LES DEUX MUSES

Page 63. Goethe says there are few poems inspired with a nobler and more genuine sensé of nationality than the one in which Klopstock représenta the English and German Muses entering the poetic arena.

" Proudly relying on the record of former victories, the daughter of Britain appears on the scène. With glowing cheeks and trembhng with youthful ambition the German maid steps to her side. With friendly condescension, the British woman addresses her young rival, reminding her of the many trophies she had won, of her contests with the Muses of Greece and Rome, and warning the German not to risk too dangerous a race." — Francke.

When wTiting The Two Muses, Klopstock is supposed to hâve had in mind his own Messiah and Milton's Paradise Lost.

5. des chênes: the oak wreath belongs to the patriotic German poet ; the palm to the poet of rehgious subjects. Madame de Staël says :

"Le chêne est l'emblème de la poésie patriotique; et le palmier celui de la poésie religieuse qui vient de l'Orient."

10. fils de Méon: Homer. Sometimes the name Maeonides is given to Homer from Méon, his father. Milton so styles him in Paradise Lost, Bk. III, line 35. — le chantre du Capitule: Vergil.

20. la fille de Thuiskon: the daughter of Tuisco is the German Muse.

The ancient Germans believed, according to Tacitus, that they were descendants of the god Tuisco through his son Mannus, the first man. The name Tuisco is found among the ancient authors in Tacitus alone, in whose Germania occurs the passage : " They (the Germans) celebrate in ancient songs, with them the only kind of historiés and annals, a god Tuisco, sprung forth from the earth, and his son Mannus, as the progenitors and creators of the people."

There are various readings of the word Tuisco, such as Tuisto, Teuto, etc. From the putative founder of their race the Germans dérive the name of Teutons. " Teuton from the remotest time has

been, and still is, the gênerai name of that part of the Teutonic nations, which we now call Germans, who considered the god or hero Tuisco, as their common ancestor." — P. Cyc.

21. chez les Bardes: this is a wrong conception of the poet, and of the eighteenth century in gênerai. The ancient Germans had no bards.

" There is amongst the Irish a certayne kind of people called Bards, which are to them insteede of poetts, whose profession is to sett foorth the prayses and disprayses of men in their poems and rimes." — Spenser.

Among the Welsh, in the Laws of Howel the Good, who flourished in the tenth century, we find this provision made for the bard:

" In case of fighting, the Bard shall play the * Monarchy of Britain '

before the battle.

His lands shall be free; he shall hâve a horse from the ICing. He shall hâve a harp from the King and a gold ring from the Quecn,

when he is appointed.

The harp he shall never part with."

In modem times the terni bard is sometimes applied to poets : as Shakespeare, the bard of Avon; Burns, the bard of Ayrshire.

Page 64. I. ce regard qui se fixe à terre tout en feu — je le

connais: this glance of fire cast downward to the earth — / know ils meaning.

5. la muse des Thermopyles, avec celle des sept collines: the

Grecian and Roman muses.