of Italy, is the descriptions of their villas, their regret at leaving
them, or their invitations to friends to come and witness their happiness.
Hence Fracastoro’s villa, in the vicinity of Verona, Ambra, and
_Pulcherrima Mergellina_, are now almost esteemed classic spots, like
Tusculum or Tibur.
The invocation to the peninsula of Sirmio was evidently written soon after
the return of Catullus from Bithynia; and his next poem worth noticing is
a similar address to his villa near Tibur. The thought, however, in this
poem, is very forced and poor. Catullus having been invited by his friend
Sextius, according to a common custom at Rome, to be one of a party
assembled at his house for the purpose of hearing an oration composed by
their host, had contracted such a cold from its frigidity, that he was
obliged to leave Rome, and retire to this seat, in order to recover from
its effects. For his speedy restoration to health, he now gives thanks to
his salubrious villa. This residence was situated on the confines of the
ancient Latian and Sabine territories, and the villas there, as we learn
from this ode, were sometimes called Tiburtine, from the town of Tibur,
and sometimes Sabine, from the district where they lay; but the former
appellation, it seems, was greatly preferred by Catullus. As long as the
odes of Horace survive, the
“Domus Albuneæ resonantis,
Et præceps Anio, et Tiburni lucus, et uda
Mobilibus pomaria rivis,”
will be remembered as forming one of the most delightful retreats in
Italy, and one which was so agreeable to its poet, that he wished that of
all others it might be the shelter and refuge of his old age. From the
present aspect of Tivoli, the charm of the villas at the ancient Tibur may
be still appreciated. “We ascended,” says Eustace, “the high hill on which
Tivoli stands, passing through groves of olives, till we reached the
summit. This town, the Tibur of the ancients, stands in a delightful
situation, sheltered by Monte Catillo, and a semicircular range of Sabine
mountains, and commanding, on the other side, an extensive view over the
Campagna, bounded by the sea, Rome, Mount Soracte, and the pyramidal hills
of Monticelli and Monte Rotondo, the ancient Eretum. But the pride and
ornament of Tivoli are still, as anciently, the falls and the windings of
the Anio, now Teverone. This river having meandered from its source
through the vales of Sabina, glides gently through Tivoli, till, coming to
the brink of a rock, it precipitates itself in one mass down the steep,
and then boiling for an instant in its narrow channel, rushes headlong
through a chasm in the rock into the caverns below.* * * To enjoy the
scenery to advantage, the traveller must cross the bridge, and follow the
road which runs at the foot of the classic Monte Catillo, and winds along
the banks of the Anio. As he advances he will have on his left the steep
banks covered with trees, shrubs, and gardens, and on his right the bold
but varying swells of the hills shaded with groves of olives. These sunny
declivities were anciently interspersed with splendid villas, the
favourite abodes of the most luxurious and refined Romans. They are now
replaced by two solitary convents, but their site, often conjectural or
traditionary, is sometimes marked by scanty vestiges of ruins, and now and
then by the more probable resemblance of a name(488).” Eustace does not
particularly mention the farm or villa of Catullus. In the travels,
however, which pass under the name of M. Blainville, written in the
beginning of last century, we are informed, that a monastery of the
religious order of Mount Olivet was then established on the spot where
formerly stood the Tiburtine villa of Catullus(489). M. de Castellan fixes
on the same spot, on account of its situation between the Sabine and
Tiburtine territory. “D’ailleurs,” continues he, “il n’est pas d’endroit
plus retiré, mieux garanti des vents, que cet angle rentrant de la vallée,
entouré de tous côtes par de hautes montagnes; ce qui est encore un des
caracteres du local choisi par notre poëte, qui pretendoit y être à l’abri
de tout autre vent que de celui qui l’expose à la vengeance de sa
maitresse(490).” It would appear from Forsyth’s Travels, that a spot is
still fixed on as the site of the residence of Catullus. “The villa of
Catullus,” he says, “is easily ascertained by his own minute description
of the place, by excavated marbles, and by the popular name of Truglia.”
This spot, which is close to the church of St Angelo in Piavola, is on the
opposite side of the Anio from Tibur, about a mile north from that town,
and on the north side of Monte Catillo, or what might be called the back
of that hill, in reference to the situation of Tibur. The Anio divides the
ancient Latian from the Sabine territory, and the villa of Catullus was on
the Sabine side of the river, but was called Tiburtine from the vicinity
of Tibur(491).
The Romans, and particularly the Roman poets, as if the rustic spirit of
their Italian ancestry was not altogether banished by the buildings of
Rome, appear to have had a genuine and exquisite relish for the delights
of the country. This feeling was not inspired by fondness for
field-sports, since, although habituated to violent exercises, the chase
never was a favourite amusement among the Romans, and they preferred
seeing wild animals baited in the amphitheatre, to hunting them down in
their native forests. The country then was not relished as we are apt to
enjoy it, for the sake of exercise or rural pastimes, but solely for its
amenity and repose, and the mental tranquillity which it diffused. With
them it seems to have been truely,
“The relish for the calm delight
Of verdant vales and fountains bright;
Trees that nod on sloping hills,
And caves that echo tinkling rills.”.
Love of the country among the Romans thus became conjoined with the idea
of a life of pastoral tranquillity and retirement,—a life of friendship,
liberty, and repose,—free from labour and care, and all turbulent
passions. Scenes of this kind delight and interest us supremely, whether
they be painted as what is desired or what is enjoyed. We feel how natural
it is for a mind with a certain disposition to relaxation and indolence,
when fatigued with the bustle of life, to long for security and quiet, and
for those sequestered scenes in which they can be most exquisitely
enjoyed. There is much less of this in the writings of the Greeks, who
were originally a sea-faring and piratical, and not, like the Italians, a
pastoral people. It is thus that, even in their highest state of
refinement, the manners and feelings of nations bear some affinity to
their original rudeness, though that rudeness itself has been
imperceptibly converted into a source of elegance and ornament.
34. _Seculare carmen ad Dianam_. This is the first strictly lyric
production of Catullus which occurs, and there are only three other poems
of a similar class. In Greece, the public games afforded a noble occasion
for the display of lyric poetry, and the sensibility of the Greeks fitted
them to follow its highest flights. But it was not so among the Romans.
They had no solemn festivals of assembled states: Their active and
ambitious life deadened them to the emotions which lyric poetry should
excite; and the gods, whose praises form the noblest themes of the Æolian
lyre, were with them rather the creatures of state policy, than of feeling
or imagination.
45. _De Acme et Septimio_. Here our poet details the mutual blandishments
and amorous expressions of Acme and Septimius, with the approbation
bestowed on them by Cupid. This amatory effusion has been freely
translated by Cowley:—
“Whilst on Septimius’ panting breast.
Meaning nothing less than rest,” &c.
49. _Ad M. Tullium_. In this poem, which is addressed to Cicero as the
most eloquent of the Romans, Catullus modestly returns the orator thanks
for some service he had rendered him.
51. _Ad Lesbiam_. This is the translation of the celebrated ode of Sappho,
which has been preserved to us by Longinus, Φαινεται μοι κηνος, &c. The
fourth stanza of the original Greek has not been translated, but in its
place a verse is inserted in all the editions of Catullus, containing a
moral reflection, which one would hardly have expected from this dissolute
poet:
“Otium, Catulle, tibi molestum est:
Otio exultas, nimiumque gestis;
Otium reges prius et beatas
Perdidit urbes.”
This stanza is so foreign from the spirit of high excitation in which the
preceding part of the ode is written, that Maffei suspected it had
belonged to some other poem of Catullus; and Handius, in his
_Observationes Criticæ_, conjectures that the fourth stanza, which
Catullus translated from the original Greek, having been lost, and a chasm
being thus left, some idle librarian or scholiast of the middle ages had
interpolated these four lines of misplaced morality, that no gap might
appear in his manuscript(492). It is not impossible, however, that this
verse may have been intended to express the answer of the poet’s mistress.
Many amatory poets have tried to imitate this celebrated ode; but most of
them have failed of success. Boileau has also attempted this far-famed
fragment; but although he has produced an elegant enough poem, he has not
expressed the vehement passion of the Greek original so happily as
Catullus. How different are the rapidity and emotion of the following
stanza,
“Lingua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus
Flamma dimanat, sonitu suopte
Tintinant aures—gemina teguntur
Lumina nocte,”
from the languor of the corresponding lines of the French poet!
“Une nuage confus se repand sur ma vue,
Je n’entend plus, je tombe en de douces langueurs,
Et passe, sans haleine, interdite, perdue;
Un frisson me saisit—je tremble, je me meurs.”
These lines give us little idea of that furious passion of which Longinus
says the Greek ode expresses all the symptoms. Racine has been much more
happy than Boileau in his imitation of Sappho. Phædra, in the celebrated
French tragedy which bears the name of that victim of love, thus paints
the effects of the passion with which she was struck at her first view of
Hippolytus:—
“Athènes me montra mon superbe ennemi:
Je le vis, je rougis, je palis à sa vue—
Un trouble s’eleva dans mon ame éperdue,
Mes yeux ne voyoient plus, je ne pouvois parler;
Je sentis tout mon cœur et transir et brûler(493).”
On this passage Voltaire remarks, “Peut on mieux imiter Sappho? Ces vers,
quoique imites, coulent de source; chaque mot trouble les ames sensibles,
et les penetre; ce n’est point une amplification: c’est le chef d’œuvre de
la nature et de l’art(494).” A translation by De Lille, which has a very
close resemblance to that of Boileau, is inserted in the delightful
chapter of the _Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis_, which treats of Lesbos and
Sappho. Philips, it is well known, attempted a version of the lyric
stanzas of Sappho, which was first printed with vast commendation in the
229th Number of the Spectator, where Addison has also remarked, “that
several of our countrymen, and Dryden in particular, seem very often to
have copied after this ode of Sappho, in their dramatic writings, and in
their poems upon love.”
58. _Ad Cœlium de Lesbia_. In this ode, addressed to one of her former
admirers, Catullus gives an account, both tender and pathetic, of the
debaucheries and degraded condition of Lesbia, to his passion for whom, he
had attributed such powerful effects in the above imitation of Sappho.
61. _In Nuptias Juliæ et Manlii_. We come now to the three celebrated
epithalamiums of Catullus. The first is in honour of the nuptials of Julia
and Manlius, who is generally supposed to have been Aulus Manlius
Torquatus, an intimate friend of the poet, and a descendant of one of the
most noble patrician families in Rome. This poem has been entitled an
Epithalamium in most of the ancient editions, but Muretus contends that
this is an improper appellation, and that it should be inscribed _Carmen
Nuptiale_. “An epithalamium,” he says, “was supposed to be sung by the
virgins when the bride had retired to the nuptial chamber, whereas in this
poem an earlier part of the ceremony is celebrated and described.” This
earlier part, indeed, occupies the greater portion of the poem, but
towards the conclusion the bride is represented as placed in the chamber
of her husband, which may justify its ordinary title:
“Jam licet venias, Marite;
Uxor in thalamo est tibi,” &c.
In this bridal song the poet first addresses Hymen; and as the bride was
now about to proceed from her paternal mansion to the house of her
husband, invokes his aid in raising the nuptial hymn. He then describes
the bride:—
“Floridis velut enitens
Myrtus Asià ramulis;
Quos Hamadryades Deæ
Ludicrum sibi roscido
Nutriunt humore.”
A similar image is frequent with other poets, and has been adopted by
Pontanus(495) and Naugerius(496).
The praises of Hymen follow next:—
“Nil potest sine te Venus,
Fama quod bona comprobet,
Commodi capere: at potest
Te volente. Quis huic Deo
Compararier ausit?
Nulla quit sine te domus
Liberos dare, nec parens
Stirpe jungier: at potest
Te volente. Quis huic Deo
Compararier ausit?”
Claudian, in his epithalamium on the nuptials of Palladius and Celerina,
and the German poet Lotichius, extol Hymen in terms similar to those
employed in the first of the above stanzas: and the advantages he confers,
alluded to in the second, have been beautifully touched on by Milton, as
also by Pope, in his chorus of youths and virgins, forming part of the
Duke of Buckingham’s intended tragedy—_Brutus_:
“But Hymen’s kinder flames unite,
And burn for ever one,
Chaste as cold Cynthia’s virgin light,
Productive as the sun.
“O source of every social tye,
United wish and mutual joy,
What various joys on one attend!
As son, as father, brother, husband, friend.”
Catullus now proceeds to describe the ceremonies with which the bride was
conveyed to the house of her husband, and was there received. He feigns
that he beholds the nuptial pomp and retinue approaching, and encourages
the bride to come forth, by an elegant compliment to her beauty; as also,
by reminding her of the fair fame and character of her intended husband.
As she approaches, he intimates the freedom of the ancient Fescennine
verses, which were first sung at marriage festivals.
The bride being at length conducted to her new habitation, the poet
addresses the bridegroom, and shuts up the married pair: But before
concluding, in reference to Torquatus, one of the husband’s names, he
alludes, with exquisite delicacy and tenderness, to the most-wished-for
consequence of this happy union:—
“Torquatus, volo, parvulus
Matris e gremio suæ
Porrigens teneras manus,
Dulce rideat ad patrem,
Semihiante labello.”
The above verse has been thus imitated in an Epithalamium on the marriage
of Lord Spencer, by Sir William Jones, who pronounces it a picture worthy
the pencil of Domenichino:
“And soon to be completely blest,
Soon may a young Torquatus rise,
Who, hanging on his mother’s breast,
To his known sire shall turn his eyes,
Outstretch his infant arms a while,
Half ope his little lips and smile.”
And thus by Leonard, in his pastoral romance of _Alexis_, where, however,
he has omitted the _semihiante labello_, the finest feature in the
picture:—
“Quel tableau! quand un jeune enfant,
Penché sur le sein de sa mère,
Avec un sourire innocent
Etendra ses mains vers son père.”
This nuptial hymn has been the model of many epithalamiums, particularly
that of Jason and Creusa, sung by the chorus in Seneca’s _Medea_, and of
Honorius and Maria, in Claudian. The modern Latin poets, particularly
Justus Lipsius, have exercised themselves a great deal in this style of
composition; and most of them with evident imitation of the work of
Catullus. It has also been highly applauded by the commentators; and more
than one critic has declared that it must have been written by the hands
of Venus and the Graces—“Veneris et Gratiarum manibus scriptum esse.” I
wish, however, they had excepted from their unqualified panegyrics the
coarse imitation of the Fescennine poems, which leaves on our minds a
stronger impression of the prevalence and extent of Roman vices, than any
other passage in the Latin classics. Martial, and Catullus himself
elsewhere, have branded their enemies; and Juvenal, in bursts of satiric
indignation, has reproached his countrymen with the most shocking crimes.
But here, in a complimentary poem to a patron and intimate friend, these
are jocularly alluded to as the venial indulgences of his earliest youth.
62. _Carmen Nuptiale_. Some parts of this epithalamium have been taken
from Theocritus, particularly from his eighteenth Idyl, where the
Lacedæmonian maids, companions of Helen, sing before the bridal-chamber of
Menelaus(497). This second nuptial hymn of Catullus may be regarded as a
continuation of the above poem, being also in honour of the marriage of
Manlius and Julia. The stanzas of the former were supposed to be sung or
recited in the person of the poet, who only exhorted the chorus of youths
and virgins to commence the nuptial strain. But here these bands contend,
in alternate verses; the maids descanting on the beauty and advantages of
a single life, and the lads on those of marriage.
The young men, companions of the bridegroom, are supposed to have left him
at the rising of the evening star of love:—
—— “Vesper Olympo
Expectata diu vix tandem lumina tollit.
* * * * *
Hespere, qui cœlo lucet jucundior ignis?”
These lines appear to have been imitated by Spenser in his Epithalamium—
“Ah! when will this long weary day have done!
Long though it be, at last I see it gloom,
And the bright evening star, with golden crest,
Appear out of the east;
Fair child of beauty, glorious lamp of love,
How cheerfully thou lookest from above!”
The maids who had accompanied the bride to her husband’s house, approached
the youths who had just left the bridegroom, and they commence a very
elegant contention concerning the merits of the star, which the chorus of
virgins is pleased to characterize as a cruel planet. They are silenced,
however, by the youths hinting that they are not such enemies to Hesper as
they pretend to be. Then the maids, draw a beautiful, and, with Catullus,
a favourite comparison between an unblemished virgin, and a delicate
flower in a garden:
“Ut flos in septis secretus nascitur hortis,
Ignotus pecori, nullo convulsus aratro,
Quem mulcent auræ, firmat sol, educat imber;
Multi illum pueri, multæ optavere puellæ.
Idem cum tenui carptus defloruit ungui,
Nulli illum pueri, nullæ optavere puellæ.
Sic virgo dum intacta manet, tum cara suis; sed
Cum castum amisit, polluto corpore, florem,
Nec pueris jucunda manet, nec cara puellis.”
To the sentiment delineated by this image, the youths reply by one
scarcely less beautiful, emblematical of the happiness of the married
state; and as this was a theme in which the maidens were probably not
unwilling to be overcome, they unite in the last stanza with the chorus of
young men, in recommending to the bride to act the part of a submissive
spouse.
Few passages in Latin poetry have been more frequently imitated, and none
more deservedly, than the above-quoted verses of Catullus, who certainly
excels almost all other writers, in the beauty and propriety of his
similes. The greatest poets have not disdained to transplant this
exquisite flower of song. Perhaps the most successful imitation is one by
the Prince of the romantic bards of Italy, in the first canto of his
_Orlando_, and which it may be amusing to compare with the original:
“La Verginella è simile alla rosa,
Che in bel giardin su la nativa spina,
Mentre sola, e sicura si riposa,
Nè gregge, nè pastor se le avvicina;
L’aura soave, e l’alba rugiadosa,
L’acqua, la terra al suo favor s’inchina:
Giovini vaghi, e donne innamorate,
Amano averne e seni, e tempie ornate.
Ma non si tosto dal materno stelo
Rimossa viene, e dal suo ceppo verde;
Che quanto avea dagli uomini, e dal cielo,
Favor, grazia, e bellezza tutto perde.
La vergine, che il fior, di che più zelo,
Che de begli occhi, e della vita, aver dè,
Lascia altrui corre, il pregio, ch’avea dinanti,
Perde nel cor de tutti gli altri amanti.”
The reader may perhaps like to see how this theme has been managed by an
old _French_ poet nearly contemporary with Ariosto:
“La jeune vierge est semblable à la rose,
Au beau jardin, sur l’épine native,
Tandis que sûre et seulette repose,
Sans que troupeau ni berger y arrive;
L’air doux l’échauffe, et l’Aurore l’arrose,
La terre, l’eau par sa faveur l’avive;
Mais jeunes gens et dames amoureuses,
De la cueillir ont les mains envieuses;
La terre et l’air, qui la soulaient nourrir,
La quittent lors et la laissent flétrir(498).”
It is evident that Ariosto has suggested several things to the French
poet, as he has also done to the imitators in our own language, in which
the simile has been frequently attempted, but not with much success. Ben
Jonson has translated it miserably, substituting doggerel verse for the
sweet flow of the Latin poetry, and verbal antithesis and conceit for that
beautiful simplicity of idea which forms the chief charm of the original:
“Look how a flower that close in closes grows,
Hid from rude cattle, bruised by no plows,” &c.
One of the best of the numerous English imitations is that in the _Lay of
Iolante_, introduced in Bland’s _Four Slaves of Cythera_:
“A tender maid is like a flow’ret sweet,
Within the covert of a garden born;
Nor flock nor hind disturb the calm retreat,
But on the parent stalk it blooms untorn,
Refresh’d by vernal rains and gentle heat,
The balm of evening, and the dews of morn:
Youths and enamoured maidens vie to wear
This flower—their bosoms grace, or twined around their hair.
“No sooner gathered from the vernal bough,
Where fresh and blooming to the sight it grew.
Than all who marked its opening beauty blow,
Forsake the tainted sweet, and faded hue.
And she who yields, forgetful of her vow,
To one but newly loved, another’s due,
Shall live, though high for heavenly beauty prized,
By youths unhonoured, and by maids despised.”
One of the lines in the passage of Catullus,
“Multi illum pueri—multæ optavere puellæ,”
and its converse,
“Nulli illum pueri—nullæ optavere puellæ,”
have been copied by Ovid in his _Metamorphoses_(499), and applied to
Narcissus,
“Multi illum pueri, multæ cupiere puellæ.
Sed fuit in tenerâ tam dura superbia formâ,
Nulli illum juvenes, nullæ tetigere puellæ.”
The origin of the line,
“Nec pueris jucunda manet, nec cara puellis,”
may be traced to a fragment of the Greek poet Mimnermus:
“Ἀλλ’ ἐχθρος μεν παισιν, ατιμαστος δε γυναιξιν.”