Page:On the Sublime 1890.djvu/54

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18
LONGINUS ON THE SUBLIME
IX

"Mountain and wood and solitary peak,
The ships Achaian, and the towers of Troy,
Trembled beneath the god's immortal feet.
Over the waves he rode, and round him played,
Lured from the deeps, the ocean's monstrous brood,
With uncouth gambols welcoming their lord:
The charmed billows parted: on they flew."[1]

9And thus also the lawgiver of the Jews, no ordinary man, having formed an adequate conception of the Supreme Being, gave it adequate expression in the opening words of his "Laws": "God said"—what?—"let there be light, and there was light: let there be land, and there was."

10I trust you will not think me tedious if I quote yet one more passage from our great poet (referring this time to human characters) in illustration of the manner in which he leads us with him to heroic heights. A sudden and baffling darkness as of night has overspread the ranks of his warring Greeks. Then Ajax in sore perplexity cries aloud—

" Almighty Sire,

Only from darkness save Achaia's sons;
No more I ask, but give us back the day;
Grant but our sight, and slay us, if thou wilt."[2]

The feelings are just what we should look for in Ajax. He does not, you observe, ask for his life—such a request would have been unworthy of his heroic soul—but finding himself paralysed by dark-

  1. il. xiii. 18; xx. 60; xiii. 19, 27.
  2. il. xvii. 645.