even after this, through the course of the whole “Æneis,” she still
apprehends the interest which Juno might make with Jupiter against her
son. For it was a moot point in heaven whether he could alter fate or
not; and indeed some passages in Virgil would make us suspect that he was
of opinion Jupiter might defer fate, though he could not alter it; for in
the latter end of the tenth book he introduces Juno begging for the life
of Turnus, and flattering her husband with the power of changing destiny,
_tua_, _qui potes_, _orsa reflectas_! To which he graciously answers—
“_Si mora præsentis leti_, _tempusque caduco_
_Oratur juveni_, _meque hoc ita ponere sentis_,
_Tolle fugâ Turnum_, _atquc instantibus eripe fatis_.
_Hactenus indulsisse vacat_. _Sin altior istis_
_Sub precibus venia ulla latet_, _totumque moveri_
_Mutarive putas bellum_, _spes pascis inanis_.”
But that he could not alter those decrees the king of gods himself
confesses in the book above cited, when he comforts Hercules for the
death of Pallas, who had invoked his aid before he threw his lance at
Turnus:—
“_Trojæ sub mænibus altis_
_Tot nati cecidere deûm_; _quin occidit unà_
_Sarpedon_, _mea progenies_; _etiam sua Turnum_
_Fata vocant_, _metasque dati pervenit ad ævi_.”
Where he plainly acknowledges that he could not save his own son, or
prevent the death which he foresaw. Of his power to defer the blow, I
once occasionally discoursed with that excellent person Sir Robert
Howard, who is better conversant than any man that I know in the doctrine
of the Stoics, and he set me right, from the concurrent testimony of
philosophers and poets, that Jupiter could not retard the effects of
fate, even for a moment; for when I cited Virgil as favouring the
contrary opinion in that verse—
“_Tolle fugâ Turnum_, _atque instantibus eripe fatis_”—
he replied, and I think with exact judgment, that when Jupiter gave Juno
leave to withdraw Turnus from the present danger, it was because he
certainly foreknew that his fatal hour was not come, that it was in
destiny for Juno at that time to save him, and that himself obeyed
destiny in giving her that leave.
I need say no more in justification of our hero’s courage, and am much
deceived if he ever be attacked on this side of his character again. But
he is arraigned with more show of reason by the ladies, who will make a
numerous party against him, for being false to love in forsaking Dido;
and I cannot much blame them, for, to say the truth, it is an ill
precedent for their gallants to follow. Yet if I can bring him off with
flying colours, they may learn experience at her cost; and for her sake
avoid a cave as the worse shelter they can choose from a shower of rain,
especially when they have a lover in their company.
In the first place, Segrais observes with much acuteness that they who
blame Æneas for his insensibility of love when he left Carthage,
contradict their former accusation of him for being always crying,
compassionate, and effeminately sensible of those misfortunes which
befell others. They give him two contrary characters; but Virgil makes
him of a piece, always grateful, always tender-hearted. But they are
impudent enough to discharge themselves of this blunder by laying the
contradiction at Virgil’s door. He, they say, has shown his hero with
these inconsistent characters—acknowledging and ungrateful, compassionate
and hard-hearted, but at the bottom fickle and self-interested; for Dido
had not only received his weather-beaten troops before she saw him, and
given them her protection, but had also offered them an equal share in
her dominion:—
“_Vultis et his mecum pariter considere regnis_?
_Urbem quam statuo_, _vesra est_.”
This was an obligement never to be forgotten, and the more to be
considered because antecedent to her love. That passion, it is true,
produced the usual effects of generosity, gallantry, and care to please,
and thither we refer them; but when she had made all these advances, it
was still in his power to have refused them. After the intrigue of the
cave—call it marriage, or enjoyment only—he was no longer free to take or
leave; he had accepted the favour, and was obliged to be constant, if he
would be grateful.
My lord, I have set this argument in the best light I can, that the
ladies may not think I write booty; and perhaps it may happen to me, as
it did to Doctor Cudworth, who has raised such strong objections against
the being of a God and Providence, that many think he has not answered
them. You may please at least to hear the adverse party. Segrais pleads
for Virgil that no less than an absolute command from Jupiter could
excuse this insensibility of the hero, and this abrupt departure, which
looks so like extreme ingratitude; but at the same time he does wisely to
remember you that Virgil had made piety the first character of Æneas; and
this being allowed, as I am afraid it must, he was obliged, antecedent to
all other considerations, to search an asylum for his gods in Italy—for
those very gods, I say, who had promised to his race the universal
empire. Could a pious man dispense with the commands of Jupiter to
satisfy his passion, or—take it in the strongest sense—to comply with the
obligations of his gratitude? Religion, it is true, must have moral
honesty for its groundwork, or we shall be apt to suspect its truth; but
an immediate revelation dispenses with all duties of morality. All
casuists agree that theft is a breach of the moral law; yet if I might
presume to mingle things sacred with profane, the Israelites only spoiled
the Egyptians, not robbed them, because the propriety was transferred by
a revelation to their lawgiver. I confess Dido was a very infidel in
this point; for she would not believe, as Virgil makes her say, that ever
Jupiter would send Mercury on such an immoral errand. But this needs no
answer—at least, no more than Virgil gives it:—
“_Fata obstant_, _placidasque viri Deus obstruit aures_.”
This notwithstanding, as Segrais confesses, he might have shown a little
more sensibility when he left her, for that had been according to his
character.
But let Virgil answer for himself. He still loved her, and struggled
with his inclinations to obey the gods:—
“_Curam sub corde premebat_,
_Multa gemens_, _magnoque animum labefactus amore_.”
Upon the whole matter, and humanly speaking, I doubt there was a fault
somewhere, and Jupiter is better able to bear the blame than either
Virgil or Æneas. The poet, it seems, had found it out, and therefore
brings the deserting hero and the forsaken lady to meet together in the
lower regions, where he excuses himself when it is too late, and
accordingly she will take no satisfaction, nor so much as hear him. Now
Segrais is forced to abandon his defence, and excuses his author by
saying that the “Æneis” is an imperfect work, and that death prevented
the divine poet from reviewing it, and for that reason he had condemned
it to the fire, though at the same time his two translators must
acknowledge that the sixth book is the most correct of the whole “Æneis.”
Oh, how convenient is a machine sometimes in a heroic poem! This of
Mercury is plainly one; and Virgil was constrained to use it here, or the
honesty of his hero would be ill defended; and the fair sex, however, if
they had the deserter in their power, would certainly have shown him no
more mercy than the Bacchanals did Orpheus: for if too much constancy may
be a fault sometimes, then want of constancy, and ingratitude after the
last favour, is a crime that never will be forgiven. But of machines,
more in their proper place, where I shall show with how much judgment
they have been used by Virgil; and in the meantime pass to another
article of his defence on the present subject, where, if I cannot clear
the hero, I hope at least to bring off the poet, for here I must divide
their causes. Let Æneas trust to his machine, which will only help to
break his fall; but the address is incomparable. Plato, who borrowed so
much from Homer, and yet concluded for the banishment of all poets, would
at least have rewarded Virgil before he sent him into exile; but I go
farther, and say that he ought to be acquitted, and deserved, beside, the
bounty of Augustus and the gratitude of the Roman people. If after this
the ladies will stand out, let them remember that the jury is not all
agreed; for Octavia was of his party, and was of the first quality in
Rome: she was also present at the reading of the sixth Æneid, and we know
not that she condemned Æneas, but we are sure she presented the poet for
his admirable elegy on her son Marcellus.
But let us consider the secret reasons which Virgil had for thus framing
this noble episode, wherein the whole passion of love is more exactly
described than in any other poet. Love was the theme of his fourth book;
and though it is the shortest of the whole “Æneis,” yet there he has
given its beginning, its progress, its traverses, and its conclusion; and
had exhausted so entirely this subject that he could resume it but very
slightly in the eight ensuing books.
She was warmed with the graceful appearance of the hero; she smothered
those sparkles out of decency, but conversation blew them up into a
flame. Then she was forced to make a confidante of her whom she best
might trust, her own sister, who approves the passion, and thereby
augments it; then succeeds her public owning it; and after that the
consummation. Of Venus and Juno, Jupiter and Mercury, I say nothing (for
they were all machining work); but possession having cooled his love, as
it increased hers, she soon perceived the change, or at least grew
suspicious of a change. This suspicion soon turned to jealousy, and
jealousy to rage; then she disdains and threatens, and again is humble
and entreats: and, nothing availing, despairs, curses, and at last
becomes her own executioner. See here the whole process of that passion,
to which nothing can be added. I dare go no farther, lest I should lose
the connection of my discourse.
To love our native country, and to study its benefit and its glory; to be
interested in its concerns, is natural to all men, and is indeed our
common duty. A poet makes a farther step for endeavouring to do honour
to it. It is allowable in him even to be partial in its cause; for he is
not tied to truth, or fettered by the laws of history. Homer and Tasso
are justly praised for choosing their heroes out of Greece and Italy;
Virgil, indeed, made his a Trojan, but it was to derive the Romans and
his own Augustus from him; but all the three poets are manifestly partial
to their heroes in favour of their country. For Dares Phrygius reports
of Hector that he was slain cowardly; Æneas, according to the best
account, slew not Mezentius, but was slain by him; and the chronicles of
Italy tell us little of that Rinaldo d’Este who conquers Jerusalem in
Tasso. He might be a champion of the Church, but we know not that he was
so much as present at the siege. To apply this to Virgil, he thought
himself engaged in honour to espouse the cause and quarrel of his country
against Carthage. He knew he could not please the Romans better, or
oblige them more to patronise his poem, than by disgracing the foundress
of that city. He shows her ungrateful to the memory of her first
husband, doting on a stranger, enjoyed and afterwards forsaken by him.
This was the original, says he, of the immortal hatred betwixt the two
rival nations. It is true, he colours the falsehood of Æneas by an
express command from Jupiter to forsake the queen who had obliged him;
but he knew the Romans were to be his readers, and them he bribed—perhaps
at the expense of his hero’s honesty; but he gained his cause, however,
as pleading before corrupt judges. They were content to see their
founder false to love, for still he had the advantage of the amour. It
was their enemy whom he forsook, and she might have forsaken him if he
had not got the start of her. She had already forgotten her vows to her
Sichæus, and _varium et nutabile semper femina_ is the sharpest satire in
the fewest words that ever was made on womankind; for both the adjectives
are neuter, and _animal_ must be understood to make them grammar. Virgil
does well to put those words into the mouth of Mercury. If a god had not
spoken them, neither durst he have written them, nor I translated them.
Yet the deity was forced to come twice on the same errand; and the second
time, as much a hero as Æneas was, he frighted him. It seems he feared
not Jupiter so much as Dido; for your lordship may observe that, as much
intent as he was upon his voyage, yet he still delayed it, till the
messenger was obliged to tell him plainly that if he weighed not anchor
in the night the queen would be with him in the morning, _notumque furens
quid femina possit_: she was injured, she was revengeful, she was
powerful. The poet had likewise before hinted that the people were
naturally perfidious, for he gives their character in the queen, and
makes a proverb of _Punica fides_ many ages before it was invented.
Thus I hope, my lord, that I have made good my promise, and justified the
poet, whatever becomes of the false knight. And, sure, a poet is as much
privileged to lie as an ambassador for the honour and interest of his
country—at least, as Sir Henry Wotton has defined.
This naturally leads me to the defence of the famous anachronism in
making Æneas and Dido contemporaries, for it is certain that the hero
lived almost two hundred years before the building of Carthage. One who
imitates Boccalini says that Virgil was accused before Apollo for this
error. The god soon found that he was not able to defend his favourite
by reason, for the case was clear; he therefore gave this middle
sentence: that anything might be allowed to his son Virgil on the account
of his other merits; that, being a monarch, he had a dispensing power,
and pardoned him. But that this special act of grace might never be
drawn into example, or pleaded by his puny successors in justification of
their ignorance, he decreed for the future—no poet should presume to make
a lady die for love two hundred years before her birth. To moralise this
story, Virgil is the Apollo who has this dispensing power. His great
judgment made the laws of poetry, but he never made himself a slave to
them; chronology at best is but a cobweb law, and he broke through it
with his weight. They who will imitate him wisely must choose, as he
did, an obscure and a remote era, where they may invent at pleasure, and
not be easily contradicted. Neither he nor the Romans had ever read the
Bible, by which only his false computation of times can be made out
against him. This Segrais says in his defence, and proves it from his
learned friend Bochartus, whose letter on this subject he has printed at
the end of the fourth Æneid, to which I refer your lordship and the
reader. Yet the credit of Virgil was so great that he made this fable of
his own invention pass for an authentic history, or at least as credible
as anything in Homer. Ovid takes it up after him even in the same age,
and makes an ancient heroine of Virgil’s new-created Dido; dictates a
letter for her, just before her death, to the ingrateful fugitive; and,
very unluckily for himself, is for measuring a sword with a man so much
superior in force to him on the same subject. I think I may be judge of
this, because I have translated both. The famous author of “The Art of
Love” has nothing of his own; he borrows all from a greater master in his
own profession, and, which is worse, improves nothing which he finds.
Nature fails him; and, being forced to his old shift, he has recourse to
witticism. This passes, indeed, with his soft admirers, and gives him
the preference to Virgil in their esteem; but let them like for
themselves, and not prescribe to others, for our author needs not their
admiration.
The motive that induced Virgil to coin this fable I have showed already,
and have also begun to show that he might make this anachronism, by
superseding the mechanic rules of poetry, for the same reason that a
monarch may dispense with or suspend his own laws when he finds it
necessary so to do, especially if those laws are not altogether
fundamental. Nothing is to be called a fault in poetry, says Aristotle,
but what is against the art; therefore a man may be an admirable poet
without being an exact chronologer. Shall we dare, continues Segrais, to
condemn Virgil for having made a fiction against the order of time, when
we commend Ovid and other poets who have made many of their fictions
against the order of nature? For what else are the splendid miracles of
the “Metamorphoses?” Yet these are beautiful as they are related, and
have also deep learning and instructive mythologies couched under them.
But to give, as Virgil does in this episode, the original cause of the
long wars betwixt Rome and Carthage; to draw truth out of fiction after
so probable a manner, with so much beauty, and so much for the honour of
his country, was proper only to the divine wit of Maro; and Tasso, in one
of his discourses, admires him for this particularly. It is not lawful
indeed to contradict a point of history which is known to all the
world—as, for example, to make Hannibal and Scipio contemporaries with
Alexander—but in the dark recesses of antiquity a great poet may and
ought to feign such things as he finds not there, if they can be brought
to embellish that subject which he treats. On the other side, the pains
and diligence of ill poets is but thrown away when they want the genius
to invent and feign agreeably. But if the fictions be delightful (which
they always are if they be natural) if they be of a piece; if the
beginning, the middle, and the end be in their due places, and artfully
united to each other, such works can never fail of their deserved
success. And such is Virgil’s episode of Dido and Æneas, where the
sourest critic must acknowledge that if he had deprived his “Æneis” of so
great an ornament, because he found no traces of it in antiquity, he had
avoided their unjust censure, but had wanted one of the greatest beauties
of his poem.
I shall say more of this in the next article of their charge against him,
which is—want of invention. In the meantime I may affirm, in honour of
this episode, that it is not only now esteemed the most pleasing
entertainment of the “Æneis,” but was so accounted in his own age, and
before it was mellowed into that reputation which time has given it; for
which I need produce no other testimony than that of Ovid, his
contemporary:—
“_Nec pars ulla magis legitur de corpore toto_,
_Quam non legitimo fædere junctus amor_.”
Where, by the way, you may observe, my lord, that Ovid in those words,
_non legitimo fædere junctus amor_, will by no means allow it to be a
lawful marriage betwixt Dido and Æneas. He was in banishment when he
wrote those verses, which I cite from his letter to Augustus. “You,
sir,” saith he, “have sent me into exile for writing my ‘Art of Love’ and
my wanton elegies; yet your own poet was happy in your good graces,
though he brought Dido and Æneas into a cave, and left them there not
over-honestly together: may I be so bold to ask your majesty is it a
greater fault to teach the art of unlawful love than to show it in the
action?” But was Ovid the court-poet so bad a courtier as to find no
other plea to excuse himself than by a plain accusation of his master?
Virgil confessed it was a lawful marriage betwixt the lovers; that Juno,
the goddess of matrimony, had ratified it by her presence (for it was her
business to bring matters to that issue): that the ceremonies were short
we may believe, for Dido was not only amorous, but a widow. Mercury
himself, though employed on a quite contrary errand, yet owns it a
marriage by an innuendo—_pulchramque uxorius urbem extruis_. He calls
Æneas not only a husband, but upbraids him for being a fond husband, as
the word _uxorius_ implies. Now mark a little, if your lordship pleases,
why Virgil is so much concerned to make this marriage (for he seems to be
the father of the bride himself, and to give her to the bridegroom); it
was to make way for the divorce which he intended afterwards, for he was
a finer flatterer than Ovid, and I more than conjecture that he had in
his eye the divorce which not long before had passed betwixt the emperor
and Scribonia. He drew this dimple in the cheek of Æneas to prove
Augustus of the same family by so remarkable a feature in the same place.
Thus, as we say in our home-spun English proverb, he killed two birds
with one stone—pleased the emperor by giving him the resemblance of his
ancestor, and gave him such a resemblance as was not scandalous in that
age (for to leave one wife and take another was but a matter of gallantry
at that time of day among the Romans). _Neque hæc in fædera veni_ is the
very excuse which Æneas makes when he leaves his lady. “I made no such
bargain with you at our marriage to live always drudging on at Carthage;
my business was Italy, and I never made a secret of it. If I took my
pleasure, had not you your share of it? I leave you free at my departure
to comfort yourself with the next stranger who happens to be shipwrecked
on your coast; be as kind an hostess as you have been to me, and you can
never fail of another husband. In the meantime I call the gods to
witness that I leave your shore unwillingly; for though Juno made the
marriage, yet Jupiter commands me to forsake you.” This is the effect of
what he saith when it is dishonoured out of Latin verse into English
prose. If the poet argued not aright, we must pardon him for a poor
blind heathen, who knew no better morals.
I have detained your lordship longer than I intended on this objection,
which would indeed weigh something in a Spiritual Court;—but I am not to
defend our poet there. The next, I think, is but a cavil, though the cry
is great against him, and hath continued from the time of Macrobius to
this present age; I hinted it before. They lay no less than want of
invention to his charge—a capital charge, I must acknowledge; for a poet
is a maker, as the word signifies; and who cannot make—that is,
invent—hath his name for nothing. That which makes this accusation look
so strong at the first sight is that he has borrowed so many things from
Homer, Apollonius Rhodius, and others who preceded him. But in the first
place, if invention is to be taken in so strict a sense that the matter
of a poem must be wholly new, and that in all its parts, then Scaliger
hath made out, saith Segrais, that the history of Troy was no more the
invention of Homer than of Virgil. There was not an old woman or almost
a child, but had it in their mouths before the Greek poet or his friends
digested it into this admirable order in which we read it. At this rate,
as Solomon hath told us, there is nothing new beneath the sun. Who,
then, can pass for an inventor if Homer as well as Virgil must be
deprived of that glory! Is Versailles the less a new building because
the architect of that palace hath imitated others which were built before
it? Walls, doors and windows, apartments, offices, rooms of convenience
and magnificence, are in all great houses. So descriptions, figures,
fables, and the rest, must be in all heroic poems; they are the common
materials of poetry, furnished from the magazine of nature: every poet
hath as much right to them as every man hath to air or water:
“_Quid prohibetis aquas_? _Usus communis aquarum est_.”