Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/513

 EXPANSIVE CHARACTER OF EPIC LEGEND. 481 like the Grecian, was eminently expansive in its nature: new stories were successively attached to the names and companions of Charlemagne and Arthur, just as the legend of Troy was enlarged by Arktinus, Lesches, and Stesichorus, that of Thebes, by fresh miseries entailed on the fated head of GEdipus, and that of the Kalydonian boar, by the addition of Atalanta. Alto- gether, the state of mind of the hearers seems in both cases to have been much thg same, eager for emotion and sympathy, and receiving any narrative attuned to their feelings, not merely with hearty welcome, but also with unsuspecting belief. Nevertheless, there were distinctions deserving of notice, which render the foregoing proposition more absolutely exact with re- gard to Greece than with regard to the middle ages. The tales of the epic, and the mythes in their most popular and extended signification, were the only intellectual nourishment with which the Grecian public was supplied, until the sixth century before the Christian rera : there was no prose writing, no history, no philosophy. But such was not exactly the case at the time when the epic of the middle ages appeared. At that time, a portion of society possessed the Latin language, the habit of writing, and some tinge both of history and philosophy : there were a series of chronicles, scanty, indeed, and imperfect, but referring to con- of antiquity have more the cast of one of the old romances than this of Jason. An expedition of a new kind is made into a strange and distant country, attended with infinite dangers and difficulties. The king's daughter of the new country is an enchantress ; she falls in love with the young prince, who is the chief adventurer. The prize which he seeks is guarded by brazen-foot- ed bulls, who breathe fire, and by a hideous dragon, who never sleeps. The princess lends him the assistance of her charms and incantations to conquer these obstacles ; she gives him possession of the prize, leaves her father's court, and follows him into his native country." (Warton, Observations ca Spenser, vol. i. p. 178.) To the same purpose M. Ginguene' : " Le premier modcle des Fees n'est- il pas dans Circe', dans Calypso, dans Medee? Cclui des geans, dans Poly- phcme, dans Cacus, et dans les g6ans, ou les Titans, cette race cnncmie do Jupiter ? Les serpens et les dragons des romans no sont-ils pas des succes- seurs du dragon des Hcsperides et de celui de la Toison d'or ? Les Magi- ciens! la Thessalie en etoit pleine. Les armes enchante'cs imp&ie'trables ! elles sont de la meme trempe, et Ton peut les croire forgees au meme four- neau qae celles d'Achille et d'Enee." (Ginguene, Histoire Litte'raire d'ltalie, vol. iv. part ii. ch. 3, p 151.) VOL. i. 21 31oa