Yet I think an attentive student
of Shakespeare cannot fail to be reminded of something familiar to him in
such phrases as "flame-eyed fire," "flax-winged ships," "star-neighboring
peaks," the rock Salmydessus,
"Rude jaw of the sea,
Harsh hostess of the seaman, step-mother
Of ships,"
and the beacon with its "_speaking eye_ of fire." Surely there is more
than a verbal, there is a genuine, similarity between the [Greek:
anaerithmon gelasma] and "the unnumbered beach" and "multitudinous sea."
Aeschylus, it seems to me, is willing, just as Shakespeare is, to risk
the prosperity of a verse upon a lucky throw of words, which may come up
the sices of hardy metaphor or the ambsace of conceit. There is such a
difference between far-reaching and far-fetching! Poetry, to be sure, is
always that daring one step beyond, which brings the right man to
fortune, but leaves the wrong one in the ditch, and its law is, Be bold
once and again, yet be not over-bold. It is true, also, that masters of
language are a little apt to play with it. But whatever fault may be
found with Shakespeare in this respect will touch a tender spot in
Aeschylus also. Does he sometimes overload a word, so that the language
not merely, as Dryden says, bends under him, but fairly gives way, and
lets the reader's mind down with the shock as of a false step in taste?
He has nothing worse than [Greek: pelagos anthoun nekrois].
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