of Achilles, on the contrary, is the growth of its own fruitful soil: for a shield was to be made; and, since nothing that is necessary comes from the hand of the divinity without grace also, it must needs have ornament. But the art lay in treating these decorations merely as such, in interweaving them into the main subject, and making it furnish the opportunity of showing them to us: all this could only be accomplished in the style of Homer. Homer makes Vulcan expend his skill upon the shield, that he may produce one which should be worthy of him. Virgil, on the other hand, appears to make him forge the shield for the sake of its decorations, since he considers them of sufficient importance to be described particularly, after the shield has been long completed. K CHAPTER XIX. THE objections, which the elder Scaliger, Perrault, Terasson, and others, have raised against Homer's shield, as well as the replies made to them by Dacier, Boivin, and Pope, are well known. To me these last appear to have committed themselves too far; and, from a confidence in the goodness of their cause, to have maintained opinions incorrect in themselves, and contributing nothing to the justification of the poet. To meet the main objection, that Homer fills the shield with such a number of figures, that they cannot possibly be contained within its circumference, Boivin undertook to have it drawn, and to point out the required measurement. His idea of dividing the surface into several concentric circles is very ingenious, although the words of the poet do not afford any ground for it, and there are no traces of the ancients having employed such compartments on their shields. I should rather, since Homer calls it σάκος πάντοσε δεδαιλωμένον, “a shield artistically wrought on all sides," obtain a larger surface by calling in the concave side to my assistance: for that the ancients did not leave this side unornamented But it is proved from Phidias' shield of Minerva. was not enough that Boivin neglected to avail himself of this advantage: he unnecessarily increased the number of the representations for which he was obliged to find room in a space thus diminished by one half, when he broke up into two or three distinct pictures what the poet manifestly intends for only one. I know very well what was his inducement to do so, but he ought not to have been influenced by it. Instead of labouring to satisfy all the requirements of his opponents, he should have shewn them that their demands were unreasonable. I shall make myself more clearly comprehended by giving an example. When Homer says of a town λαοὶ δ ̓ ἐιν ἀγορῇ ἔσαν ἀθρόοι· ἔνθα δὲ νεικος a Scuto ejus in quo Amazonum prælium cælavit intumescente ambitu parmæ; ejusdem concava parte deorum et gigantum dimicationem. Plinius, lib. xxxvi. 4. 4. b Iliad, Σ. xviii. 497. I do not believe that he intended to draw more than one picture, that of a public trial about the contested payment of an important sum for a manslaughter that had been committed. An artist who wished to execute this subject could not make use of more than one moment of it at once: he would have to choose either the accusation, the examination of witnesses, or the giving judgment, or any other moment, before, after, or between these points, that seemed most suitable to him. This moment he would render as pregnant as possible, and would execute with all the illusion, which constitutes the great superiority of art over poetry in the representation of visible objects. The poet is infinitely surpassed in this respect, and, if he wishes to paint the same object in words without complete failure, he must have recourse to his own peculiar advantages. And these are, the liberty to extend his description over the time, preceding and subsequent to the single instant which is the subject of the picture; and the power of showing us not only what the artist shows us, but also that, which the latter can only leave to our conjecture. Through this liberty and this power alone is the poet enabled to rival the artist. Their works will appear most similar, when their effects are equally lively, not when the one imparts to the soul, through the ear, neither more nor less than the other presents to the eyes. If Boivin had judged the passage of Homer according to this principle, he would not have divided it into as many pictures, as he thought he perceived distinct periods of time in it. It is true that all Homer's circumstances could not have been combined in a single picture. The accusation and defence, the production of witnesses, the clamours of the crowd, the endeavours of the herald to still the tumult, and the decision of the arbitrator, must follow after one another, and cannot be represented existing beside one another. Still what is not actually contained in the painting is virtually; and the only method of imitating a material picture by words, is that, which combines what is virtually implied in it with what is actually visible, and does not confine itself within the limits of art; within which the poet indeed finds the data for a painting, but from which he can never produce a picture itself. In the same manner Boivin divides the picture of the beleaguered town into three different paintings. He might just as well have divided it into a dozen parts as three. For when he had once failed to seize upon the spirit of the poet, and had required him to submit to the unities of material painting, he might have found so many transgressions of these unities, that it would have been almost necessary to allot a separate compartment on the shield to every trait of the poet. But, in my opinion, Homer has not drawn more than ten distinct pictures; each of c Iliad, 2. xviii. 509. |