Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

136 CRITICAL DISSERTATION
meet Lochlin and Inisfail. Chief mixed his strokes
Arith chief, and man with man. Steel clanging, sound-
ed on steel. Helmets are cleft on high ; blood bursts
and smokes around.—As the troublednoise of the ocean,
when roll the waves on high ; as the last peal of the
thunder of heaven, such is the noise of battle.' — 'As
roll a thousand waves to the rock, so Swaran's host
came on; as meets a rock a thousand waves, so Inis-
fail met Swaran. Death raises all his voices around,
and mixes with the sound of shields. — Thefield echoes
from wing to wing, as a hundred hammers that rise
ty turns on the red son of the fiu-nace.' — ' As a hun-
dred winds on Morven ; as the streams of a hundred
hills; as clouds fly successive over heaven; or as the
dark ocean assaults the shore of the desert ; so roar-
ing, so vast, so terrible, the armies mixed on Lena's
echoing heath.' In several of these images there is a
remarkable similarity to Homer's ; but v.hat follows
is superior to any comparison that Homer uses on this
subject. * The groan of the people spread over the
hills ; it was like the thunder of night, when the cloud
bursts on Cona ; and a thousand ghosts shriek at once
on the hollow wind.' Never was an image of more
mvful sublimity employed to heighten the terror of
battle.
Both poets compare the appearance of an army ap-
IJToaching, to the gathering of dark clouds. ' As when
a shepherd,' says Homer, ' beholds from the rock a
cloud borne along the sea by the western wind ; black
as pitch it appears from afar sailing over the ocean,
and carrying the dreadful storm. He shrinks at the
sight, and drives his flock into the cave : such, under
the Ajaces, moved on, the dark, the thickened pha-
lanx to the war,'* — * They came,' says Ossian, ' over
the desert like stormy clouds, when the winds roll them
aver the heath ; their edges are tinged with lightning ;
and the echoing groves foresee the storm.' The edges of
the cloud tinged with lightning is a sublime idea ; but
the shepherd and his flock render Homer's simile more
picturesque. Tliis is frequeix^y the difference between
the two poets. Ossian gives no more than the maia
* Iliad, iv. 275.