Читать книгу History of English Literature from "Beowulf" to Swinburne - Andrew Lang, Robert Kirk - Страница 21

The "Phœnix," assigned to Cynewulf as usual, is based on a late Latin poem attributed to Lactantius (290-325) and ends as an allegory of Christ. It is interesting to observe in the "Phœnix" a description of an ideal land of peace "where comes not hail or rain or any snow," the picture is borrowed from Homer's lines on Olympus, the home of the gods, and Elysium, the abode reserved for Helen of Troy and Menelaus, in the Odyssey. Anglo-Saxon poetry, without knowing it, came in touch, through Lactantius, with the most beautiful verses in the most ancient poetry of Greece, verses paraphrased in Latin, by Lucretius, and in English by Tennyson, twice ("Lucretius," and the "Morte d'Arthur"), and in "Atalanta in Calydon," by Mr. Swinburne. The golden thread of ancient Greek poetry thus runs through Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and English literature.

1. First published in his time (1655) by Francis Junius (of course not the Junius who has been identified with Francis).

2. find that Mr. W. P. Ker has made the same comparison.

3. Apparently he has confused the Læstrygonians who devoured some of the companions of Odysseus, with the Myrmidonians (Myrmidones) the Greeks who followed Achilles to Troy.