網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

and, if my memory fail me not, in the hymn ascribed to Homer, εις Σεληνην.

Instead also of referring to those imaginary Isles of the Blessed, which the Professor thinks are alluded to by Moses, it seems far more probable that he had a retrospect to the place where the wicked after death were supposed to be confined; and which, from the destruction of the old world by the deluge, the covering of the Asphaltic vale with the Dead Sea, &c. was believed to be situated under the waters. To this idea there are allusions in the sacred writings without number. See the second command in the Decalogue, Joв, xxvi. 5, 6. and many passages in the Psalms and the Prophets the story in the Gospel of the dæmons entering the herd of swine, and urging them into the sea, which in the SEPTUAGINT version of JOB, xli. is styled τον ΤΑΡΤΑΡΟΝ της Αβυσσε, the Tartarus of the aybss. S. H.

LECTURE X.

OF ALLEGORY.

Three forms of Allegory: 1. Continued Metaphor; which is scarcely worth distinguishing from the simple Metaphor-The freedom of the Hebrews in confounding the forms of the Metaphor, Allegory, and Comparison: a more perfect form also of Allegory instanced2. The Parable; and its principal characteristics : that it ought to be formed from an apt and well-known image, the signification of which is obvious and definite; also from one which is elegant and beautiful; that its parts and adjuncts be perspicuous, and conduce to the main object; that it be consistent, and must not confound the literal and figurative meaning-The Pa rables of the Prophets, and particularly of Ezekiel, examined according to this standard.

ANOTHER branch of the Mashal, or figurative style, is Allegory, that is, a figure which, under the literal sense of the words, conceals a foreign or distant meaning'. Three

! The Allegorical seems to be one of the first modes of composition adopted by nations emerging from barbarism. Indeed it is only calculated to interest those who have made little progress in intellectual pursuits. It is a mere play of the fancy, and such as requires not enough of exertion to occupy those who have been accustomed to the exercises

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Three forms of Allegory may be observed in the sacred poetry. The first is that which is commonly treated of by Rhetoricians, a continuation of metaphor. "When "several kindred metaphors succeed one "another, they alter," says Cicero, "the form of a composition; for which reason a succession of this kind is called by the "Greeks an Allegory; and properly, in respect to the etymology of the word; but "Aristotle, instead of considering it as a new species of figure, has more judiciously "comprised such modes of expression under "the general appellation of Metaphors"." I therefore scarcely esteem it worth while to dwell upon this species of allegory; since hitherto I have made no distinction between it and the simple metaphor: for many of the examples, which I produced as metaphors, are probably of this class: the principle of

66

of Reason. This remark, however, must not be extended to the exclusion of allegorical expressions or passages from poetry; but is meant only to be applied to compositions purely allegorical, such as SPENSER's Fairy Queen, which, notwithstanding some incomparably poetical passages, finds few readers in the present age.

T.

3 Orator.

P 4

each

each is the same, nor indeed would it be an easy matter to restrict each to its proper limits, or to define where the one ends or the other begins.

It will not, however, be foreign to our purpose to remark the peculiar manner in which the Hebrew poets use the congenial figures, Metaphor, Allegory, and Comparison, and particularly in the prophetic poetry. When they undertake to express any sentiment in ornamented language, they not only illustrate it with an abundance and variety of imagery, but they seldom temper or regulate this imagery by any fixed principle or standard. Unsatisfied with a simple metaphor, they frequently run it into an allegory, or mingle with it a direct comparison. The allegory sometimes precedes and sometimes follows the simile; to this is added a frequent change of imagery, and even of persons and tenses; through the whole displaying a degree of boldness and freedom, unconfined by rule or method, altogether peculiar to the Hebrew poetry.

“Judah is a lion's whelp3:"

3 GEN. xlix. 9.

This metaphor is immediately drawn out into an allegory, with a change of person : "From the prey, my son, thou art gone up;" (to the dens in the mountains understood.) In the succeeding sentences the person is again changed, the image is gradually advanced, and the metaphor is joined with a comparison, which is repeated:

"He stoopeth down, he coucheth, as a lion; "And as a lioness; who shall rouse him?" Of a similar nature is that remarkable prophecy, in which the exuberant increase of the Gospel on its first dissemination is most explicitly foretold. In this passage, however, the mixture of the metaphor and comparison, as well as the ellipsis of the word to be repeated, creates a degree of obscurity:

Beyond the womb of the morning is the dew "of thy offspring to thee+:"

That is, " preferable to the dew which pro"ceeds from the womb of the morning;

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

more copious, more abundant "." In the interpret

4 PSAL. CX. 3.

5 Some of the more modern translators seem at length agreed, that this is the proper sense of the passage; none

of

« 上一頁繼續 »