heroes and hero worship-第21节
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It must have been a great solacement to Dante; and was; as we can see; a proud thought for him at times; That he; here in exile; could do this work; that no Florence; nor no man or men; could hinder him from doing it; or even much help him in doing it。 He knew too; partly; that it was great; the greatest a man could do。 〃If thou follow thy star; _Se tu segui tua stella_;〃so could the Hero; in his forsakenness; in his extreme need; still say to himself: 〃Follow thou thy star; thou shalt not fail of a glorious haven!〃 The labor of writing; we find; and indeed could know otherwise; was great and painful for him; he says; This Book; 〃which has made me lean for many years。〃 Ah yes; it was won; all of it; with pain and sore toil;not in sport; but in grim earnest。 His Book; as indeed most good Books are; has been written; in many senses; with his heart's blood。 It is his whole history; this Book。 He died after finishing it; not yet very old; at the age of fifty…six;broken…hearted rather; as is said。 He lies buried in his death…city Ravenna: _Hic claudor Dantes patriis extorris ab oris_。 The Florentines begged back his body; in a century after; the Ravenna people would not give it。 〃Here am I Dante laid; shut out from my native shores。〃
I said; Dante's Poem was a Song: it is Tieck who calls it 〃a mystic unfathomable Song;〃 and such is literally the character of it。 Coleridge remarks very pertinently somewhere; that wherever you find a sentence musically worded; of true rhythm and melody in the words; there is something deep and good in the meaning too。 For body and soul; word and idea; go strangely together here as everywhere。 Song: we said before; it was the Heroic of Speech! All _old_ Poems; Homer's and the rest; are authentically Songs。 I would say; in strictness; that all right Poems are; that whatsoever is not _sung_ is properly no Poem; but a piece of Prose cramped into jingling lines;to the great injury of the grammar; to the great grief of the reader; for most part! What we wants to get at is the _thought_ the man had; if he had any: why should he twist it into jingle; if he _could_ speak it out plainly? It is only when the heart of him is rapt into true passion of melody; and the very tones of him; according to Coleridge's remark; become musical by the greatness; depth and music of his thoughts; that we can give him right to rhyme and sing; that we call him a Poet; and listen to him as the Heroic of Speakers;whose speech is Song。 Pretenders to this are many; and to an earnest reader; I doubt; it is for most part a very melancholy; not to say an insupportable business; that of reading rhyme! Rhyme that had no inward necessity to be rhymed;it ought to have told us plainly; without any jingle; what it was aiming at。 I would advise all men who _can_ speak their thought; not to sing it; to understand that; in a serious time; among serious men; there is no vocation in them for singing it。 Precisely as we love the true song; and are charmed by it as by something divine; so shall we hate the false song; and account it a mere wooden noise; a thing hollow; superfluous; altogether an insincere and offensive thing。
I give Dante my highest praise when I say of his _Divine Comedy_ that it is; in all senses; genuinely a Song。 In the very sound of it there is a _canto fermo_; it proceeds as by a chant。 The language; his simple _terza rima_; doubtless helped him in this。 One reads along naturally with a sort of _lilt_。 But I add; that it could not be otherwise; for the essence and material of the work are themselves rhythmic。 Its depth; and rapt passion and sincerity; makes it musical;go _deep_ enough; there is music everywhere。 A true inward symmetry; what one calls an architectural harmony; reigns in it; proportionates it all: architectural; which also partakes of the character of music。 The three kingdoms; _Inferno_; _Purgatorio_; _Paradiso_; look out on one another like compartments of a great edifice; a great supernatural world…cathedral; piled up there; stern; solemn; awful; Dante's World of Souls! It is; at bottom; the _sincerest_ of all Poems; sincerity; here too;; we find to be the measure of worth。 It came deep out of the author's heart of hearts; and it goes deep; and through long generations; into ours。 The people of Verona; when they saw him on the streets; used to say; 〃_Eccovi l' uom ch' e stato all' Inferno_; See; there is the man that was in Hell!〃 Ah yes; he had been in Hell;in Hell enough; in long severe sorrow and struggle; as the like of him is pretty sure to have been。 Commedias that come out _divine_ are not accomplished otherwise。 Thought; true labor of any kind; highest virtue itself; is it not the daughter of Pain? Born as out of the black whirlwind;true _effort_; in fact; as of a captive struggling to free himself: that is Thought。 In all ways we are 〃to become perfect through _suffering_。〃_But_; as I say; no work known to me is so elaborated as this of Dante's。 It has all been as if molten; in the hottest furnace of his soul。 It had made him 〃lean〃 for many years。 Not the general whole only; every compartment of it is worked out; with intense earnestness; into truth; into clear visuality。 Each answers to the other; each fits in its place; like a marble stone accurately hewn and polished。 It is the soul of Dante; and in this the soul of the middle ages; rendered forever rhythmically visible there。 No light task; a right intense one: but a task which is _done_。
Perhaps one would say; _intensity_; with the much that depends on it; is the prevailing character of Dante's genius。 Dante does not come before us as a large catholic mind; rather as a narrow; and even sectarian mind: it is partly the fruit of his age and position; but partly too of his own nature。 His greatness has; in all senses; concentred itself into fiery emphasis and depth。 He is world…great not because he is worldwide; but because he is world…deep。 Through all objects he pierces as it were down into the heart of Being。 I know nothing so intense as Dante。 Consider; for example; to begin with the outermost development of his intensity; consider how he paints。 He has a great power of vision; seizes the very type of a thing; presents that and nothing more。 You remember that first view he gets of the Hall of Dite: _red_ pinnacle; red…hot cone of iron glowing through the dim immensity of gloom;so vivid; so distinct; visible at once and forever! It is as an emblem of the whole genius of Dante。 There is a brevity; an abrupt precision in him: Tacitus is not briefer; more condensed; and then in Dante it seems a natural condensation; spontaneous to the man。 One smiting word; and then there is silence; nothing more said。 His silence is more eloquent than words。 It is strange with what a sharp decisive grace he snatches the true likeness of a matter: cuts into the matter as with a pen of fire。 Plutus; the blustering giant; collapses at Virgil's rebuke; it is 〃as the sails sink; the mast being suddenly broken。〃 Or that poor Brunetto Latini; with the _cotto aspetto_; 〃face _baked_;〃 parched brown and lean; and the 〃fiery snow〃 that falls on them there; a 〃fiery snow without wind;〃 slow; deliberate; never…ending! Or the lids of those Tombs; square sarcophaguses; in that silent dim…burning Hall; each with its Soul in torment; the lids laid open there; they are to be shut at the Day of Judgment; through Eternity。 And how Farinata rises; and how Cavalcante fallsat hearing of his Son; and the past tense 〃_fue_〃! The very movements in Dante have something brief; swift; decisive; almost military。 It is of the inmost essence of his genius this sort of painting。 The fiery; swift Italian nature of the man; so silent; passionate; with its quick abrupt movements; its silent 〃pale rages;〃 speaks itself in these things。
For though this of painting is one of the outermost developments of a man; it comes like all else from the essential faculty of him; it is physiognomical of the whole man。 Find a man whose words paint you a likeness; you have found a man worth something; mark his manner of doing it; as very characteristic of him。 In the first place; he could not have discerned the object at all; or seen the vital type of it; unless he had; what we may call; _sympathized_ with it;had sympathy in him to bestow on objects。 He must have been _sincere_ about it too; sincere and sympathetic: a man without worth cannot give you the likeness of any object; he dwells in vague outwardness; fallacy and trivial hearsay; about all objects。 And indeed may we not say that intellect altogether expresses itself in this power of discerning what an object is? Whatsoever of faculty a man's mind may have will come out here。 Is it even of business; a matter to be done? The gifted man is he who _sees_ the essential point; and leaves all the rest aside as surplusage: it is his faculty too; the man of business's faculty; that he discern the true _likeness_; not the false superficial one; of the thing he has got to work in。 And how much of _morality_ is in the kind of insight we get of anything; 〃the eye seeing in all things what it brought with it the faculty of seeing〃! To the mean eye all things are trivial; as certainly as