A COMPARISON between the GAMES of HOMER and VIRGIL. Ite T will be expected I should here fay fomething tending to a comparison between the games of Homer and thofe of Virgil. If I may own my private opinion, there is in general more variety of natural incidents, and a more lively picture of natural paffions, in the games and pergames and fons of Homer. On the other hand, there feems to me more art, contrivance, gradation, and a greater pomp of verfe in thofe of Virgil. The chariot-race is that which Homer has most laboured, of which Virgil being sensible, he judiciously avoided the imitation of what he could not improve, and substituted in its place the naval-courfe, or fhip-race. It is in this the Roman poet has employed all his force, as if on fet purpose to rival his great master; but it is extremely obfervable how conftantly he keeps Homer in his eye, and is afraid to depart from his very track, even when he had varied the fubject itself. Accordingly the accidents of the naval course have a ftrange resemblance with thofe of Homer's chariot-race. He could not forbear at the very be ginning to draw a part of that description into a fimile. Do not we fee he has Homer's chariots in his head, by these lines; "Non tam præcipites bijugo certamine campum Corripuere, ruuntque effufi carcere currus. "Nec fic immiffis aurigæ undantia lora "Concuffere jugis, pronique in verbera pendent." En. v. . 144. What is the encounter of Cloanthus and Gyas in the ftrait between the rocks, but the fame with that of Menelaus and Antilochus in the hollow way? Had the galley of Sergefius been broken, if the chariot of Eumelus had not been demolished? Or Mneftheus been cast from the helm, had not the other been thrown from his feat? Does not Mneftheus exhort his rowers in the very words Antilochus had ufed to his horfes ? "Non jam prima peto Mneftheus, neque vincere <c certo. Quamquam O! fed fuperent quibus hoc Nep"tune dedifti; "Extremos pudeat rediiffe! hoc vincite, cives, "Et prohibete nefas" Εμβιον, καὶ ςφῶι τι]αίνε]ον ὅτι τάχιςα. Ιππες δ' Αρείδαο κιχάνε]ε, μηδὲ λίπησθον, Upon the whole, the description of the fea-race I think has the more poetry and majesty, that of the chariots more nature and lively incidents, There is nothing in Virgil fo picturesque, fo animated, or which so much marks the characters, as the episodes of Antilochus and Menelaus, Ajax and Idomeneus, with that beautiful interpofition of old Neftor, (fo naturally introduced into an affair where one fo little expects him.) On the other fide, in Virgil the defcription itself is nobler; it has fomething more oftentatiously grand, and feems a spectacle more worthy the prefence of princes and great perfons. In three other games we find the Roman poet contending openly with the Grecian. That of the Caftus is in great part a verbal translation : but it must be owned in favour of Virgil, that he has varied from Homer in the event of the combat with admirable judgment and with an improvement of the moral. Epëus and Dares are described by both poets as vain boasters but Virgil with more poetical juftice punishes Dares for his arrogance, whereas the prefumption and pride of Epëus is rewarded by Homer. On the contrary, in the foot-race, I am of opinion that Homer has fhewn more judgment 1 and morality than Virgil. Nifus in the latter is favour of his friend unjust to his adversary in Euryalus; fo that Euryalus wins the race by a palpable fraud, and yet the poet gives him the firft prize; whereas Homer makes Ulyffes victorious, purely through the mifchance of Ajax, and his own piety in invoking Minerva. The footing is alfo a direct copy, but with the addition of two circumstances which make a beautiful gradation. In Homer the first archer cuts the string that held the bird, and the other shoots him as he is mounting. In Virgil the first only hits the maft which the bird was fixed upon, the fecond cuts the ftring, the third fhoots him, and the fourth to vaunt the strength of his arm directs his arrow up to heaven, where it kindles into a flame, and makes a prodigy. This laft is certainly fuperior to Homer in what they` call the wonderful: but what is the intent or effect of this prodigy, or whether a reader is not at least as much surprised at it, as at the most unreasonable parts in Homer, I leave to those criticks who are more inclined to find faults than I am: nor fhall I obferve upon the many literal imitations in the Roman poet, to object against which were to derogate from the merit of those fine paffages, which Virgil was fo very fenfible of, that he was refolved to take them, at any rate, to himself. There remain in Homer three games untouched by Virgil; the wrestling, the fingle combat, and the Difcus. In Virgil there is only the Lufus Troja added, which is purely his own, and must be confest to be inimitable; I do not know whether I may be allowed to fay, it is worth all those three of Homer? I could not forgive myself if I omitted to mention in this place the funeral games in the fixth Thebaid of Statius; it is by much the most beautiful book of that poem. It is very remarkable, that he has followed Homer through the whole course of his games: there is the chariot-race, the foot-race, the Difcus, the Cæftus, the wreftling, the fingle combat (which is put off in the fame manner as in Homer) and the shooting; which laft ends (as in Virgil) with a prodigy: yet in the particular defcriptions of each of these games this poet has not borrowed from either of his predeceffors, and his poem is fo much the worse for it. |