So should we make our death a glad relief And dying in our excellence and flower. Then round our death-bed every friend should run, To thank the gracious gods for what they give, And in one point the extremes of grief to join; Long love to her has borne the faithful knight, By Arcite's death from former vows is free: And take him for your husband, and your lord, And were he less, yet years of service past He said; she blushed; and as o'erawed by might, No day discolored with domestic strife; Thus Heaven, beyond the compass of his thought, NOTES. INTRODUCTORY NOTE. IN preparing the notes, care has been taken to give explanations necessary to the interpretation of thought, without doing too much. Excessive editing is an impertinence to the author, and a detriment to the reader. This poem forms a valuable means of gaining or refreshing acquaintance with classical lore; and were all allusions, perhaps unfamiliar to many, explained in the notes, it would be necessary to subjoin a mythological glossary of considerable length, a not only useless, but pernicious task. This selection should be studied only in connection with the proper books of reference, including first of all a good classical dictionary; and were there such fulness of notes as to lead the student to think that he could dispense with other aids, a wrong would be done. In class-work the accompanying outline, with such amplification as time admits of or inclination suggests, can be followed to advantage. STRUCTURE OF THE POEM. As the metrical explanation given by the editor in his notes to Goldsmith's The Traveller and The Deserted Village has proved beneficial to so many, it is largely repeated here, the verse being the same. This poem, like so many others of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, is written in iambic pentameter, often called heroic verse, a metrical form which is to the English, German, and Italian languages what the hexameter is to Greek and Latin. Ruskin says: "The tetrameter and pentameter, which require the full breath but do not exhaust it, constitute the entire body of the chief poetry of energetic nations; the hexameter, which fully exhausts the breath, is only used by nations whose pleasure was in repose." Iambic pentameter is scanned thus: 3 & - | ~ ~ | ~ - | ~ ~ | ~ ~ |, "God gives us || what | he knows | our wants | requíre, "Like pilgrims || tó | the appoint | ed place | we tend ; Ibid. The cæsura, or natural pause in reading, indicated thus ||, which is needed in most lines longer than the tetrameter verse, may in this form come anywhere in the line, but is found most frequently after the fourth or sixth syllable. The lines are arranged in rhymed couplets, a system largely built up by Dryden, and fully developed in the polished work of Pope, who "bound verse in a ten-linked chain whose chief music lay in the exquisite tinklings of the ends." The rules governing this were that there should be a pause, a comma at least, at the end of every couplet, and no sentence should close except with the end of a line. An extra syllable was guarded against. Dryden does not always observe these last points, and his action in this respect seems to us a merit rather than a fault. He also uses many triple rhymes. Heroic couplets lend themselves readily to quotation, and hence live in our speech; but the artificial nature of the whole arrangement caused poets later on to turn to more varying and less mechanical forms. THE DEDICATION. — The long dedication is to be noticed as representing a custom of the times, continuing with lessening frequency until near the close of the last century. Such addresses were regularly in an effusively complimentary strain, and Dryden surpasses most others in the extravagance of his adulation. Much disgust has been expressed at such obsequiousness, but it does not argue the meanness of character that might be inferred. In those times of limited circulation, there was no such thing as literary independence for a struggling author. Patrons were necessary and had to be cultivated, often being addressed as "Mæcenas or "Tibullus," in allusion to the patrons of classic writers. Dryden seems to have regarded his fulsome expressions as a necessary part of literary etiquette, and also, no doubt, as necessary for more material reasons. Each noble personage thus honored was expected to respond with a liberal donation, a welcome boon to a needy author. The Duchess of Ormond was the beautiful Lady Mary Somerset, second daughter of Henry, Duke of Beaufort. She was the second wife of the Duke of Ormond, a liberal patron of Dryden, and the one to whom the collection called the Fables, in which this poem appears, was dedicated. OUTLINE OF THE POEM. BOOK I. PAGE. LINE. 47. 1. Theseus, king of Athens, and his victories. Plea of the Theban matrons. 48. 16. 50. 17. 52. 53. 7. Compassion of Theseus, and conquest of Thebes. 6. Description of Emily, sister-in-law of Theseus. 54. 17. Quarrel of the cousins. Visit of Pirithous, and release of Arcite. Comparison of Arcite's lot with that of Palamon. 60. 16. 65. 10. 66. 6. His dream and resolve. 67. 15. His prosperity in disguise at Athens. 69. BOOK II. 1. Palamon's escape and purpose. 9. Arcite's plaint, overheard by Palamon. Disclosure of Palamon, and arrangement of the duel. 72. 73. 12. |
