On the Sublime
characteristic of human nature, always to find fault with the
present.[3] Consider, now, whether the corruption of genius is to be
attributed, not to a world-wide peace,[4] but rather to the war within
us which knows no limit, which engages all our desires, yes, and still
further to the bad passions which lay siege to us to-day, and make utter
havoc and spoil of our lives. Are we not enslaved, nay, are not our
careers completely shipwrecked, by love of gain, that fever which rages
unappeased in us all, and love of pleasure?--one the most debasing, the
other the most ignoble of the mind's diseases.
[Footnote 3: Comp. Byron, "The good old times,--all times when old
are good."]
[Footnote 4: A euphemism for "a world-wide tyranny."]
7
"When I consider it I can find no means by which we, who hold in such
high honour, or, to speak more correctly, who idolise boundless riches,
can close the door of our souls against those evil spirits which grow up
with them. For Wealth unmeasured and unbridled is dogged by
Extravagance: she sticks close to him, and treads in his footsteps: and
as soon as he opens the gates of cities or of houses she enters with him
and makes her abode with him. And after a time they build their nests
(to use a wise man's words[5]) in that corner of life, and speedily set
about breeding, and beget Boastfulness, and Vanity, and Wantonness, no
base-born children, but their very own. And if these also, the offspring
of Wealth, be allowed to come to their prime, quickly they engender in
the soul those pitiless tyrants, Violence, and Lawlessness, and
Shamelessness.
[Footnote 5: Plato, _Rep._ ix. 573, E.]
8
"Whenever a man takes to worshipping what is mortal and irrational[6] in
him, and neglects to cherish what is immortal, these are the inevitable
results. He never looks up again; he has lost all care for good report;
by slow degrees the ruin of his life goes on, until it is consummated
all round; all that is great in his soul fades, withers away, and is
despised.
[Footnote 6: Reading +kanoêta+.]
9
"If a judge who passes sentence for a bribe can never more give a free
and sound decision on a point of justice or honour (for to him who takes
a bribe honour and justice must be measured by his own interests), how
can we of to-day expect, when the whole life of each one of us is
controlled by bribery, while we lie in wait for other men's death and
plan how to get a place in their wills, when we buy gain, from whatever
source, each one of us, with our very souls in our slavish greed, how, I
say, can we expect, in the midst of such a moral pestilence, that there
is still left even one liberal and impartial critic, whose verdict will
not be biassed by avarice in judging of those great works which live on
through all time?
10
"Alas! I fear that for such men as we are it is better to serve than to
be free. If our appetites were let loose altogether against our
neighbours, they would be like wild beasts uncaged, and bring a deluge
of calamity on the whole civilised world."
11
I ended by remarking generally that the genius of the present age is
wasted by that indifference which with a few exceptions runs through the
whole of life. If we ever shake off our apathy[7] and apply ourselves to
work, it is always with a view to pleasure or applause, not for that
solid advantage which is worthy to be striven for and held in honour.
[Footnote 7: Comp. Thuc. vi. 26. 2, for this sense of
+analambanein+.]
12
We had better then leave this generation to its fate, and turn to what
follows, which is the subject of the passions, to which we promised
early in this treatise to devote a separate work.[8] They play an
important part in literature generally, and especially in relation to
the Sublime.
[Footnote 8: iii. 5.]
NOTES ON LONGINUS
[Transcriber's Note:
Citation format is as in the printed text. The last number in each
group appears to refer to clauses in the original Greek; there is no
correspondence with line numbers in the printed book.]
I. 2. 10. There seems to be an antithesis implied in +politikois
tetheôrêkenai+, referring to the well-known distinction between the
+praktikos bios+ and the +theôrêtikos bios+.
4. 27. I have ventured to return to the original reading, +diephôtisen+,
though all editors seem to have adopted the correction +diephorêsen+, on
account, I suppose, of +skêptou+. To _illumine_ a large subject, as a
landscape is lighted up at night by a flash of lightning, is surely a
far more vivid and intelligible expression than to _sweep away_ a
subject.[1]
[Footnote 1: Comp. for the metaphor Goethe, _Dichtung und Wahrheit_,
B 8. "Wie vor einem Blitz erleuchteten sich uns alle Folgen dieses
herrlichen Gedankens."]
III. 2. 17. +phorbeias d' ater+, lit. "without a cheek-strap," which was
worn by trumpeters to assist them in regulating their breath. The line
is contracted from two of Sophocles's, and Longinus's point is that the
extravagance of Cleitarchus is not that of a strong but ill-regulated
nature, but the ludicrous straining after grandeur of a writer at once
feeble and pretentious.
Ruhnken gives an extract from some inedited "versus politici" of
Tzetzes, in which are some amusing specimens of those felicities of
language Longinus is here laughing at. Stones are the "bones," rivers
the "veins," of the earth; the moon is "the sigma of the sky" (+(lunate
Sigma)+ the old form of +(Sigma)+); sailors, "the ants of ocean"; the
strap of a pedlar's pack, "the girdle of his load"; pitch, "the ointment
of doors," and so on.
IV. 4. 4. The play upon the double meaning of +kora+, (1) maiden, (2)
pupil of the eye, can hardly be kept in English. It is worthy of remark
that our text of Xenophon has +en tois thalamois+, a perfectly natural
expression. Such a variation would seem to point to a very early
corruption of ancient manuscripts, or to extraordinary inaccuracy on the
part of Longinus, who, indeed, elsewhere displays great looseness of
citation, confusing together totally different passages.
9. +itamon+. I can make nothing of this word. Various corrections have
been suggested, but with little certainty.
5. 10. +hôs phôriou tinos ephaptomenos+, literally, "as though he were
laying hands on a piece of stolen property." The point seems to be, that
plagiarists, like other robbers, show no discrimination in their
pilferings, seizing what comes first to hand.
VIII. 1. 20. +edaphous+. I have avoided the rather harsh confusion of
metaphor which this word involves, taken in connection with +pêgai+.
IX. 2. 13. +apêchêma+, properly an "echo," a metaphor rather Greek than
English.
X. 2. 13. +chlôrotera de poias+, lit. "more wan than grass"--of the
sickly yellow hue which would appear on a dark Southern face under the
influence of violent emotion.[2]
[Footnote 2: The notion of _yellowness_, as associated with grass,
is made intelligible by a passage in Longus, i. 17. 19. +chlôroteron
to prosôpon ên poas _therinês_.+]
3. 6. The words +ê gar ... tethnêken+ are omitted in the translation,
being corrupt, and giving no satisfactory sense. Ruhnken corrects,
+alogistei, phronei, ptoeitai, ê p. o. t.+
18. +splanchnoisi kakôs anaballomenoisi.+ Probably of sea-sickness; and
so I find Ruhnken took it, quoting Plutarch, _T._ ii. 831: +emountos tou
heterou, kai legontos ta splanchna ekballein+. An objection on the score
of _taste_ would be out of place in criticising the laureate of the
Arimaspi.
X. 7. 2. +tas exochas aristindên ekkathêrantes.+ +aristindên
ekkathêrantes+ appears to be a condensed phrase for +aristindên
eklexantes kai ekkathêrantes+. "Having chosen the most striking
circumstances _par excellence_, and having relieved them of all
superfluity," would perhaps give the literal meaning. Longinus seems
conscious of some strangeness in his language, making a quasi-apology in
+hôs an eipoi tis+.
3. Partly with the help of Toup, we may emend this corrupt passage as
follows: +lumainetai gar tauta to holon, hôsanei psêgmata ê araiômata,
ta empoiounta megethos tê pros allêla schesei sunteteichismena+. +to
holon+ here = "omnino." To explain the process of corruption, +ta+ would
easily drop out after the final +-ta+ in +araiômata+; +sunoikonomoumena+
is simply a corruption of +sunoikodomoumena+, which is itself a gloss on
+sunteteichismena+, having afterwards crept into the text; +megethos+
became corrupted into +megethê+ through the error of some copyist, who
wished to make it agree with +empoiounta+. The whole maybe translated:
"Such [interpolations], like so many patches or rents, mar altogether
the effect of those details which, by being built up in an uninterrupted
series [+tê pros allêla sch. suntet.+], produce sublimity in a work."
XII. 4. 2. +en autô+; the sense seems clearly to require +en hautô+.
XIV. 3. 16. +mê ... huperêmeron.+ Most of the editors insert +ou+ before
+phthenxaito+, thus ruining the sense of this fine passage. Longinus has
just said that a writer should always work with an eye to posterity. If
(he adds) he thinks of nothing but the taste and judgment of his
contemporaries, he will have no chance of "leaving something so written
that the world will not willingly let it die." A book, then, which is
+tou idiou biou kai chronou huperêmeros+, is a book which is in advance
of its own times. Such were the poems of Lucretius, of Milton, of
Wordsworth.[3]
[Footnote 3: Compare the "Geflügelte Worte" in the Vorspiel to
Goethe's _Faust_:
Was glänzt, ist für den Augenblick geboren,
Das Aechte bleibt der Nachwelt unverloren. ]
XV. 5. 23. +pokoeideis kai amalaktous+, lit. "like raw, undressed wool."
XVII. 1. 25. I construct the infinit. with +hupopton+, though the
ordinary interpretation joins +to dia schêmatôn panourgein+: "proprium
est _verborum lenociniis_ suspicionem movere" (Weiske).
2. 8. +paralêphtheisa+. This word has given much trouble; but is it not
simply a continuation of the metaphor implied in +epikouria+?
+paralambanein tina+, in the sense of calling in an ally, is a common
enough use. This would be clearer if we could read +paralêphtheisi+. I
have omitted +tou panourgein+ in translating, as it seems to me to have
evidently crept in from above (p. 33, l. 25). +hê tou panourgein
technê+, "the art of playing the villain," is surely, in Longinus's own
words, +deinon kai ekphulon+, "a startling novelty" of language.
12. +tô phôti autô+. The words may remind us of Shelley's "Like a poet
_hidden in the light of thought_."
XVIII. 1. 24. The distinction between +peusis+ or +pusma+ and +erôtêsis+
or +erôtêma+ is said to be that +erôtêsis+ is a simple question, which
can be answered yes or no; +peusis+ a fuller inquiry, requiring a fuller
answer. _Aquila Romanus in libro de figuris sententiarum et
elocutionis_, § 12 (Weiske).
XXXI. 1. 11. +anankophagêsai+, properly of the fixed diet of athletes,
which seems to have been excessive in quantity, and sometimes nauseous
in quality. I do not know what will be thought of my rendering here; it
is certainly not elegant, but it was necessary to provide some sort of
equivalent to the Greek. "Swallow," which the other translators give, is
quite inadequate. We require a threefold combination--(1) To swallow (2)
something nasty (3) for the sake of prospective advantage.
XXXII. 1. 3. The text is in great confusion here. Following a hint in
Vahlin's critical note, I have transposed the words thus: +ho kairos de
tês chreias horos; entha ta pathê cheimarrou dikên elaunetai, kai tên
poluplêtheian autôn hôs anankaian entautha sunephelketai; ho gar D.,
horos kai tôn toioutôn, anthrôpoi, phêsin, k.t.l.+
8. 16. Some words have probably been lost here. The sense of +plên+, and