On the Sublime
doses of trouble_."[1] We see from this that the most homely language is
sometimes far more vivid than the most ornamental, being recognised at
once as the language of common life, and gaining immediate currency by
its familiarity. In speaking, then, of Philip as "taking doses of
trouble," Theopompus has laid hold on a phrase which describes with
peculiar vividness one who for the sake of advantage endured what was
base and sordid with patience and cheerfulness.
[Footnote 1: See Note.]
2
The same may be observed of two passages in Herodotus: "Cleomenes having
lost his wits, cut his own flesh into pieces with a short sword, until
by gradually _mincing_ his whole body he destroyed himself";[2] and
"Pythes continued fighting on his ship until he was entirely _hacked to
pieces_."[3] Such terms come home at once to the vulgar reader, but
their own vulgarity is redeemed by their expressiveness.
[Footnote 2: vi. 75.]
[Footnote 3: vii. 181.]
XXXII
Concerning the number of metaphors to be employed together Caecilius
seems to give his vote with those critics who make a law that not more
than two, or at the utmost three, should be combined in the same place.
The use, however, must be determined by the occasion. Those outbursts of
passion which drive onwards like a winter torrent draw with them as an
indispensable accessory whole masses of metaphor. It is thus in that
passage of Demosthenes (who here also is our safest guide):[1]
[Footnote 1: See Note.]
2
"Those vile fawning wretches, each one of whom has lopped from his
country her fairest members, who have toasted away their liberty, first
to Philip, now to Alexander, who measure happiness by their belly and
their vilest appetites, who have overthrown the old landmarks and
standards of felicity among Greeks,--to be freemen, and to have no one
for a master."[2] Here the number of the metaphors is obscured by the
orator's indignation against the betrayers of his country.
[Footnote 2: _De Cor._ 296.]
3
And to effect this Aristotle and Theophrastus recommend the softening of
harsh metaphors by the use of some such phrase as "So to say," "As it
were," "If I may be permitted the expression," "If so bold a term is
allowable." For thus to forestall criticism[3] mitigates, they assert,
the boldness of the metaphors.
[Footnote 3: Reading +hupotimêsis+.]
4
And I will not deny that these have their use. Nevertheless I must
repeat the remark which I made in the case of figures,[4] and maintain
that there are native antidotes to the number and boldness of metaphors,
in well-timed displays of strong feeling, and in unaffected sublimity,
because these have an innate power by the dash of their movement of
sweeping along and carrying all else before them. Or should we not
rather say that they absolutely demand as indispensable the use of
daring metaphors, and will not allow the hearer to pause and criticise
the number of them, because he shares the passion of the speaker?
[Footnote 4: Ch. xvii.]
5
In the treatment, again, of familiar topics and in descriptive passages
nothing gives such distinctness as a close and continuous series of
metaphors. It is by this means that Xenophon has so finely delineated
the anatomy of the human frame.[5] And there is a still more brilliant
and life-like picture in Plato.[6] The human head he calls a _citadel_;
the neck is an _isthmus_ set to divide it from the chest; to support it
beneath are the vertebrae, turning like _hinges_; pleasure he describes
as a _bait_ to tempt men to ill; the tongue is the _arbiter of tastes_.
The heart is at once the _knot_ of the veins and the _source_ of the
rapidly circulating blood, and is stationed in the _guard-room_ of the
body. The ramifying blood-vessels he calls _alleys_. "And casting
about," he says, "for something to sustain the violent palpitation of
the heart when it is alarmed by the approach of danger or agitated by
passion, since at such times it is overheated, they (the gods) implanted
in us the lungs, which are so fashioned that being soft and bloodless,
and having cavities within, they act like a buffer, and when the heart
boils with inward passion by yielding to its throbbing save it from
injury." He compares the seat of the desires to the _women's quarters_,
the seat of the passions to the _men's quarters_, in a house. The
spleen, again, is the _napkin_ of the internal organs, by whose
excretions it is saturated from time to time, and swells to a great size
with inward impurity. "After this," he continues, "they shrouded the
whole with flesh, throwing it forward, like a cushion, as a barrier
against injuries from without." The blood he terms the _pasture_ of the
flesh. "To assist the process of nutrition," he goes on, "they divided
the body into ducts, cutting trenches like those in a garden, so that,
the body being a system of narrow conduits, the current of the veins
might flow as from a perennial fountain-head. And when the end is at
hand," he says, "the soul is cast loose from her moorings like a ship,
and free to wander whither she will."
6
These, and a hundred similar fancies, follow one another in quick
succession. But those which I have pointed out are sufficient to
demonstrate how great is the natural power of figurative language, and
how largely metaphors conduce to sublimity, and to illustrate the
important part which they play in all impassioned and descriptive
passages.
[Footnote 5: _Memorab._ i. 4, 5.]
[Footnote 6: _Timaeus_, 69, D; 74, A; 65, C; 72, G; 74, B, D; 80, E;
77, G; 78, E; 85, E.]
7
That the use of figurative language, as of all other beauties of style,
has a constant tendency towards excess, is an obvious truth which I need
not dwell upon. It is chiefly on this account that even Plato comes in
for a large share of disparagement, because he is often carried away by
a sort of frenzy of language into an intemperate use of violent
metaphors and inflated allegory. "It is not easy to remark" (he says in
one place) "that a city ought to be blended like a bowl, in which the
mad wine boils when it is poured out, but being disciplined by another
and a sober god in that fair society produces a good and temperate
drink."[7] Really, it is said, to speak of water as a "sober god," and
of the process of mixing as a "discipline," is to talk like a poet, and
no very _sober_ one either.
[Footnote 7: _Legg._ vi. 773, G.]
8
It was such defects as these that the hostile critic[8] Caecilius made
his ground of attack, when he had the boldness in his essay "On the
Beauties of Lysias" to pronounce that writer superior in every respect
to Plato. Now Caecilius was doubly unqualified for a judge: he loved
Lysias better even than himself, and at the same time his hatred of
Plato and all his works is greater even than his love for Lysias.
Moreover, he is so blind a partisan that his very premises are open to
dispute. He vaunts Lysias as a faultless and immaculate writer, while
Plato is, according to him, full of blemishes. Now this is not the case:
far from it.
[Footnote 8: Reading +ho misôn auton+, by a conjecture of the
translator.]
XXXIII
But supposing now that we assume the existence of a really unblemished
and irreproachable writer. Is it not worth while to raise the whole
question whether in poetry and prose we should prefer sublimity
accompanied by some faults, or a style which never rising above moderate
excellence never stumbles and never requires correction? and again,
whether the first place in literature is justly to be assigned to the
more numerous, or the loftier excellences? For these are questions
proper to an inquiry on the Sublime, and urgently asking for settlement.
2
I know, then, that the largest intellects are far from being the most
exact. A mind always intent on correctness is apt to be dissipated in
trifles; but in great affluence of thought, as in vast material wealth,
there must needs be an occasional neglect of detail. And is it not
inevitably so? Is it not by risking nothing, by never aiming high, that
a writer of low or middling powers keeps generally clear of faults and
secure of blame? whereas the loftier walks of literature are by their
very loftiness perilous?
3
I am well aware, again, that there is a law by which in all human
productions the weak points catch the eye first, by which their faults
remain indelibly stamped on the memory, while their beauties quickly
fade away.
4
Yet, though I have myself noted not a few faulty passages in Homer and
in other authors of the highest rank, and though I am far from being
partial to their failings, nevertheless I would call them not so much
wilful blunders as oversights which were allowed to pass unregarded
through that contempt of little things, that "brave disorder," which is
natural to an exalted genius; and I still think that the greater
excellences, though not everywhere equally sustained, ought always to be
voted to the first place in literature, if for no other reason, for the
mere grandeur of soul they evince. Let us take an instance: Apollonius
in his _Argonautica_ has given us a poem actually faultless; and in his
pastoral poetry Theocritus is eminently happy, except when he
occasionally attempts another style. And what then? Would you rather be
a Homer or an Apollonius?
5
Or take Eratosthenes and his _Erigone_; because that little work is
without a flaw, is he therefore a greater poet than Archilochus, with
all his disorderly profusion? greater than that impetuous, that
god-gifted genius, which chafed against the restraints of law? or in
lyric poetry would you choose to be a Bacchylides or a Pindar? in
tragedy a Sophocles or (save the mark!) an Io of Chios? Yet Io and
Bacchylides never stumble, their style is always neat, always pretty;
while Pindar and Sophocles sometimes move onwards with a wide blaze of
splendour, but often drop out of view in sudden and disastrous eclipse.
Nevertheless no one in his senses would deny that a single play of
Sophocles, the _Oedipus_, is of higher value than all the dramas of Io
put together.
XXXIV
If the number and not the loftiness of an author's merits is to be our
standard of success, judged by this test we must admit that Hyperides is
a far superior orator to Demosthenes. For in Hyperides there is a richer
modulation, a greater variety of excellence. He is, we may say, in
everything second-best, like the champion of the _pentathlon_, who,
though in every contest he has to yield the prize to some other
combatant, is superior to the unpractised in all five.
2
Not only has he rivalled the success of Demosthenes in everything but
his manner of composition, but, as though that were not enough, he has
taken in all the excellences and graces of Lysias as well. He knows when
it is proper to speak with simplicity, and does not, like Demosthenes,
continue the same key throughout. His touches of character are racy and
sparkling, and full of a delicate flavour. Then how admirable is his
wit, how polished his raillery! How well-bred he is, how dexterous in
the use of irony! His jests are pointed, but without any of the
grossness and vulgarity of the old Attic comedy. He is skilled in making
light of an opponent's argument, full of a well-aimed satire which
amuses while it stings; and through all this there runs a pervading, may
we not say, a matchless charm. He is most apt in moving compassion; his
mythical digressions show a fluent ease, and he is perfect in bending
his course and finding a way out of them without violence or effort.
Thus when he tells the story of Leto he is really almost a poet; and his
funeral oration shows a declamatory magnificence to which I hardly know
a parallel.
3