The height of
the figure was forty feet, on a pedestal twelve feet high. The god
was represented seated on his throne. His brows were crowned with
a wreath of olive, and he held in his right hand a sceptre, and in
his left a statue of Victory. The throne was of cedar, adorned
with gold and precious stones.
The idea which the artist essayed to embody was that of the
supreme deity of the Hellenic (Grecian) nation, enthroned as a
conqueror, in perfect majesty and repose, and ruling with a nod
the subject world. Phidias avowed that he took his idea from the
representation which Homer gives in the first book of the "Iliad,"
in the passage thus translated by Pope:
"He spoke and awful bends his sable brows,
Shakes his ambrosial curls and gives the nod,
The stamp of fate and sanction of the god.
High heaven with reverence the dread signal took,
And all Olympus to the centre shook."
[Footnote: Cowper's version is less elegant, but truer to the
original:
"He ceased, and under his dark brows the nod
Vouchsafed of confirmation. All around
The sovereign's everlasting head his curls
Ambrosial shook, and the huge mountain reeled."
It may interest our readers to see how this passage appears in
another famous version, that which was issued under the name of
Tickell, contemporaneously with Pope's, and which, being by many
attributed to Addison, led to the quarrel which ensued between
Addison and Pope:
"This said, his kingly brow the sire inclined;
The large black curls fell awful from behind,
Thick shadowing the stern forehead of the god;
Olympus trembled at the almighty nod.
Pages:
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462