LECTURE VII. OF POETIC IMAGERY FROM COMMON LIFE. Examples of poetic imagery from common life-The habits of life extremely simple among the Hebrews, whose principal employments were agriculture and pasturage- The dignity of these employments; and the splendour of the imagery which is borrowed from them: Threshing, and the threshing instruments-The sublimity of the imagery which is taken from familiar objects, results from its propriety. The poetic hell of the Hebrews explained; the imagery of which is borrowed from their subterraneous sepulchres and funeral rites. IN my last Lecture I explained three causes, which have enabled the Hebrew poets to preserve in their figurative style the most perfect union between perspicuity and sublimity. I remarked in the first place, that they chiefly employed images taken from familiar objects, such I mean as were generally known and understood; secondly, that in the use or application of them, they observed a regular track, method, or analogy; and lastly, that they used most freely that kind of imagery which was most familiar, and the application of which was most generally understood. The truth of these observations will I think find further and more decisive confirmation, if those metaphors be considered, which are taken from arts, manners, and common life. These, you will easily recollect, I before pointed out as another source of poetical imagery and for this part of the subject a few general observations will suffice, with an example or two out of the great number which present themselves in the sacred writings. The whole course and method of common or domestic life among the Hebrews of the more ancient times, was simple and uniform in the greatest degree. There existed not that variety of studies and pursuits, of arts, conditions, and employments, which may be observed among other nations, who boast of superior civilization; and rightly, indeed, if luxury, levity, and pride, be the criterions of it. All enjoyed the same equal liberty; all of them, as being the offspring of the same ancient stock, boasted an equality of lineage and rank; there were no empty titles, no ensigns of false glory; scarcely any distinction or precedence but that which resulted from superior virtue or conduct, from the dignity of age and experience, or from services rendered to their country. Separated from the rest of mankind by their religion and laws, and not at all addicted to commerce, they were contented with those arts, which were necessary to a simple and uncultivated (or rather uncorrupted) state of life. Thus their principal employments were agriculture and the care of cattle; they were a nation of husbandmen and shepherds. The lands had been originally parcelled out to the different families; the portions of which (by the laws of the country) could not be alienated by sale,' and therefore descended to their posterity without diminution. The fruits of the earth, the produce of his land and labour, constituted the wealth of each individual. Not even the greatest among them esteemed it mean and disgraceful to be employed in the lowest offices of rural labour. In the Scripture history, therefore, we read of eminent persons called to the highest and most sacred offices, heroes, kings, and prophets, from the plough and from the stalls.? Such being the state of things, we cannot reasonably be surpris ed to find the Hebrew writers deducing most of their metaphors from those arts particularly, in which they were educated from their earliest years. We are not to wonder that those objects which were most familiar to their senses, afforded the principal ornaments of their poetry; especially since they furnished so various and so elegant an assortment of materials, that not only the beautiful, but the grand and magnificent might be collected from them. If any person of more nicety than judgement should esteem some of these rustic images groveling or vulgar, it may be of some use to him to be informed, that such an effect can only result from the ignorance of the critic, who, through the medium of his scanty information and peculiar prejudices, presumes to estimate matters of the most remote antiquity; it cannot reasonably be attributed as an error to the sacred poets, who not only give to those ideas all their natural force and dignity, but frequently by the vivacity and boldness of the figure, exhibit them with additional vigour, ornament, and beauty. It would be a tedious task to instance particularly with what embellishments of diction, derived from one low and trivial object, (as it may appear to some) the barn, or the threshing-floor, the sacred writers have contrived to add a lustre to the most sublime, and a force to the most important subjects: Thus "JEHOVAH threshes out the heathen as corn, tramples them under his feet, and disperses 1 Lev. xxv. 13—16, and 23, 24. Compare 1 KINGs xxi. 3. 2 See JUD. iii. 31. vi. 11. 72, 73. 1 KINGS XIX. 19, 20. 1 SAM. ix. 3. xi. 5. 2 SAM. vii. 8. PSAL. lxxviii. Amos i. 1. vii. 14, 15, them. He delivers the nations to Israel to be beaten in pieces by an indented flail, or to be crushed by their brazen hoofs. He scatters his enemies like chaff upon the mountains, and disperses them with the whirlwind of his indignation."3 "Ecce feci te traham; "Tribulum novum, instructum dentibus: "Et turbo eos dissipabit."4 Of these quotations it is to be remarked, first, that the nature of this metaphor, and the mode of applying it, are constantly and cautiously regarded by the different authors of the sacred poems; and on this account, notwithstanding the boldness of it, both chastity and perspicuity are preserved: since they apply it solely to exaggerate the slaughter and dispersion of the Wicked. The force and aptness of the image itself in illustrating the subject, will also afford a very proper and ready apology for some degree of freedom in the application of it, particularly if we advert to the nature and method of this rustic operation in Palestine. It was performed in a high situation exposed to the wind, by bruising the ear, either by driving in upon the sheaves a herd of cattle, or else by an instrument constructed of large planks, and sharpened underneath with stones or iron; and sometimes by a machine in the form of a cart, with iron wheels or axles indented, which Varro calls Phonicum,5 as being brought to Italy by the Carthaginians from Phoenicia, which was adjacent to Palestine. From this it is plain (not to mention that the descriptions agree in every particular) that the same custom was common both to the Hebrews and the Romans; and yet I do not recollect that the latter have borrowed any of their poetical imagery from this occupation. It is proper, however, to remark, that this image was obvious and familiar to the Hebrews in a high degree, as we learn from what is said of the threshing-floor of Ornan6 the Jebusite, which was situated in an open place (as were all the rest) in Jerusalem itself, and in the highest part of the city, in the very place, indeed, where the temple of Solomon was afterwards erected. 3 HAB. iii. 12. PSALM lxxxiii. 14, 16. JOEL iii. 14. JER. li. 33. ISAI. xxi. 10. Mic. iv. 13. 4 ISAI. xli. 15, 16. 62 CHRON. iii. 1. 5 De Re Rust. 8. 52. Homer, who was uncommonly fond of every picture of rural life, esteemed that under our consideration so beautiful and significant, that, in a few instances, he draws his comparisons from the threshing-floor (for even he was fearful of the boldness of this image in the form of a metaphor.) Two of these comparisons he introduces to illustrate light subjects, contrary to the practice of the Hebrews; but the third is employed upon a subject truly magnificent, and this, as it approaches in some degree the sublimity of the Hebrew, it may not be improper to recite : Ως δ' ότε τις ζεύξη βίας άρσενας εὐρυμετώπους, Ρίμφα τε λέπτ ̓ ἐγένοντο βοῶν ὑπὸ πόσσ ̓ ἐριμύκων This comparison, however, though deservedly accounted one of the grandest and most beautiful which antiquity has transmitted to us, still falls greatly short of the Hebrew boldness and sublimity. A Hebrew writer would have compared the hero himself with the instrument, and not his horses with the oxen that are harnesssed to it, which is rather too apposite, and too exactly similar. But custom had not given equal license to the Greek poetry; this image had not been equally familiar, had not occupied the same place as with the Hebrews; nor had acquired the same force and authority by long prescription. I ought not in this place to omit that supremely magnificent delineation of the divine vengeance, expressed by imagery taken from the wine-press; an image which very frequently occurs in the sacred poets, but which no other poetry has presumed to introduce. But where shall we find expressions of equal dignity with the original in any modern language? By what art of the pencil can we exhibit even a shadow or an outline of that description, in which Isaiah depicts the Messiah as coming to vengeance ? -Ille patris vires indutus et iram, Dira rubens graditur, per stragem et fracta potentum Insultat; ceu labra novo spumantia musto Exercens, salit attritas calcator in uvas, Congestamque struem subigit: caede atra recenti Crura madent, rorantque inspersae sanguine vestes.10 7 See Iliad v. 499 and xiii. 588. 9 This will be more fully explained in Lect. XII. 10 ISAI. lxiii, 1-3. 8 ILIAD, XX. 495. But the instances are innumerable which might be quoted, of metaphors taken from the manners and customs of the Hebrews. One general remark, however, may be made upon this subject, namely, that from one simple, regular, and natural mode of life having prevailed among the Hebrews, it has arisen, that in their poetry these metaphors have less of obscurity, of meanness or depression, than could be expected, when we consider the antiquity of their writings, the distance of the scene, and the uncommon boldness and vivacity of their rhetoric. Indeed, to have made use of the boldest imagery with the most perfect perspicuity, and the most common and familiar with the greatest dignity, is a commendation almost peculiar to the sacred poets. I shall not hesitate to produce an example of this kind, in which the meanness of the image is fully equalled by the plainness and inelegance of the expression; and yet such is its consistency, such the propriety of its application, that I do not scruple to pronounce it sublime. The Almighty threatens the ultimate destruction of Jerusalem in these terms: "Et detergam Hierosolymam, "Ut deterserit quispiam pateram ; Detergit eam, pronam in faciem vertit.”11 But many of these images must falsely appear mean and obscure to us, who differ so materially from the Hebrews in our manners and customs but in such cases it is our duty neither too rashly to blame, nor too suddenly to despair. The mind should rather exert itself to discover, if possible, the connexion between the literal and the figurative meanings, which, in abstruse subjects, frequently depending upon some very delicate and nice relation, eludes our penetration. An obsolete custom, for instance, or some forgotten circumstance, opportunely adverted to, will sometimes restore its true perspicuity and credit to a very intricate passage. Whether the instance I have at present in view may prove of any utility or not in this respect, I will not presume to say; it may possibly, however, serve to illustrate still further the nature of the Hebrew imagery, and the accuracy of their poets in the application of it. Either through choice or necessity, the infernal regions and the state of the dead has been a very common topic with the poets of every nation; and this difficult subject, which the most vigorous understanding is unable to fathom by any exertion of reason, and of which 11 2 KINGS XXI. 13. This is the answer of some prophet as related by the historian. |