The Works of Alexander Pope Part 39

[Footnote 76: In the midst of the Temple, nearest the throne of Fame, are placed the greatest names in learning of all antiquity. These are described in such att.i.tudes as express their different characters. The columns on which they are raised are adorned with sculptures, taken from the most striking subjects of their works, which sculpture bears a resemblance, in its manner and character, to the manner and character of their writings.--POPE.

This was a trite device, and is poorly applied in the present instance.

"The manner and character of the writings" of Homer, Virgil, Pindar, Horace, Aristotle, and Cicero could hardly have been described in a vaguer and more common-place way.]

[Footnote 77:

From the dees many a pillere, Of metal that shone not full clere, &c.

Upon a pillere saw I stonde That was of lede and iron fine, Him of the sect Saturnine, The Ebraike Josephus the old, &c.

Upon an iron piller strong, That painted was all endelong, With tigers' blood in every place, The Tholosan that highte Stace, That bare of Thebes up the fame, &c.--POPE.]

[Footnote 78:

Full wonder hye on a pillere Of iron, he the great Omer, And with him Dares and t.i.tus, &c.--POPE.]

[Footnote 79: Pope has selected from Homer only three subjects as the most interesting: Diomed wounding Venus, Hector slaying Patroclus, and the same Hector dragged along at the wheels of Achilles' chariot. Are these the most affecting and striking incidents of the Iliad? But it is highly worth remarking, that this very incident of dragging the body of Hector thrice round the walls of Troy, is absolutely not mentioned by Homer. Heyne thinks that Virgil, for he first mentioned it, adopted the circ.u.mstance from some Greek tragedy on the subject.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 80:

There saw I stand on a pillere That was of tinned iron cleere, The Latin poete Virgyle, That hath bore up of a great while The fame of pious aeneas.

And next him on a pillere was Of copper, Venus' clerk Ovide, That hath y-sowen wondrous wide The great G.o.d of Love's name-- Tho saw I on a pillere by Of iron wrought full sternely, The greate poet Dan Lucan, That on his shoulders bore up than As high as that I mighte see, The fame of Julius and Pompee.

And next him on a pillere stoode Of sulphur, like as he were woode, Dan Claudian, sothe for to tell, That bare up all the fame of h.e.l.l, &c.--POPE.

Since Homer is placed by Chaucer upon a pillar of iron, he places Virgil upon iron tinned over, to indicate that the aeneis was based upon the Iliad and was both more polished and less vigorous. The sulphur upon which Claudian stands, is typical of the h.e.l.l he described in his poem on the Rape of Proserpine. Ovid, the poet of love, is put upon a pillar of copper, because copper was the metal of Venus; and Lucan, like Homer, has a pillar of iron allotted to him because he celebrated in his Pharsalia the wars of Caesar and Pompey, and, as Chaucer says,

Iron Martes metal is, Which that G.o.d is of battaile.]

[Footnote 81: Wakefield supposes that "modest majesty" was suggested by Milton's phrase, "modest pride," in Par. Lost, iv. 310.]

[Footnote 82: For this expression Wakefield quotes Dryden, aen. vi. 33.

There too in living sculpture might be seen The mad affection of the Cretan queen.]

[Footnote 83: The rhyme is dearly purchased by such an inexcusable inversion as "silver blight."]

[Footnote 84: Pindar being seated in a chariot, alludes to the chariot races he celebrated in the Grecian games. The swans are emblems of poetry, their soaring posture intimates the sublimity and activity of his genius. Neptune presided over the Isthmian, and Jupiter over the Olympian games.--POPE.]

[Footnote 85: A. Philips, Past. v. 95.

He sinks into the cords with solemn pace, To give the swelling tones a bolder grace.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 86: "Distorted," which is always used in an unfavourable sense, is a disparaging epithet by which to characterise the vehement eagerness of the champions. It is not clear who or what they "threaten,"

whether the horses or each other, and in either case there is nothing "great" in the image of a person uttering threats in a "distorted posture."]

[Footnote 87: This expresses the mixed character of the odes of Horace: the second of these verses alludes to that line of his,

Spiritum Graiae tenuem camoenae,

as another which follows, to

Exegi monumentum aere perennius.

The action of the doves hints at a pa.s.sage in the fourth ode of his third book:

Me fabulosae Vulture in Apulo Altricis extra limen Apuliae, Ludo fatigatumque somno, Fronde nova puerum palumbes Texere; mirum quod foret omnibus-- Ut tuto ab atris corpore viperis Dormirem et ursis; ut premerer sacra Lauroque, collataque myrto, Non sine Dis animosus infans.

Which may be thus Englished:

While yet a child, I chanced to stray, And in a desert sleeping lay; The savage race withdrew, nor dared To touch the muses' future bard; But Cytherea's gentle dove Myrtles and bays around me spread, And crowned your infant poet's head Sacred to music and to love.--POPE.

In addition to these pa.s.sages, he had in his mind Hor. Epist. lib. i.

19, quoted by Wakefield:

Temperat Archilochi Musam pede mascula Sappho, Temperat Alcaeus.]

[Footnote 88: Horace speaking, in his ode to Augustus, of the relative glory of different families, says that the Julian star shone among all the rest as the moon s.h.i.+nes among the lesser lights. The star referred to the comet which appeared for seven days the year after the death of Julius Caesar, and which was supposed to indicate that he had become a deity in the heavens. A star was sculptured in consequence on his statue in the forum.]

[Footnote 89: Surely he might have selected for the ba.s.so rilievos about the statue of Horace ornaments more manly and characteristical of his genius.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 90: A very tame and lifeless verse indeed, alluding to the treatise of Aristotle "concerning animals."--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 91: Pope here refers to Aristotle's treatise on the Heavens.]

[Footnote 92: This beautiful att.i.tude is copied from a statue in the collection which Lady Pomfret presented to the University of Oxford.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 93: Addison's translation of some lines from Sannazarius:

And thou whose rival tow'rs invade the skies.

[Footnote 94: Chaucer in a pa.s.sage, not quoted by Pope, represents Fame as enthroned upon "a seat imperial," which was formed of rubies.]

[Footnote 95:

Methoughte that she was so lite That the length of a cubite Was longer than she seemed to be; But thus soon in a while she, Herself tho wonderly straight, That with her feet she carthe reight, And with her head she touched heaven.--POPE.]

[Footnote 96: This notion of the enlargement of the temple is also from Chaucer, who says that it became in length, breadth, and height, a thousand times bigger than it was at first.]

[Footnote 97: The corresponding pa.s.sage in Chaucer is not quoted by Pope, who translated from their common original, Virg. aen. iv. 181:

Cui quot sunt corpore plumae, Tot vigiles oculi subter, mirabile dictu, Tot lunguae, totidem ora sonant, tot subrigit auris.]

[Footnote 98:

I heard about her throne y-sung That all the palays walles rung; So sung the mighty Muse, she That cleped is Calliope, And her eighte sisters eke.--POPE.

Pope should have continued the extract; for his next four lines were prompted by the succeeding four in Chaucer:

And evermore eternally They sing of Fame as tho heard I; "Heried be thou and thy name G.o.ddess of renown or fame."

"Heried" means praised.]