CHAPTER XIII. IF Homer's works were entirely lost, and nothing remained to us of the Iliad and Odyssey, but a series of paintings similar to those, of which Caylus has sketched the outlines from them, should we be able, from these pictures, to form the idea we now possess, I do not say, of the whole poet, but merely of his descriptive talent? Let us put it to the test with the first piece we chance upon. Suppose it is the painting of the plague. What do we see upon the artist's canvass? Dead corpses, burning funeral piles, the dying busied with the dead, while the angered god is seated upon a cloud, and discharging his arrows. The great richness of this painting is poverty to the poet. For, if we were to restore Homer from it, what could we make him say? Hereupon Apollo grew angry, and shot his arrows ઃઃ 66 among the army of the Greeks, of whom many "died, and their bodies were consumed." Now let us read Homer himself. a Iliad, A. i. 44—53. Tableaux tirés de l' Iliade, p. 70. βῆ δὲ κατ' Ουλύμποιο καρήνων χωόμενος κῆρ, The poet is as far above the painter, as life is above the painting. Angered, armed with bow and quiver, Apollo descends from the peaks of Olympus. I not only see him coming down, I hear him. At every step of the indignant god, the arrows rattle upon his shoulders. He strides on, like the night; now he sits over against the ships, and shoots-fearfully clangs the silver bow-his first arrow at the mules and the hounds. Next with his poisonous dart he strikes the men themselves; and the funeral piles with their dead are everywhere ceaselessly blazing. The musical picture, which the words of the poet at the same time present, cannot be translated into another language. It is equally impossible even to guess at it from the material painting, although this is the least superiority, which the poetical description has over the latter. The principal one is this, that the poet conducts us to his last scene, the only part of his description, which the material painting exhibits, through a whole gallery of pictures. But perhaps the plague is not an advantageous subject for painting. Here is another, which possesses a greater charm for the eyes. The gods are engaged at what is, at once, a council, and a drinking festival. In an open, golden, palace, are seen arbitrary groups of the most beautiful and adorable forms, cup in hand, unto whom Hebe, the personification of eternal youth, is ministering. What architecture, what masses of light and shade, what contrasts, what variety of expression! Where am I to begin, and where to cease, feasting my eyes? If the painter thus charms me, how much more will the poet? I open him, and I find myself deceived. I find four good but simple verses, which might serve very well for a motto, at the bottom of a painting; but which, though they contain the materials for a picture, are no picture themselves. Οι δὲ θεοὶ πὰρ Ζηνὶ καθήμενοι ἠγορόωντο Apollonius, or even a still more indifferent poet, could have said all this, as well as Homer, who here remains as far below the artist, as, in the former passage, the artist falls short of him. b Iliad A. iv. 1-4. Tableaux tirés de l' Iliade, p. 30. But, except in these four lines, Caylus cannot find a single picture in the whole fourth book of the Iliad. "So greatly," says he, "is the fourth book 'distinguished by the numerous exhortations to the "combat, by the abundance of brilliant and strongly "marked characters, and by the art, with which the "poet brings before us the multitude, which he is "about to set in motion. It is, however, quite use"less for the purposes of the artist." He might have added, "So rich is it in everything, that is held "to constitute a poetical picture." Such pictures, in reality, occur in greater frequency and perfection throughout the fourth book, than in any other. Where is to be found a more elaborate, or a more illusive description, than that of Pandarus, when, at the instigation of Minerva, he violates the truce, and discharges his arrow at Menelaus? Than that of the advance of the Grecian army? Than that of the mutual charge? Than that of the deed of Ulysses, by which he takes vengeance for the death of his friend Leucus ? But, what conclusion is to be drawn from this? That not a few of the most beautiful descriptions of Homer furnish no picture for the artist. That the artist can derive pictures from him, where he himself has none. That those, which he has, and the artist can use, would be but meagre descriptions, if they shewed us no more than the artist does. The |