His whispering stream within the walls, then view Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next: 251 Mr. Thyer have observed with me, that Plato hath laid the scene of his Phædrus on the banks, and at the spring, of this pleasant river.—χαρίεντα γοῦν καὶ καθαρὰ καὶ διαφανῆ τὰ ἐδάτια φαίνεται. Edit. Serr. vol. iii. p. 229. The philosophical retreat at the spring-head is beautifully described by Plato, in the next page, where Socrates and Phædrus are represented sitting on a green bank, shaded with a spreading platane, of which Cicero hath said very prettily, that it seemeth not to have grown so much by the water which is described, as by Plato's eloquence; "quæ mihi videtur non tam ipsa aquula, quæ describitur, quam Platonis oratione crevisse." De Orat. i. 7. NEWTON. Ver. 251. who bred Great Alexander to subdue the world,] Milton, in his Elegy to his former preceptor, Thomas Young, then minister of the church of the English Merchants at Hamburgh, speaks of his affection for his old master as superiour to that of Alcibiades for Socrates, or of Alexander for Aristotle, El, iv. 25. We are told by Cicero that Aristotle, having observed how Isocrates had risen to celebrity on the sole ground of florid declamation, (inanem sermonis elegantiam,) was thereby induced to add, to his own stock of solid knowledge, the external grace of oratorical embellishments; which recommended him so much to Philip of Macedon, that he fixed upon him to be preceptor to his son Alexander, whom he wished to be taught at once conduct and eloquence," et agendi præcepta, et loquendi." De Orator. iii. 41. Ed. Proust. The letter which Philip wrote to Aristotle upon the birth of his son, is preserved by Aulus. Gellius. L. ix. C. 3. DUNSTER. Ver. 253. Lyceum there,] The Lyceum was the school of Aristotle, who had been tutor to Alexander the Great, and was the founder of the sect of the Peripateticks, so called, drò TOU TερITαTEй, from his walking and teaching philosophy. But there There shalt thou hear and learn the secret power By voice or hand; and various-measur❜d verse, And his who gave them breath, but higher sung, 255 is some reason to question, whether the Lyceum was within the walls, as Milton asserts. For Suidas says expressly, that it was a place in the suburbs, built by Pericles for the exercising of soldiers and I find the scholiast upon Aristophanes in the Irene, speaks of going into the Lyceum, and going out of it again, and returning back into the city :—εἰς τὸ Λύκειον ἔισιοντες—καὶ πάλιν ἔξιοντες ἐκ τοῦ Λύκειου, καὶ ἄπιοντες εἰς τὴν πόλιν. NEWTON, Ver. 253. painted Stoa] Stoa was the school of Zeno, whose disciples from the place had the name of Stoicks; and this Stoa, or portico, being adorned with variety of paintings, was called in Greek Howiλŋ or various, and here by Milton the painted Stoa. See Diogenes Laertius, in the Lives of Aristotle and Zeno. NEWTON. Ver. 257 Eolian charms &c.] Eolia carmina, verses such as those of Alcæus and Sappho, who were both of Mitylene in Lesbos, an island belonging to the Eolians, Hor. Od. III. xxx. 13. "Princeps Eolium carmen ad Italos See also Od. IV. iii. 12. And Dorian lyrick odes; such as those of Pindar; who calls his lyre Awpíav pópшyya, Olymp. i. 26, &c, NEWTON. Ver. 258. And his, &c.] Our author agrees with those writers, who speak of Homer as the father of all kinds of poetry, Such wise men as Dionysius the Halicarnassean, and Plutarch, have attempted to show that poetry in all its forms, tragedy, comedy, ode, and epitaph, are included in his works. NEWTON. Homer's works gave the idea of all the various species of poetry. Shaftesbury, speaking on this subject, says finely; "There was no more for Tragedy to do after him, [Homer,] than to erect Blind Melesigenes, thence Homer call'd, 260 a stage, and draw dialogues and characters into scenes turning in the same manner upon one principlal action, or event, with that regard to place and time which was suitable to a real spectacle. Even Comedy itself was adjudged to this great master." Characteristicks, vol i. p. 198.. Jos. WARTON. Ver. 259. Blind Melesigenes, thence Homer call'd,] Our author here follows Herodotus, in his life of Homer, where it is said that he was born near the river Meles, and that from thence his mother named him at first Melesigenes,τίθεται ὄνομα τῷ παιδὶ Μελεσιγένεα, ἀπὸ τοῦ ποταμοῦ τὴν ἐπωνυμίαν λαβοῦσα, and that afterwards, when he was blind and settled at Cuma, he was called Homer, quasi ò μn opwv, from the term by which the Cumæans distinguished blind persons; ἐντεῦθεν δὲ καὶ τοὔνομα Ομηρος ἐπεκράτησε τῷ Μελησιγένει, ἀπὸ τῆς συμφορῆς, οἱ γὰρ Κυμαῖοι τοὺς τυφλοὺς ὁμήρους λέγουσιν. NEWTON. Ver. 260. Whose poem Phœbus challeng'd for his own:] Alluding to a Greek Epigram, in the first book of the Anthologia; Ἠείδον μὲν ἐγὼν, ἐχάρασσε δὲ θεῖος Ομηρος. NEWTON. Ver. 261. the lofty grave tragedians] Eschylus is thus characterised by Quinctilian; "Tragoedias primum in lucem Eschylus protulit, sublimis et gravis, et grandiloquus, &c." L. x. C. 1. Where also the same author, comparing Sophocles and Euripides says, "gravitas, et cothurnus, et sonus Sophoclis videtur esse sublimior." Tragedy was termed lofty by the ancients from its style, but at the same time not without a reference to the elevated buskin which the actors wore. Thus Claudian, describing tragedy as distinguished from comedy, De Mall. Theod. Cons. v. 314, "alte graditur majore cothurno:" And Ovid, Amor. L. ii. El. 18, speaking of himself as having written tragedy, but being seduced from so grave an employment by the charms of his mistress, adds, 1 In Chorus or Iambick, teachers best Of moral prudence, with delight receiv'd Again, Trist. L. ii. El. i. 553, he refers to his Medea in similar terms; giving the epithet gravis to the cothurnus, or high tragick buskin. Milton, in his brief discourse on tragedy, prefixed to his Samson Agonistes, says, "Tragedy, as it was anciently composed, hath ever been held the gravest, moralest, and most profitable of all other poems, &c." And Ovid hath said, Trist. El. II. i. 381. "Omne genus scripti gravitate Tragoedia vincit." DUNSTER. Ver. 262. Chorus or Iambick,] The two constituent parts of the ancient tragedy were the dialogue, written chiefly in the Iambick measure, and the chorus, which consisted of various measures. The character, here given by our author of the ancient tragedy, is very just and noble; and the English reader cannot form a better idea of it in its highest beauty and per fection, than by reading our author's Samson Agonistes. Ver. 263.. NEWTON. with delight receiv'd In brief sententious precepts,] This description particularly applies to Euripides, who, next to Homer, was Milton's favourite Greek author. Euripides is described by Quinctilian, “sententiis densus, et in iis, quæ a sapientibus tradita sunt, pœne ipsis par." L. x. C. 1. And Aulus Gellius, '(L. xi. C. 4.) citing some verses from the Hecuba of Euripides, terms them "verbis sententia, brevitate, insignes illustrésque. Aristotle, where he treats of sentences (Rhetoric. L. ii. C. 22.), takes almost all his examples from Euripides. The abundance of moral precepts introduced by the Greek tragick poets in their pieces, and the delight with which they were received, are admirably accounted for by an eminent and excellent writer, Bp. Hurd, in his note on Horace's Art of Poetry, v. 219. Sylvester, in his Du Bartas, complimenting Daniel, edit. 1621, p. 82, calls him Of fate, and chance, and change in human life, 265 High actions and high passions best describing: 66 sharp-conceited, brief, "Civil, sententious, for pure accents chief:" See Headly's Specimens of old Eng. Poetry, vol. ii. 190. DUNSTER. Ver. 265, Offate, and chance, and change in human life,] The arguments most frequently selected by the Greek tragick writers, (and indeed by their epick poets also,) were the accomplishment of some oracle, or some supposed decree of fate. Aids déteλeleto Bovλý. Iliad, i. 5. But the incidents or intermeδ ̓ ἐτελείετο βουλή. diate circumstances which led to the destined event, according to their system, depended on fortune, or chance. Fate and chance then furnished the subject and incidents of their dramas; while the catastrophe produced the peripetia, or change of fortune. The history of Edipus, one of their principal dramatick subjects, was here perhaps in our author's mind. The fate of Edipus was foretold before his birth; the wonderful incidents, that, in spite of every guarded precaution, led to the accomplishment of it, depended apparently on chance; the peripetia, or change of fortune, produced by the discovery of the oracle being so completely fulfilled, is truly affecting. Change in human life might here perhaps not merely refer to the pathetick catastrophes of the Greek tragedy, as it sometimes formed the entire argument of their pieces; of which the Edipus Coloneus is an instance. DUNSTER. Ver. 266. High actions and high passions best describing :] High actions refer to fate and chance, the arguments and incidents of tragedy; high passions to the peripetia, or change of fortune, which included the Tábos, or affecting part. High actions are the κaλaì πpážɛs of Aristotle, who, speaking of the tragick poets as distinguished from the writers of comedy, says, oi μèv oeuvóτεροι ΤΑΣ ΚΑΛΑΣ ἐμιμοῦντο ΠΡΑΞΕΙΣ. High actions and high passions might also be understood to mean the noble achievements of the affecting disasters and sufferings of great and elevated persons. This agrees with what Milton says in his preface to Samson Agonistes, where he condemns "the introducing trivial and vulgar persons in tragedy; which by all judicious hath been counted absurd." DUNSTER. |