Longinus
On the Sublime
XXXIX
We have still left, my dear sir, the fifth of those sources which we set down at the outset as contributing to sublimity, that which consists in the mere arrangement of words in a certain order. Having already published two books dealing fully with this subject – so far at least as our investigations had carried us – it will be sufficient for the purpose of our present inquiry to add that harmony is an instrument which has a natural power, not only to win and to delight, but also in a remarkable degree to exalt the soul and sway the heart of man. 2 When we see that a flute kindles certain emotions in its hearers, rendering them almost beside themselves and full of an orgiastic frenzy, and that by starting some kind of rhythmical beat it compels him who listens to move in time and assimilate his gestures to the tune, even though he has no taste whatever for music; when we know that the sounds of a harp, which in themselves have no meaning, by the change of key, by the mutual relation of the notes, and their arrangement in symphony, often lay a wonderful spell on an audience – 3 though these are mere shadows and spurious imitations of persuasion, not, as I have said, genuine manifestations of human nature: – can we doubt that composition (being a kind of harmony of that language which nature has taught us, and which reaches, not our ears only, but our very souls), when it raises changing forms of words, of thoughts, of actions, of beauty, of melody, all of which are engrained in and akin to ourselves, and when by the blending of its manifold tones it brings home to the minds of those who stand by the feelings present to the speaker, and ever disposes the hearer to sympathise with those feelings, adding word to word, until it has raised a majestic and harmonious structure: – can we wonder if all this enchants us, wherever we meet with it, and filling us with the sense of pomp and dignity and sublimity, and whatever else it embraces, gains a complete mastery over our minds? It would be mere infatuation to join issue on truths so universally acknowledged, and established by experience beyond dispute.98
4 Now to give an instance: that is doubtless a sublime thought, indeed wonderfully fine, which Demosthenes applies to his decree: τοῦτο τὸ ψήφισμα τὸν τότε τῇ πόλει περιστάντα κίνδυνον παρελθεῖν ἐποίησεν ὥσπερ νέφος, “This decree caused the danger which then hung round our city to pass away like a cloud.” But the modulation is as perfect as the sentiment itself is weighty. It is uttered wholly in the dactylic measure, the noblest and most magnificent of all measures, and hence forming the chief constituent in the finest metre we know, the heroic. [And it is with great judgment that the words ὥσπερ νέφος are reserved till the end.99] Supposing we transpose them from their proper place and read, say τοῦτο τὸ ψήφισμα ὥσπερ νέφος ἐποίησε τὸν τότε κίνδυνον παρελθεῖν – nay, let us merely cut off one syllable, reading ἐποίησε παρελθεῖν ὡς νέφος – and you will understand how close is the unison between harmony and sublimity. In the passage before us the words ὥσπερ νέφος move first in a heavy measure, which is metrically equivalent to four short syllables: but on removing one syllable, and reading ὡς νέφος, the grandeur of movement is at once crippled by the abridgment. So conversely if you lengthen into ὡσπερεὶ νέφος, the meaning is still the same, but it does not strike the ear in the same manner, because by lingering over the final syllables you at once dissipate and relax the abrupt grandeur of the passage.
XL
There is another method very efficient in exalting a style. As the different members of the body, none of which, if severed from its connection, has any intrinsic excellence, unite by their mutual combination to form a complete and perfect organism, so also the elements of a fine passage, by whose separation from one another its high quality is simultaneously dissipated and evaporates, when joined in one organic whole, and still further compacted by the bond of harmony, by the mere rounding of the period gain power of tone. 2 In fact, a clause may be said to derive its sublimity from the joint contributions of a number of particulars. And further (as we have shown at large elsewhere), many writers in prose and verse, though their natural powers were not high, were perhaps even low, and though the terms they employed were usually common and popular and conveying no impression of refinement, by the mere harmony of their composition have attained dignity and elevation, and avoided the appearance of meanness. Such among many others are Philistus, Aristophanes occasionally, Euripides almost always. 3 Thus when Heracles says, after the murder of his children,
“I’m full of woes, I have no room for more,”100
the words are quite common, but they are made sublime by being cast in a fine mould. By changing their position you will see that the poetical quality of Euripides depends more on his arrangement than on his thoughts. 4 Compare his lines on Dirce dragged by the bull —
“Whatever crossed his path,
Caught in his victim’s form, he seized, and dragging
Oak, woman, rock, now here, now there, he flies.”101
The circumstance is noble in itself, but it gains in vigour because the language is disposed so as not to hurry the movement, not running, as it were, on wheels, because there is a distinct stress on each word, and the time is delayed, advancing slowly to a pitch of stately sublimity.
XLI
Nothing so much degrades the tone of a style as an effeminate and hurried movement in the language, such as is produced by pyrrhics and trochees and dichorees falling in time together into a regular dance measure. Such abuse of rhythm is sure to savour of coxcombry and petty affectation, and grows tiresome in the highest degree by a monotonous sameness of tone. 2 But its worst effect is that, as those who listen to a ballad have their attention distracted from its subject and can think of nothing but the tune, so an over-rhythmical passage does not affect the hearer by the meaning of its words, but merely by their cadence, so that sometimes, knowing where the pause must come, they beat time with the speaker, striking the expected close like dancers before the stop is reached. Equally undignified is the splitting up of a sentence into a number of little words and short syllables crowded too closely together and forced into cohesion, – hammered, as it were, successively together, – after the manner of mortice and tenon.102
XLII
Sublimity is further diminished by cramping the diction. Deformity instead of grandeur ensues from over-compression. Here I am not referring to a judicious compactness of phrase, but to a style which is dwarfed, and its force frittered away. To cut your words too short is to prune away their sense, but to be concise is to be direct. On the other hand, we know that a style becomes lifeless by over-extension, I mean by being relaxed to an unseasonable length.
XLIII
The use of mean words has also a strong tendency to degrade a lofty passage. Thus in that description of the storm in Herodotus the matter is admirable, but some of the words admitted are beneath the dignity of the subject; such, perhaps, as “the seas having seethed” because the ill-sounding phrase “having seethed” detracts much from its impressiveness: or when he says “the wind wore away,” and “those who clung round the wreck met with an unwelcome end.”103 “Wore away” is ignoble and vulgar, and “unwelcome” inadequate to the extent of the disaster.
2 Similarly Theopompus, after giving a fine picture of the Persian king’s descent against Egypt, has exposed the whole to censure by certain paltry expressions. “There was no city, no people of Asia, which did not send an embassy to the king; no product of the earth, no work of art, whether beautiful or precious, which was not among the gifts brought to him. Many and costly were the hangings and robes, some purple, some embroidered, some white; many the tents, of cloth of gold, furnished with all things useful; many the tapestries and couches of great price. Moreover, there was gold and silver plate richly wrought, goblets and bowls, some of which might be seen studded with gems, and others besides worked in relief with great skill and at vast expense. Besides these there were suits of armour in number past computation, partly Greek, partly foreign, endless trains of baggage animals and fat cattle for slaughter, many bushels of spices, many panniers and sacks and sheets of writing-paper; and all other necessaries in the same proportion. And there was salt meat of all kinds of beasts in immense quantity, heaped together to such a height as to show at a distance like mounds and hills thrown up one against another.” 3 He runs off from the grander parts of his subject to the meaner, and sinks where he ought to rise. Still worse, by his mixing up panniers and spices and bags with his wonderful recital of that vast and busy scene one would imagine that he was describing a kitchen. Let us suppose that in that show of magnificence some one had taken a set of wretched baskets and bags and placed them in the midst, among vessels of gold, jewelled bowls, silver plate, and tents and goblets of gold; how incongruous would have seemed the effect! Now just in the same way these petty words, introduced out of season, stand out like deformities and blots on the diction. 4 These details might have been given in one or two broad strokes, as when he speaks of mounds being heaped together. So in dealing with the other preparations he might have told us of “waggons and camels and a long train of baggage animals loaded with all kinds of supplies for the luxury and enjoyment of the table,” or have mentioned “piles of grain of every species, and of all the choicest delicacies required by the art of the cook or the taste of the epicure,” or (if he must needs be so very precise) he might have spoken of “whatever dainties are supplied by those who lay or those who dress the banquet.” 5 In our sublimer efforts we should never stoop to what is sordid and despicable, unless very hard pressed by some urgent necessity. If we would write becomingly, our utterance should be worthy of our theme. We should take a lesson from nature, who when she planned the human frame did not set our grosser parts, or the ducts for purging the body, in our face, but as far as she could concealed them, “diverting,” as Xenophon says, “those canals as far as possible from our senses,”104 and thus shunning in any part to mar the beauty of the whole creature.
6 However, it is not incumbent on us to specify and enumerate whatever diminishes a style. We have now pointed out the various means of giving it nobility and loftiness. It is clear, then, that whatever is contrary to these will generally degrade and deform it.
XLIV
There is still another point which remains to be cleared up, my dear Terentian, and on which I shall not hesitate to add some remarks, to gratify your inquiring spirit. It relates to a question which was recently put to me by a certain philosopher. “To me,” he said, “in common, I may say, with many others, it is a matter of wonder that in the present age, which produces many highly skilled in the arts Of popular persuasion, many of keen and active powers, many especially rich in every pleasing gift of language, the growth of highly exalted and wide-reaching genius has with a few rare exceptions almost entirely ceased. So universal is the dearth of eloquence which prevails throughout the world. 2 Must we really,” he asked, “give credit to that oft-repeated assertion that democracy is the kind nurse of genius, and that high literary excellence has flourished with her prime and faded with her decay? Liberty, it is said, is all-powerful to feed the aspirations of high intellects, to hold out hope, and keep alive the flame of mutual rivalry and ambitious struggle for the highest place. 3 Moreover, the prizes which are offered in every free state keep the spirits of her foremost orators whetted by perpetual exercise;105 they are, as it were, ignited by friction, and naturally blaze forth freely because they are surrounded by freedom. But we of to-day,” he continued, “seem to have learnt in our childhood the lessons of a benignant despotism, to have been cradled in her habits and customs from the time when our minds were still tender, and never to have tasted the fairest and most fruitful fountain of eloquence, I mean liberty. Hence we develop nothing but a fine genius for flattery. 4 This is the reason why, though all other faculties are consistent with the servile condition, no slave ever became an orator; because in him there is a dumb spirit which will not be kept down: his soul is chained: he is like one who has learnt to be ever expecting a blow. For, as Homer says —
5 “’The day of slavery
Takes half our manly worth away.’106
“As, then (if what I have heard is credible), the cages in which those pigmies commonly called dwarfs are reared not only stop the growth of the imprisoned creature, but absolutely make him smaller by compressing every part of his body, so all despotism, however equitable, may be defined as a cage of the soul and a general prison.”
6 My answer was as follows: “My dear friend, it is so easy, and so characteristic of human nature, always to find fault with the present.107 Consider, now, whether the corruption of genius is to be attributed, not to a world-wide peace,108 but rather to the war within us which knows no limit, which engages all our desires, yes, and still further to the bad passions which lay siege to us to-day, and make utter havoc and spoil of our lives. Are we not enslaved, nay, are not our careers completely shipwrecked, by love of gain, that fever which rages unappeased in us all, and love of pleasure? – one the most debasing, the other the most ignoble of the mind’s diseases. 7 When I consider it I can find no means by which we, who hold in such high honour, or, to speak more correctly, who idolise boundless riches, can close the door of our souls against those evil spirits which grow up with them. For Wealth unmeasured and unbridled is dogged by Extravagance: she sticks close to him, and treads in his footsteps: and as soon as he opens the gates of cities or of houses she enters with him and makes her abode with him. And after a time they build their nests (to use a wise man’s words109) in that corner of life, and speedily set about breeding, and beget Boastfulness, and Vanity, and Wantonness, no base-born children, but their very own. And if these also, the offspring of Wealth, be allowed to come to their prime, quickly they engender in the soul those pitiless tyrants, Violence, and Lawlessness, and Shamelessness. 8 Whenever a man takes to worshipping what is mortal and irrational110 in him, and neglects to cherish what is immortal, these are the inevitable results. He never looks up again; he has lost all care for good report; by slow degrees the ruin of his life goes on, until it is consummated all round; all that is great in his soul fades, withers away, and is despised.
9 “If a judge who passes sentence for a bribe can never more give a free and sound decision on a point of justice or honour (for to him who takes a bribe honour and justice must be measured by his own interests), how can we of to-day expect, when the whole life of each one of us is controlled by bribery, while we lie in wait for other men’s death and plan how to get a place in their wills, when we buy gain, from whatever source, each one of us, with our very souls in our slavish greed, how, I say, can we expect, in the midst of such a moral pestilence, that there is still left even one liberal and impartial critic, whose verdict will not be biassed by avarice in judging of those great works which live on through all time? 10 Alas! I fear that for such men as we are it is better to serve than to be free. If our appetites were let loose altogether against our neighbours, they would be like wild beasts uncaged, and bring a deluge of calamity on the whole civilised world.“
11 I ended by remarking generally that the genius of the present age is wasted by that indifference which with a few exceptions runs through the whole of life. If we ever shake off our apathy111 and apply ourselves to work, it is always with a view to pleasure or applause, not for that solid advantage which is worthy to be striven for and held in honour.
12 We had better then leave this generation to its fate, and turn to what follows, which is the subject of the passions, to which we promised early in this treatise to devote a separate work.112 They play an important part in literature generally, and especially in relation to the Sublime.
NOTES ON LONGINUS
The last number of each note does not refer to line number in the printed text. It may refer to lines or clauses in the original Greek.
I. 2. 10. There seems to be an antithesis implied in πολιτικοῖς τεθεωρηκέναι, referring to the well-known distinction between the πρακτικὸς βίος and the θεωρητικὸς βίος.
4. 27. I have ventured to return to the original reading, διεφώτισεν, though all editors seem to have adopted the correction διεφόρησεν, on account, I suppose, of σκηπτοῦ. To illumine a large subject, as a landscape is lighted up at night by a flash of lightning, is surely a far more vivid and intelligible expression than to sweep away a subject.113
III. 2. 17. φορβειᾶς δ᾽ ἄτερ, lit. “without a cheek-strap,” which was worn by trumpeters to assist them in regulating their breath. The line is contracted from two of Sophocles’s, and Longinus’s point is that the extravagance of Cleitarchus is not that of a strong but ill-regulated nature, but the ludicrous straining after grandeur of a writer at once feeble and pretentious.
Ruhnken gives an extract from some inedited “versus politici” of Tzetzes, in which are some amusing specimens of those felicities of language Longinus is here laughing at. Stones are the “bones,” rivers the “veins,” of the earth; the moon is “the sigma of the sky” (Ϲ the old form of Σ); sailors, “the ants of ocean”; the strap of a pedlar’s pack, “the girdle of his load”; pitch, “the ointment of doors,” and so on.
IV. 4. 4. The play upon the double meaning of κόρα, (1) maiden, (2) pupil of the eye, can hardly be kept in English. It is worthy of remark that our text of Xenophon has ἐν τοῖς θαλάμοις, a perfectly natural expression. Such a variation would seem to point to a very early corruption of ancient manuscripts, or to extraordinary inaccuracy on the part of Longinus, who, indeed, elsewhere displays great looseness of citation, confusing together totally different passages.
9. ἰταμόν. I can make nothing of this word. Various corrections have been suggested, but with little certainty.
5. 10. ὡς φωρίου τινος ἐφαπτόμενος, literally, “as though he were laying hands on a piece of stolen property.” The point seems to be, that plagiarists, like other robbers, show no discrimination in their pilferings, seizing what comes first to hand.
VIII. 1. 20. ἐδάφους. I have avoided the rather harsh confusion of metaphor which this word involves, taken in connection with πηγαί.
IX. 2. 13. ἀπήχημα, properly an “echo,” a metaphor rather Greek than English.
X. 2. 13. χλωροτέρα δὲ ποίας, lit. “more wan than grass” – of the sickly yellow hue which would appear on a dark Southern face under the influence of violent emotion.114
3. 6. The words ἢ γάρ … τέθνηκεν are omitted in the translation, being corrupt, and giving no satisfactory sense. Ruhnken corrects, ἀλογιστεῖ, φρονεῖ, προεῖται, ἢ π. ὀ. τ.
18. σπλάγχνοισι κακῶς ἀναβαλλομένοισι Probably of sea-sickness; and so I find Ruhnken took it, quoting Plutarch, T. ii. 831: ἐμοῦντος τοῦ ἑτέρου, καὶ λέγοντος τὰ σπλάγχνα ἐκβάλλειν. An objection on the score of taste would be out of place in criticising the laureate of the Arimaspi.
X. 7. 2. τὰς ἐξοχὰς ἀριστίνδην ἐκκαθήραντες ἀριστίνδην ἐκκαθήραντες appears to be a condensed phrase for ἀριστίνδην ἐκλέξαντες και ἐκκαθήραντες. “Having chosen the most striking circumstances par excellence, and having relieved them of all superfluity,” would perhaps give the literal meaning. Longinus seems conscious of some strangeness in his language, making a quasi-apology in ὡς ἂν εἴποι τις.
3. Partly with the help of Toup, we may emend this corrupt passage as follows: λυμαίνεται γὰρ ταῦτα τὸ ὅλον, ὡσανεὶ ψήγματα ἢ ἀραιώματα, τὰ ἐμποιοῦντα μέγεθος τῇ πρὸς ἄλληλα σχέσει συντετειχισμένα. τὸ ὅλον here = “omnino.” To explain the process of corruption, τα would easily drop out after the final – τα in ἀραιώματα; συνοικονομούμενα is simply a corruption of συνοικοδομούμενα, which is itself a gloss on συντετειχισμένα, having afterwards crept into the text; μέγεθος became corrupted into μεγέθη through the error of some copyist, who wished to make it agree with ἐμποιοῦντα. The whole maybe translated: “Such [interpolations], like so many patches or rents, mar altogether the effect of those details which, by being built up in an uninterrupted series [τῇ πρὸς ἄλληλα σχ. συντετ.], produce sublimity in a work.”
XII. 4. 2. αὐτῷ; the sense seems clearly to require ἐν αὑτῷ.
XIV. 3. 16. μὴ … ὑπερήμερον Most of the editors insert οὐ before φθέγξαιτο, thus ruining the sense of this fine passage. Longinus has just said that a writer should always work with an eye to posterity. If (he adds) he thinks of nothing but the taste and judgment of his contemporaries, he will have no chance of “leaving something so written that the world will not willingly let it die.” A book, then, which is τοῦ ἰδίου βίου καὶ χρόνου ὑπερήμερος, is a book which is in advance of its own times. Such were the poems of Lucretius, of Milton, of Wordsworth.115
XV. 5. 23. ποκοειδεῖς καὶ ἀμαλάκτους, lit. “like raw, undressed wool.”
XVII. 1. 25. I construct the infinit. with ὕποπτον, though the ordinary interpretation joins τὸ διὰ σχημάτων πανουργεῖν: “proprium est verborum lenociniis suspicionem movere” (Weiske).
2. 8. παραληφθεῖσα. This word has given much trouble; but is it not simply a continuation of the metaphor implied in ἐπικουρία? παραλαμβάνειν τινα, in the sense of calling in an ally, is a common enough use. This would be clearer if we could read παραληφθεῖσι. I have omitted τοῦ πανουργεῖν in translating, as it seems to me to have evidently crept in from above (p. 33, l. 25). ἡ τοῦ πανουργεῖν τέχνη, “the art of playing the villain,” is surely, in Longinus’s own words, δεινὸν καὶ ἔκφυλον, “a startling novelty” of language.
12. τῷ φωτὶ αὐτῷ. The words may remind us of Shelley’s “Like a poet hidden in the light of thought.”
XVIII. 1. 24. The distinction between πεῦσις or πύσμα and ἐρότησις or ἐρώτημα is said to be that ἐρώτησις is a simple question, which can be answered yes or no; πεῦσις a fuller inquiry, requiring a fuller answer. Aquila Romanus in libro de figuris sententiarum et elocutionis, § 12 (Weiske).
XXXI. 1. 11. ἀναγκοφαγῆσαι, properly of the fixed diet of athletes, which seems to have been excessive in quantity, and sometimes nauseous in quality. I do not know what will be thought of my rendering here; it is certainly not elegant, but it was necessary to provide some sort of equivalent to the Greek. “Swallow,” which the other translators give, is quite inadequate. We require a threefold combination – (1) To swallow (2) something nasty (3) for the sake of prospective advantage.
XXXII. 1. 3. The text is in great confusion here. Following a hint in Vahlin’s critical note, I have transposed the words thus: ὁ καιρὸς δὲ τῆς χρείας ὁρός‧ ἔνθα τὰ πάθη χειμάρρου δίκην ἐλαύνεται, καὶ τὴν πολυπλήθειαν αὐτῶν ὡς ἀναγκαίαν ἐνταῦθα συνεφέλκεται‧ ὁ γὰρ Δ., ὁρὸς καὶ τῶν τοιούτων, ἄνθρωποι, φησίν, κ.τ.λ.
8. 16. Some words have probably been lost here. The sense of πλήν, and the absence of antithesis to οὗτος μέν, point in this direction. The original reading may have been something of this sort: πλὴν οὗτος μὲν ὑπὸ φιλονέικίας παρήγετο‧ ἀλλ᾽ οὐδὲ τὰ θέματα τίθησιν ὁμολογούμενα, the sense being that, though we may allow something to the partiality of Caecilius, yet this does not excuse him from arguing on premises which are unsound.
XXXIV. 4. 10. ὁ δὲ ἔνθεν ἑλών, κ.τ.λ. Probably the darkest place in the whole treatise. Toup cites a remarkable passage from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, from which we may perhaps conclude that Longinus is referring here to Thucydides, the traditional master of Demosthenes. De Thucyd. § 53, Ῥητόρων δὲ Δημοσθενὴς μόνος Θουκυδίδου ζηλωτὸς ἐγένετο κατὰ πολλά, καὶ προσέθηκε τοῖς πολιτικοῖς λόγοις, παρ᾽ ἐκείνου λαβών, ἃς οὔτε Ἀντιφῶν, οὔτε Λυσίας, οὔτε Ἰσοκράτης, οἱ πρωτεύσαντες τῶν τότε ῥητόρων, ἔσχον ἀρετάς, τὰ τάχη λέγω, καὶ τὰς συστροφάς, καὶ τοὺς τόνους, καὶ τὸ στρυφνόν, καὶ τὴν ἐξεγείρουσαν τὰ πάθη δεινότητα. So close a parallel can hardly be accidental.
XXXV. 4. 5. Longinus probably had his eye on the splendid lines in Pindar’s First Pythian:
τᾶς [Αἴτνας] ἐρεύγονται μὲν ἀπλάτου πυρὸς ἁγνόταται
ἐκ μυχῶν παγαὶ, ποταμοὶ δ᾽
ἁμέραισιν μὲν προχέοντι ῥόον καπνοῦ – αἴθων᾽‧ ἀλλ᾽ ἐν ὄρφναισιν πέτρας
φοίνισσα κυλινδομένα φλὸξ ἐς βαθεῖ-
αν φέρει πόντου πλάκα σὺν πατάγῳ ἁγνόταται αὐτοῦ μόνου,
which I find has also been pointed out by Toup, who remarks that ἁγνόταται confirms the reading αὐτοῦ μόνου here, which has been suspected without reason.
XXXVIII. 2. 7. Comp. Plato, Phaedrus, 267, A: Τισίαν δὲ Γοργίαν τε ἐάσομεν εὕδειν, οἵ πρὸ τῶν ἀληθῶν τὰ εἰκότα εἶδον ὡς τιμητέα μᾶλλον, τὰ τε αὖ σμικρὰ μέγαλα καὶ τὰ μέγαλα σμικρὰ ποιοῦσι φαίνεσθαι διὰ ῥώμην λόγου, καινά τε ἀρχαίως τά τ᾽ ἐναντία καινῶς, συντομίαν τε λόγων καὶ ἄπειρα μήκη περὶ πάντων ἀνεῦρον.
Was glänzt, ist für den Augenblick geboren,
Das Aechte bleibt der Nachwelt unverloren.