{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_17957/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_17957","id":"gutenberg_17957","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17957","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Classics of Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Rhetoric, Ancient","Sublime, The"],"text":"Produced by Louise Hope, Justin Kerk and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n[Transcriber's Note:\nThe printed text shows most sections (Roman numerals) as a continuous\nblock, with chapter numbers in the margin. In this e-text, chapters\nare given as separate paragraphs determined by sentence breaks, with\ncontinuing quotation marks supplied where necessary.\nExcept for footnotes, any brackets are from the original text.\nGreek has been transliterated and shown between +marks+.]\n\n         *       *       *       *       *\n\n                      LONGINUS\n\n                  ON THE SUBLIME\n\n             Translated into English by\n\n                 H. L. HAVELL, B.A.\n   Formerly Scholar of University College, Oxford\n\n              with an Introduction by\n                    ANDREW LANG\n\n\n                       London\n                 MACMILLAN AND CO.\n                    and New York\n                        1890\n\n               _All rights reserved_\n\n\n         *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n                         TO\n\n             S. H. BUTCHER, Esq., LL.D.\n\n Professor of Greek in the University of Edinburgh\n   Formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge\n         and of University College, Oxford\n\n                    This Attempt\n     to Present the Great Thoughts of Longinus\n                 in an English Form\n\n                    Is Dedicated\n\n       in Acknowledgment of the Kind Support\n  but for Which It Might Never Have Seen the Light\n            and of the Benefits of That\n        Instruction to Which It Largely Owes\n    Whatever of Scholarly Quality It May Possess\n\n\n\n\nTRANSLATOR'S PREFACE\n\n\nThe text which has been followed in the present Translation is that\nof Jahn (Bonn, 1867), revised by Vahlen, and republished in 1884. In\nseveral instances it has been found necessary to diverge from Vahlen's\nreadings, such divergencies being duly pointed out in the Notes.\n\nOne word as to the aim and scope of the present Translation. My object\nthroughout has been to make Longinus speak in English, to preserve, as\nfar as lay in my power, the noble fire and lofty tone of the original.\nHow to effect this, without being betrayed into a loose paraphrase, was\nan exceedingly difficult problem. The style of Longinus is in a high\ndegree original, occasionally running into strange eccentricities of\nlanguage; and no one who has not made the attempt can realise the\ndifficulty of giving anything like an adequate version of the more\nelaborate passages. These considerations I submit to those to whom I\nmay seem at first sight to have handled my text too freely.\n\nMy best thanks are due to Dr. Butcher, Professor of Greek in the\nUniversity of Edinburgh, who from first to last has shown a lively\ninterest in the present undertaking which I can never sufficiently\nacknowledge. He has read the Translation throughout, and acting on his\nsuggestions I have been able in numerous instances to bring my version\ninto a closer conformity with the original.\n\nI have also to acknowledge the kindness of the distinguished writer who\nhas contributed the Introduction, and who, in spite of the heavy demands\non his time, has lent his powerful support to help on the work of one\nwho was personally unknown to him.\n\nIn conclusion, I may be allowed to express a hope that the present\nattempt may contribute something to reawaken an interest in an unjustly\nneglected classic.\n\n\n\n\nANALYSIS\n\n\nThe Treatise on the Sublime may be divided into six Parts, as follows:--\n\nI.--cc. i, ii. The Work of Caecilius. Definition of the Sublime.\n  Whether Sublimity falls within the rules of Art.\n\nII.--cc. iii-v. [The beginning lost.] Vices of Style opposed to the\n  Sublime: Affectation, Bombast, False Sentiment, Frigid Conceits.\n  The cause of such defects.\n\nIII.--cc. vi, vii. The true Sublime, what it is, and how\n  distinguishable.\n\nIV.--cc. viii-xl. Five Sources of the Sublime (how Sublimity is related\n  to Passion, c. viii, \u00a7\u00a7 2-4).\n\n  (i.) Grandeur of Thought, cc. ix-xv.\n\n    _a._ As the natural outcome of nobility of soul. Examples (c. ix).\n\n    _b._ Choice of the most striking circumstances. Sappho's Ode (c. x).\n\n    _c._ Amplification. Plato compared with Demosthenes, Demosthenes\n      with Cicero (cc. xi-xiii).\n\n    _d._ Imitation (cc. xiii, xiv).\n\n    _e._ Imagery (c. xv).\n\n  (ii.) Power of moving the Passions (omitted here, because dealt with\n    in a separate work).\n\n  (iii.) Figures of Speech (cc. xvi-xxix).\n\n    _a._ The Figure of Adjuration (c. xvi). The Art to conceal Art\n      (c. xvii).\n\n    _b._ Rhetorical Question (c. xviii).\n\n    _c._ Asyndeton (c. xix-xxi).\n\n    _d._ Hyperbaton (c. xxii).\n\n    _e._ Changes of Number, Person, Tense, etc. (cc. xxiii-xxvii).\n\n    _f._ Periphrasis (cc. xxviii, xxix).\n\n  (iv.) Graceful Expression (cc. xxx-xxxii and xxxvii, xxxviii).\n\n    _a._ Choice of Words (c. xxx).\n\n    _b._ Ornaments of Style (cc. xxxi, xxxii and xxxvii, xxxviii).\n\n      (+a+) On the use of Familiar Words (c. xxxi).\n\n      (+b+) Metaphors; accumulated; extract from the\n        _Timaeus_; abuse of Metaphors; certain tasteless conceits blamed\n        in Plato (c. xxxii).\n        [Hence arises a digression (cc. xxxiii-xxxvi) on the spirit\n        in which we should judge of the faults of great authors.\n        Demosthenes compared with Hyperides, Lysias with Plato.\n        Sublimity, however far from faultless, to be always preferred\n        to a tame correctness.]\n\n      (+g+) Comparisons and Similes [lost] (c. xxxvii).\n\n      (+d+) Hyperbole (c. xxxviii).\n\n  (v.) Dignity and Elevation of Structure (cc. xxxix, xl).\n\n    _a._ Modulation of Syllables (c. xxxix).\n\n    _b._ Composition (c. xl).\n\nV.--cc. xli-xliii. Vices of Style destructive to Sublimity.\n\n  (i.) Abuse of Rhythm           }\n\n  (ii.) Broken and Jerky Clauses } (cc. xli, xlii).\n\n  (iii.) Undue Prolixity         }\n\n  (iv.) Improper Use of Familiar Words. Anti-climax. Example from\n    Theopompus (c. xliii).\n\nVI.--Why this age is so barren of great authors--whether the cause is\nto be sought in a despotic form of government, or, as Longinus rather\nthinks, in the prevailing corruption of manners, and in the sordid and\npaltry views of life which almost universally prevail (c. xliv).\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nTREATISE ON THE SUBLIME\n\n\nBoileau, in his introduction to his version of the ancient Treatise on\nthe Sublime, says that he is making no valueless present to his age. Not\nvalueless, to a generation which talks much about style and method in\nliterature, should be this new rendering of the noble fragment, long\nattributed to Longinus, the Greek tutor and political adviser of\nZenobia. There is, indeed, a modern English version by Spurden,[1] but\nthat is now rare, and seldom comes into the market. Rare, too, is\nVaucher's critical essay (1854), which is unlucky, as the French and\nEnglish books both contain valuable disquisitions on the age of the\nauthor of the Treatise. This excellent work has had curious fortunes. It\nis never quoted nor referred to by any extant classical writer, and,\namong the many books attributed by Suidas to Longinus, it is not\nmentioned. Decidedly the old world has left no more noble relic of\ncriticism. Yet the date of the book is obscure, and it did not come into\nthe hands of the learned in modern Europe till Robertelli and Manutius\neach published editions in 1544. From that time the Treatise has often\nbeen printed, edited, translated; but opinion still floats undecided\nabout its origin and period. Does it belong to the age of Augustus, or\nto the age of Aurelian? Is the author the historical Longinus--the\nfriend of Plotinus, the tutor of Porphyry, the victim of Aurelian,--or\nhave we here a work by an unknown hand more than two centuries earlier?\nManuscripts and traditions are here of little service. The oldest\nmanuscript, that of Paris, is regarded as the parent of the rest. It is\na small quarto of 414 pages, whereof 335 are occupied by the \"Problems\"\nof Aristotle. Several leaves have been lost, hence the fragmentary\ncharacter of the essay. The Paris MS. has an index, first mentioning the\n\"Problems,\" and then +DIONUSIOU \u00ca LONGINOU PERI UPSOUS+, that is, \"The\nwork of Dionysius, or of Longinus, about the Sublime.\"\n\n    [Footnote 1: Longmans, London, 1836.]\n\nOn this showing the transcriber of the MS. considered its authorship\ndubious. Supposing that the author was Dionysius, which of the many\nwriters of that name was he? Again, if he was Longinus, how far does his\nwork tally with the characteristics ascribed to that late critic, and\npeculiar to his age?\n\nAbout this Longinus, while much is written, little is certainly known.\nWas he a descendant of a freedman of one of the Cassii Longini, or of an\neastern family with a mixture of Greek and Roman blood? The author of\nthe Treatise avows himself a Greek, and apologises, as a Greek, for\nattempting an estimate of Cicero. Longinus himself was the nephew and\nheir of Fronto, a Syrian rhetorician of Emesa. Whether Longinus was born\nthere or not, and when he was born, are things uncertain. Porphyry, born\nin 233 A.D., was his pupil: granting that Longinus was twenty years\nPorphyry's senior, he must have come into the world about 213 A.D. He\ntravelled much, studied in many cities, and was the friend of the mystic\nNeoplatonists, Plotinus and Ammonius. The former called him \"a\nphilologist, not a philosopher.\" Porphyry shows us Longinus at a supper\nwhere the plagiarisms of Greek writers are discussed--a topic dear to\ntrivial or spiteful mediocrity. He is best known by his death. As the\nGreek secretary of Zenobia he inspired a haughty answer from the queen\nto Aurelian, who therefore put him to death. Many rhetorical and\nphilosophic treatises are ascribed to him, whereof only fragments\nsurvive. Did he write the Treatise on the Sublime? Modern students\nprefer to believe that the famous essay is, if not by Plutarch, as some\nhold, at least by some author of his age, the age of the early Caesars.\n\nThe arguments for depriving Longinus, Zenobia's tutor, of the credit of\nthe Treatise lie on the surface, and may be briefly stated. He addresses\nhis work as a letter to a friend, probably a Roman pupil, Terentianus,\nwith whom he has been reading a work on the Sublime by Caecilius. Now\nCaecilius, a voluminous critic, certainly lived not later than Plutarch,\nwho speaks of him with a sneer. It is unlikely then that an author, two\ncenturies later, would make the old book of Caecilius the starting-point\nof his own. He would probably have selected some recent or even\ncontemporary rhetorician. Once more, the writer of the Treatise of the\nSublime quotes no authors later than the Augustan period. Had he lived\nas late as the historical Longinus he would surely have sought examples\nof bad style, if not of good, from the works of the Silver Age. Perhaps\nhe would hardly have resisted the malicious pleasure of censuring the\nfailures among whom he lived. On the other hand, if he cites no late\nauthor, no classical author cites him, in spite of the excellence of his\nbook. But we can hardly draw the inference that he was of late date from\nthis purely negative evidence.\n\nAgain, he describes, in a very interesting and earnest manner, the\ncharacteristics of his own period (Translation, pp. 82-86). Why, he is\nasked, has genius become so rare? There are many clever men, but scarce\nany highly exalted and wide-reaching genius. Has eloquence died with\nliberty? \"We have learned the lesson of a benignant despotism, and have\nnever tasted freedom.\" The author answers that it is easy and\ncharacteristic of men to blame the present times. Genius may have been\ncorrupted, not by a world-wide peace, but by love of gain and pleasure,\npassions so strong that \"I fear, for such men as we are it is better to\nserve than to be free. If our appetites were let loose altogether\nagainst our neighbours, they would be like wild beasts uncaged, and\nbring a deluge of calamity on the whole civilised world.\" Melancholy\nwords, and appropriate to our own age, when cleverness is almost\nuniversal, and genius rare indeed, and the choice between liberty and\nservitude hard to make, were the choice within our power.\n\nBut these words assuredly apply closely to the peaceful period of\nAugustus, when Virgil and Horace \"praising their tyrant sang,\" not to\nthe confused age of the historical Longinus. Much has been said of the\nallusion to \"the Lawgiver of the Jews\" as \"no ordinary person,\" but that\nremark might have been made by a heathen acquainted with the Septuagint,\nat either of the disputed dates. On the other hand, our author (Section\nXIII) quotes the critical ideas of \"Ammonius and his school,\" as to the\ndebt of Plato to Homer. Now the historical Longinus was a friend of the\nNeoplatonist teacher (not writer), Ammonius Saccas. If we could be sure\nthat the Ammonius of the Treatise was this Ammonius, the question would\nbe settled in favour of the late date. Our author would be that Longinus\nwho inspired Zenobia to resist Aurelian, and who perished under his\nrevenge. But Ammonius is not a very uncommon name, and we have no reason\nto suppose that the Neoplatonist Ammonius busied himself with the\nliterary criticism of Homer and Plato. There was, among others, an\nEgyptian Ammonius, the tutor of Plutarch.\n\nThese are the mass of the arguments on both sides. M. Egger sums them up\nthus: \"After carefully examining the tradition of the MSS., and the one\nvery late testimony in favour of Longinus, I hesitated for long as to\nthe date of this precious work. In 1854 M. Vaucher[2] inclined me to\nbelieve that Plutarch was the author.[3] All seems to concur towards the\nopinion that, if not Plutarch, at least one of his contemporaries wrote\nthe most original Greek essay in its kind since the _Rhetoric_ and\n_Poetic_ of Aristotle.\"[4]\n\n    [Footnote 2: _Etude Critique sur la trait\u00e9 du Sublime et les ecrits\n    de Longin._ Geneva.]\n\n    [Footnote 3: See also M. Naudet, _Journal des Savants_, Mars 1838,\n    and M. Egger, in the same Journal, May 1884.]\n\n    [Footnote 4: Egger, _Histoire de la Critique chez les Grecs_,\n    p. 426. Paris, 1887.]\n\nWe may, on the whole, agree that the nobility of the author's thought,\nhis habit of quoting nothing more recent than the Augustan age, and his\ndescription of his own time, which seems so pertinent to that epoch,\nmark him as its child rather than as a great critic lost among the\n_somnia Pythagorea_ of the Neoplatonists. On the other hand, if the\nauthor be a man of high heart and courage, as he seems, so was that\nmartyr of independence, Longinus. Not without scruple, then, can we\ndeprive Zenobia's tutor of the glory attached so long to his name.\n\nWhatever its date, and whoever its author may be, the Treatise is\nfragmentary. The lost parts may very probably contain the secret of its\nperiod and authorship. The writer, at the request of his friend,\nTerentianus, and dissatisfied with the essay of Caecilius, sets about\nexamining the nature of the Sublime in poetry and oratory. To the latter\nhe assigns, as is natural, much more literary importance than we do, in\nan age when there is so little oratory of literary merit, and so much\npopular rant. The subject of sublimity must naturally have attracted a\nwriter whose own moral nature was pure and lofty, who was inclined to\ndiscover in moral qualities the true foundation of the highest literary\nmerit. Even in his opening words he strikes the keynote of his own\ndisposition, where he approves the saying that \"the points in which we\nresemble the divine nature are benevolence and love of truth.\" Earlier\nor later born, he must have lived in the midst of literary activity,\ncurious, eager, occupied with petty questions and petty quarrels,\nconcerned, as men in the best times are not very greatly concerned, with\nquestions of technique and detail. Cut off from politics, people found\nin composition a field for their activity. We can readily fancy what\nliterature becomes when not only its born children, but the minor\nbusybodies whose natural place is politics, excluded from these, pour\ninto the study of letters. Love of notoriety, vague activity, fantastic\nindolence, we may be sure, were working their will in the sacred close\nof the Muses. There were literary sets, jealousies, recitations of new\npoems; there was a world of amateurs, if there were no papers and\nparagraphs. To this world the author speaks like a voice from the older\nand graver age of Greece. If he lived late, we can imagine that he did\nnot quote contemporaries, not because he did not know them, but because\nhe estimated them correctly. He may have suffered, as we suffer, from\ncritics who, of all the world's literature, know only \"the last thing\nout,\" and who take that as a standard for the past, to them unfamiliar,\nand for the hidden future. As we are told that excellence is not of the\ngreat past, but of the present, not in the classical masters, but in\nmodern Muscovites, Portuguese, or American young women, so the author of\nthe Treatise may have been troubled by Asiatic eloquence, now long\nforgotten, by names of which not a shadow survives. He, on the other\nhand, has a right to be heard because he has practised a long\nfamiliarity with what is old and good. His mind has ever been in contact\nwith masterpieces, as the mind of a critic should be, as the mind of a\nreviewer seldom is, for the reviewer has to hurry up and down inspecting\nnew literary adventurers. Not among their experiments will he find a\ntouchstone of excellence, a test of greatness, and that test will seldom\nbe applied to contemporary performances. What is the test, after all, of\nthe Sublime, by which our author means the truly great, the best and\nmost passionate thoughts, nature's high and rare inspirations, expressed\nin the best chosen words? He replies that \"a just judgment of style is\nthe final fruit of long experience.\" \"Much has he travelled in the\nrealms of gold.\"\n\nThe word \"style\" has become a weariness to think upon; so much is said,\nso much is printed about the art of expression, about methods, tricks,\nand turns; so many people, without any long experience, set up to be\njudges of style, on the strength of having admired two or three modern\nand often rather fantastic writers. About our author, however, we know\nthat his experience has been long, and of the best, that he does not\nspeak from a hasty acquaintance with a few contemporary _pr\u00e9cieux_ and\n_pr\u00e9cieuses_. The bad writing of his time he traces, as much of our own\nmay be traced, to \"the pursuit of novelty in thought,\" or rather in\nexpression. \"It is this that has turned the brain of nearly all our\nlearned world to-day.\" \"Gardons nous d'\u00e9crire trop bien,\" he might have\nsaid, \"c'est la pire mani\u00e8re qu'il y'ait d'\u00e9crire.\"[5]\n\n    [Footnote 5: M. Anatole France.]\n\nThe Sublime, with which he concerns himself, is \"a certain loftiness and\nexcellence of language,\" which \"takes the reader out of himself.... The\nSublime, acting with an imperious and irresistible force, sways every\nreader whether he will or no.\" In its own sphere the Sublime does what\n\"natural magic\" does in the poetical rendering of nature, and perhaps in\nthe same scarcely-to-be-analysed fashion. Whether this art can be taught\nor not is a question which the author treats with modesty. Then, as now,\npeople were denying (and not unjustly) that this art can be taught by\nrule. The author does not go so far as to say that Criticism, \"unlike\nJustice, does little evil, and little good; that is, _if_ to entertain\nfor a moment delicate and curious minds is to do little good.\" He does\nnot rate his business so low as that. He admits that the inspiration\ncomes from genius, from nature. But \"an author can only learn from art\nwhen he is to abandon himself to the direction of his genius.\" Nature\nmust \"burst out with a kind of fine madness and divine inspiration.\" The\nmadness must be _fine_. How can art aid it to this end? By knowledge of,\nby sympathy and emulation with, \"the great poets and prose writers of\nthe past.\" By these we may be inspired, as the Pythoness by Apollo. From\nthe genius of the past \"an effluence breathes upon us.\" The writer is\nnot to imitate, but to keep before him the perfection of what has been\ndone by the greatest poets. He is to look on them as beacons; he is to\nkeep them as exemplars or ideals. He is to place them as judges of his\nwork. \"How would Homer, how would Demosthenes, have been affected by\nwhat I have written?\" This is practical counsel, and even the most\nflorid modern author, after polishing a paragraph, may tear it up when\nhe has asked himself, \"What would Addison have said about this eloquence\nof mine, or Sainte Beuve, or Mr. Matthew Arnold?\" In this way what we\ncall inspiration, that is the performance of the heated mind, perhaps\nworking at its best, perhaps overstraining itself, and overstating its\nidea, might really be regulated. But they are few who consider so\nclosely, fewer perhaps they who have the heart to cut out their own fine\nor refined things. Again, our author suggests another criterion. We are,\nas in Lamb's phrase, \"to write for antiquity,\" with the souls of poets\ndead and gone for our judges. But we are also to write for the future,\nasking with what feelings posterity will read us--if it reads us at all.\nThis is a good discipline. We know by practice what will hit some\ncontemporary tastes; we know the measure of smartness, say, or the\ndelicate flippancy, or the sentence with \"a dying fall.\" But one should\nalso know that these are fancies of the hour--these and the touch of\narchaism, and the spinster-like and artificial precision, which seem to\nbe points in some styles of the moment. Such reflections as our author\nbids us make, with a little self-respect added, may render our work less\npopular and effective, and certainly are not likely to carry it down to\nremote posterity. But all such reflections, and action in accordance\nwith what they teach, are elements of literary self-respect. It is hard\nto be conscientious, especially hard for him who writes much, and of\nnecessity, and for bread. But conscience is never to be obeyed with\nease, though the ease grows with the obedience. The book attributed to\nLonginus will not have missed its mark if it reminds us that, in\nliterature at least, for conscience there is yet a place, possibly even\na reward, though that is unessential. By virtue of reasonings like\nthese, and by insisting that nobility of style is, as it were, the bloom\non nobility of soul, the Treatise on the Sublime becomes a tonic work,\nwholesome to be read by young authors and old. \"It is natural in us to\nfeel our souls lifted up by the true Sublime, and, conceiving a sort of\ngenerous exultation, to be filled with joy and pride, as though we had\nourselves originated the ideas which we read.\" Here speaks his natural\ndisinterested greatness the author himself is here sublime, and teaches\nby example as well as precept, for few things are purer than a pure and\nardent admiration. The critic is even confident enough to expect to find\nhis own nobility in others, believing that what is truly Sublime \"will\nalways please, and please all readers.\" And in this universal acceptance\nby the populace and the literate, by critics and creators, by young and\nold, he finds the true external canon of sublimity. The verdict lies not\nwith contemporaries, but with the large public, not with the little set\nof dilettanti, but must be spoken by all. Such verdicts assign the crown\nto Shakespeare and Moli\u00e8re, to Homer and Cervantes; we should not\nclamorously anticipate this favourable judgment for Bryant or Emerson,\nnor for the greatest of our own contemporaries. Boileau so much\nmisconceived these lofty ideas that he regarded \"Longinus's\" judgment as\nsolely that \"of good sense,\" and held that, in his time, \"nothing was\ngood or bad till he had spoken.\" But there is far more than good sense,\nthere is high poetic imagination and moral greatness, in the criticism\nof our author, who certainly would have rejected Boileau's compliment\nwhen he selects Longinus as a literary dictator.\n\nIndeed we almost grudge our author's choice of a subject. He who wrote\nthat \"it was not in nature's plan for us, her children, to be base and\nignoble; no, she brought us into life as into some great field of\ncontest,\" should have had another field of contest than literary\ncriticism. It is almost a pity that we have to doubt the tradition,\naccording to which our author was Longinus, and, being but a\nrhetorician, greatly dared and bravely died. Taking literature for his\ntheme, he wanders away into grammar, into considerations of tropes and\nfigures, plurals and singulars, trumpery mechanical pedantries, as we\nthink now, to whom grammar is no longer, as of old, \"a new invented\ngame.\" Moreover, he has to give examples of the faults opposed to\nsublimity, he has to dive into and search the bathos, to dally over\nexamples of the bombastic, the over-wrought, the puerile. These faults\nare not the sins of \"minds generous and aspiring,\" and we have them with\nus always. The additions to Boileau's preface (Paris, 1772) contain\nabundance of examples of faults from Voiture, Mascaron, Bossuet,\nselected by M. de St. Marc, who no doubt found abundance of\nentertainment in the chastising of these obvious affectations. It hardly\nseems the proper work for an author like him who wrote the Treatise on\nthe Sublime. But it is tempting, even now, to give contemporary\ninstances of skill in the Art of Sinking--modern cases of bombast,\ntriviality, false rhetoric. \"Speaking generally, it would seem that\nbombast is one of the hardest things to avoid in writing,\" says an\nauthor who himself avoids it so well. Bombast is the voice of sham\npassion, the shadow of an insincere attitude. \"Even the wretched phantom\nwho still bore the imperial title stooped to pay this ignominious\nblackmail,\" cries bombast in Macaulay's _Lord Clive_. The picture of a\nphantom who is not only a phantom but wretched, stooping to pay\nblackmail which is not only blackmail but ignominious, may divert the\nreader and remind him that the faults of the past are the faults of the\npresent. Again, \"The desolate islands along the sea-coast, overgrown by\nnoxious vegetation, and swarming with deer and tigers\"--do, what does\nany one suppose, perform what forlorn part in the economy of the world?\nWhy, they \"supply the cultivated districts with abundance of salt.\" It\nis as comic as--\n\n  \"And thou Dalhousie, thou great God of War,\n  Lieutenant-Colonel to the Earl of Mar.\"\n\nBombast \"transcends the Sublime,\" and falls on the other side. Our\nauthor gives more examples of puerility. \"Slips of this sort are made by\nthose who, aiming at brilliancy, polish, and especially attractiveness,\nare landed in paltriness and silly affectation.\" Some modern instances\nwe had chosen; the field of choice is large and richly fertile in those\nblossoms. But the reader may be left to twine a garland of them for\nhimself; to select from contemporaries were invidious, and might provoke\nretaliation. When our author censures Timaeus for saying that Alexander\ntook less time to annex Asia than Isocrates spent in writing an oration,\nto bid the Greeks attack Persia, we know what he would have thought of\nMacaulay's antithesis. He blames Xenophon for a poor pun, and Plato,\nless justly, for mere figurative badinage. It would be an easy task to\nransack contemporaries, even great contemporaries, for similar failings,\nfor pomposity, for the florid, for sentences like processions of\nintoxicated torch-bearers, for pedantic display of cheap erudition, for\nmisplaced flippancy, for nice derangement of epitaphs wherein no\nadjective is used which is appropriate. With a library of cultivated\nAmerican novelists and uncultivated English romancers at hand, with our\nown voluminous essays, and the essays and histories and \"art criticisms\"\nof our neighbours to draw from, no student need lack examples of what is\nwrong. He who writes, reflecting on his own innumerable sins, can but\nbeat his breast, cry _Mea Culpa_, and resist the temptation to beat the\nbreasts of his coevals. There are not many authors, there have never\nbeen many, who did not need to turn over the treatise of the Sublime by\nday and night.[6]\n\n    [Footnote 6: The examples of bombast used to be drawn as late as\n    Spurden's translation (1836), from Lee, from _Troilus and Cressida_,\n    and _The Taming of the Shrew_. Cowley and Crashaw furnished\n    instances of conceits; Waller, Young, and Hayley of frigidity;\n    and Darwin of affectation.\n        \"What beaux and beauties crowd the gaudy groves,\n        And woo and win their _vegetable loves_\"--\n    a phrase adopted--\"vapid vegetable loves\"--by the Laureate in\n    \"The Talking Oak.\"]\n\nAs a literary critic of Homer our author is most interesting even in his\nerrors. He compares the poet of the _Odyssey_ to the sunset: the _Iliad_\nis noonday work, the _Odyssey_ is touched with the glow of evening--the\nsoftness and the shadows. \"Old age naturally leans,\" like childhood,\n\"towards the fabulous.\" The tide has flowed back, and left dim bulks of\nthings on the long shadowy sands. Yet he makes an exception, oddly\nenough, in favour of the story of the Cyclops, which really is the most\nfabulous and crude of the fairy tales in the first and greatest of\nromances. The Slaying of the Wooers, that admirable fight, worthy of a\nsaga, he thinks too improbable, and one of the \"trifles into which\nsecond childhood is apt to be betrayed.\" He fancies that the aged Homer\nhad \"lost his power of depicting the passions\"; in fact, he is hardly a\ncompetent or sympathetic critic of the _Odyssey_. Perhaps he had lived\namong Romans till he lost his sense of humour; perhaps he never had any\nto lose. On the other hand, he preserved for us that inestimable and not\nto be translated fragment of Sappho--+phainetai moi k\u00eanos isos\ntheoisin+.\n\nIt is curious to find him contrasting Apollonius Rhodius as faultless,\nwith Homer as great but faulty. The \"faultlessness\" of Apollonius is\nnot his merit, for he is often tedious, and he has little skill in\nselection; moreover, he is deliberately antiquarian, if not pedantic.\nHis true merit is in his original and, as we think, modern telling of a\nlove tale--pure, passionate, and tender, the first in known literature.\nMedea is often sublime, and always touching. But it is not on these\nmerits that our author lingers; he loves only the highest literature,\nand, though he finds spots on the sun and faults in Homer, he condones\nthem as oversights passed in the poet's \"contempt of little things.\"\n\nSuch for us to-day are the lessons of Longinus. He traces dignity and\nfire of style to dignity and fire of soul. He detects and denounces the\nvery faults of which, in each other, all writers are conscious, and\nwhich he brings home to ourselves. He proclaims the essential merits of\nconviction, and of selection. He sets before us the noblest examples of\nthe past, most welcome in a straining age which tries already to live in\nthe future. He admonishes and he inspires. He knows the \"marvellous\npower and enthralling charm of appropriate and striking words\" without\ndropping into mere word-tasting. \"Beautiful words are the very light of\nthought,\" he says, but does not maunder about the \"colour\" of words, in\nthe style of the decadence. And then he \"leaves this generation to its\nfate,\" and calmly turns himself to the work that lies nearest his hand.\n\nTo us he is as much a moral as a literary teacher. We admire that Roman\ngreatness of soul in a Greek, and the character of this unknown man, who\ncarried the soul of a poet, the heart of a hero under the gown of a\nprofessor. He was one of those whom books cannot debilitate, nor a life\nof study incapacitate for the study of life.\n\n  A. L.\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n1\nThe treatise of Caecilius on the Sublime, when, as you remember, my dear\nTerentian, we examined it together, seemed to us to be beneath the\ndignity of the whole subject, to fail entirely in seizing the salient\npoints, and to offer little profit (which should be the principal aim of\nevery writer) for the trouble of its perusal. There are two things\nessential to a technical treatise: the first is to define the subject;\nthe second (I mean second in order, as it is by much the first in\nimportance) to point out how and by what methods we may become masters\nof it ourselves. And yet Caecilius, while wasting his efforts in a\nthousand illustrations of the nature of the Sublime, as though here we\nwere quite in the dark, somehow passes by as immaterial the question how\nwe might be able to exalt our own genius to a certain degree of progress\nin sublimity. However, perhaps it would be fairer to commend this\nwriter's intelligence and zeal in themselves, instead of blaming him for\nhis omissions.\n\n2\nAnd since you have bidden me also to put together, if only for your\nentertainment, a few notes on the subject of the Sublime, let me see if\nthere is anything in my speculations which promises advantage to men of\naffairs. In you, dear friend--such is my confidence in your abilities,\nand such the part which becomes you--I look for a sympathising and\ndiscerning[1] critic of the several parts of my treatise. For that was a\njust remark of his who pronounced that the points in which we resemble\nthe divine nature are benevolence and love of truth.\n\n    [Footnote 1: Reading +philophronestata kai al\u00eathestata+.]\n\n3\nAs I am addressing a person so accomplished in literature, I need only\nstate, without enlarging further on the matter, that the Sublime,\nwherever it occurs, consists in a certain loftiness and excellence of\nlanguage, and that it is by this, and this only, that the greatest poets\nand prose-writers have gained eminence, and won themselves a lasting\nplace in the Temple of Fame.\n\n4\nA lofty passage does not convince the reason of the reader, but takes\nhim out of himself. That which is admirable ever confounds our judgment,\nand eclipses that which is merely reasonable or agreeable. To believe or\nnot is usually in our own power; but the Sublime, acting with an\nimperious and irresistible force, sways every reader whether he will or\nno. Skill in invention, lucid arrangement and disposition of facts, are\nappreciated not by one passage, or by two, but gradually manifest\nthemselves in the general structure of a work; but a sublime thought, if\nhappily timed, illumines[2] an entire subject with the vividness of a\nlightning-flash, and exhibits the whole power of the orator in a moment\nof time. Your own experience, I am sure, my dearest Terentian, would\nenable you to illustrate these and similar points of doctrine.\n\n    [Footnote 2: Reading +dieph\u00f4tisen+.]\n\n\nII\n\nThe first question which presents itself for solution is whether there\nis any art which can teach sublimity or loftiness in writing. For some\nhold generally that there is mere delusion in attempting to reduce such\nsubjects to technical rules. \"The Sublime,\" they tell us, \"is born in a\nman, and not to be acquired by instruction; genius is the only master\nwho can teach it. The vigorous products of nature\" (such is their view)\n\"are weakened and in every respect debased, when robbed of their flesh\nand blood by frigid technicalities.\"\n\n2\nBut I maintain that the truth can be shown to stand otherwise in this\nmatter. Let us look at the case in this way; Nature in her loftier and\nmore passionate moods, while detesting all appearance of restraint, is\nnot wont to show herself utterly wayward and reckless; and though in all\ncases the vital informing principle is derived from her, yet to\ndetermine the right degree and the right moment, and to contribute the\nprecision of practice and experience, is the peculiar province of\nscientific method. The great passions, when left to their own blind and\nrash impulses without the control of reason, are in the same danger as a\nship let drive at random without ballast. Often they need the spur, but\nsometimes also the curb.\n\n3\nThe remark of Demosthenes with regard to human life in general,--that\nthe greatest of all blessings is to be fortunate, but next to that and\nequal in importance is to be well advised,--for good fortune is utterly\nruined by the absence of good counsel,--may be applied to literature, if\nwe substitute genius for fortune, and art for counsel. Then, again (and\nthis is the most important point of all), a writer can only learn from\nart when he is to abandon himself to the direction of his genius.[1]\n\n    [Footnote 1: Literally, \"But the most important point of all is that\n    the actual fact that there are some parts of literature which are in\n    the power of natural genius alone, must be learnt from no other\n    source than from art.\"]\n\nThese are the considerations which I submit to the unfavourable critic\nof such useful studies. Perhaps they may induce him to alter his opinion\nas to the vanity and idleness of our present investigations.\n\n\nIII\n\n  ... \"And let them check the stove's long tongues of fire:\n  For if I see one tenant of the hearth,\n  I'll thrust within one curling torrent flame,\n  And bring that roof in ashes to the ground:\n  But now not yet is sung my noble lay.\"[1]\n\nSuch phrases cease to be tragic, and become burlesque,--I mean phrases\nlike \"curling torrent flames\" and \"vomiting to heaven,\" and representing\nBoreas as a piper, and so on. Such expressions, and such images, produce\nan effect of confusion and obscurity, not of energy; and if each\nseparately be examined under the light of criticism, what seemed\nterrible gradually sinks into absurdity. Since then, even in tragedy,\nwhere the natural dignity of the subject makes a swelling diction\nallowable, we cannot pardon a tasteless grandiloquence, how much more\nincongruous must it seem in sober prose!\n\n    [Footnote 1: Aeschylus in his lost _Oreithyia_.]\n\n2\nHence we laugh at those fine words of Gorgias of Leontini, such as\n\"Xerxes the Persian Zeus\" and \"vultures, those living tombs,\" and at\ncertain conceits of Callisthenes which are high-flown rather than\nsublime, and at some in Cleitarchus more ludicrous still--a writer whose\nfrothy style tempts us to travesty Sophocles and say, \"He blows a little\npipe, and blows it ill.\" The same faults may be observed in Amphicrates\nand Hegesias and Matris, who in their frequent moments (as they think)\nof inspiration, instead of playing the genius are simply playing the\nfool.\n\n3\nSpeaking generally, it would seem that bombast is one of the hardest\nthings to avoid in writing. For all those writers who are ambitious of a\nlofty style, through dread of being convicted of feebleness and poverty\nof language, slide by a natural gradation into the opposite extreme.\n\"Who fails in great endeavour, nobly fails,\" is their creed.\n\n4\nNow bulk, when hollow and affected, is always objectionable, whether in\nmaterial bodies or in writings, and in danger of producing on us an\nimpression of littleness: \"nothing,\" it is said, \"is drier than a man\nwith the dropsy.\"\n\nThe characteristic, then, of bombast is that it transcends the Sublime:\nbut there is another fault diametrically opposed to grandeur: this is\ncalled puerility, and it is the failing of feeble and narrow\nminds,--indeed, the most ignoble of all vices in writing. By puerility\nwe mean a pedantic habit of mind, which by over-elaboration ends in\nfrigidity. Slips of this sort are made by those who, aiming at\nbrilliancy, polish, and especially attractiveness, are landed in\npaltriness and silly affectation.\n\n5\nClosely associated with this is a third sort of vice, in dealing with\nthe passions, which Theodorus used to call false sentiment, meaning by\nthat an ill-timed and empty display of emotion, where no emotion is\ncalled for, or of greater emotion than the situation warrants. Thus we\noften see an author hurried by the tumult of his mind into tedious\ndisplays of mere personal feeling which has no connection with the\nsubject. Yet how justly ridiculous must an author appear, whose most\nviolent transports leave his readers quite cold! However, I will dismiss\nthis subject, as I intend to devote a separate work to the treatment of\nthe pathetic in writing.\n\n\nIV\n\nThe last of the faults which I mentioned is frequently observed in\nTimaeus--I mean the fault of frigidity. In other respects he is an able\nwriter, and sometimes not unsuccessful in the loftier style; a man of\nwide knowledge, and full of ingenuity; a most bitter critic of the\nfailings of others--but unhappily blind to his own. In his eagerness to\nbe always striking out new thoughts he frequently falls into the most\nchildish absurdities.\n\n2\nI will only instance one or two passages, as most of them have been\npointed out by Caecilius. Wishing to say something very fine about\nAlexander the Great he speaks of him as a man \"who annexed the whole of\nAsia in fewer years than Isocrates spent in writing his panegyric\noration in which he urges the Greeks to make war on Persia.\" How strange\nis the comparison of the \"great Emathian conqueror\" with an Athenian\nrhetorician! By this mode of reasoning it is plain that the Spartans\nwere very inferior to Isocrates in courage, since it took them thirty\nyears to conquer Messene, while he finished the composition of this\nharangue in ten.\n\n3\nObserve, too, his language on the Athenians taken in Sicily. \"They paid\nthe penalty for their impious outrage on Hermes in mutilating his\nstatues; and the chief agent in their destruction was one who was\ndescended on his father's side from the injured deity--Hermocrates, son\nof Hermon.\" I wonder, my dearest Terentian, how he omitted to say of the\ntyrant Dionysius that for his impiety towards Zeus and Herakles he was\ndeprived of his power by Dion and Herakleides.\n\n4\nYet why speak of Timaeus, when even men like Xenophon and Plato--the\nvery demi-gods of literature--though they had sat at the feet of\nSocrates, sometimes forgot themselves in the pursuit of such paltry\nconceits. The former, in his account of the Spartan Polity, has these\nwords: \"Their voice you would no more hear than if they were of marble,\ntheir gaze is as immovable as if they were cast in bronze; you would\ndeem them more modest than the very maidens in their eyes.\"[1] To speak\nof the pupils of the eye as \"modest maidens\" was a piece of absurdity\nbecoming Amphicrates[2] rather than Xenophon. And then what a strange\ndelusion to suppose that modesty is always without exception expressed\nin the eye! whereas it is commonly said that there is nothing by which\nan impudent fellow betrays his character so much as by the expression of\nhis eyes. Thus Achilles addresses Agamemnon in the _Iliad_ as \"drunkard,\nwith eye of dog.\"[3]\n\n    [Footnote 1: _Xen. de Rep. Laced._ 3, 5.]\n\n    [Footnote 2: C. iii. sect. 2.]\n\n    [Footnote 3: _Il._ i. 225.]\n\n5\nTimaeus, however, with that want of judgment which characterises\nplagiarists, could not leave to Xenophon the possession of even this\npiece of frigidity. In relating how Agathocles carried off his cousin,\nwho was wedded to another man, from the festival of the unveiling, he\nasks, \"Who could have done such a deed, unless he had harlots instead of\nmaidens in his eyes?\"\n\n6\nAnd Plato himself, elsewhere so supreme a master of style, meaning to\ndescribe certain recording tablets, says, \"They shall write, and deposit\nin the temples memorials of cypress wood\";[4] and again, \"Then\nconcerning walls, Megillus, I give my vote with Sparta that we should\nlet them lie asleep within the ground, and not awaken them.\"[5]\n\n    [Footnote 4: _Plat. de Legg._ v. 741, C.]\n\n    [Footnote 5: _Ib._ vi. 778, D.]\n\n7\nAnd Herodotus falls pretty much under the same censure, when he speaks\nof beautiful women as \"tortures to the eye,\"[6] though here there is\nsome excuse, as the speakers in this passage are drunken barbarians.\nStill, even from dramatic motives, such errors in taste should not be\npermitted to deface the pages of an immortal work.\n\n    [Footnote 6: v. 18.]\n\n\nV\n\nNow all these glaring improprieties of language may be traced to one\ncommon root--the pursuit of novelty in thought. It is this that has\nturned the brain of nearly all the learned world of to-day. Human\nblessings and human ills commonly flow from the same source: and, to\napply this principle to literature, those ornaments of style, those\nsublime and delightful images, which contribute to success, are the\nfoundation and the origin, not only of excellence, but also of failure.\nIt is thus with the figures called transitions, and hyperboles, and the\nuse of plurals for singulars. I shall show presently the dangers which\nthey seem to involve. Our next task, therefore, must be to propose and\nto settle the question how we may avoid the faults of style related to\nsublimity.\n\n\nVI\n\nOur best hope of doing this will be first of all to grasp some definite\ntheory and criterion of the true Sublime. Nevertheless this is a hard\nmatter; for a just judgment of style is the final fruit of long\nexperience; still, I believe that the way I shall indicate will enable\nus to distinguish between the true and false Sublime, so far as it can\nbe done by rule.\n\n\nVII\n\nIt is proper to observe that in human life nothing is truly great which\nis despised by all elevated minds. For example, no man of sense can\nregard wealth, honour, glory, and power, or any of those things which\nare surrounded by a great external parade of pomp and circumstance, as\nthe highest blessings, seeing that merely to despise such things is a\nblessing of no common order: certainly those who possess them are\nadmired much less than those who, having the opportunity to acquire\nthem, through greatness of soul neglect it. Now let us apply this\nprinciple to the Sublime in poetry or in prose; let us ask in all cases,\nis it merely a specious sublimity? is this gorgeous exterior a mere\nfalse and clumsy pageant, which if laid open will be found to conceal\nnothing but emptiness? for if so, a noble mind will scorn instead of\nadmiring it.\n\n2\nIt is natural to us to feel our souls lifted up by the true Sublime, and\nconceiving a sort of generous exultation to be filled with joy and\npride, as though we had ourselves originated the ideas which we read.\n\n3\nIf then any work, on being repeatedly submitted to the judgment of an\nacute and cultivated critic, fails to dispose his mind to lofty ideas;\nif the thoughts which it suggests do not extend beyond what is actually\nexpressed; and if, the longer you read it, the less you think of\nit,--there can be here no true sublimity, when the effect is not\nsustained beyond the mere act of perusal. But when a passage is pregnant\nin suggestion, when it is hard, nay impossible, to distract the\nattention from it, and when it takes a strong and lasting hold on the\nmemory, then we may be sure that we have lighted on the true Sublime.\n\n4\nIn general we may regard those words as truly noble and sublime which\nalways please and please all readers. For when the same book always\nproduces the same impression on all who read it, whatever be the\ndifference in their pursuits, their manner of life, their aspirations,\ntheir ages, or their language, such a harmony of opposites gives\nirresistible authority to their favourable verdict.\n\n\nVIII\n\nI shall now proceed to enumerate the five principal sources, as we may\ncall them, from which almost all sublimity is derived, assuming, of\ncourse, the preliminary gift on which all these five sources depend,\nnamely, command of language. The first and the most important is (1)\ngrandeur of thought, as I have pointed out elsewhere in my work on\nXenophon. The second is (2) a vigorous and spirited treatment of the\npassions. These two conditions of sublimity depend mainly on natural\nendowments, whereas those which follow derive assistance from Art. The\nthird is (3) a certain artifice in the employment of figures, which are\nof two kinds, figures of thought and figures of speech. The fourth is\n(4) dignified expression, which is sub-divided into (_a_) the proper\nchoice of words, and (_b_) the use of metaphors and other ornaments of\ndiction. The fifth cause of sublimity, which embraces all those\npreceding, is (5) majesty and elevation of structure. Let us consider\nwhat is involved in each of these five forms separately.\n\nI must first, however, remark that some of these five divisions are\nomitted by Caecilius; for instance, he says nothing about the passions.\n\n2\nNow if he made this omission from a belief that the Sublime and the\nPathetic are one and the same thing, holding them to be always\ncoexistent and interdependent, he is in error. Some passions are found\nwhich, so far from being lofty, are actually low, such as pity, grief,\nfear; and conversely, sublimity is often not in the least affecting, as\nwe may see (among innumerable other instances) in those bold expressions\nof our great poet on the sons of Alo\u00ebus--\n\n                    \"Highly they raged\n  To pile huge Ossa on the Olympian peak,\n  And Pelion with all his waving trees\n  On Ossa's crest to raise, and climb the sky;\"\n\nand the yet more tremendous climax--\n\n  \"And now had they accomplished it.\"\n\n3\nAnd in orators, in all passages dealing with panegyric, and in all the\nmore imposing and declamatory places, dignity and sublimity play an\nindispensable part; but pathos is mostly absent. Hence the most pathetic\norators have usually but little skill in panegyric, and conversely those\nwho are powerful in panegyric generally fail in pathos.\n\n4\nIf, on the other hand, Caecilius supposed that pathos never contributes\nto sublimity, and this is why he thought it alien to the subject, he is\nentirely deceived. For I would confidently pronounce that nothing is so\nconducive to sublimity as an appropriate display of genuine passion,\nwhich bursts out with a kind of \"fine madness\" and divine inspiration,\nand falls on our ears like the voice of a god.\n\n\nIX\n\nI have already said that of all these five conditions of the Sublime the\nmost important is the first, that is, a certain lofty cast of mind.\nTherefore, although this is a faculty rather natural than acquired,\nnevertheless it will be well for us in this instance also to train up\nour souls to sublimity, and make them as it were ever big with noble\nthoughts.\n\n2\nHow, it may be asked, is this to be done? I have hinted elsewhere in my\nwritings that sublimity is, so to say, the image of greatness of soul.\nHence a thought in its naked simplicity, even though unuttered, is\nsometimes admirable by the sheer force of its sublimity; for instance,\nthe silence of Ajax in the eleventh _Odyssey_[1] is great, and grander\nthan anything he could have said.\n\n    [Footnote 1: _Od._ xi. 543.]\n\n3\nIt is absolutely essential, then, first of all to settle the question\nwhence this grandeur of conception arises; and the answer is that true\neloquence can be found only in those whose spirit is generous and\naspiring. For those whose whole lives are wasted in paltry and illiberal\nthoughts and habits cannot possibly produce any work worthy of the\nlasting reverence of mankind. It is only natural that their words should\nbe full of sublimity whose thoughts are full of majesty.\n\n4\nHence sublime thoughts belong properly to the loftiest minds. Such was\nthe reply of Alexander to his general Parmenio, when the latter had\nobserved, \"Were I Alexander, I should have been satisfied\"; \"And I, were\nI Parmenio\"...\n\nThe distance between heaven and earth[1]--a measure, one might say, not\nless appropriate to Homer's genius than to the stature of his discord.\n\n    [Footnote 1: _Il._ iv. 442.]\n\n5\nHow different is that touch of Hesiod's in his description of sorrow--if\nthe _Shield_ is really one of his works: \"rheum from her nostrils\nflowed\"[2]--an image not terrible, but disgusting. Now consider how\nHomer gives dignity to his divine persons--\n\n  \"As far as lies his airy ken, who sits\n  On some tall crag, and scans the wine-dark sea:\n  So far extends the heavenly coursers' stride.\"[3]\n\nHe measures their speed by the extent of the whole world--a grand\ncomparison, which might reasonably lead us to remark that if the divine\nsteeds were to take two such leaps in succession, they would find no\nroom in the world for another.\n\n    [Footnote 2: _Scut. Herc._ 267.]\n\n    [Footnote 3: _Il._ v. 770.]\n\n6\nSublime also are the images in the \"Battle of the Gods\"--\n\n                      \"A trumpet sound\n  Rang through the air, and shook the Olympian height;\n  Then terror seized the monarch of the dead,\n  And springing from his throne he cried aloud\n  With fearful voice, lest the earth, rent asunder\n  By Neptune's mighty arm, forthwith reveal\n  To mortal and immortal eyes those halls\n  So drear and dank, which e'en the gods abhor.\"[4]\n\nEarth rent from its foundations! Tartarus itself laid bare! The whole\nworld torn asunder and turned upside down! Why, my dear friend, this is\na perfect hurly-burly, in which the whole universe, heaven and hell,\nmortals and immortals, share the conflict and the peril.\n\n    [Footnote 4: _Il._ xxi. 388; xx. 61.]\n\n7\nA terrible picture, certainly, but (unless perhaps it is to be taken\nallegorically) downright impious, and overstepping the bounds of\ndecency. It seems to me that the strange medley of wounds, quarrels,\nrevenges, tears, bonds, and other woes which makes up the Homeric\ntradition of the gods was designed by its author to degrade his deities,\nas far as possible, into men, and exalt his men into deities--or rather,\nhis gods are worse off than his human characters, since we, when we are\nunhappy, have a haven from ills in death, while the gods, according to\nhim, not only live for ever, but live for ever in misery.\n\n8\nFar to be preferred to this description of the Battle of the Gods are\nthose passages which exhibit the divine nature in its true light, as\nsomething spotless, great, and pure, as, for instance, a passage which\nhas often been handled by my predecessors, the lines on Poseidon:--\n\n  \"Mountain and wood and solitary peak,\n  The ships Achaian, and the towers of Troy,\n  Trembled beneath the god's immortal feet.\n  Over the waves he rode, and round him played,\n  Lured from the deeps, the ocean's monstrous brood,\n  With uncouth gambols welcoming their lord:\n  The charm\u00e8d billows parted: on they flew.\"[5]\n\n    [Footnote 5: _Il._ xiii. 18; xx. 60; xiii. 19, 27.]\n\n9\nAnd thus also the lawgiver of the Jews, no ordinary man, having formed\nan adequate conception of the Supreme Being, gave it adequate expression\nin the opening words of his \"Laws\": \"God said\"--what?--\"let there be\nlight, and there was light: let there be land, and there was.\"\n\n10\nI trust you will not think me tedious if I quote yet one more passage\nfrom our great poet (referring this time to human characters) in\nillustration of the manner in which he leads us with him to heroic\nheights. A sudden and baffling darkness as of night has overspread the\nranks of his warring Greeks. Then Ajax in sore perplexity cries aloud--\n\n                \"Almighty Sire,\n  Only from darkness save Achaia's sons;\n  No more I ask, but give us back the day;\n  Grant but our sight, and slay us, if thou wilt.\"[6]\n\nThe feelings are just what we should look for in Ajax. He does not, you\nobserve, ask for his life--such a request would have been unworthy of\nhis heroic soul--but finding himself paralysed by darkness, and\nprohibited from employing his valour in any noble action, he chafes\nbecause his arms are idle, and prays for a speedy return of light. \"At\nleast,\" he thinks, \"I shall find a warrior's grave, even though Zeus\nhimself should fight against me.\"\n\n    [Footnote 6: _Il._ xvii. 645.]\n\n11\nIn such passages the mind of the poet is swept along in the whirlwind of\nthe struggle, and, in his own words, he\n\n      \"Like the fierce war-god, raves, or wasting fire\n  Through the deep thickets on a mountain-side;\n  His lips drop foam.\"[7]\n\n    [Footnote 7: _Il._ xv. 605.]\n\n12\nBut there is another and a very interesting aspect of Homer's mind. When\nwe turn to the _Odyssey_ we find occasion to observe that a great\npoetical genius in the decline of power which comes with old age\nnaturally leans towards the fabulous. For it is evident that this work\nwas composed after the _Iliad_, in proof of which we may mention, among\nmany other indications, the introduction in the _Odyssey_ of the sequel\nto the story of his heroes' adventures at Troy, as so many additional\nepisodes in the Trojan war, and especially the tribute of sorrow and\nmourning which is paid in that poem to departed heroes, as if in\nfulfilment of some previous design. The _Odyssey_ is, in fact, a sort of\nepilogue to the _Iliad_--\n\n  \"There warrior Ajax lies, Achilles there,\n  And there Patroclus, godlike counsellor;\n  There lies my own dear son.\"[8]\n\n    [Footnote 8: _Od._ iii. 109.]\n\n13\nAnd for the same reason, I imagine, whereas in the _Iliad_, which was\nwritten when his genius was in its prime, the whole structure of the\npoem is founded on action and struggle, in the _Odyssey_ he generally\nprefers the narrative style, which is proper to old age. Hence Homer in\nhis _Odyssey_ may be compared to the setting sun: he is still as great\nas ever, but he has lost his fervent heat. The strain is now pitched to\na lower key than in the \"Tale of Troy divine\": we begin to miss that\nhigh and equable sublimity which never flags or sinks, that continuous\ncurrent of moving incidents, those rapid transitions, that force of\neloquence, that opulence of imagery which is ever true to Nature. Like\nthe sea when it retires upon itself and leaves its shores waste and\nbare, henceforth the tide of sublimity begins to ebb, and draws us away\ninto the dim region of myth and legend.\n\n14\nIn saying this I am not forgetting the fine storm-pieces in the\n_Odyssey_, the story of the Cyclops,[9] and other striking passages. It\nis Homer grown old I am discussing, but still it is Homer. Yet in every\none of these passages the mythical predominates over the real.\n\nMy purpose in making this digression was, as I said, to point out into\nwhat trifles the second childhood of genius is too apt to be betrayed;\nsuch, I mean, as the bag in which the winds are confined,[10] the\ntale of Odysseus's comrades being changed by Circe into swine[11]\n(\"whimpering porkers\" Zo\u00eflus called them), and how Zeus was fed like\na nestling by the doves,[12] and how Odysseus passed ten nights on the\nshipwreck without food,[13] and the improbable incidents in the slaying\nof the suitors.[14] When Homer nods like this, we must be content to say\nthat he dreams as Zeus might dream.\n\n    [Footnote 9: _Od._ ix. 182.]\n\n    [Footnote 10: _Od._ x. 17.]\n\n    [Footnote 11: _Od._ x. 237.]\n\n    [Footnote 12: _Od._ xii. 62.]\n\n    [Footnote 13: _Od._ xii. 447.]\n\n    [Footnote 14: _Od._ xxii. _passim_.]\n\n15\nAnother reason for these remarks on the _Odyssey_ is that I wished to\nmake you understand that great poets and prose-writers, after they have\nlost their power of depicting the passions, turn naturally to the\ndelineation of character. Such, for instance, is the lifelike and\ncharacteristic picture of the palace of Odysseus, which may be called a\nsort of comedy of manners.\n\n\nX\n\nLet us now consider whether there is anything further which conduces to\nthe Sublime in writing. It is a law of Nature that in all things there\nare certain constituent parts, coexistent with their substance. It\nnecessarily follows, therefore, that one cause of sublimity is the\nchoice of the most striking circumstances involved in whatever we are\ndescribing, and, further, the power of afterwards combining them into\none animate whole. The reader is attracted partly by the selection of\nthe incidents, partly by the skill which has welded them together. For\ninstance, Sappho, in dealing with the passionate manifestations\nattending on the frenzy of lovers, always chooses her strokes from the\nsigns which she has observed to be actually exhibited in such cases. But\nher peculiar excellence lies in the felicity with which she chooses and\nunites together the most striking and powerful features.\n\n2\n  \"I deem that man divinely blest\n  Who sits, and, gazing on thy face,\n  Hears thee discourse with eloquent lips,\n      And marks thy lovely smile.\n  This, this it is that made my heart\n  So wildly flutter in my breast;\n  Whene'er I look on thee, my voice\n      Falters, and faints, and fails;\n  My tongue's benumbed; a subtle fire\n  Through all my body inly steals;\n  Mine eyes in darkness reel and swim;\n      Strange murmurs drown my ears;\n  With dewy damps my limbs are chilled;\n  An icy shiver shakes my frame;\n  Paler than ashes grows my cheek;\n      And Death seems nigh at hand.\"\n\n3\nIs it not wonderful how at the same moment soul, body, ears, tongue,\neyes, colour, all fail her, and are lost to her as completely as if they\nwere not her own? Observe too how her sensations contradict one\nanother--she freezes, she burns, she raves, she reasons, and all at the\nsame instant. And this description is designed to show that she is\nassailed, not by any particular emotion, but by a tumult of different\nemotions. All these tokens belong to the passion of love; but it is in\nthe choice, as I said, of the most striking features, and in the\ncombination of them into one picture, that the perfection of this Ode of\nSappho's lies. Similarly Homer in his descriptions of tempests always\npicks out the most terrific circumstances.\n\n4\nThe poet of the \"Arimaspeia\" intended the following lines to be grand--\n\n  \"Herein I find a wonder passing strange,\n    That men should make their dwelling on the deep,\n  Who far from land essaying bold to range\n    With anxious heart their toilsome vigils keep;\n    Their eyes are fixed on heaven's starry steep;\n  The ravening billows hunger for their lives;\n    And oft each shivering wretch, constrained to weep,\n  With suppliant hands to move heaven's pity strives,\n  While many a direful qualm his very vitals rives.\"\n\nAll must see that there is more of ornament than of terror in the\ndescription. Now let us turn to Homer.\n\n5\nOne passage will suffice to show the contrast.\n\n  \"On them he leaped, as leaps a raging wave,\n  Child of the winds, under the darkening clouds,\n  On a swift ship, and buries her in foam;\n  Then cracks the sail beneath the roaring blast,\n  And quakes the breathless seamen's shuddering heart\n  In terror dire: death lours on every wave.\"[1]\n\n    [Footnote 1: _Il._ xv. 624.]\n\n6\nAratus has tried to give a new turn to this last thought--\n\n  \"But one frail timber shields them from their doom,\"[2]--\n\nbanishing by this feeble piece of subtlety all the terror from his\ndescription; setting limits, moreover, to the peril described by saying\n\"shields them\"; for so long as it shields them it matters not whether\nthe \"timber\" be \"frail\" or stout. But Homer does not set any fixed limit\nto the danger, but gives us a vivid picture of men a thousand times on\nthe brink of destruction, every wave threatening them with instant\ndeath. Moreover, by his bold and forcible combination of prepositions of\nopposite meaning he tortures his language to imitate the agony of the\nscene, the constraint which is put on the words accurately reflecting\nthe anxiety of the sailors' minds, and the diction being stamped, as it\nwere, with the peculiar terror of the situation.\n\n    [Footnote 2: _Phaenomena_, 299.]\n\n7\nSimilarly Archilochus in his description of the shipwreck, and similarly\nDemosthenes when he describes how the news came of the taking of\nElatea[3]--\"It was evening,\" etc. Each of these authors fastidiously\nrejects whatever is not essential to the subject, and in putting\ntogether the most vivid features is careful to guard against the\ninterposition of anything frivolous, unbecoming, or tiresome. Such\nblemishes mar the general effect, and give a patched and gaping\nappearance to the edifice of sublimity, which ought to be built up in a\nsolid and uniform structure.\n\n    [Footnote 3: _De Cor._ 169.]\n\n\nXI\n\nClosely associated with the part of our subject we have just treated of\nis that excellence of writing which is called amplification, when a\nwriter or pleader, whose theme admits of many successive starting-points\nand pauses, brings on one impressive point after another in a continuous\nand ascending scale.\n\n2\nNow whether this is employed in the treatment of a commonplace, or in\nthe way of exaggeration, whether to place arguments or facts in a strong\nlight, or in the disposition of actions, or of passions--for\namplification takes a hundred different shapes--in all cases the orator\nmust be cautioned that none of these methods is complete without the aid\nof sublimity,--unless, indeed, it be our object to excite pity, or to\ndepreciate an opponent's argument. In all other uses of amplification,\nif you subtract the element of sublimity you will take as it were the\nsoul from the body. No sooner is the support of sublimity removed than\nthe whole becomes lifeless, nerveless, and dull.\n\n3\nThere is a difference, however, between the rules I am now giving and\nthose just mentioned. Then I was speaking of the delineation and\nco-ordination of the principal circumstances. My next task, therefore,\nmust be briefly to define this difference, and with it the general\ndistinction between amplification and sublimity. Our whole discourse\nwill thus gain in clearness.\n\n\nXII\n\nI must first remark that I am not satisfied with the definition of\namplification generally given by authorities on rhetoric. They explain\nit to be a form of language which invests the subject with a certain\ngrandeur. Yes, but this definition may be applied indifferently to\nsublimity, pathos, and the use of figurative language, since all these\ninvest the discourse with some sort of grandeur. The difference seems to\nme to lie in this, that sublimity gives elevation to a subject, while\namplification gives extension as well. Thus the sublime is often\nconveyed in a single thought,[1] but amplification can only subsist with\na certain prolixity and diffusiveness.\n\n    [Footnote 1: Comp. i. 4. 26.]\n\n2\nThe most general definition of amplification would explain it to consist\nin the gathering together of all the constituent parts and topics of a\nsubject, emphasising the argument by repeated insistence, herein\ndiffering from proof, that whereas the object of proof is logical\ndemonstration, ...\n\nPlato, like the sea, pours forth his riches in a copious and expansive\nflood.\n\n3\nHence the style of the orator, who is the greater master of our\nemotions, is often, as it were, red-hot and ablaze with passion, whereas\nPlato, whose strength lay in a sort of weighty and sober magnificence,\nthough never frigid, does not rival the thunders of Demosthenes.\n\n4\nAnd, if a Greek may be allowed to express an opinion on the subject of\nLatin literature, I think the same difference may be discerned in the\ngrandeur of Cicero as compared with that of his Grecian rival. The\nsublimity of Demosthenes is generally sudden and abrupt: that of Cicero\nis equally diffused. Demosthenes is vehement, rapid, vigorous, terrible;\nhe burns and sweeps away all before him; and hence we may liken him to a\nwhirlwind or a thunderbolt: Cicero is like a widespread conflagration,\nwhich rolls over and feeds on all around it, whose fire is extensive and\nburns long, breaking out successively in different places, and finding\nits fuel now here, now there.\n\n5\nSuch points, however, I resign to your more competent judgment.\n\nTo resume, then, the high-strung sublimity of Demosthenes is appropriate\nto all cases where it is desired to exaggerate, or to rouse some\nvehement emotion, and generally when we want to carry away our audience\nwith us. We must employ the diffusive style, on the other hand, when we\nwish to overpower them with a flood of language. It is suitable, for\nexample, to familiar topics, and to perorations in most cases, and to\ndigressions, and to all descriptive and declamatory passages, and in\ndealing with history or natural science, and in numerous other cases.\n\n\nXIII\n\nTo return, however, to Plato: how grand he can be with all that\ngentle and noiseless flow of eloquence you will be reminded by this\ncharacteristic passage, which you have read in his _Republic_: \"They,\ntherefore, who have no knowledge of wisdom and virtue, whose lives are\npassed in feasting and similar joys, are borne downwards, as is but\nnatural, and in this region they wander all their lives; but they never\nlifted up their eyes nor were borne upwards to the true world above, nor\never tasted of pleasure abiding and unalloyed; but like beasts they ever\nlook downwards, and their heads are bent to the ground, or rather to the\ntable; they feed full their bellies and their lusts, and longing ever\nmore and more for such things they kick and gore one another with horns\nand hoofs of iron, and slay one another in their insatiable desires.\"[1]\n\n    [Footnote 1: _Rep._ ix. 586, A.]\n\n2\nWe may learn from this author, if we would but observe his example, that\nthere is yet another path besides those mentioned which leads to sublime\nheights. What path do I mean? The emulous imitation of the great poets\nand prose-writers of the past. On this mark, dear friend, let us keep\nour eyes ever steadfastly fixed. Many gather the divine impulse from\nanother's spirit, just as we are told that the Pythian priestess, when\nshe takes her seat on the tripod, where there is said to be a rent in\nthe ground breathing upwards a heavenly emanation, straightway conceives\nfrom that source the godlike gift of prophecy, and utters her inspired\noracles; so likewise from the mighty genius of the great writers of\nantiquity there is carried into the souls of their rivals, as from a\nfount of inspiration, an effluence which breathes upon them until, even\nthough their natural temper be but cold, they share the sublime\nenthusiasm of others.\n\n3\nThus Homer's name is associated with a numerous band of illustrious\ndisciples--not only Herodotus, but Stesichorus before him, and the great\nArchilochus, and above all Plato, who from the great fountain-head of\nHomer's genius drew into himself innumerable tributary streams. Perhaps\nit would have been necessary to illustrate this point, had not Ammonius\nand his school already classified and noted down the various examples.\n\n4\nNow what I am speaking of is not plagiarism, but resembles the process\nof copying from fair forms or statues or works of skilled labour. Nor in\nmy opinion would so many fair flowers of imagery have bloomed among the\nphilosophical dogmas of Plato, nor would he have risen so often to the\nlanguage and topics of poetry, had he not engaged heart and soul in a\ncontest for precedence with Homer, like a young champion entering the\nlists against a veteran. It may be that he showed too ambitious a spirit\nin venturing on such a duel; but nevertheless it was not without\nadvantage to him: \"for strife like this,\" as Hesiod says, \"is good for\nmen.\"[2] And where shall we find a more glorious arena or a nobler crown\nthan here, where even defeat at the hands of our predecessors is not\nignoble?\n\n    [Footnote 2: _Opp._ 29.]\n\n\nXIV\n\nTherefore it is good for us also, when we are labouring on some subject\nwhich demands a lofty and majestic style, to imagine to ourselves how\nHomer might have expressed this or that, or how Plato or Demosthenes\nwould have clothed it with sublimity, or, in history, Thucydides. For by\nour fixing an eye of rivalry on those high examples they will become\nlike beacons to guide us, and will perhaps lift up our souls to the\nfulness of the stature we conceive.\n\n2\nAnd it would be still better should we try to realise this further\nthought, How would Homer, had he been here, or how would Demosthenes,\nhave listened to what I have written, or how would they have been\naffected by it? For what higher incentive to exertion could a writer\nhave than to imagine such judges or such an audience of his works, and\nto give an account of his writings with heroes like these to criticise\nand look on?\n\n3\nYet more inspiring would be the thought, With what feelings will future\nages through all time read these my works? If this should awaken a fear\nin any writer that he will not be intelligible to his contemporaries it\nwill necessarily follow that the conceptions of his mind will be crude,\nmaimed, and abortive, and lacking that ripe perfection which alone can\nwin the applause of ages to come.\n\n\nXV\n\nThe dignity, grandeur, and energy of a style largely depend on a proper\nemployment of images, a term which I prefer to that usually given.[1]\nThe term image in its most general acceptation includes every thought,\nhowsoever presented, which issues in speech. But the term is now\ngenerally confined to those cases when he who is speaking, by reason of\nthe rapt and excited state of his feelings, imagines himself to see what\nhe is talking about, and produces a similar illusion in his hearers.\n\n    [Footnote 1: +eid\u00f4lopoi\u00efai+, \"fictions of the imagination,\" Hickie.]\n\n2\nPoets and orators both employ images, but with a very different object,\nas you are well aware. The poetical image is designed to astound; the\noratorical image to give perspicuity. Both, however, seek to work on the\nemotions.\n\n  \"Mother, I pray thee, set not thou upon me\n  Those maids with bloody face and serpent hair:\n  See, see, they come, they're here, they spring upon me!\"[2]\n\nAnd again--\n\n  \"Ah, ah, she'll slay me! whither shall I fly?\"[3]\n\nThe poet when he wrote like this saw the Erinyes with his own eyes, and\nhe almost compels his readers to see them too.\n\n    [Footnote 2: Eur. _Orest._ 255.]\n\n    [Footnote 3: _Iph. Taur._ 291.]\n\n3\nEuripides found his chief delight in the labour of giving tragic\nexpression to these two passions of madness and love, showing here a\nreal mastery which I cannot think he exhibited elsewhere. Still, he is\nby no means diffident in venturing on other fields of the imagination.\nHis genius was far from being of the highest order, but by taking pains\nhe often raises himself to a tragic elevation. In his sublimer moments\nhe generally reminds us of Homer's description of the lion--\n\n  \"With tail he lashes both his flanks and sides,\n  And spurs himself to battle.\"[4]\n\n    [Footnote 4: _Il._ xx. 170.]\n\n4\nTake, for instance, that passage in which Helios, in handing the reins\nto his son, says--\n\n  \"Drive on, but shun the burning Libyan tract;\n  The hot dry air will let thine axle down:\n  Toward the seven Pleiades keep thy steadfast way.\"\n\nAnd then--\n\n  \"This said, his son undaunted snatched the reins,\n  Then smote the winged coursers' sides: they bound\n  Forth on the void and cavernous vault of air.\n  His father mounts another steed, and rides\n  With warning voice guiding his son. 'Drive there!\n  Turn, turn thy car this way.'\"[5]\n\nMay we not say that the spirit of the poet mounts the chariot with his\nhero, and accompanies the winged steeds in their perilous flight? Were\nit not so,--had not his imagination soared side by side with them in\nthat celestial passage,--he would never have conceived so vivid an\nimage. Similar is that passage in his \"Cassandra,\" beginning\n\n  \"Ye Trojans, lovers of the steed.\"[6]\n\n    [Footnote 5: Eur. _Phaet._]\n\n    [Footnote 6: Perhaps from the lost \"Alexander\" (Jahn).]\n\n5\nAeschylus is especially bold in forming images suited to his heroic\nthemes: as when he says of his \"Seven against Thebes\"--\n\n  \"Seven mighty men, and valiant captains, slew\n  Over an iron-bound shield a bull, then dipped\n  Their fingers in the blood, and all invoked\n  Ares, Enyo, and death-dealing Flight\n  In witness of their oaths,\"[7]\n\nand describes how they all mutually pledged themselves without flinching\nto die. Sometimes, however, his thoughts are unshapen, and as it were\nrough-hewn and rugged. Not observing this, Euripides, from too blind a\nrivalry, sometimes falls under the same censure.\n\n    [Footnote 7: _Sept. c. Th._ 42.]\n\n6\nAeschylus with a strange violence of language represents the palace of\nLycurgus as _possessed_ at the appearance of Dionysus--\n\n  \"The halls with rapture thrill, the roof's inspired.\"[8]\n\nHere Euripides, in borrowing the image, softens its extravagance[9]--\n\n  \"And all the mountain felt the god.\"[10]\n\n    [Footnote 8: Aesch. _Lycurg._]\n\n    [Footnote 9: Lit. \"Giving it a different flavour,\" as Arist. _Poet._\n    +h\u00eadusmen\u00f4 log\u00f4 ch\u00f4ris hekast\u00f4 t\u00f4n eid\u00f4n+, ii. 10.]\n\n    [Footnote 10: _Bacch._ 726.]\n\n7\nSophocles has also shown himself a great master of the imagination in\nthe scene in which the dying Oedipus prepares himself for burial in the\nmidst of a tempest,[11] and where he tells how Achilles appeared to the\nGreeks over his tomb just as they were putting out to sea on their\ndeparture from Troy.[12] This last scene has also been delineated by\nSimonides with a vividness which leaves him inferior to none. But it\nwould be an endless task to cite all possible examples.\n\n    [Footnote 11: _Oed. Col._ 1586.]\n\n    [Footnote 12: In his lost \"Polyxena.\"]\n\n8\nTo return, then,[13] in poetry, as I observed, a certain mythical\nexaggeration is allowable, transcending altogether mere logical\ncredence. But the chief beauties of an oratorical image are its energy\nand reality. Such digressions become offensive and monstrous when the\nlanguage is cast in a poetical and fabulous mould, and runs into all\nsorts of impossibilities. Thus much may be learnt from the great orators\nof our own day, when they tell us in tragic tones that they see the\nFuries[14]--good people, can't they understand that when Orestes cries\nout\n\n  \"Off, off, I say! I know thee who thou art,\n  One of the fiends that haunt me: I feel thine arms\n  About me cast, to drag me down to hell,\"[15]\n\nthese are the hallucinations of a madman?\n\n    [Footnote 13: \u00a7 2.]\n\n    [Footnote 14: Comp. Petronius, _Satyricon_, ch. i. _passim_.]\n\n    [Footnote 15: _Orest._ 264.]\n\n9\nWherein, then, lies the force of an oratorical image? Doubtless in\nadding energy and passion in a hundred different ways to a speech; but\nespecially in this, that when it is mingled with the practical,\nargumentative parts of an oration, it does not merely convince the\nhearer, but enthralls him. Such is the effect of those words of\nDemosthenes:[16] \"Supposing, now, at this moment a cry of alarm were\nheard outside the assize courts, and the news came that the prison was\nbroken open and the prisoners escaped, is there any man here who is such\na trifler that he would not run to the rescue at the top of his speed?\nBut suppose some one came forward with the information that they had\nbeen set at liberty by the defendant, what then? Why, he would be\nlynched on the spot!\"\n\n    [Footnote 16: _c. Timocrat._ 208.]\n\n10\nCompare also the way in which Hyperides excused himself, when he was\nproceeded against for bringing in a bill to liberate the slaves after\nChaeronea. \"This measure,\" he said, \"was not drawn up by any orator, but\nby the battle of Chaeronea.\" This striking image, being thrown in by the\nspeaker in the midst of his proofs, enables him by one bold stroke to\ncarry all mere logical objection before him.\n\n11\nIn all such cases our nature is drawn towards that which affects it most\npowerfully: hence an image lures us away from an argument: judgment is\nparalysed, matters of fact disappear from view, eclipsed by the superior\nblaze. Nor is it surprising that we should be thus affected; for when\ntwo forces are thus placed in juxtaposition, the stronger must always\nabsorb into itself the weaker.\n\n12\nOn sublimity of thought, and the manner in which it arises from native\ngreatness of mind, from imitation, and from the employment of images,\nthis brief outline must suffice.[17]\n\n    [Footnote 17: He passes over chs. x. xi.]\n\n\nXVI\n\nThe subject which next claims our attention is that of figures of\nspeech. I have already observed that figures, judiciously employed, play\nan important part in producing sublimity. It would be a tedious, or\nrather an endless task, to deal with every detail of this subject here;\nso in order to establish what I have laid down, I will just run over,\nwithout further preface, a few of those figures which are most effective\nin lending grandeur to language.\n\n2\nDemosthenes is defending his policy; his natural line of argument would\nhave been: \"You did not do wrong, men of Athens, to take upon yourselves\nthe struggle for the liberties of Hellas. Of this you have home proofs.\n_They_ did not wrong who fought at Marathon, at Salamis, and Plataea.\"\nInstead of this, in a sudden moment of supreme exaltation he bursts out\nlike some inspired prophet with that famous appeal to the mighty dead:\n\"Ye did not, could not have done wrong. I swear it by the men who faced\nthe foe at Marathon!\"[1] He employs the figure of adjuration, to which I\nwill here give the name of Apostrophe. And what does he gain by it? He\nexalts the Athenian ancestors to the rank of divinities, showing that we\nought to invoke those who have fallen for their country as gods; he\nfills the hearts of his judges with the heroic pride of the old warriors\nof Hellas; forsaking the beaten path of argument he rises to the\nloftiest altitude of grandeur and passion, and commands assent by the\nstartling novelty of his appeal; he applies the healing charm of\neloquence, and thus \"ministers to the mind diseased\" of his countrymen,\nuntil lifted by his brave words above their misfortunes they begin to\nfeel that the disaster of Chaeronea is no less glorious than the\nvictories of Marathon and Salamis. All this he effects by the use of one\nfigure, and so carries his hearers away with him.\n\n    [Footnote 1: _De Cor._ 208.]\n\n3\nIt is said that the germ of this adjuration is found in Eupolis--\n\n  \"By mine own fight, by Marathon, I say,\n  Who makes my heart to ache shall rue the day!\"[2]\n\nBut there is nothing grand in the mere employment of an oath. Its\ngrandeur will depend on its being employed in the right place and the\nright manner, on the right occasion, and with the right motive. In\nEupolis the oath is nothing beyond an oath; and the Athenians to whom it\nis addressed are still prosperous, and in need of no consolation.\nMoreover, the poet does not, like Demosthenes, swear by the departed\nheroes as deities, so as to engender in his audience a just conception\nof their valour, but diverges from the champions to the battle--a mere\nlifeless thing. But Demosthenes has so skilfully managed the oath that\nin addressing his countrymen after the defeat of Chaeronea he takes out\nof their minds all sense of disaster; and at the same time, while\nproving that no mistake has been made, he holds up an example, confirms\nhis arguments by an oath, and makes his praise of the dead an incentive\nto the living.\n\n    [Footnote 2: In his (lost) \"Demis.\"]\n\n4\nAnd to rebut a possible objection which occurred to him--\"Can you,\nDemosthenes, whose policy ended in defeat, swear by a victory?\"--the\norator proceeds to measure his language, choosing his very words so as\nto give no handle to opponents, thus showing us that even in our most\ninspired moments reason ought to hold the reins.[3] Let us mark his\nwords: \"Those who _faced the foe_ at Marathon; those who _fought in the\nsea-fights_ of Salamis and Artemisium; those who _stood in the ranks_ at\nPlataea.\" Note that he nowhere says \"those who _conquered_,\" artfully\nsuppressing any word which might hint at the successful issue of those\nbattles, which would have spoilt the parallel with Chaeronea. And for\nthe same reason he steals a march on his audience, adding immediately:\n\"All of whom, Aeschines,--not those who were successful only,--were\nburied by the state at the public expense.\"\n\n    [Footnote 3: Lit. \"That even in the midst of the revels of Bacchus\n    we ought to remain sober.\"]\n\n\nXVII\n\nThere is one truth which my studies have led me to observe, which\nperhaps it would be worth while to set down briefly here. It is this,\nthat by a natural law the Sublime, besides receiving an acquisition of\nstrength from figures, in its turn lends support in a remarkable manner\nto them. To explain: the use of figures has a peculiar tendency to rouse\na suspicion of dishonesty, and to create an impression of treachery,\nscheming, and false reasoning; especially if the person addressed be a\njudge, who is master of the situation, and still more in the case of a\ndespot, a king, a military potentate, or any of those who sit in high\nplaces.[1] If a man feels that this artful speaker is treating him like\na silly boy and trying to throw dust in his eyes, he at once grows\nirritated, and thinking that such false reasoning implies a contempt of\nhis understanding, he perhaps flies into a rage and will not hear\nanother word; or even if he masters his resentment, still he is utterly\nindisposed to yield to the persuasive power of eloquence. Hence it\nfollows that a figure is then most effectual when it appears in\ndisguise.\n\n    [Footnote 1: Reading with Cobet, +kai pantas tous en huperochais+.]\n\n2\nTo allay, then, this distrust which attaches to the use of figures we\nmust call in the powerful aid of sublimity and passion. For art, once\nassociated with these great allies, will be overshadowed by their\ngrandeur and beauty, and pass beyond the reach of all suspicion. To\nprove this I need only refer to the passage already quoted: \"I swear it\nby the men,\" etc. It is the very brilliancy of the orator's figure which\nblinds us to the fact that it _is_ a figure. For as the fainter lustre\nof the stars is put out of sight by the all-encompassing rays of the\nsun, so when sublimity sheds its light all round the sophistries of\nrhetoric they become invisible.\n\n3\nA similar illusion is produced by the painter's art. When light and\nshadow are represented in colour, though they lie on the same surface\nside by side, it is the light which meets the eye first, and appears not\nonly more conspicuous but also much nearer. In the same manner passion\nand grandeur of language, lying nearer to our souls by reason both of a\ncertain natural affinity and of their radiance, always strike our mental\neye before we become conscious of the figure, throwing its artificial\ncharacter into the shade and hiding it as it were in a veil.\n\n\nXVIII\n\nThe figures of question and interrogation[1] also possess a specific\nquality which tends strongly to stir an audience and give energy to the\nspeaker's words. \"Or tell me, do you want to run about asking one\nanother, is there any news? what greater news could you have than that a\nman of Macedon is making himself master of Hellas? Is Philip dead? Not\nhe. However, he is ill. But what is that to you? Even if anything\nhappens to him you will soon raise up another Philip.\"[2] Or this\npassage: \"Shall we sail against Macedon? And where, asks one, shall we\neffect a landing? The war itself will show us where Philip's weak places\nlie.\"[2] Now if this had been put baldly it would have lost greatly in\nforce. As we see it, it is full of the quick alternation of question and\nanswer. The orator replies to himself as though he were meeting another\nman's objections. And this figure not only raises the tone of his words\nbut makes them more convincing.\n\n    [Footnote 1: See Note.]\n\n    [Footnote 2: _Phil._ i. 44.]\n\n2\nFor an exhibition of feeling has then most effect on an audience when it\nappears to flow naturally from the occasion, not to have been laboured\nby the art of the speaker; and this device of questioning and replying\nto himself reproduces the moment of passion. For as a sudden question\naddressed to an individual will sometimes startle him into a reply which\nis an unguarded expression of his genuine sentiments, so the figure of\nquestion and interrogation blinds the judgment of an audience, and\ndeceives them into a belief that what is really the result of labour in\nevery detail has been struck out of the speaker by the inspiration of\nthe moment.\n\nThere is one passage in Herodotus which is generally credited with\nextraordinary sublimity....\n\n\nXIX\n\n... The removal of connecting particles gives a quick rush and \"torrent\nrapture\" to a passage, the writer appearing to be actually almost left\nbehind by his own words. There is an example in Xenophon: \"Clashing\ntheir shields together they pushed, they fought, they slew, they\nfell.\"[1] And the words of Eurylochus in the _Odyssey_--\n\n  \"We passed at thy command the woodland's shade;\n  We found a stately hall built in a mountain glade.\"[2]\n\nWords thus severed from one another without the intervention of stops\ngive a lively impression of one who through distress of mind at once\nhalts and hurries in his speech. And this is what Homer has expressed by\nusing the figure _Asyndeton_.\n\n    [Footnote 1: Xen. _Hel._ iv. 3. 19.]\n\n    [Footnote 2: _Od._ x. 251.]\n\n\nXX\n\nBut nothing is so conducive to energy as a combination of different\nfigures, when two or three uniting their resources mutually contribute\nto the vigour, the cogency, and the beauty of a speech. So Demosthenes\nin his speech against Meidias repeats the same words and breaks up his\nsentences in one lively descriptive passage: \"He who receives a blow is\nhurt in many ways which he could not even describe to another, by\ngesture, by look, by tone.\"\n\n2\nThen, to vary the movement of his speech, and prevent it from standing\nstill (for stillness produces rest, but passion requires a certain\ndisorder of language, imitating the agitation and commotion of the\nsoul), he at once dashes off in another direction, breaking up his words\nagain, and repeating them in a different form, \"by gesture, by look, by\ntone--when insult, when hatred, is added to violence, when he is struck\nwith the fist, when he is struck as a slave!\" By such means the orator\nimitates the action of Meidias, dealing blow upon blow on the minds of\nhis judges. Immediately after like a hurricane he makes a fresh attack:\n\"When he is struck with the fist, when he is struck in the face; this is\nwhat moves, this is what maddens a man, unless he is inured to outrage;\nno one could describe all this so as to bring home to his hearers its\nbitterness.\"[1] You see how he preserves, by continual variation, the\nintrinsic force of these repetitions and broken clauses, so that his\norder seems irregular, and conversely his irregularity acquires a\ncertain measure of order.\n\n    [Footnote 1: _Meid._ 72.]\n\n\nXXI\n\nSupposing we add the conjunctions, after the practice of Isocrates and\nhis school: \"Moreover, I must not omit to mention that he who strikes a\nblow may hurt in many ways, in the first place by gesture, in the second\nplace by look, in the third and last place by his tone.\" If you compare\nthe words thus set down in logical sequence with the expressions of the\n\"Meidias,\" you will see that the rapidity and rugged abruptness of\npassion, when all is made regular by connecting links, will be smoothed\naway, and the whole point and fire of the passage will at once\ndisappear.\n\n2\nFor as, if you were to bind two runners together, they will forthwith be\ndeprived of all liberty of movement, even so passion rebels against the\ntrammels of conjunctions and other particles, because they curb its free\nrush and destroy the impression of mechanical impulse.\n\n\nXXII\n\nThe figure hyperbaton belongs to the same class. By hyperbaton we mean a\ntransposition of words or thoughts from their usual order, bearing\nunmistakably the characteristic stamp of violent mental agitation. In\nreal life we often see a man under the influence of rage, or fear, or\nindignation, or beside himself with jealousy, or with some other out of\nthe interminable list of human passions, begin a sentence, and then\nswerve aside into some inconsequent parenthesis, and then again double\nback to his original statement, being borne with quick turns by his\ndistress, as though by a shifting wind, now this way, now that, and\nplaying a thousand capricious variations on his words, his thoughts, and\nthe natural order of his discourse. Now the figure hyperbaton is the\nmeans which is employed by the best writers to imitate these signs of\nnatural emotion. For art is then perfect when it seems to be nature, and\nnature, again, is most effective when pervaded by the unseen presence of\nart. An illustration will be found in the speech of Dionysius of Phocaea\nin Herodotus: \"A hair's breadth now decides our destiny, Ionians,\nwhether we shall live as freemen or as slaves--ay, as runaway slaves.\nNow, therefore, if you choose to endure a little hardship, you will be\nable at the cost of some present exertion to overcome your enemies.\"[1]\n\n    [Footnote 1: vi. 11.]\n\n2\nThe regular sequence here would have been: \"Ionians, now is the time for\nyou to endure a little hardship; for a hair's breadth will now decide\nour destiny.\" But the Phocaean transposes the title \"Ionians,\" rushing\nat once to the subject of alarm, as though in the terror of the moment\nhe had forgotten the usual address to his audience. Moreover, he inverts\nthe logical order of his thoughts, and instead of beginning with the\nnecessity for exertion, which is the point he wishes to urge upon them,\nhe first gives them the reason for that necessity in the words, \"a\nhair's breadth now decides our destiny,\" so that his words seem\nunpremeditated, and forced upon him by the crisis.\n\n3\nThucydides surpasses all other writers in the bold use of this figure,\neven breaking up sentences which are by their nature absolutely one and\nindivisible. But nowhere do we find it so unsparingly employed as in\nDemosthenes, who though not so daring in his manner of using it as the\nelder writer is very happy in giving to his speeches by frequent\ntranspositions the lively air of unstudied debate. Moreover, he drags,\nas it were, his audience with him into the perils of a long inverted\nclause.\n\n4\nHe often begins to say something, then leaves the thought in suspense,\nmeanwhile thrusting in between, in a position apparently foreign and\nunnatural, some extraneous matters, one upon another, and having thus\nmade his hearers fear lest the whole discourse should break down, and\nforced them into eager sympathy with the danger of the speaker, when he\nis nearly at the end of a period he adds just at the right moment,\n_i.e._ when it is least expected, the point which they have been waiting\nfor so long. And thus by the very boldness and hazard of his inversions\nhe produces a much more astounding effect. I forbear to cite examples,\nas they are too numerous to require it.\n\n\nXXIII\n\nThe juxtaposition of different cases, the enumeration of particulars,\nand the use of contrast and climax, all, as you know, add much vigour,\nand give beauty and great elevation and life to a style. The diction\nalso gains greatly in diversity and movement by changes of case, time,\nperson, number, and gender.\n\n2\nWith regard to change of number: not only is the style improved by the\nuse of those words which, though singular in form, are found on\ninspection to be plural in meaning, as in the lines--\n\n  \"A countless host dispersed along the sand\n  With joyous cries the shoal of tunny hailed,\"\n\nbut it is more worthy of observation that plurals for singulars\nsometimes fall with a more impressive dignity, rousing the imagination\nby the mere sense of vast number.\n\n3\nSuch is the effect of those words of Oedipus in Sophocles--\n\n              \"Oh fatal, fatal ties!\n  Ye gave us birth, and we being born ye sowed\n  The self-same seed, and gave the world to view\n  Sons, brothers, sires, domestic murder foul,\n  Brides, mothers, wives.... Ay, ye laid bare\n  The blackest, deepest place where Shame can dwell.\"[1]\n\nHere we have in either case but one person, first Oedipus, then Jocasta;\nbut the expansion of number into the plural gives an impression of\nmultiplied calamity. So in the following plurals--\n\n  \"There came forth Hectors, and there came Sarpedons.\"\n\n    [Footnote 1: _O. R._ 1403.]\n\n4\nAnd in those words of Plato's (which we have already adduced elsewhere),\nreferring to the Athenians: \"We have no Pelopses or Cadmuses or\nAegyptuses or Danauses, or any others out of all the mob of Hellenised\nbarbarians, dwelling among us; no, this is the land of pure Greeks, with\nno mixture of foreign elements,\"[2] etc. Such an accumulation of words\nin the plural number necessarily gives greater pomp and sound to a\nsubject. But we must only have recourse to this device when the nature\nof our theme makes it allowable to amplify, to multiply, or to speak in\nthe tones of exaggeration or passion. To overlay every sentence with\nornament[3] is very pedantic.\n\n    [Footnote 2: _Menex._ 245, D.]\n\n    [Footnote 3: Lit. \"To hang bells everywhere,\" a metaphor from\n    the bells which were attached to horses' trappings on festive\n    occasions.]\n\n\nXXIV\n\nOn the other hand, the contraction of plurals into singulars sometimes\ncreates an appearance of great dignity; as in that phrase of\nDemosthenes: \"Thereupon all Peloponnesus was divided.\"[1] There is\nanother in Herodotus: \"When Phrynichus brought a drama on the stage\nentitled _The Taking of Miletus_, the whole theatre fell a\nweeping\"--instead of \"all the spectators.\" This knitting together of a\nnumber of scattered particulars into one whole gives them an aspect of\ncorporate life. And the beauty of both uses lies, I think, in their\nbetokening emotion, by giving a sudden change of complexion to the\ncircumstances,--whether a word which is strictly singular is\nunexpectedly changed into a plural,--or whether a number of isolated\nunits are combined by the use of a single sonorous word under one head.\n\n    [Footnote 1: _De Cor._ 18.]\n\n\nXXV\n\nWhen past events are introduced as happening in present time the\nnarrative form is changed into a dramatic action. Such is that\ndescription in Xenophon: \"A man who has fallen, and is being trampled\nunder foot by Cyrus's horse, strikes the belly of the animal with his\nscimitar; the horse starts aside and unseats Cyrus, and he falls.\"\nSimilarly in many passages of Thucydides.\n\n\nXXVI\n\nEqually dramatic is the interchange of persons, often making a reader\nfancy himself to be moving in the midst of the perils described--\n\n  \"Unwearied, thou wouldst deem, with toil unspent,\n  They met in war; so furiously they fought.\"[1]\n\nand that line in Aratus--\n\n  \"Beware that month to tempt the surging sea.\"[2]\n\n    [Footnote 1: _Il._ xv. 697.]\n\n    [Footnote 2: _Phaen._ 287.]\n\n2\nIn the same way Herodotus: \"Passing from the city of Elephantine you\nwill sail upwards until you reach a level plain. You cross this region,\nand there entering another ship you will sail on for two days, and so\nreach a great city, whose name is Meroe.\"[3] Observe how he takes us, as\nit were, by the hand, and leads us in spirit through these places,\nmaking us no longer readers, but spectators. Such a direct personal\naddress always has the effect of placing the reader in the midst of the\nscene of action.\n\n    [Footnote 3: ii. 29.]\n\n3\nAnd by pointing your words to the individual reader, instead of to the\nreaders generally, as in the line\n\n  \"Thou had'st not known for whom Tydides fought,\"[4]\n\nand thus exciting him by an appeal to himself, you will rouse interest,\nand fix attention, and make him a partaker in the action of the book.\n\n    [Footnote 4: _Il._ v. 85.]\n\n\nXXVII\n\nSometimes, again, a writer in the midst of a narrative in the third\nperson suddenly steps aside and makes a transition to the first. It is a\nkind of figure which strikes like a sudden outburst of passion. Thus\nHector in the _Iliad_\n\n  \"With mighty voice called to the men of Troy\n  To storm the ships, and leave the bloody spoils:\n  If any I behold with willing foot\n  Shunning the ships, and lingering on the plain,\n  That hour I will contrive his death.\"[1]\n\nThe poet then takes upon himself the narrative part, as being his proper\nbusiness; but this abrupt threat he attributes, without a word of\nwarning, to the enraged Trojan chief. To have interposed any such words\nas \"Hector said so and so\" would have had a frigid effect. As the lines\nstand the writer is left behind by his own words, and the transition is\neffected while he is preparing for it.\n\n    [Footnote 1: _Il._ xv. 346.]\n\n2\nAccordingly the proper use of this figure is in dealing with some urgent\ncrisis which will not allow the writer to linger, but compels him to\nmake a rapid change from one person to another. So in Hecataeus: \"Now\nCeyx took this in dudgeon, and straightway bade the children of Heracles\nto depart. 'Behold, I can give you no help; lest, therefore, ye perish\nyourselves and bring hurt upon me also, get ye forth into some other\nland.'\"\n\n3\nThere is a different use of the change of persons in the speech of\nDemosthenes against Aristogeiton, which places before us the quick turns\nof violent emotion. \"Is there none to be found among you,\" he asks, \"who\neven feels indignation at the outrageous conduct of a loathsome and\nshameless wretch who,--vilest of men, when you were debarred from\nfreedom of speech, not by barriers or by doors, which might indeed be\nopened,\"[2] etc. Thus in the midst of a half-expressed thought he makes\na quick change of front, and having almost in his anger torn one word\ninto two persons, \"who, vilest of men,\" etc., he then breaks off his\naddress to Aristogeiton, and seems to leave him, nevertheless, by the\npassion of his utterance, rousing all the more the attention of the\ncourt.\n\n    [Footnote 2: _c. Aristog._ i. 27.]\n\n4\nThe same feature may be observed in a speech of Penelope's--\n\n  \"Why com'st thou, Medon, from the wooers proud?\n  Com'st thou to bid the handmaids of my lord\n  To cease their tasks, and make for them good cheer?\n  Ill fare their wooing, and their gathering here!\n  Would God that here this hour they all might take\n  Their last, their latest meal! Who day by day\n  Make here your muster, to devour and waste\n  The substance of my son: have ye not heard\n  When children at your fathers' knee the deeds\n  And prowess of your king?\"[3]\n\n    [Footnote 3: _Od._ iv. 681.]\n\n\nXXVIII\n\nNone, I suppose, would dispute the fact that periphrasis tends much to\nsublimity. For, as in music the simple air is rendered more pleasing by\nthe addition of harmony, so in language periphrasis often sounds in\nconcord with a literal expression, adding much to the beauty of its\ntone,--provided always that it is not inflated and harsh, but agreeably\nblended.\n\n2\nTo confirm this one passage from Plato will suffice--the opening words\nof his Funeral Oration: \"In deed these men have now received from us\ntheir due, and that tribute paid they are now passing on their destined\njourney, with the State speeding them all and his own friends speeding\neach one of them on his way.\"[1] Death, you see, he calls the \"destined\njourney\"; to receive the rites of burial is to be publicly \"sped on your\nway\" by the State. And these turns of language lend dignity in no common\nmeasure to the thought. He takes the words in their naked simplicity and\nhandles them as a musician, investing them with melody,--harmonising\nthem, as it were,--by the use of periphrasis.\n\n    [Footnote 1: _Menex._ 236, D.]\n\n3\nSo Xenophon: \"Labour you regard as the guide to a pleasant life, and you\nhave laid up in your souls the fairest and most soldier-like of all\ngifts: in praise is your delight, more than in anything else.\"[2] By\nsaying, instead of \"you are ready to labour,\" \"you regard labour as the\nguide to a pleasant life,\" and by similarly expanding the rest of that\npassage, he gives to his eulogy a much wider and loftier range of\nsentiment. Let us add that inimitable phrase in Herodotus: \"Those\nScythians who pillaged the temple were smitten from heaven by a female\nmalady.\"\n\n    [Footnote 2: _Cyrop._ i. 5. 12.]\n\n\nXXIX\n\nBut this figure, more than any other, is very liable to abuse, and great\nrestraint is required in employing it. It soon begins to carry an\nimpression of feebleness, savours of vapid trifling, and arouses\ndisgust. Hence Plato, who is very bold and not always happy in his use\nof figures, is much ridiculed for saying in his _Laws_ that \"neither\ngold nor silver wealth must be allowed to establish itself in our\nState,\"[1] suggesting, it is said, that if he had forbidden property in\noxen or sheep he would certainly have spoken of it as \"bovine and ovine\nwealth.\"\n\n    [Footnote 1: _De Legg._ vii. 801, B.]\n\n2\nHere we must quit this part of our subject, hoping, my dear friend\nTerentian, that your learned curiosity will be satisfied with this short\nexcursion on the use of figures in their relation to the Sublime. All\nthose which I have mentioned help to render a style more energetic and\nimpassioned; and passion contributes as largely to sublimity as the\ndelineation of character to amusement.\n\n\nXXX\n\nBut since the thoughts conveyed by words and the expression of those\nthoughts are for the most part interwoven with one another, we will now\nadd some considerations which have hitherto been overlooked on the\nsubject of expression. To say that the choice of appropriate and\nstriking words has a marvellous power and an enthralling charm for the\nreader, that this is the main object of pursuit with all orators and\nwriters, that it is this, and this alone, which causes the works of\nliterature to exhibit the glowing perfections of the finest statues,\ntheir grandeur, their beauty, their mellowness, their dignity, their\nenergy, their power, and all their other graces, and that it is this\nwhich endows the facts with a vocal soul; to say all this would, I fear,\nbe, to the initiated, an impertinence. Indeed, we may say with strict\ntruth that beautiful words are the very light of thought.\n\n2\nI do not mean to say that imposing language is appropriate to every\noccasion. A trifling subject tricked out in grand and stately words\nwould have the same effect as a huge tragic mask placed on the head of a\nlittle child. Only in poetry and ...\n\n\nXXXI\n\n... There is a genuine ring in that line of Anacreon's--\n\n  \"The Thracian filly I no longer heed.\"\n\nThe same merit belongs to that original phrase in Theophrastus; to me,\nat least, from the closeness of its analogy, it seems to have a peculiar\nexpressiveness, though Caecilius censures it, without telling us why.\n\"Philip,\" says the historian, \"showed a marvellous alacrity in _taking\ndoses of trouble_.\"[1] We see from this that the most homely language is\nsometimes far more vivid than the most ornamental, being recognised at\nonce as the language of common life, and gaining immediate currency by\nits familiarity. In speaking, then, of Philip as \"taking doses of\ntrouble,\" Theopompus has laid hold on a phrase which describes with\npeculiar vividness one who for the sake of advantage endured what was\nbase and sordid with patience and cheerfulness.\n\n    [Footnote 1: See Note.]\n\n2\nThe same may be observed of two passages in Herodotus: \"Cleomenes having\nlost his wits, cut his own flesh into pieces with a short sword, until\nby gradually _mincing_ his whole body he destroyed himself\";[2] and\n\"Pythes continued fighting on his ship until he was entirely _hacked to\npieces_.\"[3] Such terms come home at once to the vulgar reader, but\ntheir own vulgarity is redeemed by their expressiveness.\n\n    [Footnote 2: vi. 75.]\n\n    [Footnote 3: vii. 181.]\n\n\nXXXII\n\nConcerning the number of metaphors to be employed together Caecilius\nseems to give his vote with those critics who make a law that not more\nthan two, or at the utmost three, should be combined in the same place.\nThe use, however, must be determined by the occasion. Those outbursts of\npassion which drive onwards like a winter torrent draw with them as an\nindispensable accessory whole masses of metaphor. It is thus in that\npassage of Demosthenes (who here also is our safest guide):[1]\n\n    [Footnote 1: See Note.]\n\n2\n\"Those vile fawning wretches, each one of whom has lopped from his\ncountry her fairest members, who have toasted away their liberty, first\nto Philip, now to Alexander, who measure happiness by their belly and\ntheir vilest appetites, who have overthrown the old landmarks and\nstandards of felicity among Greeks,--to be freemen, and to have no one\nfor a master.\"[2] Here the number of the metaphors is obscured by the\norator's indignation against the betrayers of his country.\n\n    [Footnote 2: _De Cor._ 296.]\n\n3\nAnd to effect this Aristotle and Theophrastus recommend the softening of\nharsh metaphors by the use of some such phrase as \"So to say,\" \"As it\nwere,\" \"If I may be permitted the expression,\" \"If so bold a term is\nallowable.\" For thus to forestall criticism[3] mitigates, they assert,\nthe boldness of the metaphors.\n\n    [Footnote 3: Reading +hupotim\u00easis+.]\n\n4\nAnd I will not deny that these have their use. Nevertheless I must\nrepeat the remark which I made in the case of figures,[4] and maintain\nthat there are native antidotes to the number and boldness of metaphors,\nin well-timed displays of strong feeling, and in unaffected sublimity,\nbecause these have an innate power by the dash of their movement of\nsweeping along and carrying all else before them. Or should we not\nrather say that they absolutely demand as indispensable the use of\ndaring metaphors, and will not allow the hearer to pause and criticise\nthe number of them, because he shares the passion of the speaker?\n\n    [Footnote 4: Ch. xvii.]\n\n5\nIn the treatment, again, of familiar topics and in descriptive passages\nnothing gives such distinctness as a close and continuous series of\nmetaphors. It is by this means that Xenophon has so finely delineated\nthe anatomy of the human frame.[5] And there is a still more brilliant\nand life-like picture in Plato.[6] The human head he calls a _citadel_;\nthe neck is an _isthmus_ set to divide it from the chest; to support it\nbeneath are the vertebrae, turning like _hinges_; pleasure he describes\nas a _bait_ to tempt men to ill; the tongue is the _arbiter of tastes_.\nThe heart is at once the _knot_ of the veins and the _source_ of the\nrapidly circulating blood, and is stationed in the _guard-room_ of the\nbody. The ramifying blood-vessels he calls _alleys_. \"And casting\nabout,\" he says, \"for something to sustain the violent palpitation of\nthe heart when it is alarmed by the approach of danger or agitated by\npassion, since at such times it is overheated, they (the gods) implanted\nin us the lungs, which are so fashioned that being soft and bloodless,\nand having cavities within, they act like a buffer, and when the heart\nboils with inward passion by yielding to its throbbing save it from\ninjury.\" He compares the seat of the desires to the _women's quarters_,\nthe seat of the passions to the _men's quarters_, in a house. The\nspleen, again, is the _napkin_ of the internal organs, by whose\nexcretions it is saturated from time to time, and swells to a great size\nwith inward impurity. \"After this,\" he continues, \"they shrouded the\nwhole with flesh, throwing it forward, like a cushion, as a barrier\nagainst injuries from without.\" The blood he terms the _pasture_ of the\nflesh. \"To assist the process of nutrition,\" he goes on, \"they divided\nthe body into ducts, cutting trenches like those in a garden, so that,\nthe body being a system of narrow conduits, the current of the veins\nmight flow as from a perennial fountain-head. And when the end is at\nhand,\" he says, \"the soul is cast loose from her moorings like a ship,\nand free to wander whither she will.\"\n\n6\nThese, and a hundred similar fancies, follow one another in quick\nsuccession. But those which I have pointed out are sufficient to\ndemonstrate how great is the natural power of figurative language, and\nhow largely metaphors conduce to sublimity, and to illustrate the\nimportant part which they play in all impassioned and descriptive\npassages.\n\n    [Footnote 5: _Memorab._ i. 4, 5.]\n\n    [Footnote 6: _Timaeus_, 69, D; 74, A; 65, C; 72, G; 74, B, D; 80, E;\n    77, G; 78, E; 85, E.]\n\n7\nThat the use of figurative language, as of all other beauties of style,\nhas a constant tendency towards excess, is an obvious truth which I need\nnot dwell upon. It is chiefly on this account that even Plato comes in\nfor a large share of disparagement, because he is often carried away by\na sort of frenzy of language into an intemperate use of violent\nmetaphors and inflated allegory. \"It is not easy to remark\" (he says in\none place) \"that a city ought to be blended like a bowl, in which the\nmad wine boils when it is poured out, but being disciplined by another\nand a sober god in that fair society produces a good and temperate\ndrink.\"[7] Really, it is said, to speak of water as a \"sober god,\" and\nof the process of mixing as a \"discipline,\" is to talk like a poet, and\nno very _sober_ one either.\n\n    [Footnote 7: _Legg._ vi. 773, G.]\n\n8\nIt was such defects as these that the hostile critic[8] Caecilius made\nhis ground of attack, when he had the boldness in his essay \"On the\nBeauties of Lysias\" to pronounce that writer superior in every respect\nto Plato. Now Caecilius was doubly unqualified for a judge: he loved\nLysias better even than himself, and at the same time his hatred of\nPlato and all his works is greater even than his love for Lysias.\nMoreover, he is so blind a partisan that his very premises are open to\ndispute. He vaunts Lysias as a faultless and immaculate writer, while\nPlato is, according to him, full of blemishes. Now this is not the case:\nfar from it.\n\n    [Footnote 8: Reading +ho mis\u00f4n auton+, by a conjecture of the\n    translator.]\n\n\nXXXIII\n\nBut supposing now that we assume the existence of a really unblemished\nand irreproachable writer. Is it not worth while to raise the whole\nquestion whether in poetry and prose we should prefer sublimity\naccompanied by some faults, or a style which never rising above moderate\nexcellence never stumbles and never requires correction? and again,\nwhether the first place in literature is justly to be assigned to the\nmore numerous, or the loftier excellences? For these are questions\nproper to an inquiry on the Sublime, and urgently asking for settlement.\n\n2\nI know, then, that the largest intellects are far from being the most\nexact. A mind always intent on correctness is apt to be dissipated in\ntrifles; but in great affluence of thought, as in vast material wealth,\nthere must needs be an occasional neglect of detail. And is it not\ninevitably so? Is it not by risking nothing, by never aiming high, that\na writer of low or middling powers keeps generally clear of faults and\nsecure of blame? whereas the loftier walks of literature are by their\nvery loftiness perilous?\n\n3\nI am well aware, again, that there is a law by which in all human\nproductions the weak points catch the eye first, by which their faults\nremain indelibly stamped on the memory, while their beauties quickly\nfade away.\n\n4\nYet, though I have myself noted not a few faulty passages in Homer and\nin other authors of the highest rank, and though I am far from being\npartial to their failings, nevertheless I would call them not so much\nwilful blunders as oversights which were allowed to pass unregarded\nthrough that contempt of little things, that \"brave disorder,\" which is\nnatural to an exalted genius; and I still think that the greater\nexcellences, though not everywhere equally sustained, ought always to be\nvoted to the first place in literature, if for no other reason, for the\nmere grandeur of soul they evince. Let us take an instance: Apollonius\nin his _Argonautica_ has given us a poem actually faultless; and in his\npastoral poetry Theocritus is eminently happy, except when he\noccasionally attempts another style. And what then? Would you rather be\na Homer or an Apollonius?\n\n5\nOr take Eratosthenes and his _Erigone_; because that little work is\nwithout a flaw, is he therefore a greater poet than Archilochus, with\nall his disorderly profusion? greater than that impetuous, that\ngod-gifted genius, which chafed against the restraints of law? or in\nlyric poetry would you choose to be a Bacchylides or a Pindar? in\ntragedy a Sophocles or (save the mark!) an Io of Chios? Yet Io and\nBacchylides never stumble, their style is always neat, always pretty;\nwhile Pindar and Sophocles sometimes move onwards with a wide blaze of\nsplendour, but often drop out of view in sudden and disastrous eclipse.\nNevertheless no one in his senses would deny that a single play of\nSophocles, the _Oedipus_, is of higher value than all the dramas of Io\nput together.\n\n\nXXXIV\n\nIf the number and not the loftiness of an author's merits is to be our\nstandard of success, judged by this test we must admit that Hyperides is\na far superior orator to Demosthenes. For in Hyperides there is a richer\nmodulation, a greater variety of excellence. He is, we may say, in\neverything second-best, like the champion of the _pentathlon_, who,\nthough in every contest he has to yield the prize to some other\ncombatant, is superior to the unpractised in all five.\n\n2\nNot only has he rivalled the success of Demosthenes in everything but\nhis manner of composition, but, as though that were not enough, he has\ntaken in all the excellences and graces of Lysias as well. He knows when\nit is proper to speak with simplicity, and does not, like Demosthenes,\ncontinue the same key throughout. His touches of character are racy and\nsparkling, and full of a delicate flavour. Then how admirable is his\nwit, how polished his raillery! How well-bred he is, how dexterous in\nthe use of irony! His jests are pointed, but without any of the\ngrossness and vulgarity of the old Attic comedy. He is skilled in making\nlight of an opponent's argument, full of a well-aimed satire which\namuses while it stings; and through all this there runs a pervading, may\nwe not say, a matchless charm. He is most apt in moving compassion; his\nmythical digressions show a fluent ease, and he is perfect in bending\nhis course and finding a way out of them without violence or effort.\nThus when he tells the story of Leto he is really almost a poet; and his\nfuneral oration shows a declamatory magnificence to which I hardly know\na parallel.\n\n3\nDemosthenes, on the other hand, has no touches of character, none of the\nversatility, fluency, or declamatory skill of Hyperides. He is, in fact,\nalmost entirely destitute of all those excellences which I have just\nenumerated. When he makes violent efforts to be humorous and witty, the\nonly laughter he arouses is against himself; and the nearer he tries to\nget to the winning grace of Hyperides, the farther he recedes from it.\nHad he, for instance, attempted such a task as the little speech in\ndefence of Phryne or Athenagoras, he would only have added to the\nreputation of his rival.\n\n4\nNevertheless all the beauties of Hyperides, however numerous, cannot\nmake him sublime. He never exhibits strong feeling, has little energy,\nrouses no emotion; certainly he never kindles terror in the breast of\nhis readers. But Demosthenes followed a great master,[1] and drew his\nconsummate excellences, his high-pitched eloquence, his living passion,\nhis copiousness, his sagacity, his speed--that mastery and power which\ncan never be approached--from the highest of sources. These mighty,\nthese heaven-sent gifts (I dare not call them human), he made his own\nboth one and all. Therefore, I say, by the noble qualities which he does\npossess he remains supreme above all rivals, and throws a cloud over his\nfailings, silencing by his thunders and blinding by his lightnings the\norators of all ages. Yes, it would be easier to meet the\nlightning-stroke with steady eye than to gaze unmoved when his\nimpassioned eloquence is sending out flash after flash.\n\n    [Footnote 1: _I.e._ Thucydides. See the passage of Dionysius quoted\n    in the Note.]\n\n\nXXXV\n\nBut in the case of Plato and Lysias there is, as I said, a further\ndifference. Not only is Lysias vastly inferior to Plato in the degree of\nhis merits, but in their number as well; and at the same time he is as\nfar ahead of Plato in the number of his faults as he is behind in that\nof his merits.\n\n2\nWhat truth, then, was it that was present to those mighty spirits of the\npast, who, making whatever is greatest in writing their aim, thought it\nbeneath them to be exact in every detail? Among many others especially\nthis, that it was not in nature's plan for us her chosen children to be\ncreatures base and ignoble,--no, she brought us into life, and into the\nwhole universe, as into some great field of contest, that we should be\nat once spectators and ambitious rivals of her mighty deeds, and from\nthe first implanted in our souls an invincible yearning for all that is\ngreat, all that is diviner than ourselves.\n\n3\nTherefore even the whole world is not wide enough for the soaring range\nof human thought, but man's mind often overleaps the very bounds of\nspace.[1] When we survey the whole circle of life, and see it abounding\neverywhere in what is elegant, grand, and beautiful, we learn at once\nwhat is the true end of man's being.\n\n    [Footnote 1: Comp. Lucretius on Epicurus: \"Ergo vivida vis animi\n    pervicit, et extra Processit longe flammantia moenia mundi,\" etc.]\n\n4\nAnd this is why nature prompts us to admire, not the clearness and\nusefulness of a little stream, but the Nile, the Danube, the Rhine, and\nfar beyond all the Ocean; not to turn our wandering eyes from the\nheavenly fires, though often darkened, to the little flame kindled by\nhuman hands, however pure and steady its light; not to think that tiny\nlamp more wondrous than the caverns of Aetna, from whose raging depths\nare hurled up stones and whole masses of rock, and torrents sometimes\ncome pouring from earth's centre of pure and living fire.\n\nTo sum the whole: whatever is useful or needful lies easily within man's\nreach; but he keeps his homage for what is astounding.\n\n\nXXXVI\n\nHow much more do these principles apply to the Sublime in literature,\nwhere grandeur is never, as it sometimes is in nature, dissociated from\nutility and advantage. Therefore all those who have achieved it, however\nfar from faultless, are still more than mortal. When a writer uses any\nother resource he shows himself to be a man; but the Sublime lifts him\nnear to the great spirit of the Deity. He who makes no slips must be\nsatisfied with negative approbation, but he who is sublime commands\npositive reverence.\n\n2\nWhy need I add that each one of those great writers often redeems all\nhis errors by one grand and masterly stroke? But the strongest point of\nall is that, if you were to pick out all the blunders of Homer,\nDemosthenes, Plato, and all the greatest names in literature, and add\nthem together, they would be found to bear a very small, or rather an\ninfinitesimal proportion to the passages in which these supreme masters\nhave attained absolute perfection. Therefore it is that all posterity,\nwhose judgment envy herself cannot impeach, has brought and bestowed on\nthem the crown of glory, has guarded their fame until this day against\nall attack, and is likely to preserve it\n\n  \"As long as lofty trees shall grow,\n  And restless waters seaward flow.\"\n\n3\nIt has been urged by one writer that we should not prefer the huge\ndisproportioned Colossus to the Doryphorus of Polycletus. But (to give\none out of many possible answers) in art we admire exactness, in the\nworks of nature magnificence; and it is from nature that man derives the\nfaculty of speech. Whereas, then, in statuary we look for close\nresemblance to humanity, in literature we require something which\ntranscends humanity.\n\n4\nNevertheless (to reiterate the advice which we gave at the beginning of\nthis essay), since that success which consists in avoidance of error is\nusually the gift of art, while high, though unequal excellence is the\nattribute of genius, it is proper on all occasions to call in art as an\nally to nature. By the combined resources of these two we may hope to\nachieve perfection.\n\nSuch are the conclusions which were forced upon me concerning the points\nat issue; but every one may consult his own taste.\n\n\nXXXVII\n\nTo return, however, from this long digression; closely allied to\nmetaphors are comparisons and similes, differing only in this * * *[1]\n\n    [Footnote 1: The asterisks denote gaps in the original text.]\n\n\nXXXVIII\n\nSuch absurdities as, \"Unless you carry your brains next to the ground in\nyour heels.\"[1] Hence it is necessary to know where to draw the line;\nfor if ever it is overstepped the effect of the hyperbole is spoilt,\nbeing in such cases relaxed by overstraining, and producing the very\nopposite to the effect desired.\n\n    [Footnote 1: Pseud. Dem. de Halon. 45.]\n\n2\nIsocrates, for instance, from an ambitious desire of lending everything\na strong rhetorical colouring, shows himself in quite a childish light.\nHaving in his Panegyrical Oration set himself to prove that the Athenian\nstate has surpassed that of Sparta in her services to Hellas, he starts\noff at the very outset with these words: \"Such is the power of language\nthat it can extenuate what is great, and lend greatness to what is\nlittle, give freshness to what is antiquated, and describe what is\nrecent so that it seems to be of the past.\"[2] Come, Isocrates (it might\nbe asked), is it thus that you are going to tamper with the facts about\nSparta and Athens? This flourish about the power of language is like a\nsignal hung out to warn his audience not to believe him.\n\n    [Footnote 2: Paneg. 8.]\n\n3\nWe may repeat here what we said about figures, and say that the\nhyperbole is then most effective when it appears in disguise.[3] And\nthis effect is produced when a writer, impelled by strong feeling,\nspeaks in the accents of some tremendous crisis; as Thucydides does in\ndescribing the massacre in Sicily. \"The Syracusans,\" he says, \"went down\nafter them, and slew those especially who were in the river, and the\nwater was at once defiled, yet still they went on drinking it, though\nmingled with mud and gore, most of them even fighting for it.\"[4] The\ndrinking of mud and gore, and even the fighting for it, is made credible\nby the awful horror of the scene described.\n\n    [Footnote 3: xvii. 1.]\n\n    [Footnote 4: Thuc. vii. 84.]\n\n4\nSimilarly Herodotus on those who fell at Thermopylae: \"Here as they\nfought, those who still had them, with daggers, the rest with hands and\nteeth, the barbarians buried them under their javelins.\"[5] That they\nfought with the teeth against heavy-armed assailants, and that they were\nburied with javelins, are perhaps hard sayings, but not incredible, for\nthe reasons already explained. We can see that these circumstances have\nnot been dragged in to produce a hyperbole, but that the hyperbole has\ngrown naturally out of the circumstances.\n\n    [Footnote 5: vii. 225.]\n\n5\nFor, as I am never tired of explaining, in actions and passions verging\non frenzy there lies a kind of remission and palliation of any licence\nof language. Hence some comic extravagances, however improbable, gain\ncredence by their humour, such as--\n\n  \"He had a farm, a little farm, where space severely pinches;\n  'Twas smaller than the last despatch from Sparta by some inches.\"\n\n6\nFor mirth is one of the passions, having its seat in pleasure. And\nhyperboles may be employed either to increase or to lessen--since\nexaggeration is common to both uses. Thus in extenuating an opponent's\nargument we try to make it seem smaller than it is.\n\n\nXXXIX\n\nWe have still left, my dear sir, the fifth of those sources which we set\ndown at the outset as contributing to sublimity, that which consists in\nthe mere arrangement of words in a certain order. Having already\npublished two books dealing fully with this subject--so far at least as\nour investigations had carried us--it will be sufficient for the purpose\nof our present inquiry to add that harmony is an instrument which has a\nnatural power, not only to win and to delight, but also in a remarkable\ndegree to exalt the soul and sway the heart of man.\n\n2\nWhen we see that a flute kindles certain emotions in its hearers,\nrendering them almost beside themselves and full of an orgiastic frenzy,\nand that by starting some kind of rhythmical beat it compels him who\nlistens to move in time and assimilate his gestures to the tune, even\nthough he has no taste whatever for music; when we know that the sounds\nof a harp, which in themselves have no meaning, by the change of key, by\nthe mutual relation of the notes, and their arrangement in symphony,\noften lay a wonderful spell on an audience--\n\n3\nthough these are mere shadows and spurious imitations of persuasion,\nnot, as I have said, genuine manifestations of human nature:--can we\ndoubt that composition (being a kind of harmony of that language which\nnature has taught us, and which reaches, not our ears only, but our very\nsouls), when it raises changing forms of words, of thoughts, of actions,\nof beauty, of melody, all of which are engrained in and akin to\nourselves, and when by the blending of its manifold tones it brings home\nto the minds of those who stand by the feelings present to the speaker,\nand ever disposes the hearer to sympathise with those feelings, adding\nword to word, until it has raised a majestic and harmonious\nstructure:--can we wonder if all this enchants us, wherever we meet with\nit, and filling us with the sense of pomp and dignity and sublimity, and\nwhatever else it embraces, gains a complete mastery over our minds? It\nwould be mere infatuation to join issue on truths so universally\nacknowledged, and established by experience beyond dispute.[1]\n\n    [Footnote 1: Reading +all' eoike mania+, and putting a full stop at\n    +pistis+.]\n\n4\nNow to give an instance: that is doubtless a sublime thought, indeed\nwonderfully fine, which Demosthenes applies to his decree: +touto to\nps\u00eaphisma ton tote t\u00ea polei peristanta kindunon parelthein epoi\u00easen\nh\u00f4sper nephos+, \"This decree caused the danger which then hung round our\ncity to pass away like a cloud.\" But the modulation is as perfect as the\nsentiment itself is weighty. It is uttered wholly in the dactylic\nmeasure, the noblest and most magnificent of all measures, and hence\nforming the chief constituent in the finest metre we know, the heroic.\n[And it is with great judgment that the words +h\u00f4sper nephos+ are\nreserved till the end.[2]] Supposing we transpose them from their proper\nplace and read, say +touto to ps\u00eaphisma h\u00f4sper nephos epoi\u00ease ton tote\nkindunon parelthein+--nay, let us merely cut off one syllable, reading\n+epoi\u00ease parelthein h\u00f4s nephos+--and you will understand how close is\nthe unison between harmony and sublimity. In the passage before us the\nwords +h\u00f4sper nephos+ move first in a heavy measure, which is metrically\nequivalent to four short syllables: but on removing one syllable, and\nreading +h\u00f4s nephos+, the grandeur of movement is at once crippled by\nthe abridgment. So conversely if you lengthen into +h\u00f4sperei nephos+,\nthe meaning is still the same, but it does not strike the ear in the\nsame manner, because by lingering over the final syllables you at once\ndissipate and relax the abrupt grandeur of the passage.\n\n    [Footnote 2: There is a break here in the text; but the context\n    indicates the sense of the words lost, which has accordingly been\n    supplied.]\n\n\nXL\n\nThere is another method very efficient in exalting a style. As the\ndifferent members of the body, none of which, if severed from its\nconnection, has any intrinsic excellence, unite by their mutual\ncombination to form a complete and perfect organism, so also the\nelements of a fine passage, by whose separation from one another its\nhigh quality is simultaneously dissipated and evaporates, when joined in\none organic whole, and still further compacted by the bond of harmony,\nby the mere rounding of the period gain power of tone.\n\n2\nIn fact, a clause may be said to derive its sublimity from the joint\ncontributions of a number of particulars. And further (as we have shown\nat large elsewhere), many writers in prose and verse, though their\nnatural powers were not high, were perhaps even low, and though the\nterms they employed were usually common and popular and conveying no\nimpression of refinement, by the mere harmony of their composition have\nattained dignity and elevation, and avoided the appearance of meanness.\nSuch among many others are Philistus, Aristophanes occasionally,\nEuripides almost always.\n\n3\nThus when Heracles says, after the murder of his children,\n\n  \"I'm full of woes, I have no room for more,\"[1]\n\nthe words are quite common, but they are made sublime by being cast in a\nfine mould. By changing their position you will see that the poetical\nquality of Euripides depends more on his arrangement than on his\nthoughts.\n\n    [Footnote 1: _H. F._ 1245.]\n\n4\nCompare his lines on Dirce dragged by the bull--\n\n                  \"Whatever crossed his path,\n  Caught in his victim's form, he seized, and dragging\n  Oak, woman, rock, now here, now there, he flies.\"[2]\n\nThe circumstance is noble in itself, but it gains in vigour because the\nlanguage is disposed so as not to hurry the movement, not running, as it\nwere, on wheels, because there is a distinct stress on each word, and\nthe time is delayed, advancing slowly to a pitch of stately sublimity.\n\n    [Footnote 2: _Antiope_ (Nauck, 222).]\n\n\nXLI\n\nNothing so much degrades the tone of a style as an effeminate and\nhurried movement in the language, such as is produced by pyrrhics and\ntrochees and dichorees falling in time together into a regular dance\nmeasure. Such abuse of rhythm is sure to savour of coxcombry and petty\naffectation, and grows tiresome in the highest degree by a monotonous\nsameness of tone.\n\n2\nBut its worst effect is that, as those who listen to a ballad have their\nattention distracted from its subject and can think of nothing but the\ntune, so an over-rhythmical passage does not affect the hearer by the\nmeaning of its words, but merely by their cadence, so that sometimes,\nknowing where the pause must come, they beat time with the speaker,\nstriking the expected close like dancers before the stop is reached.\nEqually undignified is the splitting up of a sentence into a number of\nlittle words and short syllables crowded too closely together and forced\ninto cohesion,--hammered, as it were, successively together,--after the\nmanner of mortice and tenon.[1]\n\n    [Footnote 1: I must refer to Weiske's Note, which I have followed,\n    for the probable interpretation of this extraordinary passage.]\n\n\nXLII\n\nSublimity is further diminished by cramping the diction. Deformity\ninstead of grandeur ensues from over-compression. Here I am not\nreferring to a judicious compactness of phrase, but to a style which is\ndwarfed, and its force frittered away. To cut your words too short is to\nprune away their sense, but to be concise is to be direct. On the other\nhand, we know that a style becomes lifeless by over-extension, I mean by\nbeing relaxed to an unseasonable length.\n\n\nXLIII\n\nThe use of mean words has also a strong tendency to degrade a lofty\npassage. Thus in that description of the storm in Herodotus the matter\nis admirable, but some of the words admitted are beneath the dignity of\nthe subject; such, perhaps, as \"the seas having _seethed_\" because the\nill-sounding phrase \"having seethed\" detracts much from its\nimpressiveness: or when he says \"the wind wore away,\" and \"those who\nclung round the wreck met with an unwelcome end.\"[1] \"Wore away\" is\nignoble and vulgar, and \"unwelcome\" inadequate to the extent of the\ndisaster.\n\n    [Footnote 1: Hdt. vii. 188, 191, 13.]\n\n2\nSimilarly Theopompus, after giving a fine picture of the Persian king's\ndescent against Egypt, has exposed the whole to censure by certain\npaltry expressions. \"There was no city, no people of Asia, which did not\nsend an embassy to the king; no product of the earth, no work of art,\nwhether beautiful or precious, which was not among the gifts brought to\nhim. Many and costly were the hangings and robes, some purple, some\nembroidered, some white; many the tents, of cloth of gold, furnished\nwith all things useful; many the tapestries and couches of great price.\nMoreover, there was gold and silver plate richly wrought, goblets and\nbowls, some of which might be seen studded with gems, and others besides\nworked in relief with great skill and at vast expense. Besides these\nthere were suits of armour in number past computation, partly Greek,\npartly foreign, endless trains of baggage animals and fat cattle for\nslaughter, many bushels of spices, many panniers and sacks and sheets of\nwriting-paper; and all other necessaries in the same proportion. And\nthere was salt meat of all kinds of beasts in immense quantity, heaped\ntogether to such a height as to show at a distance like mounds and hills\nthrown up one against another.\"\n\n3\nHe runs off from the grander parts of his subject to the meaner, and\nsinks where he ought to rise. Still worse, by his mixing up _panniers_\nand _spices_ and _bags_ with his wonderful recital of that vast and busy\nscene one would imagine that he was describing a kitchen. Let us suppose\nthat in that show of magnificence some one had taken a set of wretched\nbaskets and bags and placed them in the midst, among vessels of gold,\njewelled bowls, silver plate, and tents and goblets of gold; how\nincongruous would have seemed the effect! Now just in the same way these\npetty words, introduced out of season, stand out like deformities and\nblots on the diction.\n\n4\nThese details might have been given in one or two broad strokes, as when\nhe speaks of mounds being heaped together. So in dealing with the other\npreparations he might have told us of \"waggons and camels and a long\ntrain of baggage animals loaded with all kinds of supplies for the\nluxury and enjoyment of the table,\" or have mentioned \"piles of grain of\nevery species, and of all the choicest delicacies required by the art of\nthe cook or the taste of the epicure,\" or (if he must needs be so very\nprecise) he might have spoken of \"whatever dainties are supplied by\nthose who lay or those who dress the banquet.\"\n\n5\nIn our sublimer efforts we should never stoop to what is sordid and\ndespicable, unless very hard pressed by some urgent necessity. If we\nwould write becomingly, our utterance should be worthy of our theme. We\nshould take a lesson from nature, who when she planned the human frame\ndid not set our grosser parts, or the ducts for purging the body, in our\nface, but as far as she could concealed them, \"diverting,\" as Xenophon\nsays, \"those canals as far as possible from our senses,\"[2] and thus\nshunning in any part to mar the beauty of the whole creature.\n\n    [Footnote 2: _Mem._ i. 4. 6.]\n\n6\nHowever, it is not incumbent on us to specify and enumerate whatever\ndiminishes a style. We have now pointed out the various means of giving\nit nobility and loftiness. It is clear, then, that whatever is contrary\nto these will generally degrade and deform it.\n\n\nXLIV\n\nThere is still another point which remains to be cleared up, my dear\nTerentian, and on which I shall not hesitate to add some remarks, to\ngratify your inquiring spirit. It relates to a question which was\nrecently put to me by a certain philosopher. \"To me,\" he said, \"in\ncommon, I may say, with many others, it is a matter of wonder that in\nthe present age, which produces many highly skilled in the arts Of\npopular persuasion, many of keen and active powers, many especially rich\nin every pleasing gift of language, the growth of highly exalted and\nwide-reaching genius has with a few rare exceptions almost entirely\nceased. So universal is the dearth of eloquence which prevails\nthroughout the world.\n\n2\n\"Must we really,\" he asked, \"give credit to that oft-repeated assertion\nthat democracy is the kind nurse of genius, and that high literary\nexcellence has flourished with her prime and faded with her decay?\nLiberty, it is said, is all-powerful to feed the aspirations of high\nintellects, to hold out hope, and keep alive the flame of mutual rivalry\nand ambitious struggle for the highest place.\n\n3\n\"Moreover, the prizes which are offered in every free state keep the\nspirits of her foremost orators whetted by perpetual exercise;[1] they\nare, as it were, ignited by friction, and naturally blaze forth freely\nbecause they are surrounded by freedom. But we of to-day,\" he continued,\n\"seem to have learnt in our childhood the lessons of a benignant\ndespotism, to have been cradled in her habits and customs from the time\nwhen our minds were still tender, and never to have tasted the fairest\nand most fruitful fountain of eloquence, I mean liberty. Hence we\ndevelop nothing but a fine genius for flattery.\n\n    [Footnote 1: Comp. Pericles in Thuc. ii., +athla gar hois keitai\n    aret\u00eas megista tois de kai andres arista politeuousin+.]\n\n4\n\"This is the reason why, though all other faculties are consistent with\nthe servile condition, no slave ever became an orator; because in him\nthere is a dumb spirit which will not be kept down: his soul is chained:\nhe is like one who has learnt to be ever expecting a blow. For, as Homer\nsays--\n\n5\n            \"'The day of slavery\n  Takes half our manly worth away.'[2]\n\n\"As, then (if what I have heard is credible), the cages in which those\npigmies commonly called dwarfs are reared not only stop the growth of\nthe imprisoned creature, but absolutely make him smaller by compressing\nevery part of his body, so all despotism, however equitable, may be\ndefined as a cage of the soul and a general prison.\"\n\n    [Footnote 2: _Od._ xvii. 322.]\n\n6\nMy answer was as follows: \"My dear friend, it is so easy, and so\ncharacteristic of human nature, always to find fault with the\npresent.[3] Consider, now, whether the corruption of genius is to be\nattributed, not to a world-wide peace,[4] but rather to the war within\nus which knows no limit, which engages all our desires, yes, and still\nfurther to the bad passions which lay siege to us to-day, and make utter\nhavoc and spoil of our lives. Are we not enslaved, nay, are not our\ncareers completely shipwrecked, by love of gain, that fever which rages\nunappeased in us all, and love of pleasure?--one the most debasing, the\nother the most ignoble of the mind's diseases.\n\n    [Footnote 3: Comp. Byron, \"The good old times,--all times when old\n    are good.\"]\n\n    [Footnote 4: A euphemism for \"a world-wide tyranny.\"]\n\n7\n\"When I consider it I can find no means by which we, who hold in such\nhigh honour, or, to speak more correctly, who idolise boundless riches,\ncan close the door of our souls against those evil spirits which grow up\nwith them. For Wealth unmeasured and unbridled is dogged by\nExtravagance: she sticks close to him, and treads in his footsteps: and\nas soon as he opens the gates of cities or of houses she enters with him\nand makes her abode with him. And after a time they build their nests\n(to use a wise man's words[5]) in that corner of life, and speedily set\nabout breeding, and beget Boastfulness, and Vanity, and Wantonness, no\nbase-born children, but their very own. And if these also, the offspring\nof Wealth, be allowed to come to their prime, quickly they engender in\nthe soul those pitiless tyrants, Violence, and Lawlessness, and\nShamelessness.\n\n    [Footnote 5: Plato, _Rep._ ix. 573, E.]\n\n8\n\"Whenever a man takes to worshipping what is mortal and irrational[6] in\nhim, and neglects to cherish what is immortal, these are the inevitable\nresults. He never looks up again; he has lost all care for good report;\nby slow degrees the ruin of his life goes on, until it is consummated\nall round; all that is great in his soul fades, withers away, and is\ndespised.\n\n    [Footnote 6: Reading +kano\u00eata+.]\n\n9\n\"If a judge who passes sentence for a bribe can never more give a free\nand sound decision on a point of justice or honour (for to him who takes\na bribe honour and justice must be measured by his own interests), how\ncan we of to-day expect, when the whole life of each one of us is\ncontrolled by bribery, while we lie in wait for other men's death and\nplan how to get a place in their wills, when we buy gain, from whatever\nsource, each one of us, with our very souls in our slavish greed, how, I\nsay, can we expect, in the midst of such a moral pestilence, that there\nis still left even one liberal and impartial critic, whose verdict will\nnot be biassed by avarice in judging of those great works which live on\nthrough all time?\n\n10\n\"Alas! I fear that for such men as we are it is better to serve than to\nbe free. If our appetites were let loose altogether against our\nneighbours, they would be like wild beasts uncaged, and bring a deluge\nof calamity on the whole civilised world.\"\n\n11\nI ended by remarking generally that the genius of the present age is\nwasted by that indifference which with a few exceptions runs through the\nwhole of life. If we ever shake off our apathy[7] and apply ourselves to\nwork, it is always with a view to pleasure or applause, not for that\nsolid advantage which is worthy to be striven for and held in honour.\n\n    [Footnote 7: Comp. Thuc. vi. 26. 2, for this sense of\n    +analambanein+.]\n\n12\nWe had better then leave this generation to its fate, and turn to what\nfollows, which is the subject of the passions, to which we promised\nearly in this treatise to devote a separate work.[8] They play an\nimportant part in literature generally, and especially in relation to\nthe Sublime.\n\n    [Footnote 8: iii. 5.]\n\n\n\n\nNOTES ON LONGINUS\n\n[Transcriber's Note:\nCitation format is as in the printed text. The last number in each\ngroup appears to refer to clauses in the original Greek; there is no\ncorrespondence with line numbers in the printed book.]\n\n\nI. 2. 10. There seems to be an antithesis implied in +politikois\ntethe\u00f4r\u00eakenai+, referring to the well-known distinction between the\n+praktikos bios+ and the +the\u00f4r\u00eatikos bios+.\n\n4. 27. I have ventured to return to the original reading, +dieph\u00f4tisen+,\nthough all editors seem to have adopted the correction +diephor\u00easen+, on\naccount, I suppose, of +sk\u00eaptou+. To _illumine_ a large subject, as a\nlandscape is lighted up at night by a flash of lightning, is surely a\nfar more vivid and intelligible expression than to _sweep away_ a\nsubject.[1]\n\n    [Footnote 1: Comp. for the metaphor Goethe, _Dichtung und Wahrheit_,\n    B 8. \"Wie vor einem Blitz erleuchteten sich uns alle Folgen dieses\n    herrlichen Gedankens.\"]\n\n\nIII. 2. 17. +phorbeias d' ater+, lit. \"without a cheek-strap,\" which was\nworn by trumpeters to assist them in regulating their breath. The line\nis contracted from two of Sophocles's, and Longinus's point is that the\nextravagance of Cleitarchus is not that of a strong but ill-regulated\nnature, but the ludicrous straining after grandeur of a writer at once\nfeeble and pretentious.\n\nRuhnken gives an extract from some inedited \"versus politici\" of\nTzetzes, in which are some amusing specimens of those felicities of\nlanguage Longinus is here laughing at. Stones are the \"bones,\" rivers\nthe \"veins,\" of the earth; the moon is \"the sigma of the sky\" (+(lunate\nSigma)+ the old form of +(Sigma)+); sailors, \"the ants of ocean\"; the\nstrap of a pedlar's pack, \"the girdle of his load\"; pitch, \"the ointment\nof doors,\" and so on.\n\n\nIV. 4. 4. The play upon the double meaning of +kora+, (1) maiden, (2)\npupil of the eye, can hardly be kept in English. It is worthy of remark\nthat our text of Xenophon has +en tois thalamois+, a perfectly natural\nexpression. Such a variation would seem to point to a very early\ncorruption of ancient manuscripts, or to extraordinary inaccuracy on the\npart of Longinus, who, indeed, elsewhere displays great looseness of\ncitation, confusing together totally different passages.\n\n9. +itamon+. I can make nothing of this word. Various corrections have\nbeen suggested, but with little certainty.\n\n5. 10. +h\u00f4s ph\u00f4riou tinos ephaptomenos+, literally, \"as though he were\nlaying hands on a piece of stolen property.\" The point seems to be, that\nplagiarists, like other robbers, show no discrimination in their\npilferings, seizing what comes first to hand.\n\n\nVIII. 1. 20. +edaphous+. I have avoided the rather harsh confusion of\nmetaphor which this word involves, taken in connection with +p\u00eagai+.\n\n\nIX. 2. 13. +ap\u00each\u00eama+, properly an \"echo,\" a metaphor rather Greek than\nEnglish.\n\n\nX. 2. 13. +chl\u00f4rotera de poias+, lit. \"more wan than grass\"--of the\nsickly yellow hue which would appear on a dark Southern face under the\ninfluence of violent emotion.[2]\n\n    [Footnote 2: The notion of _yellowness_, as associated with grass,\n    is made intelligible by a passage in Longus, i. 17. 19. +chl\u00f4roteron\n    to pros\u00f4pon \u00ean poas _therin\u00eas_.+]\n\n3. 6. The words +\u00ea gar ... tethn\u00eaken+ are omitted in the translation,\nbeing corrupt, and giving no satisfactory sense. Ruhnken corrects,\n+alogistei, phronei, ptoeitai, \u00ea p. o. t.+\n\n18. +splanchnoisi kak\u00f4s anaballomenoisi.+ Probably of sea-sickness; and\nso I find Ruhnken took it, quoting Plutarch, _T._ ii. 831: +emountos tou\nheterou, kai legontos ta splanchna ekballein+. An objection on the score\nof _taste_ would be out of place in criticising the laureate of the\nArimaspi.\n\n\nX. 7. 2. +tas exochas aristind\u00ean ekkath\u00earantes.+ +aristind\u00ean\nekkath\u00earantes+ appears to be a condensed phrase for +aristind\u00ean\neklexantes kai ekkath\u00earantes+. \"Having chosen the most striking\ncircumstances _par excellence_, and having relieved them of all\nsuperfluity,\" would perhaps give the literal meaning. Longinus seems\nconscious of some strangeness in his language, making a quasi-apology in\n+h\u00f4s an eipoi tis+.\n\n3. Partly with the help of Toup, we may emend this corrupt passage as\nfollows: +lumainetai gar tauta to holon, h\u00f4sanei ps\u00eagmata \u00ea arai\u00f4mata,\nta empoiounta megethos t\u00ea pros all\u00eala schesei sunteteichismena+. +to\nholon+ here = \"omnino.\" To explain the process of corruption, +ta+ would\neasily drop out after the final +-ta+ in +arai\u00f4mata+; +sunoikonomoumena+\nis simply a corruption of +sunoikodomoumena+, which is itself a gloss on\n+sunteteichismena+, having afterwards crept into the text; +megethos+\nbecame corrupted into +megeth\u00ea+ through the error of some copyist, who\nwished to make it agree with +empoiounta+. The whole maybe translated:\n\"Such [interpolations], like so many patches or rents, mar altogether\nthe effect of those details which, by being built up in an uninterrupted\nseries [+t\u00ea pros all\u00eala sch. suntet.+], produce sublimity in a work.\"\n\n\nXII. 4. 2. +en aut\u00f4+; the sense seems clearly to require +en haut\u00f4+.\n\n\nXIV. 3. 16. +m\u00ea ... huper\u00eameron.+ Most of the editors insert +ou+ before\n+phthenxaito+, thus ruining the sense of this fine passage. Longinus has\njust said that a writer should always work with an eye to posterity. If\n(he adds) he thinks of nothing but the taste and judgment of his\ncontemporaries, he will have no chance of \"leaving something so written\nthat the world will not willingly let it die.\" A book, then, which is\n+tou idiou biou kai chronou huper\u00eameros+, is a book which is in advance\nof its own times. Such were the poems of Lucretius, of Milton, of\nWordsworth.[3]\n\n    [Footnote 3: Compare the \"Gefl\u00fcgelte Worte\" in the Vorspiel to\n    Goethe's _Faust_:\n      Was gl\u00e4nzt, ist f\u00fcr den Augenblick geboren,\n      Das Aechte bleibt der Nachwelt unverloren. ]\n\n\nXV. 5. 23. +pokoeideis kai amalaktous+, lit. \"like raw, undressed wool.\"\n\n\nXVII. 1. 25. I construct the infinit. with +hupopton+, though the\nordinary interpretation joins +to dia sch\u00eamat\u00f4n panourgein+: \"proprium\nest _verborum lenociniis_ suspicionem movere\" (Weiske).\n\n2. 8. +paral\u00eaphtheisa+. This word has given much trouble; but is it not\nsimply a continuation of the metaphor implied in +epikouria+?\n+paralambanein tina+, in the sense of calling in an ally, is a common\nenough use. This would be clearer if we could read +paral\u00eaphtheisi+. I\nhave omitted +tou panourgein+ in translating, as it seems to me to have\nevidently crept in from above (p. 33, l. 25). +h\u00ea tou panourgein\ntechn\u00ea+, \"the art of playing the villain,\" is surely, in Longinus's own\nwords, +deinon kai ekphulon+, \"a startling novelty\" of language.\n\n12. +t\u00f4 ph\u00f4ti aut\u00f4+. The words may remind us of Shelley's \"Like a poet\n_hidden in the light of thought_.\"\n\n\nXVIII. 1. 24. The distinction between +peusis+ or +pusma+ and +er\u00f4t\u00easis+\nor +er\u00f4t\u00eama+ is said to be that +er\u00f4t\u00easis+ is a simple question, which\ncan be answered yes or no; +peusis+ a fuller inquiry, requiring a fuller\nanswer. _Aquila Romanus in libro de figuris sententiarum et\nelocutionis_, \u00a7 12 (Weiske).\n\n\nXXXI. 1. 11. +anankophag\u00easai+, properly of the fixed diet of athletes,\nwhich seems to have been excessive in quantity, and sometimes nauseous\nin quality. I do not know what will be thought of my rendering here; it\nis certainly not elegant, but it was necessary to provide some sort of\nequivalent to the Greek. \"Swallow,\" which the other translators give, is\nquite inadequate. We require a threefold combination--(1) To swallow (2)\nsomething nasty (3) for the sake of prospective advantage.\n\n\nXXXII. 1. 3. The text is in great confusion here. Following a hint in\nVahlin's critical note, I have transposed the words thus: +ho kairos de\nt\u00eas chreias horos; entha ta path\u00ea cheimarrou dik\u00ean elaunetai, kai t\u00ean\npolupl\u00eatheian aut\u00f4n h\u00f4s anankaian entautha sunephelketai; ho gar D.,\nhoros kai t\u00f4n toiout\u00f4n, anthr\u00f4poi, ph\u00easin, k.t.l.+\n\n8. 16. Some words have probably been lost here. The sense of +pl\u00ean+, and\nthe absence of antithesis to +houtos men+, point in this direction. The\noriginal reading may have been something of this sort: +pl\u00ean houtos men\nhupo philoneikias _par\u00eageto_; all' oude ta themata tith\u00easin\nhomologoumena+, the sense being that, though we may allow something to\nthe partiality of Caecilius, yet this does not excuse him from arguing\non premises which are unsound.\n\n\nXXXIV. 4. 10. +ho de enthen hel\u00f4n, k.t.l.+ Probably the darkest place in\nthe whole treatise. Toup cites a remarkable passage from Dionysius of\nHalicarnassus, from which we may perhaps conclude that Longinus is\nreferring here to Thucydides, the traditional master of Demosthenes. _De\nThucyd._ \u00a7 53, +Rh\u00eator\u00f4n de D\u00eamosthen\u00eas monos Thoukudidou z\u00eal\u00f4tos\negeneto kata polla, kai proseth\u00eake tois politikois logois, par' ekeinou\nlab\u00f4n, has oute Antiph\u00f4n, oute Lusias, oute Isokrat\u00eas, hoi pr\u00f4teusantes\nt\u00f4n tote rh\u00eator\u00f4n, eschon aretas, ta tach\u00ea leg\u00f4, kai tas sustrophas, kai\ntous tonous, kai to struphnon, kai t\u00ean exegeirousan ta path\u00ea deinot\u00eata.+\nSo close a parallel can hardly be accidental.\n\n\nXXXV. 4. 5. Longinus probably had his eye on the splendid lines in\nPindar's _First Pythian_:\n\n  +tas [Aitnas] ereugontai men aplatou puros hagnotatai\n  ek much\u00f4n pagai, potamoi d'\n  hameraisin men procheonti rhoon kapnou--\n  aith\u00f4n'; all' en orphnaisin petras\n  phoinissa kulindomena phlox es bathei-\n  an pherei pontou plaka sun patag\u00f4+,\n\nwhich I find has also been pointed out by Toup, who remarks that\n+hagnotatai+ confirms the reading +autou monou+ here, which has been\nsuspected without reason.\n\n\nXXXVIII. 2. 7. Comp. Plato, _Phaedrus_, 267, A: +Tisian de Gorgian te\neasomen heudein, hoi pro t\u00f4n al\u00eath\u00f4n ta eikota eidon h\u00f4s tim\u00eatea mallon,\nta te au smikra megala kai ta megala smikra poiousi phainesthai dia\nrh\u00f4m\u00ean logou, kaina te archai\u00f4s ta t' enantia kain\u00f4s, suntomian te log\u00f4n\nkai apeira m\u00eak\u00ea peri pant\u00f4n aneuron.+\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX\n\nSOME ACCOUNT OF THE LESS KNOWN WRITERS\nMENTIONED IN THE TREATISE ON THE SUBLIME\n\n\nAMMONIUS.--Alexandrian grammarian, carried on the school of Aristarchus\npreviously to the reign of Augustus. The allusion here is to a work on\nthe passages in which Plato has imitated Homer. (Suidas, _s.v._; Schol.\non Hom. Il. ix. 540, quoted by Jahn.)\n\nAMPHIKRATES.--Author of a book _On Famous Men_, referred to by\nAthenaeus, xiii. 576, G, and Diog. Laert. ii. 101. C. Muller, _Hist. Gr.\nFragm._ iv. p. 300, considers him to be the Athenian rhetorician who,\naccording to Plutarch (_Lucullus_, c. 22), retired to Seleucia, and\nclosed his life at the Court of Kleopatra, daughter of Mithridates and\nwife of Tigranes (Pauly, _Real-Encyclop\u00e4die der classischen\nAlterthumswissenschaft_). Plutarch tells a story illustrative of his\narrogance. Being asked by the Seleucians to open a school of rhetoric,\nhe replied, \"A dish is not large enough for a dolphin\" (+h\u00f4s oude lekan\u00ea\ndelphina ch\u00f4roi\u00ea+), v. _Luculli_, c. 22, quoted by Pearce.\n\nARISTEAS.--A name involved in a mist of fable. According to Suidas he\nwas a contemporary of Kroesus, though Herodotus assigns to him a much\nremoter antiquity. The latter authority describes him as visiting the\nnorthern peoples of Europe and recording his travels in an epic poem, a\nfragment of which is given here by Longinus. The passage before us\nappears to be intended as the words of some Arimaspian, who, as\nbelonging to a remote inland race, expresses his astonishment that any\nmen could be found bold enough to commit themselves to the mercy of the\nsea, and tries to describe the terror of human beings placed in such a\nsituation (Pearce ad. l.; Abicht on Hdt. iv. 12; Suidas, _s.v._)\n\nBAKCHYLIDES, nephew and pupil of the great Simonides, flourished about\n460 B.C. He followed his uncle to the Court of Hiero at Syracuse, and\nenjoyed the patronage of that despot. After Hiero's death he returned to\nhis home in Keos; but finding himself discontented with the mode of life\npursued in a free Greek community, for which his experiences at Hiero's\nCourt may well have disqualified him, he retired to Peloponnesus, where\nhe died. His works comprise specimens of almost every kind of lyric\ncomposition, as practised by the Greeks of his time. Horace is said to\nhave imitated him in his _Prophecy of Nereus_, c. I. xv. (Pauly, as\nabove). So far as we can judge from what remains of his works, he was\ndistinguished rather by elegance than by force. A considerable fragment\non the Blessings of Peace has been translated by Mr. J. A. Symonds in\nhis work on the Greek poets. He is made the subject of a very bitter\nallusion by Pindar (Ol. ii. s. fin. c. Schol.) We may suppose that the\nstern and lofty spirit of Pindar had little sympathy with the \"tearful\"\n(Catullus, xxxviii.) strains of Simonides or his imitators.\n\nCAECILIUS, a native of Kale Akte in Sicily, and hence known as Caecilius\nKalaktinus, lived in Rome at the time of Augustus. He is mentioned with\ndistinction as a learned Greek rhetorician and grammarian, and was the\nauthor of numerous works, frequently referred to by Plutarch and other\nlater writers. He may be regarded as one of the most distinguished Greek\nrhetoricians of his time. His works, all of which have perished,\ncomprised, among many others, commentaries on Antipho and Lysias;\nseveral treatises on Demosthenes, among which is a dissertation on the\ngenuine and spurious speeches, and another comparing that orator with\nCicero; \"On the Distinction between Athenian and Asiatic Eloquence\"; and\nthe work on the Sublime, referred to by Longinus (Pauly). The criticism\nof Longinus on the above work may be thus summed up: Caecilius is\ncensured (1) as failing to rise to the dignity of his subject; (2) as\nmissing the cardinal points; and (3) as failing in practical utility. He\nwastes his energy in tedious attempts to define the Sublime, but does\nnot tell us how it is to be attained (I. i.) He is further blamed for\nomitting to deal with the Pathetic (VIII. i. _sqq._) He allows only two\nmetaphors to be employed together in the same passage (XXXII. ii.) He\nextols Lysias as a far greater writer than Plato (_ib._ viii.), and is a\nbitter assailant of Plato's style (_ib._) On the whole, he seems to have\nbeen a cold and uninspired critic, finding his chief pleasure in minute\nverbal details, and incapable of rising to an elevated and extensive\nview of his subject.\n\nERATOSTHENES, a native of Cyrene, born in 275 B.C.; appointed by Ptolemy\nIII. Euergetes as the successor of Kallimachus in the post of librarian\nin the great library of Alexandria. He was the teacher of Aristophanes\nof Byzantium, and his fame as a man of learning is testified by the\nvarious fanciful titles which were conferred on him, such as \"The\nPentathlete,\" \"The second Plato,\" etc. His great work was a treatise on\ngeography (L\u00fcbker).\n\nGORGIAS of Leontini, according to some authorities a pupil of\nEmpedokles, came, when already advanced in years, as ambassador from his\nnative city to ask help against Syracuse (427 B.C.) Here he attracted\nnotice by a novel style of eloquence. Some time after he settled\npermanently in Greece, wandering from city to city, and acquiring wealth\nand fame by practising and teaching rhetoric. We find him last in\nLarissa, where he died at the age of a hundred in 375 B.C. As a teacher\nof eloquence Gorgias belongs to what is known as the Sicilian school, in\nwhich he followed the steps of his predecessors, Korax and Tisias. At\nthe time when this school arose the Greek ear was still accustomed to\nthe rhythm and beat of poetry, and the whole rhetorical system of the\nGorgian school (compare the phrases +gorgieia sch\u00eamata+, +gorgiazein+)\nis built on a poetical plan (L\u00fcbker, _Reallexikon des classischen\nAlterthums_). Hermogenes, as quoted by Jahn, appears to classify him\namong the \"hollow pedants\" (+hupoxuloi sophistai+), \"who,\" he says,\n\"talk of vultures as 'living tombs,' to which they themselves would best\nbe committed, and indulge in many other such frigid conceits.\" (With the\nmetaphor censured by Longinus compare Achilles Tatius, III. v. 50, ed.\nDidot.) See also Plato, _Phaedrus_, 267, A.\n\nHEGESIAS of Magnesia, rhetorician and historian, contemporary of Timaeus\n(300 B.C.) He belongs to the period of the decline of Greek learning,\nand Cicero treats him as the representative of the decline of taste. His\nstyle was harsh and broken in character, and a parody on the Old Attic.\nHe wrote a life of Alexander the Great, of which Plutarch (_Alexander_,\nc. 3) gives the following specimen: \"On the day of Alexander's birth the\ntemple of Artemis in Ephesus was burnt down, a coincidence which\noccasions Hegesias to utter a conceit frigid enough to extinguish the\nconflagration. 'It was natural,' he says, 'that the temple should be\nburnt down, as Artemis was engaged with bringing Alexander into the\nworld'\" (Pauly, with the references).\n\nHEKATAEUS of Miletus, the logographer; born in 549 B.C., died soon after\nthe battle of Plataea. He was the author of two works--(1) +periodos\ng\u00eas+; and (2) +gene\u00ealogiai+. The _Periodos_ deals in two books, first\nwith Europe, then with Asia and Libya. The quotation in the text is from\nhis genealogies (L\u00fcbker).\n\nION of Chios, poet, historian, and philosopher, highly distinguished\namong his contemporaries, and mentioned by Strabo among the celebrated\nmen of the island. He won the tragic prize at Athens in 452 B.C., and\nAristophanes (_Peace_, 421 B.C.) speaks of him as already dead. He was\nnot less celebrated as an elegiac poet, and we still possess some\nspecimens of his elegies, which are characterised by an Anacreontic\nspirit, a cheerful, joyous tone, and even by a certain degree of\ninspiration. He wrote also Skolia, Hymns, and Epigrams, and was a pretty\nvoluminous writer in prose (Pauly). Compare the Scholiast on Ar.\n_Peace_, 801.\n\nKALLISTHENES of Olynthus, a near relative of Aristotle; born in 360, and\neducated by the philosopher as fellow-pupil with Alexander, afterwards\nthe Great. He subsequently visited Athens, where he enjoyed the\nfriendship of Theophrastus, and devoted himself to history and natural\nphilosophy. He afterwards accompanied Alexander on his Asiatic\nexpedition, but soon became obnoxious to the tyrant on account of his\nindependent and manly bearing, which he carried even to the extreme of\nrudeness and arrogance. He at last excited the enmity of Alexander to\nsuch a degree that the latter took the opportunity afforded by the\nconspiracy of Hermolaus, in which Kallisthenes was accused of\nparticipating, to rid himself of his former school companion, whom he\ncaused to be put to death. He was the author of various historical and\nscientific works. Of the latter two are mentioned--(1) _On the Nature of\nthe Eye_; (2) _On the Nature of Plants_. Among his historical works are\nmentioned (1) the _Phocian War_ (read \"Phocicum\" for v. l. \"Troikum\" in\nCic. _Epp. ad Div._ v. 12); (2) a _History of Greece_ in ten books; (3)\n+ta Persika+, apparently identical with the description of Alexander's\nmarch, of which we still possess fragments. As an historian he seems to\nhave displayed an undue love of recording signs and wonders. Polybius,\nhowever (vi. 45), classes him among the best historical writers. His\nstyle is said by Cicero (_de Or._ ii. 14) to approximate to the\nrhetorical (Pauly).\n\nKLEITARCHUS, a contemporary of Alexander, accompanied that monarch on\nhis Asiatic expedition, and wrote a history of the same in twelve books,\nwhich must have included at least a short retrospect on the early\nhistory of Asia. His talents are spoken of in high terms, but his credit\nas an historian is held very light--\"probatur ingenium, fides\ninfamatur,\" Quint. x. 1, 74. Cicero also (_de Leg._ i. 2) ranks him very\nlow. That his credit as an historian was sacrificed to a childish\ncredulity and a foolish love of fable and adventure is sufficiently\ntestified by the pretty numerous fragments which still remain (Pauly).\nDemetrius Phalereus, quoted by Pearce, quotes a grandiloquent\ndescription of the wasp taken from Kleitarchus, \"feeding on the\nmountainside, her home the hollow oak.\"\n\nMATRIS, a native of Thebes, author of a panegyric on Herakles, whether\nin verse or prose is uncertain. In one passage Athenaeus speaks of him\nas an Athenian, but this must be a mistake. Toup restores a verse from\nan allusion in Diodorus Siculus (i. 24), which, if genuine, would agree\nwell with the description given of him by Longinus: +\u00caraklea kaleesken,\nhoti kleos esche dia H\u00earan+ (see Toup ad Long. III. ii.)\n\nPHILISTUS of Syracuse, a relative of the elder Dionysius, whom he\nassisted with his wealth in his attack on the liberty of that city, and\nremained with him until 386 B.C., when he was banished by the jealous\nsuspicions of the tyrant. He retired to Epirus, where he remained until\nDionysius's death. The younger Dionysius recalled him, wishing to employ\nhim in the character of supporter against Dion. By his instrumentality\nit would seem that Dion and Plato were banished from Syracuse. He\ncommanded the fleet in the struggle between Dion and Dionysius, and lost\na battle, whereupon he was seized and put to death by the people. During\nhis banishment he wrote his historical work, +ta Sikelika+, divided into\ntwo parts and numbering eleven books. The first division embraced the\nhistory of Sicily from the earliest times down to the capture of\nAgrigentum (seven books), and the remaining four books dealt with the\nlife of Dionysius the elder. He afterwards added a supplement in two\nbooks, giving an account of the younger Dionysius, which he did not,\nhowever, complete. He is described as an imitator, though at a great\ndistance, of Thucydides, and hence was known as \"the little Thucydides.\"\nAs an historian he is deficient in conscientiousness and candour; he\nappears as a partisan of Dionysius, and seeks to throw a veil over his\ndiscreditable actions. Still he belongs to the most important of the\nGreek historians (L\u00fcbker).\n\nTHEODORUS of Gadara, a rhetorician in the first century after Christ;\ntutor of Tiberius, first in Rome, afterwards in Rhodes, from which town\nhe called himself a Rhodian, and where Tiberius during his exile\ndiligently attended his instruction. He was the author of various\ngrammatical and other works, but his fame chiefly rested on his\nabilities as a teacher, in which capacity he seems to have had great\ninfluence (Pauly). He was the author of that famous description of\nTiberius which is given by Suetonius (_Tib._ 57), +p\u00ealos haimati\npephuramenos+, \"A clod kneaded together with blood.\"[1]\n\n    [Footnote 1: A remarkable parallel, if not actually an imitation,\n    occurs in Goethe's _Faust_, \"Du Spottgeburt von Dreck und Feuer.\"]\n\nTHEOPOMPUS, a native of Chios; born 380 B.C. He came to Athens while\nstill a boy, and studied eloquence under Isokrates, who is said, in\ncomparing him with another pupil, Ephorus, to have made use of the image\nwhich we find in Longinus, c. ii. \"Theopompus,\" he said, \"needs the\ncurb, Ephorus the spur\" (Suidas, quoted by Jahn ad v.) He appeared with\napplause in various great cities as an advocate, but especially\ndistinguished himself in the contest of eloquence instituted by\nArtemisia at the obsequies of her husband Mausolus, where he won the\nprize. He afterwards devoted himself to historical composition. His\ngreat work was a history of Greece, in which he takes up the thread of\nThucydides's narrative, and carries it on uninterruptedly in twelve\nbooks down to the battle of Knidus, seventeen years later. Here he broke\noff, and began a new work entitled _The Philippics_, in fifty-eight\nbooks. This work dealt with the history of Greece in the Macedonian\nperiod, but was padded out to a preposterous bulk by all kinds of\ndigressions on mythological, historical, or social topics. Only a few\nfragments remain. He earned an ill name among ancient critics by the\nbitterness of his censures, his love of the marvellous, and the\ninordinate length of his digressions. His style is by some critics\ncensured as feeble, and extolled by others as clear, nervous, and\nelevated (L\u00fcbker and Pauly).\n\nTIMAEUS, a native of Tauromenium in Sicily; born about 352 B.C. Being\ndriven out of Sicily by Agathokles, he lived a retired life for fifty\nyears in Athens, where he composed his History. Subsequently he returned\nto Sicily, and died at the age of ninety-six in 256 B.C. His chief work\nwas a _History of Sicily_ from the earliest times down to the 129th\nOlympiad. It numbered sixty-eight books, and consisted of two principal\ndivisions, whose limits cannot now be ascertained. In a separate work he\nhandled the campaigns of Pyrrhus, and also wrote _Olympionikae_,\nprobably dealing with chronological matters. Timaeus has been severely\ncriticised and harshly condemned by the ancients, especially by\nPolybius, who denies him every faculty required by the historical writer\n(xii. 3-15, 23-28). And though Cicero differs from this judgment, yet it\nmay be regarded as certain that Timaeus was better qualified for the\ntask of learned compilation than for historical research, and held no\ndistinguished place among the historians of Greece. His works have\nperished, only a few fragments remaining (L\u00fcbker).\n\nZOILUS, a Greek rhetorician, native of Amphipolis in Macedonia, in the\ntime probably of Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.), who is said by\nVitruvius to have crucified him for his abuse of Homer. He won the name\nof Homeromastix, \"the scourge of Homer,\" and was also known as +ku\u00f4n\nrh\u00eatorikos+, \"the dog of rhetoric,\" on account of his biting sarcasm;\nand his name (as in the case of the English Dennis) came to be used to\nsignify in general a carping and malicious critic. Suidas mentions two\nworks of his, written with the object of injuring or destroying the fame\nof Homer--(1) _Nine Books against Homer_; and (2) _Censures on Homer_\n(Pauly).\n\n  [The facts contained in the above short notices are taken chiefly\n  from L\u00fcbker's _Reallexikon des classischen Alterthums_, and the\n  very copious and elaborate _Real-Encyclop\u00e4die der classischen\n  Alterthumswissenschaft_, edited by Pauly. I have here to acknowledge\n  the kindness of Dr. Wollseiffen, Gymnasialdirektor in Crefeld, in\n  placing at my disposal the library of the Crefeld Gymnasium, but for\n  which these biographical notes, which were put together at the\n  suggestion of Mr. Lang, could not have been compiled.\n    CREFELD, _31st July 1890_.]\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_\n\n\n\n\nCLASSICAL LIBRARY.\n\nTexts, Edited with Introductions and Notes, for the use of Advanced\nStudents; Commentaries and Translations.\n\n\n\u00c6SCHYLUS.--THE SUPPLICES. A Revised Text, with Translation. By T. G.\n  TUCKER, M.A., Professor of Classical Philology in the University of\n  Melbourne.    8vo.    10s. 6d.\n\nTHE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES. With Translation. By A. W. VERRALL, Litt.D.,\n  Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.    8vo.    7s. 6d.\n\nAGAMEMNON. With Translation. By A. W. VERRALL, Litt.D.    8vo.    12s.\n\nAGAMEMNON, CHOEPHOROE, AND EUMENIDES. By A. O. PRICKARD, M.A., Fellow\n  and Tutor of New College, Oxford.    8vo.    [_In preparation._\n\n\nARISTOTLE.--THE METAPHYSICS. BOOK I. Translated by a Cambridge\n  Graduate.    8vo.    5s.\n\nTHE POLITICS. Translated by Rev. J. E. C. WELLDON, M.A., Headmaster of\n  Harrow.    Cr. 8vo.    10s. 6d.\n\nTHE RHETORIC. Translated by the same.    Cr. 8vo.    7s. 6d.\n\nAN INTRODUCTION TO ARISTOTLE'S RHETORIC. With Analysis, Notes, and\n  Appendices. By E. M. COPE, Fellow and late Tutor of Trinity College,\n  Cambridge.    8vo.    14s.\n\nTHE ETHICS. Translated by Rev. J. E. C. 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RUTHERFORD, M.A., LL.D., Headmaster of Westminster.    8vo.\n  18s.\n\n\nPINDAR.--THE EXTANT ODES OF PINDAR. Translated by ERNEST MYERS, M.A.\n  Cr. 8vo.    5s.\n\nTHE NEMEAN ODES. By J. B. BURY, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College,\n  Dublin.    8vo.                                     [_In the Press._\n\n\nPLATO.--PH\u00c6DO. By R. D. ARCHER-HIND, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College,\n  Cambridge.    8vo.    8s. 6d.\n\nPH\u00c6DO. By W. D. GEDDES, LL.D., Principal of the University of\n  Aberdeen.    8vo.    8s. 6d.\n\nTIMAEUS. With Translation. By R. D. ARCHER-HIND, M.A.    8vo.    16s.\n\nTHE REPUBLIC OF PLATO. Translated by J. LL. DAVIES, M.A., and D. J.\n  VAUGHAN, M.A.    18mo.    4s. 6d.\n\nEUTHYPHRO, APOLOGY, CRITO, AND PH\u00c6DO. Translated by F. J. CHURCH.\n  18mo.    4s. 6d.\n\nPH\u00c6DRUS, LYSIS, AND PROTAGORAS. Translated by J. WRIGHT, M.A.    18mo.\n  4s. 6d.\n\n\nPLAUTUS.--THE MOSTELLARIA. By WILLIAM RAMSAY, M.A. Edited by G. 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[Vol. II. _in the Press._\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nMACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON.\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n           *       *       *       *\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nErrata Noted by Transcriber:\n\nThe spellings \"Heracles\" and \"Herakles\" each occur twice.\n\ncertain tasteless conceits blamed / in Plato\n  _so in original: \"on Plato\"?_\n\nI.2 And since...\n  _text shows chapter break in previous line, \"writer's ... instead\"_\n\n... the very maidens in their eyes.\"[1]\n  _close quote missing in text_\n\n+... ch\u00f4ris hekast\u00f4 t\u00f4n eid\u00f4n+\n  _text reads_ hekasi\u00f4  [_alternate citation form: 1449b_]\n\nXXIII.4 And in those words ...\n  _text shows chapter break in following line, \"already ... to the\"_\n\n... a good and temperate drink.\"[1]\n  _close quote missing in text_\n\nXXXIX.3 though these are mere shadows...\n  _chapter break conjectural: no sentence-ends in English text_\n\nAPPENDIX\n  _any punctuation anomalies, including missing full stops after\n  sentence-final parentheses, are as in the original_\n\nto ask help against Syracuse (427 B.C.)\n  _open parenthesis missing in text_\n\nthe capture of Agrigentum (seven books)\n  _open parenthesis missing in text_","title":"On the Sublime","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":30110}