Tennysoniana/Chapter 11

The Bishop of St. Andrews, in a little book on "Shakespeare's Knowledge and Use of the Bible," has collected together all the passages from his writings in which allusions are made to Holy Scripture. A not less interesting collection might be made from the works of Tennyson; and in these days, when men are quarrelling in no very Christian mood about the letters of a book of which they too often forget the spirit, it might be instructive to remark the kind of interpretation our greatest living poet gives us of it. There might be more teaching for us, more illumination might be thrown on our Bible, and the way we ought to read it, by these passages, than by hundreds of conventional sermons, ​purporting to explain the Scriptures, but too often darkening counsel by words without knowledge.^[1]

It would also be interesting to trace the influence of the great poets of antiquity on Tennyson's writings: of his classical scholarship abundant proofs might be adduced. In his earliest volume there are quotations from Cicero, Claudian, Horace, Lucretius, Ovid, Sallust, Tacitus, Terence, and Virgil; the incidental allusions to ancient history and mythology in his later works are numerous, and his two translations from the eighth and ​eighteenth books of the "Iliad" display a critical knowledge of Greek, rare even among professed scholars.

A few allusions to the Greek and Roman writers, together with one or two imitations of more modern poets, I have collected here.

The idea of this song of the Brook is probably taken from a German lyric, "Das Bächlein ":

"The Dying Swan." Compare this poem with the following passages from Shakespeare and from Plato:

​"καί, ὡς ἔοικε, τῶν κύκνων δοκῶ φαυλότερος ὑμῖν εἶναι τὴν μαντικήν, οἳ, ἐπειδὰν αἴσθωνται, ὅτι δεῖ αὐτοὺς ἀποθανεῖν, ᾂδοντες καὶ ἐν τῷ πρόσθεν χρόνῳ, τότε δὴ πλεῖστα καὶ μάλιστα ᾄδουσι, γεγηθότες, ὅτι μέλλουσι παρὰ τὸν θεὸν ἀπιέναι, οὗπερ εἰσὶ θεράποντες. οἱ δὲ ἄνθρωποι διὰ τὸ αὑτῶν δέος τοῦ θανάτου καὶ τῶν κύκνωυ καταψεύδονται, καί φασιν αὐτοὺς θρηνοῡντας τὸν θάνατον ὑπὸ λύπης ἐξᾴδειν, καὶ οὐ λογίζονται, ὅτι οὐδὲν ὄρνεον ᾄδει, ὅταν τεινῇ ᾒ ῥιγοῖ ἤ τινα ἄλλην λύπην λυπῆται, οὐδὲ αυδε αὐτὴ ἥ τε ἀηδὼν καὶ χελιδὼν καὶ ὁ ἔποψ, ἃ δή φασι διὰ λύπην θρηνοῡντα ᾄδειν᾽ ἀλλ᾿ οὔτε ταῡτά μοι φαίνεται λυπούμενα ᾄδειν οὔτε οἱ κύκνοι. ἀλλ᾽ ἅτε, οἶμαι, τοῡ Άπόλλωνος ὄντες μαντικοί τέ εἰσι καὶ προειδότες τὰ ἐν Ἅιδου ἀγαθὰ ᾄδουσι καὶ τέρπονται ἐκείνην τὴν ἡμέραν διαφερόντως ἢ ἐω τῷ ἔμπροσθεν χρόνῳ."—Plato, Phædo, xxxv.

"The coincidence may be accidental, or may be referable to what Mr. Dallas, in his 'Gay Science,' terms the hidden work of memory; but one can hardly doubt that the germ of that fine passage in Tennyson's Ode on the death of the Duke of Wellington which tells ​how 'the toppling crags of duty' are 'scaled' is to be found in a fragment of Simonides (20 ed. Schneidewin):