Note 262 — THE SHIELD OF HERCULES.
George Chapman translation
And near to them Stood Misery.]
Warton observes, History of English poetry, vol. i. p. 468: “The French and Italian poets, whom Chaucer imitates, abound in allegorical personages: and it is remarkable that the early poets of Greece and Rome were fond of these creations: we have in Hesiod ‘Darkness:’ and many others; if the Shield of Hercules be of his hand.” But it seems to have escaped the writer that it is not literal, but figurative Darkness which is personified. Guietus ingeniously supposes that it is meant for the dimness of death. Homer, indeed, applies to this the same term: in the death of Eurymachus, Od. xxii. 88:
Κατ’ οφθαλμων δ’ εχυτ’ ΑΧΛΥΣ. A darkening mist was pour’d upon his eyes.
Tanaquil Faber, on Longinus, contends that αχλυς is here Sorrow. Sorrow is personified in a fragment of Ennius:
Omnibus endo locis ingens apparet imago Tristitia. Sorrow, a giant form, uprears the head In every place.
This is adopted by Grævius and Robinson. In like manner φως its opposite, light, is often used for χαρα, joy: as appears in the oriental style of scripture. But they have omitted to notice that this is a specific sorrow: for what connexion have these horrible symptoms with sorrow in general? I conceive that the prosopopœia describes the misery attendant on war: and especially in a city besieged, with its usual accompaniments of famine, blood, and tears, and the dust or ashes of mourning. Longinus selects the line “an ichor from her nostrils flowed,” as an instance of the false sublime; and compares it with Homer’s verse on Discord,
Treading on earth, her forehead touches heaven.
This is to compare two things totally unlike: why should an image of exhaustion and disease be thought to aim at sublimity? The objection of Longinus that it tends to excite disgust rather than terror is nugatory. The poet did not intend to excite terror, but horror: that kind of horror which arises from the contemplation of physical suffering.