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1010 Plato, Phædo, c. 2.

1011 The Philopseudes of Lucian (t. iii. p. 31, Hemst. cap. 2, 3, 4) shows not only the pride which the general public of Athens and Thêbes took in their old mythes (Triptolemus, Boreas, and Oreithyia, the Sparti, etc.), but the way in which they treated every man who called the stories in question as a fool or as an atheist. He remarks, that if the guides who showed the antiquities had been restrained to tell nothing but what was true, they would have died of hunger; for the visiting strangers would not care to hear plain truth, even if they could have got it for nothing (μηδὲ ἀμισθὶ τῶν ξένων ἀληθὲς ἀκούειν ἐθελησάντων).

1012 Herodot. viii. 134.

1013 Herodot. v. 67.

1014 Euripid. Hippolyt. 1424; Pausan. ii. 32, 1; Lucian, De Deâ Syriâ, c. 60. vol. iv. p. 287, Tauch.

It is curious to see in the account of Pausanias how all the petty peculiarities of the objects around became connected with explanatory details growing out of this affecting legend. Compare Pausan. i. 22, 2.

1015 Pausan. ix. 40, 6.

1016 Plutarch, Marcell. c. 20; Pausan. iii. 3, 6.

1017 Pausan. viii. 46, 1; Diogen. Laër. viii. 5; Strabo, vi. p. 263; Appian, Bell. Mithridat. c. 77; Æschyl. Eumen. 380.

Wachsmuth has collected the numerous citations out of Pausanias on this subject (Hellenische Alterthumskunde, part ii. sect. 115. p. 111).

1018 Herodot. ii. 182; Plutarch, Pyrrh. c. 32; Schol. Apoll. Rhod iv. 1217; Diodôr. iv. 56.

1019 Ἡμιθέων ἀρεταῖς, the subjects of the works of Polygnotus at Athens (Melanthius ap. Plutarch. Cimôn. c. 4): compare Theocrit. xv. 138.

1020 The Centauromachia and the Amazonomachia are constantly associated together in the ancient Grecian reliefs (see the Expedition Scientifique de Morée, t. ii. p. 16, in the explanation of the temple of Apollo Epikureius at Phigaleia).

1021 Pausan. ii. 29, 6.

1022 Ernst Curtius, Die Akropolis von Athen, Berlin, 1844, p. 18. Arnobius adv. Gentes, vi. p. 203, ed. Elmenhorst.

1023 See the case of the Æginêtans lending the Æakids for a time to the Thebans (Herodot. v. 80), who soon, however, returned them: likewise sending the Æakids to the battle of Salamis (viii. 64-80). The Spartans, when they decreed that only one of their two kings should be out on military service, decreed at the same time that only one of the Tyndarids should go out with them (v. 75): they once lent the Tyndarids as aids to the envoys of Epizephyrian Locri, who prepared for them a couch on board their ship (Diodôr. Excerpt. xvi. p. 15, Dindorf). The Thebans grant their hero Melanippus to Kleisthenês of Sikyôn (v. 68). What was sent, must probably have been a consecrated copy of the genuine statue.

Respecting the solemnities practised towards the statues, see Plutarch, Alkibiad. 34; Kallimach. Hymn. ad Lavacr. Palladis, init. with the note of Spanheim; K. O. Müller, Archæologie der Kunst, § 69; compare Plutarch, Quæstion. Romaic. § 61. p. 279; and Tacit. Mor. Germ. c. 40; Diodôr. xvii. 49.

The manner in which the real presence of a hero was identified with his statue (τὸν δίκαιον δεῖ θεὸν οἴκοι μένειν σώζοντα ροὺς ἱδρυμένους.—Menander, Fragm. Ἡνίοχος, p. 71, Meineke), consecrated ground, and oracle, is nowhere more powerfully attested than in the Heroïca of Philostratus (capp. 2-20. pp. 674-692; also De Vit Apollôn. Tyan. iv. 11), respecting Prôtesilaus at Elæus, Ajax at the Aianteium, and Hectôr at Ilium: Prôtesilaus appeared exactly in the equipment of his statue,—χλαμύδα ἐνῆπται, ξένε, τὸν Θετταλικὸν τρόπον, ὥσπερ καὶ τὸ ἄγαλμα τοῦτο (p. 674). The presence and sympathy of the hero Lykus is essential to the satisfaction of the Athenian dikasts (Aristophan. Vesp. 389-820): the fragment of Lucilius, quoted by Lactantius, De Falsâ Religione (i. 22), is curious.—Τοῖς ἥρωσι τοῖς κατὰ τὴν πόλιν καὶ τὴν χώραν ἱδρυμένοις (Lycurgus cont. Leocrat. c. 1).

1024 Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 12; Strabo, vi. p. 264. Theophrastus treats the perspiration as a natural phænomenon in the statues made of cedar-wood (Histor. Plant. v. 10). Plutarch discusses the credibility of this sort of miracles in his Life of Coriolanus, c. 37-38.

1025 Herodot. vii. 189. Compare the gratitude of the Megalopolitans to Boreas for having preserved them from the attack of the Lacedæmonian king Agis (Pausan. viii. 27, 4.—viii. 36, 4). When the Ten Thousand Greeks were on their retreat through the cold mountains of Armenia, Boreas blew in their faces, “parching and freezing intolerably.” One of the prophets recommended that a sacrifice should be offered to him, which was done, “and the painful effect of the wind appeared to every one forthwith to cease in a marked manner;” (καὶ πᾶσι δὴ περιφανῶς ἔδοξε λῆξαι τὸ χαλεπὸν τοῦ πνεύματος.—Xenoph. Anab. iv. 5, 3.)

1026 Jornandes, De Reb. Geticis, capp. 4-6.

1027 Tacit. Mor. German. c. 2. “Celebrant carminibus antiquis, quod unum apud eos memoriæ et annalium genus est, Tuistonem Deum terrâ editum, et filium Mannum, originem gentis conditoresque. Quidam licentiâ vetustatis, plures Deo ortos, pluresque gentis appellationes, Marsos, Gambrivios, Suevos, Vandaliosque affirmant: eaque vera et antiqua nomina.”

1028 On the hostile influence exercised by the change of religion on the old Scandinavian poetry, see an interesting article of Jacob Grimm in the Göttingen Gelehrte Anzeigen, Feb. 1830, pp. 268-273; a review of Olaf Tryggvson’s Saga. The article Helden, in his Deutsche Mythologie, is also full of instruction on the same subject: see also the Einleitung to the book, p. 11, 2nd edition.

A similar observation has been made with respect to the old mythes of the pagan Russians by Eichhoff: “L’établissement du Christianisme, ce gage du bonheur des nations, fut vivement apprécié par les Russes, qui dans leur juste reconnaissance, le personnifièrent dans un héros. Vladimir le Grand, ami des arts, protecteur de la religion qu’il protégea, et dont les fruits firent oublier les fautes, devint l’Arthus et le Charlemagne de la Russie, et ses hauts faits furent un mythe national qui domina tous ceux du paganisme. Autour de lui se groupèrent ces guerriers aux formes athlétiques, au cœur généreux, dont la poésie aime à entourer le berceau mystérieux des peuples: et les exploits du vaillant Dobrinia, de Rogdai, d’Ilia, de Curilo, animèrent les ballades nationales, et vivent encore dans de naïfs récits.” (Eichhoff, Histoire de la Langue et Littérature des Slaves, Paris, 1839, part iii. ch. 2. p. 190.)

1029 This distinction is curiously brought to view by Saxo Grammaticus, where he says of an Englishman named Lucas, that he was “literis quidem tenuiter instructus, sed historiarum scientiâ apprime eruditus” (p. 330, apud Dahlmann’s Historische Forschungen, vol. i. p. 176).

1030 “Barbara et antiquissima carmina (says Eginhart, in his Life of Charlemagne), quibus veterum regum actus et bella canebantur, conscripsit.”

Theganus says of Louis le Debonnaire, “Poetica carmina gentilia, quæ in juventute didicerat, respuit, nec legere, nec audire, nec docere, voluit.” (De Gestis Ludovici Imperatoris ap. Pithœum, p. 304, c. xix.)

1031 See Grimm’s Deutsche Mythologie, art. Helden, p. 356, 2nd edit. Hengist and Horsa were fourth in descent from Odin (Venerable Bede, Hist. i. 15). Thiodolff, the Scald of Harold Haarfager king of Norway, traced the pedigree of his sovereign through thirty generations to Yngarfrey, the son of Niord, companion of Odin at Upsal; the kings of Upsal were called Ynglinger, and the song of Thiodolff, Ynglingatal (Dahlmann, Histor. Forschung. i. p. 379). Eyvind, another Scald, a century afterwards, deduced the pedigree of Jarl Hacon from Saming, son of Yngwifrey (p. 381). Are Frode, the Icelandic historian, carried up his own genealogy through thirty-six generations to Yngwe; a genealogy which Torfæus accepts as trustworthy, opposing it to the line of kings given by Saxo Grammaticus (p. 352). Torfæus makes Harold Haarfager a descendant from Odin through twenty-seven generations; Alfred of England through twenty-three generations; Offa of Mercia through fifteen (p. 362). See also the translation by Lange of P. A. Müller’s Saga Bibliothek, Introd. p. xxviii. and the genealogical tables prefixed to Snorro Sturleson’s Edda.

Mr. Sharon Turner conceives the human existence of Odin to be distinctly proved, seemingly upon the same evidence as Euêmerus believed in the human existence of Zeus (History of the Anglo-Saxons, Appendix to b. ii. ch. 3. p. 219, 5th edit.).

1032 Dahlmann, Histor. Forschung. t. i. p. 220. There is a valuable article on this subject in the Zeitschrift für Geschichts Wissenschaft (Berlin, vol. i. pp. 237-282) by Stuhr, “Über einige Hauptfragen des Nordischen Alterthums,” wherein the writer illustrates both the strong motive and the effective tendency, on the part of the Christian clergy who had to deal with these newly-converted Teutonic pagans, to Euêmerize the old gods, and to represent a genealogy, which they were unable to efface from men’s minds, as if it consisted only of mere men.

Mr. John Kemble (Über die Stammtafel der Westsachsen, ap. Stuhr, p. 254) remarks, that “nobilitas,” among that people, consisted in descent from Odin and the other gods.

Colonel Sleeman also deals in the same manner with the religious legends of the Hindoos,—so natural is the proceeding of Euêmerus, towards any religion in which a critic does not believe:—

“They (the Hindoos) of course think that the incarnation of their three great divinities were beings infinitely superior to prophets, being in all their attributes and prerogatives equal to the divinities themselves. But we are disposed to think that these incarnations were nothing more than great men whom their flatterers and poets have exalted into gods,—this was the way in which men made their gods in ancient Greece and Egypt.—All that the poets have sung of the actions of these men is now received as revelation from heaven: though nothing can be more monstrous than the actions ascribed to the best incarnation, Krishna, of the best of the gods, Vishnoo.” (Sleeman, Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official, vol. i. ch. viii. 61.)

1033 See P. E. Müller, Über den Ursprung und Verfall der Isländischen Historiographie, p. 63.

In the Leitfaden zur Nordischen Alterthumskunde, pp. 4-5 (Copenhagen, 1837), is an instructive summary of the different schemes of interpretation applied to the northern mythes: 1, the historical; 2, the geographical; 3, the astronomical; 4, the physical; 5, the allegorical.

1034 “Interea tamen homines Christiani in numina non credant ethnica, nec aliter fidem narrationibus hisce adstruere vel adhibere debent, quam in libri hujus proœmio monitum est de causis et occasionibus cur et quomodo genus humanum a verâ fide aberraverit.” (Extract from the Prose Edda, p. 75, in the Lexicon Mythologicum ad calcem Eddæ Sæmund. vol. iii. p. 357, Copenhag. edit.)

A similar warning is to be found in another passage cited by P. E. Müller, Über den Ursprung und Verfall der Isländischen Historiographie, p. 138, Copenhagen, 1813; compare the Prologue to the Prose Edda, p. 6, and Mallet, Introduction à l’Histoire de Dannemarc, ch. vii. pp. 114-132.

Saxo Grammaticus represents Odin sometimes as a magician, sometimes as an evil dæmon, sometimes as a high priest or pontiff of heathenism, who imposed so powerfully upon the people around him as to receive divine honors. Thor also is treated as having been an evil dæmon. (See Lexicon Mythologic. ut supra, pp. 567, 915.)

Respecting the function of Snorro as logographer, see Præfat. ad Eddam, ut supra, p. xi. He is much more faithful, and less unfriendly to the old religion, than the other logographers of the ancient Scandinavian Sagas. (Leitfaden der Nordischen Alterthümer, p. 14, by the Antiquarian Society of Copenhagen, 1837.)

By a singular transformation, dependent upon the same tone of mind, the authors of the French Chansons de Geste, in the twelfth century, turned Apollo into an evil dæmon, patron of the Mussulmans (see the Roman of Garin le Loherain, par M. Paulin Paris, 1833, p. 31): “Car mieux vaut Dieux que ne fait Apollis.” M. Paris observes, “Cet ancien Dieu des beaux arts est l’un des démons le plus souvent désignés dans nos poëmes, comme patron des Musulmans.”

The prophet Mahomet, too, anathematized the old Persian epic anterior to his religion. “C’est à l’occasion de Naser Ibn al-Hareth, qui avait apporté de Perse l’Histoire de Rustem et d’Isfendiar, et la faisait réciter par des chanteuses dans les assemblées des Koreischites, que Mahomet prononça le vers suivant (of the Koran): Il y a des hommes qui achètent des contes frivoles, pour détourner par-là les hommes de la voie de Dieu, d’une manière insensée, et pour la livrer à la risée: mais leur punition les couvrira de honte.” (Mohl, Préface au Livre des Rois de Ferdousi, p. xiii.)

1035 The legends of the Saints have been touched upon by M. Guizot (Cours d’Histoire Moderne, leçon xvii.) and by M. Ampère (Histoire Littéraire de la France, t. ii. cap. 14, 15, 16); but a far more copious and elaborate account of them, coupled with much just criticism, is to be found in the valuable Essai sur les Légendes Pieuses du Moyen Age, par L. F. Alfred Maury, Paris, 1843.

M. Guizot scarcely adverts at all to the more or less of matter of fact contained in these biographies: he regards them altogether as they grew out of and answered to the predominant emotions and mental exigences of the age: “Au milieu d’un déluge de fables absurdes, la morale éclate avec un grand empire” (p. 159, ed. 1829). “Les légendes ont été pour les Chrétiens de ce temps (qu’on me permette cette comparaison purement littéraire) ce que sont pour les Orientaux ces longs récits, ces histoires si brillantes et si variées, dont les Mille et une Nuits nous donnent un échantillon. C’était là que l’imagination populaire errait librement dans un monde inconnu, merveilleux, plein de mouvement et de poésie” (p. 175, ibid.).

M. Guizot takes his comparison with the tales of the Arabian Nights, as heard by an Oriental with uninquiring and unsuspicious credence. Viewed with reference to an instructed European, who reads these narratives as pleasing but recognized fiction, the comparison would not be just; for no one in that age dreamed of questioning the truth of the biographies. All the remarks of M. Guizot assume this implicit faith in them as literal histories: perhaps, in estimating the feelings to which they owed their extraordinary popularity, he allows too little predominance to the religious feeling, and too much influence to other mental exigences which then went along with it; more especially as he remarks, in the preceding lecture (p. 116), “Le caractère général de l’époque est la concentration du développement intellectuel dans la sphère religieuse.”

How this absorbing religious sentiment operated in generating and accrediting new matter of narrative, is shown with great fulness of detail in the work of M. Maury: “Tous les écrits du moyen âge nous apportent la preuve de cette préoccupation exclusive des esprits vers l’Histoire Sainte et les prodiges qui avaient signalé l’avènement du Christianisme. Tous nous montrent la pensée de Dieu et du Ciel, dominant les moindres œuvres de cette époque de naïve et de crédule simplicité. D’ailleurs, n’était-ce pas le moine, le clerc, qui constituaient alors les seuls écrivains? Qu’y a-t-il d’étonnant que le sujet habituel de leurs méditations, de leurs études, se reflétât sans cesse dans leurs ouvrages? Partout reparaissait à l’imagination Jésus et ses Saints: cette image, l’esprit l’accueillait avec soumission et obéissance: il n’osait pas encore envisager ces célestes pensées avec l’œil de la critique, armé de défiance et de doute; au contraire, l’intelligence les acceptait toutes indistinctement et s’en nourrissait avec avidité. Ainsi s’accréditaient tous les jours de nouvelles fables. Une foi vive veut sans cesse de nouveaux faits qu’elle puisse croire, comme la charité veut de nouveaux bienfaits pour s’exercer” (p. 43). The remarks on the History of St. Christopher, whose personality was allegorized by Luther and Melancthon, are curious (p. 57).

1036 “Dans les prodiges que l’on admettait avoir dû nécessairement s’opérer au tombeau du saint nouvellement canonisé, l’expression, ‘Cæci visum, claudi gressum, muti loquelam, surdi auditum, paralytici debitum membrorum officium, recuperabant,’ était devenue plûtot une formule d’usage que la rélation littérale du fait.” (Maury, Essai sur les Légendes Pieuses du Moyen Age, p. 5.)

To the same purpose M. Ampère, ch. 14. p. 361: “Il y a un certain nombre de faits que l’agiographie reproduit constamment, quelque soit son héros: ordinairement ce personnage a eu dans sa jeunesse une vision qui lui a révélé son avenir: ou bien, une prophétie lui a annoncé ce qu’il serait un jour. Plus tard, il opère un certain nombre de miracles, toujours les mêmes; il exorcise des possédés, ressuscite des morts, il est averti de sa fin par un songe. Puis sur son tombeau s’accomplissent d’autres merveilles à-peu-près semblables.”

1037 A few words from M. Ampère to illustrate this: “C’est donc au sixième siècle que la légende se constitue: c’est alors qu’elle prend complètement le caractère naïf qui lui appartient: qu’elle est elle-même, qu’elle se sépare de toute influence étrangère. En même temps, l’ignorance devient de plus en plus grossière, et par suite la crédulité s’accroit: les calamités du temps sont plus lourdes, et l’on a un plus grand besoin de remède et de consolation.... Les récits miraculeux se substituent aux argumens de la théologie. Les miracles sont devenus la meilleure démonstration du Christianisme: c’est la seule que puissent comprendre les esprits grossiers des barbares” (c. 15. p. 373).

Again, c. 17. p. 401: “Un des caractères de la légende est de mêler constamment le puéril au grand: il faut l’avouer, elle défigure parfois un peu ces hommes d’une trempe si forte, en mettant sur leur compte des anecdotes dont le caractère n’est pas toujours sérieux; elle en a usé ainsi pour St. Columban, dont nous verrons tout à l’heure le rôle vis-à-vis de Brunehaut et des chefs Mérovingiens. La légende auroit pu se dispenser de nous apprendre, comment un jour, il se fit rapporter par un corbeau les gants qu’il avait perdus: comment, un autre jour, il empêcha la bière de couler d’un tonneau percé, et diverses merveilles, certainement indignes de sa mémoire.”

The miracle by which St. Columban employed the raven to fetch back his lost gloves, is exactly in the character of the Homeric and Hesiodic age: the earnest faith, as well as the reverential sympathy, between the Homeric man and Zeus or Athênê, is indicated by the invocation of their aid for his own sufferings of detail, and in his own need and danger. The criticism of M. Ampère, on the other hand, is analogous to that of the later pagans, after the conception of a course of nature had become established in men’s minds, so far as that exceptional interference by the gods was understood to be, comparatively speaking, rare, and only supposable upon what were called great emergences.

In the old Hesiodic legend (see above, ch. ix. p. 245), Apollo is apprized by a raven of the infidelity of the nymph Korônis to him—τῷ μὲν ἄρ᾽ ἄγγελος ἦλθε κόραξ, etc. (the raven appears elsewhere as companion of Apollo, Plutarch, de Isid. et Os. p. 379, Herod. iv. 5.) Pindar, in his version of the legend, eliminated the raven, without specifying how Apollo got his knowledge of the circumstance. The Scholiasts praise Pindar much for having rejected the puerile version of the story—ἐπαινεῖ τὸν Πίνδαρον ὁ Ἀρτέμων ὅτι παρακρουσάμενος τὴν περὶ τὸν κόρακα ἱστορἱαν, αὐτὸν δι᾽ ἑαυτοῦ ἐγνωκέναι φησὶ τὸν Ἀπόλλω ... χαίρειν οὖν ἐάσας τῷ τοιούτῳ μύθῳ τέλεως ὄντι ληρώδει, etc.—compare also the criticisms of the Schol. ad Soph. Œdip. Kol. 1378, on the old epic Thebaïs; and the remarks of Arrian (Exp. Al. iii. 4) on the divine interference by which Alexander and his army were enabled to find their way across the sand of the desert to the temple of Ammon.

In the eyes of M. Ampère, the recital of the biographer of St. Columban appears puerile (οὔπω ἴδον ὧδε θεοὺς ἀνάφανδρα φιλεῦντας, Odyss. iii. 221); in the eyes of that biographer, the criticism of M. Ampère would have appeared impious. When it is once conceded that phænomena are distributable under two denominations, the natural and the miraculous, it must be left to the feelings of each individual to determine what is and what is not, a suitable occasion for a miracle. Diodôrus and Pausanias differed in opinion (as stated in a previous chapter) about the death of Actæôn by his own hounds,—the former maintaining that the case was one fit for the special intervention of the goddess Artemis; the latter, that it was not so. The question is one determinable only by the religious feelings and conscience of the two dissentients: no common standard of judgment can be imposed upon them; for no reasonings derived from science or philosophy are available, inasmuch as in this case the very point in dispute is, whether the scientific point of view be admissible. Those who are disposed to adopt the supernatural belief, will find in every case the language open to them wherewith Dionysius of Halicarnassus (in recounting a miracle wrought by Vesta, in the early times of Roman history, for the purpose of rescuing an unjustly accused virgin) reproves the sceptics of his time: “It is well worth while (he observes) to recount the special manifestation (ἐπιφάνειαν) which the goddess showed to these unjustly accused virgins. For these circumstances, extraordinary as they are, have been held worthy of belief by the Romans, and historians have talked much about them. Those persons, indeed, who adopt the atheistical schemes of philosophy (if, indeed, we must call them philosophy), pulling in pieces as they do all the special manifestations (ἁπάσας διασύροντες τὰς ἐπιφανείας τῶν θεῶν) of the gods which have taken place among Greeks or barbarians, will of course turn these stories also into ridicule, ascribing them to the vain talk of men, as if none of the gods cared at all for mankind. But those who, having pushed their researches farther, believe the gods not to be indifferent to human affairs, but favorable to good men and hostile to bad—will not treat these special manifestations as more incredible than others.” (Dionys. Halic. ii. 68-69.) Plutarch, after noticing the great number of miraculous statements in circulation, expresses his anxiety to draw a line between the true and the false, but cannot find where: “excess, both of credulity and of incredulity (he tells us) in such matters is dangerous; caution, and nothing too much, is the best course.” (Camillus, c. 6.) Polybius is for granting permission to historians to recount a sufficient number of miracles to keep up a feeling of piety in the multitude, but not more: to measure out the proper quantity (he observes) is difficult, but not impossible (δυσπαράγραφός ἐστι ἡ ποσότης, οὐ μὴν ἀπαράγραφός γε, xvi. 12).

1038 The great Bollandist collection of the Lives of the Saints, intended to comprise the whole year, did not extend beyond the nine months from January to October, which occupy fifty-three large volumes. The month of April fills three of those volumes, and exhibits the lives of 1472 saints. Had the collection run over the entire year, the total number of such biographies could hardly have been less than 25,000, and might have been even greater (see Guizot, Cours d’Histoire Moderne, leçon xvii. p. 157).

1039 See Warton’s History of English Poetry, vol. i. dissert. i. p. xvii. Again, in sect. iii. p. 140: “Vincent de Beauvais, who lived under Louis IX. of France (about 1260), and who, on account of his extraordinary erudition, was appointed preceptor to that king’s sons, very gravely classes Archbishop Turpin’s Charlemagne among the real histories, and places it on a level with Suetonius and Cæsar. He was himself an historian, and has left a large history of the world, fraught with a variety of reading, and of high repute in the Middle Ages; but edifying and entertaining as this work might have been to his contemporaries, at present it serves only to record their prejudices and to characterize their credulity.” About the full belief in Arthur and the Tales of the Round Table during the fourteenth century, and about the strange historical mistakes of the poet Gower in the fifteenth, see the same work, sect. 7. vol. ii. p. 33; sect. 19. vol. ii. p. 239.

“L’auteur de la Chronique de Turpin (says M. Sismondi, Littérature du Midi, vol. i. ch. 7. p. 289) n’avait point l’intention de briller aux yeux du public par une invention heureuse, ni d’amuser les oisifs par des contes merveilleux qu’ils reconnoitroient pour tels: il présentait aux Français tous ces faits étranges comme de l’histoire, et la lecture des légendes fabuleuses avait accoutumé à croire à de plus grandes merveilles encore; aussi plusieurs de ces fables furent-elles reproduites dans la Chronique de St. Denis.”

Again, ib. p. 290: “Souvent les anciens romanciers, lorsqu’ils entreprennent un récit de la cour de Charlemagne, prennent un ton plus élevé: ce ne sont point des fables qu’ils vont conter, c’est de l’histoire nationale,—c’est la gloire de leurs ancêtres qu’ils veulent célébrer, et ils ont droit alors à demander qu’on les écoute avec respect.”

The Chronicle of Turpin was inserted, even so late as the year 1566, in the collection printed by Scardius at Frankfort of early German historians (Ginguené, Histoire Littéraire d’Italie, vol. iv. part ii. ch. 3. p. 157).

To the same point—that these romances were listened to as real stories—see Sir Walter Scott’s Preface to Sir Tristram, p. lxvii. The authors of the Legends of the Saints are not less explicit in their assertions that everything which they recount is true and well-attested (Ampère, c. 14. p. 358).

1040 The series of articles by M. Fauriel, published in the Revue des Deux Mondes, vol. xiii. are full of instruction respecting the origin, tenor, and influence of the Romances of Chivalry. Though the name of Charlemagne appears, the romancers are really unable to distinguish him from Charles Martel or from Charles the Bald (pp. 537-539). They ascribe to him an expedition to the Holy Land, in which he conquered Jerusalem from the Saracens, obtained possession of the relics of the passion of Christ, the crown of thorns, etc. These precious relics he carried to Rome, from whence they were taken to Spain by a Saracen emir, named Balan, at the head of an army. The expedition of Charlemagne against the Saracens in Spain was undertaken for the purpose of recovering the relics: “Ces divers romans peuvent être regardés comme la suite, comme le développement, de la fiction de la conquête de Jérusalem par Charlemagne.”

Respecting the Romance of Rinaldo of Montauban (describing the struggles of a feudal lord against the emperor) M. Fauriel observes, “Il n’y a, je crois, aucun fondement historique: c’est selon toute apparence, la pure expression poétique du fait général,” etc. (p. 542.)

1041 Among the “formules consacrées” (observes M. Fauriel) of the romancers of the Carlovingian epic, are asseverations of their own veracity, and of the accuracy of what they are about to relate—specification of witnesses whom they have consulted—appeals to pretended chronicles: “Que ces citations, ces indications, soient parfois sérieuses et sincères, cela peut être; mais c’est une exception et une exception rare. De telles allégations de la part des romanciers, sont en général un pur et simple mensonge, mais non toutefois un mensonge gratuit. C’est un mensonge qui a sa raison et sa convenance: il tient au désir et au besoin de satisfaire une opinion accoutumée à supposer et à chercher du vrai dans les fictions du genre de celles où l’on allègue ces prétendues autorités. La manière dont les auteurs de ces fictions les qualifient souvent eux-mêmes, est une conséquence naturelle de leur prétention d’y avoir suivi des documens vénérables. Ils les qualifient de chansons de vieille histoire, de haute histoire, de bonne geste, de grande baronnie: et ce n’est pas pour se vanter qu’ils parlent ainsi: la vanité d’auteur n’est rien chez eux, en comparaison du besoin qu’ils ont d’être crus, de passer pour de simples traducteurs, de simples répétiteurs de légendes ou d’histoire consacrée. Ces protestations de véracité, qui, plus ou moins expresses, sont de rigueur dans les romans Carlovingiens, y sont aussi fréquemment accompagnées de protestations accessoires contre les romanciers, qui, ayant déjà traité un sujet donné, sont accusés d’y avoir faussé la vérité.” (Fauriel, Orig. de l’Epopée Chevaleresque, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, vol. xiii. p. 554.)

About the Cycle of the Round Table, see the same series of articles (Rev. D. M. t. xiv. pp. 170-184). The Chevaliers of the Saint Graal were a sort of idéal of the Knights Templars: “Une race de princes héroïques, originaires de l’Asie, fut prédestinée par le ciel même à la garde du Saint Graal. Perille fut le premier de cette race, qui s’étant converti au Christianisme, passa en Europe sous l’Empereur Vespasien,” etc.; then follows a string of fabulous incidents: the epical agency is similar to that of Homer—Διὸς δ᾽ ἐτελείετο βουλή.

M. Paulin Paris, in his Prefaces to the Romans des Douze Pairs de France, has controverted many of the positions of M. Fauriel, and with success, so far as regards the Provençal origin of the Chansons de Geste, asserted by the latter. In regard to the Romances of the Round Table, he agrees substantially with M. Fauriel; but he tries to assign a greater historical value to the poems of the Carlovingian epic,—very unsuccessfully, in my opinion. But his own analysis of the old poem of Garin de Loherain bears out the very opinion which he is confuting: “Nous sommes au règne de Charles Martel, et nous reconnaissons sous d’autres noms les détails exacts de la fameuse défaite d’Attila dans les champs Catalauniques. Saint Loup et Saint Nicaise, glorieux prélats du quatrième siècle, reviennent figurer autour du père de Pépin le Bref: enfin pour compléter la confusion, Charles Martel meurt sur le champ de bataille, à la place du roi des Visigoths, Theodoric.... Toutes les parties de la narration sont vraies: seulement toutes s’y trouvent déplacées. En général, les peuples n’entendent rien à la chronologie: les evènemens restent: les individus, les lieux et les époques, ne laissent aucune trace: c’est pour ainsi dire, une décoration scénique que l’on applique indifféremment à des récits souvent contraires.” (Preface to the Roman de Garin le Loherain, pp. xvi.-xx.: Paris, 1833.) Compare also his Lettre à M. Monmerqué, prefixed to the Roman de Berthe aux Grans Piés, Paris, 1836.

To say that all the parts of the narrative are true, is contrary to M. Paris’s own showing: some parts may be true, separately taken, but these fragments of truth are melted down with a large mass of fiction, and cannot be discriminated unless we possess some independent test. The poet who picks out one incident from the fourth century, another from the fifth, and a few more from the eighth, and then blends them all into a continuous tale along with many additions of his own, shows that he takes the items of fact because they suit the purposes of his narrative, not because they happen to be attested by historical evidence. His hearers are not critical: they desire to have their imaginations and feelings affected, and they are content to accept without question whatever accomplishes this end.

1042 Hesiod, Theogon. 100—κλέα προτέρων ἀνθρώπων. Puttenham talks of the remnant of bards existing in his time (1589): “Blind Harpers, or such like Taverne Minstrels, whose matters are for the most part stories of old time, as the Tale of Sir Topaze, the Reportes of Bevis of Southampton, Adam Bell, Clymme of the Clough, and such other old Romances or Historical Rhymes.” (Arte of English Poesie, book ii. cap. 9.)

1043 Respecting the Volsunga Saga and the Niebelungen Lied, the work of Lange—Untersuchungen über die Geschichte und das Verhältniss der Nordischen und Deutschen Heldensage—is a valuable translation from the Danish Saga-Bibliothek of P. E. Müller.

P. E. Müller maintains, indeed, the historical basis of the tales respecting the Volsungs (see pp. 102-107)—upon arguments very unsatisfactory; though the genuine Scandinavian origin of the tale is perfectly made out. The chapter added by Lange himself, at the close (see p. 432, etc.), contains juster views as to the character of the primitive mythology, though he too advances some positions respecting a something “reinsymbolisches” in the background, which I find it difficult to follow (see p. 477, etc.).—There are very ancient epical ballads still sung by the people in the Faro Islands, many of them relating to Sigurd and his adventures (p. 412).

Jacob Grimm, in his Deutsche Mythologie, maintains the purely mythical character, as opposed to the historical, of Siegfried and Dieterich (Art. Helden, pp. 344-346).

So, too, in the great Persian epic of Ferdousi, the principal characters are religious and mythical. M. Mohl observes,—“Les caractères des personnages principaux de l’ancienne histoire de Perse se retrouvent dans le livre des Rois (de Ferdousi) tels que les indiquent les parties des livres de Zoroaster que nous possédons encore. Kaioumors, Djemschid, Feridoun, Gushtasp, Isfendiar, etc. jouent dans le poème épique le même rôle que dans les Livres sacrés: à cela près, que dans les derniers ils nous apparaissent à travers une atmosphere mythologique qui grandit tous leurs traits: mais cette difference est précisément celle qu’on devait s’attendre à trouver entre la tradition religieuse et la tradition épique.” (Mohl, Livre des Rois par Ferdousi, Preface, p. 1.)

The Persian historians subsequent to Ferdousi have all taken his poem as the basis of their histories, and have even copied him faithfully and literally (Mohl, p. 53). Many of his heroes became the subjects of long epical biographies, written and recited without any art or grace, often by writers whose names are unknown (ib. pp. 54-70). Mr. Morier tells us that “the Shah Nameh is still believed by the present Persians to contain their ancient history” (Adventures of Hadgi Baba, c. 32). As the Christian romancers transformed Apollo into the patron of Mussulmans, so Ferdousi makes Alexander the Great a Christian: “La critique historique (observes M. Mohl) était du temps de Ferdousi chose presqu’inconnue.” (ib. p. xlviii.) About the absence not only of all historiography, but also of all idea of it, or taste for it among the early Indians, Persians, Arabians, etc., see the learned book of Nork, Die Götter Syriens, Preface, p. viii. seqq. (Stuttgart, 1842.)

1044 Several of the heroes of the ancient world were indeed themselves popular subjects with the romancers of the middle ages, Thêseus, Jasôn, etc.; Alexander the Great, more so than any of them.

Dr. Warton observes, respecting the Argonautic expedition, “Few stories of antiquity have more the cast of one of the old romances than this of Jasôn. An expedition of a new kind is made into a strange and distant country, attended with infinite dangers and difficulties. The king’s daughter of the new country is an enchantress; she falls in love with the young prince, who is the chief adventurer. The prize which he seeks is guarded by brazen-footed bulls, who breathe fire, and by a hideous dragon, who never sleeps. The princess lends him the assistance of her charms and incantations to conquer these obstacles; she gives him possession of the prize, leaves her father’s court, and follows him into his native country.” (Warton, Observations on Spenser, vol. i. p. 178.)

To the same purpose M. Ginguené: “Le premier modèle des Fées n’est-il pas dans Circé, dans Calypso, dans Médée? Celui des géans, dans Polyphème, dans Cacus, et dans les géans, ou les Titans, cette race ennemie de Jupiter? Les serpens et les dragons des romans ne sont-ils pas des successeurs du dragon des Hesperides et de celui de la Toison d’or? Les Magiciens! la Thessalie en étoit pleine. Les armes enchantées impénétrables! elles sont de la même trempe, et l’on peut les croire forgées au même fourneau que celles d’Achille et d’Enée.” (Ginguené, Histoire Littéraire d’Italie, vol. iv. part ii. ch. 3, p. 151.)

1045 See Warton’s History of English Poetry, sect. iii. p. 131, note. “No man before the sixteenth century presumed to doubt that the Francs derived their origin from Francus son of Hector; that the Spaniards were descended from Japhet, the Britons from Brutus, and the Scotch from Fergus.” (Ibid. p. 140.)

According to the Prologue of the prose Edda, Odin was the supreme king of Troy in Asia, “in eâ terrâ quam nos Turciam appellamus.... Hinc omnes Borealis plagæ magnates vel primores genealogias suas referunt, atque principes illius urbis inter numina locant: sed in primis ipsum Priamum pro Odeno ponunt,” etc. They also identified Tros with Thor. (See Lexicon Mythologicum ad calcem Eddæ Sæmund, p. 552. vol. iii.)

1046 See above, ch. xv. p. 458; also Æschinês, De Falsâ Legatione, c. 14, Herodot. v. 94. The Herakleids pretended a right to the territory in Sicily near Mount Eryx, in consequence of the victory gained by their progenitor Hêraklês over Eryx, the eponymous hero of the place. (Herodot. v. 43.)

1047 The remarks in Speed’s Chronicle (book v. c. 3. sect. 11-12), and the preface to Howes’s Continuation of Stow’s Chronicle, published in 1631, are curious as illustrating this earnest feeling. The Chancellor Fortescue, in impressing upon his royal pupil, the son of Henry VI., the limited character of English monarchy, deduces it from Brute the Trojan: “Concerning the different powers which kings claim over their subjects, I am firmly of opinion that it arises solely from the different nature of their original institution. So the kingdom of England had its original from Brute and the Trojans, who attended him from Italy and Greece, and became a mixed kind of government, compounded of the regal and the political.” (Hallam, Hist. Mid. Ages, ch. viii. P. 3, page 230.)

1048 “Antiquitas enim recepit fabulas fictas etiam nonnunquam incondite: hæc ætas autem jam exculta, præsertim eludens omne quod fieri non potest, respuit,” etc. (Cicero, De Republicâ, ii. 10, p. 147, ed. Maii.)

1049 Dr. Zachary Grey has the following observations in his Notes on Shakspeare (London, 1754, vol. i. p. 112). In commenting on the passage in King Lear, Nero is an angler in the lake of darkness, he says, “This is one of Shakspeare’s most remarkable anachronisms. King Lear succeeded his father Bladud anno mundi 3105; and Nero, anno mundi 4017, was sixteen years old, when he married Octavia, Cæsar’s daughter. See Funcii Chronologia, p. 94.”

Such a supposed chronological discrepancy would hardly be pointed out in any commentary now written.

The introduction prefixed by Mr. Giles, to his recent translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth (1842), gives a just view both of the use which our old poets made of his tales, and of the general credence so long and so unsuspectingly accorded to them. The list of old British kings given by Mr. Giles also deserves attention, as a parallel to the Grecian genealogies anterior to the Olympiads.