THE LITERARY ART AND GENIUS OF LUCRETIUS.
It remains to consider the poem of Lucretius as a work of literary
art and genius. Much indeed of what may be said on the subject of his
genius has necessarily been anticipated in the chapters devoted to
the consideration of his personal characteristics, his speculative
philosophy, and his moral teaching. The 'multa lumina ingenii' are
most conspicuous in those passages of his poem which best illustrate
the range and distinctness of his observation, the grandeur and truth
of his philosophical conceptions, the passionate sympathy with which
he strove to elevate and purify human life. But, at the same time, the
most manifest defects of the poem, considered as a work of art, spring
from the same source as its greatness considered as a work of genius,
viz. the diversity and conflicting aims of the faculties employed on
its production. Although, perhaps, from a Roman point of view, the
practical purpose which reduces the mass of miscellaneous details to
unity, and the success with which he encounters the difficulties both
of matter and language, might entitle the poem to be regarded as a
work 'multae artis,' yet, when tested by the canons either of Greek
or of modern taste, it fails in the most essential conditions of
art,--the choice of subject and the form of construction. The title of
the poem is indeed taken from a Greek model, the poem of Empedocles,
'[Greek: peri physeos]': and the form of a personal address to
Memmius, in which Lucretius has embodied his teaching, was suggested
by the personal address of the older poet to the 'son of Anchytus.'
But although Aristotle acknowledges the poetical genius of Empedocles
by applying to him the epithet [Greek: Homerikos], he denies to
his composition the title of a poem. The work of Empedocles and the
kindred works of Xenophanes and Parmenides are inspired not by the
passion of art but by the enthusiasm of discovery. They are to be
regarded rather as philosophical rhapsodies than as purely didactic
poems, like either the 'Works and Days' of Hesiod or the writings of
the Alexandrine School. They were written in hexameter verse partly
because that was the most familiar vehicle of expression in the first
half of the fifth century B.C., and partly because it was the vehicle
most suited to the imaginative conceptions of Nature which arose out
of the old mythologies. But in the time of Lucretius a prose vehicle
was more suited than any form of verse for the communication of
knowledge in a systematic form. The conception of Nature was no
longer mystical or purely imaginative as it had been in the age of
Empedocles. Thus the task which Lucretius had to perform was both
vaster and more complex than that of the early [Greek: physiologoi].
He had to combine in one whole the prosaic results of later scientific
observation and analysis with the imaginative fancies of the dawn of
ancient enquiry. He professes to make both conducive to the practical
purpose of emancipating and elevating human life; but a great part of
his argument is as remote from all human interest as it is from the
ascertained truths of science.
All life and Nature were to his spirit full of imaginative wonder,
but they were believed also to be susceptible of a rationalistic
explanation. And the greater part of the work is devoted to give this
explanation. This large infusion of a prosaic content necessarily
detracts from the artistic excellence and the sustained interest of
the poem. Lucretius speaks of the difficulty which he had to encounter
in gaining the ear of his countrymen, in the lines,--
Quoniam haec ratio plerumque videtur
Tristior esse quibus non est tractata, retroque
Volgus abhorret ab hac[1].
And the unattractiveness of much of his theme is not diminished
when the real discoveries of science have shown how illusory are his
processes of investigation, and how false are many of his conclusions.
He has made his poetry ancillary to his science, instead of
compelling, as Virgil, Dante, and Milton have done, a subject,
susceptible of purely artistic treatment, to assimilate the stores of
his knowledge. His theme--'maiestas cognita rerum,'--is too vast and
complex to be brought within the compass and proportions of a single
work of art. The processes of minute observation and reasoning
employed in establishing his conclusions are alien from the movement
of the imagination. The connecting links of the argument are
suggestive of the labour of the workman, not of the finished
perfection of the work. And while some of the ideas of science may be
so applied to the interpretation of the outward world, as to act on
the imaginative emotions with greater power than any mere description
of the forms and colours of external things, yet the pleasure with
which processes of investigation are pursued is quite distinct from
the pleasure derived from poetic intuition into the secret life of
Nature and man. If it be the condition of a great poem to produce the
purest and noblest pleasure by its whole conception and execution, the
poem of Lucretius fails to satisfy this condition. It is in spite of
its design and proportions,--in spite of the fact that long parts of
the work neither interest the feelings nor satisfy the reason, that
the poem still speaks with impressive power to the modern world.
And while the whole conception of the work, as regards both matter
and method of treatment, necessarily involves a large interfusion of
prosaic materials with the finer product of his genius, it must be
added that there is considerable inequality of execution even in its
more inspired passages. A few consecutive passages show indeed the
finest sense of harmony, and are finished in a style not much inferior
to that of Virgil. Such, for instance, are the opening lines:--
Aeneadum genetrix, hominum divomque voluptas, etc.;--
and again the lines in the introduction to Book iii.:--
Apparet divum numen sedesque quietae, etc.
But long passages seem rather to revert to the roughness of Ennius
than to approach the smooth and varied cadences of Virgil. Though the
imaginative effect of single expressions is generally more forcible
than in any Latin poet, yet the composition of long paragraphs is
apt to overflow into prosaic detail, or to display the qualities of
logical consecutiveness or close adherence to fact rather than those
of skilled accomplishment and conformity with the principles of
beauty. In common with the older race of Roman poets he exhibits that
straining after verbal effects by means of alliteration, assonances,
asyndeta, etc., which marks the ruder stages of literary development.
The Latin language, although beginning to feel the quickening of a new
life, had not yet been formed into its more exquisite modulations, nor
learned the power of suggesting delicate shades of meaning and the new
strength derivable from the reserved use of its resources. All these
causes,--the vast and miscellaneous range, and the abstruse character
of his subject, the dryness and futility of much of the argument, the
frequent subordination of poetry to science, the inadequacy of the
Latin language as a vehicle of thought and its imperfect development
as an organ of poetry,--prevented the poem from ever obtaining great
popularity in ancient times, and have denied to it in modern times
anything like the large influence which has been enjoyed in different
ages and countries by Virgil, Horace, and Ovid. Even the more ardent
admirers of the poem are tempted to pass from one to another of the
higher ranges and more commanding summits, which swell gradually
or rise abruptly out of the general level over which he leads them,
rather than to follow him through all the windings of his argument.
Yet it is only after the poem has been mastered in its details that
we realise its full effect on the imagination. It is only then that we
understand the complete greatness of the man, as a thinker, a teacher,
and a poet. The most familiar beauties reveal a deeper meaning when
they are seen to be not mere resting places in the toilsome march of
his argument, but rather commanding positions, successively reached,
from which the widest contemplative views of the realms of Nature and
human life are laid open to us. As we follow closely in his footsteps,
through all his processes of observation, analysis, and reasoning, we
feel, that he too, like the older Greeks, is borne along by a strong
enthusiasm,--the philosophical [Greek: eros] of Plato,--different
from, but akin to, the impulses of poetry. That marvellous intensity
of feeling in conjunction with the operations of the intellect,
which the Greeks regarded as a kind of divine possession, and which
Lucretius, by the use of such phrases as 'divinitus invenientes',
ascribes to the earliest enquirers, animates all his interpretation of
the facts and laws of Nature. The speculative passion imparts life to
the argumentative processes which are addressed to the understanding,
while it adds a fresher glory or more impressive solemnity to those
aspects of the subject by which the imagination is most powerfully
moved.
Again, although his rhythm, even at its best, falls far short of
the intricate harmony and variety of Virgil, and, in its more level
passages, scarcely aims at pleasing the ear at all, yet there is a
kind of grandeur and dignity even in its monotony, varied, as that is,
by deeper and more majestic tones whenever his spirit is stirred by
impulses of awe, wonder, and delight. There is always a sense of life
and onward movement in the flow of his verse. Often there is a kind
of cumulative force revealing a more powerful emotion of heart and
imagination as his thoughts and images press on one another in close
and ordered sequence. Thus, for instance, the effect of the lines
describing the religious impressions produced on the early inhabitants
of the world by the grand and awful aspects of Nature, depends, not
on any harmonious variation of sounds, but on the swelling and
culminating power with which the whole passage breaks on the ear,--
In caeloque deum sedes et templa locarunt,
Per caelum volvi quia nox et luna videtur,
Luna dies et nox et noctis signa severa
Noctivagaeque faces caeli flammaeque volantes,
Nubila sol imbres nix venti fulmina grando
Et rapidi fremitus et murmura magna minarum[2].
In many passages it may be noticed how much is added to the rhythmical
effect by the force or weight of the concluding line, as at iii.
870-893, by the rugged grandeur of the line,--
Urgerive superne obtritum pondere terrae,--
at ii. 569-580, by the sad and solemn movement of the close,
Ploratus mortis comites et funeris atri,--
and at i. 101, by the line of cardinal significance, which ends a
passage of most finished power and beauty,--
Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.
The music of Lucretius is altogether his own. As he was the first
among his countrymen who contemplated in a reverential spirit the
majesty of Nature and the more solemn meaning of life, so he was the
first to call out the full rhythmical majesty and deep organ-tones of
the Latin language, to embody in sound the spiritual emotions stirred
by that contemplation.
The poetical style of Lucretius is, like his rhythm, a true and
powerful symbol of his genius. Though his diction is much less studied
than that of Virgil, yet his large use of alliterations, assonances,
asyndeta[3], etc., shows that he consciously aimed at producing
certain effects by recognised rhetorical means. The attraction which
the artifices of rhetoric had for his mind is as noticeable in his
style as a similar attraction is in the speeches of Thucydides. But
neither Lucretius nor Thucydides can be called the slave of rhetorical
forms. In both writers recourse is had to them for the legitimate
purpose of emphasising thought, not for that of disguising its
insufficiency. The use of such phrases, for instance, as 'sed casta
inceste,' 'immortalia mortali sermone notantes,' 'mors immortalis,'
etc., is no mere play of words, but rather the tersest phrase in which
an impressive antithesis of thought can be presented. The mannerisms
of his style, if they show that he was not altogether emancipated from
archaic rudeness, afford evidence also of the prolific fertility of
his genius. The amplitude and unchecked volume of his diction flow out
of the mental conditions, described in the lines,--
Usque adeo largos haustus e fontibu' magnis
Lingua meo suavis diti de pectore fundet.
And he had not only the 'suavis lingua diti de pectore'; he had also
the 'daedala lingua,'--the formative energy which shapes words into
new forms and combinations. The frequent [Greek: hapax legomena]
in his poem and his abundant use of compound words, such as
_fluctifragus_, _montivagus_, _altitonans_, etc., most of which fell
into disuse in the Augustan age, were products of the same creative
force which enabled Plautus and Ennius to add largely to the resources
of the Latin tongue. In him, more than in any Latin poet before or
after him, we meet with phrases too full of imaginative life to be
in perfect keeping with the more sober tones and tamer spirit of
the national literature. Thus his language never became trite and
hackneyed, and, as we read him, no medium of after-associations is
interposed between his mind and our own.
But it is not in individual phrases, however fresh and powerful, but
in continuous passages, that the power of his style is best seen. The
processes of his mind are characterised by continuity, consistency,
and a kind of gathering intensity of movement. The periods of Virgil
delight us by their intricate harmony; those of Lucretius impress us
by their continuous and hurrying impetus. The long drawn out charm
of the one is indicative of the deep love which induced him to linger
over every detail of his subject: the force and grandeur of the other
are the outward signs of the inward wonder and enthusiasm by which his
spirit was borne rapidly along. Virgil's movement displays the majesty
of grace and serenity; that of Lucretius the majesty of power, and
largeness of mind.
Thus although the poetical style of Lucretius shows the traces of
labour and premeditation, and of occasional imitation both of foreign
and native models, it is more than that of any other Latin poet, the
immediate creation of his own genius. The 'ingenuei fontis,' by which
his imagination was so abundantly fed, found many spontaneous outlets,
and were not checked in their speed or stained in their purity by the
artificial channels in which he sometimes forced them to flow. If the
loving labour, so prodigally bestowed upon the task of finding words
and rhythm[4] adequate to his great theme, explains some peculiarities
of his diction, the qualities which have made the work immortal are
due to his noble singleness of heart and sincerity of nature, and
to the openness and sensibility with which his imagination received
impressions, the penetrative force with which it saw into the heart of
things, and the creative energy with which it shaped what it received
and discerned into vivid pictures and symbols.
He has, in the first place, the freshness of feeling, the living sense
of the wonder of the world, which is a great charm in the older poets
of all great literatures,--in Homer, Dante, Chaucer;--and this sense
he communicates by words used in their simplest and directest meaning.
The life which animates and gladdens the familiar face of earth,
sea, and sky,--of river, wood, field, and hill-side,--is vividly and
immediately reproduced in such lines as these:--
Caeli subter labentia signa
Quae mare navigerum quae terras frugiferentis
Concelebras[5].
Denique per maria ac montis fluviosque rapacis
Frondiferasque domos avium camposque virentis[6].
Frondiferasque novis avibus canere undique silvas[7].
Nam saepe in colli tondentes pabula laeta
Lanigerae reptant pecudes quo quamque vocantes
Invitant herbae gemmantes rore recenti[8].
Nec tenerae salices atque herbae rore vigentis
Fluminaque illa queunt summis labentia ripis[9].
So, too, he makes us realise, with a quickening and expanding emotion,
which seems to bring us nearer to the core of Nature, the majesty of
the sea breaking on a great expanse of shore,--the solemn stillness of
midnight,--the invisible agency by which the clouds form the pageantry
of the sky,--the active noiseless energy by which rivers wear away
their banks,--by the use of words that seem exactly equivalent to the
thing which they describe,--
Quam fluitans circum magnis anfractibus aequor
Ionium glaucis aspargit virus ab undis[10].
Severa silentia noctis
Undique cum constent[11].
Ut nubes facile interdum concrescere in alto
Cernimus et mundi speciem violare serenam
Aera mulcentes motu[12].
Pars etiam glebarum ad diluviem revocatur
Imbribus et ripas radentia flumina rodunt[13].
The changing face of Nature is to his spirit so full of power and
wonder, that it needs no poetical adornment, but is left to tell
its own tale in the plainest language. If words are a true index of
feeling, it would be difficult to name any poet by whom the living
presence and full being of Nature were more immediately apprehended,
nor has any one caught with more fidelity the intimations of her
hidden life, as they betray themselves in her outward features and
motions.
With similar fidelity and directness of language he communicates to
his reader the spell of awe and wonder by which his own spirit is
possessed in presence of the impressive facts of human life. No
subtlety of reflexion nor grandeur of illustrative imagery could
enhance the effect of the thought of the dead produced by the austere
plainness of the words,--
Morte obita quorum tellus amplectitur ossa,
and,
Ossa dedit terrae proinde ac famul infimus esset.
By no pomp of description could a deeper sense of religious solemnity
be created than by the lines describing the silent influence of the
procession of Cybele on the minds of her devotees,--
Ergo cum primum magnas invecta per urbis
Munificat tacita mortalis muta salute[14].
The undying pain of a great sorrow,--the paralysis of all human effort
in the face of new and terrible agencies of death,--the blessedness
and pathos of the purest human affections,--the ecstatic delight
derived from the revelation of great truths--imprint themselves
permanently on the imagination through the august simplicity of the
phrases,
Aeternumque daret matri sub pectore volnus[15],--
tacito mussabat medicina timore[16],--
tacita pectus dulcedine tangent[17]--
His ibi me rebus quaedam divina voluptas
Percipit adque horror[18].--
His language has the further power of producing a vague sense of
sublimity, where the cause of the feeling is too vast or undefined
to be distinctly conceived or visibly presented to the mind. The very
sound of his words seems sometimes to be a kind of echo of the voices
by which Nature produces a strange awe upon the imagination. Such, for
instance, are these lines and phrases--
Altitonans Volturnus et auster fulmine pollens[19].
Nec fulmina nec minitanti
Murmure compressit caelum[20].
Murmura magna minarum[21], etc.
The sublimity of vagueness and vastness is present in the language of
these lines--
Impendent atrae formidinis ora superne[22].
Sustentata ruet moles et machina mundi[23].
Aut cecidisse urbis magno vexamine mundi[24].
Non si terra mari miscebitur et mare caelo[25].
While no other ancient poet brings before the mind more forcibly and
immediately the living presence of the outward world and the solemn
meaning of familiar things, there is none whose language seems to
respond so sensitively to the vague suggestions of an invisible and
awful Power omnipresent in the universe.
The creative power of imagination which gives new life to words and
thoughts is also present in many vivid and picturesque expressions,
either scattered through the main argument, or shining in brilliant
combinations in the more elaborate parts of the work. By this more
imaginative use of language, the poet can illustrate his ideas by
subtle analogies, or embody them in visible symbols, or endow the
objects he describes with the personal attributes of will and energy.
Thus, for instance, the penetrating subtlety of the mind in exploring
the secrets of Nature becomes a visible force in the curious felicity
of the expression (i. 408), 'caecasque latebras insinuare omnis.'
The freedom and boundless range of the imagination is suggested with
picturesque effect in the familiar expression--
Avia Pieridum peragro loca nullius ante
Trita solo[26];
while the calm serenity of the contemplative mind is symbolised in
such figurative expressions as 'sapientum templa serena'; 'humanum in
pectus templaque mentis'; and the stormy tumult of the passions and
the perilous errors of life become vividly present to the imagination
by means of the analogies pictured in the lines--
Volvere curarum tristis in pectore fluctus[27],
and
Errare atque viam palantis quaerere vitae[28].
What life and energy again are imparted to external things and
abstract conceptions by such expressions as these:--'flammai flore
coorto'; 'avido complexu quem tenet aether'; 'caeli tegit impetus
ingens'; 'circum tremere aethera signis'; 'semina quae magnum
iaculando contulit omne'; 'vagos imbris tempestatesque volantes';
'concussaeque cadunt urbes dubiaeque minantur'; 'simulacraque fessa
fatisci'; 'sol lumine conserit arva'; 'lucida tela diei'; 'placidi
pellacia ponti'; 'vivant labentes aetheris ignes'; 'leti sub dentibus
ipsis'; 'leti praeclusa est ianua caelo,' etc.
A similar power of imagination is shown in his more elaborate use of
analogies, in his symbolical representation of ideas, and in his power
of painting scenes from Nature and from human life. Few great poets
have been more sparing in the use of mere poetical ornament. The
grandest imagery which he strikes out, and the finest pictures which
he paints are immediately suggested by his subject. The earnestness
of his speculative and practical purpose restrains all exuberance of
fancy. Thus his imaginative analogies are more often latent in
single expressions than drawn out at length. But the few which he has
elaborated, 'stand out with the solidity of the finest sculpture[29],'
to embody some deep or powerful thought for all time. They are
suggested not by outward resemblance, but by an identity which the
imagination discerns in the innermost meaning of the objects compared
with one another. The strong emotion attending on the presence of some
great thought calls up before the inward eye some scene or action,
which, if actually witnessed, would produce a similar effect upon the
mind. Thus the thought of the chaotic confusion which the universe
would present, on the supposition that the original atoms were
limited in number, calls up the image of the most impressive and awful
devastation, wrought by Nature upon the works of man.
Sed quasi naufragiis magnis multisque coortis
Disiectare solet magnum mare transtra guberna
Antemnas proram malos tonsasque natantis,
Per terrarum omnis oras fluitantia aplustra
Ut videantur et indicium mortalibus edant,
Infidi maris insidias virisque dolumque
Ut vitare velint, neve ullo tempore credant,
Subdola cum ridet placidi pellacia ponti,
Sic tibi si finita semel primordia quaedam
Constitues, aevom debebunt sparsa per omnem
Disiectare aestus diversi materiari,
Numquam in concilium ut possint compulsa coire
Nec remorari in concilio nec crescere adaucta[30].
It is through the penetrating intuition of his imagination into the
deepest meaning of the two phenomena, and his sensibility to the
pathos and the strangeness involved in each of them, that he sees the
birth of every child into the world under the well-known image of
the shipwrecked sailor--'saevis proiectus ab undis.' Other analogies,
suggested rather than elaborately drawn out, express an inward or
spiritual, not an outward or bodily resemblance. Or rather the thing
illustrated is a thought or a mental act, the illustration a scene or
action, visible to the eye, suggestive of the same power in Nature,
and calculated to rouse the same emotions in the mind. Thus he
compares the life transmitted in succession through the nations of the
world to the torch passed on by the runners in the torch-race; or he
illustrates his calm contemplation of the struggles of life from the
heights of his Epicurean philosophy, by the vision of the dangers of
the sea, as seen from some commanding position on the land.
Although few of his descriptions from Nature are capable of being
transferred to canvas, yet he shows in his treatment of mythological
subjects, and in his personification of great natural phenomena, that
purely pictorial faculty, in virtue of which Catullus and Ovid have
inspired the imagination and directed the hand of some of the great
painters of modern times. Such, for instance, is the representation of
the sacrifice of Iphigenia, suggested indeed, in some of its features,
by an earlier poet, but executed with original power. Such too are the
pictures of Venus and Mars in the invocation to the poem, and that of
Pan--
Pinea semiferi capitis velamina quassans[31].
By this power of vision he presents that superstition against which
all the weight of his argument is directed, not as an abstraction, but
as a real palpably existing Power of evil--
Quae caput a caeli regionibus ostendebat
Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans[32].
So, too, in his vivid account of the orderly procession of the
seasons, he invests the freshness and the beauty of spring with the
charm of personal and human attributes in the lines--
It ver et Venus, et veris praenuntius ante
Pennatus graditur zephyrus, vestigia propter
Flora quibus mater praespargens ante viai
Cuncta coloribus egregiis et odoribus opplet[33].
But it is in describing actual scenes and actual aspects of human life
that Lucretius chiefly employs his power of poetical conception and
expression. He looks upon the world with an eye which discerns beneath
the outward appearances of things the presence of Nature in her
attributes both of majesty and of genial all-penetrating life,--as at
once the 'Magna mater' and the 'alma mater' of all living things[34].
She appears to his imagination not as an abstraction, or a vast
aggregate of forces and laws, but as a living Power, whose processes
are on an infinitely grander scale, but are yet analogous to the
active and moral energies of man. He shows the same sympathy with
this life of Nature, the same vivid sense of wonder and delight in
her familiar aspects, the same imaginative perception of her secret
agency, which led the early Greek mind to people the world with the
living forms of the old mythology, and which have been felt anew
by the great poets of the present century. All natural life is thus
endowed with a poetical interest, as being a new manifestation of the
creative energy, which is the fountain of all beauty and delight in
the world.
The minutest phenomena and the most gigantic forces, the changes of
decay and renovation in all outward things, the growth of plants
and trees, the habits of beasts rioting in a wild liberty over the
mountains,--
Quod in magnis bacchatur montibu' passim[35],--
or tended by the care and ministering to the wants of man; the life
and enjoyment of the birds that gladden the early morning with their
song by woods and river-banks, or that seek their food and pastime
among the sea-waves;--these, and numberless other phenomena, are all
contemplated and described by an eye quickened by the poetical sense
of manifold and inexhaustible energy in the world.
It is not so much the beauty of form and colour, as the appearance
of force and life which he reproduces. He has not, like Catullus,
the pure delight of an artist in painting outward scenes. He does
not express, like Virgil, the charm of old associations attaching
to famous places. It is the association of great laws, not of great
memories, which moves him in contemplating the outward world. Neither
has he invested any particular place with the attraction which Horace
has given to his Sabine home, and Catullus to Sirmio. But no ancient
or modern poet has expressed more happily the natural enjoyment of
beholding the changing life and familiar face of the world. No other
writer makes us feel with more reality the quickening of the spirit,
produced by the sunrise or the advent of spring, by living in fine
weather or looking on fair and peaceful landscapes. The freshness of
the feeling with which outward scenes inspire him is one of the great
charms of the poem, especially as a relief to the pervading gravity of
his thought. More than any poet, except Wordsworth, he seems to derive
a pure and healthy joy from the common sights and sounds of animate
and inanimate Nature. No distempered fancies or regrets, no vague
longings for some unattainable rapture, coloured the natural aspect
which the world presented to his eyes and mind.
In the descriptions of Lucretius, as in those of Homer, there is
always some active movement and change represented as passing before
the eye. What power and energy there are, for instance, in that of a
river-flood,--(like one of equal force and truth in Burns's 'Brigs of
Ayr,')--
Nec validi possunt pontes venientis aquai
Vim subitam tolerare: ita magno turbidus imbri
Molibus incurrit validis cum viribus amnis[36].
How naturally is the pure and sparkling life of brooks and springs
brought before the mind in the passage at v. 269[37], already
quoted,--and again, in these lines--
Denique nota vagi silvestria templa tenebant
Nympharum, quibus e scibant umori' fluenta
Lubrica proluvie larga lavere umida saxa,
Umida saxa, super viridi stillantia musco,
Et partim plano scatere atque erumpere campo[38].
In this representation of the sea-shore--
Concharumque genus parili ratione videmus
Pingere telluris gremium, qua mollibus undis
Litoris incurvi bibulam pavit aequor harenam[39],--
there is the same suggestion of quiet ceaseless movement, as in a line
of the Odyssey representing the same phase of Nature--
[Greek: laingas poti cherson apoplynespe thalassa.]
There is the same sense of active life in all his pictures of the
early morning; as, for instance,--
Primum aurora novo cum spargit lumine terras
Et variae volucres nemora avia pervolitantes
Aera per tenerum liquidis loca vocibus opplent,
Quam subito soleat sol ortus tempore tali
Convestire sua perfundens omnia luce,
Omnibus in promptu manifestumque esse videmus[40].
And again,--
Aurea cum primum gemmantis rore per herbas
Matutina rubent radiati lumina solis
Exhalantque lacus nebulam fluviique perennes,
Ipsaque ut interdum tellus fumare videtur;
Omnia quae sursum cum conciliantur, in alto
Corpore concreto subtexunt nubila caelum[41].
Two other passages (at iv. 136 and vi. 190), in which the movements
and shifting pageantry of the clouds are described, may be compared
with a more elaborate passage in the Excursion, in which Wordsworth
has represented a similar spectacle[42] wrought by 'earthly Nature,'--
'Upon the dark materials of the storm.'
Nowhere does he present pictures of pure repose. The philosophical
idea of ceaseless motion and change animates to his eye every aspect
of the world. Every separate description in the poem possesses the
charm of freshness and faithfulness, and of relevance to the great
ideas of his philosophy. His living enjoyment in the outward world,
and his sympathy with all existence, both fed and were fed by his
trust in speculative ideas. The poetical descriptions which adorn
and illustrate his argument are like the sublime and beautiful scenes
which refresh and reward the adventurous discoverer of distant lands.
Some passages, illustrative of philosophical principles, blend the
movements of animal and human life with descriptions of natural
scenery. The lines at ii. 352-366, describing the cow searching
for her calf, which has been sacrificed at the altar, combine many
characteristics of the poetical style of Lucretius. There is the
literal--almost too minute faithfulness of reproduction--as in the
line--
Noscit humi pedibus vestigia pressa bisulcis[43];--
the active life of the whole representation, too full of movement for
a picture, yet flashing the objects on the inward eye with graphic
pictorial power; the ever fresh charm of some familiar scene, called
up by the lines already referred to,--
Nec tenerae salices atque herbae rore vigentes
Fluminaque illa queunt summis labentia ripis;
the pathos and respect for every mode of natural feeling denoted in
such expressions as 'desiderio perfixa iuvenci'; and, lastly, the
power of investing the most common things with the majesty of the laws
which they express and illustrate. This passage is adduced as a proof
and illustration of the varieties in form of the primordial atoms. In
a passage, immediately preceding, the perpetual motion of the atoms,
going on beneath an appearance of absolute rest, is illustrated by two
pictures, one taken from the jubilant life of the animal creation--
Nam saepe in colli tondentes pabula laeta[44], etc.;
the other taken from the pomp of human affairs, and the gay pageantry
of armies--
Praeterea magnae legiones cum loca cursu
Camporum complent belli simulacra cientes,
Fulgor ibi ad caelum se tollit totaque circum
Aere renidescit tellus supterque virum vi
Excitur pedibus sonitus clamoreque montes
Icti reiectant voces ad sidera mundi
Et circumvolitant equites mediosque repente
Tramittunt valido quatientes impete campos[45].
The truth and fulness of life in this passage are immediately
perceived, but the element of sublimity is added by the thought in the
two lines with which the passage concludes, which reduces the whole of
this moving and sounding pageant to stillness and silence--
Et tamen est quidam locus altis montibus unde
Stare videntur et in campis consistere fulgor[46].
As Lucretius was the first poet who revealed the majesty and wonder of
the Natural world, so he restored the sense of awe and mystery, felt
by the earlier Greek poets, to the contemplation of human life. In
dealing with the problem of human destiny, he has sounded deeper than
any of the other ancient poets of Italy: but others have sympathised
with a greater variety of the moods of life, and have allowed its
lights and shadows to play more easily over their poetry. The thought
both of the dignity and the littleness of our mortal state is ever
present to the mind of Lucretius. His imagination is involuntarily
moved by the pomp and grandeur of affairs, while his strong sense of
reality keeps ever before him the conviction of the vanity of
outward state, the weariness of luxurious living, and the miseries
of ambition. Thus his imaginative recognition of the pomp and
circumstance of war brings out by the force of contrast his deeper
conviction of the littleness and impotence of man in the presence of
the great forces of Nature--
Summa etiam cum vis violenti per mare venti
Induperatorem classis super aequora verrit
Cum validis pariter legionibus atque elephantis,
Non divom pacem votis adit ac prece quaesit
Ventorum pavidus paces animasque secundas, etc.[47]
If his reason acknowledges only inward strength as the attribute of
human dignity, yet his imagination feels the outward spell that swayed
the Roman genius, through the symbols of power and authority, through
great spectacles, and in impressive ceremonials.
But it is with more heart-felt sympathy, and with not less imaginative
emotion, that he recognises the deep wonder and the infinite pathos of
human life. There is perhaps no passage in any poet which reveals more
truthfully that union of feelings in meditating on the strangeness and
sadness of our mortal destiny than the well-known passage describing
the birth of every infant into the world--
Tum porro puer, ut saevis proiectus ab undis
Navita, nudus humi iacet, infans, indigus omni
Vitali auxilio, cum primum in luminis oras
Nixibus ex alvo matris natura profudit,
Vagituque locum lugubri complet, ut aecumst
Cui tantum in vita restet transire malorum[48].
With what truth and _naivete_ is the complaint of the husbandman over
his ineffectual labour and scanty returns echoed!--
Iamque caput quassans grandis suspirat arator
Crebrius incassum manuum cecidisse labores,
Et cum tempora temporibus praesentia confert
Praeteritis, laudat fortunas saepe parentis
Et crepat, anticum genus ut pietate repletum
Perfacile angustis tolerarit finibus aevom,
Cum minor esset agri multo modus ante viritim[49].
His feeling is profoundly solemn, as well as infinitely tender. Above
all the tumult of life, he hears incessantly the funeral dirge over
some one departed, and the infant wail of a newcomer into the troubles
of the world,
mixtos vagitibus aegris
Ploratus mortis comites et funeris atri[50].
His tone can, indeed, be stern and indignant, as well as tender and
melancholy: it is never morbid or effeminate. His tenderness is that
of a thoroughly masculine nature. Some signs of the same mood may be
discovered in the fragments of Ennius; but the feeling of Lucretius
springs from a more sympathetic heart and a more contemplative
imagination.
His imagination, which depicts so forcibly the intimations of
experience, is able to hear him beyond the known and familiar regions
of life. As it enables him to pass--
extra flammantia moenia mundi--
and to behold the dawn of creation, and even the blank desolation
which will follow on the overthrow of our system, so it has enabled
him to realise with vivid feeling the primeval condition of man
upon the world. Yet even in these daring enterprises of his fancy he
adheres strictly to the conclusions of his philosophical system, and
shows that sincerity and truthful adherence to fact are as inseparable
from the operations of his creative faculty as of his understanding
and moral nature.
His excellences are so different from those of Virgil that the
question need not be entertained, whether the rank of the greatest of
Roman poets is or is not to be awarded to him. If each nation must be
considered the best judge of its own poets, it will be admitted that
Lucretius would have found few Roman voices to support his claim to
the first or even the second place. The strongest support which he
could have received would have been Virgil's willing acknowledgment of
the powerful spell which the genius of his predecessor had exercised
over him. Both the artistic defects and the profound feeling and
imaginative originality of his work were calculated to alienate both
popular favour and critical opinion in the Rome of the Empire. The
poem has a much deeper significance for modern than it had for ancient
times. Lucretius stands alone as the great contemplative poet of
antiquity. He has proclaimed with more power than any other the
majesty of Nature's laws, and has interpreted with a truer and deeper
insight the meaning of her manifold life. Few, if any among his
countrymen, felt so strongly the mystery of man's being, or have
indicated so passionate a sympathy with the real sorrows of life, and
so ardent a desire to raise man to his proper dignity, and to support
him in bearing his inevitable burden. If he has, in large measure,
the antique simplicity and grandeur of character, he has much also
in common with the spirit and genius of modern times. He contemplates
human life with a profound feeling, like that of Pascal, and with a
speculative elevation like that of Spinoza. The loftier tones of his
poetry and the sustained effort of mind which bears him through his
long argument remind us of Milton. His sympathy with Nature, at once
fresh and large, is more in harmony with the feeling of the great
poets of the present century than with the general sentiment of
ancient poetry. In the union of poetical feeling with scientific
passion he has anticipated the most elevated mode of the study of
Nature, of which the world has as yet seen only a few great examples.
His powers of observation, thought, feeling, and imagination, are
characterised by a remarkable vitality and sincerity. His strong
intellectual and poetical faculty is united with some of the rarest
moral qualities,--fortitude, seriousness of spirit, love of truth,
manly tenderness of heart. And if it seems that his great powers of
heart, understanding, and genius led him to accept and to teach a
philosophy, paralysing to the highest human hope and energy, it is to
be remembered that he lived at a time when the truest minds may well
have despaired of the Divine government of the world, and must have
honestly felt that it was well to be rid, at any cost, of the burden
of Pagan superstition.
[Footnote 1: i. 943-45.]
[Footnote 2: 'And they placed the dwelling-places and mansions
of the gods in the heavens, because it is through the heavens
that the night and the moon are seen to sweep--the moon, the
day, and night, and the stern constellations of night, the
torches of heaven wandering through the night, and flying
meteors, the clouds, the sun, the rains, the snow, the winds,
lightning, hail, the rapid rattle, the threatening peals and
murmurs of the thunder.'--v. 1188-93.]
[Footnote 3: Cf. Munro, Introduction, ii. pp. 311, etc.]
[Footnote 4: Cf.
Quaerentem dictis quibus et quo carmine demum
Clara tuae possim praepandere lumina menti
Res quibus occultas penitus convisere possis.
i. 143-5.]
[Footnote 5: i. 2-4.]
[Footnote 6: i. 17-18.]
[Footnote 7: i. 256.]
[Footnote 8: ii. 317-19.]
[Footnote 9: ii. 362-63.]
[Footnote 10: i. 718-19.]
[Footnote 11: iv. 460-61.]
[Footnote 12: iv. 136-38.]
[Footnote 13: v. 255-56.]
[Footnote 14: ii. 624-25.]
[Footnote 15: ii. 639.]
[Footnote 16: vi. 1179.]
[Footnote 17: iii. 896.]
[Footnote 18: iii. 28-30.]
[Footnote 19: v. 745.]
[Footnote 20: i. 68-9.]
[Footnote 21: v. 1193.]
[Footnote 22: vi. 254.]
[Footnote 23: v. 96.]
[Footnote 24: v. 340.]
[Footnote 25: iii. 842.]
[Footnote 26: i. 926-27.]
[Footnote 27: vi. 34.]
[Footnote 28: ii. 10.]
[Footnote 29: Prevost Paradol, _Nouveaux Essais de Politique
et de Litterature_.]
[Footnote 30: 'But as when there have been at the same time
many and mighty shipwrecks, the mighty sea is wont to drive in
all directions the rowers' benches, rudders, sailyards, prows,
masts, and floating oars, so that along all the coasts of land
there may be seen the tossing flag-posts of ships, to warn
mortals that they shun the wiles, and force, and craft of the
faithless sea, nor ever trust the treacherous alluring smile
of the calm ocean; so if once you will suppose any finite
number of elements, you will find that the many surging forces
of matter must disperse and drive them apart through all time,
so that they never can meet and gather into union, nor stay in
union and wax in increase.'--ii. 552-64.]
[Footnote 31: iv. 587.]
[Footnote 32: i. 64-5.]
[Footnote 33: 'Then comes forth the Spring and Venus, and the
harbinger of Spring steps on before them, the winged Zephyr;
and near their footsteps, Mother Flora, scattering her
treasures before her, fills all the way with glorious colours
and fragrance.'--v. 737-40.]
[Footnote 34: Cp. 'Keats has, above all, a sense of what is
pleasurable and open in the life of Nature; for him she is
the _Alma Parens_: his expression has, therefore, more than
Guerin's, something genial, outward, and sensuous. Guerin has
above all a sense of what there is adorable and secret in
the life of Nature; for him she is the _Magna Parens_; his
expression has, therefore, more than Keats', something mystic,
inward, and profound.' _Essays in Criticism_, by M. Arnold, p.
130. _Third Edition._]
[Footnote 35: v. 842.]
[Footnote 36: 'Nor can the strong bridges endure the sudden
force of the rushing water: in such wise, swollen by heavy
rain, the stream with mighty force dashes upon the piers.'--i.
285-87.]
[Footnote 37: 'Percolatur enim virus,' etc.]
[Footnote 38: 'Finally, in their wandering they made their
dwelling in the familiar woodland grottoes of the nymphs,
from which they marked the rills of water laving the dripping
rocks, made slippery with their abundant flow,--dripping
rocks, with drops oozing out above the green moss,--and
gushing forth and forcing their way over the level plain.'--v.
944-52.]
[Footnote 39: 'And in like manner we see shells paint the lap
of the earth, where with its soft waves the sea beats on the
porous sand of the winding shore.'--ii. 374-76.]
[Footnote 40: 'When the dawn first sheds its new light over
the earth, and birds of every kind, flying over the pathless
woods through the delicate air, fill all the land with their
clear notes, the suddenness with which the risen sun then
clothes and steeps the world in his light, is clear and
evident to all men.'--ii. 144-49.]
[Footnote 41: 'Just as when first the morning beams of the
bright sun glow all golden through the grass gemmed with dew,
and a mist arises from meres and flowing streams; and as even
the earth itself is sometimes seen to steam; then all these
vapours gather together above, and taking shape, as clouds on
high, weave a canopy beneath the sky.'--v. 460-66.]
[Footnote 42: Excursion, Book ii:--
'The appearance, instantaneously disclosed,' etc.]
[Footnote 43: ii. 356.]
[Footnote 44: ii. 317.]
[Footnote 45: 'Besides when mighty legions fill the plains
with their rapid movement, raising the pageantry of warfare,
the splendour rises up to heaven, and all the land around is
bright with the glitter of brass, and beneath from the
mighty host of men the sound of their tramp arises, and the
mountains, struck by their shouting, re-echo their voices
to the stars of heaven, and the horsemen hurry to and fro on
either flank, and suddenly charge across the plains, shaking
them with their impetuous onset.'--ii. 323-30.]
[Footnote 46: 'And yet there is some place in the lofty
mountains whence they appear to be all still, and to rest as a
bright gleam upon the plains.'--ii. 331-32.]
[Footnote 47: 'When, too, the utmost force of a violent gale
is sweeping the admiral of some fleet over the seas, along
with his mighty legions and elephants, does he not court the
protection of the Gods with vows, and in his terror pray for a
calm to the storm, and for favouring gales?'--v. 1226-30.]
[Footnote 48: 'Moreover, the babe, like a sailor cast ashore
by the cruel waves, lies naked on the ground, speechless,
in need of every aid to life, when first nature has cast him
forth by great throes from his mother's womb; and he fills the
air with his piteous wail, as befits one whose doom it is to
pass through so much misery in life.'--v. 222-27.]
[Footnote 49: 'And now, shaking his head, the aged peasant
laments, with a sigh, that the toil of his hands has often
come to naught; and, as he compares the present with the past
time, he extols the fortune of his father, and harps on this
theme, how the good old race, full of piety, bore the burden
of their life very easily within narrow bounds, when the
portion of land for each man was far less than now.'--ii.
1164-70.]
[Footnote 50: ii. 569-70.]