BEAUTY OF DIDACTIC POETRY—ELABORATE FINISH OF THE GEORGICS—ROMAN LOVE OF
RURAL PURSUITS—HESIOD SUITABLE AS A MODEL—CONDITION OF ITALY—SUBJECTS
TREATED OF IN THE GEORGICS—SOME STRIKING PASSAGES ENUMERATED—INFLUENCE
OF ROMAN LITERATURE ON ENGLISH POETRY—SOURCES FROM WHICH THE INCIDENTS
OF THE ÆNEID ARE DERIVED—CHARACTER OF ÆNEAS—CRITICISM OF NIEBUHR.
Didactic poetry is of all kinds the least inviting. As its professed
object is instruction, there is no reason why its lessons should be
conveyed in poetical language—its purpose, could in fact, be better
attained in prose. Pretending, therefore, to poetry, it demands great
skill, elaborate finish and such graces and embellishments as will
conceal its dry character, and recommend it to the reader’s attention.
The beauty of a didactic poem depends only partially on the just views
and correct discrimination which it evinces, and principally on the
beauty of the language, the picturesque force, and pleasing character of
the descriptions, and the interest that is thrown into the episodes. In
fact, the accessaries are the parts most admired, and extracts brought
forward as specimens of this kind of poetry are invariably of this kind.
Poetry naturally deals with the beauties and terrors of external
nature—with the emotions and passions, whether of a tender or violent
kind—the sober practical rules of life are scarcely within its sphere.
True it is that when all literature was poetical, the precepts of moral
and physical philosophy, and even the dry commands of laws and
institutions, were embodied in a metrical form; but when literature
divides itself into poetry and prose, the subjects appropriated to each
other become spontaneously separate likewise. For this reason, the
Georgics of Virgil especially display his ability as a poet, his correct
taste the “limæ labor,” the pains which he took in polishing and
correcting. In none of his poems can we form a better idea of the
description which he gives of his patient toil, when he says, that “like
the she-bear he brought his poetical offspring into shape by constantly
licking them.”[564] The majesty of the language elevates the subject,
and divests it of so much of the homeliness as would be inappropriate to
poetry, and yet at the same time it is not too grand or elevated.
The following criticism of Addison[565] is by no means too
favourable:—“I shall conclude this poem to be the most complete,
elaborate, and finished piece of all antiquity. The Æneis is of a nobler
kind; but the Georgic is more perfect in its kind. The Æneis has a
greater variety of beauties in it; but those of the Georgic are more
exquisite. In short, the Georgic has all the perfection that can be
expected in a poem written by the greatest poet, in the flower of his
age, when his invention was ready, his imagination warm, his judgment
settled, and all his faculties in their full vigour and maturity.”
Rome offered a favourable field for a poet to undertake a poem on the
labours and enjoyments of rural life. Agriculture was always there
considered a liberal employment: tradition had adorned rustic manners
with the attributes of simplicity and honesty, and divested them of the
ideas of coarseness usually connected with them. The traditions of those
ages of national freedom and greatness, to which the enthusiasm of the
poet delighted to carry back the thoughts of his readers, had connected
some of the noblest names of history with rural labours. Curius and
Cincinnatus were called from the plough to defend and save their
country; and after their task was performed they returned with delight
to it again. Cato, the representative of the old and respected
generation, and other illustrious men, had written on the pursuits and
duties of rural life. Agriculture was never connected with ideas of
debasing and illiberal gain, such as attached to trade and commerce.
The poet, moreover, had a model ready at hand, after which to construct
his work. It was Greek, and therefore sure to be acceptable upon the
recognised principles of taste. It described a species of rural life,
hard, frugal, and industrious, very much like that led by the
agriculturists of Italy. It painted a standard of morals, which even the
licentious inhabitants of a luxurious capital could appreciate, though
they had degenerated from it. The discriminating judgment of Virgil saw
that the rural life of Italy could really be represented, in the same
way in which Hesiod had painted that of Bœtia, and he wisely determined—
To sing through Roman towns Ascræan strains.
There exists, however, precisely that difference between the Georgics of
Virgil and their model that might be expected. The Hesiodic poem belongs
to a period when poetry was the accidental form—instruction the
essential object; and, therefore, the teaching is systematic, precise,
detailed, homely, sometimes coarse and unpolished. Virgil looks at his
subject from the poetical point of view. His precepts are often put, not
in a didactic but a descriptive form; they are unhesitatingly
interrupted by digressions and episodes, more or less to the point; and
out of a vast mass of materials such only are selected as are suitable
to awaken the sensibilities.
The state of Italy also contributed to enlist a poet’s sympathies in
favour of the rural classes, and to devote his pen to the patriotic task
of reviving the old agricultural tastes. War had devastated the land;
the peasant population had been fearfully thinned by military
conscriptions and confiscation; wide districts had been depopulated and
left destitute of cultivation. Instead of the sword being beat into a
ploughshare and the spear into a pruning-hook, the Italian peasant had
witnessed the contrary state of things. The poet laments the sad change
which now disfigured the fair face of Italy:—
non ullus aratro
Dignus honos, squalent abductis arva colonis,
Et curvæ rigidum falces conflantur in ensem.
_Geo._ i. 507.
The credit of having proposed this subject to Virgil is given to his
patron Mæcenas; and, to him, consequently, the Georgics are addressed;
but the poet doubtless gladly adopted the suggestion. When and where it
was commenced is uncertain, but the finishing stroke was put to it at
Naples[566] some time after the battle of Actium.[567] Although the
“Works and Days” of Hesiod is professedly his pattern, still he derives
his materials from other sources. Aratus supplies him with his signs of
the weather, and the writers _de Re Rustica_ with his practical
directions. His system is indeed perfectly Italian; so much so, that
many of his rules may be traced in modern Italian husbandry, just as the
descriptions of implements in Hesiod are frequently found to agree with
those in use in modern Greece.
The first book treats of tillage, the second of orchards; the subject of
the third, which is the noblest and most spirited of them, is the care
of horses and cattle; and the fourth, which is the most pleasing and
interesting, describes the natural instincts as well as the management
of bees.
But the great merit of the Georgics consists in their varied
digressions, interesting episodes, and sublime bursts of descriptive
vigour, which are interspersed throughout the poem. To quote any of them
would be unnecessary, as Virgil and his translations are in every one’s
hands. It will be sufficient to enumerate some of the most striking.
These are—
I. The Origin of Agriculture, G. I. 125.
II. The Storm in Harvest, I. 316.
III. The Signs of the Weather, I. 351.
IV. The Prodigies at the Death of Julius Cæsar, I. 466.
V. The Battle of Pharsalia, I. 489.
VI. The Panegyric on Italy, II. 136.
VII. The Praises of a Country Life, II. 458.
VIII. The Horse and Chariot Race, III. 103.
IX. The Description of Winter in Scythia, III. 349.
X. The Murrain of Cattle, III. 478.
XI. The Battle of the Bees, IV. 67.
XII. The Story of Aristæus, IV. 317.
XIII. The Legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, IV. 453.
Roman poetry was more generally understood and more diligently studied
in the most polished days of English literature, than the yet scarcely
discovered stores of Greek learning. Want of originality was not
considered a blemish in an age the taste of which, notwithstanding all
its merits, was very artificial; whilst the exquisite polish and
elegance which constitute the charm of Latin poetry, recommended it both
for admiration and imitation. Hence English poets have been deeply
indebted to the Romans for their most happy thoughts, and our native
literature is largely imbued with a Virgilian and Horatian spirit. This
circumstance adds an especial interest to a survey of Roman literature
as the fountain from which welled forth so many of the streams that have
fertilized our poetry.
The Georgics have been frequently taken as a model for imitation, and
our descriptive poets have drawn largely from this source. Warton[568]
considered Philips’ “Cyder” the happiest imitation; “The Seasons” of our
greatest descriptive poet, Thomson, is a thoroughly Virgilian poem. Many
striking instances of Virgilian taste might be adduced, especially the
thunder-storm in “Summer,” and the praises of Great Britain, in
“Autumn.”
From the letter already quoted as preserved by Macrobius, it is clear
that the Æneid was commenced when Augustus was in Spain,[569] that it
occupied the whole of Virgil’s subsequent life, and was not sufficiently
corrected to satisfy his own fastidious taste when he died. Augustus
intrusted its publication to Varius and Tucca, with strict instructions
to abstain from interpolation. They are said to have transposed the
second and third books, and to have omitted twenty-two lines[570] as
being contradictory to another passage respecting Helen in the sixth
book.[571] Hence in many early manuscripts these verses are wanting.
The idea and plan of the Æneid are derived from the Homeric poems. As
the wrath of Achilles is the mainspring of all the events in the Iliad,
so on the anger of the offended Juno the unity of the Æneid depends, and
with it all the incidents are connected. Many of the most splendid
passages, picturesque images, and forcible epithets are imitations or
even translations from the Iliad and Odyssey. The war with Turnus owes
its grandeur and its interest to the Iliad—the wanderings of Æneas,
their wild and romantic adventures to the Odyssey. Virgil’s battles,
though not to be compared in point of vigour with those of Homer, shine
with a reflected light. His Necyia is a copy of that in the Odyssey. His
similes are most of them suggested by those favourite embellishments of
Homer. The shield of Æneas[572] is an imitation of that of Achilles. The
storm and the speech of Æneas[573] are almost translations from the
Odyssey.[574]
The thoughts thus borrowed from the great heroic poems of Greece, Virgil
interwove with that ingenuity which distinguishes the Augustan school by
means of the double character in which he represented his hero. The
narrative of his perils by sea and land were enriched by the marvellous
incidents of the Odyssey; his wars which occupy the latter books had
their prototype in the Iliad. Greek tragedy, also, which depicted so
frequently the subsequent fortunes of the Greek chieftains,[575]—the
numerous translations which had employed the genius of Ennius, Attius,
and Pacuvius—were a rich mine of poetic wealth. The second book, which
is almost too crowded with a rapid succession of pathetic incidents,
derived its interesting details—the untimely fate of Astyanax, the loss
of Creusa, the story of Sinon, the legend of the wooden horse, the death
of the aged Priam, the subsequent fortunes of Helen—from two Cyclic
poems, the Sack of Troy and the little Iliad of Arctinus. For the legend
of Laocoon he was indebted to the Alexandrian poet, Euphorion. The class
of Cyclic poems entitled the νοστοι suggested much of the third book,
especially the stories of Pyrrhus, Helenus, and Andromache. The fourth
drew its fairy enchantments partly from Homer’s Calypso, partly from the
love adventures of Jason, Medea, and Hypsypile in the Argonautica of the
Alexandrian poet, Apollonius Rhodius, which had been introduced to the
Romans by the translation of Varro.
The sixth is suggested by the eleventh book of the Odyssey and the
descent of Theseus in search of Pirithous in the Hesiodic poems. But
notwithstanding the force and originality—the vivid word-painting which
adorns this book—it is far inferior to the conceptions which Greek
genius formed of the unseen world. In the Æneid the legends of the world
of spirits seem but vulgar marvels and popular illusions. Tartarus and
Elysium are too palpable and material to be believed; their distinctness
dispels the enchantment which they were intended to produce; it is
daylight instead of dim shadow. We miss the outlines, which seem
gigantic from their dim and shadowy nature, the appalling grandeur to
which no one since Æschylus ever attained, except the great Italian poet
who has never since been equalled.
To this rich store of Greek learning Italy contributed her native
legends. The adventures of Æneas in Italy—the prophecy, of which the
fulfilment was discovered by Iulus—the pregnant white sow—the story of
the Sibyl—the sylph-like Camilla—were native lays amalgamated with the
Greek legend of Troy. Macrobius,[576] in three elaborate chapters, has
shown that Virgil was deeply indebted to the old Latin poets. In the
first he quotes more than seventy parallel turns of expression from
Ennius, Pacuvius, Attius, Nævius, Lucilius, Lucretius, Catullus, and
Varius, consisting of whole or half lines. In the second he enumerates
twenty-six longer passages, which Virgil has imitated from the poems of
Ennius, Attius, Lucretius, and Varius, amongst which are portions of
“The Praises of Rural Life,” and of “The Pestilence.”[577] In the third
he mentions a few (amongst them, for example, the well-known description
of the horse[578]) which were taken by Virgil from the old Roman poets,
having been first adopted by them from the Homeric poems. The following
passages are a few of these examples of what would in modern times be
considered plagiarisms, but which the ancients admitted without
reluctance:—
Qui cœlum versat stellis fulgentibus aptum.
_Ennius._
Axem humero torquet stellis fulgentibus aptum.
_V. Æn._ vi. 797.
Est locus Hesperiam quam mortales perhibebant.
Est locus Hesperiam Graii cognomine dicunt.
_Æn._ i. 530.
Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem.
Unus qui nobis cunctando restituis rem.
_Æn._ vi. 846.
Quod per amœnam urbem leni fluit agmine flumen.
—— arva
Inter opima virum leni fluit agmine Tybris.
_Æn._ ii. 781.
Hei mihi qualis erat quantum mutatus ab illo.
Hei mihi qualis erat quantum mutatus ab illo.
_Æn._ ii. 274.
—— discordia tetra
Belli ferratos postes portasque refregit.
Belli ferratos rupit Saturnia postes.
_Æn._ vi. 622.
The variety of incidents, the consummate skill in the arrangement of
them, the interest which pervades both the plot and the episodes, fully
compensate for the want of originality—a defect of which none but
learned readers would be aware. What sweeter specimens can be found of
tender pathos than the legend of Camilla, and the episode of Nisus and
Euryalus? Where is the turbulence of uncurbed passions united with
womanly unselfish fondness, and queen-like generosity, painted with a
more masterly hand than in the character of Dido? Where, even in the
Iliad, are characters better sustained and more happily contrasted than
the weak Latinus, the soldier-like Turnus, the simple-minded Evander,
the feminine and retiring Lavinia, the barbarian Mezentius, who to the
savageness of a wild beast joined the natural instinct, which warmed
with the strongest affection for his son. The only character of which
the conception is somewhat unsatisfactory is that of the hero himself:
Æneas, notwithstanding his many virtues, fails of commanding the
reader’s sympathy or admiration. He is full of faith in the providence
of God, submits himself with entire resignation to His divine will—is
brave, patient, dutiful—but he is cold and heartless, and, if the
expression is allowable, unchivalrous. In his war with Turnus, he is so
decidedly in the wrong, and the character of his injured adversary
shines with such lustre, and is adorned with such gallantry, that one is
inclined to transfer to him the interest and sympathy which ought to be
felt for the hero alone. This is undoubtedly a fault, but it is
counterbalanced by innumerable excellences.
In personification, nothing is finer than Virgil’s portraiture of Fame,
except perhaps Spenser’s Despair. In description, the same genius which
shone forth in the Georgics, embellishes the Æneid also; and both the
objects and the phenomena of nature are represented in language equally
vivid and striking.
Notwithstanding the question has been much discussed, it is most
probable that the opinion of Pope was correct respecting the political
object of the Æneid. He affirmed that it was as much a party-piece as
Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel; that its primary object was to increase
the popularity of Augustus; its secondary one to flatter the vanity of
his countrymen by the splendour and antiquity of their origin. Augustus
is evidently typified under the character of Æneas: both were cautious
and wise in council,[579] both were free from the perturbations of
passion; they were cold, unfeeling, and uninteresting. Their wisdom and
their policy were calculating and worldly-minded. Augustus was
conscious, as his last words show, that he was acting a part; and the
contrast between the sentiments and conduct of Æneas, wherever the warm
impulses of affection might be supposed to have sway, likewise create an
impression of insincerity. The characteristic virtue which adorns the
hero of the Æneid, as the epithet “Pius” so constantly applied to him
implies, was filial piety; and there was no virtue which Augustus more
ostentatiously put forward than dutiful affection to Julius Cæsar who
had adopted him.
Other characters which are grouped around the central figure are
allegorical likewise—Cleopatra is boldly sketched as Dido, the
passionate victim of unrequited love. Both displayed the noble, generous
qualities, and at the same time the uncontrolled self-will of a woman,
who neither had nor would acknowledge any master except the object of
her affections: the fortunes of both were similar, for their brothers
had become their bitterest enemies, and the fate of both alike was
suicide.
Turnus, whose character, as has been already stated, is far more
chivalrous and attractive than that of Æneas, probably represented the
popular Antony; and as the latter violated the peace ratified at
Brundisium and Tarentum, so the former is represented as treacherous to
his engagements with Æneas. It has even been thought, and the view has
been supported by many ingenious arguments, that Iapis is a portrait of
the physician of Augustus.[580]
Virgil is especially skilful in that species of imitation which consists
in the appropriate choice of words, and the assimilation of the sound to
the sense. A series of dactyles expresses the rapid speed of horses, and
the still more rapid flight of time:—
Quadrupedante putrem Sonitu quatit ungula campum.
_Æn._ viii. 591.
Sed fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus.
_Geo._ iii. 284.
Dignity and majesty are represented by an unusual use of spondees:—
—— quæ Divum incedo regina.
_Æn._ i. 50.
—— penatibus et magnis Dîs.
_Æn._ viii. 679.
Accelerated motion by a corresponding change of metre:—
—— jamjam lapsura cadentique
Imminet assimilis——
_Æn._ vi. 602.
Effort by a hiatus:—
Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam.
Abruptness, or the fall of a heavy body, by a monosyllable:—
Insequitur cumulo præruptus aquæ mons.
_Æn._ i. 109.
—— procumbit humi bos.
_Æn._ v. 481.
Many other examples might be adduced[581] of that which, if it were an
artifice, would be a very pleasing one, which rather proceeds from the
natural impulses of a lively fancy and a delicately-attuned ear.
Dunlop has well observed, that Virgil’s descriptions are more like
landscape-painting than any by his predecessors, whether Greek or Roman,
and that it is a remarkable fact that landscape-painting was first
introduced in his time. Pliny, in his Natural History,[582] informs us
that Ludius, who flourished in the lifetime of Augustus, invented the
most delightful style of painting, compositions introducing porticoes,
gardens, groves, hills, fish-ponds, rivers, and other pleasing objects,
enlivened by carriages, animals, and figures. Thus, perhaps, art
inspired poetry.
No one has ever attempted to disparage the reputation of Virgil as
holding the highest rank amongst Roman poets, except the Emperor
Caligula, J. Markland, and the great historian Niebuhr. The latter does
not hesitate to say that the flourishing period of Roman poetry ceased
about the time of the deaths of Cæsar and Cicero.[583] Doubtless Roman
national poetry then ceased, and was succeeded by the new era of Greek
taste; but still the poems of the new school were equally majestic and
pathetic, and though less natural, owed to their Greek originals
incomparably greater polish, grace and sweetness.
It is difficult to understand the low opinion which Niebuhr entertained
of Virgil, and the superiority which he attributes to Catullus. He not
only declares that he is opposed to the adoration with which the later
Romans regarded him, but he denies his fertility of genius and inventive
powers. Although he acknowledges that the Æneid contains many exquisite
passages, he pronounces it a complete failure, an unhappy idea from
beginning to end. It is evident that he looked at the Æneid with the eye
of an historian, and that his objections to it were entirely of an
historical character.
Wrapped up in Roman nationality and Italian traditions, he did not
forgive Virgil for adulterating this pure source of antiquarian
information with Greek legends. He assumes, correctly enough, that an
epic poem, in order to be successful, must be a living narrative of
events known and interesting to the mass of a nation, and at the same
time confesses that, whilst the ancient Italian traditions had already
fallen into oblivion, Homer was at that time better known than Nævius.
Surely, then, if Virgil had drawn from Italian sources exclusively, he
would have omitted much that would have added interest to his poem in
the opinion of his hearers, and would not have complied with the epic
conditions which Niebuhr himself lays down. Besides, if the traditions
of Nævius were Italian, were not many of the Greek and Italian
traditions which form the framework of the Æneid identical? Nævius must
have drawn largely from the Cyclic poems; and Niebuhr allows that Virgil
copied these parts of his poem from Nævius.[584] He asserts his
conviction that Virgil’s shield of Æneas had its model in Nævius, in
whose poem Æneas or some other hero had a shield representing the wars
of the giants; and yet no one could doubt that the shield of Nævius must
have been suggested by the Homeric and Hesiodic poems. Servius also
believed that Virgil borrowed from the poem of Nævius the plan of the
early books of the Æneid.[585]
Some of Virgil’s minor poems are undoubtedly very beautiful;[586] but it
is absurd to say that even the greatest elegance in fugitive pieces of
such a stamp can outshine the noble and sublime passages interwoven
throughout the whole structure of the Æneid. The dispraise of Niebuhr is
as exaggerated as the fulsome compliment paid by Propertius to the
genius of his fellow-countryman:—
Cedite, Romani scriptores, cedite Graii,
Nescio quid majus nascitur Iliade.
_Eleg._ ii. 27.