of the epic of growth with those of the epic of art. Though not
written in metre, it may usefully be compared with the epics of
Greece and of India and Persia. Free in movement as the wind,
which “ bloweth where it listeth, " it listeth to move by law Its
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action is that of free will, but free will at play within a ring o necessity. Within this ring there throbs all the warm and passionate life of the world outside, and all the freedom apparently. Yet from that world it is enisled by a cordon of curses-by a zone of defiant Hames more impregnable than that which girdled the beautiful Brynhild at Hindfell. Natural laws, familiar emotion are at work everywhere in the story; yet the "Ring of Andvari, whose circumference is but that of a woman's finger, encircles the whole mimic v orld of the sagaman as the Midgard snake encircles the earth. For this artistic perfection in an epic of growth there are, of course, many causes, some of them traceable and some of them beyond all discovery-causes no doubt akin to those which g)ave birth to many of the beauties of other epics of growth. originally Sinfiotli and Sigurd were the same person, and note how vast has been the artistic effect of the se aration of the two ! A ain, there were several different versions of the story of Brynhild. The sagamen findin all these versions too interesting and too P
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much beloved to be d€scarded, adopted them all-worked them u into one legend, so that, in the Volsunga Sa a we have a heroine possessing all the charms of goddess, demi-goddess, earthly princess and amazon-a heroine surpassing perhaps in fascination all other heroines that have ever Hgured in poetry.
It is when we come to consider such imaginative work as this that we are compelled to pause before challenging the Aristotelian doctrine that metrical structure lS but an accidental quality of epi hlnépeaking of the Nibelung story we do not, of course, speak of t Y . a
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e erman xersion, the Nzbelungenlzed, a fine epic still, though degradation of the elder form. Between the two the differences are fundamental in the artistic sense, and form an excellent illustration of what has just been said upon the disturbance of motive in epic, and indeed in all poetic art. It is not merely that the ending o the three principal characters, Sigurd (Siegfried), Gudru (Kriemhilt), and Brynhild are entirely different; it is not merely s
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that the Icelandic version, by missing the blood-bath at Fafnir lair, loses the pathetic situation of Gudrun's becoming afterwards an unwilling instrument of her husband's death; it is not merely that, on the other hand, the German version, by omitting the early love passages between Brynhild and Sigurd at Hindfell, misses entirely the tragic meaning of her sto and the terrible hate that is love resulting from the breaking of the troth; but the conclusion of each version is so exactly the opposite of that of the other tha wliile the German story is called (and very properly) “ Kriemhilt Revenge, ” the story of the Volsunga Saga might, with equal propriety, be called Gudrun's Forgiveness.
If it be said that, in both cases, the motive shows the same Titanic temper, that is because the Titanic temper is the special nm er of characteristic of the North-Western mind. The temper Eastznd of revolt against authority seems indeed to belong west to that energy which succeeds in the modern developl; C,
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ment of the great racial struggle for life. Althoug no epic, Eastern or Western, can exist without a struggle between good and evil-and a struggle upon apparently equal terms-it must not be supposed that the warring of conflicting forces which is the motive of Eastern epic has much real relation to the warring of conflicting forces which is the motive of Western epic. And, as regards the machinery of epic, there is, we suspect, deeper significance than is commonly apprehended in the fact that the Satan or Shaitan of the Eastern world becomes in Vondel and Milton a sublime Titan who attracts to himself the admiration which in Eastern poetry belongs entirely to the authority of heaven. In Asia, save perhaps among the pure Arabs of the desert, underlying all religious forms, there is apparent a temper of resignation to the it
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irresistible authority of heaven. And as regards the Aryans is probable that the Titanic temper-the temper of revolt against authority-did not begin to show itself till they had moved across the Caucasus But what concerns us here is the fact that the farther they moved to the north-west the more vigorously this temper asserted itself, the prouder grew man in his attitude towards the gods, till at last in the Scandinavian cycle he became their equal and struggled alongside them, shoulder to shoulder, in the defence of heaven against the assaults of hell. Therefore, as we say, the student of epic poetry must not suppose that there is any real parallel between the attitude of Vishnu (as Rama) towards Ravana and the attitude of Prometheus towards Zeus, or the attitude of the human heroes towards Odirr in Scandinavian poetry. Had Ravana been clothed with a pro erly constituted authority, had he been a legitimate god instead) of a demon, the Eastern doctrine of recognition of authority would most likely have come in and the world would have been spared one at least of its enormous epics. Indeed, the Ravana of the Rcimdyana answer somewhat to the Fafnir of the Volsunga Saga; and to lot agains demons is not to rebel against authority. The vast field of Indian epic, however, is quite beyond us here.
Nor can we do more than glance at the Kalevala. From one point of view that group of ballads might be taken, no doubt, as a simple S
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record of how the men of Kalevala were skilful in capturing the sisters of the Pojohla men. But from another point of view the universal struggle of the male for the female seems typified in this so-called epic of the Finns by the picture of the “Lady of the Rainbow " sitting upon her glowing arc and weaving her golden threads, while the hero is doing battle with the malevolent forces of nature.
But it is in the Nibelung story that the temper of Western epic is at its best the temper of the simple fihter, whose business it is to fight. The ideal Western fighter was not known in Greece till ages after Homer, when in the pass of Thermopylae the companions of Leonidas combed their long hair in the sun. The business of the fighter in Scandinavian epic is to yield to no power whatsoever, whether of earth or heaven or hell-to take a buffet from the Allfather himself, and to return it; to look Destiny herself in the face, crying out for quarter neither to gods nor demons nor Norns. This is the true temper of pure “ heroic poetry ” as it has hitherto flourished on this side the Caucasus-the temper of the nghter who is invincible because he feels that Fate herself falters when the hero of the true strain dehes-the fighter who feels that the very Norns themselves must cringe at last before the simple courage of man standing naked and bare of hope against all assaults, whether of heaven or hell or doom. The proud heroes of the Volsunga Saga utter no moans and shed no Homeric tears, knowing as they know that the day prophesied is sure when, shoulder to shoulder, gods and men shall stand up to fight the entire brood of night and evil, storming the very gates of Asgard.
That this temper is not the highest from the ethical point of view is no doubt true. Against the beautiful resignation of Buddhism it may seem barbaric, and if moral suasion could supplant physical force in epic—if Siddartha could take the place of Ac illes or Sigurd-it might be better for the human race. But we must now give undivided attention to pure egoistic or lyric imagination. This, as has been said, is sufficient to vitalize all forms of poetic art save drama and the 1"]|eLy|»]g Greek epic. It would be impossible to discuss Imaginaadequately here the Hebrew poets, who have pro- ”°”
duced a lyric so different in kind from all other lyrics as to stand in a class by itself. As it is equal in importance to the Great Drama of Shakespeare, Aeschylus and Sophocles, we may perhaps be allowed to call it the “Great Lyric.” The Great Lyric must be religious-it must, it would seem, be an outpouring of the soul, not towards man but towards God, like that of the God-intoxicated prophets and psalmists of Scripture. Even the lyric fire of Pindar owes much to the fact that he had a childlike belief in the myths to which so many of his contemporaries had begun to give a languid assent. But there is nothing in Pindar, or indeed elsewhere in Greek poetry, like the rapturous song, combining unconscious power with unconscious grace, which we have called the Great Lyric. It might perhaps be said indeed that the Great Lyric is purely Hebrew. But, although we could hardly expect to find it among those whose language, complex of syntax and alive with self conscious inflexions, bespeaks the scientific knowingness of the Western mind, to call the temper of the Great Lyxic broadly “ Asiatic ” would be rash. It seems to belong as a birthright to those descendants of Shem who, yearning always to look straight into the face of God and live, could (when the Great Lyric was sung) see not much else.
Though two of the artistic elements of the Great Lyric, unconsciousness and power, are no doubt plentiful enough in India, the element of grace is lacking for the most part. The Vedic hymns are both nebulous and unemotional, as compared with Semitic hymns. And as to the Persians, they, it would seem, have the grace always, the power often, but the unconsciousness almost never. This is inevitable if we consider for a moment the chief characteristic of the Persian imagination-an imagination whose wings are not so much “ bright with beauty ” as heavy with it-heavy as the wings of a golden pheasant steeped in beauty like the “ tiger-moth's deep damasked wings.” Now beauty of this kind does not go to the making of the Great Ly1'iC.
Then there comes that poetry which, being ethnologically Semitic, might be supposed to exhibit something at least of the Hebrew temper-the Arabian. But, whatever may be said of the oldest Arabic poetry, with its deep sense of fate and pain, it would seem that nothing can be more unlike than the Hebrew temper and the Arabian temper as seen in later poets. It is not with Hebrew but with Persian poetry that Arabian poetry can
