Complete. From the Spectator.
Pendent opera interrupta. | |
Virg. Æn. IV. 88. |
The works unfinished and neglected lie. |
IN my last Mondays paper I gave some general instances of those beautiful strokes which please the reader in the old song of Chevy Chase; I shall here, according to my promise, be more particular, and show that the sentiments in that ballad are extremely natural and poetical, and full of the majestic simplicity which we admire in the greatest of the ancient poets: for which reason I shall quote several passages of it, in which the thought is altogether the same with what we meet in several passages of the Æneid; not that I would infer from thence that the poet, whoever he was, proposed to himself any imitation of those passages, but that he was directed to them in general by the same kind of poetical genius and by the same copyings after nature.
Had this old song been filled with epigrammatical turns and points of wit, it might perhaps have pleased the wrong taste of some readers; but it would never have become the delight of the common people, nor have warmed the heart of Sir Philip Sidney like the sound of a trumpet; it is only nature that can have this effect, and please those tastes which are the most unprejudiced, or the most refined. I must, however, beg leave to dissent from so great an authority as that of Sir Philip Sidney, in the judgment which he has passed as to the rude style and evil apparel of this antiquated song; for there are several parts in it where not only the thought but the language is majestic, and the numbers sonorous; at least the apparel is much more gorgeous than many of the poets made use of in Queen Elizabeths time, as the reader will see in several of the following quotations.
What can be greater than either the thought or the expression in that stanza:
To drive the deer with hound and horn | |
Earl Percy took his way; | |
The child may rue that is unborn | |
The hunting of that day! |
This way of considering the misfortunes which this battle would bring upon posterity, not only on those who were born immediately after the battle, and lost their fathers in it, but on those also who perished in future battles which took their rise from this quarrel of the two earls, is wonderfully beautiful and conformable to the way of thinking among the ancient poets.
Audiet pugnas vitio parentum | |
Rara juventus. | |
Hor. Od. I. 2, 23. |
Posterity, thinnd by their fathers crimes, | |
Shall read, with grief, the story of their times. |
The stout Earl of Northumberland | |
A vow to God did make, | |
His pleasure in the Scottish woods | |
Three summers days to take. | |
With fifteen hundred bowmen bold, | |
All chosen men of might, | |
Who knew full well, in time of need, | |
To aim their shafts aright. | |
The hounds ran swiftly through the woods | |
The nimble deer to take, | |
And with their cries the hills and dales | |
An echo shrill did make. |
Vocat ingenti clamore Cithæron, | |
Taygetique canes, domitrixque Epidaurus equorum: | |
Et vox assensu nemorum ingeminata remugit. | |
Virg. Georg. III. 43. |
Cithæron loudly calls me to my way: | |
Thy hounds, Taygetus, open, and pursue their prey: | |
High Epidaurus urges on my speed, | |
Famed for his hills, and for his horses breed: | |
From hills and dales the cheerful cries rebound: | |
For Echo hunts along, and propagates the sound. | |
Dryden. |
Lo, yonder doth Earl Douglas come, | |
His men in armor bright; | |
Full twenty hundred Scottish spears, | |
All marching in our sight. | |
All men of pleasant Tividale, | |
Fast by the river Tweed, etc. |
Adversi campo apparent: hastasque reductis | |
Protendunt longè dextris, et spicula vibrant: | |
Quique altum Præneste viri, quique arva Gabinæ | |
Junonis, gelidumque Anienem, et roscida rivis | |
Hernica saxa colunt: | |
Qui rosea rura Velini; | |
Qui Tetricæ horrentis rupes, montemque Severum, | |
Casperiamque colunt, Forulosque et flumen Himellæ: | |
Qui Tyberim Fabarimque bibunt. | |
Virg. Æn. XI. 605; VII. 682, 712. |
Advancing in a line they couch their spears | |
Præneste sends a chosen band, | |
With those who plough Saturnias Gabine land: | |
Besides the succors which cold Anien yields: | |
The rocks of Hernicusbesides a band | |
That followed from Velinums dewy land | |
And mountaineers that from Severus came: | |
And from the craggy cliffs of Tetrica; | |
And those where yellow Tiber takes his way, | |
And where Himellas wanton waters play: | |
Casperia sends her arms, with those that lie | |
By Fabaris, and fruitful Foruli.Dryden. |
Earl Douglas on a milk-white steed, | |
Most like a baron bold, | |
Rode foremost of the company, | |
Whose armor shone like gold. |
Turnus, ut antevolans tardum præcesserat agmen, etc. | |
Vidisti, quo Turnus equo, quibus ibat in armis | |
Aureus | |
Virg. Æn. IX. 47, 269. |
Our English archers bent their bows, | |
Their hearts were good and true; | |
At the first flight of arrows sent, | |
Full threescore Scots they slew. | |
They closed full fast on evry side, | |
No slackness there was found; | |
And many a gallant gentleman | |
Lay gasping on the ground. | |
With that there came an arrow keen | |
Out of an English bow, | |
Which struck Earl Douglas to the heart, | |
A deep and deadly blow. |
Has inter voces, media inter talia verba, | |
Ecce viro stridens alis allapsa sagitta est, | |
Incertum qud pulsa manu | |
Virg. Æn. XII. 318. |
Thus, while he spake, unmindful of defense, | |
A wingéd arrow struck the pious prince; | |
But whether from a human hand it came, | |
Or hostile god, is left unknown by fame. | |
Dryden. |
So thus did both these nobles die, | |
Whose courage none could stain; | |
An English archer then perceived | |
The noble Earl was slain. | |
He had a bow bent in his hand, | |
Made of a trusty tree, | |
An arrow of a cloth-yard long | |
Unto the head drew he. | |
Against Sir Hugh Montgomery | |
So right his shaft he set, | |
The gray-goose wing that was thereon | |
In his heart-blood was wet. | |
This fight did last from break of day | |
Till setting of the sun; | |
For when they rung the evning bell | |
The battle scarce was done. |
And with Earl Douglas there was slain | |
Sir Hugh Montgomery, | |
Sir Charles Carrel, that from the field | |
One foot would never fly. | |
Sir Charles Murrel of Ratcliff too, | |
His sisters son was he; | |
Sir David Lamb so well esteemd, | |
Yet savéd could not be. |
Cadit et Ripheus justissimus unus | |
Qui fuit in Teucris et servantissimus æqui. | |
Diis aliter visum.Virg. Æn. II. 426. |
Then Ripheus fell in the unequal fight, | |
Just of his word, observant of the right: | |
Heavn thought not so.Dryden. |
Then slept a gallant squire forth, | |
Witherington was his name, | |
Who said, I would not have it told | |
To Henry our king for shame, | |
That eer my captain fought on foot, | |
And I stood looking on. |
Non pudet, O Rutuli, cunctis pro talibus unam | |
Objectare animam? numerone an viribus æqui | |
Non sumus?Virg. Æn. XII. 229. |
For shame, Rutilians, can you bear the sight | |
Of one exposed for all, in single fight? | |
Can we before the face of heavn confess | |
Our courage colder, or our numbers less? | |
Dryden. |
Next day did many widows come | |
Their husbands to bewail; | |
They washd their wounds in brinish tears, | |
But all would not prevail. | |
Their bodies bathed in purple blood, | |
They bore with them away; | |
They kissd them dead a thousand times, | |
When they were clad in clay. |
If this song had been written in the Gothic manner, which is the delight of all our little wits, whether writers or readers, it would not have hit the taste of so many ages, and have pleased the readers of all ranks and conditions. I shall only beg pardon for such a profusion of Latin quotations, which I should not have made use of, but that I feared my own judgment would have looked too singular on such a subject, had not I supported it by the practice and authority of Virgil.