IV.

[pg 395]IV.The most important element in the Aeneid, regarded as a poem of heroic action, remains still to be considered, viz. the conception and delineation of individual character. The greatest of epic poets in ancient times was also endowed with the most versatile dramatic faculty. And this faculty was displayed not only in the conception of a great variety of noble types of character, but also in the modes in which these conceptions were embodied. The Greek language is greatly superior to the Latin in its adaptability to natural dialogue. In this respect Cicero’s inferiority to Plato is as marked as Virgil’s inferiority to Homer. The language of Homer and the language of Plato are equally fitted for the expression of the greatest thoughts and feelings, and for the common intercourse of men with one another. Neither that of Virgil nor of Cicero adapts itself easily to the lively play of emotion or to the rapid interchange of thought. The characters of Homer, like the characters of Shakspeare, reveal themselves in their complete individuality, as they act and re-act on one another in many changing moods of passion and affection. The personages of Virgil are revealed by the poet, partly in his account of what they do, and partly through the medium of set speeches expressive of some particular attitude of mind. Virgil’s imagination is the imagination of the orator rather than of the dramatist. It is not a complete and complex man, liable to various moods, and standing in various relations to other men, but it is some powerful movement of theθυμόςin man, that the oratorical imagination is best fitted to express. Milton also, like Virgil, reveals the characters of his personages with the imaginative power of an orator rather than with that of a dramatist. But he possesses another resource in the analytical power with which he makes his chief personage reveal his inmost nature and most secret motives in truthful communing with himself. It is through the soliloquies in the ‘Paradise Lost’ that we can best realise the whole conception of Satan, in his ruined mag[pg 396]nificence, and in his lost but not forgotten capacity of happiness and nobleness. The soliloquies of these personages perform for the epic poet the part performed by the elaborate introspection and discussion of motives in modern prose fiction. Homer also avails himself frequently of the soliloquy, as he does of natural dialogue and more formal oratory. In the Aeneid the chief personage is often introduced, like the heroes of the Iliad and Odyssey,‘This way and that dividing the swift mind;’but the process generally ends in the adoption, without any weighing of conflicting duties or probabilities, of the obvious course indicated by some supernatural sign. The soliloquies of Dido are to be regarded rather as passionate outbursts of prayer to some unknown avenging power than as communings with her own heart. The single soliloquy, if it may be called such, which brings the speaker nearer to us in knowledge and sympathy, is the proud and stately address in which Mezentius seems to make the horse, which had borne him victorious through every former war, a partaker of his sorrow and his forebodings—Rhaebe, diu, res si qua diu mortalibus ulla est,Viximus636, etc.But not only are the media through which Virgil brings his personages before us less varied and flexible than those of Homer, but the characters themselves are more tamely conceived, and less capable of awakening human interest. And this is especially true of the character of Aeneas as contrasted with those of Achilles and of Odysseus. The general conception of Aeneas is indeed in keeping with the religious idea of the Aeneid. He is intended to be an embodiment of the courage of an ancient hero, the justice of a paternal ruler, the mild humanity of a cultivated man living in an age of advanced civilisation, the saintliness of the founder of a new[pg 397]religion of peace and pure observance, the affection for parent and child, which was one of the strongest instincts in the Italian race. A life-like impersonation of such an ideal would have commanded the reverence of all future times. Yet at no time has the character of Aeneas excited any strong human interest. No later poet or moralist set it up, as Horace sets up the characters of Achilles and of Ulysses, as a subject of ethical contemplation. Ovid in the deepest gloom of his exile retains enough of his old levity to jest at his single lapse from saintly perfection—Et tamen ille tuae felix Aeneidos auctorContulit in Tyrios arma virumque toros637.As compared with the hero of the Odyssey, Aeneas is altogether wanting in energy, spontaneity, intellectual resource, and insight. The single quality in which he is strong is endurance. The principle which enables him to fulfil his mission is expressed in the line—Quidquid erit, superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est638.His courage in battle springs from his confidence in his destiny—Tum socios maestique metum solatur IuliFata docens639.One of the few touches of nature which redeem his character from tameness is the momentary feeling of the rage of battle roused by the resistance of Lausus—saevae iamque altius iraeDardanio surgunt ductori640.The occasion in which he seems most worthy of his place as a leader of men is after the death of Mezentius, where the self-restraint of his address contrasts favourably with the intemperate ardour expressed in some of the speeches of Turnus—[pg 398]Maxima res effecta, viri: timor omnis abesto641.He appears as a passive recipient both of the devotion and of the reproaches of Dido. He undergoes no passionate struggle in resigning her. The courtesy and kindliness of his nature elicit no warmer expression of regret than the words—nec me meminisse pigebit Elissae,Dum memor ipse mei, dum spiritus hos regit artus642.The only exercise of thought required of him is the right interpretation of an omen, or the recollection of some dubious prediction at some critical moment. Even the strength of affection which he feels and which he awakens in the hearts of his father and son does not move us in the way in which we are touched by the feelings which unite Odysseus to Penelope and Telemachus, to Laertes and the mother who meets him in the shades, and tells him that she had ‘died neither by the painless arrows of Artemis nor by wasting disease’—ἀλλά με σός τε πόθος σά τε μήδεα, φαίδιμ’ Ὀδυσσεῦ,σή τ’ ἀγανοφροσύνη μελιηδέα θυμὸν ἀπηύρα643.The failure of Aeneas to excite a lively personal interest is not to be attributed solely to a failure of power in the poet’s imagination. In the part he plays he is conceived of as one chosen by the supreme purpose of the gods, as an instrument of their will, and thus necessarily unmoved by ordinary human[pg 399]impulses. In the words of M. de Coulanges, ‘Sa vertu doit être une froide et haute impersonnalité, qui fasse de lui, non un homme, mais un instrument des dieux644.’ The strength required in such an instrument is the strength of faith, submission, patience, and endurance; and it is with this strength that Aeneas encounters the many dangers and vicissitudes to which he is exposed, and withdraws from the allurements of ease and pleasure. The very virtues of his character act as a check rather than as a stimulus to those natural impulses out of which the most living impersonations are formed. To compare great things in art with what are not so great, the impression produced by the superiority of Aeneas to ordinary passion is like the impression produced by the superior tolerance and enlightenment of some of Scott’s heroes, when contrasted with the more animated impulses and ruder fanaticism of the other personages in his story. That he is, on the one hand, the passive receptacle of Divine guidance, and, on the other, the impersonation of a modern ideal of humanity, playing a part in a rude and turbulent time, are the two main causes of the tame and colourless character of the protagonist of the Aeneid. And as loyalty to a leader is the sole form of political, as distinct from patriotic virtue which Virgil acknowledges, the other Trojan chiefs—the faithful Achates, the speaker Idomeneus, the more martial figures of Mnestheus and Serestus—do little more than play the part of theἄγγελοςor of theκωφὰ πρόσωπαin a Greek tragedy. The interest awakened by Anchises arises solely from the halo of sacred associations investing him. Iulus, as the eponymous ancestor of the Iulii, seems to be a favourite of the author; yet he fails to interest us as a youth of high spirit and promise. Telemachus we know and sympathise with in his rising rebellion against the insolence of the suitors—νῦν δ’ ὅτε δὴ μέγας εἰμί, καὶ ἄλλων μῦθον ἀκούωνπυνθάνομαι, καὶ δή μοι ἀέξεται ἔνδοθι θυμός645,[pg 400]in his longing for the return of his father to redress his wrongs, in his kindly hospitality, and sense of the outraged honour of his house—νεμεσσήθη δ’ ἐνὶ θυμῷξεῖνον δηθὰ θύρῃσιν ἐφεστάμεν646.That Iulus fails to awaken a similar interest, that we do not share his ardour in the chase or the glow of pride with which he lays his first enemy low, is due to the fact that the poet’s imagination fails in the vital realisation of his conception.Most of the minor characters who appear in the Aeneid require no analysis. Creusa, Anna, and Andromache are vague impersonations of womanly tenderness and fidelity of affection. Lavinia, the shadowy Helen of the story, appears only for a moment, and though she is described by images suggestive of beauty and of a delicate nurture—mixta rubent ubi lilia multaAlba rosa647,we are left without the knowledge by which to measure the extent of the wrong done to her and Turnus by the enforced severance of their affections. Amata exhibits the blind animal rage of a mother whose affections have been outraged, but her figure wants the firm outlines and substance of the Hecuba of the Iliad. The prophetic office of Helenus enables him to advance the action of the story by preparing the mind of Aeneas for his immediate future: the jealous interference of Iarbas accelerates the doom of Dido: Acestes performs the part of a kindly host to the Trojans in Sicily. But of any individual traits of character they exhibit no trace whatever. Drances serves as a vehicle of impassioned oratory, and as a kind of foil to the generous impulsiveness of Turnus—just as the timid craft of Arruns is a foil to the splendid rashness of Camilla;—and perhaps he is not much less real to our imaginations than Polydamus, who is the only personage of the Iliad that we think of rather as the embodiment of an abstract[pg 401]quality,—moderation,—than as a living man. But in the delineation of Drances there is no sign of that power which, by a few graphic strokes of description and the force of dramatic insight, has made Thersites stand forth for all times as the type of an envious and ignoble demagogue. Though there is more effort of thought in the delineation of Latinus as swayed to and fro by his religious sense of duty and the influence of others, and though there is true pathos in the words with which he allows the declaration of war to be made—Nam mihi parta quies, omnisque in limine portus:Funere felici spolior648;—yet he does not live before us as Priam lives in the scene with Helen on the walls of the town, and he has no power to move our hearts with the awful compassion which the grief of Priam awakens in the last books of the Iliad. Perhaps the most impressive of the secondary personages in the Aeneid is Evander, as he appears in the dignity of his simple state in the eighth Book, and in the dignity of his great sorrow in the eleventh. Pallas and Lausus, Nisus and Euryalus, afford occasions for pathetic situations, rather than perform any part affording scope for the display of character. The romantic career of Camilla interests us; and she has the further attraction to modern readers of reminding them of a martial heroine of actual history: but we scarcely recognise in the vivid delineation of her deeds those complex elements which in their union form a whole character for our imaginations, whether in the representations of literature or in our experience of life.The chief personal interest of the story is centred in those whose fortunes and action bring them into antagonism with the decrees of Fate, and who perish in consequence,—in Turnus, Mezentius, and Dido. Patriotism, courage, and passion are exhibited in a fatal but not ignoble struggle with the purposes and chosen instruments of Omnipotence. The tragic interest of this antagonism stimulates the imagination of the poet to a[pg 402]more energetic delineation of character. And in the representation of this struggle it is quite true, as has been well shown by Mr. Nettleship, that Virgil’s own sympathies go with the ‘victrix causa’ which ‘pleased the gods,’ not with the ‘victa’ which pleases our modern sensibilities. He professes not to question but‘To justify the ways of God to men.’The death of Mezentius satisfies poetical as well as political justice. Turnus brings his doom upon himself by the intemperate vehemence and self-confidence with which he asserts his personal claims. Though Aeneas and Dido are both represented as ‘forgetful of their better name,’ yet, as happens in real life more generally than in fiction, it is the woman only who suffers the penalty of this forgetfulness. Yet though in all these cases the doom of the sufferers is brought about in part through their own fault, Virgil does not, as an inferior artist might do, endeavour to augment the sympathy with his chief personage, by an unworthy detraction from his antagonist. No scorn of treachery or cowardice, no indignation against cruelty, mingles with the feeling of admiration which the general bearing of Turnus excites. The basis of his character seems to be a generous vehemence and proud independence of spirit. If Aeneas typifies the civilising mission of Rome and is to be regarded as an embodiment of the qualities which enabled her to give law to the world, Turnus typifies the brave but not internecine resistance offered to her by the other races of Italy, and is an embodiment of their high and martial spirit—of that ‘Itala virtus’ which, when tempered by Roman discipline, gave Rome the strength to fulfil her mission. The cause which moves Turnus to resist the Trojans is no unworthy one, either on patriotic grounds or on grounds personal to himself. If the Greeks were justified in making war against the Trojans on account of Helen, the Italians may be justified in making war against the same people on account of Lavinia. His appeals to his countrymen are addressed to the most elemental of patriotic impulses—[pg 403]nunc coniugis estoQuisque suae tectique memor: nunc magna refertoFacta, patrum laudes649.He slays his enemy in fair battle, and though he shows exultation in his victory, yet he does not sully it by any ferocity of act or demeanour—qualem meruit Pallanta remitto,Quisquis honos tumuli, quidquid solamen humandi estLargior650.After his hopes of success are shaken by the first defeat of the Latins, and by the failure of the mission to Diomede, and when the timidity of Latinus and the envy of Drances urge the abandonment of the struggle, he still retains a proud confidence in his Italian allies—Non erit auxilio nobis Aetolos et Arpi,At Messapus erit, felixque Tolumnius651, etc.He is ready, like an earlier Decius, to devote his life in single combat against the new Achilles, armed with the armour of Vulcan—vobis animam hanc soceroque LatinoTurnus ego, haut ulli veterum virtute secundus,Devovi: ‘Solum Aeneas vocat.’ Et vocet oro:Nec Drances potius, sive est haec ira deorum,Morte luat, sive est virtus et gloria, tollat652.He sees ‘the inspiring hopes of triumph disappear, but the austerer glory of suffering remains, and with a firm heart he accepts that gift of a severe fate653’—[pg 404]Usque adeone mori miserum est? Vos o mihi ManesEste boni, quoniam Superis aversa voluntas:Sancta ad vos anima atque istius inscia culpaeDescendam, magnorum haut unquam indignus avorum654.In the final encounter he yields, not to the terror inspired by his earthly antagonist, but to his consciousness of the hostility of Heaven—di me terrent et Iuppiter hostis655.His last wish is that the old age of his father, Daunus, should not be deprived of the consolation of his funeral honours. Although the headlong vehemence of his own nature, no less than his opposition to the beneficent purposes of Omnipotence, seems to justify his fate, yet, as in the Ajax of Sophocles, theαὐθαδίαin Turnus is rather the flaw in an essentially heroic temper, than his dominant characteristic. The poet’s sympathy with the high spirit of youth, as manifested in love and war, and his pride in the strong metal out of which the Italian race was made, have led him, perhaps involuntarily, to an embodiment of those chivalrous qualities, which affect the modern imagination with more powerful sympathy than the qualities of a temperate will and obedience to duty which he has striven to embody in the representation of Aeneas.The vigorous sketch of Mezentius, as he appears in Book x., has received from some critics more admiration than the sustained delineation of Turnus through all the vicissitudes of feeling and fortune through which he passes. Chateaubriand says, that this figure is the only one in the Aeneid that is ‘fièrement dessinée.’ Landor describes him as ‘the hero transcendently above all others in the Aeneid.’ And there is certainly a vague grandeur of outline in this conception of the ‘contemptor divom’ and oppressor of his people, who is ‘not only the most passionate in his grief for Lausus, but likewise[pg 405]gives way to manly sorrow for the mute companion of his warfare,’ indicative of a bolder invention than that which is usually ascribed to Virgil. It is remarkable that poets whose spirit is most purely religious,—both in the strength of conviction and the limitation of sympathy produced by the religious spirit—Aeschylus, Virgil, and Milton—seem to be moved to their most energetic creativeness by the idea of antagonism to the supreme will on the part of a human, or superhuman but limited will: and that they cannot help raising in their readers a glow of admiration as well as a sense of awe in their embodiment of this clash between finite and infinite power. The sketch of Mezentius cannot indeed be compared with two of the most daring conceptions and perfected creations of human genius,—the Prometheus of Aeschylus and the Satan of Milton,—yet, if it does not enlist our ethical sympathies like the former of these, like the second it receives the tribute of that involuntary admiration, which is given to courage, even when allied with moral evil, so long as it is not absolutely divorced from the capability of sympathetic and elevated emotion.In the part which Dido plays in the poem, Virgil finds a source of interest in which he had not been anticipated by Homer. And although the passion of love, unreturned or betrayed, had supplied a motive to the later Greek tragedy and to the Alexandrine epic, it was still not impossible for a new poet to represent this phase of modern life with more power and pathos than any of his predecessors. It was comparatively easy to produce a more noble and vital impersonation than the Medea of Apollonius. But the Dido of Virgil may compare favourably with the creations of greater masters,—with the Deianeira of Sophocles, with the Phaedra and the Medea of Euripides. And Virgil’s conception is at once more impassioned than that of Sophocles, and nobler and more womanly than those of Euripides. Her character, as it is represented before the disturbing influence of this new passion produced by supernatural artifice, is that of a brave[pg 406]and loyal, a great and queenly, a pure, trusting, and compassionate nature. The most tragic element in the development of her love for Aeneas is the struggle which it involves with her high-strung sense of fidelity to the dead—Ille meos primus qui me sibi iunxit amoresAbstulit: ille habeat secum servetque sepulchro656.The first feeling awakened in her mind by Aeneas is compassion for his sufferings, and the desire to make the Trojans sharers in the fortune which had attended her own enterprise. When by the unsuspected agency of the two goddesses she has been possessed by the fatal passion, it is to no ignoble influence that she succumbs. It is the greatness and renown of one whom she recognises as of the race of the gods, which exercise a spell over her imagination—Multa viri virtus animo, multusque recursatGentis honos; haerent infixi pectore voltusVerbaque, nec placidam membris dat cura quietem657.No weakness, no unwomanly ferocity mingles with the reproaches which she utters on first awakening to the betrayal of her trust. A feeling of magnanimous scorn makes her rise in rebellion against the plea that her desertion was the result of divine interposition—Scilicet is Superis labor est! ea cura quietosSollicitat658;and a lofty pathos animates her trust in a righteous retribution, the knowledge of which will comfort her among the dead—Spero equidem mediis, si quid pia numina possunt,Supplicia hausurum scopulis et nomine DidoSaepe vocaturum. Sequar atris ignibus absens,Et, cum frigida mors anima seduxerit artus,[pg 407]Omnibus umbra locis adero:—dabis, improbe, poenas:Audiam, et haec Manes veniet mihi fama sub imos659.The awe inspired by supernatural portents, by restless visions in the night, by the memory of ancient prophecies, by the voice of her former husband summoning her from the chapel consecrated to his Manes, confirms her in her resolution to die. Her passion goes on deepening in alternations of indignation and recurring tenderness. It reaches its sublimest elevation in the prayer for vengeance, answered long afterwards in the alarm and desolation inflicted upon Italy by the greatest of the sons of Carthage—Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor,Qui face Dardanios ferroque sequare colonos,Nunc, olim, quocunque dabunt se tempore vires660.In her last moments she finds consolation in the great memories of her life—Urbem praeclaram statui: mea moenia vidi:Ulta virum, poenas inimico a fratre recepi:Felix, heu! nimium felix, si litora tantumNunquam Dardaniae tetigissent nostra carinae661.Her latest prayer is that, even though no outward retribution overtake her betrayer, yet the bitterness of his own heart may be her avenger—moriemur inultae,Sed moriamur, ait: sic, sic iuvat ire sub umbras.Hauriat hunc oculis ignem crudelis ab altoDardanus, et secum nostrae ferat omina mortis662.[pg 408]Once more she appears among the Shades, and maintains her lofty bearing there as in the world above. No sympathy with his hero makes the poet here forget what was due to her. She listens in scornful silence to the tearful protestations of her ‘false friend663,’ and passes on without any sign of forgiveness or reconciliation—Tandem corripuit sese atque inimica refugitIn nemus umbriferum, coniunx ubi pristinus illiRespondet curis aequatque Sychaeus amorem664.

The most important element in the Aeneid, regarded as a poem of heroic action, remains still to be considered, viz. the conception and delineation of individual character. The greatest of epic poets in ancient times was also endowed with the most versatile dramatic faculty. And this faculty was displayed not only in the conception of a great variety of noble types of character, but also in the modes in which these conceptions were embodied. The Greek language is greatly superior to the Latin in its adaptability to natural dialogue. In this respect Cicero’s inferiority to Plato is as marked as Virgil’s inferiority to Homer. The language of Homer and the language of Plato are equally fitted for the expression of the greatest thoughts and feelings, and for the common intercourse of men with one another. Neither that of Virgil nor of Cicero adapts itself easily to the lively play of emotion or to the rapid interchange of thought. The characters of Homer, like the characters of Shakspeare, reveal themselves in their complete individuality, as they act and re-act on one another in many changing moods of passion and affection. The personages of Virgil are revealed by the poet, partly in his account of what they do, and partly through the medium of set speeches expressive of some particular attitude of mind. Virgil’s imagination is the imagination of the orator rather than of the dramatist. It is not a complete and complex man, liable to various moods, and standing in various relations to other men, but it is some powerful movement of theθυμόςin man, that the oratorical imagination is best fitted to express. Milton also, like Virgil, reveals the characters of his personages with the imaginative power of an orator rather than with that of a dramatist. But he possesses another resource in the analytical power with which he makes his chief personage reveal his inmost nature and most secret motives in truthful communing with himself. It is through the soliloquies in the ‘Paradise Lost’ that we can best realise the whole conception of Satan, in his ruined mag[pg 396]nificence, and in his lost but not forgotten capacity of happiness and nobleness. The soliloquies of these personages perform for the epic poet the part performed by the elaborate introspection and discussion of motives in modern prose fiction. Homer also avails himself frequently of the soliloquy, as he does of natural dialogue and more formal oratory. In the Aeneid the chief personage is often introduced, like the heroes of the Iliad and Odyssey,

‘This way and that dividing the swift mind;’

but the process generally ends in the adoption, without any weighing of conflicting duties or probabilities, of the obvious course indicated by some supernatural sign. The soliloquies of Dido are to be regarded rather as passionate outbursts of prayer to some unknown avenging power than as communings with her own heart. The single soliloquy, if it may be called such, which brings the speaker nearer to us in knowledge and sympathy, is the proud and stately address in which Mezentius seems to make the horse, which had borne him victorious through every former war, a partaker of his sorrow and his forebodings—

Rhaebe, diu, res si qua diu mortalibus ulla est,Viximus636, etc.

Rhaebe, diu, res si qua diu mortalibus ulla est,

Viximus636, etc.

But not only are the media through which Virgil brings his personages before us less varied and flexible than those of Homer, but the characters themselves are more tamely conceived, and less capable of awakening human interest. And this is especially true of the character of Aeneas as contrasted with those of Achilles and of Odysseus. The general conception of Aeneas is indeed in keeping with the religious idea of the Aeneid. He is intended to be an embodiment of the courage of an ancient hero, the justice of a paternal ruler, the mild humanity of a cultivated man living in an age of advanced civilisation, the saintliness of the founder of a new[pg 397]religion of peace and pure observance, the affection for parent and child, which was one of the strongest instincts in the Italian race. A life-like impersonation of such an ideal would have commanded the reverence of all future times. Yet at no time has the character of Aeneas excited any strong human interest. No later poet or moralist set it up, as Horace sets up the characters of Achilles and of Ulysses, as a subject of ethical contemplation. Ovid in the deepest gloom of his exile retains enough of his old levity to jest at his single lapse from saintly perfection—

Et tamen ille tuae felix Aeneidos auctorContulit in Tyrios arma virumque toros637.

Et tamen ille tuae felix Aeneidos auctor

Contulit in Tyrios arma virumque toros637.

As compared with the hero of the Odyssey, Aeneas is altogether wanting in energy, spontaneity, intellectual resource, and insight. The single quality in which he is strong is endurance. The principle which enables him to fulfil his mission is expressed in the line—

Quidquid erit, superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est638.

His courage in battle springs from his confidence in his destiny—

Tum socios maestique metum solatur IuliFata docens639.

Tum socios maestique metum solatur Iuli

Fata docens639.

One of the few touches of nature which redeem his character from tameness is the momentary feeling of the rage of battle roused by the resistance of Lausus—

saevae iamque altius iraeDardanio surgunt ductori640.

saevae iamque altius irae

Dardanio surgunt ductori640.

The occasion in which he seems most worthy of his place as a leader of men is after the death of Mezentius, where the self-restraint of his address contrasts favourably with the intemperate ardour expressed in some of the speeches of Turnus—

Maxima res effecta, viri: timor omnis abesto641.

He appears as a passive recipient both of the devotion and of the reproaches of Dido. He undergoes no passionate struggle in resigning her. The courtesy and kindliness of his nature elicit no warmer expression of regret than the words—

nec me meminisse pigebit Elissae,Dum memor ipse mei, dum spiritus hos regit artus642.

nec me meminisse pigebit Elissae,

Dum memor ipse mei, dum spiritus hos regit artus642.

The only exercise of thought required of him is the right interpretation of an omen, or the recollection of some dubious prediction at some critical moment. Even the strength of affection which he feels and which he awakens in the hearts of his father and son does not move us in the way in which we are touched by the feelings which unite Odysseus to Penelope and Telemachus, to Laertes and the mother who meets him in the shades, and tells him that she had ‘died neither by the painless arrows of Artemis nor by wasting disease’—

ἀλλά με σός τε πόθος σά τε μήδεα, φαίδιμ’ Ὀδυσσεῦ,σή τ’ ἀγανοφροσύνη μελιηδέα θυμὸν ἀπηύρα643.

ἀλλά με σός τε πόθος σά τε μήδεα, φαίδιμ’ Ὀδυσσεῦ,

σή τ’ ἀγανοφροσύνη μελιηδέα θυμὸν ἀπηύρα643.

The failure of Aeneas to excite a lively personal interest is not to be attributed solely to a failure of power in the poet’s imagination. In the part he plays he is conceived of as one chosen by the supreme purpose of the gods, as an instrument of their will, and thus necessarily unmoved by ordinary human[pg 399]impulses. In the words of M. de Coulanges, ‘Sa vertu doit être une froide et haute impersonnalité, qui fasse de lui, non un homme, mais un instrument des dieux644.’ The strength required in such an instrument is the strength of faith, submission, patience, and endurance; and it is with this strength that Aeneas encounters the many dangers and vicissitudes to which he is exposed, and withdraws from the allurements of ease and pleasure. The very virtues of his character act as a check rather than as a stimulus to those natural impulses out of which the most living impersonations are formed. To compare great things in art with what are not so great, the impression produced by the superiority of Aeneas to ordinary passion is like the impression produced by the superior tolerance and enlightenment of some of Scott’s heroes, when contrasted with the more animated impulses and ruder fanaticism of the other personages in his story. That he is, on the one hand, the passive receptacle of Divine guidance, and, on the other, the impersonation of a modern ideal of humanity, playing a part in a rude and turbulent time, are the two main causes of the tame and colourless character of the protagonist of the Aeneid. And as loyalty to a leader is the sole form of political, as distinct from patriotic virtue which Virgil acknowledges, the other Trojan chiefs—the faithful Achates, the speaker Idomeneus, the more martial figures of Mnestheus and Serestus—do little more than play the part of theἄγγελοςor of theκωφὰ πρόσωπαin a Greek tragedy. The interest awakened by Anchises arises solely from the halo of sacred associations investing him. Iulus, as the eponymous ancestor of the Iulii, seems to be a favourite of the author; yet he fails to interest us as a youth of high spirit and promise. Telemachus we know and sympathise with in his rising rebellion against the insolence of the suitors—

νῦν δ’ ὅτε δὴ μέγας εἰμί, καὶ ἄλλων μῦθον ἀκούωνπυνθάνομαι, καὶ δή μοι ἀέξεται ἔνδοθι θυμός645,

νῦν δ’ ὅτε δὴ μέγας εἰμί, καὶ ἄλλων μῦθον ἀκούων

πυνθάνομαι, καὶ δή μοι ἀέξεται ἔνδοθι θυμός645,

in his longing for the return of his father to redress his wrongs, in his kindly hospitality, and sense of the outraged honour of his house—

νεμεσσήθη δ’ ἐνὶ θυμῷξεῖνον δηθὰ θύρῃσιν ἐφεστάμεν646.

νεμεσσήθη δ’ ἐνὶ θυμῷ

ξεῖνον δηθὰ θύρῃσιν ἐφεστάμεν646.

That Iulus fails to awaken a similar interest, that we do not share his ardour in the chase or the glow of pride with which he lays his first enemy low, is due to the fact that the poet’s imagination fails in the vital realisation of his conception.

Most of the minor characters who appear in the Aeneid require no analysis. Creusa, Anna, and Andromache are vague impersonations of womanly tenderness and fidelity of affection. Lavinia, the shadowy Helen of the story, appears only for a moment, and though she is described by images suggestive of beauty and of a delicate nurture—

mixta rubent ubi lilia multaAlba rosa647,

mixta rubent ubi lilia multa

Alba rosa647,

we are left without the knowledge by which to measure the extent of the wrong done to her and Turnus by the enforced severance of their affections. Amata exhibits the blind animal rage of a mother whose affections have been outraged, but her figure wants the firm outlines and substance of the Hecuba of the Iliad. The prophetic office of Helenus enables him to advance the action of the story by preparing the mind of Aeneas for his immediate future: the jealous interference of Iarbas accelerates the doom of Dido: Acestes performs the part of a kindly host to the Trojans in Sicily. But of any individual traits of character they exhibit no trace whatever. Drances serves as a vehicle of impassioned oratory, and as a kind of foil to the generous impulsiveness of Turnus—just as the timid craft of Arruns is a foil to the splendid rashness of Camilla;—and perhaps he is not much less real to our imaginations than Polydamus, who is the only personage of the Iliad that we think of rather as the embodiment of an abstract[pg 401]quality,—moderation,—than as a living man. But in the delineation of Drances there is no sign of that power which, by a few graphic strokes of description and the force of dramatic insight, has made Thersites stand forth for all times as the type of an envious and ignoble demagogue. Though there is more effort of thought in the delineation of Latinus as swayed to and fro by his religious sense of duty and the influence of others, and though there is true pathos in the words with which he allows the declaration of war to be made—

Nam mihi parta quies, omnisque in limine portus:Funere felici spolior648;—

Nam mihi parta quies, omnisque in limine portus:

Funere felici spolior648;—

yet he does not live before us as Priam lives in the scene with Helen on the walls of the town, and he has no power to move our hearts with the awful compassion which the grief of Priam awakens in the last books of the Iliad. Perhaps the most impressive of the secondary personages in the Aeneid is Evander, as he appears in the dignity of his simple state in the eighth Book, and in the dignity of his great sorrow in the eleventh. Pallas and Lausus, Nisus and Euryalus, afford occasions for pathetic situations, rather than perform any part affording scope for the display of character. The romantic career of Camilla interests us; and she has the further attraction to modern readers of reminding them of a martial heroine of actual history: but we scarcely recognise in the vivid delineation of her deeds those complex elements which in their union form a whole character for our imaginations, whether in the representations of literature or in our experience of life.

The chief personal interest of the story is centred in those whose fortunes and action bring them into antagonism with the decrees of Fate, and who perish in consequence,—in Turnus, Mezentius, and Dido. Patriotism, courage, and passion are exhibited in a fatal but not ignoble struggle with the purposes and chosen instruments of Omnipotence. The tragic interest of this antagonism stimulates the imagination of the poet to a[pg 402]more energetic delineation of character. And in the representation of this struggle it is quite true, as has been well shown by Mr. Nettleship, that Virgil’s own sympathies go with the ‘victrix causa’ which ‘pleased the gods,’ not with the ‘victa’ which pleases our modern sensibilities. He professes not to question but

‘To justify the ways of God to men.’

The death of Mezentius satisfies poetical as well as political justice. Turnus brings his doom upon himself by the intemperate vehemence and self-confidence with which he asserts his personal claims. Though Aeneas and Dido are both represented as ‘forgetful of their better name,’ yet, as happens in real life more generally than in fiction, it is the woman only who suffers the penalty of this forgetfulness. Yet though in all these cases the doom of the sufferers is brought about in part through their own fault, Virgil does not, as an inferior artist might do, endeavour to augment the sympathy with his chief personage, by an unworthy detraction from his antagonist. No scorn of treachery or cowardice, no indignation against cruelty, mingles with the feeling of admiration which the general bearing of Turnus excites. The basis of his character seems to be a generous vehemence and proud independence of spirit. If Aeneas typifies the civilising mission of Rome and is to be regarded as an embodiment of the qualities which enabled her to give law to the world, Turnus typifies the brave but not internecine resistance offered to her by the other races of Italy, and is an embodiment of their high and martial spirit—of that ‘Itala virtus’ which, when tempered by Roman discipline, gave Rome the strength to fulfil her mission. The cause which moves Turnus to resist the Trojans is no unworthy one, either on patriotic grounds or on grounds personal to himself. If the Greeks were justified in making war against the Trojans on account of Helen, the Italians may be justified in making war against the same people on account of Lavinia. His appeals to his countrymen are addressed to the most elemental of patriotic impulses—

nunc coniugis estoQuisque suae tectique memor: nunc magna refertoFacta, patrum laudes649.

nunc coniugis esto

Quisque suae tectique memor: nunc magna referto

Facta, patrum laudes649.

He slays his enemy in fair battle, and though he shows exultation in his victory, yet he does not sully it by any ferocity of act or demeanour—

qualem meruit Pallanta remitto,Quisquis honos tumuli, quidquid solamen humandi estLargior650.

qualem meruit Pallanta remitto,

Quisquis honos tumuli, quidquid solamen humandi est

Largior650.

After his hopes of success are shaken by the first defeat of the Latins, and by the failure of the mission to Diomede, and when the timidity of Latinus and the envy of Drances urge the abandonment of the struggle, he still retains a proud confidence in his Italian allies—

Non erit auxilio nobis Aetolos et Arpi,At Messapus erit, felixque Tolumnius651, etc.

Non erit auxilio nobis Aetolos et Arpi,

At Messapus erit, felixque Tolumnius651, etc.

He is ready, like an earlier Decius, to devote his life in single combat against the new Achilles, armed with the armour of Vulcan—

vobis animam hanc soceroque LatinoTurnus ego, haut ulli veterum virtute secundus,Devovi: ‘Solum Aeneas vocat.’ Et vocet oro:Nec Drances potius, sive est haec ira deorum,Morte luat, sive est virtus et gloria, tollat652.

vobis animam hanc soceroque Latino

Turnus ego, haut ulli veterum virtute secundus,

Devovi: ‘Solum Aeneas vocat.’ Et vocet oro:

Nec Drances potius, sive est haec ira deorum,

Morte luat, sive est virtus et gloria, tollat652.

He sees ‘the inspiring hopes of triumph disappear, but the austerer glory of suffering remains, and with a firm heart he accepts that gift of a severe fate653’—

Usque adeone mori miserum est? Vos o mihi ManesEste boni, quoniam Superis aversa voluntas:Sancta ad vos anima atque istius inscia culpaeDescendam, magnorum haut unquam indignus avorum654.

Usque adeone mori miserum est? Vos o mihi Manes

Este boni, quoniam Superis aversa voluntas:

Sancta ad vos anima atque istius inscia culpae

Descendam, magnorum haut unquam indignus avorum654.

In the final encounter he yields, not to the terror inspired by his earthly antagonist, but to his consciousness of the hostility of Heaven—

di me terrent et Iuppiter hostis655.

His last wish is that the old age of his father, Daunus, should not be deprived of the consolation of his funeral honours. Although the headlong vehemence of his own nature, no less than his opposition to the beneficent purposes of Omnipotence, seems to justify his fate, yet, as in the Ajax of Sophocles, theαὐθαδίαin Turnus is rather the flaw in an essentially heroic temper, than his dominant characteristic. The poet’s sympathy with the high spirit of youth, as manifested in love and war, and his pride in the strong metal out of which the Italian race was made, have led him, perhaps involuntarily, to an embodiment of those chivalrous qualities, which affect the modern imagination with more powerful sympathy than the qualities of a temperate will and obedience to duty which he has striven to embody in the representation of Aeneas.

The vigorous sketch of Mezentius, as he appears in Book x., has received from some critics more admiration than the sustained delineation of Turnus through all the vicissitudes of feeling and fortune through which he passes. Chateaubriand says, that this figure is the only one in the Aeneid that is ‘fièrement dessinée.’ Landor describes him as ‘the hero transcendently above all others in the Aeneid.’ And there is certainly a vague grandeur of outline in this conception of the ‘contemptor divom’ and oppressor of his people, who is ‘not only the most passionate in his grief for Lausus, but likewise[pg 405]gives way to manly sorrow for the mute companion of his warfare,’ indicative of a bolder invention than that which is usually ascribed to Virgil. It is remarkable that poets whose spirit is most purely religious,—both in the strength of conviction and the limitation of sympathy produced by the religious spirit—Aeschylus, Virgil, and Milton—seem to be moved to their most energetic creativeness by the idea of antagonism to the supreme will on the part of a human, or superhuman but limited will: and that they cannot help raising in their readers a glow of admiration as well as a sense of awe in their embodiment of this clash between finite and infinite power. The sketch of Mezentius cannot indeed be compared with two of the most daring conceptions and perfected creations of human genius,—the Prometheus of Aeschylus and the Satan of Milton,—yet, if it does not enlist our ethical sympathies like the former of these, like the second it receives the tribute of that involuntary admiration, which is given to courage, even when allied with moral evil, so long as it is not absolutely divorced from the capability of sympathetic and elevated emotion.

In the part which Dido plays in the poem, Virgil finds a source of interest in which he had not been anticipated by Homer. And although the passion of love, unreturned or betrayed, had supplied a motive to the later Greek tragedy and to the Alexandrine epic, it was still not impossible for a new poet to represent this phase of modern life with more power and pathos than any of his predecessors. It was comparatively easy to produce a more noble and vital impersonation than the Medea of Apollonius. But the Dido of Virgil may compare favourably with the creations of greater masters,—with the Deianeira of Sophocles, with the Phaedra and the Medea of Euripides. And Virgil’s conception is at once more impassioned than that of Sophocles, and nobler and more womanly than those of Euripides. Her character, as it is represented before the disturbing influence of this new passion produced by supernatural artifice, is that of a brave[pg 406]and loyal, a great and queenly, a pure, trusting, and compassionate nature. The most tragic element in the development of her love for Aeneas is the struggle which it involves with her high-strung sense of fidelity to the dead—

Ille meos primus qui me sibi iunxit amoresAbstulit: ille habeat secum servetque sepulchro656.

Ille meos primus qui me sibi iunxit amores

Abstulit: ille habeat secum servetque sepulchro656.

The first feeling awakened in her mind by Aeneas is compassion for his sufferings, and the desire to make the Trojans sharers in the fortune which had attended her own enterprise. When by the unsuspected agency of the two goddesses she has been possessed by the fatal passion, it is to no ignoble influence that she succumbs. It is the greatness and renown of one whom she recognises as of the race of the gods, which exercise a spell over her imagination—

Multa viri virtus animo, multusque recursatGentis honos; haerent infixi pectore voltusVerbaque, nec placidam membris dat cura quietem657.

Multa viri virtus animo, multusque recursat

Gentis honos; haerent infixi pectore voltus

Verbaque, nec placidam membris dat cura quietem657.

No weakness, no unwomanly ferocity mingles with the reproaches which she utters on first awakening to the betrayal of her trust. A feeling of magnanimous scorn makes her rise in rebellion against the plea that her desertion was the result of divine interposition—

Scilicet is Superis labor est! ea cura quietosSollicitat658;

Scilicet is Superis labor est! ea cura quietos

Sollicitat658;

and a lofty pathos animates her trust in a righteous retribution, the knowledge of which will comfort her among the dead—

Spero equidem mediis, si quid pia numina possunt,Supplicia hausurum scopulis et nomine DidoSaepe vocaturum. Sequar atris ignibus absens,Et, cum frigida mors anima seduxerit artus,[pg 407]Omnibus umbra locis adero:—dabis, improbe, poenas:Audiam, et haec Manes veniet mihi fama sub imos659.

Spero equidem mediis, si quid pia numina possunt,

Supplicia hausurum scopulis et nomine Dido

Saepe vocaturum. Sequar atris ignibus absens,

Et, cum frigida mors anima seduxerit artus,

Omnibus umbra locis adero:—dabis, improbe, poenas:

Audiam, et haec Manes veniet mihi fama sub imos659.

The awe inspired by supernatural portents, by restless visions in the night, by the memory of ancient prophecies, by the voice of her former husband summoning her from the chapel consecrated to his Manes, confirms her in her resolution to die. Her passion goes on deepening in alternations of indignation and recurring tenderness. It reaches its sublimest elevation in the prayer for vengeance, answered long afterwards in the alarm and desolation inflicted upon Italy by the greatest of the sons of Carthage—

Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor,Qui face Dardanios ferroque sequare colonos,Nunc, olim, quocunque dabunt se tempore vires660.

Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor,

Qui face Dardanios ferroque sequare colonos,

Nunc, olim, quocunque dabunt se tempore vires660.

In her last moments she finds consolation in the great memories of her life—

Urbem praeclaram statui: mea moenia vidi:Ulta virum, poenas inimico a fratre recepi:Felix, heu! nimium felix, si litora tantumNunquam Dardaniae tetigissent nostra carinae661.

Urbem praeclaram statui: mea moenia vidi:

Ulta virum, poenas inimico a fratre recepi:

Felix, heu! nimium felix, si litora tantum

Nunquam Dardaniae tetigissent nostra carinae661.

Her latest prayer is that, even though no outward retribution overtake her betrayer, yet the bitterness of his own heart may be her avenger—

moriemur inultae,Sed moriamur, ait: sic, sic iuvat ire sub umbras.Hauriat hunc oculis ignem crudelis ab altoDardanus, et secum nostrae ferat omina mortis662.

moriemur inultae,

Sed moriamur, ait: sic, sic iuvat ire sub umbras.

Hauriat hunc oculis ignem crudelis ab alto

Dardanus, et secum nostrae ferat omina mortis662.

Once more she appears among the Shades, and maintains her lofty bearing there as in the world above. No sympathy with his hero makes the poet here forget what was due to her. She listens in scornful silence to the tearful protestations of her ‘false friend663,’ and passes on without any sign of forgiveness or reconciliation—

Tandem corripuit sese atque inimica refugitIn nemus umbriferum, coniunx ubi pristinus illiRespondet curis aequatque Sychaeus amorem664.

Tandem corripuit sese atque inimica refugit

In nemus umbriferum, coniunx ubi pristinus illi

Respondet curis aequatque Sychaeus amorem664.

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