Hanc (Famem) procul ut vidit....
... refert mandata deæ; paulumque morata
Quanquam aberat longe, quanquam modo venerat illuc,
Visa tamen sensisse famem....
This is an unnatural exaggeration. The sight of a hungry person, even of
Hunger herself, has no such power of contagion. Compassion and horror
and loathing may be aroused, but not hunger. Ovid has not been sparing
of this element of the horrible in the picture of Famine; while both he
and Callimachus,[166] in their description of Erisichthon’s starvation,
have laid chief emphasis upon the loathsome traits. After Erisichthon
has devoured every thing, not sparing even the sacrificial cow, which
his mother had been fattening for Vesta, Callimachus makes him fall on
horses and cats, and beg in the streets for crumbs and filthy refuse
from other men’s tables.
Καὶ τὰν βῶν ἔφαγεν, τὰν Ἑστίᾳ ἔτρεφε μάτηρ,
Καὶ τὸν ἀεθλοφόρον καὶ τὸν πολεμήιον ἵππον,
Καὶ τὰν αἴλουρον, τὰν ἔτρεμε θηρία μικκά—
Καὶ τόχ’ ὁ τῶ βασιλῆος ἐνὶ τριόδοισι καθῆστο
αἰτίζων ἀκόλως τε καὶ ἔκβολα λύματα δαιτός.
Ovid represents him finally as biting into his own flesh, that his body
might thus furnish nourishment for itself.
Vis tamen illa mali postquam consumserat omnem
Materiam ...
Ipse suos artus lacero divellere morsu
Cœpit· et infelix minuendo corpus alebat.
The hideous harpies were made loathsome and obscene in order that the
hunger occasioned by their carrying off of the food might be the more
horrible. Hear the complaints of Phineus in Apollonius:[167]—
τυτθὸν δ’ ἦν ἄρα δή ποτ’ ἐδητύος ἄμμι λίπωσι,
πνεῖ τόδε μυδαλέον τε καὶ οὐ τλητὸν μένος ὀδμῆς.
οὔ κέ τις οὐδὲ μίνυνθα βροτῶν ἄνσχοιτο πελάσσας,
οὐδ’ εἰ οἱ ἀδάμαντος ἐληλαμένον κέαρ εἴη.
ἀλλά με πικρὴ δῆτά κε καὶ ἄατος ἐπίσχει ἀνάγκη
μίμνειν, καὶ μίμνοντα κακῇ ἐν γαστέρι θέσθαι.
I would gladly excuse in this way, if I could, Virgil’s disgusting
introduction of the harpies. They, however, instead of occasioning an
actual present hunger, only prophesy an inward craving; and this
prophecy, moreover, is resolved finally into a mere play upon words.
Dante not only prepares us for the starvation of Ugolino by a most
loathsome, horrible description of him together with his former
persecutor in hell, but the slow starvation itself is not free from
disgusting features, as where the sons offer themselves as food for the
father. I give in a note a passage from a play by Beaumont and Fletcher,
which might have served me in the stead of all other examples, were it
not somewhat too highly drawn.[168]
I come now to objects of disgust in painting. Even could we prove that
there are no objects directly disgusting to the eye, which painting as a
fine art would naturally avoid, it would still be obliged to refrain
from loathsome objects in general, because they become through the
association of ideas disgusting also to the sense of sight. Pordenone,
in a picture of the entombment, makes one of the by-standers hold his
nose. Richardson[169] objects to this on the ground that Christ had not
been long enough dead for corruption to set in. In the raising of
Lazarus, however, he would allow the painter to represent some of the
lookers-on in that attitude, because the narrative expressly states that
the body was already offensive. But I consider the representation in
both cases as insufferable, for not only the actual smell, but the very
idea of it is nauseous. We shun bad-smelling places even when we have a
cold in the head. But painting does not employ loathsomeness for its own
sake, but, like poetry, to give emphasis to the ludicrous and the
terrible. At its peril! What I have already said of ugliness in this
connection applies with greater force to loathsomeness. This also loses
much less of its effect in a visible representation than in a
description addressed to the ear, and can therefore unite less closely
with the elements of the ludicrous and terrible in painting than in
poetry. As soon as the surprise passes and the first curious glance is
satisfied, the elements separate and loathsomeness appears in all its
crudity.