CHAPTER XVII.

THE GRECIAN MYTHICAL VEIN COMPARED WITH THAT OF MODERN EUROPE.

I have already remarked that the existence of that popular narrative talk, which the Germans express by the significant word _Sage_ or _Volks-Sage_, in a greater or less degree of perfection or development, is a phænomenon common to almost all stages of society and to almost all quarters of the globe. It is the natural effusion of the unlettered, imaginative, and believing man, and its maximum of influence belongs to an early state of the human mind; for the multiplication of recorded facts, the diffusion of positive science, and the formation of a critical standard of belief, tend to discredit its dignity and to repress its easy and abundant flow. It supplies to the poet both materials to recombine and adorn, and a basis as well as a stimulus for further inventions of his own; and this at a time when the poet is religious teacher, historian, and philosopher, all in one,—not, as he becomes at a more advanced period, the mere purveyor of avowed, though interesting, fiction.

Such popular stories, and such historical songs (meaning by historical, simply that which is accepted as history) are found in most quarters of the globe, and especially among the Teutonic and Celtic populations of early Europe. The old Gothic songs were cast into a continuous history by the historian Ablavius;[1026] and the poems of the Germans respecting Tuisto the earth-born god, his son Mannus, and his descendants the eponyms of the various German tribes,[1027] as they are briefly described by Tacitus, remind us of Hesiod, or Eumêlus, or the Homeric Hymns. Jacob Grimm, in his learned and valuable Deutsche Mythologie, has exhibited copious evidence of the great fundamental analogy, along with many special differences, between the German, Scandinavian, and Grecian mythical world; and the Dissertation of Mr. Price (prefixed to his edition of Warton’s History of English Poetry) sustains and illustrates Grimm’s view. The same personifying imagination—the same ever-present conception of the will, sympathies, and antipathies of the gods as the producing causes of phænomena, and as distinguished from a course of nature with its invariable sequence—the same relations between gods, heroes, and men, with the like difficulty of discriminating the one from the other in many individual names—a similar wholesale transfer of human attributes to the gods, with the absence of human limits and liabilities—a like belief in Nymphs, Giants, and other beings, neither gods nor men—the same coalescence of the religious with the patriotic feeling and faith—these are positive features common to the early Greeks with the early Germans: and the negative conditions of the two are not less analogous—the absence of prose writing, positive records, and scientific culture. The preliminary basis and encouragements for the mythopœic faculty were thus extremely similar.

[1026] Jornandes, De Reb. Geticis, capp. 4-6.

[1027] Tacit. Mor. German. c. 2. “Celebrant carminibus antiquis, quod unum apud eos memoriæ et annalium genus est, Tuistonem Deum terrâ editum, et filium Mannum, originem gentis conditoresque. Quidam licentiâ vetustatis, plures Deo ortos, pluresque gentis appellationes, Marsos, Gambrivios, Suevos, Vandaliosque affirmant: eaque vera et antiqua nomina.”

But though the prolific forces were the same in kind, the results were very different in degree, and the developing circumstances were more different still.

First, the abundance, the beauty, and the long continuance of early Grecian poetry, in the purely poetical age, is a phænomenon which has no parallel elsewhere.

Secondly, the transition of the Greek mind from its poetical to its comparatively positive state was self-operated, accomplished by its own inherent and expansive force—aided indeed, but by no means either impressed or provoked, from without. From the poetry of Homer, to the history of Thucydidês and the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, was a prodigious step, but it was the native growth of the Hellenic youth into an Hellenic man; and what is of still greater moment, it was brought about without breaking the thread either of religious or patriotic tradition—without any coercive innovation or violent change in the mental feelings. The legendary world, though the ethical judgments and rational criticisms of superior men had outgrown it, still retained its hold upon their feelings as an object of affectionate and reverential retrospect.

Far different from this was the development of the early Germans. We know little about their early poetry, but we shall run no risk of error in affirming that they had nothing to compare with either Iliad or Odyssey. Whether, if left to themselves, they would have possessed sufficient progressive power to make a step similar to that of the Greeks, is a question which we cannot answer. Their condition, mental as well as political, was violently changed by a foreign action from without. The influence of the Roman empire introduced artificially among them new institutions, new opinions, habits, and luxuries, and, above all, a new religion; the Romanized Germans becoming themselves successively the instruments of this revolution with regard to such of their brethren as still remained heathen. It was a revolution often brought about by penal and coercive means: the old gods Thor and Woden were formally deposed and renounced, their images were crumbled into dust, and the sacred oaks of worship and prophecy hewn down. But even where conversion was the fruit of preaching and persuasion, it did not the less break up all the associations of a German with respect to that mythical world which he called his past, and of which the ancient gods constituted both the charm and the sanctity: he had now only the alternative of treating them either as men or as dæmons.[1028] That mixed religious and patriotic retrospect, formed by the coalescence of piety with ancestral feeling, which constituted the appropriate sentiment both of Greeks and of Germans towards their unrecorded antiquity, was among the latter banished by Christianity: and while the root of the old mythes was thus cankered, the commemorative ceremonies and customs with which they were connected, either lost their consecrated character or disappeared altogether. Moreover, new influences of great importance were at the same time brought to bear. The Latin language, together with some tinge of Latin literature—the habit of writing and of recording present events—the idea of a systematic law and pacific adjudication of disputes,—all these formed a part of the general working of Roman civilization, even after the decline of the Roman empire, upon the Teutonic and Celtic tribes. A class of specially-educated men was formed, upon a Latin basis and upon Christian principles, consisting too almost entirely of priests, who were opposed, as well by motives of rivalry as by religious feeling, to the ancient bards and storytellers of the community: the “lettered men”[1029] were constituted apart from “the men of story,” and Latin literature contributed along with religion to sink the mythes of untaught heathenism. Charlemagne, indeed, at the same time that he employed aggressive and violent proceedings to introduce Christianity among the Saxons, also took special care to commit to writing and preserve the old heathen songs. But there can be little doubt that this step was the suggestion of a large and enlightened understanding peculiar to himself. The disposition general among lettered Christians of that age is more accurately represented by his son Louis le Debonnaire, who, having learned these songs as a boy, came to abhor them when he arrived at mature years, and could never be induced either to repeat or tolerate them.[1030]

[1028] On the hostile influence exercised by the change of religion on the old Scandinavian poetry, see an interesting article of Jacob Grimm in the Göttingen Gelehrte Anzeigen, Feb. 1830, pp. 268-273; a review of Olaf Tryggvson’s Saga. The article _Helden_, in his Deutsche Mythologie, is also full of instruction on the same subject: see also the Einleitung to the book, p. 11, 2nd edition.

A similar observation has been made with respect to the old mythes of the pagan Russians by Eichhoff: “L’établissement du Christianisme, ce gage du bonheur des nations, fut vivement apprécié par les Russes, qui dans leur juste reconnaissance, le personnifièrent dans un héros. Vladimir le Grand, ami des arts, protecteur de la religion qu’il protégea, et dont les fruits firent oublier les fautes, devint l’Arthus et le Charlemagne de la Russie, et ses hauts faits furent un mythe national qui domina tous ceux du paganisme. Autour de lui se groupèrent ces guerriers aux formes athlétiques, au cœur généreux, dont la poésie aime à entourer le berceau mystérieux des peuples: et les exploits du vaillant Dobrinia, de Rogdai, d’Ilia, de Curilo, animèrent les ballades nationales, et vivent encore dans de naïfs récits.” (Eichhoff, Histoire de la Langue et Littérature des Slaves, Paris, 1839, part iii. ch. 2. p. 190.)

[1029] This distinction is curiously brought to view by Saxo Grammaticus, where he says of an Englishman named Lucas, that he was “literis quidem tenuiter instructus, sed historiarum scientiâ apprime eruditus” (p. 330, apud Dahlmann’s Historische Forschungen, vol. i. p. 176).

[1030] “Barbara et antiquissima carmina (says Eginhart, in his Life of Charlemagne), quibus veterum regum actus et bella canebantur, conscripsit.”

Theganus says of Louis le Debonnaire, “Poetica carmina gentilia, quæ in juventute didicerat, respuit, nec legere, nec audire, nec docere, voluit.” (De Gestis Ludovici Imperatoris ap. Pithœum, p. 304, c. xix.)

According to the old heathen faith, the pedigree of the Saxon, Anglian, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish kings,—probably also those of the German and Scandinavian kings generally,—was traced to Odin, or to some of his immediate companions or heroic sons.[1031] I have already observed that the value of these genealogies consisted not so much in their length, as in the reverence attached to the name serving as primitive source. After the worship attached to Odin had been extinguished, the genealogical line was lengthened up to Japhet or Noah,—and Odin, no longer accounted worthy to stand at the top, was degraded into one of the simple human members of it.[1032] And we find this alteration of the original mythical genealogies to have taken place even among the Scandinavians, although the introduction of Christianity was in those parts both longer deferred, so as to leave time for a more ample development of the heathen poetical vein—and seems to have created a less decided feeling of antipathy (especially in Iceland) towards the extinct faith.[1033] The poems and tales composing the Edda, though first committed to writing after the period of Christianity, do not present the ancient gods in a point of view intentionally odious or degrading.

[1031] See Grimm’s Deutsche Mythologie, art. _Helden_, p. 356, 2nd edit. Hengist and Horsa were fourth in descent from Odin (Venerable Bede, Hist. i. 15). Thiodolff, the Scald of Harold Haarfager king of Norway, traced the pedigree of his sovereign through thirty generations to Yngarfrey, the son of Niord, companion of Odin at Upsal; the kings of Upsal were called Ynglinger, and the song of Thiodolff, Ynglingatal (Dahlmann, Histor. Forschung. i. p. 379). Eyvind, another Scald, a century afterwards, deduced the pedigree of Jarl Hacon from Saming, son of Yngwifrey (p. 381). Are Frode, the Icelandic historian, carried up his own genealogy through thirty-six generations to Yngwe; a genealogy which Torfæus accepts as trustworthy, opposing it to the line of kings given by Saxo Grammaticus (p. 352). Torfæus makes Harold Haarfager a descendant from Odin through twenty-seven generations; Alfred of England through twenty-three generations; Offa of Mercia through fifteen (p. 362). See also the translation by Lange of P. A. Müller’s Saga Bibliothek, Introd. p. xxviii. and the genealogical tables prefixed to Snorro Sturleson’s Edda.

Mr. Sharon Turner conceives the human existence of Odin to be distinctly proved, seemingly upon the same evidence as Euêmerus believed in the human existence of Zeus (History of the Anglo-Saxons, Appendix to b. ii. ch. 3. p. 219, 5th edit.).

[1032] Dahlmann, Histor. Forschung. t. i. p. 220. There is a valuable article on this subject in the Zeitschrift für Geschichts Wissenschaft (Berlin, vol. i. pp. 237-282) by Stuhr, “Über einige Hauptfragen des Nordischen Alterthums,” wherein the writer illustrates both the strong motive and the effective tendency, on the part of the Christian clergy who had to deal with these newly-converted Teutonic pagans, to Euêmerize the old gods, and to represent a genealogy, which they were unable to efface from men’s minds, as if it consisted only of mere men.

Mr. John Kemble (Über die Stammtafel der Westsachsen, ap. Stuhr, p. 254) remarks, that “nobilitas,” among that people, consisted in descent from Odin and the other gods.

Colonel Sleeman also deals in the same manner with the religious legends of the Hindoos,—so natural is the proceeding of Euêmerus, towards any religion in which a critic does not believe:—

“They (the Hindoos) of course think that the incarnation of their three great divinities were beings infinitely superior to prophets, being in all their attributes and prerogatives equal to the divinities themselves. _But we are disposed to think that these incarnations were nothing more than great men whom their flatterers and poets have exalted into gods,—this was the way in which men made their gods in ancient Greece and Egypt._—All that the poets have sung of the actions of these men is now received as revelation from heaven: though nothing can be more monstrous than the actions ascribed to the best incarnation, Krishna, of the best of the gods, Vishnoo.” (Sleeman, Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official, vol. i. ch. viii. 61.)

[1033] See P. E. Müller, Über den Ursprung und Verfall der Isländischen Historiographie, p. 63.

In the Leitfaden zur Nordischen Alterthumskunde, pp. 4-5 (Copenhagen, 1837), is an instructive summary of the different schemes of interpretation applied to the northern mythes: 1, the historical; 2, the geographical; 3, the astronomical; 4, the physical; 5, the allegorical.

The transposition above alluded to, of the genealogical root from Odin to Noah, is the more worthy of notice, as it illustrates the genuine character of these genealogies, and shows that they sprung, not from any erroneous historical data, but from the turn of the religious feeling; also that their true value is derived from their being taken entire, as connecting the existing race of men with a divine original. If we could imagine that Grecian paganism had been superseded by Christianity in the year 500 B. C., the great and venerated gentile genealogies of Greece would have undergone the like modification; the Herakleids, Pelopids, Æakids, Asklêpiads, etc., would have been merged in some larger aggregate branching out from the archæology of the Old Testament. The old heroic legends connected with these ancestral names would either have been forgotten, or so transformed as to suit the new vein of thought; for the altered worship, ceremonies, and customs would have been altogether at variance with them, and the mythical feeling would have ceased to dwell upon those to whom prayers were no longer offered. If the oak of Dôdôna had been cut down, or the Theôric ship had ceased to be sent from Athens to Dêlos, the mythes of Theseus and of the two black doves would have lost their pertinence, and died away. As it was, the change from Homer to Thucydidês and Aristotle took place internally, gradually, and imperceptibly. Philosophy and history were superinduced in the minds of the superior few, but the feelings of the general public continued unshaken—the sacred objects remained the same both to the eye and to the heart—and the worship of the ancient gods was even adorned by new architects and sculptors who greatly strengthened its imposing effect.

While then in Greece the mythopœic stream continued in the same course, only with abated current and influence, in modern Europe its ancient bed was blocked up, and it was turned into new and divided channels. The old religion—though as an ascendent faith, unanimously and publicly manifested, it became extinct—still continued in detached scraps and fragments, and under various alterations of name and form. The heathen gods and goddesses, deprived as they were of divinity, did not pass out of the recollection and fears of their former worshippers, but were sometimes represented (on principles like those of Euêmerus) as having been eminent and glorious men—sometimes degraded into dæmons, magicians, elfs, fairies, and other supernatural agents, of an inferior grade and generally mischievous cast. Christian writers, such as Saxo Grammaticus and Snorro Sturleson, committed to writing the ancient oral songs of the Scandinavian Scalds, and digested the events contained in them into continuous narrative—performing in this respect a task similar to that of the Grecian logographers Pherekydês and Hellanikus, in reference to Hesiod and the Cyclic poets. But while Pherekydês and Hellanikus compiled under the influence of feelings substantially the same as those of the poets on whom they bestowed their care, the Christian logographers felt it their duty to point out the Odin and Thor of the old Scalds as evil dæmons, or cunning enchanters, who had fascinated the minds of men into a false belief in their divinity.[1034] In some cases, the heathen recitals and ideas were modified so as to suit Christian feeling. But when preserved without such a change, they exhibited themselves palpably, and were designated by their compilers, as at variance with the religious belief of the people, and as associated either with imposture or with evil spirits.

[1034] “Interea tamen homines Christiani in numina non credant ethnica, nec aliter fidem narrationibus hisce adstruere vel adhibere debent, quam in libri hujus proœmio monitum est de causis et occasionibus cur et quomodo genus humanum a verâ fide aberraverit.” (Extract from the Prose Edda, p. 75, in the Lexicon Mythologicum ad calcem Eddæ Sæmund. vol. iii. p. 357, Copenhag. edit.)

A similar warning is to be found in another passage cited by P. E. Müller, Über den Ursprung und Verfall der Isländischen Historiographie, p. 138, Copenhagen, 1813; compare the Prologue to the Prose Edda, p. 6, and Mallet, Introduction à l’Histoire de Dannemarc, ch. vii. pp. 114-132.

Saxo Grammaticus represents Odin sometimes as a magician, sometimes as an evil dæmon, sometimes as a high priest or pontiff of heathenism, who imposed so powerfully upon the people around him as to receive divine honors. Thor also is treated as having been an evil dæmon. (See Lexicon Mythologic. ut supra, pp. 567, 915.)

Respecting the function of Snorro as logographer, see Præfat. ad Eddam, ut supra, p. xi. He is much more faithful, and less unfriendly to the old religion, than the other logographers of the ancient Scandinavian Sagas. (Leitfaden der Nordischen Alterthümer, p. 14, by the Antiquarian Society of Copenhagen, 1837.)

By a singular transformation, dependent upon the same tone of mind, the authors of the French Chansons de Geste, in the twelfth century, turned Apollo into an evil dæmon, patron of the Mussulmans (see the Roman of Garin le Loherain, par M. Paulin Paris, 1833, p. 31): “Car mieux vaut Dieux que ne fait Apollis.” M. Paris observes, “Cet ancien Dieu des beaux arts est l’un des démons le plus souvent désignés dans nos poëmes, comme patron des Musulmans.”

The prophet Mahomet, too, anathematized the old Persian epic anterior to his religion. “C’est à l’occasion de Naser Ibn al-Hareth, qui avait apporté de Perse l’Histoire de Rustem et d’Isfendiar, et la faisait réciter par des chanteuses dans les assemblées des Koreischites, que Mahomet prononça le vers suivant (of the Koran): Il y a des hommes qui achètent des contes frivoles, pour détourner par-là les hommes de la voie de Dieu, d’une manière insensée, et pour la livrer à la risée: mais leur punition les couvrira de honte.” (Mohl, Préface au Livre des Rois de Ferdousi, p. xiii.)

A new vein of sentiment had arisen in Europe, unsuitable indeed to the old mythes, yet leaving still in force the demand for mythical narrative generally. And this demand was satisfied, speaking generally, by two classes of narratives,—the legends of the Catholic Saints and the Romances of Chivalry, corresponding to two types of character, both perfectly accommodated to the feelings of the time,—the saintly ideal and the chivalrous ideal.

Both these two classes of narrative correspond, in character as well as in general purpose, to the Grecian mythes—being stories accepted as realities, from their full conformity with the predispositions and deep-seated faith of an uncritical audience, and prepared beforehand by their authors, not with any reference to the conditions of historical proof, but for the purpose of calling forth sympathy, emotion, or reverence. The type of the saintly character belongs to Christianity, being the history of Jesus Christ as described in the gospels, and that of the prophets in the Old Testament; whilst the lives of holy men, who acquired a religious reputation from the fourth to the fourteenth century of the Christian æra, were invested with attributes, and illustrated with ample details, tending to assimilate them to this revered model. The numerous miracles, the cure of diseases, the expulsion of dæmons, the temptations and sufferings, the teachings and commands, with which the biography of Catholic saints abounds, grew chiefly out of this pious feeling, common to the writer and to his readers. Many of the other incidents, recounted in the same performances, take their rise from misinterpreted allegories, from ceremonies and customs of which it was pleasing to find a consecrated origin, or from the disposition to convert the etymology of a name into matter of history: many have also been suggested by local peculiarities, and by the desire of stimulating or justifying the devotional emotions of pilgrims who visited some consecrated chapel or image. The dove was connected, in the faith of the age, with the Holy Ghost, the serpent with Satan; lions, wolves, stags, unicorns, etc. were the subjects of other emblematic associations; and such modes of belief found expression for themselves in many narratives which brought the saints into conflict or conjoint action with these various animals. Legends of this kind, so indefinitely multiplied and so preëminently popular and affecting, in the Middle Ages, are not exaggerations of particular matters of fact, but emanations in detail of some current faith or feeling, which they served to satisfy, and by which they were in turn amply sustained and accredited.[1035]

[1035] The legends of the Saints have been touched upon by M. Guizot (Cours d’Histoire Moderne, leçon xvii.) and by M. Ampère (Histoire Littéraire de la France, t. ii. cap. 14, 15, 16); but a far more copious and elaborate account of them, coupled with much just criticism, is to be found in the valuable Essai sur les Légendes Pieuses du Moyen Age, par L. F. Alfred Maury, Paris, 1843.

M. Guizot scarcely adverts at all to the more or less of matter of fact contained in these biographies: he regards them altogether as they grew out of and answered to the predominant emotions and mental exigences of the age: “Au milieu d’un déluge de fables absurdes, la morale éclate avec un grand empire” (p. 159, ed. 1829). “Les légendes ont été pour les Chrétiens de ce temps (qu’on me permette cette comparaison purement littéraire) ce que sont pour les Orientaux ces longs récits, ces histoires si brillantes et si variées, dont les Mille et une Nuits nous donnent un échantillon. C’était là que l’imagination populaire errait librement dans un monde inconnu, merveilleux, plein de mouvement et de poésie” (p. 175, _ibid._).

M. Guizot takes his comparison with the tales of the Arabian Nights, as heard by an Oriental with uninquiring and unsuspicious credence. Viewed with reference to an instructed European, who reads these narratives as pleasing but recognized fiction, the comparison would not be just; for no one in that age dreamed of questioning the truth of the biographies. All the remarks of M. Guizot assume this implicit faith in them as literal histories: perhaps, in estimating the feelings to which they owed their extraordinary popularity, he allows too little predominance to the religious feeling, and too much influence to other mental exigences which then went along with it; more especially as he remarks, in the preceding lecture (p. 116), “Le caractère général de l’époque est la concentration du développement intellectuel dans la sphère religieuse.”

How this absorbing religious sentiment operated in generating and accrediting new matter of narrative, is shown with great fulness of detail in the work of M. Maury: “Tous les écrits du moyen âge nous apportent la preuve de cette préoccupation exclusive des esprits vers l’Histoire Sainte et les prodiges qui avaient signalé l’avènement du Christianisme. Tous nous montrent la pensée de Dieu et du Ciel, dominant les moindres œuvres de cette époque de naïve et de crédule simplicité. D’ailleurs, n’était-ce pas le moine, le clerc, qui constituaient alors les seuls écrivains? Qu’y a-t-il d’étonnant que le sujet habituel de leurs méditations, de leurs études, se reflétât sans cesse dans leurs ouvrages? Partout reparaissait à l’imagination Jésus et ses Saints: cette image, l’esprit l’accueillait avec soumission et obéissance: il n’osait pas encore envisager ces célestes pensées avec l’œil de la critique, armé de défiance et de doute; au contraire, l’intelligence les acceptait toutes indistinctement et s’en nourrissait avec avidité. Ainsi s’accréditaient tous les jours de nouvelles fables. _Une foi vive veut sans cesse de nouveaux faits qu’elle puisse croire_, comme la charité veut de nouveaux bienfaits pour s’exercer” (p. 43). The remarks on the History of St. Christopher, whose personality was allegorized by Luther and Melancthon, are curious (p. 57).

Every reader of Pausanias will recognize the great general analogy between the stories recounted to him at the temples which he visited, and these legends of the Middle Ages. Though the type of character which the latter illustrate is indeed materially different, yet the source as well as the circulation, the generating as well as the sustaining forces, were in both cases the same. Such legends were the natural growth of a religious faith, earnest, unexamining, and interwoven with the feelings at a time when the reason does not need to be cheated. The lives of the Saints bring us even back to the simple and ever-operative theology of the Homeric age; so constantly is the hand of God exhibited even in the minutest details, for the succor of a favored individual,—so completely is the scientific point of view, respecting the phænomena of nature, absorbed into the religious.[1036] During the intellectual vigor of Greece and Rome, a sense of the invariable course of nature and of the scientific explanation of phænomena had been created among the superior minds, and through them indirectly among the remaining community; thus limiting to a certain extent the ground open to be occupied by a religious legend. With the decline of the pagan literature and philosophy, before the sixth century of the Christian æra, this scientific conception gradually passed out of sight, and left the mind free to a religious interpretation of nature not less simple and _naïf_ than that which had prevailed under the Homeric paganism.[1037] The great religious movement of the Reformation, and the gradual formation, of critical and philosophical habits in the modern mind, have caused these legends of the Saints,—once the charm and cherished creed of a numerous public,[1038] to pass altogether out of credit, without even being regarded, among Protestants at least, as worthy of a formal scrutiny into the evidence,—a proof of the transitory value of public belief, however sincere and fervent, as a certificate of historical truth, if it be blended with religious predispositions.

[1036] “Dans les prodiges que l’on admettait avoir dû nécessairement s’opérer au tombeau du saint nouvellement canonisé, l’expression, ‘Cæci visum, claudi gressum, muti loquelam, surdi auditum, paralytici debitum membrorum officium, recuperabant,’ était devenue plûtot une formule d’usage que la rélation littérale du fait.” (Maury, Essai sur les Légendes Pieuses du Moyen Age, p. 5.)

To the same purpose M. Ampère, ch. 14. p. 361: “Il y a un certain nombre de faits que l’agiographie reproduit constamment, quelque soit son héros: ordinairement ce personnage a eu dans sa jeunesse une vision qui lui a révélé son avenir: ou bien, une prophétie lui a annoncé ce qu’il serait un jour. Plus tard, il opère un certain nombre de miracles, toujours les mêmes; il exorcise des possédés, ressuscite des morts, il est averti de sa fin par un songe. Puis sur son tombeau s’accomplissent d’autres merveilles à-peu-près semblables.”

[1037] A few words from M. Ampère to illustrate this: “C’est donc au sixième siècle que la légende se constitue: c’est alors qu’elle prend complètement le caractère naïf qui lui appartient: qu’elle est elle-même, qu’elle se sépare de toute influence étrangère. En même temps, l’ignorance devient de plus en plus grossière, et par suite la crédulité s’accroit: les calamités du temps sont plus lourdes, et l’on a un plus grand besoin de remède et de consolation.... Les récits miraculeux se substituent aux argumens de la théologie. Les miracles sont devenus la meilleure démonstration du Christianisme: c’est la seule que puissent comprendre les esprits grossiers des barbares” (c. 15. p. 373).

Again, c. 17. p. 401: “Un des caractères de la légende est de mêler constamment le puéril au grand: il faut l’avouer, elle défigure parfois un peu ces hommes d’une trempe si forte, en mettant sur leur compte des anecdotes dont le caractère n’est pas toujours sérieux; elle en a usé ainsi pour St. Columban, dont nous verrons tout à l’heure le rôle vis-à-vis de Brunehaut et des chefs Mérovingiens. La légende auroit pu se dispenser de nous apprendre, comment un jour, il se fit rapporter par un corbeau les gants qu’il avait perdus: comment, un autre jour, il empêcha la bière de couler d’un tonneau percé, et diverses merveilles, certainement indignes de sa mémoire.”

The miracle by which St. Columban employed the raven to fetch back his lost gloves, is exactly in the character of the Homeric and Hesiodic age: the earnest faith, as well as the reverential sympathy, between the Homeric man and Zeus or Athênê, is indicated by the invocation of their aid for his own sufferings of detail, and in his own need and danger. The criticism of M. Ampère, on the other hand, is analogous to that of the later pagans, after the conception of a course of nature had become established in men’s minds, so far as that exceptional interference by the gods was understood to be, comparatively speaking, rare, and only supposable upon what were called great emergences.

In the old Hesiodic legend (see above, ch. ix. p. 245), Apollo is apprized by a raven of the infidelity of the nymph Korônis to him—τῷ μὲν ἄρ᾽ ἄγγελος ἦλθε κόραξ, etc. (the raven appears elsewhere as companion of Apollo, Plutarch, de Isid. et Os. p. 379, Herod. iv. 5.) Pindar, in his version of the legend, eliminated the raven, without specifying _how_ Apollo got his knowledge of the circumstance. The Scholiasts praise Pindar much for having rejected the puerile version of the story—ἐπαινεῖ τὸν Πίνδαρον ὁ Ἀρτέμων ὅτι παρακρουσάμενος τὴν περὶ τὸν κόρακα ἱστορἱαν, αὐτὸν δι᾽ ἑαυτοῦ ἐγνωκέναι φησὶ τὸν Ἀπόλλω ... χαίρειν οὖν ἐάσας τῷ τοιούτῳ μύθῳ ~τέλεως ὄντι ληρώδει~, etc.—compare also the criticisms of the Schol. ad Soph. Œdip. Kol. 1378, on the old epic Thebaïs; and the remarks of Arrian (Exp. Al. iii. 4) on the divine interference by which Alexander and his army were enabled to find their way across the sand of the desert to the temple of Ammon.

In the eyes of M. Ampère, the recital of the biographer of St. Columban appears puerile (οὔπω ἴδον ὧδε θεοὺς ἀνάφανδρα φιλεῦντας, Odyss. iii. 221); in the eyes of that biographer, the criticism of M. Ampère would have appeared impious. When it is once conceded that phænomena are distributable under two denominations, the natural and the miraculous, it must be left to the feelings of each individual to determine what is and what is not, a suitable occasion for a miracle. Diodôrus and Pausanias differed in opinion (as stated in a previous chapter) about the death of Actæôn by his own hounds,—the former maintaining that the case was one fit for the special intervention of the goddess Artemis; the latter, that it was not so. The question is one determinable only by the religious feelings and conscience of the two dissentients: no common standard of judgment can be imposed upon them; for no reasonings derived from science or philosophy are available, inasmuch as in this case the very point in dispute is, whether the scientific point of view be admissible. Those who are disposed to adopt the supernatural belief, will find in every case the language open to them wherewith Dionysius of Halicarnassus (in recounting a miracle wrought by Vesta, in the early times of Roman history, for the purpose of rescuing an unjustly accused virgin) reproves the sceptics of his time: “It is well worth while (he observes) to recount the special manifestation (ἐπιφάνειαν) which the goddess showed to these unjustly accused virgins. For these circumstances, extraordinary as they are, have been held worthy of belief by the Romans, and historians have talked much about them. Those persons, indeed, who adopt the atheistical schemes of philosophy (if, indeed, we must call them _philosophy_), pulling in pieces as they do _all_ the special manifestations (ἁπάσας διασύροντες τὰς ἐπιφανείας τῶν θεῶν) of the gods which have taken place among Greeks or barbarians, will of course turn _these_ stories also into ridicule, ascribing them to the vain talk of men, as if none of the gods cared at all for mankind. But those who, having pushed their researches farther, believe the gods not to be indifferent to human affairs, but favorable to good men and hostile to bad—will not treat _these_ special manifestations as _more_ incredible than others.” (Dionys. Halic. ii. 68-69.) Plutarch, after noticing the great number of miraculous statements in circulation, expresses his anxiety to draw a line between the true and the false, but cannot find where: “excess, both of credulity and of incredulity (he tells us) in such matters is dangerous; caution, and nothing too much, is the best course.” (Camillus, c. 6.) Polybius is for granting permission to historians to recount a sufficient number of miracles to keep up a feeling of piety in the multitude, but not more: to measure out the proper quantity (he observes) is difficult, but not impossible (δυσπαράγραφός ἐστι ἡ ποσότης, οὐ μὴν ἀπαράγραφός γε, xvi. 12).

[1038] The great Bollandist collection of the Lives of the Saints, intended to comprise the whole year, did not extend beyond the nine months from January to October, which occupy fifty-three large volumes. The month of April fills three of those volumes, and exhibits the lives of 1472 saints. Had the collection run over the entire year, the total number of such biographies could hardly have been less than 25,000, and might have been even greater (see Guizot, Cours d’Histoire Moderne, leçon xvii. p. 157).

The same mythopœic vein, and the same susceptibility and facility of belief, which had created both supply and demand for the legends of the Saints, also provided the abundant stock of romantic narrative poetry, in amplification and illustration of the chivalrous ideal. What the legends of Troy, of Thêbes, of the Kalydônian boar, of Œdipus, Thêseus, etc. were to an early Greek, the tales of Arthur, of Charlemagne, of the Niebelungen, were to an Englishman, or Frenchman, or German, of the twelfth or thirteenth century. They were neither recognized fiction nor authenticated history: they were history, as it is felt and welcomed by minds unaccustomed to investigate evidence, and unconscious of the necessity of doing so. That the Chronicle of Turpin, a mere compilation of poetical legends respecting Charlemagne, was accepted as genuine history, and even pronounced to be such by papal authority, is well known; and the authors of the Romances announce themselves, not less than those of the old Grecian epic, as being about to recount real matter of fact.[1039] It is certain that Charlemagne is a great historical name, and it is possible, though not certain, that the name of Arthur may be historical also. But the Charlemagne of history, and the Charlemagne of romance, have little except the name in common nor could we ever determine, except by independent evidence (which in this case we happen to possess), whether Charlemagne was a real or a fictitious person.[1040] That illustrious name, as well as the more problematical Arthur, is taken up by the romancers, not with a view to celebrate realities previously verified, but for the purpose of setting forth or amplifying an ideal of their own, in such manner as both to rouse the feelings and captivate the faith of their hearers.

[1039] See Warton’s History of English Poetry, vol. i. dissert. i. p. xvii. Again, in sect. iii. p. 140: “Vincent de Beauvais, who lived under Louis IX. of France (about 1260), and who, on account of his extraordinary erudition, was appointed preceptor to that king’s sons, very gravely classes Archbishop Turpin’s Charlemagne among the real histories, and places it on a level with Suetonius and Cæsar. He was himself an historian, and has left a large history of the world, fraught with a variety of reading, and of high repute in the Middle Ages; but edifying and entertaining as this work might have been to his contemporaries, at present it serves only to record their prejudices and to characterize their credulity.” About the full belief in Arthur and the Tales of the Round Table during the fourteenth century, and about the strange historical mistakes of the poet Gower in the fifteenth, see the same work, sect. 7. vol. ii. p. 33; sect. 19. vol. ii. p. 239.

“L’auteur de la Chronique de Turpin (says M. Sismondi, Littérature du Midi, vol. i. ch. 7. p. 289) n’avait point l’intention de briller aux yeux du public par une invention heureuse, ni d’amuser les oisifs par des contes merveilleux qu’ils reconnoitroient pour tels: il présentait aux Français tous ces faits étranges comme de l’histoire, et la lecture des légendes fabuleuses avait accoutumé à croire à de plus grandes merveilles encore; aussi plusieurs de ces fables furent-elles reproduites dans la Chronique de St. Denis.”

Again, _ib._ p. 290: “Souvent les anciens romanciers, lorsqu’ils entreprennent un récit de la cour de Charlemagne, prennent un ton plus élevé: ce ne sont point des fables qu’ils vont conter, c’est de l’histoire nationale,—c’est la gloire de leurs ancêtres qu’ils veulent célébrer, et ils ont droit alors à demander qu’on les écoute avec respect.”

The Chronicle of Turpin was inserted, even so late as the year 1566, in the collection printed by Scardius at Frankfort of early German historians (Ginguené, Histoire Littéraire d’Italie, vol. iv. part ii. ch. 3. p. 157).

To the same point—that these romances were listened to as real stories—see Sir Walter Scott’s Preface to Sir Tristram, p. lxvii. The authors of the Legends of the Saints are not less explicit in their assertions that everything which they recount is true and well-attested (Ampère, c. 14. p. 358).

[1040] The series of articles by M. Fauriel, published in the Revue des Deux Mondes, vol. xiii. are full of instruction respecting the origin, tenor, and influence of the Romances of Chivalry. Though the name of Charlemagne appears, the romancers are really unable to distinguish him from Charles Martel or from Charles the Bald (pp. 537-539). They ascribe to him an expedition to the Holy Land, in which he conquered Jerusalem from the Saracens, obtained possession of the relics of the passion of Christ, the crown of thorns, etc. These precious relics he carried to Rome, from whence they were taken to Spain by a Saracen emir, named Balan, at the head of an army. The expedition of Charlemagne against the Saracens in Spain was undertaken for the purpose of recovering the relics: “Ces divers romans peuvent être regardés comme la suite, comme le développement, de la fiction de la conquête de Jérusalem par Charlemagne.”

Respecting the Romance of Rinaldo of Montauban (describing the struggles of a feudal lord against the emperor) M. Fauriel observes, “Il n’y a, je crois, aucun fondement historique: c’est selon toute apparence, la pure expression poétique du fait général,” etc. (p. 542.)

To inquire which of the personages of the Carlovingian epic were real and which were fictitious,—to examine whether the expedition ascribed to Charlemagne against Jerusalem had ever taken place or not,—to separate truth from exaggeration in the exploits of the Knights of the Round Table,—these were problems which an audience of that day had neither disposition to undertake nor means to resolve. They accepted the narrative as they heard it, without suspicion or reserve; the incidents related, as well as the connecting links between them, were in full harmony with their feelings, and gratifying as well to their sympathies as to their curiosity: nor was anything farther wanting to induce them to believe it, though the historical basis might be ever so slight or even non-existent.[1041]

[1041] Among the “formules consacrées” (observes M. Fauriel) of the romancers of the Carlovingian epic, are asseverations of their own veracity, and of the accuracy of what they are about to relate—specification of witnesses whom they have consulted—appeals to pretended chronicles: “Que ces citations, ces indications, soient parfois sérieuses et sincères, cela peut être; mais c’est une exception et une exception rare. De telles allégations de la part des romanciers, sont en général un pur et simple mensonge, mais non toutefois un mensonge gratuit. C’est un mensonge qui a sa raison et sa convenance: il tient au désir et au besoin de satisfaire une opinion accoutumée à supposer et à chercher du vrai dans les fictions du genre de celles où l’on allègue ces prétendues autorités. La manière dont les auteurs de ces fictions les qualifient souvent eux-mêmes, est une conséquence naturelle de leur prétention d’y avoir suivi des documens vénérables. Ils les qualifient de chansons de _vieille histoire_, de _haute histoire_, de _bonne geste_, de _grande baronnie_: et ce n’est pas pour se vanter qu’ils parlent ainsi: la vanité d’auteur n’est rien chez eux, en comparaison du besoin qu’ils ont d’être crus, de passer pour de simples traducteurs, de simples répétiteurs de légendes ou d’histoire consacrée. Ces protestations de véracité, qui, plus ou moins expresses, sont de rigueur dans les romans Carlovingiens, y sont aussi fréquemment accompagnées de protestations accessoires contre les romanciers, qui, ayant déjà traité un sujet donné, sont accusés d’y avoir faussé la vérité.” (Fauriel, Orig. de l’Epopée Chevaleresque, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, vol. xiii. p. 554.)

About the Cycle of the Round Table, see the same series of articles (Rev. D. M. t. xiv. pp. 170-184). The Chevaliers of the Saint Graal were a sort of _idéal_ of the Knights Templars: “Une race de princes héroïques, originaires de l’Asie, fut prédestinée par le ciel même à la garde du Saint Graal. Perille fut le premier de cette race, qui s’étant converti au Christianisme, passa en Europe sous l’Empereur Vespasien,” etc.; then follows a string of fabulous incidents: the epical agency is similar to that of Homer—Διὸς δ᾽ ἐτελείετο βουλή.

M. Paulin Paris, in his Prefaces to the Romans des Douze Pairs de France, has controverted many of the positions of M. Fauriel, and with success, so far as regards the Provençal origin of the Chansons de Geste, asserted by the latter. In regard to the Romances of the Round Table, he agrees substantially with M. Fauriel; but he tries to assign a greater historical value to the poems of the Carlovingian epic,—very unsuccessfully, in my opinion. But his own analysis of the old poem of Garin de Loherain bears out the very opinion which he is confuting: “Nous sommes au règne de Charles Martel, et nous reconnaissons sous d’autres noms les détails exacts de la fameuse défaite d’Attila dans les champs Catalauniques. Saint Loup et Saint Nicaise, glorieux prélats du quatrième siècle, reviennent figurer autour du père de Pépin le Bref: enfin pour compléter la confusion, Charles Martel meurt sur le champ de bataille, à la place du roi des Visigoths, Theodoric.... _Toutes les parties de la narration sont vraies_: seulement _toutes s’y trouvent déplacées_. En général, les peuples n’entendent rien à la chronologie: les evènemens restent: les individus, les lieux et les époques, ne laissent aucune trace: c’est pour ainsi dire, une décoration scénique que l’on applique indifféremment à des récits souvent contraires.” (Preface to the Roman de Garin le Loherain, pp. xvi.-xx.: Paris, 1833.) Compare also his Lettre à M. Monmerqué, prefixed to the Roman de Berthe aux Grans Piés, Paris, 1836.

To say that _all_ the parts of the narrative are true, is contrary to M. Paris’s own showing: _some_ parts may be true, separately taken, but these fragments of truth are melted down with a large mass of fiction, and cannot be discriminated unless we possess some independent test. The poet who picks out one incident from the fourth century, another from the fifth, and a few more from the eighth, and then blends them all into a continuous tale along with many additions of his own, shows that he takes the items of fact because they suit the purposes of his narrative, not because they happen to be attested by historical evidence. His hearers are not critical: they desire to have their imaginations and feelings affected, and they are content to accept without question whatever accomplishes this end.

The romances of chivalry represented, to those who heard them, real deeds of the foretime—“glories of the foregone men,” to use the Hesiodic expression[1042]—at the same time that they embodied and filled up the details of an heroic ideal, such as that age could conceive and admire—a fervent piety, combined with strength, bravery, and the love of adventurous aggression, directed sometimes against infidels, sometimes against enchanters or monsters, sometimes in defence of the fair sex. Such characteristics wore naturally popular, in a century of feudal struggles and universal insecurity, when the grand subjects of common respect and interest were the Church and the Crusades, and when the latter especially were embraced with an enthusiasm truly astonishing.

[1042] Hesiod, Theogon. 100—κλέα προτέρων ἀνθρώπων. Puttenham talks of the remnant of bards existing in his time (1589): “Blind Harpers, or such like Taverne Minstrels, whose matters are for the most part _stories of old time_, as the Tale of Sir Topaze, the Reportes of Bevis of Southampton, Adam Bell, Clymme of the Clough, and such other old Romances or _Historical Rhymes_.” (Arte of English Poesie, book ii. cap. 9.)

The long German poem of the Niebelungen Lied, as well as the Volsunga Saga and a portion of the songs of the Edda, relate to a common fund of mythical, superhuman personages, and of fabulous adventure, identified with the earliest antiquity of the Teutonic and Scandinavian race, and representing their primitive sentiment towards ancestors of divine origin. Sigurd, Brynhilde, Gudrun, and Atle, are mythical characters celebrated as well by the Scandinavian Scalds as by the German epic poets, but with many varieties and separate additions to distinguish the one from the other. The German epic, later and more elaborated, includes various persons not known to the songs in the Edda, in particular the prominent name of Dieterich of Bern—presenting, moreover, the principal characters and circumstances as Christian, while in the Edda there is no trace of anything but heathenism. There is, indeed, in this the old and heathen version, a remarkable analogy with many points of Grecian mythical narrative. As in the case of the short life of Achilles, and of the miserable Labdakids of Thêbes—so in the family of the Volsungs, though sprung from and protected by the gods—a curse of destiny hangs upon them and brings on their ruin, in spite of preëminent personal qualities.[1043] The more thoroughly this old Teutonic story has been traced and compared, in its various transformations and accompaniments, the less can any well-established connection be made out for it with authentic historical names or events. We must acquiesce in its personages as distinct in original conception from common humanity, and as belonging to the subjective mythical world of the race by whom they were sung.

[1043] Respecting the Volsunga Saga and the Niebelungen Lied, the work of Lange—Untersuchungen über die Geschichte und das Verhältniss der Nordischen und Deutschen Heldensage—is a valuable translation from the Danish Saga-Bibliothek of P. E. Müller.

P. E. Müller maintains, indeed, the historical basis of the tales respecting the Volsungs (see pp. 102-107)—upon arguments very unsatisfactory; though the genuine Scandinavian origin of the tale is perfectly made out. The chapter added by Lange himself, at the close (see p. 432, etc.), contains juster views as to the character of the primitive mythology, though he too advances some positions respecting a something “reinsymbolisches” in the background, which I find it difficult to follow (see p. 477, etc.).—There are very ancient epical ballads still sung by the people in the Faro Islands, many of them relating to Sigurd and his adventures (p. 412).

Jacob Grimm, in his Deutsche Mythologie, maintains the purely mythical character, as opposed to the historical, of Siegfried and Dieterich (Art. _Helden_, pp. 344-346).

So, too, in the great Persian epic of Ferdousi, the principal characters are religious and mythical. M. Mohl observes,—“Les caractères des personnages principaux de l’ancienne histoire de Perse se retrouvent dans le livre des Rois (de Ferdousi) tels que les indiquent les parties des livres de Zoroaster que nous possédons encore. Kaioumors, Djemschid, Feridoun, Gushtasp, Isfendiar, etc. jouent dans le poème épique le même rôle que dans les Livres sacrés: à cela près, que dans les derniers ils nous apparaissent à travers une atmosphere mythologique qui grandit tous leurs traits: mais cette difference est précisément celle qu’on devait s’attendre à trouver entre la tradition religieuse et la tradition épique.” (Mohl, Livre des Rois par Ferdousi, Preface, p. 1.)

The Persian historians subsequent to Ferdousi have all taken his poem as the basis of their histories, and have even copied him faithfully and literally (Mohl, p. 53). Many of his heroes became the subjects of long epical biographies, written and recited without any art or grace, often by writers whose names are unknown (_ib._ pp. 54-70). Mr. Morier tells us that “the Shah Nameh is still believed by the present Persians to contain their ancient history” (Adventures of Hadgi Baba, c. 32). As the Christian romancers transformed Apollo into the patron of Mussulmans, so Ferdousi makes Alexander the Great a Christian: “La critique historique (observes M. Mohl) était du temps de Ferdousi chose presqu’inconnue.” (_ib._ p. xlviii.) About the absence not only of all historiography, but also of all idea of it, or taste for it among the early Indians, Persians, Arabians, etc., see the learned book of Nork, _Die Götter Syriens_, Preface, p. viii. _seqq._ (Stuttgart, 1842.)

Such were the compositions which not only interested the emotions, but also satisfied the undistinguishing historical curiosity, of the ordinary public in the middle ages. The exploits of many of these romantic heroes resemble in several points those of the Grecian: the adventures of Perseus, Achilles, Odysseus, Atalanta, Bellerophôn, Jasôn, and the Trojan war, or Argonautic expedition generally, would have fitted in perfectly to the Carlovingian or other epics of the period.[1044] That of the middle ages, like the Grecian, was eminently expansive in its nature: new stories were successively attached to the names and companions of Charlemagne and Arthur, just as the legend of Troy was enlarged by Arktinus, Leschês, and Stesichorus,—that of Thêbes, by fresh miseries entailed on the fated head of Œdipus,—and that of the Kalydônian boar, by the addition of Atalanta. Altogether, the state of mind of the hearers seems in both cases to have been much the same,—eager for emotion and sympathy, and receiving any narrative attuned to their feelings, not merely with hearty welcome, but also with unsuspecting belief.

[1044] Several of the heroes of the ancient world were indeed themselves popular subjects with the romancers of the middle ages, Thêseus, Jasôn, etc.; Alexander the Great, more so than any of them.

Dr. Warton observes, respecting the Argonautic expedition, “Few stories of antiquity have more the cast of one of the old romances than this of Jasôn. An expedition of a new kind is made into a strange and distant country, attended with infinite dangers and difficulties. The king’s daughter of the new country is an enchantress; she falls in love with the young prince, who is the chief adventurer. The prize which he seeks is guarded by brazen-footed bulls, who breathe fire, and by a hideous dragon, who never sleeps. The princess lends him the assistance of her charms and incantations to conquer these obstacles; she gives him possession of the prize, leaves her father’s court, and follows him into his native country.” (Warton, Observations on Spenser, vol. i. p. 178.)

To the same purpose M. Ginguené: “Le premier modèle des Fées n’est-il pas dans Circé, dans Calypso, dans Médée? Celui des géans, dans Polyphème, dans Cacus, et dans les géans, ou les Titans, cette race ennemie de Jupiter? Les serpens et les dragons des romans ne sont-ils pas des successeurs du dragon des Hesperides et de celui de la Toison d’or? Les Magiciens! la Thessalie en étoit pleine. Les armes enchantées impénétrables! elles sont de la même trempe, et l’on peut les croire forgées au même fourneau que celles d’Achille et d’Enée.” (Ginguené, Histoire Littéraire d’Italie, vol. iv. part ii. ch. 3, p. 151.)

Nevertheless, there were distinctions deserving of notice, which render the foregoing proposition more absolutely exact with regard to Greece than with regard to the middle ages. The tales of the epic, and the mythes in their most popular and extended signification, were the only intellectual nourishment with which the Grecian public was supplied, until the sixth century before the Christian æra: there was no prose writing, no history, no philosophy. But such was not exactly the case at the time when the epic of the middle ages appeared. At that time, a portion of society possessed the Latin language, the habit of writing, and some tinge both of history and philosophy: there were a series of chronicles, scanty, indeed, and imperfect, but referring to contemporary events and preventing the real history of the past from passing into oblivion: there were even individual scholars, in the twelfth century, whose acquaintance with Latin literature was sufficiently considerable to enlarge their minds and to improve their judgments. Moreover, the epic of the middle ages, though deeply imbued with religious ideas, was not directly amalgamated with the religion of the people, and did not always find favor with the clergy; while the heroes of the Grecian epic were not only linked in a thousand ways with existing worship, practices, and sacred localities, but Homer and Hesiod pass with Herodotus for the constructors of Grecian theology. We thus see that the ancient epic was both exempt from certain distracting influences by which that of the middle ages was surrounded, and more closely identified with the veins of thought and feeling prevalent in the Grecian public. Yet these counteracting influences did not prevent Pope Calixtus II. from declaring the Chronicle of Turpin to be a genuine history.

If we take the history of our own country as it was conceived and written from the twelfth to the seventeenth century by Hardyng, Fabyan, Grafton, Hollinshed, and others, we shall find that it was supposed to begin with Brute the Trojan, and was carried down from thence, for many ages and through a long succession of kings, to the times of Julius Cæsar. A similar belief of descent from Troy, arising seemingly from a reverential imitation of the Romans and of their Trojan origin, was cherished in the fancy of other European nations. With regard to the English, the chief circulator of it was Geoffrey of Monmouth, and it passed with little resistance or dispute into the national faith—the kings from Brute downward being enrolled in regular chronological series with their respective dates annexed. In a dispute which took place during the reign of Edward I. (A. D. 1301) between England and Scotland, the descent of the kings of England from Brute the Trojan was solemnly embodied in a document put forth to sustain the rights of the crown of England, as an argument bearing on the case then in discussion: and it passed without attack from the opposing party,[1045]—an incident which reminds us of the appeal made by Æschinês, in the contention between the Athenians and Philip of Macedôn, respecting Amphipolis, to the primitive dotal rights of Akamas son of Thêseus—and also of the defence urged by the Athenians to sustain their conquest of Sigeium, against the reclamations of the Mitylenæans, therein the former alleged that they had as much right to the place as any of the other Greeks who had formed part of the victorious armament of Agamemnôn.[1046]

[1045] See Warton’s History of English Poetry, sect. iii. p. 131, note. “No man before the sixteenth century presumed to doubt that the Francs derived their origin from Francus son of Hector; that the Spaniards were descended from Japhet, the Britons from Brutus, and the Scotch from Fergus.” (_Ibid._ p. 140.)

According to the Prologue of the prose Edda, Odin was the supreme king of Troy in Asia, “in eâ terrâ quam nos Turciam appellamus.... Hinc omnes Borealis plagæ magnates vel primores genealogias suas referunt, atque principes illius urbis inter numina locant: sed in primis ipsum Priamum pro Odeno ponunt,” etc. They also identified _Tros_ with _Thor_. (See Lexicon Mythologicum ad calcem Eddæ Sæmund, p. 552. vol. iii.)

[1046] See above, ch. xv. p. 458; also Æschinês, De Falsâ Legatione, c. 14, Herodot. v. 94. The Herakleids pretended a right to the territory in Sicily near Mount Eryx, in consequence of the victory gained by their progenitor Hêraklês over Eryx, the eponymous hero of the place. (Herodot. v. 43.)

The tenacity with which this early series of British kings was defended, is no less remarkable than the facility with which it was admitted. The chroniclers at the beginning of the seventeenth century warmly protested against the intrusive scepticism which would cashier so many venerable sovereigns and efface so many noble deeds. They appealed to the patriotic feelings of their hearers, represented the enormity of thus setting up a presumptuous criticism against the belief of ages, and insisted on the danger of the precedent as regarded history generally.[1047] How this controversy stood, at the time and in the view of the illustrious author of Paradise Lost, I shall give in his own words, as they appear in the second page of his History of England. After having briefly touched upon the stories of Samothes son of Japhet, Albion son of Neptune, etc., he proceeds:—

[1047] The remarks in Speed’s Chronicle (book v. c. 3. sect. 11-12), and the preface to Howes’s Continuation of Stow’s Chronicle, published in 1631, are curious as illustrating this earnest feeling. The Chancellor Fortescue, in impressing upon his royal pupil, the son of Henry VI., the limited character of English monarchy, deduces it from Brute the Trojan: “Concerning the different powers which kings claim over their subjects, I am firmly of opinion that it arises solely from the different nature of their original institution. So the kingdom of England had its original from Brute and the Trojans, who attended him from Italy and Greece, and became a mixed kind of government, compounded of the regal and the political.” (Hallam, Hist. Mid. Ages, ch. viii. P. 3, page 230.)

“But now of Brutus and his line, with the whole progeny of kings to the entrance of Julius Cæsar, we cannot so easily be discharged: descents of ancestry long continued, laws and exploits not plainly seeming to be borrowed or devised, which on the common belief have wrought no small impression: _defended by many, denied utterly by few_. For what though Brutus and the whole Trojan pretence were yielded up, seeing they, who first devised to bring us some noble ancestor, were content at first with Brutus the Consul, till better invention, though not willing to forego the name, taught them to remove it higher into a more fabulous age, and by the same remove lighting on the Trojan tales, in affectation to make the Briton of one original with the Roman, pitched there: _Yet those old and inborn kings, never any to have been real persons, or done in their lives at least some part of what so long hath been remembered, cannot be thought without too strict incredulity._ For these, and those causes above mentioned, that which hath received approbation from so many, I have chosen not to omit. Certain or uncertain, be that upon the credit of those whom I must follow: _so far as keeps aloof from impossible or absurd_, attested by ancient writers from books more ancient, I refuse not, as the due and proper subject of story.”[1048]

[1048] “Antiquitas enim recepit fabulas fictas etiam nonnunquam incondite: hæc ætas autem jam exculta, præsertim eludens omne quod fieri non potest, respuit,” etc. (Cicero, De Republicâ, ii. 10, p. 147, ed. Maii.)

Yet in spite of the general belief of so many centuries—in spite of the concurrent persuasion of historians and poets—in spite of the declaration of Milton, extorted from his feelings rather than from his reason, that this long line of quasi-historical kings and exploits could not be _all_ unworthy of belief—in spite of so large a body of authority and precedent, the historians of the nineteenth century begin the history of England with Julius Cæsar. They do not attempt either to settle the date of king Bladud’s accession, or to determine what may be the basis of truth in the affecting narrative of Lear.[1049] The standard of historical credibility, especially with regard to modern events, has indeed been greatly and sensibly raised within the last hundred years.

[1049] Dr. Zachary Grey has the following observations in his Notes on Shakspeare (London, 1754, vol. i. p. 112). In commenting on the passage in King Lear, _Nero is an angler in the lake of darkness_, he says, “This is one of Shakspeare’s most remarkable _anachronisms_. King Lear succeeded his father Bladud anno mundi 3105; and Nero, anno mundi 4017, was sixteen years old, when he married Octavia, Cæsar’s daughter. See Funcii Chronologia, p. 94.”

Such a supposed chronological discrepancy would hardly be pointed out in any commentary now written.

The introduction prefixed by Mr. Giles, to his recent translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth (1842), gives a just view both of the use which our old poets made of his tales, and of the general credence so long and so unsuspectingly accorded to them. The list of old British kings given by Mr. Giles also deserves attention, as a parallel to the Grecian genealogies anterior to the Olympiads.

But in regard to ancient Grecian history, the rules of evidence still continue relaxed. The dictum of Milton, regarding the ante-Cæsarian history of England, still represents pretty exactly the feeling now prevalent respecting the mythical history of Greece: “Yet those old and inborn kings (Agamemnôn, Achilles, Odysseus, Jasôn, Adrastus, Amphiaräus, Meleager, etc.), never any to have been real persons, or done in their lives at least some part of what so long hath been remembered, cannot be thought without too strict incredulity.” Amidst much fiction (we are still told), there must be some truth: but how is such truth to be singled out? Milton does not even attempt to make the severance: he contents himself with “keeping aloof from the impossible and the absurd,” and ends in a narrative which has indeed the merit of being sober-colored, but which he never for a moment thinks of recommending to his readers as true. So in regard to the legends of Greece,—Troy, Thêbes, the Argonauts, the Boar of Kalydôn, Hêraklês, Thêseus, Œdipus,—the conviction still holds in men’s minds, that there must be something true at the bottom; and many readers of this work may be displeased, I fear, not to see conjured up before them the Eidôlon of an authentic history, even though the vital spark of evidence be altogether wanting.[1050]

[1050] The following passage, from the Preface of Mr. Price to Warton’s History of English Poetry, is alike just and forcibly characterized; the whole Preface is, indeed, full of philosophical reflection on popular fables generally. Mr. Price observes (p. 79):—

“The great evil with which this long-contested question appears to be threatened at the present day, is an extreme equally dangerous with the incredulity of Mr. Ritson,—a disposition to receive as authentic history, under a slightly fabulous coloring, every incident recorded in the British Chronicle. An allegorical interpretation is now inflicted upon all the marvellous circumstances; a forced construction imposed upon the less glaring deviations from probability; and the usual subterfuge of baffled research,—erroneous readings and etymological sophistry,—is made to reduce every stubborn and intractable text to something like the consistency required. It might have been expected that the notorious failures of Dionysius and Plutarch, in Roman history, would have prevented the repetition of an error, which neither learning nor ingenuity can render palatable; and that the havoc and deadly ruin effected by these ancient writers (in other respects so valuable) in one of the most beautiful and interesting monuments of traditional story, would have acted as sufficient corrective on all future aspirants. The favorers of this system might at least have been instructed by the philosophic example of Livy,—if it be lawful to ascribe to philosophy a line of conduct which perhaps was prompted by a powerful sense of poetic beauty,—that traditional record can only gain in the hands of the future historian by one attractive aid,—the grandeur and lofty graces of that incomparable style in which the first decade is written; and that the best duty towards antiquity, and the most agreeable one towards posterity, is to transmit the narrative received as an unsophisticated tradition, in all the plenitude of its marvels and the awful dignity of its supernatural agency. For, however largely we may concede that real events have supplied the substance of any traditive story, yet the amount of absolute facts, and the manner of those facts, the period of their occurrence, the names of the agents, and the locality given to the scene, are all combined upon principles so wholly beyond our knowledge, that it becomes impossible to fix with certainty upon any single point better authenticated than its fellow. Probability in such decisions will often prove the most fallacious guide we can follow; for, independently of the acknowledged historical axiom, that ‘le vrai n’est pas toujours le vraisemblable,’ innumerable instances might be adduced, where tradition has had recourse to this very probability to confer a plausible sanction upon her most fictitious and romantic incidents. It will be a much more useful labor, wherever it can be effected, to trace the progress of this traditional story in the country where it has become located, by a reference to those natural or artificial monuments which are the unvarying sources of fictitious events; and, by a strict comparison of its details with the analogous memorials of other nations, to separate those elements which are obviously of a native growth, from the occurrences bearing the impress of a foreign origin. _We shall gain little, perhaps, by such a course for the history of human events_; but it will be an important accession to our stock of knowledge on the _history of the human mind_. It will infallibly display, as in the analysis of every similar record, the operations of that refining principle which is ever obliterating the monotonous deeds of violence that fill the chronicle of a nation’s early career, and exhibit the brightest attribute in the catalogue of man’s intellectual endowments,—a glowing and vigorous imagination,—bestowing upon all the impulses of the mind a splendor and virtuous dignity, which, however fallacious historically considered, are never without a powerfully redeeming good, the ethical tendency of all their lessons.”

I presume to think that our great poet has proceeded upon mistaken views with respect to the old British fables, not less in that which he leaves out than in that which he retains. To omit the miraculous and the fantastic, (it is that which he really means by “the impossible and the absurd,”) is to suck the lifeblood out of these once popular narratives,—to divest them at once both of their genuine distinguishing mark, and the charm by which they acted on the feelings of believers. Still less ought we to consent to break up and disenchant in a similar manner the mythes of ancient Greece,—partly because they possess the mythical beauties and characteristics in far higher perfection, partly because they sank deeper into the mind of a Greek, and pervaded both the public and private sentiment of the country to a much greater degree than the British fables in England.

Two courses, and two only, are open; either to pass over the mythes altogether, which is the way in which modern historians treat the old British fables, or else to give an account of them as mythes; to recognize and respect their specific nature, and to abstain from confounding them with ordinary and certifiable history. There are good reasons for pursuing this second method in reference to the Grecian mythes; and when so considered, they constitute an important chapter in the history of the Grecian mind, and indeed in that of the human race generally. The historical faith of the Greeks, as well as that of other people, in reference to early and unrecorded times, is as much subjective and peculiar to themselves as their religious faith: among the Greeks, especially, the two are confounded with an intimacy which nothing less than great violence can disjoin. Gods, heroes, and men—religion and patriotism—matters divine, heroic, and human—were all woven together by the Greeks into one indivisible web, in which the threads of truth and reality, whatever they might originally have been, were neither intended to be, nor were actually, distinguishable. Composed of such materials, and animated by the electric spark of genius, the mythical antiquities of Greece formed a whole at once trustworthy and captivating to the faith and feelings of the people; but neither trustworthy nor captivating, when we sever it from these subjective conditions, and expose its naked elements to the scrutiny of an objective criticism. Moreover, the separate portions of Grecian mythical foretime ought to be considered with reference to that aggregate of which they form a part: to detach the divine from the heroic legends, or some one of the heroic legends from the remainder, as if there were an essential and generic difference between them, is to present the whole under an erroneous point of view. The mythes of Troy and Thêbes are no more to be handled objectively, with a view to detect an historical base, than those of Zeus in Krête, of Apollo and Artemis in Dêlos, of Hermês, or of Promêtheus. To single out the Siege of Troy from the other mythes, as if it were entitled to preëminence as an ascertained historical and chronological event, is a proceeding which destroys the true character and coherence of the mythical world: we only transfer the story (as has been remarked in the preceding chapter) from a class with which it is connected by every tie both of common origin and fraternal affinity, to another with which it has no relationship, except such as violent and gratuitous criticism may enforce.

By drawing this marked distinction between the mythical and the historical world,—between matter appropriate only for subjective history, and matter in which objective evidence is attainable,—we shall only carry out to its proper length the just and well-known position long ago laid down by Varro. That learned man recognized three distinguishable periods in the time preceding his own age: “First, the time from the beginning of mankind down to the first deluge; a time wholly unknown. Secondly, the period from the first deluge down to the first Olympiad, which is called _the mythical period_, because many fabulous things are recounted in it. Thirdly, the time from the first Olympiad down to ourselves, which is called _the historical period_, because the things done in it are comprised in true histories.”[1051]

[1051] Varro ap. Censorin. de Die Natali; Varronis Fragm. p. 219, ed. Scaliger, 1623. “Varro tria discrimina temporum esse tradit. Primum ab hominum principio usque ad cataclysmum priorem, quod propter ignorantiam vocatur ἄδηλον. Secundum, a cataclysmo priore ad Olympiadem primam, quod quia in eo multa fabulosa referuntur, _Mythicon_ nominatur. Tertium a primâ Olympiade ad nos; quod dicitur _Historicon_, quia res in eo gestæ veris historiis continentur.”

To the same purpose Africanus, ap. Eusebium, Præp. Ev. xx. p. 487: Μέχρι μὲν Ὀλυμπιάδων, οὐδὲν ἀκριβὲς ἱστόρηται τοῖς Ἕλλησι, πάντων συγκεχυμένων, καὶ κατὰ μηδὲν αὐτοῖς τῶν πρὸ τοῦ συμφωνούντων, etc.

Taking the commencement of true or objective history at the point indicated by Varro, I still consider the mythical and historical periods to be separated by a wider gap than he would have admitted. To select any one year as an absolute point of commencement, is of course not to be understood literally: but in point of fact, this is of very little importance in reference to the present question, seeing that the great mythical events—the sieges of Thêbes and Troy, the Argonautic expedition, the Kalydônian boar-hunt, the Return of the Hêrakleids, etc.—are all placed long anterior to the first Olympiad, by those who have applied chronological boundaries to the mythical narratives. The period immediately preceding the first Olympiad is one exceedingly barren of events; the received chronology recognizes four hundred years, and Herodotus admitted five hundred years, from that date back to the Trojan war.