"The poem of _Oenone_ is the first of Tennyson's elaborate essays in a
metre over which be afterwards obtained an eminent command. It is also
the first of his idylls and of his classical studies, with their
melodious rendering of the Homeric epithets and the composite words,
which Tennyson had the art of coining after the Greek manner
('lily-cradled,' 'river-sundered,' 'dewy-dashed') for compact description
or ornament. Several additions were made in a later edition; and the
corrections then made show with what sedulous care the poet diversified
the structure of his lines, changing the pauses that break the monotonous
run of blank verse, and avoiding the use of weak terminals when the line
ends in the middle of a sentence. The opening of the poem was in this
manner decidedly improved; yet one may judge that the finest passages are
still to be found almost as they stood in the original version; and the
concluding lines, in which the note of anguish culminates, are left
untouched."
"Nevertheless the blank verse of _Oenone_ lacks the even flow and
harmonious balance of entire sections in the _Morte d'Arthur_ or
_Ulysses_, where the lines are swift or slow, rise to a point and fall
gradually, in cadences arranged to correspond with the dramatic movement,
showing that the poet has extended and perfected his metrical resources.
The later style is simplified; he has rejected cumbrous metaphor; he is
less sententious; he has pruned away the flowery exuberance and lightened
the sensuous colour of his earlier composition."--_Sir Alfred Lyall_.
First published in 1832-3. It received its present improved form in the
edition of 1842. The story of Paris and Oenone may be read in Lempriere,
or in any good classical dictionary. Briefly it is as follows:--Paris
was the son of Priam, King of Troy, and Hecuba. It was foretold that he
would bring great ruin on Troy, so his father ordered him to be slain at
birth. The slave, however, did not destroy him, but exposed him upon
Mount Ida, where shepherds found him and, brought him up as one of
themselves. "He gained the esteem of all the shepherds, and his graceful
countenance and manly development recommended him to the favour of
Oenone, a nymph of Ida, whom he married, and with whom he lived in the
most perfect tenderness. Their conjugal bliss was soon disturbed. At
the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, Eris, the goddess of discord, who had
not been invited to partake of the entertainment, showed her displeasure
by throwing into the assembly of gods, who were at the celebration of the
nuptials, a golden apple on which were written the words _Detur
pulchriori_. All the goddesses claimed it as their own: the contention
at first became general, but at last only three, Juno (Herè), Venus
(Aphrodite), and Minerva (Pallas), wished to dispute their respective
right to beauty. The gods, unwilling to become arbiters in an affair of
so tender and delicate a nature, appointed Paris to adjudge the prize of
beauty to the fairest of the goddesses, and indeed the shepherd seemed
properly qualified to decide so great a contest, as his wisdom was so
well established, and his prudence and sagacity so well known. The
goddesses appeared before their judge without any covering or ornament,
and each tried by promises and entreaties to gain the attention of Paris,
and to influence his judgment. Juno promised him a kingdom; Minerva,
military glory; and Venus, the fairest woman in the world for his wife."
(Lempriere.) Paris accorded the apple to Aphrodite, abandoned Oenone,
and after he had been acknowledged the son of Priam went to Sparta, where
he persuaded Helen, the wife of Menelaus, to flee with him to Troy. The
ten years' siege, and the destruction of Troy, resulted from this rash
act. Oenone's significant words at the close of the poem foreshadow this
disaster. Tennyson, in his old age concluded the narrative in the poem
called _The Death of Oenone_. According to the legend Paris, mortally
wounded by one of the arrows of Philoctetes, sought out the abandoned
Oenone that she might heal him of his wound. But he died before he
reached her, "and the nymph, still mindful of their former loves, threw
herself upon his body, and stabbed herself to the heart, after she had
plentifully bathed it with her tears." Tennyson follows another
tradition in which Paris reaches Oenone, who scornfully repels him. He
passed onward through the mist, and dropped dead upon the mountain side.
His old shepherd playmates built his funeral pyre. Oenone follows the
yearning in her heart to where her husband lies, and dies in the flames
that consume him.
In Chapter IV of Mr. Stopford Brooke's _Tennyson_, there is a valuable
commentary upon _Oenone_. He deals first with the imaginative treatment
of the landscape, which is characteristic of all Tennyson's classical
poems, and instances the remarkable improvement effected in the
descriptive passages in the volume of 1842. "But fine landscape and fine
figure re-drawing are not enough to make a fine poem. Human interest,
human passion, must be greater than Nature, and dominate the subject.
Indeed, all this lovely scenery is nothing in comparison with the sorrow
and love of Oenone, recalling her lost love in the places where once she
lived in joy. This is the main humanity of the poem. But there is more.
Her common sorrow is lifted almost into the proportions of Greek tragedy
by its cause and by its results. It is caused by a quarrel in Olympus,
and the mountain nymph is sacrificed without a thought to the vanity of
the careless gods. That is an ever-recurring tragedy in human history.
Moreover, the personal tragedy deepens when we see the fateful dread in
Oenone's heart that she will, far away, in time hold her lover's life in
her hands, and refuse to give it back to him--a fatality that Tennyson
treated before he died. And, secondly, Oenone's sorrow is lifted into
dignity by the vast results which flowed from its cause. Behind it were
the mighty fates of Troy, the ten years' battle, the anger of Achilles,
the wanderings of Ulysses, the tragedy of Agamemnon, the founding of
Rome, and the three great epics of the ancient world."
Another point of general interest is to be noted in the poem. Despite
the classical theme the tone is consistently modern, as may be gathered
from the philosophy of the speech of Pallas, and from the tender yielding
nature of Oenone. There is no hint here of the vindictive resentment
which the old classical writers, would have associated with her grief.
Similarly Tennyson has systematically modernised the Arthurian legend in
the _Idylls of the King_, giving us nineteenth century thoughts in a
conventional mediaeval setting.
A passage from Bayne, puts this question clearly: "Oenone wails
melodiously for Paris without the remotest suggestion of fierceness or
revengeful wrath. She does not upbraid him for having preferred to her
the fairest and most loving wife in Greece, but wonders how any one could
love him better than she does. A Greek poet would have used his whole
power of expression to instil bitterness into her resentful words. The
classic legend, instead of representing Oenone as forgiving Paris, makes
her nurse her wrath throughout all the anguish and terror of the Trojan
War. At its end, her Paris comes back to her. Deprived of Helen, a
broken and baffled man, he returns from the ruins of his native Troy, and
entreats Oenone to heal him of a wound, which, unless she lends her aid,
must be mortal. Oenone gnashes her teeth at him, refuses him the remedy,
and lets him die. In the end, no doubt, she falls into remorse, and
kills herself--this is quite in the spirit of classic legend; implacable
vengeance, soul-sickened with its own victory, dies in despair. That
forgiveness of injuries could be anything but weakness--that it could be
honourable, beautiful, brave--is an entirely Christian idea; and it is
because this idea, although it has not yet practically conquered the
world, although it has indeed but slightly modified the conduct of
nations, has nevertheless secured recognition as ethically and socially
right, that Tennyson could not hope to enlist the sympathy and admiration
of his readers for his Oenone, if he had cast her image in the tearless
bronze of Pagan obduracy."
1. IDA. A mountain range in Mysia, near Troy. The scenery is, in part,
idealised, and partly inspired by the valley of Cauteretz. See
_Introduction_, p. xvi.
2. IONIAN. Ionia was the district adjacent to Mysia. 'Ionian,'
therefore, is equivalent to 'neighbouring.'