Page:Monsieur Bossu's Treatise of the epick poem - Le Bossu (1695).djvu/61

Book I. he had made no Fiction. But the better to carry on this Disguise, search must be made in History for the Names of some Persons to whom this feign'd Action might either Probably or Really have happen'd; and then must the Action be rehears'd under these known Names, with such Circumstances as alter nothing of the Essence either of the Fable or the Moral: as in the following Example.

"In the War King Philip the Fair had with the Flemings in the Year 1302, he sent out his Army under the Command of Robert Earl of Artois his General, and Ralph of Nesle his Constable. When they were in the Plain of Courtray in sight of the Enemy, the Constable says, 'Twas so easie to starve them, that it would be advisable not to hazard the Lives of so many brave Men against such vile and despicable Fellows. "The Earl very haughtily rejects this Advice, charging him with Cowardice and Treachery. We will see, replies the Constable in a rage, which of us has the most Loyalty and Bravery: and with that away he rides directly towards the Enemy, drawing all the French Cavalry after him. This Precipitation, and the Dust they rais'd, hinder'd them from discovering a large and deep River, beyond which the Flemings were posted. The French were miserably cast away in the Torrent. At this Loss the Infantry were so startled, that they suffer'd themselves to be cut in pieces by the Enemy."

'Tis by this means that the Fiction may have some Agreement with the Truth it self, and the Precepts of the Art do not contradict one another, though they order us to begin by feigning an Action, and then advise us to draw it from History. As for the Fiction and Fable, it signifies little whether the Persons are Dogs, or Orontes and Pridamont, or Robert d'Artois and the Earl of Nesle, or lastly Achilles and Agamemnon.

'Tis time we should now propose it in its just Extent under the two last Names in the Iliad. It is too narrow for an Epopéa under the former Names.

Fable of the Iliad, at the bottom, is nothing else but that which I just now propos'd. I will treat of it here at large, because I cannot give you a greater light into this Doctrine, than by the Practice of Homer. 'Tis the most exact Model of the Epopéa, and the most useful Abridgment of all the Precepts of this Art;