of his life, proved himself worthy the appeal here made him, by bringing out a fine edition of Dryden's plays. After allowing a little for the equation of personal friendship, you will find in this poem acute criticism, fine feeling, strong and harmonious versification. What other excellences can you point out? ALEXANDER'S FEAST. The legend of Saint Cecilia's martyrdom has been told by Chaucer, with true mediæval crudeness, in The Seconde Nonnes Tale. She is not there spoken of as the patron saint of music, nor is it clear that in the Golden Legend (thirteenth century), upon which Chaucer's tale is based, her musical powers are even referred to. A misunderstanding of 'cantantibus organis illa in corde suo soli Domino cantabat' ('While the organs were playing she was singing in her heart to God alone '), seems responsible for her fame as a musician and as the inventress of the organ. The 22d of November is her day, and was celebrated by musical societies in London. Dryden wrote the Ode in 1687 as well as in 1697; Pope in 1708. I-19. 331 B.C. Persia won. Consult a History of Greece under the year Their brows with roses, etc. You can see illustrations of this in many of the Alma-Tadema pictures. 20-46. Timotheus, the Theban, of whom nothing is known save that he was a musician at the court of Alexander. The more famous Timotheus of Miletus died in 357 B.C. quire; of the two spellings 'quire' and 'choir' (both from the Latin chorus), the former is much the older in English. abodes; sedes is used belied disguised. Olympia; more corLines 39-41 are imi seats in this sense by Vergil and Horace. He spoke and awful bends his sable brows, (Pope.) Phidias is said to have patterned his Olympian Jove upon the description in these lines of Homer. For a cut of this figure, see Cl. Myths, p. 54. 47-65. With the magnificent vigor of this stanza compare the more romantic and delicate treatment of the same theme by Keats in the fourth book of Endymion: 'Twas Bacchus and his crew! Like to a moving vintage down they came, To scare thee, Melancholy! honest = - Latin 'honestus,' in its poetical meaning of 'fair-seeming,'' handsome.' hautboys, a corruption of the French 'haut' (high) and 'bois' (wood); the wood instrument of high pitch or tone. The Italian form, Oboe, is now common in English. 66-92. Lines 70-73 illustrate the poverty of modern English in pronominal forms. His and he in 70 and 71 must refer to Alexander; the first his in 72 to Timotheus, the second his to Alexander. He in 73 takes us back to Timotheus again. Muse song, strain. Compare the use of this word in Lycidas 19. weltering; compare Lycidas 12. Darius; see note on Persia won, Lines 77-8 are perhaps an echo from Par. Lost, vii. line 1. 25-6. though fallen on evil days, On evil days though fallen 93-122. Lydian measures; compare L'Allegro 136. trouble; from the Witches' Refrain in Macbeth iv. 1. Double, double toil and trouble; toil and Honour but an empty bubble; might serve as text for Falstaff's Sermon in I. Hy. iv. 5. I. Sheridan has the same thought admirably expressed through the medium of Low Comedy; The Rivals, iv. I. "David. Look'ee, master, this honour seems to me to be a marvellous false friend; ay, truly, a very courtier-like servant. Put the case, I was a gentleman (which, thank God, no one can say of me); well—my honour makes me quarrel with another gentleman of my acquaintance. -So-we fight. (Pleasant enough that!) Boh!-I kill him—(the more's my luck!) now, pray who gets the profit of it? - Why, my honour. But put the case that he kills me! - by the mass! go to the worms, and my honour whips over to my enemy. Acres. No, David in that case! - Odds crowns and laurels! your honour follows you to the grave. David. Now, that's just the place where I could make a shift to do without it." same time, simultaneously. 123-154. Furies; see notes on Fury in Lycidas, 75. 6 at once at the ghastly; = usage seems to have firmly established this form, which is really a mis-spelling for gastly,' from the Middle English 'gastly' terrible. " 'Gastly' seems to have no etymological connection with 'ghost,' which is from the Old English gast = spirit, breath; German, geist.' unburied; notice that not the heroes are ' inglorious,' but their 'ghosts,' and they are 'inglorious' because 'unburied.' There seems to be no doubt that ancestor-worship was a very early form of belief among the Greeks. The spirit of the departed was supposed to live underground with the body. Clothing and arms were placed in the grave, slaves and horses were slain upon it, that they might serve the departed as in this life. From this primitive belief came the necessity of burial. In order that the soul might be confined to this subterranean abode, which was suited to its second life, it was necessary that the body to which it remained attached should be covered with earth. The soul that had no tomb had no dwelling-place. It was a wandering spirit. In vain it sought the repose which it would naturally desire after the agitations and labor of this life; it must wander forever under the form of a larva, or phantom, without ever stopping, without ever receiving the offerings and the food which it had need of. Unfortunately, it soon became a malevolent spirit; it tormented the living; it brought diseases upon them, ravaged their harvests, and frightened them by gloomy apparitions, to warn them to give sepulture to its body and to itself. From this came the belief in ghosts. All antiquity was persuaded that without burial the soul was miserable, and that by burial it became forever happy. It was not to display their grief that they performed the funeral ceremony, it was for the rest and happiness of the dead.'- Coulanges, The Ancient City, B'k i. Cap. i. Verify these statements by reading the appeal of Elpenor's ghost to Ulysses, near the opening of Odyssey xi.; see also the interview between Æneas and the ghost of Palinurus in Eneid VI. 337-383. Thais. This story of Thais rests upon very doubtful authority; it is probably as authentic as that of King Alfred and the Cakes or of George Washington and the Cherry Tree. Helen. You know that Helen did not literally set fire to Troy. What does Dryden mean, then? 155-180. She drew an angel down. In the Pinacoteca of Bologna there is a beautiful painting by Raphael, of St. Cecilia listening to the singing of six angels. She is the central figure of a group, the other members of which are St. Paul, St. John, St. Augustine and Mary Magdalene. Some of the echoes from Shakespeare and Milton in this poem have been pointed out. Perhaps you can find others. Notice also the many instances of effective alliteration and repetition. Had Dryden's plays been as dramatic as this ode, they would still be acted. THE CHARACTER OF A GOOD PARSON. So exacting a critic as Saintsbury calls Dryden's Fables 'the most brilliantly successful of all his poetical experiments.'1 Professor Lounsbury, in an elaborate comparison between Chaucer and Dryden, declares of the latter: 'His versions of the ancient poet take the first rank in order of merit as well as in order of time.' Of the five 'Translations from Chaucer' in Dryden's book, the one here given is the shortest, and if not the best is certainly inferior to none. You will find it interesting to compare Dryden's treatment with the original, which runs as follows: A good man was ther of religioun, And swich he was y-preved ofte sythes. Of his offring, and eek of his substaunce. He coude in litel thing han suffisaunce. Wyd was his parisshe, and houses fer a-sonder, But he ne lafte nat, for reyn ne thonder, In siknes nor in meschief, to visyte The ferreste in his parisshe, muche and lyte, Up-on his feet, and in his hand a staf. This noble ensample to his sheep he yaf, That first he wroghte, and afterward he taughte; Out of the gospel he tho wordes caughte; And this figure he added eek ther-to, That if gold ruste, what shal iren do? For if a preest be foul, on whom we truste, No wonder is a lewd man to ruste; And shame it is, if a preest take keep, A [dirty] shepherde and a clene sheep. Wel oghte a preest ensample for to yive, By his clennesse, how that his sheep shold live. 1 Saintsbury's Dryden, Cap. viii. 2 Studies in Chaucer, vol. iii., pp. 156-179. He sette nat his benefice to hyre, But Christes lore, and his apostles twelve, He taughte, and first he folwed it him-selve. In Dryden's versification (and in Pope's) you will notice how the thought is almost invariably completed within the couplet: in Chaucer the thought commonly runs over into the third line, and sometimes continues even further. I-II. As = as if. lines 10 and II. too fast; in a good sense, as explained by nihil severi.' his the 12-24. nothing of severe; a Latinism, action free; 'action' seems to be a metonymy for 'oratory.' golden chain. The idea of a golden chain binding Heaven to Earth seems to have originated in Homer, Iliad viii. 19-27, where Zeus declares: Fasten ye a rope of gold from heaven, and all ye gods lay hold thereof and all goddesses; yet could ye not drag from heaven to earth Zeus, counsellor supreme, not though ye toiled sore. But once I likewise were minded to draw with all my heart, then should I draw you up with very earth and sea withal. Thereafter would I bind the rope about a pinnacle of Olympus, and so should all these things be hung in air. By so much am I beyond gods and beyond men.' Chaucer (following Boethius) in the Knight's Tale (2133–5) says, with that fair cheyne of love he bond The fyr, the eyr, the water and the lond In certeyn boundes, that they may nat flee. This is rendered by Dryden in his Palamon and Arcite, iii. 1028-9. Fire, flood and earth and air by this were bound, And Love, the common link, the new creation crowned. |