Examples In Each Art

( Originally Published Late 1800's )

Pathos, no less than grandeur and beauty, is applicable to each of the arts : to those not only of painting, sculpture, poetry, and eloquence, but also to music and architecture, acting, costume, and even gardening.

Raphael's powerful and touching. drawing of ` The Murder of the Innocents,' which adorns our National Gallery, is a splendid example of the pathetic in painting, where the various elements of weakness, virtue, and unjust suffering, in the heartbroken mothers and slaughtered children, are finely exhibited; and the sympathy which this work excites in our minds, by appealing to our own inmost feelings, appears to form a connection and dependence between ourselves and the subject described.

The numerous efforts in sculpture of a pathetic character, serving as monuments to the memory of the departed, amply suffice to show how eminently this branch of art is adapted for the illustration of the pathetic style.

A fine instance of the pathetic in poetry is afforded by the following lamentation which Milton puts into the mouth of Eve on her expulsion from Paradise. Feelings of pity and sympathy are those which it mainly excites. The softer emotions of the mind are vividly called forth by the reference to the well-loved flowers and shades which Eve laments on leaving,—the sad desolation which will prevail in consequence of her departure,—the sweet joys and endearments from which she is to be for ever severed. Ideas are suggested, moreover, as to the ex-tent of the suffering she is undergoing, the virtue of the sufferer, and the hardship of her punishment. Nothing, however, of strong passion, or violent emotion, is caused here. All is gentle and subdued :

"O unexpected stroke, worse than of death !
Must I thus leave thee, Paradise ! thus leave
Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades,
Fit haunt of gods ! where I had hope to spend,
Quiet though sad, the respite of that day
That must be mortal to us both ! O flow'rs
That never will in other climate grow,
My early visitation, and my last
At e'en, which I bred up with tender hand
From the first op'ning bud, and gave ye names,
Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank
Your tribes, and water from th' ambrosial fount ?
Thee lastly, nuptial bow'r, by me adorn'd
With what to sight or smell was sweet, from thee
How shall I part, and whither wander down
Into a lower world, to this obscure
And wild ! How shall we breathe in other air,
Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits ! "

Virgil's description of the death of Dido * is very touching, and abounding in exquisite tender feeling. Her agitation and pale face impress us with a sense of her agony, as do also her tears ; while the speech that she utters is at once highly pathetic, and full of fine, and noble, and virtuous sentiment. Her attitude, action, and language, indeed, alike contribute to affect us in the same manner. With her deep grief we can-not but sympathize, and her cruel fate excites our liveliest pity.

"At trepida et coeptis inmanibus effera Dido,
Sanguineam volvens aciem, maculisque trementes
Interfusa genas, et pallida morte futurā,
Interiora domūs inrumpit limina, et altos
Conscendit furibunda rogos, ensemque recludit
Dardanium, non hos quaesitum munus in usus.
Hic, postquam Iliacas vestes notumque cubile
Conspexit, paullum lacrymis et mente morata,
Incubuitque toro, dixitque novissima verba ;
Dulces exuviae, dum fata deusque sinebant,
Accipite hanc animam, meque his exsolvite curis.
Vixi et, quem dederat cursum fortuna, peregi;
Et nunc magna mei sub terras ibit imago.
Urbem pręclaram statui, mea mcenia vidi ;
Ulta virum, poenas inimico a fratre recepi ;
Felix, heu nimium felix si litora tantum
Nunquam Dardanin tetigissent nostra carinae!
Dixit ; et, os impressa toro, Moriemur inultoe ?
Sed moriamur, ait : sic, sic juvat ire sub umbras.
Hauriat hune oculis ignem crudelis ab alto
Dardanus, et nostrae secum ferat omina mortis.
Dixerat atque illam media inter talia ferro
Collapsam aspiciunt comites, ensemque cruore
Spumantem, sparsasque maous."

In the following passage from Chaucer there is much exquisite melting pathos, the main elements in which are the meekness, grief, and pious affection of the mother, the tender condition, weakness, and helplessness of the child, its perilous situation, and approaching fate. .The poet describes the agony of Grisildis on giving up her two infants to their supposed betrayer ;---

" But at the last to speken she began,
And mekely she to the sergeant praid
(So as he was a worthy gentil man)
That she might kiss hire child, or that it deid :
And in hire barme this litel child she leid,
With ful sad face, and gan the child to blisse,
And lulled it, and after gan it kisse.
And thus she sayd in her benigne vois :
Farewel, my child, I shal thee never see,

The mother's address to the child, the description of her care for it, of her piety in her distress, and of its feeble condition and frame, mainly conduce to move us here, and constitute the leading elements of the pathos with which the passage is imbued.

But eloquence, equally with painting and poetry, is capable of giving vent to the pathetic, of which, indeed, ample proof is afforded, were there no other illustration of the truth of this assertion, by the following passage from the oration of Cicero already quoted from, referring to the unjust banishment of Milo, and his still undiminished affection for his country which had expelled him, which serves, moreover, to impress us with a high idea of his virtue : ---

"Me quidem, judices, exanimant et interimunt hm voches Milonis, quas audio assidue, et quibus intersum quotidie. Valeant, valeant, inquit, cives mei, valeant ; sint incolumes, sint florentes, sint beati ; stet haec urbs preclara, mihique patria carissima, quoquo modo merita de me erit. Tranquilla republica cives mei, quoniam mihi cum illis non licet, sine me ipsi, sed per me tamen, perfruantur. Ego cedam atque abibo. Si mihi republica bona frui non licuerit, at carebo mala : et quamprimum tetigero bene moratam et liberam civitatem, in ea conquiescam. O frustra, inquit, suscepti mei labores ! O spes fallaces ! O cogitationes inanes meae ! Ego, cum tribunus plebis, republica oppressa, me senatui dedissem, quern extinctum acceperam ! equitibus Romanis, quorum vires Brant debiles : bonis viris, qui omnem auctoritatem Clodianis armis abjecerant : mihi unquam bonorum presidium defuturum putarem ? Ego, cum te (mecum enim saepissime loquitur), patrie reddidissem, mihi non futurum in patria non putarem locum ? Ubi nunc senatus est, quern secuti sumus ? ubi equites Romani illi, inquit, tui ? ubi studia municipiorum ? ubi Italiae noces ? ubi denique tua, M. Tulli, que plurimis fuit auxilio, vox et defensio ? mihine ea soli, qui pro te toties morti me obtuli, nihil potest opitulari."