Edmund Burke (1729–1797). On the Sublime and Beautiful.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| Privation |
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ALL general privations are great, because they are all terrible; Vacuity, Darkness, Solitude, and Silence. With what a fire of imagination, yet with what severity of judgment, has Virgil amassed all these circumstances, where he knows that all the images of a tremendous dignity ought to be united, at the mouth of hell! where, before he unlocks the secrets of the great deep, he seems to be seized with a religious horror, and to retire astonished at the boldness of his own designs:| | Dii, quibus imperium est animarum, umbræque—silentes! |
| Et Chaos, et Phlegethon, loca nocte silentia late, |
| Sit mihi fas audita loqui; sit, numine vestro, |
| Pandere res alta terra et caligine mersas. |
| Ibant obscuri, sola sub nocte, per umbram, |
| Perque domos Ditis vacuas, et inania regna. |
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| Ye subterraneous gods, whose awful sway |
| The gliding ghosts and silent shades obey; |
| O Chaos hoar! and Phlegethon profound! |
| Whose solemn empire stretches wide around; |
| Give me, ye great, tremendous powers, to tell |
| Of scenes and wonders in the depth of hell: |
| Give me your mighty secrets to display |
| From those black realms of darkness to the day.—PITT. |
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| Obscure they went through dreary shades that led |
| Along the waste dominions of the dead.—DRYDEN. |
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