Tennysoniana/Chapter 11

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4149666Tennysoniana — Chapter XI.Richard Herne Shepherd

CHAPTER XI.

ALLUSIONS TO HOLY SCRIPTURE AND IMITATIONS OF
CLASSICAL WRITERS.

The Bishop of St. Andrews, in a little book on "Shakespeare's Knowledge and Use of the Bible," has collected together all the passages from his writings in which allusions are made to Holy Scripture. A not less interesting collection might be made from the works of Tennyson; and in these days, when men are quarrelling in no very Christian mood about the letters of a book of which they too often forget the spirit, it might be instructive to remark the kind of interpretation our greatest living poet gives us of it. There might be more teaching for us, more illumination might be thrown on our Bible, and the way we ought to read it, by these passages, than by hundreds of conventional sermons, purporting to explain the Scriptures, but too often darkening counsel by words without knowledge.[1]

It would also be interesting to trace the influence of the great poets of antiquity on Tennyson's writings: of his classical scholarship abundant proofs might be adduced. In his earliest volume there are quotations from Cicero, Claudian, Horace, Lucretius, Ovid, Sallust, Tacitus, Terence, and Virgil; the incidental allusions to ancient history and mythology in his later works are numerous, and his two translations from the eighth and eighteenth books of the "Iliad" display a critical knowledge of Greek, rare even among professed scholars.

A few allusions to the Greek and Roman writers, together with one or two imitations of more modern poets, I have collected here.

IMITATIONS OF AND ALLUSIONS TO CLASSICAL AND OTHER WRITERS.

"I called him Crichton, for he seem'd
All perfect, finish'd to the finger-nail."
Edwin Morris, or The Lake.


"Capitoque simul Fonteius, ad unguem
Factus homo."
Hor. Lib. 1. Sat. v. 32-33.


"— My feet are set
To leave the pleasant fields and farms."
In Memoriam, ci. 6.

The dulcia linquimus arva of Virgil's first Eclogue.
"—But fetch the wine,
Arrange the board and brim the glass;
"Bring in great logs and let them lie,
To make a solid core of heat—"
In Memoriam, cvi. 4-5.


"Dissolve frigus, ligna super foco
Large reponens; atque benignius
Deprome quadrimum Sabina."
Hor. Lib. 1. Carm. 9.


"—Shall not Love to me,
As in the Latin song we learnt at school,
Sneeze out a full God-bless-you right and left?"
Edwin Morris, or The Lake.


"Hoc ut dixit, Amor, sinistram ut ante,
Dextram sternuit approbationem."
Catull. Carm. xlv.


"'—O brook,' he says,
'O babbling brook,' says Edmund in his rhyme,
'Whence come you?' and the brook, why not?
replies:
'I come from haunts of coot and hern,'" &c.
The Brook: an Idyl.


The idea of this song of the Brook is probably taken from a German lyric, "Das Bächlein ":

"Du Bächlein, silberhell und klar,
Du eilst vorüber immerdar,
****
Wo kommst du her? Wo gehst du hin?
Ich komm' aus dunkler Felsen Schoss,
Mein Lauf geht über Blum' und Moss.'"


"The Dying Swan." Compare this poem with the following passages from Shakespeare and from Plato:

"—'Tis strange that death should sing.
I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,
And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings
His soul and body to their lasting rest."
Shakespeare, King John, Act v. Sc. 7.

"καί, ὡς ἔοικε, τῶν κύκνων δοκῶ φαυλότερος ὑμῖν εἶναι τὴν μαντικήν, οἳ, ἐπειδὰν αἴσθωνται, ὅτι δεῖ αὐτοὺς ἀποθανεῖν, ᾂδοντες καὶ ἐν τῷ πρόσθεν χρόνῳ, τότε δὴ πλεῖστα καὶ μάλιστα ᾄδουσι, γεγηθότες, ὅτι μέλλουσι παρὰ τὸν θεὸν ἀπιέναι, οὗπερ εἰσὶ θεράποντες. οἱ δὲ ἄνθρωποι διὰ τὸ αὑτῶν δέος τοῦ θανάτου καὶ τῶν κύκνωυ καταψεύδονται, καί φασιν αὐτοὺς θρηνοῡντας τὸν θάνατον ὑπὸ λύπης ἐξᾴδειν, καὶ οὐ λογίζονται, ὅτι οὐδὲν ὄρνεον ᾄδει, ὅταν τεινῇ ᾒ ῥιγοῖ ἤ τινα ἄλλην λύπην λυπῆται, οὐδὲ αυδε αὐτὴ ἥ τε ἀηδὼν καὶ χελιδὼν καὶ ὁ ἔποψ, ἃ δή φασι διὰ λύπην θρηνοῡντα ᾄδειν᾽ ἀλλ᾿ οὔτε ταῡτά μοι φαίνεται λυπούμενα ᾄδειν οὔτε οἱ κύκνοι. ἀλλ᾽ ἅτε, οἶμαι, τοῡ Άπόλλωνος ὄντες μαντικοί τέ εἰσι καὶ προειδότες τὰ ἐν Ἅιδου ἀγαθὰ ᾄδουσι καὶ τέρπονται ἐκείνην τὴν ἡμέραν διαφερόντως ἢ ἐω τῷ ἔμπροσθεν χρόνῳ."—Plato, Phædo, xxxv.


"—The rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea."
Ulysses.


" Arcturum, pluviasque Hyadas, geminosque Triones."
Æneid, i. 748, iii. 516.

"—If your greatness, and the care
That yokes with empire, yield you time
To make demand of modern rhyme—"
To the Queen (1851).


"—Se voi mi date orecchio,
E vostri alti pensier' cedono un poco,
Si che tra lor' miei versi abbiano loco."
Orlando Furioso, Canto 1, § 4.


"I scarce could see the grass for flowers."
The Two Voices.


"And rounde about the valley as ye passe,
Ye may ne see, for peeping floures, the grasse."
Peele's Araynment of Paris.

"The coincidence may be accidental, or may be referable to what Mr. Dallas, in his 'Gay Science,' terms the hidden work of memory; but one can hardly doubt that the germ of that fine passage in Tennyson's Ode on the death of the Duke of Wellington which tells how 'the toppling crags of duty' are 'scaled' is to be found in a fragment of Simonides (20 ed. Schneidewin):

ἔστι τις λόγος
τὰν Ἀρετὰν ναίειν δυσαμβάτοις ἐπὶ πέτραις, κ. τ. λ.

Saturday Review, Jan. 26, 1867.

  1. Among many others I will indicate the passages on Adam and Eve, in Lady Clara Vere de Vere, in The Day Dream, § L'Envoi, in In Memoriam, xxiv. 2, and in Maud, xviii. 3; on Jacob, in the poem To ——— (Poems, 1830); on Lot's Wife, in The Princess, p. 132; on Sinai, In Memoriam, xcvi. 5-6; on Joshua, in Locksley Hall; on Gideon, in the Sonnet on Buonaparte (Poems, 1833); on Jephtha's daughter, in A Dream of Fair Women; on Elijah, in the first version of The Palace of Art; on David, in Merlin and Vivien (Idylls of the King); on Solomon, in The Princess, p. 46; on Hezekiah, in Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue; on Jonah's gourd, in The Princess, p. 39; on Vashti, in The Princess; on Esther, Idylls of the King, p. 39; on Lazarus and Mary, In Memoriam, xxxi., xxxii.; on Herod, in The Palace of Art; on Stephen, in The Two Voices; on St. Paul, In Memoriam, cxx.1. The attentive student of Tennyson will be able to add to these many other passages of equal beauty and significance.