The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 4 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Georg Hegel · en
remain on the walls, and not to make his son an orphan and his wife a
widow. Hector replies in much the same spirit: "All this is also a care
to me, wife; but I fear too much the Trojans, if I avoid the battle
here, like a coward; the eddy, too, of the moment worries me not, who
am wont to be ever dauntless, and to fight in the foremost ranks of the
Trojans, protecting the high fame of my father and mine own. Ay, well
indeed I wot, both in mind and soul, that the day will come in which
sacred Troy shall fall, as also Priam and the folk of the king cunning
with the spear. But I sorrow not so much for the Trojans, nor yet for
Hecuba herself and Priam, nor the brothers of my flesh, who shall fall
beneath the foe, as for thee, when some bronze-greaved Achæan shall
bear thee away, robbing thee of thy day of freedom, and thou shalt spin
from the flax of another in Argos, or wearily draw water, loth indeed,
but the might of necessity will be upon thee; and I doubt not there
will be someone who will say, as he sees thee weeping: 'See yonder
Hector's wife, the bravest of all who fought among the Trojans when the
fight was over Ilium.' Thus perchance shall someone speak; and woe will
come upon thee, that thou hast no longer such a husband, to fend thee
from such serfdom. As for myself, may the earth cover me, or ever I
hear thy bitter cry and thy carrying off." All that Hector says here is
full of feeling, pathetic enough, yet not merely expressed in a lyrical
or dramatic manner, but in the epic vein, inasmuch as the picture which
he outlines of suffering, and which brings pain to himself, in the
first place depicts circumstantially objective conditions as such, and
in the second place because all that affects and moves him does not
appear as personal volition, or individual resolve, but rather as a
necessity which is not at the same time his own aim and will. Of much
the same epic effect are the pleas with which the vanquished plead, as
they may on various grounds, for their life with their victors; for a
movement of the soul, which proceeds merely from circumstances, and
only attempts to affect us through the causative effect of objective
relations and situations, is not dramatic, although modern tragedians
from time to time also make use of such a type of effect. The scene,
for example, in Schiller's "Maid of Orleans," on the battle-field
between the English knight Montgomery and Joan,[23] is, as others have
already justly observed, rather epic than dramatic. In the moment of
danger all courage forsakes the knight; yet, for all that, when pressed
by the fierce Talbot, who punishes cowardice with death, and the Maid,
who conquers even the bravest, he is unable to have recourse to flight,
and exclaims: