sufficient as in the
time of AEschylus to live a quiet life with no overweening self
exaltation or insolent rivalry of the gods, but heart and hand
must be alike pure, and both devoted to the service of the gods.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, in his essay upon the “ Education
of Humanity,” has traced the process by which a single nation
rose stage by stage to fuller knowledge. The nation which he
selected was the Hebrew nation, but it is not the only one which
submitted to the divine education. In the works of Sophokles
we see the Greek mind passing to a higher stage. It is not a
final stage ; that can never be reached as long as humanity
endures, but it is one that could give strength and confidence to
minds that loved the truth. That it did so to the mind of
Sophokles himself we may learn from his works. The per
fection of restraint and repose which reigns like a summer
atmosphere in his compositions, is the result not only of a mastery
of diction and a supreme command of art. The knowledge of
the sorrows of humanity and a co-existing capacity of beholding
above alia ruling order, which recompenses and atones for all,
are the characteristics which give an immortal interest to the
dramas of Sophokles.
They reveal to us a man who was
indeed OeoQiXpq “ beloved of God.”
And however dimly his contemporaries may have understood
the humane theology which pervaded his works, they understood
�Sophokles.
33
time of his death the Lacedaemonians were threatening Athens
from Deceleia. The family burial-place of Sophokles lay eleven
stades from Athens, upon the road to Deceleia. When Lysander
the Spartan heard that Sophokles was dead, he granted a free
pass to the funeral procession, and the body of the great
tragedian was laid to rest under the protection of the Lacedae
monians. Nor were there wanting due tokens of respect at the
hands of his fellow-citizens. As a hero they honoured him with
a' yearly sacrifice. A siren was sculptured upon his tomb, to
indicate the entrancing sweetness of his strains, and Simmias the
pupil of Sokrates wrote his epitaph. Forty years after his
death, his bust was placed in the Athenian theatre, and the state
took in charge the text of his works.
And yet against the life of Sophokles there are those who
bring the charge of impurity and immorality. Such a charge
we can but dismiss with indignation. A few anecdotes retailed
*
by that prurient collector of slander, Atheneeus, form the body
of the charge. They are not worth the time that would be spent
in contradicting them. There is nothing in Plato, there is nothing
in Plutarch that can sully the pure lustre of the name of
Sophokles. Plutarch indeed relates (Perikles, viii.) that upon
one occasion Perikles bade Sophokles remember that a man
must not only keep his hands pure, but his eyes from beholding
evil. If there is in this anything more than a commonplace
application of a moral maxim, it is a testimony that at least the
hands of the poet were pure. Of his thoughts as mirrored in
his writings we can ourselves judge. Aristophanes amidst all
his baseless attacks upon his contemporaries, never brought this
charge against Sophokles; modern writers with less knowledge,
have had greater audacity. This, however, matters but little to
him or to us.
In looking back upon the life of Sophokles as a whole, perfect
and radiant, it is difficult to find in the range of literature another
like it. From his boyhood to his death, there seems to be
nothing to mar the beauty of his career. Germans find an
analogous instance in the life of Gothe, but the analogy does not
go far. Both Sophokles and Gothe lived long, and won that
favour from their countrymen which is generally given to the
illustrious dead alone. Each of them possessed the highest
culture of his time, and aided the diffusion of that culture. The
comparison cannot in reality go much farther. The life of Gothe
is open to us in its minutest details : we are compelled to be
satisfied with the merest outline of the life of Sophokles.
Gothe has dissected for us (not without vanity) his own
sentiments, emotions, and passions. Only behind the works of
Sophokles can we discern the calm and majestic figure of the
[Vol. XCIX. No. CXCV.]—New Series, Vol. XLIII. No. I.
D
�34
Sophokles.
Greek poet. Yet the dimmer personality is not the less
impressive. To something of the calm which belongs to the
works of Sophokles, Gotbe could, and did attain ; but it is the
same with a difference. Gothe by a sublime selfishness, and his
progress marked with the sorrows which he caused, rose into a
clear intellectual ether. Sophokles brought down the wisdom of
another sphere to brighten the ways of men. The one was a
child of earth who made a path for himself to the serene heights ;
the other was a son of Olympus, about whom the inextinguish
able glory of his birthplace shone for the delight and instruction
of the world.
P.S.—Two editions of Sophokles, at present only published in
part, will go some way towards familiarizing English students with
the spirit of Sophokles. The one is by Mr. Jebb, Public Orator of
Cambridge, the other is by Professor Campbell of St. Andrews.
As a portion only of each edition is before the public, it has
been deemed better to exclude them from comment in the body
of this paper, but this much may be said, that we can hope every
thing from the complete edition by Professor Campbell. His
essay on “ the Language of Sophokles ” is admirable and
exhaustive, and the notes and introductions to the plays already
published are full of refined and suggestive enthusiasm.
Mr. Jebb has set forth his views upon the genius of Sophokles
in a lecture recently delivered at Dublin, and since published in
Macmillan’s Magazine (Nov. 1872). This lecture is clear,
scholarly, and critical, but both the points selected and the views
expressed seem scarcely adequate to the subject. The four
manifestations of the genius of Sophokles 'which he chooses are :
First, the blending of a divine with a human characteristic in the
heroes of Sophokles. Secondly, the effort to reconcile progress
with tradition. Thirdly, dramatic irony ; and lastly, the por
trayal of character. The first of these manifestations is illustrated
by the cases of Ajax, of GEdipus, and of Herakles. Ajax, we are
told, is human by his natural anguish on his return to sanity; he is
divine by his remorse and the sense that dishonour must be effaced
by death. But surely his remorse and repentance are human
too. His mere cries of distress, apart from the higher feelings, are
ludicrous, and insufficient to link Ajax to human nature. Nor
does his nearness to Athene, as one who had spoken with her
face to face, suffice to give him a divine character. The heroes of
Euripides also speak with the gods face to face. The lecturer has
not here brought out a real manifestation of the genius of
Sophokles; he has united accidents and imagined them to be
the essence. The intense suffering of (Edipus the King, and the
marvellous death of GEdipus at Colonus are two conditions
�Sophokles.
35
through which the character of CEdipus passes, and are not
more especially characteristic than are the sufferings of Medea,
who is finally carried away by the dragon-chariot of the sun.
The genius of Sophokles is certainly not revealed in the union of
the superhuman and the commonplace; it is manifested by its
power of idealizing humanity. The superhuman element which
Sophokles introduces, forms no part of the essence of any
character, it belongs to the cycle of popular beliefs, which as we
have seen, he used for the purpose of verisimilitude.
Secondly.—The idea that Sophokles preserved the balance
between superstition and free thought, that he endeavoured to
graft progress upon tradition is misleading. In religious matters
we have seen that the advance which he made was both definite
and important; in politics he was the disciple, as he was the
colleague, of Perikles. If he shrank from the extreme measures
of a later democracy, it was because he clung to a system which
had raised Athens to her highest political efficiency, and because
he distrusted a variation which exaggerated and distorted the true
democratic principles. Moreover, he was justified by the results.
Thirdly.—The lecturer’s canon upon dramatic irony is only
partially true. “ The practical irony of drama depends on the
principle that the dramatic poet stands aloof from the world
which he has created.” In fact the question of dramatic irony
cannot be so summarily dealt with. The manner of Professor
Campbell in treating of this characteristic (pp. 112-118) is far
more diffident and satisfactory. Irony, as he says, is always
accompanied with the consciousness of superiority. But the
exhibition of this consciousness must be destructive of artistic
effect. It is better to refer the irony to fate than to ascribe it to
the author; it may, perhaps, be best not to use the word at all,
but to refer the effect which every one feels, to an artistic and
legitimate application of dramatic elements such as contrast and
pathos, which reach their highest power only when used by the
most skilful hands. .Mr. Jebb thinks that Sophokles delineates
broadly, and with a “ deliberate avoidance of fine shading,” the
characters of his primary persons, and seeks for the more delicate
touches of portraiture in the subordinate persons. The persons,
however, to whom he refers as illustrations must be spoken of as
secondary with caution. Thus Deianeira is of equal importance
with Hercules in the Trachinice; the same protagonist took
both characters. The real interest of the Philoldetes centres in
Neoptolemus. But perhaps the chief inadequacy of Mr. Jebb’s
view of Sophokles, a view which, as has been said before, is set
forth with the charm of a scholarly and balanced style, results from
his notion of the religion of Sophokles. In his opinion, Sophokles
is the highest type of a votary of Greek polytheism, and no more.
D2
�36
Parliamentary Eloquence.
He does not see in his hand that torch which was to be passed
on to Plato, and through him to other times. His religion had,
he says, shed upon it the greatest strength of intellectual light
which it could bear without fading. His art was indeed the
highest of its kind, and remained his own ; but the impulse which
he gave to a freer and more enlightened reverence may be traced
in the best of Greek literature, the works of Plato. It is
probable, therefore, that the edition by Professor Campbell will
be a truer guide to the appreciation of Sophokles, for the editor
has already acknowledged his obligation to Professor Jowett.
Art. II.—Parliamentary Eloquence.
1. A Book of Parliamentary Anecdote. Compiled from
Authentic Sources. By G. H. Jennings and W. S. John
stone.
Cassell, Petter, and Galpin : London, Paris, and
New York. 1872.
2. The Orator : a Treasury of English Eloquence, containing
Selections from the most Celebrated Speeches of the Past
and Present. Edited, with Short Explanatory Notes and
References, by a Barrister. London : S. 0. Beeton.
3. Select British Eloquence, embracing the best Speeches entire
of the most Eminent Orators of Great Britain for the last
Two Centuries : with Sketches of their Lives, an estimate
of their Genius, and Notes Critical and Explanatory.
By Chauncey A. Goodrich, D.D., Professor in Yale Col
lege, New Haven, Conn., U.S. London : Sampson Low
and Co.
4. Parliamentary Logic : to which are subjoined Two Speeches
delivered in the House of Commons of Ireland, and
other pieces. By the Right Hon. William Gerard
Hamilton. London. 1798.
5. Hansard. New Series.
ANY have been the writers on the theory of Government,
and the framers of model governments and paper constitu
tions. None of these, however, devised Parliamentary Govern
ment as it actually exists amongst us, or foresaw its rise. Yet to
all appearances it is the form of government which will
universally prevail. The English tongue bids fair to become
the speech of the greater part of the globe, and wherever an
English-speaking race is to be found, English parliamentary
M
�
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FRASER’S MAGAZINE
JUNE 1875.
MORAL ESTIMATE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
R. AUBREY DE VERE opens
No one ever has grudged, and no
his preface to Alexander the one will ever grudge, praise to
Great, a Dramatic Poem, by in form Alexander for .military talent; but
ing us that in the last century it the talent was not that of a scientific
was thought philosophical to sneer general who plans a campaign, as a
at ‘the Macedonian madman,’ and Von Moltke or even a Napoleon;
moral to declaim against him as a it was only that of a quick-eyed
bandit. The ancients, he says, Garibaldi or Conde. Generalship
made no such mistake. He proceeds of the highest modern type was
to panegyrise Alexander as uniting then impossible, for the plain reason
the highest military genius with a that maps did not exist, and the
statesmanship instinctive and im- roads which Alexander traversed7
erring. His intellect, he tells us, were in every instance unknown to.
was at once vast and minute. His him. Not only was he without the
aim was to consolidate the whole means of forming previous plans of
world into a single empire, redeemed operation; he was also destitute of
from barbarism and irradiated with storehouses and stores for feeding
Greek science and art; an empire his troops, and of gold or silver
Such that its citizens, from the mouths to purchase food and remunerate
of the Ganges to the pillars of Hercules, their services. The Romans, who
should be qualified to learn from methodised war, accounted money
Plato and to take delight in to be its sinews (pecuniam nervos
Sophocles. It is not necessary to belli) ; but all agree that Alexander
quote further from Mr. Aubrey de enteredupon war against the opulent
Vere. The above sufficiently shows Persian monarchy with resources of
what a picture he aims to hold up money and stores of provisions
for our admiration, what impres utterly inadequate, so that nothing
sions he desires his drama to leave but instant and continuous success
on the minds of readers. In this could save him from. ruin. But,
article it is not purposed to discuss says Plutarch gaily, though his
its poetical merits, which must be resources were so small and narrow,
left to another pen and time, but he gave away his Macedonian
to enter into the historical questions possessions freely to his comrades ;
whether Alexander the Great was houses to one, a field to another,
a beneficent or a malignant star a village to a third, harbour dues to .
to Greece and to mankind, and a fourth ; and when some one asked.,
what sentiments are just concerning ‘ O king, what do you leave for ■
him. But it may concisely be said yourself ? ’ he replied, ‘ Hopes ! ’
at once that the present writer is This was very spirited, no doubt.
intensely opposed to Mr. de Vere’s In the midst of a martial people,
avowed judgment.
and from a prince barely of age,
VOL. XI,—NO. LXVI.
NEW SERIES.
3A2
M
�668
flforaZ Estimate of Alexander the Great.
[June
it may be thought very amiable; superior. (Persian cavalry always
but with Grecian statesmen and dreaded a night attack, and
philosophers the delusiveness of systematically, according to Xeno
hope was a frequent topic. Nothing phon, passed the night some twelve
is plainer than that from the miles distant from an enemy.)
beginning Alexander was a gambler Hence the Greeks would be able to
playing ‘double or quits,’ and that cross by night without opposition.
causes over which he had no con The young king replied that, after
trol, and knew he had none, might crossing the Hellespont, it was dis
at any moment have involved him graceful to be afraid of the little
in sudden overthrow. The unex Granicus; and presently plunged
pected death of Memnon as much into the stream, bidding his thirteen
as anything (says Arrian) ruined squadrons of cavalry to follow.
Darius’s fortunes. No doubt it The violence and depth of the
was just to count on the great water, the rugged banks, and the
superiority of Greek armour, Greek enemy awaiting him, rather incited
discipline, and Macedonian military than appalled Alexander. It seemed,
tactics; also on the feebleness says Plutarch, to be a strategy of
entailed on Persia by royal luxury despair, not of wisdom, and indeed
and half-independent satraps. The to be the deed of a maniac. But
successes of Xenophon and of the young king was certain of one
Agesilaus had long familiarised the thing—that wherever he led, his
Greeks to the belief that a moderate Macedonians would follow; and this
Greek army was superior to a fact was the impetus to all his
Persian host. Experienced Greek military conduct. The Macedonians,
generals did not esteem the invasion from their long spears, had advantage
of Persia to be a wild expedition ; in close combat over the Persians
the Congress of Greece,1 from which who fought with swords ; but darts
only the Spartans were conspi and arrows from above were
cuously absent, deliberately sanc severely felt while they were in the
tioned it. No one could foresee river. Struggling up with difficulty
such a commencement as was the through the mud, they could not
battle of the Granicus; everyone keep any ranks and lines of battle,
in the retrospect judged Alexander’s and the opposite squadrons became
conduct rash in the extreme. That mixed, horse pushing against horse.
it succeeded we know, but Mr. de The signal helmet displayed Alex
Vere has not said a word to pro ander to the enemy, and three
duce conviction that such conduct eminent Persians hurried into
is that of a wise general.
personal conflict with him. Accord
The Persian satraps had as ing to Arrian, Alexander slew the
sembled a force, powerful in cavalry, first, received . from the second a
but in infantry very inferior to the blow of the sword which cut off
Greeks, to prevent his crossing of the crest of his helmet; neverthe
this river, which, by the uncertainty less him too he slew with the
of the bottom and steepness of the Macedonian pike. The third would
banks, was in itself formidable undoubtedly have killed Alexander
enough. The day was far gone, had he not himself first been
and Parmenio urged that the enemy pierced through the body by the
would not dare to pass the night in Macedonian Cleitus.
proximity to Grecian infantry so
Not unlike was the conduct of
’ It is due to those who have read an article from my pen in Fraser April 1874
to confess that, from trusting my memory, I have erroneously stated, page 474 that
Philip was assassinated before the Congress met. Since it does not at all affect mv
argument, I need only regret the blunder.—F. W. N.
J
�1875]
Moral Estimate of Alexander the Great.
the younger Cyrus in the battle of
Cunaxa, as narrated by Xenophon ;
but Cyrus egregiously miscalculated
in expecting his mercenary, the
Spartan Clearchus, to obey orders.
Cyrus impetuously rushed against
the Persian king’s body-guard,
commanding Clearchus to support
him. But Clearchus thought this
a rash procedure, disobeyed, and
allowed Cyrus to be surrounded
and killed; thus sacrificing the
whole object of the expedition, and
exposing all the Greek troops to
difficulties so severe that their
ultimate escape appeared miracu
lous. Alexander’s troops and Alex
ander’s generals were of different
mettle; on that he counted, and
was never deceived. Fearless ex
posure of his own person was his
mode of inciting them; but they
quite understood the error and the
mischief of such conduct. Even
after the final overthrow of Darius,
if Alexander had been slain in
battle no one could measure the
calamity which such an event might
entail. Nevertheless he retained
this habit of acting the part of
soldier as well as of general, being
many times severely wounded with
swords, darts, arrows, and stones,
until he narrowly escaped with life
in his Indian campaign. Arrian
gives the account in great detail.
The wall was difficult to ascend.
The king thought his soldiers
deficient in spirit, seized a ladder,
and himself climbed to the top.
Alarm for his exposure made so
many hurry tumultuously that their
weight broke the ladders. Finding
himself alone on the top of the wall,
he leaped down on the other side,
and, in spite of prodigies of valour,
received a very dangerous arrow
wound in the breast. The Macedonians poured in after him just in
time to save his life, which for days
after was accounted doubtful. His
friends severely reproached him for
an imprudence which might have
been the ruin of them all; and (says
Arrian) he was greatly vexed, be
669
cause he knew that their reproaches
were just; but as other men are
overcome by other vices, so was he
by this impetus to fight. This
being his habit, surely no more
words are needed to show the
character of his generalship. Speed
of movement, urgency in pursuit,
were his two marked peculiarities ;
but to these he added a marvellous
quickness to perceive at the moment
whatever the moment admitted.
On this account he will ever be
named among the greatest generals
of antiquity, although he was never
matched against troops at all to
compare to his own, nor against
any experienced leader.
Without for a moment under
valuing his high military qualities,
we must not put out of sight the
pre-eminent army which his able
father had bequeathed to him. The
western world had never before seen
such an organisation. A reader of
Greek accustomed to Thucydides,
Xenophon, and Demosthenes finds
it hard to translate the new Greek
phrases made necessary in King
Philip’s army. The elaborate
ness of modern times seems to come
upon us suddenly. We find Guards,
Horse Guards, Foot Guards, the
King’s own Body Guard, the Van
guard, the King’s Horse, the
Cavalry, Equestrian Tetrarchies,
the Agema (which may seem to be
the Gros, whether of an army or of
each brigade), the Horse Darters,
the Lancers, the Horse Archers, the
Archers, the Forerunners (or
Scouts ?), besides all the Infantry
common in Greece; and an
apparatus for sieges, such as the
old Assyrians and Egyptians dis
play to us in sculpture and painting.
The history of the transmission of
this art is curious. We have no
reason for supposing that the Per
sians ever used its higher mechanism,
but the Phoenicians carried the
knowledge of it to Carthage. The
Carthaginians practised it ela
borately in some of their Sicilian
wars, and from them Dionysius of
�670
Moral Estimate of Alexander the Great.
Syracuse learned it. Philip II. of
Macedon is said to have imported
it into Greece from Dionysius ; but
his temperament was adverse to the
use of force where bribery could
effect his object. To him is im
puted the saying, that he deemed
no fortress to be impregnable if an
ass laden with gold could climb up
to the gate. He must have incor
porated with his army sappers and
miners, and men furnished with
engines and ladders, skilled also in
extempore construction; for in his
son’s campaigns these agencies
come forth whenever they are
wanted. It is quite unexplained
how in his rapid marches through
mountainous countries (as Caubul)
he could carry with him huge
machines that rained arrows on an
enemy from a distance farther than
a human arm could send them. The
speed with which his engineers
make bridges to cross rivers, even
the great river Indus, takes one
quite by surprise. Long skill and
training is here presupposed. Under
Alexander’s successors the engines
of siege attain a magnitude and im
portance previously unparalleled.
Philip disciplined every class of
troops to its own work, and from
Thrace and Thessaly had men and
horses beyond any previous Greek
potentate. Greece had been accus
tomed to admire Spartan discipline ;
but Spartan troops were nearly all
of one kind, heavy infantry. They
had scarcely any cavalry, and, with
all their solid armour, were unable
to stand against arrows, or even
against slingers and darters. Before
walls or ditches they were helpless.
Yet Agesilaus had not found the
Persians formidable. He never en
countered such clouds of arrows as
Mardonius showered on the Spartans
at Plataea; hence in general the
Greeks feared Greek mercenaries
fighting on the side of Persia far
more than they feared Persians.
Every Macedonian captain knew
[June
so well the superiority of a Mace
donian army, that they counted on
victory if only they could meet the
foe in the field, whether a Philip,
a Parmenio, or an Antipater was to
be the general. This must be re
membered in estimating Alexander’s
victories.
Plutarch, desirous of exalting
Alexander, makes much of his boy
ish utterances, among which is one
of jealousy against his father for
too great success. ‘ Why, boys,’
said he, ‘ my fathei’ will leave me
nothing to conquer.’ Everything
which is told of him by his panegy
rists points to the same intense
egotism. To be a conqueror greater
than his father, and to be a fighter
equal to Achilles, and if possible
to be celebrated by a poet as noble
as Homer, was his ardent and con
stant aspiration. Alexander him
self told Darius plainly what were
his motives for ‘persevering in
hostility. At least Arrian (who
follows the accounts of Ptolemy,
son of Lagus, and Aristobulus, one
of Alexander’s commanders) pro
fesses to have before him the
actual despatch.2 After the battle
of Issus, in which Darius’s queen
and young son and mother and
other ladies had been captured,
Darius wrote to ask of Alexander
that he would restore them, and
accept from him friendship and
alliance ; for which he offered full
pledges, and begged for the same in
turn. Alexander had treated the
captive ladies- with ostentatious
honour; therefore a mild reply
might have been hoped. Instead of
this, from beginning to end the
letter breathes reproach and defiance.
In conclusion it says: ‘ Since I
have defeated, first thy generals and
satraps, and next thee and the
forces with thee; since I hold the
country, and have now in my army
numbers of those who fought on
thy side, come to me as to him who
is lord of all Asia: then thou shaft
8 ‘ The despatch of Alexander,’ says he, * stands tutts : 23e
�1875]
Moral Estimate of Alexander the Great.
receive back thy mother, thy wife
and children, and much beside,
whatever thou canst persuade me
by asking for it. But in future do
not send to me as thine equal, but
as the lord of all that is thine; else
I shall regard thee as injurious.’
Such a repulse of friendly overtures,
when Alexander had attained far
more than any Greek hoped or
wished, must surely be censured by
every modern. Yet, before any new
defeat was encountered, Darius
made yet another attempt at peace.
As Arrian tells it, while Alexander
was engaged in the siege of Tyre,
ambassadors came, offering to him
ten thousand talents (say, two
millions sterling) as ransom for the
king’s family ; Darius was willing
to yield to him the country as
far as the Euphrates •, he proposed
that Alexander should accept his
daughter in marriage, and that they
should be friends and allies. The
only reply of Alexander was ‘ that
he wanted no money of Darius, for
he counted all Darius’s money to
be his own; he would not accept a
part of the country instead of the
whole ; and if he wished to marry a
daughter of Darius, he would take
her by force without her father’s
leave.’ The historian who tells
this does not seem to be aware
how very inhuman was such a reply;
no censure escapes him. As far as
we can learn, to make Alexander
great and glorious, is Alexander’s
motive according to his own account.
Mr. de Vere would persuade us that
his aims were philanthropic. The
notion is in itself wholly ana
chronistic.
Ambition, not philanthropy, down
to the present time is the motive for
conquest. Philanthropy does some
times lead to annexation; we see
an instance in the archipelago of
Fiji, which has been accepted re
luctantly, not conquered, by the
rulers of England. So, we make
no doubt, the Incas of Peru bene
volently accepted the responsibility
of rule over various barbarian and
671
scattered tribes, whom they pre
sently attached to themselves by
benefits. Instances of this kind
exist in history, enough barely to
show what is possible to human
nature; but, alas! they are very
rare. Where the philanthropic
object is sincere, the sense of duty
and responsibility is keen, and there
is no coveting of territory and
power, no claim that might makes
right, no violence is used to establish
the claim. To make armed invasion
and attack on another country is an
avowal that you are not seeking
the welfare of the invaded, but
some interests or imagined rights of
your own or of your ally. Now, it
is obvious in Greek literature that
up to the time of Aristotle and
Alexander no idea of international
right existed. In the discourses
reported by Xenophon we have no
hint that Socrates thought a war of
Greeks even against Greeks to need
justification; and Aristotle lays
down that, by the natural superio
rity of the Greek mind, barbari
ans are made for subjection to
Greeks ; and if they do not submit,
they may rightly be forced to sub
mission—in fact, as brute animals.
When Aristotle so reasoned and
so believed, we cannot expect any
Greek prince, or any Greek republic,
to have moral scruples against in
vading any foreigner. If, from a
modern point of view, anyone
now call Alexander a ‘ bandit,’ as
Mr. de Vere complains, it is noton
the bare ground that he was an
invader ; it must mean that he was
a peculiarly reckless invader, who,
with no motive then generally
esteemed adequate, marked his
course with blood and devastation.
That is a question of detail. But
up to that time the world had seen
no right of territory or of empire
asserted on any other argument
than that of simple force. The
great Darius, son of Hystaspes,
piously records on his monuments
the names of the successive nations
which God gave to his sceptre.
�672
Moral Estimate oj Alexander the Great.
Hebrew princes spoke in the same
tone concerning whatever conquests
they could make on their narrower
scale. None can now wonder or
censure if Alexander, after the
battle of Issus, says to Darius, ‘ By
my victory God has given me
countries which were thine.’ The
Persians had no title but force to
the possession of Cilicia and Lydia ;
force might be repelled by force.
Brom the earliest times the Greeks
had swarmed out into colonies
planted on the coast of Asia, without
asking leave of Asiatic princes ; but
those princes no sooner became
powerful than they endeavoured to
recover the possession of their seabord,3 and the Lydian dynasty at
length absorbed into itself these
Asiatic Greeks. When the Persians
conquered Lydia, they naturally
regarded the Greek coast as an
integrant part of their domain;
but the Greeks, rejoicing in the
fall of the Lydian suzerain, hoped
for entire independence, and had
to be re-subdued. The Athenians
imprudently assisted them against
Darius, and sent a body of troops
which took part in the burning of
Sardis, the capital of Lydia. No
modern empire would wink at such
an outrage ; nor could King Darius ;
yet the Athenians always speak as
though his war against them had
been unprovoked. Each side knew
the outrages it had suffered and
forgot those which it had inflicted
—a common case. Unless treaties
and oaths forbade, war was received
as the natural and rightful relation
even , in Greece itself between city
and city.
But when ambition is the real
undeniable motive of war, there are
yet two kinds of ambition—personal
and national. However much we
may palliate, excuse, or even praise
the latter, all good feeling, all mo
rality, and all common sense unite
severely to rebuke the former. No
moral reasoner can justify the deeds
[June■
of Warren Hastings or of Clive,
yet we do not stigmatise the doers
as vile men; Cicero may defend
Bonteius, yet the reader sees that
the defence amounts to this, that
the oppressions complained of, if
criminal, were violences perpetrated
in the interests of Roman con
quest, not for Bonteius’s own en
richment or aggrandisement. Each
nation is strong by patriotism.
Patriotism seldom escapes a tinge
of national vanity, and generally
is deep dyed in absurd national
self-esteem. One who sacrifices
himself for the exaltation of his own
people has in him the vital element
of high virtue, even though he may
injuriously overlook the rights of
other peoples ; hence we can hon
our mere soldiers, faithful servants
of a dynasty or of a powerful re
public, when they wholly decline
all judgment of the right or wrong
of a war, and bestow their entire
energies and their lives to exalt
their nation and dynasty. The
more signally the selfish element is
suppressed, the higher is the hon
our due to them; but just in
proportion as the selfish element
is combined with unjust war, our
moral estimate is turned the other
way. If the separate commanders
are encouraged to love war because
it enables them to become rich by
plundering the conquered, the war
is demoralising to the victors. If
the king who decrees the war is
aiming at the exaltation not of his
own nation and race, but of his
own individual person; if he is
ready to trample his own people
underfoot, and set up the barbarian
as equal or superior, as soon as this,
in turn, conduces to his personal
magnificence; and if at the same
time he is utterly reckless of hu
man life and suffering on both, sides,
whenever he has a fancy or a whim
of glory—it is rather too great a
strain on our credulity to hold him
up to moral admiration. Now, in
3 Bord = edge, border; a different word from board.
�187S]
Moral Estimate of Alexander the Great.
the case of Alexander we have to
enquire, of which class was his am
bition P Was he aiming to exalt
himself, or his royal race, or to
exalt Macedonia, or to exalt Greece?
Kone of these alternatives contents
Mr. de Vere, who says that Alex
ander was aiming to make Indians
and Spaniards learn wisdom of
Sophocles and Plato. But we must
go into various details in order to
get at the truth.
Alexander, in Greek belief, de
scended from Hercules onhisfather’s
side and from Achilles on his mo
ther’s. He might naturally be
proud of each genealogy. The
Macedonians were half-Thracian,
and doubtfully Greek; but the
Macedonian dynasty claimed to be
Heracleid. Philip had satisfied the
Olympian umpires of his right, as
a genuine Greek, to send chariots
and horses to contend for the prize,
and was sincerely proud of the
honour. Plutarch, a great admirer
of Alexander, censures Philip for
the pleasure which he took in the
rivalry of cultivated Greek conver
sation, and for engraving on coins
hi® Olympian victories; while the
boyish Alexander, on the contrary,
said ‘ he must have kings for his
rivals before he would enter any
contest.’ Such royal airs did he
give himself when he was but six
teen, that a jocose saying became
current: ‘ Alexander is our king,
and Philip only our general;’ and
Philip himself was pleased with it.
But the politic Philip committed at
last one imprudence; it was great
and fatal. He had long been tired
of his queen Olympias, as well he
might be, for all agree that she
was proud, intemperate, and vio
lent. Plutarch believes the story
that, as the poets tell of Thracian
women, she practised Orphic and
Bacchanalian enthusiasm, and was
a zealot of ‘ possessions,’ inspira
tion, or catalepsy, which the mo
derns do not easily believe to have
been managed without drugs or
wine. Be the cause what it may,
673
she was very overbearing and unamiable. Alexander was moulded
into pride by his mother, and was
in general very much disposed to
yield to her; but an utterance of
his, after he was supreme in Asia,
has been stereotyped : ‘ My mother
really charges me a very high rent
for my ten months’ lodging [in her
womb].’ Philip is said already to
have had another wife, Eurydice
(Arrian, iii. 6), but apparently
Olympias still held the chief place as
queen, until he became fascinated
by a much younger lady, Cleopatra,
who was introduced to the Court
in a magnificent wedding-feast.
Her uncle, Attalus, when much the
worse forwine, uttered an imprudent
blessing on the marriage. Olympias
flamed out with all the wrath
of a Medea. Alexander expected
to be disowned as successor to the
throne and superseded by a new
heir. He escaped with his mother
into Epirus, and thence took refuge
with the Illyrians. This was when
he was about seventeen. With a
slight turn of events his history
might have been that of many
■ Oriental princes;—a son contending
with his father for the throne.
Philip, by kind messages, per
suaded him to return ; but Alex
ander was still jealous, and his new
jealousy was of his brother Arrhidaaus. Pexodorus, satrap of Caria,
desired to give his daughter in
marriage to Arrhidseus. Alexan
der, suspecting some treason in
this, sent a private messenger to the
satrap, dissuading the match, and
asking why the young lady was not
rather offered in marriage to him.
Plutarch, who tells this, does not
see how unamiable this makes Alex
ander towards his brother as well
as his father. With his cousin
Amyntas he had a deadly feud,
because Amyntas, his elder, was
son of Perdiccas, who preceded
Philip on the throne, and had osten
sibly a higher claim to the succes
sion than Alexander. All danger
of collision with Philip himself was
�■674
Moral Estimate of Alexander the Great.
removed by the assassin Pausanias,
whom Olympias was believed by
the public to have instigated.
The new reign opened with all
the symptoms of a Court revolu
tion. Noblemen who had gone into
exile returned at once, among
whom was Ptolemy, son of Lagus.
Amyntas was put to death as a
dangerous rival. Cleopatra’s infant
son suffered the same fate. Attalus,
to whom Alexander was implacable
for a drunken speech, had been sent
forward by Philip with an army into
Asia, but was there assassinated by
Hecatasus, Alexander’s emissary.
Cleopatra herself was ‘ handled
cruelly ’ by Olympias—words of
Plutarch, which are generally in
terpreted to mean that she was put
to death with bodily outrage.4 But
when the violent deeds of princes
are secret we must make allowance
for credulous exaggerations of de
tail.
Though Alexander was proud of
his descent from Hercules through
his father, so quickly was his head
turned by too rapid and dazzlingsuccess, that he presently disowned
his father Philip, and wished to be'
accounted a son of Jupiter. This
was the beginning of disgust to the
Macedonians.
His comrade and
playmate Philotas, whom Philip
had employed to reprove him for
his foolish and wrongful meddlinoagainst the marriage of his brother
Arrhideeus, wrote to him honest
truth in Egypt, when first Alexander
trumped up this monstrous fiction,
and warned him of the mischief
which he would do to himself by it.
That Alexander never forgave him
for his plain speaking appears un
deniable : for, years after, when
Philotas was accused of complicity
in a plot against Alexander’s life,
Alexander, rising in the council of
chief Macedonians, bitterly accused
Philotas of having been a traitor
[June
from the beginning, and adduced
this letter as a proof of his early
disaffection. Whether Philotas was,
or was not, at last in complicity with
the plot, it is not probable that the
moderns will ever agree. Quintus
Curtins condemns him; but the
argument which Curtius puts into
his mouth appears a complete and
sufficient defence, and on this point
makes him reply: ‘ I wrote to the
king direct; I did not write to
others concerning the king ; I feared
for him; I did not raise odium
against him • my trust in friendship,
and the dangerous freedom ofgivingtrue advice, have ruined me.’ Be
the case of Philotas as it may, all
the historians agree that Alexander
insisted on the title Son of Jupiter,
for which he had obtained the
sanction of the oracle of Hammon by
a very dangerous journey through
the desert.
On one remarkable
occasion (Arrian, vii. 8), when the
army was able to speak with a com
bined shout, by which no one should
be singled out for vengance, they cry
to him that ‘ they had best all
return to Greece, and leave him to
campaign in Asia by help of his
father ’—meaning Jupiter Hammon,
says the historian. Plutarch, who
certainly does not censure him, says
that ‘ to the Persians he assumed
the haughty tone of one who was
quite convinced of his divine birth,
but to the Greeks he was more
moderate and sparing in his
assumption of divinity, except that
to the Athenians he wrote a letter
concerning Samos saying: “I,formy
part, should not have given to you
a free and glorious city [Samos] ;
but you have received it from him
who then was master of it, and used
to be called my father ”—meaning
Philip.’ But a king who could
gratuitously write thus in a public
despatch to the Athenians displayed
a determination to enforce his pre
4 Plutarch says that Alexander was very angry with his mother for her conduct
to Cleopatra. One might interpret his words to mean that Olympias inflicted some
bodily outrage that marred her beauty; but I fear that a still more terrible sense is
truer.
�f ' 1875]
Moral Estimate of Alexander the Great.
posterous claim.5 And here it is
difficult to understand the liberty
which Mr. Aubrey de Vere takes
with history. He represents Alex
ander as speaking with contempt
and disapproval of the mythical
tale of his miraculous origin (p. 7) :
Mark, Hephrestion!
The legend-mongers at their work! ’Twas
thus
They forg’d in Macedon that tale prepost’rous,
Scand’lous alike to me and to my mother,
Touching great Zeus.
Such a tale cannot have been in
vented before the battle of Issus,
and Alexander himself eagerly
adopted it (whoever was the in
ventor) within half a year after the
battle. It is evident, therefore, that
his head was turned by his sudden
and vast success ; and the Mace
donians saw it.
A second great disgust with them
$
I was his disparaging of his father
Philip, especially over his wine-cups.
The Macedonians were right loyal
royalists and justly proud of Philip.
He had raised their country from
a very feeble to a predominant
position. When he came to the
throne Macedonia had but half a
sea-coast, from the number of in
dependent Greek cities. He had
recovered all Macedonia and added
Thrace to it, including Byzantium
itself; had brought Thessaly and
Phocis into his dominion; had
defeated the Theban and Athenian
forces by land, and made himself at
sea equal or superior to Athens ;
had become master of Molossia and
Pseonia, and was at length ac
knowledged as the genuine Greek
K prince, who was the only rightful
50 leader of Greece.
His army he had
so organised as to make it un
675
equalled, and by the consent of one
and another State he had been
allowed to garrison many of the
most critical fortresses in Greece.
What Macedonian captain could be
willing to hear Philip the Great
disparaged by his own son ? All
the old officers of Philip were in
dignant at it. The habit of the
Macedonians, as of the Thracians,
was that of much wine-drinking,
and the king was expected to dine
with his chief captains and ministers.
It is a sufficient mark how national
customs preponderate over talents
and wisdom, that the father and son
who in all Greek history are signal
and pre-eminent were both gravely
damaged by the wine-cup. Mr.
de Vere is pleased to allude to it
as Alexander’s ‘ supposed intempe
rance ; ’ and no doubt Arrian tries
to excuse him, as does Plutarch, on
the ground that his tarrying over
the wine was from Jove of com
pany, not from sensuality.
Of
course; so it generally is. The
historical form of drunkenness
with Greeks, Romans, Persians,
Gauls, Germans, and we readily
believe also of Macedonians, was
different from that of an English
artisan who stands up at the bar of
a gin-palace to enjoy his solitary
glass. But the evidence of mischief
from these Macedonian banquets is
not to be sneered away. The be
ginning of ruin to the house of
Philip was from the wedding-feast
of the new queen Cleopatra; at which
her uncle Attalus, when overfilled
with wine,6 prayed ‘ that the gods
would give to Philip a legitimate
successor by Cleopatra.’ ‘Am I then
a bastard, you rascal?’ cried young
Alexander, and flung his cup7 at
the head of Attalus. Philip rose in
5 A curious story is told, that the priest of Hammon tried to give an oracular reply
1
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’
11
V
J ' "
'
"
"
, in Greek; and not ’being deep in the Greek language, thought that iraibiov for a „ A,
youth
j*? ought to be masculine; so, instead of addressing Alexander by a> iraioiov, 0 youth !
or 0 my son ! he said, a> iraibios ; and Alexander, in Greek fashion, instantly ‘ accepted
ai the omen,’ declaring that the x
priest had addressed him by the title
mxi Aios,
v
p
O child of Jupiter!
I 6 ev
irtfrcp fj,e0va>i/.
7 ‘ Scyphis pugnare, Thracum est,’ says Horace.
�676
Moral Estimate of Alexander the Great.
anger, and, sword in hand, tried to
step across to his son; but his feet
failed him, and he fell on the floor.
‘Here is a man,’ said the youth,
‘ who is preparing to cross into Asia,
and is upset in passing from one
seat to another.’ Evidently Alex
ander, as well as Philip, was already
the worse for wine ; but that scene,
in which he might have been slain
by a tipsy father, must surely have
impressed him deeply, if he remem
bered his own scoff. One who was
planning to reorganise all Asia, one
who knew the frightful mischiefs
which a despotic king may inflict
on himself as well as on others,
when wine overmasters him, is not
exempt from our moral criticism.
The higher his intellect, the deeper
is the censure deserved. But that
Alexander was fond of wine, Plu
tarch regards as a fact, while he
apologises for it. Alexander’s body,
he says, had a delicious fragrance ;
no doubt from his hot and fiery
nature; for heat brings out aro
matic smells ; and the same heat
of body made Alexander addicted
to drink and passionate (rai irorucdv
Kat Ovpoetci]). A history written of
a king by another king, or by one of
his generals, is not likely to allude
to drunken bouts such as the
customs of the nation sanctioned,
except when special necessity re
quired; yet wine in this Macedonian
tale plays a part previously un
known in Greek history. The de
fence of Alexander rests on his love
of conversation ; but what was the
talk which he most loved ? The
poison of flattery. Arrian, his
defender, throws the fault upon
those who extolled him as superior
to Hercules and the other mythical
heroes, and of course as far and far
above his father Philip; but since
Alexander never checked them, but
manifestly enjoyed their praise, it
necessarily became the staple of
these feasts. At other times he was
too busy to listen to such reptiles ;
the essential evil of his long sittings
was, that there was plenty of time
[June
for him to drink in such adulation,
to the ever increasing disgust of
Philip’s old soldiers. Q. Curtius
regards it as a certain fact that
Alexander himself was fond of disparaging his father’s deeds and
exalting his own. The report of it
even reached Italy, where his uncle
Alexander of Epirus, who met his
death in Italian battle, uttered an
epigram which was re-echoed in
Asia—that in Italy he had had to
fight with men, but his nephew
Alexander in Asia had alighted on
women. Ho one can wonder that a
king who in his boyhood was already
comparing his own future deeds
with those of his father, should inwardly boast to himself, after conquering Asia Minor, Syria, and
Egypt in less than two years, that
he had far exceeded the deeds of
Philip ; and with each new success
new vanity and new arrogance
entered his heart. In vino veritas.
After wine had sufficiently lessened
his self-restraint, he was liable not
merely to listen to praise from
others, but to trumpet his own
praise. The same wine sometimes
affected the self-restraint of his
comrades ; and he surely must have
foreseen each possibility.
Mr. de Vere wishes us to make
light of his killing his faithful com
rade Cleitus ; and since Cleitus
could not be brought to life again,
and Alexander was shocked at his
own deed, of course all the Macedo
nians tried to comfort the king, and
to accuse Cleitus as having provoked
his own death. Arrian, a profound
royalist, is very severe upon Cleitus;
yet the fact comes out that Cleitus’s
high words were elicited by the disparagement of King Philip, which
Cleitus could not endure, whether
from Alexander or from Alexander’s
flatterers. It is seldom indeed that
one can attempt to guess the utterances of tipsy men ; but if you cut
short eithei’ the long story of Arrian
or the still longer story of Q. Curtius, you get something like this as
the result: ‘ King Philip, my prede-
’
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�1875]
Moral Estimate of Alexander the Great.
cessor,’ says Alexander, 1 was no
ticing1 of a general compared to me.
In twelve years he did not conquer
half of what I conquered in twelve
months.’ ‘ Stop ! ’ replies Cleitus ;
‘remember that he never had the
chance Of fighting with Persians:
ho had to deal with stubborn Greeks.
Besides, he never committed such
a blunder as you did at the Granicus, where you nearly ruined us
all, and nothing but this right hand
saved your life.’ The last words
Arrian regards as abominable and
inexcusable from a soldier to a king;
and so, no doubt, all the flatterers
urged ? the greater the truth, the
worse the offence. But the absur
dity is, to expect a man who is halftipsy io retain prudence and mo
desty. Alexander, according to his
warm admirer Plutarch, was of a ‘ furious and violent nature ’ (faylalov
iceti (b£f>6p.ETov
and now,
being full of wine, of course he was
uncontrollable. When reminded
that he owed his life to Cleitus, and
virtually all his after-successes, he
could not bear such an amount of
indebtedness ; and although all the
armed men around, seeing his state,
disobeyed his orders, he succeeded
in, snatching a weapon from one of
them, and with it laid Cleitus dead.
Might not one have hoped that such
a tragedy would for ever have cured
him of long drinking ? But it did
not. Indeed, Arrian, wishing to
defend him, represents him as
already* somewhat corrupted into
Asiatic depravity, implying that he
was on the downhill track—not
that we know anything so bad of
Persian kings.
Another grievous offence to Ma
cedonian feeling was, that he ex
acted of them prostration on the
ground before him in Persian fa
shion. This was as detestable to
Greeks as to Englishmen. It was
emphatically the unmanning of free
men. JEschylus puts into the mouth
677
of Agamemnon the sentiment of
every Greek :
Nor yet, in fashion of barbaric wight,
Prostrate before me, mouth unmanly
words.
There could not be a more decisive
proof that Alexander intended to
destroy every vestige of Greek sen
timent and Greek freedom, and
reduce them all to the level of Orien
tal slaves. Disaffection was inevit
able ; his noblest comrades were the
most certain to disapprove; the
basest took the opportunity of ca
lumniating them, and ingratiated
themselves with the king by slander.
We cannot know the exact time of
this and that detestable whisper,
nor whether it be true that Alexan
der tampered with Philotas’s mis
tress, and bribed her to report
month by month whatever words
of indignation Philotas might drop.
Such is Plutarch’s account, who
indeed represents Philotas as put
to torture, and Alexander behind a
curtain listening to every word;
and when, overcome by suffering,
Philotas uttered piteous entreaties
to Hephmstion the torturer, Alex
ander drew back the curtain and
reproached Philotas with unmanli
ness. Plutarch in general is just and
tenderhearted; yet he can tell this
horrible story without seeing how
odious it makes Alexander. Arrian
cuts the tale of Philotas short, but
relates on the authority of King
Ptolemy that he was killed by the
darts of the Macedonians—equiva
lent to the modern shooting of a sol
dier. On this comes a second deadly
crime, to which Mr. Aubrey de
Vere will hardly reconcile us. ‘ Silly
is he, ’ said the Greek proverb, 1 who
slays the father and spares the son.’
‘ Silly shall I be,’ argued Alexander,
‘ if I kill Philotas and leave his
father Parmenio alive.’ Parmenio
had conquered Media for the king,
and was there at the head of a large
army. Letters are therefore sent
8 ‘For Alexander had already, in the matter of drinking-bouts, made innovation
towards more barbaric manners.’
�678
Moral Estimate of Alexander the Great.
with the utmost speed, to three ge
nerals in high command, ordering
them to assassinate Parmenio while
he is engaged in reading certain de
spatches, which are sent to put him
off his guard. That they were all
base enough to obey proves how com
pletely the Macedonian commanders
were already enslaved; but the
wrath of the common soldiers was
extreme, and might have been dan
gerous. There can be no doubt that
Alexander was now hated as much
as he was feared.
The accusation against Philotas
had risen out of a real conspiracy
of the pages when Alexander was
in Bactria, of which, it was al
leged, Philotas had had knowledge.
Philip had established the system of
royal pages—youths of the noblest
families, who waited on the king,
acted as grooms, helped him to
mount his horse, and hunted with
him. On one occasion, when a
dangerous wild boar rushed at the
king, the page Hermolaus killed the
animal with his dart. The king
was enraged at losing his own
chance of killing it, and ordered
the page to be flogged. Such a
reward for such a service was of
course unendurable to a noble Ma
cedonian youth, who at once vowed
revenge. Whether he would actual
ly have taken the king’s life we
cannot now ascertain. Other pages
shared the indignation of Hermo
laus. The evidence against them,
according to Aristobulus, was swol
len by Alexander’s belief in the
supernatural powers of a Syrian
woman who was subject to ‘ posses
sions,’ and was allowed access to the
king day and night, to warn him of
danger. She was believed to have
saved his life from Hermolaus. One
thing only is here clear—that he
knew himself to be hated, and
through his suspicions degraded
himself to precautions at once per
nicious and odious. One of the
alleged conspirators, Dimnus, slew
himself when he found what reports
and beliefs were accepted ; the rest
[June
were stoned to death, guilty or.
guiltless. For us it suffices to
know that Alexander was definitely
engaged in the task of trampling
out the Greek sentiment of freedom
from his own people. This is very
unlike the task to which Mr. de
Vere thinks he set himself, of re
deeming the world from barbarism,
and irradiating it with Greek science
and art, with the wisdom of Plato
and Sophocles.
Callisthenes the philosopher had
been the tutor of Hermolaus and a
great favourite with him. The
flatterers knew that Alexander
dreaded his honesty and his courage,
and they laid a plot to force him
to deliver his opinion on the ques
tion of prostration before the king
by questions over the wine. Arrian,
who calls him clownish or rude
(crypoiKoc), gives his speech at great
length ; but no rudeness is apparent
in it to us. He says that he honours
Alexander as the first of men, but
different honours are due to men
and to gods ; that prostration is fit
honour to gods only; that Alexander
would not approve of a low multi
tude voting a common man into the
royal throne, nor can the gods be
pleased with men voting a man
into divine honours ; that Darius,
honoured by prostrations, was
defeated by Alexander, to whom no
prostrations had been used. Indeed,
the great Cyrus, who first received
such honour, had been chastised by
the Massagetans, and the great
Darius by other Scythians, as
Xerxes and the later kings by
Greeks.
This discourse, says
Arrian, violently displeased Alex
ander, but was acceptable to the
Macedonians. Callisthenes after
wards distinctly refused to prostrate
himself. He now was accused of
having incited the pages to their
conspiracy. That the mode of his
death was uncertain, Arrian regards
as remarkable; for Aristobulus
says he was put in fetters and
carried about wherever the army
went, until he died of disease;
�1875]
Moral Estimate of Alexander the Great.
Ptolemy says he was first tortured
on the rack and then hanged.
Every honourable Greek philoso
pher had now full warning to keep
his distance from Alexander. To
Aristotle the king had already sent
from Asia a characteristic complaint,
when the philosopher published
some lectures. Plutarch professes
to give the very words of the letter.
‘ Alexander sends greeting to Aris
totle. You do wrong in publishing
your lectures. For wherein shall
we excel other men, if you impart
to them the instruction which you
gave to us ? But I, for my part,
would rather excel men in the
noblest experiences [science] than
in military forces. Farewell.’ This
is not in the tone of one who desires
all foreign peoples to imbibe Greek
science and philosophy, as Mr. de
Vere fancies.
The pride and violence of Alex
ander, his vices and his crimes, one
by one, Arrian seems able to defend
or excuse ; but when all culminates
in his assumption and enforcement
of the Persian dress, the historian’s
eyes seem at last to be opened.
‘I do not praise,’ says he, ‘his
excessive punishment of Bessus ’
(whom he first scourged and ex'hibited naked in a cage, afterwards
cut off his nose and ears, and sent
him to be put to death by his own
countrymen), ‘and I confess that
Alexander was enticed to imitate
Persian luxury and barbaric cere
monialism ; nor can I praise that
he, being a Heracleid, wore Median
vesture instead of his native Mace
donian, and assumed the Persian
tiara instead of his own victorious
garb. But if the mighty deeds of
Alexander can teach us anything
they teach this, that no accumulation
of outward magnificence conduces
to any man’s welfare, if he cannot
retain sobriety of mind ((T<l)(|>po(Tvvr|f,
Let this be a set-off to Mr. de Vere’s
other quotation from Arrian, which
he says ‘ is doubtless right ’—that
Alexander assumed the Persian
dress that he might appear not
679
altogether to despise the barbarians.
The matter is indeed quite plain.
He himself took three noble Persian
ladies as his wives, one of them a
daughter of Darius — a frank
adopting of the Oriental seraglio,,
the curse of princes and nations.
He induced eighty of his high
officers similarly to take Persian
wives. The marriages were all
conducted with Persian ceremonies,
and to all of them the king gave
liberal dowries. More than 10,000
Greek soldiers followed the example
of marrying native women. The
king had the names of them all
registered, and sent marriage gifts
to every one. Nothing is clearer
than that he desired to shift his
centre of support.
Instead of
depending on Greeks, who were
sure to abhor and resist his striving
after Oriental despotism, he aimed
simply to step into the shoes of
Darius, and let the Persians feel
that their institutions remained
unchanged ; they had only changed
one king for another. To Mace
donians, and to all Greeks who had
a particle of free spirit, such con
duct appeared treason to Greece,
who had freely chosen him as leader,
treason also to freedom.
As
Callisthenes said to his face, the
progenitors of the Macedonian
dynasty came from Argos to Mace
donia ; there, not by force, but by
law, they were accepted as rulers,
and received honour as men, not
as gods. Surely the idea that
Alexander was bent on imparting
the blessings of Greek civilisation
to all Asia is, in the face of the
facts, only a wild fiction.
And here the thought presents
itself, What is the erudition of Mr,
Aubrey de Vere ? Has he enough
knowledge of Greek to read Arrian
oi’ Plutarch for himself? A matter
in itself slight moves strong dis
belief. Nine times in his drama he
pronounces the name Kpartpoe
Craterus. It would appear that he
cannot ever have seen the name in
Greek letters, common as it is, or
�680
MbruZ Estimate of Alexander the Great.
he could not make such a blunder.
There is no ambiguity about it.
Thus:
p. 27. Or keen-edg’d, like Craterus. This
I grant him—
p. 74. But sacrilege. I scorn your words,
Craterus.
p. 79. Which by Craterus, Ptolemy, Hepliaestion—
p. 90. Forth, sirs, and meet them. Let
Craterus bide—
He is uniformly consistent with
himself in the error. So too he
pronounces Heraclides (p. 212)
with short penultima, evidently un
aware that it is 'Hpct/ALch/c in the
Greek. The Niscean horses ('ittwoi
Nio-cuot) he converts into Nyseean
(p. 164), misled by Nvo-a, Nysa, the
supposed Bacchanalian centre. In
p. 96 he makes the Macedonians
talk familiarly of the philosophy of
Epicurus, whom our books re
present as ‘ flourishing ’ half a
century later. At that day Epicurus
surely cannot have been known.
On the whole, Mr. de Vere does
not, primd facie, command any
deference to his opinions ; else one
might be curious to know, whence
he gets his information that Alex
ander planned the conquest of Italy
and Spain. ‘ The empire which
Alexander had resolved to create
was that of the whole world. Had
he lived, he must have created it
. . . . had ten years more been
accorded. But it was not to be.
Alexander was not to tread the
banks of the Tiber....................... He
had aspired to give to one small
spot on earth’s surface, Greece, a
power extending over the earth. . ..’
Will he, perhaps, appeal to the wild
speech in which he strives to per
suade his soldiers to march to the
mouths of the Ganges, assuring them
that the sea of Bengal joins the
Caspian Sea, and that he will carry
his army from the Ganges round
Africa to the pillars of Hercules,
1 and so all Africa becomes ours ’ ?
How can a modern who knows any
thing of geography fail to see that
if he was serious, he was a fool,
[June
rather than a statesman with un
erring judgment ?
The schemes of Alexander were
wild enough, and it is not requisite
to attribute to him what is wilder
still. All his generals—and one may
add, all his soldiers—knew that
his dream of holding India to the
mouths of the Ganges was morally
and physically impossible. To ima
gine that the native Indians would
submit voluntarily and become
loyal to his sceptre, was simply
ridiculous. Greek heroism and
discipline must make the conquest;
but the entire military population of
Greece was insufficient to garrison
and maintain even the Persian em
pire, say nothing of India proper.
Alexander showed admirable mili
taryjudgment in choosing sites for
Greek colonies, but he could not
people them without unpeopling
Greece. The vast drain of young
men and mature men to fill his
armies quickly made the native
population decay, and the Mace
donian army there under Antipater
crushed all that remained of liberty.
Mr. de Vere whimsically says that
Alexander was aiming ‘ to give to
Greece (!) a power extending over the
whole earth,’ at the very time when
he was actually trampling Greece
itself, as tvell as Greek institutions
and sentiments, under foot, training
Persian levies to control what he
regarded as Greek insolence, and
putting forward native Persians,
who willingly submitted to pros
tration and all Oriental servility, into
high posts expressly as a curb on
the Macedonians. It may even
seem that from the day that Alex
ander set foot on Asia he abandoned
all thought of returning to Greece.
This explains his lavish giving away
of Macedonian revenues.
Like
Achilles, that type of pride and
royal egotism, he meant to conquer
or die; at best Macedonia was
nothing to him but a distant re
cruiting-ground. When Parmenio
or any other general dropped the
suggestion, ‘ Is it not time to think
�1875]
Moral Estimate of Alexander the Great.
of home ? ’ he at once treated it as
disaffection. The desire of soldiers
to return to their native lands and
friends, was with him base and
stupid ingratitude. On two occa
sions Arrian gives a very full
account of his resentment, but con
densation is here desirable. After
Alexander’s victories over the In
dian king Porus the army showed
extreme reluctance to march farther
eastward, and the dissatisfaction
was too great and general to be
dissembled. He tried to persuade
them to march to the mouths of the
Ganges, and his speech shows us on
what motives he relies. ‘ He makes
them rich by plunder-, he shares
toil and danger with them; no
nation has yet withstood them, and
none will be able. Me will mahe them
satraps over new and new lands. He
gives them even now good pay. After
they have overrun all Asia he will
load them with riches, and either will
let them go home, or will lead them
home, or will make those envied
who prefer to stay with him in Asia.
Such were the base arguments by
which from the beginning he had
trained his soldiers to thrive on the
misery of the conquered peoples. But
the army felt the toils, the wounds,
the numbers who had perished, the
little chance of carrying home a ro
bust frame: in short, they were
home-sick :and, to his extreme dis
gust, he was forced to listen to an
honest speech from his old officer
Coenus, who, after long silence, ex
pounded to him the views and
feelings of the army. Mr. Aubrey
de Vere seems to think that the
soldiers were fools and narrow
minded, and that, even years later,
an inscrutable Providence, cutting
short Alexander’s life, alone
hindered the accomplishment of
conquests far more difficult than
any which he had achieved. If he
681
had economised his own strength
and that of his Greek troops, he
might doubtless have reigned over
all Darius’s empire and over Greece
in addition, but certainly not while
he lavished Greek life recklessly.
Mr. de Vere is indignant that
Alexander should be spoken of as
the Macedonian 1 madman, ’ and
evidently does not understand what
is the justification of that epithet.
It is because he was not satisfied
with encountering inevitable dangers
and losses, but gratuitously espoused
and invented needless dangers and
new losses. The battle of the
Granicus was the first manifestation
of this folly. His war against Tyre
was a signal and needless cruelty,
which might have been fatal to him.
The Tyrians, having no aid from
Darius, sent ambassadors to say they
would perform all his commands,
except that they must receive neither
a Persian nor a Macedonian force
within their city—an island. If he
had accepted this compromise, their
fleet and their resources would at
once have been at his disposal; and
as soon as the fortunes of Darius
were manifestly irretrievable, the
very small reserve of respect for
Persian rule9 was certain to vanish.
But Alexander’s pride was inflamed
that any exception or reserve, how
ever temporary, should oppose his
absolute will. He sent away the am
bassadors in anger, and commenced
a war which proved extremely
difficult. In it he received and in
flicted cruel wounds, wasting time
and enormous effort. At the end
he won a ruined city, having spoiled:
its site for ever by his works ; and
after all the slaughter in the siege,
and frightful carnage in the final
storming, he had the miserable
satisfaction of selling into slavery
thirty thousand Tyrians and fo
reigners who were in the city.
* The case is not fully explained. Perhaps the Persian kings had so far honoured
and gratified the Tyrians as to stipulate that no Persian force should enter their city.
A highly reasonable request.
VOL. XI.—NO. LXVI,
NEW SEEIES.
3 B
�682
Moral Estimate of Alexander the Great.
No other Greek general would have
committed such an error, if we may
not call it crime. Again and again
we find him undertake dangerous
and difficult enterprises, wasteful of
Greek life, not because they are
needful, but barely because of the
difficulty.
In Sogdiana there was a natural
rock, supposed to be impregnable ;
among the Paraitakse a second
rock; among the Bazeri (modern
Caubul ?) a third, which it was
said Hercules had failed to take.
He must waste blood and time to
capture them all. The mention of
Hercules instantly inflamed his pas
sion to outdo the mythical hero.
When he came to the Iaxartes (the
Sir Deria), the river which sepa
rated the Massagetan Scythians
from the Persian empire, he of
■ course found Scythian cavalry
watching him. They shoot arrows
into the stream to show him that
he must not cross. It is an un
endurable insult, he says : he must
chastise them. He crosses the
river, undergoes hard fighting, takes
credit for victory, but presently
has to come back again, half
poisoned by drinking foul water,
with no reward but needless blood
shed. Naturally, when he turns his
back, they come over to help his
enemy. But nothing so much de
serves to be called a wicked destruc
tion of his soldiers as his march
through Gedrosia, the modern Beloochistan. After the toils, wounds,
and losses encountered to conquer
in India territories which could
not be kept permanently, he built
a fleet of transports and sailed
down to the mouths of the Indus.
There he heard that no army had
ever passed safe through Gedrosia ;
that Queen Semiramis had at
tempted it, and brought through
only twenty men, and the great
Cyrus had come through with seven
only. This immediately determined
him to do (says Nearchus, his ad
[June
miral) what to them had been
impossible. (The tales were, no
doubt, mythical; but Alexander had
an open ear to every lying legend,
equally as to soothsayers and cata
leptic women.) All the sufferings
elsewhere endured by the army
were as nothing compared to this.
Heat, want of water and of fodder,
presently reduced them to the ut
most distress. They could not feed
or water their cattle; they killed
them for food. Alexander knew it,
and did not dare to forbid it. The
waggons had to be abandoned.
They dug into the sand for partial
supplies of water. A miserable
stream and timely rain saved a part
of the army. Many are said to
have perished by excess of drinking
after long thirst and heat, probably
also after long fatigue and fasting.
Alexander in the worst suffer
ing displayed great;10 magnanimity,
and, like the Hebrew king David,
when water was brought to him
that did not suffice for many, poured
it out on the ground. The guides
professed to have quite lost the
tracks, and a miserable time had
still to be endured. That he, got
through safe with any considerable
part of his men, seemed to be a
miracle; and meanwhile several
satraps took great liberties, not
expecting that he would ever reappear. It cannot be pretended
that such a king either economised
his resources or acted as one who
understood the difficulties of his
own task. It- is vain to talk of
his statesmanship, when his mili
tary impetus and habit of sacri
ficing everything for the victory of
the moment uniformly carried him
away.
His cruelties to the unfortunate
and innocent Asiatics would not
deserve censure from a Greek point
of view, if they had proceeded
from any long-sighted policy. Philip
also was cruel to the Phocians
where it served his ambition. No
M Plutarch tells a story not unlike this on a different occasion.
�1875]
Moral Estimate of Alexander the Great.
one greatly blamed Alexander for
his severity to Thebes; though all
shuddered. He sold all the Thebans
who survived his attack, men, wo
men, and children, into slavery,
divided their country among his
allies, and razed the walls to the
ground. This was intended to
strike terror into every Greek city,
and teach to all the danger of his
enmity. Beyond a doubt it was
politic, but not the act of one who
desired to exalt Greece. It was in
his uniform style of pure egotism.
But his cruelties to the unhappy
Asiatics who for the first time heard
his name are repeated to satiety.
He comes suddenly into Bactria,
where is only one strong place,
Gyrupolis. He captures five cities
in two days, and massacres as many
of the people as he can. He places
cavalry round one city to intercept
fugitives who might report his pre
sence to the next, lest the people
run away into the woods and moun
tains and be harder to catch.
Nevertheless the smoke of the burn
ing city gave warning. Tidings
also of the disaster came, and the
population took flight; but they
Were mercilessly slaughtered—un
armed and without discrimination.
In storming these hapless and ut
terly weak places Alexander gave
strict orders to kill every man, and
make slaves of the women and
children. (What the army could
possibly do with so many slaves,
and how they could be fed, here as
elsewhere is unexplained.) When
Alexander was wounded, as often
happened, the Macedonians were
made doubly ferocious. Nothing so
bloody is ever imputed by the
Greeks to Xerxes. Our historians
would never have been silent had
he committed such atrocities as
they tell of Alexander.
683
.And this may remind us of the
burning of the palace in Persepolis.
Alexander himself was afterwards
ashamed of it, and so, apparently,
was King Ptolemy, who represents
it as an act of mistaken policy.
Forsooth, Xerxes burnt Athens, and
Alexander wished to avenge the
outrage ! Had, then, the countless
multitudes 11 relentlessly slaugh
tered in pursuit, after his great
victories, been insufficient revenge
for ancient deeds ? And did Alex
ander forget that Persepolis was
now his own city, and that he was
burning his own palace ? Arrian
elsewhere, in courtier fashion, says
that Ptolemy, being a king, was
likely to tell the truth; but he
forgets that it must have been very
painful to him to tell facts dis
agreeable to his royal patron and
friend, on whose favour and suc
cesses his own fortune had been
built up. Plutarch gives another
account, which Mr. de Vere believes,
that the palace was burnt under
the initiative of the Attic courtesan
Thais in the midst of drunken
festivity ; that she was the mistress
of Ptolemy; that Alexander was
not master of himself when, with
garland on his head and lamp in
hand, he assisted and aided in the
conflagration ; finally, that the
Macedonians eagerly assisted, be- '
cause they thought it a certain proof
that Alexander did not mean to keep
Persia and live among barbarians.
This is the more probable account,
but it was morally impossible for
King Ptolemy to publish it.
One cannot read the details of
battle, and fire, and ravage of
peaceable homes, without seeing the
vast amount of suffering, of star
vation, and of ruined prosperity
entailed by this ruthless conquest
over a vast area of country. If it
_ J1 In all mere estimates of force we may justly suspect 'immense exaggeration. Ar
rian says that, after the last great hattie with Darius, as many as 300,000 corpses
oi barbarians were gathered, and a far greater number of persons were captured.
One may suspect that he wrote A, and that it has been corrupted to A. This would
reduce the number to 40,000, and agree with Q. Curtius.
3 B 2
�684
MoraZ Estimate of Alexander the Great.
had been followed by a total over
throw of old corrupting despotism,
and the introduction of nobler in
stitutions, we might say it was a
dreadful price paid for a great good;
but when Alexander carefully pre
served all the worst Persian insti
tutions, who will show us any good
at all from it ? So successfully
did he act. the part of a mere
Asiatic, born in a seraglio, that
Persian tradition, and the cele
brated Persian epic, represent him
as a younger Persian prince who
dethroned his own brother, and so
succeeded to the throne. If we
ask, Wherein did he improve Per
sia ? we get from some the reply,
‘ He diffused a knowledge of the
Greek language.’ Yet the Greek
language and Greek literature could
not save Greece itself from decay,
nor from worse and worse corrup
tion, under the despotism which
he imposed and bequeathed. He
exposed his own life recklessly,
month by month, yet never took a
single precaution for the benefit of
the empire in case of his death.
This is in perfect harmony with
the essential egotism of his charac
ter. He believed himself the most
generous of mankind, because he
gave away the fruit of other men’s
labour to his soldiers; and he fre
quently boasted that he retained
nothing for himself, when he was
claiming supreme power over all
their property, their lives, and their
honour. At the last, when they
saw he was dying, they implored
him to name his successor; but to
the question, ‘ To whom do you
leave the empire ? ’ he would give
no other answer than, 1 To the
strongest man among you.’ Here
by he entailed on Asia the new
misery of twenty years’ civil war
among his generals.
The mischief to Greece in each
new generation was worse and
worse. Freedom was almost every
where crushed. All the young men
had to unlearn patriotism, and
accept the creed that to become
[June
mercenary soldiers in Asia, or suffer
conscription under & tyrant, was a
life good enough for a Greek. Thai
genius in Greece perished with
Demosthenes is so often remarked,
that it is difficult to understand
how any scholars blind themselves
to the evidence that Alexander was
the assassin both of liberty and of
genius. Of course the evil result®
from the overthrow of law and of
all semblance of right could not
appear at once. The vast system
of standing armies undermined in
Greece industrial pursuits, cultiva
tion of the soil, and family life.
The same result, depopulation, fol
lowed in Italy from the demand of
men for the Roman legions; and
we cannot be wrong in tracing to
the same cause the marked and
steady decay of population in Greece.
As to Asia, we have no documents
to base assertion upon, but nothing
visible denotes that under Mace
donian or Parthian despots things
were better than under Persian.
While princes are born in a seraglio,
and practise polygamy from an early
age, no royal dynasty is long equal
to common men in body or mind.
To join personal despotism to poly
gamy is fatal to all enduring good
government; yet this is exactly
what Alexander did. Of durable
prosperity he laid no foundation®.
Military posts in abundance he
planned and fortified; docks for
ship-building he established on the
rivers of the Panjab; but how
could he hope to obtain allegiance
from the people ? He depended on
mere force. When his back was
turned they revolted. He might
well say, as Napoleon I. said, ‘ Ah I
I cannot be everywhere.’ When an
Indian king—Musicanus—revolted,
Alexander in revenge razed to the
ground the walls of the cities which
he had placed under Musicanus,
and reduced the people into slavery
(what he did with them as slaves
is never explained, and this makes
one hope there is exaggeration),
and where he had himself placed
�1875]
Moral Estimate of Alexander the Great.
garrisons he dismantled and de
stroyed the citadels; an impotent
mod® of securing future submission.
Musicanus, having been caught by
the Macedonian Pei th on, was sent
back by Alexander to be hanged
among his own people. It must
surely be evident that Alexander
could not always be an Achilles,
and that the Panjab was certain
to be lost to him the moment that
it ceased to fear an overwhelming
military force. The description of
the army with which he conquered
it, takes one quite by surprise,
though in his letter to Darius after
the battle of Issus he boasts that
many who in that battle were in
the king’s ranks now fight in his.
But in India the Greeks in Alex
ander’s army were so outnumbered
by Asiatics that, if the king had
died of the arrow-shot in his lungs,
they feared to be massacred by their
own auxiliaries. Were these to
garrison all India for the king ?
We cannot wonder at the entire
absence of prudence in a young
man spoiled from childhood, intoxi
cated with military success, and
bent on egotistical glory; but to
extol such conduct as ‘ instinctive
and unerring statesmanship ’ is very
delusive doctrine. ‘ If I were Alex
ander I would accept Darius’s
offers,’ said Parmenio. ‘ So would
I, if' I were Parmenio,’ replied
Alexander, insolently and foolishly ;
yet it is lauded as a right royal
sentiment. Parmenio thought it
better to accept treasure freely
granted by Darius, and use resources
accumulated in the past, than to
seize supplies by wasteful and odious
685
rapine ; better to accept three solid
countries with the whole sea-coast
fronting Greece, and take time to
consolidate the conquests and press
lightly on the conquered, than to
push farther at once and risk their
communications with home ; better
to establish peace with Darius, even
if it could not last very long, and
secure their home predominance,
than to make the quarrel with
Darius implacable and give hope to
all the Grecian enemies of Mace
donia. If Antipater had been de
feated in Greece, Alexander might
have been ruined by it in Asia; the
loss of a single battle by Alexander
himself against Darius might have
been fatal. Parmenio, it seems, is
a stupid pedant in Mr. de Vere’s
estimate. If his advice had been
taken—if the Greek dominion had
never gone beyond the Euphrates—
we cannot be sure that the history
of mankind would have been hap
pier, simply because vast contin
gencies always elude certain know
ledge. But, without rashness, we
may say,-—acquaintance with the
masterpieces of Greek literary
genius would even then have been
diffused in the East among minds
capable of appreciating them.
Whether Parthians or Babylonians
ever got much benefit from such
literature, it is truly hard to ascer
tain ; but high literary eminence
does not need war to extend the
sphere of its admiration. If any
one lay stress on such a result of
Macedonian conquest, he confesses
that it was very barren of good in
Asia; that it was deadly to Greece
is no theory, but manifest fact.
E. W. Newman.
�
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Moral estimate of Alexander the Great
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Newman, Francis William
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Collation: 667-685 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From Fraser's Magazine, Vol. XI, no. LXVI. Printed in double columns. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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Alexander the Great
Ancient Greece
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Text
1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
501
necessity. On the same basis, we must allow at least a miocene
emigration to the platyrhine monkey which first came to
America with his thirty-six teeth and his prehensile tail, while
we must be prepared to find the origin of the monkey tribe it
self disappear in the enormous gap which divides the eocene
from the cretaceous age. In all this there would be nothing
inconsistent with our present vague geological knowledge ; for,
although no pliocene man has yet been identified, few geolo
gists would care to deny the possibility of his existence, while
an eocene monkey not unlike an American type is known to
have lived in Switzerland. All that we have assumed is the
truth of Lamarck’s hypothesis, a purely scientific matter, about
which we shall certainly not venture to express an opinion.
Henry Brooks Adams.
----------
.
CT
Art. V. — Epic Philosophy.
Homer begins the Iliad with “ Sing, Goddess,” as if not
himself, but a divine being, were the true poet. Shall we
suppose that his invocation is merely formal ? that it is con
sciously addressed to Nothing ? To do so were to appreciate
ill the simplicity and sincerity of Homer. Were it not also to
misinterpret the law of all language ? Words are never empty
formalities at the outset; it was only a veritable meaning that
made them. Men do not go about consciously giving names to
nonentities. As well suppose a living body to have come into
being without the action of any organizing force as persuade
one’s self that language is originated without belief. Words, like
men, may grow old and die ; but only by sincere, vital action
are they born. It is true that defunct vocables sometimes have
their Hades here above ground, wandering about as shadowy
semblances of their former selves, neither well dead nor yet
alive. But Homer belongs to the young world; and his words
are not merely living, they are in excellent health, with red
blood in them, and a bloom on the cheek. When, therefore,
�502
Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
he says, “ Sing, 0 Goddess,” one may be sure that the invoca
tion is no piece of perfunctory compliment, but that his heart
keeps pace with his tongue.
Upon whom does he call ? The question may be asked with
interest, for there is in this part of the old Greek mythology a
profound significance, a fine soul of meaning, which remains
true for us, and will be true forever, however its forms may
prove transitory or grow strange. The “ Goddess ” is the
Muse, — the Muses considered as one divinity. The Muses,
again, were said to be daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, or
Memory. It will be no waste of study to inquire into the sig
nificance of this parentage, and with Homer’s devout appeal in
mind.
Zeus, in the old Hellenic conception, is the eternal One, the
unitive, sovereign genius of being. The physical meaning of
the word, we are told, is sky, the pure heaven, changeless, allembracing ; but by a deeper and truer meaning it denotes the
inner divine sky of the soul, rounding in, with its translucent,
indivisible unity, the divided opacity and discord of time.
*
“ From One all things proceed, and into the same are re
solved,” says Musaeus, as quoted by Diogenes Laertius. Zeus is
this One, but rather in the moral sense, that of rule, than in
the more metaphysical sense, which Musaeus seems to have in
* All strictly primitive words seem to have at first a like twofold significance,
physical-spiritual. It is the trick of lexicographers to represent the physical mean
ing as primary, the higher sense as only secondary and superinduced. Let us test
this procedure in a single instance. The original sense of rectus is said to be
straight; the secondary sense, right. We turn, however, to the root, reg, and find
that the nearest word to this, formed immediately from it, is rex (regs), a king, or
straightener in the strictly moral sense. Could evidence be clearer that the moral
meaning was in the word from the first, at the root of it, and that, in making it a
mere afterthought, the lexicographer has followed, not the indications of language,
but his own whim of opinion ? I cannot but anticipate a sure determination of the
fact, one day, that man is a speaker only as he is a spiritual being; pure spiritual
sensibility joined with a lower kind of impressibility to produce root-words. At
first the words are held as common property by the two producing factors, nor is
their twofold character for a long time, it may be, explicitly recognized. Zeus
meant originally, I suppose, both a physical object, and a spiritual reality signified
by that object; but to the first namers this meaning was strictly single, not double.
When reflective discrimination began, and the word, instead of being divided in
itself, and made to bear two widely distinct meanings, like our word heaven, went
wholly over to the higher, the indication is that this import was the more powerful
in it from the start.
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
503
mind. It is the testimony of language that man uttered his
impression of this comprehending One when he first said sky ;
and since such an object must have been among the earliest
named, we can trace that supreme recognition to the very
dawn of his conscious being. All-comprehending, all-recon
ciling spiritual unity, —it is an import which the soul en
shrines from the first and forever. And this is the Homeric
Zeus, progenitor of the Muse.
On the other hand, Mnemosyne, Memory, symbolizes the sum
total of such things as memory is concerned with, — incident,
accident, event, whatever happens. In wide contrast, there
fore, to the peace of eternity, she images the storied variety
and conflict of time, the world of things eventful, — of multi
plicity, diversity, contrariety, contention, the surface-world of
Nature and man, with heterogeneity and mutation for its insep
arable characteristics.
Thus in Zeus and Mnemosyne we have, on the one side, the
universe in the everlasting peace and rest of pure unity, — on
the other side, the universe in the character of dividedness,
changefulness, with a myriad of diverse features and conflict
ing energies, here playing through a colored pliantasmagory
of magic mutation, there yawning in chasms of hate, set against
itself, crashing in upon itself, blind with contending passion,
black with tragic fate. From these opposites the Muse is born,,
— from these as at once opposite, and yet joined, made one in
spousal love.
The Muse, then, is that symphony of existence which arises
from the conjunction of these two terms, Spiritual Being in its
essential pure oneness, and the world of finite character and
action, of diversity and evanescence, the world of time. This
conjunction is Music, — “ music of the spheres,” in the Pythag
orean phrase: an imagination peculiar to Pythagoras only in
form of statement. It is upon this melodious Voice of the
All that Homer calls devoutly, and of which he would be but
the reporter or secretary.
Here we lay hold upon the prime fact by which he stands as
the type of poetic genius. To him it is existence itself that is
tuneful. Through the diversity of characters, the conflict of
passions, and the whirl of events, the divine secret of the world
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Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
sings to his soul.
*
The impassioned, it may be infuriate, toss
ing, warring, woe of time gives, as he deems, but the notes, out
of which the Spirit of the All makes up its eternal harmony.
That antique imagination may be embraced with serious
modern conviction. Zeus and Mnemosyne symbolize still the
two opposites, of which poesy is the wedding festival. Who
ever truly sings, be it “ the sweet psalmist of Israel” or Greek
2Eschylus, the author of the Book of Job or that of the Excur
sion, sings their espousal. The universe is unity ; being rests
in spiritual peace and poise forever. The sky is never clouded ;
only the earth is clouded. Nevertheless, there is the constant
antithesis to this wholeness and repose, — antithesis expressed
in ten thousand shapes, and pushed with such inexorable
energy and excess that we wonder how the bands of eternity
do not burst, and suffer the world to welter in immitigable
craze. Oppositions and emulations arise, multiply, rage, gain
appetite by what they feed on; countless tribes of creatures live
only by slaughter, created to kill; existence sprouts all over
in horns, fangs, tusks, claws, while from its horrid alembic
venoms, hates, envies distil, and drip, drip upon its own blister
ing heart; hungry pestilences devour nations, — then, like the
boa, retire and sleep into new hunger, that they may return to
new feast; “ the earthquake smacks its mumbling lips o’er
some thick-peopled city,” or the volcano binds about it, while yet
living, a shroud of fire; strife is around man, and strife is with
in him; the lightning thrusts its blazing scymitar through
his roof, the thief creeps in at his door, and remorse at his
heart. Who, looking on these things, does not acknowledge
that man is indeed fearfully as well as wonderfully made ?
Who would not sometimes cry, 0 that my eyes were a foun
tain of tears, that I might weep, not the desolations of Israel
alone, but the hate of Israel to Edom and of Edom to Israel,
the jar, the horror, the ensanguined passion and ferocity of Na
* Virgil, on the contrary, regards himself only as the singer. It is true, that, after
announcing himself as such, he makes a formal invocation to the Muse, but misses
even formal propriety in doing so. For he does not pray the Divinity to pour
for his ear the melody of existence, nor even to exalt his soul and make it melo
dious, but only to apologize, if possible, for the strange conduct of the Olympians :
Mihi causas memora: Let the Muse, since she visits in that family, tell what set on
Juno to pursue with revenges that remarkably nice man, my hero.
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
505
ture ? But when we would despair, behold we cannot. Out
of the conscious heart of humanity issues forever, more or less
clearly, a voice of infinite, pure content: “ Though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil;
for Thou art with me.” Sometimes, when our trial is sorest,
that voice is clearest, singing as from the jaws of death and
the gates of hell. And now, though the tears fall, they become
jewels as they fall; and the sorrow that begot them wears
them in the diadem of its more than regal felicity. We, too,
rest in the rest of Being; the changeless axis is here, it is in our
souls ; an’d around it all the movement of existence becomes
orbital.
Eternal rest, endless unrest, — rest and unrest, it would
seem, of the same universal whole. There is comprehending
unity, that nothing invades, nothing eludes ; there is yawn
ing chasm that seems to go through the world, cleaving its
very heart. Every globule of existence spins between these
irreconcilable opposites.
And yet they are not irreconcil
able, for they are reconciled, though it be ineffably.
Now it is this tossing rest, this multiple unity, this contradic
tory and contending identity, that makes the universe epical;
and to represent this within practicable limits, embodying in
human speech the enticement, the awful, infinite charm of that
mystery forever resolved and forever remaining, is the grand
task of the epic artist.
The poet is the restorer of wholeness. He can strike the
universal chord, that of identity, or spiritual unity. But he does
this, observe, not by confounding distinction, blurring charac
teristic, hiding difference, explaining away contradiction, but,
on the contrary, by displaying them. No one adheres with
a fidelity religious like his to special character, finite fact.
Individual feature and complexion, the peculiar expression of
all objects, the circumstance and finest edge of all events, are,
as it were, sacred to him, and come forth from beneath his pen
with an exquisite, loving exactness of rendering. He will
give you form, color, manner, gait, garb, tone of voice, measure
of stature, tune of thought; minute he will be as Nature her
self, nothing small to him which is characteristic; his very hu
man condition he will, as it were, forsake, to spring with
vol. evil. — no. 221.
33
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Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
grass-blades and hum with bees, to ripple with the ripening
wheat and pass in the shadow of flying clouds, to dance with
sunshine on the sea, or join its sprite-like hide-and-seek among
quivering leaves ; sorrow, too, and dismay he will depict as
with a kind of love, — tempests that rage across the green
fields of humanity, clothed in night and whirling along boughs
rent from the tree of life, — frosts that descend untimely upon
vernal years, to leave their blossoms shrivelled and all the
glory of their garniture gone forever ; and by this chase of di
versities and celebration of contradictions he will bring out the
refrain of the living whole, the repose, the unity, the infinite
content of being.
Contrast this procedure with that of the mere generalizer.
The latter spares himself all this delicate and subtile exacti
tude, very likely thinks it trivial. Betaking himself to gen
eralities, he evaporates one generality into another more diffuse
and vague, and, by an incessant elimination of feature, arrives
finally at a statement the most general possible. At best he
has attained only congruity, not consanguinity. His thought
holds together, suppose, in itself; it does not bring souls, na
tures, together; it does not awaken the sense of a universal
kindred, wherein the one immortal heart is felt to beat.
Even the naturalist, patient, tireless observer, faithful by his
good-will to Nature in her speciality and her unity alike, can
draw creatures into association only by mere points of outward
resemblance,’ as two kinds here by a likeness in the hoof, two
kinds there by a similarity in the hide, again two kinds by ap
proximation in the shape of a scale. There is a catalogue of
superficial resemblances, not community. The poet does not
thus go on merely to enumerate points of external peculiarity
and resemblance; he, on the one side, delineates the individ
ual thing in the very feature, color, and aroma of its special
being, yet, on the other hand, keeps up the interior conversa
tion of each with all. Not by dead similarities, but by the liv
ing, flowing fellowship of heart-language, do the unlikes of
voiceful Nature blend and symphonize in his thought.
Mr. Ruskin censures a dictum of Sir Joshua Reynolds, to the
effect that poetry deals only with what is general and perma
nent, to the exclusion of transient particulars. The eloquent
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
507
critic brings forward good instances, with which Wordsworth
offered him an abundant supply, to show, on the contrary, that
the poet has an inevitable eye for minute traits and evanescent
expression. The truth is parted between them. The poet sees
the varying surfaces of Nature, and feels in them her constant
heart. By a delicately true portrayal of what is most limited
and transient, he appeals to a sentiment universal and peren
nial. Playing with the play of Nature, flitting with winged
fancy through all the variety of her manifold forms and
changing hues, he yet feels in all, and by the magic of melodi
ous suggestion can make others to feel, that inner identity, that
unceasing, ineffable return into oneness, which in the hidden
sanctuary of existence is a joy of espousal forever. It is the
ringing of these marriage-bells of Nature that is the music be
hind the words of his verse.
To be cordially sensible of an illimitable kindred, which,
moreover, is not only boundless in scope, but divine in kind,
purer far and richer in every beautiful claim and blessed re
sponse than any blood relationship, — is it not a surpassing
delight ? But the felicity comes to the last, finest edge, when
one may enter into this immortal fellowship without loss of in
dividual character, and, speaking there only his own vernacular,
may join by means of it, and with no foreign nor provincial ac
cent, in that language of the heart of humanity wherein was
never yet a confusion of tongues.
Man is a stranger in the world, looking on with remote, un
related eye, till the Muse make him at home there. This,
touching upon all that seems most shut up to itself, most set
apart from the spirit and sympathy of man, awakens a surpris
ing refrain of fellowship in his breast. Now he lives a life not
bounded by the limits of his individual constitution. It is as if
an invisible system of nerves ramified from his breast, with a
pole in every passing shadow, in every star, in whatsoever has
form of being or seeming to the sense. Once that this is rightly
addressed, his own being is reflected in all, claimed by all; his
voice has an illimitable echo ; his heart blends its beating with
the vast rhythm of Nature; everywhere are relation and re
sponse ; from sun and moon look down glorified human faces ;
wood and river teem with half-humanities, that sway in the
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Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
trees and slip in the tide ; from the lifted mountain-tops, and
from the waste grandeur of the reticent, never-covenanting sea,
comes a language at once theirs and his own ; the bladed grass
claims kindred from beneath his feet, and the shadow cast by
a stone on the moor moves him with some deep home-feeling,
as if it were inscrutably inwrought with shadowy memories of
the cradle and the mother’s lullaby.
The poet can touch these nerves, and give sympathy the
happiness of that unmeasured scope. But he can thus touch
them, observe, only at their poles on the surfaces of Nature.
Of this a sufficient suggestion is given by the economy of the
human body. The brain itself is insensitive; its feeling, at
least its pleasurable feeling, is found at the fingers’ ends, at the
surfaces and extremes of the body. So it is that this univer
sal heart in man is to be happily awakened only at the fingers’
ends, the farthest reach, of its manifold relationship. Hence
it is that the purest poetry is most objective. This touches the
heart healthily, where the nerves of imaginative sympathy
come to the surface. Introspection, on the contrary, invades
the system, and strikes the nerves midway, hence is unhealth
ful and painful.
It is only in the sense of uni’ty with the whole that the
heart finds peace. Chasm is brutal. Yet he who seeks unity
otherwise than in the diversity of Nature and movement of
life, he who seeks it by prying and intrusion, finds, not a
charmed repose, but only sickness. Nature sings to him who
respects her secret, and who only by a reverent remoteness
comes near; and he who sings to others will scrupulously
keep up the polarity of life, displaying identity only through
the medium of peculiarity.
Take as an illustration Burns’s “ To a Mouse.” The “ wee
beastie ” is represented to the life, its habit and condition given
without varnish.
“ That wee bit heap o leaves an’ stibble
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble ! ”
Leaves and stubble, got by nibbling: this is a veritable mouse,
no transparent sham, like Dryden’s “ Hind and Panther,”
which are seen at a glance to be no more than a pair of cut
and dried, theologues masquerading on four legs, whereof
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
509
two are evidently broomsticks. But while a mouse, it is yet
man ; and the poet only brings his delineation to ripeness,
when he says,—
“ Me, thy poor earthborn companion
And fellow mortal.”
The outward circumstance retains its distinction, the hearts
touch and beat together, and we have a truly poetical situation.
Emerson’s “Humble-Bee” furnishes an illustration that will
bear even closer inspection; for the external peculiarity is
shown yet more pointedly, while the interior sympathy is not
less, though 'suggested with a delicate reticence that adds to
the charm. The painting is so minutely and exquisitely exact
that I have sometimes said, should Nature one day lose the
breed of bees, and forget what they were, she might recover
the type from this model. Yet who reads without feeling that
the humble-bee is one of us ?
“ Yellow-breeched philosopher,” —
it does not come jarring in, but belongs there ; and because
this open stroke of sympathy — in which, however, the humor
still hints at distinction — is consistent with a piece of painting
so objective, we have here a poem in the right sense of the word.
A like effect is reached, when a peculiar human character is
so pictured that we at once perceive its remoteness from our
selves and feel it all in ourselves. The more entire, isolated,
unapproachable, the more poetic its impression, if only it be
so depicted that to every stroke of the delineation our hearts
vibrate response. The more peculiar it shows itself, the more
does it awaken in us the sense of our community. This is
poetry.
It may be said, then, that poetry is the expression of com
prehending spiritual unity by means of that which opposes and
apparently denies it. This definition, however, is here only
provisional. I hope soon to substitute for it another, which,
while embracing this, shall be more adequate. At present let
us obtain with precision what is in this.
First, let it be observed that the character of things which is
opposed to their unity with the soul must not be in its own
place denied. Even to disguise it there is to make its sub
sequent identification with the heart ridiculous. Dress the
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Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
mouse in jacket and trousers, as we sometimes see monkeys in
the street, then say, “Fellow mortal,” and the by-standers burst
out laughing. Set the bee to discoursing on fate and free-will,
and “ yellow-breeched philosopher ” loses its tone of fine sym
pathetic humor, to become a sorry jest.
Observe, secondly, that the separation of objects from the
heart of the poet and of man is maintained by one order of ap
prehension, while the identity exists only to another. The one
is bluntly, stubbornly, indomitably maintained by the prosaic
understanding; the other is melodiously affirmed by the imag
ining heart, eternal priest at the marriage altars of Nature.
Moreover, it is the interest of imagination that the prosaic fac
ulty should hold its ground, yielding never an inch. There
can be no espousal, if there is no duality, — no making one, un
less there are two. The sense of spiritual community plays
over somewhat which contradicts it; and it is this playing
over which constitutes the poetic act. The imagination abhors
confusion, though it craves community. It leaves finite objects,
merely as such, to stand by and for themselves, refusing all
cordial kindred with the spirit of man ; and then, in neverthe
less making fellowship between them and the human soul, it
shows these objects to be capable of such fellowship only in
quite another character than that which is proper to them
as things merely. I will illustrate these points by a stanza of
description taken from Wordsworth : —
“ The sylvan slopes with corn-clad fields
Are hung, as if with golden shields,
Bright trophies of the sun !
Like a fair sister of the sky,
Unruffled doth the blue lake lie,
The mountains looking on.”
Well, this is fine ! — the understanding would say. Are we to
believe that the fields have put on the corn as a suit of clothes ?
or that the said patches of corn, while having that sartorial
character, are also captured shields, which the sun has hung
up to commemorate his victories ? or that the sky and lake
are a kind of Jane and Nancy in the same family? or that
the mountains really do look on ? No ; so far as the under
standing is concerned, these statements are made only to be
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
511
disbelieved. To it they are sheer untruth, and are meant for un
truth. The understanding is pre-engaged to dispute, to deny, to
repugn them altogether. Just that is a part of the programme;
and to leave it out would spoil the performance. Did not the
statement infold its own contradiction on a lower scale, and
thereby obtain the opposition of the prosaic understanding, like
the opposition of the viol-string to the bow, it were not poetic
truth. To say that Peter is clad, that Jane and Nancy are sis
ters, or look as if they were sisters, and that Hezekiah looks on,
might be to affirm what is entirely credible ; but such truth is
not poetic truth, for the reason that it does not address itself to
spiritual credence. In order that imagination and spiritual ap
prehension may be reached,there must be that “play over” we
have spoken of, — therefore somewhat over which, and in con
trariety to which, the play goes on. Thus the great privilege of
the spirit to find the whole world kin is freed from confusion
with any such community as the prosaic mind can recognize.
I have thus far spoken only of poetry ; let it now be said
that I have constantly had in view the being of man, regarding
this as the poem of poems, — fast locked to any metaphysic
which does not approach with a key corresponding to its poetic
quality. In the being of man, in the universe of God, there is
that “ play over.” It is, indeed, the grand secret; he that finds
it out reads the Sphinx’s riddle, and may save his soul alive.
Finding it out perfectly, he will know what Spirit is ; and until
one knows that, does he in the highest sense know anything ?
In order to clear up this matter, and prepare the way for
further exposition, I wish now to establish a primary scale of
degrees, that we may see definitely what is over, what under,
and the validity of each in its own kind. And to invite a
vigorous attention, I may say that we have now come to the
hinge upon which all turns.
Nature as thing is Force and Form, no more. Scrutinized
to any extent, it will exhibit only these characters, fixed force
and form.
To the world of things corresponds in man the perceptive
understanding. This finds in things a thing, — character, if
one may speak so, — finds, that is, their special determinations,
and the consequent isolation of each thing in itself. It is, we
�512
Epic Philosophy.
'
[Oct.
might say, a brace between things, to keep them.forever apart,
without interior communication. It sees every object—ox,
grass, hill, river, stone, man — as only itself, utterly locked up
in its special identity.
Becoming scientific, however, the understanding not only
discriminates, and specially identifies, but finds connections,
and looks toward unity. But the unity is on the same level
with the diversity, and is therefore only partial. There is
unity of form between man and a fish, as both are vertebrate
animals; there is diversity of form, as the one is a mammal
and the other not such. The community of the two, and the
special, isolate identity of each, are alike of form, and are
therefore mutually limiting. Unity, accordingly, is never
attained. The scientific intellect is more full than the ordinary
perceptive understanding; but it works within the same limits,
has the same kind of recognitions. It recognizes form, force,
the constancy of force, and, lastly, as its highest perception,
the form offorce. What we call “ natural law ” is, of course,
simply force formulated, that is, constant in measure and
definite in character. Gravitation, electricity, chemical affinity,
do not differ as force, but only as forms of force. Force and
form, then, constitute the whole character of Nature in one
aspect; and to it in this aspect the prosaic understanding cor
responds.
Accordingly, the understanding can never, in any adequate
manner, say God. It attempts often enough, with stretched
mouth, to achieve that grand enunciation, and often supposes
the feat accomplished. But its God can be only some partic
ular object or force, supposably an immensely great thing, but
after all only a thing, one thing among others. Of late some
of its officers are making bold to say that no such Thing is discoverable. “ God ? ” some Lewes will say ; u what force or
form of force is it ? Is gravitation God ? Is chemical affinity
God ? If neither of these, what force, then, and where is it ? ”
Suppose I answer, that God is in those forces, and in all others ?
u In them ? ” he may reply ; “ how in them ? how in gravi
tation ? As gravitation ? Then he is gravitation; and we
have two words for the same thing. As somewhat other than
gravitation ? But what ? Do we discern in gravitation any
thing but itself ? ”
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
513
“ But there is somewhat which makes it,” I plead.
“ Makes what ? ” he will say. “ Makes stones fall ? Grav
itation does that. Is there a making behind this making ?
Well, double, triple, centuple, if you will, the makings, all we
come to is that stones are made to fall. There is a force which
has this character; and wherever it is, the character of it is
the same. Though the note of hand be indorsed by a hun
dred individuals one after another, the value of it remains
the same.”
“ But,” I say, making a last effort, “ God is the unity of all
forces.”
He smiles provokingly. “ You mean, perhaps, that he is
that correlation and mutual convertibility of forces of which
we are beginning to learn. Truly, I give you joy of a God so
substantial! ”
I leave the savant in possession of the field, easily victorious.
It should be frankly confessed, that, as by no peeping and pry
ing and inferring among the fiddle-strings can we discover the
genius of the composer, so by no inspection of the formulations
of force do we obtain the smallest glimpse of infinite Spirit.
Here we are, then, locked utterly into the limits of finite
Nature. Can we, after all, make escape ? I do not inquire
whether we find in our own breasts a hint of spiritual compre
hension and freedom, — we undoubtedly do find such; but it
is said that this subjective impression, being contradicted by
everything else in the universe, must be suppressed as mere
private prejudice or illusion. Some indeed bravely refuse, and
pledge their faith to the testimony of “ consciousness ” ; the
other party smile superior to “ consciousness ” none the less ;
the contestants find no common ground. We will therefore
face the difficulty, and inquire whether it is possible to dis
cover a road leading from Nature to Spirit, and to Spirit as in
itself all. I think it can be found, and without any tedious
groping.
Be it observed, then, that Nature has another character, very
different frqm the one just noted, — the character, namely, of
Sign or Expressiveness. To the primitive civilizers of hu
manity it is scarcely known otherwise than in this nobler char
acter. Everywhere the first grand sallies of the human mind
�514
Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
overleap the fixed constitution of things, and alight upon some
what of a higher order, which the world of things suggests.
Is it not to this overleaping that all human speech is due ?
Man looks upon an object, and between it and the eye there
springs up a felt poetic significance, which, before reflection
has come to complicate mental action, is no sooner felt than it
issues by a responsive sign, a word. Spontaneous naming is
the act of identifying an object with its poetic significance,
declaring that the thing is what it signifies. Only while the
expression or suggestion of objects is taken in entire good faith
as their reality is man a producer of root-words.
In the case of words which convey distinctively a moral,
metaphysical, or spiritual import, this repose upon the sign
character of Nature is obvious. Spirit is breath; right is
straight; wrong is crooked, — wrung, turned forcibly aside;
light is truth or knowledge, — “ the light which enlighteneth
every man that cometh into the world ” (the Parsees are said
to worship fire or light, that is, they worship what it signifies,
as Christians also do) ; heaven, too, is God, — “ kingdom of
God ” and “ kingdom of heaven ” we say indifferently; warmth
is love; coldness is indifference; and so on: it were easy to
multiply familiar examples, — and I seek no others, — to the
weariness of the reader.
But I believe, still further, that man’s ability to name physi
cal objects in the directest manner depends no less, though
less obviously, upon their sign-character. Were they to man,
as to the dog and ox, mere force and form, he would respond
to them, in the animal fashion, by the forces of his organism
only, by appetite, aversion, anger, fear, and the like. The
aspect of green grass excites only the stomach of a cow : here
is the mere relation of finite to finite ; and accordingly the
creature opens its mouth, not to speak, but to bite, — not to
utter the object, but to swallow it. Man, on the contrary, sees
natural objects as picture, suggestion, significance, and speaks
them because to him they are speaking. How could he repre
sent them by signs, did they not present themselves as signifi
cant, and as veritably present in their significance ?
“ Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth forth knowledge.” Verily, statements so noble as this,
�1868.]
Epic' Philosophy.
515
coming to us from a far-off antiquity, might tempt one to think
that the primitive poetic mind of humanity took off the cream
of truth, and left its skimmed milk to science. But can we
not perceive that day and night are indeed and forever voice
ful ? Speech runs and ripples over all the surfaces of Nature:
here in grand affirmative tides, Amazons and Missouris of sig
nificance ; there in vast, perpetual eddies of reverse meaning;
again in whirling and dancing equivocations, evanescent half
expressions, with which only the flitting instability of fancy
can keep pace. Speech breaks out as from an inner heart in
things, and wraps itself as a many-colored mantle about them,
hiding what they are in what they suggest; insomuch that the
understanding must search as with a candle to discover be
neath that glorious disguise their fixed and specific character.
Science, coming late and with labor, tries to lift the mantle,
tries to divest Nature of her garment of meaning; but one fold
falls down as another is raised ; only by endless pertinacity of
industry and wide combination of effort is the thing at last de
nuded, and seen as it is in itself.
.Half the world is now busy in this labor. “ Off with it! ”
men say; “off with that garment of suggestion wherewith
Nature clothed herself to the untaught intelligence of hu
manity!” As the work goes on, there are huzzas mingled with
moanings, complainings, reproaches, — huzzas over notable pro
gress achieved, complaint that so great a labor needs now
to be done. The first men did us a mischief, it would seem,
by permitting Nature to assume that array of significance.
Had things been seen from the start as things really are, then
what toil and difficulty had our age been spared 1 But those
men, perverse, must go and be “ theological,” or “ metaphysi
cal,” or the like : hinc illce lachrymce. The greater, however,
the glory of our age, when, despite these needless hindrances,
it peeps and pries, until at length the world of things appears
without disguise. We complain, but still more do we exult.
The great enterprise prospers ; off it comes, that pictured
array ; the Thing lies bare !
Not quite, however. Seen only as it is in itself, the world
of things is not yet, nor, in my judgment, is likely to be.
Never yet was there a mind dry and prosaic enough to behold
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Epic Philosophy.
[Oct,
any object in the mere light of the understanding, — to see in
a horse, for example, only anatomy and physiology. To Dryas
dust also, even to that portentous specimen of the genus, the
Dryasdust of science, — Herbert Spencer, say, — the neck of
the war-horse is indeed clothed with thunder, the Pleiades
have sweet influences, the zephyr whispers, the storm roars,
morning blushes, the' sun rises rejoicing, night is vocal with
solemn suggestion, and the blue heaven more, much more, than
some gases and an optical illusion. Let Mr. Spencer do his
best to see in Nature, as he says, only “ force,” it will be
to him also a language, will speak to his sensibility. Let
Briareus use all his hundred hands, the mantle of meaning
will fall down, and with its lettered folds wrap the heart of the
Titan himself.
Por by the Word the worlds were indeed made, as the Scrip
tures say. “ And God said, Let there be light, and there
was light.” Was ; for light itself is but a shining syllable,
and darkness another, that shines only in the breast of the
Speaker, not outwardly; and all the universe exists, word-like,
only for and through its expressiveness. By the Word, by the
perpetual act of Spirit giving expression to its inherent import,
— which is its substance, itself, for Spirit is Absolute Import,
self-affirmed, — the worlds were made, and do exist. Because
Nature is spoken, it speaks ; because it speaks, the spirit of
man, kindred with the eternal Word, may espouse in Nature
its own import, and evoke the representative world of uttered
thought and feeling.
The imaginative intelligence recognizes in visible existence
this character of Sign, and reads off from it a significance for
the soul. Force and form, says the understanding; import,
says the poetic intelligence. This is thus and so, reports the
one; this means thus, announces the other. The former
regards the finite world as substantial, and as asserting only
itself; the latter regards the finite world as denying its own
substantiality in behalf of that which it signifies.
*
* Swedenborg sought to establish a science of significances, a science of Nature
on that higher degree. Hence the gulf which separates him from the ordinary man
of science. The latter is engaged in supplying what, with reference to the import
of Nature, we must call its grammar; he looks to the classification and syntactical
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
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“ As denying its own substantiality,” I say. How is that ?
I hope the reader will say, How is that ? and will say it with
a purpose to be pointedly dissatisfied, unless the question be
answered clearly and precisely.
A sign, observe, is necessarily the sign of that which itself is
not. It exists only to say, “ I am not it,” and in doing so to
point effectually toward that which is. As the finger on the
sign-board is not the road or city, as the spoken word man is
not man, but only sound, so is it with all signs whatsoever:
they point wholly away from themselves, being in themselves
nothing to the purpose ; they are there only for the eye to pass
over; and, considered with reference to their real purpose,
their entire being is a mere flitting away and vanishing into
that which they suggest. Plainly, that which is meant by a
word is the real thing. Plainly, a word, by the fact of having
a meaning, implicitly denies that itself is at all the real thing.
The meaning made the word, holds it in possession, and is all
the being of it. The significance is the substantial fact; the
sign, by the very fact of being such, professes itself the con
trary. If now we venture to apply to the universe this easy
and plain discrimination, all the difficulty will be in the ven
ture, none in the application. Two and two are still neither
more nor less than four, be the figures written in hundredths
of an inch, or from Labrador to Cape Horn. Making bold to
write our figures large, we may say with some confidence that
the natural universe, as Sign, only spoken into being, and
having its being only in its meaning, denies its own substantive
existence ; the meaning of it, not itself, is the real Fact; it is
but a pointing, as of an index-finger, to that which indeed is.
What does it say is ?
When one reads a word, considering it as a word, what does
he implicitly affirm ? Or what does the word itself, by the fact
relation of its etymons or elements. Now Shakespeare and Nature alike, merely
as parsed, are void of meaning : we arrive at an order of arrangement, and at nothing
more. Swedenborg sought not merely to parse, but to read ; he assumed a meaning,
and attempted a scientific exposition of it. I am not of those who think his success
perfect, or other than very imperfect; sometimes it is only the dignity of the enter
prise which forbids one to laugh. On the other hand, one must own that a gram
mar of the cosmos, were it complete, would not be sufficient. To do Lindley
Murray on that scale is to work at a large task indeed; but though one parse the
universe, is it enough merely to parse ?
�518
Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
of being such, imply ? It implies, and he who reads it im
plicitly affirms, Mind. Only from Mind could words issue ;
only to it are they expressive, — that is, indeed words. When
the natural universe appears as expressive, a manifold sign, a
language, it affirms Absolute Mind, Spirit. Only from this
could a universal significance issue, only by it be embraced.
If Nature mean anything, Spirit is what it means. And so
the human race has thought; its apprehension of this truth is
embodied in the confessions and litanies of all ages.
Now to read the world as a language, finding in it an import
for the soul, is the essentially poetic act. We have thus ar
rived at the final definition promised: Poetry is the free read
ing up and down from Nature to Spirit and from Spirit to
Nature, each seen in the other. The outward feature of Nature
and life must be preserved, with the finest, most delicate ex
actitude, that we may not read in a blurred type; and yet in
all the soul must find its own immanent secret.
The understanding, meanwhile, holds out sturdily against
all this. Its business is to paint the index on the guide-board,
that this may be there for that traveller, the spiritual imagina
tion, to go by. Its utmost stretch is to observe that the travel
ler does go by, — that, looking on the sky, for example, the
untaught man has cried, “ Dyaus,” “ Zeus,” “ God,” making a
sign of it, and flying infinitely beyond. But it can never verify
this enunciation, nor indeed can believe in it; and, trying to
give some account of that passage, it will strain a point and
say, “ Rhetoric.” This, too, is liberal of it, extremely liberal;
it has grown to be a highly polite and tolerant understanding,
when it gives the name of rhetoric to that passing by; before
arriving at these handsome manners, it had bluntly said,
“ Nonsense.”
Has it now been made clear what poetry is ? And has it
also been rendered apparent, or at least credibly indicated,
that the conscious being of man is itself, in the sense ex
plained, a poem 1 If so, we may proceed to consider the epic
in particular, anticipating that epical truth will be found not
only in books, but in the fact of the universe.
We already know that the epic will represent comprehend
ing spiritual unity, and beneath this its apparent contradiction.
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
519
We know also that the latter will be made to suggest just that
which it seemingly contradicts, and so to negate its own nega
tion. This is the character of all poetry; but what distin
guishes the epic ?
Its primary distinction is, that here the scale of the draw
ing is strictly and explicitly universal. Existence in its full
breadth is the ground; the import of life in its full depth is
the theme. Here are to be the ultimate poles: the pure
Infinite, in contrast and correlation with finite Nature, — the
sovereign, perfect consciousness of man, in like contrast and
correlation with the most poignant contradiction supplied by
his natural experience.
First, the unity is here that of Being itself, absolute Spirit.
It is not merely a relative and subjective unity, that of mouse
and mountain daisy, beggar and king, with me, but the pure
One, which in oneness comprehends all. The oneness is, indeed,
the oneness, — the One to which, in the highest sense, there is
no Other, — absolute solvent, that liquefies all, englobing worlds
like drops of dew, cosmic dew of suns and stars, mist of milky
ways; and which, having pictured itself in Nature, whispers
in the enchanted heart of man, I am.
* First, then, the eter
nal Zeus, rest of all hearts, community of all natures. No
epical thought or genius has man without a consciousness of
this perfect, universal Identity, this all-embracing sky of the
soul.
Let this point be emphasized. What sort of epic were that
wherein this ultimate import of the spiritual consciousness
should not nobly and expressively appear ? The sort of epic
which is made such only by the title. The world has seen
such, but could not keep them long in view. The Genius of
the Whole is somewhat necessary to the parts, be it in a tree
or in a universe, and so in a poem which attempts to sing the
perennial character and relations of man’s life.
It is not a little curious to see how the grasshopper intelli
gence of Voltaire skips about this prime requisite of the epic
* It is peculiar also to the epic that this Unity is made explicit, represented ob
jectively, while in the drama proper it remains implicit, felt, not seen, a light to
enlighten, but no sun visible. Compare Homer and Shakespeare. -The Prometheus
hovers between the two.
�520
*
Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
in his Essai sur La Poesie Epique. That he should attempt
such a topic is laughable. Few men have been more skilful
to break a jest; but here he was broken upon one. I once '
knew a youth who fancied himself a musical genius, because,
having not the slightest ear for music, he was never to his own
apprehension out of tune. At sight of a note he could promptly
produce a noise; and though, to compare small things with
great, it was like Milton’s gates of hell grating harsh thunder,
yet the innocent creature, not being deaf, as the hearers wished
they were, never doubted that he was melodious, since beyond
doubt he was vocal. I was reminded of him by reading the
“ philosopher ” of Ferney upon the Epic ; for never, perhaps,
was a very clever man more incapable of following on the track
of an epic imagination, or less aware of his own inability. He
perceives that in Homer the gods appear; whereupon he briskly
announces, that, in order to an epic, the “ marvellous ” must be
introduced. Now the marvellous, merely as such, has no more
a place in epic poetry than in science; nor, indeed, does it find
place in any form of noble literature. The blank gape it pro
duces is in the mind just that vacant 0, that annular eclipse
of intelligence, which the moon-mouth would indicate by the
shape it assumes.
The Olympus of Homer is his holding-ground in the
heavens. Therein he casts anchor, and so rides out the
storms of time in security and peace of heart. He would have
“ marvelled ” to find himself without it, and adrift on the sea
of events. He sings first of all that which sings itself in him,
the great faith of his soul.
Homer has, indeed, a keen sympathy with that which, per
haps ironically, is called “ real life ” ; and therefore is able to
paint it with an almost matchless precision and verisimilitude.
He is heroically faithful to Mnemosyne. Here is her whole story,
told without euphemism. Here is, now the struggle, and now
the stupor of passion, now the rolling resistless tide, and now
the sudden eddy and refluence, of courage, — rivalries, too,
mixed irresolvably of noble and ignoble, honor and infamy,
spun into the same thread ; here are the ebb and flow, the toss
and whirl, the interlacement, the twisted tangle, the blind and
blurting conclusion, of actual life. Here also is the charm of
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
521
feature and picturesque detail; individual action stands out in
boldest relief, individual portraiture is lavished, while to all
this is added the effect of diverse costumes, tongues, manners :
the details, handled in a way less masterly, were bewildering .in
their multiplicity ; and the picture, but for its breadth, would be
motley in the crowding of colors and contrasts. But the artist
is at his ease with much as with little, — always the master.
And yet, were this all, the Iliad would not be a poem: it were
only a wondrous piece of photography.
It is that Olympian repose with which Homer is able to over
arch this field of action, it is that peace of the All which he
makes to breathe about the storm and change of man’s little
world, that shows him a poet rather than a photographer,
Homer rather than De Foe. As his terrestrial observation is
wide, genial, and exact, so the faith of his soul, its hold upon
celestial Unity, is sure. To both he is just, and to each in. its
place and kind. And the objects of both, though opposite,
blend in harmony ; and the greater, though not only greater,
but all, does extinguish the less ; and the less, though it re
mains in vigor of feature and ruddiness of strength, passes
while it remains, and only the One-and-All is. Thus his pic
ture became a glass wherein the men of his time saw their life
with more than mortal vision. There the visible had become
ideal, yet retained its character ; there the invisible had be
come apparent, yet nowhere had broken the lines or blurred
the feature of actual experience. There the tempest of our
little life was seen rounded in with skies of everlasting calm :
participants in the divine secret, the mortal beholders looked
on and saw with new-informed eyes the cerulean circumambi
ent eternity, as now it condensed its viewless burden into our
whirling cloudlet of time, and anon drank it off into its own
transparent peace.
I confess we can no longer see the same perfectly in the
same mirror. To us the Iliad is not, cannot be, a pure epic.
Homer’s faith is not precisely that of the modern world; we
are able to follow him throughout only, as it were, by sympathy
prepense. That “ majestic, deathless head,” whose nod once
shook the world, and was the end of controversy to gods and
men, is now subject to the dispute of any too ready tongue,
vol. evil. — no. 221.
34
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Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
sovereign no more. But the eternal Zeus lives under another
name, or without name ; Greece and Ilium we have, like the
poor, always with us ; the epos of existence remains; and
Homer’s speech needs but a translation into that diction which
is behind the words, to become ours.
Have we sufficiently dwelt upon the first grand requisite of
the epic ? Is it clear that this celestial unity must appear in
the written poem, because in the being of man that sovereign
import plays forever over the discord and disunity of our out
ward experience ? The matter has, indeed, been treated
slightly, but I will suppose that enough has been offered on
this head. Let us, then, turn the leaf.
That unity must have its opposite ; the nature of poetry, as
we are aware, requires this. The opposite, too, must in the
present case be no trivial one ; the play-over of Absolute Spirit
should be worthy of it. The eagle does not display his
strength of wing by merely flying across a ditch that a grass
hopper might leap. Show us a chasm yawning all the way
from east to west, wide as the world ; and when the genius of
the universe shall cast over that an arch whose keystone is the
zenith of eternity, it will do somewhat. Of this consummate
act the epic poet is to make us witness.
Every epic artist represents, as antithetic to the unitive
genius of being, the infernal, — that is, sheer moral inversion,
sheer head-down of moral order, the one thing with which the
soul cannot be directly reconciled. Moreover, he wellnigh
seems to give this abhorrent thing full possession of the field.
“ I read in Homer,” said Goethe, “ that properly we enact
hell here below.” Is this a true reading of 'Homer ? And if
so, does Homer read the world truly ? I think that in both
Goethe and Homer it is a true reading.
Goethe’s statement is, indeed, one-sided; and he perhaps
betrayed his own limit, while illustrating his penetration, in
making it. He himself is a little lame of the right foot. His
Mephistopheles is a lovely devil, cap-a-pie like a West Point
cadet turned out for parade, — magister artium in his kind,
compared with Milton’s Titanic undergraduate. Here Goethe
is perfect; but the sovereign term, the Zeus, he does not man
age so well.
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
523
Yet his statement about Homer can hardly be impeached.
What is the situation described in the Iliad ? It is this : the
crime of a coxcomb has bound two noble nations by the loftiest
public sentiment of antiquity, the sentiment of national honor,
to the work of mutual destruction. The occasion of their san
guinary struggle is a deed they alike despise, a deed of which
the fit notice were a hearty kicking to the culprit. And yet
just that in each which dignifies and adorns their humanity it
engages to the pitiless destruction of the other.
Is it said, that honor, rightly understood, engaged them to
nothing of the sort ? It would not in us ; in them it did so ;
nor could they disobey its mandate without moral collapse.
Hector says, the Trojan women, not to speak of the men, would
despise him, did he decline the combat, odious to him as it
was. I think it apparent that the nation which had yielded
would have seen all the bands of order dissolve in the caustic
of contempt.
Highest enslaved by lowest, and compelled to rivet and re
*
new its own bonds, — that is the spectacle. What is intrinsi
cally good, beautiful, noble, made not only to serve evil ends,
but even to accept and consecrate the service,— that is the
hateful situation which Homer places before us.
Does it seem that the dilemma might have been easily
escaped ? There is the very bite of it. So easy to escape, —
and impossible! In Shakespeare we find the same. How
easy for Cordelia, by two words, to save her father and herself
the misery that ensues ! Easy, — and she cannot utter them.
It is her true, honorable love that forbids ; it is the voluble
hypocrisy of Regan and Groneril that compels her love to make
its own misconstruction. The ease, and yet the impossibility ;
the nobleness that immediately makes the impossibility ; the
ape’s hand that behind all manipulates the dead-lock: there,
there is the poison of it.
Know we of nothing similar in actual life ? Have we never
seen petty interests, petty strifes, spites, jealousies, envies, of
no more importance than the spit-spat of belligerent tom-cats,
roping in worthy natures with abhorrent bands, that multiply
and tighten till the anguish is intolerable ?
Thackeray’s she-catamount of a “ campaigner ” can hunt
�524
Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
Colonel Newcome to his death. What signifies her caterwaul,
pray ? He knows that it signifies nothing, and he dies of it;
the contemptibleness of the torture makes it only the more
torturing.
A politician rises in Congress, and proposes a compliment to
the shillalah invasion of Canada. Honorable men, who despise
the motion, feel compelled to sustain it; the election at New
York is at hand, and such a resolution once offered, they dare
not vote it down. In other circumstances, a war between
England and America might easily have arisen from this move
in the small game of an individual anxious to wipe out his
“ Know-Nothing ” record; and when it had arisen, the purest
patriotism in the land would have been driven, with loathing
stomach, to sustain its country’s quarrel. History, indeed, is
replete with instances — and did we see it behind the cur
tains, more instances would be known to us — wherein the
noblest sentiments of humanity have been harnessed beyond
help in the dirt-carts of sordid interest, while pitiful tricksters,
men who would sell what soul they have for a crossed sixpence,
and cheat Mephistopheles in the bargain, hold the reins, and
goad them on.
It is such a case from which the incident of Homer’s story
is drawn, — a case of moral head-down in the worst shape it
could assume to the mind of Grecian antiquity. The great
master does not hide, he is at pains to display, its hateful
features. By the avowed and intense revolt of Hector’s soul
from the work his hands must do, the abhorrent constraint of
the situation is made to the last degree biting. And that
nothing might be wanting to the keenness of the contradiction,
the Trojan prince is shown to us, not only in his valor, his
magnanimity, his sense of justice, but also in the tender nobility
of his domestic life. Andromache comes before us, queenly,
devoted, in all the pathos of wifely love; while the babe, drawn
to the father, shrinks away from the warrior, to suggest the
last rebuke of that dreadful strife. Meanwhile, in contrast
with this beautiful picture, — the noblest touch of tenderness
that has come to us from the old Hellenic world, — Paris has
signalized anew his luxurious infamy, and made the occasion
of the struggle, odious enough before, seem intolerable. And
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
525
yet Hector must go to the field and to his doom, and An
dromache remain behind, helplessly awaiting her doom, and
doomed Ilium also abide her day.
All that follows upon the main situation is painted with
the like pitiless fidelity, — pitiless only in fidelity; for deep,
tender compassion is in the poet’s soul. Hero after hero comes
forth, uplifted with all soaring thoughts, godlike in bearing,
glorious in form and in renown; then before our eyes he goes
down; we see him clutch the earth in blind agony, we hear
his armor clank over him, — his only knell. Nothing is ex
plained away; and the pathos reaches its acme in the stern,
stern words, “ all-ending death.” The poet cuts off his under
standing from all succors, — breaks down the bridges behind
him. Only by a transcendent process does he escape into
repose. The will of Zeus is accomplished: that is all. To
Homer this all was enough. To the author of the Book of
Job it was enough.
*
A deep sea in which to cast anchor!
We in our day like shallower waters.
Why is it that Homer selects the sentiment of honor to be
thus enslaved ? Because he has the keenest sympathy with it.
In his eyes it is noblest, best; its enslavement, therefore,
shows most strikingly that moral inversion he wishes to dis
play. Nor is he alone in this procedure; other epic poets
have done the same. Dante is pre-eminently the poet of Love :
read the story of Francesca, wherein the pathos of the Inferno
culminates, and you find him distilling from the honey of love
a cup that he swoons but to taste. Milton is the apostle of
Liberty: in the Paradise Lost he has opened the heavens to
show us the impulse to just this, Liberty, turned toward the
pit, and drawing after it one third part of heaven’s host.
Goethe’s noblest trait is his intellectual devotion, his worship
of Truth: it is precisely this that in his half-epic betrays
Faust. In the Ramayana, a supreme emphasis is laid upon
truth in the sense of veracity, respect for the plighted word.
Describing his hero, Kapila says: “ This illustrious prince could
• * It is true that at the end of the Book of Job a kind of offset is got up.
But we may observe, that, in representing this pay-off appreciable by the under
standing, the poet—if he wrote the conclusion — falls from poetry to prose. The
poem was already complete.
�526
Epic Philosophy. >
[Oct.
willihgly renounce life, fortune the most opulent, desire the
most dear, — but the truth never.” Now it is just this, respect
for the plighted word, that brings about the catastrophe of the
poem.
Somewhere in his picture, and generally in the foreground,
the epic artist casts in this quintessence of contradiction, this
ink of indelible darkness, Worst from Best, — all the juices of
sweet life going to feed cancers. Moreover, the higher the
art and the grander the genius of the poet, the more resolutely
does he leave this terrible fact in possession of its proper field.
In the Ramayana, those who had fallen in the war against the
demon were, after the victory, magically restored to life. That
is impure art. In the Iliad, death has his prey undisputed, and
tragic fates pursue even the living. This is the manner of the
master.
Worst from Best, — is it found only in poems? The stout
common sense of Theodore Parker led him to say that Religion
may become prince of the devils. Whence was the inquisition
generated ? It was bred out of the Beatitudes and the song of
the angels, “ Peace on earth, good-will to men! ” What is
wourali poison, in which South American Indians dip their
arrows, compared with the envenomed conscience that even
the spirit of Christendom has secreted ? “We enact hell here
below! ”
In the epics, then, of men, and in the epic of the Supreme
Poet, there is somewhat with which the heart of man cannot
be reconciled, nor should be reconciled, since it is antithetic to
moral order and unity: when man does not abhor it, he has
forsworn his own nature. What, precisely, is this somewhat,
this Satan ever going to and fro in the world, this serpent
always lurking in garden ? Let us see whether this thing can
be accurately defined. Having learned its nature, — if, indeed,
to do so be possible, — we may further inquire whether the epic
idea of the world can be seen as comprehending, commanding
it, and evoking melody from it. And if the attempt be daring,
and our space for exposition brief, all the more must precision
be sought; nor will a little formality in the statement, if it
help toward precision, be esteemed inexcusable.
1. In the world of the senses and of science all goes by law,
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
527
the savans tell us. Granted: force has definite characters and
constant measures ; in measure and character alike it is inva
riable. All there goes by law : by what kind of law, however ?
By a law that is absolutely and everlastingly indifferent to any
thought which man derives from his spiritual being, to any
sentiment, any ideal desire or purpose of the soul. You would
have a house, wherein to enshrine the sanctities and felicities
of domestic life : what cares gravitation for your wish ? These
Romans would build a city; Michel Angelo would lift St. Pe
ter’s dome: gravitation enters into no complicity with such
desires ; inexorably, stolidly faithful to its own business, it
holds down the rock in the quarry; whoever will get a block
of it away shall sweat for it. Well, the builders outwit gravi
tation, making it help them lift the stone, and put it in place,
where the stolid tug of that force shall serve their design : it
is outwitted, that is all; not in the least has it been won into
sympathy with a human purpose. The forces of Nature, as
they do not change to approach, so cannot change to elude, the
design of man: get the wind of them, and they are captive.
Now, as the soul has, through the body, a foothold in Nature,
and commands immediately a certain amount of force, it is
enabled to take natural law by surprise, and bring it to obe
dience. But in obedience it is remote as ever, maintaining
the same impassive, unconquerable indifference to all that the
soul imagines or intends. As with gravitation, so with all
natural forces : even when serving the most vital uses, they are
infinitely far away from man’s thought of use. Oxygen rushes
into the lungs, when they create a vacuum: it is but rushing
into a vacuum. It combines with the globules of the blood to
recreate life; to further decomposition would suit it as well :
growth and decay, life and death, man’s gain or loss, pleasure
or anguish, are to it quite the same. Thus it happens that
man, as a worker in the realm of finite Nature, must always
work among and upon forces that are no less than infinitely
removed from any sympathy with his spirit. The world serves
him, but does not know him even when it serves.
2. In using these forces, man puts himself somewhat in their
power. We lift the roof, but lift it over our own heads : gravi
tation has no respect for the heads ; its business is to draw
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Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
downward, which it attends to assiduously, not considering
who or what is beneath; and it holds the roof in place, I
must repeat, only as it is outwitted. When the earthquake
comes, comes its opportunity ; and now men fly the houses they
have built for their security. Moreover, for purposes of use
we must set free agencies that were not active before, that we
can never be sure of our ability to control, and that, despite
their services, ever continue terrible to us. Fire, for example,
is a demon that man has conjured up. It is needful, indispen
sable ; we must take it into our houses near the cradle and the
couch, must sleep with it for housefellow, knowing all the while
that it is an untamable demon, never a whit domesticated by
its long intimacy with man. Now fire is not bad; but the burn
ing of the house, for which it is at any moment ready, were
an evil. The burning of the house, and the fall, perchance, of
the flaming roof upon those it was designed to shelter, — de
spite all the glosses of optimism, a plain man may take leave
to regard that as indubitably an evil.
Here, therefore, is an evil, yet no evil principle. There is a
gap between human ends and natural means ; and evil — physi
cal evil only as yet — is incidental to it.
3. Man is not only in this world of forces thus indifferent
to every thought of his spirit, but, as an organized creature,
he is himself composed of such forces. Yet more, they assume
in him a new and peculiar intensity, becoming sensitive, and
rounding into an Ego heated with immeasurable desire. Nev
ertheless, these forces, though as an organized nature he is
compounded of them, belong to that world which is forever
infinitely remote from the pure thought and ideal desire of his
spirit. The relation of himself as spirit to himself as organ
ized in nature is the same with the general relation of man to
force in the external world. Hunger and thirst are no less
indifferent than gravitation to all that the soul believes and
loves. Temperamental force has its own orbit, moves by its
own springs, knows only its own ends. Indispensable utilities
are exacted from it; but it transmits them, as a mail-bag does
letters, without knowing what is in them.
Thus the soul must not only work upon, it must also work
by means of, an alien material. This material, moreover, is
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
529
not passive, it is force, fiercely intent, impersuasible. Accord
ingly, the soul can accomplish nothing, it is annulled, until by
an efflux of virtue it takes possession of the field; while only
by a continuance of the same energy does it keep possession.
Even in victory and supremacy, it may not retire and sleep :
its authority is dead, its victory vanishes, in the moment that
it ceases to act and to overcome. It is a sovereign whose sub
jects are all rebels at heart, and become such in act the moment
it does not make upon them an overmastering impression.
They are rebels, not by any concerted antagonism to the regal
principle, but because they are wholly moved by an intention
of their own, which is alien and indifferent to spiritual ideas.
4. The soul, in building up its own architectures, and pre
paring its own repast, must make immaterial fire, must liberate
demons in its own organic household, and so newly imperil
itself. For the better culture and discipline of mankind, it es
tablishes Property, — an institution which rests wholly upon an
ideal basis : instantly it creates cupidity, a very terrible demon
indeed, hungry beyond measure, sometimes in its rage of appe
tite devouring entire civilizations. What a raising of chimneys,
called courts of law, there has to be! What anxious binding
of the demon with precedents, statutes, legal forms! Despite
all which, it will sometimes break bounds : and, indeed, when
is it not breaking bounds, committing trespass, doing inde
scribable mischief ?
The soul, again, builds the state, to incarnate therein, as in
a larger body, the spirit of community : at once it sets free the
love of dominion,—fire again, and a fire that makes horrible
conflagrations. The desire of power and sway is not bad ; the
debt to it of civilization is immense, immeasurable ; never was
there a great ruler or statesman whose breast did not brim
with it; and only at far-distant periods of time do the Timoleons and Washingtons appear, who possess it largely without
being possessed by it. Often has it wrought prodigiously, when
Goodness lay asleep, wrapped in sweet dreams ; and history on
many a page
“ Tells how the drudging Goblin sweat
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
Till in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
That ten day-laborers could not end.”
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Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
Nor, on the other hand, is it good; for in itself it has no moral
quality whatsoever. But a force destitute of all moral char
acter, which nevertheless must be brought into the closest
intimacy with moral interests, and even fanned and stimulated
in their behalf, has in it capacities of evil.
The soul builds churches, architectures to house a thought
higher still; and again it makes fire ; and this time may make
the very fire of hell, bigotry, conscientious hatred, holy cruelty,
lying for God, tyranny that not only oppresses, but makes in
its victims a hunger to be oppressed. And once more we have
to say, that the force thus brought into action is in itself neither
good nor evil, though of both good and evil it is vastly capable.
Fire, — it may kindle fagots about the martyr, and blaze
abroad to devastate entire centuries and civilizations, or may
genially warm the hearts and households of believing ages.
Finally, this Ego of ours, —this also is demon, is fire. The
Spirit makes it: never could mere organic force become con
scious, and say I. But the Spirit makes it as the intensest
conceivable antithesis to its own pure, including universality.
I, — what a portentous exclusion the word implies ! It shuts
out all the universe beside itself; indeed, to the egoistic appre
hension pure and simple, I is universe, is god. A wonderful
thing is this particular, limited Self. It is eccentric centre,
— pure partiality in the state, and with the sense of perfect
wholeness. It is Spirit inverted or reverted from its compre
hending, universal self-identity, to sustain its own intensest
contradiction, a purely limited and excluding self-identification.
This special Self is demon all and only. Not good, it is yet
here as the strong caryatid to sustain a spiritual conscious
ness, which is God’s surpassing work of art. Not bad, it is
nevertheless a caryatid whose head is not kept under without
pains, and that at best seldom fails to put a wry face upon his
labor.
Fire is not bad ; but the burning 'of the house, which despite
all precautions may happen, were an evil. Egoism is not bad;
but its exaction and forage upon the soul, which in some degree
are sure to happen, are an evil. When the forces of finite Na
ture turn the virtue and providence of the soul against itself,
then there is evil, devil. Devil is not a person, it is not even
�Epic Philosophy.
531
a thing or a force ; it is simply an effect incidental to a par
ticular form of relation. With finite Nature, fixed, resolute,
inexorable in its finitude, the soul must make an intimacy, to
which intimacy Nature can never respond by the faintest blush
of sympathy; natural forces will seek forever, must forever
seek, to carry away in their own line whatever comes within
their reach; and when they succeed in appropriating and
bringing into their own line of action the virtue of the soul,
evil appears. The epic poet represents this most terrible inci
dent of the Spirit’s engagement in Nature, — the soul pulled
overboard by the fish it was drawing in, — the soul caught in
the mesh of its own mechanism, ground in its own mill.
If, now, the foregoing exposition be at all correct, it will
appear, that, though there is no evil principle, though Satan
is the boldest of impersonations, implying some temerity of
rhetoric, yet the Satanic, the infernal, exists nevertheless.
Disease is no entity; but epilepsy and lockjaw are quite real.
On the other hand, the epic “ play-over ” must not be for
gotten. Evil is real, but it is not commensurate with man’s
being. Man is properly supernatural; the soul is above all its
experience within the limits of finite Nature, and
“ Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.”
Accordingly, I find two opposite classes of theorists, who,
severally following, though in contrary directions, a linear and
prosaic logic, arrive at a forced conclusion on this matter. The
one party, beginning from below, and perceiving evil to be real
relatively to the soul as engaged in Nature, reasons to the
eternal from the temporal, and asserts, a supernatural Satan,
conceived of either as a person or a state of existence. The
other party, setting out from man’s supreme consciousness,
wherein he feels the serene eminence of his spirit over Nature,
reasons downward, and declares that even within the limits of
Nature evil is not real.
The latter opinion seems to have been adopted with a degree
of enthusiasm by the Emersonian school in America, though
of Mr. Emerson himself one may rather say that he has shown
a marked predilection for it than that it is sustained by him
as a fixed dogma. The chief argument for it is an undeniable
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Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
fact, namely, that evil is often reconverted to use. But were
this always the case, evil would not lose its proper character.
At sight of somewhat with which it cannot be reconciled, the
soul is stung, and newly incited. Well, why is it stung ?
Whence the provocation ? It is the sight or the experience
of somewhat odious to the soul that stings. If we say, “ This
so-called evil is made to serve a use, therefore it is not evil;
whatever is is right; the soul can and must be reconciled with
it,” — where are we ? Let us shun huddled thinking.
Asafoetida is the best of antispasmodics ; it does not there
fore smell the better. Esteem me not narrow-minded, if I hold
my nose. The philosopher tells me, indeed, that only devil
knows devil, — that only because I am cousin-german to asa
foetida does its odor offend me. Perhaps so; it may be, that,
were the nose regenerate, it would find only frankincense in
foetor. I humbly confess such grace has not been given that
organ. Be it to my shame or no, I must distinguish between
scent of heliotrope and scent of carrion-flower. I follow my
nose as my fathers did before me. Nor in truth do I propose
to be shamefaced before Philosophy in doing so. Offence is
offence, make the best of it. Evil is a thing good to esteem
bad, good to be offended at, good to keep the cork on. Like
ipecacuanha and tartar-emetic, it is useful only as it creates
nausea and is intolerantly rejected by the system.
It is said further, that Good has a vast power of assimilation,
a chemistry that nothing can wholly resist. This also is true.
As in the physical world the organific force will masticate
quartz and porphyry, gnawing away at the frozen adamant of
mountain crags with teeth harder and more capable of self
repair than those of rodents, and solving all with the alchemy
of eupeptic life, until it has given the earth flesh, has clothed
this with the garniture of field and forest, and digested this
again into animal form and motion, so the higher genius that
works in humanity to dissolve and to organize does not live
upon spoon-victual alone, but has teeth to cut platinum, a
stomach to digest poison, and an art out of pus and gangrene
to make the vigor of dancing feet and bloom of dawning beauty.
Eyes that are not sick will see this without spectacles, and
sound minds will be apt to emphasize it. But let us not say
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
533
too much, and be like cowards who betray fear by voluble affir
mation that there is no danger. Good has diamond teeth, —
and it needs them! Poor logic, to say, that, because it has this
masticating and digestive force, therefore all is food for it,
artistically prepared by some cosmic Blot, and that what seems
odious is only pepper-sauce, a sharp condiment to provoke
appetite.
In fine, the universe will not be spun out in one thread, and
turned to prose. Our nice mental machinery can do much,
but cannot do that; and this new-patented method of optimism
fails like every other. It does good work of the kind, but the
poetic truth of existence will not be caught on the smooth
turning spindle.
The opposition of good and evil is never to be explained away.
But this opposition is itself prosaic, if only in itself consid
ered. To deny it is fatal to epic truth; to remain only in it,
the captive and jail-bird of Nature, is no less fatal. Evil, and
good as merely opposed to evil, belong alike to the soul only
as standing in organic connection with finite Nature; but the
soul’s true being is not in Nature, it is in Spirit, the self-affirmed,
eternal, indivisible Import, into which Nature, as sign, ever
more resolves itself. To the bird as walking the wall exists,
and is impassable: the bird takes wing, and the wall, though
solid as ever, becomes for it no wall. But man at once walks
and flies, — walks and works on these levels of Nature, yet by
- his true substantive being soars and circles in the divine ether;
and here, in unity with the One-and-All, he is himself the sky,
which rounds in and contains in harmony his natural experi
ence. In his breast is enshrined this exceeding great mystery,
—the infinite separation of Nature from Spirit, the perfect poetic
comprehension of Nature by Spirit. A mystery, nay, a very
dust in the eyes, to prose thought, it is far otherwise in the
being' of man, as in the universe of God: here it abides in
poetic clearness forever,— so clear, that the voice of it, when it
comes to speech, can be no other than a voice of singing, to
which only melodious numbers and concord of sweet sound
afford a fit expression. The universe rings with it like a bell;
and the heart of the poet, being whole, also rings silver-clear;,
and in the deep heart of humanity a poetic thought is peren
nial, though in general it is shattered on the lips.
�534
Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
From the height of its perfect consciousness the soul looks
down upon the imperfect quasi world of Nature; and seeing
itself involved there, yet not involved, — locked into those
limits of inexorable finitude, yet above them, including them, ’
resolving them into that breath of Spirit which sings while it
passes, — it has the sentiment not only of a Whole, but of an
epic Whole, including within its flawless unity the intensest
contradiction.
We are now prepared, let it be supposed, to attempt a final *
survey of this epic Whole, this Iliad of existence, placing its
grand features in their true relation to each other. Only from
the summit of thought and consciousness can such a survey be
attempted sanely; we must therefore begin and end with the
all-comprehending Unity, with pure Spirit.
1. Man has the consciousness of Spirit in its integrity,
whole and the whole, nothing if not all. He knows this, and,
as knowing, is one with it. Never can it be. known as other ■
than that by which it is known ; if another, it is no longer the
One, but only a particular existence. Tell me not of a God,
one being particularized among others, though great or great
est. John Stuart Mill kindly explains, that, though it be
ridiculous to speak of the Infinite, the Absolute, yet God may '
be infinite in a particular way, — infinitely just and good in the
sense of being entirely just and good. His infinite is merely
unmixed quality. In the same sense a spider is infinitely a |
spider, if it be all and only spider. Should the creature ever I
be afflicted with a doubt about the propriety of catching flies, |
the spiderly nature, becoming mixed, would fall from infini- I
tude. Infinite in the sense of pure quality is perhaps as good !
an infinite as positivism admits of; but I quite agree with Mr.
Mill in thinking it ridiculous to call this the infinite.
The infinite of Spirit is not to be caught in a cobweb. The
ambitious broom of positivist logic will neither sweep it down
from the dark corners of the understanding nor sweep it to
gether from the floors of phenomenal Nature. What it is we
may a little conceive thus: though there were a myriad of
perfectly rational minds, there were but one Reason, and each
of them were it. The consciousness of reason is an integrating
consciousness; in it there is a unity, not numerical, but intrinsic:
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
535
multiple in manifestation, it is not divided, nor in itself multi
ple, but ever identical. Spirit is reason, and more than we
mean by reason distinctively. It is not only integral, but is
active, eternal, absolute integration. As there is not only a
possible rest in motion, but also a rest of motion,— as, for
example, in orbital movement, — so there is a unity, not only
in multiplicity, but of multiplicity, — a unity of comprehension
and embrace, which, though it contain contradiction, yet does
indeed contain it, and therefore remains itself unbroken. The
consciousness of this it is that the human race has confessed
so often as it has said God. There is no night there; there
all limit is swallowed up, freedom and necessity become one
and the same ; there the jars of Nature blend in the tune of the
eternal Whole, and the clash of oppositions is felt to be sus
tained by the very unity which they seemingly oppose. “ The
will of Zeus is accomplished ” : it is the key-note which to
every note is a key. Spirit is; and he is Spirit who is con
scious of it, and he the voice of it who hears its language.
Spirit is, the everlasting Only, only and all, playing over op
position, yet never opposed; abiding ever in itself, yet not
aloof; dwelling only with itself, yet housing the universe.
2. Nevertheless, in precise antithesis to this, there is the
world of finite Nature, also assuming to be all, and indeed
complete in its way, — no escape from it, when once you have
accepted its level and law. It bears, however, this ear-mark
of imperfection, that the essential character of it is to be ex
cluding. Excluding : every particle of matter shoulders away
every other; — every square inch of space says, as it were, to
universal space, “ Stand off! ” — every moment of time fixes
itself between the two eternities of time, denying them, saying,
“ Of time I alone am, I, the present moment! ” — every force,
so much as it acts, negates all other force. It is a universe of
exclusions, — purest conceivable opposite to the including sim
plicity of Spirit.
What then? We have a dual world: Spirit and Nature
standing in irreconcilable opposition, each, it should seem,
excluding the very possibility of the other. Yet as Spirit is
whole and the whole, or is nothing, dualism kills it. And,
indeed, many in our day espouse the cause of finite Nature to
�536
Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
this extent, saying, “ Spirit can be no more than a fiction of
speech, since for it as a reality Nature leaves no room.” True,
Nature has no room for it. Here is a difficulty, which to a
prosaic speculation is, and must remain, insuperable. But the
bolt turns to another key.
3. We have seen that this self-asserting finite Nature asserts
itself only to the same ear which itself makes, to the finite
understanding. To the higher poetic intelligence, it is only
Sign, only Language. As such, it declares itself to be in and
of itself nothing. A word, — for what is it here? To be
somewhat in itself? No, but expressly to be nothing in itself.
It is a word only as, vacating itself, pointing away from itself,
denying its own substantiality, it simply and unequivocally
stands for somewhat which indeed is, namely, an import exist
ing in the mind. The world, then, as Sign, denies its sub
stantial existence, vacates its own pretension to reality, and
affirms what is not itself, affirms a significance whose unity
and substantiality is Spirit.
It has been said, but will bear saying again, that to this
significant and therefore ever-vanishing character of Nature all
human speech is due. So all mythology, all theology, comes
of the impulse to render that language which Nature is into
the language man uses. Poetry, painting, every fine art, is a
fine art for the reason that it elects the significant impression
of Nature as the real fact of it, while the so-called useful arts
regard Nature only in its lower character, as force. Whence
the charm of landscape painting ? It is always inferior to that
which one may any day see from his doorstep. The charm of
it is this: it presents Nature as only picture, only significant
show, without its outdoor pretension to substantiality, — pre
sents Nature more as what it veritably is. Hence mere fac
simile painting, which foists upon the’picture Nature’s habitual
disguise of its true character, is but mock art.
4. Having thus affirmed Spirit, then shown finite Nature as
apparently denying it, then again shown the same Nature as
confessing itself a mere sign of that which it seems to deny,
we come to an act which concerns us human beings very
nearly, but of which there seems to be in the streets of our
cities little notice taken. I have never once seen mention of it
on the bulletin-boards, nor found it in the column of news.
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
537
Spirit issues in person, in the person, that is, of humanity,
upon this scene of finite Nature ; accepts the fiction of its sub
stantiality; and even so, upon these hard terms, extorts a con
fession of its presence and quality. Here, then, it is in the
militant state, a warrior in armor, overcoming a hostility that
never abates, compelling a confession ineffably alien to the lips
that utter it.
Spirit militant, Spirit accepting the fiction of Nature’s sub
stantiality to conquer it on its own level, — this is the moral life
of humanity. With this “ accepted fiction ” under the feet,
we cannot wonder that our life should divide itself into the
irreconcilable opposites, Right and Wrong, God and Devil.
A contradiction is involved in such a state of existence; the
t contradiction will appear, and make itself felt, sometimes to
the utter anguish of the soul.
Here the soul conquers, but always with costs; here it en
dures defeat, but in defeat still conquers, if its quality has
been signalized. No other business has it than to say effectu
ally, I am : achieving this, though in dungeons, at the stake,
on the cross, it is victorious.
Partial defeat it ever does and must suffer, optimism to the
contrary notwithstanding. “ All is well,” am I told ? Yes,
the All is very well, undoubtedly. One gets fresh intelligence
of that fact in his own breast now and then, and pipes his little
note of rejoicing accordingly. But is this taken to mean that
all goes well ? that in the line and on the level of outward
events there is perfect process ? that the moral life of man
involves no contradiction, in the midst of which the soul must
strive and suffer ? that we may lie on our oars and trust the
tide of events to take us to port? Enough, 0, more than
enough of this! In the line of events, as related to the moral
life of humanity, there is, there can be, no perfect process on
the earth: the very conception of our existence forbids. We
chant, with a sweet imbecility, “ the good time coming ” :
it is ever coming, and never come. Some say that the golden
age has been, and some that it is to be ; but I, that all events
are cheap and all times tawdry, — that only the soul is golden,
and that the shine of this metal out of the dust-cloud of history
is the true result.
vol. cvn. — no. 221.
35
�538
t
Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
Here is the field of the tragic poet. He causes the soul to
show itself and to shine from out the utmost darkness and
devilishness of events. The one is helpless and inextinguish
able ; the other victorious and without honor. The soul suffers
every conceivable defeat, and is godlike still; the law of events
follows its own fatal course, making no clear distinction be
tween good and bad, and is seen in its proper under-foot char
acter. Thus, Shakespeare in his grand tragedies will give us
scarce a crumb of comfort, so far as the course of events is
concerned. Iago, indeed, ends his iniquity with his death :
who is consoled ? who cares ? You crush the snake that has
just fleshed its fang in priceless honor and innocence: well; it
was but a snake. Iago dies; but Desdemona, Othello! — who
talks of a balance struck ? Or who in this presence will pro
claim the “ good of evil ” ? What good ? Snake number two
is more likely to be regenerate ? St. Snake is somewhat less
beautiful to me than the creature uncanonized. Anything, if
you please, but Satan in a state of grace!
I thank Shakespeare that he gives no hint of these suspi
cious compensations. Out of wrong done and suffered the
soul has shown its quality: this is the true result. All the
grandeur of the great poet’s genius is found in this, his habit
ual manner of representing life. Had he stooped to patch up
events, pretending, after the fashion of the novelist, that the
significance of life is found in their course and result, he would
have stooped indeed, and been no longer Shakespeare.
Spirit by issuing upon this scene of things brings moral good
to a world which before was but a system of forces, incapable
of moral character: by the same act it makes the possibility
and the general (not particular) necessity of moral evil. It
does so by placing the virtue of the soul within reach of the
energies of the finite world, “ laws ” of Nature, organic im
pulses and desires, — huge polypi, that throw their long tena
cious tentacles about all that comes within their scope, and know
not what they devour. Thus the Hebrew “ God of battles ” —
the unity of Spirit in the militant state — says, “ I, God, make
good, and I create evil.” Does this sound harsh ? But is it
not true ? Are not moral good and moral evil correlative op
posites, each of which forever wars upon and forever implies
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy^
539
the other ? Does not the soul make both, the former by its
intrinsic quality, and the latter by the situation it accepts ?
As the human providence which evokes the element of fire
makes it possible that any house may burn and certain that
some houses will burn, so spiritual virtue, by creating moral
good, enables the characterless energies of Nature to attain the
higher, though abhorrent quality of evil.
But the divining sense of humanity has touched the ultimate
truth of this situation with a precision yet more admirable.
Spirit militant, appearing no longer as the “ God of battles,”
but as the suffering Prince of Peace, the crucified God, meekly
enduring, in the consciousness of an infinite resource, all the
utmost despite of Nature, — never yet has a nobler or truer
imagination inspired the worship of humanity. A great in
justice is, indeed, done this perennial poetic truth, when it is
Calvinized into prose ; yet what an appeal, even so, has it
made to the heart of man! Let the form change as it may
and must; but let the grand imagination remain, for the trage
dy of the world has this extent; and JEschylus and Shake
speare and every greatest poet has touched it most nearly just
then when his genius was at the supreme height.
The strictly moral consciousness is dualistic, not integrating;
for beneath its feet is an assumption contradictory to the eter
nal quality of Spirit, namely, the assumed substantiality of
finite Nature. Hence it dwells in a divided world, whose ulti
mate terms a^e God (the warring or suffering God) and Devil.
But optimism pretends that the moral consciousness is unitive
and entire. It blinks the underlying contradiction, and .there
fore must seek to persuade us that “ the Devil is not so black
as he is painted,” and indeed is not of a black complexion at
all, but is only a serviceable angel in soiled linen, — grimed
with necessary labor, and none the worse for not appearing in
holiday clothes. I freely make over my share in this charita
ble judgment to those who can find a use for it, and freely
confess that^a more limping, one-legged thing is not known to
us than a purely moralistic theology which sets out with deny
ing the necessary dualism of morals.
5. But the old religionists permitted themselves to speak of
mere morality, as if there were a consciousness in man and a
�540
Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
truth in being that transcended morals, though without invali
dating them. Were they utterly deceived ? Has humanity no
consciousness, has being no character of this transcendent
kind ? Are right and wrong the supreme words ? — wrong,
however, being inscrutably wrung back, and so brought, as it
were clandestinely, into the line of right. Epic imagination,
whether as found in written poems, or as speaking in all the
higher spirituality of mankind, affirms a sovereign Unity, which,
indeed, becomes moral by descent into the limits of finite Na
ture, but which is in itself, as Hooker said, “ not only one, but
very oneness,” while in oneness it includes, and is, all. Let it
be permitted me to speak as I can, and without reproach, of this
Unspeakable, happy if the words shall in any manner or degree
hint what the best of words will never more than hint.
It may be read in epics, and as their supreme import, neces
sary to render them epical, that Spirit, even while provisionally
accepting this finite Nature as substantial, and issuing upon it
in the militant character, remains not the less and forever in
itself, in the consciousness of its pure, eternal integrity, un
broken by the dividedness of time, untouched by its tumult.
This One to which there is no Other, while yet it does not ex
clude, but embraces and houses all multiplicity and diversity,
— is it not the “ open secret,” always inaccessible to the criti
cal understanding, while to the adoring heart and spiritual
imagination it is not only accessible, but is alone to them in
the deepest sense native ? Inexplicable, indubitable, not to be
solved only because itself the universal solvent, it is the mys
tery of eternity, yet is mysterious only to the prosaic mind,
while only through its infinite reconciling presence is finite Na
ture itself other than an affronting mystery to the credent and
poetic soul. This is the blessed play-over, beneath which, and
yet within which, all the fortune of life, all the struggle and
process of existence, go on, and into which they evermore
vanish, to appear in vanishing and to die in renewal, as words
sink and are lost in the import that creates and sustains them.
An indestructible consciousness in man, fundamental fact of
his being, makes him a participant in this oneness, this whole
ness, this perfection of Spirit in itself. Spirit as engaged in
Nature, —it is Sarpedon, son of Zeus, warring, stricken, perish
�1868.]
Epic Philosophy.
541
ing, lying gory on the battle-field ; Spirit abiding in itself, —
it is Zeus poised in Olympian peace, and in himself containing
all. Sarpedon falling, dying, the victim of Nature ; Zeus im
mortal, hurtless as the blue heaven, and embracing Nature as
the sky the earth; — the one is the passionate experience of
man, and the other is his pure, integrating consciousness. But
the latter is his consciousness, not merely as his, and subjec
tive, but as veritable, substantial, the indivisible consciousness
of Spirit, existing only because Spirit is, one and indivisible,
— the eternal fact impressing itself with the sense of its own
infinite reality.
It follows from all the foregoing that man’s being is a scale
of three degrees. On the lowest, he is only an organized
nature, a mote or molecule in the immeasurable system of
things ; a little learning the trick of it, a little and a little
better able, from age to age, to take care of his small peculium; getting to be at length, from a mote, an insect, and
humming so as to be heard, 0, yards away!
On the de
gree above this, far above, he is moral, engaged in the battle
without truce between good and evil; at issue with others and
with himself ; finding a law in his members warring upon the
law of his mind and bringing him into captivity, till he cry,
“ Wretched man that I am ! ” Here he may have noble battle,
but never peace ; always there is a Hannibal in his Italy, or
the Gauls are gathering on the border ; and he is still bound
by the necessities of the conflict in the rare hours of his tri
umphal march. On the highest degree, he is one with the
One-and-All. Here, as from the height of eternity, he looks
down on his small fortunes in the world of time, and by all that
he there suffers renews and intensifies the consciousness of his
eternal security and sovereignty in God.
It was the door into this supreme consciousness that the
Christian evangel, particularly as represented .by Paul, un
barred and threw open to the access of mankind; the doc
trine of “ salvation by faith,” though its dryness now parches
the tongue, began the epopee of Christendom, and gave the
key-note to the largest symphony in which the imaginations
of nations and ages have as yet joined. This consciousness,
though not at all denying, but, on the contrary, admitting and
�542
Epic Philosophy.
[Oct.
using, what is beneath it, declares itself alone veritable.
Spirit only is ; all else appears, and is not. And here one can
not help asking by what fine luck it was that Hellenic tradition
made Homer blind; that which he sang he saw but as a
picture within his breast. For so the eye of absolute Spirit
sees Nature and the natural experience of man as things by
itself imagined, airy nothings with a local habitation and a
name.
The epic poet sets off all the worst that the soul can suffer
in Nature against that higher impossibility of its suffering at
all. He gives himself the divine pleasure of beholding this
troubled, tumultuous quasi existence as it vanishes momentarily
and forever into the peace and perfect comprehension of Spirit
in itself. That engagement in Nature, and yet an everlasting
ease and delight of self-rescue out of Nature, — the perpetual
play-up of finite life out of itself and into the infinite as its
truer self, while Spirit in its divine play-over stoops to the
world, and, stooping, remains infinitely above, and seeming tu
acknowledge another than itself, makes that apparent other an
instrument through which to blow its eternal affirmation, I
only am ; — this is that symphony of being whose choirs are
solar and stellar systems, and whose notes and numbers are in
dividual lives, while in each note the tune of the whole, the
tune of eternity, presides, and the Symphonist himself is pres
ent. And in finding this, we find the epic interpretation of
human life.
D. A. Wasson.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Epic philosophy
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Wasson, David Atwood
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Place of publication: Boston
Collation: 501-542 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Article from North American Review, vol. CVII, no. 221. Annotations in pencil "N. Amer. Rev." page 501. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
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[s.n.]
Date
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1868
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CT53
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Epic philosophy), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Subject
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Poetry
Mythology
Classics
Ancient Greek Poetry
Epic Poetry
Homer
Mythology