登陆注册
4710300000007

第7章

The beautiful fables of the Greeks, being proper creations of the imagination and not of the fancy, are universal verities. What a range of meanings and what perpetual pertinence has the story of Prometheus! Beside its primary value as the first chapter of the history of Europe, (the mythology thinly veiling authentic facts, the invention of the mechanic arts, and the migration of colonies,) it gives the history of religion with some closeness to the faith of later ages. Prometheus is the Jesus of the old mythology. He is the friend of man; stands between the unjust "justice" of the Eternal Father and the race of mortals, and readily suffers all things on their account. But where it departs from the Calvinistic Christianity, and exhibits him as the defier of Jove, it represents a state of mind which readily appears wherever the doctrine of Theism is taught in a crude, objective form, and which seems the self-defence of man against this untruth, namely, a discontent with the believed fact that a God exists, and a feeling that the obligation of reverence is onerous. It would steal, if it could, the fire of the Creator, and live apart from him, and independent of him.

The Prometheus Vinctus is the romance of skepticism. Not less true to all time are the details of that stately apologue. Apollo kept the flocks of Admetus, said the poets. When the gods come among men, they are not known. Jesus was not; Socrates and Shakspeare were not.

Antaeus was suffocated by the gripe of Hercules, but every time he touched his mother earth, his strength was renewed. Man is the broken giant, and, in all his weakness, both his body and his mind are invigorated by habits of conversation with nature. The power of music, the power of poetry to unfix, and, as it were, clap wings to solid nature, interprets the riddle of Orpheus. The philosophical perception of identity through endless mutations of form makes him know the Proteus. What else am I who laughed or wept yesterday, who slept last night like a corpse, and this morning stood and ran? And what see I on any side but the transmigrations of Proteus? I can symbolize my thought by using the name of any creature, of any fact, because every creature is man agent or patient. Tantalus is but a name for you and me. Tantalus means the impossibility of drinking the waters of thought which are always gleaming and waving within sight of the soul. The transmigration of souls is no fable. I would it were; but men and women are only half human. Every animal of the barn-yard, the field, and the forest, of the earth and of the waters that are under the earth, has contrived to get a footing and to leave the print of its features and form in some one or other of these upright, heaven-facing speakers. Ah! brother, stop the ebb of thy soul, -- ebbing downward into the forms into whose habits thou hast now for many years slid. As near and proper to us is also that old fable of the Sphinx, who was said to sit in the road-side and put riddles to every passenger. If the man could not answer, she swallowed him alive. If he could solve the riddle, the Sphinx was slain. What is our life but an endless flight of winged facts or events! In splendid variety these changes come, all putting questions to the human spirit. Those men who cannot answer by a superior wisdom these facts or questions of time, serve them. Facts encumber them, tyrannize over them, and make the men of routine the men of _sense_, in whom a literal obedience to facts has extinguished every spark of that light by which man is truly man. But if the man is true to his better instincts or sentiments, and refuses the dominion of facts, as one that comes of a higher race, remains fast by the soul and sees the principle, then the facts fall aptly and supple into their places; they know their master, and the meanest of them glorifies him.

See in Goethe's Helena the same desire that every word should be a thing. These figures, he would say, these Chirons, Griffins, Phorkyas, Helen, and Leda, are somewhat, and do exert a specific influence on the mind. So far then are they eternal entities, as real to-day as in the first Olympiad. Much revolving them, he writes out freely his humor, and gives them body tohis own imagination. And although that poem be as vague and fantastic as a dream, yet is it much more attractive than the more regular dramatic pieces of the same author, for the reason that it operates a wonderful relief to the mind from the routine of customary images, -- awakens the reader's invention and fancy by the wild freedom of the design, and by the unceasing succession of brisk shocks of surprise.

The universal nature, too strong for the petty nature of the bard, sits on his neck and writes through his hand; so that when he seems to vent a mere caprice and wild romance, the issue is an exact allegory. Hence Plato said that "poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand." All the fictions of the Middle Age explain themselves as a masked or frolic expression of that which in grave earnest the mind of that period toiled to achieve. Magic, and all that is ascribed to it, is a deep presentiment of the powers of science. The shoes of swiftness, the sword of sharpness, the power of subduing the elements, of using the secret virtues of minerals, of understanding the voices of birds, are the obscure efforts of the mind in a right direction. The preternatural prowess of the hero, the gift of perpetual youth, and the like, are alike the endeavour of the human spirit "to bend the shows of things to the desires of the mind."

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 假面系统

    假面系统

    宇宙中存在着一些特殊种族,系统一族即是其中一个,它们掌握着常人难以想象的世界权能,依托特殊规则,在无尽宇宙流浪,培养优秀宿主,以此反馈自身成长!我们的故事将从其中一个假面系统开始!
  • 台案汇录丙集

    台案汇录丙集

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 霸道小村医

    霸道小村医

    吴小闹本是无所事事的小农民一个,却因缘巧合成为五行宝典的传承人,得美女医仙传承!从此,医术、养殖、种地、修行,样样精通!
  • 前世今生有你们

    前世今生有你们

    女生不屑地撇撇嘴,“你以为你谁,能穿越时空吗?”颜曦挑挑眉,哟呵,你咋晓得我能穿越时空,身份不咋地,上辈子就是个公主,这辈子有俩外挂。
  • 荣耀之术士

    荣耀之术士

    什么是术士!?术士是截断命运、回溯时间的神灵……术士是手擎雷电、脚踏山岳的魔鬼……他们玩弄人心,他们俯视凡尘,他们追逐真理!这是……术士时代!!!(本书定义为东方奇幻,作者菌是个文青,不会起外国名字。本书适合养成党、剧情党、古风党,偏黑暗流。书友交流群:780142881)
  • 穿越:妖魅殿下极品丫头

    穿越:妖魅殿下极品丫头

    什么东西最令人惊诧莫名?什么东西最令人热血沸腾?那就是掉进美男浴池里……“啪嘭”一声,兴奋的寒玉被摔得浑浑噩噩。摔得疼痛的娇嫩身子撑起来,透过朦胧的花影,天然温泉池里,氲氤的浓雾中……她掉进了美男浴池里?哗!好帅呀!
  • 泣魂强者之路

    泣魂强者之路

    在岚风大陆上,人们都以学武为主,这个世界的气以灵气为主,只有修炼了灵力才能长生,更有甚者有移山填海之大能,所以形成了人人崇尚实力的文化,要想问鼎世界的巅峰,唯有强大的实力;要想不被别人踩在脚下,唯有有强大的实力;要想斜眼看世界,也唯有强大的实力。且冷泣魂如何体验人生百态,又将如何斜眼看世界,又如何走上强者之路。
  • 罪无可赦

    罪无可赦

    “我死去,并不是你们的胜利,顶多证明庸才对天才发动了可怕的战争……你们打着正义的旗号,剿灭异己,颠倒黑白……你们笔下的史书记录我鲸吞一切,横行霸道,压制弱小。多年后,我的优点会变成缺点,唯有借我之手得到正义的人,将铭记我的功德。”——摘自本世纪最负盛名的天才语录。
  • 锐读(第15期·悬疑新主张)

    锐读(第15期·悬疑新主张)

    悬疑作品是一个社会的窗子,我们站在窗外,窥视里面的喜怒哀乐。 用有意思的悬疑作品打动人。
  • The Wheels of Chance

    The Wheels of Chance

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。