Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

66

which my

υπεροχήν η καθαροτης ενδεικνυται. Here, for μερίστην, Ms. also has, it is necessary to read αμεριστην. This is evident from what immediately follows: το γαρ ανέπαφον της ύλης, και το αμέριστον, και το ασχετον δια του καθαρου σημαινεται. The whole, therefore, of this sentence thus connected, will be in English : “ Purity, therefore, indicates the indivisible transcendency of Saturn, and which is incapable of being participated. For the not coming into contact with matter, the indivisible, and the unrestrained, are signified by purity." P. 66. 1. 3 from the bottom: Και δη και αυτος ο Ουρανος παντα μεν τα δευτερα πληροί των οικείων αγαθων, παντα δε φρούρει ταις ακμαιοταταις εαυτου δυνα μεσιν, και τας αείζωους αυγας αυτῳ παρέδωκε συνεχειν και φρουρείν ανωθεν ο πατης. In this passage, for αυγας my Ms. has αιτίας, which I am persuaded is the true reading. For Proclus is not here speaking of the visible Heaven, but of that which is intellectual. Ρ. 68. 1. 7. και τον Ουρανον ο Σωκρατης [εχαρακτηρισεν] τῷ οράν τα ανω, δηλαδη τον υπερουράνιον τοπον, και όσα τη θεόθρεμ μονι σιγή περιειληπται των πατέρων. On this passage, the very learned Professor observes, Verba θεοθρεμμονι σιγη habet ex hymno aliquo, vel oraculo." The Professor is right in the latter part of his conjecture: for the words θεοθρεμμονι σιγη are derived from a Chaldean Oracle, which is to be found under the head of Πατης και Νους in Stanley's collection of these oracles, and which is as follows:

Μηδε προηλθεν, αλλ' εμενεν εν τω πατρικῳ βυθῷ

Και εν τη αδύτω κατα την θεοθρεμμένα σιγην.

i. e. “ Nor has it proceeded, but it abides in the paternal profundity, and in the adytum, according to the god-nourished silence." This oracle also is to be found in my collection of the Chaldean oracles in the Classical Journal; and relates to the extremity of the intelligible order of gods.1

Ρ. 68. 1. 10. ωσπερ ουν ο Παρμενίδης δια της ολότητος εκατέραν των τάξεων τουτων εσήμανεν, την μεν δια της νοητης, την δε δια της νοεράς, ουτως αρα και δια της προς τα κρειττονα στροφης ο τε Τίμαιος και ο Σωκρατης αυτον εκφαινουσιν. αλλ' η στροφη διαφοράς ώσπερ και η ολοτής νοητη μεν γαρ η του αιωνος διόπερ εκεινον ουχ οραν ειπε το προς εαυτου νοητον ο Τίμαιος, αλλά μενειν σταθερως μονον νοερα η του ουρανου, και δια τουτο φησιν αυτον ο Σωκρατης οραν τα ανω, κο

[ocr errors]

'The learned Professor, who in his remarks on these Scholia of Proclus frequently notices this collection of mine, and in p. 23 does me the honor to call me, "vir in Platonicorum philosophia versatissimus," has not in his notes adverted to the above oracle.

τ. λ. Here, for αυτον, after και ο Σωκρατης, my Ms. has αυτό, but the true reading is auras. In like manner for προς εαυτού vontov o Tiμaios, which also my Ms. has, it is necessary to read TGO EXUTOU, X. T. λ. For Proclus is here speaking of those two great oλorηtes, as they are called by Platonic writers, Eternity, and Heaven, the former of which constitutes the middle of the intelligible triad, and the latter the middle of the intelligible and at the same time intellectual triad. Hence, what Proclus says in this place will be in English: "As, therefore, Parmenides [in Plato] indicates to us each of these orders through wholeness,1 the one [i. e. Eternity] through intelligible, but the other [i. e. Heaven] through intellectual wholeness; thus, also, both Timæus and Socrates unfold them through a conversion to more excellent natures. The conversion, however, is different, as well as the wholeness. For that of Eternity is intelligible. Hence, Timæus [in Plato] does not say that it sees the intelligible prior to it, but only that it stably abides [in it.] But the conversion of Heaven is intellectual; and on this account Socrates says that it sees things above, [or the natures superior to it.] P, 69. 1. 5. Ο τοινυν Κρονος, ως διαιρετικος θεος, χωρίζει την εαυτου βασιλείαν απο της του Ουρανού, ως δε νους καθαρος, εξήρηται της εις την ύλην ποιη σεως διο και το δημιουργικον γενος παλιν επ' αυτου διακρίνεται. Τη the last line of this sentence, my Ms. for en' autou, has rightly an' avrou: for the demiurgic genus of which Jupiter is the summit, is separated from Saturn. P. 70. 1. 3. from the bottom: yap δι ονομάτων γνωρίζεσθαι πεφυκασιν, αλλα και οι θεολογοι πορρωθεν αυτο σημαινουσι, και της των φαινομένων προς εκεινα αναλο γιας. In this passage, for αυτό, it is necessary to read auta, and for της των φαινομενων, the sense requires δια της των φαινομένων. For Proclus is here speaking of the natures prior to the intellectual Heaven (τα про Tоν Ouραvou), of which he had before asserted that they can only be indicated through analogy, the boundary of them alone, i. e. Phanes, being excepted.

ουδε

T.

'See the second hypothesis in the Parmenides of Plato, where both these orders are unfolded by dialectic epithets, as Proclus most satisfactorily demonstrates in his Commentary on the Parmenides.

ON THE GENIUS AND WRITINGS OF

CLAUDIAN.

PART IV. [Concluded from No. LVIII.]

THE Panegyric of Stilicho is divided into three books; the first comprising the military achievements of the hero, the second his civil transactions, and his elevation to the consulship, which event is detailed at full in the third. We might have supposed that on this subject the powers of Claudian would have appeared to more advantage than on any other, were it not certain, from experience and from the nature of things, that unmixed and long-continued panegyric cannot be otherwise than wearisome. Actual excellence is in all cases so imperfect, as well as so limited in its kind, and possible excellence, as it exists in the imagination (and it is in imagination that the poet's field lies) so boundless and so varied, that the conceptions of the poet must necessarily far outrun the realities of his subject. Hence results a palpable incongruity; and what is essentially incongruous can never please for a continuity. Here indeed, as elsewhere, Claudian is happiest, when, from extolling individual virtue, he deviates into the praise of virtue in the abstract. He was however more than usually fortunate in his subject. The associate of Theodosius, and conqueror of Alaric, the hero "qui res humanas miscuit olim," who for fifteen years wielded the fortunes of the civilised world, and retarded by his civil and military virtues the fall of the Roman empire, and whose commanding and active genius appears to have extorted from Gibbon, the persevering enemy of virtue, a sentence of more than usually decided praise, cannot be unworthy of interest even in the eyes of the modern reader. The first book is the heaviest. Claudian was deficient in the arts of arrangement and transition; and he seems in the present instance to have supposed that the copiousness of his materials would compensate for their inartificial disposition. The second and third books are full of fine passages; we may specify the exordium of the second, "Principio magni custos Clementia mundi," and the character of Stilicho which follows; the description of the cave of Time (ib. 424), which is conceived in a strain of purer sublimity than any thing else in Claudian; and the truly noble and heart-inspiring summary of Roman glories in the third book (130-173), which, as proceeding from the last of her poets, on the verge of her extinc

1

tion, has all the melancholy emphasis of a grand funeral oration. There is a very beautiful line in the midst of a turgid description of a robe, on which was embroidered the birth of an emperorresidet fulgente puerpera lecto:

Sollicita juxta pallescunt gaudia matris.

Of the

He alludes to Serena, the mother of the empress. Gothic war (De Bello Getico), the first, or laudatory part, tedious as usual; but the narrative of the defeat of Alaric (319 sq.) contains more of epic dignity and animation than any thing in Claudian, not excepting even the catastrophe of the Rufinus. Stilicho's attitude is particularly noble:

Frons læta parum, non tristior æquo,

Non dejecta malis, mista sed nobilis ira:
Qualis in Herculeo, quoties infanda juberet
Eurystheus, fuit ore dolor; vel qualis in atram

Sollicitus nubem mæsto Jove cogitur æther. L. 375.

The Sixth Consulship of Honorius, which describes the final discomfiture of Alaric, the triumphal visit of Honorius to the ancient city, and his assumption of the fasces, may be considered as a sequel, and no unworthy one, to the two former poems. The finest part is the description of Rome, 1. 35 sqq. and again, 1. 494 to the end. The Panegyric on the princess Serena, though inferior to what might have been expected from the writer and the subject, is yet such as to excite our regret that it is left imperfect. It contains a ludicrous instance of false delicacy, worthy of the author of the Ara Pudoris, or the reformed muse of Moore. When Minerva and Diana pay their respects to Neptune, says the poet,

spumantia cedunt

Equora, castarum gressus venerata Dearum.
Non ludit Galatea procax; non improbus audet
Tangere Cymothoën Triton; totoque severos
Indicit mores pelago pudor, ipsaque Proteus
Arcet ab amplexu turpi Neptunia monstra.'

The Epithalamium of Palladius and Celerina is only a feeble

The same gross mechanical ideas of purity originated the description of the journey of St. Elizabeth, which so scandalised the author of the Quæstiuncula.

arbores

Jam nexus caveant ducere, mollibus

Quos amplexibus inquinant:

Castam umbram esse decet virginis hospitam.

echo of that on the marriage of Honorius. Claudian makes almost as ungainly love as his modern counterpart Darwin. With this the series of Claudian's heroic pieces on contemporary subjects concludes.

The only other work of any length remaining to us from Claudian, is the Rape of Proserpine, if not the best, yet the most finished, the most pleasing, and the one written most con amore, of all his poems; the only one in which his fancy, escaping from the trammels of official servitude, finds play in a subject of its own choosing. It is to be regretted (in a poetical view at least) that Claudian had not confined himself to this style of writing; or rather it is to be wished that he had chosen some subject, if such were to be found, in which the fine moral vein which runs through his political poems, and the gorgeousness of imagery which characterises the Proserpine, might both have found room for display. The mythological fictions in which Claudian so much delights, and which appear intrusive and out of place in his historical poems, form here the very basis of the story. The subject has been twice treated by Ovid; once briefly (we believe in the Fasti), and again at greater length, and with much beauty, in the Metamorphoses; and many other poets have touched on it incidentally; but Claudian's is the most considerable work extant on this fable. The purity of Claudian's diction, and the excellence of his versification (though not his highest, certainly his most extraordinary qualities,) are more peculiarly visible in the Proserpine. The plot is more skilfully contrived than Claudian's general deficiency in this point would have led us to expect; but the chief beauty of the poem consists in its descriptions, of which, as might be supposed, there is abundance. Where a poem is good as a whole, there is the less need to point out particular passages for commendation; we may however specify as particularly beautiful the picture of Ceres's attachment to her daughter (i. 122); the web of Proserpine (ib. 244); the visit of the goddesses to Enna, and the ascent

' Condonandum certe poëtæ non Christiano ministeriis deorum uti. Ceterum merito resipuit ætas nostra, et suas sibi res habere jussit suo cum puero Venerem. Gesner. Proleg. §. iv. ad fin. Gesner wrote more than sixty years ago. There is (or rather was) only one modern poet, in whom we could endure a mythological allusion; but in him any thing was tolerable-we speak indeed with great hesitation, for we may be influenced by peculiarities of taste. Among our French neighbours the distemper seems epidemic. Their tragic theatre has infected their prose style, on all, even the commonest, subjects, with allusions to Greek and Roman mythology, as well as history, to a degree truly remarkable.

« ZurückWeiter »