Page:On the Sublime 1890.djvu/87

 

a dramatic action. Such is that description in Xenophon: "A man who has fallen and is being trampled under foot by Cyrus's horse, strikes the belly of the animal with his scimitar; the horse starts aside and unseats Cyrus, and he falls." Similarly in many passages of Thucydides.

 

XXVI

Equally dramatic is the interchange of persons, often making a reader fancy himself to be moving in the midst of the perils described—

 

"Unwearied, thou would st deem, with toil unspent,
They met in war; so furiously they fought."^[1]

 

and that line in Aratus—

 

"Beware that month to tempt the surging sea."^[2]

 

2In the same way Herodotus: "Passing from the city of Elephantine you will sail upwards until you reach a level plain. You cross this region, and there entering another ship you will sail on for two days, and so reach a great city, whose name is Meroe."^[3] Observe how he takes us, as it were, by the hand, and leads us in spirit through these places, making us no longer readers, but spectators. Such a direct personal address always has the effect of placing the reader in the midst of the scene of

 

1. Il. xv. 697.
2. Phaen. 287.
3. ii. 29.