BOOK II

Psyche awoke from her sleep not sooner than midday past, nay, one hour after midday. All serving-maids came to dress the princess, and brought with them forty garments and all that with them went. For that day Psyche designated the simplest of all gowns, for she hastened as soon as possible to inspect the marvels of the palace. I shall follow in the princess’s track and shall present the mansion to you, and describe all in detail that could amuse her.

At first Psyche visited the rooms, nor left a corner in them where she did not pass a while; thence to the conservatory and to the balcony; thence on the veranda, and down, and out, to inspect the house from all sides. A bevy of girls were slow in following her; only the Zephyrs were fast enough, and they guarded her, lest running she should fall. Two or three times she inspected the house from within and from without. Meanwhile the Zephyrs and Cupids pointed out the architecture to her and all the marvels of nature, which Psyche was anxious to inspect. She wished to see all, but knew not where to begin, for her eyes were distracted now by one thing, now by another. Psyche would fain have looked at everything, but running around so much, she soon became fatigued.

While resting herself, she looked at the statues of famous masters: those were likenesses of inimitable beauties, whose names, in prose and verse, in various tales, both short and long, reign immortally among all the nations and through all the ages: Calisto, Daphne, Armene, Niobe, Helen, the Graces, Angelica, Phryne, and a multitude of other goddesses and mortal women appeared before her eyes in lifelike form, in all their beauty arrayed along the wall. But in the middle, and right in front of them, Psyche’s image stood on an elevated pedestal and surpassed them all in beauty. Looking at it, she herself fell to wondering, and, beside herself with wonderment, stopped: then you might have perceived another statue in her, such as the world had never seen.

Psyche would have stayed there a long time, looking at her image that held sway over her, if her servants who were with her had not pointed out in other places, for the pleasure of her eyes, other likenesses of her beauty and glory: up to her waist, her feet, her lifelike form, of gold, of silver, of bronze, of steel, her heads, and busts, and medals; and elsewhere mosaic, or marble, or agate represented in these forms a new splendour. In other places Apelles, or the god of artists who with his hand had moved Apelles’s brush, had pictured Psyche in all her beauty, such as no man could have imagined before.

But does she wish to see herself in pictures? Here, Zephyrs bring her Pomona’s horn and, strewing flowers before her, disport with her in vales; in another, she with mighty buckler in her hands, dressed as Pallas, threatens from her steed, with her fair looks more than with her spear, and vanquishes the hearts through a pleasant plague. There stands Saturn before her: toothless, baldheaded and grey, with new wrinkles on his old face, he tries to appear young: he curls his sparse tufts of hair, and, to see Psyche, puts on his glasses. There, again, she is seen like a queen, with Cupids all around her, in an aërial chariot: to celebrate fair Psyche’s honour and beauty, the Cupids in their flight shoot hearts; they fly in a large company, all carrying quivers over their shoulders, and, taking pride in her beautiful eyes, raise their crossbows and proclaim war to the whole world. There, again, fierce Mars, the destroyer of the law of peace, perceiving Psyche, becomes gentle of manner: he no longer stains the fields with blood, and finally, forgetting his rules of war, lies humbled at her feet and glows with love to her. There, again, she is pictured among the Pleasures that precede her everywhere and by the invention of varied games call forth a pleasant smile upon her face. In another place the Graces surround the princess and adorn her with various flowers, while Zephyr, gently wafting about her, paints her picture to adorn the world with; but, jealous of licentious glances, he curbs the minds of the lovers of licentiousness, or, perchance, shunning rebellious critics, hides in the painting the greater part of her beauties, though, as is well known, before Psyche those beauties of themselves appear in the pictures.

In order that various objects, meeting her eyes, should not weary her, her portraits alone were placed upon the wall, in simple and in festive gowns, or in masquerade attire. Psyche, you are beautiful in any attire: whether you be dressed as a queen, or whether you be seated by the tent as a shepherdess. In all garments you are the wonder of the world, in all you appear as a goddess, and but you alone are more beautiful than your portrait.

Gavriíl Románovich Derzhávin. (1743-1816.)

Derzhávin was born near Kazán, deriving his descent from a Tartar Murza, and passed his childhood in the east, in the Government of Orenbúrg. His early education was very scanty. In his fourteenth year his mother hastened with him to Moscow to enter him for future service as the son of a nobleman; but, her means being exhausted, she returned with him to Kazán, where she placed him in the newly opened Gymnasium. Even here the lack of good teachers precluded his getting any thorough instruction; his only positive gain was a smattering of German, which was to help him later in acquainting himself with the productions of the German Muse. In 1762 he entered the regiment of the Transfiguration (Preobrazhénski) as a common soldier. Whatever time he could call his own in the crowded and dingy barracks in which he passed eight years of his life he devoted to reading and to imitations of Russian and German verse. In 1772 he was made a commissioned officer, and was employed to quell the Pugachév rebellion.

It was only in 1779 that Derzhávin began to write in a more independent strain; one of the best odes of this new period is his _Monody on the Death of Prince Meshchérski_. But the one that gave him his greatest reputation was his _Felítsa_, with which began a new epoch in Russian poetry. Lomonósov, Sumarókov, Tredyakóvski, and a number of minor poets had flooded Russian literature with lifeless odes in the French pseudo-classic style, written for all possible occasions, and generally to order. Just as a reaction was setting in against them in the minds of the best people, Derzhávin proved by his _Felítsa_ that an ode could possess other characteristics than those sanctioned by the French school. In 1782 he occupied a position in the Senate under the Procurator-General Vyázemski. He had an exalted opinion of Catherine, whom he had not yet met, and he spoke with full sincerity of her in his ode. The name _Felítsa_ was suggested to him by the princess in her moral fable (see p. 276 _et seq._). The chief interest in the ode for contemporary society lay in the bold attacks that Derzhávin made on the foibles of the dignitaries. Its literary value consists in the fact that it was the first attempt at a purely colloquial tone of playful banter, in a kind of poetic composition formerly characterised by a stilted language, replete with Church-Slavic words and biblical allusions. Numerous are the references made by the poets of the day to the Singer of _Felítsa_ (see p. 358 _et seq._); they all felt that Derzhávin had inaugurated a new era, that the period which had begun with Lomonósov’s _Capture of Khotín_ was virtually over.

Catherine made Derzhávin Governor of Olónetsk, and later of Tambóv; but neither in these high offices, nor later, when Paul appointed him Chief of the Chancery of the Imperial Council, and Alexander I. made him Minister of Justice, was he successful. His excitable temperament, combined with a stern love of truth which brooked no compromise, made him everywhere impossible. Of the many productions which he wrote after _Felítsa_, none gained such wide popularity as his _Ode to God_. Though parts of it bear strong resemblance to similar odes by Klopstock, Haller, Brockes, and to passages in Young’s _Night Thoughts_, yet the whole is so far superior to any of them that it soon was translated into all European languages, and also into Japanese; there are not less than fifteen versions of it in French. Derzhávin lived to hear Púshkin recite one of his poems and to proclaim him his spiritual successor. The following translations of Derzhávin’s poems in English are known to me:

_God_, _On the Death of Meshcherski_, _The Waterfall_, _The Lord and the Judge_, _On the Death of Count Orlov_, _Song_ (_The Little Bee_), in Sir John Bowring’s _Specimens of the Russian Poets_, Part I .; _To a Neighbour_, _The Shipwreck_, _Fragment_, _ib._,