Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

and the springs pour forth more delicious water. Mahomet makes use of this idea frequently, as figurative of the resurrection; and in this be shews himself no less of a philosopher than a poet Dr. Russel has described this regeneration of nature in most lively colours in his Natural History of Aleppo, a book which every man ought to read, who wishes not only literally to understand the Oriental writers, but to feel them. Indeed, for want of this, many similes appear to us bold and unusual, which among the Orientals have a proper and distinct signification. CAAB, an Arabic poet, who was contemporary with Mahomet, in one of his poems compares the teeth of a young lady when she smiled to wine wixed with water, in which remained bubbles of yesterday's rain. In Isaiah there are many allusions of this nature, the favourable or adverse state of the nations being frequently expressed by this image, which many commentators have attempted to explain with more exactness than a poetical idea will bear. They have taken what the poet meant figuratively sometimes in a literal sense; and at other times they have explained every thing in a mystical manner, and have pretended to define what is meant by the water, who are those that are thirsty, &c. &c. intermingling many very pious reflexions, but utterly foreign to the subject, and such as never once entered the mind of the poet. For it certainly was not the intention of the prophet to write enigmas, but to illustrate and adorn the beautiful figure which he introduces. Thus, c. xxxv. 6, 7, speaking of the happy state of Palestine, at the time that Idumea was laid waste and subdued :

"The desert, and the waste, shall be glad ;

"And the wilderness shall rejoice and flourish :
"For in the wilderness shall burst forth waters,

"And torrents in the desert:

"And the glowing sand shall become a pool,

"And the thirsty soil bubbling springs :

"And in the haunt of dragons shall spring forth

"The grass, with the reed, and the bulrush."

It is however to be remarked, that the level ground suffers most from the intolerable heat, and that the deserts are almost destitute of water. He amplifies the same image in a different manner in c. xxxv. 17, celebrating the return of the Israelites from the Babylonian exile:

"The poor and the needy seek for water, and there is none;

"Their tongue is parched with thirst:

"I Jehovah will answer them;

"The God of Israel, I will not forsake them.
"I will open in the high places rivers ;
"And in the midst of valleys, fountains :
"I will make the desert a standing pool;
"And the dry ground streams of waters.
"In the wilderness I will give the cedar;
"The acasia, the myrtle, and the tree producing oil :
"I will plant the fir-tree in the desert,

"The pine and the box together."

This is admirable painting, and displays a most happy boldness of invention; the trees of different kinds transplanted from their native soils to grow together in the desert; the fir-tree and the pine, which are indigenous to Lebanon, to which snow and rain, and an immense quantity of moisture seem almost essential; the olive, which is the native of Jerusa lem; the Egyptian thorn, indigenous to Arabia; both of them requiring a dry soil; and the myrtle, which flourishes most on the sea-shore. The same image occurs c. xxxiii. 18-20, but placed in a different light. The poet feigns in this place, that the wild beasts of the desert, and the dragons themselves, which had been afflicted with thirst, pour forth their nocturnal cries in thankfulness to God for sending rain upon the desert. See also c. xxxiv. 3, 4. Sometimes in the district of Jerusalem, which by nature is a very dry soil, and in which there are few streams, an immense flood is seen to burst forth, and with irresistible violence fall into the Dead Sea, so that its water, which is more salt than that of any other sea, is rendered sweet. Gihon seems to have afforded the basis of the above description, a rivulet which proceeds from Sion, when perhaps some uncommon flood had prodigiously increased it. If I am not mistaken, David was the first who made use of this bold figure, but with such a degree of modesty as becomes the author who first introduced it, PSAL. xlvi. 2—6. I suspect something of the kind indeed to have happened about the time of his composing that Psalm, for it is usual in earthquakes for some streams to be entirely drained, while others overflow. But his imitators, in their ardour for novelty, have gone far beyond him. Thus Joel intermingles with this figure the picture of the golden age, c. iii. 18.

"The mountains shall drop down new wine,

"And the hills shall flow with milk,

"And all the rivers of Judah shall flow with water,

And a fountain shall flow from the house of Jehovah, "And shall water the valley of Shittim." M

LECTURE VII.

OF POETIC IMAGERY FROM COMMON LIFE.

Examples of poetical imagery from common life-The habits of life extremely simple among the Hebrews, whose principal employments were agriculture and pasturage-The dignity of these employments; and the splendour of the imagery which is borrowed from them: Threshing, and the threshing instruments-The sublimity of the imagery which is taken from familiar objects results from its propriety. The poetic hell of the Hebrews explained; the imagery of which is borrowed from their subterraneous sepulchres and funeral rites.

'IN my last Lecture I explained three causes, which

have enabled the Hebrew poets to preserve in their figurative style the most perfect union between perspicuity and sublimity. I remarked in the first place, that they chiefly employed images taken from familiar objects, such I mean as were generally known and understood; secondly, that in the use or application of them, they observed a regular track, method, or analogy; and lastly, that they used most freely that kind of imagery which was most familiar, and the application of which was most generally understood. The truth of these observations will I think find further and more decisive confirmation, if those metaphors be considered, which are taken from arts, manners, and common life. These, you will easily recollect, I before pointed out as another source of poetical imagery: and for this part of the subject a few general observations will suffice, with an example or two out of the great number which present themselves in the sacred writings. The whole course

and method of common or domestic life among the Hebrews of the more ancient times, was simple and uniform in the greatest degree. There existed not that variety of studies and pursuits, of arts, conditions, and employments, which may be observed among other nations, who boast of superior civilization; and rightly, indeed, if luxury, levity, and pride, be the criterions of it. All ΑΠ enjoyed the same equal liberty; all of them, as being the offspring of the same ancient stock, boasted an equality of lineage and rank; there were no empty titles, no ensigns of false glory; scarcely any distinction or precedence but that which resulted from, superior virtue or conduct, from the dignity of age and experience, or from services rendered to their country. Separated from the rest of mankind by their religion and laws, and not at all addicted to commerce, they were contented with those arts, which were necessary to a simple and uncultivated for rather uncorrupted) state of life. Thus their principal employments were agriculture and the care of cattle; they were a nation of husbandmen and shepherds. The lands had been originally parcelled out to the different families; the portions of which (by the laws of the country) could not be alienated by sale,' and therefore descended to their posterity without diminution. The fruits of the earth, the produce of his land and labour, constituted the wealth of each individual. Not even the greatest among them esteemed it mean and disgraceful to be employed in the lowest offices of rural labour. In the Scripture history, therefore, we read of eminent persons called to the highest and most sacred offices, heroes, kings, and prophets, from the plough and from the stalls.2

1 LEV. XXV. 13-16, and 23, 24. Compare 1 KINGS xxi. 3.

2 See Jun. iii. 31. vi. 11. 1. SAM. ix. 3. xi. 5. 2. SAM. vii. 8. PSAL lxxviii. 72, 73. 1. KINGS xix. 19, 20. Amos i. 1. vii. 14, 15.

Such being the state of things, we cannot reasonably be surprized to find the Hebrew writers deducing most of their metaphors from those arts particularly, in which they were educated from their earliest years. We are not to wonder that those objects which were most familiar to their senses afforded the principal ornaments of their poetry; especially since they furnished so various and so elegant an assortment of materials, that not only the beautiful, but the grand and magnificent might be collected from them. If any person of more nicety than judgement should esteem some of these rustic images groveling or vulgar, it may be of some use to him to be informed, that such an effect can only result from the ignorance of the critic, who, through the medium of his scanty information and peculiar prejudices, presumes to estimate matters of the most remote antiquity ;* it cannot reasonably be attributed as an error to the sacred poets, who not only give to those ideas all their natural force and dignity, but frequently by the vivacity and boldness of the figure, exhibit them with additional vigour, ornament, and beauty,

It would be a tedious task to instance particularly with what embellishments of diction, derived from one low and trivial object, (as it may appear to some) the barn, or the threshing-floor, the sacred writers have contrived to add a lustre to the most sublime, and a force to the most important subjects: Thus "JEHOVAH threshes

out the heathen as corn, tramples them under his feet, "and disperses them. He delivers the nations to Israel

3.One would almost think that this keen remark was prophetically levelled at a late critic of a very extraordinary cast. It was a little unfortunatę for that learned gentleman, that these lectures were not translated previous to the publication of his book: if they had, he certainly would never have laid himself open to the application of so pointed a sarcasm. T.

« AnteriorContinuar »