Love the Ambition and the Valour of Turnus This last supply'd him with a great many Episodes being the Cause of all the War Aeneas met with in Italy It begins at the seventh Book and is not over till the End of the Poem 'T is thus that the Episodes of the Aeneid are deduc'd from the Fable and the very Essence of the Action The second Thing we said was necessary for the Vnity of the Action is the Unity and the Connexion of the Episodes with one another For besides that Relation and Proportion which all the Members ought to have with one another so as to constitute but one Body which should be homogeneous in all its parts 't is requir'd farther that these Members should be not contiguous as if they were cut off and clap'd together again but uninterrupted and duly connected Without this the natural Members would not make up that Union which is necessary to constitute a Body The Continuity and Situation of Episodes is not exact when they only follow one another but they should be plac'd one after another so as the first shall either be necessarily or probably the Cause of that which follows Aristotle finds fault with Incidents that are without any Consequence or Connexion and he says that the Poems wherein such sorts of Episodes are offend against the Vnity of Action He brings as an Instance of this Defect the Wound which Vlysses receiv'd upon Parnassus and the Folly he counterfeited before the Grecian Princes because one of these Incidents could not have happen'd as a Consequence of the other Homer could not have given them a necessary Connexion and Continuity nor has he spoil'd the Vnity of the Odysseïs by such a Mixture But he gives us a compleat Instance of the Continuity we speak of in the Method whereby he has connected the two parts of his Iliad which are the Anger of Achilles against Agamemnon and the Anger of the same Hero against Hector The Poet would not have duly connected these two Episodes if before the Death of Patroclus Achilles had been less inexorable and had accepted of the Satisfaction Agamemnon offer'd him This would have made two Anger 's and two Revenges quite different from and independent of one another And though both had been necessary and essential to the Fable to make it appear what Mischiefs Discord and what Advantages Concord is the Cause of Yet the Vnity would have been only in the Fable but the Action would have been double and Episodical because the first Episode would not have been the Cause of the second nor the second a Consequence of the first These two parts of the Ilaid are joyn'd together very regularly If Achilles had never fell out with Agamemnon he would have fought in person and not have expos'd his Friend singly against Hector under those Arms that were the cause of this Young man's Rashness and Death And besides the better to joyn these two parts with one another the second is begun a great while before one sees what Event the first ought to have All the Articles of the Reconciliation are propos'd and one might say that this Reconciliation with respect to Agamemnon is made before the Death of Patroclus and even before it was ever thought of exposing him to a Battel There was nothing more wanting but Achilles's Consent and since that was not given till the Death of Patroclus had made him resolve upon that of Hector it may be truly affirmed that the Anger and the Revenge of Achilles against Hector which is nothing else but the second part of the Poem is the only cause of the Reconciliation which finish'd the first part But for the Vnity of a Body it is not enough that all its Members be natural and duly united and compacted together 't is farther requisite that each Member should be no more than a Member an imperfect Part and not a finish'd compleat Body This is the third Qualification we said was necessary to preserve the Vnity of the Epick Action For the better understanding of this Doctrine we must take notice that an Action may be entire and compleat two ways The first is by perfectly compleating it and making it absolutely entire with respect to the principal Persons that are interested therein and in the principal Circumstances which are employ'd about it The second way is by compleating it only with respect to some Persons and in some Circumstances that are less principal This second way preserves the Action in its regular Vnity the other destroys it We will give you an Instance of each The Greeks were assembled together to revenge the Affront offer'd to Menelaus and to force the Trojans to restore him his Wife whom Paris had stollen away There happens a Difference between Agamemnon and Achilles This last being highly incens'd abandons the Common Cause and withdraws himself so that in his Absence Agamemnon's Army was worsted by the Trojans But the Boldness of the King of Kings puts him upon engaging the Enemy without Achilles Away he marches to give them a general Assault with all his Forces The Fight began with the Duel between Menelaus and Paris They sight without Seconds upon Condition that Helen should be the Conquerour's and the War decided by this Combat Tho' the Anger of Achilles was the Cause of this Combat and whatever Interest he might have therein yet 't is plain that Menelaus Paris and Helen are so far the principal Personages concern'd that if this Action had been finished with respect to them it would have been quite finish'd it would not have made a part of the Action and of the Revenge of Achilles but a compleat Action which would have put an End to the Revenge and render'd the Anger of this Hero ineffectual Therefore Homer has not finish'd this Action Paris being hard put to it escapes and Menelaus is wounded with a Dart by Pandarus by this means Achilles begins to be reveng'd and this Incident becomes an exact Episode Virgil has manag'd the Episode of Dido another way He has finish'd it so that the Vnion of his main Action is as Regular as the Art of Poetry requires The Address of this great Poet consists in ordering it so that Dido in whom this Incident is compleat was not the chief Personage and her Marriage was only a simple Circumstance of an Action that is not finish'd and yet is the Soul and the only Foundation of this particular Action in a word Aeneas is the Hero of this Episode which is only invented to retard the Settlement of this Hero in Italy This is manifest if we would but reflect on what the Skill and Care of the Poet has left us about it Juno who carried on all this Intrigue was very little concern'd for Dido's Happiness If she had lov'd her so well she should have diverted the Trojan Fleet from her Coasts upon which place she her self did cast them which was the only Cause of this Queens Miseries
is in it self neither the Beginning nor the End This Middle must be the effect of something that went before and the Cause of some other thing that is to come after This makes three parts each of which taken singly is imperfect and always supposes One or both of the Other The Beginning supposes nothing before it self and requires something after it On the contrary the End requires nothing after it self but supposes something that goes before And the Middle supposes something that went before and requires something to follow after We will explain this Doctrine of Aristotle by the Instances we produced Eteocles and Polynices were equally the Sons and Heirs of Oëdipus King of Thebes They made a Contract to reign a Year by turns Eteocles began and his Year expired refuses to quit his Throne to his Brother Polynices meets with Assistance at Argos and comes to dispute his Title at the Head of an Army This is an exact Beginning It requires a Consequence but not any thing antecedent thereto Therefore 't was irregularly done to place before this Beginning the Recital of whatever happened from the founding of Thebes and the Rape of Europa down to that time The Quarrel of these two Brothers ended with their Deaths which is an exact End The Reader does not desire one should relate what becomes of Creon the Successor of Eteocles Therefore Statius is in the wrong when he makes That a Part of his Poem He was no less to blame for putting in the Middle of his Poem the Story of Hypsipyle For this Narration has no dependance on the Theban Action and supposes nothing before it and requires nothing after it and by consequence this Action is neither the Middle nor any other Part of the Quarrel between the two Brothers or of the Subject of the Poem These are Examples to be avoided now we will produce such as are to be imitated Homer's Design in the Iliad is to relate the Anger and Revenge of Achilles The Beginning of this Action is the change of Achilles from a Calm to a Passionate Temper The Middle is the Effects of his Passion and all the Illustrious Deaths it is the Cause of The End of this same Action is the Return of Achilles to his Calmness of Temper again All was quiet in the Graecian Camp when Agamemnon their General provokes Apollo against them whom he was willing to appease afterwards at the cost and prejudice of Achilles who had nothing to do with his Fault This then is an exact Beginning it supposes nothing before and requires after it the Effects of this Anger Achilles revenges himself and that is an exact Middle it supposes before the Beginning of the Anger of Achilles who is provoked This Revenge is the Effect of it Then this Middle requires after it the Effect of this Revenge which is the satisfaction of Achilles for the Revenge had not been compleat unless Achilles had been satisfied By this means the Poet makes his Hero after he was glutted as I may so say by the mischief he had done to Agamemnon by the Death of Hector and the Honour he did his Friend by insulting o'er his Murderer he makes him I say to be moved by the Tears and Misfortunes of King Priam. We see him as calm at the End of the Poem during the Funeral of Hector as he was at the Beginning of the Poem whilst the Plague raged among the Graecians This End is just since the Calmness of Temper Achilles re-enjoy'd is only an Effect of the Revenge which ought to have went before and after this no body expects any more of his Anger Thus has Homer been very exact in the Beginning Middle and End of the Action he made choice of for the Subject of his Iliad His Design in the Odysseis was to describe the Return of Vlysses from the Ruin of Troy and his Arrival at Ithaea He opens this Poem with the Complaints of Minerva against Neptune who opposed the Return of this Hero and against Calypso who detained him in an Island far from Ithaca Is this a Beginning No doubtless 't is not The Reader would fain know why Neptune is displeased with Vlysses and how this Prince came to be with Calypso He has a mind to know how he came from Troy thither The Poet answers his Demands out of the Mouth of Vlysses himself who relates these things and begins the Action by the recital of his Travels from the City of Troy It signifies little whether the Beginning of the Action be the Beginning of the Poem as we shall take notice in the following Book where we shall treat expresly of the Order our Poets have observed in their Narrations The Beginning of this Action then is that which happens to Vlysses when upon his leaving of Troy he bends his Course for Ithaca The Middle comprehends all the Misfortunes he endured and all the Disorders of his own Government The End is there instanting of this Hero in the peaceable Possession of his Kingdom where he discovers himself to his Son his Wife his Father and several others The Poet was sensible he should have ended ill had he went no farther than the Death of these Princes who were the Rivals and Enemies of Vlysses because the Reader might have looked for some Revenge which the Subjects of these Princes might have taken on him who had kill'd their Sovereigns But this Danger over and these People vanquished and quieted there was nothing more to be expected The Poem and the Action have all their Parts and no more The Order of the Odysseis differs from that of the Iliad in that the Poem does not begin with the Beginning of the Action That of the Aeneid is still more different since the very End of the Poem is not the End of the Action of Aeneis But we shall say no more of this at present The Design of Virgil is to conduct Aeneas into Italy there to establish his Gods and Religion and lay the Foundations of the Roman Empire There is this difference between the Return of Vlysses and the Voyage of Aeneas that no one ever questions why a Man returns to his own Country Though Homer had made no mention of the natural Affection he bore to his Country yet the Readers would never have fell out with him for this Omission This is a well known Cause 't is neither an Action of which one ought to make a Narration nor a thing which precedes this Return But Aeneas acts contrary to this natural Affection he abandons his own Country to go in search after a strange Land The Reader then would have the Poet tell him why this Hero leaves Troy Besides Vlysses was born a King but Aeneas was not So that the embarking of Vlysses is sufficiently the Beginning of the Odysseïs But the embarking of Aeneas from Troy on Board the Admiral of a Fleet of Twenty Sail cannot be the Beginning of the Action of Aeneas Aeneas abandons
was no hard matter for Jupiter to chear up her Spirits and make her consent to the rest CHAP. XV. How to dispose or prepare the Vnravelling IF the Plot or Intrigue must be natural and such as springs from the very Subject as has been already urg'd Then the Winding up of the Plot by a more sure claim must have this Qualification and be a probable Consequence of all that went before As the Readers regard this more than the rest so should the Poet be so much the more exact therein This is the End of the Poem and the last Impression that is like to be stamp'd upon them and which either leaves them in the satisfaction they fought after or in such a dissatisfied Temper as endangers the Reputation of the Author Let us now see the Instances Homer and Virgil have left us of this Practice The Vnravelling of the Plots of the Iliad is the Cessation of the Anger of Achilles who was incensed at first against Agamemnon and lastly against Hector There is nothing but what is Natural in the Appeasing of this Anger The Absence of Achilles is the Reason why the Greeks are worsted by the Trojans He absented himself on purpose and 't was a pleasure to him to see the Loss they underwent that so he might be reveng'd on Agamemnon who was the only person that had affronted him Among the wounded he believes he sees one of his Friends For his better satisfaction therein he sends thither his dear Patroclus But this Favourite of Achilles had not the same Passions with him He could not but be extremely concern'd at the miserable condition his Allies were reduc'd to by the Common Enemy These unfortunate Princes who had done Achilles no wrong importune Patroclus to work him into a better Temper and to persuade him not to suffer they should be so unworthily us'd any longer since he could defend them from the Disgrace Patroclus prevails upon Achilles to lend him his Men and Armour and under this Appearance beats back the Enemy It is likewise Natural that this young Hero intoxicated with so glorious a success should push on his Victory farther than Achilles had order'd him and so force Hector to fight with and kill him But shall Achilles endure that so near and dear a Friend should be butcher'd before his face and in his Armour too without revenging the Deed That can never be So then the Death of Patroclus is the Cause why Achilles who is otherwise well enough satisfied and revenged upon Agamemnon should be now reconcil'd to him and accept of his submission his presents and the Oath he made that he had never to do with Briseïs This first Intrigue then is naturally unravell'd The second could not be brought about by a Reconciliation with Hector It was not in this Trojan Prince's power to restore Patroclus as Agamemnon had Briseïs Nothing but Hector's death could be a satisfaction for that of Patroclus 'T is by this that Achilles begins his Revenge Besides the many Indignities which he offered to the Body of this innocent Homocide and the great Honours he paid to that of his Friend must needs Naturally mollifie his Grief and asswage his Passion To conclude as Agamemnon repented and wholly submitted to what he pleas'd so likewise we find King Priam prostrate at his feet in as miserable a Condition as a Father could be that takes on for the Death of his Son So that there is nothing in the pacified Anger of Achilles and in the Winding up of the Plots of the Iliad but what Naturally arises from the Subject and the very Action We shall find the same in the Odysseïs Vlysses by a Tempest is cast upon the Island of the Phaeacans to whom he discovers himself and desires they would further his Return to his own Country which was not very far from thence One cannot see any Reason why the King of this Island should refuse such a reasonable request to a Hero whom he seems to have in great esteem The Phaeacans had heard him tell the story of his Adventures In this fabulous Recital consists all the advantage they could derive from his presence for the Art of War which they admir'd in him his undauntedness under Dangers his indefatigable Patience and such like Vertues were such as these Islanders were not used to All their talent lay in Singing and Dancing and whatsoever a soft and quiet life esteem'd Charming And here we see how dextrously Homer prepares the Incidents he makes use of These People could do no less for the Account Vlysses had given them of his Life and with which he had ingeniously entertain'd them than conduct him home by furnishing him with Shipping which would stand them in little or nothing When he came home his long Absence and the Travels which had disfigur'd him made him altogether unknown and the danger he would have incurr'd had he discover'd himself too soon forc'd him to a disguise as we hinted before Lastly this Disguise gave him an Opportunity of surprizing those young Gallants who for several years together had been only us'd to sleep well and fare daintily In the Latin Poet all the hinderance Aeneas met with was from Turnus The turbulent Spirit of this Rival drew out the Italians to fight the Trojans and cost our Hero as many Subjects as there were Souldiers slain in both parties since he was already King of the one and within a while was to be King of the other What is to be done then in this case by a Prince so valiant as Aeneas and so affectionate and tender towards his Subjects Is it not the most natural thing in the World that he should declare he was ready to put a stop to the Quarrel Turnus had caused by fighting singly with him Turnus for his part sees the Latins vanquish'd and dejected he is sensible of the Reproaches they cast upon him for having exposed them in his Quarrel and not daring to answer the demands of Aeneas Can he shift off the Challenge Aeneas had sent him By this means the Duel and the Vnravelling of all the Action happens naturally and is as it were a necessary Consequence of the Disposition of the Fable These are the Examples our Poets have left us of Aristotle's Rules He teaches us that whatever concludes the Poem should so arise from the Constitution of the Fable as if 't were a Necessary or at least a Probable Consequence of all that went before CHAP. XVI Of the several sorts of Actions THE several Effects which the Vnravelling of the Plot produces and the different States to which it reduces the persons divide the Actions into so many sorts The Vnravelling of the Intrigue may be by changing of any one's fortune from good to bad as that of Oedipus or from bad to good as that of Cinna Oedipus seems to be innocent and in the very moment he thought himself Master of two Kingdoms he finds himself guilty of Incest and
suffer him to be reconcil'd The Loss of the Grecians and the Despair of Agamemnon prepare for a Solution by the Satisfaction which the incens'd Hero receiv'd from it The Death of Patroclus joyn'd to the Offers of Agamemnon which alone had proved ineffectual remove this Difficulty and make the Unravelling of the first Part. This Death is likewise the Beginning of the second Part since it puts Achilles upon the Design of revenging himself on Hector But the Design of Hector is opposite to that of Achilles This Trojan Hero is Valiant and resolved to stand in his own Defence This Valour and Resolution of Hector are on his Account the Cause of the Intrigue All the Endeavours Achilles used to meet with Hector and be the Death of him and the contrary Endeavours of the Trojan to keep out of his Reach and defend himself are the Intrigue which comprehends the Battel of the last Day The Vnravelling begins at the Death of Hector and besides that it contains the insulting of Achilles over his Body the Honours he paid to Patroclus and the Intreaties of King Priam. The Regrets of this King and the other Trojans in the sorrowful Obsequies they paid to Hector's Body end the Vnravelling they justifie the Satisfaction of Achilles and demonstrate his Tranquillity The first part of the Odysseïs is the Return of Vlysses into Ithaca Neptune opposes it by raising Tempests and this makes the Intrigue The Vnravelling is the Arrival of Vlysses upon his own Island where Neptune could offer him no farther Injury The second Part is the re-instating this Hero in his own Government The Princes that are his Rivals oppose him and this is a fresh Intrigue The Solution thereof begins at their Deaths and is compleated as soon as the Ithacans were appeased These two parts in the Odysseïs have not one common Intrigue as is to be observed in the two other Poems The Anger of Achilles forms both the Intrigues in the Iliad and it is so far the Matter of this Epopéa that the very Beginning and End of this Poem depend on the Beginning and End of this Anger But let the Desire Achilles had to revenge himself and the Desire Vlysses had to return to his own Country be never so near a-kin yet we cannot place them under one and the same Notion For the Love of Vlysses is not a Passion that Begins and Ends in the Poem with the Action 't is a natural Habit nor does the Poet propose it for his Subject as he does the Anger of Achilles Virgil has divided his Poem as Homer did his Odysseïs The first Part is the Voyage and Arrival of Aeneas in Italy the second is his Establishment there But he has connected these two great Episodes better by giving them a Common Intrigue He did not take for his first Intrigue a Deity who could act no where but by Sea as Neptune but makes Choice of Juno the Goddess of the Air who had an equal Power over Sea and Land She opposed the Voyage of this Hero and 't is she likewise that opposes his Settlement This Opposition then is the General Intrigue of the whole Action The Solution is over when Juno is appeas'd by Jupiter The principal Intrigue of the first Part is the Design of Dido and the Endeavours she used to keep Aeneas still at Carthage The Complaints of Iarbas the Orders Mercury brought Aeneas to be gone and the re-fitting of the Trojan Fleet are Preparations for the Vnravelling which begins at the Departure of Aeneas when he cut the Cables which held his Ships at Anchor Dido might have done more Mischief to Aeneas either by pursuing him as an Enemy to be reveng'd on him or by following him as his Wife And though she stay'd still at Africk whatever Liberty Men had in those days of putting away one Wife and marrying another yet the Poet had made him too honest a Man than to allow him two Wives living at the same time Let Cases stand how they would yet Aeneas had reason to be afraid of Dido and to apply the Prophecy of Sibyl to himself which said that the Cause of the Misfortunes he was to suffer should be another foreign Wife that should entertain the Trojans and be ravish'd from another Man's Bed Upon this Account she must needs die and Aeneas be certified of her Death So that this Vnravelling is not compleat till the sixth Book where Aeneas meets with the Ghost of this unhappy Queen in the Shades below The Intrigue of the second Part is form'd out of the Love and Ambition of Turnus who was countenanc'd by the Authority and Passion of the Queen Amata The Articles of Peace which are propos'd in the Eleventh Book and which are sworn to in the Twelfth prepare for the Vnravelling The Death of Amata begins and the Death of Turnus finishes it After what has been said of the principal Intrigues the rest are easily discern'd there are almost as many as there are great and small Episodes CHAP. XIV The Way of forming the Plot or Intrigue WE have already observ'd what is meant by the Intrigue and the Vnravelling thereof let us now say something of the manner of forming both and this we shall meet with in the Practice of our Poets which tells us that these two things should arise naturally out of the very Essence and Subject of the Poem and that they are to be deduced thence Their Conduct is so exact and natural that it seems as if their Action had presented them with whatever they inserted therein without putting themselves to the Trouble of a farther Enquiry What is more Usual and Proper among Warriours than Anger Heat Passion and Impatience of bearing the least Affronts and Disrespects This is what forms the Intrigue of the Iliad and every thing we read there is nothing else but the Effect of this Humour and these Passions What more Natural and Usual Obstacle do they who take Voyages meet with than the Sea the Winds and the Storms Homer makes this the Intrigue of the first part of the Odysseïs and for the second he makes use of the almost infallible Effect of the long Absence of a Master whose Return is quite despair'd of viz. the Insolence of his Servants and Neighbours the Danger his Son and Wife were in and the Sequestration of his Estate Besides an Absence of almost 20 Years and the insupportable Fatigues joyn'd to the Age Vlysses was then of might induce him to believe that he should not be own'd by those that thought him dead and whose Interest it was to have him be really so Therefore if he had presently declar'd who he was and had call'd himself Vlysses they would easily have made away with him as an Impostor before he had had Opportunity to make himself known to them There could be nothing more Natural nor more Necessary than this ingenious Disguise to which the Advantages which his Enemies had taken of his Absence had
Achilles to absent himself from fighting than that which puts him upon killing of Hector To conclude the Fable consists less in this Anger than in the Quarrel and Reconciliation wherein Agamemnon had as great a share as he So that the Poet makes no Scruple to mention them both in his Proposition when he comes as near the Fable it self as possible I sing says he the Anger of Achilles that has done so much mischief to the Grecians and caused the death of so many Heroes since the time that Agamemnon and he fell out and parted These Considerations ought not to degrade Achilles from the Honour of being the chief Personage which Homer has doubtless made him but they may serve to prove that though he is the chief Hero of this Fable yet he is not the only Hero as Vlysses and Aeneas are in the Fables that go under their Names Statius and Lucan have each of them two Heroes and they have like Homer given their Poems the Names of the Places where the Actions were done and not of the Heroes who did them But the Thebaid and the Pharsalia are such defective Poems that there 's no relying upon their Authority In Tragedies where the Name of the Personage is made use of for the Title the Poet adds something else to it when he makes several pieces under the Name of the same Hero Seneca has done this in his two Tragedies of Hercules The One he names from the Madness which transported him and the Other from the Place where he was burnt This is the Reason why more than one Name is requisite for the Title of Aesop's Fables for there is scarce an Animal but what is a Hero in several Fables But this signifies little to the Epick Poem 'T is rare that an Author makes two of these Fables under the Name of one and the same Person Nor do Poets use to denote the Action in the Title of the Poem Several Things happen'd to Medea Vlysses Aeneas and Troy and one might feign a great many under the Names of the Wolf and the Lamb which the Title alone would never inform us of This signifies nothing the Authors are well enough satisfied with these plain Inscriptions Medea the Odysseïs the Aeneid the Iliad the Lamb and the Wolf And they refer us to the Discourse it self to know what the Action is that is recited CHAP. III. Of the Proposition THE Epick Proposition is that first part of the Poem wherein the Author proposes briefly and in the General what he has to say in the Body of his Work And here two Things offer themselves to our Consideration first What the Poet proposes and secondly After what manner he does it The Proposition should only comprehend the Matter of the Poem that is the Action and the Persons that Act whether Divine or Humane We find all this in the Iliad the Odysseïs and the Aeneid The Action Homer proposes in the Iliad is the Revenge of Achilles that of the Odysseïs is the Return of Vlysses and that of the Aeneid is the Empire of Troy translated into Italy by Aeneas Nor should any one be surpriz'd at Homer's way of expressing himself in his first Words where he says he sings the deadly Anger of Achilles nor think he proposes this Anger as the Subject of his Poem He would not then have made the Rehearsal of an Action but of a Passion We are not to stop here since in truth he himself does not He says he sings this Anger which had been the Cause of so much Slaughter among the Greeks and of so many brave Mens Deaths He proposes an Action then and not a mere Passion for the Subject of his Poem and this Action is as we already hinted the Revenge of Achilles So in the two other Poems a Man is propos'd at first but the Proposition does not stop here it adds either that he underwent much in returning home to his own Country or that he went to settle in Italy and both of them propose an Action If Homer's Design had been to propose the two parts of each Poem his Design was not to do it very distinctly Yet we may conceive the first part of the Iliad by the Misfortunes of the Grecians and the second by the illustrious Deaths of so many Heroes The Grecians are greater Sufferers than the Trojans and there are fewer Heroes kill'd on their side but almost all are wounded The Proposition of the Odysseïs speaks plainly enough of the Travels of Vlysses but it leaves us rather to infer his Re-establishment in Ithaca than discovers it to us The Poet says his Hero did all he could to preserve and conduct back his Companions to Ithaca but that these miserable Creatures were their own Destruction and that the God whom they had offended would not suffer them to see the happy day of their Return By which 't is plain Vlysses did see the Day and preserv'd himself according to his Wish The Latin Poet has clearly distinguish'd the two parts of his Aeneid At first he makes his General Proposition in two Verses and then he makes a Division of it saying in the first place that he had suffer'd much both by Sea and Land and then secondly that he had likewise suffer'd much by War This is the most considerable Difference between Homer and Virgil. It was enough for Achilles to be reveng'd and Vlysses pretended only to save himself This is the Scope and End of the Odysseïs as Aristotle in the Scheme he has drawn very well observ'd But Aeneas had a Settlement to make and this Settlement was attended with great Consequences Virgil has been so exact that he has omitted nothing of it He advertises us that his Hero travell'd to Italy to build a City and establish his Gods and Religion there and he adds that from this Settlement proceeded the Latins the City of Alba and the Romans their Progeny It will not be amiss to make this one Reflection more that in the three Poems the Proposition takes notice where the Action of each Poem does begin This Beginning of the Iliad is the Beginning of the Quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles The Action of the Aeneid begins at Troy from whence Aeneas was forc'd to part The Odysseïs does not begin at the Ruin of Troy as the Aeneid but some time after This is what I had to say concerning the Action propos'd now for the Persons The Divine Persons are mention'd in the three Propositions Homer says that whatever happen'd in the Iliad was by Jupiter's Appointment and that Apollo was the Cause of the Quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles The same Poet says that it was Apollo likewise who hinder'd the Return of the Comerades of Vlysses Virgil likewise makes mention of the Fates the Will of the Gods and the Anger of Juno But these Poets chiefly insist upon the Person of the
Hero It seems as if he alone were more properly the Subject-matter of the Poem than all the rest Homer names Achilles particularly and adds Agamemnon to him as we hinted in the former Chapter Vlysses and Aeneas are not nam'd but only implied and that in such general terms that we should not know them had we not Information otherways that they are the Persons For what does the Proposition of the Odysseïs say concerning the Return of Ulysses from the Ruin of Troy but what might be in the Proposition of a Poem that treated of the Return of Diomedes This Practice might have perhaps some Respect to the primary Invention of the Poet who ought at first to feign his Action without Names and relates not the Action of Alcibiades as Aristotle says nor consequently the Actions of Achilles Vlysses Aeneas or any other in particular but of an Universal General and Allegorical person But since Homer has done otherwise in his Iliad and has mention'd Achilles by his own name and that of his Father too one cannot condemn the practice of naming the Persons in the Proposition Besides the Character which the Poet would give his Hero and all his Work is taken notice of likewise by Homer and Virgil. All the Iliad is nothing else but Heat and Passion and that is the Character of Achilles and the first thing the Poet begins with The Odysseïs in the first Verse presents us with the Prudence Dissimulation and Artifice that Vlysses made use of to so many different Persons And in the Beginning of the Latin Poem we see the Meekness and Piety of Aeneas These Characters are kept up by another such like Quality namely that of a Warriour The Proposition of the Iliad says that the Anger of Achilles cost a great many Heroes their lives That of the Odysseïs represents Vlysses as Victor of Troy from the Destruction of which he came And that of the Aeneid begins with Arms I have already observed that Horace speaks of Wars and Generals in the Subject Matter of the Epopéa As for the way of making the Proposition Horace only prescribes Modesty and Simplicity He would not have us promise too much nor raise in the Reader 's Mind too large Ideas of what we are going to Relate His words are these Begin not as th' old Poetaster did Troy's famous War and Priam ' s Fate I sing In what will all this Ostentation end The Mountains labour and a Mouse is born How far is this from the Maeonian Stile Muse speak the Man who since the Siege of Troy So many Towns such change of Manners Saw One with a flash begins and ends in smoke The other out of Smoak brings glorious light And without raising expectation high Surprizes us with Dazling Miracles The bloody Lestrygons in humane Feasts With all the Monsters of the Land and Sea How Scylla bark'd and Polyphemus roar'd Horace's Art of Poetry english'd by Roscommon And in truth what can be more Simple and Modest than the Proposition of the Odysseïs which does not promise us any great Action of this Hero but only the dangers and the continual Fatigues of his Voyages and the loss of his miserable Companions We shall find the very same Simplicity and Modesty in the Proposition of the Aeneid The Poet does not say his Hero had done much but only that he had suffered much Thô he speaks of Alba and the Roman Empire yet he proposes neither as parts of his Matter but as Consequences which other Heroes had brought to Perfection a great while after So Homer in his Odysseïs has spoken of the destruction of Troy but withal as an Action already done and which his Readers were not to expect would be rehears'd in the sequel of the Poem The Proposition of the Iliad is something more lofty in that it mentions the Deaths of so many Heroes But this is so far the Matter of this Poem that it seems as if it could not have been wholly omitted And besides Art might oblige the Poet to make some kind of Conformity between the Character of the Proposition and that of the whole Poem which is nothing else but a long series of Heat and Violence But to conclude the Poet acquitted himself of these Obligations with so much Simplicity and Modesty that one cannot charge upon him the Transgressing of Horace's Rule For he does not say that these Heroe's Deaths were the Effect of his Heroe's Valour and Courage He only says that he sings the Anger of Achilles which had brought so many disasters upon the Greeks and had been the Cause of the Death of so many Homes who were exposed as a Prey to Birds and Beasts Certainly if there is any thing of Grandeur here 't is not so much in any Glory or Splendor as in that Trouble and smoke which will scarce let us see it Beside this sort of Bombast which things proposed with too much glazing produce or which arises from the Dignity of the Personages that at the very first are praised unseasonably and set off with too great Ideas there is yet another that respects the Person of the Poet. He should speak as Modestly of himself as of his Hero or his Subject Virgil in plain terms says that he sings the Action of Aeneas Homer begs his Muse to inspire the Action into him or to sing it for him this was all Claudian has not followed these Exemplars He says his Song shall be full of Boldness That the Poetical Fury and the whole Divinity of Apollo had so swell'd his Mind and possess'd his Senses that they had not left any thing Human about him That the rest of mankind were profane whose conversation he could no longer endure With a great deal of such like stuff These Raptures well manag'd would look well enough in an Ode a Pastoral or some such Piece that is short enough to preserve them to the last and where we may suppose them to have been uttered all in a Breath But a Poem so long as an Epopéa admits not these Rhapsodical Propositions from a Poet that is well in his Wits This is Horace's Doctrine who would have the Proposition of the Epick Poem be simple and Modest and yet he sticks not in one of his Odes to do what Claudian does in the Proposition we cited This Poem of Claudian that begins so ill justifies the Rule which Horace has drawn from the Practice of Homer One may even there observe that those who are so daring in what they propose are so more out of Lightness and Vanity than out of any knowledge of their Abilities and Art and that commonly they are the least able to keep up to it Claudian was not able to carry the Terrors which he proposed as the Subject of his Poem any farther than the middle of his first Book And that Internal Darkness which should have eclipsed the light of the Sun could not take off from the lustre of the
and speak therein From whence we learn that since Aristotle requires this Qualification likewise in the Epopéa he thereby orders that the Personages speak likewise in this kind of Poem Nor does he hereby exclude the Narration of the Poet. This can never be since he himself says that the Epopéa is an Imitation carried on by a Narration and that in truth the Narration of the Poet is its Form which distinguishes it the most Essentially from the Actions of the Theatre But he means that these two things ought to be so mix'd that the Personages speak very often Homer says he who merits so much praise in other things is especially to be admired for this that he has been the only Poet who knew what he ought to do For the Poet should speak but little The Poetical Imitation consists not so much in what the Poet says as in what he makes his Personages say The other Poets shew themselves from the Beginning to the very End of their Poems They imitate but seldom and then they carry not on their Imitation very far Homer uses a quite contrary method After having said a very little himself he presently introduces some one or other of his Personages This is what Aristotle says nor needs it any Comment To this famous Example he has given us in Homer we might join that of the Latin Poet who speaks less in his Aeneid than he makes his Personages speak But the last Words of Aristotle are capable of two Interpretations the first is Homer says but little himself and presently introduces a Man or a Woman or something else that has Manners but without that Qualification he introduces nothing So that all the Words which follow the mention of a Man or a Woman signifie a Deity or a feign'd person which though in its own nature it has no Manners yet has some in the Poem into which Allegorically one may bring all manner of things as well as into other Fables For this thought is taken from the Nature of Fables in general When they are divided into different sorts by the term Moracae that is by the Manners that are attributed to something that has none we understand those where for the Personages we introduce Beasts Plants and such like things which in their own Nature have no Manners Thus for instance in the Fable of the Olive-Tree and the Reed the Olive-Tree is proud and vaunts it self because it stands so firm as not to bend to ev'ry blast of Wind as the Reed does Whatever then is introduc'd into Fables ought so necessarily and essentially to have Manners that the Author is oblig'd to bestow them upon things that naturally are not endued with them In short if the names of Man and Woman which Aristotle makes use of do not properly signifie Gods and Goddesses he would without doubt have omitted a great part of Homer's Personages He has done well then in adding or some other thing that has Manners And this will denote not only Apollo Thetis Jupiter and such like Deities who are angry complain and laugh as we do but likewise the Horse Xanthus that speaks in the Iliad the Horse Rhebus which Mezentius speaks to in the Aeneid Ethon who laments the death of Pallas and ev'n Fame who knows ev'ry thing and takes such a pleasure in telling Tales the Winds that are so Mutinous and Seditious that they would have overturn'd the Globe and dashed Heaven and Earth together by this time if Jove had not taken care to set a King over them who shuts them up close and when he lets them out always keeps a strict hand over them And this according to the first Interpretation is what Aristotle means by these other things which have Manners which the Poet introduces and makes to speak in the Fable The other way of Interpreting this passage of Aristotle is to say That he does not suppose that the Speeches the Personages are made to pronounce are the only means of making a Narration Active and Dramatick but that 't is so when the Manners are Apparent whether by the Persons speaking or only Acting therein or by any other way supposing you have a mind to give this Precept a little larger extent In this sense not only the Speech of Dido to the Princess her Sister to whom she discovers her passion for Aeneas would be Dramatical but this qualification would be likewise in the Verses that go before where one may observe the Agitations and the Disquietude of this Queen who from the time she first fell in Love had lost all her Quiet and Repose In this sense the learn'd Discourse of Anchises to his Son in the sixth Book may be likewise reckon'd among the Dramatical passages First because 't is not the Poet that speaks but one of his Personages Yet I declare 't is my opinion that this single Qualification is not a sufficient Reason why that which is spoken should be Dramatical if beside that there are not Manners to be observ'd therein Now there are Manners in this speech of Anchises That which he says there is the Foundation of all the Morality the Laws and the Religion which Aeneas was going to Establish in Italy So that the subject Matter of this Speech is a Moral Instruction wherein one may see the Immortality of the Soul establish'd and the Causes of the Passions and Manners both of the Living and the Dead But that which makes most for our purpose is that this Speech contains the Manners Habits and Condition of Anchises himself who spoke it and of those who were in the same place with him The Poet having us'd no small skill to engage him thereto Each of us Says he feel the torments that are proper to him then are we sent to the Elysian Fields where we a few in number spend our time c. But whatever Aristotle's sense is he does not seem to favour the simple Explication of Arts or Sciences which are without Manners and without Action and which have nothing of Morality in them If a Man would speak like a Poet he must Imitate Homer and conceal these things under the Names and Actions of some feign'd persons He will not say that Salt is good to preserve dead Bodies from Corruption and Putrefaction and that Flies would presently fill them full of Maggots But he will say that Achilles designing to revenge the Death of Patroclus before he perform'd the last Offices to his dead Body apprehends that the hotness of the Season would corrupt it and that the Flies that lighted upon his Wounds would engender Maggots there He will not barely say that the Sea offers him a Remedy against the Putrefaction he was afraid of But he will make the Sea a Divinity he will bring it in speaking In a word he will say the Goddess Thetis comforts Achilles and tells him he might set his heart at rest for she would go and perfume his Body with Ambrosia which should preserve it
least Fancy And here the Comical Part might have been carried on very regularly even as the Poet pleas'd But to return The Fiction might be so disguis'd under the Truth of History that those who are ignorant of the Poet's Art would believe that he had made no Fiction But the better to carry on this Disguise search must be made in History for the Names of some Persons to whom this feign'd Action might either Probably or Really have happen'd and then must the Action be rehears'd under these known Names with such Circumstances as alter nothing of the Essence either of the Fable or the Moral as in the following Example In the War King Philip the Fair had with the Flemings in the Year 1302 he sent out his Army under the Command of Robert Earl of Artois his General and Ralph of Nesle his Constable When they were in the Plain of Courtray in sight of the Enemy the Constable says 'T was so easie to starve them that it would be advisable not to hazard the Lives of so many brave Men against such vile and despicable Fellows The Earl very haughtily rejects this Advice charging him with Cowardice and Treachery We will see replies the Constable in a rage which of us has the most Loyalty and Bravery and with that away he rides directly towards the Enemy drawing all the French Cavalry after him This Precipitation and the Dust they rais'd hinder'd them from discovering a large and deep River beyond which the Flemings were posted The French were miserably cast away in the Torrent At this Loss the Infantry were so startled that they suffer'd themselves to be cut in pieces by the Enemy 'T is by this means that the Fiction may have some Agreement with the Truth it self and the Precepts of the Art do not contradict one another though they order us to begin by feigning an Action and then advise us to draw it from History As for the Fiction and Fable it signifies little whether the Persons are Dogs or Oronics and Pridamont or Robert d'Artois and the Earl of Nesle or lastly Achilles and Agamemnon 'T is time we should now propose it in its just Extent under the two last Names in the Iliad It is too narrow for an Epopéa under the former Names CHAP. VIII Of the Fable of the Iliad THE Fable of the Iliad at the bottom is nothing else but that which I just now propos'd I will treat of it here at large because I cannot give you a greater light into this Doctrine than by the Practice of Homer 'T is the most exact Model of the Epopéa and the most useful Abridgment of all the Precepts of this Art since in truth Aristotle himself has extracted them out of the Works of this great Poet. In every thing which a Man undertakes with Design the End he proposes to himself is always the first thing which occurs in his Mind and upon which he grounds the whole Work and all its parts Thus since the Epick Poem was invented to form the Manners of Men 't is by this first View the Poet ought to begin The School-men treat of Vertues and Vices in general The Instructions they give are proper for all sorts of People and for all Ages But the Poet has a nearer Regard to his own Country and the Necessities he sees his own Nation lie under 'T is upon this account that he makes choice of some piece of Morality the most proper and fittest he can imagine and in order to press this home he makes less use of Reasoning than of the force of Insinuation accommodating himself to the particular Customs and Inclinations of his Audience and to those which in the general ought to be commended in them Let us now see how Homer has acquitted himself in all these Respects He saw the Grecians for whom he design'd his Poem were divided into as many States as they had Capital Cities Each was a Body Politick and had its Form of Government independent from all the rest And yet these distinct States were very often oblig'd to unite together in one Body against their common Enemies And here we have two very different sorts of Government such as cannot be very well comprehended in one Body of Morality and in one single Poem The Poet then has made two distinct Fables of them The One is for all Greece united into one Body but compos'd of Parts independent on one another as they in truth were and the Other is for each particular State consider'd as they were in time of Peace without the former Circumstances and the necessity of being united As for the first sort of Government observable in the Union or rather in the Assembling of many Independent States Experience has always made it appear That there is nothing like a due Subordination and a right Understanding between Persons to make the Designs that are form'd and carried on by several Generals to prosper And on the other hand an universal Misunderstanding the Ambition of a General and the Under-Officers refusing to submit have always been the infallible and inevitable Bane of these Confederacies All sorts of States and in particular the Grecians have dearly experienc'd this Truth So that the most useful and the most necessary Instructions that could be given them was to lay before their Eyes the Loss which both the People and the Princes themselves suffer'd by the Ambition and Discord of these last Homer then has taken for the Foundation of his Fable this great Truth viz. That a Misunderstanding between Princes is the Ruin of their own States I sing says he the Anger of Achilles so pernicious to the Grecians and the Cause of so many Heroes Deaths occasion'd by the Discord and Parting of Agamemnon and this Prince But that this Truth may be compleatly and fully known there is need of a second to back it For it may be question'd whether the ill Consequences which succeed a Quarrel were caused by that Quarrel and whether a right Understanding does re-adjust those Affairs which Discord has put out of Order that is to say these Assembled States must be represented first as labouring under a Misunderstanding and the ill Consequences thereof and then as United and Victorious Let us now see how he has dispos'd of these Things in one General Action Several Princes independant on one another were united against a Common Enemy He whom they had Elected their General offers an Affront to the most Valiant of all the Confederates This offended Prince was so far provok'd that he withdrew himself and obstinately refused to fight for the Common Cause This Misunderstanding gives the Enemy so much Advantage that the Confederates are very near quitting their Design very dishonourably He himself who is withdrawn is not exempt from sharing in the Misfortunes he brought upon his Allies For having permitted his intimate Friend to succour them in a great Necessity this Friend is kill'd by the Enemies General Thus being both made
of them for her Husband and indulge themselves in all these Violences so much the more because they were perswaded he would never return But at last he returns and discovering himself to his Son and some others who had continu'd Loyal to him he is an Eye-witness of the Insolence of his Enemies punishes them according to their deserts and restores to his Island that Tranquility and Repose which they had been strangers to during his absence As the Truth which serves as a Foundation to this Fiction and which with it makes the Fable is That the absence of a Person from his own Home or who has not an Eye to what is done there is the cause of great disorders So the principal Action and the most Essential one is the absence of the Hero This fills almost all the Poem For not only this bodily absence lasted several Years but even when the Hero return'd he does not discover himself and this prudent disguise from whence he reap'd so much advantage has the same effect upon the Authors of the Disorders and all others who knew him not as his real absence had so that he is absent as to them till the very moment he punish'd them After the Poet had thus compos'd his Fable and join'd the Fiction to the Truth he then makes choice of Vlysses the King of the Isle of Ithaca to maintain the Character of his chief Personage and bestow'd the rest upon Telemachus Penelope Antinous and others whom he calls by what names he pleases I shall not here insist upon the many excellent Advices which are as so many parts and natural Consequences of the Fundamental Truth and which the Poet very dexterously lays down in those Fictions which are the Episodes and Members of the entire Action such for instance are these Advices Not to intrude ones self into the Mysteries of Government which the Prince keeps secret to himself This is represented to us by the Winds shut up in a Bull-hide which the miserable Companions of Vlysses must needs be so foolish as to pry into Not to suffer ones self to be lead away by the seeming Charms of an idle and lazy life to which the Sirens Songs invite Men Not to suffer ones self to be sensualiz'd by pleasures like those who were chang'd into Brutes by Circe And a great many other points of Morality necessary for all sorts of People This Poem is more useful to the Vulgar than the Iliad is where the Subjects suffer rather by the ill Conduct of their Princes than through their own fault But in the Odysseïs 't is not the Fault of Vlysses that is the ruin of his Subjects This wise Prince did all he could to make them sharers in the Benefit of his Return Thus the Poet in the Iliad says He sings the Anger of Achilles which had caus'd the Death of so many Grecians and on the contrary in the Odysseïs he tells his Readers That the Subjects perish'd through their own fault Notwithstanding it is to be confess'd that these great Names of Kings Hero's Achilles Agamemnon and Vlysses do no less denote the meanest Burghers than they do the Caesars the Pompeys and the Alexanders of the Age. The Commonalty are as subject as the Grandees to lose their Estates and ruin their Families by Anger and Divisions by negligence and want of taking care of their business They stand in as much need of Homer's Lessons as Kings they are as capable of profiting thereby and 't is as well for the Small as the Great that the Morality of the Schools that of the Fable and that of the Chair deliver those Truths we have been just speaking of CHAP. XI Of the Fable of the Aeneid IN the Fable of the Aeneid we are not to expect that simplicity which Aristotle esteem'd so Divine in Homer But tho' the Fortune of the Roman Empire envied the Poet this Glory yet the vast extent of the Matter it furnishes him with starts up such difficulties as require more Spirit and Conduct and has put us upon saying that there is something in the Aeneid more Noble than in the Iliad These very difficulties we are to solve and they call upon us for our utmost care and attention There was a great deal of difference between the Greeks and the Romans These last were under no obligation as were the former either of living in separated and independent States or of frequent confederating together against the common Enemy If in this respect we would compare our two Poets together Virgil had but one Poem to make and this ought to be more like the Odysseïs than the Iliad since the Roman State was govern'd by only one Prince But without mentioning the Inconveniences the Latin Poet might meet with in forming a Fable upon the same Foundation which the Greek had laid before him the Roman State furnish'd him with Matter different enough to help him to avoid treading in the footsteps of him that went before him and to preserve to him the glory of a primary invention Homer in the Odysseïs spoke only for States already establish'd and the Roman Empire was but of a new date It was the change of a Commonwealth to which Caesar's Subjects had been always extreamly biggoted into a Monarchy which till then they could never endure Thus the Instructions which the Poet ought to give both to Prince and People were quite different from those Homer left his Countrymen He ought to instruct Augustus as the Founder of a great Empire and to inspire into him as well as his Successors the same Spirit and Conduct which had rais'd this Empire to such a Grandeur A very expert Roman and a great Politician no less than Cicero himself informs us That good Humour and Humanity was so far Essential to this State that it was predominant even in the very midst of War and that nothing but an absolute Necessity could put a stop to its good effects And he adds That when this Conduct was lost and this Genius which gave life to the State was gone there was nothing left but bare Walls and what in propriety of Speech might be term'd a dead Carcase In short he shews the Advantages which a mild and moderate Government has over a cruel and severe Conduct which inspires Men with nothing but a slavish fear This then is the Instruction Virgil would give the Roman Emperors who began in the Person of Augustus to be settled upon the Throne This Instruction has two parts as each of Homer's had The first comprehends the Misfortunes which attend a Tyrannical and Violent Reign And the second the Happiness which is the Consequence of a mild Government Homer has plac'd both the parts of each Fable in one and the same Person Achilles at first is at variance with the Confederates and afterwards is reconcil'd to them Vlysses is absent from home and at last returns thither and in all this there is nothing of difficulty But Virgil
Discord still continued In like manner if Achilles being provok'd at the Death of Patroclus had set upon and kill'd Hector without being reconcil'd to Agamemnon the Omission of this Incident would have spoil'd the Fable We add farther that if Achilles had been less inexorable and had submitted to the Offers of Agamemnon before the Death of Patroclus and if this Quarrel had not cost him the Life of his Friend the Fable would have been spoil'd For since the Quarrel would have been only prejudicial to Agamemnon this Example would have shew'd us in the Person of Achilles that one might Quarrel and be at Variance without losing any thing which is quite contrary to the Moral of the Poet. We should deprive the Odysseïs of its very Soul and spoil its Fable should we retrench from it the Disorders which the Suitors of Penelope rais'd in the Isle of Ithaca during the Absence of Vlysses because this Poem would no longer inform us of the mischievous Effects which the Absence of a Commander a King or a Father of a Family does produce Lastly Take away from the Aeneid the Choice which the Gods made of Aeneas for the re-establishing of the Empire his Divine Arms the Care Jupiter took to engage Mezentius in the Quarrel where he was to be punish'd for his Impieties and the Terrors with which this God affrights Turnus and the Aeneid will no longer inform the Romans in favour of Augustus That the Founders of Empires such as this Prince was were the Chosen of Heaven that Divine Providence protects them from all manner of Violence and severely punishes the Impious who oppose their Designs All these Recitals want their Emphasis and that Instruction which is the most essential part of the Fable When a Poet goes this way to work he does not make such Epick Poems as Aristotle and Horace prescribes Rules for nor such as Homer and Virgil has left us such exact Patterns of It is not much matter whether these Recitals are of true Things such as those of Lucan and Silius Italicus or whether they are feign'd and drawn from Fables such as those of Statius in his two Poems He relates a Fiction they History but all three write more like Historians than Epick Poets 'T is true they have all a Mixture of Divinities and Machines which carry a Fabulous and Poetical Air in them but since these very Additions are likewise in true Fables they will never make these Recitals to be of the Nature of an Epopéa because these Fables consist only in the Additions and Decorations of the Action Now the Epick Fable is none of all this 't is on the contrary the Soul of a Poem and the Ground-work upon which all the rest is built And this Ground-work is to be prepar'd before one so much as think of the Decorations which make no part of the Essence of the Fable The being adorn'd and loaded with Animate Things will never make an Animal but there must be a Soul added to it And though all the Earth were cover'd and embellish'd with an infinite number of Trees and pierc'd very deep with their Roots yet it will never pass for a Tree it self CHAP. XVI Of the Vicious Multiplication of Fables ARistotle bestows large Commendations on Homer for the Simplicity of his Design because he has included in one single part all that happen'd in the Trojan War And to him he opposes the Ignorance of certain Poets who imagin'd that the Vnity of the Fable or of the Action was well enough preserv'd by the Vnity of the Hero and who compos'd their Theseid's Heraclid's and such like Poems in each of which they heap'd up every thing that happen'd to their principal Personage The Instances of these Defects which Aristotle blames and would have us avoid are very instructive These Poems are lost to us but Statius has something very like it His Achilleid is a Model of all the Adventures which the Poets have feign'd under the Name of Achilles O Goddess says this Poet sing of the magnanimous Son of Aeacus that has made Jove himself tremble and was deny'd Admittance into Heaven from whence he deduc'd his Origin Homer has render'd his Actions very famous but he has omitted a great many more than he has mention'd For my part I will not omit any thing 'T is this Hero at his full Length which I describe Here is a noble Design and Aristotle falls short of what he proposes All this cannot be consider'd but as an Historical Recital and without the least Glimpse of a Fable Nor can I represent the Idea I have of this Design better than by comparing it with the Fables of Aesop I have already compar'd the Iliad with one of these Fables and sure I may take the same liberty in a Poem that is less Regular and make a Comparison between the Achilleid which comprehends several Actions under one and the same Name and several Fables which likewise go under one Name Homer and Virgil diverted themselves with their Poems of the Gnat and of the Battel between the Frogs and the Mice nor shall I stoop lower when upon the like occasion I shall enlarge my self as far as the Design of Statius and the Necessity of this Doctrine require me Let us suppose then and Author who is as well vers'd in the Fables of Aesop as Statius was in the Epick Fable and who has read the Batrachomyomachia as well as Statius has the Iliad He shall have discover'd in this Battel between the Mice and the Frogs the great Commendations which Homer bestows on the Valour of one of the Heroes in this Fable upon Meridarpax for instance whose Bravery made Jove and all the Gods wonder no less than that of Capaneus in the Thebaid And as Statius has read of several Actions of Achilles which are not in the Iliad this Author likewise shall have read of many Adventures attributed to the Mouse which are not in the Batrachomyomachia of Homer He shall know what passed between the City-Mouse and the Country-Mouse in order to teach us That a little Estate enjoy'd quietly is better than a copious one that exposes us to continual fears He shall know that a Lion having spared the Lise of a Mouse was afterwards saved by this very Mouse who gnaw'd assunder the Toils in which he was caught whereby he might inform us That the good Offices we do to the most Infirm and Ignoble are not always lost He shall know the Story of the Mountains which after great Groans and much ado were deliver'd of a Mouse like those who promise much but perform little He shall have read in the Battel between the Cats and the Mice that the Mice being defeated and put to flight those amongst 'em who had put Horns upon their Heads as a distinguishing Note of their being the Commanders could not get into their Holes again and so were all cut off Because in the like Disorders the Chief Leaders and Men of
not contented to rehearse all that ever happen'd either to Achilles or to Hercules or to Theseus or to any other single Personage but he makes a Recital of all that ever happen'd to all the Persons of the Poetical Fables This Recital is by no means an Epick Poem but a Collection of all the Fables that were ever writ in Verse with as much Connexion and Union as the Compiler of so many Incidents could devise And yet I do not see how any one can condemn this Design and tax its Author with Ignorance provided none pretend that he design'd to make an Epopéa nor compare it to the Poems of Homer and Virgil as Statius has done his Achilleid and Thebaid CHAP. XVII Of the Regular Multiplication of Fables ALtho' we have been speaking so much against the Multiplication of Fables yet one cannot absolutely condemn it Our Poets have got several Fables in each of their Poems and Horuce commends Homer for it Nay Aristotle himself forbids it in such a flight way as might be easily evaded He finds fault with those Poets who were for reducing the Vnity of the Fable into the Vnity of the Hero because One Man may have perform'd several Adventures which 't is impossible to reduce under any One and simple head This reducing of all things to Vnity and Simplicity is what Horace likewise makes his first Rule According to these Rules then it will be allowable to make use of several Fables or to speak more correctly of several Incidents which may be divided into several Fables provided they are so order'd that the Vnity of the Fable be not spoil'd thereby This Liberty is still greater in the Epick Poem because 't is of a larger Extent than ordinary Poems and ought to be Entire and Compleat I will explain my self more distinctly by the practice of our Poets No doubt but one might make four distinct Fables out of these four following Instructions 1. Division between those of the same party exposes them to the fury of their Enemies 2. Conceal your weakness and you will be dreaded as much as if you had none of these Imperfections which they know nothing of 3. When your strength is only feign'd and founded only in the Opinion of others never venture so far as if your strength was real 4. The more you agree together the less hurt will your Enemies do you 'T is plain I say that each of these particular Maxims might serve for the Ground-work of a Fiction and one might make four distinct Fables out of them May not a Man therefore put all these into one single Epopéa No Our Masters forbid that unless he could make one single Fable out of them all But they do not at all forbid it if the Poet has so much skill as to unite all into one Body as Members and Parts each of which taken asunder would be imperfect and if he joins them so as that this Conjunction shall be no hinderance at all to the Vnity and the Regular simplicity of the Fable This is what Homer has done with such success in the Composition of the Iliad 1. The Division between Achilles and his Allies tended to the ruin of their Designs 2. Patroclus comes to their Relief in the Armour of this Hero and Hector retreats 3. But this young man pushing the Advantage which his Disguise gave him too far ventures to engage with Hector himself but not being Master of Achilles ' s strength whom be only represented in outward appearance he is killed and by this means leaves the Grecian Affairs in the same disorder which he in that Disguise came to free them from 4. Achilles provoked at the Death of his friend is reconciled and revenges his loss by the Death of Hector These various Incidents being thus Vnited together do not make different Actions and Fables but are only the uncompleat and unfinished Parts of one and the same Action and Fable which alone can only be said to be Compleat and Entire And all these Maxims of the Moral are easily reduc'd into these two parts which in my opinion cannot be separated without enervating the force of both The two parts are these That a right understanding is the Preservation and Discord the Destruction of States Tho' then our Poets have made use of two parts in their Poems each of which might have serv'd for a Fable as we have observ'd Yet this Multiplication cannot be call'd a vicious and irregular Polymythia contrary to the necessary Vnity and Simplicity of the Fable but it gives the Fable another Qualification altogether as necessary and as regular namely its Perfection and finishing stroke There are Fable which naturally contain in them a great many parts each of which might make an exact Fable And there are likewise Actions of the very same nature The subject Matter of the Odysseïs is of this kind for Homer being willing to instruct a Prince and his Subjects could not do it without Multiplying Instructions and this Prince's Travels into Countries quite different from each other are likewise different Actions This Multiplication of Instructions and Incidents is extremely approv'd of by Horace He commends the Adventures of Antiphates Polypheme Charybdis Circe the Sirens and others stiling them the Miracles of the Odysseïs One might likewise multiply the Fable another way by mixing with it some other Fable which should not be a part of the Principal one but only a Species of it This might be done by applying to some Point that is chiefly specified the Moral Instruction which the Action contains in general Homer has left us an Example of this in the Fable of Vulcan at the End of his first Book of the Iliad The General Instruction is That Discord is a prejudice of the Affairs of them who quarrel And this story of Vulcan applies it to the Injury which the falling out of Parents do their Children Jupiter and Juno quarrel their Son Vulcan is for perswading his Mother to submit to her Lord and Husband because he was most Powerful You know says he what befell me for endeavouring once to protect you from the rage of Jupiter He took me by the Heels and threw me headlong from his Battlements and I carry the marks of it still about me This Fable is quite distinct from the Body of the main Action for the Quarrel between Jupiter and Juno which cost Vulcan so dear had nothing to do with the Grecian Affairs 'T is likewise compris'd in five Lines CHAP. XVIII The Conclusion of the First Book THE Vnity of the Fable and the Regular or Vicious Multiplication that may be made thereof depends in a great measure upon the Vnity of the Action and upon the Episodes so we we shall speak more thereof in another place But in this and many other Points the Examen of our Authors and those particular Instructions one might descend to for an exact Understanding of this Doctrine would never be at end And tho
Poem according as we propos'd it The Moral does as well teach us how to avoid Vices as in conformity to Horace we said concerning the Iliad and Achilles as it does how to imitate Vertue as Horace observes of the other Poem and the other Hero of Homer And lastly the Fable which is the very Soul of the Poem and which is of the same nature in Homer as in Aesop is as regularly capable of the most base and Criminal Men and Animals for its first and only Personages as it is of the most generous and the most praise-worthy Without dwelling then upon any new proofs which the Inference will afford us we may conclude that Reason and the nature of the Poem the practice of Homer and the precepts of Aristotle and Horace do all inform us that 't is not at all necessary that the Hero of a Poem should be a good and vertuous Man And that there is no Irregularity in making him as treacherous as Ixion as unnatural as Medea and as Brutal as Achilles CHAP. VI. Of the Poetical Goodness of the Manners WHat we are going to deliver here concerning the Goodness of the Manners is only an Explanation of what Aristotle has writ about it in the fifteenth Chapter of his Poetry The whole Passage runs thus There are four things to be observed in the Manners The first and principal is the Method of making them good There will be Manners in a Speech or Action if as we before hinted either one or the other discovers on what the Person that speaks or acts will resolve Let these Manners be Vicious and bad provided they foreshow Vicious and bad Inclinations or good and Vertuous provided they likewise foreshow good and Virtuous Inclinations This happens in all sorts of Conditions for a Woman and a Foot-boy will be good in a Poetical Sense though commonly Women are rather bad and vicious than good and vertuous and Foot-boys are of no account This Passage has somewhat of Difficulty in it perhaps I have changed it too much by confining it to my sence but I had rather interpret it thus than otherwise After what has been said in the former Chapter I see not the least Reason to apply this Goodness which ought so strictly to be observ'd in the Manners of the Poetical Persons to Morality and Virtue I am of Opinion then that we are to understand this of the Poetical Goodness and this is what Aristotle would make out when afterwards he says that there will be Manners in a Speech or Action if either of them foreshow any Inclination Choice and Resolution as I have already said upon the occasion of another of Aristotle's Passages to which Aristotle refers us This will likewise serve to illustrate upon what account I have render'd the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by this Phrase upon what he will resolve This Greek Word signifies neither an Inclination nor a simple Act of the Will without Deliberation and Choice but it signifies the Choice which one makes and the Desire one has after some sort of Deliberation Thus Aristotle himself explains this Term very largely in his Ethicks The Word Resolution signifies thus much but being used alone is too equivocal Aristotle adds that the Manners are bad when the Resolutions that are taken are so and that the Manners are good when the Resolutions are good I did not think that this Goodness of the Manners was a Poetical Goodness and that his Meaning was that for the well ordering of the Manners in a Poem 't is requisite that the Persons which are introduced take such Resolutions and Designs as are just and good that an Author transgresses this Rule and makes the Manners Poetically bad when the Personages are determin'd to do a bad Action This Interpretation would condemn the Practice of Homer in the Person of Achilles in that of Agamemnon and in almost all the Personages of the Iliad and Odysseïs Certainly this was never Aristotle's Design The Aeneid it self would be liable to the same Censure Dido Turnus Amata Mezentius and several others would spoil all the places where they act so viciously that is to say they would spoil the whole Poem from one end to the other I have therefore interpreted this place in a moral sence and thought that Aristotle intended to teach us that the Poctical Manners are equally good let them be in a moral sense good or bad provided that the Poet order Matters so that they appear before hand to be such as either the good or the bad Persons of his Poem ought to have The rest of the Text confirms me farther in my Opinion and in the Distinction I have made between the Moral and the Poetical Goodness of the Manners Aristotle says that the goodness of the Manners he speaks of may be met with in all sorts of States and conditions even amongst foot-men who have no goodness in them Without doubt a foot-man cannot be Master of that goodness to which he has no right He will then be morally bad because he will be a dissembling drunken cheating Rascal and he will be Poetically good because these bad inclinations will be well exposed This Instance of Aristotle and the application he himself makes of what he says of the goodness of the Manners to a foot-man does teach us that he does not speak only in the behalf of Heroes let the word be taken in what sence soever but that this goodness he describes as well as the other Qualifications of the Manners reaches to all sorts of Poetical Persons from Kings and Princes down to foot-men and waiting Boys Without excepting any one in Comedy Tragedy and the Epopéa But though we mention the liberty Poets have of putting vicious Persons in a Poem yet this liberty has its bounds and Rules and they are not to suppose virtue and vice must go hand in hand together 'T is necessity and probability that regulate these two contraries And they regulate them so that when they give to vertue all that is possible yet they allow vice only that which cannot be cut off from the Poem without spoiling the Fable Thus Aristotle censures the Vicious Manners not because they are Vicious but because they are so without any necessity for it But he does not blame the obstinacy of Achilles as unjust and unreasonable as it was because it was necessary to the Fable If Achilles had received satisfaction from Agamemnon before the Death of Patroclus the action would have been at an End Or else Achilles would have fought no more and so the Fable would have been defective and imperfect Or else having no particular quarrel against Hector he would have fought only for the common cause and consequently the Siege and War of Troy would have been the Subject of the Poem and the Action would have been Episodical and spoil'd 'T was necessary then that Achilles should be unjust and inexorable But the Poet carries the Vices of Achilles no farther than
clear Intellect and exact Judgment and more than that a curiosity and desire to be acquainted with that which perhaps one does not judge important enough to deserve a long and serious Study Very often likewise the Customs of the Countrey and Education produce these bad effects upon the Mind and entertain them in this Ignorance and in such Judgments as are very disadvantageous to Vertue If we see Duels fought upon every slight Offence we shall imagine that a Man has no Valour if he puts up an Affront without fighting and he will meet with too many of his Friends who will prompt him to this sort of Revenge as Criminal as it is This is what a Person would never do who according to the Precepts of Horace had learnt the Duty of a faithful Friend and a good Subject And a Poet would never put this Maxim into the Practice or Mouth of a Personage he has a Mind to represent as a Man of Honour But to return to what we were saying about the distinction that ought to be made between the Lustre and the Solidity of Valour we will make this one Remark that seems to me very important 't is this That these two things are oft times opposite in the Essence of the Character Violent and Transporting Characters give a great deal more Lustre to the Actions they animate and to the Persons that have them and on the contrary the most Mild and Moderate are often without any Lustre and Glory yet these last are a great deal more proper to Vertue Perhaps I insist too much on this Subject but 't is of some moment both in General and in the Instance I propos'd just now of a Warlike Valour since this Quality is most usual in all Epopéas and the most capable of dazling both the Poets and the Readers I will therefore explain this Instance by the Valour that is in the Aeneid How many are there that put a higher value on the Warlike Vertues of Achilles and I will add even on those of Turnus than on those of Aeneas Yet Achilles is but a Souldier and Aeneas a Commander How then comes it to pass that they judge thus Unless 't is because they take the Noise the Show and the Transports of a furious Man for true Valour If after the same manner we compare Turnus with Aeneas the Pious Hero will doubtless seem inferior to his Rival But whoever will sit down here and will take the consequences and the ordinary attendance of a Quality for the Quality it self he will fall into the same impertinence as Numanus who in reproach to the Trojans says they deserve not the Name of Souldiers and that they had no more courage than Women because their way of dress is gaudy and delicate This is doubtless for want of being well acquainted with the Vertues of War and what the exact Character of a Valiant Man is Valour is the finest Ornament of the Character of Turnus and one might add that 't is all the goodness that is in it and this quality in Aeneas gives place to several others and principally to his Piety Therefore Piety is the thing that should be conspicuous in Aeneas his Valour should appear much less and on the other Hand Valour should be very illustrious and very shining in the person of Turnus So that he should be as much in love with War as Aeneas is in love with and desirous of Peace Whatever Turnus does in the Battels or in preparing for them is usually done with Design with Pleasure and with Discourses that are Magnificent very Pompous and Cogent Aeneas commonly acts without Noise and Affectation he speaks little and if he falls into a Passion 't is not so much to fight as because he is forc'd to fight and defend himself 't is not so much to Conquer as to put an end to the War But if the Lustre and the dazling show make the Valour of Turnus more conspicuous than that of Aeneas yet the Actions shew that in truth and reality the Valour of Aeneas is infinitely Superiour to that of Turnus We need only consider them without this Lustre and without this outward appearance which a bold Bragadocio and a rash young Man may have as well as the truest Bravo Turnus during the absence of Aeneas assaults his Camp being design'd prepar'd and arm'd with Malice and in three or four days he could not force it He breaks in by a passage his Bravery had opened for him he is constrain'd to break out again and at last after an Engagement of two days he is Routed and Vanquish'd by Aeneas with a bloody Slaughter Aeneas on the other Hand in the sight of Turnus and in view of an Army of Enemies assaults an ancient Town well built and well fortified and in a few hours becomes Master of its Rampants and Towers He is not forc'd thence by his Enemies but he comes down to make an end of the War by the Death of Turnus whom he forces to a Battel Pallas is conquer'd and kill'd by Turnus and Lausus by Aeneas These young Princes were equal in Valour but there is a great deal of difference between the Bravery of their Conquerors Turnus seeks this Battle he makes his Boasts and Brags of it and insults over this young Enemy who never fought a Battle before He wishes Evander were present he would butcher the Son before his Father's Face This is the Valour of another Achilles Aeneas is far from engaging with Lausus after this Manner who exposes himself for his Father's sake He on the contrary would save his Life he drives him off threatens him and becomes terrible and furious only because he was forc'd to kill him This is an Anger worthy of Aeneas and the exact Character of an Hero more valiant than Turnus but withal more pious than valiant The extream danger wherein he was being assaulted not only by Lausus but by a great many others at the same time does not yet hinder him from taking notice of that Affection which this Enemy who design'd his Death had for his Father Certainly it must needs argue greater Valour and Bravery to spare an Enemy at such a time than Turnus ever made appear in any of his Actions Aeneas and Turnus do the same Action of Generosity in returning the Bodies of these two Princes But Turnus with his usual Noise and Show insults over Pallas and Evander and seems as if he sent back the Body of the Son to his Unfortunate Father only to increase his sorrow I send him back his Pallas says he just such a one as he deserves to see him This is a very cruel generosity and very becoming an Achilles That of Aeneas is all vertuous all sincere Turnus insults o'er Pallas sets his foot upon him strips him of part of his Armour and decks himself with it Aeneas laments the Death of Lausus makes his Elegy lifts him from the ground himself takes him
Interest prompt him to The Humours and the Inclinations belong to the Doctrine of the Morals which we shall treat of particularly in the fourth Book We only joyn them here to the two other Causes we mention'd and of all three we affirm this in general That the Poet ought to inform his Readers of them and make them conspicuous in his principal Personages when he introduces them or even before he makes them appear Homer has ingeniously begun his Odysseïs with the Transactions at Ithaca during the Absence of Vlysses If he had begun with the Travels of his Hero he would scarce have spoken of any one else and a Man might have read a great deal of the Poem without conceiving the least Idea of Telemachus Penelope or her Suitors who had so great a share in the Action But in the Beginning he has pitch'd upon besides these Personages whom he discovers he represents Vlysses in his full Length And from the very first Opening of the Action one sees the Interest which the Gods had therein The Skill and Care of the same Poet may be seen likewise in introducing his Personages in the first Book of his Iliad where he discovers the Humour the Interests and the Designs of Agamemnon Achilles Nestor Vlysses and several others nay and of the Gods too And in his second Book he makes a Review of the Grecian and Trojan Armies which is full evidence that all we have here said is very necessary But lastly Since the Epick Poem is doubtless much longer than the Dramatick and since 't is easier to manage the Incidents and the Presence of the Personages in that than in the other one is not obliged to introduce all of them at the Beginning of the Epopéa with as much Exactness as in the first Act of a Theatral Piece where at least one is obliged to give some Item of all those who have any considerable part in the Intrigue I mention this upon the Account of Virgil's Practice He has been less exact than the Greek Poet for he says nothing of Turnus Latinus Amata and other Italians till the middle of his Poem But 't is true likewise that he has so disposed his Action as seems to justifie this Delay He has divided the Aeneid into two parts more sensibly than Homer has his Iliad and Odysseïs He not only makes this Division at the first and in his Proposition by saying that Aeneas suffer'd much when he was toss'd about from this Sea to that and from one Province to another and suffer'd also a great deal more in the Wars he was engag'd in but he likewise when he begins his second Part advertises his Reader of it and proposes the things he is about to mention as all new and quite of another Make from the former Thus in the first Book he introduces the principal Personages of his first part and he only speaks of those who were to appear afresh in the second Part in his sixth seventh and eighth Books And here in my mind he was less fortunate than the Greek Poet. Besides these more general Causes of the Action and of the main Intrigues there are still some Incidents and some Episodes more particular of which the Poet must give an Account This happens commonly not in the Beginning of the Action but only when the Poet is about to make one of his lesser Recitals The Reader could not guess how the Wound of Vlysses came which discover'd him to his Friends not why Camilla should be in love with War nor how it came to pass that Aeneas met with several Persons in the Shades below who were to come into the World many Ages after c. Therefore the Poet must tell him the Causes of all this These Causes must be good and suitable to the Subject All the Action of the Iliad is founded upon the Anger of Achilles The Cause of this Anger is the Displeasure Apollo conceiv'd against Agamemnon because Agamemnon likewise in his Anger had affronted the Priest of this God All these Passions have probable Causes and such as are suitable to the General Subject of the Trojan War For as this General Cause is Heten's being ravish'd from Menelaus so the other Causes are of the same Nature Chryseïs is ravish'd from her Father and Briseïs from Achilles In short all are stamp'd with the same Character of Injustice and Violence in these Heroes If the Hero be a Man of Probity the Causes of all his Designs should be just and commendable as those in the Odysseïs and the Aeneid And the Causes of the Persecution he meets with must not lessen the Esteem which the Poet would raise of his Probity Neptune persecutes Vlysses because Vlysses had blinded his Son Polypheme But this Monster had already devour'd six of the Comerades of Vlysses and was just upon serving Vlysses himself and the rest the same Trick Aeneas makes a more particular Profession of his Piety and accordingly Virgil uses him more honourably The Causes Juno had to persecute him did either not touch his Person or else were much to his Glory since the only one which concern'd him was the Choice which Fate made of him to lay in Italy the Foundation of the Empire of the World Juno is so far from having any scornful or hateful Thoughts for this Hero's Person that she was willing to trust him with all that was most dear to her on Earth and make him Lord over her own Carthage She could never have given a more considerable Token of her Love and Esteem for any Man CHAP. XIII Of the Intrigue and the Vnravelling thereof IN what was said about the Causes of the Action one might have observ'd two opposite Designs The first and most principal is that of the Hero The second comprehends all their Designs that oppose the Pretensions of the Hero These Opposite Causes produce likewise Opposite Effects viz. the Endeavours of the Hero for the accomplishing his Design and the Endeavours of those who are against it As these Causes and Designs are the Beginning of the Action so these contrary Endeavours are the Middle of it and form a Difficulty and Intrigue which makes up the greatest part of the Poem It lasts as long as the Reader 's Mind is in suspense about the Event of these contrary Endeavours The Solution or the Vnravelling begins when one begins to see the Difficulty remov'd and the Doubts clear'd up Our Poets have divided each of their three Poems into two Parts and have put a particular Intrigue and the Solution of it in each Part. The first Part of the Iliad is the Anger of Achilles who is for revenging himself upon Agamemnon by the means of Hector and the Trojans The Intrigue comprehends the three Days Fight which happen'd in the Absence of Achilles and it consists on one side in the Resistance of Agamemnon and the Grecians and on the other in the revengeful and inexorable Humour of Achilles which would not