of the people whom he wished to instruct, Orpheus divided his doctrine
into two parts, the one vulgar, and the other mysterious and secret,
following in this the method of the Egyptians, whose disciple he had
been[78]; then, turning his attention to poetry, and seeing into what
chaos this science had fallen and the confusion that had been made of
divine and profane things, he judiciously separated it into two
principal branches, which he assigned, the one to theology, the other
to natural philosophy. It can be said that he gave in each the precept
and the example. As sublime a theosophist as he was profound as a
philosopher, he composed an immense quantity of theosophical and
philosophical verses upon all sorts of subjects. Time has destroyed
nearly all of them; but their memory has been perpetuated. Among the
works of Orpheus that were cited by the ancients and whose loss must
be deplored, were found, on the subject of theosophy, _The Holy Word_
or _The Sacred Logos_,[79] by which Pythagoras and Plato profited
much; the _Theogony_, which preceded that of Hesiod more than five
centuries; _The Initiations to the Mysteries of the Mother of the
Gods_,[80] and _The Ritual of the Sacrifices_, wherein he had
recorded, undoubtedly, the divers parts of his doctrine[81]: on the
subject of philosophy, a celebrated cosmogony was found,[82] in which
an astronomical system was developed that would be an honour to our
century, touching the plurality of the worlds, the station of the sun
at the centre of the universe, and the habitation of the stars.[83]
These extraordinary works emanated from the same genius who had
written in verse upon grammar, music, natural history, upon the
antiquities of the many isles of Greece, upon the interpretation of
signs and prodigies, and a mass of other subjects, the details of
which one can see in the commencement of the Argonautica of
Onomacritus, which is attributed to him.
But at the same time that Orpheus opened thus to his successor two
very distinct careers, theosophical and philosophical, he did not
entirely neglect the other parts of this science: his hymns and his
odes assigned him to a distinguished rank among the lyric poets; his
_Démétréïde_ presaged the beauties of Epopœia, and the representations
full of pomp, that he introduced into his mysteries, gave birth to
Greek Melopœia whence sprang dramatic art. He can therefore be
regarded, not only as the precursor of Hesiod and Epimenides, but even
as that of Homer, Æschylus, and Pindar. I do not pretend, in saying
this, to take away anything from the glory of these celebrated men:
the one who indicates a course, yields to the one who executes it: now
this, especially, is what Homer did.
§ III
Homer was not the first epic poet in the order of time, but in the
order of things. Before him many poets were skilled in Epopœia; but no
one had known the nature of this kind of poetry[84]; no one had united
the opposed qualities which were necessary. There existed at this
epoch a multitude of allegorical fables which had emanated at divers
times from different sanctuaries. These fables, committed at first to
memory, had been collected in several sets of works which were called
cycles.[85] There were allegorical, mythological, and epic cycles.[86]
We know from certain precious texts of the ancients, that these sorts
of collections opened generally with the description of Chaos, with
the marriage of Heaven and Earth; contained the genealogy of the Gods
and the combats of the Giants; included the expedition of the
Argonauts, the famous wars of Thebes and of Troy; extended as far as
the arrival of Ulysses at Ithaca, and terminated with the death of
this hero, caused by his son Telegonus.[87] The poets who, before
Homer, had drawn from these cycles the subject of their works, not
having penetrated as far as the allegorical sense, lacking
inspiration, or being found incapable of rendering it, lacking talent,
had produced only cold inanimate copies, deprived of movement and
grace. They had not, however, omitted any of the exploits of Hercules
or of Theseus, nor any of the incidents of the sieges of Thebes or
Troy; and their muse, quite lifeless, fatigued the readers without
interesting or instructing them.[88] Homer came. He, in his turn,
glanced over this pile of sacerdotal traditions, and raising himself
by the force of his genius alone to the intellectual principle which
had conceived them, he grasped the _ensemble_, and felt all its
possibilities. The faculties of his soul and the precious gifts which
he had received from nature had made him one of those rare men who
present themselves, at long intervals, upon the scene of the world to
enlighten it, shining in the depths of centuries and serving as
torches for mankind. In whatever clime, in whatever career destiny had
placed him, he would have been the foremost. Ever the same, whether
under the thatched roof or upon the throne, as great in Egypt as in
Greece, in the Occident as in the Orient of Asia, everywhere he had
commanded admiration. Some centuries earlier this same attribute might
have been seen in Krishna or in Orpheus, some centuries later, in
Pythagoras or in Cyrus. Great men are always great by their own
greatness. Incidents which depend upon chance can only modify. Homer
was destined to poetry by favourable circumstances. Born upon the
borders of the river Meles, of an indigent mother, without shelter and
without kindred, he owed, to a schoolmaster of Smyrna who adopted him,
his early existence and his early instructions. He was at first called
Melesigenes, from the place of his birth.[89] Pupil of Phemius, he
received from his benevolent preceptor, simple but pure ideas, which
the activity of his soul developed, which his genius increased,
universalized, and brought to their perfection. His education, begun
with an assiduous and sedentary study, was perfected through
observation. He undertook long journeys for the sole purpose of
instructing himself. The political conditions, contrary to every other
project, favoured him.
Greece, after having shaken off the yoke of the Phœnicians and having
become the friend of Egypt rather than her subject, commenced to reap
the fruits of the beautiful institutions that she had received from
Orpheus. Powerful metropolises arose in the heart of this country,
long regarded as a simple colony of Asia, and her native strength
being progressively augmented by the habit of liberty, she had need of
extending herself abroad.[90] Rich with the increase of population,
she had reacted upon her ancient metropolis, had taken possession of a
great number of cities on the opposite shores of Asia, and had
colonized them.[91] Phœnicia humiliated, torn by internal
dissensions,[92] tossed between the power of the Assyrians and that of
the Egyptians,[93] saw this same Greece that she had civilized and to
whom she had given her gods, her laws, and even the letters of her
alphabet, ignore, deny her benefits,[94] take up arms against her,
carry away her colonies from the shores of Italy and of Sicily, and
becoming mistress of the islands of the Archipelago, tear from her her
sole remaining hope, the empire of the sea.[95] The people of Rhodes
were overpowered.
Homer, of Greek nationality although born in Asia, profited by these
advantages. He set sail in a vessel, whose patron, Mentes of Leucas,
was his friend, wandered over all the possessions of Greece, visited
Egypt,[96] and came to settle at Tyre. This was the ancient metropolis
of Greece, the source and sacred repository of her mythological
traditions. It was there, in this same temple of the Master of the
Universe,[97] where twelve centuries before Sanchoniathon had come to
study the antiquities of the world,[98] that Homer was able to go back
to the origin of Greek cult and fathom the most hidden meanings of its
mysteries[99]; it was there that he chose the first and noblest
subject of his chants, that which constitutes the fable of the
_Iliad_.[100] If one must believe in the very singular accounts which
time has preserved to us, thanks to the blind zeal of certain
Christians who have treated them as heresies, this Helen, whose name
applied to the moon signifies the resplendent, this woman whom Paris
carried away from her spouse Menelaus, is nothing else than the symbol
of the human soul,[101] torn by the principle of generation from that
of thought, on account of which the moral and physical passions
declare war. But it would be taking me too far away from my subject,
examining in detail what might be the meaning of the allegories of
Homer. My plan has not been to investigate this meaning in particular,
but to show that it exists in general. Upon this point I have not only
the rational proof which results from the concatenation of my ideas,
but also proof of the fact, which is furnished to me by the
testimonials of the ancients. These testimonials are recognized at
every step, in the works of the philosophers and chiefly in those of
the Stoics. Only a very superficial erudition is necessary to be
convinced of this.[102] But I ought to make an observation, and this
observation will be somewhat novel: it is that, the poetic inspiration
being once received by the poet and his soul finding itself
transported into the intelligible world, all the ideas which then come
to him are universal and in consequence allegorical. So that nothing
true may exist outside of unity, and as everything that is true is one
and homogeneous, it is found that, although the poet gives to his
ideas a form determined in the sentient world, this form agrees with a
multitude of things which, being distinct in their species, are not so
in their genus. This is why Homer has been the man of all men, the
type of all types, the faithful mirror,[103] wherein all ideas
becoming reflected have appeared to be created. Lycurgus read his
works, and saw there a model of his legislation.[104] Pericles and
Alcibiades had need of his counsels; they had recourse to him as a
model of statesmen.[105] He was for Plato the first of the
philosophers, and for Alexander the greatest of kings; and what is
more extraordinary still, even the sectarians, divided among
themselves, were united in him. The Stoics spoke only of this great
poet as a rigid follower of the Porch[106]; at the Academy he was
considered as the creator of dialectics; at the Lyceum, the disciples
of Aristotle cited him as a zealous dogmatist[107]; finally, the
Epicureans saw in him only a man calm and pure, who, satisfied with
that tranquil life where one is wholly possessed by it, seeks nothing
more.[108] The temples, which devout enthusiasm consecrated to him,
were the rendezvous for mankind.[109] Such is the appanage of
universal ideas: they are as the Divinity which inspires them, all in
all, and all in the least parts.
If, at the distance where I am placed, I should dare, traversing the
torrent of ages and opinions, draw near to Homer and read the soul of
this immortal man, I would say, after having grasped in its entirety
the allegorical genius which makes the essence of poetry, in seeking
to give to his universal ideas a particular form, that his intention
was to personify and paint the passions, and that it was from this
that epopœia had birth. I have not sufficient documents to attest
positively that the word by which one characterizes this kind of
poetry after Homer, did not exist before him; but I have sufficient to
repeat that no one had as yet recognized its real nature.[110] The
poems of Corinna, of Dares, or of Dictys, were only simple extracts
from the mythological cycles, rude copies from certain theosophical
fragments denuded of life; Homer was the first who caused the _Voice
of Impulse_, that is to say Epopœia, to be understood[111]: that kind
of poetry which results from intellectual inspiration united to the
enthusiasm of the passions.
In order to attain to the perfection of this kind of poetry, it is
necessary to unite to the imaginative faculty which feeds the genius,
the reason which regulates the impulse, and the enthusiasm which
inflames the mind and supplies the talent. Homer united them in the
most eminent degree. Thus he possessed the first inspiration and the
complete science, as much in its essence as in its form; for the
poetic form is always dependent upon talent.
This form was then highly favourable to genius. The Greek verse,
measured by musical rhythm and filled with a happy blending of long
and short syllables, had long since shaken off the servile yoke of
rhyme. Now, by rhythm was understood the number and respective
duration of the time of which a verse was composed.[112] A long
syllable was equal to a time divided in two instants, and equivalent
to two short syllables. A foot was what we name today a measure. The
foot contained two times, made up of two long, or of one long and two
short syllables. The verse most commonly used was the hexameter, that
is, that in which the extent was measured by six rhythmic feet and of
which the whole duration was twelve times. Thus poetry received only
the laws of rhythm; it was a kind of music whose particular harmony,
free in its course, was subject only to measure.
I have never found any authentic evidence that the Greeks had ever
used the rhyme in their verse. It is stated, however, that they have
not differed from other nations in this respect. Voltaire said so but
without proof.[113] What is most certain is that, taking the word
_epos_,[114] a verse, in its most restricted acceptance, expressing a
turn, a turning around again, the early poets constructed their verse
in form of furrows, going from right to left and returning from left
to right.[115] Happily this _bizarrerie_ did not last long. If the
Greek verses had thus turned one upon another, or if the rhyme had
forced them to proceed in couplets bent beneath a servile yoke, Homer
would not have created the Epopœia, or these frivolous obstacles would
have vanished before him. His genius, incapable of enduring chains,
would have refused to clothe itself in a form capable of stifling it.
But this celebrated man would no doubt have changed it; one can judge
by the energetic manner with which he attacked that which he found in
use. The Greek language, which preserved still in his time something
of the Phœnician stiffness and the Celtic roughness, obliged to adapt
itself to all the movements of his imagination, became the most
flexible and the most harmonious dialect of the earth. One is
astonished, in reading his works, at the boldness of his
composition.[116] One sees him without the least effort, bending words
at his pleasure, lengthening them, shortening them to produce
something new, reviving those no longer in use, uniting them,
separating them, disposing of them in an unaccustomed order, forcing
them to adapt themselves everywhere to the harmony that he wishes to
depict, to sentiments of elevation, of pleasure or terror, that he
wishes to inspire.
Thus genius, dominating form, creates master-pieces; form, on the
contrary, commanding genius, produces only works of the mind. I must
say finally and no longer veil from the attention of my judges, the
aim of this discourse: whenever rhyme exists in the poetic form, it
renders the form inflexible, it brings upon it only the effort of
talent and renders that of intellectual inspiration useless. Never
will the people who rhyme their verses attain to the height of poetic
perfection; never will real epopœia flourish in their breasts. They
will hear neither the accents inspired by Orpheus, nor the stirring
and impassioned harmonies of Homer. Far from drawing the allegorical
genius at its source and receiving the first inspiration, it will not
even recognize the second one. Its poets will polish painfully certain
impassioned or descriptive verses, and will call beautiful the works
which will only be well done. A rapid glance over the poetic condition
of the earth will prove what I have advanced. But I ought to explain
beforehand what I understand by first and second inspiration; the
moment has arrived for holding to the promise that I made at the
beginning of this discourse.
§ IV
You recall, _Messieurs_, that wishing, with Chancellor Bacon, to
distinguish the essence and the form of Poetry, I have taken my text
from the works of Plato. It is again from this man, justly called
divine even by his rivals, from the founder of the Academy, that I
have borrowed the germ of my idea. This philosopher compares the
effect which the real poets have upon those who hear them, with the
magnetic stone which not only attracts rings of iron, but communicates
to them also the virtue of attracting other rings.[117]
In order to appreciate well the force of this thought, and to follow
all the inferences, it is necessary to state a truth _de facto_:
namely, that the men destined by Providence to regenerate the world,
in whatever manner it may be, to open any sort of a career, are
extremely rare. Nature, docile to the impulse which she has received
of bringing all to perfection by means of time, elaborates slowly the
elements of their genius, places them at great distances upon the
earth, and makes them appear at epochs very far removed one from the
other. It is necessary that these events, which determine these men
toward an end, should be brought about in advance; that the physical
conditions in which they are born coincide with the inspiration which
attends them; and therefore everything prepares, everything protects,
everything serves the providential design. These men, thus scattered
over the earth, come among nations to form them, to give them laws, to
enlighten and to instruct them. They are the beacon-lights of mankind;
these are those to whom I attribute the first inspiration. This
inspiration is immediate; it emanates from the first principle of all
intelligence, in the same manner, to use the comparison of Plato, that
the magnetic force which animates the loadstone, emanates from its
cause. It is profoundly hidden from our eyes: it is this which fires
the genius of a theosophist such as Thoth, Orpheus, and Zoroaster; the
genius of a theocrat, such as Krishna, Moses, or Mohammed; the genius
of a philosopher, such as Kong-Tse, Pythagoras, or Socrates; the
genius of a poet, such as Homer or Valmiki; and of a triumphant hero,
such as Cyrus, Alexander, or Napoleon.
Those who follow in the footprints of these primordial men, who allow
themselves to be impressed by their genius, receive what I call the
second inspiration. They can still be great men; for those who assist
them are very great; they can also communicate the inspiration, for it
acts in them with an exuberant force. Let us confine ourselves to the
poetic inspiration and listen to the voice of Plato:
The Muse inspires the poets directly, and these,
communicating to others their enthusiasm, form a chain of
inspired men. It is by means of this chain that the Divinity
attracts the souls of men, and moves them at his pleasure,
causing his virtue to pass from link to link, from the first
inspired poet to the last of his readers or his
rhapsodists.[118]
It is by means of this magnetic chain that one can, in another sphere
of movement, explain this truth so well known, that great kings make
great men; it is also in this manner that one can understand how a
monarch, called to found a vast empire, makes his will penetrate all
hearts, take possession of all souls, and propagating his valour more
and more, electrify his army and fill it with a multitude of heroes.
Homer received therefore a first inspiration; he was created to become
the poetic motive of Europe, the principle of a magnetized chain
which, appropriating unceasingly new links, was to cover Europe with
its numberless extensions. His first conquests were in Greece. His
verses, carried from city to city by actors known under the name of
rhapsodists,[119] excited the keenest enthusiasm; they passed soon
from mouth to mouth, fixed the attention of legislators, were the
ornament of the most brilliant fêtes,[120] and became everywhere the
basis of public instruction.[121] The secret flame which they
concealed, becoming developed in young souls, warmed there the
particular germ which they possessed, and according to their divers
specie and the fertility of the soil, brought forth many talents.[122]
The poets who were found endowed with a genius vast enough to receive
the second inspiration in its entirety, imitated their model and
raised themselves to epopœia. Antimachus and Dicæogenes are
noticeable, the one for his Thebaïs, and the other for his cyprien
verses.[123] Those to whom nature had given passions more gentle than
violent, more touching than vehement, inclinations more rustic than
bellicose, whose souls contained more sensitiveness than elevation,
were led to copy certain isolated groups of this vast tableau, and
placing them, following their tastes, in the palace or in the thatched
cottage, caused accents of joy or of sorrow, the plaints of heroes or
the sports of shepherds to be heard, and thus created elegy, eclogue,
or idyl.[124] Others, on the contrary, whose too vehement enthusiasm
shortened the duration of it, whose keen fiery passions had left
little empire for reason, who allowed themselves to be drawn easily
toward the object of which they were momentarily captive, created the
ode, dithyramb, or song, according to the nature of their genius and
the object of their passion. These were more numerous than all the
others together, and the women who were here distinguished, rivalled
and even surpassed the men; Corinna and Myrtis did not yield either to
Stesi[`c]horus,[125] or to Pindar; Sappho and Telesilla effaced Alcæus
and Anacreon.[126]
It is said that the art with which Homer had put into action gods and
men, had opposed heaven and earth, and depicted the combats of the
passions; this art, being joined to the manner in which the
rhapsodists declaimed his poems[127] by alternately relieving one
another, and covering themselves with garments of different colours
adapted to the situation, had insensibly given rise to dramatic style
and to theatrical representation.[128] This, true in a sense, has need
of a distinction: it will serve at the same time to throw light upon
what I am about to say.
One should remember that the intellectual and rational poetry, or
theosophical and philosophical, illustrated by Orpheus and which Homer
had united with the enthusiasm of the passions in order to constitute
epopœia, although separated from the latter, existed none the less.
Whereas the disciples of Homer, or the Homeridæ,[129] spread
themselves abroad and took possession of the laic or profane world,
the religious and learned world was always occupied by the disciples
of Orpheus, called Eumolpidæ.[130] The hierophants and philosophers
continued to write as formerly upon theology and natural philosophy.
There appeared from time to time theogonies and cosmological
systems,[131] dionysiacs, heraclides,[132] oracles, treatises on
nature and moral apologues, which bore no relation to epopœia. The
hymns or pæans which had emanated from the sanctuaries in honour of
the Divinity, had in no wise resembled either the odes or the
dithyrambs of the lyric poets[133]: as much as the former were
vehement and passionate, so much the latter affected to be calm and
majestic. There existed therefore, at this epoch, two kinds of poetry,
equally beautiful when they had attained their respective perfection:
Eumolpique Poetry and Epic Poetry: the first, intellectual and
rational; the other, intellectual and passionate.