Select Poems of Thomas Gray - Thomas Gray (book club reads TXT) 📗
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111. Many a baron bold. Cf. L'Allegro, 119: "throngs of knights and barons bold."
The reading in the MS. is,
"Youthful knights, and barons bold,With dazzling helm, and horrent spear."
112. Their starry fronts. Cf. Milton, Ode on the Passion, 18: "His starry front;" Statius, Theb. 613: "Heu! ubi siderei vultus."
115. A form divine. Elizabeth. Wakefield quotes Spenser's eulogy of the queen, Shep. Kal. Apr.:
"Tell me, have ye seene her angelick face,Like Phoebe fayre?
Her heavenly haveour, her princely grace,
Can you well compare?
The Redde rose medled with the White yfere,
In either cheeke depeincten lively chere;
Her modest eye,
Her Majestie,
Where have you seene the like but there?"
117. "Speed, relating an audience given by Queen Elizabeth to Paul Dzialinski, ambassador of Poland, says: 'And thus she, lion-like rising, daunted the malapert orator no less with her stately port and majestical deporture, than with the tartnesse of her princelie checkes'" (Gray). The MS. reads "A lion-port, an awe-commanding face."
121. "Taliessin, chief of the bards, flourished in the sixth century. His works are still preserved, and his memory held in high veneration among his countrymen" (Gray).
As Hales remarks, there is no authority for connecting him with Arthur, as Tennyson does in his Holy Grail.
123. Cf. Congreve, Ode to Lord Godolphin: "And soars with rapture while she sings."
124. The eye of heaven. Wakefield quotes Spenser, F. Q. 1. 3. 4,
"Her angel's faceAs the great eye of heaven shined bright."
Cf. Shakes. Rich. II. iii. 2: "the searching eye of heaven."
Many-colour'd wings. Cf. Shakes. Temp. iv. 1: "Hail, many-colour'd messenger;" and Milton, P. L. iii. 642:
"Wings he woreOf many a colour'd plume sprinkled with gold."
126. Gray quotes Spenser, F. Q. Proeme, 9:
128. "Shakespeare" (Gray). Cf. Il Penseroso, 102: "the buskin'd stage;" that is, the tragic stage.
129. Pleasing pain. Cf. Spenser, F. Q. vi. 9, 10: "sweet pleasing payne;" and Dryden, Virg. Ecl. iii. 171: "Pleasing pains of love."
131. "Milton" (Gray).
133. "The succession of poets after Milton's time" (Gray).
135. Fond. Foolish. See on Prog. of Poesy, 46.
On the couplet, cf. Dekker, If this be not a good play, etc.:
"Thinkest thou, base lord,Because the glorious Sun behind black clouds
Has awhile hid his beams, he's darken'd forever,
Eclips'd never more to shine?"
137. Cf. Lycidas, 169: "And yet anon repairs his drooping head;" and Fletcher, Purple Island, vi. 64: "So soon repairs her light, trebling her new-born raies."
141. Mitford remarks that there is a passage (which he misquotes, as usual) in the Thebaid of Statius (iii. 81) similar to this, describing a bard who had survived his companions:
"Sed jam nudaverat ensemMagnanimus vates, et nunc trucis ora tyranni,
Nunc ferrum adspectans: 'Nunquam tibi sanguinis hujus
Jus erit, aut magno feries imperdita Tydeo
Pectora; vado equidem exsultans et ereptaque fata
Insequor, et comites feror expectatus ad umbras;
Te Superis, fratrique.' Et jam media orsa loquentis
Abstulerat plenum capulo latus."
Cf. also a passage in Pindar (Olymp. i. 184), which Gray seems to have had in mind:
Eiê se te touton Hupsou chronon patein, eme Te tossade nikaphorois Homilein, k. t. l.143. Cf. Virgil, Ecl. viii. 59:
"Praeceps aërii specula de montis in undasDeferar; extremum hoc munus morientis habeto."
As we have given Johnson's criticism on The Progress of Poesy, we append his comments on this "Sister Ode:"
"'The Bard' appears, at the first view, to be, as Algarotti and others have remarked, an imitation of the prophecy of Nereus. Algarotti thinks it superior to its original; and, if preference depends only on the imagery and animation of the two poems, his judgment is right. There is in 'The Bard' more force, more thought, and more variety. But to copy is less than to invent, and the copy has been unhappily produced at a wrong time. The fiction of Horace was to the Romans credible; but its revival disgusts us with apparent and unconquerable falsehood. Incredulus odi.
"To select a singular event, and swell it to a giant's bulk by fabulous appendages of spectres and predictions, has little difficulty; for he that forsakes the probable may always find the marvellous. And it has little use; we are affected only as we believe; we are improved only as we find something to be imitated or declined. I do not see that 'The Bard' promotes any truth, moral or political.
"His stanzas are too long, especially his epodes; the ode is finished before the ear has learned its measures, and consequently before it can receive pleasure from their consonance and recurrence.
"Of the first stanza the abrupt beginning has been celebrated; but technical beauties can give praise only to the inventor. It is in the power of any man to rush abruptly upon his subject, that has read the ballad of 'Johnny Armstrong,'
"The initial resemblances, or alliterations, 'ruin, ruthless, helm or hauberk,' are below the grandeur of a poem that endeavours at sublimity.
"In the second stanza the Bard is well described; but in the third we have the puerilities of obsolete mythology. When we are told that 'Cadwallo hush'd the stormy main,' and that 'Modred made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topt head,' attention recoils from the repetition of a tale that, even when it was first heard, was heard with scorn.
"The weaving of the winding-sheet he borrowed, as he owns, from the Northern Bards; but their texture, however, was very properly the work of female powers, as the act of spinning the thread of life is another mythology. Theft is always dangerous; Gray has made weavers of slaughtered bards by a fiction outrageous and incongruous. They are then called upon to 'Weave the warp, and weave the woof,' perhaps with no great propriety; for it is by crossing the woof with the warp that men weave the web or piece; and the first line was dearly bought by the admission of its wretched correspondent, 'Give ample room and verge enough.' He has, however, no other line as bad.
"The third stanza of the second ternary is commended, I think, beyond its merit. The personification is indistinct. Thirst and Hunger are not alike; and their features, to make the imagery perfect, should have been discriminated. We are told, in the same stanza, how 'towers are fed.' But I will no longer look for particular faults; yet let it be observed that the ode might have been concluded with an action of better example; but suicide is always to be had, without expense of thought."
Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame! "Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame!"
This poem first appeared in Dodsley's Collection, vol. iv., together with the "Elegy in a Country Churchyard." In Mason's and Wakefield's editions it is called an "Ode," but the title given by the author is as above.
The motto from Æschylus is not in Dodsley, but appears in the first edition of the poems (1768) in the form given in the text. The best modern editions of Æschylus have the reading, [Greek: ton (some, tôi) pathei mathos]. Keck translates the passage into German thus:
"Ihn der uns zur Sinnigkeitleitet, ihn der fest den Satz
Stellet, 'Lehre durch das Leid.'"
Plumptre puts it into English as follows:
"Yea, Zeus, who leadeth men in wisdom's way,And fixeth fast the law
Wisdom by pain to gain."
Cf. Mrs. Browning's Vision of Poets:
"Knowledge by suffering entereth,And life is perfected by death."
1. Mitford remarks: "[Greek: Atê], who may be called the goddess of Adversity, is said by Homer to be the daughter of Jupiter (Il. [Greek: t.] 91: [Greek: presba Dios thugatêr Atê, hê pantas aatai). Perhaps, however, Gray only alluded to the passage of Æschylus which he quoted, and which describes Affliction as sent by Jupiter for the benefit of man." The latter is the more probable explanation.
2. Mitford quotes Pope, Dunciad, i. 163: "Then he: 'Great tamer of all human art.'"
3. Torturing hour. Cf. Milton, P. L. ii. 90:
"The vassals of his anger, when the scourgeInexorable, and the torturing hour,
Calls us to penance."
5. Adamantine chains. Wakefield quotes Æschylus, Prom. Vinct. vi.: [Greek: Adamantinôn desmôn en arrêktois pedais]. Cf. Milton, P. L. i. 48: "In adamantine chains and penal fire;" and Pope, Messiah, 47: "In adamantine chains shall Death be bound."
7. Purple tyrants. Cf. Pope, Two Choruses to Tragedy of Brutus: "Till some new tyrant lifts his purple hand." Wakefield cites Horace, Od. i. 35, 12: "Purpurei metuunt tyranni."
8. With pangs unfelt before. Cf. Milton, P. L. ii. 703: "Strange horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before."
9-12. Cf. Bacon, Essays, v. (ed. 1625): "Certainly, Vertue is like pretious Odours, most fragrant when they are incensed [that is, burned], or crushed:1 For Prosperity doth best discover Vice;2 But Adversity doth best discover Vertue."
1 So in his Apophthegms, 253, Bacon says: "Mr. Bettenham said: that virtuous men were like some herbs and spices, that give not their sweet smell till they be broken or crushed." 2 Cf. Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar, ii. 1: "It is the bright day that brings forth the adder."Cf. also Thomson:
"If Misfortune comes, she brings alongThe bravest virtues. And so many great
Illustrious spirits have convers'd with woe,
Have in her school been taught, as are enough
To consecrate distress, and make ambition
E'en wish the frown beyond the smile of fortune."
16. Cf. Virgil, Æn. i. 630: "Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco."
18. Folly's idle brood. Cf. the opening lines of Il Penseroso:
"Hence, vain deluding Joys,The brood of Folly, without father bred!"
20. Mitford quotes Oldham, Ode: "And know I have not yet the leisure to be good."
22. The summer friend. Cf. Geo. Herbert, Temple: "like summer friends, flies of estates and sunshine;" Quarles, Sion's Elegies, xix.: "Ah, summer friendship with the summer ends;" Massinger, Maid of Honour: "O summer friendship." See also Shakespeare, T. of A. iii. 6:
"2d Lord. The swallow follows not summer more willing than we your lordship. "Timon [aside]. Nor more willingly leaves winter; such summer-birds are men;"and T. and C. iii. 3:
"For men, like butterflies,Shew not their mealy wings but to the summer."
Mitford suggests that Gray had in mind Horace, Od. i. 35, 25:
"At vulgus infidum et meretrix retroPerjura cedit; diffugiunt cadis
Cum faece siccatis amici
Ferre jugum pariter dolosi."
25. In sable garb. Cf. Milton, Il Pens. 16: "O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue."
28. With leaden eye. Evidently suggested by Milton's description of Melancholy, Il Pens. 43:
"Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes;There, held in holy passion still,
Forget thyself to marble, till
With a sad leaden downward cast
Thou fix them on the earth as fast."
Mitford cites Sidney, Astrophel and Stella, song 7: "So leaden eyes;" Dryden, Cymon and Iphigenia, 57: "And stupid eyes that ever lov'd the ground;" Shakespeare, Pericles, i. 2: "The sad companion, dull-eyed Melancholy;" and L. L. L. iv. 3: "In leaden contemplation." Cf. also The Bard, 69, 70.
31. To herself severe. Cf. Carew:
"To servants
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