199.
mvp-aristotle-comment-199
NOTE 199. P. 111.
22.9
AS OLD EUCLID DID, OBJECTING, &C.Fontenelle talks in the same way.
"Du tems d'Homere c'étoit une grande merveille qu'un homme pût aſſujettir ſon diſcours à des meſures, à des fillabes longues et breves, & faire en même tems quelque choſe de raiſonnable. On donnoit donc aux Poetes des licences infinies, & on ſe tenoit encore trop heureux d'avoir des vers. Homère pouvoit parler dans un ſeul vers cinq langues differentes; prendre le dialecte Dorique quand l'Ionique ne l'accommodoit pas; au defaut de tous les deux, prendre l'Attique, l'Eolique, ou le commun; c'est-à-dire, parler en même tems, Picard, Gascon, Normand, Breton, & François commun. Il pouvoit allonger un mot s'il étoit trop court, l'accourcir s'il étoit trop long; personne n'y trouvoit à redire."
1
But, could this ingenious and sensible writer seriously suppose, that the language of Homer's poems had at all the same effect to a hearer, or reader, of his time, that an English poem would now have, if composed of all the provincial dialects of Great Britain? —We are always told, how Homer enriched his language by "visiting all the principal nations of Greece, and learning the peculiarities of their speech."
2
Just as if an English poet, because he had resided some time in Yorkshire, or Lancashire, might, in his next poem, put
neet for
night,
loise for
lose, or a
balliblash, a very well-sounding Lancashire word, for a
blaze.
This account makes the language of Homer no other than the
kainisma
which Quintilian reprobates, among the
vitia orationis
:
3
something worse than the "Babylonish dialect" of Hudibras;
"a party-colour'd dress / Of patch'd and piebald languages. / It had an odd promiscuous tone, / As if he'd talk'd three parts in one Which made some think, when he did gabble, / They had heard three labourers of Babel; / Or Cerberus himself pronounce / A leash of languages at once."
With such an idea of Homer's language, Fontenelle might well add—
"Cette étrange confusion de langues, cet assemblage bisarre de mots tout défigurés, etoit la langue des dieux; du moins il est bien ſûr que ce n'etoit pas celle des hommes."
—And, indeed, I firmly believe with Lord Monboddo, that "fuch a mongrel dialect was never written by any man;" and that "Homer wrote, either the language that was ſpoken in the country where he was born and educated, or that was used by the poets that had written before him, and was the eſtabliſhed language of Poetry."
4
200.
mvp-aristotle-comment-200
NOTE 200. P. 111.
22.9
AND THEN GIVING A BURLESQUE EXAMPLE OF THAT SORT OF DICTION.
Ιαμβοποιησας ἐν ἀυτη τη λεξει.
— Two senses have been given to the word
ἰαμβοποιησας
; both of them, I think, far from satisfactory. Some render it—making Iambic verses:
"Iambis usus est."
[Vict.] But, is it likely, that Euclid, meaning to ridicule Homer's hexameters, should do it in Iambic verse?—Besides that the lines themselves, such as we find them, have not the least air of Iambics, but fall easily enough, with a little help, into hexameters. In this I perfectly agree with Dacier; though I see no reason to suppose with him, that Euclid had composed—
"un ouvrage en vers heroiques."
Others, and Madius in particular, understand the word to mean, satirizing, ridiculing, the Poet; —
"ſe moque de lui."
[Dac.] A meaning that, undoubtedly, suits the passage better; whether it suits the word itself I much doubt, but will not venture to decide. As Aristotle uses
ἰαμβοποιος
,
5
in the sense of a satiric Poet—a maker of the
ἰαμβος
, or satiric poem, he may possibly have used the verb,
Ιαμβοποιειν
, here, in the correspondent sense of making a satire upon, or burlesquing:—
ἰαμβοποἰησας ἐν ἀυτη τη λεξει
—having ridiculed him "in that fort of diction," in the following manner, &c.
As this sense appears to me, on the whole, far more eligible than the other, I have followed it: for I see no third sense that can, with any shew of probability, be extracted from the present text. But that it is defective, and that
ἰαμβοποιησας
is an error, I have very little doubt. If conjecture might be indulged, I should be inclined to suppose, that what Aristotle had said was this; "that it is an easy matter to versify, even in common speech, (
ἐν αυτη τη λεξει
,)
6
if one may be allowed to extend syllables and words at pleasure, so as to convert, for instance, an Iambic foot, which is continually occurring in common conversation, into an Heroic or Spondee." And the examples that follow, were probably two prose sentences so converted, or convertible, into hexameters. But as to the manner in which Aristotle had expressed this in the text, I have no conjecture to offer that is satisfactory, even to myself. Of the mangled lines which follow, with their perplexing variety of indeterminable readings, I shall say with Victorius,
"veritate deſperatâ, nihil amplius curæ de hac re fufcipere volui."
It is some comfort however, as M. Batteux has observed, that both the objection of Euclid, and Aristotle's answer, are clear enough, independently of the examples.
I ought to mention, that Castelvetro has explained this passage, without supposing the text wrong, in a manner different from any
other interpreter, and which, in part, accords with my idea. By
ἰαμβοποιειν
he understands neither satirizing, nor making Iambic verses; but, making Iambic feet instead of spondees, in hexameter verse. And the sense he gives the whole passage is this: "It would be a very easy thing to write heroic verse, if this liberty of extension were allowed; for then, a Poet might put Iambic feet in the room of Spondees, and commit no fault, because the short syllables might be lengthened at pleasure." And the lines that follow he supposes to be examples of such defective hexameters.
There is somewhat ingenious in this explanation, as there is in many others of this acute writer: but it has likewise the fault, which many of his explanations have; that of being by no means reconcileable with the original.—See his comment. p. 481.
