Selected quad for the lemma: son_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
son_n	begin_v	king_n	reign_v	13,807	5	9.8575	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49887	Monsieur Bossu's treatise of the epick poem containing many curious reflexions, very useful and necessary for the right understanding and judging of the excellencies of Homer and Virgil / done into English from the French, with a new original preface upon the same subject, by W.J. ; to which are added, An essay upon satyr, by Monsieur D'Acier ; and A treatise upon pastorals, by Monsieur Fontanelle.; Traité du poème épique. English	Le Bossu, René, 1631-1680.; W. J.; Dacier, André, 1651-1722. Essay upon satyr.; Fontenelle, M. de (Bernard Le Bovier), 1657-1757. Of pastorals.	1695 (1695)	Wing L804; ESTC R10431	296,769	336

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

Misfortunes of Kings And the Moral instruction that was most in Vogue at that time was such a one as did beget in Men an Aversion to Monarchy and a love to Democracy which they call'd liberty What the Poets feign'd of Oedipus contain'd all these things and was very proper to prevent the Grandees from Aspiring to Tyranny and to inspire others with a Resolution never to endure it This Fable being thus conceiv'd has very naturally these five parts The first comprehends the Misfortunes of the People The second is the Enquiry into the Cause and the Remedy of these Misfortunes The third is the Discovery thereof The fourth is the Effect of this Discovery and the performance of what the Gods requir'd namely the punishing those Crimes that had been the Cause of the Ills which the People suffer'd And the fifth is the Cure and Joy that ought to be the Consequence of the Repentance and Punishment of Oedipus But this last part was very improper for the Theatre The Calm and Languishing Passions of which the spectators upon this occasion were hardly capable would have enervated and spoil'd the Beauty of those violent Passions so proper to Tragedy and with which the Audience were to be inspir'd The Poet then was not to make an exact Episode of this last part On the other hand he has divided the second part into two and has supply'd his five Acts in the following Method 1. The Plague rag'd in the City of Thebes and brought so many Miseries and dreadful Deaths upon them that King Oedipus touch'd with the Misfortune of his Subjects would freely have left the Kingdom But he hopes for some Relief from the Oracle he has sent to consult and attends its Answer 2. Creon brings him the Answer and informs him That the Cause of the Thebans Misfortunes is the Murder committed upon the person of his Predecessor King Laïus And that the Remedy is the punishing of the Murderer Oedipus sets himself upon his duty of punishing the Offence And to discover who this Murderer was whom no body as yet knew he orders Tiresias to be sent for This Priest began by a Sacrifice but that made no discovery of the thing in question 3. He then had recourse to more powerful means He calls up from the shades below the Ghost of Laïus who discovers to him that King Oedipus is the Assassin that ought to be punished and moreover that this Prince who thought himself innocent was at the same time guilty of Incest and Parricide But Oedipus inform'd of this only by Creon and supposing he was born at Corinth Son to King Polybus and Queen Meropa is very confident of his own Innocence and gives no Credit to the Report Creon made him He is perswaded 't is a Falshood invented to out him of the Kingdom to which Creon was next Heir 4. But at last he understands that he did kill Laïus and was his Son and Jocasta's whom he had ignorantly married 5. He punishes himself severely plucks out his own eyes goes into Exile and so restores Health and Quietness to his People CHAP. IV. Of the several sorts of Episodes and what is meant by this Term. THE Word Episode passing from the Theatre to the Epopéa did not change its Nature all the Difference Aristotle makes between them is that the Episodes of Tragedy are shortest and the Episodes in these great Poems are by much the longest So slight a Difference should be no hinderance to our speaking of both after the same manner This Word according to Aristotle is capable of three distinct Meanings The first arises from that Enumeration of all the parts of Tragedy which we mention'd For if there are only four parts viz. The Prologue the Chorus the Episode and the Epilogue it follows that the Episode in Tragedy is whatever does not make up the other three and that if you substract those three the Episode necessarily comprehends all that remains And since in our times they make Tragedies without either Chorus Prologue or Epilogue this Term Episode signifies all the Tragedy which is made now-a-days So likewise the Epick Episode will be the whole Poem There is nothing to be substracted thence but the Proposition and the Invocation which are instead of the Prologue In this sense the Epopéa and Tragedy have each of them but one single Episode or rather are nothing else but an Episode and if the Parts and Incidents of which the Poet composes his Work have an ill Connexion together then the Poem will be Episodical and defective as we hinted before But as all that was sung in Tragedy was according to Aristotle's Expression call'd the Chorus in the Singular Number and yet its being in the Singular was no reason why each part when it was divided into several should not be call'd the Chorus too and so several Chorus's be introduc'd just so in the Episode each Incident and each part of the Fable and the Action is not only stil'd a part of the Episode but even an Entire Episode 'T is in this sense that Aristotle said the Madness of Orestes and his Cure by Expiatory Sacrifices were two Episodes This Term taken in this sense signifies each part of the Action exprest in the Model and first Constitution of the Fable such as the Absence and Travels of Vlysses the Disturbance of his Family and his Presence which re-adjusted all things Aristotle tells us of a third sort of Episodes when he says that whatever is comprehended and exprest in the first Platform of the Fable is Proper and the other Things are Episodes This is what he says just after he had propos'd the Model of the Odysseïs We must then in the Odysseïs it self examine what this third sort of Episode is the better to know wherein it differs from the second We shall see how the Incidents he calls proper are absolutely necessary and how those which he distinguishes by the Name of Episodes are in one sense necessary and probable and in another sense not at all necessary but such as the Poet had liberty to make use of or not After Homer had laid the first Ground-work of the Fable and prepar'd the Model such as we have observ'd it to be it was not then at his Choice to make or not make Vlysses absent from his Country This Absence was Essential Aristotle stiles and places it among those things that are proper to the Fable But the Adventure of Antiphates that of Circe of the Sirens of Scylla of Charybdis c. he does not call such The Poet was left at his full liberty to have made choice of any other as well as these things So that they are only probable and such Episodes as are distinct from the main Action to which in this sense they are neither proper nor necessary But now let us see in what sense they are necessary thereto Since the Absence of Vlysses was necessary it follows that not being at home he

When she proposes the Match to Venus with so much Ardency 't was only the top of her Countenance Her whole Aim was to keep Aeneas in Africk and to bestow on Carthage the Empire of the World which belonged only to Italy and depended upon the Stars of this Hero You see then the only thing she drives at the rest is only counterfeit and a Means whereby she endeavours to accomplish this End Dido her self makes it appear how less considerable her Person is than that of Aeneas and that she is only brought in to hinder the Designs of this Prince 'T is she that courts him and would have him for her King Husband and Protector against the Rage of her Brother and the Incursions of Iarbas But she could only obtain a Marriage for a Month or so as was customary now and then in those times Aeneas tells her plainly that the Name of Husband should be no Hinderance to his Departure and his Designs for Italy and he declares that this Condition of not leaving Carthage was not in the Articles of their Alliance The more an Episode may seem to be a compleat Action the more care should the Poet take to prepare the Reader 's mind before he engages him in it This is what Virgil did in the Episode we mentioned All the beginning of the first Book does sufficiently inform the Reader that the Stay of Aeneas at Carthage was only a hindrance and constraint which he was forced to submit to The Poet is likewise obliged to repeat this Advertisement at the beginning of these Episodes that so the Reader may know to what the Poet engages him Thus the Trojans were scarce got to Carthage but they give out that their Design is for Italy And before Dido made the least shew of her Designs upon Aeneas the Poet spends the second and third Books to inform us of this Hero's Design and the necessity of his going to Italy according to the Orders he received from the Oracles and the Gods All this is declar'd in his Speech to Dido her self To conclude All this Episode is so full of this main Design that the Poet is not willing we should lose the sight of it for a Moment Therefore Aeneas is doubtless the Hero of this Episode and we ought to look upon this Incident rather as an Obstacle laid to hinder the Settlement of the Trojans in Italy as the History of Dido in whom it is a compleat Action CHAP. VIII Of the Faults which corrupt the Unity of the Action HOmer and Virgil have furnished us with Instances of an Exact Vnity with the three Qualifications we requir'd We must now enquire elsewhere for Instances of an Vnity that is corrupted by Episodes that are irregular all these three ways that is first such as are deriv'd from something else besides the Action secondly such as have no Connexion with the rest of the Poem nor with the Members and Parts which are the Matter thereof and lastly such as are compleat Actions independent from the Subject These vicious and superfluous Episodes may be met with not only in the Middle of the Poem but at the Beginning and the End The Thebaid of Statius furnishes us with all these Instances as his Achilleid has already afforded us an Instance of that false Vnity which consists only in the Vnity of the Hero The unfortunate Oedipus had pluck'd out his own Eyes and banishing himself from Thebes left the Government of it to Eteocles and Polynices his two Sons They order'd Matters so that each of them one after another should Reign a whole Year by himself But the eldest being in possession when his time was out refus'd to quit the Throne Polynices in his Exile was so happy as to marry the Daughter of Adrastus King of Argos This aged Prince takes Prince takes up the Quarrel and with the Assistance of his Allies undertakes to settle Polynices on the Throne and to out Eteocles Upon this Thebes is beleaguer'd and after several Skitmishes this Difference was decided by the Duel and Death of the two Rival Brothers This War between the two Theban Brothers is the Action our Poet would relate and the Subject-Matter of the Thebaid But observe another Action or rather another Story The Goddess Venus is offended with the Inhabitants of Lemnos because in all that Island she had neither Temple Altar nor Sacrifice At first she puts the Men out of conceit with their Wives and then she makes the Women so mad as to conspire the Death of all their Husbands This Barbarous Resolution is most unmercifully put in Execution Hypsipyle was the only Woman who had secretly saved her Father King Troas and so ingeniously dissembles the having Murder'd him that the rest confer the Kingdom upon her as belonging to that Family A little after the Argonauts going in quest of the Golden-Fleece are forc'd by a Storm to call in and recruit themselves at Lemnos They were very kindly entertain'd there and the badness of the season gave Jason the chief of these Hero's an opportunity of leaving Hypsipyle big with Twins before he put off to Sea She was scarce brought to bed but 't was told her Subjects that they had been cheated and that King Troas was alive and reign'd in the Isle of Chios whither Hypsipyle had convey'd him tho' she had pretended she had murder'd him This made the Princess so odious that fearing the fury of those Women she fled to the Sea-shore where she was seiz'd on and carry'd off by Pirates They bestow her on King Lyeurgus who makes her the Nurse of his Son Archemorus The State of this Prince border'd upon Thebes and lay in the Road the Army of Adrastus was to pass thither The Greeks met with this famous Nurse as she was alone with her Nursery in a Wood. They were extreme thirsty all the Wells being dry'd up by the scorching Seasons They intreat her to give them some relief she grants their request and brings them to a Fountain that never was drain'd She was so forward that to make the more hast to this wish'd for Stream she eases her self of her precious burden with which she was intrusted and leaves Archemorus all alone upon the Grass She goes to quench the Grecians Thirst and then to satisfie the desire they had of knowing who she was that had been the saving of them she makes a large Recital of her own Life After she had made an end and receiv'd the Compliments of Adrastus she returns back to her Prince But a frightful Serpent had kill'd him by a blow with his Tail The Greeks kill the Serpent and in honour of the Dead Prince make a splendid Funeral and institute most magnificent sports which take up a whole book of the Thebaid The Recitals of Hypsipyle and the Death of Archemorus fill up another These are foreign Episodes and if they are Regular I cannot imagine what use the Rules of Aristotle can be of in this business

Oh Jupiter What Shall this Stranger go off so c. But these Motions were very well prepar'd Dido entertains thoughts of her Death before Aeneas left her She spent her Night in nothing else but disquietude and such distracting thoughts as these her fears possess'd her with Soon as the Dawn began to clear the Sky Down to the Shore the sad Queen cast her Eye Where when she doth the empty port survey And now the Fleet with mings display'd at Sea Her hands held up her Golden tresses torn Must we says she of force indure this scorn Can we not have recourse to arms nor meet This fraud with fraud not burn this wicked Fleet Hast fly pursue row and let every hand Snatch up with speed some swift revenging brand Englished by Edm. Waller and Sidney Godolphin Esquires This is no surprize to the Hearers They are so well prepared for it that they would have wonder'd if the Beginning of this Speech had been less passionate The Practice of Seneca is quite contrary If he has any Recital to make which ought to imprint some great Passion or other he takes away from both his Personages and his Audience all the inclinations they might have towards it If they are possess'd with the Sorrow fear and expectation of some dreadful thing He will begin by some fine and elegant Description of some place or other which only serves to shew the Copiousness and the poignant bloomy Wit of a Poet without Judgment In the Troad Hecuba and Andromache were disposed to hear of the violent and barbarous death of their Son Astyanax whom the Grecians had thrown from the top of an high Tower It mightily concern'd them indeed to know that among the croud that flock'd from all parts to that sad sight Some there were who stood upon the ruins of the old decay'd Buildings others whose legs trembled under them because they were mounted a little too high c. People that have the patience to speak or hear such idle stuff are so little inclin'd to weep that they had need have notice as the mercenary Mourners of old had when 't is time to set up their Whine The Second thing we think necessary for the well managing the Passions and to make the Auditors sensible of them is to insert them in the Poem pure and disengag'd from every thing that may hinder them from producing their due Effect 'T is necessary then to avoid the vicious Multiplicity of Fables where there are too many Stories too many Fables too many Actions the Adventures too much divided and hard to be remembred and such Intrigues as one can't easily comprehend All this distracts the Mind and requires so much attention that there is nothing left for the Passions to work upon The Soul should be free and disengag'd to be the more sensible of them We destroy our true sorrows when we divert our thoughts another way And how contrary will these troublesome Applications be to the Fictions and Movement of Poems Of all the obstacles that destroy the Passions the Passions themselves are not the least They fight with and destroy one another And if a Man should mix together a Subject of Joy and a Subject of Sorrow he would make neither of them sink deep Horace informs us that no Poetical License will allow of this sort of mixture The very nature of these Habits impose this Law The Blood and Animal Spirits cannot move so smoothly on in their usual way at quiet if at the same time they are stop'd and retarded by some Violence such as Admiration causes Nor can they be in either of these two Motions whilst Fear contracts them from the external parts of the Body to make them rally about the Heart Or whilst Anger sends them into the Muscles and makes them act there with a Violence so contrary to the operations of Fear A Poet then should be acquainted with both the Causes and the Effects of the Passions in our Souls 'T is there we are more sensible of them and know them better than in the Blood and the Animal Spirits This Knowledge and the justness of his Genius will make him manage them with all the force and the effects they are capable of And here we will propose two Examples of that which we have said concerning the Simplicity and the Disengagement of each Passion The Admirable must needs be predominant in the Warlike Vertues of a Maid and this is the Passion Virgil makes use of in the Episode of Camilla And on the contrary he has made Pity to reign in that of Pallas This passion agrees very well with this young Prince who is one of the Heroe's Party But the Poet does not mix these two Passions together He only shows in Pallas all that ordinary Courage that a young Man is capable of He fights Turnus but did not go out to attack him He does not so much as wound him nor put him in the least danger he only attends his coming and speaks to him more like one that fear'd not death than one who expected to kill him He is kill'd at the first blow and there is nothing extraordinary in it But there is something more than ordinary in the Lamentation which Aeneas and the unhappy Evander made upon his Death Camilla on the contrary made her self admir'd by a Valour becoming a Hero but she dies without being pitied That which Diana says upon the Subject deserves not the name of a Lamentation in comparison to that which Aeneas and Evander made for Pallas Besides the Speech of Diana is said before her Death and is not in a place where it might have any great effect In short Camilla is kill'd she is reveng'd and nothing more said about it How many Poets are there that would have bestow'd a Lover or two upon her and endeavour'd to make an Episode as moving as that of Clorinda and Tancred This Beauty did not escape Virgil's view He says that several Italian Dames courted her for their Sons This Reflection shews us that his thoughts were upon every thing and that it was not without choice and judgment that he omitted that which would have appear'd so beautiful to other Poets But he was not willing to spoil the Vnity of the Passion nor put a stop to its effects CHAP. X. How the Narration ought to be Active THE Epick Narration ought to be Active This Qualification is so necessary to it that Aristotle's Expression herein seems to confound the Epopéa with the Tragedy 'T is by this he begins to lay down Rules for this first sort of Poem 'T is requisite says he that the Epick Fables be Dramatick like those that are in Tragedy Now that which makes Tragedy Dramatick and upon the account of which it has the Name which signifies to Act is that the Poet never speaks in it and that every thing is represented by the Personages that are introduc'd and who alone Act