"It is not in Provence, (Provincia _Romanorum_,) as is commonly said
from the derivation of the name--nor yet in Spain, as many suppose, that
we are to look for the fatherland of those amusing compositions called
_Romances_, which are so eminently useful in these days as affording a
resource and occupation to ladies and gentlemen who have nothing to do.
It is in distant and far different climes to our own, and in the remote
antiquity of long vanished ages:--it is among the people of the East,
the Arabs, the Egyptians, the Persians, and the Syrians, that the germ
and origin is to be found of this species of fictitious narrative, for
which the peculiar genius and poetical temperament of those nations
particularly adapt them, and in which they delight to a degree scarcely
to be credited. For even their ordinary discourse is interspersed with
figurative expressions; and their maxims of theology and philosophy, and
above all, of morals and political science, are invariably couched under
the guise of allegory or parable. I need not stay to enlarge upon the
universal veneration paid throughout the East to the fables of Bidpai or
Pilpay, and to Lokman, who is (as may easily be shown) the Esop of the
Greeks:--and it is well known that the story of Isfendiyar, and of the
daring deeds of the Persian hero Rustan, in love and war,[50] are to
this day more popular in those regions than the tales of Hercules,
Roland, or Amadis de Gaul, ever were with us. And so decidedly is Asia
the parent of these fictions, that we shall find on examination, that
nearly all those who in early times distinguished themselves as writers
of what are now called romances, were of oriental birth or extraction.
Clearchus, a pupil of Aristotle, and the first who attempted any thing
of the sort in the Greek language, was a native of Soli in
Cilicia:--Jamblichus was a Syrian, as were also Heliodorus and Lucian,
the former being of Emessa, the latter of Samosata:--Achilles Tatius was
an Alexandrian; and the rule will be found to hold good in other
instances, with scarcely a single exception."
[Footnote 50: The exploits of these and other paladins of the Kaianian
dynasty, the heroic age of Persian history, are now known to us
principally through the _Shah-Nameh_ of Ferdousi, a poem bearing date
only at the beginning of the eleventh century; but both this and its
predecessor, the _Bostan-Nameh_, were founded on ballads and [Greek:
rhapsôdiai] of far distant ages, which had escaped the ravages of time
and the Mohammedans, and some of which are even now preserved among the
ancient tribes of pure Persian descent, in the S.W. provinces of the
kingdom. Sir John Malcolm (_History of Persia_, ii. 444, note, 8vo.
ed.,) gives an amusing anecdote of the effect produced among his escort
by one of these popular chants.]
Such is the doctrine laid down (at somewhat greater length than we have
rendered it) by the learned Huetius, in his treatise _De Origine
Fabularum Romanensium_; and from the general principle therein
propounded, we are certainly by no means inclined to dissent. But while
fully admitting that it is to the vivid fancy and picturesque
imagination of the Orientals that we owe the origin of all those popular
legends which have penetrated, under various changes of costume, into
every corner of Europe,[51] as well as those more gorgeous creations
which appear, interwoven with the ruder creations of the northern
nations, to have furnished the groundwork of the _fabliaux_ and _lais_
of the chivalry of the middle ages:--we still hold that the invention of
the romance of ordinary life, in which the interest of the story depends
upon occurrences in some measure within the bounds of probability, and
in which the heroes and heroines are neither invested with superhuman
qualities, nor extricated from their difficulties by supernatural means,
must be ascribed to a more _European_ state of society than that which
produced those tales of wonder, which are commonly considered as
characteristic of the climes of the East. Even the authors enumerated by
the learned bishop of Avranches himself, in the passage above quoted,
were all denizens of the _Greek_ cities of Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt,
and consequently, in all probability, Greeks by descent; and though the
scene of their works is frequently laid in Asia, the costumes and
characters introduced are almost invariably on the Greek model. These
writers, therefore, may fairly be considered as constituting a distinct
class from those more strictly Oriental, not only in birth, but in
language and ideas; and as being, in fact, the legitimate forerunners of
that portentous crowd of modern novelists, whose myriad productions seem
destined (as the Persians believe of the misshapen progeny of Gog and
Magog, confined within the brazen wall of Iskender,) to over-run the
world of literature in these latter days.
[Footnote 51: The prototype of the well-known Welsh legend of
Beth-Gelert, for instance, is found in the Sanscrit Hitopadosa, as
translated by Sir William Jones, with a mere change in the _dramatis
personæ_--the faithful hound Gelert becoming a tame mungoos or
ichneumon, the wolf a cabra-capello, and the young heir of the Welsh
prince an infant rajah.]
At the head of this early school of romantic writers, in point of merit
as of time, (for the writings of Lucian can scarcely be considered as
regular romances; and the "Babylonica" of Jamblichus, and the "Dinias
and Dercyllis" of Antonius Diogenes, are known to us only by the
abstract of them preserved in Photius,) we may, without hesitation,
place Heliodorus, the author of the "Ethiopics," "whose writings"--says
Huetius--"the subsequent novelists of those ages constantly proposed to
themselves as a model for imitation; and as truly may they all be said
to have drunk of the waters of this fountain, as all the poets did of
the Homeric spring." To so servile an extent, indeed, was this imitation
carried, that while both the incidents and characters in the "Clitophon
and Leucippe" of Achilles Tatius, a work which, in point of literary
merit, stands next to that of Heliodorus, are, in many passages, almost
a reproduction, with different names and localities,[52] of those in the
"Ethiopics," the last-named has again had his copyists in the "Hysminias
and Hysmine" of Eustathius or Eumathius, and the "Dosicles and
Rhodanthe" of Theodorus Prodromus, the latter of whom was a monk of the
twelfth century. In these productions of the lower empire, the
extravagance of the language, the improbability of the plot, and the
wearisome dullness of the details, are worthy of each other; and are
only varied occasionally by a little gross indelicacy, from which,
indeed, none but Heliodorus is wholly exempt. Yet, "as in the lowest
deep there is a lower still," so even Theodorus Prodromus has found an
humble imitator in Nicetas Eugenianus, than whose romance of "Charicles
and Drosilla" it must be allowed that the force of nonsense "can no
further go." Besides this descending scale of plagiarism, which we have
followed down to its lowest anti-climax, we should mention, for the sake
of making our catalogue complete, the "Pastorals, or Daphnis and Chloe"
of Longus--a work in itself of no particular merits or demerits as a
literary composition, but noted for its unparalleled depravity, and
further remarkable as the first of the class of pastoral romances, which
were almost as rife in Europe during the middle ages as novels of
fashionable life are, for the sins of this generation, at the present
day. There only remain to be enumerated the three precious farragos
entitled "The Ephesiacs, or Habrocomas and Anthia"--"the
Babylonics"--and "the Cypriacs"--said to be from the pen of three
different Xenophons, of whose history nothing, not even the age in which
any of them lived, can be satisfactorily made out--though the uniformity
of stupid extravagance, not less than the similarity of name, would lead
_à priori_ to the conclusion that one luckless wight must have been the
author of all three. From this list of the Byzantine romances, (in which
we are not sure that one or two may not after all have been omitted,) it
will be seen that Heliodorus had a tolerably numerous progeny, even in
his own language, to answer for; though we fear we must concur in the
sweeping censure of a Quarterly Reviewer, (vol. x. p. 301,) who condemns
then _en masse_, with the single exception of the "Ethiopics" of the
last-named author, as "a few tiresome stories, absolutely void of taste,
invention, or interest; without influence even upon the declining
literature of their own age, and in all probability quite unknown to the
real forerunners of Richardson, Fielding, and Rousseau."
[Footnote 52: The principal adventures of Clitophon and Leucippe consist
in being twice taken by pirates on the banks of the Nile, as Theagenes
and Chariclea are in the Ethiopics.]
A work thus excepted, by common consent, from the general reprobation is
which all its compeers are involved, must deserve some notice from its
negative, if not from its positive merits; and the particulars which
have been preserved of its literary history are also somewhat curious.
Even in these days, when almost every other individual is a novelist,
either _in esse_ or in embryo, the announcement of a love-story from the
pen of a bishop would create what is called "a considerable
sensation"--though perhaps it would hardly draw down on the author such
condign and summary punishment as was inflicted by the straitlaced Kirk
of Scotland, less than a century ago, on one of her ministers, for the
high crime and misdemeanour of having indited "a stage play, called the
_Tragedy of Douglas_."[53] Yet not only the "Ethiopics," but the best
known of its successors, the "Clitophon and Leucippe" of Achilles
Tatius, are both universally asserted to have been juvenile productions
of ecclesiastics who afterwards attained the episcopal dignity: and the
former, if we may credit the Ecclesiastical History of Nicephorus, fared
not much better at the hands of the Provincial Synod of Thessaly than
did the "Tragedy of Douglas" at those of the Scottish Presbyteries. Hear
what saith the historian: "This Heliodorus, bishop of Trica, had in his
youth written certain love-stories called the "Ethiopics," which are
highly popular even at the present day, though they are now better known
by the title of 'Chariclea'"--(the name of the heroine)--"and it was by
reason thereof that he lost his see. For, inasmuch as very many of the
youth were drawn into peril of sin by the perusal of these amorous
tales, it was determined by the provincial synod that either these
books, which kindled the fire of love, should themselves be consumed by
fire, or that the author should be deposed from his episcopal
functions--and this choice being propounded to him, he preferred
resigning his bishopric to suppressing his writings."--(_Niceph. Hist.
Ecclesiast._ lib. xii. c. 34.)[54] Heliodorus, according to the same
authority, was the first Thessalian bishop who had insisted on the
married clergy putting away their wives, which may probably have tended
to make him unpopular: but the story of his deposition, it should be
observed, rests solely on the statement of Nicephorus, and is
discredited by Bayle and Huet, who argue that the silence of Socrates
(_Ecclesiast. Hist._ v. chap. 22.) in the passage where he expressly
assigns the authorship of the "Ethiopics" to _the Bishop_ Heliodorus,
more than counterbalances the unsupported assertion of Nicephorus--"an
author," says Huet, "of more credulity than judgment." If Heliodorus
were, indeed, as has been generally supposed, the same to whom several
of the Epistles of St Jerome were addressed, this circumstance would
supply an additional argument against the probability of his having
incurred the censures of the church: but whatever the testimony of
Nicephorus may be worth on this point, his mention of the work affords
undeniable proof of its long continued popularity, as his Ecclesiastical
History was written about A.D. 900, and Heliodorus lived under the reign
of the sons of Theodosius, or fully five hundred years earlier. Enough,
however, has been said of him in his capacity of a bishop--and we shall
proceed to consider him in that of an author, by which he is far better
known than by episcopacy.
[Footnote 53: Home was expelled the ministry for this heinous offence,
which raised a fearful turmoil at the time among Synods and
Presbyteries. The Glasgow Presbytery published a declaration (Feb. 14,
1757) on the "melancholy but notorious fact, that one, who is a minister
of the Church of Scotland, did himself write and compose a stage play
intitled the Tragedy of Douglas;" and to this declaration various other
presbyteries published their adhesion.]
[Footnote 54: This sentence might, with more justice, have been visited
upon the work of the other bishop, Achilles Tatius, for his not
infrequent transgressions against delicacy, a fault never chargeable on
Heliodorus.]
The time of the story is laid in the middle ages of Grecian history,
after the conclusion of the wars between Greece and Persia, and while
Egypt was still governed by the satraps of the great king; and the first
scene at once plunges the reader, in accordance with the Horatian
precept, _in medias res_. A band of marauders, prowling on the coast of
Egypt, are surprised by the sight of a ship moored to the shore without
any one on board, while the beach around is strewed with the fragments
of a costly banquet, and with a number of dead bodies of men, slain
apparently in mutual conflict; the only survivors being a damsel of
surpassing beauty, arrayed as a priestess of Diana, who is wailing over
the inanimate form of a wounded youth. Before they have time however,
either to unravel the mystery, or to avail themselves of the booty, thus
unexpectedly spread before them, they are in turn put to flight by a
more numerous party of robbers, or rather buccaneers, (_bucoli_ or
_herdsmen_,) who carry off the forlorn couple to their retreat, in the
inner-most recesses of a vast lake or morass, near the Heracleotic mouth
of the Nile.[55] The description of this robber-colony appears to have
been drawn from an existing or well-remembered state of things, and
bears considerable resemblance, except in the presence of women and
children, to a _setsha_, or stronghold, of the Zaporog Cossacks in the
islets of the Dniepr.
[Footnote 55: This is usually called the _Canopia_ mouth; but Herodotus
(who says that it was dug by artificial means) calls it the _Bucolic_,
perhaps from the haunts above described in its neighbourhood.]
"This whole region is called by the Egyptians the _Bucolia_, or
'pasturages,' and is a tract of low land, which has been converted by
the inundations of the Nile into a lake, of great depth in the middle,
and gradually shoaling towards the margins into a marsh. Among this
labyrinth of lakes and morasses, all the robber-community of Egypt hold
their commonwealth; some building huts wherever there is enough of dry
land for the purpose, and others living wholly on board their boats,
which serve them for a home, as well as to transport them from place to
place. In these narrow craft their children are born and brought up,
tied by a cord round their foot, in their infancy, to keep them from
falling overboard, and tasting for their first food, after being weaned,
the fish of the lake dried in the sun. Thus, many of these _buccaneers_
are natives of the lake itself, which they regard as their country and
their fortress; and they also receive among them many recruits of the
same sort as themselves. The waters serve them for a defence, and they
are further fortified by the vast quantity of reeds overgrowing the
borders of the lake, through which they have contrived certain narrow
winding paths known only to themselves, to guard them against sudden
incursions from without."
The chief, Thyamis, is forthwith desperately smitten by the charms of
Chariclea, and announces, in a set speech to his followers, when
assembled for the division of the booty, his intention of taking her to
wife. The heroine, as usual with heroines in such trying circumstances,
feigns compliance, stipulating only for the delay of the ceremony till
she could deposit her sacred ornaments in a temple; a request which
Thyamis--who, by the way, is no vulgar depredator, but an Egyptian of
rank, who has been deprived of an hereditary[56] priesthood, and driven
into hiding, by the baseness of a younger brother--is too well bred to
refuse. The beautiful captive is accordingly, (with Theagenes, whom she
calls her brother,) given in charge, for the time, to an Athenian
prisoner named Cnemon, who had been driven into exile by the vindictive
artifices of his step-mother and her confidante, and the recital of
whose adventures (apparently borrowed from those of Hippolitus) occupies
a considerable space at this juncture, without much advancing the story.
On the following day, however, the settlement is attacked by an
irresistible force, guided by the gang who had been driven from their
prey on the beach. Thyamis, after performing prodigies of valour, is
taken prisoner; and Theagenes and Chariclea, with Cnemon, escaping in
the confusion, find themselves alone in an island of the lake. Cnemon,
as being best acquainted with the language and the surrounding country,
is sent the next day to the main land, to make discoveries, accompanied
by Thermuthis, the buccanier lieutenant, who had returned when the fray
was over, in hopes of recovering a fair captive of his own. The object
of his search, however, who proves to be no other than Thisbe, the
treacherous soubrette through whom Cnemon's misfortunes had arisen, had
been slain by accident in the conflict; and Thermuthis, whose suspicions
had been awakened by the joy expressed by Cnemon, is meditating the
murder of his fellow-traveller, when he opportunely perishes by the bite
of an asp. Cnemon, continuing on his way,[57] reaches the margin of the
Nile opposite the town of Chemmis, and there encounters a venerable
personage, who, wrapt in deep thought, is pensively pacing the banks of
the river. This old Egyptian priest, (for such he proves to be,)
Calasiris by name, not only takes the abrupt intrusion of Cnemon in
perfect good part, but carries his complaisance so far as to invite him
to the house of a friend of whom he is himself a guest, and the honours
of whose mansion he is doing in the temporary absence of the owner. This
obliging offer is, of course, accepted with great alacrity; and, in the
course of after-dinner conversation, the incidental mention by Calasiris
of the names of Theagenes and Chariclea, and the consequent enquiries of
Cnemon, who recognises them as those of his late fellow captives, lead
to a long episodical narration from the old gentleman, during which
Cnemon, in return for the hospitality and confidence thus unexpectedly
shown him, displays most enviable powers as a listener, and which, in a
great measure, unfolds the plot to the reader.
[Footnote 56: The hereditary succession of the Egyptian priesthood is
stated both by Herodotus and Diodorus; but Sir J.G. Wilkinson (_Manners
of the Ancient Egyptians_, i. 262,) believe that, "though a priest was
son of a priest, the peculiar office held by a son may sometimes have
been different in point of rank from that of his father."]
[Footnote 57: Before setting out on this expedition, he "reduces his
hair to a more moderate quantity than that usually worn by robbers."
Thus, the Italian bravoes of the middle ages, when they repented their
evil ways, were wont to "shave the tuft," which was thrown over the face
as a disguise; hence the phrase, _radere il ciuffo_, still used as
synonymous with becoming an honest man. See Manzoni's well-known romance
of "I Promessi Sposi."]
It appears that Persina, consort of Hydaspes, King of Ethiopia, had
given birth, in consequence of one of those accidents which will
sometimes happen in the best regulated families, to a _white_ or
fair-complexioned daughter;[58] and dreading lest the hue of her
offspring, unusual in that country, might draw on herself suspicions
which might expose her to certain pains and penalties, she secretly
committed the infant to the care of Sisimithres, an officer of the
court, placing at the same time in his hands, as tokens by which she
might afterwards be recognised, various costly ornaments, especially a
ring which had been given her by the king at their nuptials, bearing
"the royal symbol engraven within a circle on the talismanic stone
_Pantarbé_," and a fillet on which was embroidered, in the Ethiopic
character,[59] the story of the child's birth. Under the guardianship of
Sisimithres, she remained seven years; till, fearing for her safety if
she continued in Ethiopia, he took the opportunity of his being sent to
Thebes as ambassador from Hydaspes to the Satrap of Egypt, to transfer
his charge, with the tokens attached to her, to a priest of the Delphian
Apollo, named Charicles, who was travelling in search of consolation for
domestic afflictions. Before Sisimithres, however, had time to explain
the previous history of the foundling, he was compelled to leave Egypt
in haste; and Charicles, carrying her with him on his return to his
Grecian home, adopted her as his daughter, add gave her the name of
Chariclea. She grew up at Delphi a miracle of grace and beauty,
dedicating herself to the service of the temple, and obedient to the
will of her supposed father in all points, except one, her determination
to lead a single life. At this juncture, Calasiris (who, as it now
incidentally transpires, is father of Thyamis and his rival-brother
Petosiris) arrives at Delphi during the celebration of the Pythian
games, having found it expedient to absent himself from Egypt for a
time, for various family reasons, and more especially on account of the
prediction of an oracle, that he should live to see his two sons engaged
with each other in mortal conflict. A favourable response, vouchsafed to
him by the Pythia from the tripod, at his entrance into the fane of
Apollo, having pointed him out as a personage of consideration, he is
treated with high distinction by Charicles, who confides to him the
history of Chariclea, as far as he is himself acquainted with it, and
entreats him to dispose her, by those occult sciences in which the
Egyptian priests were supposed to be versed, to listen to the suit of
his nephew Alcamenes, whom he had destined for her husband. Calasiris
promises compliance; but the scene is now changed by the arrival of a
magnificent deputation from the Ænianes, a noble tribe of Thessaly,
headed by a princely youth named Theagenes, who, as a reputed descendant
of Achilles, has come to sacrifice at the shrine of his ancestor
Neoptolemus. The pomp and pageantry of the ceremonial is described in
vivid language, and with considerable effect; and as a specimen of our
author's manner, we shall quote the procession of the Thessalians to the
temple.
"In the van came the oxen destined for sacrifice, led by men of
rustic guise and rude demeanour, each clad in a white tunic
closely girt about him, with the right arm bare to the
shoulder, and brandishing a double-headed axe. The oxen were
all black without mixture, with massive necks low-hung dewlaps,
and straight and even horns, which in some were gilt, in the
others twined with garlands; and their number was neither more
nor less than a hundred--a true hecatomb. Next followed the
rest of the victims, each kind of animal kept separate and in
order, and all marshalled to the sound of flutes and other wind
instruments. Then appeared, in rich and flowing robes, and with
their long locks floating loose on their shoulders, a band of
the deep-zoned virgins of Thessaly, divided into two separate
sets or choruses, the first of which bore baskets of flowers
and ripe fruit, while those in the second carried salvers of
sweetmeats and rich perfumes, which filled the air with the
mingled fragrance breathing from them; but these light burdens
were supported on their heads, thus leaving their hands free to
be joined in the movements of the dance, to the slow and
stately measure of which they advanced; while one chorus led
the hymn, the strains of which were taken up by the other, in
praise of Peleus and Thetis, their hero-son, and Neoptolemus
and the other heroes of his race. The alternate rhythm of the
chant keeping time with the fall of their footsteps, riveted
the attention of the spectators, who seemed spell-bound by the
sweet voices of the maidens, till the cavalcade which
succeeded, flashing out from the crowd beyond, with their
princely leader at their head, once more attracted all eyes to
themselves. The troop consisted of fifty horsemen, who rode
like guards in double file, twenty-five on each side of the
chief, arrayed all alike in white cloaks with borders of azure
embroidery, clasped across the breast with golden buckles, and
with buskins laced above the ancle with scarlet thongs. Their
steeds were all of that generous breed which the rich plains of
Thessaly alone produce, and pawed the ground as if impatient of
the bit by which their ardour was restrained by their riders;
and the silver and gold which glittered on their frontlets and
caparisons, showed the rivalry prevailing among these cavaliers
in the splendour of the equipments, rather of their coursers
than themselves. But it was on him who rode in the midst of
this gallant party, eclipsing all his comrades as the glare of
lightning seems to obscure all lesser luminaries, that the eyes
of the gazing crowd were now fixed. He was completely armed at
all points, except his head, and grasped in his hand an ashen
lance; while a scarlet cloak, on which was depicted, in figures
of gold tissue, the battle of the Centaurs with the Lapithæ,
flowed loose over his panoply, and was fastened in front with a
clasp, representing Pallas sculptured in amber, and holding
before her the Gorgon's head on her shield. The breeze, which
blew back his locks from his forehead, gave his features more
fully to view; and even the horse which bore him seemed to move
with a statelier gait, arching his neck and proudly caracoling,
as if conscious of the noble presence of his master; while the
admiration of the surrounding multitude burst out into a
spontaneous shout of applause, and some of the women of the
lower class even threw fruit and flowers towards him, in the
hope, I suppose, of drawing on themselves a glance of
acknowledgement from his eye."
[Footnote 58: The incidents of the birth of Chariclea have been copied
by Tasso in the story of Clorinda, as related to her by Arsete, in the
12th canto of "Gierusalemme Liberata." In the "Shah-Nameh," also, Zal,
the father of the Persian hero Rustan, being born _with white hair_, is
exposed by his father Sam on the mountain of Elborz, where he is
preserved and brought up by the giant-bird Simorgh.]
[Footnote 59: "In the _royal_ character"--"[Greek: grammasin
Aithiopikois oy dêmotikois, alla basilikois]." This distinction between
the royal and popular system of hieroglyphics, as well as the etiquette,
before mentioned, of inscribing the title of the king within a circle or
oval, is borrowed, as need hardly be mentioned, from the monuments of
Egypt.]
The cavalier thus eulogized by Calasiris is of course Theagenes, who,
after thrice encompassing in due form the tomb of Neoptolemus, at length
reaches the Temple of Apollo; but, during the performance of the
ceremonial, it falls to his lot to receive the torch with which the
altar is to be kindled from the hand of Chariclea, and love at first
sight, mutual and instantaneous, is the result. The aid of Calasiris is
again invoked by both the lovers; and the good old gentleman, whose
knowledge of the Ethiopian hieroglyphics, by enabling him to decipher
the mysterious inscription on the fillet, has put him in possession of
the true parentage of Chariclea, (which he does not, however,
communicate to Charicles,) at once resolves to contrive their elopement,
being further stimulated thereto by Apollo in a dream--the agency of
dreams, it should be remarked, being introduced on almost every possible
occasion throughout the narrative, and their dictates in all cases
religiously acted upon by the parties interested. A passage is procured
on board a Phoenician ship opportunely lying in the Crissæan Gulf, the
nearest point of the coast to Delphi; and the abduction of Chariclea
having been effected by apparent violence by the companions of
Theagenes, the trio set sail for Sicily, the fugitives passing as the
children of Calasiris. The voyage is at first prosperous; but the ship
happening to touch at Zacynthus, the beauty of Chariclea attracts the
eye of a noted pirate named Trachinus, who, when the vessel resumes her
course, pursues and captures her after a long chase, and turning the
crew adrift in the boat,[60] and carries his prize, with his three
captives, to the coast of Egypt, where he prepares a feast on the beach,
from the materials furnished by the rich cargo of the Phoenician ship,
in honour of his intended nuptials. Calasiris, however, whose genius
seems ever fertile in expedients, has contrived to possess the mind of
Pelorus, the pirate lieutenant, with the belief that he is the object of
the fair captive's preference; and his assertion at the banquet of his
claims gives rise to a furious conflict among the intoxicated pirates,
ending in the slaughter of the whole party except Pelorus himself, who
in turn falls by the sword of Theagenes. Calasiris, who had prudently
retired to a safe distance till the fighting was over, is now on the
point of coming forward to aid Chariclea in the care of her wounded
lover, when he is anticipated by the arrival of the robbers, by whom, as
related at the commencement of the story, he sees his protegés carried
off.
[Footnote 60: The capture of the vessel has furnished the subject of a
painting by Raffaelle and Giulio Romano.]
Before this recital, however, had been brought to a close,
Nausicles,[61] the master of the house, returns, and the cause of his
absence is explained. An Athenian mistress whom he had brought from
Greece had fallen into the hands of the freebooters; and Nausicles,
having procured the aid of a body of Persian troops from the governor of
the district, had proceeded against the buccanier settlement in order to
recover her. On reaching the island, however, they find only Theagenes
and Chariclea, Cnemon and Thermuthis having just started on their voyage
of discovery; and Nausicles, disappointed of finding her whom he sought,
(and who was no other than the faithless Thisbe, slain, as above
related, in the battle,) conceived the idea of claiming Chariclea in her
place by way of indemnity; while Theagenes was sent off to Memphis by
the Persian officer, who deemed that his beauty and noble bearing would
make him an acceptable addition to the household[62] of the Satrap
Oroondates. The lovers are thus again separated, and Chariclea is in
despair; but, on arriving at the house of Nausicles, she is of course
immediately recognised and reclaimed by Calasiris. Cnemon, who seems to
have as extraordinary a genius for sudden friendships as the two
heroines in the "Rovers," marries the fair daughter of Nausicles after a
few hours' courtship, and at once sets sail with his father-in-law for
Greece, having ascertained from him that the detection of his enemies
had now made his return safe:--And Calasiris and Chariclea, disguised as
beggars, set out in search of the lost Theagenes. That luckless hero
had, meanwhile, been re-captured on his road to Memphis, by his, old
friend Thyamis, who, having escaped (it does not exactly appear how)
from the emissaries of his treacherous brother, with whom the attack on
the island proves to have originated, is now at the head of another and
more powerful body of the buccanier fraternity, in the district of
Bessa. He receives Theagenes with great cordiality, and, having beaten
off an attack from the Persian troops, takes the bold resolution of
leading his lawless followers against Memphis itself, in order to
reclaim his right to the priesthood, while Oroondates is engaged on the
southern frontier in withstanding an invasion of the Ethiopians. Arsace,
the wife of the satrap, who is acting as vice-regent for her husband,
unprovided with troops to repel this sudden incursion, proposes that the
two brothers shall settle the ecclesiastical succession by single
combat; and a duel accordingly takes place under the walls of Memphis,
in which Petosiris is getting considerably the worst of it, when the
combat is interrupted by the arrival of Chariclea and Calasiris, who
thus witnesses the spectacle foretold by the oracle--(the dread of
seeing which had driven him into voluntary exile)--his two sons aiming
at each other's life. The situation is a well-conceived one, and
described with spirit. Calasiris is recognised by his penitent sons, and
himself resumes the priesthood, the contested vacancy in which had been
occasioned only by his absence and supposed death. The lovers are
received as his guests in the temple of Isis, and all seems on the point
of ending happily, when Calasiris, as if the object of his existence had
been accomplished in the fulfilment of the oracle, is found the same
night dead in his bed.
[Footnote 61: He is called "A merchant of Naucratis," though resident in
Chemmis. But Naucratis, as we find from Herodotus, (ii. 179,) "was of
old the only free port of Egypt; and, if any trader came to one of the
other mouths of the Nile, he was put upon oath that his coming was
involuntary, and was then made to sail to the Canopic mouth. But, if
contrary winds prevented him from doing this, he was obliged to send his
cargo in barges round the Delta to Naucratis, so strict was the
regulation." Amasis was the first king who had permitted the trade of
the Greeks at this port, [ib. 178,] and the restriction appears to have
been continued under the Persian rule.]
[Footnote 62: The establishment of household slaves or _Mamlukes_ seems
to have been nearly on the same footing with the ancient as with the
modern Persians.]
The loss of their old protector soon involves them in a fresh maze of
troubles. Thyamis, indeed, whose elevation to the high priesthood seems
to have driven his former love for Chariclea out of his head, still
continues their friend; but Arsace, the haughty consort of the satrap,
who is represented as a princess of the royal blood of Persia, and a
prototype of Catharine of Russia in her amours, has already cast her
eyes on Theagenes, whose personal attractions seem on all occasions to
have been as irresistible by the ladies as those of the fair partner of
his wanderings by the other sex.[63] Under pretence of removing them
from the temple during the period of mourning for Calasiris, they are
lodged in the palace of the satrapess, where the constancy of the hero
is exposed to a variety of perilous temptations, but comes forth, of
course, unscathed from the ordeal. The love of ladies thus rejected has
been prone, in all ages and countries, particularly in Egypt since the
days of Yusuf and Zuleikha,[64] to turn into hatred; and Arsace is no
exception to this long-established usage. Theagenes is accordingly
thrown into a dungeon, and regularly bastinadoed under the
superintendence of a eunuch, in order to instill into him proper notions
of gallantry; while an attempt on the life of Chariclea, whom Arsace has
discovered not to be his sister, fails through the mistake of an
attendant, who delivers the poisoned goblet intended for her to Cybele,
the princess's nurse and confidante, and the contriver of the plot.
Chariclea, however, is condemned on this pretext to be burned alive as a
poisoner; but the flames recoil before the magical influence of the gem
_Pantarbé_, which she wears in her mother's ring; and before Arsace has
time to devise any fresh scheme for her destruction, the confidential
eunuch of Oroondates, to whom the misdeeds of his spouse had become
known, arrives from the camp of Syene with orders to bring the two
captives to the presence of the satrap. Arsace commits suicide in
despair; but the escort of the lovers, while travelling along the banks
of the Nile, is surprised by a roving party of Ethiopians; and they are
carried to the camp of Hydaspes, by whom they are destined, according to
Ethiopian usage, to be hereafter sacrificed to the sun and moon--the
national deities of the country, as first-fruits of the war. A long
account is now introduced of the siege and capture of Syene by the
Ethiopians, and the victory of Hydaspes over Oroondates, which occupies
the whole of the ninth book; and though in itself not ill told, is
misplaced, as interrupting the narrative at the most critical point of
the story. Peace is at last concluded between the belligerents; and
Hydaspes, returning in triumph to his capital of Meroë, holds a grand
national festival of thanksgiving, at which the victims are to be
sacrificed. The secret of her birth had, however, been revealed to
Chariclea by Calasiris before the elopement from Delphi, and when on the
point of being led to the altar, she suddenly throws herself at the feet
of the Queen Persina, and, producing the well-remembered token of the
fillet and the ring, claims the protection of her parents. The
recognition of the mother is instantaneous, but Hydaspes, who had always
believed that the child to which his queen gave birth had died in early
infancy, remains incredulous, till his doubts are removed by the
evidence of Sisimithres, who identifies Chariclea as the child which he
had confided, ten years before, to the care of Charicles. At this
juncture Charicles himself appears, having come to Egypt to reclaim his
lost child from Calasiris, and thence having been sent on by Oroondates
to the court of Ethiopia:--and the denouement, as far as the heroine is
concerned, is now complete. Theagenes, however, still remains doomed,
and Hydaspes seems unwilling to relinquish his victim; but, after an
interval of suspense, during which he incidentally performs various
exploits rather unusual in a man in momentary expectation of death,[65]
he is spared, at the vehement intercession of Persina, to whom Chariclea
has revealed her love for the young Thessalian. The voice of the people,
raised in acclamation at this deed of clemency, is ratified by the
approbation of Sisimithres and the Gymnosophists, and all difficulties
are now at an end. The betrothal of Theagenes and Chariclea is publicly
announced; and, at the termination of the festival, they return in state
into the city, with Hydaspes and Persina, as the acknowledged heirs of
the kingdom.
[Footnote 63: In all the Greek romances, it seems almost inevitable that
all the male characters should fall in love with the heroine, and all
the females with the hero; and, this is, in some of them, carried to a
ludicrous degree of absurdity.]
[Footnote 64: The name of Potiphar's wife, according to the 12th chapter
of the Koran. The story of Yusuf and Zuleikha forms the subject of one
of the most beautiful poems in the Persian language, by Jami.]
[Footnote 65: One of these consists in pursuing a wild bull on
horseback, and throwing himself from the horse on the neck of the bull,
which he seizes by the horns, and then, by main force wrenching his neck
round, hurls him powerless to the ground on his back! Such an
achievement appears almost incredible; but it is represented, in all its
particulars, in one of the Arundel marbles, (Marmor. Oxon. Selden,
xxxviii,) under the name of [Greek: Tayrokathapsia], and is mentioned as
a national sport of Thessaly, the native country of Theagenes, both by
Pliny (Hist. Nat. viii. 45), and by Suetonius (Claud. cap. 21)--"He
exhibited," (says the latter writer,) "Thessalian horsemen who drive
wild bulls round and round the circus, and leaping on them when they are
weary, bring them to the ground by the horns."]
Such is the general outline of the story, which, as will have been
perceived, is far from deficient either in incident or in strikingly
imagined situations; but the merit of the conceptions is too often
marred by the mismanagement of the details, and the unskilful
arrangement of the different parts of the narrative. Thus all the
circumstances of the early history of Chariclea, and the rise of the
mutual affection between her and Theagenes, and of their adventurous
flight, are made known through a long episode awkwardly put into the
mouth of a third person, who himself knows great part of them only at
second-hand, and voluntarily related by him to one with whom his
acquaintance is scarcely of an hour's standing. This mode of narration,
in which one of the characters is introduced (like the prologue in an
old play) to recount the previous adventures of the others, is in itself
at all times defective; since it injures the effect of the relation by
depriving it of those accessory touches which the author, from his
conventionally admitted insight into the feelings and motives of his
characters, is privileged to supply: whereas a speaker in the first
person must necessarily confine himself, unless when narrating his own
adventures, to the points which have fallen under his personal
observation. In the present instance it is, moreover, needless, as the
whole episode might as well have been told in the ordinary manner. The
endless captures and recaptures of the lovers, who are continually
bandied about from one set of pirates, robbers, or plundering soldiers
to another, become, at length, wearisome from repetition; and the
dramatic force of the conclusion, which would otherwise be highly
effective, is weakened by the knowledge which the reader possesses, that
Chariclea is all along aware of the secret of her own parentage, and
that she has only to produce the fillet and ring in order to ensure her
deliverance from the dreadful doom which appears to threaten her. The
improbability of some of the incidents, and the awkward manner in which
others are brought about, have been much objected to by modern critics,
and it must be admitted that some better way might be found to dispose
of personages whose agency was no longer needed, than to cut them off by
sudden death, like Calasiris, or by the bite of a venemous serpent, like
Thermuthis. But the mechanical art (as it may almost be called) of
constructing a story was then in its infancy; and the violations of
probability which have been laid to the charge of Heliodorus, are, after
all, much less flagrant than those of Achilles Tatius, and infinitely
less so than those of any of the other Greek writers of romance; nor
would many of our modern novelists, perhaps, gain much by the
comparison.
The characters are of very different degrees of merit. Theagenes is as
insipid and uninteresting as one of Walter Scott's well-behaved heroes;
and his entreaties to Chariclea, in the final scene, no longer to delay
making herself known to her parents, betray a most laudable instinct of
self-preservation. The deeds of strength and valour which he is
occasionally made to perform, seem rather to arise from the author's
remembering that his hero must do something to support the character,
than to result naturally from the situations in which he is placed, and
his love of decorum is carried, on all occasions, to an absurd extent of
prudery. "Le heros de la pièce est d'une sagesse qui a donné lieu à des
railleries assez plaisantes," says Bayle; though the instance usually
cited--a box on the ear, which he gives Chariclea, when she approaches
him in her beggar's dress, under the walls of Memphis, and attempts to
throw herself into his arms, is scarcely a fair one, as he does not at
the time recognize his beloved under her unbecoming disguise. The
character of Chariclea herself, however, makes ample amends for the
defects of that of her lover; and this superiority of the heroine, it
may be observed, is almost invariable in the early Greek romances. The
masculine firmness and presence of mind which she evinces in situations
of peril and difficulty, combined at all times with feminine delicacy,
and the warmth and confiding simplicity of her love for Theagenes,
attach to her a degree of interest which belongs to none of the other
personages; and her spontaneous burst of grateful affection, on
recognizing, at Meroë, the voice of her foster-father, Charicles, is
expressed with exquisite tenderness. Of the subordinate characters
little need be said. Charicles is a mere impersonation of benevolence
and parental love; and Cnemon seems to have been introduced for little
else than to tell his own long story, and listen to that of Calasiris in
return. The old Egyptian priest, however, is a sketch of considerable
merit. Like Scott's Peregrine Touchwood, though abundantly zealous at
all times to serve his friends, he cannot find it in his heart to take
any but the most round-about way of doing so; but he is never
disconcerted by any of the untoward results of his schemes, and relates
to Cnemon, with the most perfect self-complacency, the deceit which he
had practiced on his confiding host, Charicles, in helping Theagenes to
steal away his adopted daughter, and the various scrapes into which his
protegés had fallen under his guidance. He has, moreover, pet theories
of his own on the phenomena of the Nile, the cause of the roughness of
the Ionian Sea, and various other matters, in which he indoctrinates
Cnemon _par parenthèse_: he is an enthusiastic admirer and constant
quoter of Homer, whose Egyptian birth (at Thebes the hundred-gated) he
maintains with all the zeal of a Highlander defending the authenticity
of Ossian; and, on the whole, we cannot but think the author has
scarcely used him well, in not allowing him to live to see his efforts
crowned with success, and to enjoy the honours which would doubtless
have been heaped upon him at the court of Ethiopia.
The author appears to take especial delight in accounts of costumes,
processions, sacrifices, &c.; the details given of which are often
valuable in an antiquarian point of view; and his information upon these
subjects, as well as of the manners of the country in which the scene is
laid, as far as our knowledge of the present day will enable us to
decide, is extremely correct. One of the most curious morceaux of this
sort, is a minute description of the complete armour for horse and man,
worn by the élite of the cavalry in the army of Oroondates; and which,
though probably taken from that used by the troops of the Sassanian
monarchs cotemporary with Heliodorus, is equally applicable to the
period at which the scene is laid; since numerous passages in ancient
authors show, that from the earliest time up to the Mohammedan conquest,
the Persian nobles and heavy cavalry used panoply as impenetrable as the
European chivalry of the middle ages. Among the other scattered traits
of manners, it will be remarked as singular, according to the ideas of
the present day, that open piracy and robbery are neither spoken of as
disreputable, nor as attaching any slur to those who exercised them;
insomuch, that the notoriety of Thyamis, having been a chief of
freebooters, is not regarded as any obstacle to his assumption of the
high-priesthood. But this, it will be found, was strictly in accordance
with the manners of the ancient Greeks, among whom piracy was so far
from being looked upon in any other light than that of an honourable
profession, that Nestor himself, in the third book of the Odyssey, asks
his guests, Telemachus and Mentor, as an ordinary question, whether
business or piracy was the object of their voyage. But the _Bucoli_
(herdsmen or buccaniers,) over whom Thyamis held command, should
probably, notwithstanding their practice of rapine, be regarded not so
much as robbers as in the light of outlaws, who had taken refuge in
these impenetrable marshes from the yoke of the Persians; and their
constant conflicts with the Persian troops, as well as the march of
Thyamis upon Memphis, confirm the opinion that this was the intention of
the author. That these vast marshes of the Delta were in fact,
throughout the period of Persian rule in Egypt, the strongholds of
Egyptian independence, admits of abundant demonstration from the Greek
historians:--it was here, in the mysterious island of Elbo, that
Amyrtæus, (called by Thucydides "the king of the marshes,") held out
after the reconquest of Egypt by Megabysus, B.C. 454, "for they could
not take him on account of the great extent of the marsh; besides which,
the marshmen are the most warlike of all the Egyptians."[66] This view
of the subject has, at least, the advantage of placing Thyamis in a more
respectable light than that of a mere marauder; though his mode of life
under either supposition, would be considered, according to modern
notions, as a strange training for the sacerdotal office.
[Footnote 66: Thuc. i. cap. 110. The island of Elbo, according to
Herodotus, who gives a curious account of the Egyptian marshes and their
inhabitants, had been constructed of _cinders_, in long past times, by a
king who lay concealed for fifty years from the Ethiopians; but no man
knew its situation, till it was again brought to light, after having
been lost for five hundred years, by Amyrtæus.]
Few if any works of fiction have enjoyed so long and widely diffused a
celebrity, as the Ethiopics. Whatever credit may be attached to the
story preserved by Nicephorus, of the deposition of Heliodorus from his
see, it at least affords evidence of the high popularity of the work,
even during the lifetime of the author; and we have the personal
testimony of Nicephorus himself, that in his own time, five centuries
later, it was still regarded with undiminished favour. Down to the fall
of the Greek empire, its style and incidents continued to furnish a
model to all the wretched scribblers who attempted the composition of
romances--nor was its fame confined within the limits of the language in
which it was written. It found a place in the famous library of Matthias
Corvinus at Buda; and the dispersion of that celebrated collection on
the capture of the city by the Ottomans after the battle of Mohácz, in
1526, first made it known to western Europe: the first edition by
Obsopoeus,[67] (printed at Basle in 1534,) having been taken in MS.
which fell into the possession of a soldier on this occasion. Among the
literati of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, its popularity
seems almost to have equalled that which it had enjoyed in its native
country. Tasso, as has already been noticed, borrowed from it the
episode of Clorinda--and Racine (one of whose early productions was also
founded upon it) was, in his younger days, so enthusiastic an admirer of
it, that when the volume was taken from him by his tutor at Port-Royal,
he replied that it mattered little, as he knew the whole by heart! The
numerous translations, however, which have appeared in various
languages, particularly in French and English, are little calculated to
add, by the merits of their execution, to the favour of the work; one
English _poetical_ version in particular, by Lisle, published in 1527,
is one of the most precious specimens of balderdash in existence--a
perfect literary curiosity in its way! Of the others, we need mention
only the French one of Amyot, (1558,) not for its merits, but from the
author's having been rewarded by Henry II. of France with the nomination
to an abbey--as if in tardy compensation to Heliodorus, in the person of
his literary representative, for the see from which the authorship is
said to have caused his expulsion.
[Footnote 67: Of the later editions of the Greek text, the best are
those of Coray, Paris, 1804; and Mitscherlisch, Strasburg, 1797.]
* * * * *