In order to attain to the perfection of this kind of poetry, it is necessary to unite to the imaginative faculty which feeds the genius, the reason which regulates the impulse, and the enthusiasm which inflames the mind and supplies the talent. Homer united them in the most eminent degree. Thus he possessed the first inspiration and the complete science, as much in its essence as in its form; for the poetic form is always dependent upon talent.
This form was then highly favourable to genius. The Greek verse, measured by musical rhythm and filled with a happy blending of long and short syllables, had long since shaken off the servile yoke of rhyme. Now, by rhythm was understood the number and respective duration of the time of which a verse was composed.[112] A long syllable was equal to a time divided in two instants, and equivalent to two short syllables. A foot was what we name today a measure. The foot contained two times, made up of two long, or of one long and two short syllables. The verse most commonly used was the hexameter, that is, that in which the extent was measured by six rhythmic feet and of which the whole duration was twelve times. Thus poetry received only the laws of rhythm; it was a kind of music whose particular harmony, free in its course, was subject only to measure.
I have never found any authentic evidence that the Greeks had ever used the rhyme in their verse. It is stated, however, that they have not differed from other nations in this respect. Voltaire said so but without proof.[113] What is most certain is that, taking the word (epos),[114] a verse, in its most restricted acceptance, expressing a turn, a turning around again, the early poets constructed their verse in form of furrows, going from right to left and returning from left to right.[115] Happily this (bizarrerie) did not last long. If the Greek verses had thus turned one upon another, or if the rhyme had forced them to proceed in couplets bent beneath a servile yoke, Homer would not have created the Epopœia, or these frivolous obstacles would have vanished before him. His genius, incapable of enduring chains, would have refused to clothe itself in a form capable of stifling it. But this celebrated man would no doubt have changed it; one can judge by the energetic manner with which he attacked that which he found in use. The Greek language, which preserved still in his time something of the Phœnician stiffness and the Celtic roughness, obliged to adapt itself to all the movements of his imagination, became the most flexible and the most harmonious dialect of the earth. One is astonished, in reading his works, at the boldness of his composition.[116] One sees him without the least effort, bending words at his pleasure, lengthening them, shortening them to produce something new, reviving those no longer in use, uniting them, separating them, disposing of them in an unaccustomed order, forcing them to adapt themselves everywhere to the harmony that he wishes to depict, to sentiments of elevation, of pleasure or terror, that he wishes to inspire.
Thus genius, dominating form, creates master-pieces; form, on the contrary, commanding genius, produces only works of the mind. I must say finally and no longer veil from the attention of my judges, the aim of this discourse: whenever rhyme exists in the poetic form, it renders the form inflexible, it brings upon it only the effort of talent and renders that of intellectual inspiration useless. Never will the people who rhyme their verses attain to the height of poetic perfection; never will real epopœia flourish in their breasts. They will hear neither the accents inspired by Orpheus, nor the stirring and impassioned harmonies of Homer. Far from drawing the allegorical genius at its source and receiving the first inspiration, it will not even recognize the second one. Its poets will polish painfully certain impassioned or descriptive verses, and will call beautiful the works which will only be well done. A rapid glance over the poetic condition of the earth will prove what I have advanced. But I ought to explain beforehand what I understand by first and second inspiration; the moment has arrived for holding to the promise that I made at the beginning of this discourse.
§ IV
You recall, Messieurs, that wishing, with Chancellor Bacon, to distinguish the essence and the form of Poetry, I have taken my text from the works of Plato. It is again from this man, justly called divine even by his rivals, from the founder of the Academy, that I have borrowed the germ of my idea. This philosopher compares the effect which the real poets have upon those who hear them, with the magnetic stone which not only attracts rings of iron, but communicates to them also the virtue of attracting other rings.[117]
In order to appreciate well the force of this thought, and to follow all the inferences, it is necessary to state a truth de facto: namely, that the men destined by Providence to regenerate the world, in whatever manner it may be, to open any sort of a career, are extremely rare. Nature, docile to the impulse which she has received of bringing all to perfection by means of time, elaborates slowly the elements of their genius, places them at great distances upon the earth, and makes them appear at epochs very far removed one from the other. It is necessary that these events, which determine these men toward an end, should be brought about in advance; that the physical conditions in which they are born coincide with the inspiration which attends them; and therefore everything prepares, everything protects, everything serves the providential design. These men, thus scattered over the earth, come among nations to form them, to give them laws, to enlighten and to instruct them. They are the beacon-lights of mankind; these are those to whom I attribute the first inspiration. This inspiration is immediate; it emanates from the first principle of all intelligence, in the same manner, to use the comparison of Plato, that the magnetic force which animates the loadstone, emanates from its cause. It is profoundly hidden from our eyes: it is this which fires the genius of a theosophist such as Thoth, Orpheus, and Zoroaster; the genius of a theocrat, such as Krishna, Moses, or Mohammed; the genius of a philosopher, such as Kong-Tse, Pythagoras, or Socrates; the genius of a poet, such as Homer or Valmiki; and of a triumphant hero, such as Cyrus, Alexander, or Napoleon.
Those who follow in the footprints of these primordial men, who allow themselves to be impressed by their genius, receive what I call the second inspiration. They can still be great men; for those who assist them are very great; they can also communicate the inspiration, for it acts in them with an exuberant force. Let us confine ourselves to the poetic inspiration and listen to the voice of Plato:
The Muse inspires the poets directly, and these, communicating to others their enthusiasm, form a chain of inspired men. It is by means of this chain that the Divinity attracts the souls of men, and moves them at his pleasure, causing his virtue to pass from link to link, from the first inspired poet to the last of his readers or his rhapsodists.[118]
It is by means of this magnetic chain that one can, in another sphere of movement, explain this truth so well known, that great kings make great men; it is also in this manner that one can understand how a monarch, called to found a vast empire, makes his will penetrate all hearts, take possession of all souls, and propagating his valour more and more, electrify his army and fill it with a multitude of heroes.