The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1De Quincey, Thomas
Philosophy
The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1
De Quincey, Thomas
English essays
[Greek: En Delo tote proton ego xai Homeros aoidoi
Melpomen, en nearois umnois rapsantes aoide.]
'Then, first of all,' says Hesiod, 'did I and Homer chant as bards in
Delos, laying the nexus of our poetic composition in proaemial hymns.' We
understand him to mean this: There were many singers and harpers who
sang or accompanied the words of others; perhaps ancient words--at all
events, not their own. Naturally he was anxious to have it understood
that he and Homer had higher pretensions. They killed their own mutton.
They composed the words as well as sang them. Where both functions were
so often united in one man's person, it became difficult to distinguish
them. Our own word _bard_ or _minstrel_ stood in the same ambiguity. You
could not tell in many cases whether the word pointed to the man's
poetic or musical faculty. Anticipating that doubt, Hesiod says that
they sang as original poets. For it is a remark of Suidas, which he
deduces laboriously, that poetry, being uniformly sung in the elder
Greece, acquired the name of [Greek: aoide]. This term became
technically appropriated to the poetry, or substance of whatever was
sung, in contradistinction to the musical accompaniment. And the poet
was called [Greek: aoidos] So far Hesiod twice over secures the dignity
of their office from misinterpretation. And there, by the word [Greek:
raphantes] he indicates the sort of poetry which they cultivated, viz.,
that which was expanded into long heroic narratives, and naturally
connected itself both internally amongst its own parts, and externally
with other poems of the same class. Thus, having separated Homer and
himself from the mere musicians, next he separates them even as poets
from those who simply composed hymns to the Gods. These heroic legends
were known to require much more elaborate study and art. Yet, because a
critical reviewer might take occasion to tax his piety in thus composing
human legends in neglect of the Gods, Hesiod, forestalling him, replies:
'You're out there, my friend; we were both pious, and we put our piety
into hymns addressed to the Gods, which, with cabinetmakers' skill, we
used also as interludes of transition from one legend to another.' For
it is noticed frequently and especially by a Scholiast on Aristophanes
(Pac. 826), that generally speaking the _proaemia_ to the different parts
of narrative-poems were entirely detached, [Greek: kai ouden pros to
pragma delon], and explain nothing at all that concerns the business.
2.--Mrs. Evans and the 'Gazette.'
In his autobiographic sketch, 'Introduction to the World of Strife,' he
tells of his brother's enterprise in establishing the _Gazette_, which
was to record their doings, and also of Mrs. Evans's place on the
_Gazette_. The following is evidently a passage which was prepared for
that part of the article, but was from some cause or other omitted:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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