Vidi et crudeles dantem Salmonea p?nas
Dum flammas Jovis et sonitus imitatur Olympia, etc.
— Virgil, ?neid, b. vi, l. 585.
Salmoneus suffering cruel pains I found,
For imitating Jove, the rattling1 sound
Of mimic2 thunder, and the glittering blaze
Of pointed3 lightnings and their forked rays.
Those who invented and perfected artillery4 are so many other Salmoneuses. A cannon-ball of twenty-four pounds can make, and has often made, more ravage5 than an hundred thunder-claps; yet no cannoneer has ever been struck by Jupiter for imitating that which passes in the atmosphere.
We have seen that Polyphemus, in a piece of Euripides, boasts of making more noise, when he had supped well, than the thunder of Jupiter. Boileau, more honest than Polyphemus, says that another world astonishes him, and that he believes in the immortality6 of the soul, and that it is God who thunders:
Pour moi, qu’en santé même un autre monde étonne,
Qui crois l’ame immortelle, et que c’est Dieu qui tonne.
— Sat. i, line 161, 162.
I know not why he is so astonished at another world, since all antiquity7 believed in it. Astonish was not the proper word; it was alarm. He believes that it is God who thunders; but he thunders only as he hails, as he rains, and as he produces fine weather — as he operates all, as he performs all. It is not because he is angry that he sends thunder and rain. The ancients paint Jupiter taking thunder, composed of three burning arrows, and hurling8 it at whomsoever he chose. Sound reason does not agree with these poetical10 ideas.
Thunder is like everything else, the necessary effect of the laws of nature, prescribed by its author. It is merely a great electrical phenomenon. Franklin forces it to descend11 tranquilly12 on the earth; it fell on Professor Richmann as on rocks and churches; and if it struck Ajax Oileus, it was assuredly not because Minerva was irritated against him.
If it had fallen on Cartouche, or the abbé Desfontaines, people would not have failed to say: “Behold how God punishes thieves and —.” But it is a useful prejudice to make the sky fearful to the perverse13. Thus all our tragic14 poets, when they would rhyme to “poudre” or “resoudre,” invariably make use of “foudre”; and uniformly make “tonnerre” roll, when they would rhyme to “terre.”
Theseus, in “Phèdre,” says to his son — act iv, scene 2:
Monstre, qu’a trop longtemps épargné le tonnerre,
Reste impur des brigands15 dont j’ai purgé la terre!
Severus, in “Polyeucte,” without even having occasion to rhyme, when he learns that his mistress is married, talks to Fabian, his friend, of a clap of thunder. He says elsewhere to the same Fabian — act iv, scene 6 — that a new clap of “foudre” strikes upon his hope, and reduces it to “poudre”:
Qu’est ceci, Fabian, quel nouveau coup16 de foudre
Tombe sur mon espoir, et le réduit en poudre?
A hope reduced to powder must astonish the pit!
Lusignan, in “Za?re,” prays God that the thunder will burst on him alone:
Que la foudre en éclats ne tombe que sur moi.
If Tydeus consults the gods in the cave of a temple, the cave answers him only by great claps of thunder.
I’ve finally seen the thunder and “foudre”
Reduce verses to cinders17 and rhymes into “poudre.”
We must endeavor to thunder less frequently.
I could never clearly comprehend the fable18 of Jupiter and Thunder, in La Fontaine — b. viii, fable 20.
Vulcain remplit ses fourneaux
De deux sortes de carreaux.
L’un jamais ne se fourvoie,
Et c’est celni que toujours
L’Olympe en corps19 nous envoie.
L’autre s’écarte en son cours,
Ce n’est qu’ aux monts qu’il en co?te;
Bien souvent même il se perd;
Et ce dernier en sa route
Nous vient du seul Jupiter.
“Vulcan fills his furnaces with two sorts of thunderbolts. The one never wanders, and it is that which comes direct from Olympus. The other diverges20 in its route, and only spends itself on mountains; it is often even altogether dissipated. It is this last alone which proceeds from Jupiter.”
Was the subject of this fable, which La Fontaine put into bad verse so different from his general style, given to him? Would it infer that the ministers of Louis XIV. were inflexible21, and that the king pardoned? Crébillon, in his academical discourse22 in foreign verse, says that Cardinal23 Fleury is a wise depositary, the eagle, using his thunder, yet the friend of peace:
Usant en citoyen du pouvoir arbitraire,
Aigle de Jupiter, mais ami de la paix,
Il gouverne la foudre, et ne tonne jamais.
He says that Marshal Villars made it appear that he survived Malplaquet only to become more celebrated24 at Denain, and that with a clap of thunder Prince Eugene was vanquished25:
Fit voir, qu’à Malplaquet il n’avait survéecu
Que pour rendre à Denain sa valeur plus célèbre
Et qu’un foudre du moins Eugène était vaincu.
Thus the eagle Fleury governed thunder without thundering, and Eugene was vanquished by thunder. Here is quite enough of thunder.
§ II.
Horace, sometimes the debauched and sometimes the moral, has said — book i, ode 3 — that our folly26 extends to heaven itself: “C?lum ipsum petimus stultitia.”
We can say at present that we carry our wisdom to heaven, if we may be permitted to call that blue and white mass of exhalations which causes winds, rain, snow, hail, and thunder, heaven. We have decomposed27 the thunderbolt, as Newton disentangled light. We have perceived that these thunderbolts, formerly28 borne by the eagle of Jupiter, are really only electric fire; that in short we can draw down thunder, conduct it, divide it, and render ourselves masters of it, as we make the rays of light pass through a prism, as we give course to the waters which fall from heaven, that is to say, from the height of half a league from our atmosphere. We plant a high fir with the branches lopped off, the top of which is covered with a cone29 of iron. The clouds which form thunder are electrical; their electricity is communicated to this cone, and a brass30 wire which is attached to it conducts the matter of thunder wherever we please. An ingenious physician calls this experiment the inoculation31 of thunder.
It is true, that inoculation for the smallpox32, which has preserved so many mortals, caused some to perish, to whom the smallpox had been inconsiderately given; and in like manner the inoculation of thunder ill-performed would be dangerous. There are great lords whom we can only approach with the greatest precaution, and thunder is of this number. We know that the mathematical professor Richmann was killed at St. Petersburg, in 1753, by a thunderbolt which he had drawn33 into his chamber34: “Arte sua periit.” As he was a philosopher, a theological professor failed not to publish that he had been thunderstruck like Salmoneus, for having usurped35 the rights of God, and for wishing to hurl9 the thunder: but if the physician had directed the brass wire outside the house, and not into his pent-up chamber, he would not have shared the lot of Salmoneus, Ajax Oileus, the emperor Carus, the son of a French minister of state, and of several monks36 in the Pyrenees.
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1
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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2
mimic
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| v.模仿，戏弄；n.模仿他人言行的人 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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ravage
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| vt.使...荒废，破坏...；n.破坏，掠夺，荒废 | |
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immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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7
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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hurling
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| n.爱尔兰式曲棍球v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的现在分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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hurl
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| vt.猛投，力掷，声叫骂 | |
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10
poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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11
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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12
tranquilly
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| adv. 宁静地 | |
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13
perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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14
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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15
brigands
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| n.土匪，强盗( brigand的名词复数 ) | |
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16
coup
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| n.政变；突然而成功的行动 | |
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17
cinders
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| n.煤渣( cinder的名词复数 )；炭渣；煤渣路；煤渣跑道 | |
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18
fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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19
corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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20
diverges
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| 分开( diverge的第三人称单数 )； 偏离； 分歧； 分道扬镳 | |
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21
inflexible
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| adj.不可改变的，不受影响的，不屈服的 | |
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22
discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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23
cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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24
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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25
vanquished
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| v.征服( vanquish的过去式和过去分词 )；战胜；克服；抑制 | |
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26
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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27
decomposed
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| 已分解的，已腐烂的 | |
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28
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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29
cone
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| n.圆锥体，圆锥形东西，球果 | |
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30
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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31
inoculation
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| n.接芽；预防接种 | |
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32
smallpox
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| n.天花 | |
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33
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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35
usurped
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| 篡夺，霸占( usurp的过去式和过去分词 )； 盗用； 篡夺，篡权 | |
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36
monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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