The Crown of Wild Olive
knowingly and willingly; but this spirit--feminine--and called a
Siren--is the "_Deceitfulness_ of riches," [Greek: apate ploutou] of the
Gospels, winning obedience by guile. This is the Idol of riches, made
doubly phantasmal by Dante's seeing her in a dream. She is lovely to
look upon, and enchants by her sweet singing, but her womb is loathsome.
Now, Dante does not call her one of the Sirens carelessly, any more than
he speaks of Charybdis carelessly; and though he had got at the meaning
of the Homeric fable only through Virgil's obscure tradition of it, the
clue he has given us is quite enough. Bacon's interpretation, "the
Sirens, _or pleasures_," which has become universal since his time, is
opposed alike to Plato's meaning and Homer's. The Sirens are not
pleasures, but _Desires_: in the Odyssey they are the phantoms of vain
desire; but in Plato's Vision of Destiny, phantoms of divine desire;
singing each a different note on the circles of the distaff of
Necessity, but forming one harmony, to which the three great Fates put
words. Dante, however, adopted the Homeric conception of them, which was
that they were demons of the Imagination, not carnal; (desire of the
eyes; not lust of the flesh); therefore said to be daughters of the
Muses. Yet not of the Muses, heavenly or historical but of the Muse of
pleasure; and they are at first winged, because even vain hope excites
and helps when first formed; but afterwards, contending for the
possession of the imagination with the Muses themselves, they are
deprived of their wings.
91. And thus we are to distinguish the Siren power from the power of
Circe, who is no daughter of the Muses, but of the strong elements, Sun
and Sea; her power is that of frank, and full vital pleasure, which, if
governed and watched, nourishes men; but, unwatched, and having no
"moly," bitterness or delay, mixed with it, turns men into beasts, but
does not slay them,--leaves them, on the contrary, power of revival. She
is herself indeed an Enchantress;--pure Animal life; transforming--or
degrading--but always wonderful (she puts the stores on board the ship
invisibly, and is gone again, like a ghost); even the wild beasts
rejoice and are softened around her cave; the transforming poisons she
gives to men are mixed with no rich feast, but with pure and right
nourishment,--Pramnian wine, cheese, and flour; that is, wine, milk, and
corn, the three great sustainers of life--it is their own fault if these
make swine of them; (see Appendix V.) and swine are chosen merely as the
type of consumption; as Plato's [Greek: hyon polis], in the second book
of the _Polity_, and perhaps chosen by Homer with a deeper knowledge of
the likeness in variety of nourishment, and internal form of body.
"Et quel est, s'il vous plait, cet audacieux animal qui se permet d'etre
bati au dedans comme une jolie petite fille?"
"Helas! chere enfant, j'ai honte de le nommer, et il ne faudra pas m'en
vouloir. C'est ... c'est le cochon. Ce n'est pas precisement flatteur
pour vous; mais nous en sommes tous la, et si cela vous contrarie par
trop, il faut aller vous plaindre au bon Dieu qui a voulu que les choses
fussent arrangees ainsi: seulement le cochon, qui ne pense qu'a manger,
a l'estomac bien plus vaste que nous et c'est toujours une
consolation."--_(Histoire d'une Bouchee de Pain_, Lettre ix.)
92. But the deadly Sirens are in all things opposed to the Circean
power. They promise pleasure, but never give it. They nourish in no
wise; but slay by slow death. And whereas they corrupt the heart and
the head, instead of merely betraying the senses, there is no recovery
from their power; they do not tear nor scratch, like Scylla, but the men
who have listened to them are poisoned, and waste away. Note that the
Sirens' field is covered, not merely with the bones, but with the
_skins_, of those who have been consumed there. They address themselves,
in the part of the song which Homer gives, not to the passions of
Ulysses, but to his vanity, and the only man who ever came within
hearing of them, and escaped untempted, was Orpheus, who silenced the
vain imaginations by singing the praises of the gods.
93. It is, then, one of these Sirens whom Dante takes as the phantasm or
deceitfulness of riches; but note further, that she says it was her song
that deceived Ulysses. Look back to Dante's account of Ulysses' death,
and we find it was not the love of money, but pride of knowledge, that
betrayed him; whence we get the clue to Dante's complete meaning: that
the souls whose love of wealth is pardonable have been first deceived
into pursuit of it by a dream of its higher uses, or by ambition. His
Siren is therefore the Philotime of Spenser, daughter of Mammon--
"Whom all that folk with such contention
Do flock about, my deare, my daughter is--
Honour and dignitie from her alone
Derived are."
By comparing Spenser's entire account of this Philotime with Dante's of
the Wealth-Siren, we shall get at the full meaning of both poets; but
that of Homer lies hidden much more deeply. For his Sirens are
indefinite; and they are desires of any evil thing; power of wealth is
not specially indicated by him, until, escaping the 'harmonious danger
of imagination, Ulysses has to choose between two practical ways of
life, indicated by the two _rocks_ of Scylla and Charybdis. The monsters
that haunt them are quite distinct from the rocks themselves, which,
having many other subordinate significations, are in the main Labour and
Idleness, or getting and spending; each with its attendant monster, or
betraying demon. The rock of gaining has its summit in the clouds,
invisible, and not to be climbed; that of spending is low, but marked by
the cursed fig-tree, which has leaves, but no fruit. We know the type
elsewhere; and there is a curious lateral allusion to it by Dante when
Jacopo di Sant' Andrea, who had ruined himself by profusion and
committed suicide, scatters the leaves of the bush of Lotto degli Agli,
endeavouring to hide himself among them. We shall hereafter examine the
type completely; here I will only give an approximate rendering of
Homer's words, which have been obscured more by translation than even by
tradition.
94. "They are overhanging rocks. The great waves of blue water break
round them; and the blessed Gods call them the Wanderers.
"By one of them no winged thing can pass--not even the wild doves that
bring ambrosia to their father Jove--but the smooth rock seizes its
sacrifice of them." (Not even ambrosia to be had without Labour. The
word is peculiar--as a part of anything is offered for Sacrifice;
especially used of heave-offering.) "It reaches the wide heaven with its
top, and a dark blue cloud rests on it, and never passes; neither does
the clear sky hold it, in summer nor in harvest. Nor can any man climb
it--not if he had twenty feet and hands, for it is smooth as though it
were hewn.
"And in the midst of it is a cave which is turned the way of hell. And
therein dwells Scylla, whining for prey: her cry, indeed, is no louder
than that of a newly-born whelp: but she herself is an awful thing--nor
can any creature see her face and be glad; no, though it were a god that
rose against her. For she has twelve feet, all fore-feet, and six necks,
and terrible heads on them; and each has three rows of teeth, full of
black death.
"But the opposite rock is lower than this, though but a bow-shot
distant; and upon it there is a great fig-tree, full of leaves; and
under it the terrible Charybdis sucks down the black water. Thrice in
the day she sucks it down, and thrice; casts it up again: be not thou
there when she sucks down, for Neptune himself could not save thee."
[Thus far went my rambling note, in _Fraser's Magazine_. The Editor sent
me a compliment on it--of which I was very proud; what the Publisher
thought of it, I am not informed; only I know that eventually he stopped
the papers. I think a great deal of it myself, now, and have put it all
in large print accordingly, and should like to write more; but will, on
the contrary, self-denyingly, and in gratitude to any reader who has got
through so much, end my chapter.]
FOOTNOTES:
[33] Remember this definition: it is of great importance as opposed to
the imperfect ones usually given. When first these essays were
published, I remember one of their reviewers asking contemptuously, "Is
half-a-crown a document?" it never having before occurred to him that a
document might be stamped as well as written, and stamped on silver as
well as on parchment.
[34] I do not mean the demand of the holder of a five-pound note for
five pounds, but the demand of the holder of a pound for a pound's worth
of something good.
[35] [Read and think over, the following note very carefully.] The waste
of labour in obtaining the gold, though it cannot be estimated by help
of any existing data, may be understood in its bearing on entire economy
by supposing it limited to transactions between two persons. If two
farmers in Australia have been exchanging corn and cattle with each
other for years, keeping their accounts of reciprocal debt in any simple
way, the sum of the possessions of either would not be diminished,
though the part of it which was lent or borrowed were only reckoned by
marks on a stone, or notches on a tree; and the one counted himself
accordingly, so many scratches, or so many notches, better than the
other. But it would soon be seriously diminished if, discovering gold in
their fields, each resolved only to accept golden counters for a
reckoning; and accordingly, whenever he wanted a sack of corn or a cow,
was obliged to go and wash sand for a week before he could get the means
of giving a receipt for them.
[36] It is difficult to estimate the curious futility of discussions
such as that which lately occupied a section of the British Association,
on the absorption of gold, while no one can produce even the simplest of
the data necessary for the inquiry. To take the first occurring
one,--What means have we of ascertaining the weight of gold employed
this year in the toilettes of the women of Europe (not to speak of
Asia); and, supposing it known, what means of conjecturing the weight by
which, next year, their fancies, and the changes of style among their
jewellers, will diminish or increase it?
[37] See, in Pope's epistle to Lord Bathurst, his sketch of the
difficulties and uses of a currency literally "pecuniary"--(consisting
of herds of cattle).
"His Grace will game--to White's a bull be led," &c.
[38] Perhaps both; perhaps silver only. It may be found expedient
ultimately to leave gold free for use in the arts. As a means of
reckoning, the standard might be, and in some cases has already been,
entirely ideal.--_See_ Mill's _Political Economy_, book iii. chap. VII.
at beginning.
[39] The purity of the drachma and zecchin were not without significance
of the state of intellect, art, and policy, both in Athens and
Venice;--a fact first impressed upon me ten years ago, when, in taking
daguerreotypes at Venice, I found no purchaseable gold pure enough to
gild them with, except that of the old Venetian zecchin.
[40] Under which term, observe, we include all documents of debt, which,
being honest, might be transferable, though they practically are not
transferred; while we exclude all documents which are in reality
worthless, though in fact transferred temporarily, as bad money is. The
document of honest debt, not transferred, is merely to paper currency as
gold withdrawn from circulation is to that of bullion. Much confusion
has crept into the reasoning on this subject from the idea that the
withdrawal from circulation is a definable state, whereas it is a
graduated state, and indefinable. The sovereign in my pocket is