And one of lesser indeed, (for who is not less than such as these?) but yet of both high and honoured poetic name, our own Wordsworth, in his Sonnet[561] on the River Thames, seen from London Bridge at sunrise, has the well known line,
[561] Miscellaneous Sonnets, Part II. No. xxix.
He may also be claimed as a witness to what has been said of the truth and power of these personifications to the ancients. For in another noble Sonnet, where he complains of the deadening power and weight of worldly life, and intends to show that a system of shadows, when men really appropriate and digest the truth it has, is better for them than to have a system of substances around them, and yet to remain unpenetrated by it, he describes that system of shadows by recalling two of its vivid personifications[562].
But while Homer brings into action no personifications of this class, except those of Rivers, he peoples each with its appropriate Genius, the fountains, the grassy meadows, and the groves. In the Great Parliament of the supernal world at the beginning of the Twentieth Iliad, all are represented. Even here, however, the distinction is preserved: the Rivers attend as it were in person; but the rest by deputy, that is, by their proper indwelling and presiding Spirits;
οὔτε τις οὖν Ποταμῶν ἀπέην νόσφ’ Ὠκεανοῖο, οὔτ’ ἄρα Νυμφάων, αἵτ’ ἄλσεα καλὰ νέμονται, καὶ πηγὰς Ποταμῶν, καὶ πίσεα ποιήεντα[563].
Thus the first are impersonations: the second only residences for persons to dwell in.
The Harpies, Ἁρπυῖαι, of Homer have been, I think, truly described as ‘nothing but personified storm-winds[564].’ They have no connection, when jointly viewed, with the moral order, except that they may, as mere carriers, take a subordinate part in the fulfilment of a moral purpose, which is quite as true of the Winds, personified or unpersonified. The Harpy Ποδάργη is personified individually, as the mother who bears to Zephyr the two deathless horses of Achilles, Xanthus and Balius[565]; but apparently for no other purpose than one purely relative. The classical passage respecting the Harpies is that in Od. xx. 61-79, which forms a part of the prayer of Penelope to Diana. The object of the matron’s petition is that, wearied out with her sorrows, she may die, and this in one of two modes: either by the arrows of the goddess; or else, that a hurricane may seize her, and, driving her along the paths of air, deposit her in the channels of Ocean, that is to say, the place of the dead. Then she proceeds to illustrate this last mode of death, of which she has named θύελλα as the instrument, by the tale of the daughters of Pandareus, who, having lost their parents, were in an extraordinary manner petted by the goddesses. Aphrodite fed them, Here gave them sense and beauty, Artemis stature, Pallas endowed them with skill. And, lastly, Aphrodite went to Olympus to induce Jupiter to provide for their marriage. But while she was away on this errand, the Harpies carried off these maidens, and gave them to the Ἐρινύες, ἀμφιπολεύειν, to be their servants, as it is sometimes rendered, but, as I should venture to construe it, ‘for them, i. e. the Ἐρινύες, to deal with.’ It is evident that, in this curious legend, the Harpies are introduced to exemplify nothing more than the part which Penelope had previously referred to the θύελλα; and these powers, who represent Hurricane or Squall, and in whose agency lies the gist of the story, appear to have been in this matter the ministers of the Ἐρινύες, beings of a very different order. These beings are evidently introduced, though entirely beyond the parallel of the θύελλα, in order to complete the moral. The only other case in which Homer introduces the Harpies is in a line, twice repeated, where Penelope supposes that they may have carried Ulysses off (ἀκλειῶς) ingloriously[566], i. e. so as to rob him in death of his due meed of fame. And this Friedreich well compares with part of a passage in the Book of Job, which is as follows, chap. xxvii. 20, 21. ‘A tempest stealeth him away in the night: the east wind carrieth him away, and he departeth; and as a storm hurleth him out of his place.’