The Golden Verses of Pythagoras — with commentary (1917)
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Like ^schylus he conducted one to virtue by terror; but unfortunately the taste of the spectators, upon which he was forced to model his, led him to degrade his tableaux by grotesque figures : the English people were not sufficiently advanced to comprehend the moral end of the tragedy. They must be amused; and Shakespeare succeeded only at the expense of the beauties of the art. Historic facts and trivial scenes replaced the mysterious and sublime subjects. In London, the dramatic muse was turbulent and licen-
"In the beginning, when naught was, there Was neither sand nor sea nor the cold waves. Nor was earth to be seen nor heaven above. There was a Yawning Chasm [chaos] but grass nowhere. ..."
Ar vas alda pat-es ekki vas; vasa sandr n& scBr ne svalar unnir, ioirofansk ceva nSupp-himinn; Gap vas Ginnunga, enn gras ekki, . . .
Voyez Mallet, Monuments celtigues, p. 135; et pour le texte, le poeme mfime de la Voluspa, in Edda islandorum, Mallet paratt avoir suivi un texte erron^.
As to the Gallic poetry of the Scotch bards, that Macpherson has made known to us under the name of Ossian, much is needed that they may have a sufficient degree of authenticity for them to be cited as models, and placed parallel with those of Homer, as has been done without reflection. These poems, although resting for the greater part upon a true basis, are very far from being veritable as to form. The Scotch bards, like the Oscan troubadours, must be restored and often entirely remade, if they are to be read. Macpherson, in composing his Ossian, has followed certain ancient traditions, has put together certain scattered fragments; but has taken great liberties with all the rest. He was, besides, a man endowed with creative genius and he might have been able to attain to epopceia if he had been better informed. His lack of knowledge has left a void in his work which demonstrates its falsity. There is no mythology, no allegory, no cult in Ossian. There are some historic or romanesque facts joined to long descriptions; it is a style more emphatic than figurative, more bizarre than original. Macpherson, in neglecting all kinds of mythological and religious ideas, in even mocking here and there the stone of power of the Scandinavians, has shown that he was ignorant of two important things: the one, that the allegorical or religious genius constitutes the essence of poetry; the other, that Scotland was at a very ancient period the hearth of this same genius whose interpreters were the druids, bards, and scalds. He should have known that, far from being
102 The Golden Verses of Pythagoras tious; as in Madrid it had been chivalrous and gallant. Everywhere the theatre had to accommodate itself to the taste of the people. The first regular tragedy which Pierre Comeille composed in France was derived from a Spanish ballad. Madrid at that time gave the tone to Europe. It needed much of the time and all the prosperity of Louis XIV. to throw off the unseasonable ascendancy that this without religion, the Caledonians possessed in the heart of their mountains, the GalUc Parnassus, the sacred mountain of the Occidental isles; and that when the antique cult began to decline in Gaul, it was in Albion, reckoned among the holy isles by even the Indians, that the druids went to study. Voyez Les Commentaires de Cisar, iv., 20; L' Introduction de I'histoire de Danemark, par Mallet; L'Histoire des Celtes, par Pelloutier; et enfin les Recherches asiatiques {Asiat. Research.), t. vi., p. 490 et 502.
In order to seize the occasion of applying eumolpique lines to a greater number of subjects, I am going to quote a sort of exposition of Ossian, the only one I believe, which is found in his poems; because Macpherson, for more originality, neglected nearly always to announce the subject of his songs. I will not give the tejrt, because the English translation whence I obtained it does not give it. It concerns the battle of Lora. After a kind of exordium addressed to the son of the stranger, dweller of the silent cavern, Ossian said to him:
Le chant plait-il h. ton oreille? Ecoute le r^cit du combat de Lora. II est bien ancien, ce combat! Le tumulte Des armes, et les cris furieux des guerriers,
Sont couverts par un long silence;
lis sont ^teints depuis longtemps: Ainsi sur des rochers retentissants, la foudre
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