Part 28

“Here Scylla bellows from her dire abodes, Tremendous pest, abhorred by man and gods! … Six horrid necks she rears, and six terrific heads; Her jaws grin dreadful with three rows of teeth; Jaggy they stand, the gaping den of Death.”[260]

Not far off were the Sirens, who strove by their music to draw the navigator to certain doom:--

“Their song is death, and makes destruction please. Unblest the man whom music wins to stay Nigh the cursed shore and listen to the lay: No more that wretch shall view the joys of life, His blooming offspring or his beauteous wife!”[261]

Forewarned, the wise Ulysses took all precautions against the fatal perils. Avoiding the Sicilian whirlpool, he did not run upon the Italian rock or yield to the voice of the charmer. And yet he could not renounce the opportunity of hearing the melody. Stuffing the ears of his companions with wax, so that they could not be entranced by the Sirens, or comprehend any countermanding order which his weakness might induce him to utter, he had himself tied to the mast,--like another Farragut,--and directed that the ship should be steered straight on. It was steered straight on, although he cried out to stop. His deafened companions heard nothing of the song or the countermand,--

“Till, dying off, the distant sounds decay.”

The dangers of both coasts were at length passed, not without the loss of six men, “chiefs of renown,” who became the prey of Scylla. But the Sirens, humbled by defeat, dashed themselves upon the rocks and disappeared forever.

Few stories have been more popular. It was natural that it should enter into poetry and suggest a proverb. St. Augustine uses it, when he says, “_Ne iterum, quasi fugiens Charybdim, in Scyllam incurras_.”[262] Milton more than once alludes to it. Thus, in the exquisite “Comus,” he shows these opposite terrors subdued by another power:--

“Scylla wept And chid her barking waves into attention, And fell Charybdis murmured soft applause.”[263]

In the “Paradise Lost,” while portraying Sin, the terrible portress at the gates of Hell, the poet repairs to this story for illustration:--

“Far less abhorred than these, Vexed Scylla, bathing in the sea that parts Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore.”[264]

And then again, when picturing Satan escaping from pursuit, he shows him

“harder beset, And more endangered, than when Argo passed Through Bosphorus betwixt the justling rocks; Or when Ulysses on the larboard shunned Charybdis, and by the other whirlpool steered.”[265]

But, though frequently employing the story, Milton did not use the proverb, and here transforms at least one of the dangers.

Not only the story, but the proverb, was known to Shakespeare, who makes Launcelot use it in his plain talk with Jessica:--“Truly, then, I fear you are damned both by father and mother: thus, when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall into Charybdis, your mother: well, you are gone both ways.”[266] Malone, in his note, written in the last century, says: “Alluding to the well-known line of a modern Latin poet, Philippe Gualtier, in his poem entitled ‘Alexandreïs.’” To this testimony of Malone’s, another editor, George Steevens, whose early bibliographical tastes excited the praise of Dibdin, adds: “Several translations of this adage were obvious to Shakespeare. Among other places, it is found in an ancient poem entitled ‘A Dialogue between _Custom and Veritie_, concerning the use and abuse of Dauncing and Minstrelsie’:--

“‘While Silla they do seem to shun, In Charibd they do fall.’”

But this proverb had already passed into tradition and speech. That Shakespeare should seize and use it was natural. He was the universal absorbent.

It did not require a Shakespeare to appropriate it. Brantôme, who wrote rather from hearing than study, so that his style is a record of contemporary language, in describing a great lady who escaped from Turks to fall into the hands of domestic robbers, likens the case to falling from Scylla to Charybdis.[267] A similar illustration drops from La Fontaine:--

“La vieille, au lieu du coq, les fit tomber par là De Charybde en Scylla.”[268]

Thomson shows that it was a common illustration, when he describes Dunkirk as

“the Scylla since And fell Charybdis of the British seas.”[269]

Mr. Webster, in an argument before the Supreme Court of the United States, quotes and applies the words of Virgil describing these opposite perils, and warns against Charybdis.[270] The great orator of ancient Rome, in his second Philippic, where Mark Antony is assailed with all his splendid ability, after picturing the culprit as seizing and squandering an enormous property, exclaims: “What Charybdis was ever so voracious? Charybdis do I say?--who, if she existed at all, was a single animal.”[271] Antony is worse than Charybdis, but there is no allusion to the sister peril. The proverb had no existence at that time.

The history of this verse seemed for a while forgotten. Like the Wandering Jew, it was a vagrant, unknown in origin, but having perpetual life. Erasmus, with learning so vast, quotes it, with the variation _Incidit_, for _Incidis_, in his great work on Proverbs, and owns that he does not remember its author. Here is the confession: “_Celebratur apud Latinos hic versiculus, quocunque natus auctore, nam in præsentia non occurrit_”: “This little verse is a commonplace among Latin writers, whoever the author,--for he does not at present occur to me.”[272] But, though unable to recall its origin, it is clear that the idea it embodies found much favor with this representative of moderation. He dwells on it with particular sympathy, and reproduces it in various forms. This is the equivalent on which he hangs his commentary: “_Evitata Charybdi, in Scyllam incidi_.”[273] It is easy to see how inferior in form is this to the much quoted verse. It seems to be a rendering of some Greek iambics, also of uncertain origin, preserved by Apostolius,[274] one of the learned Greeks scattered over Europe by the fall of Constantinople. Erasmus quotes also another proverb with the same signification: “_Fumum fugiens, in ignem incidi_,”[275] which warns against running into the fire to avoid the smoke; and yet another, rendered from the Greek of Lucian: “_Ignoraveram autem quod, juxta proverbium, ex fumo in ipsum ignem compellerer_”: “But I didn’t know, that, according to the proverb, I should be driven from the smoke into the fire itself.”[276] Horace teaches that fools shunning vices run upon the opposite:--

“Dum vitant stulti vitia, in contraria currunt”;

and then he describes one man as smelling of pastils, and another of the goat:--

“Pastilles Rufillus olet, Gorgonius hircum.”[277]

Erasmus quotes words of kindred sentiment from the “Phormio” of Terence: “_Ita fugias, ne præter casam_”: which he tells us means that we should not so fly from any vice as to be incautiously carried into a greater.[278] In his letters the ancient fable recurs more than once. On one occasion he warns against the dangers of youth, and says, “Instead of the ears with wax, as in the Homeric story, the mind must be carefully sealed by the precepts of Philosophy.”[279] Again he avows fear, lest, shunning Scylla, he fall on a much worse Charybdis: “_Nunc vereor ne sic vitemus hanc Scyllam, ut incidamus in Charybdim multo perniciosiorem_.”[280] And the same fear appears yet again, where he describes his straits: “_In has angustias protrusus sum, ut mihi, si Scyllam fugero, in Charybdim sit incidendum_.”[281] On another occasion he pictures himself as exposed in his expenses to the most voracious Charybdises: “_Ex his conjecturam facias licebit, quemadmodum hic dilabantur nummi, ubi nihil non meo sumptu geritur, et est mihi res cum duabus Charybdibus voracissimis_.”[282] The following is cited by Jortin from another letter of Erasmus: “Some say slanderously that I keep a medium. I confess it is a very impious thing to keep a medium between Christ and Belial; but I think it prudential to keep a medium between Scylla and Charybdis.”[283] Thus did his instinctive prudence find expression in this favorite illustration.

If Erasmus were less illustrious for learning, perhaps if his countenance were less interesting, as we look upon it in the immortal portraits by two great artists, Hans Holbein and Albert Dürer, I should not be tempted to dwell on this confession of ignorance. And yet it belongs to the history of this verse, which has had strange ups and downs. The poem from which it is taken, after enjoying early renown, was forgotten,--and then again, after a revival, was forgotten, again to enjoy another revival. The last time it was revived through this solitary verse, without which, I cannot doubt, it would have expired forever.

Even before the days of Erasmus, who died in 1536, this verse had been lost and found. It was circulated as a proverb of unknown origin, when Galeotto Marzio--an Italian of infinite wit and learning,[284] who flourished in the latter half of the fifteenth century, and was for some time instructor of the children of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary--pointed out its author. In a work of _Ana_, amusing and instructive, entitled “De Doctrina Promiscua,” which first saw the light in Latin, and was afterwards translated into Italian, the learned author says: “_Hoc carmen est Gualteri Galli de Gestis Alexandri, et non vagum proverbium, ut quidam non omnino indocti meminerunt_.” It was not a vague proverb, as some persons not altogether unlearned have supposed, but a verse of the “Alexandreïs.” And yet shortly afterwards the great master of proverbs, whose learning seemed to know no bounds, could not fix its origin. At a later day, Pasquier, in his “Recherches de la France,” made substantially the same remark as Marzio. After alluding to the early fame of its author, he says: “_C’est luy dans les œuvres duquel nous trouvons un vers souvent par nous allegué, sans que plusieurs sçachient qui en fut l’auteur_.” In quoting the verse, the French author uses _Decidit_ instead of _Incidis_.[285] The discovery by Marzio, and the repetition of this discovery by Pasquier, are chronicled at a later day in the Conversations of Ménage,[286] who found a French Boswell before that of Dr. Johnson was born. Jortin, in the elaborate notes to his Life of Erasmus, borrows from Ménage, and gives the same history.[287]

When Galeotto Marzio made his discovery, the poem was still in manuscript; but there were printed editions before the “Adagia” of Erasmus. An eminent authority--the “Histoire Littéraire de la France,” that great work, commenced by the Benedictines, and continued by the French Academy--says that it was printed for the first time at Strasbourg, in 1513.[288] This is a mistake which has been repeated by Warton.[289] Brunet, in his “Manuel du Libraire,” mentions an edition, without place or date, with the cipher of Guillaume Le Talleur, a printer at Rouen in 1487.[290] Panzer, in his “Annales Typographici,” describes another edition, with the monogram of Richard Pynson, the London printer at the close of the fifteenth century.[291] Beloe, in his “Anecdotes of Literature,” also speaks of an edition with the imprint of Pynson.[292] There also appears to have been an edition under date of 1496. Then came the Strasbourg edition of 1513, by J. Adelphus. All these are in black letter. Next was the Ingolstadt edition, in 1541, in Italic, or, as it is called by the French, “cursive characters,” with a brief life of the poet, by Sebastian Link. This was followed, in 1558, by an edition at Lyons, also in Italic, announced as now for the first time appearing in France, “_nunc primum in Gallia_,” which was a mistake. This edition seems to have enjoyed peculiar favor. It has been strangely confounded with imaginary editions which never existed: thus, the Italian Quadrio notes especially one at London, in 1558;[293] and the French Millin assures us that the best was at Leyden, in 1558.[294] No such editions appeared; and the only edition of that year was at Lyons. After the lapse of a century, in 1659, there was another edition, by Athanasius Gugger, a monk of the Monastery of St. Gall, published at the Monastery itself, from manuscripts there, and with its own types, “_formis ejusdem_.” The editor was ignorant of the previous editions, and in his preface announces the poem as _a new work_, although ancient,--never before printed, to his knowledge,--eagerly regarded and desired by many,--and not less venerable for antiquity than for erudition: “_En tibi, candide Lector, opus novum, ut sit antiquum, nusquam, quod sciam, editum, a multis cupide inspectum et desideratum, non minus antiquitate quam eruditione venerabile_.”[295] This edition seems to have been repeated at St. Gall in 1693; and these two, which were the last, appear to have been the best. From that time the poem rested undisturbed until our own day, when it found a place in that magnificent collection of patristic learning, the “Patrologiæ Cursus Completus” of Migne.[296] Such an edition ought to be useful in determining the text, for there must be numerous manuscripts in the Paris libraries. As long ago as 1795 there were no less than nineteen in the National Library, and also a manuscript at Tours, which had drawn forth a curious commentary by M. de Foncemagne.[297]

I ought not to forget here that in 1537 a passage from this poem was rendered into English blank verse, and is an early monument of our language. This was by Nicholas Grimoald, a native of Huntingdonshire, whose translation is entitled “The Death of Zoroas, an Egyptian Astronomer, in the First Fight that Alexander had with the Persians.”[298] This is not the only token of the attention it awakened in England. Alexander Ross, chaplain of Charles the First, and author, famous from a couplet of “Hudibras,” made preparations for an edition. His dedicatory letter was written, bearing date 1644, with two different sets of dedicatory verses, and verses from his friend David Echlin, the scholarly physician to the king,[299] who had given him this “great treasure.” But the work failed to appear. The identical copy presented by Echlin, with many marginal notes from Quintus Curtius and others, is mentioned as belonging to the Bishop of Ely at the beginning of the present century.[300] But the homage of the Scotchman still exists in his Dedicatory Epistle: “_Si materiam consideres, elegantissimam utilissimamque historiam gestorum Alexandri magni continet; certe, sive stylum, sive subjectum inspicias, dignam invenies quæ omnium teratur manibus, quamque adolescentes_

‘Nocturna versentque manu, versentque diurna.’”[301]

It will be observed that he borrows superlatives to praise this poem as “most elegant and most useful,” and by style and subject worthy of the daily and nightly study of youth. In his verses Ross declares Alexander not less fortunate in his poet than the Greek chieftain in Homer:--

“Si felix præcone fuit dux Græcus Homero, Felix nonne tuo est carmine dux Macedo?”[302]

There was also another edition planned in France, during the latter part of the last century, by M. Daire, the librarian of the Celestines in Paris, founded on the Latin text, according to the various manuscripts, with a French translation; but this never appeared.[303]

Until its late appearance in the collection of Migne, it was only in ancient editions that this poem could be found. Of course these are rare. The British Museum, in its immense treasure-house, has the most important, one of which belonged to the invaluable legacy of the late Mr. Grenville. The copy in the library of Lord Spencer is the Lyons edition of 1558. By a singular fortune, this volume was missing some time ago from its place on the shelves; but it has since been found; and I have now before me a tracing from its title-page. My own copy--and the only one which I know this side of the Atlantic--is the Ingolstadt edition. It once belonged to John Mitford, and has on the fly-leaves notes in the autograph of this honored lover of books.

Bibliography dwells with delight upon this poem, although latterly the interest centres in a single line. Brunet does full justice to it. So does his jealous rival, Graesse, except where he blunders. Watt, in his “Bibliotheca Britannica,” under the name “Galtherus, Philip,” mentions the Lyons edition of 1558, on which he remarks, “The typography is very singular”; and then, under the name “Gualterus, de Castelliona,” he mentions the edition of St. Gall in 1659. Curiously, the learned bibliographer seems to suppose these two editions to be different works, by different authors,--as they stand far apart, and without reference from one to the other. Clarke, in his “Repertorium Bibliographicum,” bearing date 1819, where he gives an account of the most celebrated British libraries, mentions a copy of the first edition in the library of Mr. Steevens,[304] who showed his knowledge of the poem in his notes to Shakespeare; also a copy of the Lyons edition of 1558 in the library of the Marquis of Blandford, afterwards Duke of Marlborough. This learned bibliographer has a note calling attention to the fact that “there are variations in the famous disputed line in different editions of this poem,”--that in the first edition the line begins “_Corruis in Syllam_” but in the Lyons edition “_Incidis in Scyllam_” while, as we have already seen, Pasquier says, “_Decidit in Scyllam_.”[305] Lowndes, in his “Bibliographer’s Manual,” says of the poem, “In it will be found that trite verse so often repeated, ‘_Incidis_,’” etc.,--words which seem borrowed from Beloe.[306] “Trite” is hardly respectful.

Very little is known of the author. He is called in Latin Philippus Gualterus or Galterus; in French it is sometimes Gaultier and sometimes Gautier. The French biographical dictionaries, whether of Michaud or Didot, attest the number of persons with this name, of all degrees and professions. There was the Norman knight _sans Avoir_, a chief of the first Crusade. There also was another Gautier, known as the Sire d’Yvetot, stabbed to death by his sovereign, Clotaire, who is said afterwards in penitence to have erected the lordship of Yvetot into that kingdom which Béranger has immortalized. And there have been others in every walk of life. Fabricius, in his “Bibliotheca Latina Mediæ et Infimæ Ætatis,”[307] mentions no less than seventy-two Latin authors of this name. A single verse has saved one of these from the oblivion that has overtaken the multitude.

He was born at Lille, but at what precise date is uncertain. Speaking generally, it may be said that he lived and wrote during the second half of the twelfth century, while Louis the Seventh and Philip Augustus were kings of France, and Henry the Second and Richard Cœur-de-Lion ruled England, one century after Abélard, and one century before Dante. After studying at Paris, he went to establish himself at Châtillon,--but it is not known at which of the numerous towns of this name in France. Here he was charged with the direction of the schools, and became known by the name of the town, as appears in the epitaph, ambitiously suggestive of Virgil, which he wrote for himself:--

“Insula me genuit, rapuit Castellio nomen; Perstrepuit modulis Gallia tota meis.”

But he is known sometimes by his birthplace, and sometimes by his early residence. The highest French authority calls him “Gaultier of Lille, or of Châtillon.”[308] He has been sometimes confounded with Gaultier of Coutances, Archbishop of Rouen, who was born in the island of Jersey,[309]--and sometimes with the Bishop of Maguelonne of the same name, reputed author of an Exposition of the Psalter, whose see was on an island in the Mediterranean, near the coast of France.[310]

Not content with residence at Châtillon, he repaired to Bologna, in Italy, where he studied the Civil and Canon Law. Returning to France, he became secretary of two successive Archbishops of Rheims, the latter of whom, by the name of William,--a descendant by his grandmother from William the Conqueror,--occupied this place of power from 1176 to 1201. The secretary enjoyed the favor of the Archbishop, who seems to have been fond of letters. It was during this period that he composed, or at least finished, his poem. Its date is sometimes placed at 1180; and there is an allusion in its text which makes it near this time. Thomas à Becket was assassinated before the altar of Canterbury in 1170; and this event, so important in the history of the age, is mentioned as recent: “_Nuper … cæsum dolet Anglia Thomam._”[311] The poem was dedicated to the Archbishop, who was to live immortal in companionship with his secretary:--

“Vivemus pariter, vivet cum vate superstes Gloria Guillermi, nullum moritura per ævum.”[312]

The grateful Archbishop bestowed upon the poet a stall in the cathedral of Amiens, where he died of the plague at the commencement of the thirteenth century.[313]

This does not appear to have been his only work. Others are attributed to him. There are dialogues _adversus Judæos_, which Oudin publishes in his collection entitled “Veterum aliquot Galliæ et Belgii Scriptorum Opuscula Sacra nunquam edita.” This same Oudin, in another publication, speaks of “Opuscula Varia,” preserved among the manuscripts in the Imperial Library[314] of France, as by Gaultier, although the larger part of these Opuscula have been ascribed to a very different person, Gaultier Mapes, chaplain to Henry the Second, King of England, and Archdeacon of Oxford.[315] But more recent researches would restore them to Philip Gaultier. An edition appeared at Hanover, in Germany, in 1859, by W. Müldener, after the Paris manuscripts, with the following title: “Die zehn Gedichte des Walther von Lille genannt von Châtillon, zum ersten Male vollständig herausgegeben.” Among these are satirical songs in Latin on the World, and also on Prelates, which, it is said, were sung in England as well as throughout France.[316] Indeed, the second verse of the epitaph already quoted may point to these satires:--

“Perstrepuit _modulis_ Gallia tota _meis_.”

Here, as in the “Alexandreïs,” we encounter the indignant sentiments inspired by the assassination of Becket. The victim is called “the flower of priests,” and the king “_Neronior est ipso Nerone_” which may be translated by Shakespeare’s “out-Herods Herod.” But these poems, whether by Walter Mapes or Philip Gaultier, are forgotten. The “Alexandreïs” has a different fortune.

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