Expressions such as these are unmanly, and make the figure of this knight neither fit for the genuine Epos nor the tragic drama, are in fact rather suggestive of comedy. And when Joan, after exclaiming,
Du bist des Todes! Eine britt'sche Mutter zeugte dich![25]
advances towards him, he throws away sword and shield and pleads at her feet for his life. The reasons he gives at length in order to arouse her sympathy: his defencelessness; the wealth of his father, who would ransom him with gold; the gentleness of the sex to which Joan belongs as maid; the love of his sweet bride, who waits for his return home in tears; the grief of the parents whom he has left at home; the grievous fate of death unwept for in a foreign land—all these motives are themselves, in one aspect of them, essentially objective conditions, effective and of value as such, and on the other hand, the tranquil exposition of them is itself in the epic vein. In the same way the poet motives the condition, that Joan must hearken to him, through the external circumstance of the defencelessness of the pleader, although from the dramatic point of view she ought without delay and at the bare sight to have slain him, being as she was the relentless foe of all Englishmen, and in fact expresses such destructive hatred with every resource of rhetoric, justifying her action by the statement that she is bound with most fearful vow to the spirit-world.
Mit dem Schwert zu tödten alles Lebende, das ihr
Der Schlachten Gott verhängnissvoll entgegenschickt.[26]
If the point of importance to the maid were merely that Montgomery ought not to die defenceless, he possessed apparently an excellent means in his grasp of retaining his life; in other words he had merely to refuse to take up his weapons. This view is supported by the fact that Joan has already listened to him so long. Yet when she demands that he should fight for his life with her, of mortal flesh like himself, he again takes up his sword and falls by her hand. Such a development of the scene had been more in keeping with the drama had it dispensed with all this varied epic exposition.
(γγ) In general, then, we may characterize the type in which we have the poetic passage of epic events set before us in the following way, namely, that the epic presentation does not merely linger over the picture of objective reality and ideal conditions, but over and above this provides obstacles to a final solution. This not only applies to its relation to the wide field of external condition, to which the more immediate vision enforces us, but also in respect to the culminating movement of the action, more especially in its contrast to dramatic poetry. For this reason above all it diverts us from the execution of the fundamental purpose, the connected course of whose evolved conflict a dramatic poet ought never to lose sight of, into much digressive matter; and, moreover, by this means avails itself of the opportunity, to bring before our vision the complex unity of a world of circumstances, which otherwise could not have been expressed in speech. We have an illustration of such an obstacle in the beginning of the Iliad. Homer here at once tells us about the fatal sickness, which Apollo had spread throughout the Greek camp, and connects with it the strife between Achilles and Agamemnon. This wrath is the second impediment. Even more obviously in the Odyssey is every adventure that Odysseus has to pass through, a delay to his home return. More particularly, however, the distinct episode serves to interrupt the unimpaired progression of the story, and is to a great extent an obstacle to this. Such, for instance, is the shipwreck of Æneas, his love for Dido, the appearance of Armida in Tasso, and we may add as a rule the many independent love affairs of particular heroes in the romantic Epos, which, in the poetry of Ariosto, accumulate and interlace with such profusion, that the conflict between Christian and Saracen is thereby entirely hidden. In the "Divine Comedy" of Dante we do not find such definite examples of obstruction to the plot or narrative. In this case we must associate the slow advance of the Epic denouement partly with the generally pausing manner of the description, and in part with the many little episodical histories and conversations with particular characters, whether damned or otherwise, about whom the poet permits himself more detailed information.
In this connection it is above all things necessary that impediments of this description, which interfere with the flow of narrative to its final end, should not be presented as though they were merely means directed to objects of an objective character. For inasmuch as already the general condition, on the basis of which the movement of the epic world is carried forward, is only truly poetical where it appears as a self-constructed growth, so too its entire course, either in virtue of circumstances or the inherent destiny, must also appear self-originated without our being able to detect thereby the personal views of the poet; and this is all the more so because, in the form of its objectivity—not merely under its aspects of phenomenal reality, but also in respect to the substantive character of its content—it claims for the whole no less than its divisible content that it is a positive growth, spontaneous in its origin and independent. If, however, a directive world of gods is its apex, controlling the course of events, it is even more necessary that the poet himself should possess a lively and vivid faith in them, because in that case it is generally through the instrumentality of these that obstructions such as we have referred to are asserted; consequently where these divine forces are treated merely as some lifeless mechanism, it is inevitable that everything for which they are responsible must equally become so in a poetic composition which is artificial even in intention.
(γ) Having thus briefly adverted to the totality of objects, which the Epos is able to unfold by interweaving a particular event with a universal national world-condition, and, further, having discussed the manner in which the course of events is developed, we have now, thirdly, and in conclusion, to examine the problem as to the nature of the unity and rounding off of an epic composition.