ON METAPHOR.
Of all the implements of poetry the metaphor is the most generally and successfully used, and indeed may be termed the muse’s caduceus, by the power of which she enchants all nature. The metaphor is a shorter simile, or rather a kind of magical coat, by which the same idea assumes a thousand different appearances. Thus the word _plough_, which originally belongs to agriculture, being metaphorically used, represents the motion of a ship at sea, and the effects of old age upon the human countenance—
—Plough’d the bosom of the deep— And Time had plough’d his venerable front.
Almost every verb, noun substantive, or term of art in any language, may be in this manner applied to a variety of subjects with admirable effect; but the danger is in sowing metaphors too thick, so as to distract the imagination of the reader, and incur the imputation of deserting nature, in order to hunt after conceits. Every day produces poems of all kinds so inflated with metaphor, that they may be compared to the gaudy bubbles blown up from a solution of soap. Longinus is of opinion, that a multitude of metaphors is never excusable, except in those cases when the passions are roused, and like a winter torrent, rush down impetuous, sweeping them with collective force along. He brings an instance of the following quotation from Demosthenes. “Men (says he) profligates, miscreants, and flatterers, who, having severally preyed upon the bowels of their country, at length betrayed her liberty, first to Philip, and now again to Alexander: who, placing the chief felicity of life in the indulgence of infamous lusts and appetites, overturned in the dust that freedom and independence, which was the chief aim and end of all our worthy ancestors—.”[11]
Aristotle and Theophrastus seem to think it is rather too bold and hazardous to use metaphors so freely, without interposing some mitigating phrase; such as, “if I may be allowed the expression,” or some equivalent excuse. At the same time, Longinus finds fault with Plato for hazarding some metaphors, which indeed appear to be equally affected and extravagant, when he says, “the government of a state should not resemble a bowl of hot fermenting wine, but a cool and moderate beverage, _chastised by the sober deity_”—a metaphor that signifies nothing more than “mixed or lowered with water.” Demetrius Phalereus justly observes, that though a judicious use of metaphors wonderfully raises, sublimes, and adorns oratory or elocution, yet they should seem to flow naturally from the subject; and too great a redundancy of them inflates the discourse to a mere rhapsody. The same observation will hold in poetry; and the more liberal or sparing use of them will depend in a great measure on the nature of the subject.
Passion itself is very figurative, and often bursts out into metaphors; but in touching the pathos, the poet must be perfectly well acquainted with the emotions of the human soul, and carefully distinguish between those metaphors which rise glowing from the heart, and those cold conceits, which are engendered in the fancy. Should one of these last unfortunately intervene, it will be apt to destroy the whole effect of the most pathetical incident or situation. Indeed it requires the most delicate taste, and a consummate knowledge of propriety, to employ metaphors in such a manner, as to avoid what the ancients called the το ψυχρον the _frigid_, or false sublime. Instances of this kind were frequent even among the correct ancients. Sappho herself is blamed for using the hyperbole λευκοτεροι χιονος, _whiter than snow_. Demetrius is so nice as to be disgusted at the simile of _swift as the wind_; though, in speaking of a race-horse, we know from experience that this is not even an hyperbole. He would have had more reason to censure that kind of metaphor, which Aristotle styles κατ’ ενεργειαν, exhibiting things inanimate as endued with sense and reason; such as that of the sharp-pointed arrow _eager_ to take wing among the crowd. “Οξυβελης καθ’ ὁμιλον ἐπιπτεσθαι μενεαινων.” Not but that in descriptive poetry this figure is often allowed and admired. The _cruel_ sword, the _ruthless_ dagger, the _ruffian_ blast, are epithets which frequently occur. The _faithful_ bosom of the earth, the _joyous_ boughs, the trees that _admire their images_ reflected in the stream, and many other examples of this kind, are found disseminated through the works of our best modern poets; yet still they must be sheltered under the privilege of the _poetica licentia_; and, except in poetry, they would give offence.
More chaste metaphors are freely used in all kinds of writing; more sparingly in history, and more abundantly in rhetoric: we have seen that Plato indulges in them even to excess. The orations of Demosthenes are animated, and even inflamed with metaphors, some of them so bold as even to entail upon him the censure of the critics. Τοτε τῳ Πυθωνι τῳ ῥητορι ῥεοντι καθ’ ὑμων.—“then I did not yield to Python the orator, when he _overflowed_ you with a tide of eloquence.” Cicero is still more liberal in the use of them; he ransacks all nature, and pours forth a redundancy of figures, even with a lavish hand. Even the chaste Xenophon, who generally illustrates his subject by way of simile, sometimes ventures to produce an expressive metaphor, such as part of the phalanx _fluctuated_ in the march: and indeed nothing can be more significant than this word εξεκυμηνε, to represent a body of men staggered, and on the point of giving way. Armstrong has used the word _fluctuate_ with admirable efficacy, in his philosophical poem intituled _the Art of Preserving Health_.
O! when the growling winds contend, and all The sounding forest _fluctuates_ in the storm, To sink in warm repose, and hear the din Howl o’er the steady battlements——
The word _fluctuate_ on this occasion not only exhibits an idea of struggling, but also echoes to the sense like the εφριξεν δε μαχη of Homer; which, by the bye, it is impossible to render into English: for the verb φρισσω signifies not only to stand erect like prickles, as a grove of lances, but also to make a noise like the crashing of armour, the hissing of javelins, and the splinters of spears.
Over and above an excess of figures, a young author is apt to run into a confusion of mixed metaphors, which leave the sense disjointed, and distract the imagination: Shakspeare himself is often guilty of these irregularities. The soliloquy in Hamlet, which we have so often heard extolled in terms of admiration, is, in our opinion, a heap of absurdities, whether we consider the situation, the sentiment, the argumentation, or the poetry. Hamlet is informed by the ghost, that his father was murdered, and therefore he is tempted to murder himself, even after he had promised to take vengeance on the usurper, and expressed the utmost eagerness to achieve this enterprize. It does not appear that he had the least reason to wish for death; but every motive, which may be supposed to influence the mind of a young prince, concurred to render life desirable—revenge towards the usurper; love for the fair Ophelia; and the ambition of reigning. Besides, when he had an opportunity of dying without being accessary to his own death; when he had nothing to do but, in obedience to his uncle’s command, to allow himself to be conveyed quietly to England, where he was sure of suffering death; instead of amusing himself with meditations on mortality, he very wisely consulted the means of self-preservation, turned the tables upon his attendants, and returned to Denmark. But granting him to have been reduced to the lowest state of despondence, surrounded with nothing but horror and despair, sick of this life, and eager to tempt futurity, we shall see how far he argues like a philosopher.
In order to support this general charge against an author so universally held in veneration, whose very errors have helped to sanctify his character among the multitude, we will descend to particulars, and analyse this famous soliloquy.
Hamlet, having assumed the disguise of madness, as a cloak, under which he might the more effectually revenge his father’s death upon the murderer and usurper, appears alone upon the stage in a pensive and melancholy attitude, and communes with himself in these words:
To be, or not to be? That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind, to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing, end them?—To die—to sleep— No more; and by a sleep, to say, we end The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to; ’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish’d.—To die—to sleep— To sleep! perchance to dream; ay, there’s the rub— For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause.——There’s the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his _quietus_ make With a bare bodkin? who would fardles bear, To groan and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death (That undiscover’d country, from whose bourne No traveller returns) puzzles the will; And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of. Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought; And enterprizes of great pith and moment, With this regard their currents turn away, And lose the name of action.
We have already observed that there is not any apparent circumstance in the fate or situation of Hamlet, that should prompt him to harbour one thought of self-murder; and therefore these expressions of despair imply an impropriety in point of character. But supposing his condition was truly desperate, and he saw no possibility of repose but in the uncertain harbour of death, let us see in what manner he argues on that subject. The question is, “To be, or not to be?” to die by my own hand, or live and suffer the miseries of life. He proceeds to explain the alternative in these terms, “Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer, or endure the frowns of fortune, or to take arms, and by opposing, end them.” Here he deviates from his first proposition, and death is no longer the question. The only doubt is, whether he will stoop to misfortune, or exert his faculties in order to surmount it. This surely is the obvious meaning, and indeed the only meaning that can be implied in these words,
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing, end them.
He now drops this idea, and reverts to his reasoning on death, in the course of which he owns himself deterred from suicide by the thoughts of what may follow death;
——the dread of something after death (That undiscover’d country, from whose bourne No traveller returns.)
This might be a good argument in a Heathen or Pagan, and such indeed Hamlet really was; but Shakspeare has already represented him as a good Catholic, who must have been acquainted with the truths of revealed religion, and says expressly in this very play,
——Had not the Everlasting fix’d His canon ’gainst self-murder.
Moreover, he had just been conversing with his father’s spirit, piping hot from purgatory, which we presume is not within the _bourne_ of this world. The dread of what may happen after death (says he)
Makes us rather bear those _ills_ we have, Than fly to _others_ that we know not of.
This declaration at least implies some knowledge of the other world, and expressly asserts, that there must be _ills_ in that world, though what kind of _ills_ they are, we do not know. The argument therefore may be reduced to this lemma: this world abounds with _ills_ which I feel; the other world abounds with _ills_, the nature of which I do not know: therefore, I will rather bear those _ills_ I have, “than fly to _others_ which I know not of:” a deduction amounting to a certainty with respect to the only circumstance that could create a doubt, namely, whether in death he should rest from his misery; and if he was certain there were evils in the next world, as well as in this, he had no room to reason at all about the matter. What alone could justify his thinking on this subject, would have been the hope of flying from the ills of this world, without encountering any _others_ in the next.
Nor is Hamlet more accurate in the following reflection:
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.
A bad conscience will make us cowards; but a good conscience will make us brave. It does not appear that any thing lay heavy on his conscience; and from the premises we cannot help inferring, that conscience in this case was entirely out of the question. Hamlet was deterred from suicide by a full conviction, that in flying from one sea of troubles which he did know, he should fall into _another_ which he did not know.
His whole chain of reasoning, therefore, seems inconsistent and incongruous. “I am doubtful whether I should live or do violence upon my own life: for I know not whether it is more honourable to bear misfortune patiently, than to exert myself in opposing misfortune, and by opposing, end it.” Let us throw it into the form of a syllogism, it will stand thus: “I am oppressed with ills: I know not whether it is more honourable to bear those ills patiently, or to end them by taking arms against them; _ergo_, I am doubtful whether I should slay myself or live. To die is no more than to sleep; and to _say_ that by a sleep we end the heart-ache, &c. “’tis a consummation devoutly to be wish’d.” Now, to _say it_ was of no consequence unless it had been true. “I am afraid of the dreams that may happen in that sleep of death; and I choose rather to bear those ills I have in this life than fly to _other ills_ in that undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveller ever returns. I have ills that are almost insupportable in this life. I know not what is in the next, because it is an undiscovered country: _ergo_, I’d rather bear those ills I have, than fly to others which I know not of.” Here the conclusion is by no means warranted by the premises. “I am sore afflicted in this life; but I will rather bear the afflictions of this life than plunge myself in the afflictions of another life: _ergo_, conscience makes cowards of us all.” But this conclusion would justify the logician in saying, _negatur consequens_; for it is entirely detached both from the major and minor proposition.
The soliloquy is not less exceptionable in the propriety of expression than in the chain of argumentation.—“To die—to sleep—no more,” contains an ambiguity which all the art of punctuation cannot remove; for it may signify that “to die is to sleep no more;” or the expression “no more” may be considered as an abrupt apostrophe in thinking, as if he meant to say—“no more of that reflection.”
“Ay, there’s the rub”—is a vulgarism beneath the dignity of Hamlet’s character, and the words that follow leave the sense imperfect;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause.
Not the dreams that might come, but the fear of what dreams might come, occasioned the pause or hesitation. _Respect_ in the same line may be allowed to pass for consideration: but
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
according to the invariable acceptation of the words _wrong_ and _contumely_, can signify nothing but the wrongs sustained by the oppressor, and the contumely or abuse thrown upon the proud man; though it is plain that Shakspeare used them in a different sense: neither is the word _spurn_ a substantive! yet as such he has inserted it in these lines:
The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes.
If we consider the metaphors of the soliloquy, we shall find them jumbled together in a strange confusion.
If the metaphors were reduced to painting, we should find it a very difficult task, if not altogether impracticable, to represent with any propriety outrageous Fortune using her slings and arrows, between which indeed there is no sort of analogy in nature. Neither can any figure be more ridiculously absurd than that of a man taking arms against a sea, exclusive of the incongruous medly of slings, arrows, and seas, justled within the compass of one reflection. What follows is a strange rhapsody of broken images, of sleeping, dreaming, and shifting off a _coil_, which last conveys no idea that can be represented on canvass. A man may be exhibited shuffling off his garments or his chains: but how he should shuffle off a _coil_, which is another name for noise and tumult, we cannot comprehend. Then we have “long-lived Calamity,” and “Time armed with whips and scorns;” and patient “Merit spurned at by Unworthiness;” and “Misery with a bare bodkin going to make his own _quietus_,” which at best is but a mean metaphor. These are followed by figures “sweating under fardles of burdens,” “puzzled with doubts,” “shaking with fears,” and “flying from evils.” Finally, we see “resolution sicklied o’er with pale thought,” a conception like that of representing health by sickness; and a “current of pith turned away, so as to lose the name of action,” which is both an error in fancy and a solecism in sense. In a word, this soliloquy may be compared to the _ægri somnia_, and the _tabula, cujus vanæ fingentur species_.
But while we censure the chaos of broken, incongruous metaphors, we ought also to caution the young poet against the opposite extreme of pursuing a metaphor until the spirit is quite exhausted in a succession of cold conceits; such as we see in the following letter, said to be sent by Tamerlane to the Turkish emperor Bajazet. “Where is the monarch that dares oppose our arms? Where is the potentate who does not glory in being numbered among our vassals? As for thee, descended from a Turcoman mariner, since the vessel of thy unbounded ambition hath been wrecked in the gulph of thy self-love, it would be proper that thou shouldest furl the sails of thy temerity, and cast the anchor of repentance in the port of sincerity and justice, which is the harbour of safety; lest the tempest of our vengeance make thee perish in the sea of that punishment thou hast deserved.”
But if these laboured conceits are ridiculous in poetry, they are still more inexcusable in prose: such as we find them frequently occur in Strada’s Bellum Belgicum. “Vix descenderat a prætoriâ navi Cæsar, cum fœda ilico exorta in portu tempestas, classem impetu disjecit, prætoriam hausit; quasi non vecturam amplius Cæsarem Cæsarisque fortunam.” “Cæsar had scarcely set his feet on shore, when a terrible tempest arising, shattered the fleet even in the harbour, and sent to the bottom the prætorian ship, as if he resolved it should no longer carry Cæsar and his fortunes.”
Yet this is modest in comparison of the following flowers: “Alii, pulsis è tormento catenis discerpti sectique, dimidiato corpore pugnabant sibi superstites, ac peremptæ partis ultores.” “Others, dissevered and cut in twain by chain-shot, fought with one half of their bodies that remained, in revenge for the other half that was slain.”
Homer, Horace, and even the chaste Virgil, is not free from conceits. The latter, speaking of a man’s hand cut off in battle, says,
Te decisa suum, Laride, dextera quærit: Semianimesque micant digiti, ferrumque retractant:
thus enduing the amputated hand with sense and volition. This, to be sure, is a violent figure, and hath been justly condemned by some accurate critics; but we think they are too severe in extending the same censure to some other passages in the most admired authors.
Virgil in his Sixth Eclogue says,
Omnia quæ, Phœbo quondam meditante, beatus Audiit Eurotas, jussitque ediscere lauros, Ille canit.
Whate’er when Phœbus bless’d the Arcadian plain Eurotas heard and taught his bays the strain, The senior sung——
And Pope has copied the conceit in his Pastorals,
Thames heard the numbers as he flow’d along, And bade his willows learn the mourning song.
Vida thus begins his First Eclogue:
Dicite, vos, Musæ, et juvenum memorate querelas; Dicite: nam moras ipsas ad carmina cautes, Et requiêsse suos perhibent vaga flumina cursus.
Say, heavenly muse, their youthful frays rehearse; Begin, ye daughters of immortal verse; Exulting rocks have own’d the power of song, And rivers listen’d as they flow’d along.
Racine adopts the same bold figure in his Phædra:
Le flot qui l’apporta recule épouvanté:
The wave that bore him, backwards shrunk appall’d.
Even Milton has indulged himself in the same licence of expression—
——As when to them who sail Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow Sabæan odour from the spicy shore Of Araby the bless’d; with such delay Well pleased, they slack their course, and many a league Cheer’d with the grateful smell, old Ocean smiles.
Shakspeare says,
——I’ve seen The ambitious ocean swell, and rage, and foam, To be exalted with the threatening clouds.
And indeed more correct writers, both ancient and modern, abound with the same kind of figure, which is reconciled to propriety, and even invested with beauty, by the efficacy of the prosopopœia, which personifies the object. Thus, when Virgil says Enipeus heard the songs of Apollo, he raises up, as by enchantment, the idea of a river god crowned with sedges, his head raised above the stream, and in his countenance the expression of pleased attention. By the same magic we see, in the couplet quoted from Pope’s Pastorals, old father Thames leaning upon his urn, and listening to the poet’s strain.
Thus in the regions of poetry, all nature, even the passions and affections of the mind, may be personified into picturesque figures for the entertainment of the reader. Ocean smiles or frowns, as the sea is calm or tempestuous; a triton rules on every angry billow; every mountain has its nymph; every stream its naiad; every tree its hamadryad; and every art its genius. We cannot therefore assent to those who censure Thomson as licentious for using the following figure:
O vale of bliss! O softly swelling hills! On which the Power of Cultivation lies, And joys to see the wonders of his toil.
We cannot conceive a more beautiful image than that of the Genius of Agriculture distinguished by the implements of his art, imbrowned with labour, glowing with health, crowned with a garland of foliage, flowers, and fruit, lying stretched at his ease on the brow of a gentle swelling hill, and contemplating with pleasure the happy effects of his own industry.
Neither can we join issue against Shakspeare for this comparison, which hath likewise incurred the censure of the critics:
——The noble sister of Poplicola, The moon of Rome; chaste as the icicle, That’s curdled by the frost from purest snow, And hangs on Dian’s temple——
This is no more than illustrating a quality of the mind, by comparing it with a sensible object. If there is no impropriety in saying such a man is true as steel, firm as a rock, inflexible as an oak, unsteady as the ocean, or in describing a disposition cold as ice, or fickle as the wind; and these expressions are justified by constant practice; we shall hazard an assertion, that the comparison of a chaste woman to an icicle is proper and picturesque, as it obtains only in the circumstances of cold and purity; but that the addition of its being curdled from the purest snow, and hanging on the temple of Diana, the patroness of virginity, heightens the whole into a most beautiful simile, that gives a very respectable and amiable idea of the character in question.
The simile is no more than an extended metaphor, introduced to illustrate and beautify the subject: it ought to be apt, striking, properly pursued, and adorned with all the graces of poetical melody. But a simile of this kind ought never to proceed from the mouth of a person under any great agitation of spirit; such as a tragic character overwhelmed with grief, distracted by contending cares, or agonising in the pangs of death. The language of passion will not admit simile, which is always the result of study and deliberation. We will not allow a hero the privilege of a dying swan, which is said to chant its approaching fate in the most melodious strain; and therefore nothing can be more ridiculously unnatural than the representation of a lover dying upon the stage with a laboured simile in his mouth.
The orientals, whose language was extremely figurative, have been very careless in the choice of their similes: provided the resemblance obtained in one circumstance, they minded not whether they disagreed with the subject in every other respect. Many instances of this defect in congruity may be culled from the most sublime parts of Scripture.
Homer has been blamed for the bad choice of his similes on some particular occasions. He compares Ajax to an ass in the Iliad, and Ulysses to a steak broiling on the coals in the Odyssey. His admirers have endeavoured to excuse him, by reminding us of the simplicity of the age in which he wrote; but they have not been able to prove that any ideas of dignity or importance were, even in those days, affixed to the character of an ass, or the quality of a beef-collop; therefore they were very improper illustrations for any situation, in which a hero ought to be represented.
Virgil has degraded the wife of king Latinus, by comparing her, when she was actuated by the Fury, to a top which the boys lash for diversion. This doubtless is a low image, though in other respects the comparison is not destitute of propriety; but he is much more justly censured for the following simile, which has no sort of reference to the subject. Speaking of Turnus, he says,
——medio dux agmine Turnus Vertitur arma tenens, et toto vertice supra est. Ceu septem surgens sedatis amnibus altus Per tacitum Ganges; aut pingui flumine Nilus Cum refluit campis, et jam se condidit alveo.
But Turnus, chief amidst the warrior train, In armour towers the tallest on the plain. The Ganges, thus by seven rich streams supplied, A mighty mass devolves in silent pride. Thus Nilus pours from his prolific urn, When from the fields o’erflow’d his vagrant streams return.
These, no doubt, are majestic images; but they bear no sort of resemblance to a hero glittering in armour at the head of his forces.
Horace has been ridiculed by some shrewd critics for this comparison, which, however, we think is more defensible than the former. Addressing himself to Munatius Plancus, he says,
Albus ut obscuro detergit nubila cœlo Sæpe Notus, neque parturit imbres Perpetuos: sic tu sapiens finire memento Tristitiam, vitæque labores Molli, Plance, mero.
As Notus often, when the welkin lowers, Sweeps off the clouds, nor teems perpetual showers, So let thy wisdom, free from anxious strife, In mellow wine dissolve the cares of life.
_Dunkin._
The analogy, it must be confessed, is not very striking; but nevertheless it is not altogether void of propriety. The poet reasons thus: as the south wind, though generally attended with rain, is often known to dispel the clouds, and render the weather serene; so do you, though generally on the rack of thought, remember to relax sometimes, and drown your cares in wine. As the south wind is not always moist, so you ought not always to be dry.
A few instances of inaccuracy, or mediocrity, can never derogate from the superlative merit of Homer and Virgil, whose poems are the great magazines replete with every species of beauty and magnificence, particularly abounding with similes which astonish, delight, and transport the reader.
Every simile ought not only to be well adapted to the subject, but also to include every excellence of description, and to be coloured with the warmest tints of poetry. Nothing can be more happily hit off than the following in the Georgics, to which the poet compares Orpheus lamenting his lost Eurydice.
Qualis populeâ mœrens Philomela sub umbrâ Amissos queritur fœtus, quos durus arator Observans nido implumes detraxit; at illa Flet noctem, ramoque sedens miserabile carmen Integrat, et mœstis late loca questibus implet.
So Philomela from the umbrageous wood In strains melodious mourns her tender brood, Snatch’d from the nest by some rude ploughman’s hand, On some lone bough the warbler takes her stand; The live-long night she mourns the cruel wrong; And hill and dale resound the plaintive song.
Here we not only find the most scrupulous propriety, and the happiest choice, in comparing the Thracian bard to Philomel the poet of the grove; but also the most beautiful description, containing a fine touch of the pathos, in which last particular indeed Virgil, in our opinion, excels all other poets, whether ancient or modern.
One would imagine that nature had exhausted itself in order to embellish the poems of Homer, Virgil, and Milton with similes and metaphors. The first of these very often uses the comparison of the wind, the whirlwind, the hail, the torrent, to express the rapidity of his combatants: but when he comes to describe the velocity of the immortal horses that drew the chariot of Juno, he raises his ideas to the subject, and, as Longinus observes, measures every leap by the whole breadth of the horizon.
Οσσον δ’ ηεροειδες ανηρ ιδεν οφθαλμοισιν Ημενος εν σκοπιῃ, λευσσων επι οινοπα ποντον, Τοσσον επιθρωσκουσι θεων ὑψηχεες ἱπποι.
Far as a watchman from some rock on high O’er the wide main extends his boundless eye; Through such a space of air, with thundering sound, At every leap the immortal coursers bound.
The celerity of this goddess seems to be a favourite idea with the poet; for in another place he compares it to the thought of a traveller revolving in his mind the different places he had seen, and passing through them in imagination more swift than the lightning flies from east to west.
Homer’s best similes have been copied by Virgil, and almost every succeeding poet, howsoever they may have varied in the manner of expression. In the third book of the Iliad, Menelaus seeing Paris, is compared to a hungry lion espying a hind or goat:
Ωστε λεων εχαρη μεγαλῳ επι σωματι κυρσας, Εὑρων η ελαφον κεραον, η αγριον αιγα, &c.
So joys the lion, if a branching deer Or mountain goat his bulky prize appear. In vain the youths oppose, the mastiffs bay; The lordly savage rends the panting prey. Thus fond of vengeance, with a furious bound, In clanging arms he leaps upon the ground.
The Mantuan bard, in the tenth book of the Æneid, applies the same simile to Mezentius, when he beholds Acron in the battle.
Impastus stabula alta leo ceu sæpe peragrans (Suadet enim vesana fames) si forte fugacem Conspexit capream, aut surgentem in cornua cervum; Gaudet hians immane, comasque arrexit, et hæret Visceribus super accumbens: lavit improba teter Ora cruor.—
Then as a hungry lion, who beholds A gamesome goat who frisks about the folds, Or beamy stag that grazes on the plain; He runs, he roars, he shakes his rising mane; He grins and opens wide his greedy jaws, The prey lies panting underneath his paws: He fills his famish’d maw, his mouth runs o’er With unchew’d morsels, while he churns the gore.
_Dryden._
The reader will perceive that Virgil has improved the simile in one particular, and in another fallen short of his original. The description of the lion shaking his mane, opening his hideous jaws distained with the blood of his prey, is great and picturesque: but, on the other hand, he has omitted the circumstance of devouring it without being intimidated, or restrained by the dogs and youths that surround him; a circumstance that adds greatly to our idea of his strength, intrepidity, and importance.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] Ανθρωποι, φησι, μιαροι, και αλαστορες, και κολακες, ηκρωτηριασμενοι τας ἑαυτων ἑκαστοι πατριδας, την ελευθεριαν προπεπωκοτες, προτερον Φιλιππῳ, νυν δ’ Αλεξανδρῳ, τῃ γαστρι μετρουντες και τοις αισχιστοις την ευδαιμονιαν, την δ’ ελευθεριαν, και το μηδενα εχειν δεσποτην αυτων, ἁ τοις προτεροις Ἑλλησιν οροι των αγαθων ησαν και κανονες, &c. &c.