CHAPTER VIII EPIC AND TRAGEDY.

CHAPTER VIII
I HOMER: THE ILIAD AND ODYSSEY
Better proof of Homer's existence could hardly
be desired than the perfect and mathematical
symmetry between the two works which he has
left, and the strict internal symmetry of each of
them, indication of as tyrannical a plan as
ever a poet imposed upon himself, and with
which no two authors were ever known to bind
each other. This being demonstrated, it appears
to me idle to go on refuting the many attempted
refutations of the existence of Homer, refutations
which contradict one another to an extent
truly comical.
Wolf, father of the Zollian school, held that the
supposed primitive poems never existed; that the
works were constituted slowly by the patching
together of many pieces of different origins and
different epochs. His intellectual descendants,
Hermann, Fauriel, Kayser, etc., held that original
poems did exist, but in slight and meager form,
and that they were little by little lengthened by
additions. Guigniaut, in turn, attempted to show
that they were simply achieved by the Homerides,
after a plan bequeathed them by their ancestor!
Croiset, on the contrary, held that the principal
parts of the poems were the author's, but that the
plan was of a more recent epoch, as well as
the additions and connecting parts necessary to
this thesis. Koechly and Kirchoff share this
opinion. But all three differ as to which are
the original parts and which the additions.
All these hypotheses rest, of course, upon other
hypotheses: imbecility of Greek critics, barbarism
of the period after the taking of Troy, non-existence
of the latter (which however has since been
discovered), etc.
The ILIAD and the ODYSSEY contain each 24
books. The author has divided each into two
parts inversely symmetrical; we call them the
LESSER ILIAD (which goes from an indecisive
situation under the walls of the city to the shore
upon which the Greeks find themselves thrown
back), and the GREATER ILIAD (which goes from
this extreme point of their weakness to the final
fall of Troy); the GREATER ODYSSEY (in which
Ulysses wanders, far from Ithaca) and the LESSER
ODYSSEY (in which he returns). Each of these
halves comprises exactly 12 books. If this clear
distribution of the epic material be the work of
grammarians, then we must regret that we can
discover nothing as ingenious in the anti-Homeric
writings of ours.
Each half-poem may now be divided into equal
groups:
ILIAD
LESSER ILIAD (Books I-XII). The first of
the two groups (I-VI) confines itself, very logically,
to the EPHEMERAL ADVANTAGES OF THE
GREEKS. The second (VII-XII) to THEIR INFERIORITY
MORE AND MORE DISASTROUS; in the second
shines Hector (who appeared only episodically
in the first, which ends with the famous farewell
to Andromache); since in his strength lies the
weakness of the Achaians, it follows, in effect,
that by his presence is personified the distress to
which the anger of Achilles has abandoned them.
And here Hector watches and fights without rest
on the field of combat.
GREATER ILIAD (Books XIII-XXIV). This,
in the first part, consists of the DESPERATE STRIFE
ON THE SHORE. Near the beginning of the second
part, on the contrary, Achilles solemnly renounces
his rancor, the cause of the three periods just
ended, and this last quarter of the poem consequently
narrates only HIS EXPLOITS (XIXXXIV)
which are thus pendant to those of the
Trojan heroes. Likewise are Books XIII-XVIII
(DESPERATE STRIFE) pendant to I-VI (EPHEMERAL
ADVANTAGES). Thus the four parts of this tragic
symphony, far from exhibiting the confusion
which nineteenth-century criticism has stupidly
ascribed to them, are framed with faultless
symmetry.
Let us range the six books of each part in four
parallel columns, according to the manner in
which they thus correspond:
LESSER ILIAD GREATER ILIAD
I VII XIII XIX
II VIII XIV XX
III IX XV XXI
IV X XVI XXII
V XI XVII XXIII
VI XII XVIII XXIV
The first books of these columns (I, VII, XIII,
XIX), recounting CONFLICTS IN WHICH FOUR
HEROES, ALMOST EQUAL, ARE MATCHED TWO BY
TWO, are filled with alarming discords, whose
wailing reminds us of those which open the
"Funeral March" of the musical Homer.
Book I : The impiety of Agamemnon ; the
pestilence. Then the injustice of the king of
kings; the discord between the chiefs, and the
departure of Achilles.
Book VII : The two next most redoubtable
adversaries engage in combat, Hector and Ajax;
which will triumph? Night puts an end to the
unsolved question. Sepulture of the dead, whose
funeral pyres illumine the darkness. The terrible
presages of the Gods
Book XIII: Ajax and Hector dispute anew;
they passionately insult one another. This time
the struggle takes place among the ships. Idomeneus
strikes in vain.
Book XIX: Achilles returns and renounces
his resentment; Agamemnon relinquishes Briseis;
all the rude caprices of the first book are at an
end. Achilles weeps bitterly over Patroclus.
Shall we now take the second book of each of
these half dozens? They will tell us, four times,
of the solemn INTERVENTION OF THE GODS in the
conflict: a thrilling pause follows the short footfalls
of the opening, that their menace may be
the better apprehended.
Here (Book II) is the deceptive dream sent by
Zeus, which is followed by preparations and by
the assembling of the troops. The Goddesses,
in Book VIII, are with difficulty kept within
bounds by their master and king; the prayers of
Hera have obtained a momentary success for the
Greeks, but the Goddesses attempted disobedience
quickly brings about their repulse. In Book
XIV Hera naturally takes her revenge: she has
lulled Zeus to sleep, and the anti-Zeus, Poseidon,
springs to the aid of the Greeks. In Book XX
all the Gods descend to the combat!
The third books of these four groups show
invariably the ACTION BROUGHT ON IN A NEW
WAY, BUT ALWAYS IN VAIN. The duel of Memelaus
and Paris, which might settle the quarrel of
the two peoples, does not take place, Paris being
miraculously carried away (Book III). The
embassy to Achilles, another attempt at the
decisive, also fails (IX). The Greeks, favored
by the slumber of Zeus, lose all their advantages
on his awakening; they are even driven back to
their ships; already that of Protesilaus takes
fire (XV). Achilles in person meets a conqueror
in the river-god Xanthus; he, however, is stopped
by the Gods, who find, in their turn, among their
own race, adversaries impossible to overthrow
(XXI). All solutions here appear impossible.
The fourth book of each series (IV, X, XVI,
XXII) is that of GREAT CATASTROPHES: breaking
off of the truce; Pandaros treacherously wounding
Menelaus (IV); the deaths of Dolon and
especially of Rhesus assassinated in his tent,
repay one treachery with another (X). And
if to underline once more these antitheses
Patroclus is killed in Book XVI, Hector, succumbing
in the corresponding book (XXII) pays, according
to the same law of composition, for his death.
The fifth books, on the contrary, are devoted
to the glory of the heroes: the EXPLOITS OF DlOMEDES
give title to Book V, as the EXPLOITS OF
AGAMEMNON to Book XI and those of MENELAUS
to XVII. What plainer signs of symmetry could
be desired? If Book XXIII is that of the FUNERAL
GAMES IN HONOR OF PATROCLUS, does not
this mighty apotheosis offer an even more striking
MISE EN SCENE than his exploits?
Finally, the sixth book of each series terminates
the threnody, at first mournful, then religious,
then violent and sterile as the billows, then
lamenting an illustrious warrior, then singing the
praise of another, with a final sigh of elegies
and tears. Ready to rejoin the fatal Paris,
Hector clasps his Andromache at the Scaean gate
(Book VI); exhausted, the Greeks yield their
wall condemned by the Gods (XII); Thetis, in
tears, has the arms forged in which her son will
perish (XVIII). Priam brings back the body
of his son amid the wailing of the Trojans (XXIV) .
ODYSSEY
Such long connected threads, such broad surfaces
could not be carried from a work of war
through a pleasanter and more varied narrative.
The means of changing and varying which occurred
to the author were found in a different division
of the same number of books; the framework
remaining identical (24 = 2X12), he changed the
internal distribution. The division of each half
of the poem was in this case ternary. It thus
furnished the poetic creator a SINGLE creator,
as I think we begin to see an aspect exactly
COMPLEMENTARY to the first, which, as we have
just seen, rested on a binary division. Homer
here gained, at a stroke, smaller surfaces (groups
of four books instead of six) to be more delicately
sculptured, and at the same time an ENSEMBLE
less bare and simple.
GREAT ODYSSEY LESSER ODYSSEY
I V IX XIII XVII XXI
II VI X XIV XVIII XXII
III VII XI XV XIX XXIII
IV VIII XII XVI XX XXIV
GREATER ODYSSEY (Books I-XII) : The first
of the three groups (I-IV) shows ITHACA WITHOUT
ULYSSES; the second (V-VIII) ULYSSES, UNKNOWN,
AMONG THE PHEACIANS; the third (IX-XII) the
NARRATIVES OF ULYSSES (HIS DISTANT ADVENTURES).
LESSER ODYSSEY (Books XIII-XXIV) : Here
first is ULYSSES IN ITHACA (XIII-XVI); then
ULYSSES, UNKNOWN, IN HIS OWN PALACE (XVIIXX);
lastly, the EXPLOITS BY WHICH HE RECONQUERS
HIS THRONE (XXI-XXIV).
These two triads are perfectly balanced.
ITHACA WITHOUT ULYSSES and ULYSSES IN
ITHACA; ULYSSES, UNKNOWN, IN THE STRANGERS'
PALACE and ULYSSES, UNKNOWN, IN HIS OWN
PALACE; DISTANT ADVENTURES and ADVENTURES
IN HIS OWN COUNTRY, like the two dyads of
the Iliad: EPHEMERAL ADVANTAGES OF THE
GREEKS and their DESPERATE STRUGGLE ON THE
SHORE; VICTORIES OF HECTOR and TRIUMPH OF
ACHILLES. Here, then, is the same esthetic,
based on Number, which Pythagoras is later to
define as "Analogy."
Here, likewise, the first books of the groups
present analogous situations: A HERO IN GREAT
WEAKNESS WHO NEVERTHELESS ACQUITS HIMSELF
WITH COURAGE: Telemachus alone among the
suitors (I) ; Ulysses clinging to a wreck in the
tempest (V); again when he and his escape from
Polyphemus (IX); again, alone, when he awakes
abandoned in Ithaca and does not recognize it
(XIII); when he enters, a scorned beggar, his
pillaged palace (XVII); when this beggar puts
his hand to the great bow which the suitors cannot
bend (XXI).
And the second book of each series offers, in
recompense, A MAN SUFFERING REVERSES, BUT
AIDED BY A KIND INTERVENTION. After the gathering
of the suitors, the assembling of the people;
and, if they refuse Telemachus the vessel he ask ,
the w.ise Mentor promises him one (II). To
Ulysses, destitute and naked, Nausicaa gives
garments (VI). Against Circe, Hermes forearms
him (X). In his distress he meets with the
fidelity of the humble Eumaeus (XIV). Penelope,
by her attitude, consoles him for the insults and
attack of the beggar Iros, without knowing him
(XVIII). Before the suitors, Athene, first in
the form of a darting swallow, then with her
shield, encourages and protects him (XXII).
If the first and second books of each series
balance one another, the third and fourth are not
less symmetrical: the latter accentuates, at every
stroke, the idea of the former. Here is Telemachus
at Pylos (III), then at Sparta (IV). Here is
Ulysses entering the palace of the Pheacians
(VII), then feted by them (VIII). Here are the
Dead evoked (XI), and the Monsters appear
(XII). Here is the return of Telemachus (XV),
then the discovery of his father, object of his
search, in Ithaca (XVI). Here is the project of
testing the suitors by means of the bow (XIX),
then the prudent organizing of the massacre
(XX). Here, finally, is Ulysses master of his
home (XXIII) and of his kindgom (XXIV).
A like method observed in the two works
shows that they come from the same hand,
if it were not sufficiently proved by both being
apologies for vengeance, and by both tending to
point the same moral; the one negatively, by
blaming the INEVITABLE DISCORD OF PLURALITIES;
the other positively, exalting THE CONSTANCY
AND THE VICTORY OF THE INDIVIDUAL TYPE; the
one chanting an emotion, the other a man!
In each of these poems the truly extraordinary
symmetry between the parts which compose it
demonstrates that the hypotheses of interpolations
and of lacunae of any importance must be
rejected. I defy any one to cite a single work,
as strictly planned and calculated in all details
as are these, which COULD have been executed
by several artists of different epochs, or even by
two collaborators, however closely united.
Whence, then, can have sprung the strange and
profoundly anti-artistic conception of a plurality
of authors for these compositions marked by so
leonine a hand? The answer is simple: from
the admirable independence which each member
of these masterpieces retains. Far from losing
its own individuality in the mass of narrative, a
single canto a 24th part of a poem, a 48th
part of the double work can be considered
separately and alone, and can satisfy. A single
Homer conceived his epic in this wise, and so
executed it. And herein lies the secret of its
eternal youth.
II --LAW OF GENERATION BY WHICH
TRAGEDY SPRINGS FROM EPIC
The second of these poems contains, in advance,
the technique of Tragedy.
Take away the third part of the ODYSSEY
(IX-XII: the Narratives of Ulysses) and we
have before us the five visible portions of tragedy,
which engendered our traditional five acts,
a division which we find even among the Chinese.
As for the Narratives of Ulysses, they form the
invisible side, which is in all tragedy invisible
for the very simple reason that it serves as a base ;
the base upon which a cube rests is not apparent
to the eye. It is to this part, formed of events
anterior to the beginning of the action, that the
exposition of every first act makes allusion.
From it emanates the mystery which permeates
the work. From it springs the agnition in which,
finally, it becomes visible at the moment of the
catastrophe.
Thus, in the four dramas which in succession
form the ILIAD, the second canto of each is the
mystery and the explanation, which must be
veiled and diffused in a scenic adaptation.
All well-constructed epics rest upon multiples
of 6: the ILIAD has 24 cantos, the ODYSSEY 24,
TELEMAQUB 24, LES MARTYRS 24, the ^ENEID 12,
the THEBAID 12, PARADISE LOST 12, REYNARD
THE Fox 12, ARAUCANA 36, LE LUTRIN 6. Of
what weight, in view of this, is the HENRIADE?
Neither the LUSIAD (10 cantos) nor DER MESSIAS
(20 cantos) have the qualities of the works just
cited. If the PHARSALIA has but 10 cantos and
the ARGONAUTICA but 8, it is because these two
poems are incomplete. I find no valid exception
but JERUSALEM DELIVERED (20 cantos), and we
can hardly refrain from criticizing its narrowness
of horizon, when we consider the oceanic immensity
of the Crusades.*
The Bible contains 72 books. And all the
Idyls come back to 12 invariable themes.
Ill THE THREE SYSTEMS OF POETRY
There are three great systems of poetry:
Parallelism,
Quantitative poetry of long and short syllables,
Our poetry of accent.
These may be subdivided: the metrical poetry
of the ancients, the tonic poetry of the Germans,
Spanish assonance, rhyme, etc. They may be
combined: thus liturgic poetry has synthesized
all the systems.
Parallelism (Chinese, Semitic) remains close
to logic and rhetoric. Thence comes its privilege
of "translatability" into all idioms. Parallelism
is to poetry, in a manner, what ideography is to
writing. It opposes whether by SYMMETRICAL
comparison, by ANTITHESIS or by a more vague
and subtile analogy which is called SYNTHETIC
two propositions.
Examples :
1st, of SYMMETRIC parallelism :
"The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall
bring presents :
The kings of Sheba and of Seba shall offer
gifts."
(Psalm LXXII)
2nd, of ANTITHETIC parallelism:
"Faithful are the wounds of a friend:
Deceitful are the kisses of an enemy."
(Prov. XXVII)
3rd, of SYNTHETIC parallelism:
"The law of the Lord is perfect,
Converting the soul :
The testimony of the Lord is sure,
Making wise the simple:
The statutes of the Lord are right,
Rejoicing the heart."
(Psalm XIX)
Now grammar teaches us that a proposition is
reduced, in the last analysis, to three elements:
subject, verb and predicate. This then makes,
in a Parallel, 6 elements (2 subjects, 2 verbs,
2 predicates) arranged face to face in two trinities.
The verb, central element of each trinity,
expresses the idea of RAPPORT, like the horizontal
bar in each of the two terms of an algebraic
equation :
1st term: 2nd term:
For his anger A C His kindness
endures = endures
for the twinkling B D for a lifetime,
of an eye :
Parallelism, we hasten to add, has like its
survival among us, our proverbs recourse to
assonance or rhyme in order to accentuate still
further the connecting of two ideas hitherto
separated or insufficiently compared.
What is assonance and what is rhyme, upon
which our versifications are based?
"Quel negre fou
Nous a forge ce bijou d'un sou" . . . ?
(Verlaine: ART POETIQUE.)
They are cousins and kindred of the pun.
And what is the pun but a play on words?
It is a language laughing at its own infirmities.
We can imagine an ideal language in which,
on the contrary, the words resemble each other
exactly in the proportion in which the ideas they
express resemble each other. May such a marvellous
language have once existed, in accordance
with the ideal of a primitive human superiority,
and must ambiguity, double-meaning and puns
be traced to Babel? According to this amusing
hypothesis, assonance, alliteration and rhyme
would historically precede, instead of following
parallelism in reactionary fashion, and a Verhaeren,
bringing us back to the latter, would be closing a
vast cycle.
In any case, whether we make use of the
QUATRAIN of short lines constructed on two
rhymes, complementary, since, in the classics,
one is masculine and the other feminine,
"Un vieux chne etait la: sa tige
"Eut orn6 le seuil d'un palais.
"'Le cur de Meudon?' lui dis-je;
"L'arbre me dit: 'C'est Rabelais.'
"
(Hugo: CHANSON DBS RUES ET DES BOIS.)
or whether, from reminiscence of the ancients,
but in verse more labored and artificial than
theirs, we concentrate on the DISTICH of four
hemistichs,
"Le crepuscule vint et je tournai la tete,
"Mon ivresse 6tait morte avec la tache
faite."
(H. de Regnier: JEUX RUSTIQUES ET DIVINS.)
we come back, after all, like the parallelists, to
symmetric dualities.
Our versifiers have long noted in each of these
dualities an average of 6 points of sonority, or
tonic accents, distributed in two groups of 3,
between the two halves of the verse. Four of
these accents, in the following example, are
stronger, because they coincide with the final
syllables, while the two others proceed simply
from the individual rhythm of the verse; from the
se1nse o2f the phrase. 3 456
Oui, je viens dans son temple adorer 1'Eternel ; 123 4 56
Je viens selon 1'usage antique et solennel, etc.
Now, if these dualities the distich and the
quatrain are the rudiment of our stanzas, the
parallelist also outlines his in a quatrain. So,
either in parallelism or in our own versification,
we invariably arrive at the following scheme:
(A / B=C / D) = (E / F=G / H)
Sub., verb, pred. Sub., verb, pred. Sub., verb, pred. Sub., verb, pred.
of the of the of the of the
1st proposition 2nd proposition 1st proposition 2nd proposition
of the of the
1st parallel 2nd parallel
1st 2nd 3rd 1st 2nd 3rd 1st 2nd 3rd 1st 2nd 3rd
points of accent points of accent points of accent points of accent
of 1st hemistich of 2nd hemistich of 1st hemistich of 2nd hemistich
in the in the
1st distich 2nd distich
or or
1st line 2nd line 3rd line 4th line
of quatrain. of quatrain.
"But," it may be objected, "y ur groups of
3 accents represent, in reality, each 3 pairs and
not 3 unities. In each one, beside the point of
accent on which you fix our attention, beside
the THESIS of the Greeks, there is the weaker part,
or ARSIS. This, with us, is next the long syllables
in the spondee, or the BREVES in the dactyl and
the anapest. In German verse, beside the tonic
syllables are other syllables. Again, in some
French poetry, beside the syllables most accented,
and others of equal strength, are the syllables
sacrificed by our method of scanning. And, in
uneven rhythms, in which best survives among
us the Aryan prosody, is it not the pause in
expectation of one of these syllables (this time
not merely diminished but suppressed) which
gives that unforeseen effect, musical and pathetic,
that sense of being "in the air" so beloved by
our Verlaine? In reality we arrive, as the ancients
did before us, at a total of a dozen demi-metres,
alternative aspirations and respirations, by turns
strong and weak."
Yes.
And so it is analogically that each of the
Homeric poems is divided into twelve doublecantos,
the ^NEID into twelve cantos, our own
poetry into twelve fixed forms: six with refrain
(RONDEAUX, simple and double, CLOSE, BALLADE,
CHANT ROYAL and TRIOLET) and six with combinations
of rhymes (LAI, VIRELAI, SONNET,
PANTOUM, VILLANELLE and SEXTINE), as the
year is divided into twelve months! since it is, in
short, twelve lines or ARETES which bound the
Cube formed, as I have shown, by the six faces
from which our energy moves across the three
dimensions of space.