Chapter II: Part 2

Homer was not the first epic poet in the order of time, but in the order of things. Before him many poets were skilled in Epopœia; but no one had known the nature of this kind of poetry[84]; no one had united the opposed qualities which were necessary. There existed at this epoch a multitude of allegorical fables which had emanated at divers times from different sanctuaries. These fables, committed at first to memory, had been collected in several sets of works which were called cycles.[85] There were allegorical, mythological, and epic cycles.[86] We know from certain precious texts of the ancients, that these sorts of collections opened generally with the description of Chaos, with the marriage of Heaven and Earth; contained the genealogy of the Gods and the combats of the Giants; included the expedition of the Argonauts, the famous wars of Thebes and of Troy; extended as far as the arrival of Ulysses at Ithaca, and terminated with the death of this hero, caused by his son Telegonus.[87] The poets who, before Homer, had drawn from these cycles the subject of their works, not having penetrated as far as the allegorical sense, lacking inspiration, or being found incapable of rendering it, lacking talent, had produced only cold inanimate copies, deprived of movement and grace. They had not, however, omitted any of the exploits of Hercules or of Theseus, nor any of the incidents of the sieges of Thebes or Troy; and their muse, quite lifeless, fatigued the readers without interesting or instructing them.[88] Homer came. He, in his turn, glanced over this pile of sacerdotal traditions, and raising himself by the force of his genius alone to the intellectual principle which had conceived them, he grasped the _ensemble_, and felt all its possibilities. The faculties of his soul and the precious gifts which he had received from nature had made him one of those rare men who present themselves, at long intervals, upon the scene of the world to enlighten it, shining in the depths of centuries and serving as torches for mankind. In whatever clime, in whatever career destiny had placed him, he would have been the foremost. Ever the same, whether under the thatched roof or upon the throne, as great in Egypt as in Greece, in the Occident as in the Orient of Asia, everywhere he had commanded admiration. Some centuries earlier this same attribute might have been seen in Krishna or in Orpheus, some centuries later, in Pythagoras or in Cyrus. Great men are always great by their own greatness. Incidents which depend upon chance can only modify. Homer was destined to poetry by favourable circumstances. Born upon the borders of the river Meles, of an indigent mother, without shelter and without kindred, he owed, to a schoolmaster of Smyrna who adopted him, his early existence and his early instructions. He was at first called Melesigenes, from the place of his birth.[89] Pupil of Phemius, he received from his benevolent preceptor, simple but pure ideas, which the activity of his soul developed, which his genius increased, universalized, and brought to their perfection. His education, begun with an assiduous and sedentary study, was perfected through observation. He undertook long journeys for the sole purpose of instructing himself. The political conditions, contrary to every other project, favoured him.

Greece, after having shaken off the yoke of the Phœnicians and having become the friend of Egypt rather than her subject, commenced to reap the fruits of the beautiful institutions that she had received from Orpheus. Powerful metropolises arose in the heart of this country, long regarded as a simple colony of Asia, and her native strength being progressively augmented by the habit of liberty, she had need of extending herself abroad.[90] Rich with the increase of population, she had reacted upon her ancient metropolis, had taken possession of a great number of cities on the opposite shores of Asia, and had colonized them.[91] Phœnicia humiliated, torn by internal dissensions,[92] tossed between the power of the Assyrians and that of the Egyptians,[93] saw this same Greece that she had civilized and to whom she had given her gods, her laws, and even the letters of her alphabet, ignore, deny her benefits,[94] take up arms against her, carry away her colonies from the shores of Italy and of Sicily, and becoming mistress of the islands of the Archipelago, tear from her her sole remaining hope, the empire of the sea.[95] The people of Rhodes were overpowered.

Homer, of Greek nationality although born in Asia, profited by these advantages. He set sail in a vessel, whose patron, Mentes of Leucas, was his friend, wandered over all the possessions of Greece, visited Egypt,[96] and came to settle at Tyre. This was the ancient metropolis of Greece, the source and sacred repository of her mythological traditions. It was there, in this same temple of the Master of the Universe,[97] where twelve centuries before Sanchoniathon had come to study the antiquities of the world,[98] that Homer was able to go back to the origin of Greek cult and fathom the most hidden meanings of its mysteries[99]; it was there that he chose the first and noblest subject of his chants, that which constitutes the fable of the _Iliad_.[100] If one must believe in the very singular accounts which time has preserved to us, thanks to the blind zeal of certain Christians who have treated them as heresies, this Helen, whose name applied to the moon signifies the resplendent, this woman whom Paris carried away from her spouse Menelaus, is nothing else than the symbol of the human soul,[101] torn by the principle of generation from that of thought, on account of which the moral and physical passions declare war. But it would be taking me too far away from my subject, examining in detail what might be the meaning of the allegories of Homer. My plan has not been to investigate this meaning in particular, but to show that it exists in general. Upon this point I have not only the rational proof which results from the concatenation of my ideas, but also proof of the fact, which is furnished to me by the testimonials of the ancients. These testimonials are recognized at every step, in the works of the philosophers and chiefly in those of the Stoics. Only a very superficial erudition is necessary to be convinced of this.[102] But I ought to make an observation, and this observation will be somewhat novel: it is that, the poetic inspiration being once received by the poet and his soul finding itself transported into the intelligible world, all the ideas which then come to him are universal and in consequence allegorical. So that nothing true may exist outside of unity, and as everything that is true is one and homogeneous, it is found that, although the poet gives to his ideas a form determined in the sentient world, this form agrees with a multitude of things which, being distinct in their species, are not so in their genus. This is why Homer has been the man of all men, the type of all types, the faithful mirror,[103] wherein all ideas becoming reflected have appeared to be created. Lycurgus read his works, and saw there a model of his legislation.[104] Pericles and Alcibiades had need of his counsels; they had recourse to him as a model of statesmen.[105] He was for Plato the first of the philosophers, and for Alexander the greatest of kings; and what is more extraordinary still, even the sectarians, divided among themselves, were united in him. The Stoics spoke only of this great poet as a rigid follower of the Porch[106]; at the Academy he was considered as the creator of dialectics; at the Lyceum, the disciples of Aristotle cited him as a zealous dogmatist[107]; finally, the Epicureans saw in him only a man calm and pure, who, satisfied with that tranquil life where one is wholly possessed by it, seeks nothing more.[108] The temples, which devout enthusiasm consecrated to him, were the rendezvous for mankind.[109] Such is the appanage of universal ideas: they are as the Divinity which inspires them, all in all, and all in the least parts.

If, at the distance where I am placed, I should dare, traversing the torrent of ages and opinions, draw near to Homer and read the soul of this immortal man, I would say, after having grasped in its entirety the allegorical genius which makes the essence of poetry, in seeking to give to his universal ideas a particular form, that his intention was to personify and paint the passions, and that it was from this that epopœia had birth. I have not sufficient documents to attest positively that the word by which one characterizes this kind of poetry after Homer, did not exist before him; but I have sufficient to repeat that no one had as yet recognized its real nature.[110] The poems of Corinna, of Dares, or of Dictys, were only simple extracts from the mythological cycles, rude copies from certain theosophical fragments denuded of life; Homer was the first who caused the _Voice of Impulse_, that is to say Epopœia, to be understood[111]: that kind of poetry which results from intellectual inspiration united to the enthusiasm of the passions.

In order to attain to the perfection of this kind of poetry, it is necessary to unite to the imaginative faculty which feeds the genius, the reason which regulates the impulse, and the enthusiasm which inflames the mind and supplies the talent. Homer united them in the most eminent degree. Thus he possessed the first inspiration and the complete science, as much in its essence as in its form; for the poetic form is always dependent upon talent.

This form was then highly favourable to genius. The Greek verse, measured by musical rhythm and filled with a happy blending of long and short syllables, had long since shaken off the servile yoke of rhyme. Now, by rhythm was understood the number and respective duration of the time of which a verse was composed.[112] A long syllable was equal to a time divided in two instants, and equivalent to two short syllables. A foot was what we name today a measure. The foot contained two times, made up of two long, or of one long and two short syllables. The verse most commonly used was the hexameter, that is, that in which the extent was measured by six rhythmic feet and of which the whole duration was twelve times. Thus poetry received only the laws of rhythm; it was a kind of music whose particular harmony, free in its course, was subject only to measure.

I have never found any authentic evidence that the Greeks had ever used the rhyme in their verse. It is stated, however, that they have not differed from other nations in this respect. Voltaire said so but without proof.[113] What is most certain is that, taking the word _epos_,[114] a verse, in its most restricted acceptance, expressing a turn, a turning around again, the early poets constructed their verse in form of furrows, going from right to left and returning from left to right.[115] Happily this _bizarrerie_ did not last long. If the Greek verses had thus turned one upon another, or if the rhyme had forced them to proceed in couplets bent beneath a servile yoke, Homer would not have created the Epopœia, or these frivolous obstacles would have vanished before him. His genius, incapable of enduring chains, would have refused to clothe itself in a form capable of stifling it. But this celebrated man would no doubt have changed it; one can judge by the energetic manner with which he attacked that which he found in use. The Greek language, which preserved still in his time something of the Phœnician stiffness and the Celtic roughness, obliged to adapt itself to all the movements of his imagination, became the most flexible and the most harmonious dialect of the earth. One is astonished, in reading his works, at the boldness of his composition.[116] One sees him without the least effort, bending words at his pleasure, lengthening them, shortening them to produce something new, reviving those no longer in use, uniting them, separating them, disposing of them in an unaccustomed order, forcing them to adapt themselves everywhere to the harmony that he wishes to depict, to sentiments of elevation, of pleasure or terror, that he wishes to inspire.

Thus genius, dominating form, creates master-pieces; form, on the contrary, commanding genius, produces only works of the mind. I must say finally and no longer veil from the attention of my judges, the aim of this discourse: whenever rhyme exists in the poetic form, it renders the form inflexible, it brings upon it only the effort of talent and renders that of intellectual inspiration useless. Never will the people who rhyme their verses attain to the height of poetic perfection; never will real epopœia flourish in their breasts. They will hear neither the accents inspired by Orpheus, nor the stirring and impassioned harmonies of Homer. Far from drawing the allegorical genius at its source and receiving the first inspiration, it will not even recognize the second one. Its poets will polish painfully certain impassioned or descriptive verses, and will call beautiful the works which will only be well done. A rapid glance over the poetic condition of the earth will prove what I have advanced. But I ought to explain beforehand what I understand by first and second inspiration; the moment has arrived for holding to the promise that I made at the beginning of this discourse.

§ IV

You recall, _Messieurs_, that wishing, with Chancellor Bacon, to distinguish the essence and the form of Poetry, I have taken my text from the works of Plato. It is again from this man, justly called divine even by his rivals, from the founder of the Academy, that I have borrowed the germ of my idea. This philosopher compares the effect which the real poets have upon those who hear them, with the magnetic stone which not only attracts rings of iron, but communicates to them also the virtue of attracting other rings.[117]

In order to appreciate well the force of this thought, and to follow all the inferences, it is necessary to state a truth _de facto_: namely, that the men destined by Providence to regenerate the world, in whatever manner it may be, to open any sort of a career, are extremely rare. Nature, docile to the impulse which she has received of bringing all to perfection by means of time, elaborates slowly the elements of their genius, places them at great distances upon the earth, and makes them appear at epochs very far removed one from the other. It is necessary that these events, which determine these men toward an end, should be brought about in advance; that the physical conditions in which they are born coincide with the inspiration which attends them; and therefore everything prepares, everything protects, everything serves the providential design. These men, thus scattered over the earth, come among nations to form them, to give them laws, to enlighten and to instruct them. They are the beacon-lights of mankind; these are those to whom I attribute the first inspiration. This inspiration is immediate; it emanates from the first principle of all intelligence, in the same manner, to use the comparison of Plato, that the magnetic force which animates the loadstone, emanates from its cause. It is profoundly hidden from our eyes: it is this which fires the genius of a theosophist such as Thoth, Orpheus, and Zoroaster; the genius of a theocrat, such as Krishna, Moses, or Mohammed; the genius of a philosopher, such as Kong-Tse, Pythagoras, or Socrates; the genius of a poet, such as Homer or Valmiki; and of a triumphant hero, such as Cyrus, Alexander, or Napoleon.

Those who follow in the footprints of these primordial men, who allow themselves to be impressed by their genius, receive what I call the second inspiration. They can still be great men; for those who assist them are very great; they can also communicate the inspiration, for it acts in them with an exuberant force. Let us confine ourselves to the poetic inspiration and listen to the voice of Plato:

The Muse inspires the poets directly, and these,
communicating to others their enthusiasm, form a chain of
inspired men. It is by means of this chain that the Divinity
attracts the souls of men, and moves them at his pleasure,
causing his virtue to pass from link to link, from the first
inspired poet to the last of his readers or his
rhapsodists.[118]

It is by means of this magnetic chain that one can, in another sphere of movement, explain this truth so well known, that great kings make great men; it is also in this manner that one can understand how a monarch, called to found a vast empire, makes his will penetrate all hearts, take possession of all souls, and propagating his valour more and more, electrify his army and fill it with a multitude of heroes.

Homer received therefore a first inspiration; he was created to become the poetic motive of Europe, the principle of a magnetized chain which, appropriating unceasingly new links, was to cover Europe with its numberless extensions. His first conquests were in Greece. His verses, carried from city to city by actors known under the name of rhapsodists,[119] excited the keenest enthusiasm; they passed soon from mouth to mouth, fixed the attention of legislators, were the ornament of the most brilliant fêtes,[120] and became everywhere the basis of public instruction.[121] The secret flame which they concealed, becoming developed in young souls, warmed there the particular germ which they possessed, and according to their divers specie and the fertility of the soil, brought forth many talents.[122] The poets who were found endowed with a genius vast enough to receive the second inspiration in its entirety, imitated their model and raised themselves to epopœia. Antimachus and Dicæogenes are noticeable, the one for his Thebaïs, and the other for his cyprien verses.[123] Those to whom nature had given passions more gentle than violent, more touching than vehement, inclinations more rustic than bellicose, whose souls contained more sensitiveness than elevation, were led to copy certain isolated groups of this vast tableau, and placing them, following their tastes, in the palace or in the thatched cottage, caused accents of joy or of sorrow, the plaints of heroes or the sports of shepherds to be heard, and thus created elegy, eclogue, or idyl.[124] Others, on the contrary, whose too vehement enthusiasm shortened the duration of it, whose keen fiery passions had left little empire for reason, who allowed themselves to be drawn easily toward the object of which they were momentarily captive, created the ode, dithyramb, or song, according to the nature of their genius and the object of their passion. These were more numerous than all the others together, and the women who were here distinguished, rivalled and even surpassed the men; Corinna and Myrtis did not yield either to Stesi[`c]horus,[125] or to Pindar; Sappho and Telesilla effaced Alcæus and Anacreon.[126]

It is said that the art with which Homer had put into action gods and men, had opposed heaven and earth, and depicted the combats of the passions; this art, being joined to the manner in which the rhapsodists declaimed his poems[127] by alternately relieving one another, and covering themselves with garments of different colours adapted to the situation, had insensibly given rise to dramatic style and to theatrical representation.[128] This, true in a sense, has need of a distinction: it will serve at the same time to throw light upon what I am about to say.

One should remember that the intellectual and rational poetry, or theosophical and philosophical, illustrated by Orpheus and which Homer had united with the enthusiasm of the passions in order to constitute epopœia, although separated from the latter, existed none the less. Whereas the disciples of Homer, or the Homeridæ,[129] spread themselves abroad and took possession of the laic or profane world, the religious and learned world was always occupied by the disciples of Orpheus, called Eumolpidæ.[130] The hierophants and philosophers continued to write as formerly upon theology and natural philosophy. There appeared from time to time theogonies and cosmological systems,[131] dionysiacs, heraclides,[132] oracles, treatises on nature and moral apologues, which bore no relation to epopœia. The hymns or pæans which had emanated from the sanctuaries in honour of the Divinity, had in no wise resembled either the odes or the dithyrambs of the lyric poets[133]: as much as the former were vehement and passionate, so much the latter affected to be calm and majestic. There existed therefore, at this epoch, two kinds of poetry, equally beautiful when they had attained their respective perfection: Eumolpique Poetry and Epic Poetry: the first, intellectual and rational; the other, intellectual and passionate.

However, the divine mysteries, hidden from the profane, manifested to the initiates in the ceremonies and symbolic fables, had not as yet issued from the sanctuaries: it had been nearly a thousand years since they had been instituted by Orpheus[134] when suddenly one saw for the first time certain of these fables and these ceremonies ridiculously travestied, transpiring among the people and serving them for amusement. The fêtes of Dionysus, celebrated in the times of vintage, gave place to this sort of profanation. The grape-gatherers, besmeared with lees, giving way in the intoxication of wine to an indiscreet enthusiasm, began to utter aloud from their wagons the allegories that they had learned in their rural initiations. These allegories, which neither the actors nor the spectators had comprehended in reality, appeared, nevertheless, piquant to both through the malicious interpretations which they gave them.[135] Such were the feeble beginnings of dramatic art in Greece[136]; there was born the profanation of the Orphic mysteries, in the same manner that one see sit reborn among us, by the profanation of the Christian mysteries.[137] But this art was already old in Asia when it sprang up in Europe. I have already said that there was in the secret celebration of the mysteries, veritable dramatic representations. These mystic ceremonies, copied from those which had taken place in the celebration of the Egyptian mysteries, had been brought into Egypt by the Indian priests at a very remote epoch when the empire of Hindustan had extended over this country. This communication, which was made from one people to another, has been demonstrated to the point of evidence by the learned researches of the academicians of Calcutta, Jones, Wilford, and Wilkin,[138] who have proved what Bacon had previously said in speaking of the Greek traditions, “that it was only a very light air which, passing by means of an ancient people into the flutes of Greece, had been modulated by them into sounds more sweet, more harmonious, and more conformable to the climate and to their brilliant imagination.”

A singular coincidence, _Messieurs_, which will not escape your sagacity, is that dramatic art, whose origin is lost in India in the night of time, has likewise had its birth in the mysteries of religion. It is during the _Ram-Jatra_, a fête celebrated annually in honour of Rama, the same as Dionysus of the Greeks, or Bacchus of the Latins, that one still sees theatrical representations which have served as models for the more regular works that have been made in the course of time.[139] These representations, which run through nearly all the exploits of Rama and through the victory that this beneficent god gained over Rawhan, the principle of evil, are mingled with chants and recitations exactly as were those of the ancient Greeks. You understand, _Messieurs_, that the first efforts of tragedy were to celebrate the conquests of Bacchus and his triumph, of which that of Apollo over the serpent Python, celebrated by the Pythian games, was the emblem.[140] Those of the Indians who appear to have preserved the most ancient traditions, since the sacred books were written in the Pali language, considered as anterior to the Sanskrit by some savants, the Burmans, have from time immemorial recorded the mysteries of Rama in scenic dramas which are still performed in public on the fête day of this god.[141] I do not consider it amiss to mention here that the name of Rama, which in Sanskrit signifies that which is dazzling and beautiful, that which is sublime and protective, has had the same signification in Phœnician,[142] and that it is from this same name to which is joined a demonstrative article common to Aramaic, Chaldean, and Syriac, that the word drama[143] is formed, and which being adopted by the Greek tongue, has passed afterwards into the Latin tongue and into ours. This word has expressed an action, because, in truth, it depicts one in the mysteries and besides its primitive root refers to regular movement in general.

But as my purpose is not to follow at present dramatic art in all its ramifications and as it suffices me to have indicated clearly the origin, I return to Greece.

The spectacle of which I have spoken, effect of a Bacchic enthusiasm, and at first abandoned to the caprice of certain rustic grape-gatherers whose indiscretions did not appear formidable, struck so forcibly by its novelty and produced such a marvellous effect upon the people, that it was not long before certain men of most cultivated minds were seen desirous of taking part either from liking or from interest. Thespis and Susarion appeared at the same time and each seized, according to his character, one the noble and serious side and the other the ridiculous and amusing side of the mythological fables; dividing thus from its birth, dramatic art and distinguishing it by two kinds, tragedy and comedy: that is, the lofty and austere chant, and the joyous and lascivious chant.[144][145]

In the meantime, the governments, until then quite indifferent to these rustic amusements, warned that certain liberties permitted by Thespis were becoming too flagrant, began to see the profanations which had resulted, and of which the Eumolpidæ had no doubt pointed out the consequences.[146] They tried to prevent them, and Solon even made a law regarding this subject[147]; but it was too late: the people attracted in crowds to these representations, all informal as they were, rendered useless the foresight of the legislator. It was necessary to yield to the torrent and, being unable to arrest it, to strive at least to restrain it within just limits. A clear field was left open for the good that it was able to do, in fertilizing the new ideas, and severe rules were opposed to check whatever dangers its invasions might have for religion and for customs. The dramatic writers were permitted to draw the subject of their pieces from the source of the mysteries, but it was forbidden them, under penalty of death, to divulge the sense. Æschylus, first of the dramatic poets, having involuntarily violated this law, ran the risk of losing his life.[148] Discriminating judges were established to pronounce upon the excellency of the works offered in the competition, and one was very careful not to abandon oneself at first to the passionate acclamations of the people, and the approbations or disapprobations of the maxims which were therein contained.[1] These judges, proficient in the knowledge of music and of poetry, had to listen in silence until the end, and maintain all in order and decency. Plato attributes to the desuetude into which this law fell, and to the absolute dominion which the people assumed over the theatre, the first decadence of the art and its entire corruption.

Æschylus, whom I have just named, was the true creator of dramatic art. Strong with the inspiration which he had received from Homer,[150] he transported into tragedy the style of epopœia, and animated it with a music grave and simple.[151] Not content with the moral beauties with which his genius embellished it, he wished that music, painting, and dancing might lend their aid and contribute to the illusion of the senses. He caused a theatre to be built where the most ingenious devices, the most magnificent decorations displayed their magic effects.[152] One saw in the tragedy of Prometheus, the earth trembling, clouds of dust rising in the air; one heard the whistling of wind, the crash of thunder; one was dazzled by the lightnings.[153] Old Ocean appeared upon the waves, and Mercury came from the heights of heaven to announce the commands of Jupiter. In the tragedy of the Eumenides, these infernal divinities appeared upon the scene to the number of fifty, clothed in black robes; blood-stained, the head bristling with serpents, holding in one hand a torch and in the other a lash.[154] They replied to the shade of Clytemnestra, who invoked them, by a choir of music so frightful, that a general terror having struck the assembly, certain of the women experienced premature pains of confinement.[155]

One feels, after this, that Greek tragedy had in its theatrical forms, much in common with our modern operas; but what eminently distinguishes it is that, having come forth complete from the depths of the sanctuaries, it possessed a moral sense which the initiates understood. This is what put it above anything that we might be able to conceive today; what gave it an inestimable price. Whereas the vulgar, dazzled only by the pomp of the spectacle, allured by the beauty of the verse and the music, enjoyed merely a fleeting gratification, the wise tasted a pleasure more pure and more durable, by receiving the truth in their hearts even from the deceitful delusions of the senses. This pleasure was as much greater as the inspiration of the poet had been more perfect, and as he had succeeded better in making the allegorical spirit felt, without betraying the veil which covered it.

Æschylus went further in comprehension of the subject than any of his successors. His plans were of an extreme simplicity. He deviated little from the mythological tradition.[156] All his efforts tended only to give light to their teachings, to penetrate into their hidden beauties. The characters of his heroes, strongly drawn, sustained them at heights where Homer had placed them. He caused terror to pass before them that they might be frightened.[157] His aim was to lead them to virtue by terror, and to inspire the soul with a force capable of resisting alike the intoxications of prosperity and the discouragements of poverty.

Sophocles and Euripides followed closely Æschylus and surpassed him in certain portions of the art; the first, even triumphed over him in the eyes of the multitude[158]; but the small number of sages, faithful to the true principles, regarded him always as the father of tragedy.[159] One can admit that Sophocles was more perfect in the conduct of his plans, in the regularity of his style[160]; that Euripides was more natural and more tender, more skilful in arousing interest, in stirring the passions[161]; but these perfections, resulting from the form, had not been acquired without the very essence of drama being altered; that is to say, without the allegorical genius which had presided at the composition of the fables that the poets had always drawn from the religious mysteries, suffering many deviations, which rendered it often unrecognizable through the foreign adornments with which it was burdened. Sophocles and above all Euripides, by devoting themselves to perfecting the form, really harmed therefore the principle of the art and hastened its corruption. If the laws which had at first been promulgated against those who in treating of the tragic subjects vilified the mysterious sense had been executed, Euripides would not have been allowed to depict so many heroes degraded by adversity, so many princesses led astray by love, so many scenes of shame, of scandal, and of crime[162]; but the people, already degraded and bordering upon corruption, allowed themselves to be drawn along by these dangerous tableaux and hastened half-way to meet the poisoned cup which was offered to them.

It must candidly be admitted, that it is to the very charm of these tableaux, to the talent with which Euripides understood how to colour them, that the decadence of Athenian manners and the first harm done to the purity of religion must be attributed. The theatre, having become the school of the passions, and offering to the soul no spiritual nourishment, opened a door through which doubt, contempt, and derision for the mysteries, the most sacrilegious audacity, and utter forgetfulness of the Divinity, insinuated themselves even unto the sanctuaries. Æschylus had represented in his heroes, supernatural personages[163]; Sophocles painted simple heroes, and Euripides, characters often less than men.[164] Now these personages were, in the eyes of the people, either children of the gods, or the gods themselves. What idea could be formed then of their weaknesses, of their crimes, of their odious or ridiculous conduct, particularly when these weaknesses or these crimes were no longer represented as allegories from which it was necessary to seek the meaning, but as historical events or frivolous plays of the imagination? The people, according to the degree of their intelligence, became either impious or superstitious; the savants professed to doubt all, and the influential men, by feigning to believe all, regarded all parties with an equal indifference. This is exactly what happened. The mysteries became corrupt because one was accustomed to regard them as corrupt; and the people became intolerant and fanatical, each one cringing with fear, lest he be judged what he really was, namely, impious.

Such was the effect of dramatic art in Greece. This effect, at first imperceptible, became manifest to the eyes of the sages, when the people became the dictators of the theatre and ignored the judges named to pronounce upon the works of the poets; When the poets, jealous of obtaining the approval of the multitude, consulted its taste rather than truth, its versatile passions rather than reason, and sacrificed to its caprices the laws of honesty and excellence.[164]

As soon as tragedy, disparaging the mysteries of the fables had transformed them into historical facts, it needed only a step to raise historical facts to the rank of subjects of tragedy. Phrynichus was, it is said, the first who had this audacity. He produced in the theatre, the _Conquest of Miletus_.[166] The people of Athens, with a whimsicality which is characteristic of them, condemned the poet to a very heavy fine, for having disobeyed the law and crowned him because of the tears which they shed at the representation of his work. But this was not enough, confounding thus reality and allegory; soon, sacred and profane things were mingled by forging without any kind of moral aim, subjects wholly false and fantastic. The poet Agathon, who was the author of this new profanation had been the friend of Euripides.[167] He proved thus that he knew nothing of the essence of dramatic poetry and makes it doubtful whether Euripides knew it any better.

Thus, in the space of less than two centuries, tragedy, borne upon the car of Thespis, elevated by Æschylus to a nobler theatre, carried to the highest degree of splendour by Sophocles, had already become weakened in the hands of Euripides, had lost the memory of its celestial origin with Agathon, and abandoned to the caprices of a populace as imperious as ignorant, inclined toward a rapid degeneration.[168] Comedy less reserved did not have a happier destiny. After having hurled its first darts upon the heroes and demi-gods of Greece, having taken possession of certain very unguarded allegories, to turn even the gods to ridicule[169]; after having derided Prometheus and Triptolemus, Bacchus and the Bacchantes, after having made sport of heaven and earth, of the golden age and the seasons[170]; it attacked men in general and in particular, ridiculed their absurdities, pursued their vices, real or imaginary, and delivered them both unsparingly, without pity, to derision and contempt.[171] Epicharmus, who gave certain rules to the indecent farces of Susarion, was followed by Magnes, Cratinus, Eupolis, and a crowd of other comic poets, until Aristophanes whose bitter satires no longer finding sufficient influence in certain obscure ridicules, applied themselves to disparaging science and virtue, and twenty years beforehand, prepared and envenomed the hemlock by which Socrates was poisoned. It is true that some time after, Menander tried to reform this terrible abuse and gave to comedy a form less revolting; but he was only able to do so by detaching it completely from its origin, that is to say, by severing it from all that it had preserved, intellectually and allegorically, and reducing it to the representation of certain tableaux and certain events of the social life.

In going back, as I have just done, to the origin of poetic science in order to distinguish first, its essence from its form and afterwards, to follow its diverse developments, in genus and in kind, I have related many things and cited a great number of subjects with which you are familiar; but you will no doubt excuse, _Messieurs_, these numerous reminiscences and citations, in reflecting that although but little necessary for you, they were infinitely so for me, since presenting myself in the lists and wishing to give an added form to this science which belongs to you, I must prove to you that I have at least studied it profoundly.

§ V

Now, summing up what I have said, it will be found that poetry, entirely intellectual in its origin and destined only to be the language of the gods, owed its first developments in Greece to Orpheus, its second to Homer, and its last to Æschylus. These three creative men, seizing the different germs of this science still shrouded in their formless rudiments, warmed them with the fire of their genius and according to the particular inspiration of each, led them to the perfection of which they were susceptible. All three of them were the object of a first inspiration, although influenced one by the other, and were able to communicate the magnetic power to new disciples. Orpheus possessor of intellectual and rational poetry, constituted that which I call _Eumolpœia_, which, being divided into theosophy and philosophy, produces all the works which treat of the Divinity, of the Universe, of Nature, and of Man in general.[172] Homer, in joining to this spiritual poetry the enthusiasm of the passions, created Epopœia, whose magnificent genus envelops a multitude of specie, where the intellectual faculty and passion dominate with more or less energy under the influence of imagination. Homer rendered sentient that which was intelligible and particularized that which Orpheus had left universal: Æschylus, trying to bring into action what these two divine men had left with potentiality, formed the idea of dramatic or active poetry, in which he claimed to include whatever Eumolpœia and Epopœia had in common, that was moral, allegorical, and passionate. He would have succeeded, perhaps, and then would have produced the most perfect work of thought, passion, and action possible for men, conceived by genius and executed by talent; but Greece, exhausted by the abundant harvest obtained by Orpheus and Homer, lacked the sap to give nourishment to this new plant. Corrupted in its germ, this plant degenerated rapidly, deteriorated, and put forth only a vain show of branches without elevation and without virtue. The heroes of Thermopylæ succumbed under the burden of their laurels. Given over to a foolish arrogance, they covered with an unjust contempt their preceptors and their fathers; they persecuted, they assassinated their defenders and their sages and, base tyrants of the theatre, they prepared themselves to bow the head beneath the yoke of the king of Macedonia.

This king, victor at Chæronea, became arbiter of Greece, and his son, providential instrument of the ascendancy which Europe was to have over Asia, crossing the Hellespont at the head of an army that his genius alone rendered formidable, overthrew the empire of Cyrus and stood for a moment upon its débris: I say for a moment, because it was not here that the new empire was to be established: Europe had still obeyed; she was one day to command. Rome was already, in the thought of the future, the culminating point of the earth. A few centuries sufficed for this city, then unknown,[173] to attain to the height of glory. Emerging from her obscurity, conquering Pyrrhus, dominating Italy, combating and overthrowing Carthage, conquering Greece, and trampling under foot twenty diadems borne by the successors of Alexander, was for this ambitious Republic the work of a few centuries. But it is not true, although certain men whose virtue was not enlightened by the torch of experience may have been able to say it; it is not true that a republic, already perplexed in governing itself, can govern the world. It requires an empire, and this empire is created.

Cæsar laid its foundation, Augustus strengthened it. The sciences and arts, brought to Rome from the heart of Greece, came out then from their lethargy and flourished with a new _éclat_. Poetry, especially, found numberless admirers. Vergil, strongly attracted by the magnetic flame of Homer, dared to tread in his light, overthrew all the obstacles that time had raised, and drawing near to this divine model, received from him the second inspiration without intermediary and without rival. Ovid, less determined, hovering between Orpheus and Homer, succeeded, however, in uniting the second inspiration of the one to the third inspiration of the other, and left in his book of _Metamorphoses_ a monument not less brilliant and more inimitable than the _Æneid_. Horace, little satisfied with succeeding Pindar, sought and found the means of uniting to the enthusiasm of the passions the calm of rational poetry, and, establishing himself a legislator of Parnassus, dictated laws to the poets, or jeered at the absurdities of men.

This poetry of reason had long since fallen into desuetude. The false movement that dramatic poetry had taken in Greece, the contempt that it had come to inspire for gods and men, had reacted upon it. The philosophers, disdaining a science which, by its own admission, was founded upon falsehood, had driven it from their writings. As much as they searched for it, when they believed it an emanation of the Divinity, so much had they fled from it since they had come to see in it only the vain production of an insensate delirium. Here is an observation, _Messieurs_, somewhat new, with which I may engage your attention: the first comedies appeared five hundred and eighty years before our era, which was about twenty years after Pherecydes wrote the first work in prose.[174] This philosopher doubtless, did not believe that a language prostituted to the burlesque parodies of Susarion should be useful further to the meditations of the sages. It is not, however, that at long intervals certain philosophers such as Empedocles, Parmenides, and many others of their disciples, have not written in verse[175]; but the remains of the ancient usage soon gave way, especially when Plato had embellished prose with the charm of his captivating eloquence. Before this philosopher, Herodotus had read in the assembly of the Olympic games an history of Greece connected with that of the greater part of the neighbouring nations.[176] This work, written in a fluent style, clear and persuasive, had so enchanted the Greeks, that they had given to the nine books which he composed, the names of the nine Muses. Nevertheless, an observation which will not be wholly foreign here, is, that the admission of prose in philosophy, instead of rational poetry, produced a style of work hitherto unknown, and of which the moderns made much; I am speaking of positive history. Before this epoch, history written in verse was, as I have said, allegorical and figurative, and was occupied only with the masses without respect to individuals. Thus the evil which resulted on the one side, from the degradation experienced by poetry in one of its branches, was balanced by the good which was promised on the other, from the purification of prose for the advancement of exact knowledge.

But returning to what I said just now on the subject of rational poetry, joined by the Romans to the passionate part of that science, I will say that this union created a new style, of which Horace was the originator: this was the didactic style. This style ought not to be confused with rational poetry, of which Hesiod has made use in his poem of _Works and Days_, and which pertains to Eumolpœia; nor with pure rational poetry, such as one finds in the writings of Parmenides and Empedocles: it is a sort of poetry which, attaching itself to form alone, depends much upon dramatic art. The didactic, satirical, or simply descriptive poet is similar to an actor on the stage declaiming a long monologue. Rational poetry was welcomed at Rome, and drawn from the long oblivion into which it had fallen, by Lucretius who, being inspired by the works of Leucippus and of Epicurus[177] wrote a book upon the nature of things, which has never been as yet well comprehended or well translated, the language not being understood.

Comedy, reformed by Menander, was again improved by Plautus and by Terence who acquired much reputation in this style; as to dramatic art in itself, it remained in its inertia. The Romans having the same gods and nearly the same mythology as the Greeks, were neither sufficiently elevated in intelligence to reinstate this art and make of it the masterpiece of the human mind; nor sufficiently advanced in exact knowledge to change wholly its forms and make of it, as we have, a new art, whence allegory and the moral part of Eumolpœia have been completely banished. But what the Romans were unable to do for dramatic art, they unfortunately were able to do for Epopœia. Certain writers, able versifiers, but absolutely deprived of intellectual inspiration, incapable of distinguishing in poetry the essence from the form, following what the degenerated theatre and the inspired declamations of Euhemerus[178] had taught them, imagined foolishly that the gods and heroes of antiquity having been only men stronger and more powerful than the others, mythology was only a crude collection of historic facts disfigured, and Epopœia only an emphatic discourse upon these same facts.[179] Thereupon they believed that it was only a question of taking any historic subject whatever, and relating it in verse with certain embellishments, to create an epic poem. Lucan and Silius Italicus, in choosing, the one the misfortunes of Pompey, and the other the victories of Hannibal, considered themselves superior to Homer or Vergil, as much as they supposed Rome or Carthage superior to Ilium. But a just posterity, notwithstanding the prejudices of their panegyrists, has put them in their place. It has considered them merely the inventors of a kind of bastard poetry, which might be called historic poetry. This poetry, entirely separated from Eumolpœia, whose moral essence it is unable to realize, preserves only the material and physical forms of true Epopœia. It is a body without soul, which is moved by a mechanical mainspring applied by a skilful workman.

As to the poetic form in itself, its only point of variance with the Greeks and Romans was that of elegance. The verses written in the same manner, depended likewise upon a fixed number of time or of feet regulated by musical rhythm. If rhyme had been admitted there in the first ages, it had been excluded early enough so that there remained no longer the least trace of it. The Latin tongue, very far from the Greek in flexibility, variety, and harmony, for a long time treated with contempt by the Greeks who, regarding it as a barbarous dialect, only learned it with repugnance[180]; the Latin tongue, I say, unpleasing, obscure, not even supporting the mediocrity of ordinary elocution, became, through the laborious efforts of its writers, a tongue which in the works of Vergil, for example, attained such a perfection, that it came to be doubted, owing to the grace, the justice, and the force of its expression, whether the author of the _Æneid_ did not surpass the author of the _Iliad_. Such is the empire of forms. They alone make problematical that which, in its essence, should not be subject to the least discussion.

But at last the Roman Eagle, after having soared some time in the universe and covered with his extended wings the most beautiful countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa, fatigued by its own triumphs, sank down again, allowed its power to be divided, and from the summit of this same Capitol, whence it had for such a long time hurled its thunderbolts, saw the vultures of the North divide among them its spoils. The mythological religion, misunderstood in its principles, attacked in its forms, given over to the corruption of things and men, had disappeared to give place to a new religion, which born in obscurity, was raised imperceptibly from the ranks of the humblest citizens to the imperial throne. Constantine, who in embracing the Christian cult had consolidated that religious revolution, believed himself able to bring about another in politics, by transferring the seat of his empire to the Bosphorus. Historians have often blamed this last movement; but they have not seen that Providence, in inspiring this division of the empire, foresaw that the darkness of ignorance rolling with the waves of the barbarians was about to extend as far as Rome, and that it would be necessary to concentrate at one point a part of the learning, in order to save it from the general ruin. Whereas the Empire of the Occident, assailed on all sides by the hordes from the North, was overthrown, torn, divided into numberless small sovereignties whose extent was often limited to the donjon where the sovereign resided; the Empire of the Orient sustained the weight of the hordes from the South, nourished continually in its midst certain men, guardians of the sacred fire of science, and did not fall until more than nine centuries later; and learning, commencing its revival in the Occident, put minds in condition there, to appreciate the models which were about to be presented to them and rendered them capable of receiving their inspiration.

It was a very remarkable epoch, _Messieurs_, which saw grouped about it in the space of less than a half century and coincident with the downfall of the Empire of the Orient, the use of gunpowder, of the compass, of the telescope in the Occident; the invention of engraving upon copper, that of movable characters for printing, the extension of commerce and navigation by the passage around the cape of Storms, and finally the discovery of America. It was a very extraordinary century, in which were born Mohammed II. and Lorenzo de’ Medici, Vasco da Gama and Christopher Columbus, Theodoros Gaza and Pico della Mirandola, Leonardo da Vinci and Bojardo, Leo X. and Luther. After the invasion of the barbarians, Christian Europe had lost its political unity: it was as a great republic whose divided members, struggling continuously one against the other, tearing by turn a shadow of supremacy, were the realms, the pontifical or laic principalities, the republics, the free and commercial cities. The two chiefs of this gigantic and badly organized body, the German Emperor and the Pope, bishop of Rome, were vested only with a grandeur of opinion; their real power was void: they were nothing more, in fact, than that which they appeared in form. Since Charlemagne, who, in a century of darkness enlightened with his own genius, had had the force to grasp the _débris_ of the empire, uniting them in his hand and giving them a momentary existence, it had not had an emperor. The vain efforts of Hildebrand and of Charles V. had served only at different times and under different conditions to demonstrate their impotence. It was reserved for a much greater man to dominate Europe regenerated by violent shocks, and to show to the universe the legitimate successor of Augustus wreathed with the imperial crown.

But without in any way anticipating time, without even leaving our subject which is poetry, let us continue to follow the developments of this science.

The original poets of Greece and Rome, brought into Italy by the savants whom the taking of Constantinople forced to go back towards the Occident of Europe, brought there an unexpected brilliancy, which, with the ancient germs deeply buried in its midst, soon awakened certain new germs that the peculiar circumstances had also brought there. In explaining what these germs were, I am giving occasion for thinkers to make certain reflections, and critics to form certain singular conjectures upon works hitherto badly judged.