An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting EpigramsNicole, Pierre
Philosophy
An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams
Nicole, Pierre
Epigrams -- History and criticism
There are those who locate its formal principle in the serious or
witty idea that forms the conclusion, and so insist on this that they
deny anything is an epigram that lacks such a conclusion.[36] But this
is an error. There are some epigrams, and highly cultivated ones, that
have an equable elevation throughout and nothing of especial note in
the conclusion, as in this of a contemporary writer:
That on insurgent serpents breathing peace,
On unplumed eagles trembling, on tame pards,
And lions whose low necks accept the yoke,
Louis looks out, sublime on a bronze horse,
Nor fingers shaped this nor the craftsman's forge
But worth and God's fortune accomplished it.
The armed venger of faith, trustee of peace,
Ordained, for all to reverence, this, and bade
Rise in the royal place the reverend bronze,
That, the long perils past of civil strife,
And enemies subdued by prosperous arms,
Louis should ever triumph in the master city.[37]
Again, in some epigrams there is a straightforward neatness and a
gentle and dry humor that pleases, as may be seen in some of Catullus'
epigrams which we have put in this anthology.
Some go to the contrary extreme and not only do not require such
conclusions but even scorn them. These are for the most part the
outrageous lovers of Catullus who, as long as they finish off some
limp little dirge in hendecasyllabics, feel that they are marvellously
charming and polished, although there is nothing more empty than such
verses or nothing easier to do if a man has acquired a little practice
in Latin.
How little effort, for instance, shall we imagine the conclusion of
this epigram cost Borbonius, fashioned as it is according to the model
of Catullus?
Wherefore come, O Roman muses,
Full of honey and of graces,
Learned verses of good Pino;
I embrace you, just Camenae,
All day long I read you gladly
In this mortifying season,
Time of tears and time of penance,
Harsh and troublesome, by Jupiter![38]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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