The Golden Verses of Pythagoras — with commentary (1917)

in the spirit of its government and its superstitious cult. They have all thought that thfe tribunal of the Inquisition alone was capable of arresting the impulse of genius and of stifling the development of learning. In this they have taken effedts for causes, and consequences for principles. They have not seen that the spirit of the government and the cult is always not the motive, but the result of the national spirit, and that the wealth and the colonies, indifferent in themselves, are only instruments that tfiis spirit employs for good or evil, according to its chkracter. I can only indicate the first cause which has prevented Spain from reaching the culminating point which France is very near to attaining. This cause is pride. Whilst Europe, enveloped in darkness, was, so to speak, in the fermentation of ignorance, Spain, conquered by the Arabs, received a germ of science which, developing with rapidity, produced a precocious fruit, brilliant, but like hot-house fruit lacking internal force and generative vigour. This premature production having raised Spain abruptly above the other European nations, inspired in her that pride, that excessive amour propre, which, making her treat with contempt all that did not belong to her, hindered her from making any change in her usual customs, carried her with complacency in her mistakes, and when other peoples came to bring forth fruits in their season, corrupted hers and stamped her with a stationary movement, which becoming necessarily retrogressive, must ruin h'er, and did ruin hier.

The Essence and Form of Poetry 105

Du bonheur : viens, 6 Muse ! 6 toi qui, sur la cime

Se Sinai, d'Oreb, en secret in^piras

La Berger d'lsrael, quand d'une voix sacr^e

II enseignait comment et la terre et des cieux

Sortirent du Chaos ! ou bien, si tu pr^feres

Les sommets de Sion, les bords du Siloe,

Qui, pr^s du Temple saint, roule ses flots, 6 Muse !

Viens prot^ger de 1^ mes chants audacieux,

Mes chants qui, surpassant d'un essor non timide,

Les monts Aoniens, vont raconter des faits

Que n'ont point encor dits la prose ni la rime.

Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us and regain the blissful seat, Sing, heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top Of Oreb or of Sinai, didst inspire That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed. In the beginning how the heavens and earth Rose out of chaos ; or if Sion hill Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that fiow'd Fast by the oracle of God ; I thence Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song. That with no middle flight intends to soar Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.

This invocation is manifestly in imitation of Homer, from whom Milton has received the second inspiration without the intermediary — VergiL One can observe in the English poet the same movement and almost as much force as in the Greek poet, but much less clarity, precision, and particularly harmony. Nearly all of these defects pertain to his subject and his tongue. Circumstances were not favourable to Milton. His lines could not have been better with the elements that he was forced to employ. All imperfect as they are, they are worth much more than those of Klopstock ; for at least they are in the character of his tongue, whereas those of the German poet are not.

io6 The Golden Verses of Pythagoras

Milton is satisfied with throwing off the yoke of rhyme, and has made eumolpique lines of one foot only, measured by ten syllables. Their defect, inherent in the English idiom, consists, as I have said, in having all the lines bearing equally the masculine final, jarring continually one with the other. Klopstock has aspired to make, in German, verses measured by the musical rhythm of the Greeks; but he has not perceived that he took as long and short, in his tongue, syllables which were not such in musical rhythm, but by accent and prosody, which is quite different. The German tongue, composed of contracted words and consequently bristling with consonants, bears no resemblance to the Greek, whose words, abounding in vowels, were, on the contrary, made clear by their elongation. The rhythmic lines of Klopstock are materially a third longer than those of Homer, although the German poet has aspired to build them on an equal measure.' Their rhythmic harmony, if it exists there, is absolutely factitious ; it is a pedantic imitation and nothing more. In order to make the movement of these lines understood in French, and to copy as closely as possible their harmony, it is necessary to compose lines of two caesuras, or what amounts to the same, to employ constantly a line and a half to represent a single one. Here are the first fourteen lines which contain the exposition and invocation of the Messiah :

Des coupables humains, c^l^bre, Ame immortelle,

I'heureuse d61ivrance, Que sur terre envoye le Messie accomplit dans son humanity : Dis comment il rendit les fils du premier homme

^ leur Auteur celeste;