"Give up in despair."
Very mu--si--cal--sooth--ing.
AQUILIUS.--See, you have set our host asleep; and, judging from his last
words, his dream will not be unpleasant. We must not come to a sudden
silence, or it will waken him. The murmur of the brook that invites
sleep, is pledged to its continuance. The winds and the pattering rain,
says the Roman elegiast, assist the sleeper.
Aut gelidas hibernus aquas eum fuderit auster
Securum somnos imbre juvante sequi.
We must not, however, proceed with our translations. Take up Landor's
Pentameron, and begin where you left off, when we first entered upon
this discussion of Catullus. He seemed to give the preference to
Catullus over Horace. Here is the page,--read on.
The Curate at once took the volume and read aloud.--The following
passage arrested our attention:--
"In return for my suggestion, pray tell me what is the meaning of
Obliquo laborat
Lympha fugax trepidare rivo.
"PETRARCHA.--The moment I learn it you shall have it. Laborat trepidare!
lympha rivo! fugax, too! Fugacity is not the action for hard work or
_labour_.
"BOCCACCIO.--Since you cannot help me out, I must give up the
conjecture, it seems, while it has cost me only half a century. Perhaps
it may be _curiosa felicitas_."
AQUILIUS--Stay there:--that criticism is new to me. I never even fancied
there was a difficulty in the passage. Let us consider it a moment.
CURATE.--Does he then think Horace not very choice in his words? for he
seems to be severe upon the "_curiosa felicitas_." Surely the diction of
the Latin poets is all in all--For their ideas seem hard
stereotyped,--uninterchangeable, the very reverse of the Greek, in whom
you always find some unexpected turn, some new thought, thrown out
beautifully in the rapidity of their conception--excepting in
Sophocles--who, attending more to his diction, deals perhaps a little
too much in common-place.
The object of the Latin poets should seem to have been to introduce
gracefully, into their own language, what the Greeks had left them; and
the nature of this labour quenched the fire of originality, if they had
any.--It is hard, however, to deny them the fruits of this labour; and
who was more happy in it than Horace?
AQUILIUS.--Surely, and the familiar love that all bear to Horace,
confirms your opinion--the general opinion. Now, I cannot but think
Horace happy in his choice of words, in this very passage of
obliquo laborat,
Lympha fugax trepidare rivo.
Let me suggest a meaning, which to me is obvious enough, and I am
surprised it should have escaped so acute and so profound a critic.
Horace supposes his friend enjoying the landscape in _remoto gramine_,
and there describes it accurately; and it is a favourite scene with him,
which he often paints in words, with the introduction of the same
imagery. Suppose, then, the scene to be in _remoto gramine_ at Tiber,
our modern Tivoli; where, as I presume, the water was always, as now,
though not in exactly the same way, turned off from the Anio into _cut
channels_; and such I take to be the meaning generally of rivers, a
_channel_, not a river. And the Lympha here is appropriate; not the
_body_ of the stream, but a portion of its water. In this case,
"obliquo" may express a new direction, and some obstacle in the _turn_
the river takes, where the water would for a moment seem to _labour_,
"laborare fugax," expressing its desire to escape. May not, therefore,
the first evident meaning be allowed to "trepidare," to tremble, or
_undulate_, showing the motion a rivulet assumes, just after it has
turned the angle of its obstruction. "Obliquo," may, too, mean the
slope, such as would be in a garden at Tivoli, on the verge of the
precipice. Possibly Horace generally uses "rivus" in this sense, "Purae
rivus aquae."--Then, again, describing the character of Tibur or Tivoli,
he does not say the Anio; but "aquae," as in the other instance "Lympha."
"Sed quae Tibur aquae fertile praefluunt,"
--"fertile," being the effect of the _irrigation_, the purpose for which
the aquae are turned from the river; and this agrees well with the word
_praefluunt_, as applied to irrigated gardens. Pliny thus uses the
adjective praefluus: "Hortos esse habendos _irriguos praefluo amne_." But
there is one passage in Horace where this meaning is so distinctly given
to rivers, and which is so characteristic of the very scene of Tibur,
that to me it is conclusive.
"et uda
_Mobilibus_ pomarea rivis."
Evidently channels, _moveable_ and diverse at pleasure, for
_irrigation_.
Nor would Horace use Lympha for a river, or be amenable to a charge of
such tautology as this:--
"Labuntur _altis interim ripis aquae_,
Quaeruntur in sylvis aves,
_Fontesque Lymphis_ obstrepunt manantibus,
Somnos quod inortet leves."
CURATE.--I fancy I now see the garden, where somewhat artificial
planting had put together the "Pinus ingens albaque Populus," to
consociate, and form the shady arbour, where the wine and unguents are
to be brought, and through which the _rivus_ passes angularly, and
doubtless with a view to the garden-beauty. It is a sketch from nature
of some particular and favourite spot.
Quo Pinus ingens albaque Populus
Umbram _hospitalem_ consociare amant
Ramis, et obliquo laborat
Lympha fugax trepidare rivo.
AQUILIUS.--Truly, in many places Horace delights to paint this one
individual spot. We have in all, the wood, the waters from their higher
banks, making falls such as to induce sleep, the garden with its shade,
and its fountain, _near the house_, this continual "aquae fons." Such as
was his "Fons Bandusiae," not _fons_ a mere spring, but sanctified by
architectural art, as well as feeling.
"Fies nobilium tu quoque fontium,
Me dicente cavis impositam illicem
Saxis, unde loquaces
_Lymphae_ desiliunt tuae."
But listen to what he desired to possess, and did possess.
"Hoc erat in votis, modus agri non ita magnus,
Hortus ubi, et tecto vicinus jugis aquae fons,
Et paulum sylvae super his foret."
Is he describing his Sabine villa?--I have a sketch on its site--and
there is now, whatever there may have been in his days, a high bank,
over which the water still falls, (I believe from the Digentia) which by
conduits supplied the house, and cattle returned from their labour, and
the flocks. There is a small cascade filling a marble basin (the
fountain) and thence flowing off through the garden. Perhaps he had in
these descriptions one or two scenes in his mind's eye much alike. A
poet's geography shifts its scenery _ad libitum_. But see what his
Sabine farm was.
CURATE.--I remember it.
"Scribetur tibi forma loquaciter, et situs agri."