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.
All perfect, finish'd to the finger-nail."
Edwin Morris, or The Lake.
Factus homo."
Hor. Lib. 1. Sat. v. 32-33.
To leave the pleasant fields and farms."
In Memoriam, ci. 6.
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.
Large reponens; atque benignius
Deprome quadrimum Sabina."
Hor. Lib. 1. Carm. 9.
As in the Latin song we learnt at school,
Sneeze out a full God-bless-you right and left?"
Edwin Morris, or The Lake.
Dextram sternuit approbationem."
Catull. Carm. xlv.
'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 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:
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.
Vext the dim sea."
Ulysses.
Æneid, i. 748, iii. 516.
That yokes with empire, yield you time
To make demand of modern rhyme—"
To the Queen (1851).
E vostri alti pensier' cedono un poco,
Si che tra lor' miei versi abbiano loco."
Orlando Furioso, Canto 1, § 4.
The Two Voices.
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):
τὰν Ἀρετὰν ναίειν δυσαμβάτοις ἐπὶ πέτραις, κ. τ. λ.
- ↑ 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.