To return, then, to my road, if a saunterer can be said to have a road.
What I have been saying of bodily objects in general applies with even
more force to those which are beautiful.
Physical beauty results from the harmonious action of various parts
which can be taken in at a glance. It therefore requires that these
parts should lie near together; and, since things whose parts lie near
together are the proper subjects of painting, this art and this alone
can imitate physical beauty.
The poet, who must necessarily detail in succession the elements of
beauty, should therefore desist entirely from the description of
physical beauty as such. He must feel that these elements arranged in a
series cannot possibly produce the same effect as in juxtaposition; that
the concentrating glance which we try to cast back over them immediately
after their enumeration, gives us no harmonious picture; and that to
conceive the effect of certain eyes, a certain mouth and nose taken
together, unless we can recall a similar combination of such parts in
nature or art, surpasses the power of human imagination.
Here again Homer is the model of all models. He says, Nireus was fair;
Achilles was fairer; Helen was of godlike beauty. But he is nowhere
betrayed into a more detailed description of these beauties. Yet the
whole poem is based upon the loveliness of Helen. How a modern poet
would have revelled in descriptions of it!
Even Constantinus Manasses sought to adorn his bald chronicle with a
picture of Helen. I must thank him for the attempt, for I really should
not know where else to turn for so striking an example of the folly of
venturing on what Homer’s wisdom forbore to undertake. When I read in
him:[127]
ἦν ἡ γυνὴ περικαλλὴς, εὔοφρυς, εὐχρουστάτη,
εὐπάρειος, εὐπρόσωπος, βοῶπις, χιονόχρους,
ἑλικοβλέφαρος, ἁβρὰ, χαρίτων γέμον ἄλσος,
λευκοβραχίων, τρυφερὰ, κάλλος ἄντικρυς ἔμπνουν,
τὸ πρόσωπον κατάλευκον, ἡ παρειὰ ῥοδόχρους,
τὸ πρόσωπον ἐπίχαρι, τὸ βλέφαρον ὡραῖον,
κάλλος ἀνεπιτήδευτον, ἀβάπτιστον, αὐτόχρουν,
ἔβαπτε τὴν λευκότητα ῥοδόχροια πυρσίνη,
ὡς εἴ τις τὸν ἐλέφαντα βάψει λαμπρᾷ πορφύρᾳ.
δειρὴ μακρά, κατάλευκος, ὅθεν ἐμυθουργήθη
κυκνογενῆ τὴν εὔοπτον Ἑλένην χρηματίζειν,
it is like seeing stones rolled up a mountain,[128] on whose summit they
are to be built into a gorgeous edifice; but which all roll down of
themselves on the other side. What picture does this crowd of words
leave behind? How did Helen look? No two readers out of a thousand would
receive the same impression of her.
But political verses by a monk are, it is true, no poetry. Let us hear
Ariosto describe his enchantress Alcina:[129]—
Di persona era tanto ben formata,
Quanto mai finger san pittori industri.
Con bionda chioma, lunga e annodata,
Oro non è, che piu risplenda e lustri.
Spargeasi per la guancia delicata
Misto color di rose e di ligustri.
Di terso avorio era la fronte lieta,
Che lo spazio finia con giusta meta.
Sotto due negri, e sottilissimi archi
Son due negri, occhi, anzi due chiari soli
Pietosi a riguardar, a mover parchi,
Intorno a cui par ch’ Amor scherzi, e voli,
E ch’ indi tutta la faretra scarchi,
E che visibilmente i cori involi.
Quindi il naso per mezzo il viso scende
Che non trova l’ invidia ove l’ emende.
Sotto quel sta, quasi fra due vallette,
La bocca sparsa di natio cinabro,
Quivi due filze son di perle elette,
Che chiude, ed apre un bello e dolce labro;
Quindi escon le cortesi parolette,
Da render molle ogni cor rozzo e scabro;
Quivi si forma quel soave riso,
Ch’ apre a sua posta in terra il paradiso.
Bianca neve è il pel collo, e ’l petto latte,
Il collo è tondo, il petto colmo e largo;
Due pome acerbe, e pur d’ avorio fatte,
Vengono e van, come onda al primo margo,
Quando piacevole aura il mar combatte.
Non potria l’ altre parti veder Argo,
Ben si può giudicar, che corrisponde,
A quel ch’ appar di fuor, quel che s’ asconde.
Mostran le braccia sua misura giusta,
Et la candida man spesso si vede,
Lunghetta alquanto, e di larghezza angusta,
Dove nè nodo appar, nè vena eccede.
Si vede al fin de la persona augusta
Il breve, asciutto, e ritondetto piede.
Gli angelici sembianti nati in cielo
Non si ponno celar sotto alcun velo.