Du Bartas

“ Du Bartas began the publication of the Seconde Semaine in 1584. He aimed at a great epic which should stretch from the story of the creation to the coming of the Messiah. Of this great scheme he only executed a part, marked by a certain elevation of style, but he did not succeed in acclimatizing the religious epic in France. The work is spoiled by a constant tendency to moralize, and is filled with the indiscriminate information that passed under the name of science in the 16th century. Du Bartas, perhaps more than any other writer, brought the Ronsardist tradition into dispute. ”

“ But no author had the influence of Du Bartas, whose poems had been translated by Joshua Sylvester in 1605, under the title of "Du Bartas. His Duuine Weekes and Workes, with a Complete Collection of all the other most delightfull Workes, Translated and Written by yt famous Philomusus, Josvah Sylvester, Gent." He in turn was an imitator; a French euphuist, whose work simply followed and patterned after that of Ronsard, whose popularity for a time had convinced France that no other poet had been before him, and that no successor could approach his power. ”

“ Du Bartas is one of the grandest, if also one [Pg 290] of the most unequal, poets of Europe, and Joshua Sylvester, his translator, succeeded in keeping some of his grandeur if he even added to his inequality. His original work is insignificant compared with his translation; but it is penetrated with the same qualities. He seems to have been a little deficient in humour, and his portrait—crowned with a singularly stiff laurel, throated with a stiffer ruff, and clothed, as to the bust, with a doublet so stiff that it looks like textile armour—is not calculated to diminish the popular ridicule. ”

“ Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas (1544-1590) , author of, among other poems, the Semaine, ou La Création en sept journées, which was published in 1579 and passed through thirty editions in a few years. Writing of Du Bartas, Professor Saintsbury, in his Short History of French Literature and French Lyrics, says:
"All that was wanting to make Du Bartas a poet of the first rank was some faculty of self-criticism ”

“ A century earlier the school of the cultists had established a dominion, ephemeral, as it soon appeared, but absolute while it lasted. Du Bartas, who may, perhaps, as fairly as any, lay claim to its paternity, [40] had been called divine, and similar honors had been paid in turn to Gongora, Lilly, and Marini, who were in the strictest sense contemporaneous. The infection of mere fashion will hardly account satisfactorily for a vogue so sudden and so widely extended. ”

“ Lisle was also the author of some second-rate verse. In 1598 he published translations of parts of Du Bartas's ‘Weeks,’ but no copy is extant. In 1625 appeared a still larger instalment of Du Bartas in English and French, ‘so neare the French Englisshed as may teach an Englishman French, or a Frenchman English. With the commentary of S. G [oulart de] S [enlis] .’ The portion translated includes the end of the fourth book of ‘Adam’ and all four books of ‘Noah,’ the subjects of the poems for the first two days of the second week. ”

“ He desires the snow to fall that it may "perriwig with wool the bald-pate woods." All is extravagant and false, all is offensive to the modesty of nature.
Du Bartas is stationed at the left wing of the army of poets. The right is held by Philippe Desportes, whose name has recently been made familiar to us by Sir Sidney Lee's investigations into the extraordinary way in which his works were pillaged in his lifetime by our Elizabethan sonneteers. Even Shakespeare seems to have read, and possibly imitated, Desportes's Amours de Diane. ”

“ The translation by Silvester has rendered it in some measure familiar to the readers of our old poetry; and attempts have been made, not without success, to show that Milton had been diligent in picking jewels from this mass of bad taste and bad writing. Du Bartas, in his style, was a disciple of Ronsard; he affects words derived from the ancient languages, or, if founded on analogy, yet without precedent, and has as little naturalness or dignity in his images as purity in his idiom. ”

“ Sylvester renders the lines of Du Bartas,—
"He Dieu! quel plaisir c'est de voir tout un tropeau
De cerfs au pieds venteux s'esbatre dessus l'eau,"—
by
"O! what a sport, to see a heard of them
Take soyl in summer in some spacious stream!"
p. 50, ed. 1641
And Petowe, in his Second Part of Hero and Leander, &c. (see Appendix iii. to the present volume) , has,—
"The chased deere hath soile to coole his heate." ”

“ Our first impression of such a passage as this is one of admiration of its colour and of its ingenuity. It is more than rich, it is sumptuous; the picture of the wheeling peacock is original and brilliantly observed. But there commendation must cease. What could be meaner or less appropriate than to compare the revolution of the starry firmament as it proceeded from its Creator's hand with the strut of a conceited bird in a poultry-yard? The works of Du Bartas are stuffed full with these strained and fantastic similes, his surface sparkles with the glitter of tinsel and pinchbeck. ”

“ It is a mistake to think of James as a Jacobean and not as a belated Elizabethan, or to judge his work by more severe standards than those applied to the lyrics of Gascoigne and Googe or the translations of Golding and Phaer.
Like the work of the last-mentioned writers, James's translations from Du Bartas are in fourteeners, and whatever poetical beauty they may have had for contemporary ears [6] is greatly diminished for modern readers by the lilt and flop of this almost fatal measure. The translations are further weakened by the crabbed literalness with which they follow the original. ”

“ On the other hand, the debt to French criticism is surprisingly slight, and confined to observations which are among the commonplaces of criticism early and late. Thus in his discussion of invention, and of art vs. nature (Preface and Chapter VII) James is closer to Horace [3] than to Ronsard; and in this and other matters he may owe something to the Uranie of Du Bartas, his translation of which is in the same volume with the Reulis. ”

“ After this pair came M. de Bartas, known as Adrien among the circle. It was M. de Bartas who boomed out his song in a bass voice, and made prodigious claims to musical knowledge. His self-conceit had taken a stand upon solfeggi; he began by admiring his appearance while he sang, passed thence to talking about music, and finally to talking of nothing else. His musical tastes had become a monomania; he grew animated only on the one subject of music; he was miserable all evening until somebody begged him to sing. ”

“ But the mass of these sonnets and odes and madrigals is extraordinarily insipid and cold, the similes are forced and grotesque, and everywhere pedantry takes the place of passion. When there is beauty it is artificial and affected, it is an Alexandrine beauty, it is the colour of the dying dolphin.
Such was the poetry which occupied the taste of France at the close of the sixteenth century, and whether its form was brief and amorous, as in the sonnets of Desportes, or long-winded and hortatory, as in the sacred epics of Du Bartas, it was uniformly exaggerated, lifeless, and incorrect. ”

“ Foreign governments recognized this in their choice of representatives; such men as Du Bartas, Sir Edward and Sir Henry Wotton, Sir Robert Sidney, Constable, and Locke, all of whom visited Scotland, may well have been selected with an eye to the King's tastes. The King's Scottish favorites were men of culture. Lennox, the earliest, was a courtier of polish and address. The Maitlands, father and sons, were possessed of literary talents rare enough in the Scotland of that day. Sir James, the Chancellor, "had intellect," writes Mr. ”

“ McCrie has somewhere suggested, a proper fate would have been to force the King to live by his sonnets, he would have fared very badly in seventeenth-century Scotland.
Letters, Bann. Club, p. 316.
Life of Donne, ed. 1901, p. 207. Nugæ Antiquæ, ed. Park, p. 391.
↑ Diary, p. 174. ↑ 1616 Folio, pp. 1-79. ↑ For full titles, dates, etc., cf. Dickson and Edmond, Annals of Scottish Printing, Cambridge, 1890. ↑ Du Bartas was in London, May 7, and arrived in Scotland about the 25th (Cal. Hatfield MSS., Pt. Ill, pp. 253, 260) . ↑ James's translation of L'Uranie, ou Muse Celeste of Du Bartas, Il. ”

“ So far on our world, with its masses of powerful electrical impulses, plus those of our own brains, they had found distance communication impossible.
"Well, look, fellows," I said. "Look here now. This is a noble, inspiring story. The heroic struggle of your—uh—people to survive, overcoming all odds and stuff, it's wonderful! And I admire you for it, indeed I do. But—what about me?"
"You, Great Land of Barth, are our beloved home and fatherland for many, many generations to come. You are the mighty base from which we can spread over this enormous planet." ”

“ Barth’s feigned arrogance of manner had fallen from him; it was a most humble-minded Britisher who stood before the Lady, and the Lady pitied him. Barth’s eyes looked tired; the corners of his mouth drooped, and dejection sat heavy upon him. ”

“ Barth had been anything but an old man when he enlisted; yet he had none of the lightness of youth. He was always taciturn, always waiting. That, at least, was the impression he made on his colonel, who developed an unusual interest in him. Waiting—yes, that was the word, just waiting. Otherwise Barth revealed nothing. No man knew his story, and none his real method in life. All anyone knew was that he was a soldier to make the heart glad, one to lighten the day's work by the mere watching of his soldierly perfection. ”

“ At length, as several of the boys grouped themselves together, it seemed to Bart as though the Indian had some recognition of them. There were Bart, and Phil, and Pat, and the two Rawdons; and as the Indian looked up, he caught sight of them, with Bart in the foreground. He started, and then turned his head away, and appeared to busy himself with something else.
He was a very old man, somewhat bent, his face seamed with a million wrinkles; but his figure was still strong, sinewy, and apparently capable of undergoing fatigue or exertion to an indefinite extent. ”

“ Barth shook his head.
“No. It is only once that we have had any real talk together. That was yesterday, at the library. It’s a queer old place, and one talks there in spite of one’s self. We had a good time. But generally those other fellows are around in the way.”
The Lady raised her brows interrogatively.
“Mr. Brock and that Frenchman,” Barth explained. “They are always with her; they haven’t any hesitation in coming into the drawing-room and carrying her off, just as I am getting ready to talk to her.” ”

“ During this deliberation about the course which they should take, Bart still exhibited the despondency which had characterized him ever since Phil’s disappearance. The gloom of night and the oppressive sultriness had passed, daylight was at hand, and the breeze brought fresh life to them; but still Bart’s spirits were deeply depressed. Against this Pat rebelled, and the cheerfulness and confidence which he had tried to maintain through the night now assumed a prominent place in his thoughts and in his manner. ”

“ Presently the bright eyes disappeared, and now she saw that Bart lay stretched across the entrance to the cave, where the long shadow was now creeping down the slope. Inches by inches she ventured to sit up, and all it brought from Bart was a quick turn of the head and a warning growl. It meant as plainly as though he had spoken in so many words: “Stay where you are and I don't care in the least what you do, but don't try to cross this entrance if you fear the length of my teeth and the keenness thereof.” ”

“ No, it would be like striking on a wooden bell; no echo would rise; and she knew beforehand the deadly blackness of his eyes. So Black Bart lay often in the sun, staring at infinite distance and seeing nothing but his dreams of battle. What were appeals and what were words to Black Bart? What were they to Dan Barry? Yet once, by sitting still—the thought made her blood leap with a great, joyous pulse that set her cheeks tingling.
She waited till the first impulse of excitement had subsided, and then turned back and sat down in a chair near the fire. ”

“ And Bart noticed that the old lady and the granddaughter both looked at them with deeper interest as they repeated the name—Grand Pré!
“None of my countrymen live there now, I suppose.” said the old man, looking at Bart interrogatively.
Bart shook his head.
“Ah, I thought so,” said the old man. “All gone. They had to go. They were banished. They dared not return to that place. They came back, but could not get their homes again. Their houses were burnt up, and their farms were given away to strangers. Ah, Grand Ciel! what injustice! And they so good, so pious, so innocent!” ”

“ As the crowd closed around Dan, a black body leaped among them, snarling hideously. They sprang back with a yell from the rush of this green-eyed fury; but Black Bart made no effort to attack them. He sat crouching before the prostrate body, licking the deathly white face, and growling horribly, and then stood over his fallen master and stared about the circle. Those who had seen a lone wolf make its stand against a pack of dogs recognized the attitude. ”

“ For Black Bart had whirled and raced straight back for Dan. There was no need of howl or whine to give the reason of his coming; the speed of his running meant business, and Barry shortened the pace of Satan while he looked over the hills, incredulous, despairing.
It could not be that men lurked there to cut him off. No living thing could have raced from Rickett to Caswell City to warn them of his coming. Nevertheless, there came Bart with the ill tidings, and it only remained to skirt swiftly east, round the dangerous ground, and strike the marshes first. ”