登陆注册
19903400000061

第61章 THE PARADISE OF POETS(2)

"'Then wherefore,' I interrupted, 'do I see Robert Burns loitering with that lady in a ruff,--Cassandra, I make no doubt--Ronsard's Cassandra? And why is the incomparable Clarinda inseparable from Petrarch; and Miss Patty Blount, Pope's flame, from the Syrian Meleager, while HIS Heliodore is manifestly devoted to Mr. Emerson, whom, by the way, I am delighted, if rather surprised, to see here?'

"'Ah,' said Catullus, 'you are a new-comer among us. Poets will be poets, and no sooner have they attained their desire, and dwelt in the company of their earthly Ideals, than they feel strangely, yet irresistibly drawn to Another. So it was in life, so it will ever be. No Ideal can survive a daily companionship, and fortunate is the poet who did not marry his first love!'

"'As far as that goes,' I answered, 'most of you were highly favoured; indeed, I do not remember any poet whose Ideal was his wife, or whose first love led him to the altar.'

"'I was not a marrying man myself,' answered the Veronese; 'few of us were. Myself, Horace, Virgil--we were all bachelors.'

"'And Lesbia!'

"I said this in a low voice, for Laura was weaving bay into a chaplet, and inattentive to our conversation.

"'Poor Lesbia!' said Catullus, with a suppressed sigh. 'How Imisjudged that girl! How cruel, how causeless were my reproaches,'

and wildly rending his curled locks and laurel crown, he fled into a thicket, whence there soon arose the melancholy notes of the Ausonian lyre.'

"'He is incorrigible,' said Laura, very coldly; and she deliberately began to tear and toss away the fragments of the chaplet she had been weaving. 'I shall never break him of that habit of versifying. But they are all alike.'

"'Is there nobody here,' said I, 'who is happy with his Ideal--nobody but has exchanged Ideals with some other poet?'

"'There is one,' she said. 'He comes of a northern tribe; and in his life-time he never rhymed upon his unattainable lady, or if rhyme he did, the accents never carried her name to the ears of the vulgar. Look there.'

"She pointed to the river at our feet, and I knew the mounted figure that was riding the ford, with a green-mantled lady beside him like the Fairy Queen.

"Surely I had read of her, and knew her -"'She whose blue eyes their secret told, Though shaded by her locks of gold.'

"'They are different; I know not why. They are constant,' said Laura, and rising with an air of chagrin, she disappeared among the boughs of the trees that bear her name.

"'Unhappy hearts of poets,' I mused. 'Light things and sacred they are, but even in their Paradise, and among their chosen, with every wish fulfilled, and united to their beloved, they cannot be at rest!'

"Thus moralising, I wended my way to a crag, whence there was a wide prospect. Certain poets were standing there, looking down into an abyss, and to them I joined myself.

"'Ah, I cannot bear it!' said a voice, and, as he turned away, his brow already clearing, his pain already forgotten, I beheld the august form of Shakespeare.

"Marking my curiosity before it was expressed, he answered the unuttered question.

"'That is a sight for Pagans,' he said, 'and may give them pleasure. But my Paradise were embittered if I had to watch the sorrows of others, and their torments, however well deserved. The others are gazing on the purgatory of critics and commentators.'

"He passed from me, and I joined the 'Ionian father of the rest'--Homer, who, with a countenance of unspeakable majesty, was seated on a throne of rock, between the Mantuan Virgil of the laurel crown, Hugo, Sophocles, Milton, Lovelace, Tennyson, and Shelley.

"At their feet I beheld, in a vast and gloomy hall, many an honest critic, many an erudite commentator, an army of reviewers. Some were condemned to roll logs up insuperable heights, whence they descended thundering to the plain. Others were set to impositions, and I particularly observed that the Homeric commentators were obliged to write out the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" in their complete shape, and were always driven by fiends to the task when they prayed for the bare charity of being permitted to leave out the 'interpolations.' Others, fearful to narrate, were torn into as many fragments as they had made of these immortal epics. Others, such as Aristarchus, were spitted on their own critical signs of disapproval. Many reviewers were compelled to read the books which they had criticised without perusal, and it was terrible to watch the agonies of the worthy pressmen who were set to this unwonted task. 'May we not be let off with the preface?' they cried in piteous accents. 'May we not glance at the table of contents and be done with it?' But the presiding demons (who had been Examiners in the bodily life) drove them remorseless to their toils.

"Among the condemned I could not but witness, with sympathy, the punishment reserved for translators. The translators of Virgil, in particular, were a vast and motley assemblage of most respectable men. Bishops were there, from Gawain Douglas downwards; Judges, in their ermine; professors, clergymen, civil servants, writhing in all the tortures that the blank verse, the anapaestic measure, the metre of the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," the heroic couplet and similar devices can inflict. For all these men had loved Virgil, though not wisely: and now their penance was to hear each other read their own translations.""That must have been more than they could bear," said Lady Violet "Yes," said Mr. Witham; "I should know, for down I fell into Tartarus with a crash, and writhed among the Translators.""Why?" asked Lady Violet.

"Because I have translated Theocritus!"

"Mr. Witham," said Lady Violet, "did you meet your ideal woman when you were in the Paradise of Poets?""She yet walks this earth," said the bard, with a too significant bow.

Lady Violet turned coldly away.

* * *

Mr. Witham was never invited to the Blues again--the name of Lord Azure's place in Kent.

The Poet is shut out of Paradise.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 第一王牌:绝姬火凤凰

    第一王牌:绝姬火凤凰

    第一王牌:绝姬火凤凰www.chuangshi.com
  • 极品送子专家

    极品送子专家

    以前他认为,让女人生孩子不算本事,让医院都没办法的女人生孩子才算本事。现在他认为,让女人生孩子太小儿科了,打破医学定律,让男人生孩子才算真本事。笨蛋、普通、天才只在他的一念之间——边送孩子边升级,钱权美女全都有,踏破阴阳路,逍遥天地间。
  • 重生之少女倾城

    重生之少女倾城

    董欢,21世纪的新新作家,一朝重生在胆小懦弱受尽欺凌的严家二小姐严倾城身上。一朝风华毕露,曼妙的身姿映在每一个人的脑海,挥之不去,呼之不出,让无数人为之神伤。无论是视她如无物的前未婚夫,也就是素有“花中浪子”之称的军界尹家二少尹东成,还是为了朋友妻不可戏而只能躲在背后舔伤口凌霄,亦或是作为下属始终不敢越雷霆一步的王志文。女神是高不可攀的,那么揽她在怀里的那人又是谁?
  • 仙血至尊

    仙血至尊

    一个少年睁开眼......世界变了!少年逆天成长,崛起一条王者的巅峰生涯!
  • 艾丽卡和魔法盒

    艾丽卡和魔法盒

    艾丽卡和魔法盒》故事内容简介正义执着聪明的石格里为阻止火星着火时黑魔法盒掉落在宇宙中导致魔法界的毁灭而潜心打造出三个魔仔超人实施阻止行动。残暴荒淫的天地魔王却忠奸不分,暗地里把矛头对准为他赤胆忠心的石格里。面对混乱的魔法领域,不露面的真人魔师卡娜公主隐居魔岛,却把最绝的魔功传授给聪颖善良的艾丽卡。在火星着火魔法盒魔性大发的时候,艾丽卡为了挽救作为魔仔超人的父亲和情人,情急之下吞下了魔法盒,避免了魔法界的毁灭,也挽救了父亲和情人的生命。她的身体被烈焰灼伤后由于卡娜公主送给她保护石的作用,化成了天上的一颗魔星。天地魔王的双眼最后也被魔星击瞎,功力全无,魔法界从此恢复了太平,新的魔王产生。
  • 鬼墓嫁衣

    鬼墓嫁衣

    死亡的号角在黑暗中吹响,咒灵的意念在邪恶中重生,轮回百年的怨恨重新回到尘世间,一切或许是冥冥之中早已注定。探索百年鬼谜,在无限恐怖中寻求一线生机,或许这一场没有光明的旅途,只是轮回中的瞬间而已,咒灵将永远伴随着你……
  • 狼血龙瞳

    狼血龙瞳

    一个不寻常的命案,两个身体异变的生还者,三种不同的惊世力量……还有无数未知的恐惧正在随之蜂拥而至。在这些未知的东西面前,死亡简直就是造物者的恩宠。你永远无法想象身陷其中者,会经历怎样生不如死的痛苦和煎熬。一步踏错,万劫不复,求生不得,求死不能。活下去,需要的不仅仅是勇气。
  • 重生之我的大神女友

    重生之我的大神女友

    一觉醒来,叶风回到了一年多之前,曾经因为金钱名誉,迷失了本心,让自己的女友意外丧生,如今重回过去,拥有了前世的操作和意识,看叶风如何呵护这份感情,当然还要剑指韩国第一SW战队,拿回那失之交臂的全球总决赛冠军.............
  • 儿媳翻身之我是大明星

    儿媳翻身之我是大明星

    灰姑娘嫁入豪门,是什么感觉?乔烟来告诉你:菜是你去买,饭是你来做,衣服是你洗,卫生是你做,孩子是你带,全家你伺候!豪门老公是什么样的?关键要看公婆是怎么规划的!指哪打哪,媳妇就是用来孝顺父母的!谁家儿媳不做上述这些?乔烟终于怒了!翻身农奴把歌唱的时代来了!离婚只是我乔烟开始新生活的第一步!再见渣男!却遇到各色男人来袭,外籍美男,肌肉型男,暖心萌男,温柔大叔...究竟谁才是乔烟命里的那个人?且看乔烟如何在经历过失败挫折的婚姻之后,华丽转身,上演着我是大明星的脚本!(本文纯属虚构,请勿模仿。)
  • 末世之独宠猫咪

    末世之独宠猫咪

    从前,天蓬元帅因调戏嫦娥,被贬到凡间,成了猪头人身的怪物;而今,她因为阻止别人调戏他哥,被老天惩罚,重生成了一只孱弱猫咪的妖孽。人家八戒被妖怪欺负了有师兄帮忙报仇,被师兄欺负了,有师傅在身后撑腰,被师傅欺负了,还有老实沙僧让他欺负回来;而她呢,妹控哥哥远在天涯,温柔饲主其实中二腹黑,好朋友毒蛇般的性子扬言植物比它更有吸引力,好不容易有个志同道合的变异乌鸦,却是个没事乐意偷看美男洗澡的色鸟。且看她身为一只末世猫咪,是如何在一群逗比里,挣扎求生。(本文纯属虚构,请勿模仿。)