Notes

________________________________________________
_ 228. I. The following letter, from one of my most faithful readers, corrects an important piece of misinterpretation in the text. The waving of the reins must be only in sign of the fluctuation of heat round the Sun's own chariot:--

"Spring Field, Ambleside,
"February 11, 1875.

"Dear Mr. Ruskin,--Your fifth lecture on Engraving I have to hand.

"Sandro intended those wavy lines meeting under the Sun's right[BH] hand, (Plate V.) primarily, no doubt, to represent the four ends of the four reins dangling from the Sun's hand. The flames and rays are seen to continue to radiate from the platform of the chariot between and beyond these ends of the reins, and over the knee. He may have wanted to acknowledge that the warmth of the earth was Apollo's, by making these ends of the reins spread out separately and wave, and thereby inclose a form like a flame. But I cannot think it.

"Believe me,
"Ever yours truly,
"CHAS. WM. SMITH."

II. I meant to keep labyrinthine matters for my Appendix; but the following most useful by-words from Mr. Tyrwhitt had better be read at once:--

"In the matter of Cretan Labyrinth, as connected by Virgil with the Ludus Trojae, or equestrian game of winding and turning, continued in England from twelfth century; and having for last relic the maze[BI] called 'Troy Town,' at Troy Farm, near Somerton, Oxfordshire, which itself resembles the circular labyrinth on a coin of Cnossus in Fors Clavigera. (Letter 23, p. 12.)

"The connecting quotation from Virg., AEn., V. 588, is as follows:

'Ut quondam Creta fertur Labyrinthus in alta
Parietibus textum caecis iter, ancipitemque
Mille viis habuisse dolum, qua signa sequendi
Falleret indeprensus et inremeabilis error.
Haud alio Teucruen nati vestigia cursu
Impediunt, texuntque fagas et proelia ludo,
Delphinum similes.'"

Labyrinth of Ariadne, as cut on the Downs by shepherds from time immemorial,--

Shakespeare, 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' Act ii., sc. 2:

"_Oberon._ The nine-men's morris[BJ] is filled up with mud;
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green
By lack of tread are undistinguishable."

The following passage, 'Merchant of Venice,' Act iii., sc. 2, confuses (to all appearance) the Athenian tribute to Crete, with the story of Hesione: and may point to general confusion in the Elizabethan mind about the myths:

"_Portia._ ... with much more love
Than young Alcides, when he did reduce
The virgin-tribute paid by howling Troy
To the sea monster."[BK]

Theseus is the Attic Hercules, however; and Troy may have been a sort of house of call for mythical monsters, in the view of midland shepherds.

FOOTNOTES:

[BH] "Would not the design have looked better, to us, on the plate than on the print? On the plate, the reins would be in the left hand; and the whole movement be from the left to the right? The two different forms that the radiance takes would symbolize respectively heat and light, would they not?"

[BI] Strutt, pp. 97-8, ed. 1801.

[BJ] Explained as "a game still played by the shepherds, cowkeepers," etc., in the midland counties.

[BK] See Iliad, 20, 145.

[Illustration: XI.

"Obediente Domino voci hominis."] _

Read next: Appendix

Read previous: Lecture 6. Design In The Florentine Schools Of Engraving

Table of content of Ariadne Florentina: Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book