Chapter C: S. Calverley (1)

* * * * *

ON A FLY DRINKING OUT OF A CUP OF ALE

Busy, curious, thirsty fly,
Drink with me, and drink as I;
Freely welcome to my cup,
Couldst thou sip and sip it up.
Make the most of life you may,
Life is short and wears away.

Both alike, both thine and mine,
Hasten quick to their decline;
Thine’s a summer, mine’s no more,
Though repeated to three-score:
Three-score summers, when they’re gone,
Will appear as short as one.

WILLIAM OLDYS (1696-1761).

This was first published in 1732 as “The Fly—An Anachreontick”
and Mr. Gosse in the _Encyc. Britt._ gave the first six lines
as an example of an Anacreontic. He attributed the poem to
Oldys, but the authorship is doubtful. (See _Notes and Queries,
3rd Ser., I, 21_). Vincent Bourne in a copy of his _Poematia_,
1734, in my possession, has written out _and signed_ the two
verses, entitling them “A Song,” the last line of each verse
being repeated as a refrain. From this it might appear that he
claimed the authorship. In 1743 he published a Latin version of
the poem. Vincent Bourne, a beautiful Latinist, was much loved
by his pupils, Charles Lamb and Cowper, who each translated
into English some of his fine Latin verses.

* * * * *

The Earth goeth on the Earth, glistening like gold,
The Earth goeth to the Earth, sooner than it wold,
The Earth builds on the Earth castles and towers—
The Earth says to the Earth, all shall be ours.

_Epitaph_, 17th Century.

An inscription on a tomb in Melrose Abbey, but said to be a
version of lines by a Fourteenth Century poet, William Billing.

* * * * *

She never found fault with you, never implied
Your wrong by her right; and yet men at her side
Grew nobler, girls purer....
None knelt at her feet confessed lovers in thrall;
They knelt more to God than they used—that was all.

E. B. BROWNING (_My Kate_).

* * * * *

It takes very little water to make a perfect pool for a tiny fish, where it will find its world and paradise all in one, and never have a presentiment of the dry bank. The fretted summer shade, and stillness, and the gentle breathing of some loved life near—it would be paradise to us all, if eager thought, the strong angel with the implacable brow, had not long since closed the gates.

GEORGE ELIOT (_Romola_).

* * * * *

All true Work is religion; and whatsoever religion is not Work may go and dwell among the Brahmins, Antinomians, Spinning Dervishes, or where it will; with me it shall have no harbour.

CARLYLE (_Reward_).

* * * * *

Nature, the old nurse, took
The child upon her knee,
Saying: ‘Here is a story book
Thy Father has written for thee.’

‘Come, wander with me,’ she said,
‘Into regions yet untrod;
And read what is still unread
In the manuscripts of God.’

And he wandered away and away
With Nature, the dear old nurse,
Who sang to him night and day
The rhymes of the universe.

And whenever the way seemed long,
Or his heart began to fail,
She would sing a more wonderful song,
Or tell a more marvellous tale.

LONGFELLOW (_Agassiz_).

* * * * *

Deep, deep are loving eyes,
Flowed with naptha fiery sweet;
And the point is paradise
Where their glances meet.

R. W. EMERSON (_The Daemonic and the Celestial
Love_).

* * * * *

... As I lie here, hours of the dead night,
Dying in state and by such slow degrees,
I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook,
And stretch my feet forth, straight as stone can point,
And let the bed-clothes, for a mortcloth, drop
Into great laps and folds of sculptor’s work.

R. BROWNING (_The Bishop orders his Tomb_).

* * * * *

Fair Margaret, in her tidy kirtle,
Led the lorn traveller up the path,
Through clean-clipt rows of box and myrtle;
And Don and Sancho, Tramp and Tray,
Upon the parlour steps collected,
Wagged all their tails, and seemed to say,—
“Our master knows you—you’re expected.”

W. M. PRAED (_The Vicar_).

* * * * *

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad,
Or long-haired page in crimson clad,
Goes by to towered Camelot.

TENNYSON (_The Lady of Shalott_).

The above are from a series of word-pictures (see p. 167).

* * * * *

(Phantasy or imagination may be true and clear or may be disordered and unsound) ... The phantastical part of men (if it be not disordered) is a representer of the best, most comely and bewtifull images or appearances of thinges to the soule and according to their very truth.... Of this sort of Phantasie are all good Poets, notable Captaines stratagematique, all cunning artificers and Engineers, all Legislators, Politiciens and Counsellours of estate, in whose exercises the inventive part is most employed and is to the sound and true judgement of man most needful.

GEORGE PUTTENHAM (_The Arte of English Poesie_, 1589).

Just as a poet, besides imagination, must have intellect or
judgment as a basis, so the higher imaginative faculty comes to
the aid of intellect in other departments of life. As Maudsley
says, “it performs the initial and essential functions in
every branch of human development” (_Body and Will_). Ehrlich,
seeking a substance that would destroy germs without injuring
the human tissues, plods through endless tedious processes,
and on his 606th experiment, discovers salvarsan, a cure for
syphilis. Here the higher faculty has had little to do—but
when, on the fall of an apple, Newton’s mind saw in a flash how
the world was balanced, intellect soared aloft on the wings of
imagination.

* * * * *

As well Poets as Poesie are despised, and the name become, of honourable infamous, subject to scorne and derision, and rather a reproach than a prayse to any that useth it: for commonly whoso is studious in the Arte or shewes himselfe excellent in it, they call him in disdayne a _phantasticall_: and a light-headed or phantasticall man (by conversion) they call a Poet.... Of such among the Nobilitie or gentrie as be very well seene in many laudable sciences, and especially in Poesie, it is so come to passe that they have no courage to write and if they have, yet are they loath to be a-known of their skill. So as I know very many notable Gentlemen in the Court that have written commendably and suppressed it agayne, or else suffred it to be publisht without their owne names to it: as if it were a discredit for a gentleman to seeme learned, and to shew himselfe amorous of any good Arte.

GEORGE PUTTENHAM (_The Arte of English Poesie_, 1589).

We do not always remember in what disheartening conditions the
great Elizabethan literature was produced—the inferior position
of the writer, his wretched remuneration and his dependence on
patrons. It is strange to think that it was considered beneath
the dignity of a gentleman to write poetry or to acknowledge
its authorship—or apparently to show proficiency in other arts
or sciences. Such men as Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Walter
Raleigh were exceptions. The curious fact is that Puttenham
himself (assuming, as is probable, that he was the author)
issued this important book anonymously. He had, however,
acknowledged his _Partheniades_ ten years before.

As Arber points out, the above passage, and another reference
by Puttenham to the same subject, indicate that, at least in
the earlier Elizabethan period, much talent must have been
lost and much literature never reached the printing press. The
same feeling that then existed is seen again in Locke’s time
(see p. 180), and, if we consider a moment, we shall find that
_it has persisted to some extent to the present day_. Think
how miserably inadequate is the attention paid to poetry in
our educational system, the methods employed being, indeed,
calculated to make the student _loathe_ the subject. (When I
was young (“Ah, woful When”[49]) we had as a school text-book
Palgrave’s Golden Treasury—a divine gift to us in those days.
As we had a sympathetic teacher, we read it _as poetry_,
and the consequence was that I and other boys knew the book
practically by heart from cover to cover.)

It is surprising that Englishmen neglect the one great
talent which they possess. What distinguishes them above all
other nations is their superiority in the higher imaginative
faculties.[50] This is shown in such a national characteristic
as the love of travel and adventure, which has created the
British Empire, and is _proved_ concretely by the fact that
England has produced the greatest wealth of poetry which the
world has ever seen. This great treasure, which should be
employed for encouraging the highest of all faculties, is
allowed to lie idle. The fact seems to be overlooked that
the study of poetry is not only of enormous intrinsic value
in knowledge, and culture, but that it is the finest of all
mental training. By analysis and paraphrase it gives knowledge
of language, appreciation of style, practice in literary
expression, and, above all things, precision of thought. In my
opinion, poetry should form an essential part of education,
beginning in childhood and continuing throughout the Arts
course. It may be found that there are intelligent persons who
are incapable of appreciating poetry, and the subject may,
therefore, not be made a compulsory one. But my conviction is
that, where men imagine themselves to be thus deficient, it is
the result of a bad system of education. There is great truth
in Stevenson’s fine essay, “The Lantern-Bearers.”

* * * * *

Go, wing thy flight from star to star,
From world to luminous world, as far
As the universe spreads its flaming wall:
Take all the pleasures of all the spheres,
And multiply each through endless years,
One minute of Heaven is worth them all.

THOMAS MOORE (_Lalla Rookh_).

A Celtic flight of imagination.

* * * * *

And on we roll—the year goes by
As year by year must ever go,
And castles built of bits of sky
Must fall and lose their wondrous glow;

But Hope with his wings is not yet old,
While every year like a summer day
Ends and begins with grey and gold,
Begins and ends with gold and grey.

RICHARD HODGSON.

* * * * *

When none need broken meat,
How can our cake be sweet?
When none want flannel and coals,
How shall we save our souls?
Oh dear! oh dear!
The Christian virtues will disappear.

CHARLOTTE STETSON.

* * * * *

Since we parted yester eve,
I do love thee, love, believe
Twelve times dearer, twelve hours longer,
One dream deeper, one night stronger,
One sun surer—thus much more
Than I loved thee, love, before.

OWEN MEREDITH (EARL OF LYTTON) (_Love Fancies_).

* * * * *

The Dahlia you brought to our Isle
Your praises for ever shall speak
’Mid gardens as sweet as your smile
And colours as bright as your cheek.

LORD HOLLAND.

A pretty compliment to his wife who in 1814 had introduced the
dahlia into England from Spain. Previous attempts had failed
(Liechtenstein’s _Holland House_).

* * * * *

C’est imiter quelqu’un que de planter des choux.

A. DE MUSSET.

Quoted by Austin Dobson:—

... And you, whom we all so admire,
Dear Critics, whose verdicts are always so new!
One word in your ear: There were Critics before.
And _the man who plants cabbages imitates, too_!

* * * * *

... The great book of actual life, sad, diffuse, contradictory, yet always full of depth and significance.

GEORGE SAND (_The Miller of Angibault_).

* * * * *

Life is mostly froth and bubble;
Two things stand like stone:—
Kindness in another’s trouble,
Courage in your own.

ADAM LINDSAY GORDON (1833-1870) (_Ye Weary
Wayfarer_).

* * * * *

A NOISELESS, PATIENT SPIDER

A noiseless, patient spider,
I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;
Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;
Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my Soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,—seeking the spheres, to connect
them;
Till the bridge you will need, be form’d—till the ductile anchor hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.

WALT WHITMAN (_Leaves of Grass_).

* * * * *

The Future, that bright land which swims
In western glory, isles and streams and bays,
Where hidden pleasures float in golden haze.

GEORGE ELIOT (_Jubal_).

* * * * *

Nympha pudica Deum vidit, et erubuit.

(The modest Nymph saw her God and blushed.)

The conscious water saw its God and blushed.

RICHARD CRASHAW (1616-1650).

Referring to the miracle of Cana. Both Latin and English
epigrams are by Crashaw. In the former the water is personified
by its Nymph.

* * * * *

Called on the W. Molesworths. He is threatened with total blindness, and his excellent wife is learning to work in the dark in preparation for a darkened chamber. What things wives are! What a spirit of joyous suffering, confidence, and love was incarnated in Eve! ’Tis a pity they should eat apples.

CAROLINE FOX’S JOURNALS.

* * * * *

... Earth and ocean,
Space, and the isles of life or light that gem
The sapphire floods of interstellar air,
This firmament pavilioned upon chaos,
With all its cressets of immortal fire.

SHELLEY (_Hellas_).

* * * * *

Vox, et praeterea nihil.

[Words (_literally voice_) and nothing more.]

PROVERB.

Plutarch, in his Apophthegm, Lacon. Incert. XIII, says that
a man after plucking a nightingale and finding little flesh
on it, said φωνὰ τύ τις ἐσσὶ, καὶ οὐδὲν ἄλλο, “Thou art voice
and nothing more” (_King’s Classical and Foreign Quotations_).
No doubt this was the origin of the saying. It was applied to
the nightingale, and to Echo—and then used in Hamlet’s sense,
“Words, words, words.”

* * * * *

Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity.

SHELLEY (_Adonaïs_ LII).

Two of the most marvellous lines in all literature. With them
as a text volumes might be written.

* * * * *

Campbell the poet, who had always a bad razor, I suppose, and was late of rising, said he believed the man of civilization who lived to be sixty had suffered more pain in littles in shaving every day than a woman with a large family had from her lyings-in.

JOHN BROWN (_Horae Subsecivae_ I, 457).

* * * * *

Beauty is worse than wine, it intoxicates both the holder and the beholder.

J. G. ZIMMERMANN.

* * * * *

The maid (and thereby hangs a tale)
For such a maid no Whitsun-ale
Could ever yet produce:
No grape, that’s kindly ripe, could be
So round, so plump, so soft as she,
Nor half so full of juice.

Her feet beneath her petticoat
Like little mice stole in and out,
As if they fear’d the light:
But O, she dances such a way!
No sun upon an Easter-day
Is half so fine a sight.

Her cheeks so rare a white was on,
No daisy makes comparison
(Who sees them is undone);
For streaks of red were mingled there,
Such as are on a Catherine pear,
The side that’s next the sun.

Her lips were red, and one was thin
Compar’d to that was next her chin,
(Some bee had stung it newly),
But, Dick, her eyes so guard her face
I durst no more upon them gaze
Than on the sun in July.

SIR JOHN SUCKLING (_Ballad upon a Wedding_).

“Some bee had stung it.” _It_, of course, means the full
underlip, as against the less full upperlip.

* * * * *

Such is the ascendancy which the great works of the Greek imagination have established over the mind of man that.... he is tempted to ignore the real superiority of our own religion, morality, civilization, and to re-shape in fancy an _adult_ world on an _adolescent_ ideal.

F. W. H. MYERS (Essay on _Greek Oracles_).

* * * * *

That early burst of admiration for Virgil of which I have already spoken was followed by a growing passion for one after another of the Greek and Latin poets. From ten to sixteen I lived much in the inward recital of Homer, Æschylus, Lucretius, Horace, and Ovid. The reading of Plato’s Gorgias at fourteen was a great event; but the study of the Phaedo at sixteen affected upon me a kind of conversion. At that time, too, I returned to my worship of Virgil, whom Homer had for some years thrust into the background. I gradually wrote out Bucolics, Georgics, Aeneid from memory....

The discovery at seventeen, in an old school book, of the poems of Sappho, whom till then I had only known by name, brought an access of intoxicating joy. Later on, the solitary decipherment of Pindar made another epoch of the same kind. From the age of sixteen to twenty-three there was no influence in my life comparable to _Hellenism_ in the fullest sense of the word. That tone of thought came to me naturally; the classics were but intensifications of my own being. They drew from me and fostered evil as well as good; they might aid imaginative impulse and detachment from sordid interests, but they had no check for pride.

When pushed thus far, the “Passion of the Past” must needs wear away sooner or later into an unsatisfied pain. In 1864 I travelled in Greece. I was mainly alone; nor were the traveller’s facts and feelings mapped out for him then as now. Ignorant as I was, according to modern standards, yet my emotions were all my own: and few men can have drunk that departed loveliness into a more passionate heart. It was the life of about the sixth century before Christ, on the isles of the Aegean, which drew me most;—that intensest and most unconscious bloom of the Hellenic spirit. Here alone in the Greek story do women play their due part with men. What might the Greeks have made of the female sex had they continued to care for it! Then it was that Mimnermus sang:—

τίς δε βιός, τί δε τερπνὸν ἄνευ χρυσέης Ἀφροδίτης;
τεθναίην, ὅτε μοι μηκέτι ταῦτα μέλοι.[51]

Then it was that Praxilla’s cry rang out across the narrow seas, that call to fellowship, reckless and lovely with stirring joy. “Drink with me!” she cried, “be young along with me! Love with me! wear with me the garland crown! Mad be thou with my madness; be wise when I am wise!”

I looked through my open porthole close upon the Lesbian shore. There rose the heathery promontories, and waves lapped upon the rocks in dawning day:—lapped upon those rocks where Sappho’s feet had trodden; broke beneath the heather on which had sat that girl unknown, _nearness to whom made a man the equal of the gods_. I sat in Mytilene, to me a sacred city, between the hill-crest and the sunny bay....

Gazing thence on Delos on the Cyclades, and on those straits and channels of purple sea, I felt that nowise could I come closer still; never more intimately than thus could embrace that vanished beauty. Alas for an ideal which roots itself in the past! That longing cannot be allayed.

F. W. H. MYERS (_Fragments of Prose and Poetry_).

The wonderful record of Myers in classical study will first be
observed. If we did not know him to be absolutely trustworthy,
we would find it practically impossible to believe his
statement. Imagine, for instance, a boy of sixteen learning
by heart _the whole of Virgil_ for his own pleasure! However,
anything vouched for by Myers must be accepted as literally
true.

Extraordinary as this is, the above quotations introduce us to
a subject quite as extraordinary and far more interesting and
important, namely, the distortion of truth caused by extreme
classical enthusiasm.[52] It is perfectly easy to see how
such enthusiasm arises. Greek art and literature are not only
intrinsically wonderful and valuable but, seeing that they were
produced by a comparatively small population in a barbaric age,
they constitute the greatest (secular) marvel in the history
of the world. Everything tends to excite enthusiasm for this
remote, alien, primitive, but most remarkable people. I need
not speak of the art in which they stand unrivalled throughout
the ages. As regards their literature, apart from its
intrinsic excellence and the beauty of the language in which
it is written, it has an additional fascination and charm,
because it is the speech and song of the infancy of the world.
Through it we see into the mind and realize the life of the
most interesting race that ever lived. Possessing astounding
intellect and intense originality, they were nevertheless the
children of nature. Their earth was peopled with fauns and
nymphs, their gods lived and moved and had their being in
every natural object—and they had very little of our ideas of
right and wrong. They had nothing of our wide knowledge and
experience, yet they constructed a world of life and thought
for themselves. It is absorbingly interesting to read their
beautiful poetry, fine literature, and philosophic thought,
bearing in mind that it was produced in the ignorant childhood
and paganism of the human race, over two thousand years ago.
And one of the most astonishing things about them is that
essential product of civilization, a keen sense of humour. So
curiously “modern” is their literature that the writers speak
to us across the ages with as vivid a voice as if they were
still alive. No other primitive race has been able to leave us
any such adequate conception of its life and thought. Moreover,
we can never forget how the Greek arose out of the tomb, where
he had slept for many centuries, to preside at the re-birth of
our own modern world—that emergence of Europe from medieval
darkness which we call the Renaissance. It was largely Greek
art and literature that stimulated the mental activity of the
world and made us what we are to-day.

Very great enthusiasm is, therefore, warranted in the Greek
student—but there comes a point where enthusiasm may become
pure _fanaticism_, and lead to that most deadly of all things,
the perversion of the truth.

In the above quotations two Greek poems are quoted, and another
is referred to in the lines I have italicized. The first
two[53] refer to vice, which to us is revolting and criminal,
but to the whole Greek nation was natural, and recognised by
law. The third expresses even more revolting passion. It will
be seen, therefore, that Myers, in order to illustrate the
“departed loveliness” of Greek life made a strange choice of
quotations (which also, standing alone, would give a very false
notion of classic Greek poetry).

Seeing that Myers was one of the purest-minded of men, what is
the explanation of this very remarkable fact? The explanation
is simply that Myers was a _classical enthusiast_. He had
forgotten the warning he himself gave in the first quotation.
It is absolutely amazing how such an enthusiast, however
brilliant a scholar and capable a man in other respects, can
blind himself to the most obvious facts where anything Greek
is concerned. It is very certain that Myers read into each
poem a perfectly innocent meaning—and he would not be alone in
that respect. Take, for instance, the third quotation which is
from Sappho. In my youth the _great majority_ of classical men
appeared to have convinced themselves that a poem of terribly
fierce passion was an expression of mere friendship! Even our
leading reference-book, Smith’s _Dictionary of Greek and Roman
Biography_, gave the same absurd view until about 1877.[54]
However, we must get away from this ugly subject and seek
further illustrations elsewhere.

This perverted enthusiasm seems to permeate all books of the
last fifty or sixty years dealing with Greek life, art and
literature that I have met with. This is a very large statement
to make, and, of course, I do not mean that such flagrant
instances as those above referred to are the rule. But to me
there seems always to be _some_ bias which tends to exaggerate
or falsify the facts to _some_ extent. We can trace this
tendency back more than eighteen hundred years to Plutarch.
(_On the Malice of Herodotus_). He, as Mr. Livingstone[55]
says, “took the view that the Greeks of the great age
could do no wrong, and rates the historian for ‘needlessly
describing evil actions.’” And it is largely in this way that
the enthusiast works—by _omitting facts_. I should think few
readers unfamiliar with the classics will have known all the
facts already put before them in these notes—because such
facts, although known to all classical scholars, are kept in
the background as much as possible. Again the tendency is to
judge the Greeks by their greatest men—to imagine every Greek
to have been a Plato!

I might add greatly to what I have already said about the
Greeks, but I must confine myself to a few matters, repeating
nothing that has been said in previous notes. The Greeks had
very little regard for truthfulness. An _oath_ was a matter of
religion and was supposed to be binding upon them, but it was
excusable to twist out of it. They also saw nothing immoral in
theft. Hermes was the god of thieves, and “the wily Odysseus”
was a favourite hero of the Greeks. Autolycus, the grandfather
of Odysseus, was taught by Hermes himself to surpass all
men in stealing and perjury. (_Od._ XIX, 395.) Hence it was
thought quite a proper thing to make war for the purpose of
robbing neighbours of territory or property. I need quote only
the truly “German” opinions of _Socrates_ and _Aristotle_
placed by Mr. Zimmern at the head of his chapter on Warfare
in _The Greek Commonwealth_. “But, Socrates, it is possible
to procure wealth for the State from our foreign enemies.”
“Yes, certainly you may, if you are the stronger power” (Xen.
_Mem._, III, 6, 7). “War is strictly a means of acquisition,
to be employed against wild animals and against inferior races
of men who, though intended by nature to be in subjection to
us, are unwilling to submit[!], for war of such a kind is just
by nature” (Aristotle, _Politics_, 1256). On considering that
such sentiments are expressed by their greatest philosophers,
we are not surprised to find that _the history of the Greeks is
one of lies, perfidy, and cruelty_.[56] It further illustrates
their unsympathetic pagan character when we find the Greek
mother mourning for her dead son because he will not “feed
her old age,” and Socrates valuing friendship because friends
were useful.[57] When the enthusiast is confronted with the
debased Greek religion he tells us, or leads us to think, that
the people did not believe in their dissolute gods. As regards
this I cannot do better than quote the terse statement of Mr.
Livingstone. After pointing out that there were some advanced
thinkers among the Greeks who were more or less sceptics
(and that there were also some small sects who are said to
have had higher _moral_ beliefs than their countrymen[58])
he says, “We are concerned with the state religion, which
Athenians learnt to reverence as children, which permeated
the national literature, which crowned the high places of the
city with its temples, which consecrated peace and war and
everything solemn and ceremonial in civil life, which by its
intimate connection with these things acquired that support
of instinctive sentiment which is stronger than any moral or
intellectual sanction.”[59] Something may be added to this.
Why was the Greek so greatly concerned about his tomb and his
burial rites? The main reason why he burdened himself with a
wife and household was that a son should be left to see to
those rites and look after his tomb. He did not see his wife
before marriage, and, however beautiful he found her to be,
the uneducated girl would be no companion for him; and her
beauty would soon fade in the unwholesome confined life she
led. Her office was fulfilled when she had borne him sons—and
he looked for his pleasures elsewhere. Surely this one fact
alone proves that the Greeks had a very real belief in their
religion. Again why do we find that only Socrates and a few
other thinkers appear to have been charged with impiety? Mr.
Livingstone, curiously enough, argues from this that there was
greater freedom of thought among the Greeks. Surely the simple
and natural explanation is far preferable, namely, that there
were _no other pronounced sceptics_ than those few advanced
thinkers. Imagine the danger of declaring anything against the
gods which would throw in doubt the divinity of the patron
goddess Athena![60] It is often argued that the intelligent
Greeks could no more have believed the monstrous stories
of their gods, than we believe some of the Old Testament
stories of Jehovah. But the position is entirely different. We
disbelieve stories that offend our moral sense: the gods of
the Greeks had a character similar to their own, and acted as
they themselves would have acted if they had been gods. Also
they had no ethnology, no knowledge of purer religions to teach
them the falsity and depravity of their own—nor, indeed, would
the proud Greeks have condescended to learn from barbarians
(especially as they believed themselves descended from heroes
who were sprung from the gods). Finally one has only to read
the accounts of travellers in Greece to learn that the religion
_even lingers on to-day_—see, for instance, S. C. Kaines
Smith’s _Greek Art and National Life_ (pp. 153, 172), where the
woodcutters, when a tree is falling, throw themselves on the
ground and hide their faces in deadly fear of the Dryads,[61]
and an _eminent Greek gentleman_ crosses himself at the name of
the Nereïds. (See also W. H. D. Rouse’s _Tales from the Isles
of Greece_. I learn from the _Spectator_ review of a book just
published, _Balkan Home Life_, by Lucy M. J. Garnett, that the
religion has a very strong hold on the people.)

My statement has been very one-sided so far, as I have said
very little of the virtues of the Greeks. These virtues were
those of intelligent primitive people, love of freedom,
justice, and equality (_but confined to their own nation and
not including their own women and slaves_), personal courage,
great patriotism, fidelity to kinsfolk and guests; they
showed at times generosity to a valiant enemy and recognized
some such duties as burying the dead. While I do not think
we can carry the national virtues much further than this,
there would be gradations of character among the Greeks, and
probably many would be more or less kindly, others have a
true affection for their wives, others show private virtues
in various directions—we can only conjecture as to something
of which there is very little evidence in their literature.
On the one hand, we know that Socrates suffered martyrdom
for the truth,[62] and we may surmise that there were other
fine characters; on the other hand, we know that this highly
intellectual _nation_ put the philosopher to death as a
blasphemer against their profligate gods.

But while we can give the Greeks credit for little of the
morality of modern civilization, on the other hand we would be
thinking very absurdly if we regarded their vices as though the
people were on the same moral plane as ourselves. (This is the
fact to be recognised. The ridiculous tendency of the modern
enthusiast is to depict the Greeks as a highly moral nation
striving for righteousness!) Strictly speaking, the Greek
practices and habits should not be called vices, because the
Greeks had no reason to believe that they were doing anything
wrong. Their virtues and their vices were those of ordinary
primitive life.[63] The moral principle, that highest product
of creation, had not yet developed itself among the people to
any appreciable extent, but we see it gradually emerging in
the growing disbelief in the national religion among thinking
men, and reaching an advanced stage in Plato, the greatest
philosopher of antiquity. But to the average Greek, apart from
religion (including respect for parents), the patriotism which
they had learnt from Homer, their one great book, covered much
of what they meant by “virtue”.[64] Whatever was good for the
State was a virtue, whatever bad for the State a vice. We can
hardly realize what Athens stood for in the Greek mind. For
instance, Æschylus tells us that the patron goddess Athena
came to Athens to preside over the balloting of the jurors and
conduct the trial of Orestes, and also that the Furies lived
among the citizens in a sacred grotto. The Greeks saw that they
were immensely superior to the surrounding “barbarians,” and
they regarded their State practically as an object of _worship_
(as Rome was also regarded by the Romans).

It would have been interesting to discuss here the ethical
views of the philosophers, but the subject is far too intricate
for this note—and in any case they and their followers formed
only a few exceptions among the Greeks. It will be seen later
that the use of such words as “virtue,” “holiness,” etc.,
causes a vast deal of meaning to be read into Plato which never
entered that philosopher’s mind.

The great outstanding fact about the Greeks is their
astonishing intellect, combined with sound commonsense
(σωφροσύνη) and a quite modern gift of humour. Their powerful
intellect, however, had very poor material to work upon. In a
previous note I have mentioned their remarkably limited idea of
the world—but, while knowing this to be a fact, we still cannot
realize the _mental attitude_ of men who had even _one_ false
conception of such magnitude as regards their general outlook
and thought. Let us take an instance of a different kind from
the great philosopher Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), who came after
Plato—bearing in mind that the average Greeks would be vastly
more ignorant and superstitious than their greatest thinkers.
In his _Mechanica_ Aristotle explains the power of a lever to
make a small weight lift a larger one. His explanation is that
a _circle has a certain magical character_. A very wonderful
thing is a circle, because it is both _convex_ and _concave_;
it is made by a _fixed_ point and a _moving_ line, which are
contradictory to each other; and whatever has a circular
movement moves _in opposite directions_. Also, Aristotle says,
movement in a circle is the most _natural_ movement! Hence we
get the result: the long arm of the lever moves in the _larger
circle_ and has the greater amount of this magical _natural
motion_, and so requires the lesser force! Again, let us take
a story which was as firmly believed by Aristotle as the most
ignorant of his countrymen. Our word halcyon is the Greek
word _Alkuon_, meaning a bird, probably of the Kingfisher
species. The Greeks supposed the word to be formed of two
words, _hals kuon_, meaning “conceived in the sea”—therefore
they believed the bird _was_ so conceived and that it was bred
in a nest floating on the sea—and, as the sea must then be
smooth, they further believed that a period of fourteen days’
calm necessarily occurred about Christmas—finding there was
no such period of calm around their own coasts they either
thought that it must occur (and the birds breed) elsewhere,
or, like Theocritus, that the bird could _charm_ the sea into
tranquillity.[65]

The Greeks believed queer things about animals. I take
the following instances of birds alone from Mr. Rogers’
Introduction to his _Birds of Aristophanes_, so that I need not
give references. By looking at a plover, who returns the look,
a man is cured of jaundice. Penelope, the wife of Odysseus,
was said to have been so named because, having been cast into
the sea, she was rescued by widgeons (Greek, _penelops_). The
song of the dying swan was a belief of the Greeks. The raven
was the bird of augury and had mysterious knowledge. The cranes
fought the pygmies and swallowed stones for ballast. The
young storks fed their aged parents. The sisken foresees the
winter and snowstorms. Mr. Rogers has no need to discuss the
yet more extravagant stories of the phœnix, sirens, harpies,
etc. Plutarch (_De Is. and Os._ LXXI) tells us how the Greeks
regarded birds and other animals in relation to the gods; he
says that while they did not, like the Egyptians, _worship_
animals, “they said and believed rightly that the dove was
the sacred animal of Aphrodite, the raven of Apollo, the dog
of Artemis, and so on.” (Possibly Aristophanes’ comedy did
not win the prize, because the audience saw little humour in
exaggerating the powers which they really believed the birds
to have. To the Greeks the birds were _greater_ and the gods
_smaller_ than we ourselves picture them. Ruskin’s translation
of Od. V. 67,[66] the seabirds which “have care of the works
of the sea,” seems much more likely to be correct than the
accepted version that the birds live by diving and fishing.
Consider how the Greeks would regard the birds that flew round
and over their ships or fishing-nets and over the waves and
rocks, where the sea-gods lay beneath—and compare _Il._ II,
614.)[67]

All that has been said about the Greeks in this and previous
notes is intended, not so much to exhibit the character of that
nation—a matter which does not greatly concern me—but for other
reasons. In one instance the intention was to indicate how
vast a gulf exists between Christianity and the ancient world.
Many classical enthusiasts do not seem to realize this, and a
definitely _pagan_ tendency is very apparent in their habits of
thought.

But the main object of pointing out the inferior state of
civilization among the Greeks, their non-moral character
in certain respects, their ignorance and superstition, and
their low standard of morality generally, has to do with
the important question of interpreting Greek literature and
philosophy. It would matter very little that the enthusiast
should picture the Greeks as a race of saints and demigods, if
there were no beautiful and valuable literature to be coloured
and falsified by reason of such views. It is only by realizing
the actual life and thought of this primitive race that _we
can understand their language_, that is to say, we can learn
what meanings should be attached to the words they use. Only
thus can we _interpret their literature_. We have already had
two simple illustrations of this. In one case what appears
to be a poetic fancy in Theocritus, when the voyager hopes
the halcyons will calm the sea for him, is seen to be a wish
that the birds _will actually exercise the power that they
possess_. The other instance appears on page 294. But much more
important is it that, in reading words of knowledge such as
references to the starry heavens or the constitution of matter,
or mental or moral phenomena, we should not attribute to the
Greek writer conceptions far larger and higher than he had in
his mind. To amplify what I have said in a previous note, let
us take the words in Plato, Aristotle or, say, Euripides which
are translated by such English words as “morality,” “purity,”
“virtue,” “honour,” “religion,” etc. It is clear that the
original Greek expressions cannot signify, for instance, either
purity as we know it, or even abstention from unnatural vice or
from infanticide.[68] We are, therefore, mistranslating when we
use such English words (because they are the nearest equivalent
to the Greek expressions), and this fact needs to be steadily
borne in mind. Again when interpreting, say, a Greek play, it
is necessary to bear in mind, not only the _supposed_ character
of the _dramatist_, but also the _actual_, _known_ character of
the _audience_ to whom the play was addressed. I now propose to
give an illustration which will bring me on dangerous ground.

Is it reasonable to ask if the Athenians, some few of whose
characteristics have been outlined in these notes, would have
flocked to hear, and have greatly enjoyed, a play replete with
high moral teaching, and containing hymns that might have come
out of a Church Hymnal? Now the _Bacchae_ of Euripides, one
of the most popular of Greek plays, and the _Hippolytus_ of
the same dramatist, have been translated by one great Greek
scholar, Professor Gilbert Murray, in a manner that (at any
rate, as regards the _Bacchae_) received the “hearty admiration
and approval” of another great Greek scholar, Dr. Verrall.
In this version, one after another of the debased Greek gods
is called “God.” We also find such expressions as (note the
capitals) “God’s grace,” “Virgin of God,” “Babe of God,” “God’s
son,” and even “God’s true son” (who is Dionysus or Bacchus),
“Spirit of God,” “Child of the Highest,” “Heaven,” “Purity,”
“Saints” (who are the Maenads!), “righteous,” “divine,” “holy,”
and so on.

Professor Murray is put in a difficulty when two or more gods
are referred to. In some cases he becomes illogical (and
reminds us of the Kaiser), as when Dionysus has to say “God and
me.” In others he has to use the Greek name for one god, and
then the words sound blasphemous, as when he speaks of Dionysus
who was “born from the thigh of Zeus and now is God.” These
instances are taken quite at random and there must be many
others.

Take the following two lines as a short illustration of
Professor Murray’s version:

Where a voice of living waters never ceaseth
In God’s quiet garden by the sea.

The original reads: “Where the ambrosial fountains stream forth
by the couches of the palaces of Zeus,” or, to give them a more
musical turn, Mr. A. S. Way’s version is:

Where the fountains ambrosial sunward are leaping
By the couches where Zeus in his halls lieth sleeping.

In Professor Murray’s two lines Zeus becomes “God,” “living
waters” is taken from the Song of Solomon, and “God’s quiet
garden” from Isaiah and Ezekiel. Such expressions, with their
tender and beautiful associations, do not in the least convey
the sense of the original. Used to describe the palace of a
vicious, barbaric deity, they are a _mistranslation_. Also
every one of the expressions referred to above is, wherever
used, another mistranslation (although some may be necessitated
by the limitation of language). Again there are other more
pronounced mistranslations, some of which are pointed out by
Verrall (_Bacchants of Euripides_). Thus where the very old
man Cadmus, setting out on an unusual journey, merely says to
his ancient comrade, “We have pleasantly forgotten that we are
old” (_Bacchae_ 184-9). Professor Murray interpolates a stage
direction, “_A mysterious strength and exaltation_” (from the
god Dionysus) “_enters into him_”—and he alters the words of
Cadmus to conform with the miracle:

Sweetly and forgetfully
The dim years fall from off me!

Here, therefore, we find _an important episode_ deliberately
introduced into the play.

Take another instance which Verrall does not mention. In the
very enthusiastic “Introductory Essay,” Professor Murray
tells us that Euripides longed to escape from the bad, hard,
irreligious Athenians[69] of that day, and proceeds as follows:

“What else is wisdom?” he asks, in a marvellous passage:—

What else is wisdom? What of man’s endeavour
Or God’s high grace so lovely and so great?
To stand from fear set free, to breathe and wait;
To hold a hand uplifted over Hate;
And shall not loveliness be loved for ever?

There is nothing here, nor in the translation that follows,
to indicate that there has been any interference with the
text. It is only upon turning to the notes _at the end of the
translation_ (which the average reader would hardly study)
that we find the third line is “_practically interpolated._”
He gives reasons for this that are not easy to follow, and
says “If I am wrong, the refrain is probably a mere cry for
revenge;” I add that the latter is the generally accepted
meaning, and the only meaning I can see in the original Greek.

Now Professor Murray’s object in all this is to convey in
words that appeal to our minds his conception of the devout,
religious and, therefore, _highly moral_ attitude of, not only
Euripides, _but also his Athenian audience_. The attitude of
mind must be that of the _audience_, as well as the dramatist,
because none but devout, religious people go to a “Service of
Song,” and, as stated above, the _Bacchae_ was a very popular
play among the Greeks. If, however, Professor Murray thought
that, by colouring, altering, and adding to the play, he gave
a more correct impression of it as it appeared to the Greeks,
he was perfectly at liberty with that object to mistranslate as
much as he pleased—_provided he told his readers and hearers
that they were not reading or hearing the words that Euripides
wrote_.

Has he told them this? The book is entitled “Euripides
_translated_ into English rhyming verse.” In the Preface he
also begins by telling us definitely that it is a translation;
later on he says: “As to the method of this translation ...
my aim has been to build up something as like the original
as I possibly could, in form and what one calls ‘Spirit.’ To
do this, the first thing needed was a work of painstaking
scholarship, a work in which there should be _no neglect
of the letter_ in an attempt to snatch at the spirit.” He
then goes on to tell us that “The remaining task” was to
reproduce the poetry of the original and (here is the only
admission that he has varied from the text) he ‘has often
changed metaphors, altered the shapes of sentences, and the
like.... On one occasion he has even omitted a line and a half’
(because unnecessary) and he says, he ‘has added, of course
by conjecture, a few stage directions.’ Let the non-classical
reader look back over what has been said above and ask himself
whether such words—however carefully studied—would have given
him the least impression of what this “_translation_” actually
amounts to.

Without entering into any long discussion as to the so
called “purity choruses” of the _Bacchae_, let us simply ask
the question, Does this pious, fervently-religious version
represent the actual play that the cruel, lying, treacherous
and unspeakably sensual Greeks flocked to see and enjoy?
Further comes a much more important question, Would such a
“translation,” put before English readers, or staged before an
English audience, give them a _true_ or a _false_ idea of the
character of the Greeks?

I might compare with this Ruskin’s view of the Greek character
(_The Crown of Wild Olive._). This is what he says the Greeks
won from their lives: “Free-heartedness, and graciousness, and
undisturbed trust, and _requited love_, and _the sight of the
peace of others, and the ministry to their pain_.” (Italics
mine.) This is truly amazing! I am tempted to go back again
to Professor Murray’s _Euripides_ (p. lxiii) and quote a like
passage:

“Love thou the day and the night,” he (Euripides) says in
another place. “It is only so that Life can be made what it
really is, a Joy: _by loving not only your neighbour_—he is so
vivid an element in life that, unless you do love him, he will
spoil all the rest!—but the actual details and processes of
living, etc., etc.”

The italics are again mine—but here it will be seen that
Euripides has, _as a matter of course_, anticipated the great
evangel of Christ! He has even gone a step further—but I
must leave Professor Murray to his love of the “details and
processes of living,” whatever that may mean.

Finally, in this extraordinary essay, I come to something which
is absolutely _repulsive_. I must first briefly premise that
the Dionysiac mystery cult was not sectarian. It was orthodox,
believing in the plurality and the profligacy of the gods. Its
adherents had no more idea of morality or purity than other
Greeks. Its rites were indecent. The so-called “purification
rites,” including regulations regarding continence, were
simply _training rules_ preparatory to their hideous orgies.
The essential rite of the cult was practised by the Maenads
or Bacchantes. They tore to pieces live animals (and at one
time human beings) and devoured their raw, quivering flesh.
As stated above, these horrible women are Professor Murray’s
“Saints.” He now proceeds to _draw an analogy between their
loathsome god Dionysus and Jesus Christ_! Thus Dionysus is born
of God (Zeus) and a human mother. He is the “twice-born”—having
been hidden in Zeus’s thigh after birth! He “_comes to his
own_ people of Thebes, _and—his own receive him not_.”
Again “It seemed to Euripides in that favourite metaphor of
his, which was always a little more than a metaphor, that
a _God had been rejected by the world_ that he came from.”
Dionysus “_gives his Wine to all men_.... It is a mysticism
which includes democracy, as it includes _the love of your
neighbour_.” Dionysus “_has given man Wine, which is his Blood
and a religious symbol_.” In the translation Dionysus is called
“_God’s son_” and even “_God’s true son_.” Reading this and
such statements as Miss Jane Harrison’s (see p. 292, n.), one
stands amazed. Apparently this fanatical enthusiasm destroys
the critical faculties, so that the enthusiast becomes utterly
incapable of appreciating the beauty and value of Our Lord’s
ethical teaching and its exemplification in His life.

For my last illustration of how enthusiasm affects our leading
classical authorities (and, therefore, leads to _perversion of
the truth_) I take Mr. A. E. Zimmern’s _Greek Commonwealth_.
This, like Mr. Livingstone’s work, is a very excellent book,
which should be in all libraries.

Mr. Zimmern quotes and _definitely endorses_ the well-known
statement in Galton’s _Hereditary Genius_ (1869), which is as
follows:—“The average ability of the Athenian race is, _on
the lowest possible estimate_, very nearly two grades higher
than our own, that is, _about as much as our race is above
that of the African Negro_.” (The italics are mine.) Here I
have happened by chance[70] upon an excellent illustration of
classical enthusiasm, which is worth while dwelling upon at
some length. In the first place Galton’s statement is perhaps
the most absurd utterance ever made by an important thinker; in
the second place _it appears to have been accepted by English
and European authorities for nearly half a century_.

Galton bases his argument on the number of great men produced
by a nation in proportion to its population. He states that
between 530 and 430 B.C. the Athenian Greeks produced fourteen
highly illustrious men:—Themistocles, Miltiades, Aristides,
Cimon, and Pericles (statesmen and commanders), Thucydides,
Socrates, Xenophon, and Plato (literary and scientific men),
Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes (poets),
and Pheidias (sculptor). I take the minor objections to his
statement first.

He estimates the population of free-born Greeks in Attica at
90,000. In this instance he was misled by the authorities of
his time and is not to blame; _but I take Mr. Zimmern’s own
figures, as he endorses Galton’s statement_. The 90,000 should
have been, according to Mr. Zimmern’s more correct figures,
180,000 to 200,000. _This alone cuts down Galton’s estimate
of the “average ability” of the Greeks to at least one-half._
Galton also excludes the resident aliens who, according to him,
numbered 40,000, but according to Mr. Zimmern 96,000. Yet both
these and the outside aliens must be considered, for there
were intermarriages. Themistocles and Cimon had alien mothers,
Thucydides also probably had an alien mother, or at any rate
was partly of Thracian descent, and there would be _some_
ground for the charge of usurping citizenship repeatedly made
by Cleon against Aristophanes. Galton also takes no account of
the slaves, the number of whom he estimates at 400,000, but
Zimmern at about 112,000. These cannot be entirely omitted when
we consider the life of the Greek women and the habits of the
men. It should be remembered that the slaves were often Greeks
of other States and also by reason of the practice of exposing
children some would be Athenians and even of the best families
(Plato’s _Laws_, 930, deals with children of slaves and Greek
men and women). However, on these figures, it will be seen that
Galton’s estimate has to be enormously reduced.

Next, the _greatest_ of all the names in his list, Plato, has
to be _struck out_. There can be no reasonable doubt that he
was not born until 428 or 427 B.C. (This appears to have been
well recognised in 1869 and it is unaccountable that Galton
and his reviewers should not have known it.) However, there is
_some_ evidence that he was born in 430, and let us assume that
this is so. But, if we are to include in the 100 (or rather
101) years everyone who _is born_ or _died_ in that time,
we are actually taking a period of 200, not 100, years, and
_doubling_ the proper estimate! Besides Plato, I may mention
that Aristophanes and Xenophon could have been only about
fourteen years of age in 430, Thucydides had not then begun
to write, and of the eighteen plays extant of Euripides two
only were written before 430. Here again is another enormous
reduction of Galton’s estimate.