If Homer’s works were completely destroyed, and nothing remained of the
Iliad and Odyssey but this series of pictures proposed by Caylus, should
we from these—even supposing them to be executed by the best
masters—form the same idea that we now have of the poet’s descriptive
talent alone, setting aside all his other qualities as a poet?
Let us take the first piece that comes to hand,—the picture of the
plague.[96] What do we see on the canvas? Dead bodies, the flame of
funeral pyres, the dying busied with the dead, the angry god upon a
cloud discharging his arrows. The profuse wealth of the picture becomes
poverty in the poet. Should we attempt to restore the text of Homer from
this picture, what can we make him say? “Thereupon the wrath of Apollo
was kindled, and he shot his arrows among the Grecian army. Many Greeks
died, and their bodies were burned.” Now let us turn to Homer
himself:[96]
Ὣς ἔφατ’ εὐχόμενος, τοῦ δ’ ἔκλυε Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων,
βῆ δὲ κατ’ Οὐλύμποιο καρήνων χωόμενος κῆρ,
τόξ’ ὤμοισιν ἔχων ἀμφηρεφέα τε φαρέτρην.
ἔκλαγξαν δ’ ἄρ’ ὀϊστοὶ ἐπ’ ὤμων χωομένοιο,
αὐτοῦ κινηθέντος· ὃ δ’ ἤϊε νυκτὶ ἐοικώς.
ἕζετ’ ἔπειτ’ ἀπάνευθε νεῶν, μετὰ δ’ ἰὸν ἕηκεν·
δεινὴ δὲ κλαγγὴ γένετ’ ἀργυρέοιο βιοῖο.
οὐρῆας μὲν πρῶτον ἐπῴχετο καὶ κύνας ἀργούς,
αὐτὰρ ἔπειτ’ αὐτοῖσι βέλος ἐχεπευκὲς ἐφιεὶς
βάλλ’· αἰεὶ δὲ πυραὶ νεκύων καίοντο θαμειαί.
The poet here is as far beyond the painter, as life is better than a
picture. Wrathful, with bow and quiver, Apollo descends from the
Olympian towers. I not only see him, but hear him. At every step the
arrows rattle on the shoulders of the angry god. He enters among the
host like the night. Now he seats himself over against the ships, and,
with a terrible clang of the silver bow, sends his first shaft against
the mules and dogs. Next he turns his poisoned darts upon the warriors
themselves, and unceasing blaze on every side the corpse-laden pyres. It
is impossible to translate into any other language the musical painting
heard in the poet’s words. Equally impossible would it be to infer it
from the canvas. Yet this is the least of the advantages possessed by
the poetical picture. Its chief superiority is that it leads us through
a whole gallery of pictures up to the point depicted by the artist.
But the plague is perhaps not a favorable subject for a picture. Take
the council of the gods,[97] which is more particularly addressed to the
eye. An open palace of gold, groups of the fairest and most majestic
forms, goblet in hand, served by eternal youth in the person of Hebe.
What architecture! what masses of light and shade! what contrasts! what
variety of expression! Where shall I begin, where cease, to feast my
eyes? If the painter thus enchant me, how much more will the poet! I
open the book and find myself deceived. I read four good, plain lines,
which might very appropriately be written under the painting. They
contain material for a picture, but are in themselves none.[97]
Οἱ δὲ θεοὶ πὰρ Ζηνὶ καθήμενοι ἠγορόωντο
χρυσέῳ ἐν δαπέδῳ, μετὰ δέ σφισι πότνια Ἥβη
νέκταρ ἐῳνοχόει· τοὶ δὲ χρυσέοις δεπάεσσιν
δειδέχατ’ ἀλλήλους, Τρώων πόλιν εἰσορόωντες.
Apollonius, or a more indifferent poet still, would not have said it
worse. Here Homer is as far behind the artist as, in the former
instance, he surpassed him.
Yet, except in these four lines, Caylus finds no single picture in the
whole fourth book of the Iliad. “Rich as this book is,” he says, “in its
manifold exhortations to battle, in the abundance of its conspicuous and
contrasting characters, in the skill with which the masses to be set in
motion are brought before us, it is yet entirely unavailable for
painting.” “Rich as it otherwise is,” he might have added, “in what are
called poetic pictures.” For surely in this fourth book we find as many
such pictures, and as perfect, as in any of the whole poem. Where is
there a more detailed, a more striking picture than that of Pandarus
breaking the truce at the instigation of Minerva, and discharging his
arrow at Menelaus? than that of the advance of the Grecian army? or of
the mutual attack? or of the deed of Ulysses, whereby he avenges the
death of his friend Leucus?
What must we conclude, except that not a few of the finest pictures in
Homer are no pictures for the artist? that the artist can extract
pictures from him where he himself has none? that such of his as the
artist can use would be poor indeed did they show us no more than we see
on the canvas? what, in short, but a negative answer to my question?
Painted pictures drawn from the poems of Homer, however numerous and
however admirable they may be, can give us no idea of the descriptive
talent of the poet.