under the waves of it; then draws him through, crying to him, “hold me, hold me" (tiemmi, tiemmi), and so presents him, thus bathed, free from all painful memory, at the feet of the spirit of the more heavenly contemplation. § 40. The reader will, I think, now see, with sufficient distinctness, why I called this passage the most important, for our present purposes, in the whole circle of poetry. For it contains the first great confession of the discovery by the human race (I mean as a matter of experience, not of revelation), that their happiness was not in themselves, and that their labor was not to have their own service as its chief end. It embodies in a few syllables the sealing difference between the Greek and the mediæval, in that the former sought the flower and herb for his own uses, the latter for God's honor; the former, primarily and on principle, contemplated his own beauty and the workings of his own mind, and the latter, primarily and on principle, contemplated Christ's beauty and the workings of the mind of Christ. § 41. I will not at present follow up this subject any farther; it being enough that we have thus got to the root of it, and have a great declaration of the central medieval purpose, whereto we may return for solution of all future questions. I would only, therefore, desire the reader now to compare the Stones of Venice, vol. i. chap. xx. §§ 15. 16.; the Seven Lamps of Architecture, chap. iv. § 3.; and the second volume of this work, Chap. 11. §§ 9. 10., and Chap. III. § 10.; that he may, in these several places, observe how gradually our conclusions are knitting themselves together as we are able to determine more and more of the successive questions that come before us: and, finally, to compare the two interesting passages in Wordsworth, which, without any memory of Dante, nevertheless, as if by some special ordaining, describe in matters of modern life exactly the soothing or felicitous powers of the two active spirits of Dante-Leah and Matilda, Excursion, book v. line 608. to 625., and book vi. line 102. to 214. § 42. Having thus received from Dante this great lesson, as to the spirit in which medieval landscape is to be understood, what else we have to note respecting it, as seen in his poem, will be comparatively straightforward and easy. And first, we have to observe the place occupied in his mind by color. It has already been shown, in the Stones of Venice, vol. ii. chap. v. §§ 30--34., that color is the most sacred element of all visible things. Hence, as the medieval mind contemplated them first for their sacredness, we should, beforehand, expect that the first thing it would seize would be the color; and that we should find its expressions and renderings of color infinitely more loving and accurate than among the Greeks. § 43. Accordingly, the Greek sense of color seems to have been so comparatively dim and uncertain, that it is almost impossible to ascertain what the real idea was which they attached to any word alluding to hue: and above all, color, though pleasant to their eyes, as to those of all human beings, seems never to have been impressive to their feelings. They liked purple, on the whole, the best; but there was no sense of cheerfulness or pleasantness in one color, and gloom in another, such as the mediævals had. For instance, when Achilles goes, in great anger and sorrow, to complain to Thetis of the scorn done him by Agamemnon, the sea appears to him "wine-colored." One might think this meant that the sea looked dark and reddish-purple to him, in a kind of sympathy with his anger. But we turn to the passage of Sophocles, which has been above quoted-a passage peculiarly intended to express peace and rest-and we find that the birds sing among "wine-colored" ivy. The uncertainty of conception of the hue itself, and entire absence of expressive character in the word, could hardly be more clearly manifested. § 44. Again I said the Greek liked purple, as a general source of enjoyment, better than any other color. So he did, and so all healthy persons who have eye for color, and are unprejudiced about it, do; and will to the end of time, for a reason presently to be noted. But so far was this instinctive preference for purple from giving, in the Greek mind, any consistently cheerful or sacred association to the color, that Homer constantly calls death "purple death." § 45. Again in the passage of Sophocles, so often spoken of, I said there was some difficulty respecting a word often translated" thickets." I believe, myself, it means glades; literally, "going places" in the woods,-that is to say, places where, either naturally or by force, the trees separate, so as to give some accessible avenue. Now, Sophocles tells us the birds sang in these "green going places ;" and we take up the expres sion gratefully, thinking the old Greek perceived and enjoyed, as we do, the sweet fall of the eminently green light through the leaves when they are a little thinner than in the heart of the wood. But we turn to the tragedy of Ajax, and are much shaken in our conclusion about the meaning of the word, whet we are told that the body of Ajax is to lie unburied, and be eaten by sea-birds on the "green sand." The formation, geologically distinguished by that title, was certainly not known to Sophocles; and the only conclusion which, it seems to me, we can come to under the circumstances,-assuming Ariel's authority as to the color of pretty sand, and the ancient mariner's (or, rather, his hearer's f) as to the color of ugly sand, to be conclusive, is that Sophocles really did not know green from yellow or brown. § 46. Now, without going out of the terrestrial paradise, in which Dante last left us, we shall be able at once to compare with this Greek incertitude the precision of the medieval eye for color. Some three arrowflights further up into the wood we come to a tall tree, which is at first barren, but, after some little time, visibly opens into flowers, of a color "less than that of roses, but more than that of violets.' It certainly would not be possible, in words, to come nearer to the definition of the exact hue which Dante meant that of the apple-blossom. Had he employed any simple color-phrase, as a "pale pink," or "violet-pink," or any other such combined expression, he still could not have completely got at the delicacy of the hue; he might perhaps have indicated its kind, but not its tenderness; but by taking the rose-leaf as the type of the delicate red, and then enfeebling this with the violet grey, he gets, as closely as language can carry him, to the complete rendering of the vision, though it is evidently felt by him to be in its perfect beauty ineffable; and rightly so felt, for of all lovely things which grace the spring time in our fair temperate zone, I am not sure but this blossoming of the apple-tree is the fairest. At all events, I find it associated in my mind with four other kinds of color, certainly principal among the gifts of the northern earth, namely: 1st. Bell gentians growing close together, mixed with lilies of the valley, on the Jura pastures. 2nd. Alpine roses with dew upon them, under low rays of morn、 ing sunshine, touching the tops of the flowers. 3rd. Bell heather in mass, in full light, at sunset. 4th. White narcissus (red-centred) in mass, on the Vevay pas tures, in sunshine, after rain. And I know not where in the group to place the wreaths of apple-blossoms, in the Vevay orchards, with the far-off blue of the lake of Geneva seen between the flowers. A Greek, however, would have regarded this blossom simply with the eyes of a Devonshire farmer, as bearing on the probable price of cider, and would have called it red, cerulean, purple, white, hyacinthine, or generally" aglaos," agreeable, as happened to suit his verse. § 47. Again we have seen how fond the Greek was of composing his paradises of rather damp grass; but that in this fondness for grass there was always an undercurrent of consideration for his horses; and the characters in it which pleased him most were its depth and freshness; not its color. Now, if we remember carefully the general expressions, respecting grass, used in modern literature, I think nearly the commonest that occurs to us will be that of "enamelled " turf or sward. This phrase is usually employed by our pseudo-poets, like all their other phrases, without knowing what it means, because it has been used by other writers before them, and because they do not know what else to say of grass. If we were to ask them what enamel was, they could not tell us; and if we asked why grass was like enamel, they could not tell us. The expression has a meaning, however, and one peculiarly characteristic of mediaval and modern temper. § 48. The first instance I know of its right use, though very probably it had been so employed before, is in Dante. The righteous spirits of the pre-Christian ages are seen by him, though in the Inferno, yet in a place open, luminous, and high, walking upon the "green enamel.” I am very sure that Dante did not use this phrase as we use it. He knew well what enamel was; and his readers, in order | to understand him thoroughly, must remember what it is,—a vitreous paste, dissolved in water, mixed with metallic oxides, to give it the opacity and the color required, spread in a moist state on metal, and afterwards hardened by fire, so as never to change. And Dante means, in using this metaphor of the grass of the Inferno, to mark that it is laid as a tempering and cooling substance over the dark, metallic, gloomy ground; but yet so hardened by the fire, that it is not any more fresh or living grass, but a smooth, silent, lifeless bed of eternal green. And we know how hard Dante's idea of it was; because afterwards, in what is perhaps the most awful passage of the whole Inferno, when the three furies rise at the top of the burning tower, and catching sight of Dante, and not being able to get at him, shriek wildly for the Gorgon to come up too, that they may turn him into stone,-the word stone is not hard enough for them. Stone might crumble away after it was made, or something with life might grow upon it; no, it shall not be stone; they will make enamel of him; nothing can grow out of that; it is dead for ever.* "Venga Medusa, si lo farem di Smalto." 66 66 49. Now, almost in the opening of the Purgatory, as there at the entrance of the Inferno, we find a company of great ones resting in a grassy place. But the idea of the grass now is very different. The word now used is not enamel," but " herb,” and instead of being merely green, it is covered with flowers of many colors. With the usual mediæval accuracy, Dante insists on telling us precisely what these colors were, and how bright; which he does by naming the actual pigments used in illumination," Gold, and fine silver, and cochineal, and white lead, and Indian wood, serene and lucid, and fresh emerald, just broken, would have been excelled, as less is by greater, by the flowers and grass of the place. It is evident that the em. erald" here means the emerald green of the illuminators; for 66 * Compare parallel passage, making Dante hard or changeless in good Purg. viii. 114. : |