Rules to any Art one cannot question but these four Persons had all Authority on their side with respect to the Epick Poem And this is the only kind we shall treat of at present 'T is true the Men of our Times may have as much Spirit as the Ancients had and in those things which depend upon Choice and Invention they may likewise have as just and as lucky Fancies But then it would be a Piece of Injustice to pretend that our new Rules destroy those of our first Masters and that they must needs condemn all their Works who could not foresee our Humours nor adapt themselves to the Genius of such Persons as were to be born in after-Ages under different Governments and under a different Religion from theirs and with Manners Customs and Languages that have no kind of relation to them Having no Design then by this Treatise to make Poets after the Model of our Age with which I am not sufficiently acquainted but only to furnish my self with some sort of Foundation in the Design I have of explaining the Aeneid of Virgil I need not concern my self with every new Invention of these last Times I am not of Opinion that what our late Authors think is universal Reason and such a common Notion as Nature must needs have put into the Head of Virgil. But leaving Posterity to determine whether these Novelties be well or ill devis'd I shall only acquiesce in what I think may be prov'd from Homer Aristotle and Horace I will interpret the one by the Other and Virgil by all Three as having the same Genius and Idea of the Epick Poesie CHAP. II. What is the Nature of the Epick Poem THE most considerable difference my Subject presents me with between the Style of the Ancients and that of the last Ages is That our way of Speaking is plain proper and without the Turn Whereas theirs was full of Mysteries and Allegories The Truth was mask'd under these ingenious Inventions which for their Excellence go under the name of Fables or Sayings as if there were as much difference between these fabulous Discourses of the Wise and the ordinary Language of the Vulgar as there is between the Language that is proper to Men and the Sounds brute Beasts make use of to express their Passions and Sensations At first the Fables were employ'd in speaking of the Divine Nature according to the Notion they then had of it This sublime Subject made the first Poets to be stil'd Divines and Poetry the Language of the Gods They divided the Divine Attributes as it were into so many Persons because the Infirmity of a Humane Mind cannot sufficiently conceive or explain so much Power and Action in a Simplicity so great and indivisible as is that of God And perhaps they were jealous of the Advantages they reap'd from such excellent and refin'd Learning and which they thought the vulgar part of Mankind was not worthy of They could not tell us of the Operations of this Almighty Cause without speaking at the same time of its Effects So that to Divinity they added Physiology and treated thereof without quitting the Umbrages of their Allegorical Expressions But Man being the chief and the most noble of all the Effects which God produc'd and nothing being so proper nor more useful to Poets than this Subject they have added it to the former and treated of the Doctrine of Morality after the same manner as they did that of Divinity and Philosophy And from Morality thus discours'd of has Art form'd that kind of Poem and Fable which we call the Epick What the Divines made their Divinity that did the Epick Poets make their Morality But that infinite Variety of the Actions and Operations of the Divine Nature to which our Understanding bears but little proportion did as it were force them upon dividing the single Idea of the only one God into several Persons under the different Names of Jupiter Juno Neptune and the rest And on the other hand the Nature of Moral Philosophy being such as never lays down a Rule for any particular thing the Epick Poets were oblig'd to unite in one single Idea in one and the same Person and in an Action that appear'd singular all that look'd like it in different Persons and in various Actions which might be thus contain'd as so many Species under their Genus Therefore when Aristotle speaks to this purpose That Poetry is more serious than History and that Poets are greater Philosophers than Historians are He does not only speak this to magnifie the Excellence of this Art but to inform us also of the Nature of it Poesie says he teaches Morality not by Recital only as an Historian who barely tells us what Alcibiades for Instance 't is Aristotle's own Instance did or suffer'd But by proposing whatever a Person let the Poet call him by what name he pleases ought either necessarily or in all probability to have said or done upon that or the like occasion 'T is in this Nature that the Poet lays down the bad Consequences of an ill-grounded Design or a wicked Action or else the Reward of good Actions and the Satisfaction one receives from a Design form'd by Vertue and manag'd by Prudence Thus in the Epopea according to Aristotle let the Names be what they will yet the Persons and the Actions are Feign'd Allegorical and Vniversal not Historical and Singular Horace is likewise of the same mind as we shall see hereafter Only by the way we cannot but observe that he not only says that Poets teach Men Morality full as well as Philosophers but in that he even gives Homer the Pre-eminence The reason Poets are more excellent herein than the plain downright Philosopher is this that every sort of Poem is in general an Imitation Now Imitation is extremely natural and pleases every body By which means this way of proposing things is more charming and more proper to take with an Audience Besides Imitation is an Instruction by Examples and Examples are very proper to perswade since they prove such or such a thing is feasible In short Imitation is so far the Essence of Poetry that it is Poetry it self as Aristotle the first Founder of this Art tells us And Horace recommends it very particularly to the Poet he would create But thô Poets play the Moral Philosophers yet still they are no less Divines The Morality they deal withal does indispensibly oblige them to have a Vein of Divinity run thrô all their Works Because the Knowledge the Fear and the Love of God in a Word Piety and Religion are the chief and solidest Foundations of other Vertues and of all Morality The Presence of the Deity and the Care such an August Cause ought to take about any Action obliges the Poet to represent this Action as great important and manag'd by Kings and Princes It obliges him likewise to think and speak in an elevated way
simply say the Hero by that Name we understand only Achilles in the Iliad Vlysses in the Odysseïs Aeneas in the Latin Poem in a word the principal Personage in any Poem There is likewise a particular signification of the Word Heroick when 't is used to denote an Epopéa and so distinguish this sort of Poem from others Aristotle and Ovid give this Name not to the Poem but to the Verses made use of therein and which they likewise call Hexameter Verses This last has been almost the only Name we have retain'd If we should call Epick Poems Heroick Poems because of the Heroick Verses that are made use of therein one might with as much reason call the French Epopéas Alexandrine Poems since the Verses they use in these Poems are called Alexandrines And if the Name Heroick comes from the Personages of the Poem who are styl'd Heroes Tragedy would be as much an Heroick Poem as the Epopéa would since the Action and the Personages of Tragedy are no less Heroick than the Action and the Personages of the Epopéa But I question whether these Reflections be so useful as to deserve so many Words They may only serve to discover to us the different use of the Terms Hero and Heroick among the Ancients and the Moderns and to prevent condemning the first for such Notions which they never follow'd When we know that they did not affix the Idea of Vertue to these Terms taken in a Poetical sense that they never confin'd the Name of Hero only to the principal Personage in the Poem and that they did not call the Epopéas by the Name of Heroick Poems We shall not in these Works look for Examples of a real and excelling Vertue and no one will wonder that Horace has said on the contrary that all the Iliad where so many Hero 's lost their lives contains nothing but Injustice Violence Passion and Wickedness I have omitted one signification of the word Hero which may be considered as Moral and as Poetical In this sense we call some Men that were born of some Deity and a Mortal Person as Achilles who was the Son of the Goddess Thetis and Peleus and Hercules who was the Son of Jupiter and Alomena But this lays no obligation upon Poets to make these Heroes good Men Because there were likewise wicked Gods And one may likewise observe that sometimes the Poets do make these Divine Men very Wicked Persons witness Polypheme and Cacus The first of these though Neptune's Son was a horrible Monster and devoured his Guests and contemn'd Jupiter himself Cacus was the Son of God Vulcan and yet Virgil says there was no Villainy but this notable Rascal would undertake This is said in the general concerning all sorts of Heroes let us now take a particular View of the chief personages in each Poem Aristotle says That an Heroical and Divine Vertue is some thing more than Humane and consequently that Heroes are Divine Persons and that the excellency of their Nature raises them above all Men. But he says this in his Book of Morality In his Poetry he teaches a quite contrary lesson that this chief personage of a Poem whom we style a Hero should be neither good nor bad But he would have him be between both neither advanced above the rest of Mankind by his Vertue and his Justice nor sunk below them by his Vices and Wickedness There is nothing then of Communication between these two sorts of Heroes one of which ought to be advanced by his Vertue above the rest of Mankind and the other should not be in the same Class with Men of perfection Besides it must be observed that he only speaks of that which is the most compleat part in the Poems and not simply of that which is regular and allowable And moreover that this Mean which he requires is for complex Fables So that he does not absolutely exclude from the number of these Poetical Heroes neither Persons of the greatest Vertue such as Vlysses nor the most Vicious such as Ixion and Medea Horace mentions these two last among the Regular Heroes He says that she should be barbarous and inflexible and Ixion treacherous Certainly this Critick never wrote his Rules for Irregular Personages But since lastly both Aristotle and Horace approve of Homer's practice in the Manners he has given to Achilles and since they propose this Hero as a Model for other Poets to imitate the Bad Morals of this Personage should convince us that according to the Rules of Aristotle and Horace and according to Homer's practice 't is by no means necessary that the principal Person of an Epopéa should be an honest Man For never does an honest Man prefer his own passion and private Interest to the publick Cause the Glory of his Country the Honour and the Life of his Innocent Friends Never did an honest Man use such vile Language as this to his General Go thou Impudent Drunken fearful Fellow there are none but drones who obey thee These contumelies are Seditious and of very bad consequence and they are so much the more Criminal because he who said them might be the Ringleader of a Faction A good Man if God denies him any thing will never break out into a passion against him and will never tell him that he will be revenged on him if he can 'T is only profane and Mad-men that speak thus Was Aristotle ignorant of these continual Extravagancies of Achilles Or did this learned Philosopher take them for real Vertues There is not the least colour for such a Thought We should more probably believe that Aristotle considered this Poetical Hero only as a Savage directly opposite to the Hero of his Morality For in the passage above cited he opposes this Brutality to the Heroick and Divine Vertues Because a God and a Beast are incapable the one of Vice and the other of Vertue And in truth the one of these Natures is of too high and the other of too low a pitch Laws are made for neither the one nor the other of them And is not this what Horace says of the Character of Achilles He should not acknowledge that he was under the tye of any Laws Therefore there is no medium he belongs to one of the two contraries which Aristotle proposes either above or below Mankind he is Divine or Brutal And which to fix upon is no hard matter Horace says he is a Fool. Homer 't is true has some faults and Horace owns it but the Character of Achilles cannot be one of these faults which are so few are no offence and are owing either to humane frailty or a pardonable negligence These are the faults Horace censures or to speak more properly which he excuses in Homer And can this be applied to the Character of Achilles We conclude this Point by confirming the practice of Homer and the Authority of Aristotle and Horace with a reason drawn from the Essence of the
to be all on fire Capaneus sees all this without being mov'd and was so far from abating any thing of his fierceness his threats and the hopes he had of taking the City spite of all the Gods which declar'd War against him that he was for snatching the Weapons from Heaven it self and casting its Fires to burn the City If Statius had not imagin'd these Extravagancies one could never have believed they should enter into the Mind of any Author The Gods of this Poet do not take these for extravagancies They are really affraid of them and dread this Man alone more than all Mankind together They betake themselves to Jupiter Apollo groans Bacchus bemoans himself Hercules much affrighted with a Bow in his Hand knows not on what to resolve Venus is all in tears To conclude the calamity is Universal and to the disgrace of Jupiter before whom they seem to prefer Capaneus the admiration they conceived for this great Hero and struck them dumb and made them fear this Sovereign of the Gods had not a shaft sufficient to conquer this single Man The Poet himself gives us to understand that their fear was not altogether groundless For after Jupiter had shot his Thunder against him with all his force and had shatter'd to Dust the Armour Capaneus wore this Bravo had still power left him to stand upon his Feet so long that Jupiter thought he must shoot another Bolt at him One would fansie the fear is now over But so great a Poet is not contented with so little Cataneus during his life made only the Thebans tremble and fly and now at his Death when he was destroyed by Thunder he fills his own Men with consternation and puts both Parties to flight because they knew not on which side he would fall nor whose Troops he would crush into pieces thereby This is an Instance of these false Characters wherein Men fall for want of Judgment and Knowledge An Author by these great Amplifications thinks he shall be a great Poet. But he even degrades himself from the very name of Poet since these Fictions being of such things as cannot be in Nature are no Imitations And yet all Poesie is essentially an Imitation The Remedy for this is to believe Horace herein and to be perfectly instructed in Morality 'T is to know that all things have their Limitations 'T is to know these Limitations and to keep within them 'T is lastly to be convinc'd that those that transgress these bounds as in the Examples we have been proposing in propriety of speech make neither Characters nor Personages but meer Chimeras which were never any where but in the Imaginary Species of these Authors Brains The End of the Fourth Book Monsieur Bossu's Treatise OF THE EPICK POEM BOOK V. Concerning the Machines CHAP. I. Of the several sorts of Deities IN the former Book concerning the Manners we discoursed concerning the Terrestrial and Mortal Persons and in this under the name of Machines we shall treat concerning the Divine and Immortal persons So that this will be nothing else but a Consequence of what has been said about the Manners and the Persons since the Gods as well as Men are Actors in the Epopéa We shew'd the Necessity of this in our first Book where we likewise took notice that all these Divine Personages are Allegorical We observed that there are three sorts of them Some are Theological and were invented to explain the Nature of God Others are Physical and they represent Natural things The last are Moral and they are the Representations of Vertues and Vices These three sorts of Divinities or Allegories are sometimes to be met with in one and the same person Now for Instances of each and first we will begin with the Theological In the Convention of the Gods by which Virgil opens his tenth Book Jupiter Juno Venus and we might add Fate are Personages of the first sort that is such as represent the Divine Nature divided into four Persons as into so many Attributes Jupiter is the Power of God Fate is his absolute Will to which his very Power submits because God never acts contrary to his Will Fate therefore determines Jupiter who of himself is indifferent and might as well act in behalf of Turnus as in favour of Aeneas and his party Venus is the Divine Mercy and that Love which God bears towards Vertuous Men by which he is induced never to forget them in the miseries they endure upon Earth but to help them out of 'em and finally to Reward them Lastly Juno is his Justice This punishes even the least offences spares not even the very best of Men who not being wholly Innocent are punished severely for their defaults in this Life where the Justice and the Temporal Wrath of God is often declar'd against them and so persecutes them that there might be nothing left in them but what was Vertuous Meritorious and matter of Reward This Reward is reserved for them in Heaven where this Vindictive Justice has nothing to do and from whence it cannot exclude them as Jupiter tells Juno when he mention'd Aeneas The Poet suits himself to our gross way of conceiving Divine things and to the Infirmity of our Minds which makes us look upon these Qualities in God as opposite to one another Mercy upbraids Justice of its severity that it is never satisfied let Good Men suffer never so much and that it never allows them any Repose here on Earth whilst Justice on the other hand accuses Goodness and Mercy of its being the Cause of all the Sins that are Committed because it shelters Criminals and puts them in hopes of going off unpunished The Deities of the second sort that are purely Physical are employ'd in the first Book in raising the storm against Aeneas Aeolus is the Power of Nature which gathers together about Hills and in their Caverns the Vapours and Exhalations whence Winds are form'd And having digested these Matters to a certain degree of Heat and Dryness puts them upon those Motions and Agitations which we call the Winds 'T is thus that Aeolus is their Master These Vapours and Exhalations arise in the Air which is represented by Juno 'T is therefore to this Goddess that the God of the Winds is beholden for his heavenly Chear There 's no need of taking Notice what is meant by the persons of Eurus and Zephyrus nor that of Neptune who speaks to them We have one instance of the Moral Deities in the Engagement of Turnus with Aeneas The Furies which Jupiter sends against Turnus are nothing else but the Reproaches of his Conscience which shew him his Crimes and Impiety King Latinus foretold him of this at the very beginning of the War giving him to understand that if he was so insolent as to despise the Gods when 't was at his choice not to oppose their Orders he would at last be oblig'd when too late to one that
without countenancing that Corruption and Vice which the rest are but too much inclined to So that how Judicious or excuseable soever Homer has been in this Invention yet a Poet now-a-days would be neither Judicious nor Excusable if he should venture to Imitate him therein It is good to teach what he taught But 't is very bad teaching it his way However things are yet this is a particular Case which should not hinder us from concluding That Vertue and Goodness do no more belong to the Manners and Character of the Poetical Gods than to the Manners and Character of Men. If a Poet speaks of the Gods in Natural Philosophy he will give them such Manners Speeches and Actions as are conformable to the Nature of the things they would represent under these Divine Persons He will say that the God of Sleep is Good Bad True a Cheat c. Because we have pleasant Dreams and we have offensive ones sometimes they instruct us sometimes deceive us very often are vain c. The case is the same in Moral Deities Minerva is Wise because she represents Prudence Venus is both Good and Bad because the Passion we enjoy under her Name is capable of these two opposite Qualities Theology likewise has its Variety The most sound part of it should say nothing of the Gods but what is good But it may likewise attribute several passions to them such as Anger Revenge Sorrow c. Not that they have any such in reality but only in condescension and after the language of Men they are said to have such as we hinted before in speaking of Virgil's Juno and Venus But there are several Sects and a Poet should take care who those are that he brings in speaking For an Epicurean for instance cannot give any Passion to the Gods His Theology teaches him that they enjoy a perfect Repose and do not so much as concern themselves with any of the Affairs of Mankind We might likewise add that the Passions and the Vices of each person form to him his particular Theology The debauch'd Pagans thought the Gods could not be happy without enjoying the Pleasures of Sense And they charg'd upon them their Lasciviousness as we before observ'd in the Example of the Phaeacans There are others who think there is no God at all Or at least would perswade themselves that he does not regard us Virgil has given us an Instance of this deplorable change in the person of Dido This Princess at first entertains Aeneas with Vows and Prayers which she puts up to the Gods with a sincere Piety Because then she was Innocent and at Quiet She begins to love Aeneas contrary to the Vow she had made to the Manes of her first Husband which to her was a kind of Deity She begins at the same time to suppose that these Manes are no longer concerned about her and lay no Obligation upon her to keep her Vow Last of all being more corrupted she becomes guilty of Impiety against the Gods And seeing that Aeneas was about to leave her by their Order she would perswade him that they are Ignorant of what is done here on Earth Not that she was really and absolutely perswaded of so impious a Maxim The Poet was too judicious to make so great and so strange an alteration in the Manners of this Queen in so short a time 'T is her Passion that makes her speak thus But still 't is true to affirm that these Words are not absolutely jargon in her Mouth but have some foundation in her Heart This therefore is a Beginning of Impiety which naturally happens to those whose Vices and Passions are Violent and which at last leads them into downright Atheism Atheists speak neither well nor ill of the Gods They despise this belief and laugh at those who adore and worship them Such a one is Virgil's Mezentius All that we have said here concerning the Manners of the Gods ought to be applied to that which we have said concerning the Morals or Manners of Men. The Manners of the Gods are capable of the four Qualifications which we have given to the Others They may be Poetically Good since they may appear in the Speeches and Actions of the Divine Persons we introduce They will be suitable if we give to these persons such Manners as the Nature of the things we represent require And if as we make a King Magnificent and Jealous of his Authority so we make Fame to be a lying and malignant Goddess They will be Likely if we speak of Venus Mercury c. Conformable to that which is reported of them in Fable and which the first Poets have invented about them And they will be Even or Equal if in a long series we see the same Character maintain'd CHAP. III. How the Gods act in a Poem SINCE among the Gods there are some Good some Bad and some between both and since of our very Passions we may make so many Allegorical Deities To the Gods one may attribute all the Good or Ill that is done in a Poem But these Deities do not always act after the same manner Sometimes they act invisibly and by meer Inspirations and this has nothing in it extraordinary or miraculous This is no more than what we say every day That God has assisted us upon such or such an Occasion or that the Devil has inspir'd a bad Action into this or that Man 'T is thus that Juno helps Turnus in the Ninth Book of the Aeneid when he was engaged in the Trojan Camp and thus Venus in the Twelfth Book inspires Aeneas and puts him upon Assaulting the Town of the Latins that so Turnus might be forced to the Combat which he industriously avoided The Poet may make the Gods act thus even among Atheists For though these Impious wretches acknowledge no God yet they cannot withdraw themselves from his Power He disposes of them as he thinks fit and without their perceiving it can turn their thoughts and designs as he pleases This is Virgil's practice in the person of Mezentius 'T is Jupiter who minded at last to punish him for all his Crimes engages him in a fight with Aeneas To this way of the God's Acting we might likewise refer that which they insensibly contributed to an Action for which they are thank'd The God Mars does not appear at all in the fight of the Tenth Book of the Aeneid Yet Aeneas owns he was obliged to him therein And to him dedicates the Trophy which he raised of the Arms of Mezentius These Divine Actions are simple and deserve not the Name of Machine And they are such as are allowable in the most exact Tragedies and Comedies The other way whereby the Gods Act is altogether Miraculous and Extraordinary and this whether they present themselves Visibly and make themselves known to Men as when Mercury discovered himself to Aeneas in the Fourth Book Or whether they disguise themselves under some human
First Book p. 50. BOOK II. Concerning the Subject-Matter of the Epick Poem or concerning the Action Chap. I. WHat the Subject-Matter of the Epick Poem is p. 53. Chap. II. Episodes consider'd in their Original p. 57. Chap. III. An Explication of the foregoing Doctrine by an Instance p. 59. Chap. IV. Of the several sorts of Episodes and what is meant by this Term. p. 61. Chap. V. Concerning the Nature of Episodes p. 64. Chap. VI. The Definition of Episodes p. 67. Chap. VII Of the Vnity of the Action p. 69. Chap. VIII Of the Faults which corrupt the Vnity of the Action p. 74. Chap. IX Of the Integrity of the Action p. 79. Chap. X. That the Action ought to be a Whole p. 81. Chap. XI Of the Beginning Middle and End of the Action p. 85. Chap. XII Of the Causes of the Action p. 89. Chap. XIII Of the Intrigue and the Vnravelling thereof p. 92. Chap. XIV The Way of Forming the Plot or Intrigue p. 95. Chap. XV. How to dispose or prepare the Vnravelling p. 98. Chap. XVI Of the several sorts of Actions p. 101. Chap. XVII Of the Conclusion of the Action p. 103. Chap. XVIII Of the Duration of the Action p. 107. Chap. XIX Of the Importance of the Action p. 110. BOOK III. Concerning the Form of the Epick Poem or concerning the Narration Chap. I. OF the Parts of the Narration p. 113. Chap. II. Of the Title of the Epick Poem p. 116. Chap. III. Of the Proposition p. 117. Chap. IV. Of the Invocation p. 123. Chap. V. Of the Body of the Poem or the Narration properly so called p. 127. Chap. VI. How the Narration is pleasant p. 128. Chap. VII Of Probability p. 132. Chap. VIII Of the Admirable or the Marvellous p. 137. Chap. IX Of the Passions p. 140. Chap. X. How the Narration ought to be Active p. 145. Chap. XI Of the Continuity of the Action and the Order of the Narration p. 149. Chap. XII Of the Duration of the Narration p. 154. BOOK IV. Concerning the Manners of the Epick Poem Chap. I. COncerning the Manners in General p. 159. Chap. II. Of the Causes of the Manners p. 161. Chap. III. Concerning the Manners of other Sciences besides Poetry p. 166. Chap. IV. Of the Manners of Poetry p. 169. Chap. V. Whether the Hero of the Poem ought to be an honest Man or no p. 173. Chap. VI. Of the Poetical Goodness of the Manners p. 177. Chap. VII Of the three other Qualifications of the Manners p. 180. Chap. VIII Of the Character of the Personages Aristotle's Words about it p. 186. Chap. IX Of the Characters of Achilles Ulysses and Aeneas p. 191. Chap. X. Of the Character of the other Personages p. 194. Chap. XI What the Character is p. 197. Chap. XII Of the Vnity of the Character in the Hero p. 199. Chap. XIII The Vnity of the Character in the Poem p. 202. Chap. XIV Of the Justness of the Character p. 205. Chap. XV. Of False Characters p. 211. BOOK V. Concerning the Machines Chap. I. OF the several sorts of Deities p. 215. Chap. II. Of the Manners of the Gods p. 218. Chap. III. How the Gods act in a Poem p. 222. Chap. IV. When one must make use of Machines p. 225. Chap. V. How the Machines are to be used p. 228. Chap. VI. Whether the Presence of the Gods is any Disparagement to the Heroes p. 230. BOOK VI. Concerning the Thoughts and the Expression Chap. I. THe Foundation of this Doctrine p. 235. Chap. II. Concerning Descriptions p. 239. Chap. III. Of Comparisons or Simile's p. 244. Chap. IV. Concerning Sentences p. 247. Chap. V. Concerning disguis'd Sentences p. 251. Chap. VI. Concerning several other Thoughts p. 257. Chap. VII Of the Expression p. 260. Chap. VIII How one ought to judge of the Elocution of a Poem p. 263. D'Acier's Essay upon Satyr p. 267. Monsieur Fontanelle upon Pastorals p. 277. ERRATA PAge 2. Line 34. read Of Epick Poesie p. 9. l. 12. for Morals r. Manners P. 10. l. 24. r. Regimens p. 14. l 29. r. Of the Fable p. 28. l. 18. r. so much as desiring p. 29. l. 27. r. Cutting off his Enemies p. 43. l. 24. for Model r. Draught p. 50. l. 11. r. at an end p. 65. l. 16. for this r. that p. 72. l. 40. for the r. this King of Kings p. 110. l. 11. r. Obligation p. 112. l. 10. r. Ilus p. 121. l. 31. r. Glaring p. 138. l. 29. for yes r. lies p. 139. l. 9. for two r. too p. 148. l. 33. for he follows his Advice r. whose Advice he follows p. 149. l. 15. r. concerning the Continuity p. 151. l. 14. for two r. too p. 168. l. antepenult r. that these are not vices p. 171. l. 17. r. relentless p. 174. l. 16. r. to distinguish p. 182. l. 35. for Faces r. Phases p. 187. l. 4. r. Valet p. 197. l. 22. r. dazzling p. 203. l. 15. for Print r. Rein. p. 208. l. 11. r. Glaring p. 213. l. 12. r. Raze ibid. l. 17. r. and to break down Bridges p. 214. l. ult r. Spaces p. 217. l. 13. r. to own p. 218. l. 34. r. in this sort of Writing p. 226. l. 1. for learn r. leave p. 245. l. 36. r. to an Amazon p. 250. l. 10. for befel r. be felt p. 263. l. 26. for Projections r. Proportions Monsieur Bossu's Treatise OF THE EPICK POEM BOOK I. Of the Nature of the Epick Poem and of the Fable CHAP. I. The Design of the whole Work ARTS as well as Sciences are founded upon Reason and in both we are to be guided by the Light of Nature But in Sciences neither the Inventers nor the Improvers of them are to make use of any other Guides but this Light of Nature Whereas on the other hand all Arts depend upon a great many other things such as the Choice and Genius of those who first invented them or of those who have labour'd at them with an Universal Applause Poetry is of this Nature And thò Reason might have first founded it yet it cannot be deny'd but that the Invention of Poets and the Choice they have been pleas'd to make have added thereto both its Matter and Form 'T is then in the excellent Pieces of Antiquity we are to look for the Fundamentals of this Art And they are only to be rely'd on to whom all others yield the Glory of having either practis'd with the most Success or collected and prescrib'd Rules with the greatest Judgment The Greeks and Latins have furnish'd us with Examples of both kinds Aristotle and Horace left behind them such Rules as make them by all Men of Learning to be look'd upon as perfect Masters of the Art of Poetry And the Poems of Homer and Virgil are by the Grant of all Ages the most perfect Models of this way of Writing the World ever saw So that if ever a Just and Supreme Authority had the Power to prescribe Laws and
very well separate these two Natures from one another and say that the Fable is that which constitutes the Nature of the Epopéa and that the Poem tells us how to manage the Fable and comprehends the Thoughts the Expression and the Verse The Matter of it is an Action feign'd with probability and drawn from the Actions of Kings Princes and Gods This tells us two Things the Action and the Persons and therein it does not at all differ from Tragedy The Form of it is that the Persons are not here introduc'd to the Spectator's view acting by themselves without the Poet as in Tragedy But that the Action is recited by the Poet. The End of the Epick Poem is to lay down Moral Instructions for all sorts of People both in general and in particular This part belongs to the Poem as it is a Fable It contains the Moral which serves for the Foundation of the Fable and besides that it contains the Manners of those Personages who make some considerable Figure in the Poem Lastly as the Form includes the Person of the Poet who makes the Rehearsal So does the End comprehend the Persons of the Audience for whom the Poet designs his Instructions All these Things will make up the Subject-Matter of this Treatise But 't is not necessary they should be all handled with the same particularity and exactness Some will very naturally fall under others as that will for instance which we have to say concerning the Poet and his Audience To treat of the End and the Moral a-part would require too vast a Compass I shall content my self to speak thereof in speaking of the Fable and in other Places where the necessary connexion of that Part with the rest will afford me just Occasions of speaking as much of it as is requisite for my purpose Aristotle divided the Thoughts and Expressions into two Parts as was very requisite But so many Authors have handled these Things and so copiously too that I think my self excused from repeating and copying those Things which are under the Jurisdiction of other Arts. I will leave these Things then to the Rhetoricians Grammarians and to those who have writ so much about them even in Poetry it self So that the little I have to say will be compris'd in one part And my Unwillingness to be copious is the Reason which obliges me to speak still less of the Poem and Versification But I shall write very fully of the Fable as being the most essential part of the Epopéa So likewise I shall concerning it a Form and its Matter Nay more I shall handle distinctly the Morals of the Persons And lastly I shall distinguish the Gods from the Men. The Gods are usually express'd by the Name of Machines because the Poets make use of such to let them down upon the Theatre from whence the Epopéa has likewise borrowed the Name According to this Account this Treatise will be divided into six Parts or Books The First will be concerning the Nature of the Epick Poem where we shall treat of the Fable The Second Book will treat of the Matter or of the Epick Action The Third of the Form or the Narration The Fourth of the Manners and Characters of Humane Personages The Fifth of Machines or of the Presence and Action of the Gods And the Sixth of the Thoughts and Expressions CHAP. V. Of the Poem A Poem is a Discourse in Verse and a Verse is a part of a Discourse measur'd by a certain number of long and short Syllables with a grateful Cadence that is constantly repeated This Repetition is necessary to distinguish the Notion we have of Verse from that of Prose For in Prose as well as Verse every Period and Clause are so many parts of a Discourse measured by a certain number of long and short Syllables but Prose is ever and anon altering its Cadences and Measures which Verse never does The Repetition which the Poets make use of seems still the same in the way of Writing for when one Verse is finish'd they come back again to the beginning of another Line to write the next Verse And this coming back again is that which gives it the Name of Verse and this Name in Latin is common to Verses and several other things that are rang'd as they are in different Lines as Trees for instance which are set in Rows The Latins call Verses likewise by the Name of Carmina but this is an Equivocal Term for besides its signifying Verses or Poems it may be used to express other things 'T is a Term that is given to the Singing of Birds to the Charms of Magick to certain Forms of Law to Inscriptions or Devices to Epitaphs and other such like things For the making of Verses 't is not enough to take care of the Measure and Quantity of the Syllables and to place six Feet just after one another in the same Line there must be likewise some grateful Cadences of which there are several Rules laid down in treating about Caesura's Synalepha's the Length of Words and the like Besides this there must be some Tenses of Verbs some Moods some Regiments some Constructions and some Words proper only to Verse and which Prose knows nothing of But above all there must be in Verse the Turn and some ways of speaking that are elevated bold and metaphorical which are so proper to this kind of Writing that without them the most exact placing of long and short Syllables is not so much Verse as Prose in Metre And on the contrary these bold Expressions so proper to Verse when used in a Discourse that has not Feet nor Poetical Numbers do give it such an Air of Verse that it is not so properly Prose as a kind of Poesie without Numbers and as Horace says Disjecti Membra Poetae As Nature does not inspire into us the Rules of Poetry and Verse so neither does Art and Study help us to that Air that Force and that Elevation in which Horace discovers something that is Divine and which only makes a Man deserve the Name of Poet. This is an Accomplishment a Man should be born with owing either to the Excellency of his Nature or to some happy Transports but withall so extraordinary that the Ancients and Aristotle himself stile them Fits of Enthusiasm or Frensie yet still there is to be supposed an exact and solid Judgment to master this Frensie and Imagination of the Poet. From what has been said we may conclude that the End of Poetry is to please that its Cause is either the Excellency of the Poet's Nature or the Poetick Frensie and these Transports of Spirit that are to be govern'd by Judgment It s Matter is the long and short Syllables the Numbers it is made up of and the Words which Grammar furnishes it with as well as Prose And its Form is the ranging of all these Things in such exact and charming Verses as may best
Surely Seneca's Design in making her speak thus was only to put her Audience upon admiring her fine Faculty of discoursing Pro and Con and what a great many pretty Sentences she had got by heart Let the case be how it will since he had a design to make use of this Nurse to debauch the chaste Resolution of Hippolytus he makes her speak well enough this second Speech and he re-assumes the Poetical Goodness when he quite the Moral Goodness and when he makes her vent such profligate Maxims Since then the Goodness that is proper to the Poetical Manners is to make them appear such as they are it is necessary to observe what are the things that discover to us the Inclinations of the Personages The first thing is the Speeches and Actions There are Manners in a Poem says Aristotle if as we said the Speeches and the Actions discover to us any Inclination The Poet makes his Personages speak and act as he pleases So that these two things are owing to him they are wholly at his disposal And they are the foundation of all the rest When the Manners are well exprest after this way they are denoted purely and simply by the term Good and this Goodness makes their first Qualification Aristotle places it in the front of all the rest that it may be the more exactly observed Horace likewise orders the Poet to be exact in demonstrating the Manners The second thing is the Knowledge which a Genius Study and Experience gives us of the Inclinations that are proper to each Person according to the Complexion the Dignity and all the other Causes whether natural or acquir'd internal or external all which we mention'd before As soon as the Poet has given the Dignity of a King to one of his Personages without hearing him speak or seeing him act we know that he ought to be grave majestical jealous of his Authority and the like The Inclinations should be suitable to that which the Poet has proposed and this Conformity and Suitableness makes the second Qualification of the Manners The third thing is the Knowledge which we deduce from the Fable or the History This sort of Discovery is comprehended under the Name of Common Opinion or Fame for the Reasons we have already mentioned So that when a Poet has nam'd Alexander we know that the Inclination of this Personage is all for Greatness and Glory and that his Ambition is larger than the Extent of the whole Earth If he introduces Achilles we know he is angry passionate and impatient The Manners of these Heroes in the Poem should be like to that which Fame has reported of them and this Resemblance makes the third Qualification of the Manners Lastly because the Poems may be divided into two parts as the Aeneid the one half whereof requires Piety and Patience and the other Violence and War a Man may fansie according to these so different States he may likewise make the Characters of his Hero different And then the Manners of each Part will be good in particular But because the Speeches and the Actions of the first Part have discovered the Inclinations which the Poet gives his Hero and because the Reader sees 't is so in the Fable and History and has the same Effect as common Fame this would be to offend against the first and third Qualification if we change the Character that is known from whence it follows that the Poet is oblig'd to make it constant and Even that is such at the End of the Poem as it appear'd to be at the Beginning and this Evenness of the Character is the fourth Qualification of the Manners So that there are four things to be observed in the Manners first that they be good secondly suitable thirdly likely and fourthly even These four Qualifications are comprehended in Aristotle's Definition so that if one should transgress any one of these he would transgress this Definition by making us pass a wrong Judgment upon the Inolinations of a Personage and the Resolutions he ought to take The most important and hardest thing is to distinguish these two sorts of Goodness in the Manners the one which we may call Moral Goodness and which is proper to Vertue and the other Poetical to which the most Vicious Men have as much Right as the Vertuous It consists only in the Skill of the Poet to discover rightly the Inclinations of those he makes to speak and act in his Poem That which raises the greatest Scruple is that the Poetical Manners suppose the others and Aristotle not only speaks of these two sorts in his Poesie but farther he makes use of the same Term to express these two sorts of Goodness To wind our selves out of this Difficulty 't will not be amiss to begin here by examining whether according to Aristotle the Poetical Hero ought necessarily to be an honest and vertuous Man For if this be not so then 't is plain that when Aristotle requires for the first and most principal Quality of the Manners that they be good he would not be understood to speak of that Moral Goodness which makes Men good and which is inseparable from Vertue So that though we do not perhaps penetrate through all the Obscurity of this Expression yet we shall at least know the bottom of his Thoughts And since this Question is necessary we shall not stick to add Reason and the Authority of others to that of Aristotle and that will establish it the better CHAP. V. Whether the Hero of the Poem ought to be an Honest Man or no THIS Question will seem unreasonable to those who have but one single Idea of their Heroes and who acknowledge none of that Name but those excellent Men who are endued with every Virtue are Masters of their Passions and all their Inclinations and whom an excellent and Divine Nature raises above the rest of Mankind But neither the Ancient Poets nor the Masters of this Art ever thought of placing their Heroes in so high a Sphere without thinking it lawful to put them in a lower form 'T is requisite then to make the same Distinction between a Hero in Morality and an Hero in Poetry as we did between Moral and Poetical Goodness and to say that Achilles and Mezentius had as much right to the Poetical Goodness as Vlysses and Aeneas So that these two cruel and unjust Men are as regular Heroes of Poetry as these two Princes that are so Just so Wise and so Good In the Poem it self this Term admits of two sences Sometimes it signifies indifferently all the persons of Note So that not only Aeneas and Turnus but likewise Entellus in the sports of the Fifth Book and Misenus the Trumpeter of Aeneas in the Sixth are styl'd Heroes by the Poet. But though the Name of Hero may be also bestow'd on other Personages yet there is so particular an Application of it made to the first that when one