V.

V.The finest poetry in the didactic poems of Lucretius and of Virgil and the thoughts which give the highest interest to their respective poems are contained in passages of considerable length, rising out of the general level or undulations of the poem into elevations which at first sight seem isolated and unconnected with one another. It may be doubted whether even the power of thought and style in Lucretius could have secured immortality to a mere systematic exposition of the Atomic philosophy; nor could the mere didactic exposition of the precepts of agriculture, though varied by all the art and resources of Virgil, have gained for the Georgics the unique place that poem holds in literature. It is in their episodes that each poet brings out the moral grandeur, and thereby justifies the choice of his subject. In Lucretius, these passages are introduced sometimes in the ordinary march of his argument, more often at the beginning or completion of some important division of it, and are intended both to add poetical charm to the subject and to show man’s true relation to the Universe, and the attitude of mind which that relation demands of him. The object of Virgil in some of his minor and in one or two of his larger episodes may be merely to relieve the dryness of exposition by some descriptive or reflective charm. But even these passages will in general be found to draw attention to the religious, ethical, or national bearing of his subject.Some of these passages have been suggested by parallel passages either in Hesiod or Lucretius. The largest of all the episodes, that with which the poem concludes, has, for reasons already considered, only a slight and external relation to the[pg 245]great ideas and interests with which the poem deals. But the three most important passages, those of most original invention and profound feeling, viz. those at Book I. 466 to the end of the Book, Book II. 136 to 177, and also from line 458 to the end, serve like those great cardinal passages in the Aeneid, in which the action is projected from a remote legendary past into the actual present, to bring into light the true central interest of the poem,—the bearing of the whole subject on the greatness and well-being of the Italian race.Any of the passages which are not needed for the special practical purpose of the poem may be regarded as episodical, such, for instance, as that thoroughly Lucretian passage in Book I. in which the feelings of rooks are explained on purely physical principles, or that passage of Book IV. inspired by the teaching of an opposite school, in which the theory of a divine principle pervading the world—the same theory as that accepted as his own by Virgil in Aeneid VI.—is enunciated as a probable explanation of the higher instinct of the bees. And it is characteristic of the eclecticism of Virgil’s mode of thought, and also of the lingering regret with which he regards the evanescent fancies of the old mythology, that he not only combines these tenets of the most materialistic and most spiritualistic philosophies in the same poem, but that the philosophic or theosophic solution of Book IV. 219, etc. comes shortly after a passage in which the same phenomenon is accounted for on the ground of the service rendered by bees in feeding the infant Jove in the cavern of Mount Dicte. Another passage of a scientific rather than a philosophic character is that at Book I. 233, etc., in which the five zones girding the heaven and the earth are described in language closely translated from Eratosthenes. Besides the scientific interest which this passage must have had to the poet’s contemporaries, it serves to draw forth Virgil’s antagonism to the religious unbelief of Lucretius, in the expressionMunere concessae divom,and also to imply his dissent from the emphatic denial which[pg 246]Lucretius gives, at Book I. 1065, to the Stoical belief in the existence of the Antipodes:—Illi cum videant solem, nos sidera noctisCernere, et alternis nobiscum tempora caeliDividere, et noctes parilis agitare diebus366.Another passage of a semi-philosophical character is that at Book III. 242–283, in which the Lucretian idea of the all-pervading influence of the physical emotion of love over all living things in sea, earth, and air,—an idea in which Lucretius was anticipated by Euripides367and by other earlier Greek poets,—appears in combination with the purely mythological conception of the direct personal agency of Venus, and with the legend of ‘the mares of Glaucus of Potniae.’More important than these, as illustrative of the main ideas and feelings of the poem, but still subsidiary to the greater episodes, are the following: Book I. 121–159, Book II. 323–345; and in the same class may be included III. 339–383, and IV. 125–148. The first of these, ‘Pater ipse colendi,’ etc., is immediately suggested by Hesiod’s account of the Golden Age; but the greater part of it, the account of the progress of the various arts of life, is simply a summary of the long account of human progress at the end of the fifth Book of Lucretius. The idea of the purpose with which Providence has imposed labour on man is Virgil’s own; and this thought contributes much of its ethical meaning to the poem. The passage ‘Ver adeo frondi nemorum,’ etc., in which all the glory of Nature as she unfolds herself in the exuberant life of an Italian spring is described in lines of surpassing beauty and tenderness, is thoroughly Lucretian in feeling, idea, and expression. The charm of climate, of vegetation, and of life is in complete harmony with the specially Italian character of[pg 247]the second Book. The digression at Book III. 339, ‘Quid tibi pastores Libyae,’ containing the elaborate picture of a Scythian winter, suggested by the winter scene in Hesiod, also serves through the effect of contrast to heighten the charm of the fresh pastoral life of Italy described in the lines immediately preceding.The actual description of winter has been criticised unfavourably, and not altogether without justice, by one of the most independent and at the same time most scholarly of English critics368, who compares it with a corresponding passage in Thomson. It is inferior in simplicity and direct force of representation to the corresponding picture in Hesiod. Virgil’s imagination seems to require that even where the objects or scenes he describes are taken from books, they should be such that he could verify them in his own experience. It is this apparent verification, where the subject is not originally suggested by his own observation, that imparts the marvellous truthfulness to his art. Such lines as those—Aeraque dissiliunt volgo—toStiriaque impexis induruit horrida barbis—369convey a less real impression of winter than the single line—an idealised generalisation from many actual winters—which ends the description of the various occupations and field-sports which an Italian winter offers to the husbandman:—Cum nix alta iacet, glaciem cum flumina trudunt370.Perhaps none of the minor episodes recurs to the mind so often with so keen a feeling of delight as the passage at IV. 125 to 148, beginning ‘Namque sub Oebaliae,’ etc. Virgil here introduces himself in his own person, and draws a picture[pg 248]of one whom he had known, and who had interested him as actually realising that life of labour and of happiness in the results of his labour, which in the body of the poem is held up as an abstract ideal. The scene of this vivid reminiscence,—the districtQua niger umectat flaventia culta Galaesus371,—seems to have had peculiar attraction both for Virgil and Horace. It is there—umbrosi subter pineta Galaesi—that Propertius pictures to himself Virgil meditating his Aeneid and still conning over his earlier Eclogues—Thyrsin et attritis Daphnin harundinibus.It is to ‘that nook of earth’ that Horace looks, if the unkind Fates forbid his residence at his favourite Tibur, for a resting-place for his ‘age to wear away in.’ But it is not only to the local charm that attention is drawn, and to the beauty of plant, flower, and fruit, created by the labour of love which the old Cilician gardener—some survivor probably from the Eastern wars of Pompey—bestowed on his neglected spot of ground. Here also the true moral of the poem is pointed, that in the life of rural industry there is a deep source of happiness altogether independent of wealth, and which wealth cannot buy:—Regum aequabat opes animis, seraque revertensNocte domum dapibus mensas onerabat inemptis372.A more prominent place is assumed by the two episodes with which the third and fourth Books close. In the first of these, which extends from line 478 to 566, and which describes a great outbreak of cattle-plague among the Noric Alps and the district round the Timavus,—a locality which seems to have had a special attraction to Virgil’s imagination373,—he aims at painting a rival picture to that of the plague at Athens[pg 249]with which the poem of Lucretius ends. It would be unfair to compare the unfinished piece of the older poet, overcrowded as it is with detail and technical phraseology, with an elaborate specimen of Virgil’s descriptive power, exercised on a kind of subject in which the speculative genius of the one poet gave him no advantage over the careful and truthful art of the other. Yet, as has been already pointed out374, there are here and there strokes of imaginative power in the larger sketch, and marks of insight into human nobleness, roughly indeed expressed, as at 1243–6—Qui fuerant autem praesto, contagibus ibantAtque labore, pudor quem tum cogebat obireBlandaque lassorum vox mixta voce querellae.Optimus hoc leti genus ergo quisque subibat375—in which the sincerity of the older master still asserts itself. There is great beauty however of pastoral scene, of pathos and human sympathy, of ethical contrast between the simple wants of the lower animals and the artificial luxury of human life, in Virgil’s description. In the lines 520–522 one of those scenes in which he most delighted is brought before the imagination:—Non umbrae altorum nemorum, non mollia possuntPrata movere animum, non qui per saxa volutusPurior electro campum petit amnis376.The last element in the picture suggests at once the ‘Saxosas inter decurrunt flumina valles’ of the Eclogues, and the lines earlier in the book—Saltibus in vacuis pascunt et plena secundumFlumina.And the whole feeling of the passage is in harmony with that in Lucretius, ii. 361:—[pg 250]Nec tenerae salices atque herbae rore vigentesFluminaque illa queunt summis labentia ripisOblectare animum, sumptamque avertere curam377.And in thorough harmony both with the pathos and the ethical feeling in Lucretius are the following:—it tristis arator,Maerentem abiungens fraterna morte iuvencum378:andQuid labor aut benefacta iuvant? quid vomere terrasInvertisse gravis? atqui non Massica BacchiMunera, non illis epulae nocuere repostae:Frondibus et victu pascuntur simplicis herbae,Pocula sunt fontes liquidi atque exercita cursuFlumina, nec somnos abrumpit cura salubris379.[pg 251]If the space assigned to the different episodes is to be regarded as the measure of their importance, the long episode at the end of the fourth Book, from line 315 to 558, would have to be regarded as of nearly equal value to all the others put together. And yet, notwithstanding the metrical beauty of the passage, it must be difficult for any one who is penetrated by the pervading sentiment of the Georgics to reach this point in the poem without a strong feeling of regret that the jealousy of Augustus had interfered with its original conclusion. As a Greek fable, composed after some Alexandrine model, mainly concerned with the fortunes of Orpheus and Eurydice,—for the shepherd Aristaeus, thecultor nemorum cui pinguia CeaeTer centum nivei tondent dumeta iuvenci380,really plays altogether a secondary part in the episode,—it has little to do with rural life, and nothing at all to do with Italy. Its professed object is to give a fabulous explanation of an impossible phenomenon, though one apparently accepted both by Mago and Democritus. To enrich this episode with a beauty not its own, Virgil has robbed his Aeneid—on the composition of which he must have been well advanced when he was called on, after the death of Gallus in 26B.C., to provide a substitute for the passage written in his honour—of some beautiful lines which are more in keeping with the larger representation and profounder feeling of the epic poem, than with the transient interest attaching to this recast of a well-known story. Even regarded simply as an epyllion or epic idyl, it may be questioned whether the Pastor Aristaeus is of an interest equal to that of the epic idyl of Catullus, ‘Peliaco quondam prognatae vertice pinus,’ etc. There is this coincidence between the poems, that they each contain one story or idyllic representation within another, and in each case it is to the secondary representation that the most pathetic and passionate interest belongs.[pg 252]Opinions may differ as to whether the passion of Ariadne or the sorrow of Orpheus is represented with most skill. There seems this difference between the two, that in the one we feel we are reading a fable, that the situation is altogether remote from experience, that it is one suited for a picture or a poem of fancy. The beautiful picture of Ariadne, on the other hand, appears like one drawn from the life, and her passionate complaint is like that of a living woman. But still more undoubted is the superiority of Catullus in pictorial or statuesque reproduction seen in that part of his poem in which the original subject, the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, is described. Catullus, above all other Latin poets, except perhaps Ovid, can bring a picture from human life or from outward nature before the inward eye; and this power is, much more than Virgil’s power of suggesting deep and delicate shades of feeling, appropriate to the more limited compass of the idyl. It is no disparagement to Virgil to say that in this kind of art he is inferior to Catullus. Catullus, though a true Italian in temperament, largely endowed with and freely using the biting raillery—‘Italum acetum’—which ancient writers ascribe to the race, had in his genius, more than any Roman writer, the disinterested delight in art, irrespective of any personal associations, characteristic of the Greek imagination. Virgil’s art, on the other hand, produces its deepest impressions only when his heart is moved. Even in the Eclogues this is for the most part true. Something must touch his personal sympathies, his moral or religious nature, or his national feeling, before he is roused to his highest creative effort.In the three cardinal passages which remain to be considered, in the composition of which the deeper elements of Virgil’s nature were powerfully moved, the impression which the changing state of the national fortunes produced upon him is vividly stamped. The first of these (i. 464 to the end) was written in the years of uncertainty and alarm preceding the outbreak of the last of the great Civil Wars. The unsettlement all over the Empire, from its eastern boundary to its[pg 253]furthest limits in Europe,—the agitation and impetuous sweep of the river before plunging into the abyss,—is described and symbolised in the concluding lines of the Book:—Hinc movet Euphrates, illinc Germania bellum;Vicinae ruptis inter se legibus urbesArma ferunt; saevit toto Mars impius orbe:Ut cum carceribus sese effudere quadrigae,Addunt in spatia, et frustra retinacula tendensFertur equis auriga, neque audit currus habenas381.This state of alarm is shown to be connected with the great national crime which Rome was still atoning,—the murder of Julius Caesar. The episode arises immediately out of the enumeration of the signs of the weather, which, from their importance to the husbandman, are treated of at considerable length in the body of the poem. As the sun is the surest index of change in the physical, so is he said to be in the political atmosphere. The eclipse which occurred soon after the murder of Caesar is regarded as a sign of compassion for his fate and of abhorrence of the crime. Then follows an enumeration of other omens which accompanied or preceded that event,—some of them violations of natural law, such as those which occur in the narrative of Livy, when any great disaster was impending over the Roman arms,—pecudesque locutae,Infandum—Et maestum inlacrimat templis ebur, aeraque sudant382:—others arising out of a great sympathetic movement among the spirits of the dead,—Vox quoque per lucos volgo exaudita silentisIngens, et simulacra modis pallentia mirisVisa sub obscurum noctis383;[pg 254]others showing themselves in ominous appearances of the sacrifices, or in strange disturbance of the familiar ways of bird and beast,—Obscenaeque canes importunaeque volucresSigna dabant—Et altaePer noctem resonare lupis ululantibus urbes384;others manifesting themselves through great commotion in the kingdom of Nature,—earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, great floods,—‘The noise of battle hurtling in the air,’lightnings in a clear sky, and the blaze of comets portending doom. These all succeed one another in Virgil’s verse according to no principle of logical connexion, but as they might be successively announced to the awe-struck citizens of Rome. The whole passage is pervaded by that strong sense of awe before an invisible Power—the ‘religio dira’—by which the Roman imagination was possessed in times of great national calamity. The issue of all these portents appeared in the second great battle in which Roman blood fattened the Macedonian plains. Then by a fine touch of imagination, and looking far forward into the future, the poet reminds us of the contrast, indicated in other passages of the poem, between the peaceful and beneficent industry of the husbandman and the cruel devastation of war:—Scilicet et tempus veniet, cum finibus illisAgricola, incurvo terram molitus aratro,Exesa inveniet scabra robigine pila,Aut gravibus rastris galeas pulsabit inanis,Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulchris385.Next follows the prayer to the national gods of Italy to preserve[pg 255]the life of him who could alone raise the world out of the sin and ruin into which it had fallen, and alone restore their ancient glory to the fields, which now lay waste from the want of men to till them:—Non ullus aratroDignus honos, squalent abductis arva colonis,Et curvae rigidum falces conflantur in ensem386.In the second of the great episodes this sorrow for the past and foreboding for the future has entirely cleared away. The feeling now expressed is one of pride and exultation in Italy, as a land of rich crops and fruits, of vines and olives, a land famous for its herds and flocks and breed of horses, for its genial climate, for the beauty of the seas washing its coasts, for its great lakes and rivers, its ancient cities and other mighty works of men; famous too for its hardy, energetic, and warlike races,—Haec genus acre virum Marsos pubemque Sabellam,Adsuetumque malo Ligurem Volscosque verutosExtulit387,—for its great men and families who had fought for it in old times, and for one greater still, who was then in the furthest East defending Rome against her enemies,—Haec Decios magnosque Camillos,Scipiadas duros bello, et te, maxime Caesar,Qui nunc extremis Asiae iam victor in orisImbellem avertis Romanis arcibus Indum388.This passage, introduced as a counter-picture to the description of the rank luxuriance of Nature in the vast forests and jungles of the East, concentrates in itself the deepest meaning and[pg 256]inspiration of the poem. The glory of Italy is declared to be the motive for the revival of this ancient theme—Tibires antiquae laudis et artisIngredior389.As Varro represents his speakers as looking on the great picture of Italy in the Temple of Tellus while they discuss the various ways of tilling and improving the soil, so Virgil in the midst of his didactic precepts holds up this ideal picture of the land to the love and admiration of his countrymen. By a few powerful strokes he combines the characteristic features and the great memories of Italian towns in lines which recur to every traveller as he passes through Italy,—Adde tot egregias urbes operumque laborem,Tot congesta manu praeruptis oppida saxis,Fluminaque antiquos subterlabentia muros390.No expression of patriotic sentiment in any language is more pure and noble than this. It is a tribute of just pride and affection to the land which, from its beauty, its history, its great services to man, is felt to be worthy of the deep devotion with which Virgil commends it to the heart and imagination of the world.In the last of the great episodes which remains to be considered, all the higher thoughts and feelings by which beauty, dignity, and moral grandeur are given to the subject are found concurring; and the presence of Lucretius is again felt as a pervading influence, though modified by Virgil’s own deepest convictions and sympathies. The charm of peaceful contemplation, of Nature in her serenest aspect and harmony with the human soul, of an ethical idea based on religious belief and national traditions, of a life of pure and tranquil happiness, remote from the clash of arms and the pride and passions of the[pg 257]world, is made present to us in a strain of continuous and modulated music, which neither Virgil himself nor any other poet has surpassed. Virgil creates a new ideal of happiness for the contemplation of his countrymen by combining the old realistic delight in the husbandman’s life with the imaginative longing for the peace and innocence of a Saturnian Age, and with that new delight in the living beauty of the world and in the charm of ancient memories which it was his especial office to communicate. This ideal is contrasted, as is the older poet’s ideal of ‘plain living and high thinking,’ with the pomp and magnificence of city life,—Si non ingentem foribus domus alta superbisMane salutantum totis vomit aedibus undam—Si non aurea sunt iuvenum simulacra per aedesLampadas igniferas manibus retinentia dextris391,—and, as in the older poet also, with the distractions, the restless passions, and the crimes of ambition. Virgil, as in other passages, compresses into a few lines the thought which Lucretius with simpler art follows through all its detail of concrete reality. Thus theGaudent perfusi sanguine fratrum392of Virgil is intended to recall and be explained by the more fully developed representation of the old cruelties of the times of Marius and Sulla, contained in the lines—Sanguine civili rem conflant divitiasqueConduplicant avidi, caedem caede accumulantes;Crudeles gaudent in tristi funere fratris;Et consanguineum mensas odere timentque393.In their protest against the world both poets are entirely at[pg 258]one. But the ideal of Virgil’s imagination, on its positive side, is more on the ordinary human level than that of lonely contemplation in accordance with which Lucretius lived and wrote. The Virgilian ideal, like that of Lucretius, recognised a heart at peace and independent of Fortune as a greater source of happiness than any external good. But this peace the one poet sought for in a superiority to the common beliefs of men; the other rather in a more trusting acceptance of them. Some other elements in Virgil’s ideal Lucretius too would have ranked among the supreme sources of human happiness. The linesInterea dulces pendent circum oscula nati,Casta pudicitiam servat domus394,beautiful as the thought and picture is, are not more true to human feeling, scarcely touch the heart and imagination so vividly, as the lines which suggested them—Iam iam non domus accipiet te laeta, neque uxorOptima, nec dulces occurrent oscula natiPraeripere395.Other elements in Virgil’s ideal Lucretius would have sympathised with, as he did with all natural human pleasure; but the elements of social kindliness expressed in the lines—Ipse dies agitat festos, etc.could mix only as an occasional source of refreshment with his[pg 259]lonely contemplation. The great difference between the two men is that Virgil’s ordinary feelings and beliefs are in unison with the common ways of life; he has a more active sympathy with the toils and pleasures of simple men; and, above all, he regards it as the highest good for man, not to secure peace of mind for himself, but to be useful in supporting others, in contributing to the well-being of his country, of his family, even of the animals associated with his toil:—hinc patriam parvosque PenatesSustinet, hinc armenta boum meritosque iuvencos396.This ideal Virgil seems to regard as one that might be attained by man, if he only could be taught how to appreciate it397; nay, that has been attained by him in happier times when the land was cultivated by free men, each holding his own plot of ground. This was the life of the old Italian yeomen, the life by which Etruria waxed strong and brave, the life to which Rome herself owed the beginning of her greatness398. It is the life which the national imagination, in its peaceful mood, and yearning to return into the ways of innocence and piety, discerned in that distant Golden Age, when all men lived in contentment and abundance under the rule of the old god,[pg 260]from whom the land received the well-loved name ‘Saturnia tellus399.’Hanc olim veteres vitam coluere Sabini,Hanc Remus et frater, sic fortis Etruria crevitScilicet, et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma,Septemque una sibi muro circumdedit arces.Ante etiam sceptrum Dictaei regis et anteImpia quam caesis gens est epulata iuvencis,Aureus hanc vitam in terris Saturnus agebat;Necdum etiam audierant inflari classica, necdumImpositos duris crepitare incudibus enses400.

The finest poetry in the didactic poems of Lucretius and of Virgil and the thoughts which give the highest interest to their respective poems are contained in passages of considerable length, rising out of the general level or undulations of the poem into elevations which at first sight seem isolated and unconnected with one another. It may be doubted whether even the power of thought and style in Lucretius could have secured immortality to a mere systematic exposition of the Atomic philosophy; nor could the mere didactic exposition of the precepts of agriculture, though varied by all the art and resources of Virgil, have gained for the Georgics the unique place that poem holds in literature. It is in their episodes that each poet brings out the moral grandeur, and thereby justifies the choice of his subject. In Lucretius, these passages are introduced sometimes in the ordinary march of his argument, more often at the beginning or completion of some important division of it, and are intended both to add poetical charm to the subject and to show man’s true relation to the Universe, and the attitude of mind which that relation demands of him. The object of Virgil in some of his minor and in one or two of his larger episodes may be merely to relieve the dryness of exposition by some descriptive or reflective charm. But even these passages will in general be found to draw attention to the religious, ethical, or national bearing of his subject.

Some of these passages have been suggested by parallel passages either in Hesiod or Lucretius. The largest of all the episodes, that with which the poem concludes, has, for reasons already considered, only a slight and external relation to the[pg 245]great ideas and interests with which the poem deals. But the three most important passages, those of most original invention and profound feeling, viz. those at Book I. 466 to the end of the Book, Book II. 136 to 177, and also from line 458 to the end, serve like those great cardinal passages in the Aeneid, in which the action is projected from a remote legendary past into the actual present, to bring into light the true central interest of the poem,—the bearing of the whole subject on the greatness and well-being of the Italian race.

Any of the passages which are not needed for the special practical purpose of the poem may be regarded as episodical, such, for instance, as that thoroughly Lucretian passage in Book I. in which the feelings of rooks are explained on purely physical principles, or that passage of Book IV. inspired by the teaching of an opposite school, in which the theory of a divine principle pervading the world—the same theory as that accepted as his own by Virgil in Aeneid VI.—is enunciated as a probable explanation of the higher instinct of the bees. And it is characteristic of the eclecticism of Virgil’s mode of thought, and also of the lingering regret with which he regards the evanescent fancies of the old mythology, that he not only combines these tenets of the most materialistic and most spiritualistic philosophies in the same poem, but that the philosophic or theosophic solution of Book IV. 219, etc. comes shortly after a passage in which the same phenomenon is accounted for on the ground of the service rendered by bees in feeding the infant Jove in the cavern of Mount Dicte. Another passage of a scientific rather than a philosophic character is that at Book I. 233, etc., in which the five zones girding the heaven and the earth are described in language closely translated from Eratosthenes. Besides the scientific interest which this passage must have had to the poet’s contemporaries, it serves to draw forth Virgil’s antagonism to the religious unbelief of Lucretius, in the expression

Munere concessae divom,

and also to imply his dissent from the emphatic denial which[pg 246]Lucretius gives, at Book I. 1065, to the Stoical belief in the existence of the Antipodes:—

Illi cum videant solem, nos sidera noctisCernere, et alternis nobiscum tempora caeliDividere, et noctes parilis agitare diebus366.

Illi cum videant solem, nos sidera noctis

Cernere, et alternis nobiscum tempora caeli

Dividere, et noctes parilis agitare diebus366.

Another passage of a semi-philosophical character is that at Book III. 242–283, in which the Lucretian idea of the all-pervading influence of the physical emotion of love over all living things in sea, earth, and air,—an idea in which Lucretius was anticipated by Euripides367and by other earlier Greek poets,—appears in combination with the purely mythological conception of the direct personal agency of Venus, and with the legend of ‘the mares of Glaucus of Potniae.’

More important than these, as illustrative of the main ideas and feelings of the poem, but still subsidiary to the greater episodes, are the following: Book I. 121–159, Book II. 323–345; and in the same class may be included III. 339–383, and IV. 125–148. The first of these, ‘Pater ipse colendi,’ etc., is immediately suggested by Hesiod’s account of the Golden Age; but the greater part of it, the account of the progress of the various arts of life, is simply a summary of the long account of human progress at the end of the fifth Book of Lucretius. The idea of the purpose with which Providence has imposed labour on man is Virgil’s own; and this thought contributes much of its ethical meaning to the poem. The passage ‘Ver adeo frondi nemorum,’ etc., in which all the glory of Nature as she unfolds herself in the exuberant life of an Italian spring is described in lines of surpassing beauty and tenderness, is thoroughly Lucretian in feeling, idea, and expression. The charm of climate, of vegetation, and of life is in complete harmony with the specially Italian character of[pg 247]the second Book. The digression at Book III. 339, ‘Quid tibi pastores Libyae,’ containing the elaborate picture of a Scythian winter, suggested by the winter scene in Hesiod, also serves through the effect of contrast to heighten the charm of the fresh pastoral life of Italy described in the lines immediately preceding.

The actual description of winter has been criticised unfavourably, and not altogether without justice, by one of the most independent and at the same time most scholarly of English critics368, who compares it with a corresponding passage in Thomson. It is inferior in simplicity and direct force of representation to the corresponding picture in Hesiod. Virgil’s imagination seems to require that even where the objects or scenes he describes are taken from books, they should be such that he could verify them in his own experience. It is this apparent verification, where the subject is not originally suggested by his own observation, that imparts the marvellous truthfulness to his art. Such lines as those—

Aeraque dissiliunt volgo—

Stiriaque impexis induruit horrida barbis—369

convey a less real impression of winter than the single line—an idealised generalisation from many actual winters—which ends the description of the various occupations and field-sports which an Italian winter offers to the husbandman:—

Cum nix alta iacet, glaciem cum flumina trudunt370.

Perhaps none of the minor episodes recurs to the mind so often with so keen a feeling of delight as the passage at IV. 125 to 148, beginning ‘Namque sub Oebaliae,’ etc. Virgil here introduces himself in his own person, and draws a picture[pg 248]of one whom he had known, and who had interested him as actually realising that life of labour and of happiness in the results of his labour, which in the body of the poem is held up as an abstract ideal. The scene of this vivid reminiscence,—the district

Qua niger umectat flaventia culta Galaesus371,—

seems to have had peculiar attraction both for Virgil and Horace. It is there—

umbrosi subter pineta Galaesi—

that Propertius pictures to himself Virgil meditating his Aeneid and still conning over his earlier Eclogues—

Thyrsin et attritis Daphnin harundinibus.

It is to ‘that nook of earth’ that Horace looks, if the unkind Fates forbid his residence at his favourite Tibur, for a resting-place for his ‘age to wear away in.’ But it is not only to the local charm that attention is drawn, and to the beauty of plant, flower, and fruit, created by the labour of love which the old Cilician gardener—some survivor probably from the Eastern wars of Pompey—bestowed on his neglected spot of ground. Here also the true moral of the poem is pointed, that in the life of rural industry there is a deep source of happiness altogether independent of wealth, and which wealth cannot buy:—

Regum aequabat opes animis, seraque revertensNocte domum dapibus mensas onerabat inemptis372.

Regum aequabat opes animis, seraque revertens

Nocte domum dapibus mensas onerabat inemptis372.

A more prominent place is assumed by the two episodes with which the third and fourth Books close. In the first of these, which extends from line 478 to 566, and which describes a great outbreak of cattle-plague among the Noric Alps and the district round the Timavus,—a locality which seems to have had a special attraction to Virgil’s imagination373,—he aims at painting a rival picture to that of the plague at Athens[pg 249]with which the poem of Lucretius ends. It would be unfair to compare the unfinished piece of the older poet, overcrowded as it is with detail and technical phraseology, with an elaborate specimen of Virgil’s descriptive power, exercised on a kind of subject in which the speculative genius of the one poet gave him no advantage over the careful and truthful art of the other. Yet, as has been already pointed out374, there are here and there strokes of imaginative power in the larger sketch, and marks of insight into human nobleness, roughly indeed expressed, as at 1243–6—

Qui fuerant autem praesto, contagibus ibantAtque labore, pudor quem tum cogebat obireBlandaque lassorum vox mixta voce querellae.Optimus hoc leti genus ergo quisque subibat375—

Qui fuerant autem praesto, contagibus ibant

Atque labore, pudor quem tum cogebat obire

Blandaque lassorum vox mixta voce querellae.

Optimus hoc leti genus ergo quisque subibat375—

in which the sincerity of the older master still asserts itself. There is great beauty however of pastoral scene, of pathos and human sympathy, of ethical contrast between the simple wants of the lower animals and the artificial luxury of human life, in Virgil’s description. In the lines 520–522 one of those scenes in which he most delighted is brought before the imagination:—

Non umbrae altorum nemorum, non mollia possuntPrata movere animum, non qui per saxa volutusPurior electro campum petit amnis376.

Non umbrae altorum nemorum, non mollia possunt

Prata movere animum, non qui per saxa volutus

Purior electro campum petit amnis376.

The last element in the picture suggests at once the ‘Saxosas inter decurrunt flumina valles’ of the Eclogues, and the lines earlier in the book—

Saltibus in vacuis pascunt et plena secundumFlumina.

Saltibus in vacuis pascunt et plena secundum

Flumina.

And the whole feeling of the passage is in harmony with that in Lucretius, ii. 361:—

Nec tenerae salices atque herbae rore vigentesFluminaque illa queunt summis labentia ripisOblectare animum, sumptamque avertere curam377.

Nec tenerae salices atque herbae rore vigentes

Fluminaque illa queunt summis labentia ripis

Oblectare animum, sumptamque avertere curam377.

And in thorough harmony both with the pathos and the ethical feeling in Lucretius are the following:—

it tristis arator,Maerentem abiungens fraterna morte iuvencum378:

it tristis arator,

Maerentem abiungens fraterna morte iuvencum378:

and

Quid labor aut benefacta iuvant? quid vomere terrasInvertisse gravis? atqui non Massica BacchiMunera, non illis epulae nocuere repostae:Frondibus et victu pascuntur simplicis herbae,Pocula sunt fontes liquidi atque exercita cursuFlumina, nec somnos abrumpit cura salubris379.

Quid labor aut benefacta iuvant? quid vomere terras

Invertisse gravis? atqui non Massica Bacchi

Munera, non illis epulae nocuere repostae:

Frondibus et victu pascuntur simplicis herbae,

Pocula sunt fontes liquidi atque exercita cursu

Flumina, nec somnos abrumpit cura salubris379.

If the space assigned to the different episodes is to be regarded as the measure of their importance, the long episode at the end of the fourth Book, from line 315 to 558, would have to be regarded as of nearly equal value to all the others put together. And yet, notwithstanding the metrical beauty of the passage, it must be difficult for any one who is penetrated by the pervading sentiment of the Georgics to reach this point in the poem without a strong feeling of regret that the jealousy of Augustus had interfered with its original conclusion. As a Greek fable, composed after some Alexandrine model, mainly concerned with the fortunes of Orpheus and Eurydice,—for the shepherd Aristaeus, the

cultor nemorum cui pinguia CeaeTer centum nivei tondent dumeta iuvenci380,

cultor nemorum cui pinguia Ceae

Ter centum nivei tondent dumeta iuvenci380,

really plays altogether a secondary part in the episode,—it has little to do with rural life, and nothing at all to do with Italy. Its professed object is to give a fabulous explanation of an impossible phenomenon, though one apparently accepted both by Mago and Democritus. To enrich this episode with a beauty not its own, Virgil has robbed his Aeneid—on the composition of which he must have been well advanced when he was called on, after the death of Gallus in 26B.C., to provide a substitute for the passage written in his honour—of some beautiful lines which are more in keeping with the larger representation and profounder feeling of the epic poem, than with the transient interest attaching to this recast of a well-known story. Even regarded simply as an epyllion or epic idyl, it may be questioned whether the Pastor Aristaeus is of an interest equal to that of the epic idyl of Catullus, ‘Peliaco quondam prognatae vertice pinus,’ etc. There is this coincidence between the poems, that they each contain one story or idyllic representation within another, and in each case it is to the secondary representation that the most pathetic and passionate interest belongs.

Opinions may differ as to whether the passion of Ariadne or the sorrow of Orpheus is represented with most skill. There seems this difference between the two, that in the one we feel we are reading a fable, that the situation is altogether remote from experience, that it is one suited for a picture or a poem of fancy. The beautiful picture of Ariadne, on the other hand, appears like one drawn from the life, and her passionate complaint is like that of a living woman. But still more undoubted is the superiority of Catullus in pictorial or statuesque reproduction seen in that part of his poem in which the original subject, the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, is described. Catullus, above all other Latin poets, except perhaps Ovid, can bring a picture from human life or from outward nature before the inward eye; and this power is, much more than Virgil’s power of suggesting deep and delicate shades of feeling, appropriate to the more limited compass of the idyl. It is no disparagement to Virgil to say that in this kind of art he is inferior to Catullus. Catullus, though a true Italian in temperament, largely endowed with and freely using the biting raillery—‘Italum acetum’—which ancient writers ascribe to the race, had in his genius, more than any Roman writer, the disinterested delight in art, irrespective of any personal associations, characteristic of the Greek imagination. Virgil’s art, on the other hand, produces its deepest impressions only when his heart is moved. Even in the Eclogues this is for the most part true. Something must touch his personal sympathies, his moral or religious nature, or his national feeling, before he is roused to his highest creative effort.

In the three cardinal passages which remain to be considered, in the composition of which the deeper elements of Virgil’s nature were powerfully moved, the impression which the changing state of the national fortunes produced upon him is vividly stamped. The first of these (i. 464 to the end) was written in the years of uncertainty and alarm preceding the outbreak of the last of the great Civil Wars. The unsettlement all over the Empire, from its eastern boundary to its[pg 253]furthest limits in Europe,—the agitation and impetuous sweep of the river before plunging into the abyss,—is described and symbolised in the concluding lines of the Book:—

Hinc movet Euphrates, illinc Germania bellum;Vicinae ruptis inter se legibus urbesArma ferunt; saevit toto Mars impius orbe:Ut cum carceribus sese effudere quadrigae,Addunt in spatia, et frustra retinacula tendensFertur equis auriga, neque audit currus habenas381.

Hinc movet Euphrates, illinc Germania bellum;

Vicinae ruptis inter se legibus urbes

Arma ferunt; saevit toto Mars impius orbe:

Ut cum carceribus sese effudere quadrigae,

Addunt in spatia, et frustra retinacula tendens

Fertur equis auriga, neque audit currus habenas381.

This state of alarm is shown to be connected with the great national crime which Rome was still atoning,—the murder of Julius Caesar. The episode arises immediately out of the enumeration of the signs of the weather, which, from their importance to the husbandman, are treated of at considerable length in the body of the poem. As the sun is the surest index of change in the physical, so is he said to be in the political atmosphere. The eclipse which occurred soon after the murder of Caesar is regarded as a sign of compassion for his fate and of abhorrence of the crime. Then follows an enumeration of other omens which accompanied or preceded that event,—some of them violations of natural law, such as those which occur in the narrative of Livy, when any great disaster was impending over the Roman arms,—

pecudesque locutae,Infandum—Et maestum inlacrimat templis ebur, aeraque sudant382:—

pecudesque locutae,

Infandum—

Et maestum inlacrimat templis ebur, aeraque sudant382:—

others arising out of a great sympathetic movement among the spirits of the dead,—

Vox quoque per lucos volgo exaudita silentisIngens, et simulacra modis pallentia mirisVisa sub obscurum noctis383;

Vox quoque per lucos volgo exaudita silentis

Ingens, et simulacra modis pallentia miris

Visa sub obscurum noctis383;

others showing themselves in ominous appearances of the sacrifices, or in strange disturbance of the familiar ways of bird and beast,—

Obscenaeque canes importunaeque volucresSigna dabant—Et altaePer noctem resonare lupis ululantibus urbes384;

Obscenaeque canes importunaeque volucres

Signa dabant—

Et altae

Per noctem resonare lupis ululantibus urbes384;

others manifesting themselves through great commotion in the kingdom of Nature,—earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, great floods,—

‘The noise of battle hurtling in the air,’

lightnings in a clear sky, and the blaze of comets portending doom. These all succeed one another in Virgil’s verse according to no principle of logical connexion, but as they might be successively announced to the awe-struck citizens of Rome. The whole passage is pervaded by that strong sense of awe before an invisible Power—the ‘religio dira’—by which the Roman imagination was possessed in times of great national calamity. The issue of all these portents appeared in the second great battle in which Roman blood fattened the Macedonian plains. Then by a fine touch of imagination, and looking far forward into the future, the poet reminds us of the contrast, indicated in other passages of the poem, between the peaceful and beneficent industry of the husbandman and the cruel devastation of war:—

Scilicet et tempus veniet, cum finibus illisAgricola, incurvo terram molitus aratro,Exesa inveniet scabra robigine pila,Aut gravibus rastris galeas pulsabit inanis,Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulchris385.

Scilicet et tempus veniet, cum finibus illis

Agricola, incurvo terram molitus aratro,

Exesa inveniet scabra robigine pila,

Aut gravibus rastris galeas pulsabit inanis,

Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulchris385.

Next follows the prayer to the national gods of Italy to preserve[pg 255]the life of him who could alone raise the world out of the sin and ruin into which it had fallen, and alone restore their ancient glory to the fields, which now lay waste from the want of men to till them:—

Non ullus aratroDignus honos, squalent abductis arva colonis,Et curvae rigidum falces conflantur in ensem386.

Non ullus aratro

Dignus honos, squalent abductis arva colonis,

Et curvae rigidum falces conflantur in ensem386.

In the second of the great episodes this sorrow for the past and foreboding for the future has entirely cleared away. The feeling now expressed is one of pride and exultation in Italy, as a land of rich crops and fruits, of vines and olives, a land famous for its herds and flocks and breed of horses, for its genial climate, for the beauty of the seas washing its coasts, for its great lakes and rivers, its ancient cities and other mighty works of men; famous too for its hardy, energetic, and warlike races,—

Haec genus acre virum Marsos pubemque Sabellam,Adsuetumque malo Ligurem Volscosque verutosExtulit387,—

Haec genus acre virum Marsos pubemque Sabellam,

Adsuetumque malo Ligurem Volscosque verutos

Extulit387,—

for its great men and families who had fought for it in old times, and for one greater still, who was then in the furthest East defending Rome against her enemies,—

Haec Decios magnosque Camillos,Scipiadas duros bello, et te, maxime Caesar,Qui nunc extremis Asiae iam victor in orisImbellem avertis Romanis arcibus Indum388.

Haec Decios magnosque Camillos,

Scipiadas duros bello, et te, maxime Caesar,

Qui nunc extremis Asiae iam victor in oris

Imbellem avertis Romanis arcibus Indum388.

This passage, introduced as a counter-picture to the description of the rank luxuriance of Nature in the vast forests and jungles of the East, concentrates in itself the deepest meaning and[pg 256]inspiration of the poem. The glory of Italy is declared to be the motive for the revival of this ancient theme—

Tibires antiquae laudis et artisIngredior389.

Tibires antiquae laudis et artis

Ingredior389.

As Varro represents his speakers as looking on the great picture of Italy in the Temple of Tellus while they discuss the various ways of tilling and improving the soil, so Virgil in the midst of his didactic precepts holds up this ideal picture of the land to the love and admiration of his countrymen. By a few powerful strokes he combines the characteristic features and the great memories of Italian towns in lines which recur to every traveller as he passes through Italy,—

Adde tot egregias urbes operumque laborem,Tot congesta manu praeruptis oppida saxis,Fluminaque antiquos subterlabentia muros390.

Adde tot egregias urbes operumque laborem,

Tot congesta manu praeruptis oppida saxis,

Fluminaque antiquos subterlabentia muros390.

No expression of patriotic sentiment in any language is more pure and noble than this. It is a tribute of just pride and affection to the land which, from its beauty, its history, its great services to man, is felt to be worthy of the deep devotion with which Virgil commends it to the heart and imagination of the world.

In the last of the great episodes which remains to be considered, all the higher thoughts and feelings by which beauty, dignity, and moral grandeur are given to the subject are found concurring; and the presence of Lucretius is again felt as a pervading influence, though modified by Virgil’s own deepest convictions and sympathies. The charm of peaceful contemplation, of Nature in her serenest aspect and harmony with the human soul, of an ethical idea based on religious belief and national traditions, of a life of pure and tranquil happiness, remote from the clash of arms and the pride and passions of the[pg 257]world, is made present to us in a strain of continuous and modulated music, which neither Virgil himself nor any other poet has surpassed. Virgil creates a new ideal of happiness for the contemplation of his countrymen by combining the old realistic delight in the husbandman’s life with the imaginative longing for the peace and innocence of a Saturnian Age, and with that new delight in the living beauty of the world and in the charm of ancient memories which it was his especial office to communicate. This ideal is contrasted, as is the older poet’s ideal of ‘plain living and high thinking,’ with the pomp and magnificence of city life,—

Si non ingentem foribus domus alta superbisMane salutantum totis vomit aedibus undam—

Si non ingentem foribus domus alta superbis

Mane salutantum totis vomit aedibus undam—

Si non aurea sunt iuvenum simulacra per aedesLampadas igniferas manibus retinentia dextris391,—

Si non aurea sunt iuvenum simulacra per aedes

Lampadas igniferas manibus retinentia dextris391,—

and, as in the older poet also, with the distractions, the restless passions, and the crimes of ambition. Virgil, as in other passages, compresses into a few lines the thought which Lucretius with simpler art follows through all its detail of concrete reality. Thus the

Gaudent perfusi sanguine fratrum392

of Virgil is intended to recall and be explained by the more fully developed representation of the old cruelties of the times of Marius and Sulla, contained in the lines—

Sanguine civili rem conflant divitiasqueConduplicant avidi, caedem caede accumulantes;Crudeles gaudent in tristi funere fratris;Et consanguineum mensas odere timentque393.

Sanguine civili rem conflant divitiasque

Conduplicant avidi, caedem caede accumulantes;

Crudeles gaudent in tristi funere fratris;

Et consanguineum mensas odere timentque393.

In their protest against the world both poets are entirely at[pg 258]one. But the ideal of Virgil’s imagination, on its positive side, is more on the ordinary human level than that of lonely contemplation in accordance with which Lucretius lived and wrote. The Virgilian ideal, like that of Lucretius, recognised a heart at peace and independent of Fortune as a greater source of happiness than any external good. But this peace the one poet sought for in a superiority to the common beliefs of men; the other rather in a more trusting acceptance of them. Some other elements in Virgil’s ideal Lucretius too would have ranked among the supreme sources of human happiness. The lines

Interea dulces pendent circum oscula nati,Casta pudicitiam servat domus394,

Interea dulces pendent circum oscula nati,

Casta pudicitiam servat domus394,

beautiful as the thought and picture is, are not more true to human feeling, scarcely touch the heart and imagination so vividly, as the lines which suggested them—

Iam iam non domus accipiet te laeta, neque uxorOptima, nec dulces occurrent oscula natiPraeripere395.

Iam iam non domus accipiet te laeta, neque uxor

Optima, nec dulces occurrent oscula nati

Praeripere395.

Other elements in Virgil’s ideal Lucretius would have sympathised with, as he did with all natural human pleasure; but the elements of social kindliness expressed in the lines—

Ipse dies agitat festos, etc.

could mix only as an occasional source of refreshment with his[pg 259]lonely contemplation. The great difference between the two men is that Virgil’s ordinary feelings and beliefs are in unison with the common ways of life; he has a more active sympathy with the toils and pleasures of simple men; and, above all, he regards it as the highest good for man, not to secure peace of mind for himself, but to be useful in supporting others, in contributing to the well-being of his country, of his family, even of the animals associated with his toil:—

hinc patriam parvosque PenatesSustinet, hinc armenta boum meritosque iuvencos396.

hinc patriam parvosque Penates

Sustinet, hinc armenta boum meritosque iuvencos396.

This ideal Virgil seems to regard as one that might be attained by man, if he only could be taught how to appreciate it397; nay, that has been attained by him in happier times when the land was cultivated by free men, each holding his own plot of ground. This was the life of the old Italian yeomen, the life by which Etruria waxed strong and brave, the life to which Rome herself owed the beginning of her greatness398. It is the life which the national imagination, in its peaceful mood, and yearning to return into the ways of innocence and piety, discerned in that distant Golden Age, when all men lived in contentment and abundance under the rule of the old god,[pg 260]from whom the land received the well-loved name ‘Saturnia tellus399.’

Hanc olim veteres vitam coluere Sabini,Hanc Remus et frater, sic fortis Etruria crevitScilicet, et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma,Septemque una sibi muro circumdedit arces.Ante etiam sceptrum Dictaei regis et anteImpia quam caesis gens est epulata iuvencis,Aureus hanc vitam in terris Saturnus agebat;Necdum etiam audierant inflari classica, necdumImpositos duris crepitare incudibus enses400.

Hanc olim veteres vitam coluere Sabini,

Hanc Remus et frater, sic fortis Etruria crevit

Scilicet, et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma,

Septemque una sibi muro circumdedit arces.

Ante etiam sceptrum Dictaei regis et ante

Impia quam caesis gens est epulata iuvencis,

Aureus hanc vitam in terris Saturnus agebat;

Necdum etiam audierant inflari classica, necdum

Impositos duris crepitare incudibus enses400.

Back to Index Next