THE SUBLIME
PART TWO
Chapters VII - IX
YOU must know, my dear friend, that
it is
with the sublime as in the common life
of
man. In life nothing can be considered
great
which it is held great to despise.
For instance,
riches, honours, distinctions, sovereignties,
and all other things which possess
in abundance
the external trappings of the stage,
will
not seem, to a man of sense, to be
supreme
blessings, since the very contempt
of them
is reckoned good in no small degree,
and
in any case those who could have them,
but
are high-souled enough to disdain them,
are
more admired than those who have them.
So
also in the case of sublimity in poems
and
prose writings, we must consider whether
some supposed examples have not simply
the
appearance of elevation with many idle
accretions,
so that when analysed they are found
to be
mere vanity--objects which a noble
nature
will rather despise than admire. 2.
For,
as if instinctively, our soul is uplifted
by the true sublime; it takes a proud
flight,
and is filled with joy and vaunting,
as though
it had itself produced what it has
heard.
3. When, therefore, a thing is heard
repeatedly
by a man of intelligence, who is well
versed
in literature, and its effect is not
to dispose
the soul to high thoughts, and it does
not
leave in the mind more food for reflexion
than the words seem to convey, but
falls,
if examined carefully through and through,
into disesteem, it cannot rank as true
sublimity
because it does not survive a first
hearing.
For that is really great which bears
a repeated
examination, and which it is difficult
or
rather impossible to withstand, and
the memory
of which is strong and hard to efface.
4.
In general, consider those examples
of sublimity,
to be fine and genuine which please
all and
always. For when men of different pursuits,
lives, ambitions, ages, languages,
hold identical
views on one and the same subject,
then that
verdict which results, so to speak,
from
a concert of discordant elements makes
our
faith in the object of admiration strong
and unassailable.
VIII There are, it may be said, five
principal
sources of elevated language. Beneath
these
five varieties there lies, as though
it were
a common foundation, the gift of discourse,
which is indispensable. First and most
important
is the power of forming great conceptions,
as we have elsewhere explained in our
remarks
on Xenophon. Secondly, there is vehement
and inspired passion. These two components
of the sublime are for the most part
innate.
Those which remain are partly the product
of art. The due formation of figures
deals
with two sorts of figures, first those
of
thought and secondly those of expression.
Next there is noble diction, which
in turn
comprises choice of words, and use
of metaphors,
and elaboration of language. The fifth
cause
of elevation--one which is the fitting
conclusion
of all that have preceded it--is dignified
and elevated composition. Come now,
let us
consider what is involved in each of
these
varieties, with this one remark by
way of
preface, that Caecilius has omitted
some
of the five divisions, for example,
that
of passion. 2. Surely he is quite mistaken
if he does so on the ground that these
two,
sublimity and passion, are a unity,
and if
it seems to him that they are by nature
one
and inseparable. For some passions
are found
which are far removed from sublimity
and
are of a low order, such as pity, grief
and
fear; and on the other hand there are
many
examples of the sublime which are independent
of passion, such as the daring words
of Homer
with regard to the Aloadae, to take
one out
of numberless instances,
Yea, Ossa in fury they strove to upheave
on Olympus on high,
With forest-clad Pelion above, that
thence
they might step to the sky.
(Odyssey XI. 315-16, at Perseus.)
And so of the words which follow with
still
greater force:--
Ay, and the deed had they done.
(Odyssey XI. 317.)
3. Among the orators, too, eulogies
and ceremonial
and occasional addresses contain on
every
side examples of dignity and elevation,
but
are for the most part void of passion.
This
is the reason why passionate speakers
are
the worst eulogists, and why, on the
other
hand, those who are apt in encomium
are the
least passionate. 4. If, on the other
hand,
Caecilius thought that passion never
contributes
at all to sublimity, and if it was
for this
reason that he did not deem it worthy
of
mention, he is altogether deluded.
I would
affirm with confidence that there is
no tone
so lofty as that of genuine passion,
in its
right place, when it bursts out in
a wild
gust of mad enthusiasm and as it were
fills
the speaker's words with frenzy.
IX Now the first of the conditions
mentioned,
namely elevation of mind, holds the
foremost
rank among them all. We must, therefore,
in this case also, although we have
to do
rather with an endowment than with
an acquirement,
nurture our souls (as far as that is
possible)
to thoughts sublime, and make them
always
pregnant, so to say, with noble inspiration.
2. In what way, you may ask, is this
to be
done? Elsewhere I have written as follows:
'Sublimity is the echo of a great soul.'
Hence also a bare idea, by itself and
without
a spoken word, sometimes excites admiration
just because of the greatness of soul
implied.
Thus the silence of Ajax in the Underworld
is great and more sublime than words
(Odyssey
XI. 543 ff., at Perseus) 3. First,
then,
it is absolutely necessary to indicate
the
source of this elevation, namely, that
the
truly eloquent must be free from low
and
ignoble thoughts. For it is not possible
that men with mean and servile ideas
and
aims prevailing throughout their lives
should
produce anything that is admirable
and worthy
of immortality. Great accents we expect
to
fall from the lips of those whose thoughts
are deep and grave. 4. Thus it is that
stately
speech comes naturally to the proudest
spirits.
[You will remember the answer of] Alexander
to Parmenio when he said 'For my part
I had
been well content [quotation from Arrian].'.........
...... the distance from earth to heaven;
and this might well be considered the
measure
of Homer no less than of Strife. 5.
How unlike
to this the expression which is used
of Sorrow
by Hesiod, if indeed the Shield is
to be
attributed to Hesiod:
Rheum from her nostrils was trickling.
(Shield of Heracles 267, at Perseus)
The image he has suggested is not terrible
but rather loathsome. Contrast the
way in
which Homer magnifies the higher powers:
And far as a man with his eyes through
the
sea-line haze may discern,
On a cliff as he sitteth and gazeth
away
o'er the wine-dark deep,
So far at a bound do the loud-neighing
steeds
of the Deathless leap.
(Iliad 5. 770, at Perseus). He makes
the
vastness of the world the measure of
their
leap. The sublimity is so overpowering
as
naturally to prompt the exclamation
that
if the divine steeds were to leap thus
twice
in succession they would pass beyond
the
confines of the world. 6. How transcendent
also are the images in the Battle of
the
Gods:--
Far round wide heaven and Olympus echoed
his clarion of thunder;
(Iliad 21. 388, at Perseus).
And Hades, king of the realm of shadows,
quaked thereunder.
And he sprang from his throne, and
he cried
aloud in the dread of his heart
Lest o'er him earth-shaker Poseidon
should
cleave the ground apart,
And revealed to Immortals and mortals
should
stand those awful abodes,
Those mansions ghastly and grim, abhorred
of the very Gods.
(Iliad 20. 61-65, at Perseus).
You see, my friend, how the earth is
torn
from its foundations, Tartarus itself
is
laid bare, the whole world is upturned
and
parted asunder, and all things together--heaven
and hell, things mortal and things
immortal--share
in the conflict and the perils of that
battle!
7. But although these things are awe-inspiring,
yet from another point of view, if
they be
not taken allegorically, they are altogether
impious, and violate our sense of what
is
fitting. Homer seems to me, in his
legends
of wounds suffered by the gods, and
of their
feuds, reprisals, tears, bonds, and
all their
manifold passions, to have made, as
far as
lay within his power, gods of the men
concerned
in the Siege of Troy, and men of the
gods.
But whereas we mortals have death as
the
destined haven of our ills if our lot
is
miserable, he portrays the gods as
immortal
not only in nature but also in misfortune.
8. Much superior to the passages respecting
the Battle of the Gods are those which
represent
the divine nature as it really is--pure
and
great and undefiled; for example, what
is
said of Poseidon in a passage fully
treated
by many before ourselves:--
Her far-stretching ridges, her forest-trees,
quaked in dismay,
And her peaks, and the Trojans' town,
and
the ships of Achaia's array,
Beneath his immortal feet, as onward
Poseidon
strode.
Then over the surges he drave: leapt
sporting
before the God
Sea-beasts that uprose all round from
the
depths, for their king they knew,
And for rapture the sea was disparted,
and
onward the car-steeds flew.
(Iliad 13. 18, at Perseus).
9. Similarly, the legislator of the
Jews,
no ordinary man, having formed and
expressed
a worthy conception of the might of
the Godhead,
writes at the very beginning of his
Laws,
'God said'--what? 'Let there be light,
and
there was light; let there be land,
and there
was land'. 10. Perhaps I shall not
seem tedious,
friend, if I bring forward one passage
more
from Homer--this time with regard to
the
concerns of men--in order to show that
he
is wont himself to enter into the sublime
actions of his heroes. In his poem
the battle
of the Greeks is suddenly veiled by
mist
and baffling night. Then Ajax, at his
wits'
end, cries:
Zeus, Father, yet save thou Achaia's
sons
from beneath the gloom,
And make clear day, and vouchsafe unto
us
with our eyes to see!
So it be but in light, destroy us!
(Iliad 17. 645, at Perseus).
That is the true attitude of an Ajax.
He
does not pray for life, for such a
petition
would have ill beseemed a hero. But
since
in the hopeless darkness he can turn
his
valour to no noble end, he chafes at
his
slackness in the fray and craves the
boon
of immediate light, resolved to find
a death
worthy of his bravery, even though
Zeus should
fight in the ranks against him. 11.
In truth,
Homer in these cases shares the full
inspiration
of the combat, and it is neither more
nor
less than true of the poet himself
that
Mad rageth he as Aręs the shaker of
spears,
or as mad flames leap
Wild-wasting from hill unto hill in
the folds
of a forest deep,
And the foam-froth fringeth his lips.
(Perseus, Iliad 15. 605-607). He shows,
however,
in the Odyssey (and this further observation
deserves attention on many grounds)
that,
when a great genius is declining, the
special
token of old age is the love of marvellous
tales.
12. It is clear from many indications
that
the Odyssey was his second subject.
A special
proof is the fact that he introduces
in that
poem remnants of the adventures before
Ilium
as episodes, so to say, of the Trojan
War.
And indeed, he there renders a tribute
of
mourning and lamentation to his heroes
as
though he were carrying out a long-cherished
purpose. In fact, the Odyssey is simply
an
epilogue to the Iliad:--
There lieth Ajax the warrior wight,
Achilles
is there,
There is Patroclus, whose words had
weight
as a God he were;
There lieth mine own dear son.
(Odyssey 3. 109-111, at Perseus)
13. It is for the same reason, I suppose,
that he has made the whole structure
of the
Iliad, which was written at the height
of
his inspiration, full of action and
conflict,
while the Odyssey for the most part
consists
of narrative, as is characteristic
of old
age. Accordingly, in the Odyssey Homer
may
be likened to a sinking sun, whose
grandeur
remains without its intensity. He does
not
in the Odyssey maintain so high a pitch
as
in those poems of Ilium. His sublimities
are not evenly sustained and free from
the
liability to sink; there is not the
same
profusion of accumulated passions,
nor the
supple and oratorical style, packed
with
images drawn from real life. You seem
to
see henceforth the ebb and flow of
greatness,
and a fancy roving in the fabulous
and incredible,
as though the ocean were withdrawing
into
itself and was being laid bare within
its
own confines. 14. In saying this I
have not
forgotten the tempests in the Odyssey
and
the story of the Cyclops and the like.
If
I speak of old age, it is nevertheless
the
old age of Homer. The fabulous element,
however,
prevails throughout this poem over
the real.
The object of this digression has been,
as
I said, to show how easily great natures
in their decline are sometimes diverted
into
absurdity, as in the incident of the
wine-skin
and of the men who were fed like swine
by
Circe (whining porkers, as Zoilus called
them), and of Zeus like a nestling
nurtured
by the doves, and of the hero who was
without
food for ten days upon the wreck, and
of
the incredible tale of the slaying
of the
suitors (Perseus, Odyssey 9. 182; 10.17;
10.237; 12.62; 12.447; 22.79.) For
what else
can we term these things than veritable
dreams
of Zeus? 15. These observations with
regard
to the Odyssey should be made for another
reason-- in order that you may know
that
the genius of great poets and prose-writers,
as their passion declines, finds its
final
expression in the delineation of character.
For such are the details which Homer
gives,
with an eye to characterisation, of
life
in the home of Odysseus; they form
as it
were a comedy of manners.
|
Evans Experientialism 
