AGE OF VIRGIL FAVOURABLE TO POETRY—HIS BIRTH, EDUCATION, HABITS,
ILLNESS, AND DEATH—HIS POPULARITY AND CHARACTER—HIS MINOR POEMS, THE
CULEX CIRIS MORETUM COPA AND CATALECTA—HIS BUCOLICS—ITALIAN MANNERS NOT
SUITED TO PASTORAL POETRY—IDYLLS OF THEOCRITUS—CLASSIFICATION OF THE
BUCOLICS—SUBJECT OF THE POLLIO—HEYNE’S THEORY RESPECTING IT.
P. VIRGILIUS MARO (BORN B. C. 70.)
The period at which Virgil flourished was singularly favourable both to
the development and appreciation of poetical talent of the most polished
and cultivated kind. The indulgent liberality of the imperial court
cherished and fostered genius: the ruin of republican liberty left the
intellect of the age without any other object except refinement;
imagination was not harassed by the cares and realities of life. The
same causes contributed to limit the range of prose composition,[527]
and therefore the field was left undisputed to Virgil and Horace and
their friends; and as the age of Cicero was essentially one in which
prose literature flourished, so that of Augustus was the golden age of
poetry. Of this age, Virgil stands forth pre-eminent amongst his
contemporaries, as the representative. He exhibited all its
characteristics, polish, ingenuity, and skill, and to these he
superadded dignity and sublimity. The life of Virgil, commonly prefixed
to his works, professes to be written by Tiberius Claudius Donatus, who
lived in the fifth century. If, as Heyne thought, the groundwork is by
him, it has been overlaid with fables similar to those found in the
Gesta Romanorum, and owing their origin to the inventions of the dark
ages. From this biography, stripped of those portions which are clearly
fabulous, and from other sources, the following particulars respecting
him may be derived:—P. Virgilius Maro was born on the ides (the 15th) of
October,[528] B. C. 70, on a small estate belonging to his father, at
Andes (Pietola,) a village of Cisalpine Gaul, situated about three Roman
miles from Mantua. It has been disputed whether his name was Virgilius
or Vergilius. Most probably both orthographies are correct, as _Diana_,
_Minerva_, _liber_, and other Latin words, were frequently written
_Deana_, _Menerva_, _leber_, &c.[529]
Virgil was by birth a citizen of Mantua,[530] but not of Rome, for the
full franchise was not extended to the _Transpadani_ until B. C. 49,
although they enjoyed the Jus Latii as early as B. C. 89. The varied
stores of learning contained in the Georgics and Æneid, abundantly prove
that Virgil received a liberal education. It is said that he acquired
the rudiments of literature at Cremona, where he remained until he had
assumed the _toga virilis_.[531] This event, if the anonymous life is to
be depended upon, took place unusually early; for it is there assigned
to the consulships of Pompey the Great and Licinius Crassus,[532] in the
first consulship of whom he was born. From Cremona he went to Milan, and
thence to Naples, where he studied Greek literature and philosophy under
the direction of Parthenius, a native of Bithynia. Muretus asserts that
he diligently read the history of Thucydides; but his favourite studies
were medicine and mathematics—an unusual discipline to engage the
attention of the future poet, but one which, by its exactness, tended to
foster and mature that judgment which distinguishes his poetry. The
philosophical sect to which he devoted himself was the Epicurean; and
the unfortunate general, P. Quintilius Varus, to whom he addresses his
sixth Eclogue,[533] studied this system together with him under Syron.
After this, it is probable that he came to Rome, but soon exchanged the
bustle of the capital, for which his bashful disposition and delicate
health unfitted him, for the quiet retirement of his hereditary estate.
Of this he was deprived in B. C. 42, with circumstances of great
hardship, when the whole neighbouring district was divided, after the
battle of Philippi, amongst the victorious legionaries of Octavius and
Antony. The town of Cremona had supported Brutus, and the old republican
party, and Mantua, together with its surrounding district, suffered in
consequence of its too close vicinity.[534] Asinius Pollio was at that
time commander of the forces in Cisalpine Gaul. He was grinding and
oppressive in his administration; but being himself an orator, poet, and
historian, he patronised literary men. Congenial tastes recommended
Virgil to his notice, and led him to take compassion on the poet’s
desolate condition. By his advice, Virgil proceeded to Rome with an
introduction to Mæcenas. Through him he gained access to Octavius, and
either immediately before or after the peace of Brundisium[535] his
little farm was restored to him.
He now became a prosperous man, was a member of the literary society
which graced the table of Mæcenas, and basked in sunshine of court
favour. Horace, Virgil, Plotius, and Varius, were united by the closest
bonds of friendship with Mæecenas, and accompanied him on that cheerful
expedition to Brundisium,[536] when he went thither in order to
negotiate a reconciliation between Octavius and Antony. Henceforth
Virgil’s favourite residence was Naples.[537] Its sunny climate suited
his pulmonary weakness far better than the low and damp banks of his
native Mincius (Menzo.) He had, besides, a villa in Sicily, and when at
Rome he lived in a pleasant house on the Esquiline, situated near those
of his friends Mæcenas and Horace. It is difficult to say how Virgil
became so rich: patrons were liberal in those days, and he doubtless
owed a portion of his affluence to their munificence. The liberality of
Mæcenas is well known; and Martial attributes the prosperity of Virgil
to the favour of “the Tuscan knight.”[538] Augustus also had great
wealth at his disposal, and was profuse in the distribution of it
amongst his favourites.
There is a passage in the Odes of Horace[539] which seems to hint that
he engaged to a slight extent in mercantile concerns: even if this
formed one source of his wealth, the love of gain (studium lucri,) and
anxiety about the means of living, do not appear to have hindered him
from devoting his hours of serious occupation to literary labours and
the diligent use of his well-stored library, whilst his leisure was
given to the delights of social intercourse, for which he was so
eminently qualified by his sweet temper and amiable disposition.
The poet’s term of life was not extended far beyond fifty years. He had
never been healthy or robust: he sometimes spat blood, and frequently
suffered from headache and indigestion.[540] Ill health was the only
drawback to a life otherwise passed in calm felicity. In the year B. C.
19 he meditated a tour in Greece, intending, during the course of it, to
give the final polish to his great epic poem. Greece and her classic
scenes, the favourite haunts of the Muses, the time-honoured contests of
Olympia, the living and breathing statues which he beheld in that home
of art, evidently inspired the beautiful imagery which adorns the
introduction to the third Georgic. He, however, only reached Athens:
there he met Augustus, who was on his way back from Samos, and both
returned together. On the occasion of this voyage, Horace wrote that
tender ode[541] in which he affectionately calls him “the half of his
soul:”—
Navis quæ tibi creditum
Debes Virgilium, finibus Atticis
Reddas incolumem precor
Et serves animæ dimidium meæ.
On the way he was seized with a mortal sickness, which was aggravated by
the motion of the vessel, and he only lived to land at Brundisium. The
powers of nature, already enfeebled, were now totally exhausted, and he
expired on the 22nd of September. He was buried rather more than a mile
from Naples, on the road to Puteoli (Pozzuoli.) A tomb is still pointed
out to the traveller which is said to be that of the poet. Nor is this
improbable; for, although it is not situated on the present high-road,
it is quite possible that the original direction of the road may have
been changed.[542] His epitaph is said to have been dictated by himself
in his last moments:—
Mantua me genuit; Calabri rapuere; tenet nunc
Parthenope. Cecini Pascua, Rura, Duces.[543]
Virgil was deservedly popular both as a poet and as a man. His rivals in
literature could not envy one so unassuming and inoffensive his
well-merited success, but loved him as much as they admired his poetry.
The emperor esteemed him, the people respected him. “Witness,” says
Tacitus,[544] “the letters of Augustus,—witness the conduct of the
people itself, which, when some of his verses were recited in the
theatre, rose _en masse_, and showed the same veneration for Virgil, who
happened to be present among the audience, which they were wont to show
to Augustus.” He was exceedingly temperate in his manner of living; so
pure-minded[545] and chaste in the midst of a profligate and licentious
age, that the Neapolitans gave him the name of Parthenias (from
παρθενος, a virgin,) unselfish, although surrounded by selfishness,
kind-hearted, and sympathizing. His talents and popularity never spoiled
his natural simplicity and modesty, as his moving in the polite circles
of the capital never could entirely wear off his rustic shyness and
unfashionable appearance.
He was constitutionally pensive and melancholy, and so distrustful of
his own poems, that Augustus could not persuade him to send an
unfinished portion of the Æneid to him for perusal. “As to my Æneas,” he
writes to the emperor,[546] when absent on his Cantabrian campaign, “if
I had anything worth your reading I would send it with pleasure, but the
work is only just begun, and I even blame my folly for venturing upon so
vast a task. But you know that I shall apply fresh and increased
diligence to carrying out my design.” It was with real reluctance that
he subsequently read the sixth book to the Emperor and Octavia. In his
last moments he was anxious to burn the whole manuscript; and in his
will he directed his executors, Varius and Tucca, either to improve it
or commit it to the flames.[547] He was open-hearted and generous, but
not extravagant in the expenditure of his wealth, for he bequeathed to
his brother, his friends, and the Emperor, a considerable property.
It is said that Virgil’s earliest poetical essay was an epic poem, the
subject of which was the Roman wars; but that the impossibility of
introducing Roman names in hexameter verse caused him to desist from the
task almost as soon as he had commenced it. The minor poems which are
still extant, were probably his first works. These are the _Culex_,
_Ciris_, _Moretum_, _Copa_, and the shorter pieces in lyric, elegiac,
and iambic metres,[548] commonly known by the name of Catalecta. The
“Culex” (Gnat) is a bucolic poem, with something of a mock-heroic
colouring, of which the argument is as follows:[549] A shepherd,
overcome with the heat, falls asleep beneath the shade of a tree, and a
venomous serpent from a neighbouring marsh stealthily approaches. A gnat
flies to his rescue, and stings him on the brow. The shepherd, awoke by
the smart, crushes his rescuer, but sees the serpent and kills it. The
ghost of the gnat appears, reproaches him with his ingratitude, and
describes the adventures he has met with in the regions of the dead. The
shepherd erects a monument in his honour, and indites the following
epigram:—
Parve culex, pecudum custos tibi tale merenti
Funeris officium vitæ pro munere reddit.
Poor insect, thou a shepherd’s life didst save;
Thou gavest a life, he gives thee but a grave.
The “Ciris,” which some have attributed to Corn. Gallus, is the Greek
legend of Scylla, who was changed into a fish, and her father Nisus into
an eagle. Great use has been made by Spenser of this poem in the
conversation between Britomart and her nurse Glauce, and also in
Glauce’s incantations.[550] The “Moretum,” was intended to trace the
employments of the agricultural labourer through the day; but it only
describes the commencement of them, and the preparation of a dish of
_olla podrida_ of garden herbs called _moretum_. It contains an
ingenious description of a cottager’s kitchen garden. The “Copa,” is an
elegiac poem, not unlike in jovial spirit the scolia or drinking songs
of the Greeks: it represents a female waiter at a tavern, begging for
custom by a tempting display of the accommodations and comforts prepared
for strangers. It describes the careless enjoyment of rural festivity:
the simple luxuries of grapes and mulberries, the fragrant roses, the
cheerful grasshoppers, and timid little lizards of Italy. Nor are the
excitements of the dice, the joys of wine, the blandishments of love
unsung. Dull care is banished far, and the enjoyment of the present hour
inculcated:—
Pereant qui crastina curant
Mors aurem vellens Vivite, ait, venio.
Amongst the lyric poems of Virgil is a very elegant one on the villa of
his instructor in philosophy, Syron.
The poems which first established his reputation were his Bucolics or
Eclogues. This latter title was given them in later times, implying
either that they were selections from a greater number of poems or
imitations of passages selected from the works of Greek poets.[551]
The characters in Virgil’s Bucolics are Italians, in all their
sentiments and feelings, acting the unreal and assumed part of Sicilian
shepherds. In fact, the Italians never possessed the elements of
pastoral life, and therefore could not naturally furnish the poet with
originals and models from which to draw his portraits and characters.
They were a simple people, but their simplicity was rather Ascræan than
Arcadian: the domestic habits and virtues of rural life in Italy were
not unlike those of Bœtia, as described by Hesiod. Virgil, therefore,
wisely took him as his model, and produced a more natural picture of
Italian manners in his Georgics than in his Eclogues. The denizens of
the little towns had the manners and habits of municipal life: their
cultivation was the artificial refinement of town life, and not the
natural sentiments of the contemplative shepherd. Those who lived in the
country were hard-working, simple-minded peasants, who gained their
livelihood by the sweat of their brow—honest, plain-spoken,
rough-mannered, and without a grain of sentimentality. Pastoral poetry
owes its origin to, and is fostered by, solitude; its most beautiful
passages are of a meditative cast. The shepherd beguiles his loneliness
by communing with his own thoughts. His sorrows are not the hard
struggles of life, but often self-created and imaginary, or at least
exaggerated. When represented as Virgil represents them in his Bucolics,
they are in masquerade, and the drama in which they form the characters
is of an allegorical kind. The connexion with Italy is rather of an
historical than a moral nature: we meet with numerous allusions to
contemporary events, but not with exact descriptions of Italian
characters and manners. As, therefore, we cannot realize the
descriptions, we can neither sympathize nor admire. Menalcas and Corydon
and Alexis, and the rest, are as much out of place as the gentlemen and
ladies in the garb of shepherds and shepherdesses in English family
pictures. Even the scenery is Sicilian, and does not truthfully describe
the tame neighbourhood of Mantua. So long as it is remembered that they
are imitations of the Syracusan poet, we miss their nationality, and see
at once that they are untruthful and out of keeping; and Virgil suffers
in our estimation because we naturally compare him with the original
whom he professes to imitate, and we cannot but be aware of his
inferiority: but if we can once divest ourselves of the idea of the
outward form which he has chosen to adopt, and forget the personality of
the characters, we can feel for the wretched outcast, exiled from a
happy though humble home, and be touched by the simple narrative of
their disappointed loves and child-like woes; can appreciate the
delicately-veiled compliments paid by the poet to his patron; can enjoy
the inventive genius and poetical power which they display; and can be
elevated by the exalted sentiments which they sometimes breathe. We feel
that it is all an illusion; but we willingly permit ourselves to be
transported from the matter-of-fact realities of a hard and prosaic
world.
Virgil in his Eclogues was too much cramped by following his Greek
original to present us with true pictures of Italian country life;
although the criticism of his friend Horace with justice attributes to
his rural pieces delicacy of touch and graceful wit:—
molle atque facetum
Virgilio annuerunt gaudentes rure Camœnæ.[552]
The Idylls of Theocritus are transfusions into appropriate Greek of old
popular Sicilian legends which had taken root in the country, and had
become part and parcel of the national character. His subjects are not
always strictly pastoral, for his characters are sometimes reapers and
fishermen.[553] His language, characters, sentiments, scenery, habits,
incidents, are all Sicilian, and therefore all are in perfect harmony.
The characters of Theocritus have a specific individuality, and are
therefore different from each other; those of Virgil are generic, the
representatives of a class, and therefore there is little or no variety.
But still Virgil’s defects do not detract much from the enjoyment
experienced in reading his Bucolic poetry. The Aminta of Tasso, the
Pastor Fido of Guarini, the Calendar of Spenser, the Lycidas of Milton,
the Perdita of Shakspeare, the pastorals of Drayton, Drummond, and
Florian, are equally open to objection, and yet who does not admire
their beauties?
The Bucolics may be arranged in two classes. Those in the first are
composed entirely after the Greek model, and contain the following
poems:—
I. The first, in which the poet, representing himself under the
character of Tityrus, expresses his gratitude for the restoration of his
property, whilst Melibœus, as an exiled Mantuan, bewails his harder
fortune.
II. The second, which is generally supposed to have been the first
pastoral written by him, and is principally copied from the Cyclops of
Theocritus.
III. The third is an imitation of the fourth and fifth Idylls of
Theocritus, and as well as the seventh, represent improvisatorial trials
of musical skill between shepherds.
V. The fifth, in which two shepherds pay the last honours to a departed
friend, the one singing his epitaph, the other his apotheosis.
Scaliger[554] has with good reason supposed that this poem allegorized
the murder and deification of Julius Cæsar. It has been often imitated
by modern poets: the most beautiful imitations are Spenser’s lament for
Dido, Milton’s Lycidas, Drayton’s sixth Eclogue, and Pomfret’s Elegy on
Queen Mary.
VIII. The eighth, which is imitated from the second and third Idylls of
Theocritus, consists of two parts; and, from the subject-matter of the
second portion, is entitled “Pharmaceutria,” (the Enchantress.) Two
shepherds, Damon and Alphesibœus, rival Orpheus in their musical skill,
for, whilst they sing, heifers forget to graze, lynxes are stupified,
and rivers stop their course to listen. It was addressed by Virgil to
his kind patron Pollio, whilst employed in his expedition to
Illyricum.[555] Damon, personifying an unsuccessful lover, laments that
a rival has been preferred to himself. Alphesibœus, in the character of
an enchantress, goes through a formula of magical incantations in order
to regain the lost affections of Daphnis. In this poem a refrain, or
intercalary verse, recurs after intervals of a few lines. In the song of
Damon, the refrain is—
Incipe Mænalios mecum, mea tibia, versus.
In that of his opponent—
Ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnim.
IX. In the ninth, two shepherds converse together on the troubles which
have befallen their neighbourhood, and one of them is represented as
conveying a present of a few kids to court the favour of the new
possessor.
The second class are of a more original kind.
IV. The fourth, entitled Pollio, which is the most celebrated of them
all, bears no resemblance to pastoral poetry. In the exordium, the poet
invokes the Muses of Sicilian song; but he professes to attune their
sylvan strain to a nobler theme. The melancholy Perusian war had been
brought to a termination. The reconciliation of Anthony and Octavius had
been effected by the treaty of Brundisium, and all things seemed to
promise peace and prosperity. The contrast was indeed a bright one,
after the havoc and desolation which war had spread through Italy. The
peace ratified with Sextus Pompey at Puteoli opened the long-closed
granaries of Sicily, and plenty succeeded to famine. The enthusiasm of
the poet hailed the return of the fabled golden age—the reign of Saturn.
The songs which the old bards of Italy professed to have learnt from the
Cumæan Sibyl, and to which legendary tradition attributed a prophetical
meaning, seemed to point to the new era which now dawned on the Roman
empire.
The belief of the civilized world was undoubtedly at this time
concentrated on the expectation of some great event, which should bring
peace and happiness to mankind. The divine revelation which God’s people
enjoyed taught them now to expect the advent of the Messiah; whilst
traditions, probably derived through corrupting channels from the true
light of prophecy, taught the heathen, though more vaguely, to look for
the coming of some great one. The prophetic literature of the East might
have travelled to Europe; and the divine prophecies of Isaiah, and the
other sacred writers, may have been incorporated by native bards in
Italian legends.
Bishop Lowth even supposed that the Sibylline predictions derived their
origin from a Greek version of Messianic prophecies.[556] A belief in
the inspiration of the Sibyls prevailed in the early ages of
Christianity, and the Emperor Constantine in one of his orations[557]
quotes from them, and paraphrases Virgil’s Pollio as an evidence to the
truths of the Gospel.
Some of the fathers of the Church attributed to them supernatural power;
and the Italian painters, acting under the patronage of the Roman
Church, honoured the four Sibyls as participators in a knowledge of the
Divine counsels. Ambrose[558] allows that they were inspired, but by the
spirit of evil. Jerome[559] believes that this power was given to them
by God as a reward for virginity; and Augustine[560] thinks that they
predicted many truths concerning Jesus Christ. Justin[561] adopts a
legend which would account for the similarity between the Sibylline
oracles and Hebrew prophecy. He says that the Cumæan Sibyl, celebrated
by Virgil, was born at Babylon, and was the daughter of Berosus, the
Chaldean historian.
If Virgil, in the fourth eclogue, correctly paraphrased the Sibylline
poems, two parallelisms between them and the prophecies of Isaiah are
remarkably striking:[562]—
Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna;
Jam nova progenies cœlo demittitur alto—
Te duce, si qua manent sceleris vestigia nostri,
Irrita perpetua solvent formidine terras—
Pacatumque reget patriis virtutibus orbem.—v. 6.
Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son.—Is. vii. 14.
Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end,
upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to
establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for
ever.—Is. ix. 7.
At tibi prima, puer, nullo munuscula cultu,
Errantes hederas passim cum baccare tellus,
Mixtaque ridenti colocasia fundet acantho.—v. 18.
The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the
desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.—Is. xxxv. 1.
Many theories have been proposed respecting the child to whom allusion
is made in this eclogue, not one of which was satisfactory to
Gibbon;[563] but the following is adopted by Heyne as the most probable.
The peace of Brundisium was cemented by the marriage between Antony and
Cæsar’s half-sister Octavia. She was the widow of Marcellus, and
appeared likely to give birth to a posthumous child. To this child yet
unborn, the poet applies all the blessings promised by the Sibylline
oracles, and predicts that, under his auspices, the peace and prosperity
already inaugurated shall be confirmed.
VI. In the sixth, Virgil represents allegorically, under the character
of Silenus the tutor of Bacchus, his own instructor Syron; and thus
makes it the vehicle of a short account of the Epicurean philosophy. It
was not long since the same subject had been treated of at greater
length by the eloquent Lucretius; and it is said that when Cicero heard
it recited by the mime Cytheris, he was so struck with admiration as to
exclaim that he was “Magnæ spes altera Romæ.” This eclogue is parodied
by Gay in the Saturday of his Shepherd’s Week.
X. The tenth can scarcely be distinguished from any other amatory poem,
except that the heroic metre is not so usual in that species of poetry
as the elegiac. The loves of the poet Gallus are sung; Arcadia is fixed
upon as the place of his exile; and the lay is said to be set to the
music of the oaten-pipe of Sicily: but this eclogue has no other claim
to be entitled a bucolic poem.
One passage in this eclogue, which suggested the following beautiful
lines in Milton’s “Lycidas,” illustrates the truth that poetry often
derives additional beauty from the fact of its being a successful
imitation:—
Quæ nemora aut qui vos saltus habuere, puellæ
Naiades, indigno cum Gallus amore periret?
Nam neque Parnassi vobis juga nam neque Pindi
Ulla moram fecere, neque Aonia Aganippe.
_Ecl._ x. 9.
Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep
Closed o’er the head of your loved Lycidas?
For neither were ye playing on the steep,
Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie,
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,
Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream.
_Milton’s Lycidas._