9

Heroes and Rulers

 

i. Heroism / x. Homeric Heroes / 3. Virgil

4. Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages / 5. Praise o f Rulers

6.Arms and Studies / 7. Nobility o f Soul 8. Beauty

 

i. Heroism

 

ACHILLES, Siegfried, and Roland are presented to us in Greek, German, and French epic as "heroes." The "hero" is one of humanity's ideals, like the saint and the sage. To enumerate all these ideal types, to trace their descent, to determine their relative value, is a task for philosophy. Scheler, in his study of ethics, indicates five basic values, in descending order: the holy, the intellectual, the noble, the useful, the pleasant. To these there correspond five "personal value types" or "models for emulation": the saint, the genius, the hero, the directing minds within a civilization, the hedonist or artist.' The idea of the hero is connected with the basic value of nobility. The hero is the ideal personal type whose being is centered upon nobility and its realization‑hence upon "pure," not technical, values‑and whose basic virtue is natural nobility in body and soul. The hero is distinguished by a superabundance of intellectual will and by its concentration against the instincts. It is this which constitutes his greatness of character. The specific virtue of the hero is self‑control. But the hero's will does not rest here, it presses on into power, responsibility, daring. Hence the hero can play the role of statesman or general, as in earlier times he played the role of warrior.

 

The ontological ranking of "personal value types" is a conceptual schema. In the historical world it encounters and is modified by the prodigious diversity of cultures differentiated by their several social, ethical, and religious systems.2 In ancient Egypt, for example, the dominant social stratum is a bureaucratic caste of scribes which imprisons the king in a network of ceremonies and also casts its spell on priests and warriors. In ancient China the whole of public life is ordered by a body of ritual which is under the control of the hierocratic mandarinate. In India the Brahman is enthroned "on the

 

1 Max Scheler, Der Formalismus in der Ethik and die materiaZe Wartethik S (igz7), óog. Idem Schriften aus dem Nachlass, I (íg33), 157 ff.

 

z What follows is based on Alfred Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie (íg35), and Das Tragísche and die Geschichte (íg43).

 

 

topmost storey of the pagoda of caste in a position of really extraordinary sublimity such as no other caste on earth has ever held." In ancient Israel the priesthood rules and guards the tradition. In none of these cultures is the direction of affairs in the hands of the warrior caste, with its heroic ethos. In China it is despised, in India the warriors constitute the second highest caste, and the ancient heroic epic is revised by the Brahmans. Ancient heroic epic with a tragic view of existence is to be found only among the Greeks; in late form among the Persians, the Germans, the Celts, and among the French at the moment when the era of the Crusades awakened them to a consciousness of a national mission.

 

Greek and Germanic heroic poetry differ in essential points. First, in form. The Greek is epic‑that is, a voluminous poetry which was probably written down from the first, and hence was literary. The recitation of an epic took several days. During the period of the tribal migrations, the Germans produced heroic lays which, according to the view current today, comprised from eighty to two hundred lines. They were not written down. Yet Germanists know thirty lays from the period between 400 and 600 (T. Frings), though it should be remarked that we are here dealing with "a poetic genre whose existence is established only deductively and intuitively" (Hermann Schneider). According to Heusler a the creators of the heroic lay were the Ostrogoths. He characterizes it as follows: "The Germanic heroic lay is in no sense a poem in praise of ancestors and race .4 Its focus is neither dynastic nor patriotic nor is it tuned to eulogy. What it intensely values is man and the arts of man, and with all its enthusiasm for heroism, the tragic predominates in action and atmosphere. The spirit of the early Germanic epic is heroic: a concept which is not the same as the warrior ideal." 6 But what accounts for the transition from the short "heroic lay" (lost because not written down) to the Anglo‑Saxon and Middle High German "heroic epic"7 Only the example of Virgil, who for his part follows Homer. "Wherever the Middle Ages achieved a heroic literature, it was treading in Homer's footsteps" (Heusler). The medieval epic, then, is secondary, the Greek epic primary: a special case of the dependence of Modern‑Western upon Antique‑Mediterranean culture. What the primary Germanic heroic lay looked like, only the Germanists know. In any case unlike the Iliad‑it was not linked to a comprehensive historical picture. This was precluded by the very briefness of the heroic lay, but above all by the fact that the Germanic tribes did not regard themselves as constituting a unity, as did Homer's Achaeans. Yet another distinction from Homer: Germanic heroic poetry is without religion, not bound to the world of the gods.e The strongest social bond is the clan. The Old French epic presents

 

a Die altgermanische Dichtung 2 ( ig43 ) > 15 5

 

4 The theme of the Homeric bard is, on the contrary, "the praise of men," KX€a ar8pîav.

 

6 Hermann Schneider's characterization (Heldendichtung, Geistlichendichtung,

 

Ritterdichtung 2 (í943j• 8 ff.) differs considerably.                                6 Schneider, p. g.

 

                  16q

 

entirely different features. It is circumscribed by the nation, the dynasty, and the church. Roland dies for "sweet France," for the Christian faith, for the Emperor Charles. The cultural leadership of France during the High Mid­dle Ages is apparent in the fact that the Middle High German epic is dependent upon the Song o f Roland: "From the poet of the Song o f Roland . . . all later full‑scale epic art derives, in France itself, in Ger­many, and in Spain" (Frings) z

Philologists relate the word Held ("hero") to Celtic words meaning "hard." Not much is to be got from this. The Germanic Held and the Greek heros are two different things. But even of the heros the most ancient Greek poetry gives two different pictures: the one colonial, developed by the Ionians of Asia Minor (Homer), the other that of the motherland (Hes­iod). In his Works and Days Hesiod tells the myth of the ages of the world, ranked in accordance with the metals gold, silver, bronze, and iron. The series is broken between the Bronze and Iron Ages by the insertion‑out of respect for the Homeric epic‑of a "Heroic Age": "the godlike race of hero‑men who are called demigods." Some of them come to their end in wars. But to the rest Zeus gives life and a dwelling place at the ends of the earth. They live without cares in the Isles of the Blessed as "happy heroes," far from the immortal gods. They enjoy honor and fame.

Here we have the earliest poetical testimony to the Greek hero cult, which developed out of the cult of the dead and goes back to the Myce­naean periods But in Hesiod the hero cult is already modified by mythical concepts. The earlier religious concept is that the hero exercises an influence from his grave. His power is linked to his corpse, which was therefore sometimes transferred to another place, like the relics of martyrs in the Middle Ages. During the period of the city‑states the hero cult developed into an extremely influential political mythology.9 But the Homeric poems were composed by Ionic immigrants, "who had to give up the cult of graves, because they could not carry the graves of their fathers with them. This led to a weakening of this important aspect of religion, which was accentuated by the traditionless, extrovert life in the colonies, where each man forged his own fate; the Greek tendency to self‑assertion and rationalism had free play." A concomitant of this is the dwindling of belief in the soul and im­mortality which appears in the Homeric Nekyia and in Achilles' famous

 

7 Further particulars ín my paper "Über die altfranzösische Epik" (ZRPh (ig44J, z;3 3zo;especially;off.).

8 For what follows cf. Martin P. Nilsson, "Die Griechen" in Bertholet‑Lehmann, Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte, II ( r g z 5 ) , z 8 r ff.

9 The Peloponnesian War led Athenian democracy ad absurdum. It was politi­cally incompetent. At the same time, by indicting Socrates, it had showed itself to be the enemy of philosophy. The answer is the Platonic Utopia. It combines two motifs: the political system of Sparta as starting point, and the introduction of a caste system. The philosophers form the ruling caste, the warrior caste is relegated to second place (Toynbee, A Study of History, III, gz ff.). Plato robbed both the hero and the poet of his pre‑eminence.

 

words (Od., XI, 488 ff.): " `Mock not at death, glorious Odysseus. Better to be the hireling of a stranger, and serve a man of mean estate, whose living is but small, than be the ruler over all these dead and gone."' * Here the contrast with the Hesiodic concept is perfectly clear. But the old idea that after death pre‑eminent men shared in a blessed immortality never disap­peared and in the final phase of Antiquity acquired fresh life. The antique belief in immortality is "heroification." Its recession in Homer has the result that the gods interfere all the more actively in the affairs of men, since the dead no longer do so. Here lies the origin of the "divine machin­ery" of epic. At the same time, the earthboundness of the Homeric world is one of the roots of heroic tragedy. The Christian concept of the world knows it not.

A comparative phenomenology of heroism, heroic poetry, and the heroic ideal is yet to be given us.

 

a. Homeric Heroes

 

The epic fable of the Iliad is set in motion by the anger of Achilles. With­out the angry hero (Achilles, Roland, the Cid) or god (Poseidon in the Odyssey, Juno in the Aeneíd), there is no epic: Achilles is angry with Agamemnon because he has to surrender a captured girl to him. He retires to the ships and refuses to take part in the fighting. An embassy sent to plead with him is unable to make him change his mind. Only grief at Patroclus' death and the need for vengeance send him into battle, where he kills Hector. The fall of Troy will be the conclusion of a concatenation of events which, like the prehistory of the Trojan War, begins with the stealing of a woman. And this concatenation is motivated by the character of Achilles. Homer draws him with deliberate art. Achilles is not only hot­tempered (IX, z54ff.) but he is thoughtless, so that Odysseus is obliged to stop him from rushing ahead with ill‑considered military tactics (XIX, 155 ff.) and Patroclus, who is older than he, to guide him by wise counsel (XI, X86), even as old Phoenix has been given him as tutor. He may indeed be the mightiest warrior among the Achaeans; his fate may indeed be tragic, because an early death hangs over him, as he himself knows. Yet, to Homer, he is not an ideal figure. The poet disapproves of Achilles' dishonoring the dead Hector.lo To be sure, he has received the divine gift of physical strength (I, 178), but the true hero must also have such wisdom as Nestor personifies. Though Nestor is weakened by age, he is indispensable to the expedition not only because he can give excellent counsel to the leaders, but also because he knows how to array his men by the tried and true meth­ods of earlier times (IV, 294‑310), so that Agamemnon does not know whether to wish that he had ten more such counselors (II, 372) or that Nestor were young again (IV, 312). In any case, it is of great value for the

 

(# Trans. G. H. Palmei.j

10 W_ Schadewaldt, Von Homers Werk and Welt ( i944), z6i.

 

conduct of the war that Nestor can still help with counsel and words (IV, 32 3 ) .Wise counsel is as needful as brave deeds. But only age possesses such wisdom based on experience. Youth has little understanding (XXIII, 59° and 6oq.). Odysseus too, the man of many wiles, is older than Achilles and can be compared with Zeus in wisdom (II, 407). He restrains Achilles from folly and shows himself superior to the imprudent Menelaus (III, Zit­z24). Achilles becomes an epic hero and a tragic victim not through the decree of fate alone but also through his own uncontrolled emotions. Homer holds that strength and intelligence in equipoise (VII, 288; II, 202; IX, 53 ) represent the optimum in warrior virtue. Even of the ordinary warrior, "battle‑lore" is expected (II, 6m; VI, yy f. and passim). He must know the business of war. But the leaders must combine courage with wisdom on a far higher level. How seldom, however, are the two found togetherl Even the shepherd of the people, Agamemnon, frequently allows himself to be "blinded" by passion. Only in Odysseus do heroism, proficiency in war, and wisdom appear to be in equilibrium. Even Hector has to bear with the reproach that he is fit for battle but not for counsel (XIII, 727 ff.) . Polydamas appears as the foil to Hector. Both were born on the same day, but they are of different natures: "For to one man has god given for his portion the works of war, but in the heart of yet another hath far‑seeing Zeus placed an excellent understanding, whereof many men get gain."

The contrast between age, with its wisdom born of experience, and stormy youth, runs all through the Iliad. How are we to interpret this? Certainly not as psychological speculation on the different characteristics of various ages, such as became popular in later Attic comedy and in Hellenistic­Roman literary theory. Here in Homer we are confronted with something primal.

We are confronted with a residuum or echo of the prehistoric Indo­European religion, which Georges Dumézil has been able to reconstruct in a long series of publications. On the basis of comparative linguistics, mythology, and sociology he shows that the Indo‑Iranians, the Celts, the Germanic and Italic peoples, possessed a common religious, cosmic, and social system, whose structure corresponded with three functions: sover­eignty (government), war, and fertility. In India this triad hardened into the caste system: Brahmans, warriors (Kshatriyas), cattle‑breeders and farmers (Vaishyas). The function of sovereignty is subdivided again in the polarity of the magical, fruitful king and the wise, lawmaking king. The former is represented by the god Varuna, the latter by the god Mitra. The pair Varuna‑Mitra is also found among the Romans, but transposed from the metaphysical to the historical sphere. The earliest history of Rome, as reported by Livy, reflects upon the Rome of the kings a religion which is the annalists' interpretation of the pre‑Roman religion. The polarity Varuna‑Mitra is represented by the pair Romulus‑Numa. This Indo‑Euro­pean polarity covers a large number of paired opposites, among them that

(* Trans. Lang, Leaf, and Myers.]

 

of stormy youth (iuniores) and thoughtful old age (seniores). There is not

room for the details and the evidence here. I shall quote only Dumézil's

conclusion: "L'un des deux termes (Varuna, etc.) recouvre ce qui est in­

spiré, imprévisible, frénétique, rapide, magique, terrible, sombre, exigeant

totalitaire ( iunior ) etc., tandis que l'autre ( Mitra, etc.) recouvre ce qui est

réglé, exact, majestueux, lent, juridique, bienveillant, clair, libéral, dis­

tributif, senior, etc. Mais il est vain de prétendre partir d'un élément de

ces 'contenus' pour en déduire les autres." Il

    Among the Indo‑European ethnic groups, the Indo‑Iranians and the

Italo‑Celts are the most conservative. They have best preserved their re­

ligious heritage. To be sure, it had already undergone a great change among    v

the pre‑Romans. But among the Greeks the change was even greater. Their

religion is essentially "Aegean." It preserves only slight traces of the Indo­

European system. But must not the Homeric contrasting of the stormy

young hero with the experienced old representative of "wisdom" be one

of them?

    From the antinomy between them arises the epic action of the Iliad.

Its tragedy is wholly comprehensible only as a deviation from an ideal

norm, which we may describe as a combination of courage and wisdom.

Like the physician skilled in medicine, the omen‑reading priest, the bard,

and the craftsman who produces works of art, the hero as sage and warrior

is a basic type of Homeric anthropology. The combination of courage and

wisdom appears, as we see, in two basic forms: on a higher level as "heroic

virtue" and on a lower level as "soldierly virtue." The latter again appears

in three forms: i. "battle‑lore" ( 47rt0'TÓG/LEVOS 7rOÂE/ALrEGV ); z. manliness

in the field and in the council of war, 3. proficiency in the use of a par­ticular

weapon. As for the intellectual component of "heroic virtue" it

appears as i. the wisdom of experience in the man of great age (Nestor);

z. the (wily) cleverness of the mature man (Odysseus); 3. eloquence

(Nestor and Odysseus). To this we must add, as ideal program and

broadest concept, 4. the ability (g, 443) "to be both a speaker of words

and a doer of deeds." To educate Achilles in both is the pedagogical

task laid upon Phoenix. Eloquence and wisdom are closely connected in

the Homeric ideal of the hero; they are two facets of the same thing.

    This is of course an abstract schema‑and purposely so, for our task is

to trace the survival of the polarity "courage and wisdom." We may, and

indeed we must, view Homer as late Antiquity saw him when it projected

the ideals of its own time back into him. To Quintilian, for example, Homer

is the model and origin of all the departments of rhetoric (X, z, 46); in

the speeches of Nestor, Odysseus, and Menelaus he gave models for the

three kinds of style (II, 17, 8); the schoolteacher, like Homer's Phoenix,

must teach right action and right speaking, and so on. Our field of inquiry,

 

    ii Georges Dumézil, Mitra‑Varuna. Essai sur deux representations indo‑euro­

péennes de la souveraineté ( ‑ Bíóliothèque de l'Ecole.des Iiautes Etudes. Sciences

religieuses. 568 volume Paris, ig4o1), iq.4‑5~

 

then, is not what Homeric heroism and Homeric wisdom are but what later readers and writers could and did see in

them.

 

3. Virgil

 

Virgil's reflective, highly conscious, and highly complex epic is connected with Homer in a great variety of ways. But it was meant to express, and could not but express, the ideals of an entirely different age. This inner tension is noticeable in the Aeneid.lz Virgil is deeply imbued with the spirit of the Augustan Age of Peace and its ethical ideals. The termination

 

of the century‑old civil war by Augustus, and indeed the cessation „T a;; war, is prophesied by Jupiter himself (f1en., I, 29i ) ;

 

As¢era tam ¢ositis mitescent saecula lejlis. In a culture of this temper there was no place for the heroic ideal in the

 

old sense. In his Aeneid Virgil created a new ideal of the hers. ard _

moral strength. To be sure, this hero too stands the test in battle (I, 544 f. l

 

. quo iustior alter

Nee ¢ietate fait nee hello maior et armis.

 

_ ‑                In Aeneas, then, moral virtue (iustítía, ¢ietas) takes the place of  “wis‑

dom," and coexists, apparently without conflict, with his abilities

fighter. He is (VI, 403)

‑                                . . . ¢ietate insignia et armis,

 

and in such cases his pietas is always mentioned first. Thanks to it, Aeneas surpasses even Hector (XI, 290). But Aeneas never wants w2*, ? : „‑;;c1. the poet too sees something terrible, as does the young MenoetPs i5rrr

 

51 7ff ~ ) : . íuvenem exosum nequiguam bells Menoeten, Areada, ¢iseosae cu' eircum flaming Lernae Ars fuerat ¢au¢er9ue domus nee nota ¢otentum Liming eonductaque ¢uter tenure serebat.

 

Virgil first describes war from the point of view of the besieged‑amid the horror of the fall of Troy. He postpones the decisive battle between the Trojans and the Latins until the tenth book. The Latins are led by Turnus. He is the only "Homeric" hero in the poem, well known as re resen ' p tmg the old ideal face to face with the new (Aeneas). But among the Latins too there are figures who incline more toward sa¢ientia than toward ::.v

 

military virtues. Drances (XI, 336ff,), for example, who cries out his opposition to Turnus:

 

Nulls salus bello: ¢aeem to ¢oscimus omnes.

 

And, above all, King Latinus, who is all sa¢ientia, as Turnus is all fortitudo (XII, r 8 ff.) . Aeneas himself is far from being a faultless character through­12 For what follows, cf. C. M. Bowra, From Virgil to Milton íi945)

 

out. Virgil has him undergo a purification in the Stoic sense (exercitatio; is cf. III, 187. and V, 72 5 ) . At the fall of Troy Aeneas acts like a man blinded by rage (II, s44), he seizes his weapons like a madman (II, 3i4)

 

Arena omens ca¢io, nec sat rationis in armis.

 

In Crete the Penates have to induce him to continue his journey (III, 147 ff.). He has another lapse when he "wastes his days" with Dido and has to be admonished by Mercury (IV, 267). Once again he is tempted to forget his fated mission and remain in Sicily. First his comrade Nautes, and then the ghost of Anchises, have to intervene (V, 7oofE.). It is as a changed and thoroughly matured man that he finally goes to meet the Cumaean Sibyl (VI, io5)

 

Omnia ¢raece¢i atgue ammo mecum. ante ¢eregi?4

 

It is possible to find Aeneas a lifeless character. But the great theme of the Aeneíd is not Aeneas, but the destiny of Rome. And, embedded in this richly allusive poem of history and destiny, is the journey to the otherworld (in Book VI), which raises us above everything earthly and is the greatest beauty of the poem. Its later influence too was most significant. To it we owe Dante's Commedia.

 

4. Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages

 

After Virgil the polarity sapientia and fortitudo declines to the domain of topics. Statius (Achilleis, I, 472) calls Odysseus "consilüs armisque vigil." The same poet provides a schema which was to become extraordinarily popular as a primitive differential characterizing of two persons. In the Thebais (X, 249 ff‑) two warriors are distinguished by the antithesis that one has immense strength, the other can give good counsel. Statius is an important intermediary between antique and medieval epic. But medieval views of epic heroism were even more strongly determined by late reduc­tions of the story of the Trojan War, particularly by the Troy romances of Dictys and Dares.

With the Ephemeris belli Troiani of "Dictys" (fourth century) and the De excidío Troiae historía of "Dares" (sixth century) we reach the late antique end‑form of the Homeric epic and of the "cyclic" epic which accreted around it. Dares and Dictys introduce a novelty: The epic has become a prose romance 16 Here, then, we observe the same development which led from the French heroic epics and poems of chivalry to the prose rehandlings of the late Middle Ages. The Troy romances of Dictys and Dares are, as we know today, adaptations of Greek romances and are to

 

is Bogy refers to Seneca, Dial, I, 4.

24 For ¢raeci¢ere as a Stoic concept Bowra refers to Cicero, De off., I, 8o and Seneca, E¢., 7ó> 33•

is Figures following citations refer to pages and lines in F. Meister's editions of Dictys (i87z) and of Dares (i873).

 

be understood in the light of the nature of that literary genre. One of their chief characteristics‑as perhaps it is of narrative fiction in general‑is their insistence that everything is strictly true (mentioned, as "adtestatio rei visae," in Macrobíus, Sat., IV, 6, 13 among the means of arousing emotion) and is based upon written records by eyewitnesses. This motif already appears in Aeneas' account of the destruction of Troy ( "quaeque . . . ipse vidi"). It was to achieve great importance in later times.

Dictys and Dares gave the Middle Ages hints for the topos fortitudo et sapientia. Dictys says of Achilles that in the aptitudes of a warrior he was superior to anyone; but that his energy was without reflection and his man­ners crude ( io, 28 ff.). Achilles perishes through his unconsidered daring ("inconsulta temeritas"), whereas Agamemnon stands above all "through strength of body and mind" (49, z) and a Memnon possesses experience in war (7 3, z3). In Dares we find a differentiating characterization of two brothers: Deiphobus is a brave warrior, Helenus a wise seer. Odysseus is "wily, eloquent, wise" ( I 6, I9 ) .

Late antique theory too has a share in the further development and in­terpretation of the ideal hero. According to the allegorical interpretation of Fulgentius, the opening words of the Aeneid conceal a deeper meaning. "Anna" signifies courage, "virum" wisdom: "For all perfection consists in bodily strength and wisdom." The entire development which leads from Homer to Dares and Fulgentius reaches its conclusion in what Isidore of Seville (d. 636) has to say about the epic: "It is called heroic song because it tells the deeds of brave men. For hero is the name given to men who by their wisdom and courage are worthy of heaven" (Et., I, 39, g). "Sapientia et fortitudo"‑in Isidore's formula Homer's ideal of the hero combines with Hesiod's teaching. The reception of the hero into "heaven" was an idea already known to the ancient Greeks. But Isidore's formulation pro­vides room for the Christian ideal hero of the eleventh century. The knights who, like Roland and his comrades, fell in battle against the infidels were also "worthy of heaven."

Medieval topics now took over the formula sa¢ientia et fortitudo for laments for the dead and eulogies of rulers as well as for short narrative poems and the epic. A Carolingian epitaph (Poetae, I, I I z, g ) gives us "great in counsel and in the craft of war." Homer's "battle‑knowledge," Dares' "experience in war" ( "bellandi peritia" ) are matched by other medieval expressions. In the powerful rhythm on the battle of Fontenoy ( 84I ) we twice hear the line:

 

In quo fortes ceciderunt, proelio doctissimi.

 

Paul von Winterfeld 18 translates it:

 

Wo die Helden erlagen, wohlbewährt im Streit.

(Where the heroes succumbed, well‑seasoned in the fray.)

 

is Deutsche Dichter des lateinischen Mittelalters. Dritte and vierte Aufiage

 

(1927.),165.

 

 

Literally it means: "The brave fell, the learned in battle." This immediately suggests Homer's "battle‑knowledge." But Germanists insist upon finding traces of Norse skaldic poetry in the poem 17 The poet, however, drew from a very different source: the Old Testament. .There he found not only the phrase "ceciderunt fortes" (Vulg. z Reg. (A.V. II Sam.] l:lg and z5), but also "ad'bella doctissimi" (Cant., 3, 8) and "docti ad proelium" ( I Macc. q.: 7 and 6: 30 ) .1$ Fortitudo and sa¢ientia frequently appear di­vided between two persons (Alcuin in Poetae, I, 3197, 1z81). But the ideal continues to be their union in one person, for example in the Waltharius (11. 103 f. ) . Young Walther and young Hagen surpass the strong in strength and the learned in understanding. The tragic tension between the warrior temperament and prudence will emerge again in the Song of Roland.

 

5. Praise of Rulers

 

Given another turn, the topos leads to the praise of rulers. The Punic Wars forced the earlier Rome to come to grips with Hellenism. The old Roman virtus and Greek culture had been reconciled in the circle of Scipio Aeme­lianus. After the period of civil war, the arts of peace flower in the fax Augusta. The majority of the emperors of the first two centuries were favorable to culture or wished to appear so. Many of them engaged in literary activity of one sort or another, all of them saw to it that the art of literature should sing their praises.l° In the course of this cultural change, the archaic polarity "wisdom‑courage" acquires a new and much more highly differentiated form. Wisdom is replaced by culture, poetry, elo­quence: the alliance of Mars and the Muses. The younger Pliny accounts those fortunate who accomplish deeds worthy of song or produce writings wofthy to be read ("aut facere scribenda aut scribere legenda"); and most fortunate are those to whom both are granted (E¢., VI, 13, 3). In the topics of imperial eulogy the Caesars figure as such beatissimi. The impera­tor is general, ruler, and poet in one. Even a Domitian is praised by Quin­tilian (X, 1, gl ) and Statius as being crowned with the laurel both of the poet and the general' ( Ach., I, 15 ) . Dion of Prusa calls Homer to witness that an interest in eloquence, philosophy, music, and poetry is an orna­ment to a king (aepl ßawelas, II). After the barbarism of the third cen­tury the "immense intellectual reaction of the fourth" asserts itself in the fact that, from the time of Constantine on, intellectual culture is once more considered the highest excellence of the emperors.2° This was mani­fested in the Liber de Caesaribus of Aurelius Victor (published in 360) as well as in the inscriptions and poetry of the times. Theodosius asks his

 

17 Andreas Hensler, Die altgermanische Dichtung, 138 (2nd ed., r44).

18 Further examples: Poetae, II, 502, 640 (fiesta A¢ollonü); Wido of Amiens, De Hastíngae ¢roelío, 5o and 423.‑Alan of Lille balances strength (Hercules) against understanding (Ulysses) (~P, II, 278 ‑ PL, CCX 491 C).

19 Cf. H. Bardon, Les Empereurs et les lettres latines d'Auguste d Hadrien (Paris,

 

lg2° R. Laqueur in Probleme der S¢ätantike ( rg3o), pp. 7 and z§ f.

 

 

"father" Ausonius to send him his works and cites the precedent of Octa­vian, to whom the foremost writers had brought their works. Ausonius him­self addresses Gratian as "most learned Caesar" (ed. Schenkl, p. 23, 6) and boasts (Schenkl, p. 194, I, 5 ff .) that the monarch, because he excels in both words and war, alternates between battles and the Muses, between the Gothic war and Apollo. Claudian finds in Honorius "that together which is always sundered: wisdom and strength, prudence and courage" (Epithalamium de nuptüs Honorü Augusti, 314 f.).

The Germanic army commanders and kings‑as, for example, the Van­dals, the Ostrogoths and Visigoths, the Merovingians, and above all the Carolingians‑frequently took over the succession of the emperors in this respect too.al We also find monarchs favorable to culture in England (Al­fred the Great), and later in Norman Sicily; Roger studies geography, William brings the translators Aristippus of Catania and Eugene of Palermo to his court. With his book on falconry, Frederick II, of the house of Hohenstaufen, stands in the succession of Arabic natural science. We find Islamic scholars, courtiers, and officials in his entourage. But he also kept Arabic poets in his pay and collected Arabic books for the university of Naples. The ideal of the monarch favored by the Muses dominated Spanish­Islamic as it did Abbaside and Roman Imperial culture. The parallel ex­tends even to the "mirrors for princes." as But the ideal of the im¢erator Iiteratus also appears in the form of the learned ruler who bears the surname el sabio, le sage, the "wise" ( that is, the learned).

Of Frederick II it is said (Friderici gesta metrice, 59 f.)

 

Cui geminum munus dederat Natura biformis: Ut fords sa¢iensgue foiet, mírandus utroque.

 

(Nature, herself twofold, gave him a double gift: Making him wise and brave, in each a miracle.)

 

Dante praises Guido Guerra thus (Inf., XVI, 3g)

 

Fece col senno assai a con la spada.

(Enough he wrought, both with his mind and sword.)

 

Macbeth says of Banquo ( III, ii):

 

. . . In his royalty o f nature

Reigns that which would be fear'd: 'tis much he dares,

 

ar S. Hellmann, Sedulius Scottus ( r9o6 ) , z f.

    zz In the twelfth century John of Salisbury urges upon princes the need for lit­

erary culture. He makes the Roman king (Conrad III) say: "quia rex illiteratus est

quasi asinus coronatus." The adage was also attributed to other princes: see H.

Brinkmann, Entstehungsgeschichte des Minnesangs (r9zó), rç n. IL.‑Praise of

the "philosophizing" king in Godfrey of Viterbo ( J. Röder, Das Fürsterebild in den

mitteialtetlichen Fürstens¢iegelrn. . . Münstet dissertation [r9331> z9): Inter­

esting points of comparison are given in Gustav Richter's Studien zur Geschichte

der dlteren arabischerc Fürstenspiegel ( i g 3 z ) .‑Cf. also E. Booz, Die Fürstenspíegel

des Míttelalters, Freiburg dissertation ( i9y), 2 8 and 3 5.

 

_                                i

 

And, to that dauntless temper of his mind,

 He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour

To act in safety.

 

6. Arms and Studies

 

The topos safüentia et f ortitudo entered the Renaissance in didactic writing

on courtly ideals (Castiglione). One of the most brilliant passages in

Boiardo's epic is the night conversation on arms and studies (Orlando In­

namorato, I, 18, 41‑45). The theme reappears in Ariosto (XX, i‑z), as it

does in Rabelais ( Pantagruel, ch. 8 ) . Spenser brings it into the Faerie

Queerte ( II, 3, 40 ) and the She¢heardes Calendar (October, 11. 66 ff.);

Cervantes in Don Quijote (Part I, ch. 38). As the disciplines on the one

hand and, on the.other, the types and ideals characteristic of the several

social ranks became increasingly differentiated, the question could not

but arise which studies were suitable for the ideal type which was the model

for the then ruling class. Seventeenth‑century French literature touches

upon this complex of questions in many ways. Molière derides not only

the learned lady, but also the marquis with literary aspirations and the

bourgeois who takes lessons in philosophy. Saint‑Evremond gives his opin­

ion on "les sciences où peat s'appliquer un honnête homme," and dismisses

as beneath the gentleman all but ethics, politics, and belles‑lettres .23 La

Bruyère regretfully observes: "Chez nous, le soldat est brave, et l'homme

de robe est savant; nous n'allons pas plus loin. Chez les Romains l'homme

de robe était brave, et le soldat était savant; un Romain était tout ensemble

et le soldat et l'homme de robe" (Caractères, Du mérite personnel, zg ) .

 

Nowhere else has the combination of the life of the Muses and the life of the warrior ever been so brilliantly realized as in Spain's period of florescence ín the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries‑it suffices to call to mind Garcilaso, Cervantes, Lope, and Calderón. All of them were poets who also served in the wars. Nèither France (excepting Agrippa d'Aubigné, who, however, wrote poetry ínvíta Mínerva) nor Italy can show anything of the sort. It is understandable, then, that the theme "arenas y tetras" was often treated in Spanish literature. Garcilaso wrote "tomando, ora la espada, ora la pluma" ( Eclogue III). Though Don Quixote in his celebrated discourse (I, 37) gives the profession of arms precedence over studies, in another passage of the romance (II, 6) arenas and tetras are accounted two equally worthy roads to honor and wealth. After Cervantes, Calderón takes up the theme. In his plays there are many young noblemen who exchange the life of the student for the life of the soldier, the pen for the sword, Minerva for Mars, Salamanca for Flanders (Keil, I, 3o a) or who "follow arms by choice and letters as a pastime" (Keil, I, 99 a).

 

It is the glory of the Spanish Empire that there the ideal of arenas y tetras is most highly esteemed (Keil, IV, zgq. a).

 

280euvres (y3g), I, i66.

 

 

 

 

O f elice tu, o f elice

Otra vez a otras mil sea

                           Imperio, en quien el primero

                            Triunfo son arenas y letrast

 

For "arms and letters" the formula "pen and sword" also became cur­rent. In French Romanticism, it received a new content from the impression made by Napoleon's antique greatness. Balzac's motto was: "Ce qu'il a commencé par l'épée, je l'achèverai par la plume." Vigny, a scion of the nobility, to which the democratic century appeared to refuse political in­fluence, adds the pen to his crest:

 

J’ai mis sur le cimier doré du gentilhomme

 

i                         Une plume de fer qui nest pas sans beauté.

I

                  The true nobility is nobility of soul, not nobility of blood or of arms; Vigny

                  writes his name

 

Non sur Pobscur auras des víeux moms inutiles,

 

Mais sur le pur tableau des livres de l'Esprit.

 

With this we reach the topos of "nobility of mind" and "nobility of soul." The revolutions of 1789, 1830, and 1848 had made it a contem­porary reality for Vigny.

 

7. Nobility o f Soul

 

              Every period of enlightenment reaches the conclusion "that noble descent

                        in itself is no guarantee of noble thought, that nobility is essentially a

              matter of the possession of wealth, but that there is an intellectual nobility

                        of good men which does not depend upon birth." 24 This is known to the

              Sophists, Euripides, Aristotle (Rhet., II, 15, 3), as to Menander (34z/i

                        to zgi/o), the chief representative of the "new comedy" (Fragment 533,

                        ed. Kock). At the same time the rhetor Anaximenes recommends that,

              when a man cannot be praised for noble birth, one should fall back upon

.                       the thought that every man who has an excellent disposition for virtue is

              thereby born noble. The younger Seneca (Epistle 44• 5) teaches: "The

                        soul ennobles" ("animus facit nobilem"). In Juvenal (VIII, zo) one could

              read: "nobilitas Bola est atque unica virtus." Boethius had also discussed

                        the theme (Cons., III, pr. 6). In medieval Latin literature the topos occurs

              very frequently?s Matthew of VendBme in.his treatise on poetics puts it

              among the topoi for the prooemium (Faral, p. 116, ss 27 and z8). It was

 

       I                       24 W, Schmid, Geschichte der griechischen Literatur, III (ig4o), 6g5.

       k                      2s References in Schumann in his commentary on CB, No. 4, and in ZRPh,

              LVIII (íg38), zi;.

 

discussed at the court of Frederick II;ze and is dilated upon in Richard of Venosa's comedy Paulinus et Polla,z7 which was played before the Em­peror. Naturally, the theme was discussed in vernacular poetry too‑by the troubadours, for example, and in the Romance o f the Rose (1. a 86o ff.). The topos is a commonplace among the poets of Dante's generation and their predecessors 2° It was given new life in Guido Guinizelli's doctrine that love dwells only in the "noble heart." Later, Dante himself treated it yet more fully (Cony., IV, i4ff.). Thus the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries gave new life to a commonplace which was more than fifteen hundred years old. But it had become contemporary when the ideal of the knightly caste was adopted by the town bourgeoisie, hence above all in thirteenth‑century Florence. And in England too. William of Wykeham (í3z4‑í4o4), chancellor to Edward III and Richard II, founder of New College, Oxford, had risen from a humble station and took as his motto "Manners makyth man"‑a foreshadowing of the ideal of the "gentleman."

 

8. Beauty

 

For eulogies of rulers epideixis had developed fixed schemata in Hellenistic times. Physical and moral excellences were arranged in series‑for example, beauty, nobility, manliness ( forma, genus, virtus) $° A more elaborate schema associates four "natural excellencies" (nobility, strength, beauty, wealth) with four virtues. Physical beauty is always a requisite, and the Middle Ages takes it over too; Biblical exemplary figures could, however, replace antique ones: David for strength, Joseph for beauty, Solomon for wisdom, and so on $1 Hence we so often find medieval historical sources telling of the beauty of a ruler. In late Antiquity these and other excellen­cies are often represented as gifts of Nature. One of her functions is to create beautiful places az and beautiful human beings. In the case of promi­nent men she works with particular care $a A rhetorical textbook of the third century of the Empire recommends introducing the Natura‑topos into panegyrics $4 In the Latin poetry of the eleventh and twelfth cen­turies this topos is extraordinarily frequent. It is used to praise princes

 

z° E. Kantorowicz, Kaiser Friedrich 11. Erganzungsband, 129. 27 Ed. Duméril, p. i4o.

zs E. Wechssler, Das Kulturproblem des Minnesangs, I, 3 52 ff.

zs A. Gaspary, Geschichte der italienischen Líteratur, I, 5 i 8.‑Wilhelm Berges (Die Fürstens¢iegel des hohen and späteren Mittelalters (iç‑38J ) attempts to inter­pret the change from nobilitas cordons to nobilítas mends as peculiar to the thir­teenth century. This is to fail to recognize that he is dealing with a topos.

$° C. Weyman in Festgabe Alois I~nöpfier (içy).

ai Theodulf in Poetae, I; 57713.

az Aetna, 1. 6oi.‑Statius, Silvae, I, 3, y; II, z, y.‑Claudian, De sexto con­sulatu Honoríi, 5o.‑Sidonius, c. VII, 139 f.

as Merobaudes, ed. Vollmer, 7, z i f.

s4 Pseudo‑Dion. Hal., Ars rhetorica, ed. Usener, p. io, ir.

 

and princesses, as well as when the poet is courting some lass or lad. Hilde­bert of Lavardin flatters the queen of England (PL, CLXXI, 1143 AB)

 

Parcius elimans alias Natura puellas

Distulít in dotes esse benigna teas.

In te fudit opes, et opus mirabíle cernens

Est mirata suas hoc potuisse manus.

 

"Nature took less care in chiseling out other maidens, deferring her benevo­lence until she came to endow you. On you she lavished her gifts, and, beholding the wonderful work, was amazed that her hands could have ac­complished so much." Hildebert uses the same schema in his celebrated lines on the antique statues which he saw in Rome (PL, CLXXI, 1409 C)

 

Non fiotuit Natura deos hoc ore creare

!                                                              Quo miranda deem signs creavit homo.

'                                (Nature could not create gods of such wondrous beauty

As this which man did make to represent a god.) 35

 

The rhetorical topos "Nature as the maker of beautiful human beings" has nothing in common with "Natura mater generationis" except that Nature is personified in both. The Natura of rhetoric completely lacks the element of divine frenzy present in the goddess of fertility.

No literary genre has a greater need for beautiful heroes and heroines than has the romance. Of Antiquity's narrative themes, the tale of King Apollonius of Tyre was a favorite in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Shakespeare took his Pericles from it. The earliest version of it is a third­century Latin prose romance. There we read: "King Antiochus had a daugh­ter as beautiful as a picture, to whom Nature had denied nothing, save that she made her mortal." In the courtly romance which was cultivated in France from i i 50 onwards, the cliché "Nature created a being beautiful as a picture" appears innumerable times. It is taken from the Latin poetry of the period.88‑Is it possible to outdo Nature in creation? Yes! Namely, when God and Nature work together. A love poem from the Carmína Burana (No. 170) describes a girl:

 

. . . in cuius figura

Laboravit Deitas et mater Natura.

 

Chrétien de Troyes goes even further (Yvain, 1492 ff. ) : "Nature could not create such surpassing beauty. Or perhaps she had no share in making

 

as I have given further examples in ZRPh, LVIII ( i g 38 ), . i 8z ff.‑To these I add Faral, p. izg, f 56, 1. i; p. 207, 1. 335; p. zog, I. 397 P~ 331 1. 15. Nature shudders at the creation of a future schoolmaster: Faral, ~. 33$, 1. r i.

seH. Gelzer, Nature (igr?), provides a valuable coleetion of material. The derivation from Alan of Lille is not tenable, cf. Faral in Romania (igz3), z86.­Alfons Hilka, Der Pereeval‑Roman Yon Christian voce Troyes (ig3z), p. 761, note on 7gog.

 

it? . . . Surely God created it with his bare hand, to astonish Nature." Descriptions of beautiful men and women are obligatory in courtly poetry and were turned out in accordance with recipes which we need not discuss here

 

                           $z Ecphrasis of a beautiful man: Stud. med., IX ( r936) > 38> N°~ 3°•‑‑Chrétien's

term for ecphrasis is devise (Perceval, r8o5).‑Description of human ugliness de‑

                       rives from the vítuperatio. In its treatment of epideixis antique rhetoric made

"blame" the opposite of praise. This had consequences for medieval poetry, into

which it is impossible to go here. Sidonius' description of Gnatho (Epistles III, 13)

was the model for the style.‑In medieval Latin: Vitalis' Amphitruo, 11. 235 ff‑,

Geta in Alda, 11. y ff., Davus in the Ars versificatoría of Matthew of Vendôme,

 

 

I> $53 (Faral in Stud. med., IX [í936J, 55)• Cf. su¢ra, p. 69, n. y.