The poets and prose-writers themselves, then, with their eye on each object in turn, frame — as I said — words which seem made for, and are pictures of, the things they connote. But they also borrow many words from earlier writers, in the very form in which those writers fashioned them — when such words are imitative of things, as in the following instances: —
For the vast sea-swell on the beach crashed down with a thunder-shock.
And adown the blasts of the wind he darted with one wild scream.
Even as when the surge of the seething sea falls dashing
(On a league-long strand, with the roar of the rollers thunderous-crashing).
And his eyes for the hiss of the arrows, the hurtling of lances, were keen.
The great originator and teacher in these matters is Nature, who prompts us to imitate and to assign words by which things are pictured, in virtue of certain resemblances which are founded in reason and appeal to our intelligence. It is by her that we have been taught to speak of the bellowing of bulls, the whinnying of horses, the snorting of goats, the roar of fire, the rushing of winds, the creaking of hawsers, and numerous other similar imitations of sound, form, action, emotion, movement, stillness, and anything else whatsoever. On these points much has been said by our predecessors, the most important contributions being by the first of them to introduce the subject of etymology, Plato the disciple of Socrates, in his Cratylus especially, but in many other places as well.
What is the sum and substance of my argument? It is that it is due to the interweaving of letters that the quality of syllables is so multifarious; to the combination of syllables that the nature of words has such wide diversity; to the arrangement of words that discourse takes on so many forms. The conclusion is inevitable — that style is beautiful when it contains beautiful words, — that beauty of words is due to beautiful syllables and letters, — that language is rendered charming by the things that charm the ear in virtue of affinities in words, syllables, and letters; and that the differences in detail between these, through which are indicated the characters, emotions, dispositions, actions and so forth of the persons described, are made what they are through the original grouping of the letters.
To set the matter in a clearer light, I will illustrate my argument by a few examples. Other instances — and there are plenty of them — you will find for yourself in the course of your own investigations. When Homer, the poet above all others many-voiced, wishes to depict the young bloom of a lovely countenance and a beauty that brings delight, he will use the finest of the vowels and the softest of the semi-vowels; he will not pack his syllables with mute letters, nor impede the utterance by putting next to one another words hard to pronounce. He will make the harmony of the letters strike softly and pleasingly upon the ear, as in the following lines: —
Now forth of her bower hath gone Penelope passing-wise
Lovely as Artemis, or as Aphrodite the Golden.
Only once by the Sun-god’s altar in Delos I chanced to espy
So stately a shaft of a palm that gracefully grew thereby.
Rose Chloris, fair beyond word, whom Nereus wedded of old,
For her beauty his heart had stirred, and he wooed her with gifts untold.
But when he introduces a sight that is pitiable, or terrifying, or august, he will not employ the finest of the vowels. He will take the hardest to utter of the fricatives or of the mutes, and will pack his syllables with these. For instance: —
But dreadful he burst on their sight, with the sea-scum all fouled o’er.
And thereon was embossed the Gorgon-demon, with stony gaze
Grim-glaring, and Terror and Panic encompassed the Fearful Face.
When he wishes to reproduce in his language the rush of meeting torrents and the roar of confluent waters, he will not employ smooth syllables, but strong and resounding ones: —
And even as Wintertide torrents down-rushing from steep hill-sides
Hurl their wild waters in one where a cleft of the mountain divides.
When he depicts a hero, though heavy with his harness, putting forth all his energies against an opposing stream, and now holding his own, now being carried off his feet, he will contrive counter-buffetings of syllables, arresting pauses, and letters that block the way: —
Round Achilles the terrible surge towered seething on every side,
And a cataract dashed and crashed on his shield: all vainly he sought
Firm ground for his feet.
When men are being dashed against rocks, and he is portraying the noise and their pitiable fate, he will linger on the harshest and most ill-sounding letters, altogether avoiding smoothness or prettiness in the structure: —
And together laid hold on twain, and dashed them against the ground
Like whelps: down gushed the brain, and bespattered the rock-floor round.
It would be a long task to attempt to adduce specimens of all the artistic touches of which examples might be demanded in this one field. So, contenting myself with what has been said, I will pass to the next point.
I hold that those who wish to fashion a style which is beautiful in the collocation of sounds must combine in it words which all carry the impression of elegance, grandeur, or dignity. Something has been said about these matters, in a general way, by the philosopher Theophrastus in his work on Style, where he distinguishes two classes of words — those which are naturally beautiful (whose collocation, for example, in composition will, he thinks, make the phrasing beautiful and grand), and those, again, which are paltry and ignoble, of which he says neither good poetry can be constructed nor good prose. And, really and truly, our author is not far from the mark in saying this. If, then, it were possible that all the parts of speech by which a given subject is to be expressed should be euphonious and elegant, it would be madness to seek out the inferior ones. But if this be out of the question, as in many cases it is, then we must endeavour to mask the natural defects of the inferior letters by interweaving and mingling and juxtaposition, and this is just what Homer is accustomed to do in many passages. For instance, if any poet or rhetorician whatsoever were to be asked what grandeur or elegance there is in the names which have been given to the Boeotian towns, — Hyria, Mycalessus, Graia, Eteonus, Scolus, Thisbe, Onchestus, Eutresis, and the rest of the series which the poet enumerates, — no one would be able to point to any trace of such qualities. But Homer has interwoven and interspersed them with pleasant-sounding supplementary words into so beautiful a texture that they appear the most magnificent of all names: —
Lords of Boeotia’s host came Leitus, Peneleos,
Prothoenor and Arcesilaus and Clonius for battle uprose,
With the folk that in Hyrie dwelt, and by Aulis’s crag-fringed steep,
And in Schoinus and Scolus, and midst Eteonus’ hill-clefts deep,
In Thespeia and Graia, and green Mycalessus the land broad-meadowed,
And in Harma and Eilesius, and Erythrae the mountain-shadowed,
And they that in Eleon abode, and in Hyle and Peteon withal,
And in Ocalee and in Medeon, burg of the stately wall.
As I am addressing men who know their Homer, I do not think there is need to multiply examples. All his Catalogue of the towns is on the same high level, and so are many other passages in which, being compelled to take words not naturally beautiful, he places them in a setting of beautiful ones, and neutralizes their offensiveness by the shapeliness of the others. On this branch of my subject I have now said enough.