Ossian--Part 3

There are few images more horrible to me in all of literature and history than that of fleeing armies in ancient warfare being cut down and butchered by their pursuers, as it appears without being able to offer any effective resistance. Rationally this is not more disturbing than any number of means by which history relates people to have been killed, murdered or otherwise humiliated. I think it is the sense that the battlefield is in some way supposed to be a fair test of a man`s ability and character, and that to be killed from behind comparatively effortlessly by one`s opponent while in flight, anonymous, bespeaks such an utter failure of both such as is quite painful to contemplate for any man who can easily imagine himself in the same unfortunate position.

The custom of sending the bard before one with songs prior to appearing oneself to cast accusations and issue challenges I like. There is real old-school gentility in it.

In the Dissertation which precedes Temora, MacPherson offers an appreciation of the barbaric mode of life:

"The nobler passions of the mind never shoot forth more free and unrestrained than in these times we call barbarous. That irregular manner of life, and those manly pursuits from which barbarity takes its name, are highly favorable to a strength of mind unknown in polished times. In advanced society the characters of men are more uniform and disguised. The human passions lie in some degree concealed behind forms, and artificial manners; and the powers of the soul, without an opportunity of exerting them, lose their vigor. The times of regular government, and polished manners, are therefore to be wished for by the feeble and weak in mind. An unsettled state, and those convulsions which attend it, is the proper field for an exalted character, and the exertion of great parts. Merit there always rises superior; no fortuitous event can raise the timid and mean into power..."

As in most observations of this nature, the criticisms of the weak strike more forcefully as having something of truth in them than the exaltations of the strong. This is because strength of will or wrath or personality has, in some degree, to operate in a vacuum where the sense of itself always remains relatively unperturbable. Immoral, or wicked strength seems to me have some advantage over moral, or good strength in attaining this vacuum, and by extension attaining the sovereignity in times of weak or non-existent government. Of course, such distinctions are only of importance to the impotent of spirit who are incapable of overcoming or even contending with strength, though I think it is acknowledged even by the most vigorous authors to be a shame when weak but otherwise unobjectionable people have to suffer under brutal rulers.

Still in the Dissertation, MacPherson gets in a dig at the establishment which received his work with less than the near-universal enthusiasm of the public:

"...I am thoroughly convinced, that a few quaint lines of a Roman or Greek epigrammatist, if dug out of the ruins of Herculaneum, would meet with more cordial and universal applause, than all the most beautiful and natural rhapsodies of all the Celtic bards and Scandavian Scalders that ever existed."

In ridiculing the Irish claim as the fatherland of Ossian he refers to a poem of that nation in which Ossian is made contemporary with Saint Patrick, noting that `The saint sometimes threw off the austerity of his profession, drunk freely, and had his soul properly warmed with wine.`

Continuing on the theme of the worship of Greece and Rome he argues that `Tho` their high merit does not stand in need of adventitious aid, yet it must be acknowledged, that it is an advantage to their fame, that the posterity of the Greeks and Romans, either do no at all exist, or are not now objects of contempt or envy to the present age.`

Temora Book II: `Erin`s clouds are hung round with ghosts.`

Later in the same: `The stone shall rise, with all its moss, and speak to other years. `Here Cathmor and Ossian met! the warriors met in peace!`--When thou, O stone, shalt fail: and Lubar`s stream roll quite away! then shall the traveller come, and bend here, perhaps in rest. When the darkened moon is rolled over his head, our shadowy forms may come, and, mixing with his dreams, remind him of this place.` This is a characteristic specimen of the better sorts of romantic charms to be found in this work.

Temora Book III: `I glittered, tall in steel: like the falling stream of Tromo, which nightly winds bind over with ice.`

Later in the same: `Like the bursting strength of a stream, the sons of Bolga rushed to war.` In isolation this line seems a little hackneyed, but within the buildup of the rest of the poem with its heavy images of nature and war it actually makes a more vivid impression than it would appear to.

With the human population being so tiny and, especially at the edges of the British Isles, so isolated from any contact with the greater world in the settings of these poems, the idea of personal possession and lordship over all the lands and seas that one knew was far more plausible than it is to the average man of the 21st century in these countries, and doubtless had an effect, probably positive, on the psychology of these ancient men.

Temora Book IV--MacPherson wrote a note on the sentence `In the lonely vale of streams, abides the little soul,` which deserves to be printed in its entirety. Here it is:

`From this passage we learn in what extreme contempt an indolent and unwarlike life was held in those days of heroism. Whatever a philosopher may say, in praise of quiet and retirement, I am far from thinking, but they weaken and debase the human mind. When the faculties of the soul are not exerted, they lose their vigour, and low and circumscribed notions take the place of noble and enlarged ideas. Action, on the contrary, and the vicissitudes of fortune which attend it, call forth, by turns, all the powers of the mind, and, by exercising, strengthen them. Hence it is, that in great and opulent states, when property and indolence are secured to individuals, we seldom meet with that strength of mind, which is so common in a nation, not far advanced in civilization. It is a curious, but just, observation; that great kingdoms seldom produce great characters, which must be altogether attributed to that indolence and dissipation, which are the inseparable companions of too much property and security. Rome, it is certain, had more real great men within it, when its power was confined with the narrow bounds of Latium, than when its dominion extended over all the known world; and one petty state of the Saxon heptarchy had, perhaps, as much genuine spirit in it, as the two British kingdoms united. As a state, we are much more powerful than our ancestors, but we would lose by comparing individuals with them.`

This all reflects on me, not merely with regard to war, but to business, science, technology and the other arenas of competition which sustitute for war among men of parts and abilities in our era, arenas in which I have no purpose to even be in. But I have to go to bed. I will post this and leave 1 more Ossian post for the week. This site needs to be producing copy above all else. That is the raison d`etre for it.