Laocoon : $b An essay upon the limits of painting and poetry. With remarks illustrative of various points in the history of ancient art.Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim
Philosophy
Laocoon : $b An essay upon the limits of painting and poetry. With remarks illustrative of various points in the history of ancient art.
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim
Aesthetics -- Early works to 1800; Agesander. Laocoön group
“Now Cytherean Venus leads the bands, under the shining moon, and the
fair graces, joined with the nymphs, beat the ground with alternate
feet,”—were these, likewise, sacred, religious dances? But it is wasting
words to argue against such a conceit.
NOTE 50, p. 145.
Plinius, lib. xxxiv. sect. 19. “Ipse tamen corporum tenus curiosus,
animi sensus non expressisse videtur, capillum quoque et pubem non
emendatius fecisse, quam rudis antiquitas instituisset.
“Hic primus nervos et venas expressit, capillumque diligentius.”
NOTE 51, p. 162.
The Connoisseur, vol. i. no. 21. The beauty of Knonmquaiha is thus
described. “He was struck with the glossy hue of her complexion, which
shone like the jetty down on the black hogs of Hessaqua; he was ravished
with the prest gristle of her nose; and his eyes dwelt with admiration
on the flaccid beauties of her breasts, which descended to her navel.”
And how were these charms set off by art? “She made a varnish of the fat
of goats mixed with soot, with which she anointed her whole body as she
stood beneath the rays of the sun; her locks were clotted with melted
grease, and powdered with the yellow dust of Buchu; her face, which
shone like the polished ebony, was beautifully varied with spots of red
earth, and appeared like the sable curtain of the night bespangled with
stars; she sprinkled her limbs with wood-ashes, and perfumed them with
the dung of Stinkbingsem. Her arms and legs were entwined with the
shining entrails of an heifer; from her neck there hung a pouch composed
of the stomach of a kid; the wings of an ostrich overshadowed the fleshy
promontories behind; and before she wore an apron formed of the shaggy
ears of a lion.”
Here is further the marriage ceremony of the loving pair. “The Surri, or
Chief Priest, approached them, and, in a deep voice, chanted the nuptial
rites to the melodious grumbling of the Gom-Gom; and, at the same time
(according to the manner of Caffraria), bedewed them plentifully with
the urinary benediction. The bride and bridegroom rubbed in the precious
stream with ecstasy, while the briny drops trickled from their bodies,
like the oozy surge from the rocks of Chirigriqua.”
NOTE 52, p. 166.
The Sea-Voyage, act iii. scene 1. A French pirate ship is thrown upon a
desert island. Avarice and envy cause quarrels among the men, and a
couple of wretches, who had long suffered extreme want on the island,
seize a favorable opportunity to put to sea in the ship. Robbed thus of
their whole stock of provisions, the miserable men see death, in its
worst forms, staring them in the face, and express to each other their
hunger and despair as follows:—
_Lamure._ Oh, what a tempest have I in my stomach!
How my empty guts cry out! My wounds ache,
Would they would bleed again, that I might get
Something to quench my thirst!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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