Fragments Of Ancient Poetry
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FRAGMENTS OF ANCIENT POETRY
by JAMES MACPHERSON
THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY
Introduction by JOHN J. DUNN
GENERAL EDITORS
George Robert Guffey, University of California, Los Angeles
Earl Miner, University of California, Los Angeles
Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles
Robert Vosper, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
ADVISORY EDITORS
Richard C. Boys, University of Michigan
James L. Clifford, Columbia University
Ralph Cohen, University of California, Los Angeles
Vinton A. Dearing, University of California, Los Angeles
Arthur Friedman, University of Chicago
Louis A. Landa, Princeton University
Samuel H. Monk, University of Minnesota
Everett T. Moore, University of California, Los Angeles
Lawrence Clark Powell, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
James Sutherland, University College, London
H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California, Los Angeles
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY
Edna C. Davis, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
INTRODUCTION
Byron was actually the third Scotsman in about fifty years who
awoke and found himself famous; the sudden rise from obscurity to
international fame had been experienced earlier by two fellow
countrymen, Sir Walter Scott and James Macpherson. Considering the
greatness of the reputation of the two younger writers, it may seem
strange to link their names with Macpherson's, but in the early
nineteenth century it would not have seemed so odd. In fact, as
young men both Scott and Byron would have probably have been
flattered by such an association. Scott tells us that in his youth
he "devoured rather than perused" Ossian and that he could repeat
whole duans "without remorse"; and, as I shall discuss later,
Byron paid Macpherson the high compliment of writing an imitation
of Ossian, which he published in _Hours of Idleness_.
The publication of the modest and anonymous pamphlet, _Fragments
of Ancient Poetry_ marks the beginning of Macpherson's rise to
fame, and concomitantly the start of a controversy that is unique
in literary history. For the half-century that followed, the body
of poetry that was eventually collected as _The Poems of Ossian_
provoked the comment of nearly every important man of letters.
Extravagance and partisanship were characteristic of most of the
remarks, but few literary men were indifferent.
The intensity and duration of the controversy are indicative
of how seriously Macpherson's work was taken, for it was to many
readers of the day daring, original, and passionate. Even Malcolm
Laing, whose ardor in exposing Macpherson's imposture exceeded
that of Dr. Johnson, responded to the literary quality of the poems.
In a note on the fourth and fifth "Fragments" the arch prosecutor
of Macpherson commented,
"From a singular coincidence of circumstances, it was in
this house, where I now write, that I first read the poems
in my early youth, with an ardent credulity that remained
unshaken for many years of my life; and with a pleasure
to which even the triumphant satisfaction of detecting the
imposture is comparatively nothing. The enthusiasm with
which I read and studied the poems, enabled me afterwards,
when my suspicions were once awakened, to trace and expose
the deception with greater success. Yet, notwithstanding
the severity of minute criticism, I can still peruse them
as a wild and wonderful assemblage of imitation with which
the fancy is often pleased and gratified, even when the
judgment condemns them most."[2]
II
It was John Home, famous on both sides of the Tweed as the
author of _Douglas_, who first encouraged Macpherson to undertake
his translations. While taking the waters at Moffat in the fall of
1759, he was pleased to meet a young Highland tutor, who was not
only familiar with ancient Gaelic poetry but who had in his possession
several such poems. Home, like nearly all of the Edinburgh
literati, knew no Gaelic and asked Macpherson to translate
one of them. The younger man at first protested that a translation
"would give a very imperfect idea of the original," but Home "with
some difficulty" persuaded him to try. In a "day or two" Macpherson
brought him the poem that was to become "Fragment VII" in
this collection; Home was so much pleased with it that he requested
additional translations.[3]
"Jupiter" Carlyle, whose autobiography reflects the keen interest
that he took in literature, arrived at Moffat after Home had
seen the "translations." Home, he found, "had been highly delighted
with them," and when Carlyle read them he "was perfectly
astonished at the poetical genius" that they displayed. They
agreed that "it was a precious discovery, and that as soon as possible
it should be published to the world."[4]
When Home left Moffat he took his find to Edinburgh and showed
the translations to the men who earned the city Smollett's sobriquet,
a "hotbed of genius": Robertson, fresh from the considerable success
of his two volume _History of Scotland_ (1759); Robert Fergusson,
recently appointed professor of natural history at the University
of Edinburgh; Lord Elibank, a learned aristocrat, who had
been patron to Home and Robertson; and Hugh Blair, famous for the
sermons that he delivered as rector of the High Church of St. Giles.
Home was gratified that these men were "no less pleased" with
Macpherson's work than he had been. David Hume and David Dalrymple
(later Lord Hailes) were soon apprised of the discovery and
joined in the chorus of approbation that emanated from the Scottish
capitol.
Blair became the spokesman and the leader for the Edinburgh
literati, and for the next forty years he lavished his energy in praising
and defending Macpherson's work. The translations came to
him at the time that he was writing his lectures on _belles lettres_
and was thus in the process of formulating his theories on the origins
of poetry and the nature of the sublime. Blair lost no time in
communicating with Macpherson:
"I being as much struck as Mr Home with the high spirit of poetry
which breathed in them, presently made inquiry where Mr. Macpherson
was to be found; and having sent for him to come to me, had much
conversation with him on the subject."[Footnote 5]
Macpherson told Blair that there were "greater and more considerable
poems of the same strain" still extant in the Highlands; Blair like
Home was eager for more, but Macpherson again declined to translate them.
He said that he felt himself inadequate to render "the spirit and force"
of the originals and that "they would be very ill relished by the public
as so very different from the strain of modern ideas, and of modern,
connected, and polished poetry." This whetted Blair's interest even more,
and after "repeated importunity" he persuaded Macpherson to translate
more fragments. The result was the present volume, which Blair saw to
the press and for which he wrote the Preface "in consequence of the
conversations" that he had with Macpherson.[Footnote 6: ]
Most of Blair's Preface does seem to be based on information supplied
by Macpherson, for Blair had almost no first-hand knowledge about
Highland poetry or its traditions. It is apparent from the Preface then,
that Macpherson had not yet decided to ascribe the poems to a single
poet; Ossian is one of the principal poets in the collection but the
whole is merely ascribed "to the bards" (see pp. v-vi). It is also
evident from the Preface that Macpherson was shifting from the
reluctant "translator" of a few "fragments" to the projector of a
full-length epic "if enough encouragement were given for such an
undertaking."
Since Blair became famous for his _Critical Dissertation on the
Poems of Ossian_ (London, 1763), it may seem strange that in the
Preface to the _Fragments_ he declined to say anything of the "poetical
merit" of the collection. The frank adulation of the longer
essay, which concludes with the brave assertion that Ossian may
be placed "among those whose works are to last for ages,"[7] was
partially a reflection of the enthusiasm that greeted each of
Macpherson's successive publications.
III
Part of the appeal of the _Fragments_ was obviously based on
the presumption that they were, as Blair hastened to assure the
reader, "genuine remains of ancient Scottish poetry," and therefore
provided a remarkable insight into a remote, primitive culture; here
were maidens and warriors who lived in antiquity on the harsh,
wind-swept wastes of the Highlands, but they were capable of
highly refined and sensitive expressions of grief--they were the
noblest savages of them all. For some readers the rumors of imposture
served to dampen their initial enthusiasm, and such was
the case with Hume, Walpole, and Boswell, but many of the admirers
of the poems found them rapturous, authentic or not.
After Gray had read several of the "Fragments" in manuscript
he wrote to Thomas Warton that he had "gone mad about them"; he
added,
"I was so struck, so _extasie_ with their infinite beauty, that
I writ into Scotland to make a thousand enquiries....
The whole external evidence would make one believe
these fragments (for so he calls them, tho' nothing can
be more entire) counterfeit: but the internal is so strong
on the other side, that I am resolved to believe them genuine
spite of the Devil & the Kirk."
Gray concluded his remarks with the assertion that "this Man is
the very Demon of Poetry, or he has lighted on a treasure hid for
ages."[8]
Nearly fifty years later Byron wrote a "humble imitation" of
Ossian for the admirers of Macpherson's work and presented it as
evidence of his "attachment to their favorite author," even though
he was aware of the imposture. In a note to "The Death of Calmar
and Orla," he commented,
"I fear Laing's late edition has completely overthrown every
hope that Macpherson's Ossian might prove the translation
of a series of poems complete in themselves; but while the
imposture is discovered, the merit of the work remains undisputed,
though not without faults--particularly, in some parts, turgid
and bombastic diction."[9]
In 1819 Hazlitt felt that Ossian is "a feeling and a name that
can never be destroyed in the minds of his readers," and he classed
the work as one of the four prototypes of poetry along with the Bible,
Homer, and Dante. On the question of authenticity he observed,
"If it were indeed possible to shew that this writer was nothing,
it would be another instance of mutability, another blank
made, another void left in the heart, another confirmation of
that feeling which makes him so often complain, 'Roll on, ye
dark brown years, ye bring no joy on your wing to Ossian!'"[10]
There is some justice in Macpherson's wry assertion that
"those who have doubted my veracity have paid a compliment to
my genius."[11] By examining briefly the distinctive form of the
"Fragments," their diction, their setting, their tone, and their
structure, we may sense something of the qualities of the poems
that made them attractive to such men as Gray, Byron, and Hazlitt.
IV
Perhaps Macpherson's most important innovation was to cast
his work into what his contemporaries called "measured prose,"
and it was recognized early that this new form contributed greatly
to their appeal. In discussing the _Fragments_, Ramsey of Ochtertyre
commented,
"Nothing could be more happy or judicious than his translating in
measured prose; for had he attempted it in verse, much of the spirit
of the original would have evaporated, supposing him to have had
talents and industry to perform that very arduous task upon a great
scale. This small publication drew the attention of the literary
world to a new species of poetry."[12]
For his new species of poetry Macpherson drew upon the stylistic
techniques of the King James Version of the Bible, just as Blake
and Whitman were to do later. As Bishop Lowth was the first to
point out, parallelism is the basic structural technique.
Macpherson incorporated two principal forms of parallelism in his poems:
_repetition_, a pattern in which the second line nearly restates the
sense of the first, and _completion_ in which the second line picks
up part of the sense of the first line and adds to it. These are
both common in the _Fragments_, but a few examples may be useful.
I have rearranged the following lines and in the other passages relating
to the structure of the poems in order to call attention to
the binary quality of Macpherson's verse:
_Repetition_
Who can reach the source of thy race, O Connal?
And who recount thy Fathers? ("Fragment V")
Oscur my son came down;
The mighty in battle descended. ("Fragment VI")
Oscur stood forth to meet him;
My son would meet the foe. ("Fragment VIII")
Future times shall hear of thee;
They shall hear of the fallen Morar. ("Fragment XII")
_Completion_
What voice is that I hear?
That voice like the summer wind. ("Fragment I")
The warriours saw her, and loved;
Their souls were fixed on the maid.
Each loved her, as his fame;
Each must possess her or die.
But her soul was fixed on Oscur;
My son was the youth of her love. ("Fragment VII")
Macpherson also used grammatical parallelism as a structural
device; a series of simple sentences is often used to describe a
landscape:
Autumn is dark on the mountains;
Grey mist rests on the hills.
The whirlwind is heard on the heath.
Dark rolls the river through the narrow plain. ("Fragment V")
The poems also have a discernible rhythmical pattern; the
tendency of the lines to form pairs is obvious enough when there
is semantic or grammatical parallelism, but there is a general binary
pattern throughout. Typically, the first unit is a simple sentence,
the second almost any grammatical structure--an appositive,
a prepositional phrase, a participle, the second element of a compound
verb, a dependent clause. A simile--in grammatical terms,
an adverbial phrase--sometimes constitutes the second element.
These pairs are often balanced roughly by the presence of two,
three, or four accents in each constituent; there are a large number
of imbedded iambic and anapestic feet, which give the rhythm an
ascending quality:
The da/ughter of R/inval was n/ear;
Crim/ora, br/ight in the arm/our of m/an;
Her ha/ir loose beh/ind,
Her b/ow in her h/and.
She f/ollowed the y/outh to w/ar,
Co/nnal her m/uch bel/oved.
She dr/ew the st/ring on D/argo;
But e/rring pi/erced her C/onnal. ("Fragment V")
As E. H. W. Meyerstein pointed out, "Macpherson can, without
extravagance, be regarded as the main originator (after the translators
of the Authorized Version) of what's known as 'free verse."[13]
Macpherson's work certainly served to stimulate prosodic experimentation
during the next half century; it is certainly no coincidence that two of
the boldest innovators, Blake and Coleridge, were admirers of
Macpherson's work.
Macpherson's diction must have also appealed to the growing
taste for poetry that was less ornate and studied. His practice
was to use a large number of concrete monosyllabic words of Anglo-Saxon
origin to describe objects and forces common to rural life.
A simple listing of the common nouns from the opening of "Fragment
I" will serve to illustrate this tendency: _love, son, hill,
deer, dogs, bow-string, wind, stream, rushes, mist, oak, friends_.
Such diction bears an obvious kinship to what was to become the
staple diction of the romantic lyric; for example, a similar listing
from "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal" would be this: _slumber,
spirit, fears, thing, touch, years, motion, force, course, rocks,
stones, trees_.
The untamed power of Macpherson's wild natural settings is
also striking. Samuel H. Monk has made the point well:
"Ossian's strange exotic wildness and his obscure, terrible glimpses
of scenery were in essence something quite new.... Ossian's images were
far from "nature methodized." His imagination illumined fitfully a scene
of mountains and blasted heaths, as artificially wild as his heroines
were artificially sensitive; to modern readers they resemble too much
the stage-settings of melodrama. But in 1760, his descriptions carried
with them the thrill of the genuine and of naively archaic."
And Monk adds, "imperceptibly the Ossianic poems contributed
toward converting Britons, nay, Europeans, into enthusiastic admirers
of nature in her wilder moments."[14]
Ghosts are habitually present in the poems, and Macpherson
is able to present them convincingly because they are described
by a poet who treats them as though they were part of his and his
audience's habitual experience. The supernatural world is so
familiar, in fact, that it can be used to describe the natural; thus
Minvane in "Fragment VII" is called as fair "as the spirits of the
hill when at silent noon they glide along the heath." As Patricia
M. Spacks has observed, the supernatural seems to be a "genuine
part of the poetic texture"; and she adds that
"within this poetic context, the supernatural seems convincing
because believed in: it is part of the fabric of life for the
characters of the poem. Ghosts in the Ossianic poems, almost uniquely
in the mid-eighteenth century, seem genuinely to belong; to this
particular poetic conception the supernatural does not seem
extraneous."[15]
The _Fragments_ was also a cause and a reflection of the rising
appeal of the hero of sensibility, whose principal characteristic
was that he could feel more intensely than the mass of humanity.
The most common emotion that these acutely empathetic heroes
felt was grief, the emotion that permeates the _Fragments_ and the
rest of Macpherson's work. It was the exquisite sensibility of
Macpherson's heroes and heroines that the young Goethe was
struck by; Werther, an Ossianic hero in his own way, comments,
"You should see what a silly figure I cut when she
is mentioned in society! And then if I am even asked
how I like her--Like! I hate that word like death. What
sort of person must that be who likes Lotte, in whom all
senses, all emotions are not completely filled up by her!
Like! Recently someone asked me how I like Ossian!"[16]
That Macpherson chose to call his poems "fragments" is indicative
of another quality that made them unusual in their day.
The poems have a spontaneity that is suggested by the fact that
the poets seem to be creating their songs as the direct reflection
of an emotional experience. In contrast to the image of the poet
as the orderer, the craftsman, the poets of the _Fragments_ have a
kind of artlessness (to us a very studied one, to be sure) that gave
them an aura of sincerity and honesty. The poems are fragmentary
in the sense that they do not follow any orderly, rational plan but
seem to take the form that corresponds to the development of an
emotional experience. As Macpherson told Blair they are very
different from "modern, connected, and polished poetry."
V
The _Fragments_ proved an immediate success and Macpherson's
Edinburgh patrons moved swiftly to raise enough money to enable
the young Highlander to resign his position as tutor and to devote
himself to collecting and translating the Gaelic poetry still extant
in the Highlands. Blair recalled that he and Lord Elibank were instrumental
in convening a dinner meeting that was attended by "many of the first
persons of rank and taste in Edinburgh," including Robertson, Home, and
Fergusson.[17] Robert Chalmers acted as treasurer; among the forty odd
subscribers who contributed 60L, were James Boswell and David Hume.[18]
By the time of the second edition of the _Fragments_ (also in 1760),
Blair, or more likely Macpherson himself, could inform the public in the
"Advertisement" "that measures are now taken for making a full collection
of the remaining Scottish bards; in particular, for recovering and
translating the heroic poem mentioned in the preface."
Macpherson, a frugal man, included many of the "Fragments"
in his later work. Sometimes he introduced them into the notes as
being later than Ossian but in the same spirit; at other times he
introduced them as episodes in the longer narratives. With the exception
of Laing's edition, they are not set off, however, and anyone
who wishes to see what caused the initial Ossianic fervor
must consult the original volume.
When we have to remind ourselves that a work of art was revolutionary
in its day, we can be sure that we are dealing with something
closer to cultural artifact than to art, and it must be granted
that this is true of Macpherson's work; nevertheless, the fact that
Ossian aroused the interest of major men of letters for fifty years
is suggestive of his importance as an innovator. In a curious way,
Macpherson's achievement has been overshadowed by the fact that
many greater writers followed him and developed the artistic
direction that he was among the first to take.
NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION
[1] See Scott's letter to Anna Seward in J. G. Lockhart, _Memoirs of
Sir Walter Scott_ (London, 1900), I, 410-15.
[2] _The Poems of Ossian_, ed. Malcolm Laing (Edinburgh, 1805), I, 441.
[3] See Home's letter to Mackenzie in the _Report of the Committee of the
Highland Society of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1805), Appendix, pp. 68-69.
[4] Carlyle to Mackenzie, _ibid_., p. 66.
[5] Blair to Mackenzie, _ibid_., p. 57.
[6] _Ibid_., p. 58.
[7] Quoted from _The Poems of Ossian_ (London, 1807), I, 222. After its
initial separate publication, Blair's dissertation was regularly
included with the collected poems.
[8] _Correspondence of Thomas Gray_, ed. Paget Toynbee and Leonard
Whibley (Oxford, 1935), II, 679-80.
[9] _The Works of Lord Byron, Poetry_, ed. Ernest Hartley Coleridge
(London, 1898), I, 183.
[10] "On Poetry in General," _The Complete Works of William Hazlitt_, ed.
P. P. Howe (London, 1930), V, 18.
[11] Quoted in Henry Grey Graham, _Scottish Men of Letters in the
Eighteenth Century_ (London, 1908), p. 240.
[12] _Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century_, ed. Alexander
Allardyce (Edinburgh, 1888), I, 547.
[13] "The Influence of Ossian," _English_, VII (1948), 96.
[14] _The Sublime_ (Ann Arbor, 1960), p. 126.
[15] _The Insistence of Horror_ (Cambridge, Mass., 1962), pp. 86-87.
[16] _The Sufferings of Young Werther_, trans. Bayard Morgan (New York,
1957), p. 51.
17 _Report_, Appendix, p. 58.
18 See Robert M. Schmitz, _Hugh Blair_ (New York, 1948), p. 48.
FRAGMENTS OF ANCIENT POETRY
Collected in the Highlands of Scotland,
AND
Translated from the Galic or Erse Language
"Vos quoque qui fortes animas, belloque peremtas
Laudibus in longum vates dimittitis aevuin,
Plurima securi fudistis carmina _Bardi_."
LUCAN
PREFACE
The public may depend on the following fragments as genuine remains of
ancient Scottish poetry. The date of their composition cannot be exactly
ascertained. Tradition, in the country where they were written, refers
them to an aera of the most remote antiquity: and this tradition is
supported by the spirit and strain of the poems themselves; which abound
with those ideas, and paint those manners, that belong to the most early
state of society. The diction too, in the original, is very obsolete;
and differs widely from the style of such poems as have been written in
the same language two or three centuries ago. They were certainly
composed before the establishment of clanship in the northern part of
Scotland, which is itself very ancient; for had clans been then formed
and known, they must have made a considerable figure in the work of a
Highland Bard; whereas there is not the least mention of them in these
poems. It is remarkable that there are found in them no allusions to the
Christian religion or worship; indeed, few traces of religion of any kind.
One circumstance seems to prove them to be coeval with the very infancy
of Christianity in Scotland. In a fragment of the same poems, which the
translator has seen, a Culdee or Monk is represented as desirous to take
down in writing from the mouth of Oscian, who is the principal personage
in several of the following fragments, his warlike atchievements and
those of his family. But Oscian treats the monk and his religion with
disdain, telling him, that the deeds of such great men were subjects too
high to be recorded by him, or by any of his religion: A full proof that
Christianity was not as yet established in the country.
Though the poems now published appear as detached pieces in this
collection, there is ground to believe that most of them were originally
episodes of a greater work which related to the wars of Fingal.
Concerning this hero innumerable traditions remain, to this day, in the
Highlands of Scotland. The story of Oscian, his son, is so generally
known, that to describe one in whom the race of a great family ends, it
has passed into a proverb; "Oscian the last of the heroes."
There can be no doubt that these poems are to be ascribed to the Bards;
a race of men well known to have continued throughout many ages in
Ireland and the north of Scotland. Every chief or great man had in his
family a Bard or poet, whose office it was to record in verse, the
illustrious actions of that family. By the succession of these Bards, such
poems were handed down from race to race; some in manuscript, but more by
oral tradition. And tradition, in a country so free of intermixture with
foreigners, and among a people so strongly attached to the memory of their
ancestors, has preserved many of them in a great measure incorrupted to
this day.