Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

ON THE POEMS OF OSSIAN. 159
only by viewing Homer in tho simplicity of a prose
translation, that we can form any comparison between
the two bards.
The shock of two encountering armies, the nois-e
and the tumult of battle, afford one of the most grand
and awful subjects of description ; on which all epic
poets have exerted their strength. Let us first hear
Homer. The following description is a favorite one,
for we find it twice repeated in the same words.*
" When now the conflicting hosts joined in the field
of battle, then were mutually opposed shields, and
swords, and the strength of armed men. The bossy
bucklers were dashed against each other. The uni-
versal tumult rose. There were mingled the triumph-
ant shouts and the dying groans of the victors and the
vanquished. The earth streamed with blood. As when
winter torrents, rushing from the mountains, pour into
a narrow valley their violent waters. They issue from
a thousand springs, and mix in the hollowed channel.
The distant shephei-d hears on the mountain their roar
from afar. Such was the terror and the shout of the
engaging armies." In another passage, the poet,
much in the manner of Ossian, heaps simile on simile,
to express the vastness of the idea with which his ima-
gination seems to labor. " With a mighty shout the
hosts engage. Not so loud roars the wave of ocean,
when driven against the shore by the whole force of
the boisterous north ; not so loud in the woods of the
mountain, the noise of the flame, when rising in its
fury to consume the forest ; not so loud the wind
among the lofty oaks, when the wrath of the s'orm
rages ; as was the clamor of the Greeks and Trojans,
when, roaring terrible, they rushed against each
other." f
* Iliad, iv. 4G; and Iliad, vili. 60 f Iliad, xiv. 393.