(Francis wrote on the walls of the royal apartments at Chambord
_Toute femme varie_, “Every woman is fickle.”) One finds this
never-ending theme of poets and cynics in Virgil’s _Varium et
mutabile semper Femina_, “Woman is a fickle and changeable
thing” (_Aeneid_ iv, 569), _La donna è mobile_ (_Rigoletto_),
and countless other passages.
* * * * *
Crowned with flowers I saw fair Amaryllis
By Thyrsis sit, hard by a fount of Chrystal,
And with her hand more white than snow or lilies,
On sand she wrote “My faith shall be immortal”:
And suddenly a storm of wind and weather
Blew all her faith and sand away together.
ANON.
* * * * *
For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,
Our fancies are more giddy and infirm,
More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won,
Than women’s are.
_Twelfth Night_, II, 4.
* * * * *
If Thou be’st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights
Till Age snow white hairs on thee;
Thou, when thou return’st, will tell me
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear
No where
Lives a woman true, and fair.
If thou find’st one, let me know:
Such a pilgrimage were sweet.
Yet do not; I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet.
Though she were true when you met her,
And last till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two or three.
JOHN DONNE (_Song_).
* * * * *
In his broken fashion Queequeg gave me to understand that, in his land,
owing to the absence of settees and sofas of all sorts, the king, chiefs
and great people generally were in the custom of fattening some of the
lower orders for ottomans; and to furnish a house comfortably in that
respect, you had only to buy up eight or ten lazy fellows, and lay them
round in the piers and alcoves. Besides it was very convenient on an
excursion—much better than those garden-chairs which are convertible
into walking-sticks. Upon occasion a chief would call his attendant, and
desire him to make a settee of himself under a spreading tree—perhaps in
some damp marshy place.
HERMAN MELVILLE (_Moby Dick_).
* * * * *
Here lie I, Martin Elginbrodde:
Hae mercy o’ my soul, Lord God;
As I wad do, were I Lord God,
And ye were Martin Elginbrodde.
G. MACDONALD (_David Elginbrod_).
* * * * *
Dieu me pardonnera; c’est son métier.
(God will pardon me; that is His business.)
HEINE.
* * * * *
O Lord, it broke my heart to see his pain!
I thought—I dared to think—if _I_ were God,
Poor Caird should never gang so dark a road;
I thought—ay, dared to think, the Lord forgie!—
The Lord was crueller than I could be;
Forgetting God is just and knoweth best
What folk should burn in fire, what folk be blest.
R. BUCHANAN (_A Scottish Eclogue_).
* * * * *
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SEA.
Thoughts and tears as I turn away,
Tears for a long ago:
She looks out on a summer day,
I on a night of snow.
But I see some ferns and a rushing rill
And my love that promised me,
And a day we spent on God’s great hill
On the other side of the sea,
My heart,
On the other side of the sea.
Ay! the hill was green and the sky was blue,
And the path was dappled fair,
But a light from loving eyes shone through
Beyond the sunlight there.
And I gave my life—and who’s to blame?—
As over the hill went we:
But the sky and the hill and the way we came
Are the other side of the sea,
Sad heart,
Are the other side of the sea....
’Mid trees and grass and a tangled wall
We wandered merrily down,
Through the homeless boughs and the forest fall
Of the dead leaves thick and brown.
But faith is broken and life is pain
And oh! it can never be
That I gather those golden hours again
On the other side of the sea,
Poor heart,
On the other side of the sea.
Though the sea is wild and the sea is dark,
It will sink and slip away
At the bounding scorn of my speeding bark
To the land of that dear day;
But never the Love of my soul be seen,
The light of that day to me,
For I know there is lying our hearts between
A wilder and darker sea,
O God!
The depth of a bitterer sea.
RICHARD HODGSON.
This was written in March, 1879, after Hodgson had left
Australia for England. The love-episode is imaginary.
* * * * *
They eat, and drink, and scheme, and plod,
And go to church on Sunday;
And many are afraid of God—
And more of Mrs. Grundy.
F. LOCKER-LAMPSON (_The Jester’s Plea_).
* * * * *
Greece and her foundations are
Built below the tide of war,
Based on the crystalline sea
Of thought and its eternity.
SHELLEY (_Hellas_).
It is very true that the amazing intellectual power of the
Greeks in a primitive age ensures them an immortality of fame;
and this is finely expressed _in the last two lines_. But those
two splendid lines are utterly spoilt by the two that precede
them. One asks, Why “Greece _and_ her foundations”? One does
not say “a house _and_ its foundations” are built somewhere
or other. This by itself would be trivial, but next comes the
question, What is the meaning of the second line? We know what
Shelley intended—that the memory and influence of Greece will
withstand its destruction by war—but why in that case should
she not be built _above_, instead of submerged _below_ the
tide of war? Later on, in lines 836-7, the Emperor Palæologus,
at the siege of Constantinople, is said to have cast himself
“_beneath_ the stream of war”; that is to say, he was
overwhelmed and killed. The words, in fact, do not express the
poet’s meaning. The third and fatal defect of the lines is the
juxtaposition of “tide” and “sea” —the city is _built below a
tide_, and also _based on a sea_. Not only is this combination
absurd in itself, but it also destroys the beauty of the last
two magnificent lines. The moving unstable water is scarcely
a foundation to build upon, yet this meaning is forcibly
impressed upon the word “sea” by the previous mention of a
“tide.” What Shelley meant was an immense broad, deep, expanse
of _solid crystal_—the “sea of glass like unto crystal” of
Revelations (iv, 6) and the _Mer de Glace_ (“sea of ice”), the
great Alpine glacier.[34] Therefore, anyone who had exactness
of thought or perception of poetry would omit the first two
lines and give only the last two as a quotation.
Mrs. Shelley in her note on “Hellas” specially refers to
this verse as a beautiful example of Shelley’s style, and
she quotes _all four_ lines. We may assume, therefore, that
Shelley himself thought highly of the verse, and we thus have
an illustration of the curious fact that a great poet is often
a poor judge of his own poetry. (Almost certainly Shakespeare
himself did not realize how god-like he stood above all other
poets.) However, it is not only for this reason that I have
included the above quotation, but because with it I propose to
make a flank attack upon Mr. R. W. Livingstone, the author of
_The Greek Genius and its Meaning to us_. I do this, of course,
with a special object in view.
Mr. Livingstone’s book is important, valuable, and highly
interesting—and is especially admirable because the author
does not envelope his subject in the usual glamour, born of
enthusiasm. He is, indeed, most exceptional in this respect,
that he endeavours to look at the Greeks from an ordinary
commonsense point of view. But he makes the mistake, not
unusual with classical men, of supposing that he is a qualified
critic of poetry; and he, therefore, gives us a special
dissertation upon the comparative values of English and Greek
poetry.
Apart from this dissertation, he quotes three or four passages
from English poets in the course of the book. Of these the
most prominent is the above verse of Shelley’s, and he quotes
_all four_ lines without comment. Thus we see an able man, in
whom classical study should have induced exactness of thought,
failing to analyse and understand what he is quoting. But,
more than this, the question is one of poetic perception. The
imagery in the last _two_ lines is sublime—in the _four_ lines
it is ludicrous. Therefore, we begin with the fact that our
literary critic was unable to see palpable and grave defects in
one of the few verses he himself quotes. (I might give other
illustrations, as where he admires poor verse of Dryden’s, but
I must be brief.)
Mr. Livingstone’s point is that the “direct” and “truthful”
character of Greek poetry is superior to the “imaginative”
quality of English verse. He goes so far as to say that “Sappho
and Simonides _with four words_ make him see a nightingale and
give him a greater and far saner pleasure” than Shelley’s poem
“To a Skylark.” I take his quotation from Simonides, as it
involves less discussion than that from Sappho.[35] It is (Fr,
73) ἀὴδονες πολυκώτιλοι χλωραύχενες εἰαριναί, “The warbling
nightingales with olive necks, the birds of spring.”
As Mr. Livingstone is not discussing beauty of expression we
can leave this out of consideration.[36] He is discussing
the _substance_ of poetry, comparing the “directness” and
“truthfulness” of Simonides (in this case) with the imaginative
element in Shelley’s poem. He would apparently discard the
latter element altogether, and prefers a simple description of
the nightingale—that it sings, has an olive neck, and appears
in spring. The first suggestion that occurs to one is that
if, say, an auctioneer’s catalogue of farm stock—without any
addition whatever to its contents—could be worded prettily and
made metrical, it would afford huge enjoyment to our literary
critic.
The whole question is as to the value of the imaginative
element which to our minds makes Shelley’s poem one of the
most beautiful lyrics—possibly the most beautiful—in all
literature. In sweeping away this element, Mr. Livingstone
tells us how much of English poetry must be cast aside. But he
does not realize that much else has also to be flung on the
scrap-heap. Imagination, in its true sense, includes all those
aesthetic, moral, and spiritual faculties which are higher than
the intellect—all, in fact, that raises man above his material
existence. (See pp. 39, 40, 358.) With the immense deal of
English poetry which Mr. Livingstone proposes to “scrap” must
go all our most beautiful music, all that is great in painting
(which is never “direct” and “truthful” in this sense, or
it would not be great), _all Greek statuary_, and all that
expresses high moral and spiritual truths in our literature. I
do not think that Mr. Livingstone will find many adherents to
his new creed.
This critic also discusses _style_, and we find that he speaks
of Pope as a “great poet,” and apparently revels in his
monotonous verse! When pointing out that English verse, unlike
what we have left of Greek poetry, includes much unequal and
ill-finished work, he says, “Of all our great poets, perhaps
only Milton and Pope can boast unfailing excellence of style.”
As regards this inequality in the work of English poets the
answer is very simple. Mr. Livingstone forgets the fact—a
very important fact in any speculation upon the scheme of the
universe—that only the good things ultimately survive. How
very little we have left of many Greek poets! Of Sophocles
only seven plays remain out of one hundred and twenty-seven,
_and the Fragments collected are said to be very poor_ (many,
of course, are only grammatical illustrations)—and more than
half of Homer must have been dropped. We probably still have
everything that is _best_ in Greek literature. Again, it is
not in fact _desirable_ to restrict publication to work of the
highest importance, and the facilities afforded by printing
have made it _unnecessary_ thus to restrict it—so that even _My
Commonplace Book_ is now, at least temporarily, part of English
literature!
Greatly as I admire Mr. Livingstone’s book, I feel bound to
call attention to a view of poetry that must do great harm to
University students and others. I am also bound to mention
him as an illustration of the fact that classical men usually
imagine that their study of the Greek and Latin languages and
literature qualifies them to become literary critics.[37] This
fact has impressed itself upon me from youth upwards. One of my
teachers, a man of some weight in the classical world, was in
the habit of saying that only through study of Latin and Greek
could a man learn to write good English![38] His own English
was simply execrable.
I will now give another instance where the classical
enthusiast, as in Mr. Livingstone’s case, tends to exaggerate
the value of his favourite literature—truly wonderful as it is.
Gissing’s _Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft_ is an interesting
book of wide circulation, in which the author displays great
admiration for and familiarity with the classics. Speaking
of Xenophon’s _Anabasis_, he says “Were it the sole book
existing in Greek, it would be abundantly worth while to
learn the language in order to read it.” That is to say,
it would be worth while expending, out of our short lives,
some years of study for the sole purpose of reading in the
original an extremely _simple_, _prose_ historical narrative,
which has been excellently translated! (If Gissing had said
_Homer_ instead of Xenophon, no one would have quarrelled with
him.) Again, he says, “Many a single line presents a picture
which deeply stirs the emotions”; and he gives us what he
calls “a good instance of such a line.” A guide, who has led
the Greeks through hostile country, has to return through
the same perilous district, and the wonderful line is Ἐπεὶ
ἑσπέρα ἐγένετο, ᾤχετο τῆς νυκτὸς ἀπιών. This line Gissing
translates, “When evening came he took leave of us and went
away by night”—a sentence which only by inadvertence could have
appeared in, say, a _Times_ leader, seeing that the words “by
night” are redundant. As a matter of fact, the translation is
incorrect; there is nothing about “taking leave of us,” and the
meaning is, “As soon as evening came, he had slipped away into
the darkness.”
(Professor Naylor points out to me that the word ᾤχετο in this
line is interesting. It conveys the idea of a swift or abrupt
departure or disappearance. It is used in connection with that
most interesting man Alcibiades (Xen, _Hell._, 2. I. 26) and
gives a fine impression of his quick insolent temper. The Greek
admirals had put themselves in a position of extreme danger
and he came to warn them of their peril. Their reply was the
usual expression of ineptitude, “We are the admirals, not you”;
and immediately follows the one word ᾤχετο, “he turned on his
heels and left”—and with this word Alcibiades disappears from
contemporary history.)
* * * * *
In referring to Mr. Livingstone’s remarks above I could not
use the Sappho quotation, because there are certain initial
questions that need to be first settled. (In briefly discussing
these I must speak as though I were expressing _definite
opinions_, since otherwise the note could not be compressed
sufficiently, but I mean the following rather as _suggestions_
which may possibly be found useful.)
Sappho’s line is (Fr, 39) Ἦρος ἄγγελος ἱμερόφωνος ἀήδων,
which Mr. Livingstone translates “The messenger of spring,
the lovely-voiced nightingale.” Now ἱμερος (_himeros_) means
animal passion, so that ἱμερόφωνος (_himerophonos_) is a strong
word meaning singing of, or with, passion—in this case the
passion of the pairing-time. Why then does Mr. Livingstone,
following Liddell and Scott, give the totally different meaning
“lovely-voiced”? Apparently it is because Theocritus (XXVIII,
7) applies the expression “himerophonos” to the Charites, and,
according to the current conception, those deities were pure
unimpassionate beings.[39]
In questions of this character, seeing that the Greek gods were
guilty of every form of immorality and the Greeks themselves
were one of the most sensual nations that ever existed, the
presumption is in favour of impurity: the onus of proof is
on those who allege purity. I have not undertaken the heavy
work of looking up the innumerable references to the Charites
in Greek literature, but I know of nothing that supports
the prevalent conception of those deities. Apart from the
fact that Theocritus uses the word _himerophonos_, Meleager
(Anth. Pal, V, 195) speaks of _himeros_ as conferred by the
Charites. There is nothing in the meaning of _charis_, or the
verb _charizesthai_ to support the current idea (both being
even used in an immodest sense); Homer identifies Charis with
Aphrodite, with whom Hesiod also identifies Aglaia, since each
is made the wife of Hephaestus; the Charites are constantly
associated with Aphrodite and Erôs (and consequently with
Himeros, the personification of passion) so that the maxim
_Noscitur a sociis_ applies; Sappho repeatedly claims them as
her patrons; as regards the representation of the Charites in
art, girl friendship would be a subject quite alien to the
Greek mind.
If the view suggested is correct our authorities with their
preconceived ideas _presume to correct Theocritus and Sappho_!
They not only give a wrong view of the Charites, but also hide
the coarseness of the compliment paid by Theocritus to his lady
friend—in each case _distorting the truth_.
Mr. Livingstone may have another reason for altering the
meaning of “himerophonos.” He appears to hold the opinion that
a Greek writer would not ascribe intelligence or emotion to a
bird, as Mrs. Browning does in “To a Seamew.” (I quite agree
with him as to the false, feminine sentiment in this poem.
It is mainly the “Sonnets from the Portuguese” that raise
Mrs. Browning above the minor poets.) Mr. Livingstone, for
example, translates ἡμερόφων’ ἀλέκτωρ, “O cock that criest
_at_ dawn.” This should surely mean “that announceth the
dawn;” the attitude and the very _crow_ of the bird would
suggest this to the Greeks; and the fowl did, as a matter
of fact, serve in place of an alarm-clock to them (see, for
instance, Aristophanes’ _Birds_, 488). Does not Mr. Livingstone
forget that the Greeks attributed not only intelligence
but also miraculous powers to animals (see p. 370)? If so,
this illustrates another fact noticeable among classical
authorities. They often fail to consider _all the premises_
before arriving at a conclusion. Taking another illustration
from Mr. Livingstone, he says that the Greeks had little of
the feeling of wonder, did not “muse on the strangeness of the
world,” and would not have experienced the emotion Pascal felt
when viewing the starry heavens, “The eternal silence of those
infinite spaces terrifies me.” The premise he appears to omit
here is the fact of the intense ignorance of the Greeks. Their
world was a very limited one, with its flat earth and solid
lid, certain bright objects conceived as gods or otherwise
moving in the intermediate space. To illustrate this, Herodotus
(II, 24) believes that the sun-god is forced by the cold winds
in winter to move to the warm sky above Libya; and in 434 B.C.
(about the same time) the great advanced thinker, Anaxagoras,
is arrested for blasphemy and exiled because he taught that
the sun must be a mass of blazing metal larger than the
Peloponnesus! Everything in nature had its god, whose action
explained whatever happened. If the Greeks had once realized
the awful infinity of the universe their whole outlook on
nature would have changed, and I cannot think that so highly
intellectual a people would not have been moved by wonder.
I cannot see any element in “the Greek genius” that would
indicate this. (Observe Ptolemy’s epigram on p. 10.)
Returning to the Sappho quotation, Mr. Livingstone translates
ἦρος ἄγγελος literally as “the messenger of spring.” Does he
mean the messenger “sent by spring” or “announcing spring”?
Presumably he does not mean the latter, as it would impute
intelligence or emotion to the bird. But, if we accept the
former interpretation, it leads to the curious result that
the poet, not content with a Goddess of Spring and the Hours
who represent the seasons, intends still further to personify
spring. Is not the true meaning of Sappho’s words “the
nightingale with its passionate song sent (by Proserpine) to
let men know that spring is approaching”? This is not mere
captious criticism. To Sappho the goddess Proserpine was a
concrete being with some sort of corporeal form, who brings
a _thing_ called spring, and who actually _does_ send the
nightingale ahead to sing of the passion of the pairing-time,
and thus let men know that spring is coming. There is no poetic
imagery, no imaginative picture in the poet’s mind, but the
statement of an _actual fact_. See also the reference to the
halcyon, p. 370. It seems to me that, in this as in other
cases, our classical authorities _fail to place themselves in
the position of the Greeks_. Here they interpret as imagination
what was meant as reality. (However, as I have said before,
the above are merely suggestions which I myself hope to
consider further; but, until we knew exactly what Sappho’s
verse meant, it could not be brought into the discussion of Mr.
Livingstone’s views.)
* * * * *
Ah! the weariness and weight of tears,
The crying out to God, the wish for slumber,
They lay so deep, so deep! God heard them all;
He set them unto music of his own.
R. BUCHANAN, 1866 (_Bexhill_).
Buchanan is speaking of the sad lives in the poor quarters of
London.
* * * * *
Cold as a mountain in its star-pitched tent
Stood high Philosophy, less friend than foe:
Whom self-caged Passion, from its prison-bars,
Is always watching with a wondering hate.
Not till the fire is dying in the grate
Look we for any kinship with the stars.
G. MEREDITH (_Modern Love IV._)
A fine expression of a familiar fact. Under the influence
of love, anger, or other strong passion, a man becomes an
unreasoning animal, and actually _hates_ to be told the truth.
Wild passion glares through the bars of its self-constituted
cage at philosophy standing calm, lofty, and serene. Only “when
the fire is dying in the grate” do we again become akin to
cold, dispassionate, star-like Philosophy.
* * * * *
The triumph of machinery is when man wonders at his own works; thus, says
Derwent Coleridge, all science begins in wonder and ends in wonder, but
the first is the wonder of ignorance, the last that of adoration.
CAROLINE FOX’S JOURNALS.
Evidently a comment on S. T. Coleridge’s Aphorism IV. on
“Spiritual Religion” (_Aids to Reflection_).
* * * * *
No one of himself can rise out of the depths, but must clasp some
outstretched hand.
SENECA (? 3 B.C.-65 A.D.) (_Epistle 52_).
* * * * *
THE RIME OF REDEMPTION
The ways are white in the moon’s light,
Under the leafless trees:
Strange shadows go across the snow
Before the tossing breeze.
The burg stands grim upon the rim
Of the low wooded hill:
Sir Loibich sits beside the hearth,
Fill’d with a thought of ill.
The knight sits bent with eyes intent
Upon the dying fire;
Sad dreams and strange in sooth do range
Before the troubled sire.
He sees the maid the past years laid
Upon his breast to sleep,
Long dead in sin, laid low within
The grave unblest and deep.
He hears her wail, with lips that fail,
To him to save her soul:
He sees her laid, unhouselèd,[40]
Under the crossless knoll.
“Ah! would, dear Christ, my tears sufficed
To ransom her!” he cries:
“Sweet Heaven, to win her back from sin,
I would renounce the skies.
“Could I but bring her suffering
To pardon and to peace,
I for my own sin would atone,
Where never pain doth cease!
“I for my part would gnaw my heart,
Chain’d in the flames of hell;
I would abide, unterrified,
More than a man shall tell.”
The moon is pale, the night winds wail,
Weird whispers fill the night:
“Dear heart, what word was that I heard
Ring out in the moonlight?”
’Twas but the blast that hurried past,
Shrieking among the pines:
The souls that wail upon the gale,
When the dim starlight shines.
Great God! the name! once more it came
Ringing across the dark!
“Loibich!” it cried. The night is wide,
The dim pines stand and hark.
“Loibich! Loibich! my soul is sick
With hungering for thee!
The night fades fast, the hours fly past;
Stay not, come forth to me!”
The cloudwrack grey did break away,
Out shone the ghostly moon;
Down slid the haze from off the ways
Before her silver shoon.
Pale silver-ray’d, out shone the glade,
Before the castle wall,
And on the lea the knight could see
A maid both fair and tall.
Gold was her hair, her face was fair,
As fair as fair can be;
But through the night the blue corpse-light
About her could he see.
She raised her face towards the place
Where Loibich stood adread;
There was a sheen in her two een,
As one that long is dead.