On the Sublime Part 4

His father mounts another steed, and rides With warning voice guiding his son. 'Drive there!

Turn, turn thy car this way.'"[5]

May we not say that the spirit of the poet mounts the chariot with his hero, and accompanies the winged steeds in their perilous flight? Were it not so,--had not his imagination soared side by side with them in that celestial pa.s.sage,--he would never have conceived so vivid an image. Similar is that pa.s.sage in his "Ca.s.sandra," beginning

"Ye Trojans, lovers of the steed."[6]

[Footnote 5: Eur. _Phaet._]

[Footnote 6: Perhaps from the lost "Alexander" (Jahn).]

5 Aeschylus is especially bold in forming images suited to his heroic themes: as when he says of his "Seven against Thebes"--

"Seven mighty men, and valiant captains, slew Over an iron-bound shield a bull, then dipped Their fingers in the blood, and all invoked Ares, Enyo, and death-dealing Flight In witness of their oaths,"[7]

and describes how they all mutually pledged themselves without flinching to die. Sometimes, however, his thoughts are unshapen, and as it were rough-hewn and rugged. Not observing this, Euripides, from too blind a rivalry, sometimes falls under the same censure.

[Footnote 7: _Sept. c. Th._ 42.]

6 Aeschylus with a strange violence of language represents the palace of Lycurgus as _possessed_ at the appearance of Dionysus--

"The halls with rapture thrill, the roof's inspired."[8]

Here Euripides, in borrowing the image, softens its extravagance[9]--

"And all the mountain felt the G.o.d."[10]

[Footnote 8: Aesch. _Lycurg._]

[Footnote 9: Lit. "Giving it a different flavour," as Arist. _Poet._ ?d?s??? ???? ????? ???st? t?? e?d??, ii. 10.]

[Footnote 10: _Bacch._ 726.]

7 Sophocles has also shown himself a great master of the imagination in the scene in which the dying Oedipus prepares himself for burial in the midst of a tempest,[11] and where he tells how Achilles appeared to the Greeks over his tomb just as they were putting out to sea on their departure from Troy.[12] This last scene has also been delineated by Simonides with a vividness which leaves him inferior to none. But it would be an endless task to cite all possible examples.

[Footnote 11: _Oed. Col._ 1586.]

[Footnote 12: In his lost "Polyxena."]

8 To return, then,[13] in poetry, as I observed, a certain mythical exaggeration is allowable, transcending altogether mere logical credence. But the chief beauties of an oratorical image are its energy and reality. Such digressions become offensive and monstrous when the language is cast in a poetical and fabulous mould, and runs into all sorts of impossibilities. Thus much may be learnt from the great orators of our own day, when they tell us in tragic tones that they see the Furies[14]--good people, can't they understand that when Orestes cries out

"Off, off, I say! I know thee who thou art, One of the fiends that haunt me: I feel thine arms About me cast, to drag me down to h.e.l.l,"[15]

these are the hallucinations of a madman?

[Footnote 13: -- 2.]

[Footnote 14: Comp. Petronius, _Satyricon_, ch. i. _pa.s.sim_.]

[Footnote 15: _Orest._ 264.]

9 Wherein, then, lies the force of an oratorical image? Doubtless in adding energy and pa.s.sion in a hundred different ways to a speech; but especially in this, that when it is mingled with the practical, argumentative parts of an oration, it does not merely convince the hearer, but enthralls him. Such is the effect of those words of Demosthenes:[16] "Supposing, now, at this moment a cry of alarm were heard outside the a.s.size courts, and the news came that the prison was broken open and the prisoners escaped, is there any man here who is such a trifler that he would not run to the rescue at the top of his speed?

But suppose some one came forward with the information that they had been set at liberty by the defendant, what then? Why, he would be lynched on the spot!"

[Footnote 16: _c. Timocrat._ 208.]

10 Compare also the way in which Hyperides excused himself, when he was proceeded against for bringing in a bill to liberate the slaves after Chaeronea. "This measure," he said, "was not drawn up by any orator, but by the battle of Chaeronea." This striking image, being thrown in by the speaker in the midst of his proofs, enables him by one bold stroke to carry all mere logical objection before him.

11 In all such cases our nature is drawn towards that which affects it most powerfully: hence an image lures us away from an argument: judgment is paralysed, matters of fact disappear from view, eclipsed by the superior blaze. Nor is it surprising that we should be thus affected; for when two forces are thus placed in juxtaposition, the stronger must always absorb into itself the weaker.

12 On sublimity of thought, and the manner in which it arises from native greatness of mind, from imitation, and from the employment of images, this brief outline must suffice.[17]

[Footnote 17: He pa.s.ses over chs. x. xi.]

XVI

The subject which next claims our attention is that of figures of speech. I have already observed that figures, judiciously employed, play an important part in producing sublimity. It would be a tedious, or rather an endless task, to deal with every detail of this subject here; so in order to establish what I have laid down, I will just run over, without further preface, a few of those figures which are most effective in lending grandeur to language.

2 Demosthenes is defending his policy; his natural line of argument would have been: "You did not do wrong, men of Athens, to take upon yourselves the struggle for the liberties of h.e.l.las. Of this you have home proofs.

_They_ did not wrong who fought at Marathon, at Salamis, and Plataea."

Instead of this, in a sudden moment of supreme exaltation he bursts out like some inspired prophet with that famous appeal to the mighty dead: "Ye did not, could not have done wrong. I swear it by the men who faced the foe at Marathon!"[1] He employs the figure of adjuration, to which I will here give the name of Apostrophe. And what does he gain by it? He exalts the Athenian ancestors to the rank of divinities, showing that we ought to invoke those who have fallen for their country as G.o.ds; he fills the hearts of his judges with the heroic pride of the old warriors of h.e.l.las; forsaking the beaten path of argument he rises to the loftiest alt.i.tude of grandeur and pa.s.sion, and commands a.s.sent by the startling novelty of his appeal; he applies the healing charm of eloquence, and thus "ministers to the mind diseased" of his countrymen, until lifted by his brave words above their misfortunes they begin to feel that the disaster of Chaeronea is no less glorious than the victories of Marathon and Salamis. All this he effects by the use of one figure, and so carries his hearers away with him.

[Footnote 1: _De Cor._ 208.]

3 It is said that the germ of this adjuration is found in Eupolis--

"By mine own fight, by Marathon, I say, Who makes my heart to ache shall rue the day!"[2]

But there is nothing grand in the mere employment of an oath. Its grandeur will depend on its being employed in the right place and the right manner, on the right occasion, and with the right motive. In Eupolis the oath is nothing beyond an oath; and the Athenians to whom it is addressed are still prosperous, and in need of no consolation.

Moreover, the poet does not, like Demosthenes, swear by the departed heroes as deities, so as to engender in his audience a just conception of their valour, but diverges from the champions to the battle--a mere lifeless thing. But Demosthenes has so skilfully managed the oath that in addressing his countrymen after the defeat of Chaeronea he takes out of their minds all sense of disaster; and at the same time, while proving that no mistake has been made, he holds up an example, confirms his arguments by an oath, and makes his praise of the dead an incentive to the living.

[Footnote 2: In his (lost) "Demis."]

4 And to rebut a possible objection which occurred to him--"Can you, Demosthenes, whose policy ended in defeat, swear by a victory?"--the orator proceeds to measure his language, choosing his very words so as to give no handle to opponents, thus showing us that even in our most inspired moments reason ought to hold the reins.[3] Let us mark his words: "Those who _faced the foe_ at Marathon; those who _fought in the sea-fights_ of Salamis and Artemisium; those who _stood in the ranks_ at Plataea." Note that he nowhere says "those who _conquered_," artfully suppressing any word which might hint at the successful issue of those battles, which would have spoilt the parallel with Chaeronea. And for the same reason he steals a march on his audience, adding immediately: "All of whom, Aeschines,--not those who were successful only,--were buried by the state at the public expense."

[Footnote 3: Lit. "That even in the midst of the revels of Bacchus we ought to remain sober."]

XVII

There is one truth which my studies have led me to observe, which perhaps it would be worth while to set down briefly here. It is this, that by a natural law the Sublime, besides receiving an acquisition of strength from figures, in its turn lends support in a remarkable manner to them. To explain: the use of figures has a peculiar tendency to rouse a suspicion of dishonesty, and to create an impression of treachery, scheming, and false reasoning; especially if the person addressed be a judge, who is master of the situation, and still more in the case of a despot, a king, a military potentate, or any of those who sit in high places.[1] If a man feels that this artful speaker is treating him like a silly boy and trying to throw dust in his eyes, he at once grows irritated, and thinking that such false reasoning implies a contempt of his understanding, he perhaps flies into a rage and will not hear another word; or even if he masters his resentment, still he is utterly indisposed to yield to the persuasive power of eloquence. Hence it follows that a figure is then most effectual when it appears in disguise.

[Footnote 1: Reading with Cobet, ?a? p??ta? t??? ?? ?pe???a??.]

2 To allay, then, this distrust which attaches to the use of figures we must call in the powerful aid of sublimity and pa.s.sion. For art, once a.s.sociated with these great allies, will be overshadowed by their grandeur and beauty, and pa.s.s beyond the reach of all suspicion. To prove this I need only refer to the pa.s.sage already quoted: "I swear it by the men," etc. It is the very brilliancy of the orator's figure which blinds us to the fact that it _is_ a figure. For as the fainter l.u.s.tre of the stars is put out of sight by the all-encompa.s.sing rays of the sun, so when sublimity sheds its light all round the sophistries of rhetoric they become invisible.

3 A similar illusion is produced by the painter's art. When light and shadow are represented in colour, though they lie on the same surface side by side, it is the light which meets the eye first, and appears not only more conspicuous but also much nearer. In the same manner pa.s.sion and grandeur of language, lying nearer to our souls by reason both of a certain natural affinity and of their radiance, always strike our mental eye before we become conscious of the figure, throwing its artificial character into the shade and hiding it as it were in a veil.