Endnotes
“After Chephren, Mycerinus, son of Cheops, reigned over Egypt. He abhorred his father’s courses, and judged his subjects more justly than any of their kings had done.—To him there came an oracle from the city of Buto, to the effect, that he was to live but six years longer, and to die in the seventh year from that time.”
—Herodotus
↩
“Desire” (“Stagyrus” 1849). Stagirius was a young monk to whom St. Chrysostom addressed three books. ↩
Written in 1847. Printed by permission of Mr. Arthur Galton, to whom the Poem was given in 1886 for publication in The Hobby Horse. ↩
The “Dawn-Goddess” is Aurora, the “fair youth,” Orion; the “Argive Seer” is Tiresias, Zeus’s “tired son,” Hercules, and the “feebler wight,” Eurystheus. ↩
Orion, the Wild Huntsman of Greek legend, and in this capacity appearing in both earth and sky. ↩
Erytheia, the legendary region around the Pillars of Hercules, probably took its name from the redness of the west, under which the Greeks saw it. ↩
“Alcmena’s dreadful son”: Hercules. ↩
Those who have been long familiar with the English Lake Country will find no difficulty in recalling, from the description in the text, the roadside inn at Wythburn, on the descent from Dunmail Raise towards Keswick; its sedentary landlord of thirty years ago; and the passage over the Wythburn Fells to Watendlath. ↩
I.e. A. H. Clough. ↩
The three referred to are Homer, Epictetus, and Sophocles. “Vespasian’s brutal son” is Domitian. ↩
The name Europe (Εὐρώπη, “the wide prospect”) probably describes the appearance of the European coast to the Greeks on the coast of Asia Minor opposite. The name Asia, again, comes, it has been thought, from the muddy fens of the rivers of Asia Minor, such as the Cayster or Maeander, which struck the imagination of the Greeks living near them. ↩
Written during the siege of Rome by the French, 1849. ↩
See, among “Early Poems,” the poem called “A Memory-Picture.” ↩
The author of Obermann, Étienne Pivert de Senancour, has little celebrity in France, his own country; and out of France he is almost unknown. But the profound inwardness, the austere sincerity, of his principal work, Obermann, the delicate feeling for nature which it exhibits, and the melancholy eloquence of many passages of it, have attracted and charmed some of the most remarkable spirits of this century, such as George Sand and Sainte-Beuve, and will probably always find a certain number of spirits whom they touch and interest.
Senancour was born in 1770. He was educated for the priesthood, and passed some time in the Seminary of St. Sulpice; broke away from the seminary and from France itself, and passed some years in Switzerland, where he married; returned to France in middle life, and followed thenceforward the career of a man of letters, but with hardly any fame or success. He died an old man in 1846, desiring that on his grave might be placed these words only: Éternité, deviens mon asile!
The influence of Rousseau, and certain affinities with more famous and fortunate authors of his own day—Chateaubriand and Madame de Staël—are everywhere visible in Senancour. But though, like these eminent personages, he may be called a sentimental writer, and though Obermann, a collection of letters from Switzerland treating almost entirely of nature and of the human soul, may be called a work of sentiment, Senancour has a gravity and severity which distinguish him from all other writers of the sentimental school. The world is with him in his solitude far less than it is with them; of all writers he is the most perfectly isolated and the least attitudinizing. His chief work, too, has a value and power of its own, apart from these merits of its author. The stir of all the main forces by which modern life is and has been impelled lives in the letters of Obermann; the dissolving agencies of the eighteenth century, the fiery storm of the French Revolution, the first faint promise and dawn of that new world which our own time is but now more fully bringing to light—all these are to be felt, almost to be touched, there. To me, indeed, it will always seem that the impressiveness of this production can hardly be rated too high.
Besides Obermann, there is one other of Senancour’s works which, for those spirits who feel his attraction, is very interesting: its title is Libres Méditations d’un Solitaire Inconnu. ↩
The Baths of Leuk. This poem was conceived, and partly composed, in the valley going down from the foot of the Gemmi Pass towards the Rhone. ↩
“Son of Thetis”: Achillies. The reference is to Achilles’ words to Lycaon in Iliad, 21:106 et seqq. ↩
“Cato”: who committed suicide at Utica rather than yield to Julius Caeser. ↩
Mount Haemus, so called, said the legend, from Typho’s blood spilt on it in his last battle with Zeus, when the giant’s strength failed, owing to the Destinies having a short time before given treacherously to him, for his refreshment, perishable fruits. See Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, book 1 chap. 6. ↩
The Faun “Marsyas” at Pan’s instigation challenged Apollo to a contest in music; Apollo, having been adjudged victor by the Muses, had Marsyas seized and flayed alive. ↩
“Pytho”: the great serpent produced from the mud left on the earth after Deucalion’s flood. ↩
See the Fragments of Parmenides:
… κοῦραι δ’ ὁδὸν ἡγεμὀνευον,
ἡλίαδες κοῦραι, προλιποῦσαι δώματα νυκτός,
εἰς φάος. …
↩
“In the court of his uncle King Marc, the king of Cornwall, who at this time resided at the castle of Tyntagel, Tristram became expert in all knightly exercises.—The king of Ireland, at Tristram’s solicitations, promised to bestow his daughter Iseult in marriage on King Marc. The mother of Iseult gave to her daughter’s confidante a philtre, or love-potion, to be administered on the night of her nuptials. Of this beverage Tristram and Iseult, on their voyage to Cornwall, unfortunately partook. Its influence, during the remainder of their lives, regulated the affections and destiny of the lovers.—
“After the arrival of Tristram and Iseult in Cornwall, and the nuptials of the latter with King Marc, a great part of the romance is occupied with their contrivances to procure secret interviews.—Tristram, being forced to leave Cornwall, on account of the displeasure of his uncle, repaired to Brittany, where lived Iseult with the White Hands.—He married her—more out of gratitude than love.—Afterwards he proceeded to the dominions of Arthur, which became the theatre of unnumbered exploits.
“Tristram, subsequent to these events, returned to Brittany, and to his long-neglected wife. There, being wounded and sick, he was soon reduced to the lowest ebb. In this situation, he despatched a confidant to the queen of Cornwall, to try if he could induce her to follow him to Brittany, etc.”
—Dunlop’s History of Fiction
↩
Goethe died in 1832, Byron at Missolonghi in 1824. ↩
Almost a translation of Virgil, Georgics, 2:490–2. ↩
Edward Qullinian married Wordsworth’s daughter Dora. He died in 1851. ↩
The references are to two poems by Wordsworth, “Michael” and “Ruth.” “The Evening Star” was the name given to Michael’s solitary house from the “constant light” of his lamp, “so regular and so far seen.” ↩
“The Mighty Mother”: Rhea, the mother of the gods. ↩
The story of Sohrab and Rostam is told in Sir John Malcolm’s History of Persia, as follows:—
“The young Sohrab was the fruit of one of Rostam’s early amours. He had left his mother, and sought fame under the banners of Afrasiab, whose armies he commanded; and soon obtained a renown beyond that of all contemporary heroes but his father. He had carried death and dismay into the ranks of the Persians, and had terrified the boldest warriors of that country, before Rostam encountered him, which at last that hero resolved to do under a feigned name. They met three times. The first time, they parted by mutual consent, though Sohrab had the advantage; the second, the youth obtained a victory, but granted life to his unknown father; the third was fatal to Sohrab, who, when writhing in the pangs of death, warned his conqueror to shun the vengeance that is inspired by parental woes, and bade him dread the rage of the mighty Rostam, who must soon learn that he had slain his son Sohrab. These words, we are told, were as death to the aged hero; and when he recovered from a trance, he called in despair for proofs of what Sohrab had said. The afflicted and dying youth tore open his mail, and showed his father a seal which his mother had placed on his arm when she discovered to him the secret of his birth, and bade him seek his father. The sight of his own signet rendered Rostam quite frantic: he cursed himself, attempting to put an end to his existence, and was only prevented by the efforts of his expiring son. After Sohrab’s death, he burnt his tents and all his goods, and carried the corpse to Sistan, where it was interred; the army of Turan was, agreeably to the last request of Sohrab, permitted to cross the Oxus unmolested. To reconcile us to the improbability of this tale, we are informed that Rostam could have no idea his son was in existence. The mother of Sohrab had written to him her child was a daughter, fearing to lose her darling infant if she revealed the truth; and Rostam, as before stated, fought under a feigned name, an usage not uncommon in the chivalrous combats of those days.”
↩
“Sugar’d mulberries”: Arnold says in a letter that his authority for this statement was Burnes (James Burnes, 1801–62, author of Narrative of a Visit to Scinde, 1830). ↩
“There was very lately a lad in the University of Oxford, who was by his poverty forced to leave his studies there; and at last to join himself to a company of vagabond gipsies. Among these extravagant people, by the insinuating subtlety of his carriage, he quickly got so much of their love and esteem as that they discovered to him their mystery. After he had been a pretty while exercised in the trade, there chanced to ride by a couple of scholars, who had formerly been of his acquaintance. They quickly spied out their old friend among the gipsies; and he gave them an account of the necessity which drove him to that kind of life, and told them that the people he went with were not such impostors as they were taken for, but that they had a traditional kind of learning among them, and could do wonders by the power of imagination, their fancy binding that of others: that himself had learned much of their art, and when he had compassed the whole secret, he intended, he said, to leave their company, and give the world an account of what he had learned.”
—Glanvil’s Vanity of Dogmatizing, 1661
↩
These lines perhaps refer to Carlyle. ↩
One of the two daughters of Pandion, king of Attica; Tereus seduced her, feigning that her sister Procne, whom he had married, was dead. The dumb sister is Procne, whose tongue Tereus had cut out. The two sisters revenged themselves by killing Tereus’s son Itys; they then fled and, being overtaken, were changed by the gods into birds, Procne becoming a swallow, Philomela a nightingale. (This is the form of the story chosen by Arnold; another version changes the parts assigned to the two sisters.) ↩
“Baldur the Good having been tormented with terrible dreams, indicating that his life was in great peril, communicated them to the assembled Aesir, who resolved to conjure all things to avert from him the threatened danger. Then Frigga exacted an oath from fire and water, from iron and all other metals, as well as from stones, earths, diseases, beasts, birds, poisons, and creeping things, that none of them would do any harm to Baldur. When this was done, it became a favourite pastime of the Aesir, at their meetings, to get Balder to stand up and serve them as a mark, some hurling darts at him, some stones, while others hewed at him with their swords and battle-axes, for do what they would, none of them could harm him, and this was regarded by all as a great honour shown to Baldur. But when Loki, the son of Laufey, beheld the scene, he was sorely vexed that Baldur was not hurt. Assuming, therefore, the shape of a woman, he went to Fensalir, the mansion of Frigga. That goddess, when she saw the pretended woman, inquired of her if she knew what the Aesir were doing at their meetings. She replied, that they were throwing darts and stones at Baldur without being able to hurt him.
“ ‘Ay,’ said Frigga, ‘neither metal nor wood can hurt Baldur, for I have exacted an oath from all of them.’
“ ‘What!’ exclaimed the woman, ‘have all things sworn to spare Baldur?’
“ ‘All things,’ replied Frigga, ‘except one little shrub that grows on the eastern side of Valhalla, and is called Mistletoe, and which I thought too young and feeble to crave an oath from.’
“As soon as Loki heard this he went away, and, resuming his natural shape, cut off the mistletoe, and repaired to the place where the gods were assembled. There he found Hödur standing apart, without partaking of the sports, on account of his blindness, and going up to him, said, ‘Why dost thou not also throw something at Baldur?’
“ ‘Because I am blind,’ answered Hödur, ‘and see not where Baldur is, and have, moreover, nothing to throw with.’
“ ‘Come, then,’ said Loki, ‘do like the rest, and show honour to Baldur by throwing this twig at him, and I will direct thy arm toward the place where he stands.’
“Hödur then took the mistletoe, and, under the guidance of Loki, darted it at Baldur, who, pierced through and through, fell down lifeless. … When Baldur fell the Aesir were struck speechless with horror, and then they looked at each other, and all were of one mind to lay hands on him who had done the deed, but they were obliged to delay their vengeance out of respect for the sacred place (Peace-stead) where they were assembled. They at length gave vent to their grief by loud lamentations, though not one of them could find words to express the poignancy of his feelings. Odin, especially, was more sensible than the others of the loss they had suffered, for he foresaw what a detriment Baldur’s death would be to the Aesir. When the gods came to themselves, Frigga asked who among them wished to gain all her love and good will; ‘For this,’ said she, ‘shall he have who will ride to Hel and try to find Baldur, and offer Hela a ransom if she will let him return to Asgard’; whereupon Hermod, surnamed the Nimble, the son of Odin, offered to undertake the journey. Odin’s horse Sleipner was then led forth, on which Hermod mounted, and galloped away on his mission.
“The Aesir then took the dead body and bore it to the seashore, where stood Balur’s ship Hringhorn, which passed for the largest in the world. But when they wanted to launch it in order to make Baldur’s funeral pile on it, they were unable to make it stir. In this conjuncture they sent to Jötunheim for a certain giantess named Hyrrokin, who came mounted on a wolf, having twisted serpents for a brinde. … Hyrrokin then went to the ship, and with a single push set it afloat, but the motion was so violent that fire sparkled from the rollers, and the earth shook all round. Thor, engraged at the sight, grasped his mallet, and but for the interference of the Aesir would have broken the woman’s skull. Baldur’s body was then borne to the funeral pile on board the ship, and this ceremony had such an effect on Nanna, the daughter of Nep, that her heart broke with grief, and her body was burnt on the same pile with her husband’s … There was a vast concourse of various kinds of people at Baldur’s obsequies. First came Odin, accompanied by Frigga, the Valkyrjor and his ravens; then Frey in his car drawn by the boar named Gullinbursti or Slidrugtanni; Heimdall rode his horse called Gulltop, and Freyja drove in her chariot drawn by cats. There were also a great many Frost-giants and giants of the mountains present. Odin laid on the pile the gold ring called Draupnir, which afterwards acquired the property of producing every ninth night eight rings of equal weight. Baldur’s horse was led to the pile fully caparisoned, and consumed in the same flames on the body of his master.
“Meanwhile, Hermod was proceeding on his mission. For the space of nine days, and as many nights, he rode through deep glens so dark that he could not discern anything until he arrived at the river Gjöll, which he passed over on a bridge covered with glittering gold. Modgudur, the maiden who kept the bridge, asked him his name and lineage, telling him that the day before five bands of dead persons had ridden over the bridge, and did not shake it so much as he alone. ‘But,’ she added, ‘thou hast not death’s hue on thee, why then ridest thou here on the way to Hel?’
“ ‘I ride to Hel,’ answered Hermod, ‘to seek Baldur. Hast thou perchance seen him pass this way?’
“ ‘Baldur,’ she replied, ‘hath ridden over Gjöll’s bridge, but there below, towards the north, lies the way to the abodes of death.’
“Hermod then persued his journey until he came to the barred gates of Hel. Here he alighted, girthed his saddle tighter, and remounting, clapped both spurs to his horse, who cleared the gate by a tremendous leap without touching it. Hermod then rode on to the palace, where he found his brother Baldur occupying the most distinguished seat in the hall, and passed the night in his company. The next morning he besought Hela (Death) to let Baldur ride home with him, assuring her that nothing but lamentations were to be heard among the gods. Hela answered that it should now be tried whether Baldur was so beloved as he was said to be.
“ ‘If therefore,’ she added, ‘all things in the world, both living and lifeless, weep for him, then shall he return to the Aesir, but if any one thing speak against him or refuse to weep, he shall be kept in Hel.’
“Hermod then rose, and Baldur led him out of the hall and gave him the ring Draupnir, to present as a keepsake to Odin, Nanna also sent Frigga a linen cassock and other gifts, and to Fulla a gold finger-ring. Hermod then rode back to Asgard, and gave an account of all he had heard and witnessed.
“The gods upon this dispatched messengers throughout the world, to beg everything to weep, in order that Baldur might be delievered from Hel. All things very willingly complied with this request, both men and every other living being, as well as earths and stones, and trees and metals, just as thou must have seen these things weep when they are brought from a cold place into a hot one. As the messengers were returning with the conviction that their mission had been quite successful, they found an old hag named Thaukt sitting in a cavern, and begged her to weep Baldur out of Hel. But she answered,
“ ‘Thaukt will wail
With arid tears
Baldur’s bale fire.
Naught, quick or dead,
By man’s son gain I,
Let Hela hold what’s hers.’
It was strongly suspected that this hag was no other than Loki himself, who never ceased to work evil among the Aesir.”
—The Prose or Younger Edda, commonly ascribed to Snorri Sturleson, translated by J. A. Blackwell. Contained in P. H. Mallet’s Northern Antiquities. Bohn’s edition, 1847
↩
Charlotte Brontë and Harriet Martineau. ↩
Anne and Emily Brontë. ↩
Branwell Brontë. ↩
See the last verses by Emily Brontë in Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. ↩
Poias, the father of Philoctetes. Passing near, he was attracted by the concourse round the pyre, and at the entreaty of Hercules set fire to it, receiving the bow and arrows of the hero as his reward. ↩
The author’s brother, William Delafield Arnold, Director of Public Instruction in the Punjab, and author of Oakfield, or Fellowship in the East, died at Gibraltar on his way home from India, April the 9th, 1859. ↩
See the poem, “A Summer Night.” ↩
The author’s brother, William Delafield Arnold, Director of Public Instruction in the Punjab, and author of Oakfield, or Fellowship in the East, died at Gibraltar, on his way home from India, April the 9th, 1859. ↩
See “Harzreise im Winter,” in Goethe’s Gedichte. ↩
Gilbert de la Porrée, at the Council of Rheims, in 1148. ↩
The Montanists. ↩
Giacopone di Todi. ↩
See St. Augustine’s Confessions, book 9 chapter 11. ↩
Throughout this poem there is reference to “The Scholar Gipsy.” ↩
Cordyon and Thyrsis content against one another in song in Virgil’s sixth “Eclogue”; Thyrsis is defeated. ↩
Daphnis, the ideal Sicilian shepherd of Greek pastoral poetry, was said to have followed into Phrygia his mistress Piplea, who had been carried off by robbers, and to have found her in the power of the king of Phrygia, Lityerses. Lityerses used to make strangers try a contest with him in reaping corn, and to put them to death if he overcame them. Hercules arrived in time to save Daphnis, took upon himself the reaping-contest with Lityerses, overcame him, and slew him. The Lityerses-song connected with this tradition was, like the Linus-song, one of the early plaintive strains of Greek popular poetry, and used to be sung by corn-reapers. Other traditions represented Daphnis as beloved by a nymph who exacted from him an oath to love no one else. He fell in love with a princess, and was struck blind by the jealous nymph. Mercury, who was his father, raised him to Heaven, and made a fountain spring up in the place from which he ascended. At this fountain the Sicilians offered yearly sacrifices. See Servius, Comment. in Virgil. Bucol., 5:20, and 8:68. ↩
Probably all who know the Vevey end of the Lake of Geneva, will recollect Glion, the mountain village above the castle of Chillon. Glion now has hotels, pensions, and villas; but twenty years ago it was hardly more than the huts of Avant opposite to it—huts through which goes that beautiful path over the Col de Jaman, followed by so many foot-travellers on their way from Vevey to the Simmenthal and Thun. ↩
The blossoms of the Gentiana lutea. ↩
Montbovon. See Byron’s Journal, in his Works, vol. 3 p. 258. The river Saane becomes the Sarine below Montbovon. ↩
Sunt lacrimae rerum!
↩
“Ailred of Rievaulx, and several other writers, assert that Sebert, king of the East Saxons and nephew of Ethelbert, founded the Abbey of Westminster very early in the seventh century.
“Sulcardus, who lived in the time of William the Conqueror, gives a minute account of the miracle supposed to have been worked at the consecration of the Abbey.
“The church had been prepared against the next day for dedication. On the night preceding, St. Peter appeared on the opposite side of the water to a fisherman, desiring to be conveyed to the farther shore. Having left the boat, St. Peter ordered the fisherman to wait, promising him a reward on his return. An innumerable host from heaven accompanied the apostle, singing choral hymns, while everything was illuminated with a supernatural light. The dedication having been completed, St. Peter returned to the fisherman, quieted his alarm at what had passed, and announced himself as the apostle. He directed the fisherman to go as soon as it was day to the authorities, to state what he had seen and heard, and to inform them that, in corroboration of his testimony, they would find the marks of consecration on the walls of the church. In obedience to the apostle’s direction, the fisherman waited on Mellitus, Bishop of London, who, going to the church, found not only marks of the chrism, but of the tapers with which the church had been illuminated. Mellitus, therefore, desisted from proceeding to a new consecration, and contented himself with the celebration of the mass.”
—Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum (edition of 1817), vol. 1 pp. 265, 266. See also Montalembert, Les Moines d’Occident, vol. 3 pp. 428–432
↩
Demophoön, son of Celeus, king of Eleusis. See, in the Homeric Hymns, the “Hymn to Demeter,” 184–298. ↩
Agamedes and Trophonius, the builders of the temple of Apollo at Delphi. See Plutarch, “Consolatio ad Apollonium,” c. 14. ↩
See The Birds of Aristophanes, 465–485. ↩
“Come, join the melancholious croon
O’ Robin’s reed.”
—Burns, “Poor Mailie’s Elegy”
↩