Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
friend_n	arm_n	great_a	king_n	885	5	3.4421	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58062	Observations on the poems of Homer and Virgil a discourse representing the excellencies of those works; and the perfections in general, of all heroick action. Out of the French, by John Davies of Kidwelly.; Comparaison des poèmes d'Homere et de Virgile. English. 1672.	Rapin, René, 1621-1687.; Davies, John, 1625-1693.	1672 (1672)	Wing R266; ESTC R217966	42,159	138

pursues them flying quite to their ships Diffugiunt alii ad naves littora cursu Fida petunt But orepress'd by number Dymas Hypanis and his other friends being killed by his sides he runs to the Palace where the danger was greatest and attaques it with all his might in hopes to rescue the King and all of the Royal Family Instaurati animi Regis succurere tectis He comes thither too late the Greeks had put all within it to the sword and being the only person left of his party Jamque adeo super unus erami and finding himself deserted by all there being not any thing left in the Palace that might occasion his stay after he had seen the King the Queen and her Daughters slaughter'd he runs to his own house to spend his own life in defending that of his Father But his mother Venus stops him in his way and opens his eyes to let him see that it is against the Gods he thinks to fight and that they are the destroyers of Troy and not only the Greeks Mixtoque undantem pulvere fumum Neptunus muros magnoque emota tridenti Fundamenta quatit totamque a sedibus urbē Eruit Hic Juno Scaeas saevissima portas Prima tenet sociumque vocans a navibus agmen Ferro accincta vocat c. Jupiter and Pallas are also against him So that Aeneas who saw them might have contented himself without pursuing things any further it had been an impiety and not a mark of valour to stand out longer against so many Gods combin'd together Yet being come to his house which he did only in order to the defence of his Fathers life though with the loss of his own and perceiving he would not survive the destruction of his Country he arms once more at least to go and court a glorious death Hic ferro accingor rursus And there must be Prodigies from Heaven and advertisements from the Gods themselves ere he will be diverted Subitoque fragore Intonuit laevum c. Anchises himself is the interpreter of them and Aeneas could not submit to any thing but that Cessi sublato montem genitore petivi T is not to Men but to the Gods only that he yeilds I am in doubt whether Gallantry can be advanc'd any higher and yet this is but the beginning and the first essay of that of Aeneas all the courageous actions he performs in the sequel of the Aeneid bear the character of his valour which will appear miraculous even in these times wherein that excellent name is without any distinction bestowed on the most temerarious sallies and eruptions of fury and brutality From these observations it will be no hard matter to judge which of the two Heroes Achilles and Aeneas is the most compleat and accomplish'd which is one of the most essential parts of the Poem I come to the second which is the disposition of the Fable OBSERVATION VI. Of the disposition of the fabulous part of the two Poems THe disposition or distribution of the Fable consists in three things to wit the natural deduction or consequence of the principal action and all the matters which compose it an exact intermixture of what is probable and what miraculous and the marshalling and correspondence of the Episodes or Digressions with the principal action These three qualities which comprehend the distribution of the Fable by Aristotle called the Constitution of the things are so essential to the Poem that it cannot be absolutely compleat without them The first is the Action which ought to be entire and perfect according to the advice of Aristotle that is to say as he explains it such as hath a beginning a middle and an end Horace would have these parts to have a certain proportion and connexion among themselves Primo nè nedium medio ne discrepet imum And these are the observations which may be made upon our Poems as to this point If the action and principal subject of the Iliad be the war of Troy according to the sentiment of Horace a great Master in that Art who calls Homer Trojani belli Scriptorem and that of many others that action is defective and imperfect for that war has not in the Iliad either beginning or end and it would be as it were a Statue which should have neither head nor foot So that we might apply to that work this verse of Horace Infelix operis summâ qui ponere totum Nesciat But if it be the anger of Achilles as it is more likely and as Homer himself acknowledges by his proposition that anger has indeed a beginning but it has neither end nor middle for it is thrust out of doors by another animosity of the same person against Hector for the death of Patroclus So that there are two angers one upon the losse of his Friend the other upon their taking away of his Mistresse But the greatest defect is that the rest of the Poem has no connection with that anger and Homer during the space of eighteen books thinks no more of it as if he had clearly forgot his proposition and designe which like a starre should regulate the course of it or be as it were a Compasse which a man cannot have out of his sight but he must deviate During that long intervall he speaks only of sieges battells surprises consultations of the Gods and all relates to the siege of Troy Which occasion'd Horace's being of opinion that the subject of the Iliad is the war of Troy according to the very name it goes under And so which way soever we look on that Poem it will appeare defective in that part Nor is the Odyssey an action any way more perfect than that of the Iliad It begins with the voyages of Telemachus and ends with those of Vlysses All is made for Telemachus in the four first books Menelaus Nestor and the other Grecian Princes relate to him the adventures of Troy all relate to that there 's no thought at all of Vlysses which made Paul Beni affirme in his Academical Discourses upon Homer and Virgil that the Fable of the Odysses is clearly double E chiaramente provato che l'Odisse a contenga due peregrinationi e in somma sia di doppia favola Not that I absolutely allow it to be so yet I stick not to pretend that it is hard to find therein the principal action very regularly carried on and according to the proportions requir'd by Horace in the forementioned precept for the natural connection of the parts Nay this very voyage of Telemachus bears not any proportion to that of Vlysses which is the principal action It contributes nothing at all nay not so much as to minister any occasion for his returne which is brought about by the disposition of Iupiter and the assistance of the Phenicians Which made Beni say that the four first books of the Odyssey are neither Episode nor part of action nor have any connection with

in the subject whereof I treat will appear yet much more evident if we but take the pains to compare the pourtraicture which Horace hath left us of Achilles with that which Virgil makes of Aeneas Achilles is a Bravo but withal a hasty impetuous furious passionate violent unjust inexorable one a contemner of Lawes and one that places all his reason in the sword he wears by his side Impiger iracundus inexorabilis acer Jura negat sibi nata nihil non arrogat armis Besides those excellent qualities which certainly are not very Heroick he is cruel towards the body of Hector so far as to take a pleasure in exercising his vengeance upon it and out of an un●xampled avarice he sells to the afflicted Father the body of his son I shall not say any thing of his quitting with a lightnesse not to be pardon'd that great and generous enterprise made by a general combination of all Greece upon the occasion of a she slave for whom he abandons himselfe to tears and complaints with so many discoveries of weaknesse In fine this Hero of Homer whose repute is so great and so highly celebrated through all ages is but an epitome of imperfections and vices But on the contrary Virgil makes a conjunction of all the vertues to frame his he gives him Religion towards the Gods piety towards his Country tendernesse and friendship for his Relations and equity and justice towards all He is undaunted in danger patient in labours courageous when occasion requires prudent in the management of assaires In sine he is a good peaceful liberal eloquent gentile civill person his very aire makes a certain discovery of grandeur and and majesty and that he may not be destitute of any one of those qualifications which might contribute to the accomplishment of a great Person he is fortunate Ilioneus gives Dido a character of him in these two Verses which may be confronted to those two of Horace wherein Achilles is describ'd Rex erat Aeneas nobis quo justior alter Nec pieiate fuit nec bello major armis These are the three soveraign qualities which make up his essentiall character Religion Iustice and Valour and which were those of Augustus whose pourtraicture Virgil drew in the Heroes he dedicated to him as Monsieur de Segrais hath well observ'd in the learned Preface to his Traduction of the Aeneid which is one of the most subtle and ingenious flateries that ever were wherein happen'd to him what Pliny said somtime after with so much smartnesse in his Panegyrick to the Emperor Trajan For Ovid tells us that Piety was one of the eminent qualities of Augustus who made it so much his care to reestablish the Temples at Rome Sub quo delubris sentitur nulla senectus Nec satis est homines obligat ille Deos. So that out of the vertues of Augustus and an infinite number of perfections distributed and scattered among divers other Heroes Virgil fram'd his in as much as the true Heroick vertue is a combination of all the vertues as Aristotle affirmes in his Ethicks And indeed if the Pythagoreans would have a Soveraigne that he might deserve the preheminence over others not only to be without any defect but also absolutely accomplish'd in and possess'd of all the Vertues with much more reason should a Hero who is the model according to which Kings ought to regulate themselves be a person of transcendent and consummate vertue OBSERV V. Which of the two Heroes was most eminent as to Gallantry and Valour Yet may we allow all these Observations without giving the preheminence to Aeneas For the character of Valiant which Homer gives Achilles which of all the characters implies most of the Heroick humour makes a great show and is infinitely more accomplish'd than that which Virgil gives Aeneas and denotes and distinguishes him much better from all those of his party though all valiant For there is nothing done without him and he alone occasions the good and bad fortunes of his Army I must confesse the valour of Achilles makes a greater noise and show then that of Aeneas in regard it is the only Heroick quality Homer gives him and by which he distinguishes him and so itis the more remarkable being alone and in Aeneas being attended by many others it is so much the lesse observable inasmuch as the lustre of it is confounded with that of all his other qualities We find in Achilles only the Hero of Homer but in that of Virgil we have Menelaus Agamemnon Vlysses Ajax Nestor Diomedes and Achilles himself if we follow Virgil but any thing closely through all the transactions he makes him go through in the second book of Aeneids Nay it may be affirm'd that if we can exactly distinguish between true Valour and Temerity and shall have well observed the circumference which Aristotle in the Ethicks attributes to the magnanimous person we shall find that Virgil exalts the Valour he attributes to Aeneas as far as it ought to go but we must take the leisure to make an attentive reflection thereon to find that character in him and ought not to suffer any of all the circumstances wherewith he endeavours to prepossesse our minds to escape our observance In the first place he brings in Aeneas advertis'd by Hector who appears to him after his death that the Greeks have supriz'd Troy that they are Masters of it and that its destiny is to be destroy'd This advertisement coming from a deceas'd person Religion renders his testimony sacred and to take him off from all endeavours to defend it he assures him that he had done the utmost he could by his courage Sat patriae Priamoque datum est He might have contented himself with ●hat being inform'd by so sacred a ●estimony of the will of the Gods but ●waken'd by the noise of the sacking of the City and the conflagration of the neighbouring houses he goes up himselfe to the top of his house to discover the cause of that noise and disorder and his apprehensions prompt him to take armes and die for his Country Pulchrumque mori succurrit in armis The danger startles him not though he were alone at his going forth arm'd out of his house Without consulting his own people he runs to the place where the tumult was the confusion of a surpriz'd City and the most pressing exigency that could be call him away In flammas in arma feror Having in his way met with Choroebus Dymas and Hypanis with some others whom he knew he leads them on and animates them by his example Moriamur in media arma ruamus He with his own hands kills Androgeos one of the most forward of the enemies Commanders he makes a great slaughter of the Greeks with a handful of his own people he and they take up the arms of the slain to disguise themselves which proved so successeful that he forc'd some out of the City and