LAOCOON.

CHAPTER I.

TINKELMAN has pronounced a noble simplicity

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and quiet grandeur, displayed in the posture, no less than in the expression, to be the characteristic features common to all the Greek masterpieces of Painting and Sculpture. "As," says he, "the "depths of the sea always remain calm, however "much the surface may be raging, so the expression "in the figures of the Greeks, under every form of "passion, shows a great and self-collected soul.

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"This spirit is portrayed in the countenance of "Laocoon, but not in the countenance alone; even "under the most violent suffering, the pain discovers "itself in every muscle and sinew of his body, and "the beholder, whilst looking at the agonized con"traction of the stomach, without viewing the face "and the other parts, believes that he almost feels

a On the Imitation of Greek works in Painting and Sculpture, p. 21, 22.

"the pain himself. This pain expresses itself with"out any violence, both in the features and in the "whole posture. He raises no terrible shriek, such as "Virgil makes his Laocoon utter, for the opening of "the mouth does not admit it; it is rather an anxious "and suppressed sigh, as described by Sadolet. The "pain of body and grandeur of soul are, as it were, "weighed out, and distributed with equal strength, "through the whole frame of the figure. Laocoon "suffers, but he suffers as the Philoctetes of Sopho"cles; his misery pierces us to the very soul, but "inspires us with a wish that we could endure misery "like that great man.

"The expressing of so great a soul is far higher "than the painting of beautiful nature. The artist "must feel within himself that strength of spirit "which he would imprint upon his marble. Greece "had philosophers and artists in one person, and

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more than one Metrodorus. Philosophy gave her "hand to art, and inspired its figures with no ordinary "souls."

The observation on which the foregoing remarks are founded, that the pain in the face of Laocoon does not shew itself with that force which its intensity would have led us to expect," is perfectly correct. Moreover, it is indisputable, that it is in this very point, where the half connoisseur would have decided that the artist had fallen short of Nature, and had Plinius, xxxv. 40.

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not reached the true pathos of pain, that his wisdom is particularly conspicuous.

But I confess I differ from Winkelman as to what is in his opinion the basis of this wisdom, and as to the universality of the rule which he deduces from it.

I acknowledge that I was startled, first by the glance of disapproval which he casts upon Virgil, and secondly by the comparison with Philoctetes. From this point then I shall set out, and write down my thoughts as they were developed in me.

"Laocoon suffers as Sophocles' Philoctetes." But how does this last suffer? It is curious that his sufferings should leave such a different impression behind them. The cries, the shriek, the wild imprecations, with which he filled the camp, and interrupted all the sacrifices and holy rites, resound no less horribly through his desert island, and were the cause of his being banished to it. The same sounds of despondency, sorrow, and despair, fill the theatre in the poet's imitation. It has been observed that the third act of this piece is shorter than the others : from this it may be gathered, say the critics, that the ancients took little pains to preserve an uniformity of length in the different acts. I quite agree with them, but I should rather ground my opinion upon other examples than this. The sorrowful exclamations, the moanings, the interrupted a, d! qev! dτtatai! ω μοι μοι! the whole lines full of παπα παπα! of Brumoy Theatre des Grecs. T. ii. p. 89.

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which this act consists, must be pronounced with tensions and breakings off, altogether different from those required in a continuous speech, and doubtless made this act last quite as long in the representation, as the others. It appears much shorter to the reader, when seen on paper, than it would to the audience in a theatre.

A cry is the natural expression of bodily pain. Homer's wounded heroes frequently fall with cries to the ground. He makes Venus, when merely scratched, shriek aloud; not that he may thereby paint the effeminacy of the goddess of pleasure, but rather that he may give suffering nature her due; for even the iron Mars, when he feels the lance of Diomede, shrieks so horribly, that his cries are like those of ten thousand furious warriors, and fill both armies with horror. Though Homer, in other respects, raises his heroes above human nature, they always remain faithful to it in matters connected with the feeling of pain and insult, or its expression through cries, tears, or reproaches. In their actions they are beings of a higher order, in their feelings true men.

I know that we more refined Europeans, of a wiser and later age, know how to keep our mouths and eyes under closer restraint. We are forbidden by courtesy and propriety to cry and weep; and with us the active bravery of the first rough age of the world has been

d

Iliad, E. 343, 'H dè μéya láxovσa. —

e

Iliad, E. 859.

changed into a passive. Yet even our own ancestors, though barbarians, were greater in the latter than in the former. To suppress all pain, to meet the stroke of death with unflinching eye, to die laughing under the bites of adders, to lament neither their own faults, nor the loss of their dearest friends: these were the characteristics of the old heroic courage of the north.f Palnatoko forbade his Jomsburghers either to fear, or so much as to mention the name of fear.

Not so the Greek. He felt and feared. He gave utterance to his pain and sorrow. He was ashamed of no human weaknesses; only none of them must hold him back from the path of honour, or impede him in the fulfilment of his duty. What in the barbarian sprang from habit and ferocity, arose from principle in the Greek. With him heroism was as the spark concealed in flint, which, so long as no external force awakens it, sleeps in quiet, nor robs the stone either of its clearness or its coldness. With the barbarian it was a bright consuming flame, which was ever roaring, and devoured, or at least blackened, every other good quality. Thus when Homer makes the Trojans march to the combat with wild cries, the Greeks, on the contrary, in resolute silence, the critics justly observe that the poet intended to depict the one as barbarians, the other as a civilized people.

f Th. Bartholinus de causis contemptæ a Danis adhuc gentilibus mortis Cap. I.