Shakespeare's masterpieces often glory in the delineation of horrors, which all his genius cannot redeem for us. (See Johnson's commentary on Lear.) Yet he was in advance of his own time; and, while necessarily studying his audience as he found it, was comparatively reserved in his employment of the grosser passions, malignity included.* One thing he carefully withheld, that is, war in its realistic horrors. STRENGTH IN COMBAT. The poetic handling of a Combat is governed, in the first instance, by the conditions of Maleficent Strength, and next by the laws of Plot-interest. The description of a combat at arms unites several elements of effect. In the first place, all the varieties of Strength-physical, moral, intellectual, collective-are shown at their utmost pitch in conflict, and are signified by the most testing indications. Next is the two-sided treat of malignancy. The combatants are met to inflict on each other as much suffering as possible; the redeeming circumstances being that they are mutually aggressive and defensive. Hence the place given to war in the literature of every age; whether as History or as Poetry-epic, dramatic and lyric and even as Religion. Fighting has been a chief business of nations from the beginning of time; and, when not in act, imitations of it are resorted to as recreation. Such are the shows of gladiators, tournaments, games and fights for championship. In the personification of the inanimate world, this interest is not forgotten. When the great forces of Nature are unusually active, they are said to be at 'war'. Milton (Paradise Lost, II. 898-910) employs the language of a pitched field to give the interest of combat to the 'eternal anarchy' of 'Hot, Cold, Moist and Dry' in Chaos. The principles already enunciated for the malignant emotion are taken for granted as applicable to conflict. The more special point in the case is the superadded charm of Plot or Story, to which a well balanced hostile encounter happily lends itself. A common form of combat is that where we are interested in the success of one side. The rival must, at the same time, be powerful, and able to cause some (not too great) anxiety as to the result. There will then be a due "Murdoch [the Schoolmaster] brought Titus Andronicus, and, with such dominie elocution as we may suppose, began to read it aloud before this rustic audience [the Burns family), but when he had reached the passage where Tamora insults Lavinia, with one voice and in an agony of distress,' they refused to hear it to the end." (R. L. Stevenson, Familiar Studies, p. 43.) FIGHTING INTEREST IN THE ILIAD. 85 alternation of blows, with varying advantage; the indications of the ultimate success of the favourite may occasionally hang dubious, but on the whole must sustain our hopes. Pauses and retrograde movements violate the interest. Another case is where we are not specially interested in either side, but are prepared to witness a trial of strength, and to gloat over the suffering mutually inflicted. The opposing parties, in this instance, must be so far balanced that the issue is doubtful. Each must give effective blows in turn, and the equality must be maintained for a considerable time; a slight failing in one will then foreshadow the termination, but not decide it, without several rallies; when the suspense has been sufficiently prolonged, the decisive blow will fall. The interest is more piquant when the opposing powers excel in different ways; as when superior force is balanced by superior skill. Of all the forms of hostile encounter, the single combat is the easiest to render interesting. It has the further advantage, of which poets gladly avail themselves, that it permits in addition a war of words between the combatants. Several notable examples are provided by Homer, from which we can gather his conception of effect. The first contest in the Iliad is the duel of Paris and Menelaus -a mere fiasco from Paris's cowardice, for which his beauty of person is considered a sufficient excuse. The contest, however, has to be renewed in a more formal manner, and with a view to decide by single combat the quarrel that led to the war. The issue is equally unsatisfactory. Paris aims one blow without effect; Menelaus strikes twice, and seizes Paris to carry him away bodily, when the goddess of Love interferes and saves him. Conflicts of this character are necessarily devoid of interest for us. Next Menelaus receives a wound from Pandarus unseen, there being no fight. The terrible two days' battle, so ruinous to the Greeks in the absence of Achilles, is treated by a general description; the poet choosing as the salient feature the mingled shouts and groans of men slaying and being slain,' and vivifying it by a simile, striking in itself, but so far removed in kind as to be wanting in picturesque force: two mountain torrents, arising apart, descend and meet in the same ravine, and 'the shepherd hears the roar'. Then follows in detail a long series of single combats; such being the poet's preference throughout. They are savage in the last degree; but seldom contain any effective parrying before the fatal blow. There are many verbal encounters previous to the The action, but these merely add to the expression of savagery. gods interfere to protect their favourites, and heal their wounds. The brutality of the struggle is in itself utterly repulsive, but we are compelled by the poetical power lavished on the descriptions to wade through it, and in some degree to condone it. Among the redeeming interludes we have the touching and highly wrought scene of Hector and Andromache with their little boy. The third battle, carried on after the embassy to Achilles, is also made up of single combats, with occasional charges of small bands, as the Locrian bowmen of the Lesser Ajax; with the usual amount of celestial interferences. At the crisis of this fight occurs the doom of Patroclus, after a more than usually protracted encounter, but still not enough to make a highly sensational fight. He brings on his fate by rashness; divine interference, as before, destroys the interest of the three or four turns in the story of his death. There remains only the death of Hector, the slayer of Patroclus. This is the work of Achilles, and is the greatest conflict in the poem. As in the other personal contests, there is first a fierce verbal encounter, worked up with Homeric genius; and then a very few thrusts, with the usual unfairness on the part of the celestial powers, who provide Achilles with armour, and practise upon Hector a cruel deceit. The permanent interest consists purely in exemplifying malignant revenge, with little to redeem it beyond the poet's genius of expression. There is no art in the management of the details of the fight, notwithstanding that, being unhistorical, the poet could make it anything he pleased. The Odyssey is not a poem of war, but of adventure, to which fighting is subsidiary. The vengeance of Ulysses on his arrival at his home is made up of the coarsest slaughter, but gives the first example of an incident that never fails to afford pleasure, the punishment of a bully by a despised and seemingly insignificant rival. Our malignant gratification has free scope in such a case. In the course of his adventures, Ulysses gave the cue to another great stroke of modern romance for the delectation of the young, namely, in the putting out of the one eye of the monster Polyphemus. In Theocritus, the conquest of brute force by agility is exemplified. In Virgil, conflicts are frequent; the culminating example being the final struggle of Æneas with Turnus. Conflicts on the great scale of armies, and on the small scale of personal encounters, are repeated without end, both CONFLICTS IN MODERN POETRY. 87 in history and in poetry. Apart from felicity of language, which depends on individual genius, the most artistic handling is achieved by the moderns. Conflict is the life and soul of modern chivalry; being sanctified by the triumph of the right. In Spenser's 'Faërie Queen,' there is a perpetual series of conflicts; and the suspense of plot is partially attended to. Referring to Shakespeare, we can quote the battle of Bosworth Field, where the action is centred in the single combat between Richard and Richmond. Milton takes care to provide the interest of great battles; and also permits an approach to single combat. He employs very fully the ancient device of making the combatants first engage in a war of words, as in the case of Gabriel and Satan (Paradise Lost, Book IV.), and Abdiel and Michael with Satan (Book VI.). He imitates the ancient methods, further, by the introduction of divine interference to settle the conflict, as with both the contests just quoted; in the first even preventing the actual contest altogether. Gray's Ode on 'The Triumphs of Owen' concentrates the interest on Owen's personal prowess:— Where he points his purple spear, The management of fights is one of Scott's special gifts. For a personal contest, we have nothing to surpass the murderous combat between Fitz-James and Roderick Dhu. Our sympathies are but moderately engaged by either. Roderick Dhu is not sufficiently in the wrong to make us take pleasure in his discomfiture; while he has some noble and chivalrous traits that win our esteem, and, moreover, has to avenge a kinsman's blood. Scott, like Milton, follows the Homeric usage, which is genuinely artistic, of making the combatants first engage in a war of words, full of lofty defiance on both sides. Their courage and determination are grateful to our feelings, as pictures of moral strength. Scott retains that last trace of the supernatural, the use of prophecy. The advantage of the device is doubtful; for, although it adds something to the romantic interest, it detracts from the sense of truth and reality. The Saxon had the best of the argument from prophecy, and does not scruple to say so. The effect upon Roderick Dhu is terrific, and the serious work begins : Dark lightning flash'd from Roderick's eye "Soars thy presumption, then, so high, Because a wretched kern ye slew, Homage to name to Roderick Dhu? : This splendid passage does justice to the outburst of high passion provoked by the Saxon's insolence. Hate and revenge are at a whiteheat. Then there is a moment's pause, Fitz-James seemingly hanging back, and the chieftain resumes : "Not yet prepared?-By heaven, I change The poet here shows his art in leading Roderick to over-vaunt his position a prognostic of his probable downfall. The contempt of the speech has its effect upon his rival; and the reply is less violent in tone, but more energetically sustained. The Saxon makes a claim to equality on the chivalrous point, and dares to stake his future on the single combat: "I thank thee, Roderick, for the word! It nerves my heart, it steels my sword; But fear not-doubt not-which thou wilt We try this quarrel hilt to hilt.' At this point ends the speech-making, and begins the death struggle. The few words describing the preparation are well chosen: the steps of the action are clearly and vividly presented. Then each at once his falchion drew, Each on the ground his scabbard threw, The third and fourth lines are strikingly thrown in: whether or not the combatants would actually arrest their movements for the survey, it would be highly becoming their position to do so. Ill fared it then with Roderick Dhu, Had death so often dash'd aside; He practised every pass and ward, |