In reading several passages of the Prophet Isaiah, which foretell the
coming of Christ and the felicities attending it, I could not but
observe a remarkable parity between many of the thoughts, and those in
the Pollio of Virgil. This will not seem surprising, when we reflect,
that the Eclogue was taken from a Sibylline prophecy on the same
subject. One may judge that Virgil did not copy it line by line, but
selected such ideas as best agreed with the nature of pastoral poetry,
and disposed them in that manner which served most to beautify his
piece. I have endeavoured the same in this imitation of him, though
without admitting anything of my own; since it was written with this
particular view, that the reader, by comparing the several thoughts,
might see how far the images and descriptions of the prophet are
superior to those of the poet. But as I fear I have prejudiced them by
my management, I shall subjoin the passages of Isaiah, and those of
Virgil, under the same disadvantage of a literal translation.[1]
This is certainly the most animated and sublime of all our author's
compositions, and it is manifestly owing to the great original which he
copied. Perhaps the dignity, the energy, and the simplicity of the
original, are in a few passages weakened and diminished by florid
epithets, and useless circumlocutions.--WARTON.
All things considered, the Messiah is as fine and masterly a piece of
composition as the English language, in the same style of verse, can
boast. I have ventured to point out a passage or two, for they are rare,
where the sublimity has been weakened by epithets; and I have done this,
because it is a fault, particularly with young writers, so common. In
the most truly sublime images of Scripture, the addition of a single
word would often destroy their effect. It is therefore right to keep as
nearly as possible to the very words. No one understood better than
Milton where to be general, and where particular; where to adopt the
very expression of Scripture, and where it was allowed to
paraphrase.--BOWLES.
The fourth eclogue of Virgil is devoted to celebrating the coming birth,
while Pollio is Consul, of a boy whose infancy will usher in the golden
age, and whose manhood will witness its fullness. Wars are to cease; the
beasts of prey are to change their natures; the untilled earth is to
bring forth fruits spontaneously; and peace, ease, and plenty are to
reign supreme. The names of the parents of this expected child are not
recorded, and the commentators are greatly divided upon the question.
The most reasonable conjecture is that the intention was to do homage to
the ruling genius at Rome, Augustus, or Caesar Octavianus, as he was then
called, whose wife Scribonia was pregnant at the time. Unhappily for the
prognostications of the poet the infant "proved a daughter, and the
infamous Julia."[2] Virgil grounds his glowing anticipations upon
certain Cumaean or Sibylline verses; for, as Jortin well remarks, he
would have deprived his announcement of all authority if he himself had
set up for a prophet. He could only hope to accredit his promised
marvels by appealing to an oracle that was popularly believed to be
inspired. "The Sibylline books," says Prideaux, "were a main engine of
state. When they were ordered to be consulted the keepers of them always
brought forth such an answer as served their purpose, and in many
difficulties the governors helped themselves this way."[3] Virgil was
equally diplomatic. He probably had no faith in the wonders he
announced. His object was to pay court to Augustus, and to assist in
establishing his patron's power.
The resemblance which portions of the Pollio bear to passages in Isaiah
is generally admitted. "This," says Pope, "will not seem surprising when
we reflect that the Eclogue was taken from a Sibylline prophecy on the
same subject." He does not attempt to explain how the Sibyl came by her
knowledge, unless he means us to infer that she was divinely
illuminated. This theory has been supported by learned men, and would be
warranted if the eight books of Sibylline oracles, still extant in Greek
verse, were anterior to the Christian era; for since they often go
beyond the Old Testament predictions in historic precision, the insight
into futurity could not have been gathered exclusively from the
Scripture prophets. But the existing oracles, says Jortin, "are without
any one exception, mere impostures. They abound with phrases, words,
facts, and passages taken from the Septuagint and the New Testament, and
are a remarkable specimen of astonishing impudence, and miserable
poetry."[4] Still there remains the circumstance of the parallelism
between parts of Isaiah and the Eclogue which Virgil based upon the
Sibylline verses. It is easy to account for the coincidence. The
original Sibylline books were accidentally burnt B. C. 83. A few years
later the senate employed agents to glean together from Italy, Greece,
Sicily and Africa a body of prophecies to replace the oracles which had
perished. The collection was from private as well as public sources, and
a vast number of the same or similar predictions were in the hands of
individuals at Rome. The Jews were located everywhere; they abounded in
Rome itself; they were animated by the expectation that the reign of the
Messiah was approaching; their prophetic records were incomparable for
poetic beauty, sublimity, and variety; the language of the Septuagint
was well understood by lettered pagans, and was even the language of the
new Sibylline oracles, which were embodied in Greek verse. When all
these things are considered, it would be strange if the persons employed
to pick up prophecies had not come across notions, which had either been
derived from personal intercourse with Jews, or from their sacred books.
Although the entire world had been sunk in stupid apathy, and not a
single heathen had been attracted by curiosity to turn his attention to
Hebrew literature and beliefs, it was yet inevitable that a crude
conception should get abroad of the leading idea which fermented in the
mind of the ubiquitous Jew, and nothing was more likely than that it
should be put into Sibylline verse when Roman agents were searching far
and wide for oracles, and inviting contributions from every quarter.
Pope's Messiah first appeared in the Spectator for May 14, 1712, No.
378, where it is prefaced by these words: "I will make no apology for
entertaining the reader with the following poem, which is written by a
great genius, a friend of mine, in the country, who is not ashamed to
employ his wit in the praise of his Maker." After it was published,
Steele wrote on June 1, 1712, to Pope, and said, "I have turned to every
verse and chapter, and think you have preserved the sublime heavenly
spirit throughout the whole, especially at 'Hark a glad voice,' and 'The
lamb with wolves shall graze.' Your poem is better than the Pollio."
Upon this Johnson remarks, "That the Messiah excels the Pollio is no
great praise, if it be considered from what original the improvements
are derived." Bowles and Warton thought that Pope had kept up his verse
to the level of Isaiah, and had only here and there weakened the
sublimity by epithets. Wordsworth was of another opinion. When he
contended that the language of poetry should be a selection from the
real language of men "in a state of vivid sensation," and repudiated the
ornate conventional phraseology which passed for poetic diction, he
pointed to the paraphrases on parts of the Bible in illustration of what
he condemned, and to the passages as they exist in our authorised
version for a specimen of what he approved. "Pope's Messiah throughout"
was in his apprehension an adulteration of the original.[5] His
criticism appears well founded. The pure and natural language of the
prophet is sometimes exchanged for sickly, affected expressions.
"Righteousness" becomes "dewy nectar," "sheep" the "fleecy care," and
the call upon Jerusalem to "Arise and shine" is turned into an
invocation to "exalt her tow'ry head." Apart from these mawkish phrases,
the imitation is framed from first to last upon the mistaken principle
that the original would be embellished by amplifications, by a profusion
of epithets, and by a gaudier diction. The "fir-tree and box-tree" of
Isaiah are called by Pope "the _spiry_ fir, and _shapely_ box." Where
the sacred text announces that "instead of the thorn shall come up the
fir-tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle-tree," Pope
tells us that
"To _leafless_ shrubs the _flow'ring_ palms succeed,
And _od'rous_ myrtle to the _noisome_ weed."
In his translation of the prediction, that in the kingdom of Christ,
"the sucking-child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned
child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den," Pope makes the
cockatrice a "_crested_ basilisk," and the asp a "_speckled_ snake;"
they have both scales of a "_green_ lustre," and a "_forky_ tongue," and
with this last the "_smiling_ infant shall _innocently_ play." "The
leopard," says Isaiah, "shall lie down with the kid, and the young
lion, and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them"; but
Pope could not leave this exquisite picture undecorated, and with him
"boys in _flow'ry_ bands the tiger lead." How grievously is the force
and pathos of the passage impaired by the substitution of "boys" for the
"little child"; how completely is the bewitching nature turned into
masquerade by the engrafted notion that the beasts are led by "_flow'ry_
bands." The alteration is an example of the justice of De Quincey's
observation that "the Arcadia of Pope's age was the spurious Arcadia of
the opera theatre."[6] The prophet refers anew to the time when
creatures of prey shall cease to be carnivorous, and relates that "the
lion shall eat straw like the bullock, and dust shall be the serpent's
meat." Pope converts the second clause into the statement that "harmless
serpents lick the pilgrim's feet," which alters the meaning, and
introduces a conception more noticeable for its grotesqueness than for
the enchanting vision it should conjure up of universal peace.[7] Pope
says he was induced to subjoin in his notes the passages he had
versified by "the fear that he had prejudiced Isaiah and Virgil by his
management." The reputation of Isaiah and Virgil was safe, and no one
can doubt that his real reason for inviting the comparison was the
belief that he had improved upon them. He imagined that he had enriched
the text of the prophet, and did not suspect that the majesty and truth
of the original were vitiated by his embroidery. Bowles has drawn
attention to the finest parts of the poem, and it may be allowed that
the piece in general is powerful of its kind. The fault is in the kind
itself, which belongs to a lower style than the living strains of
Isaiah, and borders too closely upon the meretricious to suit the lofty
theme. The Messiah is a prophetic vision of a golden age, and on this
account was classed by Pope among his Pastorals.[8]