七百一[1]
H.G. Fiedler, The Oxford Book of German Verse, 2nd ed.
Der von Kürenberg: “Entflogen”: “Ich
zog mir einen Falken / wohl länger als ein Jahr” usw. (S. 2). Fiedler explains
on S. 574: “Das Bild des Falken für den Geliebten wird auch im Nibelungenliede
gebraucht.” Cf. Heinrich von Mügeln: “Sprach eine Frau: ‘Mein Falk ist mir
entflogen...’”[2] (Max
Wehrli, Deutsche Lyrik des Mittelalters,
6 rev. Aufl. 1984, S. 324-7). The symbol is also found in old Italian poetry,
e.g. the anonymous song “Tapina me, ch’amava uno sparviero” (St. John Lucas, The Oxford Book of Italian Verse, pp.
30-1[3]).
What a far cry from Catullus, ii: “Passer, deliciae meae puellae”! Another
anonymous Italian song “Mamma, il bel lusignlolo” (Ib., pp. 169-170) can also be compared with “Entflogen”. A 19th-century
German folksong “Wär ich ein wilder Falke” (Leonard Forster, The Penguin Book of German Verse, pp.
92-3) describes a lover’s wish to be transformed into falcon in order to seize
a nobleman’s daughter by her golden plaits & fly away (Und wollt in ihrem
Nacken / Die goldnen Flechten schön / Mit wilden Schnabel packen, / Sie tragen
zu dieser Höhn). Cf. the folk song “The Grey Hawk”: “Once I had a grey hawk, &
a pretty grey hawk, / A sweet pretty bird of my own, / And I got a little bell,
& tied it to her toe /
Thinking she would fly
not away, / But she took a flight” etc. (James Reeves, The Everlasting Circle, p. 140).
Martin Opitz: “Ich empfinde Martin Opitz: “Ich empfinde” (S. 22). See supra 第六百四十則 on 韓愈〈雜詩〉.
Paulus Gerhardt: “Abendlied” (S. 28). See supra 第一百十七則 on《梅花草堂筆談》卷一高峯禪師偈:“上牀別了襪和鞋”. Cf. G.M. Hopkins: “Life death does end & each
day dies with sleep” (Poems, 3rd
ed., p. 107).
Christian Günther: “Am Abend”: “Also müssen wir auf Erden / Zu dem Tode
reifer werden” (S. 43). Cf. Carl Busse’s charming poem “In der Riefe” (S. 538):
“Was überfüllt und früchteschwer, / Es ward auch reif für Tod und Ernte” (S.
43). Kleist used the phrase several times in his Penthesilea: “Zum Tode war ich
nie so reif als jetzt” (vers 1682); “Ganz reif zum Tod, O Diana, fühl ich mich!”
(vers 2865). See supra 第一百九十三則 on Jeremy Taylor, The Golden
Grove, pp. 49 & 260 on dying “like a ripe fruit falling from a fair
tree.” Cf. also Tennyson: “Song of the Lotos-Eaters”: “All things have rest,
and ripen toward the grave / In silence; ripen, fall & cease” (The Oxford Book of Eng. Verse, 1st
ed., p. 829), cf. infra S. 340 Lenau:
“Herbstklage” (Carl Busse).
The folksong “Es waren zwei Königskinder” (S. 44). Cf. the folksong
“Tiefe Wasser”.(S. 10). See supra 第六百三十三則 on〈古詩十九首〉& 第六百九十五則《易林》卷一〈屯〉之〈小畜〉.
The folksong “Willst du dein Herz mir schenken, so fang es heimlich an, /
Dass unser beider Denken niemand erraten kann. / Die Liebe muss bei beiden
allzeit verschwiegen sein, / Drum schliess die grössten Freuden in deinem
Herzen ein” usw. (S. 54). The necessity of keeping love a secret was a cliché
in old German poetry, e.g., Der von Kürenberg’s song: “Sô lâ du dîniu ougen
gên an einen andern man. / Son weiz
doch lutzel ieman.wiez under uns zwein ist getân” (Leonard Forster, The Penguin Book of German Verse, p. 9);
anonymous Swiss song of the 18th century represents a refreshing
variation on the theme by making the man say after listening through the girl’s
injunctions that to forestall idle gossip (die
fule Chlapperlüt) he should not look at her in the church, toast her at the
pub, dance with her at the ball etc.: “I’ve never been so set on you as I made
out (Du bist mer no niene so lubi gsi,
/ wie-n-i dergliche ha ta)” (Ib., pp.
88-9). Cf. Wilhelm Müller: “Ungeduld”: “Ich meint’, es müsst’ in meinen Augen
stehn. / Auf meinen Wangen müsst’ man’s brennen sehn. / Zu lesen war’s auf
meinem stummen Mund, / Ein jeder Atemzug gäb's laut ihr kund; / Und sie merkt
nichts von all dem bangen Treiben / Dein ist mein Herz, und soll es ewig
bleiben!” (The Oxford Book of German
Verse, S. 287); Carl Busse: “Lieber Name”: “Lieber Name, den ich niemals
nenne, / Den ich lautlos nur mir selbst bekenne, / Manchmal tönt auf Gassen,
Plätzen, Wegen / Mir dein Klang aus fremdem Mund entgegen. // Manchmal auch aus
eines Buches Zeilen / Springst du auf und lädst mich zu verweilen. // Aber immer
schreck' ich scheu betroffen, / Und mich dünkt, mein Herz läg jedem offen...”
(S. 537). See補六百九十七則眉墨憨齋主人《山歌》卷一〈瞞人〉[4], infra 第七百四十二則 G.G. Ferrero, Marino e i
Marinisti, p. 806;《青門簏稿》卷一〈子夜歌〉:“少年無心腸,人前誤爾汝”.【[補七百一則]S. 54. Cf. 秦少游〈品令〉:「每每秦樓相見,見了無限憐惜。人前強不欲相沾識。把不定,臉兒赤」;蕭允之〈點絳唇〉:「花徑相逢,眼期心諾情如昨。怕人疑著,佯弄秋千索」;《樂府羣珠》卷四曾瑞卿〈紅繡鞋〉:「有人處把些禮數,無人處結遍綢繆,任誰問休道咱共你有。……明講著昆仲禮,暗結了燕鶯儔[5],似恁般誰猜疑我共你有」;墨憨齋主人《山歌》卷一〈瞞人〉:「結識私情要放乖,弗要眉來眼去被人猜,面前相見同還禮,狹路上相逢兩閃開。……人人說我與你有私情,尋場相罵洗身清,你便拔出了拳頭便說打,我便手指了吳山罵洞庭」;《天真外集》卷二〈林下‧之五〉:「無端一點關心處,還恐旁人看得真」;卷三〈密緒‧之一〉:「轉參莊語教人聽,徐歛明眸覺婢覘」;〈密意〉:「人前第一須留意,莫把雙眸注妾邊」;卷四〈自持‧之二〉:「極婉轉時心自許,暫通融處眼須防」;〈雨窗〉:「心挑衹益羞顏熱,眉語還遮妬眼明」;吳融〈春詞〉:「羞多轉面語,妬極定睛看」(與韋莊〈悔恨〉之「幾為妒來頻斂黛」各寫一境:吳詩當情敵時,韋詩與情人處);Lord Houghton, Shadows,
II: “They seemed to those who saw them meet / The casual friends of every day, /
Her smile was undisturbed & sweet, / His courtesy was free & gay. // But
yet if one the other’s name / In some unguarded moment heard, / The heart, you
thought so calm & tame, / Would struggle like a captured bird: // ... // Yet
what no chance could then reveal, / And neither would be first to own, / Let
fate & courage now conceal, / When truth could bring remorse alone” (The Oxford Book of English Verse, p.
848. Of course, Catullus, LXXXIII: “Lesbia mi praesente uiro mala plurima
dicit: / haec illi fatuo maxima laetitiast. / mule, nihil sentis” etc.】
Ch.F. Gellert: “Die Geschichte von dem Hute”[6]
(S. 61-3). A worthy companion-piece to Swift’s Tale of a Tub & Carlyle’s Sartor
Resartus, and like them a variation uopn John Selden’s simile on different
sects as different styles in “trimmings”[7]
(Table Talk, ed. W.S.W. Anson, p.
209). Those who talk big bout “remoulding human nature” should ponder the line:
“Das Aussenwerk ward neu; er selbst, der Hut, blieb alt” (S. 63), a saying
which, like Hardy’s remark “A physician cannot cure a disease, but he can
change its mode of expression” (quoted in W. Plomer’s Double Lives, pp. 20-1), would have been endorsed by Freud.
Ch.F. Gellert: “Der Maler”: “Wenn deine Schrift dem Kenner nicht
gefällt, / So ist es schon ein böses Zeichen; / Doch wenn sie gar des Narren
Lob erhält. / So ist es Zeit, sie auszustreichen” (S. 63). C. Phocion (on
hearing the assembly applaude his speech): “Have I inadvertently said something
foolish?” (Plutarch, Lives, “Modern
Lib.”, p. 700); Antisthenes (on being applauded by rascals): “I am horribly
afraid I have done something wrong” (Diogenes Laertius, VI. 5, Loeb, II, p. 7)【Diogenes Laertius, VI. 5: “When he was applauded by
rascals, Antisthenes remarked, ‘I am horribly afraid I have done something
wrong’” (Loeb, II, p. 7)】; Bebel: “Wenn der Klassenfeind dich lobt, hast du
was falsch gemacht”; Ben Johnson: “So they be ill men, / If they spake worse,
’twere better: for of such / To be dispraised, is the most perfect praise” (Cynthia’s Revels, III, ii); Milton: “of
whom [the rabble] to be dispraised were no small praise” (P.R., III, 56); O. Wilde, Critic
as Artist: “When people agree with me I always feel that I must be wrong”;
Eugene V Debs: “Let comrades try me for treason if the capitalist press ever
come to praise me.”【Pareto, Les
Systèmes Socialistes on “form” & “substance”.】
J.W.L. Gleim: “An Leukon”: “Rosen pflücke, Rosen blühn, / Morgen ist
nicht heut!” usw. (S. 66). Cf. L.C. Martin, The
Poetical Works of Robert Herrick, p. 84, “To the Virgins, to make much of
time” & p. 518 where Faerie Queene,
II. xii. 75-6: “Gather therefore the rose, whilest yet is time” is quoted as
one of Herrick’s sources; H. Weber, La
Création poétique au 16e siècle en France, I, pp.341-4: “Des roses d’Ausone à l’odelettede
Ronsard.” See also Philostratus, Love
Letters, XVII, “To a Boy”: “Both beauty & the rose have their spring: Time indeed is grudging... Do not delay at all
but... share with me what you have”[8]
(“The Loeb Classical Library”, p. 451).
G.A. Bürger: “Lenore”: “Die Toten reiten schnell!” (S. 89); cf. Hugo: “À
un voyageur”, quoted in 第四五三則 à
propos of 高菊磵〈清明日對酒〉.【Cf. Chateaubriand, Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe, “Préface
Testamentaire”: “...je désirerais pouvoir ressusciter à l’heure des fantômes
pour en corriger les épreuves; les morts vont vite” (“Classiques Larousse”, p.
14).】This can be applied to the speed at which the
memory of the dead fades out among the living. For the belief that the dead
visit their loved ones by night, see Ernest Jones, Nightmare, Witches & Devils, pp. 101 f.
Goethe: “Mailied”: “Im Blütendampfe /
Die volle Welt” (S. 106). This is what the Chinese poets called “花霧”. Cf. Jeanne Galzay, St. Thérèse d’Avila, 1927, p. 52: “Les cerisiers
fleuris attachaient des brouillards duveteux et nacrés aux pente des collines.”
This poem has been regarded by the influential German literary theorist R.
Petsch as the typical example of
lyric Gegengefühl (see J.L. Kinneavy,
A Study of Three Comtemporary Theories of
Lyric Poetry, pp. 108-9).
Goethe: “Wandrers Nachtlied” (S.
117). See supra 第六百六十八則 on Carducci’s praise of Foscolo as one who “ricercava le cime quiete
della poesia” quoted in W. Binni, ed., I
Classici Italiani nella Storia della Critica, II, p. 361.
Goethe: “Erlkönig” (S. 120-1).
Besides the terror of the supernatural which arises from an error about the
natural (see German Life & Letters,
April 1960, p. 197 on Goethe’s replacement of ghostly trappings with natural
phenomena in his ballads), there is poignant pathos in the poor child’s vain
attempt to convey his fear to his father; though in his parent’s loving
embrace, he remained essentially alone beyond help & beyond reach, totally
unable to communicate & share his experience. Cf. Richard Beer-Hofmann: “Schlaflied
für Mirjam”: “Blinde — so gehn wir und gehen allein, / Keiner kann keinem
Gefährte hier sein” (W. Rose, A Book of
Modern German Lyric Verse, p. 21); Theodor Storm, Am Kamin: “Wenn wir uns recht besinnen, so lebt doch die
Menschenkreatur, jede für sich, in fürchterlicher Einsamkeit; ein verlorener
Punkt in dem unermessenen und unverstandenen Raum” (Sämtl. Werk., hrsg. Köster, II, S 163); Aubrey de Vere: “Vainly
heart with heart would mingle, / For the deepest still is single” (quoted in
Henry Taylor, Autobiography, I, p.
334). For the similarity between the theme of this poem & that of Henry
James’s The Turn of the Screw, see Journal of English & Germanic Philology,
April 1959, p. 68.【Colette: “on n’échange rien dans l’étreinte” (P. Clarac, Textes choisis de Colette, Introduction, p. 14).】Franz
Kafka, Der Schloss: “Keiner kann
keines Gefährte hier sein” (quoted in Fritz Strich, Kunst & Leben, S. 142; cf. also infra 第七百三則 on Arnold’s poem “To Marguerite”, 第七百二十四則 on《太平廣記》卷四百七十一薛偉 on the unconquerable isolation of man. See also Vittoria
Aganoor Pompilj’s touching poem “Dialogo” (L. Baldacci, Poeti minori dell’Ottocento, I, 1181-2); Samuel Beckett, Molloy (John Calder ed.), p. 50【“I
mean this trouble I had in understanding not only what others said to me, but
also what I said to them” etc. “And art is the apotheosis of solitude. There is
no communication because there are no vehicles of communication.”】;
& Proust (Grove Press), p. 47;
& MLR, July 1963, pp. 316-334
& K.W. Jonas, ed., The World of
Somerset Maugham, p. 74 on misunderstanding & breakdown of
communication. Cf. also the famous “Conclusion” of Pater’s The Renaissance on “each
one of us” being “ringed round” by “that thick wall of personality through
which no real voice has ever pierced”, on “the individual in his isolation,
each mind keeping as a solitary prisoner its own dream of a world” (Macmillan
ed., 1925, p. 248; for the philosophical background of Pater’s aesthetic
solipsism, cf. G. Bullough, Mirrors of
Minds, pp. 190-1 quoting Hume, Condillac & J.S. Mill); Conrad, An Outcast of the Islands, Pt. VI, ch. 3:
“... as if to her... had been revealed clearly in that moment the tremendous
fact of our isolation, of the loneliness impenetrable & transparent,
elusive & everlasting; of the indestructible loneliness that surrounds,
envelopes, clothes every human soul
from the cradle to
the grave, & perhaps beyond” (Ed. Nelson, p. 250); Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, preface: “We...
clasp hands with each other
at meeting & at
parting, fight each other & even destroy each other because of this always
somewhat thwarted effort to break through walls to each other. As a character
in a play once said: ‘We’re all of us sentenced to solitary confinement inside
our own skins’...”; Inge Meidinger-Geise, Welterlebnis
in deutscher Gegenwartsdichtung (1956), S. 366 ff. gives a number of
contemporary German poems on the theme of alienation & the inability to
communicate; Camus: “il s’agit de savoir si même nos mots les plus justes et
nos cris les plus réussis ne sont pas privés de sens, si le langage n’exprime
pas, pour finir, la solitude définitive de l’homme dans un monde muet” (S.
Ullmann, Semantics, p. 116)【又見七六七則】.
Goethe: “Das Göttliche”: “Heil den
unbekannten / Höhern Wesen, / Die wir ahnen!”/ ... / Denn unfühlend / Ist die
Natur: / ... / Nur allein der Mensch / Vermag das Unmögliche: / Er
unterscheidet, / Wählet und lichtet; / Er kann dem Augenblick / Dauer
verleihen. // Er allein darf / Den Guten lohnen, / Den Bösen strafen, / ... /
Und wir verehren / Die Unsterblichen, / Als wären sie Menschen, / Täten im grossen,
/ Was der Beste im kleinen / Tut oder möchte” usw. (S. 123-5). The epigram in
Feuerbach’s Nachgelassene
Aphorismen: “Gott ist
nichts Anderes als was der Mensch von sich als Wahres Herrlichstes anerkennt...
Der Mensch ist als Mensch, per se,
göttlich” (Sämmtl. Werk., hrsg. W. Bolin
und Fr. Jodl, Bd. X, S. 338). See supra
第一百四十九則 on Samuel Butler’s bon mot “An honest God’s the noblest work of man” (H. Jones, Samuel Butler, I, p. 212). Goethe’s poem also adumbrates the
theory that God, like Nietzsche’s Superman, will be a product of evolution; cf.
E. Renan, L’Avenir de la Science, p.
501: “La terme du progrès universal étant un état... où toute la matière
existante engendrera une résultante unique, qui sera Dieu”; Samuel Alexander, Space, Time & Diety, II, p. 345: “Diety
is the next higher empirical quality to the highest we know” etc. and p. 348: “For
any level of existence, deity is the next higher empirical quality” etc.; André
Gide, Journal, Jan. 30, 1916: “Dieu n’est
pas en arrière de nous. Il est à venir. C’est non pas au début, c’est à la fin
de l’évolution des êtres qu’il le faut chercher. Il est terminal et non initial”
etc. (Éd. “Bibliothèque de la Pléiade”, p. 533). This view which makes “ascent
to God” mean “descent of God” is of course anathema to Christian apologists;
C.S. Lewis, for instance, puts it into the mouth of one of his abhorred
scientists: “Does it follow that because there was no God in the past that
there will be no God also in the future?” (That
Hideous Strength, ch. 8, sect. 3).【For Nature’s amoral indifference & Man’s
distinction between good & evil, see 第二五三則.】
Goethe: “Mignons Lieder”: “Kennst du
das Land, wo die Zitronen flühn” usw. (S. 126-7); cf. Stendhal in his
autobiography on his family origin in Avignon: “pays où viennent les oranges”, “nous
étions venus d’un pays où les orangers croissaient en pleine terre” (Vie de Henry Brulard, éd. H. Martineau, “Classiques
Garnier”, pp. 71, 72). In a careful analysis of the imagery of the poem, W.
Kayser says: “Entblättern wir die Strophe, so bleibt der Ausdruck des Wunsches übrig,
mit dem Geliebten nach dem Süden zu ziehen” (Das Sprachliche Kunst, 4te Auf., S. 121). Had Kayser
been better acquainted with contemporary English literary theory, he would here
have availed himself of Washington Allston’s concept “objective correlative”
(see R.W. Stallman, The Critic’s Note-book,
p. 116 & Harry Levin, Contexts of
Criticism, p. 259; A. Preminger, ed., Encyclopedia
of Poetry & Poetics, pp. 581-2 quoting Allston, Santayana, Pound &
Poe), that is, the “objects” like flowering lemon-trees, golden oranges, the
blue sky, etc. are mentioned body and contour to the nostalgia for the south,
to be the sensory “correlative” of that mental state (cf. 馬致遠〈天淨沙〉:“枯藤老樹昏鴉,小橋流水人家,古道西風瘦馬。夕陽西下,斷腸人在天涯”) — in short, a form what Vico would call an “universali
fantastici” (Scienza nuova, §209, §460,
in Opere, ed. Nicolini, p. 453, p.
551) or, as Hegel would say, to “sich bestimmen dadurch das sinniliche Scheinen der Idee” (Hegel, Ästhetik, Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1955, S. 146; cf. S. 82: “das
Geistige... als versinnlicht erscheint”, esp. S. 83: “immer in besonderen
Fällen... in adäquaten Beispielen usf.”; cf. 882 on “das individualisierte
vernünftigs” as the content of poetry). Cf. W.K. Wimsatt, Jr. on the “concrete
universal” (quoted in A. Preminger, Encyclopedia
of Poetry & Poetics, p. 150).〈連珠〉, 司空圖《詩品》, 郭麐《詞品》, or 李義山《雜纂》, 王君玉《續纂》& their like are all base on the principle of “objective
correlative”.【Cf. 劉熙載《藝概》卷三:「[李仲蒙謂:『索物以託情謂之比,觸物以起情謂之興。』]敘物以言情謂之賦,余謂《楚辭‧九歌》最得此訣。如『嫋嫋兮秋風,洞庭波兮木葉下』,正是寫出『目眇眇兮愁予』來;『荒忽兮遠望,觀流水兮潺湲』,正是寫出『思公子兮未敢言』來[李仲蒙語見胡廣《斐然集》卷十八〈致李叔易書〉引,又《困學紀聞》卷三]。」】Such images should be distinguished from metaphors
(cf. Christine Brooke-Rose, A Grammar of
Metaphor, pp. 29, 35; R.A. Foakes, The
Romantic Assertion, p. 25). Cf. Wordsworth on “reclothing [the] idea in an
individual dress which expresses the essential quality, & has also the
spirit & life of a sensual object” (H.C. Robinson, On Books & Their Writers, ed. Edith J. Morley, I, p. 89);
A.H.R. Fairchild, Making of Poetry,
pp. 24-5: “If I am asked to call up an image of a rose, of a tree, of a cloud,
or of a skylark, I can readily do it; but I am asked to feel lonliness or
sorrow, to feel hatre or jealousy, or to feel joy on the return of spring, I
cannot readily do it.... The only effective way of arousing any particular
feeling that is more than merely bodily feeling is to call up the images that
are naturally connected to that feeling.” For “objective correlative”, see T.S.
Eliot, Selected Essays 1917-1932, p.
145; Josephine Miles, The Vocabulary of
Poetry, pp. 15-6; T.C. Pollock, The
Nature of Literature, pp. 139-40; Mario Praz, The Flaming Heart, p. 351 and W.K. Wimsatt, Jr. & C. Brooks, Literary Criticism: A Short History, p.
667 (in both T.S. Eliot’s view is traced back to Ezra Pound’s definition of
poetry in his Spirit of Romance, p.
5: “... equations for the human emotions.” Cf. 第七百七則 on D. Gnoli’s poem “Solo”.【Schiller to Goethe, March 27, 1801: “Der Nichtpoet
kann so gut als der Dichter von einer poetischen Idee gerührt seyn, aber er
kann sie in kein Object legen”
— R. Wellek, Hist. of Modern Criticism, I, p. 254 on this as anticipation of “objective
correlative”, quoting Archibald MacLeish’s Ars
Poetica[9]: “A
poem should be equal to: / Not true. // For all the history of grief / An empty
doorway & a maple leaf”
— Poems, 1924-1933, pp. 122-3; cf. Eugenio Montale[10]:
“Spesso il male di vivere ho incontrato: / era il rivo strozzato che gorgoglia,
/ era l’incartocciarsi della foglia / riarsa, era il cavallo stramazzato. // Bene
non seppi, fuori del prodigio / che schiude la divina Indifferenza: / era la
statua nella sonnolenza / del meriggio, e la nuvola, e il falco alto levato”
(cited Momenti e Problemi di Dtoria dell’
Estetica, IV, p. 1670). W.K. Wimsatt, Jr.’s famous article on the “concrete
universal” really boils down to the same thing.】
Goethe: “Lied des Harfners”: “Wer
nie sein Brot mit Tränen ass, / Wer nie die kummervollen Nächte / Auf seinem
Bette weinend sass, / Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Mächte” (S. 128).
Leopardi had a different story to tell about insomnia in his Canto notturno di un pastore errante
dell’Asia: “Se tu [la luna] se tu parlar sapessi, io chiederei: / Dimmi:
perchè giacendo / A bell’agio, ozioso, / S’appaga ogni animale; / Me, s’io
giaccio in riposo, il tedio assale?” (Canti,
XXIII, ed. G.L. Bickersteth, p. 276); with the Petrarchans it is unrequited
love, not Weltschmertz, which murders their sleep while birds & beast take
their well-earned rest (see H. Weber, La
Création poétique au 16e siecle en France, I, pp. 366-7), e.g. Il
Chariteo: “Ecco la notte: il ciel scintilla e splende / di stelle ardenti,
lucide e gioconde; / I vaghi augelli e fere il nido asconde, / e voce umana al
mondo or non s’intende. / ... / Chete si stan nel mar le placide onde / ogni
corpo mortai riposo prende. / Ma non riposa nel mio petto Amore, /Amor d’ogni
creato acerbo fine...” (E.M. Fusco, La
Lirica, I, p. 194).
Goethe: “Sprüche” ii: “Wär’ nicht das Auge sonnenhaft, / Die Sonne könnt
es nie erblicken” usw. (S. 141). The idea is taken from Plotinus: “Jamais un
oeil ne verrait le soleil sans être devenu semblable au soleil, ni une âme ne
verrait le beau sans être belle” (Ennéades,
I. vi. 9, tr. É. Bréhier, I, p. 106). Cf. Wordsworth, The Excursion, the Prospectus, 68: “The external World is fitted to
the Mind.” See supra 第五十三則 on Coleridge, The Friend,
Essay V.【Novalis, Blüthenstaub,
§18: “Wie kann ein Mensch Sinn für etwas haben, wenn er nicht den Keim davon in
sich hat?” (Schriften, J. Minor, II, 114).】
“Sprüche” xxii: “Und das Gesetz
nur kann uns Freiheit geben” (S. 144). See supra
第二百八則 on
H. Peyre, Le Classicisme français, p. 96.
Schiller: “Die Grösse der Welt”: “Die der schaffende Geist einst aus dem
Chaos schlug, / Durch die schwebende Welt flieg’ ich des Windes Flug” (S. 145).
Perhaps inspired by Bruno’s magnificent sonnets on the bold flights of his
spirit: “Poi che spiegat’ho l’ali al bel desio” & “Quindi l’ali sicure a l’aria
porgo” (L.R. Lind, Lyric Poetry of the
Italian Renaissance, p. 330; George Kay, The Penguin Book of Italian Verse, p. 201; the former sonnet is
Tausillo’s, see A. Guzzo’s note in his ed. of Opere di G. Bruno, p. 601; cf. Croce on the aesthetic significance
of Bruno’s “appropriation” of Tausillo’s poem in Problemi di Estetica, pp. 136-9 & Discorsi di varia filosofia, II, pp. 71-2). Cf. 韓愈〈忽忽〉; Faust, Iter Theil
1074 ff: “O dass kein Flügel mich vom Boden hebt” usw.
Schiller: “Die Schlacht”: “Zum wilden eisernen Würfelspiel / Streckt
sich unabsehlich das Gefilde” (S. 146). Cf. 韓愈〈過鴻溝〉:“誰勸君王回馬首,真成一擲賭乾坤”;孟遲〈過垓下〉:“天地有時饒一擲。江山無主任平分。”
Schiller: “Die Ideale”: “So willst du treulos von mir scheiden / Mit
deinen holden Phantasien” usw. (S. 154-5). The poem reminds one of Coleridge’s
“Dejection: An Ode” & of Wordsworth’s “Ode: Intimations of Immortality”,
but appears a laboured rhetorical exercise beside both.
Schiller: “Der Handschuh” (S. 165). Cf. Leigh Hunt’s poem “The Glove &
the Lions”; Fouqué, Undine, Kap. 4, Bertalda’s
glove & Huldbrand’s adventure (Nelson’s German Texts, p. 20); Strindberg: “The
Mystery of the Tobacco-Shed”: the beauty threw a rose into the sea & the conductor
swimming to get it (Tales, “Phoenix
Lib.”, pp. 107-8); Pamela Hansford Johnson,
The Humbler Creation, p. 291: “... one of those mediaeval hussies who kept
sending chaps out on tomfool neckbreaking errands & giving them a heavenly
smile & a mucking old sleeve when they got back.”
Schiller: “Sprüche” iv: “Einem ist sie [Wissenschaft] die hohe, die
himmlische Göttin, dem andern / Eine tüchtige Kuh, die ihn mit Butter versorgt”
(S. 209). Cf. G.-C. Lichtenbergs Aphorismen,
B. §141 (hrsg. A. Leitzmann, Bd. I, S. 88): “Wissenschaften bringen: Brod und
Ehre — Jurisprudentia, Medicina, Theologie, Analysis infinitorum; kein Brod und
keine Ehre —Metaphysica, Logica, Critica; Ehre und kein Brod — Poësia, Belles
lettres, Mathesis, Philosophia; Brod und keine Ehre — Advocatia, Oeconnomia,
Anatomia, Rechnen u. Schreiben.”
Hölderlin: “An die Parzen” (S. 214).
G. Highet has rightly compared this moving poem to Keats’s sonnet: “When I have
fears that I may cease to be / Before my
pen has gleaned my teeming brain” (The
Classical Tradition, p. 666). One also recalls in this connection (“Die
Seele, der im Leben ihr göttlich Recht / Nicht ward, sie ruht auch drunten im
Orkus nicht” usw.) André Chénier’s last words: “Pourtant, j’avais quelque chose
là.” See 七八六則.
Justinus Kerner: “Wanderlied” (S. 236). Poems on Wanderlust like this one or Wilhelm Müller’s “Wanderschaft” (S.
284) or Emanuel Geibel’s “Der Mai ist gekommen” (S. 396) are peculiar to German
romanticism. The zestful Wanderlust
of the early Romantics (Kerner: “So treibt es den Burschen / Durch Wälder und
Feld, / Zu gleichen der Mutter, / Der wandernden Welt”; Müller: “Vom Wasser
haben wir’s gelernt. / Vom Wasser! / Das hat nicht Rast bei Tag und Nacht, / Ist
stets auf Wanderschaft bedacht, / Das Wasser”; Geibel: “Wie die Wolken wandern
am himmlischen Zelt, / So steht auch mir der Sinn in die weite, weite Welt”) is
different from the morbid restlessness or escapism of the fin de siècle writers. The former is freedom of, the latter is freedom from
or against; the former gives a shout
of joy of discovery, the latter a sight of relief from ennui. Tennyson’s “Ulysses”
(“How dull it is to pause, to make an end, / To rust unburnish’d, not to shine
in use. / ... / ... strong in will / To strive, to seek, to find & not to
yield” — Poems, “Everyman’s Lib.”,
pp. 187-8), Baudelaire’s “Le voyage” (“Mais les vrais voyageurs sont ceux-là
seuls qui partent. / Pour partir... / Et, sans savoir pourquoi, disent
toujours: Allons!” — Oeuv. comp., “Bib.
de la Pléiade”, p. 198; cf. pp. 355-6: “Any where out of the world”), &
Leopardi’s “Dialogo di Cristoforo Colombo e di Pietro Gutierrez” (“Quando altro
frutto non ci venga da questa navigazione, a me pare che ella ci sia
profittevolissima in quanto che per un tempo essa ci tiene liberi dalla noia” —
Opere, a cura di S. Solmi, I, p. 602)
represent the three degrees of escapism. In the 20th-century
escapism fails even to provide a temporary relief, because noia is like Vénus à sa proie
toute entière attachée. Cf. G. Eich’s poem “Reise” (第七六七則).【G.P.S. von Lübeck: “Fremdlings Abendlied”: “Da, wo
du nicht bist, ist das Glück” (G. Büchmann, Geflügelte
Worte, Volks-Ausgabe von B. Krieger, S. 681). E.V.B., Child’s Play: “O that I were where I would be! / Then should I be
where I am not; / But where I am, there I must be, / And where I would be I cannot”
(quoted in Q, Memories & Opinions,
p. 20).】
Justinus Kerner: “Poesie”:
“Poesie ist tiefes Schmerzen, / Und es kommt das echte Lied / Einzig aus dem
Menschenherzen, / Das ein tiefes Leid durchglüht. // Doch die höchsten Poesien
/ Schweigen wie der höchste Schmerz, / Nur wie Geisterschatten ziehen / Stumm
sie durchs gebrochne Herz” (S. 239)【quoted & praised in F. Mauthner, Kritik der Sprache, I, p. 117】. Cf.
the haunting Spanish copla: “No se
que pena es mas honda, / Si la pena que se canta / O la pena que se llora” (I
know not which is more deep / Whether the grief that we sing / Or else the
grief that we weep) (S. de Madariaga. Shelley
& Calderon, p. 110). The first stanza reminds one of Shelley’s “Most
wretched man / Are cradled into poetry by wrong: / They learn in suffering what
they teach in song” (Julian & Maddalo,
543-5) & “our sweetest songs are that
tell of saddest thought”
(“To a Skylark”) — which are almost echoed in Musset’s La Nuit de mai: “Les plus désespérés
sont les chants les plus beaux, / Et j’en sais d’immortels qui sont de purs
sanglots”; or as Nietzsche crudely puts it: “Man gebiert nicht, weil es
Vergnügen macht. Der Schmerz macht Hühner und Dichter gackern” (Also sprach Zarathustra, 4ter
Teil, “Vom höheren Menschen”, §12, Werke
in drei Bänden, hrsg. K. Schlechta, II, S. 527); cf. Wagner in a
letter to Liszt: “Ich begreife gar nicht, wie ein wahrhaft glücklicher Mensch
auf den Gedanken kommen soll, ‘Kunst’ zu machen” (quoted in German Studies Presented to L.A. Willoughby,
p. 185); Heine’s ironic “Schöpfungslieder” vii” “Krankheit ist wohl der letzte
Grund / Des ganzen Schöpferdrangs gewesen; / Erschaffend konnte ich genesen, /
Erschaffend wurde ich gesund” (Gesamm.
Werk., hrsg. G. Karpeles, I, S. 308; Croce, too, says: “la poesia come è
stato ben detto, nasce dal ‘desiderio insoddisfatto’” (La Poesia, 5a ed., p. 158; cf. F. Flora, Orfismo della parola, pp. 141-2: “La
definizione della tragedia, con la ultima liberazione dal mal è veramente la
definizione d’ogni poesia. La poesia nasce sempre su uno stato di dolore...
ogni poesia è sempre liberazione da una piccola grande tragedia”); W. Muschg, Tragische Literaturgeschichte, 3te
Auf., S. 16: “Sie [die Dichtung] ist fast immer, wenn auch oft verhüllt, eine
Form des Leidens” usw.【Charles Vignier’s attack of naturalism: “Faut-il
nécessairement être cocu pour écrire un beau livre?” (J. Huret, Enquête sur l’Évolution litt., p. 98).】【Cf. 第七六三則.】【Freud, Collected
Papers, IV: “Happy people never make phantasies, only unsatisfied ones” (M.
Rader, A Modern Book of Esthetics, 3rd
ed., 1964, p. 131).】【Mme de Staël: “rien ne soulage comme la
rhetorique” (quoted in G.N. Ray, Thackeray:
The Age of Wisdom, p. 79); cf. “Le soin de trouver des paroles nuit
beaucoup au mouvement du coeur” (quoted in R. Bayer, Traité d’Esthétique, p. 67).】【Macbeth, IV. iii. 209-10: “Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak. / Whispers
the o’erfraught heart & bids it break”; Donne: “Triple Fool”: “Grief
brought to numbers cannot be so fierce, / For he tames it, that fetters it in
verse” & “Death”: “Language, thou art too narrow and too weak / To ease us
now; great sorrows I cannot speak” (Poems,
ed. Grierson, Oxford, pp. 15 & 259); Herbert: “Grief”: “Verses, ye are too
fine a thing, too wise / For my rough sorrows” etc. (Works, ed. E.F. Hutchinson, p. 164).】The
second stanza is a refinement upon the Senecan tag: “Curae leves loquuntur,
ingentes stupent” (Phaedra, 615); cf.
Sir Walter Raleigh “The Silent Lover”: “Silence in love bewrays more woe. / Than
words, though ne’er so witty: / A beggar that is dumb, you know, / May
challenge double pity” (The Ox. Bk. of
Eng. Verse, p. 103); cf. Emerson: A
Modern Anthology, ed.
A. Kazin & D. Aaron,
p. 232. See supra 第六百三十五則 on Orlando Furioso, XXIII. 113 & infra 第七百六十七則 on J. Weinheber’s poem “Mit halber Stimme”. This theory of what may be
called the mute Muse was also held by Newman, for whom “poetry exists apart
from pen & paper, &, moreover, only exists at its most characteristic
& pure when so existing” (G. Tillotson, Criticism
& the 19th Century, p. 157); cf. Samuel Butler: “The
greatest poets never write poetry. The Homers & Shakespeares are not the
greatest — they are only the greatest that we can know... For the highest
poetry... is ineffable” (Selections from
the Notebooks, by A.T. Bartholomew, “Traveller’s Library”, p. 73).
Justinus Kerner: “Zur Ruh, Zur Ruh”: “O führt mich ganz, / Ihr Innern
Mächte, / Hin zu dem Glanz / Der tiefsten Nächte!” (S. 240). This paradox has
become almost a commonplace since San Juan de la Cruz who says, e.g. in his Noche Escura del Alma, Lib. II, cap. 5: “Así
como de la luz, cuanto más clara es, más se ciega y escurece la pupila de la
lechuza, y cuanto el sol se mira más de lleno más tinieblas causa en la
potencia visiva y la priva, excediéndola por la flaqueza... rayo di tiniebla”
(quoted in E. Allison Peers, Spanish
Mysticism, p. 223). Cf. Henry Vaughan: “The Night”: “There is in God — some
say — / A deep, but dazzling darkness”; Mme Guyon: “O rayon
ténébreux d’une immense clarté / O nuit! ô torrent de lumière” (A.J. Steele, Three Centuries of French
Verse, p. 222; cf.
Jean Rousset, Anthologie de la poésie
baroque française, I, pp. 20-21); J.J. von Grimmelshausen: “Das Finstere
Licht”: “Ach allerhöchstes Gut! du wohnest so im finstern Licht! / Dass man vor
Klarheit gross, den grossen Glanz kann sehen nicht” (M. Wehrli, Deutsche Barocklyrik, 3te
Aufl. S. 169); Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg: “Über das unaussprechliche
heilige Geistes-Eingeben”: “Du ungeseh’ner Blitz du dunkel-helles Licht” (Ib., S. 183); Quirinus Kuhlmann: “Kühlpsalm”:
“Je dunkler, je mehr lichter: / Je schwärzer alls, je weisser weisst sein Sam.
/ ... / Es gläntzt je mehr, je finster es ankam” (Ib., p. 191). San Juan’s image remains the most vivid just as
Vaughan’s half-line the most pregnant & forceful (L.C. Martin’s ed. of
Vaughan’s Works, p. 750, a note to p.
523 quotes St. Dionysius Areop., Epist.
V: “Divina caligo est lux inaccessa... inaspectabilis, propter exuberantem
supernaturalis luminis effusionem);《莊子‧天地篇第十二》:“視乎冥冥,聽乎無聲。冥冥之中,獨見曉焉;無聲之中,獨聞和焉。”
Ludwig Uhland: “Heimkehr”: “Brich
nicht, Steg, du zitterst sehr! / O stürz nicht, Fels, du dräuest schwer! /
Welt, geh nicht unter, Himmel, fall nicht ein, / Eh’ ich mag bei der Liebsten
sein!” (S. 247). In truth of this little poem has been “proved upon my pulses”,
to borrow Keat’s expressive phrase (Letters,
ed. H.E. Rollins, I, p. 279). Not only la
joie fait peur (see supra 第一百十七則 on “Polycrates Complex”), but the anticipation of joy is also
accompanied by a haunting fear of the slip between the cup & lip; cf. the “joli
vers” quoted in the Goncourts’ Journal,
3 avril 1857: “Je crains ce que j’espère” (from Dupin-Pager’s “Le Mélancolique”,
see R. Ricatte’s note in Texte intégrale, II, p. 90). Since the age of forty —
which, alas! has had the reverse of a fortifying effect on me — as moments of
great joy have become fewer & farther between in my life, or rather as my
heart weighs heavier with its burdens of years and leaps up less easily, I have
been constantly & acutely conscious of the precariousness of living, of
skating on thin ice, or walking on a tight rope. The epicure in Sydney Smith’s “Recipe
for Salad” has good reason to congratulate himself & say: “Fate cannot harm
me, I have dined today” (Lady Holland, A
Memoir of Sydney Smith, A new ed. [n. d.], p. 240); but even this is less
the sigh of content of a serenely full man (cf. Julie in La Nouvelle Héloïse: “O mort! viens quand tu voudras, je ne te
crains plus, j’ai vécu... tu n’as plus rien à me dérober” — éd. D. Mornet, IV, p. 258) than the bravado which
conceals a sense of insecurity or rather betrays an awareness of the jealousy
of the gods. “Drécarité” or what Scudéry called “un branle éternel” is also a
leitmotif of tragicomedies, but in tragicomedy “tout change” equally applies to
happiness & unhappiness & misfortune is as transcient as fortune (see
Jean Rousset, La
litt. de l’âge baroque en France, p. 59), we never get the sense of Grenzsituation
as in Uhland’s poem or the sad lucidity of experience as in Heine’s poemquoted
below à propos of Hoffmann’s “Auf leisen Sohlen”.
Joseph von Eichendorff: “Der frohe
Wandersmann”: “Die Tragen die zu Hause liegen, / Erquicket nicht das Morgenrot,
/ Sie wisen nur von Kinder wiegen, / Von Sorgen, Last und Not um Brot” (S. 267)
(Gesam. Werk., Aufbau, 1962, I, 4).
Cf. Gobineau, Nouvelles asiatiques,
p. 347: “J’ai évité les fatigues bien plus grandes de la vie sédentaire, un
métier, la société permanente des imbéciles, l’inimitié des grands, les soucis
de la propriété, une maison à conduire, des domestiques à morigéner, une femme
à supporter, des enfants à élever. Voilà ce dont je suis quitte. N’est-ce rien?”
(quoted in P. Jourda, L’Exotisme dans la
litt. fr. depuis Chateaubriand, II, p. 275).
Joseph von Eichendorff: “Morgengebet”:
“Die Welt mit ihrem Gram und Glücke / Will ich, ein Pilger frohbereit, / Betreten
nur wie eine Brücke / Zu dir, Herr, übern Strom der Zeit”[11]
(S. 266). Cf. St. Augustine, Serm.,
Lib. III, “De Ascensione”: “De vitiis nostris scalam nobis facimus, sivitia
ipsa calcamus”; Tennyson, In Memoriam,
IV: “I falter where I firmly trod, / And falling with my weight of cares / Upon
the great world’s altar-stairs / That slope thro’ darkness up to God”; George
Herbert: “Mattens”: “Teach me they love to know; / That this new light, which
now I see, / May both the work & the workman show: / Then by a sunne-beam I
will climbe to thee” (Works, ed. F.E. Hutchinson, p. 63).
Joseph von Eichendorff: “Wünschelrute”:
“Schläft ein Lied in allen Dingen, / Die da träumen fort und fort; / Und die
Welt hebt an zu singen, / Triffst du nur das Zauberwort” (S. 270) (Gesam. Werk., Aufbau, 1962, II, 90).【Dürer:
“Die Kunst steckt in der Natur, wer sie heraus kann reissen, der hat sie.”】Poetry
lying dormant in things & waiting to be aroused from sleep — the Sleeping Beauty biding her
time till the arrival of the Prince Charming — is very like the statue imbedded
in a stone: “Non ha l’ottimo artista alcun concetto / c’un marmo solo in sé non
circonscriva / col suo superchio, e solo a quello arriva / la man che ubbidisce
all’intelletto” (Michelangelo, ‘Soneto’ in The
Oxford Book of Italian Verse, p. 222; cf. supra 第一百九十九則); G.A. Bécquer, Rimas, vii (quoted infra in connection with Paul Heyse’s “Tiefer
Brunnen” on S. 464-5). For the view that all things are potentially poetical,
see supra 第三百四十九則 on J.E. Brown, The Critical
Opinions of Samuel Johnson, p. 242; to the quotation to this effect from
Eckermann, Gespräche mit Goethe, 5
Juli 1897, Hugo, Orientales, Préface de Janv. 1829, etc. given there, the
following passage from Maupassant can be added: “Une chose très laide et
répugnante peut, grâce à son interprète, revêtir une beauté indépendante d’elle-même”;
“La plus grande [erreur]
qu’on puisse reprocher à
presque tous les écrivains de ce temps, c’est d’avoir cru que la poésie se trouvait
dans certaines choses à l’exclusion de toutes les autres, ainsi le printemps, la
rosée, les fleurs, le soleil, la lune et les étoiles... Il n’y a pas de choses poétiques,
comme il n’y a pas de choses qui ne le soient point: car la poésie n’existe en
réalité que dans le cerveau de celui qui la voit. Qu’on lise, pour s’en
convaincre, la merveilleuse ‘Charogne’ de Baudelaire” (René Dumesnil, Chroniques, Études, Correspondance de Guy de
Maupassant, p. 5 & p. 16; quoted in Jean Thoraval, L’Art de Maupassant d’après ses variantes, pp. 114-5; cf. Flaubert,
Corr., éd. Louis Conard, II, p. 17: “Autrefois
on croyait que la canne à sucre seule donnait le sucre, on en tire à peu près
de tout maintenant; il en est de même de la poésie, extrayons-la de n’importe
quoi, car elle git en tout et partout”; VIII, p. 225: “Ni les giroflées, ni les
roses ne sont intéressantes par elles-mêmes: il n’y a d’intéressant que la manière de les peindre. Le
Gange n’est pas plus poétique que la Bièvre, mais la Bièvre ne l’est pas plus
que le Gange”). Eichendorff’s beautiful poem “Wandernder Dichter” should be
read in this connection: “Ich weiss nicht, was das sagen will! / Kaum tret' ich
von der Schwelle still, / Gleich schwingt sich eine Lerche auf / Und jubiliert
durchs Blau vorauf. // ... // Umsonst! das ist nun einmal so, / Kein Dichter reist inkognito” usw. (S. 270) (Gesam. Werk., Aufbau, 1962, I, 33).【This
is a commonplace with the German romantics; Fr. Schelegel[12],
e.g., in his Gespräch über die Poesie
speaks of “die formlose und bewusstlose Poesie, die sich in der Pflanze regt,
im Lichte strahlt, im Kinde lächelt, in der Blüte der Jugend schimmert, in der
liebenden Brust der Frauen glüht” (Prosaische
Jugendschriften, hrsg. J. Minor, II, S. 339). Fr. Hebbel employs a similar metaphor in his
first awakening to the beauty of poetry: “Damals stand der Naturgeist mit
seiner Wünschelrute über meiner jugendlichen Seele, die Metalladern sprangen,
und sie erwachte wenigstens aus einem Schlaf” (Tagebücher, I, Jan. 1836, given
in Meine Kinderheit, “Nelson’s German
Texts”, p.46).】Cf. supra
第四百五十六則 on《陳簡齋詩集》卷十〈春日〉& 第四百九十六則 on《霽山先生集》卷一〈獨夜〉:“萬竅有聲皆是詩”.
Fr. Rückert: “Sprüche”, viii: “Klage
nicht, dass dir im Leben / Ward vereitelt manches Hoffen; / Hat, was du
gefürchtet eben, / Doch auch meist dich nicht betroffen” (S. 280). Cf. Winston
Churchill, The Second World War, II,
p. 418: “When I look back on all those worries I remember the story of the old
man who said on his death bed that he had a lot of trouble in his life, most of
which had never happened.”
Willhelm Müller: “Vineta”: “Aus des
Herzens tiefem, tiefem Grunde / Klingt es mir, wie Glocken, dumpf und matt. / Ach,
sie geben wunderbare Kunde / Von der Liebe, die geliebt es hat. // Eine schöne
Welt ist da versunken, / Ihre Trümmer blieben unten stehn, / Lassen sich als
goldne Himmelsfunken / Oft im Spiegel meiner Träume sehn” (S. 292). Cf. also
the simile on Goethe’s West-östlicher
Divan, in Die Romantische Schule,
V, S. 58, Heine quoted this stanza in Die
Nordsee & commented “das Meer ist meine Seele.” Like a lumber room in
the basement (cf. Kenneth Lillington’s “Ballade to my Psycho-analyst”; “I am
concerned because my mind / Contains no subterrainian lair; / Nothing abyssmal
lurks behind / My neatly brushed & parted hair” — J.M. Cohen, More
Comic & Curious Verse, pp. 71-2), a submerged city can serve as a
metaphor for the Freudian Unterbewusstsein;
in particular, its reflection in the mirror of dreams is a Freudian notion.
Much hass been made of Coleridge’s aperçus
like “... how much lies below his own consciousness” etc. (Kathleen Coburn,
ed., The Notebooks of S.T. Coleridge,
I, §1554 & II, §2915 note) & “the Consciousness being the narrow Neck of the Bottle” etc. (Kathleen
Coburn, ed., Inquiring Spirit, p. 31)
as adumbrations of the Freudian Discovory, but no one seems to have noticed
that De Quincy, too, has in his Suspiria de Profundis given intimations of his
awareness of the sub- & unconscious as well as supplied a very opposite
image for it “the palimpsest of the human brain” (see Collected Writings of Thomas De Quincey, ed. D Masson, XIII, pp.
346-8; “What else than a natural & mighty palimpsest is the human brain?...
Everlasting layers of ideas, images, feelings, have fallen upon your brain
softly as light. Each succession has seemed to bury all that went before... But
by the hour of death, but by fever, but by the searchings of opium, all these
can revive in strength. They are not dead, but sleeping.”)
Annette von Droste-Hülshoff: “Im
Grase”: “Als des ziehenden Vogels Lied, / Das mir niederperlt aus der Höh’” (S.
307)【又第七三二則】. Cf. Shelley: “To a Skylark”: “From rainbow-clouds
there flow not / Drops so bright to see / As from thy presence showers a rain
of melody” (The Oxford Book of Eng. Verse,
p. 703); Vielé-Griffin’s line on a voice “qui s’éperle” (quoted in Bruneau, Petite Hist. de la langue fr., II, p.
198). The German word “niederperlen” has much less figurative force than the
French “s’éperle”. F. Perri, Il Discepolo
ignoto: “Le allodole sgranavano nel cielo le perle del loro limpido
gorgheggio” (D. Provenzal, Dizion. d.
immagini, p. 23).
Heinrich Heine: “An Meine Mutter”:
“Im tollen Wahn hatt ich dich einst verlassen, / Ich wollte gehn die ganze Welt
zu Ende, / Und wollte sehn, ob ich die Liebe fände, / Um liebevoll die Liebe zu
umfassen. // ... // Doch da bist du entgegen mir gekommen, / Und ach! was da in
deinem Aug geschwommen, / Das war die süsse, langgesuchte Liebe” (S. 312). Cf.
Goethe: “Sprüche”, 8: “Willst du immer weiter schweifen? / Sieh, das Gute liegt
so nah, / Lerne nur das Glück ergreifen, / Denn das Glück ist immer da” (S.
142); Journal des Goncourt, 5 avril
1864: “En littérature, on commence à chercher son originalité laborieusement
chez les autres, et très loin de soi… plus tard on la trouve naturellement en
soi… et tout près de soi” (Éd. définitive, II, p. 149). A commonplace in mystic
writings, e.g. Angelus Silesius, Der
Cherubinischer Wandersmann: “Christ mein wo läufst du hin? der Himmel ist
in dir. / Was suchst du ihn dann erst bei eines andren Tür?” (F.J.Warnke, European Metaphysical Poetry, p. 192);《老子》第四十七章:“其出彌遠,其知彌少”;《關尹子‧一宇》:“觀道者如觀水,以觀沼為未足,則之河,之江,之海,曰:‘水至也。’殊不知我之津、液、涎、淚皆水”;《呂覽‧論人篇》:“太上反諸己,其次求諸人。其索之彌遠者,其推之彌疏;其求之彌彊者,失之彌遠”;《文子‧道原第一》:“大道坦坦,去身不遠,求之遠者,往而復返”;《鶴林玉露》卷十八 a nun’s poem: “盡日尋春不見春,芒鞋蹈遍隴頭雲。歸來拈把梅花嗅,春在枝頭已十分”(《宋詩紀事補遺》卷四十引《興化縣志》陳豐〈尋春〉:“盡日尋春不見春,杖藜踏破幾山雲。歸來試把梅花看,春在梅稍已十分”);《宋詩紀事》卷九十 the
Taoist 夏元鼎’s poem: “崆峒訪道至湘湖,萬卷詩書看轉愚。踏破鐵鞋無覓處,得來全不費工夫”【Cf. marginalia to《後西游記》第二回】;王國維《靜庵文集續編‧文學小言五》;& 第六百八十三則 on Plotinus, Ennéades, I. vi.
8; cf. also the moral pointed by Marino to adorn the tale of Narcissus: “Abbraccia
l’ombra nel fugace argento / e sospira e desia ciò che possiede. / Quel che
cercando va,/porta in se stesso,/miser, né può trovar quel ch’ha da presso” (L’Adone,
V. 24; G.G. Ferrero, Marino e i marinisti,
p. 76).【《孟子.離婁下》:“深造之以道,自得之,……取之左右逢其源”;〈告子下〉謂曹交曰:“夫道若大路然,豈難知哉?人病不求耳。子歸而求之,有餘師”,又:“道在邇而求之遠,事在易而求之難”;〈盡心上〉:“萬物皆備於我矣。反身而誠,樂莫大焉。強恕而行,求仁莫近焉”;參觀《山谷內集》卷五〈柳閎展如蘇子瞻甥也作詩贈之〉第八首:“歸來坐虛室,夕陽在吾西”,天社注引法眼〈頌〉。】【《妙法蓮華經‧信解品第四》窮子捨父逃走;《楞嚴經》卷四“自衣中繫如意珠”,乞食他方。】
Heine: “Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam”:
“Er träumt von einer Palme” usw. (S. 314). Cf. the brilliantly ingenious lines
in Marino’s “Dipartita”: “Cosí, mentre vivranno i corpi lunge, / a visitar si
tornino i pensieri. / ... / E due piante talor divise stanno; / ma sotterra
però con le radici, / se non co’ rami, a ritrovarsi vanno” (George Kay, The Penguin Book of Italian Verse, p.
220-1; G.G. Ferrero, Marino e i marinisti,
p. 378); also the charming Spanish popular copla:
“Como dos árboles somos / que la suerte nos separa, / con un camino por medio, /
pero se juntan las ramas”[13]
(quoted in S. de Madariaga, Shelley &
Calderon, p. 119). There are no better examples than these two poems on “the
loves of the plants” to show the difference between what Croce calls “l’expressione
poetica” or “liricità” (see La Poesia,
5a ed., p. 236) & “l’expressione letteraria”. Marino’s simile is
exactly that of a folk song given in 李調元《粵風》卷一:“竹根生筍各自出,兄在一邊妹一邊,衫袖遮口微微笑,誰知儂倆暗偷連”; it also recalls《天真閣外集》卷一〈大家〉第二首:“心如江漢交流水,夢在羅浮合體山”. Cf.《敦煌掇瑣》之一〈韓朋賦〉:“[桂樹梧桐]枝枝相當是其意,葉葉相籠是其恩,根下相連是其氣,下有流泉是其淚”【張籍〈憶遠〉:“唯愛門前雙柳樹,枝枝葉葉不相離”】. Cf. Arnold: “To Marguerite”: “For surely once,
they feel, we were / Parts of a single continent! / Now round us spreads the
watery plain — / O might our marges meet again!” (The Oxf. Bk. of Eng. Verse, p. 892). Tasso’s lines in Aminta, I: “... amano ancora / li alberi”
etc. (Poesie, ed. F. Flora, p. 620)
are rather flat. Cf. Hugo, La
Contemplations, Liv. I, no. 29, “Halte en marchant”: “Un orme, un hêtre,
anciens du vallon, arbres frères / Qui se donnent la main des deux rives
contraires”
Heine: “Es ragt ins Meer der
Runenstein”: “Ich habe geliebt manch schönes Kind / Und manchen guten Gesellen
— / Wo sind sie hin? Es pfeift der Wind,
/ Es schäumen und wandern die Wellen” (S. 328). A hackneyed theme in old Chinese
poetry: 王勃〈滕王閣詩〉:“閣中帝子今何在?檻外長江空自流”;劉禹錫〈西塞山懷古〉:“人世幾回傷往事,山形依舊枕寒流”;etc.
Nikolaus Lenau: “Bitte”: “Weil’ auf
mir, du dunkles Auge / Übe deine ganze Macht, / Ernste, milde, träumerische, / Unergründlich
süsse Nacht!” (S. 336). E. Engel quotes these lines as an example of Lenau’s
reckless heaping of adjectives (“sich an Bei wörtern zu berauschen”, a failing
common to Austrian writers, Grillparzer excepted (Deutsche Stilkunst, S. 135).
Nikolaus Lenau: “Der Lenz”: “Da
kommt der Lenz, der schöne Junge, / Den alles lieben muss, / Herein mit seinem
Freudensprunge / Und lächelt seinen Gruss” usw. (S. 337). Cf. Rilke: “Frühling
ist wiedergekommen”: “Die Erde / Ist wie ein Kind, das Gedichte weiss” usw. (S.
554). Longfellow: “The Spring came suddenly bursting upon the world; as a child
bursts into a room, with a laugh & a shout & a hand full of flowers”;
Gautier, Fortunio: “Un joyeux et
pétulant rayon de soleil entra vivement dans la chambre, comme un garçon mal
élevé, mais accoutumé à être bien reçu partout à cause de sa bonne humeur.”
Nikolaus Lenau: “Herbstklage”: “Waldesrauschen,
wunderbar / Hast du mir das Herz getroffen! / Treulich bringt ein jedes Jahr / Welkes
Laub und welkes Hoffen” (S. 340). Cf. Shelley: “Ode to the West Wind”: “Drive
my dead thoughts over the universe / Like withered leaves...” (The Oxf. Bk. of Eng. Verse, p. 709);
Francis Thompson: “The Poppy”: “But between the clasp of his hand & hers / Lay,
felt not, twenty wither’d years. / ... / All that the world of me esteems — / My
wither’d dreams, my wither’d dreams” (The
Oxford Book of English Verse, 1st ed., p. 1050, 1052). The
parallelism of withered leaves & withered hopes (rapprochement concealed by apparent disparateness just as in the
case of the two trees in Marino’s “Dipartita”) is richer in suggestiveness than
a convergence of the two in Philippe Desportes’s Amours de Diane, I: “Et le feuillage sec dont la terre est couverte
/ Semble à mon espérance, en d’autres temps si verte, / Mais qui, sèche à
présent, sert de jouet au vaut” (A.J. Steele, Three Centuries of French Verse, p. 61). Lenau: “Rings ein
Verstummen”: “Rings ein Verstummen, ein Entfärben; / Wie sanft den Wald die
Lüfte streicheln, / Sein welkes Laub ihm abzuschmeicheln; / Ich liebe dieses
milde Sterben. // ... // In dieses Waldes leisem Rauschen / Ist mir als hör’
ich Kunde wehen, / Dass alles Sterben und Vergehen / Nur heimlich still
vergnügtes Tauschen” (S. 348). Both poems are fine specimens of “l’automne
romantique, la saison de la tristesse et de la mort” in contradiction to “la
saison des ‘vins et des fruitages’ si fréquemment célébrée dans la poésie du 16e
siècle” (H. Weber, La Création poétique
au 16e siecle en France, I, p. 331) — the kind of autumn whose
effect a typical romantic like Carducci describes in a letter as follows: “La
tristezza del morente autunno entra per l’ossa: Qualche cosa muora anche in noi
tutti gli anni a questi giorni: Qualche cosa della speranza, delle dolci
illusioni, della serena confidenza, dei baldi propositi. Il vento che abbatte
sulla terra fangosa le foglie o livide, per che borbotti tra quelle spoglie: ‘Che
importa vivere? che giova amar?’” (Lett.,
X, p. 80, quoted in N. Busetto, G.
Carducci, 1958, pp. 507-8). Just as there had already been hints of “l’automne
romantique” in 16th-century poetry, e.g. d’Aubigné’s “Le Printemps”,
Stance I, 133-40 (quoted in Weber, I, p. 332), so magnificent poems on “la
saison des ‘vins et des fruitages’” continued to be written by Goethe[14]
(“Herbstgefühl”: “Euch brütet der Mutter Sonne / Scheideblick, euch umsäuselt /
Des holden Himmels / Fruchtende Fülle” —
The Penguin Book of German Verse, p.
207); Keats (“To Autumn”: “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, / Close
bosom-friend of the maturing sun” — The
Oxford Book of English Verse, p. 733), & others. Ferdinand von Saar’s “Herbst”
(“Der du die Wälder färbst, / Sonniger, milder Herbst, / Schöner als Rosenblühn
/ Dünkt mir dein sanftes Glühn. // ... // Aber vernehmbar auch / Klaget ein
scheuer Hauch, / Der durch die Blätter weht: / Dass es zu Ende geht” — The Oxford Book of German Verse, S. 471;
cf. W.D. Howells: “Earliest Spring”: “... as if in the brier, / Leafless there
by my door, trembled a sense of the rose” — The
Oxford Book of English Verse, p. 991) and Carl Busse’s “In der Reife” (“Das
ist des Sommers Reifedrang, / Wo Blätter sich und Früchte färben, / Dann naht
ein leiser Niedergang, / Ein müder Glanz, ein stilles Sterben” — Ib., S. 538; cf. supra S. 43 Günther, infra
S. 534 George) combine the two opposite motifs and achieve a subtler pathos
than Lenau’s two quite exquisite poems.
Nikolaus Lenau: “Der Postillon”: “Denn
der Blüthen Träume / Dufteten so wonniglich / Durch die stillen Räume” (S. 341).
Cf. Fr.G. Günger: “Weil vom Wohllaut deiner Lieder”: “Dieser Duft ist wie ein
Schlüssel / Zu den allerfernsten Räumen, / Wo die Geister alle Blumen / Ihre
Liebesträume Träumen” (The Penguin Book
of German Verse, p. 448). For the beautiful conceit of dreams of flowers
filling the quiet night with frangrance【see 五八一則 on Joubert, Pensées】, cf. 第五八一則 on Joubert & others who regard fragrance as “l’âmes des fleurs”. Heine,
Reisebilder, I, “Die Harzreise”: “Düfte
sind die Gefühle der Blumen, und wie das Menschenherz in der Nacht... stärker
fühlt” usw. (Werke und Briefe,
Aufbau, II, 41-2). Proust, Le Côté de
Guermantes (À la recherche du temps
perdu, Bib de la Pléiade), II, 86: “Non loin de là est le jardin réservé où
croissent comme des fleurs inconnues les sommeils si différents les uns des
autres, sommeil du datura, du chanvre indien, des multiples extraits de l’éther,
sommeil de la belladone, de l’opium, de la valériane, fleurs qui restent closes
jusqu'au jour où l’inconnu prédestiné viendra les toucher, les épanouir, et
pour de longues heures dégager l’arome de leurs rêves particuliers en un être
émerveillé et surpris”【a simile for drugged sleep】. 【Schopenhauer,
Parerga, Kap. XXXI, §388: “Ich fand
eine Feldblume; bewunderte ihre Schönheit; ihre Vollendung in allen Theilen;
und rief aus: ‘aber alles Dieses, in ihr und Tausenden ihres Gleichen, prangt
und verblüht, von niemanden betrachtet, ja, oft von keinem Auge auch nur gesehn.’
— Sie aber antwortete: ‘du Thor! meinst du, ich blühe,
um gesehen zu werden? Meiner und nicht der Andern wegen blühe ich, blühe,
weil’s mir gefällt: darin, dass ich blühe und bin, besteht meine Freude und
meine Lust’” (Sämtl. Werk., hrsg. P.
Deussen, V, S. 714).】
Nikolaus Lenau: “Sturmesmythe”: “Nicht
ein Blatt am Strande wagt zu rauschen, / Wie betroffen stehn die Bäume,
lauschen, / Ob kein Lüftchen, keine Welle wacht” (S. 344). Cf. R.L. Stevenson, Letters, ed. Colvin, I, p. 53: “Every
tree seems standing on tiptoes, strained & silent, as though to get its
head above its neighbour’s & listen.”
Fr. Theodor Vischer: “Frage”: “Dann will ich stehn vor Deinem
Throne / Und fragen: ‘Warum schufst Du mich?’” (S. 380). Cf. supra 第五十一則 on 王梵志詩; inpra 第七百七十一則論《詩‧正月》; also Heine: “Morphine”: “Gut ist der Schlaf, der Tod ist besser —
freilich / Das beste wäre, nie geboren sein” (The Penguin Book of German Verse, p. 332); Sophocles, Oedipus Coloneus, 1225: “Not to be born
is best”[15];
Yeats: “A Man Young & Old”: “Never to have lived is best, ancient writers
say; / Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the
eye of day; / The second best’s a gay good night & quickly turn away.”【Freud,
Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum
Unbewussten, 3te Aufl., Franz Deuticke, S. 44-5: “‘Niemals
geboren zu werden wäre das beste für die sterblichen Menschenkinder.’ ‘Aber,’
setzen die Weisen der Fliegenden Blätter hinzu, ‘unter 100,000 Menschen passiert
dies kaum einem.’”】【Eddie Cantor: “If I had my life to live over again I wouldn’t be born” (Irving Howe, World of Our Fathers, “Bantam Book”, p.
550).】
Fr. Hebbel: “Der Baum in der Wüste”: “Es steht ein Baum im Wüstensand, /
Der einzige, der dort gedieh; / Die Sonne hat ihn fast verbrannt, / Der Regen
tränkt den dürst’gen nie. // In seiner falben Krone hängt / Gewürzig eine
Frucht voll Saft, / Er hat sein Mark hineingedrängt, / Sein Leben, seine
höchste Kraft. // Die Stunde, wo sie, überschwer / Zu Boden fallen muss, ist
nah; / Es zieht kein Wanderer daher, / Und für ihn selbst ist sie nicht da” (S.
387; Werke, hrsg. Th. Poppe, I, S. 92).
Cf. Angelus Silesius: “Die Rose ist ohne Warum, sie blühet, weil sie blühet. /
Sie achtet nicht ihrer selbst, fragt nicht, ob man sie siehet” (Penguin Bk. of Germ. Verse, p. 143. Cf. supra 第五十七則 on Waller’s “Go, lovely Rose” & Leopardi’s
“La Ginestra”. Hebbel’s last line shows that he is philosophically more
sophisticated than Pope, Gray, Hopkins &other poets, & is acquainted
with the theory that self-consciousness presupposes awareness of other selves
& other things than the self.【Eichendorff: “Die alte Garten”: “Kaiserkron und
Päonien rot, / Die müssen verzaubert sein, / Denn Vater und Mutter sind lange
tot, / Was blühn sie hier so allein?”; Mallarmé, “Hérodiade”, II: “NOURRICE: Triste
fleur qui croît seule et n’a pas d’autre émoi / Que son ombre dans l'eau vue
avec atonie.... H.: Oui, c’est pour moi, pour moi, que je fleuris, déserte!” (Oeuv. comp., Bib. d. l. Pléiade, pp.
46-7).Cf. also Franz Baader’s reversal of the Cartesian formula: “Cogitur ergo
sum” (quoted in A. Helps & E.J. Howard, Bettina,
p. 95); Gottfried Keller: “Der Seher ist erst das ganze Leben des Gesehenen, so
ist erst der Leser das ganze Leben des Geschriebenen” (quoted E. Engel, Deutsche Stilkunst, 22te vis
24te Auf., S. 17).】
Gottfried Keller: “Abendlied”: “...Fallen einst die müden Lider zu, /
Löscht ihr [Augen] aus, dann hat die Seele Ruh’; / Tastend streift sie ab die
Wanderschuh’, / Legt sich auch in ihre finstre Truh’. // ... // Trinkt, o
Augen, was die Wimper hält, / Von dem goldnen Überfluss der Welt!” (S. 422).
For “trinken”, cf. Keller’s “Waldlied”: “Kauernd in den dunklen Büschen sie die
Melodien trinken” (S. 425). See supra
第八十一則on Aulus Gellius, X. xvii; cf. also《陶菴夢憶》卷四:“山中人至海上歸,種種海錯皆在其眼,請共舐之” (also《琅嬛文集》卷一〈西湖夢尋序〉:“余猶山中人歸自海上,盛稱海錯之美,鄉人競來共舐其眼”); cf. also Inferno,
XXIX, 1-2: “La molta gente e le diverse piaghe / avean le luci mie sì inebrïate.”[16]【D.
Garrone, Sorriso degli Etruschi: “Egli
[a bespectacled german] ci guarirà
masticando ci lentamente
così le palpebre” (D. Provenzal, Diz. d. Immagini,
p. 807).】【Achilles Tatius, V. 1 [sight-seeing in Alexandria]:
“Ah, my eyes, we are beaten.”】
Keller: “Waldlied” (S. 424-5). This wonderful poem might have born as
its motto the line from Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind”: “Make me the lyre,
even as the forest is” (The Oxford Book of Eng. Verse, p. 709), e.g. “Also
streicht die alte Geige Pan der Alte laut und leise, / Unterrichtend seine
Wälder in der alten Weltenweise. // In den sieben Tönen schweift er
unerschöpflich auf und nieder, / In den sieben alten Tönen, die umfassen alle
Lieder” (S. 424-5). Cf. D’Anunzio’s famous “La Pioggia nel Pineto”: “E il pino /
ha un suono, e il mirto / altro suono, e il ginepro / altro ancóra, stromenti /
diversi / sotto innumerevoli dita” (The
Penguin Book of Italian Verse, p. 347); & Hardy’s sensitive passage
quoted in 七九五則《梧桐雨》.
Gottfried Keller: “Ein Fischlein steht am kühlen Grund”: “Ein Fischlein
steht am kühlen Grund, / Durchsichtig fliessen die Wogen, / Und senkrecht ob
ihm hat sein Rund / Ein schwebender Falk’ gezogen. // ... // Und dieses
hinwieder sieht / Ins Blaue durch seine Welle; / Ich glaube gar, das Sehnen
zieht / Eins an des andern Stelle!” (S. 425). An almost imagist poem on the
kind of Sehnsucht expressed in the
old Latin tag “Nemo suâ sorte contentus”. Cf. Carl Sandburg: “The Definitions
of Poetry”2. “Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting
to fly in the air” (L. Untermeyer, Modern
American Poetry, e rev. ed., p. 291). But cf. Geibel: “Sprüche”, iv: “Der
Maulwurf hört in seinem Loch / Ein Lerchenlied erklingen / Und spricht: wie
sinnlos ist es doch / Zu fliegen und zu singen!” (S. 407).
Keller: “Die Zeit geht nicht” (S. 427). See supra 第六百九十六則 on《楞嚴經》卷二.
Keller: “Siehst du den Stern”: “Siehst du den Stern im fernsten Blau, /
Der schimmerernd fast erbleicht? / Sein Licht braucht eine Ewigkeit, / Bis es
dein Aug’ erreicht! // Vielleicht vor tausend Jahren schon / Zu Asche stob der
Stern, / Und doch steht dort sein milder Schein / Noch immer still und fern. //
Dem Wesen solchen Scheines gleicht, / Der ist und doch nicht ist, / O Lieb’
dein anmutvolles Sein, / Wenn du gestorben bist!” (S. 428). Freud in one of his
letters to his fiancée Martha Bernays hit upon the same image: “Astronomers
tell us that there are stars whose gleaming we now see which began to burn hundreds
of thousands of years ago & perhaps are already in the process of
extinction... I always found that hard to imagine, but now it seems easier when
I think how you are smiling over my affectionate letters while my feelings are
torn by doubts & care, & how you are being hurt by my hardness & my
distrust just when I am full of tenderness that struggles in vain for
expression” (E. Jones, Sigmund Freud,
I, p. 125). Keller’s poem is a good example of Wordsworth’s observation in the
Preface of the Lyrical Ballads that
poetry is “the impassioned expression... in the countenance of all science”;
the theme is the same as that of Shelley’s “Music, when soft voices die, / Vibrates in the memory; / Odours, when sweet
violets sicken, / Live within the sense they quicken” (The Oxford Book of English Verse, p. 716). This poem as well as
Hebbel’s “Der Baum in der Wüste” can serve as an allegory of the artist’s
relation to the public, both contemporary & posthumous; cf. Croce, La Poesia, 5a ed., p. 68: “Quante
belle poesie rimasero così, per lunghi secoli, da nessuno ricantate! Quante ne
rimangono ora! Quante non torneranno forse mai più dal regno delle ombre alla
luce. E tuttavia anche nel regno delle ombre vivono e operano; e sentimenti
gentili e pensieri forti e impeti generosi, che sorgono in noi, non sappiamo
dir come, vengono da loro. Vengono da quelle ideali creature... figliuole
immortali di uomini mortali.”
Conrad Ferdinand Meyer: “Himmelsnähe”
(S. 445). See supra 第六百九十七則 on《詠懷堂詩‧戊寅詩‧緝汝式之見過谷中》.
Paul Heyse: “Tiefer Brunnen”: “Verschliess
dich nur, du schöner Mund, / Verbirg dich, tiefes Herz, mit Fleiss: / Der
Rechte kommt zur rechten Stund’, / Der Mund und Herz zu lösen weiss. // ... // Ein
tiefer Brunnen lag darin, / Drauss keiner noch getrunken hatt’. // ... // Da
kam des Wegs ein Musikant, / Der sah den Brunn und trat herzu / Und nahm sein
Geigenspiel zur Hand / Und spielt’ ein Stück und sang dazu. // Und horch, da
rauscht’ es tief und voll / Und wogt’ herauf und sprudelt’ klar, / Und lieblich
kühl Gewässer schwoll / Empor zum Rande wunderbar. // ... / Wer dich so zu
ersingen wüsst’, / Ach, wäre wohl ein sel’ger Mann!” (S. 464-5). Cf. Gustavo
Adolfo Bécquer’s charming poem: “Del salón en el ángulo oscuro, / De su dueño
tal vez olvidada, / Silenciosa y cubierta de polvo / Veíase el arpa. // ¡Cuánta
nota dormía en sus cuerdas, / Como el pájaro duerme en las ramas, / Esperando
la mano de nieve / Que sabe arrancarlas! // ¡Ay! — pensé —, ¡Cuántas veces el
genio / Así duerme en el fondo del alma, / Y una voz, como Lázaro, espera / Que
le diga: ‘¡Levántate y anda!’” (Rimas,
vii, Eleanor L. Turnbull, Ten Centuries
of Spanish Poetry, pp. 364-6).
Ferdinand von Saar: “Drahtklänge”: “Als
zitterten in euch die Schmerzen, / Als zitterte in euch die Lust, / Die ihr aus
Millionen Herzen, / Verkündend, tragt von Brust zu Brust” (S. 470). Much better
than G. Regaldi’s “Il telegrafo
elettrico”: “Portino i
messi elettrici, / ovunque d’Eva la famiglia ha sede, / una parola portino /
che sia legge d’amor, legge di fede, / che tutti unisca di fraterno vincolo / e
all’Italo assicuri / vendicato l’onor ne’ di’ venturi” (quoted in E.M. Fusco, La lirica, II, p. 162).《十朝詩乘》卷二十三唐際虞〈電線歌〉(cf. the periphrase in late 19th-century
French minor poetry: “L’invisible alphabet galopant sur des câbles”; 張文虎《舒藝室詩續存‧電線竿》:“一息騰千里,雙聲統萬音”.
Detlev von Liliencron: “In Erinnerung”:
“Morgen. Gräbergraben. Grüfte. / Manch ein letzter Atemzug. / Weither,
witternd, durch die Lüfte / Braust und graust ein Geierflug” (S. 481). This
close-clippered, tight-lipped style is as effective as Lenau’s naif childlike
talk: “Und lauernd auf den Todesritt / Ziehn durch die Luft drei Geier mit. / Sie
theilen kreischend unter sich: / ‘Den speisest du, den du, den ich’” (“Die Drei”,
S. 349). Cf.〈戰城南〉:“戰城南,死城北,野死不葬烏可食。為我謂烏:且為客豪!野死諒不葬,腐肉安能去子逃”;李白〈戰城南〉[17]:“野戰格鬥死,敗馬號鳴向天悲。鳥鳶啄人腸,銜飛上掛枯樹枝”;沈彬〈入塞〉:“鳶覷敗兵眠血草,馬驚冤鬼哭愁雲”[18];于濆〈塞下曲〉:“戰鼓聲未齊,烏鳶已相賀”;元好問〈續小娘歌〉:“飢烏坐守草間人,青布猶存舊領巾。六月南風一萬里,若為白骨便成塵”;陳鳴鶴〈古戰場〉:“連天殺氣壓黃雲,鬼哭啾啾叵耐聞。日暮亂鴉爭白骨,不知誰是故將軍”(《明詩紀事》庚籤卷三十上). The grimmest of them all is of course the
Scottish ballad “The Two Corbies” on two ravens discussing their “dinner sweet”
of “a new slain knight”: “Ye’ll sit on his white hause-bane, / And I’ll pike out his bonny blue e’en; / Wi’
ae lock o’ his gowden hair / We’ll theek oor nest whan it grows bare” etc. (The Oxford Book of English Verse, pp.
442-3).【Peacock, The
Misfortunes of Elphin, ch. 11, the war-song of Dinas Vawr: “We orphaned
many children, / And widowed many women. / The eagles & the ravens / We
glutted with our foemen” (The Novels of
T.L. Peacock, Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & co., p. 320).】【Hugo, La Légende des siècles, VI. ii. 3: “Le
Romancero du Cid”: 9. “Le roi soudard”: “La guerre, cette aventure / Sur qui
plane le corbeau, / Se résout en nourriture / Pour les bêtes du tombeau” (Oeuv. poét. comp., Éd. B. Valiquette, p.
448).】
Fr. Nietzsche: “Dem unbekannten Gott”:
“... / Sein bin ich — und fühl’ die Schlingen, / Die mich im Kampf
darniederziehn / Und, mag ich fliehn, / Mich doch zu seinem Dienste zwingen”
usw. (S. 492). For the conception & the phrase of the agnostos theos, see Proclus, The
Elements of Theology, tr. E.R. Dodds, pp. 310-11; more correctly “the
unknownable God” (see Proclus,
Proposition 115 & 123, pp. 101 & 109). The first modern philosopher to
turn this term into a sort of slogan was perhaps Sir William Hamilton who said
in his Discussions, p. 15: “The last
& highest consecration of all true religion must be an altar — ‘Agnostos theo’ — ‘to the unkown & unknowable
God.’” Cf. F.H. Bradley’s mot on
Herbert Spencer’s Unknowable: “A proposal to take something for God simply &
solely because we do not know what the devil it can be” (quoted in John
Passmore, A Hundred Years of Philosophy,
p. 40). Nietzsche’s “unkown God” is of course not the object of quest of the
mythics but the nisus of cosmic
evolution under another name, & the stanza recalls Emerson’s “Brahmas”: “They
reckon ill who leave me out; / When me they fly, I am the wings” (The Oxford Book of English Verse, p.
785). Cf. also Swinburne: “Hertha”: “I am that which unloves me and loves; I am
stricken, and I am the blow. / I the mark that is missed / And the arrows that
miss, / I the mouth that is kissed / And the breath in the kiss” (Ib., p. 975); cf. Baudelaire: “Héautontimorouménos”:
“Je suis la plaie et le couteau! / Je suis le soufflet et la joue! / Je suis
les membres et la roue, / Et la victime et le bourreau!”
Hans Hoffmann: “Auf leisen Sohlen”:
“Auf leisen Sohlen kam es gegangen, / Hat leis wie ein Hauch mir am Busen
gehangen; / Es zitterte weiter, entschwand im Fernen. / Ich schaute ihm nach
wie bleichenden Sternen; / Noch einmal neckisch blinkt’ es zurück; / Und jetzt
erkannt’ ich’s: es war das Glück” (S. 495). Cf. Maeterlinck: “Quand nous
sentons trop vivement notre bonheur, c’est qu’il nous frappe en passant sur l’épaule,
pour nous faire ses adieux” (quoted in William Rose, Men, Myths, & Movements in German Literature, p. 199). Cf.
Heine’s poem: “Das Glück ist eine leichte Dirne, / Und weilt nicht gern am
selben Ort; / Sie streicht das Haar dir von der Stirne / Und küsst dich rasch
und flattert fort. // Frau Unglück hat im Gegentheile / Dich liebefest an’s
Herz gedrückt; / Sie sagt, sie habe keine Eile, / Setzt sich zu dir an’s Bett
und strickt” (Penguin, Romancero,
Buch II, in Werke und Briefe in 10 Bänden,
Aufbau, 1961, Bd. II, S. 79); Lenau: “Frage”: “O Menschenherz, was ist dein
Glück? / Ein rätselhaft geborner / Und, kaum gegrüsst, verlorncr, /
Unwiederhülter Augenblick!” (The Oxford
Book of German Verse, p. 343); P. Véron: “[La felicità] è come l’Ebreo
errante: un gran quantità di gente crede d’averlo visto passare, nessuno ha
potuto fermarlo” (D. Provenzal, Dizionario
umoristico, 4a ed., p. 194); Keats, Ode on Melancholy: “... Beauty that must die; / And Joy, whose hand
is ever at his lips / Bidding adieu.”
Ricarda Huch: “Musik bewegt mich”: “Musik
bewegt mich, dass ich dein gedenke, / So will auch Meer und Wolke, Berg und
Stern, / Wie anderer Art als du, dir noch so fern, / Dass ich zu dir das Herz
voll Andacht lenke. / Kein edles Bild, das nicht mein Auge zwinge / Von dir zu
träumen, kein beseelter Reim, / Der nicht zu dir Erinnern führe heim — / Geschwister
sind sich alle schönen Dinge” (S. 521). This is the theory set forth in Plato’s
“Symposium”: “... soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form
is akin to the beauty of another... that the beauty of them is all
of one family”[19] (Dialogues, tr. B. Jowett,, Ed. Random House, I, p. 334). Stendhal
has expatiated it in De l’Amour, Liv.
I, ch. 14: “La vue de tout ce qui est extrêmement beau, dans la nature et dans
les arts, rappelle le souvenir de ce qu’on aime. L’amour
du beau et l’amour se donnent mutuellement la vie” (Éd. “Le Divan”, I, p. 70).
This is different from the Petrarchan theme of “A ciascun passo nasce un
pensier novo / De la mia donna”, on which the poets of the Renaissance so much
embroidered in their sonnets (see H. Weber,
La Création poétique au 16e siecle en France, I, p. 311) and
Goethe made a variation in his “Nähe des Geliebten” (The Penguin Book of German Verse, pp. 222-3): “Ich denke dein, wenn
mir der Sonne Schimmer / Vom Meere strahlt; / Ich denke dein, wenn sich des
Mondes Flimmer / In Quellen malt” usw., but somewhat similar to〈長恨歌〉:“芙蓉如面柳如眉,對此如何不淚垂” or 歐陽修〈長相思‧花似伊〉:“花似伊,柳似伊,花柳春來人別離”; or 陳其年〈寄紫雲〉:“怪底蓬牕常側坐,為臨秋水憶清揚”【岑參〈夜過盤石隔河望永樂寄閨中〉:“波上思羅襪,魚邊憶素書;月如眉已畫,雲似鬢新梳”(《瀛奎律髓》卷七批:“‘波’、‘魚’、‘月’、‘雲’,所睹之四物也;‘襪’、‘書’、‘眉’、‘鬢’,所思之四物也,可謂工矣”);《列朝詩集》丁十張元凱:“憶汝怕逢顔色似,杏花開處不曾行”】 (Novalis, Fragmente:
“Was man liebt, findet man überall, und sieht überall Ähnlichkeiten. Je grösser
die Liebe, desto weiter und mannigfaltiger diese ähnliche Welt... Dem Freunde
der Wissenschaften bieten sie alle, Blumen und Souvenirs, für seine Geliebte” (Schriften, ed. P. Kluckhohn & Richard
Samuel, 1929, III, p. 47; ed. J. Minor, 1921, II, 146-7); Pietro Casaburi: “Veggo
per tutto argomenti di pensare alla mía donna”: “O, vunque, o Nice, il le
pupille aggiro, / delle bellezze tue
veggio l’immago: / la bianca man per cui languir m’appago / ne gli avori
affricani espressa ammiro; / nelle conche eritree dipinte io miro de’ bei denti
le perle, onde son vago” etc. (G.G. Ferrero, Marino e i Marinisti, p. 1070). Shakespeare is like Petrarch in
this respect, cf. Sonnets, CXIII: “Since
I left you, mine eye is in my mind; /... / For if it see the rud'st or gentlest
sight, / The most sweet favour or deformedst creature, / The mountain or the
sea, the day or night, / The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature” (Complete Works, ed. G.L. Kittredge, p.
1512); cf. XCIX (p. 1519): “More flowers I noted, yet I none could see, / But
sweet, or colour it had stol’n from thee”; cf. Burns: “Jean”: “I see her in the
dewy flowers, / I see her sweet & fair: / I hear her in the tunefu’ birds, /
I hear her charm the air: / There’s not a bonnie flower that springs / By
fountain, shaw, or green; / There’s not a bonnie bird that sings, / But minds
me o’ my Jean.”【John Gay: “Sweet William’s Farewell to Black-Ey’d
Susan”: “If to far India’s coast we
sail, / Thy eyes are seen in di’monds bright, / Thy breath is Africk’s spicy gale, / Thy skin is
ivory, so white. / Thus ev’ry beauteous object that I view, / Wakes in my soul
some charm of lovely Sue.”】【Thomas
Lodge: “Rosalind”: “Turn I my look unto the skies” etc. (Everyman’s Book of English Love Poems, pp. 57-6).】In
other words, Petrarch is haunted by the image of the beloved no matter where he
goes, while Huch is reminded of the beloved only when she comes in contact with
beautiful things.【Sully
Prudhomme: “S’il n’était rien de bleu que le ciel et la mer, / De blond que les
épis, de rose que les roses, / S’il n’était de beauté qu’aux insensibles
choses, / Le plaisir d’admirer ne serait point amer” (quoted in A. France, La vie littéraire, II, p. 37). The most
elaborate passage of this state of mind occurs in Flaubert, L’Éducation sentimentale, ch. V, éd. Conard, p. 97-8: “Les prostituées qu’il
rencontrait” etc.】【Robert Graves: “Not Dead” (to the memory of David
Thomas): “Walking through trees to cool my heat and pain, / I know that David’s
with me here again. / All that is simple, happy, strong, he is. / Caressingly I
stroke / Rough bark of the friendly oak. / A brook goes bubbling by: the voice
is his. / ... / Over the whole wood in a little while / Breaks his slow smile” (The Ox. Bk. of 19th Eng. Verse,
p. 496).】
Hugo
Salus[20]: “Kammermusik”:
“Das Essen ist gut, da ist nichts zu sagen, / Ihr Minister des Innern ist eben
der Magen” (S. 526). Cf. Rabelais, Le
Quart Livre, ch. 57: “Messer Gaster”.
Stephan
George: “Komm in den totgesagten Park”: “Die späten rosen welkten noch nicht
ganz” (S. 532). Cf. Eduard Mörike: “Nur zu!”: “Schön prangt im Silbertau die
junge Rose, / Den ihr der Morgen in den Busen rollte, / Sie blüht als ob sie
nie verblühen wollte / Und ahnet nichts vom letzten Blumenlose” (S. 365); Fr.
Hebbel: “Sommerbild”: “Ich sah des Sommers letzte Rose stehn, / Sie war, als ob
sie bluten könne, rot; / Da sprach ich schauernd im Vorübergehn: / So weit im
Leben, ist zu nah am Tod!” (S. 394); Richard von Schaukal: “Der alte Gärtner”:
“In seinem Rosengarten / Der alte Gärtner geht. / Er hat nichts zu erwarten, / Er
fühlt, es ist schon spät. / Mit seinen harten Händen / Hilft er dem jungen
Trieb. / Er weiss, es wird bald enden, / Doch annoch hat er’s lieb” (S. 550).
Cf. also Adalbert Stifter’s Der
Nachsommer, Buch II, Kap. 4: “In diesem Augenblicke ertönt durch das geöffnete
Fenster Klar und deutlich Mathildens Stimme, die sagte: ‘Wie diese Rosen abgeblüht
sind, so ist unser Glück abgeblüht.’ Ihr antwortete die Stimme meines
Gastfreundes [Risach], wlche sagte: ‘Es ist nicht abgeblüht, es hat nur eine
andere Gestalt” (Sämtl. Werk., “Bibliothek d. deutsch. Schriftstelle”, VII, S. 126-7). This is the
German autumnal rose which is a resigned flower & does not aspire to beauty
as the French autumnal rose does: “Une rose d’automne est plus qu’une autre exquise” (D’Aubigné, Tragiques, “Les Feux”, vers 1233).
Richard von
Schaukal: “Nachthimmel”: “Sterne flimmern durch die Himmel weit, / Dunkelblau
verbreitet sich Unendlichkeit” (S. 551). To say that boundlessness spreads itself
out in dark blue instead of that the dark blue colour is boundlessly spread out
is just as to say “la vitesse ailéc / des aigles” (Ronsard: “Hymne du ciel”,
A.J. Steele, Three Centuries of French Verse, p. 33), or “the branches ne’er remember / Their green
felicity / ... / They [the babblings of a brook] stay their crystal fretting, /
Never, never petting” etc. (Keats: “Stanzas”, The Oxford Book of English Verse, p. 740); or “silenzio verde” or “Il
divino del pian silenzio verde” (Carducci: “Il bove”), cf. F.G. Lorca: “Romance
Sonambulo: “Verde viento, verdes ramas” (Green wind, green braches); or “a
country blanched & dead... under a killing democracy of snow” (Eric
Linklater, Juan in America, quoted in
Holbrook Jackson, The Reading of Books,
p. 137). Such happy marriages of a concrete epithet to an abstract substantive
are as different paraphrastic “poetic diction” like “genus alitum” (Lucretius).
“scaly nation” (Sylvester), etc (see Bernard Groom, The Diction of Poetry from Spenser to Bridges, pp. 17, 22-4; on p.
107 quoting Dryden’s “the flowery pride of meads”, “unfeathered innocence”) as
from the baroque “renversement du rapport substantif- épithète” like “luths animez” (Du Bois Hus), “volante
fleur” (Perrin), etc. (see Jean Rousset, La
littérature de l’âge baroque en France, nouvelle éd., 1954, pp. 184-9).
They were much used by the Romantics &the Parnassians, e.g. Heredia, Trophées, p. 177: “La glauque immensité
des deux grands Océans” (quoted in Ch. Bruneau, Petite Histoire de la langue fr., II, p. 111); cf. Hugo, Toute la lyre, II. 28, “Ne vous croyez
ni grand, ni petit”: “Et l’humble oiseau perdu dans l’immensité bleue” (Oeuv. poet. comp., Montréal: Éd. B.
Valiquette, p. 1104); 30, “Nuit”: “S’avancer ce sombre silence. / Dans cette
sombre immensité” (p. 1105); Baudelaire: “Je t’adore à l’égal de la voûte nocturne”: “Qui séparent mes
bras des immensités bleues” (Oeuv. comp.,
éd. “Pléiade”, p. 102); Tennyson, In
Memoriam: “calm on the sea, & silver sleep.” 【Cf.
Stephen Ullmann, Style
in the French Novel, pp. 121 ff. on the Goncourts’ innovation of “le style
substantif” “la vague
blancheur de son peignoir”,
“poésie et la fugitivité de l’eau” etc.】【Yeats
in a criticl letter to Mrs Clement Shorter singled out for praise
the line “A brown tumult of wings” as “most beautiful” (The Letters of W.B. Yeats, ed. Allan Wade, p. 322).】
七百二[21]
明嘉靖十九年新都楊慎刊本《宣和書譜》
《宣和書畫兩譜》。筆舌冗滯,議論庸腐。偶有精闢處,每出因襲,如《畫譜》卷九「魚雖耳目之所玩」一節,即取郭若虛《圖畫見聞志》卷二論袁㠖語而引申之[22]。永夫堂禁之私,勢位之見,乃隻字不及蘇、黃,而於王介甫、蔡元長之書(《書譜》卷十二)、童貫之畫(《畫譜》卷十二)極口推崇,并及其為政、用兵,尤頌元長之「盛德至善」,真諂書也!古今正復一概耳。然隱襲、東坡、山谷牙慧,如《畫譜》卷二云:「議者謂:有唐之盛,文至於韓愈,詩至於杜甫,書至於顏真卿,畫至於吳道元,天下之能事畢矣」;卷十八云:「崔慤寫蘆汀葦岸、風鴛雪雁,有未起先改之意,殆有得於地偏無人之態也」[23];卷二十云:「文同畫竹,月落亭孤,胷中有渭川千畝,氣壓十萬丈夫」,皆本東坡詩文。卷九論畫魚云:「畫者多作庖中几上物,無涵泳噞喁之態,使人但垂涎耳」;又論袁㠖畫魚云:「若世俗所畫作庖中物,特使饞獠生涎耳」,逕襲《豫章黃先生文集》卷七〈題徐巨魚〉云:「徐生作魚,庖中物耳!雖復妙於形似,亦何所賞?但令嚵獠生涎耳。」卷十四:「宗室令松畫犬尤得名。昔人謂『畫虎不成反類狗』,今令松故直作狗,豈無意乎?」;《豫章黃先生文集》卷 27〈題宗室大年畫〉[24]:「不敢畫虎,憂狗之似;故直作狗,人難我易。」至卷七云:「李公麟集眾所善以為己有,更自立意專為一家,若不蹈襲前人,而實陰法其要」;卷十一云:「王士元人物師周昉,山水師關仝,屋木師郭忠恕,凡所下筆者,無一筆無來處」,則更陰取山谷論詩之旨以論畫。以陸象山之鄙薄章句,亦云:「文纔上二字一句,便要有出處。使六經句,不謂之偷使」(《象山先生全集》卷三十五《語錄》),宜其尊江西詩派(卷七〈與程帥〉),亦見風氣之囿人矣!《亭林文集》卷三〈與彥和甥書〉:「萬歷以前,八股之文,可傳於世者,不過二、三百篇耳,其間却無一字無來處」,因舉吳化事君數一節文中「謇諤」二字為例。《三魚堂日記》卷下康熙庚午十月初二日:「朱錫鬯言:『著書必載其姓氏,採其言而沒其姓氏者,竊也!此病起於明朝。』」竹垞知明人之弊,而未知宋人為之先也;知有公然對面為盜賊者,而未知有籍沒入官者也。靳价人《綠溪語》卷上評《宣和畫譜》不收東坡,「然文同小傳有『渭川千畝』語,則削其名而用其詞」云云,尚是見一斑耳。評騭李後主最可笑,《畫譜》卷十七云:「江南偽主畫〈雲龍風虎圖〉,便見有霸者之略。志之所之,有不能遏者,非吾宋以德服海內而率土歸心者,其孰能制之哉?」《書譜》卷十二云:「李煜喜作行書,落筆瘦硬而風神溢出。然殊乏姿媚,如窮谷道人,酸寒書生,鶉衣而鳶肩,略無富貴之氣。要是當我祖宗應運之初,彼竊據方郡者,皆奄奄無氣,不復英偉,故見於書畫者如此。」因物而施,見風便轉,初不顧自相鑿椎。佞人舌歧,傍觀齒冷矣。
〇兩《譜》談藝,於書最尊蔡元長,於畫最尊李伯時(卷七),皆以為掩蓋古今。使伯時不背蘇門(見《邵氏聞見後錄》記晁以道語,《汪鈍翁前後類稿》卷六十一《東都事略跋》卷下亦斥據此斥伯時為「小了纖人」),未必得此品題也。
〇《畫譜》於本朝詩人,稱引最多者為梅聖俞,如卷八胡瓌、卷十荊浩、卷十七徐熙、卷二十僧居寧,皆以得聖俞題詠為重。
〇宋人論畫,尚無南、北宗之說,詳見余論〈中國詩與中國畫〉一文中董思白《容台別集》卷四〈畫旨〉云:「禪家有南北二宗,唐時始分。畫之南北二宗,亦唐時分也」云云,竊謂唐畫有南北之分,而未立南北之名。《二南密旨》雖未必出賈浪仙手,然論詩以〈召南〉「林有樸遫」云云,錢起「竹憐新雨後」云云等為南宗;〈衛風〉「我心匪石」云云,盧綸「誰知樵子徑」云云為北宗(《四庫提要》卷一九七)。遍照金剛《文鏡秘府論》南卷云:「司馬遷為北宗,賈生為南宗,從此分焉。」則唐人於文已仿禪家標「南北宗」之名矣。又按《世說新語‧文學門》褚季野云:「北人學問,淵綜廣博」,孫安國答:「南人學問,清通簡要」,已導禪宗南北之別。宋以來,道家亦分南北宗,詳見《純常子枝語》卷九引萬立唐《南北合參》、王禕《青巖叢錄》,卷二十七引王肱枕《蚓庵瑣語》。
【《詩話總龜前集》卷八引《王直方詩話》記「宗室士暕喜作詩與畫,嘗為〈高軒過圖〉,張嘉甫、晁無咎題皆謂:『顧長康善畫而不能詩,杜子美善詩而不能畫,王摩詰從容二子之間。』晁以道見之曰:『能畫而不能詩,乃可以為病,豈有能詩而必又能畫耶?』」云云。古人談藝判流品如此,是以文人畫為畫師趨嚮,而《二十年目睹之怪現狀》三十八回江雪漁以「詩興不來」自文而倩人捉刀也[25]。】
〇《文鏡秘府論》南卷云:「詩有飽肚、狹腹:若謝康樂語,飽肚意多,皆得停泊[26],任意縱橫;鮑照言語逼迫,無有縱逸。」所謂「飽肚」,即便腹空洞,綽乎有容之意,言邊幅不窘也。取譬可與 Heine, Die
romantische Schule, III, iii: “Jean Pauls Periodenbau besteht aus lauter
kleinen Stübchen, die manchmal so eng sind, dass wenn eine Idee dort mit einer
anderen zusammentrifft, sie sich beide die Köpfe zerstossen” (Sämtl. Werk., verlag von A. Weichert,
Bd. VIII, S. 232-3) 參觀。
〇王弇州《觚不觚錄》云:「余初於西曹見談舊事投刺有異者:一大臣於正德中上書太監劉瑾,云:『門下小廝某上恩主老公公』;嘉靖中一儀部郎謁翊國公勛,則云:『渺渺小學生某』,皆極卑諂可笑。然至余所親見,復有怪誕不經者:一自稱『不佞』,至『通家不佞』、『年家不佞』、『治下不佞』、『鄰治不佞』、『眷不佞』;一自稱『牛馬走』,亦曰『通家治下牛馬走』;一曰『海湖生』、『形浪生』;一曰『神交小子』;一曰『將進僕』;一曰『未面門生』;一曰『門下沐恩小的』;一曰『何罪生』。此皆可嘔穢。」《野獲編》卷十七云:「往時浙弁牛姓者,官副總兵,上揭張永嘉相公,自稱『走狗爬見』。江陵當國,邊將如戚繼光之位三孤,李成梁之封五等,皆自稱『門下沐恩小的某萬叩頭跪稟』。」參觀 E.R.
Curtius, Europäische Literatur und
Lateinisches Mittelalter, 2te Auf., S. 94: “Der Autorität der
Bibel bewirkte,
dass der antike topos oft mit Selbstverkleinerungsformeln kombiniert wird.
David bezeichnet sich Saul gegenüber aus toten Hund und als Floh (I. Reg. 24, 15 und 26, 20). Das übernimmt
dann Hieronymus: ego pulex et
christianorum minimus.” 又 Heinz Küpper,
Wörterbuch der deutschen Umgangssprache, Bd. I, 3te Auf., 1963, S. 517-8: “Meine Wenigkeit: ich. Ironischer oder
schenhafter unterwürfigkeitsausdruck, nachgebildet den gleichend lat Ausdrücken
‘mea parvitas’ (Valerius Maximus)... und ‘mea tenuitas’ (Aulus Gellius)...”。
〇夏文彥《圖繪寶鑑》卷三云:「李夫人,西蜀名家。月夕獨坐南軒,竹影婆娑可喜,即模寫窗紙上,明日視之,生意俱足。」按《雲仙雜記》卷五引《常新錄》云:「宗測樂閒靜,好松竹,嘗見日篩竹影上牕,以筆備描之」,「篩」字殊妙於語言,即孟東野〈城南聯句〉所謂「竹影金瑣碎」也。沈亞之〈謫掾江齋記〉早云:「蕉旗竹篲,分植叢列,為帚風篩月之餌。」【《華光梅譜》云:「偶月夜未寢,見窗間疏影橫斜,蕭然可愛,遂以筆規其狀」(《佩文齋書畫譜》卷十二「宋釋仲仁畫墨梅」條引);郭熙《林泉高致》云:「學畫竹者,取一枝竹,因月夜照其影於素壁之上,則竹之真形出矣」(同上卷十三「宋郭熙山水訓」條)。】參觀 Barbey
d’Aurevilly, “Les Diabolique”: “Le Rideau cramoisi”: “cette lumière brillait,
car elle était tamisée par un double rideau cramoisi”; E. Gara e F. Piazzi, Serata all’Osteria della Scapigliatura, p. 33: “... il tremolar dei raggi del sole
attraverso le fronde (pizzicotti della luce all’ombra, diceva L. Borgomainerio)”;
Hervé Bazin, L’Huile sur le Feu, p. 19: “... l’ombre, à peine trouvée, de place
en place, par les lumières tamisées
des fenêtres...”; Stephan George: “Wir fühlen dankbar wie zu leisem brausen / Von
wipfeln strahlenspuren auf uns tropfen” (The
Penguin Book of German Verse, p. 383).【Cesare
Rinaldi: “Amor verace”: “reti al vento” (i.e. il vento passa tra i rami come
tra i maglie di una rete) (G.G. Ferrero, Marino
e i Marinisti, p. 638).】【E. Verhaeren, Les
Heures claires, XVII: “L’aube est en fleur et en rosée / Et en lumière
tamisée / Très douce”[27]
(Ch. Bruneau, Petite Hist. de la lang.
fr., II, p. 232).】
〇《宗子相集》文機調苦學太史公書、韓公〈平淮西碑〉、〈毛穎傳〉、杜牧之〈燕將錄〉。姑勿論宋人之作如歐陽永叔《五代史‧十國世家序》、蘇子瞻〈表忠觀碑〉亦□用遷,酌古而亦斟今,得神而不遺貌,何等舂容安雅,豈如此心勞手拙,滯重扞格乎?然有物之言,時見匠心,且無換字詰屈之習。後七子中,可追隨于鱗、元美者,詩惟茂秦,文其子相矣。子相之詩,則榛蕪彌望,稚弱不成腔吻。王船山《夕堂永日緒論‧內編》斥為「詩傭,濁穢無加」[28],《鈍吟雜錄》詆其「樂府全不可通」,洵然。卷三〈寄懷鄉園游好〉云:「向人歌白雪,畏路失黄金」;〈答吳明卿見贈〉云:「才已金門隱,名非白雪傳」;〈寄子與明卿元美三子〉云:「豈乏青雲侶,其如白雪盟」;〈簡陸子和〉云:「青天應自問,白雪向誰歌」;〈同峻伯夜過助甫〉云:「白雪寧誰妬?黄金任爾驕」;卷四〈寄于鱗〉云:「客游五馬黄金妬,書去盧龍白雪多」;〈夜過明卿遲元美不至〉云:「窮途惟白雪,失計自黄金。」【王敬美《王奉常集》卷九〈需次都下得家兄夢中問〉:「里中白雪應稀和,臺上黃金轉自疑」;卷十〈拜于鱗先生墓〉:「山空欲斷黃金色,泉咽能為白雪聲。」】【汪伯玉《太函集》卷一百九〈席上呈余使君‧之三〉:「白雪郢中曲,黃金薊北臺」;〈北游別社中諸友〉第一首:「白雪荊南客,黃金薊北臺。」】【《四溟山人全集》卷十三〈送翟逸人之京〉云:「黃金舊使燕臺重,白雪今知楚調寒」,較子相諸聯稍有格律。袁中郎《瓶史‧監戒第十二》列舉瓶花屈辱,有云:「案上有『黃金』、『白雪』、『中原』、『紫氣』等詩」[29],蓋與「醜女折戴」、「與酒館為鄰」等並列,可謂謔而虐矣(鄭繼之《少谷先生全集》卷五〈張起溟約過草堂〉:「並期歌白雪,何止斷黃金」)。王敬美詩用「中原」最多,徐學謨《齊語》云:「近來作者,綴成數十豔語,如『黃金』、『白雪』、『紫氣』、『中原』、『居庸』、『碣石』之類,不顧本題應否,強以竄入」云云,亦與《列朝詩集傳》引海陵生詩所喻相印證。】又卷四〈得顧洛陽書却寄〉云:「使者青函天外至,開書片片落嵩雲」;〈得明卿書却寄〉云:「莫訝開函龍氣滿,知君六月過濠梁」;〈得子與書寄贈〉云:「携得江南春色到,開函飛出紫芙蓉。」又卷四〈送玄陽山人歸吳〉云:「髙楓揺落薊門遊,把酒青天夜倒流」;〈送王比部元美使江南〉云:「酒酣一鼓湘靈曲,天外星辰忽倒流」;〈再送王元美〉云:「酒酣忽嘯青天色,坐使浮雲不敢征。」皆如填匡格。李長吉〈秦王飲酒〉云:「酒酣喝月使倒行」;張蠙〈再游西山贈許尊師〉云:「疑是年光却倒流。」「夜倒流」、「星辰倒流」,則割裂不詞矣!卷三〈二月三首〉第三首云[30]:「漢金百萬朝通使,胡騎三千夜解圍」,子相詠事,唯此一聯差耐玩味,頗似王介甫〈澶州〉詩「天發一矢胡無酋,河冰亦破沙水流」,劉辰翁所謂「口語毒」者,參觀第六百四則(《荊文詩集》卷五〈張良〉)。卷二〈二華篇〉云:「黃河直上峯頭坐,忽散人家室屋裏」,子相寫景,亦衹此二語較見心思,《藝苑巵言》卷七所摘佳句,「張茂先我所不解」耳。卷五〈贈許簿之海寧敘〉「予見世所稱有司者」一節,描劃宦途,庶幾卷七〈報劉一丈〉之亞。他如卷六〈九月西征記〉、卷八〈報子與〉寫閩中兵事,亦有親切語,不為擬議所汩沒。〈報劉一丈〉自是壓卷之文,《明文授讀》卷十九所謂「描寫逢迎之狀如畫,子相文雖無深致,而方幅整齊」,是也。刻至而不尖佻,未落小品腔吻。中間「則上所上壽金,主者故不受,則固請。主者故固不受,則又固請,然後命吏納之」云云,可與《能改齋漫錄》卷十一所載江子我〈牛酥行〉參觀,尚是朴未散、淳未漓處。《官場現形記》三編卷二十五〈買古董借徑謁權門〉寫華中堂命家人劉厚守開古玩鋪,賈大少爺購白玉鼻烟壺事,不復落迹著相,為技更巧,後來居上。《觚不觚錄》云:「分宜當國,而子世蕃挾以行黷天下之金玉寶貨,無所不致。其最後乃始及法書、名畫,蓋始以免俗,且鬥侈耳」云云,亦以古玩為賄,而授受之際,必不如此之譎也。蜀西樵也《燕臺花事錄》卷下云:「有自謂與某郎交厚者,刺刺不休,或厭之,予私為之解曰:『此君不讓古人。』怪詰其故,則應曰:『子不讀明人文乎?所謂「『相公厚我!厚我!』且虛言狀」者也。』彼此不禁捧腹」云云,蓋子相此〈書〉選入《古文觀止》,雖村學究、酸秀才,無不曉者,遂成此雅謔也。
〇Gilbert
Murray, An Unfinished Autobiography,
p. 97: “George Douglas was already famous because of an excuse for absence card
which he had sent in: ‘was consulting a doctor for a cure for insomnia during
class hours.’” 按參觀 Oliver St. John Gogarty, As I Was Going Down
Sackville Street, “Penguin
Books”, p. 323 記 Tyrrell 語: “Ever
since Mahaffy’s sermons were discontinued, I suffer from insomnia in church”。皆本之 Le Sage, Le Diable boiteux。Montesquieu,
Lettres persanes, CXLIII (“Classiques
Garnier”, pp. 329-330) 記患失眠者,百藥無効,讀學士著述,遂昏然入夢來。參觀 Lockhart: “The Cockney School of Poetry”: “It is a
better & a wiser thing to be a starved apothecary than a starved poet; so
back to the shop Mr John, back to ‘plasters, pills, & ointment
boxes’, &c. But for Heaven’s sake, young Sangrado, be a little more sparing
of extenuatives & soporifics in your practice than you have been in your
poetry” (W.J. Bate, John Keats, p.
367 引)。
〇取士有功令,則士之操術判為兩途。曰舉業,進身之道也;曰學業,切身之事也。苟欲合而一之,以舉業為學業,陋儒是矣;或以學業為舉業,曲學是矣。惟有並行,庻不偏廢。請徵八股,以反三隅可乎?明清兩朝制義必宗朱註:明人為陸、王之學者,入科場則不敢違紫陽;清人為許、鄭之學者,應程試皆竭力闡宋儒。楊升菴在明人中,要為通經學古,於宋之程、朱、陸均致非難,而八股則守程、朱之說唯謹。《升菴全集》卷五十二「文字之衰」條云:「今世學者失之陋,惟從宋人,不知有漢、唐前說也。高者談性命,祖宋人之語錄;卑者習舉業,鈔宋人之策論。」而同卷「詞尚簡要」條云:「近時舉子之文,冗贅至千有餘言,不根程、朱,妄自穿鑿。」王辰玉《緱山先生集》卷二十一〈學藝初言〉云:「紫陽先生傳註非必盡是;理欲、知行,動輒分為兩截,正如好座堂房,零星夾斷。我皇祖解經測天,初未嘗純用宋儒,而卒以取士;蓋以為人有異學,則國有異政。乃今日綱弛俗厖,而文亦如之」(又參觀第七四八則《快雪堂集》卷三十二、三十六、四十五)。《日知錄》卷十八引艾千子語曰:「嘉靖中,姚、江之書雖盛行,而士子舉業尚知謹守程、朱。自興化、華亭兩執政尊王氏學,於是隆慶戊辰《論語》程義首開宗門。」鄭禹梅出南雷之門,宗陽明之學,而《寒村雜錄》卷二〈歷科詩義序〉附〈選意〉十則之一云:「誰謂四始六義,盡之集註。然今科場取士,非此不錄。則時文一道,斷須奉之為聖書。予嘗笑世之坐井者,往往向時文中播弄唇舌,便自命為講學。故是選專從集註者,專論時文也。」《制藝叢話》卷二載紀曉嵐語曰:「文之清真者,惟其理之是而已。欲理之明,必溯源六經而切究乎宋儒之說」;又卷十一云:「王惕甫試嘉慶丙午,場後,余決其必售,乃同報罷。其首藝〈雖曰未學〉,用古注而不用紫陽集注,為河間紀師所黜,有『以此嚇老夫、老夫不懼』之批。」【詳見第七十五則論《紀文達公遺集》卷八】(洪北江《卷施閣詩》卷十七〈四月廿日與胡公子稷會飲被酒醉甚歸途於馬上得五百字〉云:「今年絶代才,皆下考功第。汪端光王芑孫徐嵩趙懷玉張問安,尤苦不得意。尚書名知人紀宗伯昀,本可愜羣議。微嫌心有主,意在急防弊。遂令中材升,杞梓或被棄。」)胡虔《柿葉軒筆記》云:「戴東原數應禮部試,分校者爭欲致之門下,每於三場五策中物色之,不可得,既乃知其對策甚空。諸公以戴淹雅精卓,殆無倫比,而策則如無學者,大是異事。錢辛楣詹事曰:『此東原所以為東原也。』」蓋東原揣迎合俗學,而試官破格期待之,遂相左耳。《三魚堂日記》卷上戊午六月廿九日:「左襄南極言仇滄柱之非,講舉業則宗朱,講學則從棃洲、山陰之學,分作兩截,此心便不可對聖賢」云云,持論甚嚴,而不知此正滄柱異乎常流處:舉業之外,別有學業【滄柱與鄭禹梅同出門,《寒村詩文集》中屢及之,如《見黃稿》卷二〈陳介眉稿序〉、《五丁詩稿》卷四〈除日〉(「同道友偏貪幻術,多錢官却愛文名」,自注:「同行仇子滄柱喜談爐火,欲向其族人乞煉鼎法,時有鹽運使感滄柱刻其時文,殷勤拜餽」云云,可與《霞外捃屑》卷二引劉文蔚《見聞隨錄》記仇「惑於陰陽采戰之術」云云參觀)、《玉堂後集》卷一〈觀杜註有作〉(康熙二十九年作,深譏「無字無來歷」之□,疑指仇注)、《息尚编》卷一〈寄壽仇學士七十〉(「未信神仙術」,自注:「滄柱信修煉,予頗不然其說」)】。遲衡山所謂「講學問的只講學問,不必問功名;講功名只講功名,不必問學問」(《儒林外史》第四十九回),兩樣而非一樣【參觀第四百三十八則《南宋羣賢小集》第四冊下引強至、葉適、劉克莊等文[31];第四百五十三則論鞏豐〈送湯麟之秀才〉詩】。若馬二先生輩,則舉業無所不該,於唐人之作詩、宋人之講學,均已為此物此志矣(《儒林外史》第十三回)。參觀七百十九則論《全金詩》卷四十二。【袁伯修《白蘇齋類集》卷十〈送夾山母舅之任太原序〉:「余為諸生,講業石浦。耆宿來,見案頭攤《左傳》一冊,驚問是何書,乃溷帖括中。一日偶感興賦小詩,題齋壁,塾師大駡。(中略)通邑學者號詩文為外作,外之也者,惡其妨正業也。」】【董其昌《容臺別集》卷一〈雜記〉云:「王弇山先生戒子弟勿攻詩,恐為舉子業病。即弇山舉子業無稱也。王文恪、瞿文懿聖於舉業,皆不能為詩。」蒲松齡《聊齋文集》卷三〈郢中社序〉云:「當今以時藝試士,則詩之為物,亦魔道也,分以外者也。」鄭禹梅《五丁集》卷一〈野吟集序〉云:「三、四十年來,人士之沒溺於科舉者,不知何故,以詩為厲禁。父兄師友,搖手相戒。往往名登甲乙,而不識平平仄仄為何物」;《寒村息尚編》卷三〈和周薖園黃門高秋感事原韻〉第一首:「兒輩辭官表就矣」,自注:「舉業人作詩,昔人謂之辭官表。」顧圖河《雄雉齋詩選》汪懋麟〈序〉云:「方今制科取士,專試時文,士皆斤斤守章句,習程式。非是則目為外道,而於詩尤甚,曰傍及者必兩失。」邵子湘《青門旅稿》卷三〈贈王子重先生序〉:「進士之名猶古也。古者學成而為進士,後世成進士,始可以為學。(中略)兢兢守四子一經之說。(中略)一切經、史、子、集、兵、農、禮、樂、天文、律曆、象數諸書,相戒屏斥,以是為不利於科舉。」】【李鄴嗣《杲堂文鈔》卷五〈戒菴先生藏銘〉云:「自海內不尚古學,學者治一經、四書外,即能作制義,中甲乙科。後生有竊看《左氏傳》、《太史公書》,父兄輒動色相戒,以為有害。」參觀《日札》四三八則《南宋羣賢小集》第四冊許棐《融春小綴‧送旦上人序》眉批南宋人論時文。】【《文史通義》外篇三〈答沈楓墀論學〉:「僕年十五、六時,猶聞老生宿儒自尊所業,至目通經服古,謂之雜學,古詩文詞謂之雜作。士不工四書文,不得為通。」】【郝懿行《曬書堂文集》卷三〈新製書衣敕〉:「數十篇腐爛時文,不徒作隨身竿木,並奉為傳家衣鉢。至於經史諸書,務囚鎖深室中類怪物,不則散置破簏,飽蠹魚腹。意若恐子弟一見,遂荒其務時文之業者。」】【《紅樓夢》八十一賈代儒訓寶玉曰:「詩詞一道,不是學不得的,只要發達了以後再學不遲呢。」】【《照世盃》第一種〈七松園弄假成真〉云:「原來有意思的才人,再不肯留心舉業。那知天公賦他的才分,寧有多少,若將一分才用在詩上,舉業內便少了一分精神;若一分才用在畫上,舉業內便少了一分火候﹔若將一分才用在賓朋應酬上,舉業內便少了一分工夫。所以才人終身博不得一第,都坐這個病痛。」黎媿曾《仁恕堂筆記》自記少時受知陳士奇,陳視學蜀中,賦五古二十韻送之,「陳大言:『詩非不好,此宦成之事,秀才家便做他,將何功夫去辦舉子業。』余乃感而欲泣」;《託素齋文集》卷三〈莆田方翊霄稿序〉云:「今天下蓋羣習制舉之書矣。(中略)至於賦頌、詩歌、箴銘、詔誥,古人所稱為經國大業者,率舉而名之曰『外學』。」】[32]
〇Eduard
Fuchs 謂諷世之畫、勅時之文,雖過實情,却得真相:“Die Wahrheit liegt nicht in der Mitte, sondern im
Extrem. Durch die Steigerung ins Extrem wird das Wesen der betreffenden Sache
oder Person offenbar” (Illustrierte
Sittengeschichte: Renaissance, S. 10). 正相發明畫虎類狗、刻鵠成鶩云云,參觀第六百六十二則。又 R.P.
Blackmur[33], The
Lion & the Honeycomb, p.
190-1: “The normal pathology of a skill become a method & a method become a
methodology”; De Sanctis, La letteratura
italiana nel secolo XIX, ed. Cortese, vol II: : “Ma che cosa è una scuola?
Una scuola è la decomposizione del caposcuola... E ne nasce troppo spesso che
tutto quello che nel caposcuola è difetto, ma tenuto a freno dalla forza del
genio, per certuni si ritiene bellezza e diventa maniera”
(Gli
Scrittori d’Italia, a cura di Luigi Russo, II, p. 157); Bernard Berenson: “Our
art has a fatal tendency to become science” (quoted in Herbert Read, Icon & Idea, p. 101).【Gottfried
Hermann, the great German philologist: “Wer nichts über die Sache versteht,
schreibt über die Methode” (W. Müller-Seidel, Probleme der Literarischen Wertung, S. 184).】【Novalis,
Fragmente, hrsg. E. Kammitzer (... S. 98)[34]:
“Der echte Gewinst bei Fichte und Kant ist in der Methode, in der
Regularisation des Genies.” (W. Müller-Seidel, , S. 184).】【Lanson:
“En littérature plus qu'ailleurs, les doctrines ne valent tout justement que ce
que valent les esprits qui les appliquent” (É. Henriot, Maîtres d’Hier et contemporains, nouvelle série, p, 151):
Sainte-Beuve to Zola on Taine, Sept. 1863: “Je ne m’attribué qu’un avantage sur
lui c’est d’avoir de longtemps pratique par instinct et comme empiriquement ce
qu’il ce élevé plus tard à l’état de
methode — en un mot d’avoir été de la même école avant la formule” (Correspondance, éd. Bonnerot, t. XV, p.
324); Leo Spitzer: “Linguistics & Literary History” in Donald C. Freeman, Linguistics & Literary Style, pp.
32-3; Croce, La Poesia, p. 310,
quoted 六六二則.】
七百三[35]
雜閱英、法、意、德、西五國詩鈔,識小得數十事,漫書於此。其篇什之已經論騭者,則不復及。
Juan
Ruiz: “El Amor”: “El amor faz sotil al ome que es rrudo, / ffázele fabrar
fermoso al que antes es mudo, / al omme que es covarde fázelo muy atrevudo, / al
perezoso faze ser presto e agudo,. // ... / ffaze blanco e fermoso del negro
como pez, / lo que non val' una nuez, amor le da gran prez. // El bavieca, el
torpe, el neçio e el pobre / a su amiga bueno paresçe e rrico onbre, / más
noble que los otros. / ...”[36] (Eleanor
L. Turnbull, Ten Centuries of Spanish
Poetry, p. 30). The first stanza is simply a variation on the old saw, “Love
makes fools wise” (cf. Decamerone, V.
i, Hoepli, pp. 312 ff.; Bandello,
Le Novelle, II. ii, Laterza, II, pp. 305 ff.; Anatomy
of Melancholy, Pt. III, Sect. II, Mem. III, Everyman’s Lib., III, pp. 172
ff.); the second & third express a complement to the view “情人眼裡出西施”: “情人眼裡出子都”; cf. supra 第二百十三則 on Theocritus, X (The Greek Bucolic Poets, “The Loeb Classical Library”, p. 135; to
the quotation from Lucretius, Molière & others given there, Robert Merrick’s
poem “No Loathsomness in Love” should be added: “Be my Mistresse short or tall,
/ And distorted there-withall: / Be she likewise one of those, / That an Acre
hath of Nose: / ... / Ha’s she thinne haire, hath she none, / She’s to me a
Paragon” (Poetical Works, ed. L.C.
Martin, p. 11). Like Lucretius, Stendhal & the rest, Herrick is talking
about women; Ruiz’s is the only poem I have come across in which this principle
of amas ut pulchram facias (Godeschalk
quoted in R. de Gourmont, Le Latin
mystique, p. 143) is applied to men.
Juan
Ruiz: “El Amor”: “De las propiedades que las dueñas chicas han”[37]: “Es
pequeño el grano de la buena pimienta; / pero más que la nues conorta e calienta,
/ así dueña pequeña, si todo amor consienta, / non hay placer del mundo que en
ella non sienta. / Como en chica rosa está mucha color, / en oro muy poco gran preçio
e grand valor, / como en poco bálsamo yaze grand buen olor,[38] /
ansí en dueña chica yace muy grand sabor. // ... // del mal tomar lo menos, dízelo
el sabidor, / por ende
de las mugeres la mejor es la menor” (Turnbull, pp.
35-36). Cf. an old Italian song: “Le cose piccoline son pur belle! / Le cose
piccoline son pur care! / Ponete mente come son le perle: / Son piccoline, e si
fanno pagare. / Ponete mente come l’è l’uliva: / L’è piccolina, e di buon
frutto mena. / Ponete mente come l’è la rosa, / E piccolina, ma tanto odorosa”
(L.R. Lind, Lyric Poetry of the Italian Renaissance, p. 48: “Canti toscani”, XI). The cynical conclusion
of Ruiz’s poem — the sting in the tail which shows that the poet has been
talking with his tongue in the cheek — is very piquant in contradistinction to
such mincing sentimentality in Cowley’s essay “Of Greatness”: “I would neither
wish that my mistress, nor my fortune, should be a bona roba, but parvula, pumilio, karíton mía[39],
tota merum sal” (The Essays & Other Prose Writings, ed. A.B. Gough, p. 179).
Jorge Manrique: “Coplas por la
muerte de su padre”: “Partimos cuando nacemos, / andamos mientra bivimos, / y
llegamos / al tiempo que fenecemos. // ... // ¿Qué se fizo el rey don Juan? / Los
infantes de Aragón, / ¿qué se hizieron? / ¿Qué fue de tanto galán? / etc.” (Turnbull, pp. 50 & 50). Cf. supra 第六百四十則 on《韓昌黎詩繫年集釋》卷五〈秋懷〉; cf. also Quevedo, Sueños: “Ce que vous appelez naître est commencer à mourir” (quoted
in J. Rousset, La littérature de l’âge
baroque en France, nouv. éd., p. 117); Girolamo Preti: “L’Oriuolo”: “gridando
a l’uomo, al numerar de l’ore / che quanto si vive puì, tanto più muore” (G.G. Ferrero,
Marino e i Marinisti, p. 718);
Giacomo Lubrano,: “Nella vita non essere nulla di nostro”: “mentre ogni giorno è
un funeral de gli anni” (Ib., p.
1038); François Malaval: “L’usage du Temps”: “Le temps pousse le temps d'un
insensible effort / Et vivre, c’est toujours s’approcher de la mort” (A.J.
Steele, Three Centuries of French Verse,
p. 208); A. de Musset: “Lettre à M. de Lamartine”: “Que la mort soit son terme,
il ne l’ignore pas, / Et, marchant à la mort, il meurt à chaque pas” (Anthony
Hartley, ed., The Penguin Book of French
Verse, III, p. 123); Novalis, Fragmente,
hrsg. E. Kammitzer, §515 (S. 206): “Leben ist der Anfang
des Todes. Das Leben ist um des Todes willen”; F.H. Bradley, Aphorisms, §70: “After a certain age
every milestone on our road is a grave-stone; & the rest of life seems a
continuance of our own funeral procession”; A. Arthaber, Dizionario comparato di
Proverbi, p. 432: “Dalle
fasce si comincia a morir quando si nasce”; “Del viver, ch’ è un correre alla
morte”[40]
(Dante, Purg. XXXIII. 54). A. Decourcelle’s
epigram on life: “una condanna a morte” (quoted in D. Provenzal, Dizionario umoristico, 4a
ed., p. 503). Manrique’s two stanzas beginning respectively with “¿qué se fizo el rey don Juan?” & “¿que se fizieron las damas”
have been overlooked by Étienne Gilson in his copious study of the ubi sunt formula in literature (Les Idées et les Lettres, pp. 12 ff.).
San Juan de la Cruz: “Llama de amor
viva”: “¡Oh cauterio suave! / ¡Oh regalada llaga! / ¡Oh mano blanda! ¡Oh toque
delicado, / Que a vida eterna sabe, / Y a toda deuda paga! / Matando, muerte en
vida la has trocado” (Turnbull, p. 210, given in F.J. Warnke, European Metaphysical Poetry, p. 254
under the title “Canciones del alma en la
íntima comunicación de
unión de amor de Dios”; cf. H. Delacroix, La
Psychologie de Stendhal, pp. 240, 256-61 on “le langage de la volupté”).【Leone
Ebreo, Dialoghi d’amore, critical ed.
by S. Caramella on “l’atto copulativo de l’intima e unita cognizione divina... questa copulazione è la più propria e precisa parola
che significhi la beatitudine.”】Cf. the same author’s “Noche obscura del Alma”: “Con
su mano serena / En mi cuello hería, / y todos mis sentidos suspendía”
(Turnbull, p. 196). It is one of the ironies or rather facts of life that
sacred love uses the same language as profane love to express an experience
indistinguishable from the latter in erotic character. Cf. Madame Bovary, II, xiv (when “elle voulut devenir une sainte”, éd.
Conard, p. 248). Imitatio Christi,
for example, seemed to a woman friend of Havelock Ellis’s to be “a sort of
religious aphrodisiac” (Studies in the
Psychology of Sex, I, p. 824); Jean Rousset calls attention to the close
resemblance between divine love as described by certain mystics (“inviter en
repoussant” in an anonymous sermon “L’Amour de Madeleine”; “Je mehr du fleuchst
und läufst von mir, / Je stärker zeuchst du mich nach dir” in Angelus Silesius,
Hirtenlieder) & the stereotyped
coquetry in the pastoral drama (La
littérature de l’âge baroque en France, nouv. éd., pp. 47-8). The affinity
between religious & sexual ecstasy is particularly pronounced in Spanish
mysticism which has been described as “divine knight errantry” (caballería a lo divino) & an “art of
love” (arte de amor) (E. Allison
Peers, Spanish Mysticism, pp. 44
& 64; cf. Swinburne’s letter to Gosse rebutting Newman’s strictures on his
combining such irreconcilable elements as religion & “amorousness” in his
poetry — Lang, ed., The Swinburne Letters,
III, p. 116 ff.; James M. Clark, Meister
Eckhart, p. 86 on his sober restraint in comparing mystic union to kiss or
marriage, unlike the morbid imaginings of St. John the Cross). Cf. “那羅那里”(nara-nari, i.e. male organ – female organ)(《佛學大辭典》1219 頁:“《理趣釋》上曰:‘妙適者,即梵語蘇羅哆,……如世間那羅那里娛樂’”;again 2897頁“蘇囉多”[41];《黃嬭餘話》卷八:“[〈子罕〉]孔子曰:‘我未見好德如好色者也’;《大學‧釋誠意》云:‘如好好色’;[〈學而〉]子夏曰:‘賢賢易色。’蓋常情只是‘色’字,為足以揭其所好之誠”【《廣雅‧釋言》:“易,如也”;王念孫《廣雅疏證》:“《論語》‘賢賢易色’即‘好德如好色’也”】);第七五九則 on《列子‧楊朱篇第七》on 公孫朝“好酒” & 公孫穆“好色”;《禮記‧坊記》:“民猶以色厚於德.子云:‘好德如好色’”;《王文成公全集》卷五〈與黃勉之‧二〉:“人於尋常好惡,或亦有不真切處,惟是好好色,惡惡臭,則皆是發於真心,自求快足,會無纖假者”;《紅樓夢》82 回寶玉講“未見好德如好色”略同;《老殘游記》第 9 回璵姑稱引“如好好色” etc. 說天性. San Juan’s “sweet wound” is nothing else than Sappho’s
Glukúpikron[42]
(see supra 第二百七十八則 on Robert Greene’s Menaphon) or Shakespeare’s “a lover’s pinch which hurts & is desir’d” (Antony & Cleopatra, V. ii, 197-8); “swooning
to death” has, since Battista Guarini’s “Tirsi morir volea”[43]
(Alfred Einstein, The Italian Madrigal,
II, pp. 541-2; cf. pp. 542, 543, 547 for variations on this obscene “canto
carnascialesco” by Andrea Rota & Orazio Vecchio & the source of Guarini’s
song in Luigi Tansillo’s “A caso un giorno mi
guidò”; cf. Marino, L’Adone, VIII.
131: “e morendo talor gli amanti accorti / ritardano il morir per far due morti”
— G.G. Ferrero, Marino e i marinisti,
p. 193; cf. also the song from Studenten Clodius’s Liederhandschrift[44]:
“Ich kann länger nicht bestehen, / Ach, ich sterbe, lass mich gehen” — E.
Fuchs, Illustrierte Sittengeschichte,
Ergänzungsband, II, S. 114); the passage beginning with “And suddenly her body
was printed on his” & ending with “locked together in a violent death in
the darkness below” — Robert Ruark, Poor
No More, p. 541) become in Enropean literature a cliché for sexual orgasm,
just as “死” had long been a synonym for it in old Chinese
pornography (see supra 第二百四十八則 on《山歌》卷一〈十六不諧〉[45]). Dryden’s frolicsome lines, “That it both pains
my heart, & yet contents me: / ’Tis such a pleasing smart” (“Hidden Flame”,
The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1st
ed., p. 470) recall San Juan’spoem no less than Pope’s pious numbers, “O the
pain, the bliss of dying! / Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife, / And let me
languish into life” (“The Dying Christian to his Soul”, op. cit., p. 507). Cf. in particular Richard Crashaw: “In Memory of
Lady Madre de Teresa”: “Of a death, in which who dyes / Loves his death & dyes
again, / And would for ever so be slaine! / And lives & dyes, & knowes
not why / To live, but that he still may dy” (Poetical Works, ed. L.C. Martin, 2nd ed., p. 134; also
on p. 319 with small variations); “The Office of the Holy Crosse”: “O strange
mysterious strife / Of open Death & hidden Life” (p. 272); “A Song”: “Though
still I dy, I liue again; / Still longing to be still slain, / ... / Still liue
in me this louing strife / of liuing Death & dying Life. / For while thou
sweetly slayest me / Dead to my selfe, I liue in Thee” (p. 327); “Epithalamium”:
[on the attle over the maidenhead in the bridal bed] “With many pretty, peevish
tryalls / of angry yielding, faint denyings, / Melting No’s & milde denyalls,
/ dying liues, & short-liued dyings” (p. 407). Cf. infra Étienne Durant.
Andrés Fernández de Andrada: “Epístola
moral”: “Triste de aquel que vive destinado / A esa antigua colonia de los
vicios, / Augur de los semblantes del privado. // Cese el ansia y la sed de los
oficios; / Que acepta el don y burla del intento. / El ídolo a quien haces
sacrificios” (Turnbull, p. 254). I have praised Basile’s homely but rigorous
conceits for the splendeurs et misères
of a courtier’s life (see supra 第六百九十九則 on Il Pentamerone, II. 2;
e.g. III. 7: Oh misero chi è condannato all’inferno della corte, dove le
lusinghe si vendono a quadretti e i mali uffici si misurano a tomoli e i
tradimenti si pesano a cantari! Ma chi può dire la quantità di bucce di
cocomero, che gli posero sotto i piedi per farlo sdrucciolare? Chi può
descrivere il sapone delle falsità, che spanderono sulla scala delle orecchie
del re, affinché il povero giovane capitombolasse e si rompesse la nuca del
collo?” etc. — Il Pentamerone, trad
B. Croce, p. 301), but Basile overlooked the point made by de Andrada; he
showed by the story of Corvetto (III. 7) that a “fav’rite has no friend”
(Thomas Gray: “On a Favourite Cat drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes”, The Oxf. Bk. of Eng. Verse, p. 528),
while de Andrada observed that a favourite is also courted — though in vain —
by many “friends”. Cf. Lord Chesterfield to his son: “There is at all Courts a
chain which connects the prince or the minister with the page of the backstairs
or the chamber-maid. The king’s wife or mistress has an influence over him; a
lover has an influence over her; the chambermaid or the valet-de-chambre has an
influence over both; & so ad
infinitum. You must, therefore, not break a link of that chain, by which
you hope to climb up to the prince” (The
Letters of Lord Chesterfield, ed. B. Dobrée, IV, p. 1383; cf. supra 第四百五十則); even Chesterfield neglected to
prepare his son against the possibility mentioned in de Andrada’s poem. Cf.
Coleridge’s letter to John Murray: “When I was young, I wrote an Epigram, of
which I remember the thought only — namely, that I dreamt, that a great Lord
had made me a most splendid Promise; awoke, & found it as much a delusion,
as if the great Lord had really made me a Promise” (Collected Letters, ed. E.L. Griggs, III, p. 412).【Lord
Halifax, Political Thoughts &
Reflections: “The Court may be said to be a Company of well-bred
fashionable Beggars... A Man who will rise at Court must begin by creeping upon
All-four: A place at Court, like a Place in Heaven, is to be got by being much upon one’s Knees” (Comp. Works, ed. W. Raleigh, p. 228). Cf Logau: “Willst du sein bei Hofe da? / Ei, so
lerne sprechen Ja!”[46];
“Hofewerkzeug” (Sinngedichte, eine
Auswahl, hrsg. U. Berger, S. 70, 127)
— “Auf Simplicem und
Duplicem” (S. 153), “Vom Hofleben” (S. 218-9), “Von einem Hofe-Hunde” (S. 228)
usw.】
Francisco de Quevedo: “Amante sin
reposo”: “La boca tengo en aire suspirando, / el cuerpo en tierra está
peregrinando, / los ojos tengo en agua noche y día, / y en fuego el corazón y
el alma mía” (Turnbull, p. 302). An amplification of Serafino’s much imitated
conceit (“Se dentro porto una fornace ardente / E spargo ogn'hor da gli occhi
un largo fiume”, see H. Weber, La
Création poétique au 16e siècle en France, I, pp. 175 f.) by including all the four
elements. Cf. Gerusalemme
Liberata, IV,
76: “O miracol d’Amor, che le faville / tragge del pianto, e i cor ne l’acqua
accende!” (Tasso, Poesie, ed. F.
Flora, p. 100); Richard Crashaw: “The Weeper”: “But can these fair Flouds be / Freinds
with the bosom fires that fill thee / Can so great flames agree / Aeternall
Teares should thus distill thee! / O flouds, o fires! o suns, o showres! / Mixt
& made freinds by loue’s sweet powres” (Poetical
Works, ed. L.C. Martin, pp. 311-2; in the notes on p. 448, Martin quotes
John Owen, Epigrammata, I, 74: “Nilo
negli occhi, Aetna nel cuore”: “Frigidus ardentes intravit Nilus ocellos, / Dum
cor Aetnaeo carpitur igne meum” etc. & Greene[47],
Never Too Late, “Isabelle’s Ode”: “Yet
foorth these fierie darts did passe / Pearled teares as bright as glasse; /
That wonder ’twas in her eine / Fire & water should combine.” Cf. also
Philip Ayres: “Love’s New Philosophy” (G. Saintsbury, Minor Caroline Poets, II, 301-2) & Morando: “Bellissima
natatrice” (Marino e i Marinisti, p.
913).
Quevedo: “Letrilla”: “Poderoso
caballero / es don Dinero” (Turnbull, p. 304). This is much earlier than “The
Almighty Dollar” (The Oxford Book of
Quotations, 2nd ed., p. 10) or “la zecca onnipotente” (G.
Fumagalli, Chi l’ha detto?, 9a
ed., p. 94). The same Lebensanschauung
in《史記‧貨殖列傳》.
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer: “Rimas”ii: “Saeta
que voladora / Cruza, arrojada al azar, / y que no se sabe dónde / Temblando se
clavará; // Hoja que del árbol seca / Arrebata el vendaval, / y que no hayquien
diga el surco / Donde al polvo volverá; // ... // Luz que en cercos temblorosos
/ Brilla próxima a expirar, / y que no se sabe de ellos / Cuál el último será.
// Eso soy yo que al acaso / Cruzo el mundo sin pensar / De dónde vengo ni a
dónde / Mis pasos me llevarán” (Turnbull, p. 364). A haunting poem which in
sentiment & imagery reminds one of Fitzgerald’s Rubáiyát, xxix: “Into the universe, and Why not knowing, / Nor Whence,
like Water willy-nilly flowing; / And out of it, as Wind along the Waste, / I
know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing”;
Longfellow’s “The Arrow & the Song”: “I shot an arrow into the air, / It
fell to earth, I knew not where”; A.V. Arnault’s “La Feuille”: “De ta tige
détachée, / Pauvre feuille desséchée, / Où vas-tu? -— Je n’en sais rien. / L’orage
a brisé le chêne / Qui seul était mon soutien. / De son inconstante haleine / Le
zéphyr ou l’aquilon / Depuis ce jour me promène / De la forêt à la plaine, / De
la montagne au vallon. / Je vais ou le vent me mène, / Sans me plaindre ou m’effrayer:
/ Je vais où va toute chose, / Où va la feuille de rose / Et la feuille de
laurier” (quoted in Leopardi, I Canti,
ed. G.L. Bickersteth, p. 496 in a note to “Imitazione”; also translated by Gabriel
Rossetti, “The Leaf”, cf. Y. Lang, The
Swinburne Letters, V, p. 175); Enrico Panzacchi’s “Sognando”: “Su’ flutto
che mi porta / non splende mai l’aurora; / vo’ come foglia morta / verso ignota
dimora” (quoted in E.M. Fusco, La Lirica,
II, p. 220); Verlaine’s “Chanson d’Automne”: “Et je m’en vais / Au vent mauvais
/ Qui m’emporte / Deçà, delà, / Pareil à la / Feuille morte” (Oeuv. comp., Y.-G. Le Dantec, I, p. 28),
& Nikos Kazantzakis’s vivid lines: “As a low lantern’s flame flicks n its
final blaze / then leaps above its shriveled wick & mounts aloft, /
brimming with light, & soars toward Death with dazzling joy, / so did his
fierce soul leap before it vanished in air” (The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel, Bk. XXIII, ll. 1305-8, Eng. tr. Kimon Friar, p. 743) (which seem to have been
borrowed from D’Annunzio, Il fuoco: “Come
la fiammella d’una candela” etc., see 第七百二十八則). Cf. infra
on Shelley “To the West Wind”.
Francesco Berni: “Ritratto”: “Chiome
d’argento fine, irte, ed attorte / Senz’arte intorno ad un bel viso d’oro; / ...
/ Occhi di perle vaghi, luci torte / Da ogni obbietto disuguale a loro; /
Ciglia di neve; e quelle ond’io m'accoro, / Dita e man dolcemente grosse e
corte; / Labbra di latte; bocca ampia, celeste; / Denti d’ebano, rari e
pellegrini; / Inaudita, ineffabile armonia; / ... /Son le bellezze de la donna
mia” (St John Lucas, The Oxford Book of Italian
Verse, p. 240). This parody of or palinode to Pietro Bembo’s “Crin d’oro
crespo e d’ambra tersa e pura” inaugurated a genre. Tasso’s “Sopra la
bellezza”: “Sia brutta la mia donna, ed abbia il naso / grande, che le faccia
ombra sino al mento: / sia la sua bocca si capace vaso, / che stan vi possa
ogni gran cosa drento: / Sian rari i denti, gli occhi posti a caso, / d’ebano i
denti, e gli occhi sian d’argento” (Poesie,
ed. F. Flora, p. 831); Adimari’s “Bella totalmente brutta”: “Negro il sen,
torto il naso, occhio ineguale” (quoted in R.M. Jodi: “Poesia bernesca e
Marinismo” in La critica stilistica e il
barocco letterario: Atti del secondo congresso
internazionale di studi italiani, 1958, p. 265); Pietro Aretino’s Capitolo:
“Madonna, i vostri denti / Io ve’l vo dir, ma non l’habbiate a male, / Paiono
proprio gradi da far scale; / Onde quando ridete / vi fate tanto bella che
(ch’io muoia!) / Il vostro volto par quel di l’Ancroia! // ... // Madonna
quello fiato / Che si soavemente esce da voi / Avanza il musco delli cacatuoi.
/ Questo è l’odor che l’aria e’l ciel infetta / Et io, qualhor ragiono / Con
voi, gioco col capo alla Civetta” etc. (A. Einstein, The Italian Madrigal, I, pp. 174-5); Sir John Suckling’s “The
Deformed Mistress” “Her nose I'd have a foot long, not above, / with pimples
embroider’d, for those I love; / And at the end a comely pearl of snot, / considering
whether it should fall or not; / Her neck I’ll have to be pure jet at least, / with
yellow spots enamelled; & her breast, / like a grasshopper’s wing, both
thin & lean, / Not to be touch’d for dirt, unless swept clean” etc. (Poems, the Haworth Press, p. 81); G.
Greflinger’s “An eine Jungfrau”: “Das Haar ist rabenweiss, die Augen wie Rubin,
/ Der Mund ist himmelblau, so sticht die Nase hin, / Des Elefanten Schnabel, /
Die Zähne wie Gold / Und kurz wie eine Gabel — Ich bin Euch trefflich hold” (M.
Wehrli, Deutsche Barocklyrik, 3te
Aufl. S. 50) — all belong to the tradition of poesia bernesca. In this connection must be mentioned Shakespeare’s
sonnet CXXX: “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; / Coral is far more
red than her lips’ red; / If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; / If
hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head” etc. Such poems are different
from direct satires against ugly women like the anonymous “An eine sehr
hässliche Jungfrau”, in the 16th century German anthology Venusgärtlein (“Graues Haar voll Läus
und Nüsse, / Augen von Scharlack, voll Flüsse, / Blaues Maul voll kleiner
Knochen, / Halb verrost’ und halb zerbrochen” etc. quoted in Eduard Fuchs, Illustrierte Sittengeschichte,
Ergänzungsband, I, S. 6-7 or G.A. Stevens: “A Pastoral” (“By brick-dust Nan she
sat scratching her head, / Black matted locks frizzl’d her skull, / As bristles
the hedge-hog bespread; / The wind toss’d her tatters abroad, / Her ashy-bronz’d
beauties reveal’d: / ... // As vermin on vermin delight, / As carrion best
suits the crow’s taste, / So beggars & bunters unite, / And swine-like on
dirt make a feast” etc. — V. de Sola Pinto & A.E. Rodway, The Common Muses, pp. 233-4). To the
Bernesque tradition, however, belongs Baudelaire’s juvenile poem on Sarah
Louchette (“... elle porte perruque, / Tous ses beaux cheveux noirs ont fui sa
blanche nuque; / ... // Elle louche, et l’effet de ce regard étrange / Qu’ombragent
des cils noirs plus longs que ceux d’un ange, / Est tel que tous les yeux pour
qui l’on s’est damné / Ne valent pas pour moi son oeil juif et cerné. // Elle n’a
que vingt ans, la gorge déjà basse / Pend de chaque côté comme une calebasse, /
... // Cette bohème-là, c’est mon tout, ma richesse, / Ma perle, mon bijou, ma
reine, ma duchesse” etc.
— Oeuv. compl., “La Bibliothèque de la Pléiade”, pp. 58-9; cf. also
“Le Monstre” (p. 223-4) & the prose poem “Un cheval de race” (pp. 343-4);
& Mario Praz is wrong in assigning it to the category of Achillini’s
celebrated “La Bellissima Mendica” (The
Romantic Agony, 2nd ed., Eng. tr. A. Davidson, p. 41); Tristan
l’Hermite’s “La belle jeunesse” given in A.J. Steele[48],
Three Century of French Verse, p. 156
(Poésies, chosen by P.A. Wadsworth,
p. 126) is like Philip Ayres’s “Fair Beggar”, a translation of Achillini’s poem
which can be found in G.G. Ferrero, Marino
e i marinisti, p. 699, Baudelaire “A une mendiante rousse” is more or less
their company: “Blanche fille aux cheveux roux, / Dont la robe par ses trous /
Laisse voir la pauvreté / Et la beauté, // Pour moi, poète chétif, / Ton jeune
corps maladif, / Plein de taches de rousseur, / A sa douceur” etc. (pp. 155-6).
Cf. Altisidora’s song in Don Quijote, II, cap. 44: “No soy renca, ni soy coja, / Ni tengo
nada de manca; / Los cabellos, como lirios, / Que, en pie, por el suelo
arrastran. / Y, aunque es mi boca
aguileña / Y la nariz algo chata, / Ser mis dientes de topacios / Mi belleza al
cielo ensalza / ...” (“Clásicos Castellanos”, VII, p. 144). For
anaphrodisiacally ugly women, see Horace, Epodes,
viii & xii (Odes et Epodes,“Collection
des Universités de France”, pp. 213, 219), Machiavelli, Lettera a Luigi Guicciardini (Opere, Ricciardi, p. 1089). The poesia
bernesca is mocking & ironical in tone, while the baroque celebration
of “the beauty of the Medusa” is at most only playful & takes delight in
its own ingenuity in making the worse appear better. As Jodi says, “Se i
berneschi, come al solito, tendono alla parodia, alla comicità, con più
scoperta intenzione polemica, il barocchi puntano sulla modificazione del
solito schema, secondo un proposito di compiuta rappresentazione del mondo
nella molteplicità dei suoi aspetti” (op.
cit., p. 263). The berneschi
negate or transvaluate the generally accepted values and seem to say:
“Ugliness, be thou my Beauty!”; the barocchi,
on the other hand, affirm the traditional standards and try to grant a droit de cité to things hitherto barred
from the realm of values by showing that what is conventionally regarded as un
aesthetic or non-aesthetic also has some subtle aesthetic appeal & fulfills
the conventional requirements of beauty. Achillini’s “bellissima mendica”, for
instance, is a blonde like all the fair ladies of Italian literary tradition
(see J. Burckhardt, Die Kultur der
Renaissance in Italien, Berlin, 1928, S. 344; E. Rodocanachi, La femme italienne, p. 89) — in fact a
Laura encrusted with dirt & covered with rags! & her “ricca e prezioza
testa / che pioveran le chiome i nembi d’oro” proves her to be of the same
family as the subject of Bembo’s sonnet. Cf. 第七三八則.
Ignoto: “Deh! Lassa mi, tapina
sagurata, / Che son zovene e bela, / E fantinela fu’ incarcerata. / Ancora non
avea deze anni / Che fu serrata e stretta in queste mura. / E videmi spoiar li
dolze panni / E revestirme d’una veste bruna” etc. (Lucas, p. 164)【cf. B.
Menzini, Satira, quoted in U.
Limentani, La satira nel seicento, p.
313; Manzoni, I Promessi sposi, cap. 9
(Opere, 525 ff.)】【cf. 第五則 Saint-Évremond:
“Problème à l’imitation des Espagnols”】. This touching & charmingly naïve lament of a
young nun contrasts sharply with the coarse Lied
in the German Limburger Chronik: “Gott
geb ihm ein verdorben Jahr, / Der mich macht zu einer Nunnen, / Und mir den
schwarzen Mantel gab, / Den weissen Rok darunten! / Soll ich ein Nunn gewerden
/ Dann wider meinen willen, / So will ich auch einem knaben jung / Seinen
kummer stillen” (quoted in Eduard Fuchs, Illustrierte
Sittengeschichte: I, S. 204) or “Ein
Klagelied einer jungen Klosterjungfrauen”, “Die weltliche Nonne” (Ib., Ergänzungsband,
I, S. 62). The most beautiful modern poem on this theme is Ricarda Huch’s “Die
Nonne” (Wm. Rose, A Book of Modern German
Lyric Verse, p. 18). B. Menzini in his 6th satire also attcks “le
monacazioni forzate” (see U. Limentani, La
satira nel seicento, p. 313-4 quoting also Arcangela Tarabotti). Cf. Stanislas
Julien’s version of “Ni-Kou-Sse-Fan” versified by Chamisso, Die Klage der Nonne (Elizabeth Selden, China in German Poetry from 1773 to 1833,
p. 214); 第七二九則 on《全唐文》卷二一六陳子昂〈館陶郭公姬薛氏墓志銘〉for the earliest klaglied of a Chinese buddhist nun[49],
& see also Luigi Carrer’s sentimental “La suora” (L. Baldacci, Poeti minori dell’Ottocento, I, p. 205
ff.). “The reluctant novice” is also one of the topoi in Spanish traditional poetry (see B.W. Wardropper’s article
in The Romantic Review, Dec. 1964,
pp. 241 ff.); in one poem the girl desires a monastic life to avoid an unhappy
marriage: “Monjica en religión / me quiero entrar, / por non mal maridar” (Julio
Cejador y Frauca, La verdadera poesía
castellana, p. 591, quoted p. 246)
— which forms a fresh
variation on a well-known theme.【Cf. the French folk song Clover, the complaint of a Breton seminarian
whose love-sickness makes him uncertain of his priestly vocation (A. Preminger,
Encyclopedia of Poetry & Poetics,
p. 284).】
Alessando Tassoni: “Ai suoi Parenti”:
“Parenti miei (se alcun ve n’è restato), / Dio ti dia bene e vi mantenga sani:
/ In quanto a me, già v’ho donato ai cani, / Nè vo’ mai più che me ne sia
parlato. / Parenti, che vi crede sia frustato. / Più presto i Turchi, più
presto i marrani, / Più presto i frati m’ abbian nelle mani, / Che fidarmi mai
più di parentato. / ... / E se alcun mi riprende in fra le genti, / Si possa
imparentar ca’ miei parenti” (Lucas, pp. 290-1). I have come across many bitter
sayings on friends from, e.g.
La connétable de
Montmorency’s “Mon Dieu, protégez-moi contre mes amis; quand à mes ennemis, je m’en charge” (Larousse du 20e Siècle, II,
p. 146) to Whistler’s “They say that
I cannot keep a friend —
my dear, I cannot afford it” (The Gentle
Art of Making Enemies, p. 234), Ibsen’s “Friends are expensive luxury,
& when a man’s whole capital is invested in a calling & a mission in
life, he cannot afford to keep them” (To G. Brandes, Correspondence, tr. Mary Morison, p.
183) & Renard’s “Un ami de moins, quel soulagement!” (Journal, p. 217), but this is the only poem known to me on that
other scourge in social life — relations. Cf. the old inscription: “Amici
nemici — parenti serpenti — cugini assassini — fratelli coltelli” (G.
Fumagalli, Chi l’ha detto?, 9a
ed., p. 124); & Pubilius
Syrus’s famous adage: “Ita
amicum habeas, posse ut facile fieri hunc inimicum putes” (§284; Minor Latin Poets, “The Loeb Class. Lib.”,
p. 50). 方中通《續陪》卷一〈行路難‧之七〉:“不難於小人之翻覆,而難於君子之波瀾。不難於仇讎之報復,而難於骨肉之摧殘。不逢君子無骨肉,人生那得獲此福?”
Vittorio Alfieri: “Alla Camera di
Petrarca”: “O cameretta, che già in te chiudesti / Quel grande alia cui fama
angusto e il mondo” (Lucas, p. 371). Cf. Bertrand Russell, Portraits from Memory, p. 112: “On one occasion the Shah of Persia came &
my grandfather apologized for the smallness of the house. The Shah replied politely,
‘Yes, it is a small house, but it contains a great man.’”
Michelangelo Buonarroti: “Soneto”: “Al
legno incenerato sega o tarlo, / o dietro a un correndo, è gran vergogna / c’ha
perso e ferma ogni destrezza e moto” (George Kay, The Penguin Book of Italian Verse, p. 169). Cf. proverbs like “Quando
il pagliaio vecchio piglia fuoco, si spenge male” etc. given in A. Arthaber, Dizionario comparato di
Proverbi, pp. 489
& 703. La Bruyère also says: “C’est une grande difformité dans la nature qu’un
vieillard amoureux” (Les Caractères,
“De l’homme”, §101), and Corneille agrees with him: “Un vieillard amoureux mérite
qu’on en rit” (Médée, II. iii). But
fortunately Nature provides the prophylactics as witness Oswald Couldrey’s
graceful triolet “Release”: “The youthful shapes that please my eyes / No
longer plague my heart. / Middle age disarms & sanctifies / The youthful
shapes that please my eyes. / Like strains of heavenly music rise / And
harmlessly depart / The youthful shapes that please my eyes / No longer plague
my heart” (A. Silcock, Verse & Worse,
p. 195).
G.B. Marino: “Fede rotta”: “Sovra
l’umida arena / de le latine sponde / di propria man Tirrena / queste parole un
dì scriver vid’io: / Mirzio è sol l’amor mio. / Ahi fu ben degna di sì fral
parola, / crudel, l’arena sola; onde poi l’onde / e del Tebro in un punto e de
l’oblio / Mirzio, ch’era il tu’amore, / radessero dal lido e dal tuo core”
(Kay, p. 219). Cf. Lingendes: “Alcidon parle”: “Fillis auprès de cet ormeau / Où
paissait son petit troupeau / Estant toute triste et pensive, / De son doit escrivit
un jour / Sur le sablon de cette rive: / Alcidon est mon seul amour. // ... // Un
petit vent qui s’éslevait / En mesme temps qu’elle escrivait / Cette preuve si
peu durable, / Effacea sans plus de longueur / Sa promesse dessus le sable / Et
son amour dedans son coeur” (J. Rousset, Anthologie
de la poésie baroque française, I, p. 87; p. 262: “oeuv. poétiques”, éd. Griffiths, 1916, p. 165, Imité de la Diane de Montemaior, Liv. I, Cancion de
Sireno “Sobre el arena sentada...”); Spenser, Amoretti, sonnet 75: “One day I wrote her name upon the strand, / But
came the waves and washed it away” etc. (Works,
Variorum, ed. by E. Greenlaw & others, Minor
Poems, II, p. 226); Landor: “Well I remember how you smiled / To see me
write your name upon / The soft sea-sand — ‘O! what a child! / You think you’re
writing upon stone!” etc. (Imaginary
Conversations & Poems, “Everyman’s Lib.”, p. 351). Let us look at
Eduard Morike’s little poemon the marks in the snow: “Zierlich ist des Vogels
Tritt im Schnee, / Wenn er wandelt auf des Berges Höh’: / Zerlicher schreibt
Liebchens liebe Hand, / Shreibt ein Brieflein mir in ferne Land’. // In die
Lüfte hoch ein Reiher steigt, / Dahin weder Pfeil noch Kugel fleugt: / Tausendmal
so hoch und so geschwind / Die Gedanken treuer Liebe sind” (“Jägerlied”, H.G.
Fiedler, The Oxford Book of German Verse,
2nd ed., p. 369). The distinction between the two poems is one
between a closed universe and an open universe, between a windowless though
brilliantly lit-up monad & casements opening on a richly varied world,
between the stream-lined mechanism & the stream of life, between — if I may
say so — determinism & freedom. In Marino’s neatly rounded universe of
discourse, everything is pre-arranged, including the little surprise at the
end, which one has all along expected, like the peripeteia in a Schicksalstragödie. Marino, who said “È
del poeta il fin la meraviglia” (La
Murtoleide, Fischiata xxxiii; G.-G. Ferrero, Marino e i Marinisti, p. 627; cf. also 第七三八則), and aimed at bravura (cf.
W. Binni, ed., I Classici Italiani nella
Storia della Critica, II, p. 75 & Mario Praz, The Flaming Heart, p. 251) or what may be called striking beauty, did not understand the
quietness of great art (see supra 第六百四十九則, 六百六十八則 & 六百八十九則; also六百八十四則 on Keats’s Letters,
ed. H.E. Rollins, I, p. 224). Cf. the idea of the anti-baroque Arcadia: “la
vera bellezza non è strepitosa, nè si mostra con fatto soperchiando l’occhio di
chi mira. Ella si dà a vedere per lo più in un dolcissimo lume, e nel suo primo
apparire non compare mai tutta, ma però invoglia chi l’ha veduta a rivederla” (il
Padre Ceva, quoted in L. Russo, ed., Antologia
della critica letteraria, II, p. 379). Hegel’s distinction of the two
aspects of a work of art, “die Ruhe in sich und die Wendung gegen den Beschauer”
(Ästhetik, IIIter Teil,
Einleit., Aufbau-Verlag, S. 582), is fundamentally sound & Marino is
preoccupied with tha latter at the expense of of the former. Coleridge, The Table-Talk & Omniana, ed. T.
Ashe, Jan. 1, 1834: “Beauty is an immediate presence, between (inter) which and
the beholder nihil est. It is always
one & tranquil; whereas the interesting always disturbs & is disturbed”
(Ed. George Bell & Sons, p. 269); E.M Forster, Aspects of the Novel, p. 133: “... but beauty ought to look a
little surprised: it is the emotion that best suits her face, as Botticelli
knew when he painted her risen from the waves.... The beauty who does not look
surprised... reminds us too much of a prima donna” — a fine point: beauty
looking surprised rather than beauty arousing surprise. Cf. John Constable’s
ideal in painting: “Sparkle with repose... is my struggle just now” (quoted in
E. Gombrich, Art & Illusion, 5th
ed., 1977, p. 327). As Emanuel Geibel puts it: “Zweck? Das Kunstwerk hat nur
einen, / Still im eignen Glanz zu ruhn; / Aber durch ihr bloss Erscheinen / Mag
die Schönheit Wunder tun” (“Sprüche”, iii, Fiedler, p. 406). Wonder or
astonishment may be the effect, but is certainly not the aim, of poetry, just
as a little boy’s tearful rage after repeated failures to cross the pons asinorum is the effect but not the
aim of Euclid. Flaubert à Maxim du Camp: “Le succès me parait être un résultat,
et non le but” (Corr., éd. Conard,
II, p. 442). Croce, Estetica, 10a
ed., p. 221 cited in this connection from Pallavicino’s Del Bene G. Chiabrera’s remark “la poesia è obbligato di fare
inarcare le ciglia” (cf. Montaigne: “La mort est le bout, mais non le but de la
vie”). Cf. Dickens: “The true romances or poetry of human life or external nature is not to be found so
as to awaken a response in any reasonable breast, by crying, ‘Lo here! Lo
there! See where it comes! Look where it goes. This is it! That is it! The
other is it!’ — but in unaffectedly presenting it with the art of scanning to
leave it to present itself” (Letters,
ed. Walter Dexter, Nonesuch ed., III, p. 774).【Voltaire,
Zadig: “Le ...”[50]
(Romans et contes, La Pléiade, p. 46).】【Bouhours,
Les Entretiens d’Ariste et d’Eugène,
I: “Une Dame Espagnole... écrivit avec son doigt ces mots surlesable. Antes muerta que mudada. Celuy pour qui
ces paroles étroient un aprés... Mira el
amor que ordena, / Que os viene hazer
creer / Cosas dichas por muger, /
Y escritas en el arena” (éd. Armond
Colin, p. 20).】【Cf. Stendahl, Le
Rouge et le Noir on “l’horreur de l’imprévu” among ladies & gentlemen
(Mme de la Mole in ch. 35, M. Charles de Beauvaisis in ch. 36).】
Marino: “L’amore incostante”: “... /
Proteo d’amor novello, / ... / Ogni beltà, ch’io veggia, / il cor mi
tiranneggia; / ... / O vezzosa e lasciva, / o ritrosetta e schiva, / ... / Gota
bianca e vermiglia, / ... / pallido e smorto volto, / ... / bruno ciglio,
occhio oscuro e guancia mora, / ... / Insomma, e queste e quelle / per me tutte
son belle” (Kay, pp. 221-7). Cf. John Donne: “The Indifferent”: “I can love
both faire & browne, / Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betraies,
/ ... / Her who still weepes with spungie eyes, / And her who is dry corke, &
never cries; / I can love her, & her, & you & you, / I can love
any, so she be not true. / ... / Venus
heard me sigh this song, / And by Loves sweetest Part, Variety, she swore” etc.
(Complete Poetry & Selected Prose,
ed. John Hayward, p. 7; cf. “Change”, p. 68-9; “Variety”, p. 91-3; “A Defence
of Womens Inconstancy”, pp. 335-6). Besides Marino with his pirouetting grace &
gay innocence, Donne seems gruff & ill-mannered, but the snarl & bite
in Donne’s poem reveal a deeper soul-stream. Cf., in a different sense, the
Sullen Shepherd in John Fletcher’s The
Faithful Shepherdess, II. iii: “All to me in sight / Are equal; be they
fair, or black, or brown, / Virgin, or careless wanton, I can crown / My
appetite with any” (Beaumont & Fletcher, Select Plays, “Everyman’s Library”, p. 263; cf. III. i, p. 272: “He
shall yield her me: / Now lust is up, alike all women be”). Cf. 第七四○則.【“A standing prick has no conscience, & an
itching cunt feels no shame”[51]
(E. Partridge, A Dict. of Catch Phrases,
p. 200).】For a theoretical justification of inconstancy, see
Étienne Durant’s “Stances à l’Inconstance”: “Notre esprit n’est que vent, et
comme un vent volage, / Ce qu’il nomme constance est un branle rétif, / Ce
qu’il pense aujourd’hui, demain n’est qu’un ombrage, / Le passé n’est plus
rien, le futur un nuage, / Et ce qu’il tient présent, il le sent fugitif” etc.
(A.J. Steele, Three Centuries of French
Verse, pp. 119-121; cf. Jean Rousset, La
littérature de l’âge baroque en France, nouv. éd., pp. 43-7 on inconstance or amour de changer as a characteristic theme in baroque literature
& Rousset, Anthologie de la poésie
baroque française, I, p. 9 on Marino’s “Qui propose l’analogie de l’Amour inconstant et d’un Protée d’amour”; Rousset makes a witty
distinction “l’inconstance noir” & “l’incontance blanche” on p. 6 of his
Introduction to the Anthology, but neither in the Introduction nor in the book on
baroque literature has he quoted in this connection the “white” ideas of
inconstancy expounded by St. Évremond in L’amitié
sans amitié — see H.T. Barnwell, Les Idées
Morales et Critiques de St. Évremond, pp. 74, 89 — or the “black” ideas of
Pascal in Pensées, II, 110, 112, 127,
129 etc. — éd. V. Giraud, pp. 99, 100, 103); G.A. de Chaulieu’s witty “Apologie
de l’Inconstance”: “Vous seuls faites la puissance / De l’empire de l’amour; / Sans
vous, bientôt la constance / Aurait dépeuplé sa cour / ... / Aimons donc,
changeons sans cesse; / Chaque jour nouveaux désirs; / C’est assez que la
tendresse / Dure autant que les plaisirs” etc. (Steele, pp. 218-9); Donne’s, Paradoxes & Problems in which he “against
any man will maintaine” that inconstancy is not
“a bad quality” & should be properly called “Variety”; Earl of Rochester’s
“Love & Life”: “All my past life is mine no more; / The flying hours are
gone, / Like transitory dreams given o’er, / Whose images are kept in store / By
memory alone. // The time that is to come is not; / How can it then be mine? / The
present moment’s all my lot; / And that, as fast as it is got, / Phillis, is
only thine. // Then talk not of inconstancy, / False hearts, & broken vows;
/ If I by miracle can be / This live-long minute true to thee, / ’Tis all that
Heaven allows” (Poems, ed. V. de Sola
Pinto, “The Muses’ Library”, 2nd ed., p. 24; also p. 10 “A dialogue
between Strephon & Daphne”: “Since tis Natures Law to Change, / Constancy
alone is strange”; also pp. 43-4 “A Very Heroical Epistle, in Answer to Ephelia”);
Patrick Carey’s “To the Tune of ‘Bobbing Joan’” & “To the Tune — ‘But I
fancy Lovely Nancy’” (Saintsbury, Minor
Poets of the Caroline Period, II, pp. 456, 457-8). This is the main idea of
the letter dictated by la Marquise de Merteuil to be sent to Mme de Tourvel (Liaisons dangereuses, Lettre 141): “On s’ennuie
de tout, mon Ange, c’est une loi de la Nature; ce n’est pas ma faute” (Pléiade,
p. 408; cf. Tallemant des Réaux on Ninon de Lenclos: “Elle vieillit, elle
devient constante”), All this does not add up to much and has as little force
as Sir W.S. Gilbert’s pun in defence of his inconstancy: “I am too good to be
true!” (S. Dark & R. Grey, W.S.
Gilbert, His Life & Letters, p. 209). Cf. infra 第七四○則,
第七六五則 (Byron, Don
Juan, II, 211).
Giuseppe Giusti: “La Guigliottina a
vapore”: “Hanno fatto nella China / una macchina a vapore / per mandar la guigliottina: / questa macchina in tre
ore / fa la testa a cento mila / messi in fila” etc.[52]
(Kay, p. 305). In Giusti’s Prose e Poesie
Scelte, ed. Ulrico Hoepli there is a not (p. 136): “I commentatori notano
che la China è il Paese classico dei supplizi feroci.” Anatole France, too,
wrote: “Il me restait de ces nouvelles... l’idée d’un peuple abominablement
féroce et plein de politesse” (La vie
littéraire, III, pp. 77 ff.,
“Contes chinois”, the
quotation is on p. 80). This view of China, which contains some truth &
which is confirmed afresh by the newly-discovered technique of “brain-washing”【文化大革命】, is the point of departure of Octave Mirbeau’s fantastic Le Jardin des supplices.
Giusti: “La chiocciola”: “Contenta
ai comodi / che Dio le fece, / può dirsi il Diogene / della sua specie; / per
prender aria / non passa l’uscio; / nelle abitudini / del proprio guscio / sta
persuasa, / e non intasa: / viva la chiocciola / bestia da casa” etc. (Kay, p.
307). Cf. A.V. Arnault, Fables, I. 4:
“Enfin, chez soi, comme en prison, / Vieillir de jour en jour plus triste, / C’est
l’histoire de l’égoïste, / Et celle du colimaçon” (quoted in Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi, VII, p. 510).【Nietzsche,
Morgenröte: “Die Schlange, welche
sich nicht häuten kann, geht zugrunde. Ebenso die Geister, welche man
verhindert, ihre Meinungen zu wechseln; sie hören auf, Geist zu sein.”】To
make the snail a symbol of the cowardly snug & smug “homebody” is almost to
turn the tables on Donne’s “Verses to Sir Henry Wotton”: “Be then thine own
home, & in thyself dwell; / Inn anywhere; continuance maketh hell. / And
seeing the snail, which everywhere doth roam, / Carrying his own house still,
still is at home” (Poems, Oxford, p.
161). The Greeks already called the snail “the house-carrier” (Hesiod, Works & Days, 569, “The Loeb Class.
Lib.”, p. 45; The Deipnosophists, II,
63, “The Loeb Class. Lib.”, I, p. 275); Lyly’s Euphues also contains the following passage: “I would it were in
Naples a law which was a custome in Aegypt, that woemen should alwayes go
barefoote, to the intent they might keepe themselves alwayes at home, that they
shoulde be ever like to yt Snaile, which hath ever his house on his head” (Complete Works, ed. R.W. Bond, I, pp.
223-4;《陸桴亭先生詩集》卷九〈五蟲吟和陸鴻逵〉第四首〈蝸以牛名〉:“引重原從利物稱,如君衹足戴家行”〔蝸名“戴家蟲”〕). A late 18th-century Italian poet even
made the snail a symbol of cuckoldry by poking fun at it domesticity as well as
his horns: “Stai sempre in casa guardian gelaso / di moglie infida e bella, / che
di ramosa cresta / t’ornò la fronte; e non rifletti, o sposo, / che la lumaca
anch’ella. / Sta sempre in casa, ed ha le corna in testa” (P.L. Grossi in D.
Provenzal, Dizionario umoristico, 4a
ed., p. 217) — what a far cry from Shakespeare’s perceptive lines on “the
tender horns of the cockled snails” & “As the snail, whose tender horns being
hit, / Shrinks backward in his shelly cave with pain” (Love’s Labour Lost, IV. iii, 338 & Venus & Adonis, 1033-4; cf. Goethe, Faust, I. 4067 (quoted below à propos of “Römische Elegien”), over
which Keats enthused (Letters, ed.
H.E. Rollins, I, p. 189), & Keats’s own beautiful phrase, “that trembling
delicate & snail-horn perception of Beauty” (Ibid., I, p. 265).【John Clare: “Summer Images” (1824 version): “And
note on hedgerow baulks, in moisture sprent, / The jetty snail creep from the
mossy thorn, / With earnest heed & tremulous intent, / Frail brother of the
morn, / That from the tiny bent’s dew-misted leaves / Withdraws his timid horn”
(John & Anne Tibble, John Clare: His
Life & Poetry, p. 153).】But Shakespeare, too, once made the snail an emblem
of married man when Rosalind in her “love-prate” said: “I had as lief be woo’d
of a snail... for though he comes slowly, he carries his house on his head — a
better jointure, I think, than you make a woman. Besides, he brings his destiny
with him... Why, horns, which such as you are fain to be beholding to your
wives for” (As You Like It, IV. i).
In a ribald 19th-century German Gassenlied
the snail even becomes a phallic symbol: “Was hilft’s, wenn ich lang spiele / Mit
seinem Schneckenhaus, / Der Schneck hat kein Gefühle, / Er will ja nicht
heraus. / Am kitzeln und am spielen / Hat er noch eine Lust, / Vom Ehgesetz
erfüllen, / Ist ihm nichts mehr bewusst” (E. Fuchs, Illustrierte Sittengeschichte, Ergänzungsband, III, S. 227) — the
tradition was very old, cf. I. Bloch, Prostitution,
II, S. 313 on a Roman carved stone representing Messalina: “... eine Schnecke
(das Symbol der Geilheit)...” In Modern German slang, however, “Schnecke” slao
means “vulva” & hence “hübsches junges mädchen” (cf. H. Küpper, Wörterbuch der deutschen Umgangssprache).
In Coriolanus, IV. vi, Menenius
implies the snail in his metaphor for a brave general: “’Tis Aufidius, / Who,
hearing of our Marcius’ banishment, / Thrusts forth his horns again into the
world; / Which were inshell’d when Marcius stood for Rome, / And durst not once
peep out.” Contrast with Keats’s passage the following from Coleridge, Table Talk, ed. T. Ashe, p. 368: “our ‘sober
judicious critics’, the men of ‘sound common sense’; i.e., those snails of
intellect, who wear their eyes at the tips of their feelers, & cannot even
see unless at the same time they touch.”
Ugo Foscolo: “A Luigia Pallavicini
caduta da cavallo”: “Pèra chi... / ... / aprì con rio consiglio / nuovo a beltà
periglio!” (Kay, p. 242). Cf. John Arbuthnot’s remark that Edmund Curll’s
fabrication of lives & letters of deceased celebrities was “one of the new
terrors of death.”
Foscolo: “La Grazie”: “Spesso per l’altre
età, se l’idioma / d’Italia correrà puro a’ nepoti, / ... / tento ritrar ne'
versi miei la sacra / danzatrice, men bella allor che siede, / men di te bella,
o gentil sonatrice, / ... / ... Ma se danza, / vedila! tutta l’armonia del
suono / scorre dal suo bel corpo, e dal sorriso / della sua bocca; e un moto,
un atto, un vezzo / manda agli sguardi venustà improvvisa. / E chi pinger la
può?” etc. (Kay, p. 242). Frank Kermode, in pointing out the importance of the
dancers as an emblem of art in the fin-de-siècle
English poetry, recalled Heine’s “continued interest in the dance” (Romantic Image, p. 67). But Foscolo in
this magnificent poem had anticipated Heine. The tradition studied by Kermode
persists in Valery’s remark on dancing: “l’acte pur des métamorphoses... ni la
figuration, ni l’expression, la pure fonction”[53]
(quoted in H. Hatzfeld, Trends &
Styles in the 20th-century French Literature, pp. 199-200). Just
as “the harlot is one that herself is both merchant & merchandise” (Thomas
Fuller, The Holy & the Profane State),
so the dancer is both artist & artifact.
Giovanni Pascoli: “Il Gelsomino
notturno”: “Sotto l’ali dormono i nidi, / come gli occhi sotto le ciglia” (Kay,
p. 332). Cf. Tennyson: “Song of the Lotos-Eaters”: “Music that gentlier on the
spirit lies, / Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes” (The Oxford Book of English Verse, p. 828); Gérard de Nerval: “Vers
dorés”: “Et comme un oeil naissant couvert par ses paupières, / un pur esprit s’accroît
sous l’écorce des pierres ‘!” (Oeuv. comp.,
“Pléiade”, I, p. 39); Hugo, En voyage,
Le 7 juillet 1836: “... au milieu de l’océan mat et
sans reflets, on voyait s’éteindre le soleil sur lequel s’abaissait une
paupière de nuages”; “Ce que dit la Bouche d’ombre” (Les Contemplations, Liv. IV, no. 26): “Les fleurs souffrent sous le
ciseau / Et se ferment ainsi que des paupières closes.”
Der Guotaere: “Hie vor ein werder
ritter lac / Tôt siech dâ an dem bette sîn. / Sô schoene ein vrouwe vür in gie
/ daz er sô hô ir schoene wac: / ... / ... // Von golde ir krône, wol geberlt /
ir wât ir gürtel ir vürspan: / ... / Sî sprach zuo zim ‘ich binz diu Werlt, /
du solt mich hinden schouwen an: / ... / Ir was der rucke vleisches hol, / er
was gar kroten würme vol / und stanc alsam ein vûler hunt. / Dô weinet er und
sprach ‘owê daz dir wart ie mîn dienest kunt!’” (Leonard Forster, The Penguin Book of German Verse, p. 39).
Cf. Gracián in El Criticón, ch. 7: “La
fuente de los Engaños”: “Le roi de cet
État... c’est le
mensonges,... prince si bien dissimulé qu’on ne le peut voir qu’en lui tournant
le dos et s’aidant d’un miroir, ‘car on ne saurait bien voir les choses du
monde qu’en les regardant è rebours’” (Jean Rousset, La littérature de l’âge baroque en France, p. 24; on p. 228 is
quoted: “la seule façon de le [le monde] bien noir, c’est de le regarder ‘tout
an contraire de ce qu’il paraît, parce que toutes choses y vont à rebours.’”).
In the preface to his Anthologie de la
poésie baroque française (I, p. 17), Rousset speaks of the haunting sense
of death in the 17th cent. Which found expression in “le spectacle
de la mort”: “Tel est le sens de ces singulières anamorphoses ou portraits
doubles d’un visage qu’il suffit de retourner pour le voir changer en tête de
mort.”This points the same moral as the episode of “風月寶鑑” in《紅樓夢》第十二回:“拿起寶鑑來向反面一照,只見一個骷髏兒立在裡面。”
Anonymous: “Brunnenberch”: “Se leben
Brunnenberch up einen disch, / se rêten en recht wo einen visch, / se nêmen ein
ût sîn herte, / dat dede dem helde gôt schmerte. / Se nêmen em ût sîn junge
herte fîn, / recht so einem wildenschwîn, / vorweldent in einem peper, / se
gevent der schösten to eten” etc. (Forster, p. 47). Cf. Boccaccio, Il Decamerone, IV. 1: “Tancredi prenze
di Salerno uccide l’amante della figliuola e mandale il cuore in una coppa
d’oro” (ed. Ulrico Hoepli, pp. 249 ff.). Cf. also Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, V. iii; the ballad “Clerk
Saunders” (The Oxford Book of Eng. Verse,
pp. 415 ff.); the folksong “The Bold Dragoon” (J. Reeves, The Everlasting Circle, pp. 59).
Simon Dach: “Anno 1647 des Nachts,
da ich vor Engbrüstigheit nicht hab schlaffen können, auff dem Bette gemacht”:
“Wie? Ist es denn nicht genug, gern einmal sterben wollen? / Natur, Verhängnüs,
Gott, was haltet ihr mich auf? / ... / Was kränkt es, fertig sein und sich
verweilen sollen! / Ist Sterben ein Gewinn? O mir ein teurer Kauf! / ... / Die allerletzte Pein ist, gläub ich, ärger nicht, /
Als leben müssen, tot sein wollen und nicht können” (Forster, pp. 112-3). Cf.
Roland Barthes, Le Plaisir du texte, édition
du Seuil, 1973, p. 70: “La nausée arrive dès que la liaison de deux mots
importants va de soi... Le stéréotype
c’est cette impossibilité nauséeuse de mourir”; Agrippa d’Aubigné’s
breath-taking line: “De l’enfer il ne sort / Que l’éternelle soif de l’impossible
mort” (Tragiques, “Jugements”, ll/
1021-2; Steele, p. 75) might be applied here. This is what Dante means when he
makes Virgil say of the damned souls in hell: “Che la seconda morte ciascun
grida”[54]
(Inf. I. 117, see Sapegno’s note in his
ed. of La Div. Com., p. 15-6). Cf.
Gryphius’ sonnet “Die Hölle”: “O grausam Angst! stets sterben, sonder sterben!”
(quoted in J. Rousset, La litt. de l’âge
baroque en France, nouv. éd., p. 287). John Webster, The Dutchess of Malfi, IV. i: Dutchess:
“That’s the greatest torture souls feel in hell / In hell, that they must live,
& cannot die” (Webster & Ford, Plays,
“Everyman’s Library”, p. 151); John Ford, ’Tis
Pity She’s A Whore, III. vi: Friar: “... in this place / Dwell many
thousand thousand sundry sorts / Of never-dying deaths: ... / ... / There is
the murderer forever stabb’d / Yet he cannot die” (ib., p. 306).《魏叔子文集》卷一〈地獄論上〉:“刑莫慘於求死不得,求死不得,莫甚於死可復生,散可復聚,血肉糜爛可成體,以展轉於刀鋸鼎鑊之中,百千萬年而無有已極”;《觀佛三昧海經‧觀佛心品第四》刻劃無間地獄中罪人每曰:“悶絕而死,死已復生”;“獄卒復以鐵叉打地,喚言活活,應聲即穌”;“死已唱活”等等;參觀七二四則論《太平廣記》卷三八四〈許琛〉;Paradise
Lost, X. 782-3, 798:
“Yet one doubt / Pursues me still, least all I cannot die, / ... / Can he make
deathless Death?” Cf. Keats: “Hyperion, a Vision”, Canto I on Moneta’s “wan
face”: “bright-blanch’d / By an immortal sickness which kills not; / It works a
constant change which happy death / Can put no end to” (Poems, “Everyman’s Lib.”, p. 291). Cf. Orlando Furioso, X. 55: “E per dar fine a tanto aspro martire, / Spesso
si duol di non poter morire. / Morir non puote alcuna fata mai” (ed. Ulrico
Howpli, p. 87); also cf. St. John Oliver Gogarty’s terrible remark on his
dangerous illness through poisoning: “The pain was so great I had thought death
would be an insufficient narcotic” (Wm. Rothenstein, Since Fifty, p. 249).
Angelus Silesius: “Gelassenheit fäht
Gott, Gott aber selbst zu lassen / Ist ein’ Gelassenheit, die wenig Menschen
fassen” (Forster, p. 144). Cf.《莊子‧知北遊第二十二》:“予能有無矣,而未能無無也”;《維摩詰所説經‧文殊師利問疾品第五》:“以空空”《智度論》卷四十六:“一切法空,是空亦空,是名‘空空’”;龍樹菩薩《中論‧觀行品第十三》:“大聖說空法,為離諸見故,若復見有空,諸佛所不化”;〈觀湼槃品第二十五〉:“湼槃無有有,何處當有無?” See
below on Mme Guyon. 《朱子語類》97 論明道語“既得後,便須放開”之非“有意放開”(《河南二程遺書》卷三)。【Simone Weil: “We must not even become attached to
detachment.”】【葉苕生《吹網錄》卷一引顧陳垿《抱桐讀書眼》釋“子絕四”云:“意、必、固、我,常人之情。毋意、必、固、我者,賢人之學。并絶去禁止之迹,自然無此四者,則聖人之不可及也。‘絶四’是‘絶四毋’。”】
Goethe: “Römische Elegien”, V: “Und
belehr’ ich mich nicht, wenn ich des lieblichen Busens / Formen spähe, die Hand
leite die Hüften hinab? / Dann versteh’ ich den Marmor erst recht: ich denk’
und vergleiche, / Sehe mit fühlendem Aug’, fühle mit sehender Hand. / ... / Überfällt
sie der Schlaf, lieg’ ich und denke mir viel. / Oftmals hab ich auch schon in
ihren Armen gedichtet / Und des Hexameters Ma leise mit fingernder Hand, / Ihr
auf den Rücken gezählt” (Forster, p. 220; Goethes
Werke in zehn Bänden, hrsg. Buchwald, Bd. IV, S. 258). In Faust, Iter Theil, “Walpurgisnacht”,
Mephisto speaks of the snail with his tactile sight “mit ihrem tastenden
Gesicht” (407). One also thinks of the blinded Gloucester’s tremendous words
about his son in King Lear, IV. i: “Might
I but live to see thee in my touch, / I’ld say I had eyes again!” (Complete Works, ed. G.L. Kittredge, p.
1224). The beautiful phrase “tactile eyes” & “visual hands” which almost
adumbrate Bernhard Berenson’s famous “tactile values”[55]
(“The illusion of varying muscular sensations inside my palms & fingers
corresponding to the various projections of this figure” — Florentine Painters
of the Renaissance, p. 5[56]),
cf. George du Maurier, Trilby: “Little
Billee had the quick, prehensile, aesthetic
eye” (“Everyman’s Library”, p. 14; again p. 166), refer not to Einfühlung but to “die sinnliche
Erganzung des asthetischen Gegenstandes”: “Die Eigenschaften der Dinge, die für
andere Sinne aus das Gesicht vorhanden sind, andeutungsweise sich doch auch für
das Gesicht bemerkbar machen können” (J. Volkelt, System der Ästhetik, Bd. I, S. 111); but Goethe’s approach is the
modern formalist one which leads to empathy, i.e. “Reduktion des Körpers auf
den Gesamtschein seiner Oberfläche”[57]
(Fr. Vischer, quoted in Volkelt, I, S. 310). Cf. “Our fingers have eyes he
[Jean Fernel] told us & further have the virtue that they see only what
their eyes vouchsafe” (Lettres choisies
de feu Mr Guy Patin quoted in Charles Sherrington, Man on His Nature, p. 63); “one of the
examples chosen by Helvétius to illustrate his theory is the low mentality of
animals such as the horse. The extremities of these creatures, their hoofs, are
covered with insensitive horn, & if we consider how much knowledge we owe
to the delicacy of our hands, the reasoning of Helvétius appears most plausible”
(E. Rickward, Rimbaud, quoted in Edith
Sitwell, A Poet’s Notebook, p. 38); “La
vue est un toucher à longue portée, avec la sensation de couleur en plus... Il
y a voir et regarder, entendre et écouter... Il y a de même toucher et palper.
Le médecin palpe l’estomac de son malade, le drapier palpe ses étoffes. Mais en
dehors de quelques cas particuliers, le clairvoyant ne palpe pas. Il est porté
à juger par la vue même des qualités sensibles qui ressortissent directement
au toucher, dont le toucher seul est
juge compétent.... Le caractère de la sensation tactile est d’être analytique” (Pierre
Villey, Le Monde des Aveugles, pp. 6,
70-1, 160); “Women have three sets of eyes. In their fingers for curtains &
stuff. In the backs of their heads for their back hair. And all over them for
any other woman. The eyes in the front of their face are not used for seeing
with, but for improving the appearance”
(Joyce Cary, The Horse’s Mouth, ch. 17); “When it
came to literary criticism, Murry’s very weakness turned to strength... (like
the blind man’s touch)...” (F.A. Lea, John
Middleton Murry, p. 86). Blake somewhere speaks of the “blind hand”[58]
(June E. Downey, Creative Imagination,
p. 102; cf.《品花寶鑑》第五十一回:“李元茂笑道:‘你笑我是近視眼,看不見,我的手難道也是近視,摸不出麼?’”; Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: “Verde embeleso de la
vida humana”: “tengo en entrambas manos ambos ojos / y solamente lo que toco
veo” — F.J. Warnke, European
Metaphysical Poetry, p. 274; the French phrase for the delicate sense of
touch: “Avoir des yeux au bout des goigt”) & Rilke of the blind woman’s
hands feeling the breath of a rose: “Und fühlte: nah bei meinen Händen ging / der
Atem einer grossen weißen Rose” (“Die Blinde”, in Werke, Insel Verlag, 1957, I, S. 152). Goethe’s verbal alchemy has transmitted
the eroticism of the scene into poetry; how ridiculous the sort of scene can be
if the golden touch of poetry is lacking is shown by the episode in《野叟曝言》第八回(“畫天畫地恍圖周髀遺經”)between 文素臣 & 璇姑 after a lesson in geometry[59].
Goethe has good reason to speak of “das mildernde Schönheitsprincip” (cf. G.F.
Senior & C.V. Bock, Goethe the Critic,
pp. 31, 115). John Aubrey, Brief Lives,
ed. O.L. Dick, “Ann Arbor Paperbacks”, p. 150: “I have heard Mr
Hobbes say that he was wont to draw lines on his thigh & on the sheets,
abed, & also multiply and divide.”
Goethe: “Lied & Gebilde”: “Mag
der Grieche seinen Ton / Zu Gestalten drücken, / An der eignen Hände Sohn / Steigern
sein Entzücken; // Aber uns ist wonnereich. / In den Euphrat greifen / Und im
flüss’gen Element / Hin und wider schweifen. // Löscht ich so der Seele Brand,
/ Lied, es wird erschallen; / Schöpft des Dichters reine Hand, / Wasser wird
sich ballen” (Forster, p. 227; Goethes
Werke in zehn Bänden, hrsg. Buchwald, IX, S. 56). Cf. Jean Paul Richter, Vorschule der Ästhetik, IV, Program, §16: “... die griechische oder plastische Poesie und die romantischer oder musikalische
Poesie”; §17: “Es ist bekannt, wie in den griechischen Gedichten wie gehende
Dädalusstatuen voll Körper und Bewegung auf der Erde erscheinen, indes neuere
Formen mehr im Himmel wie Wolken fliessen”; Prog. §25: “Die plastische Sonne
leuchtet einförmig wie das Wachen; der romantische Mond schimmert veränderlich
wie das Träumen” (Werke, hrsg. R.
Wustmann, Bd. IV, S. 114, 118, 149); Th. Ribot on “l’imagination plastique”
& “l’imagination diffluente” (Essai
sur l’Imagination créatrice, pp. 153 ff. et 163 ff.). However, the song
symbolyzed by the water which shapes itself in the poet’s hand, though less “plastic”
or “classical” than the figures of clay, is not “diffluent” or “romantic”,
because it submits to the formative principle represented by the cupped hand.
Perhaps one should say that while classical art is more “plastic” or less “diffluent”
than romantic art, sculpture, whether romantic or classical, is more “plastic”
or less “diffluent” than poetry; cf. Rilke: “Ich lese es heraus aus deinem Wort, / aus der Geschichte der Gebärden,
/ mit welchen deine Hände um das Werden / sich ründeten, begrenzend, warm und
weise” (Sämtl. Werk., Leipzig, 1955,
I, S. 257).
C.A. Tiedge: “Elegie auf dem
Schlachtfelde bei Kunersdorf”: “Ruhig liegt, wie an der Brust des Freundes, / Hier
ein Haupt, an Feindes Brust gelehnt, / Dort ein Arm vertraut am Arm des Feindes.
– / Nur das Leben hasst, der Tod versöhnt”【Tasso,
Ger. Lib., XX. 41: “Giace il cavallo
al suo signore appresso, / giace il compagno appo il compagno estinto, / giace
il nemico appo il nemico, e spesso / su ’l morto il vivo, il vincitor su ’l
vinto” (Poesie, Riccardo Ricciardi,
p. 509)】 (Forster, p. 236). This stanza from the powerful
poem has a very contemporary ring and fully anticipated René Arcos’s “Les
Morts” (the title poem of Ohne Hass und
Fahne, an anthology of 20th-century war poems compled by W.G.
Deppe, C. Middleton & H.
Schönherr): “Serrés les
uns contre les autres / Les morts sans haine et sans drapeau, / Cheveux plaqués
de sang caillé, / Les morts sont tous d’un seul côté” (quoted in Encounter, No, 85, p. 55). Cf. Paolo
Zazzaroni’s epitaph “Di Cane e Gatto”: “Morgante ed Aquilin quest’arca serra, /
quello d’ugna crudel, questo mordaca. / Fûr rivendo nemici ognor in guerra; /
qui siedon doppo morte amici in pace” (G.G. Ferrero, Marino e i Marinisti, p. 984).
R.M. Rilke: “Die Sonnette an
Orpheus”, 11. 10: “Alles Erworbne bedroht die Maschine, solange sie sich
erdreistet, im Geist, statt im Gehorchen, zu sein. / Dass nicht der herrlichen
Hand schöneres Zögern mehr prange, zu dem entschlossenern Bau schneidet sie
steifer den Stein” (Forster, p. 404). Cf. Paradiso,
XIII. 76-8: “Ma la natura la dà sempre scema, / Similemente operando all’artista,
/ ch’ha l’abito dell’arte e man che trema”[60]
(Le Opere di Dante, ed. E. Moore
& P. Toynbee, p. 122). Perfection is not only unnatural but also inhuman;
it is mechanical (see supra 第六百三十五則 on Croce, Frammenti di Etica,
pp. 116-7; 李白〈示金陵子〉:“楚歌吳語嬌不成。似能未能最有情”; 郭麐《靈芬館雜著續編》卷二〈祝雲橋遺詩序〉:“吾友陳曼生嘗謂余言:‘凡詩文字畫,不必十分到家,乃時見天趣’”). That is why a pièce bien faite is absolutely nul
as literature & the “lovely” make-up of assembly-line belles produces a
frigid effect; their slick finish suggests the machine. Cf. also B. Bosanquet: “It
is worse to do by hand what can be done well by machinery than to do by
machinery what can only be done by hand. In the latter case you try to make the
machine do a man’s work, which is impossible. In the former you make a man do a
machine’s work, which is immoral” (A
History of Aesthetic, 2nd ed., p. 468); Walter de la Mare, Love, Introduction, p. xlii: “One may
admire, if a little coldly, a perfect triangle; or the flawlessly symmetrical.
But one is taken much more with a hand-drawn circle than a circle described by
a pair of compasses”; G. Duhamel: “Que la machine nous délivre de tout, même de
vivre!... Cette singulière méthode qui bannit de l’existence non seulement
l’effort pénible, mais encore l’effort tout court et même l’effort agréable” (Scènes de la vie future, pp. 238-9).
Rilke: “Die Sonnette an Orpheus”,
11. 12: “Was sich ins Bleiben verschliesst, schon ists das Erstarrte; / wähnt
es sich sicher im Schutz des unscheinbaren Grau’s? / Warte, ein Härtestes warnt
aus der Ferne das Harte. / Wehe —: abwesender Hammer holt aus!” (Forster, p. 405).
Very well put. But fragility is often as static as frigidity; in Sully
Prudhomme’s over-quoted lines: “Personne encore ne s'en doute; / N’y touchez
pas, il est brisé.” That is, for the antiquated the only safety lies in keeping
aloof and staying still; P. Pancrazi, Scrittori
d’oggi, I, p. 99: “E il cui [una certa aristocrazia in decadenza] segreto
di conservazione sta nell’ imobilità: come I mobili vecchi, costoro stanno su
soltanto se nessuno li smuove”; Léon Blum, A
l’Echelle humaine, ch. 3: “Toute classe dirigeante qui ne peut maintenir sa
cohésion qu’à la condition de ne pas agir, qui ne peut durer qu’à la condition
de ne pas changer, qui n’est capable ni de s’adapter au cours des événements ni
d’employer la force fraîche des générations montantes, est condamnée à
disparaître de l’histoire.” Cf. Keats to Fanny Brawne: “God forbid we should what
people call, settle — turn into a
pond, a stagnant Lethe — a vile crescent, row or buildings. Better be imprudent
moveables than prudent fixtures” (Letters,
ed. H.E. Rollins, II, p. 138). Victor Hugo, however, writes à propos of
Voltaire’s “universalité” or rather versatility: “La force ne se revèle point
par un déplacement perpétuel, par des métamorphoses infinies, mais bien par une
majestueuse immobilité. La force, ce n’est pas Protée, c’est Jupiter” (Littérature et Philosophie Mêlées, ed. Albin
Michel, pp. 114-5); cf. 第三九八則 on
hedgehog vs. the fox. Emerson: “We had said of China, as the old prophet said
of Egypt, ‘Her strength is to sit still’” (Works,
XI, p. 471). Isaiah, 30. 7: “Their
strength is to sit still.”
R.A. Schröder: “Ob dir ein Leib
beschieden ward / Von Fleisch und Bein, / Und ob die Prüfung noch so hart, /
Dein Herz soll härter sein. // Mag dir ein Herz gegeben sein, / Das wünscht und
trauert. / Die Zeit verlangt es, werde Stein. / Stein trägt und überdauert”
(Forster, p. 417). This little poemmight serve as a commentary on Ugolino’s
terrible line “Io non piangeva, sì dentro impietrai”[61]
(Inferno, XXXIII. 49; La Divina Commedia, ed. N. Sabegno, p.
375); or on Othello’s words: “No, my heart is turn’d to stone. I strike it &
it hurts my hand” (IV. i). Cf. 第六五七則 on “人如木石可長生”, 七一七則 on “天若有情天亦老”.
John Heywood (?): “A Praise of his
Lady”: “I think Nature hath lost the mould / Where she her shape did take” (A.
Quiller-Couch, The Oxford Book of English
Verse, 1st ed., p. 82). Imitated from Ariosto, Orl. Fur., X. 84: “Non è un sì bello in
tante altre persone; / Natura il fece, e poi roppe la stampa” (ed. Ulrico
Hoepli, p. 90). E.R. Curtius, Europäische
Literatur und Lateinisches Mittelalter, 2te Auf., S. 190 only
gives two French quotations, from Ronsard’s Sonnets
pour Hélène & Rousseau’s Confessions
respectively, to illustrate the popularity of Ariosto’s formula.
William Shakespeare: “The Phoenix
& the Turtle”: “Two distincts, division none; / Number there in love was
slain” (Quiller-Couch, p. 188). With this bit of arithmetic of love one may
compare Coleridge’s long letter to H.C.Robinson which contains a fine analysis
of love: “Were there not an Identity in the substance, man & woman might join, but they could never unify — were there not throughout, in body
& in soul, a corresponding & adapted Difference, there might be addition,
but there could be no combination. One and
one = 2; but one cannot be multiplied into one. 1 ╳ 1 = 1 — At
best, it would be an idle echo, the same thing needlessly repeated — as the
idiot told the clock — one, one, one, one, &c —” (Collected Letters, ed. E.L. Griggs, III, p. 305); also the lines in
Shelley’s Epipsychidion: “True love
in this differs from gold and clay, / That to divide is not to take away” (Poems, “Everyman’s Library”, I, p. 417).
Cf. Emerson: “The Initial Love”: “The impossible shall yet be done, / And, being
two, shall still be one. / As the wave breaks to foam on shelves, / Then runs
into a wave again, / So lovers melt their sundered selves, / Yet melted would
be twain” (Poems, “Everyman’s Library”,
p. 87); Maupassant, Yvette, éd.
Conard, p. 52: “En arithmétique, un et un font deux. En amour, un et un
devraient faire un, et ça fait deux tout de même”; Ch. Fr. Hebbel: “Ich und Du”:
“Du tratst aus meinem Traume, / Aus deinem trat ich hervor, Wir sterben, wenn
sich eines / Im andern ganz verlor. // Auf einer Lilie zittern / Zwei Tropfen,
rein und rund, / Zerfliessen in eins und rollen / Hinab in des Kelches Grund” (Werke, hrsg. Th. Poppe, Ier
Teils, S. 77). Cf. Sartor Resartus,
Bk. II, ch. 5 on kissing[62]
(quoted in 第二七八則à propos of Robert Greene’s song in Philomela).
Cf. Lou Salomé: “Gedanken über das Liebesproblem”: “Dass zwei nur dann eins
sind, wenn sie zwei bleiben” (Ilonka Schmidt Mackey, Lou Salomé, S. 153); Oliver Lodge: “Although 1 + 1 = 2 is abstractedly beneath controversy it
need not be true for the addition of concrete things. It is not true of two
globules of mercury, nor for a couple of colliding stars.”
Sir Robert Aytoun: “To His forsaken
Mistress”: “The morning rose that untouch’d stands / Arm’d with her briers, how
sweet she smells! / But pluck’d and strain’d through ruder hands, /
Her sweets no
longer with her dwells: / But scent & beauty both are gone, / And leaves
fall from her, one by one” (Quiller-Couch, p. 213). One of the countless
imitations or adaptations of Ariosto’s “La verginella è simile alla rosa” etc.
(Orl. Fur., I. 42, ed. Ulrico Hoepli,
p. 5, see supra 第五百三十一則); cf. H. Weber, La
Création poétique au 16e siècle en France, I, pp. 337-9 for French variations. Ariosto said
simply rimossa; “ruder hands” or “les
mains envieuses” are additions made by the latter poets to heighten the effect.
Gongóra varied the monotony by introducing a further refinement, namely, that
the rose is so delicate as to be sullied even by the sniffing of a coarse nose,
though he still retained the plucking by rude hands: “Cuando te corte la
robusta mano, / ley de la agricultura permitida, / grosero aliento acabará tu
suerte”[63]
(“Vana rosa”, Turnbull, p. 284; cf. Sir Richard Fanshawe’s “A Rose”, a translation
of Gongóra’s poem: “Some clown’s coarse lungs will poison thy sweet flower, / If
by the careless plough thou shalt be torn,” Quiller-Couch, p. 350). Cf. William
Habington: “To Roses in the Bosom of Castara”: “In those white cloisters live
secure / From the rude blasts of wanton breath!” (Quiller-Couch, p. 303). This
is something overlooked by Chinese writers on the splendeur et misère of flowers (e.g. 張鎡《南湖集‧附錄上‧玉照堂梅品》:“花屈辱”:“主人俗、酒食店內揷、枝上曬衣裳、為婢命名、樹下有狗屎” etc.; 袁弘道《瓶史》之十二〈監戒〉[64]:“主人拜客、與酒館為鄰、醜女折戴、檢韻府押字書籍狼藉” etc.).
Ben Jonson: “The Shadow”: “Follow a
shadow, it still flies you; / Seem to fly it, it will pursue: / So court a
mistress, she denies you; / Let her alone, she will court you” (Quiller-Couch,
p. 217). Stendhal has formulated a strategy of courting women, which is really
based on this principle: “un poco di freddo per producer il caldo” (Journal, 7 Juillet 1810, Oeuvres intimes, “Pléiade”, p. 983) — a maxim comparable to “se recaler pour mieux
sauter”. Honoré D’urfé, Sylvanire:
“Je suis semblable à l’ombre, / Je fuis qui me poursuit, / Je suis qui me fuit”
(quoted in J. Rousset, La littérature de
l’âge baroque en France, nouv. éd., p. 39【Cf. D’urfé,
Sylvanire: “Je suis semblable à l’ombre,
/ Je fuis qui me poursuit, / Je suis qui me fuit” (Jean Rousset, Circé et le Paon, p. 39)[65]】;
Musset’s epigraph to Namouna: “Une
femme est comme votre ombre; courez après, elle vous fuit; fuyez-là, elle court
après vous” (quoted in Arvède Barine, Alfred
de Musset, p. 134). Cf. Vauvenargues, Oeuvres
choisies, “La Renaissance du Livre”, p. 193: “Lorsque nous appelons les
réflexions, elles nous fuient; et quand nous voulons les chasser, elles nous
obsèdent, et tiennent malgré nous nos yeux ouverts pendant la nuit”; Nietzsche,
Also sprach Zarathustra, III, “Das
andere Tanzlied”, 1: “Ich fürchte dich Nahe, ich liebe dich Ferne; deine Flucht
lockt mich, dein Suchen stockt mich... Deren Kälte zündet, deren Hass verführt,
deren Flucht bindet, deren Spott — rührt” (Werke,
hrsg. K. Schlechta, S. 470). See supra
第八十六則 on Martial, V. lxxxiii: “Insequeris, fugio; fugis,
insequor.”
Thomas Crashaw: “A Hymn to the Name &
Honor of the Admirable St. Teresa”: “Scarce has she blood enough to make / A
guilty sword blush for her sake” (Quiller-Couch, p. 363; this is the reading
given in L.C. Martin, ed., Poetical Works,
2nd ed., p. 317 while on p. 132 it reads “Scarce had...”). A propos
of Crashaw’s famous epigram on the miracle at Cana, “Nympha pudica Deum vidit
et erubuit”, Mario Praz writes: “There is only a hair’s breadth between it
& Théophile de Viau’s notorious conceit: “Ah! voici le poignard qui du sang
de son maître / S’est souillé lâchement: il en rougit, le traître” (Pyrame et Thisbé, V. ii). We are
reminded also of a less famous, butno less grotesque, conceit of Marino’s, who
apostrophised those who stoned St Stephen in the following terms: “Vedete i
sassi là che de’ begli ostri. / sparsi sen van, sol per mostrarsi tinti / di
quel rossor, che manca ai volti vostri’” (The
Flaming Heart, p. 213). He seems to have overlooked Crashaw’s line on the
“blush” of “a guilty sword” which is much nearer to the conceits of Marino
& Théophile than the epigram on blushing water.
Andrew Marvell: “The Garden”: “What wond’rous
life in this I lead! / Ripe apples drop about my head; / The luscious clusters
of the vine / Upon my mouth do crush their wine; / The nectarine & curious
peach / Into my hands themselves do reach; / Stumbling on melons as I pass, / Ensnar’d
with flow’rs, I fall on grass” (Quiller-Couch, p. 391). This famous passagemight
have been suggested by a stanza in Marino’s luscious desciption of the 4th
garden of pleasure: “dove ogni pianta i verdi rami inarca, / quasi voglia
abbracciar chi s’avicina, / e di frutti e di fior già mai non
scarca, / e del bel peso prodiga, s’inchina. / Piove nèttar l’olivo e l’elce
manna, / mèle la quercia e zucchero la canna” (L’Adone, VII, 109; G.G. Ferrero,
Marino e i Marinisti, pp. 127-8). Federico Meninni: “Gli alberi e la sua
donna”: “umiliata ogni albore frondosa / offrir suoi parti a la tua man desia.
/ S’apre il re de le frutta, e la natia / ricchezza de’ rubin ti scopre ascosa;
/ a te la vite i suoi piropi invia, / lussureggiante in su la rupe ombrosa” (ib., p. 1048); Michael Drayton,
Shepherd’s Sirena: “And every little Grasse, / Broad it selfe spreadeth, /
Proud that this bonny Lasse / Upon it treadeth.”
Anonymous: “Pipe & Can”: “And
when the smoke ascends on high, / Think thou behold’st the vanity. / Of worldly
stuff, gone with a puff” (Quiller-Couch, p. 453). Cf. Saint-Amant’s sonnet, “Assis
sur un fagot, une pipe à la main”: “Non, je ne trouve point beaucoup de
différence / De prendre du tabac à vivre d’espérance, / Car l’un n’est que
fumée, et l’autre n'est que vent” (Poésies
choisies de M. Régnier, Th. de Viau et Saint-Amant, “Classiques Larousse”,
p. 84) — which was translated by Sir Robert Aytoun as “Sonnet in Praise of
Tobacco”: “It’s all one thing — both tend into one scope — / To live upon
Tobacco & on Hope, / The one’s but smoke, the other is but wind” (quoted in
Modern Language Review, Oct. 1959, p.
502). Cf. 第七四四則 B. Dotti: “Amante che prende tabacco in fumo”.
Anonymous: “Love will find out the
way”: “When there is no place / For the glow-worm to lie, / When there is no
space / For receipt of a fly; / When the midge dares not venture / Lest herself
fast she lay, / If Love come, he will enter / And will find out the way” etc.
(p. 454). Cf. supra 第二四八則論《山歌》卷二〈有心〉[66], infra 七六三則 on The Deipnosophists, VI, 237[67].
William Congreve: “A Hue & Cry
after Fair Amoret”: “Coquette & coy at once her air, / Both studied, tho’
both seem neglected; / Careless she is, with artful care, / Affecting to seem
unaffected” (Quiller-Couch, p. 496). An amplification of Tasso’s “le negligenze
sue sono artifici” (Ger. lib., II,
18, Poesia, ed. F. Flora, p. 37),
much imitated by Marino, L’Adone, VIII. 44, by Tommaso Stigliani (七四○則), see supra 第五百十七則 on Boileau’s phrase “beau désordre”. The conception of the poem is a
variation on Moschus: “The Runaway Love” (The
Greek Bucolic Poets, “Loeb”, p. 425; cf. Crashaw: “Cupid’s Crier” in Poetical Works, ed. L.C. Martin, p.
159).
James Thomson: “On the Death of a
Particular Friend”: “AS those we love decay, we die in part, / String after
string is sever’d from the heart; / Till loosen’d life, at last but breathing
clay, / Without one pang is glad to fall away” (Quiller-Couch, p. 512). Cf. the
joint letter of Arbuthnot & Pope to Swift reporting the death of Gay: “How
often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? In every friend we lose
a part of ourselves, & the best part” (G. Sherburn, ed., The Correspondence of Alexander Pope,
III, p. 335).
William Wordsworth: “The Sonnet”: “Nuns
fret not at their convent’s narrow room, / And hermits are contented with their
cells. / In truth the prison unto which we doom / Ourselves no prison is” etc.
(Quiller-Couch, p. 608). Cf. W. Drummond, Ben
Jonsiana, §4: “He cursed Petrarch for redacting Verses to
Sonnets; which he said were like that Tyrrant’s bed, where some who were too
short were racked, others too long cut short” (J. Thornton, ed., Table Talk, Everyman’s, p. 2); Keats: “On
the Sonnet”: “Let us find out, if we must be constrain’d, / Sandals more
interwoven and complete / To fit the naked foot of Poesy.” cf. A.W. Schlegel’s “Das
Sonnet”, Goethe’s “Das Sonnet” & Mörike’s “Am Walde” (P. Demetz, T. Greene
& L. Nelson, The Disciplines of
Criticism, pp. 335-6). Cf. E. Stadler, Form
ist Wollust (第七六七則); Cf. the same idea dressed up with characteristic
Gallic frivolity in Joséphin Soulary’s “Le Sonnet”: “Je n’entrerai pas là, —
dit la folle en riant, — / Je vais faire éclater ce corset de Procuste! / Puis
elle enfle son sein, tord sa hanche robuste, / Et prête à contresens un bras
luxuriant. // J’aime ces doux combats, et je suis patient, / Dans l’étroit
vêtement qu’à sa taille j’ajuste, / Là, serrant un atour, ici le déliant, / J’ai
fait passer enfin tête, épaules et buste. // ... Rien de moins dans le coeur,
rien de plus sur le corps, / Ainsi me plaît la femme, ainsi je veux la Muse”
(G. Walch, Anthologie
des Poètes français contemporains, I, p. 51). Cf. “Bra is a girl’s best friend” (A Dict. of Catch Phrases, p. 26). Cf. Antoine Houdar de la Motte on
meter & rhyme in general: “Non; quand elle obéit aux vrais fils d’Apollon; /
Jamais de ses liens la raison ne murmure: / Sa chaîne même est sa parure” (A.J.
Steele, Three Centuries of French Verse,
p. 224); Nietzsche’s famous metaphor: “in Ketten tanzen” (Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, Bd. II, Abt. ii, §140; Werke, K. Schlechta, I, 432) which seems
to have been suggested by D’Alembert’s mot:
“Un poète est un homme qu’on oblige de marcher avec grâce les fers aux pieds” (Oeuvres, 1821-2, IV, p. 300, quoted in
J. Brody, Boileau & Longinus, p. 64). Cf. Dryden: “Preface
to the Translation of Ovid’s Epistles”: “’Tis much like dancing on ropes with
fettered legs” (Essays, ed. W.P. Ker,
I, p. 238; Poems, ed. James Kingsley,
I, p. 183); Matthew Prior, Solomon on the
Vanity of the World, Preface: “He that writes in Rhimes, dances in Fetters”
(Literary Works, ed. H.B. Wright
& M.K. Spears, I, p. 309); Samuel Roger’s reply to the question why he did
not write sonnets: “I never could dance in fetters” (Alfred Tennyson: A Memoir, by His Son, I, p. 268); A.W. Schlegel, Brief über Poesie,
Sylbenmass und Sprache, I: “Er
[Der Dichter] muss sich
knechtischem Zwange mit
der stolzen Miene der Freyheit unterwerfen. Seine
mit Fesseln beladenen Hände und Füsse bewegt er zum leichten anmuthigen Tanze”
(Kritische Schriften und Briefe, W.
Kohlhammer verlag, I, S. 142). For the underlying idea, see supra 第二百八則 on Goethe’s line “Und das Gesetz
nur kann uns Freiheit
geben” (cf. 第七三○則; cf. also 六三○, 七六六則《詩話總龜前集》卷十一引《王直方詩話》稱張文潛贊石曼卿大字云:“井水駭龍吟,蟻封觀驥驟”) which occurs in a sonnet on “Das Sonnet” (Sämtl. Werk., “Tempel-Klassiker”, III, S. 96); cf. Hebbel quoted
in 第七三四則.
Bysshe Shelley: “To a Skylark”: “Thou
dost float and run; / Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. // In the
broad day-light / Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight — / ... //
Till the scent it gives / Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged
thieves” (Quiller-Couch, pp. 703-4). Cf. Shelley, A Defense of Poetry[68]:
“A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness & sings to cheer its own
solitude with sweet sounds; his auditors are as men entranced by the melody of
an unseen musician...” (ed. H.F.B. Brett-Smith, p. 31); Wordsworth: “To the
Cuckoo”: “No bird, but an invisible thing, / A voice, a mystery” (Poems, Oxford, p. 146); Tennyson: “In
Memoriam”: “And drown’d in yonder living blue / The lark becomes a sightless
song” (Quiller-Couch, p. 843; cf. T.E. Hulme’s baroque image: “The lark crawls
on the cloud / Like a flea on a white body” — A.R. Jones, The Life & Opinions of T.E. Hulme, p. 181) — the best of all three as pure
description; 溫庭筠詩:“蜜官金翼使,花賊玉腰奴”(《清異錄》卷三〈蟲〉門). Cf. D’Annunzion & Dell’Era quoted in D.
Provenzal, Dizionario delle Immagini,
p. 23).
Shelley: “Ode to the West Wind”: “O
wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being, / Thou, from whose unseen
presence the leaves dead / Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, //
Yellow, & black, & pale, & hectic red, / Pestilence-stricken
multitudes!”[69] (Quiller-Couch,
p. 707). Cf. Jacques Delille’s pedestrian moralizing in “Les Jardin”, II[70]:
“Remarquez-les surtout, lorsque le pâle automne, / Près de la voir flétrir,
embellit sa couronne. / Que de variété! que de pompe et d’élat! / Le pourpre, l’orangé,
l’opale, l’incarnat / De leurs riches couleurs étalent l’abondance. / Hélas!
tout cet éclat marque leur décadence. / Tel est le sort commun” (A.J. Steele, Three Centuries of French Verse, p.
255); also Charles Hubert Millevoye’s lackadaisical garrulity in “La Chute des
feuilles”: “De la dépouille de nos bois / L’automne avait jonché la terre; / Le
bocage était sans mystère, / Le rossignol était sans voix. / Triste, et mourant
à son aurore, / Un jeune malade, à pas lents, / Parcourait une fois encore / Le
bois cher à ses premiers ans: / ‘Bois que j’aime! adieu... je succombe. / Ton
deuil m’avertit de mon sort; / Et dans chaque feuille qui tombe / Je vois un
présage de mort’...” (Ib., p. 279).
Ever since the Bacchylides & Virgil, ghosts have always been compared to
fallen leaves drifting in the wind (see George Soutar, Nature In Greek Poetry, p. 154; C.M. Bowra, From Virgil to Milton, pp. 240-1); Shelley here, conversely,
compares leaves to ghosts.
John Keats: “Ode on Melancholy”[71]:
“... and aching Pleasure” (Quiller-Couch, p. 735). Cf. Leigh Hunt’s letter to
A. Ireland (2 June 1848): “A pleasure so exquisite as almost to amount to pain.”
Keats: “Fancy”: “Acorns ripe down-pattering
/ While the autumn breezes sing” (Quiller-Couch, p. 739). Cf. Tennyson: “In
Memoriam”: “And only thro’ the faded leaf / The chestnut pattering to the
ground” (Ib., p. 837).
Alfred Tennyson: “In Memoriam”:
“Short swallow-flights of song, that dip / Their wings in tears, & skim
away” (Quiller-Couch, p. 840). But cf. Samuel Butler on an epigrammatist “whose
muse is short-winded, and quickly out of breath. She flies like a goose, that
is no sooner upon the wing, but down again” (Characters & Passages from
Notebooks, ed. A.R. Waller, p. 80).
Matthew Arnold: “The Forsaken Merman”:
“Where great whales come sailing by, / Sail & sail, with unshut eye” (Quiller-Couch,
p. 886). The childlike simplicity of these lines is quite in place in this Kunstmärchen; transposed into poems of a
higher genre, they would be perilously near Saint-Amant’s ludicrous description
in his Moïse sauvé, 5e
Partie, 251-2: “Et là près des remparts que l’oeil peut transpercer, / Les
poissons ébahis les regardent passer” (Poésies
choisies de M. Régnier, Th. de Viau et Saint-Amant, “Classiques Larousse”,
p. 89). Cf. D’Annunzion: “La Donna del Mare”: “ed enormi crostacei stupiti / guatavan
con l’inerte occhio sporgente, / l’animal novo — così dolce e strano!” (E.
Bullough, Cambridge Readings of It. Lit.,
p. 42).
Arnold: “To Marguerite”: “Yes: in
the sea of life enisled, / With echoing straits between us thrown, / Dotting
the shoreless watery wild, / We mortal millions live alone. / The islands feel the enclasping flow, / And then their endless
bounds they know” etc. (Quiller-Couch, p. 891). On the strength of this poem,
Arnold could be called an existentialist with a keen sense of the isolation or Inselhaftigkeit of the individual. As
Kierkegaard says: “Ich habe nur einen Freund: das Echo; und warum ist es mein
Freund? Weil ich meinen Kummer liebe, und weil es ihn mir wiedergibt. Ich habe
nur eine Vertraute: die Stille der Nacht; und warum ist sie meine Vertraute?
Weil sie schweigt” (Entweder / Oder,
uebersetzt von W. Pfleiderer und C. Schrempf, Bd. I, S. 30). For Arnold’s
images of isles & “parts of continent”, cf. Bacon: “Of Goodness &
Goodness of Nature”: “If a man be gracious & courteous to strangers, it
shows... that his heart is no island, cut off from other lands, but a
continent, that joins to them”[72]
(Essays, “Everyman’s Library”, pp.
38-9); Donne, Devotions, XVII: “No
man is an Island, intire of it self; every man is a piece of the Continent, a
part of the maine” (Complete Poetry &
Selected Prose, ed. J. Hayward, p. 538); Abraham Cowley: “Life & Fame”,
10-11: “Vain, weak-built Isthmus, which dost proudly rise / Up betwixt two
Eternities”; Matthew Prior, Solomon,
III, 613-4: “Amid two seas on one small Point of Land / Weary’d, uncertain, &
amazed we stand” (Literary Works, ed.
H.B. Wright & M.K. Spears, p. 377; on p. 917 Cowley’s lines are quoted);
Emerson: “Was it Boscovitch
who found out that bodies
never come in contact? Well, souls never touch their objects. An innavigable
sea washes with silent waves between us & the things we aim at &
converse with” (A. Kazin & D. Aaron, ed., Emerson: A Modern Anthology, p. 51); “In all things I would have
the island of a man inviolate” etc. (pp. 169-70); Melville, Moby Dick, ch. 7: “Each silent
worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart from the other, as if each silent
grief were insular and incommunicable... There silent islands of men &
women sat steadfastly eyeing several marble tablets” (Cassell ed., p. 49);
Rilke: “Die Blinde”: “Nichts ist mehr mit mir verbunden. / Ich bin von allem
verlassen. — / Ich bin eine Insel” (Werke,
Insel Verlag, 1957, I, S. 153). Such a painful feeling of the lack of personal
communion finds its philosophical formulation in Martin Buber’s Ich und Du in which minds do meet
fleetingly though very rarely & in Martin Heidegger’s Existentialphilosophie, in which the authentic (eigentlich) person is ultimately lonely
& cut off from all fellow creatures (cf. R.W.B. Lewis, The Picaresque Saint, pp. 103-4, 153; Marjorie Grene, Martin Heidegger, p. 25). Cf. also 第七百一則 on Goethe’s “Erlkönig”
& on Heine’s “Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam.”
Sydney Dobell: “Return”: “Return,
return! all night my lamp is burning, / All night, like it, my wide eyes watch &
burn; / Like it, I fade & pale, when day returning / Bears witness that the
absent can return” etc. (p. 915). The poem would be perfect but for the fact
that the note is slightly forced. Cf. the beautiful metaphor in Fouqué’s Undine, Kap. 14: “... aus allem, was sie
[Bertalda] sprach, leuchtete es hervor, gleich einer Lampe, die dem Geliebten
zwischen Nacht und Geheimnis kundgibt, die Geliebte harre noch sein” (“Nelson’s
German Texts”, p. 72). Cf. Mr Peggotty in David Copperfield, ch. 32 (Oxford Dickens, p. 457: “Every night the
candle must be stood in its old pane of glass, that if ever she [Emily] should
see it, it may seem to say ‘Come back, my child, come back.’” Proust, Du côté de chez Swann (À la
Recherche du Temps Perdu, Pléiade, I, 273).
John Boyle O’Reilly: “A White Rose”:
“The red rose whispers of passion, / And the white rose breathes of love; / O,
the red rose is a falcon, / And the white rose is a dove. // But I send you a
cream-white rosebud / With a flush on its petal-tips; / For the love that is
purest & sweetest / Has a kiss of desire on the lips” (Quiller-Couch, p. 1010).
For sexual symbolism of the two roses, see I. Bloch, Das Sexualleben unserer Zeit, S. 191, where the following poem is
quoted: “Wohl Mancher mag die weisse Ros erheben, / Die still im Schoss den
keuschen Frieden trägt; / Ich werde stets den Preis der roten geben, / Aus
welcher hell des Gottes Flamme
schlägt. / So feuchten
Glanz, solch glühend Liebesieben, / So lauen Duft, der Sehnsucht weckt und
hegt, / Solch kämpfend Weh, verhüllt in tiefe Röte, / Ich acht’es süss, ob’s
auch verzehr und töte.” O.W. Holmes: “The brain-women
never interest us like the heart-women; white roses please less than the red.”
Étienne Jodelle: “O clair-voyant
aveugle, ô Amour, flamme et glace!” (A.J. Steele, Three Centuries of French Verse, p. 55)【Sainte-Beuve,
Causeries du Lundi, I, p. 389: “Mme
Du Deffand, l’aveugle clairvoyante, comme on l’appelait”】. For
such oxymora, besides supra 第二百七十八則 (in connection with Robert Greene’s Menaphon),
第二百九十一則 (in connection with Tasso’s Aminta, I. ii), see Luigi Groto’s Adriana: “Fu il mio male
un piacer senza
allegrezza... / un ben supremo fonte d’ogni male, / un male estremo d’ogni ben
radice... / un velen grato ch’io bevvi pegli occhi... / una febbre che il gelo
e il caldo mesce, / un fèl più dolce assai che mèle o manna... / un giogo
insopportabile e leggero, / una pena felice, un dolor caro, / una morte
immortai piena di vita, / un inferno che sembra un paradiso” (quoted in Mario
Praz, The Flaming Heart, p. 159); Giraldi
Cinthio, Hecatommithi: “Egli è gran cosa... che questi nostri giovani tanto d’Amor
si dolgano, quanto ci hanno mostrato le lor canzoni. Quegli vive colla morte,
questi more nella vita; altri arde nel gelo, altri nel fuoco è di ghiaccio;
quegli grida tacendo, e questi gridando tace: e le cose, per natura
impossibili, mostran possibili in loro”[73]
(quoted in Alfred Einstein, The Italian
Madrigal, I, p. 187). Romeo’s address in the orchard is perhaps the longest
example in English poetry: “... O loving hate!... O heavy lightness! serious
vanity! / Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms! / Feather of lead, bright
smoke, cold fire, sick health! / Still-waking sleep!” etc. (Romeo & Juliet, I. i. 182-188).
Other striking oxymora in Shakespeare are: “I never heard / So musical a
discord, such sweet thunder” (A Midsummer
Night’s Dream, IV. i. 120-1); “Merry & tragical? tedious & brief? /
That is, hot ice” (ib., V. i. 58-9);
“Death, death; O amiable lovely death! / Thou odouriferous stench! sound
rottenness!” (King John, III. iv.
25-6); “Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical! / Dove-feather’d raven,
wolvish-ravening lamb! / Despisèd substance of divinest show, / Just opposite
to what thou justly seemst — / A damned saint, an honorable villain!” (Romeo & Juliet, III. ii. 75-9); “Fair
is foul & foul is fair” (Macbeth,
I. i. 10). Some of D’Aubigné’s powerful oxymora singled out by H. Weber (La Création
poétique au 16e siècle en France, II, p. 624); “L’arsenic ensucré de leurs belles
parolles” (Princes, 963); “ces fermes visions ces véritables songes”. Cf. the
present entry above à propos of San
Juan de la Cruz & Quevedo.
Jodelle: “Des astres, des forêts, et
d’Achéron l’honneur, / Diane au monde haut, moyen et bas préside, / Et ses
chevaux, ses chiens, ses Euménides guide, / Pour éclairer, chasser, donner mort
et horreur” (Steele, pp. 55-6). This
is an example of versus rapportati
which “dürfte auf die griechische
Spätantike zurückgehen”
(E.R. Curtius, Europäische Literatur und Lateinisches
Mittelalter, II Auf., S. 290). The game of singula singulis is kept up much longer in this poem of Jodelle’s
than in any of the examples given by Curtius【cf.
Thomas Gray, Correspondence, ed. P.
Toynbee & L. Whibley, III, pp. 976-7, note (marginalia to Curtius’s book)】.
Other names for this type of verse are Wechselsätze
(Fritz Strich: “Der lyrische Stil des 17ten Jahrhunderts”, Abhandlungen zur deutschen Literatur, Franz
Muncker zum 60. Geburtstag dargebracht, p. 38) and correlazione (Riccardo Massano: “Sulla Tecnica e sul Linguaggio dei
lirici marinisti”, La Critica stilistica
e il Barocco letterario: Atti del secondo congresso internazionale di studi
italiani, p. 298). The most elaborate “compartimento e distribuzione” can
be seen in Guido Casoni’s ingenious ode on the death of Signora Fulvia Coloreta
(quoted by Massano, op. cit., pp.
298-9). Cf. 第七三五則 on《全唐文》卷三五二 & 七三八則 on L’Adone, XX. 98.
Jean Bertaut: “Complainte”: “Et de
combien n’avoir point eu / Est plus doux que d’avoir
perdu” (Steele, p. 77). Cf. Samuel
Butler’s quotation from Tennyson “from memory”: “’Tis better to have loved
& lost than never to have loved at all” (H.J. Jones, Samuel Butler, II, p. 13), and Georges Courteline’s mot in La Cruche: “Il est évidemment bien dur de ne plus être aimé quand
on aime, mais cela n’est pas comparable à l'être encore quand on n’aime plus”
(quoted in A. Dubeux, La curieuse Vie de
Georges Courteline, p. 174); cf. also Decamerone,
III. v: La donna di Messer Francesco Vergellesi: “Che fo io? erché perdo io la
mia giovanezza?... questa cosa non saprà mai persona, e se egli pur si dovesse
risapere, si è egli meglio fare e pentere, che starsi e pentersi” (ed. Ulrico
Hoepli, pp. 193-4). Bertaut’s poem (pp. 77-9), like J.-B. Chassignet’s (p.
89-90) is redolent of ennui and
almost gives a foretaste of Baudelaire.
Francois Mainard: “Paris est sans
comparaison: / ... / Apollon, faut-il que Mainard / Avec les secrets de ton art
/ Meure en une terre sauvage, / Et
qu’il dorme, après son
trépas, / Au cimetière d’un village / Que la carte ne connaît pas” (Steele, p. 117). Much more forcible
than Gray’s “mute inglorious Miltons” in the “Elegy”.
Étienne Durant: “— Quoi donc,
faut-il aimer ? — Faut espérer aussi; / Car les refus de femme ont l’effet des
oracles / Qui, jurés bien souvent, n’arrivent pas ainsi” (Steele, p. 119). Cf. E.
Fuchs, Illustrierte Sittengeschichte: Die
galante Zeit, S. 92: “Die Frau soll Nein sagan und dabei eine Stellung
einnehmen die dem Angreifer den Erfolg verbürgt.” “A lady never says ‘Yes’” (七百七則眉[74]).【[補七百三則 Étienne
Durant: “Quoi donc!” etc.]Shakespeare, Two
Gentlemen of Verona, I. ii, Julia: “Since maids, in modesty, say no, to
that, / Which they would have the profferer construe, aye”; Richard III, III. vii, Buckingham: “Play
the maids part: still answer nay & take it”; Dryden, Absalom & Achitophel, 471-2: “If so, by force he wishes to be
gain’d, / Like women’s leachery, to seem constrain’d”; Herrick: “Deniall in Women
no Disheartning to Men.” & “Maid’s Nay’s are Nothing” (Poetical Works, ed. L.C. Martin, pp. 235 & 249); Tom Jones, Bk. VII, ch. 6, Squire
Western: “Women never gi’ their consent, man, if they can help it, ’tis not the
fashion”; Lady Charlotte Lindsay: “Though yes
never meant no, no very often meant yes”
(A. Dyce, Table Talk of Samuel Rogers,
p. [75]);
Allan M. Laing, Louder & Funnier,
pp. 18-9: “When a diplomat says ‘yes’, he means ‘perhaps.’ When a lady says ‘no’,
she means ‘perhaps.’ If a diplomat says ‘perhaps’ he means ‘no.’ If a lady says
‘perhaps’ she means ‘yes.’ If a diplomat says ‘no’ he’s no diplomat, & if a
lady says ‘yes’ she’s no lady”; Gentil-Bernard, L’Art d’Aimer, Chant II: “Cédez toujours, mais jamais sans défense:
/ En vous hâtant faites qu'on vous devance; / Retenez bien surtout cet heureux
mot, / Ce doux nenni qui plaît tant à Marot” (Marot: “Un doux nenni avec un
doux sourire, / Est tant honnête il vous le faut apprendre. / Quant est de oui,
si veniez a le dire, / D’avoir trop dit je voudrois vous reprendre” etc. Cf.
Crashaw’s Epithalamium quoted in the
present entry); Tasso, Aminta, II. ii
(quoted 第二九一則): “Or non sai tu com’è fatta la donna? / Fugge e
fuggendo vuol ch’altri la giunga; / Niega, e negando vuol ch’altri si toglia”
ecc. (Poesie, ed. F. Flora, p. 640);
Jean Paul: “Die Weiber meiden nichts so sehr als das Wörtchen Ja; wenigstens
sagen sie es erst nach dem Nein.”】
Étienne Durant: “Stances à l’Inconstance”: “Je peindrais volontiers mes
légères pensées, / Mais déjà le pensant, mon penser est changé” (Steele, p.
120). Steele says that to this line cf. G. Ryle, The Concept of Mind, p. 186 ff. on “the systematic elusiveness of ‘I’”.
Boileau’s famous couplet “Hâtons-nous; le temps fuit et nous traîne avec soi: /
Le moment où je parle est déjà loin
de moi” (p. xix). Baudelair”
“L’Horloge”: “Trois mille six cents fois par heure, la Seconde / Chuchote: Souviens-toi! — Rapide, avec sa voix / D’insecte,
Maintenant dit: Je suis Autrefois, / Et j’ai pompé ta vie avec ma trompe
immonde!” (Oeuv. Comp., “Bib. d. l. Pléiade”,
p. 152). Both derived from Perseus, Sat.,
IV, 153: “fugit hora, hoc quod loquor inde est” (“The hour flies: the word that
I speak is so much taken from it”[76])
(Loeb, p. 384). 康僧會〈安般守意經序〉:“彈指之間,心九百六十轉,一日一夕,十三億意”(《全三國文》卷七十五);《維摩詰所說經‧弟子品第三》:“諸法不相待,乃至一念不住”,肇注:“彈指頃有六十念過”;鄭所南《心史‧咸淳集‧春歌》:“今日之今,霍霍栩栩。少焉矚之,已化爲古”;Jasper Mayne: “Time”: “Time is the feathered thing,
/ And, while I praise the sparklings of thy looks / And call them rays, / Takes
wing, / Leaving behind him as
he flies / An unperceived dimness in thine eyes” (The Oxford Book of English Verse, p. 301); Francisco de Quevedo: “Soneto”:
“Ayer se fué, Mañana no ha llegado, / Hoy se está yendo sin parar un punto” (Ten Centuries of Spanish Poetry, p.
308); Motin: “Et si je le pouvais j’y peindrois ma pensée, / Mais elle est trop
soudain de mon esprit passée / Car je ne pense plus à ce que je pensais” (J. Rousset, Anthologie de la poésie baroque française,
I, p. 72); cf. Geroge Herbert’s poem “Giddinesse”[77]:
“Oh what a thing is man! how farre from power, / From settled peace & rest!
/ He is some twentie sev’rall men at least / Each sev’rall houre” (Works, ed. E.F. Hutchinson, p. 127). The
idea that the present is too transient to be captured acquires a new poignancy
when associated with love; cf. Arthur Schnitzler, Anatol, “Episode”[Anatol à propos of love-making with Bianca]: Währens
ich den wormen Hauch
ihres Mundes auf meiner
Hand fühlte, erlebte ich das Ganze schon in der Erinnerung. Es war eigentlich
schon vorüber” (Österreichisches Theater
des 20. Jts., hrsg. J. Schondorff
Langen-Müller, 1961, S.
64); 李商隱〈錦瑟〉:“此情可待成追憶,只是當時已惘然”.
Théophile de Viau: “Élégie à une Dame”: “Grimace par la rue, et stupide
retarde / Ses yeux sur un objet sans voir ce qu’il regarde. / Mais déjà ce
discours m’a porté trop avant: / Je suis
bien près du port, ma voile a trop de vent” (Steele, p. 128-9). The
absent-mindedness” of the poet has improved with the passing of ages; see
e.g.Mark Gibbon’s amusing description of Yeats: “The poet had been walking
along slowly in a mood of abstraction so deliberated as almost to appear
self-conscious. It was as though he demanded notice & at the same time
repudiated it.... an oblique, almost sly withdrawal from the perimeter of
consciousness, as though he were not actually in a reverie but would like to be
thought in one... I was given the impression, as with so much he did, that he
was staging himself, wished to appear unaware & yet was perfectly conscious
that I was in the room all the time” (The
Masterpiece & the Man, pp. 28, 44, 81). The image of sailing for the
writing of poetry can be added to the list of “Schiffartsmetaphern” (from Ovid,
Propertius, Dante, Ariosto, Spenser & others) in Curtius, Europ. Lit. u. Lat. Mittelalt., S.
139-140. Cf. Keats: “Fancy is the Sails, & Imagination the Rudder [of
Poetry]” (Letters, ed. H.E. Rollins,
I, p. 170).
Théophile de Viau: “Le soleil est
devenu noir” etc.
(Steele, p. 133). The whole poem is an example of “die verkehrte Welt” or “le
monde renversé” (see Curtius, S. 104-8; Rousset, pp. 26-8 & p. 260 where Théophile’s poem is quoted with the comment: “Pièce
faite pour plaire à Éluard”). Cf.《九歌‧湘君》:“鳥萃兮萍中,罾何為兮木上?” The principle of “Reihung unmöglicher Dinge” or “métamorphose”
(Curtius, S. 105; Rousset, p. 27), which underlies such poems, is also
exemplified in the kind of poem quoted in Borrow, The Bible in Spain, ch. 32 (“Everyman’s Library”, p. 305), see supra 第六十八則. As for the sun turned black, cf. Paradise
Lost, II, 67: “Black fire” (cf. I, 62-3) (Poetical Works, Oxford, p. 203, p. 183). Cf. Fulke Greville, Alaham, III. ii: “By fires of Hell, which
burn & have no light” (S.T. Coleridge, The
Notebooks, ed. Kathleen Coburn, II, §2925 quoted); Hugo, William Shakespeare, éd. Lib. Ollendorff,
p. 130, IIe Ptie, Liv. ii, à propos de Hamlet: “un énorme soleil terrible qui semble rendre le ciel plus
noir”; Gérald de Nerval: “El Desdichado”: “Ma seule Etoile est morte, — et mon luth constellé / Porte le Soleil noir de la Mélancolie” & Voyage en
Orient: “Le soleil noir de la mélancolie, qui verse des rayons obscurs sur
le front de l’ange rêveur d’Albert Dürer, se lève aussi parfois aux plaines
lumineuses du Nil...” (Oeuv. comp., “La Bibliothèque de la Pléiade”, I, p. 33 & II,
p. 136); Gautier: “Mélancholia”: “Dans le fond du tableau, sur l’horizon sans
borne, / Le vieux père Océan lève sa face morne, / Et dans le bleu cristal de
son profond miroir, / Réfléchit les rayons d’un grand soleil tout noir” (Poésies completes, éd. Charpentier, I,
p. 220); Hugo, Les Contemplations,
Liv. VI, no. 26: “Ce que dit la Bouche d’Ombre”: “Un affreux soleil noir d’où
rayonne la nuit.” Cf. also《清異錄》卷三〈器具門〉:“黑太陽”, which really means what Horace Walpole says to
Montagu: “The best sun we have is made of Newcastle coal, & I am determined
never to reckon upon any other” (Correspondence,
Yale, ed. W.S. Lewis, X, p. 262). Cf.《金樓子‧箴戒篇第二》:“夏桀時兩日並出,黑光偏天”; St. John of the Cross: “rayo de tiniebla (E.
Allison Peers, Spanish Mysticism, p.
223); also 第七百一則 on Justinus
Kerner’s poem “Zur Ruh,
Zur Ruh”; 李賀〈南山田中行〉:“鬼燈如漆照松花”,王琦《李長吉歌詩彙解》卷二引《述異記》:“闔閭夫人墓中……漆燈照爛, 如日月焉”,詳見第七九四則; 《國朝詩別裁集》徐蘭〈燐火〉:“别有火光黑比漆,埋伏山坳語啾唧”; 《詩觀三集》卷一馮明期〈滹沱秋興〉:“倒捲黑雲遮古林,平沙落日光如漆”. As to 李賀〈十二月樂府‧十月〉:“缸花夜笑凝幽明”, it recalls Milton’s “Teach light to [counterfeit a gloom.]”[78]
Baudelaire: “Les Ténèbres”: “Je reconnais ma belle visiteuse: / C’est Elle!
noire et pourtant lumineuse” (Oeuv. comp., “Bib. d. l. Pléiade”, p. 112); “Le Désir de peindre”:
“Je la comparerais à un soleil noir, si l’on pouvait concevoir un astre noir
versant la lumière et le bonheur” (p. 341). Marino: “La bruna pastorella”, ll.
335-6: “O luci tenebrose, / tenebre luminose” (G.G. Ferrero, Marino e i marinisti, p. 520);
“Schiava”: “o luce uscir di tenebroso inchiostro”[79]
(p. 374).
De Saint-Amant: “Le mauvais logement, caprice”: “J’ai beau, pour en
perdre l’image, / Qui me baille un teint de fromage, / M’efforcer à cligner les
yeux, / L’effroy me taillent des croupieres, / Par un effet malicieux / Change
en bezicles mes paupieres” (Steele, p. 142). Very ingenious & neat; cf.
however, the effective simplicity of Coleridge’s lines in “The Ancient Mainer”:
“I closed my lids, & kept them close, / And the balls like pulses beat; /
But the sky & the sea, the sea & the sky / Lay dead like a load on my
weary eye.” This is the difference between agudezza
& liricità.
Jean des Marets de Saint-Sorlin: “Promenades de Richelieu”: “Allons voir
ces canaux : quel doux calme en cette onde! / Ici je vois sous terre une lune
seconde. / Ici le palais même, et si clair, et si beau, / A chef précipité se
renverse dans l’eau. / ... / Où tout est à l’envers, où tout change d'office, /
Où les combles pointus portent tout l’édifice” (Steele, p. 147). Cf. Dante, Paradiso, XXX. 109-111: “E come clivo in
acqua di suo imo / si specchia, quasi per vedersi adorno, / quando è nel verde
e nei fioretti opimo”[80];
Marino, L’Adone, VIII. 23: “L’acque
innaffiano il bosco, e’l bosco ombroso / specchia se stesso entro le limpid’acque,
/ tal ch’un giardino in duơ giardin distinto / vi si veda, l'un vero e l’altro
finto” (G.G. Ferrero, Marino e i
marinisti, pp. 160-1); Marcello Macedonio, Disfida dell’acque, e dell’aure: “... e specchio ai boschi folti / e pittrici dei volti / e ritratti
del cielo” (Ib., p. 662); O. Morisani, E
domani che faremo?: “La luna si quando nella specchio del mare; poi come
seccata del proprio aspetto, tiro la cortina, delle nuvole” (D. Provenzal, Dizionario delle Immagini, p. 420); Baudelaire:
“Incompatibilité”: “On dirait que le ciel, en cette solitude, / Se contemple
dans l’onde” (Oeuv. comp., “la Pléiade”, p. 44); Saint-Amant: “La Solitude”: “Tantôt,
la plus claire du monde, / Elle [la mer] semble un miroir flottant, / Et nous
représente à l’instant / Encore d’autres cieux sous l’onde” (Ib., p. 139); François Tristan l’Hermite:
“La Mer”: “Le soleil à longs traits ardents / Y donne encore de la grâce, / Et
tâche à se mirer dedans / Comme on feroit dans une glace: / Mais les flots de
vert émaillés, / Qui semblent des jaspes taillés, / S’entredérobent son visage,
/ Et, par de petits tremblements, / Font voir, au lieu de son image, / Mille
pointes de diamants” (Ib., p. 158);《劍南詩稿》五十三〈次林伯玉侍郎韻賦西湖春游〉:“山遠往來雙白鷺,波平俯仰兩青天”;《全梁詩》卷二簡文帝〈水中樓影〉:“風生色不壞,浪去影恒留”; Hugo, Toute
la Lyre, II, 33, “Dans les ravins”[81]:
“Les étangs sont comme des vitres / Par où l’on voit le ciel d’en bas” (Oeuvres poétiques complètes, Motreal: B.
Valiquette, p. 1108); Annette von Droste-Hülshoff: “Der Weiher”: “Er liegt so
still im Morgenlicht, / So friedlich, wie ein fromm Gewissen; / Wenn Weste
seinen Spiegel küssen, / Des Ufers Blume fühlt es nicht. / ... / Hoch oben, wo
die Sonne glüht, / Wieget der Vogel seine Flügel, / Und wie ein schlüpfend
Fischlein zieht / Sein Schatten durch des Teiches Spiegel” (The Oxford Book of German Verse, pp.
100-1; cf. Shelley: “The Recollection”: “Like one beloved, the scene had lent /
To the dark water’s breast / Its every leaf & lineament / With more than
truth exprest; / Until an envious wind crept by, / Like an unwelcome thought / Which
from the mind’s too faithful eye / Blots one dear image out”; 方殿元〈廬山玉淵〉:“奔騰過萬山,至此陡欲住。憧赫侔雷霆,一旦失憑怒。有似千古憤,投入靜者慮”(《國朝詩別裁》卷九); 孟郊〈寒溪〉第一首:“潛滑不自隱,露底瑩更新。豁如君子懷,曾是危陷人”; 白居易〈翫止水〉:“定將禪不別,明與誠相似。欲識靜者心,心源只如此”【張融〈海賦〉:“照天容於鮷渚,鏡河色於魦潯。括蓋餘以進廣,浸夏洲以洞深。形每驚而義維靜,跡有事而道無心”】【《文心雕龍‧比興篇》:“或擬于心”】【《荀子‧宥坐篇》:“孔子觀於東流之水”節】); Gabriele D’Annunzio: “Canto del Sole”: “E in
ampia cerchia ne l’acqua i floridi / poggi specchiantisi paiono imagini / di
piramidi vinte / dal trionfo de l’edere” (The
Penguin Book of Italian Verse, p. 336). All these are great feats of
description, but none of them — not even the fine beginning of “Der Weiher”
is so beautiful as Tristan l’Hermite’s line
in “Le promenoir des deux amants”: “L’ombre de cette fleur vermeille / Et celle
de ces joncs pendants / Paraissent être là-dedans / Les songes de l’eau qui
sommeille” (Steele, p. 153; Poésies,
chosen by P.A. Wadsworth, p. 26). Cf. 第六百九十七則《詠懷堂詩集》卷四. None of them shows the existential awareness of Traherne’s
“Shadows in the Water” (W.H. Auden & N.H. Pearson, Poets of the Eng. Lang., II, pp. 517-9)【《梁書‧豫章王綜傳‧聽鐘鳴辭》:“雲悲海思徒揜抑”】【《南齊書‧張融‧海賦》:“浮微雲之如瞢,落輕雨之依依”】【Apollinaire: “Vendémiaire”: “L’éclair qui luit ainsi qu’une pensée
naissante”】.
Charles de Vion de Dalibray: “Gros et rond dans mon cabinet / Comme un
ver à soie en sa coque, / Je te fabrique ce sonnet, / Qui de nos vanités se
moque. / ... / Dedans ce trou qui me comprend, / Je suis plus heureux et plus
grand / Que si j’occupais un empire: / J’atteins de l’un à l’autre bout, / Et
s’il m’est permis de le dire, / J’y suis un Dieu qui remplis tout” (Steele, p.
151). The Chinese poets also compared the cocoon with its snugness to the tomb,
e.g. 何夢桂〈挽寧谷居士〉第三首:“身世幅巾歸繭室,歲時盂飯灑狐丘”(《宋詩鈔‧潛齋詩鈔》), see also 姜特立《梅山續稿》卷七〈繭菴附記〉; in a note to 陸游’s
appended poem〈寄題繭菴〉the following inscription was quoted: “《兩朝國史》:‘王樵,字肩望,號贅世翁,作〈繭室銘〉曰:“生而為室,以備不虞;死則藏形,不虞乃備”’”; 方岳《秋崖小稿》卷 20〈繭窩〉:“已擅一丘吾事足,人間蟻垤自侯王”;《宋史‧隱逸‧王樵》:“累塼自環,謂之‘繭室’,銘其門曰:‘……死則藏形,不虞乃備’”;《劍南詩稿》卷三十五〈姜總管自築墓舍名繭菴求詩〉(七古):“君不見贅翁退隱真皇時,繭室遺名星日垂”; 王逢《梧溪集》卷四下〈王處士壽藏序銘〉(王名泳,〈壽藏歌〉曰):“蠶何物兮!繭是室兮!吾其願畢兮!” But 明李昱《草閣集》卷五〈題蔣康繭窩〉:“蠶叢國內房偏小,鮫客機邊構甚奇。日射坐氈如挾纊,雨經簷瓦似繰絲。豈同蝸角虛名誤,真與壺天樂事宜。許史金張何足羡,千間大厦貯蛾眉”. The earliest silkworm metaphor in European Lit.
occurs perhaps in Dante’s Paradiso,
VIII, 52-4: “La mia letizia mi ti tien celato / che mi raggia dintorno e mi
nasconde / quasi animai di sua seta fasciato.”[82]
St Teresa: “We shall ourselves
be as completely hidden
in His greatness as is this little worm in its cocoon” (Interior Castle, Bk. V, ch. 11); Patmore: “Kiss me again, &
clasp me round the heart, / Till fill’d with thee am I / As the cocoon is with
the butterfly” (J.C. Reid, The Mind &
Art of Coventry Patmore, p. 101). Cf. Assmann von Abschatz: “Ein
Seidenwurm in seinem Gewebe”: “Aliis Sericum / mihi sepulcrum / sed pulcrum / Mir
zum Grabe, dir zum Kleide / Spinn ich die berühmte Seyde / Selbst aus meinem
Eingeweide” usw. (Max Wehrli, Deutsche
Barocklyrik, 3te Auf., S. 61).
Tristan l’Hermite: “Le promenoir des deux amants”: “Dans toutes ces
routes divines, / Les Nymphes dansent aux chansons, / Et donnent la grâce aux
buissons / De porter des fleurs sans épines” (Steele, p. 154; Poésies, p. 27). According to St Ambrose’s
Hexaemeron, III, xi,the rose was
without thorn before the fall of man, see The
Review of English Studies, Feb. 1959, pp. 60 ff. on Par. Lost, IV. 256: “Flours of all hue, & without Thorn the
Rose.”
Jean de Bussières: “La Neige”: “Ah! Nymphe, je te vois, qui d’une main d’ivoire
/ Ouvre à nos désirs les pompes de ta gloire. / Je vois qu’en te jouant tu fais
de pelotons, / Que de ton beau métal tu forges des jetons” (Steele, p. 177;
Jean Rousset, Anthologie, I, p. 130).
Cf. 第二百五十九則 on《伐檀集》卷上〈觀雪〉:“疑是天公戲”.
Hippolyte-Jules Pilet de La Mesnardière: “Le Soleil couchant”: “Demain l’Aurore
à son réveil / N’y verra que perles liquides, / Et tous leurs yeux [i.e. les
fleurs] seront humides / Pour avoir perdu le soleil” (Steele, p. 181). Cf. Paul
Scarron: “Virgile travesti”: “C’est une forte honnête dame [i.e. L’Aurore], / Qui, tous les matins, de
ses pleurs / Emperle, ce dit-on les fleurs” (Ib., p. 181); Du Bois Hus: “La
Nuit des Nuits”: “Déjà l'air orphelin arrose de ses pleurs / La face des
campagnes, / Et les larmes du soir tombent dessus les fleurs” (Ib., p. 183); “Le Jour des Jours”: “Ils [i.e.
les vents] vont sécher les habits verts / Des prés que l’Aurore a couverts / De
ses plus précieuses larmes, / Et ne peuvent souffrir que la face des Fleurs / En
ce jour plein de charmes / Ait son éclat terni d’une espèce de pleurs” (Ib., p. 185). This conceit is apparently
a commonplace in baroque poetry; cf. Richard Crashaw: “A Hymne for the Epiphanie”:
“For this the evening wept; & we ne’er knew / But call’d it deaw” (Poetical Works, ed. L.C.Martin, p. 257);
George Herbert: “Vertue”: “Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, / The
bridall of the earth and skie, / The dew shall weep thy fall tonight, / For
thou must die” (Works, ed. F.E.
Hutchinson, p. 87). Girolamo Fontanella: “Alle lagrime”: “Che sono altro che
lagrime lucenti / quelle che versa a noi la bionda Aurora?” etc. (G.G. Ferrero,
Marino e i marinisti, p. 849). The
couplet in Lord Chesterfield’s “Wholesome Advice” had thus a long pedigree
(“The dew of the evening most carefully shun, / Those tears of the sky for the
loss of the sun”, Letters, ed. B.
Dobrée, IV, p. 1499). Wordsworth, in praising Milton at the expense of
Chesterfield (“Preface to the Edition of 1815”, Poetical Works, Oxford, p. 756), does not seem to have been aware
that the conceit not only shows “fancy” in contradiction to “imagination”, but
is also a stale cliché rather than a fresh simile with — well, with Aurora’s
tears on it. The “flash of surprise” is a “shock of recognition”. Coleridge
tries to revamp the conceit in “Youth & Age”: “Dew-drops are the gems of
morning, / But the tears of mournful eve!” (Quiller-Couch, p. 656). Cf. also
Brentano in “Sprich aus der Ferne!”: “Wenn des Mondes still lindernde Tränen / Lösen
der Nächte verborgenes Weh, ...” 寒山詩第三首:“泣露千般草,吟風一樣松。”
François Malaval: “L’usage du Temps”: “Chaque ami sans remords nous dépouille
et nous vole; / Il nous ravit le temps comme un loisir frivole. / Si quelqu’un nous
emprunte, il croit s’être engagé: / Nul du temps qu’il nous prend ne s’estime chargé”
(Steele, p. 208). Cf. the Latin tag Amici
fures temporis (The Oxford Dict. of
Proverbs, p. 113).
Mme Guyon: “Si je me faisais quelque forme, / Si je me figure
un objet, / Je rends mon Dieu semblable à l’homme / Et me trompe dans mon sujet.
// ... Là, les puissances suspendues, / Sans discerner ni mal ni bien, / Là les
âmes en Dieu perdues, / Ne voient plus même leur rien” (Steele, p. 221). Cf.《金剛仙論》卷九 on “若以色見我,以音聲求我,是人行邪道,不能見如來”. See above on Angelus Silesius. Sainte-Beuve, Portraits littéraires, III. 543: “Pensées”:
“Je ne demande plus aux hommes qu'une chose: c'est de me laisser beaucoup de
temps à moi, beaucoup de solitude, et pourtant de se prêter quelquefois encore
à mon observation.”
七百四[83]
姜特立《梅山續稿》十七卷、雜文及詞一卷,舊抄本。《梅山集》流傳甚少,此《稿》斷自六十歲獻詩授太子春坊紀恩。前《集》之詩,樊榭譔《宋詩紀事》似即未見,故卷五十七錄梅山詩,胥出《續稿》。而方虛谷《瀛奎律髓》所選梅山篇什,如卷二〈歲暮直舍感懷〉[84]、卷六〈呈方叔〉、〈夏日奉天台祠祿〉、卷三十六〈喜陸少監入京〉、〈范大參入覲頗愛鄙作〉等,亦無不出《續稿》【《瀛奎律髓》頗取姜詩,卷十一陳后山〈次韻夏日江邨〉批語引姜「掃梁迎燕子,插竹護龍孫」一聯】。豈前《稿》在當時已罕覩耶?《吹劍錄》引梅山佳句一聯云:「詩到淡中方有味,事無心處却成功」,即不在此《稿》中。【《誠齋集》卷二十〈跋姜春坊梅山詩集〉(七律二首)、卷二十三〈和姜邦傑春坊再贈七字〉(「可笑詩人死愛名,吻間長作候蟲聲。老夫老去真休去[85],一聽梅山主夏盟」),又卷二十三〈和姜邦傑春坊續麗人行〉(《永樂大典》卷 3005「人」字引誠齋此篇及徐安國《西牕集‧次韻姜春坊續麗人行》)。《劍南詩稿》卷二十〈舊識姜邦傑於亡友韓无咎許近屢寄詩來且以无咎平日唱和見示讀之悵然作此詩附卷末〉(七律)。】梅山詩筆頹率,所謂野調,偶為巧對,每苦斧鑿之迹。然與人唱和,必附著其人之作,足資勘訂,如「虞侍郎」即著《尊白堂集》之虞儔是也【虞儔《尊白堂集》有與梅山唱和詩】,又如卷七〈繭庵〉、卷十一〈放翁示雷字詩〉(見《劍南逸稿》卷下,無來札)皆附放翁來札,放翁〈寄題繭庵〉七古後,有《兩朝國史》、《太平廣記》各一則,發明詩中故實,當是自注,亦如《顏氏家藏尺牘》卷二顧亭林〈先妣忌日〉七律後有《顏氏家訓》一則,為亭林之自注也【《 陳簡齋外集》詩有注本事及出典者,亦類自注】。考論《劍南詩稿》者,均未知此。范晞文《對床夜話》卷二記放翁論李昌谷語,亦尠稱引者。又見七百五則。
〇方虛谷《桐江集》卷一〈滄浪十詠序〉謂放翁雖師茶山,而詩不似江西;《瀛奎律髓》卷四、卷十六復言之,真具眼人語,非同耳食。《梅山續稿》卷二〈陸嚴州惠劍南集〉云:「不躡江西籬下蹤此字誤,遠追李杜與翱翔」[86];卷五〈應致遠謁放翁〉:「源流不嗣江西祖,自有正宗傳法乳」,則早拈破矣。
〇卷四〈和趙太中覓詩〉:「每嘆學詩如學仙,未能換骨謾成篇。」按陳起《前賢小集拾遺》卷四載曾茶山〈讀呂居仁舊詩有懷其人作詩寄之〉云:「學詩如參禪,慎弗參死句。縱橫無不可,乃在歡喜處。又如學仙子,辛苦終不遇。忽然毛骨換,政用口訣故」(《茶山集》失收);趙崇鉘《鷗渚微吟‧學詩》云:「學詩如學仙,吞霞潔塵滓」;趙章泉《淳熙稿》卷十〈和折子明丈閒居雜興‧之八〉云:「曷日仙能至,何時彈比圓」;王鎡《月洞詩集》卷下〈題友人詩集〉云:「學詩玄妙似參禪,又似凡人去學仙。」此皆南宋人語,可補《談藝錄》第三一○頁[87]。
〇卷十三〈平原郡王南園詩〉七絕二十一首,阿諛之詞,有過於放翁〈南園記〉,尚不出《龍洲道人集》中平原壽詩之甚耳(見第四百九十四則)。【《武林舊事‧諸色伎藝人》:「御前應制:姜梅山特立觀察史。」】【蔣光煦《東湖叢記》卷四「陸放翁佚詩」條〈寓蓬萊館〉:「桐葉吹殘蕉葉黃,驛窗微雨送淒涼。長安許史無平素,莫恨栖栖立路傍」;「古驛蕭條獨倚闌,角聲催晚雨催寒。殘年會合知無日,猶說新豐强自寛」;〈夜還驛舍〉:「樓上鼕鼕初發更,斷雲收雨旋成晴。市橋新漲揺燈影,驛路殘泥壯屐聲。闤闠變遷非曩日,情懷牢落感餘生。高秋病起猶能醉,剩買官醅樂太平」;「白頭漸覺黑絲多,造物將如此老何?三萬里天供醉眼,二千年事入悲歌。劍關曾蹴連雲棧,海道新窺浴日波。未頌中興吾未死,插江崖石竟須磨。」泰和羅鶴《應菴隨錄》:「予在友人郭貢士用端家見所藏放翁墨跡大書小詩,字勁嚴可愛,詩亦意格高鍊,放翁詩集不載,故錄之」,見《棗林外索》(按亦見《寄園寄所寄》卷四引《應菴隨錄》)。陸文圭《牆東類稿》卷十〈跋放翁與文定劄子〉:「始意文定公帥越時,與山陰往來必稔,今睹墨帖所謂『拜違崇仞』者,是此翁曾至吳鄉也。又有『假鉞視師』語,而封函之首,呼『制置資政同知』,此必嘉定、更化後,再起帥金陵時也。三幅合為一通劄子,提頭體當。然放翁老矣,舐犢之愛 ,情類楊彪,亦恃公知己也。」(殆是邱文定公耶?)尚鎔《持雅堂詩集》卷三〈偶取李義山陸放翁元遺山七律編為一集名曰律詩杜骨以其善學杜陵得其神骨異乎何李之襲皮毛也爰各系以詩以誌景仰〉(七律三首)。」】【吳師道《吳禮部詩話》摘放翁〈斷碑歎〉不知蕭懿之忠,〈籌筆驛〉不知降表乃郤正作。】【林希逸《竹溪鬳齋十一稿續集》卷二〈放歌讀放翁詩作〉:「朗誦烏棲曲數終,乾坤何事老英雄。縱令經有千名佛,敢道詩無兩放翁。九萬里風來海外,二三更月到天中。便教挽得銀河下,今古閑愁洗不空。」】【汪懋麟《百尺梧桐閣文集》卷四〈書陸游傳後〉:「自南渡以來,檜首倡和議,遂以用兵為諱。(中略)侂冑之謀,實游所深許,則堂記之作,或君子取人不廢言之意乎?且重慨當世之君臣,無有一人計出侂冑之上。此特能堂記以許之,隱然有春秋大復仇之義焉。」】
七百五[88]
校改同人撰《文學史》稿[89],因思漢樂府〈上山采蘼蕪〉一首,古今說者皆未中肯窾。此篇寫喜新厭舊分兩層:第一層指故人言,其事易曉;第二層指新人言,則窺見者尟矣。蓋新人入門以後,相習而成故;故人出閣以後,緣別而如新。是以新漸得人嫌,而故能令公喜。La Fontaine, Contes:
“Le Pâté d’Anguille”: “Mainte beauté, tant soit exquise, / Rassasie et soûle à
la fin. / Il me faut d’un autre pain: / Diversité, c’est ma devise”[90]
(Fables, Contes et Nouvelles, “La Bib. de la Pléiade”, p. 597) 亦衹道著一半耳。如謂故夫餘情未斷、悔心復萌,尚是淺看此詩也。
〇《博物志》(指海本)卷一:「《援神契》曰:『太山,天帝孫也,主召人魂。東方萬物之始,故知人生命之長短。』」按《日知錄》卷三十考論泰山治鬼起於漢一則已引此,惜未及《搜神記》卷四、卷十五、卷十六;又《三國志‧蔣濟傳》裴注引《列異傳》記蔣濟兒死為太山伍伯耳;又〈烏桓鮮卑東夷傳〉裴注引《魏書》言烏桓死者「神靈歸乎赤山,如中國人以死之魂神歸太山也」(〈方技傳〉管輅言:「但恐至太山治鬼,不得治生人」云云,則亭林引之)。徐陵〈報尹義尚書〉云:「衰老稍近東岱不奢」,亦正指此事。《有正味齋駢體文》卷十五〈游泰山記〉一節,則全本之《日知錄》。近人余嘉錫《論學雜著》下冊五七七至五七九頁謂人死魂歸泰山之說,秦、漢間已有之,引《水經‧汶水注》、《博物志》、《太平廣記》等書,似不知亭林此則者。《全宋文》卷六十四寶林〈檄太山文〉有云:「夫東王西母,澄於太素,不在人間。而何妖祥之鬼,魍魎之精。假東嶽之道,託山居之靈」云云,則不以太山府君為正神也。
〇宋玉〈小言賦〉云:「館於蠅鬚,燕於毫端,烹蝨腦,切蟣肝,會九族而同嚌,猶委餘而不殫」(《全上古三代文》卷一)。傅咸〈小語賦〉所謂「烹一小蝨,飽於鄉黨」、「攀蚊髯,附蚋翼」、「急相切逼,竄於針孔以自匿」云云(《全晉文》卷五十一),踵事鋪比,未見有新手眼。杜夷《幽求新書》云:「羈蚊絆蚤,禁其非法;刳蟣屠蝨,求其肝膽」(《太平御覽》卷三百五十九引),則託物寄意,深得罕譬而喻之妙矣。
〇《博物志》(指海本)卷三記「漢武帝時,大宛之北胡人獻一物,大如狗,名曰猛獸。帝怪其細小,欲使虎狼食之。虎見此獸輒低頭」云云,與 Pliny《博物志》載一事劇相似,略謂:亞歷山大大帝征印度,道出亞爾巴尼亞,其王 (rex Albaniae) 獻一巨犬,帝嗾熊羆、野豬臨之,犬偃臥,夷然不屑一顧 (contemptu immobili iacente eo),帝惡其慵惰,殺之。亞爾巴尼亞王乃復獻一頭,曰:「孑遺惟此,當令禦獅、象,不宜以小獸試之也 (ne in parvis experiri vellet sed in leone elephantove)。」帝如其言,獅、象皆摧敗 (Hist. nat.,
VIII. 61, “The Loeb Classical Libray”, III, pp. 104-6)。後世詩文每用此典,如 Basile, Il Pentamerone, I.
iii: “Ma questi ne fecero quel canto che il cane di Alessandro dei conigli”(testo
tradutto da B. Croce, p. 39) 是也。
〇《列子‧周穆王篇》曰:「宋陽里華子中年病忘,朝取而夕忘,夕與而朝忘;在塗則忘行,在室則忘坐;今不識先,後不識今。闔室毒之。魯有儒生,自媒能治之,積年之疾,一朝都除。華子既悟,乃大怒,黜妻罰子,操戈逐儒生。宋人執而問其以,華子曰:『曩吾忘也,蕩蕩然不覺天地之有無。今頓識既往,數十年來存亡、得失、哀樂、好惡,擾擾萬緒起矣。』」《永樂大典》卷二千九百五十一「神」字引《周美成集‧禱神文》曰:「胥山子既弱冠,得健忘疾,坐則忘起,起則忘所適,與人語則忘所以對。(中略)有老子之徒教之曰:『(中略)然子自知其忘,忘未甚也;并此不知,乃其至歟!』」略仿《列子》此節。按 Horace, Epist., II. ii. 128
ff. 云希臘有一上流士人 (Fuit haud
ignobilis Argis)[91],患狂易之疾,坐空室中,每見搬演院本,擊節稱嘆 (129-30: “qui se credebat miros audire tragoedos in uacuo laetus sessor
plausorque theatro”),其友延醫治之,既瘳,嘆曰:「君輩非救我,乃殺我也!無復幻景空花,娛我目矣 (139-141: “Et redit ad sese: ‘pol, me occidistis, amici, / non
seruastis’ ait, ’cui sic extorta uoluptas / et demptus per uim mentis
gratissimus error” — “Loeb Class. Lib.”, p.
434)!」二事劇類。C.I. Frugoni,
“Poeta e Re”: “Vi fu un pazzo, non so quando, / che somiglia un poco a me, / che
sul trono esser sognando, / comandava come un Re. // Nell’inganno suo, felice /
conducea contento i di; / ma per opra degli amici / medicato egli guarì. // Guarì,
è ver; ma sè veggendo / pover uom qual pria tornato, disse lor quasi piangendo: / voi m’avete assassinato. // Col tornar della ragione /
da me lungi se ne va / un error, ch’era cagione / della mia felicità” (E.M.
Fusco, La Lirica, I, p. 414) 即本 Horace 詩意也。Leopardi 論 “tutti i piaceri sono illusioni... e di queste illusioni si forma... la
nostra vita” (Zibaldone, ed. F. Flora, I, p. 260, cf. p. 299) 可發明此旨。病痊而怒之意尤深摯,參觀 Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra, “Von der Erlösung”: “Wenn
man dem Blinden seine Augen gibt, so sieht er zuviel schlimme Dinge auf Erden:
also dass er den verflucht, der ihn heilte”[92]
usw. (Alfred Kröner Verlag, S. 203); T. Hood: “Tim Turpin” (J.M. Cohen, More Comic & Curious Verse, p. 179);
G. Clémenceau: “Le Voile du Bonheur”
(W.L. Schwartz,
The
Imaginative Interpretation of the Far East in Modern Fr. Lit., p. 100, 見第八十二則[93]); Synge, The Well of the Saints;
Yeats, The Cat & the Moon (V.
Mercier, The Irish Comic Tradition,
p. 35); 七八二則。
〇張汝弼《張東海全集康熙三十二年刻》卷二〈詩欲學陸放翁賦此見志〉云:「酒杯不及陶彭澤,詩法將隨陸放翁。南宋偏安翁不幸,聖明全盛我遭逢。」沈周七言律學放翁,俞弁《山樵暇語》卷一即謂其「學陸放翁,故造語粗淺,亦多佳句。」文徵明自言「少年學詩,從陸放翁入」,見《四友齋叢說》卷二十六。今觀《甫田集》,尚時露故習(如卷五〈同王履約過道復東堂〉之「矮帋凝霜供小草,殘甌吹雪試新茶」即仿放翁〈臨安春雨初霽〉之五、六一聯)。袁宗道《白蘇齋類集》卷五〈偶得放翁集快讀數日志喜因效其語〉云:「摹寫事情俱透脫,品題花鳥亦清奇。儘同元白諸人趣,絕是蘇黄一輩詩」(同卷〈初春和陸放翁韻〉、〈有感戲作〉皆酷肖劍南)。徐釚《南州草堂集》晚作學放翁,卷十二載馮廷櫆題詞云:「劍南詩句早留名,標格何人學詩成」(此詩不見《馮舍人遺詩》)。王彥弘《疑雨集》偶染指放翁(卷二〈示狂社諸君效劍南體〉、〈索居漫書〉:「一編抄出劍南詩」、〈燈夕悼感〉第一首、卷四〈奉壽寒溪陸先生八旬二章〉)。田雯《古歡堂詩集》亦然,七言絕卷一〈同陳學士論詩〉第二首至云:「劍南萬丈光芒在,坡老堂堂妙入神。」馮廷櫆、王苹皆學放翁,已見第五百九十則。馬中錫《東田集》詩極似放翁,工貼在石田、白蘇齋之上。此皆世人所不知,連類記之。【王霖《弇山詩鈔》亦多學放翁而尸祝之,且集陸詩。尤西堂子謹庸珍《滄湄詩稿》近體多學放翁,卷十三〈閒居漫興‧之六〉所謂「古詩最愛陶元亮,近體偏憐陸放翁」。王昊《碩園詩稿》卷二十以下學放翁。】【《晚晴簃詩滙》卷一百五十四倪寶森〈書劍南詩後〉。焦袁熹《此木軒詞》卷二〈采桑子〉三十、三十一皆題〈劍南詞〉卷,《此木軒詩》卷十〈閱宋人詩集十首‧之二〉。】【劉將孫《養吾齋集》卷九〈送臨川二艾采詩序〉謂「畫堂蟋蟀怨深夜,金井梧桐生暮寒」乃成都妓詩,范石湖命以試放翁者,「今《劍南》有此聯」;卷二十七〈雜記〉:「放翁當孝宗初政,面賜第,眷意甚渥,以飛語罷,連蹇二十年,晚除嚴州,謝辭孝宗,將倦勤,引見,慰以久别,且云:『卿仕不遇,才如此,曷不著書傳後?』放翁謝表云:『明主恩深,書生命薄』,又云:『念其久别,勸以著書。』」】【邵無恙《鏡西閣詩選》卷六〈快閣〉:「劍南頻憶山陰雪,畢竟詩篇愛故鄉」,自注:「世傳放翁詩多述蜀中遨遊之感,及於故鄉者較少,考《集》中如〈追懷鏡湖舊游〉、〈感懷里中寒食〉及『忽記山陰夜雪時』、『故鄉可望應添淚』等句,亦何嘗少及故鄉耶?」】【舊抄本《錢湘靈先生詩集》(補編)第二冊〈早秋喜抄梅聖俞陸放翁二家詩成書其卷端〉:「曩愛放翁詩,錢程舊評跋(牧齋、孟陽本)。……陸詩貴自然,精緻善轉折」;第五冊〈重題放翁詩〉:「放翁詩句本天成,回想當年鍛鍊情。尚未親時人事雜,正微吟際雁雲橫『下語今年尚未親』、『暮雲橫雁正微吟』二句放翁詩。破讀百回游舊國,重裝一本下新評。射洪廟有靈籤□見放翁集,定訂香山共主盟。」】【《江蘇詩徵》卷二十一俞玉局〈題劍南詩稿〉。】【梁玉繩《蛻稿》卷二〈書劍南集〉七絕;《歸愚詩鈔餘集》卷七〈書劍南詩稿後〉[94];朱鶴齡《愚庵小集》卷十三〈書渭南集後〉。】
〇皎然《詩式》卷一云:「上句偶然孤發,其意未全,更資下句引之方了。夫對者,如天尊、地卑,君臣、父子,蓋天地自然之數。若斤斧跡存,不合自然,則非作者之意。又詩家對語,二句相須,如鳥展翅,若惟擅工一句,雖奇且麗,何異于鴛鴦五色,隻翼而飛者哉?」《詩人玉屑》卷三引沼溪疑當作潛溪云:「昔人『園柳變鳴禽』竟不及『池塘生春草』;『餘霞散成綺』不及『澄江靜如練』;『春水船如天上坐』不若『老年花似霧中看』;『閑几硯中窺水淺』不如『落花徑裏得泥香』;停杯嗟別久』不及『對月喜家貧』;『神林社日鼓』不若『茅屋午時鷄』。此數公未始不精心,以此知全寶未易多得。」《詩話總龜後集》卷二十引《童蒙詩訓》云:「徐師川云:『為詩文常患意不屬,或只得一句,語意便盡,欲足成一章,又患其不相稱。(中略)若未有其次句,即不若且休,養銳以待新意,若盡力須要相屬,譬如力不敵而苦戰,一敗之後,意氣沮矣。』」劉辰翁評雁湖《王荊公詩》卷三十七〈松江〉「五更縹渺千山月,萬里淒涼一笛風」云:「上句無用」;卷三十八〈江上〉「春風似補林塘破,野水遙連草樹高」云:「上句先得。」范晞文《對牀夜話》卷三云:「好句易得,好聯難得。唐人『天勢圍平野,河流入斷山』等[95],下句皆勝於上句。老杜『地卑荒野大,天遠暮江遲』,『亂雲低薄暮,急雪舞回風』等,皆不免此病。」《儒林外史》第二十九回杜慎卿評蕭金鉉〈烏龍潭春游詩〉「桃花何苦紅如此?楊柳忽然青可憐」(按袁潔《蠡莊詩話》卷四「畢恬溪亨為余誦張嘯蘇佳句」云云,即此聯)云:「加意做出來的!但上一句只要添一個『問』字,便是〈賀新涼〉中間一句好詞,先生把他做了詩,下面又強對一句,便覺索然了!」按 Paul Valéry 所謂 “vers donné” 與 “vers calculé” 之別,正謂此也:Littérature, p. 36: “Deux sortes de vers: les vers donnés et les vers calculés. Les vers calculés sont ceux qui se présentent
nécessairement sous formes de problèmes à résoudre — et qui ont pour conditions
initiales d’abord les vers donnés, et, ensuite la rime, la
syntaxe, le sens déjà engagés par ces données”; Variétés, I, 67: “Les dieux, gracieusement, nous donnent pour rien
tel premier vers: mais c’est à nous de façonner le second, qui doit consonner
avec l’autre, et ne pas être indigne de son aîné surnaturel. Ce n’est pas trop
de toutes les ressources de l’expérience et de l’esprit pour le rendre
comparable au vers qui fut un don.” 參觀
Croce, La Poesia, 5a ed.,
pp. 93-4, 289 論 “intarsiatura”, “chevilles”,又六百四則《王荊公詩集》卷三十七〈松江〉須溪評,《苕溪漁隱叢話前集》卷三十二引《桐江詩話》:「石曼卿一日春初,見階砌初生之草,得句云:『草屈金鈎綠未回』,旬日方足成,曰:『簷垂氷筯晴先滴』,不逮先得句遠甚。始知詩人一篇之中,率是先得一聯或一句,其最警拔者是也。」
【《攻媿集》卷十二〈即事〉云:「調琴不用求成曲,得句何須湊作詩?」《鴻慶居士集》卷四〈題谷隱〉云:「句好無強對,神超有獨遨。」】【《文鏡秘府論‧二十九種對》論屬對不得有「跛眇」者,〈論文意〉論對不得「離支」、「缺偶」,皆即所謂「偏枯」也。】【Thornton Wilder: “I forget which of the great sonneteers said: ‘One line
in the fourteen comes from the ceiling; the others have
to be adjusted around it’” (Writers at
Work, p. 90).】
〇方虛谷《桐江集》卷一〈名僧詩話序〉云:「北宗以樹以鏡為譬,而曰:『時時勤拂拭,不使惹塵埃。』南宗謂:『本來無一物,自不惹塵埃』,高矣!後之善為詩者,皆祖此意,謂為『翻案法』。」尤西堂《艮齋雜說》卷六亦謂禪語與詩文「翻進一層法」同,舉例殊妙。竊謂陸暢之「蜀道易於履平地」,王介甫之「一鳥不鳴山更幽」,均此手眼。謝茂秦《四溟山人全集》卷二十二云:「學詩者當如臨字之法:子美『日出籬東水』,則曰『月墮竹西峯』;若『雲生舍北泥』,則曰『雲起屋西山。』久而入悟,不假臨摹矣。」亦禪家對法。宗寶編《六祖大師法寶壇經‧付囑第十》所謂「外境無情五對:天與地對等是也;法相語言十二對:有與無對等是也;自性起滅十九對:喜與嗔對等是也。若有人問汝義,問有將無對,問無將有對,問凡以聖對,問聖以凡對。設有人問:『何名為暗?』答云:『明是』」(參觀第二百三十二則論《二程遺書》卷十八),西人謂為 “contra-imitation” (G. Tarde,
Les Lois de l’Imitation, pp. 270 et
suiv.)。Novalis, Fragmente, §102: “Kontraste sind inverse
Ähnlichkeiten” (hrsg. von E. Kamnitzer, S. 88); G.-C. Lichtenberg, Aphorismen, F. 4: “Gerade das Gegentheil
thun ist auch eine Nachahmung, und die Definitionen der Nachahmung müsten von
Rechtswegen beydes unter sich begreifen. Dieses sollen unsere grosen nachahmenden
Original Köpfe in Deutschland
behertzigen” (hrsg. von A. Lietzmann, Bd. III, S.
134). 而 Valéry 言之最親切:“...toujours ce qui se fait répète ce qui fut fait, ou le réfute: le répète
en d’autres tons, l’épure, l’amplifie, le simplifie; ou bien le rétorque, l’extermine,
le renverse, le nie: mais donc le suppose, et l’a invisiblement utilisé. Le
contraire naît du contraire” (“Lettre sur Mallarmé”, Oeuvres, Pléiade, I, p. 634)。參觀 André Malraux, La Création artistique, p. 129: “La
matière première d’un art qui va naître n’est pas la vie, c’est l’art antérieur....
Pas un style, pas un maître qui ne se dégage de la gangue d’un autre”; L. Pareyson,
Estetica, 2a ed., p. 139: “Le
vicende dell’arte sono governate da un ritmo che alterna formazione e
trasformazione... Ogni opera d’arte... non possa essere una creazione ex nihilo... ché solo l’arte può
generare arte, e solo da arte già realizzata l’arte può nascere”; Northrop
Frye, The Anatomy of Criticism, pp.
95-7: “Any poem may be examined, not only as an imitation of nature, but as an
imitation of other poems.... The new poem, like the new baby who is conditioned
by a hereditary & environmental kinship to a society which already exists,
is born into an already existing order of words, & is typical of the
structure of poetry o which it is attached.” Cf. Northrop Frye, The Educated Imagination, p. 40: “A
writer’s desire to write can only have come from previous experience of
literature”; cf. J. Culler, Structuralist
Poetics, p. 30 又 Comparative Literature:
Proceedings of the Second Congress of the ICLA, I, pp. 51, 53: “Hence while every new poem is a new & unique
creation, it is also a reshaping of familiar conventions of literature....
Every poem is inherently connected with other poems in its kind.” Croce 深非詩文彼此孳生 (La poesia genera poesia) 之說 (La Poesia, 5a
ed., pp. 135-6; Filosofia, Poesia, Storia,
p. 95, . 122; 參觀 Blake, Notes on Reynolds: “I
do not believe that Rafael taught Mich. Angelo or that Mich. Angelo taught
Rafael / any more than I believe that the Rose teaches the Lilly how to grow or
the Apple teaches the Pear tree how to bear Fruit” — A. Gilchrist, Life of William Blake, “Everyman’s Lib.”,
p. 273),又薄 Valéry 為不足與言 (Comparative Literature, II, p. 515,
letter to L. Bergel: “Ma l’Elliot se ha questi limiti è uomo con cui si può
discutere, avendo molti punti in commune con noi, diversamente da quello che
accadeva col povero Valéry”),然於此事則不如 Valéry 所見之真矣!Marcel Proust, “La M
éthode de Saimte-Beuve”: “Or, en art il n’y a pas (au
moins dans le sens scientifique) d’initiateur, de précurseur. Tout [étant] dans
l’individu, chaque individu recommence, pour son compte, la tentative
artistique ou littéraire; et les oeuvres de ses prédécesseurs ne constituent
pas, comme dans la science, une vérité acquise, dont profite celui qui suit. Un écrivain
de génie aujourd'hui a tout à faire. Il n’est pas beaucoup plus avancé que
Homère” (Contre Sainte-Beuve, p. 134)
則與 Croce 主張相近。《何大復先生集》(乾隆十四年何輝少重梓本)卷十一〈關索嶺〉云:「噫嘻吁嶮巇!何天設之危艱!下有奔雷噴雪之飛壑,上有懸崖石棧百折而造天。嶔崟兮巉巖,回復兮盤盤。行人雁陳而魚貫,計分寸兮躋攀,飛鳥兮折翼,猴猱兮無援。茍失足殞巖而落箐兮,曽不足以充虎蛇之餐。朝不見日,夕不見月,雲烟慘慘兮晝夜寒。噫嘻乎!何天設之危艱!我來倚絕壁而長望,蓋不知蜀道之為難。」於太白之詩,欲兼模仿與翻案,拙劣粗率,蓋兩失之。
[5]「暗」原作「私」。
[17]「戰城南」原作「上之回」。
[18]「愁雲」原作「空城」。
[22]「圖畫見聞志」原作「圖畫聞見志」。
[23]「未起先改之意」原作「未起先改之態」,「殆有得於」原脫「於」字。
[24]「大年」原作「永年」。
[25]「目」原作「年」。
[26]「泊」原作缺字「□」。
[28]「濁穢」原作「穢濁」。
[29]「十二」原作「十一」,「『中原』、『紫氣』」原作「『紫氣』、『中原』」。
[30]「三首」原作「三日」。
[31]「第四冊」原作「第五冊」。
[43] “Tirsi morir volea”:
“Tirsi morir volea / Gli occhi mirando di colei ch’adora, / Quand’ella, che di
lui non meno ardea, / Li disse: ‘Ahimè, ben mio, / Deh non morir ancora / Che
teco bramo di morir anch’io.’ // Frenò Tirsi il desio, / Ch’ebbe di pur sua
vita allor finire, / E sentea morte, e non potea morire; / E mentre il guardo
suo fisso tenea / Ne’begli occhi divini, / E’l nettar amoroso indi bevea, / La
bella Ninfa sua, che già vicini. // Sentea i messi d’amore, / Disse con occhi
languid’e tremanti: / ‘Mori, cor mio, ch’io moro.’ / Cui rispose il Pastore: /
‘Ed io, mia vita, moro.’ / Così morirno i fortunati amanti, / Di morte sì soave
e sì gradita, / Che per anco morir tornarno in vita.” (“Thyrsis Wished to Die”:
“Thyrsis wished to die, / gazing at the eyes of his beloved / when she, whose
ardor equaled his, / said: ‘Alas, my love, / do not die yet, / since I long to
die with thee.’ // Thyrsis curbed the desire, / which by then has almost ended
his life: / he felt death near, yet could not die; / and while he kept his gaze / fixed upon those eyes
divine, / and drank from thence the nectar of love, / his pretty Nymph, who
felt // Love’s heralds near, / said with languishing and trembling looks: /
‘Die my heart, for I die.’
/ At which the Shepherd replied: / ‘And I, my life, die.’ / Thus the
happy lovers died / a death so sweet and pleasant, / that in order to die
again, they returned to life.”)
[52] “The Steam Guillotine”: “A
most wonderful steam-machine, / One time set up in China-land, / Outdid the
insatiate guillotine, / For in three hours, you understand, / It cut off a
hundred thousand heads / In a row, like hospital beds.” (C.D. Warner, et al., The Library of the World’s Best Literature:
“The monarch satirized in this poem was Francesco IV., Duke of Modena, a petty
Nero, who executed not a few of the Italian patriots of 1831.”)
[59]「第八回」原作「第六回」。
[64]「十二」原作「十一」。
[84]「卷二」原作「卷一」。
[85]「老夫老去」原作「老夫休去」。
[94]「餘集」原作「餘卷」。
[95]「斷山」原作「亂山」。
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