VALERIUS FLACCUS
The political tendency towards retrenchment and reform that marks the
reign of Vespasian finds its literary parallel in a reaction against the
rhetoric of display that culminated in Seneca and Lucan. This movement
is most strongly marked in the prose of Quintilian and the _Dialogus_ of
Tacitus, but finds a faint echo in the world of poets as well. The three
epic poets of the period--Valerius Flaccus, Statius, and Silius
Italicus--though they, too, have suffered much from their rhetorical
training, are all clear followers of Vergil. They, like their
predecessors, find it hard to say things naturally, but they do not to
the same extent go out of their way with the deliberate intention of
saying things unnaturally.[472] We may condemn them as phrase-makers,
though many a modern poet of greater reputation is equally open to the
charge. But their phrase-making has not the flamboyant quality of the
Neronian age. If it is no less wearisome, it is certainly less
offensive. They do not lack invention; their mere technical skill is
remarkable; they fail because they lack the supreme gifts of insight and
imagination.
Valerius Flaccus chose a wiser course than Lucan and Silius Italicus. He
turned not to history, but to legend, for his theme; and the story of
the Argonauts, on which his choice lighted, possessed one inestimable
advantage. Well-worn and hackneyed as it was, it possessed the secret of
eternal youth. 'Age could not wither it nor custom stale its infinite
variety.' The poorest of imitative poetasters could never have made it
wholly dull, and Valerius Flaccus was more than a mere poetaster.
Of his life and position little is known. His name is given by the MSS.
as Gaius Valerius Flaccus Setinus Balbus.[473] The name Setinus suggests
that he may have been a native of Setia. As there were three Setias, one
in Italy and two in Spain, this clue gives us small help. It has been
suggested[474] that the peculiarities of his diction are due to his
being of Spanish origin. But we have no evidence as to the nature of
Spanish Latin, while the authors of known Spanish birth, who found fame
in the Silver Age--Seneca, Lucan, Martial, Quintilian, Columella--show
no traces of their provenance. No more helpful is the view that he is
one Flaccus of Patavium, the poet-friend to whom two of Martial's
epigrams are addressed.[475] For Martial's acquaintance was poor and is
exhorted to abandon poetry as unlucrative, whereas Valerius Flaccus had
some social standing and, not improbably, some wealth. From the opening
of the _Argonautica_ we learn that he held the post of _quindecimvir
sacris faciundis_.[476] But there our knowledge of the poet ends, save
for one solitary allusion in Quintilian, the sole reference to Valerius
in any ancient writer. In his survey of Latin literature[477] he says
_multum in Valerio Flacco nuper amisimus_. The work of Quintilian having
been published between the years 93 and 95 A.D., the death of Valerius
Flaccus may be placed about 90 A.D.
The poem seems to have been commenced shortly after the capture of
Jerusalem in 70 A.D. At the opening of the first book[478] Valerius
addresses Vespasian in the conventional language of courtly flattery
with appropriate reference to his voyages in northern seas during his
service in Britain, a reference doubly suitable in a poem which is
largely nautical and geographical. He excuses himself from taking the
obvious subject of the Jewish war on the ground that that theme is
reserved for the inspired pen of Domitian. It is for him to describe
Titus, his brother, dark with the dust of war, launching the fires of
doom and dealing destruction from tower to tower along the ramparts of
Jerusalem.[479] The progress of the work was slow. By the time the third
book is reached we find references to the eruption of Vesuvius that
buried Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 A.D.,[480] while in the two
concluding books there seem to be allusions to Roman campaigns in the
Danube lands, perhaps those undertaken by Domitian in 89 A.D.[481] At
line 468 of the eighth book the poem breaks off suddenly. It is possible
that this is due to the ravages of time or to the circumstances of the
copyist of our archetype, but consideration of internal evidence points
strongly to the conclusion that Valerius died with his work uncompleted.
Not only do the words of Quintilian (l.c.) suggest a poet who left a
great work unfinished, but the poem itself is full of harshnesses and
inconsistencies of a kind which so slow and careful a craftsman would
assuredly have removed had the poem been completed and received its
final revision.[482] These blemishes leave us little room for doubt. The
poem that has come down to us is a fragment lacking the _limae labor_.
Like the _Thebais_ of Statius and the _Aeneid_ itself, the work was
probably planned to fill twelve books. The poem breaks off with the
marriage of Medea and Jason on the Isle of Peuce at the mouth of the
Danube, where they are overtaken by Medea's brother Absyrtus, who has
come in anger to reclaim his sister and take vengeance on the stranger
who has beguiled her. It is clear that the Argonauts[483] were, as in
Apollonius Rhodius, to escape up the Danube and reach another sea. In
Apollonius they descended from the head waters of the Danube by some
mythical river to the Adriatic; it is in the Adriatic that Absyrtus is
encountered and slain; it is in Phaeacia that Jason and Medea are
married. In Valerius both these incidents take place in the Isle of
Peuce, at the Danube's mouth. The inference is that Valerius
contemplated a different scheme for his conclusion. It has been pointed
out[484] that a mere 'reproduction of Apollonius' episodes could not
have occupied four books'; and it is suggested that Valerius definitely
brought his heroes into relation to the various Italian places[485]
connected with the Argonautic legend, while he may even, as a compliment
to Vespasian,[486] have brought them back 'by way of the North Sea past
Britain and Gaul'. This ingenious conjectural reconstruction has some
probability, slight as is the evidence on which it rests. Valerius was
almost bound to give his epic a Roman tinge. More convincing, however,
is the suggestion of the same critic[487] that the poem was designed to
exceed the scope of the epic of Apollonius and to have included the
death of Pelias, the malignant and usurping uncle, who, to get rid of
Jason, compels him to the search of the golden fleece. To the
retribution that came upon him there are two clear references[488] and
only the design to describe it could justify the introduction of the
suicide of Jason's parents at the outset of the first book, a suicide to
which they are driven to avoid death at the hands of Pelias.
The scope of the unwritten books is, however, of little importance in
comparison with the execution of the existing portion of the poem. The
Argonaut Saga has its weaknesses as a theme for epic. It is too
episodic, it lacks unity and proportion. Save for the struggle in
Colchis and the loves of Jason and Medea, there is little deep human
interest. These defects, however, find their compensation in the
variety and brilliance of colour, and, in a word, the romance that is
inseparable from the story. The scene is ever changing, each day brings
a new marvel, a new terror. Picturesqueness atones for lack of epic
grandeur. For that reason the theme was well suited to the Silver Age,
when picturesqueness and rich invention of detail predominated at the
expense of poetic dignity and kindling imagination. In many ways
Valerius does justice to his subject, in spite of the initial
difficulty with which he was confronted. Apollonius Rhodius had made
the story his own; Varro of Atax had translated Apollonius: both in its
Greek and Latin forms the story was familiar to Roman readers. It was
hard to be original.
Much as Valerius owes to his greater predecessor, he yet succeeds in
showing no little originality in his portrayal of character and
incident, and in a few cases in his treatment of plot.[489] In one
particular indeed he has markedly improved on his model; he has made
Jason, the hero of his epic, a real hero; conventional he may be, but he
still is a leader of men. In Apollonius, on the other hand, he plays a
curiously inconspicuous part; he is, in fact, the weakest feature of the
poem; he is in despair from the outset, and at no point shows genuine
heroic qualities; he is at best a peerless wooer and no more. Here,
however, he is exalted by the two great battles of Cyzicus and Colchis;
it is in part his prowess in the latter battle that wins Medea's heart.
In this connexion we may also notice a marked divergence from Apollonius
as regards the plot. Aeetes has promised Jason the fleece if he will aid
him against his brother Perses, who is in revolt against him with a host
of Scythians at his back. Jason aids him, does prodigies of valour, and
wins a glorious victory. Aeetes refuses the reward. This act of
treachery justifies Jason in having recourse to Medea's magic arts and
in employing her to avenge him on her father. In Apollonius we find a
very different story. The sons of Phrixus, who, to escape the wrath of
Aeetes, have thrown in their lot with the Argonauts, urge Jason to
approach Medea; they themselves work upon the feelings of their mother,
Chalciope, till she seeks her sister Medea--already in love with Jason
and only too ready to be persuaded--and induces her to save her nephews,
whose fate is bound up with that of the strangers. This incident is
wholly absent from Valerius Flaccus, with the result that the loves of
Jason and Medea assume a somewhat different character. Jason's conduct
becomes more natural and dignified. Medea, on the other hand, is shown
in a less favourable light. In the Greek poet she has for excuse the
desire to save her sister from the loss of her sons, which gives her
half a right to love Jason. In the Latin epic she is without excuse,
unless, indeed, the hackneyed supernatural machinery,[490] put in motion
to win her for Jason, can be called an excuse. This crude employment of
the supernatural leaves Valerius small room for the subtle psychological
analysis wherein the Greek excels, and this, coupled with the love of
the Silver Age for art magic, tends to make Medea--as in Seneca--a
sorceress first, a woman after. In Apollonius she is barbaric,
unsophisticated, a child of nature; in Valerius she is a figure of the
stage, not without beauty and pathos, but essentially melodramatic.
But Apollonius had concentrated all his powers upon Medea, and dwarfs
all his other characters, Jason not excepted. It is Medea alone that
holds our interests. The little company of heroes embarked on unsailed
seas and beset with strange peril are scarcely more than a string of
names, that drop in and out, as though the work were a ship's log rather
than an epic. In Valerius, though he attempts no detailed portraiture,
they are men who can at least fight and die. He has, in a word, a better
general conception as to how the story should be told; he is less
perfunctory, and strives to fill in his canvas more evenly, whereas
Apollonius, although by no means concise, leaves much of his canvas
covered by sketches of the slightest and most insignificant character.
In the Greek poem, though half the work is consumed in describing the
voyage to Colchis, the first two books contain scarcely anything of real
poetic interest, if we except the story of Phineus and the Harpies, a
few splendid similes, and two or three descriptive passages, as brief as
they are brilliant. In Valerius, on the contrary, there is abundance of
stirring scenes and rich descriptive passages before the Argonauts reach
their goal. His superiority is particularly noticeable at the outset of
the poem. Apollonius plunges _in medias res_ and fails to give an
adequate account of the preliminaries of the expedition. He has no
better method of introducing us to his heroes than by giving us a dreary
catalogue of their names. Valerius, too, has his catalogue, but later;
we are not choked with indigestible and unpalatable fare at the very
opening of the feast. And though both authors take five hundred lines to
get their heroes under way, Valerius tells us far more and in far better
language; Apollonius does not find his stride till the second book, and
forgets that it is necessary to interest the reader in his characters
from the very beginning.
But though in these respects Valerius has improved on his predecessor,
and though his work lacks the arid wastes of his model, he is yet an
author of an inferior class, and comes ill out of the comparison. For he
has little of the rich, almost oriental, colouring of Apollonius at his
best, lacks his fire and passion, and fails to cast the same glamour of
romance about his subject. While the Dido and Aeneas of Vergil are in
some respects but a pale reflection of the Medea and Jason of
Apollonius, the loves of Jason and Medea in Valerius are fainter still.
His heroine is not the tragic figure that stands out in lines of fire
from the pages of Apollonius. His lovers' speeches have a certain beauty
and tenderness of their own, but they lack the haunting melody and the
resistless passion that make the Rhodian's lines immortal. And while to
a great extent he lacks the peculiar merits of the Greek,[491] he
possesses his most serious blemish, the blemish that is so salient a
characteristic of both Alexandrian and Silver Latin literature, the
passion for obscure learning. A good example is the huge, though most
ingenious, catalogue of the tribes of Scythia at the opening of the
sixth book, with its detailed inventory of strange names and customs,
and its minute descriptions of barbaric armour. His love of learning
lands him, moreover, in strange anachronisms. We are told that the
Colchians are descended from Sesostris;[492] the town of Arsinoe is
spoken of as already in existence; Egypt is already connected with the
house of Lagus.[493]
In addition, Valerius possesses many of the faults from which Apollonius
is free, but with which the post-Augustan age abounds. The dangerous
influence of Seneca has, it is true, decayed; we are no longer flooded
with epigram or declamatory rhetoric. Rhetoric there is, and rhetoric
that is not always effective;[494] but it is rather a perversion of the
rhetoric of Vergil than the descendant of the brilliant rant of Lucan
and Seneca. From the gross lack of taste and humour that characterizes
so many of his contemporaries he is comparatively free, though his
description of the historic 'crab' caught by Hercules reaches the utmost
limit of absurdity:
laetus et ipse
Alcides: Quisnam hos vocat in certamina fluctus?
dixit, et, intortis adsurgens arduus undis,
percussit subito deceptum fragmine pectus,
atque in terga ruens Talaum fortemque Eribotem
et longe tantae securum Amphiona molis
obruit, inque tuo posuit caput, Iphite, transtro. (iii. 474-80.)
Alcides gladdened in his heart and cried: 'Who challenges these
waves to combat?' and as he rose against those buffeting waves,
sudden with broken oar he smote his baffled breast, and, falling
headlong back, o'erthrows Talaus and brave Eribotes and far-off
Amphion, that never feared so vast a bulk should fall on him, and
laid his head against thy thwart, O Iphitus.
This unheroic episode is a relic of the comic traditions associated
with Hercules, traditions which obtrude themselves from time to time in
serious and even tragic surroundings.[495] Apollonius describes the
same incident[496] with the quiet humour that so strangely tinges the
works of the pedants of Alexandria. Valerius, on the other hand, has
lost touch with the broad comedy of these traditions, and his attempt
to be humorous only succeeds in making him ridiculous.[497]
His worst fault, however, lies in his obscurity and preciosity of
diction. The error lies not so much in veiling simple facts under an
epigram, as in a vain attempt to imitate the 'golden phrases' of Vergil.
The strange conglomeration of words with which Valerius so often vexes
his readers resembles the 'chosen coin of fancy' only as the formless
designs of the coinage of Cunobelin resemble the exquisite staters of
Macedon from which they trace their descent. It requires more than a
casual glance to tell that (i. 411)
it quem fama genus non est decepta Lyaei
Phlias inmissus patrios de vertice crines
means that Phlias was 'truly reported the son of Bacchus with streaming
locks like to his sire's'; or that (vi. 553)
Argus utrumque ab equis ingenti porrigit arvo
signifies no more than that the victims of Argus covered a large space
of ground when they fell.[498] How miserable is such a phrase compared
with the [Greek: keito megas megal_osti] of Homer! And though there is
less serious obscurity, nothing can be more awkward than the not
infrequent inversion of the natural order of words that we find in
phrases such as _nec pereat quo scire malo_ (vii. 7).[499]
Of mere preciosity and phrase-making without any special obscurity
examples abound.[500] Pelion sinks below the horizon (ii. 6)--
iamque fretis summas aequatum Pelion ornos.
A fight at close quarters receives the following curious description
(ii. 524)--
iam brevis et telo volucri non utilis aer.
A spear flying through the air and missing its mark is a _volnus raptum
per auras_ (iii. 196). More startling than these is the picture of a
charge of trousered barbarians (vi. 702)--
improba barbaricae procurrunt tegmina plantae.
One more peculiarity remains to be noticed. Here and there in the
_Argonautica_ we meet with a strange brevity and compression resulting
not from the desire to produce phrases of curious and original texture,
but rather from a praiseworthy though misdirected endeavour to be
concise. The most remarkable example is found in the first book, where
Mopsus, the official prophet of the expedition, falls into a trance and
beholds a vision of the future (211):
heu quaenam aspicio! nostris modo concitus ausis
aequoreos vocat ecce deos Neptunus et ingens
concilium. fremere et legem defendere cuncti
hortantur. sic amplexu, sic pectora fratris,
Iuno, tene; tuque o puppem ne desere, Pallas:
nunc patrui nunc flecte minas. cessere ratemque
accepere mari. per quot discrimina rerum
expedior! subita cur pulcher harundine crines
velat Hylas? unde urna umeris niueosque per artus
caeruleae vestes? unde haec tibi volnera, Pollux?
quantus io tumidis taurorum e naribus ignis!
tollunt se galeae sulcisque ex omnibus hastae
et iam iamque umeri. quem circum vellera Martem
aspicio? quaenam aligeris secat anguibus auras
caede madens? quos ense ferit? miser eripe parvos,
Aesonide. cerno et thalamos ardere iugales.
Alas! what do I see! Even now, stirred by our daring, lo!
Neptune calls the gods to a vast conclave. They murmur, and
one and all urge him to defend his rights. Hold as thou
holdest now, Juno, hold thy brother in thine embrace: and
thou, Pallas, forsake not our ship: now, even now, appease
thy brother's threats. They have yielded: they give Argo
entrance to the sea. Through what perils am I whirled along!
Why does fair Hylas veil his locks with a sudden crown of
reeds? Whence comes the pitcher on his shoulder and the azure
raiment on his limbs of snow? Whence, Pollux, come these
wounds of thine? Ah! what a flame streams from the widespread
nostrils of the bulls. Helmets and spears rise from every
furrow, and now see! shoulders too! What warfare for the fleece
do I see? Who is it cleaves the air with winged snakes, reeking
with slaughter? Whom smites she with the sword? Ah! son of
Aeson, hapless man, save thy little ones. I see, too, the
bridal chamber all aflame.
These lines form a kind of abridgement or _précis_ of the whole
_Argonautica_, or even more, for we can hardly believe that the scheme
of it included the murder of Medea's children and her vengeance on the
house of Creon[501]. They are also far too obscure to be interesting to
any save a highly-trained literary audience, while their extreme
compression could only be justified by their having been primarily
designed for recitation in a dramatic and realistic manner with
suitable pauses between the different visions.[502] A yet worse and
less excusable example of this peculiar brevity is the jerky and
prosaic enumeration of Medea's achievements in the black art
(vi. 442)--
mutat agros fluviumque vias; suus alligat ingens
cuncta sopor, recoquit fessos aetate parentes,
datque alias sine lege colus.
She changes crops of fields and course of rivers. [At her
bidding] deep clinging slumber binds all things; fathers
outworn with age she seethes to youth again, and to others
she gives new span of life against fate's ordinance.
The attempt to be concise and full[503] at one and the same time fails,
and fails inevitably.
But for all these faults Valerius Flaccus offends less than any of the
Silver Latin writers of epic. He rants less and he exaggerates less;
above all, he has much genuine poetic merit. He has been strangely
neglected, both in ancient[504] and modern times, and unduly depreciated
in the latter. There has been a tendency to rank him with Silius
Italicus, whereas it would be truer criticism to place him close to
Statius, and not far below Lucan. He is more uneven than the former, has
a far less certain touch, and infinitely less command of his instrument.
He has less mastery of words, but a more kindling and penetrating
imagination. His outlines are less clear, but more suggestive. He has
less rhetoric; beneath an often obscure diction he reveals a greater
simplicity and directness of thought, and he has been infinitely more
happy in his theme. Only the greatest of poets could achieve a genuine
success with the Theban legend, only the worst of poets could reduce the
voyage of the Argonauts to real dullness. On the other hand, in an age
of _belles-lettres_ such as the Silver Age, and by the majority of
scholars, whose very calling leads them to set a perhaps abnormally high
value on technical skill, Statius is almost certain to be preferred to
Valerius. About the relative position of Lucan there is no doubt. He is
incomparably the superior of Valerius, both in genius and intellect. But
Valerius never sins against taste and reason to the same extent, and
though he has less fire, possesses a finer ear for music and rhythm, and
more poetic feeling as distinct from rhetoric. Vergil was his master; it
has been said with a little exaggeration that Valerius stands in the
same relation to Vergil as Persius to Horace. This statement conveys but
a half-truth. Valerius is as superior to Persius in technique as he is
inferior in moral force and intellectual power. He is, however, full of
echoes from Vergil,[505] and if his verse has neither the 'ocean roll'
of the greater poets, nor the same tenderness, he yet has something of
the true Vergilian glamour. But he has weakened his hexameter by
succumbing to the powerful influence of Ovid. His verse is polished and
neat to the verge of weakness. Like Ovid, he shows a preference for the
dactyl over the spondee, shrinks from elision, and does not understand
how to vary his pauses.[506] Too many lines close with a full-stop or
colon, and where the line is broken, the same pause often recurs again
and again with wearisome monotony. In this respect Valerius, though
never monotonously ponderous like Lucan, compares ill with Statius. As a
compensation, his individual lines have a force and beauty that is
comparatively rare in the _Thebais_. The poet who could describe a
sea-cave thus (iv. 179)--
non quae dona die, non quae trahat aetheris ignem;
infelix domus et sonitu tremibunda profundi,
That receiveth never daylight's gifts nor the light of the
heavenly fires, the home of gloom all a-tremble with the
sound of the deep.
is not to be despised as a master of metre. And whether for
picturesqueness of expression or for beauty of sound, lines such as
(iii. 596)
rursus Hylan et rursus Hylan per longa reclamat
avia; responsant silvae et vaga certat imago,
'Hylas', and again 'Hylas', he calls through the long wilderness;
the woods reply, and wandering echo mocks his voice.
or (i. 291)
quis tibi, Phrixe, dolor, rapido cum concitus aestu
respiceres miserae clamantia virginis ora
extremasque manus sparsosque per aequora crines!
Phrixus, what grief was thine when, swept along by the swirling
tide, thou lookedst back on the hapless maiden's face as she
cried for thine aid, her sinking hands, her hair streaming o'er
the deep.
are not easily surpassed outside the pages of Vergil. But it is above
all on his descriptive power that his claim to consideration rests.[507]
For it is there that he finds play for his most remarkable gifts, his
power of suggestion of mystery, and his keen sense of colour. These
gifts find their most striking manifestation in his description of the
Argonauts' first night upon the waters. They
were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.
All is strange to them. Each sight and sound has its element of terror:
auxerat hora metus, iam se vertentis Olympi
ut faciem raptosque simul montesque locosque
ex oculis circumque graves videre tenebras.
ipsa quies rerum mundique silentia terrent
astraque et effusis stellatus crinibus aether.
ac velut ignota captus regione viarum
noctivagum qui carpit iter non aure quiescit,
non oculis, noctisque metus niger auget utrimque
campus et occurrens umbris maioribus arbor,
haud aliter trepidare viri (ii. 38).
The dark hour deepened their fears when they saw heaven's vault
wheel round, and the peaks and fields of earth snatched from
their view, and all about them the horror of darkness. The very
stillness of things and the deep silence of the world affright
them, the stars and heaven begemmed with streaming locks of gold.
And as one benighted in a strange place 'mid paths unknown pursues
his devious journey through the night and finds rest neither for
eye nor ear, but all about him the blackness of the plain, and
the trees that throng upon him seen greater through the gloom,
deepen his terror of the dark--even so the heroes trembled.
There are few more vivid pictures in Latin poetry than that of the
benighted wanderer lost on some wide plain studded with clumps of trees
that seem to throng upon him in the gloom, seen greater through the
darkness. Not less imaginative, though less clear cut and precise, is
his picture of the underworld in the third book:
est procul ad Stygiae devexa silentia noctis
Cimmerium domus et superis incognita tellus,
caeruleo tenebrosa situ, quo flammea numquam
Sol iuga sidereos nec mittit Iuppiter annos.
stant tacitae frondes inmotaque silva comanti
horret Averna iugo; specus umbrarumque meatus
subter et Oceani praeceps fragor arvaque nigro
vasta metu et subitae post longa silentia voces (iii. 398).
Far hence by the deep sunken silence of the Stygian night lies
the Cimmerians' home, a land unknown to denizens of upper air,
all dark with gloomy squalor. Thither the sun hath never driven
his flaming car nor Jupiter sent forth his starry seasons. Silent
are the leaves of its groves, and all along its leafy hill
bristles unmoved Avernus' wood: thereunder are caverns, and the
shades go to and fro; there Ocean plunges roaring to its fall,
there are plains with dark fear desolate, and after long silences
sudden voices thunder out.
It is a more theatrical underworld than that of Vergil, and the picture
is not clearly conceived, but its very vagueness is impressive. The poet
gives us, as it were, the scene for the enactment of some dim dream of
terror. He is equally at home in describing the happy calm of Elysium.
Though the picture lacks originality, it has no lack of beauty:
hic geminae infernum portae, quarum altera dura
semper lege patens populos regesque receptat;
ast aliam temptare nefas et tendere contra;
rara et sponte patet, siquando pectore ductor
volnera nota gerens, galeis praefixa rotisque
cui domus aut studium mortales pellere curas,
culta fides, longe metus atque ignota cupido;
seu venit in vittis castaque in veste sacerdos.
quos omnes lenis plantis et lampada quassans
progenies Atlantis agit. lucet via late
igne dei, donec silvas et amoena piorum
deveniant camposque, ubi sol totumque per annum
durat aprica dies thiasique chorique virorum
carminaque et quorum populis iam nulla cupido (i. 833).
Here lie the twin gates of Hell, whereof the one is ever open
by stern fate's decree, and through it march the peoples and
princes of the world. But the other may none essay nor beat
against its bars. Barely it opens and untouched by hand, if e'er
a chieftain comes with glorious wounds upon his breast, whose
halls were decked with helm and chariots, or who strove to cast
out the woes of mankind, who honoured truth and bade farewell to
fear and knew no base ambition. Then, too, it opens when some
priest comes wearing sacred wreath and spotless robe. All such
the child of Atlas leads along with gentle tread and waving torch.
Far shines the road with the fire of the god until they come to
the groves and plains, the pleasant mansions of the blest, where
the sun ceases not, nor the warm daylight all the year long, nor
dancing companies of heroes, nor song, nor all the innocent joys
that the peoples of the earth desire no more.
Many lines might be quoted that startle us with their unforeseen
vividness or some unexpected blaze of colour; when the fleece of gold is
taken from the tree where it had long since shone like a beacon through
the dark, the tree sinks back into the melancholy night,
tristesque super coiere tenebrae (viii. 120).
At their bridal on the desolate Isle of Peuce under the shadow of
approaching peril, Jason and Medea gleam star-like amid the company of
heroes (viii. 257):
ipsi inter medios rosea radiante iuventa
altius inque sui sternuntur velleris auro.
Themselves in their comrades' midst, bright with the rosy
glow of youth, above them all, lie on the fleece of gold
that they had made their own.
This characteristic is most evident in the similes over which Valerius,
like other poets of the age, would seem to have expended particular
labour. He scatters them over his pages with too prodigal a hand, and
they suffer at times from over-elaboration and ingenuity.[508] Desire
for originality has led him to such startling comparisons as that
between a warrior drawn from his horse and a bird snared by the limed
twig of the fowler,[509] surely as inappropriate a simile as was ever
framed. More distressing still is the maudlin pathos of the simile which
likens Medea to a dog on the verge of madness.[510] But such gross
aberrations are rare; against them may be set some of the freshest and
most beautiful similes in the whole range of Latin poetry. The silence
that follows on the wailing of the women of Cyzicus is like the silence
of Egypt when the birds that wintered there have flown to more temperate
lands. 'And now they had paid due honour to their ashes; with weary
feet, wives with their babes wandered away and the waves had rest, the
waves long torn by their wakeful lamentation, even as when the birds in
mid-spring have returned to the north that is their home, and Memphis
and their yearly haunt by sunny Nile are dumb once more'--
qualiter Arctos
ad patrias avibus medio iam vere revectis
Memphis et aprici statio silet annua Nili (iii. 358).
The beauty of Medea among her Scythian maidens is likened to that of
Proserpine leading her comrades over Hymettus' hill or wandering with
Pallas and Diana in the Sicilian mountains--
altior ac nulla comitum certante, prius quam
palluit et viso pulsus decor omnis Averno (v. 346).
Taller than all her comrades and fairer than them all or
ever she turned pale, and at the sight of Hell all beauty
was banished from her face.
The relief of the Argonauts, when at last they reach haven after their
fearful passage of the Symplegades, is like that of Theseus and
Hercules, when they have forced a way through the gates of hell to the
light of day once more.[511] Most remarkable of all is the strange
accumulation of similes that describe the meeting of Jason and Medea.
Medea is going through the silent night chanting a song of magic,
whereat all nature trembles. At last, when she has come 'to the shadowy
place of the triune goddess', Jason shines forth before her in the
gloom, 'as when in deepest night panic bursts on herd and herdsman, or
shades meet blind and voiceless in the deep of Chaos; even so, in the
darkness of the night and of the grove, the two met astonied, like
silent pines or motionless cypress, ere yet the whirling breath of the
south wind has caught and mingled their boughs'[512]--
obvius ut sera cum se sub nocte magistris
inpingit pecorique pavor, qualesve profundum
per chaos occurrunt caecae sine vocibus umbrae;
haut secus in mediis noctis nemorisque tenebris
inciderant ambo attoniti iuxtaque subibant,
abietibus tacitis aut immotis cyparissis
adsimiles, rapidus nondum quas miscuit Auster (vii. 400).
These similes suffer from sheer accumulation.[513] Taken individually
they are worthy of many a greater poet.
In his speeches Valerius is less successful, though rarely positively
bad. But with few exceptions they lack force and interest. At times,
however, his rhetoric is effective, as in the speech of Mopsus (iii.
377), where he sets forth the punishment of blood-guiltiness, or in the
fierce invective in which the Scythian, Gesander, taunts a Greek warrior
with the inferiority of the Greek race (vi. 323 sqq.). This latter
speech is closely modelled on Vergil (_A._ ix. 595 sqq.), and although
it is somewhat out of place in the midst of a battle, is not wholly
unworthy of its greater model. But it is to the speeches of Jason and
Medea that we naturally turn to form the estimate of the poet's mastery
of the language of passion. These speeches serve to show us how far he
falls below Vergil (_A._ iv) and Apollonius (bk. iii). They offer a
noble field for his powers, and it cannot be said that he rises to the
full height of the occasion. On the other hand, he does not actually
fail. There is a note of deep and moving appeal in all that Medea says
as she gradually yields to the power of her passion, and the thought of
her father and her home fades slowly from her mind.
quid, precor, in nostras venisti, Thessale, terras?
unde mei spes ulla tibi? tantosque petisti
cur non ipse tua fretus virtute labores?
nempe, ego si patriis timuissem excedere tectis,
occideras; nempe hanc animam sors saeva manebat
funeris. en ubi Iuno, ubi nunc Tritonia virgo,
sola tibi quoniam tantis in casibus adsum
externae regina domus? miraris et ipse,
credo, nec agnoscunt hae nunc Aeetida silvae.
sed fatis sum victa tuis; cape munera supplex
nunc mea; teque iterum Pelias si perdere quaeret,
inque alios casus alias si mittet ad urbes,
heu formae ne crede tuae.
'"Why,"' she cries (vii. 438), '"why, I beseech thee, Thessalian, camest
thou ever to this land of ours? Whence hadst thou any hope of me? And
why didst thou seek these toils with faith in aught save thine own
valour? Surely hadst thou perished, had I feared to leave my father's
halls--aye, and so surely had I shared thy cruel doom. Where now is thy
helper Juno, where now thy Tritonian maid, since I, the queen of an
alien house, have come to help thee in thy need? Aye, even thyself thou
marvellest, methinks, nor any more does this grove know me for Aeetes'
daughter. Nay, 'twas thy cruel fate overcame me; take now, poor
suppliant, these my gifts, and, if e'er again Pelias seek to destroy
thee and send thee forth to other cities, ah! put not too fond trust in
thy beauty!"' Yet again, before she puts the saving charms into his
hands, she appeals to him (452):
si tamen aut superis aliquam spem ponis in istis, aut tua praesenti
virtus educere leto si te forte potest, etiam nunc deprecor, hospes,
me sine, et insontem misero dimitte parenti. dixerat; extemploque
(etenim matura ruebant sidera, et extremum se flexerat axe Booten)
cum gemitu et multo iuveni medicamina fletu non secus ac patriam
pariter famamque decusque obicit. ille manu subit, et vim conripit
omnem. inde ubi facta nocens, et non revocabilis umquam cessit ab
ore pudor, ... ... ... ... ... ... ... pandentes Minyas iam vela
videbat se sine. tum vero extremo percussa dolore adripit Aesoniden
dextra ac submissa profatur: sis memor, oro, mei, contra memor ipsa
manebo, crede, tui. quando hinc aberis, die quaeso, profundi quod
caeli spectabo latus? sed te quoque tangat cura mei quocumque loco,
quoscumque per annos; atque hunc te meminisse velis, et nostra
fateri munera; servatum pudeat nec virginis arte. hei mihi, cur
nulli stringunt tua lumina fletus? an me mox merita morituram
patris ab ira dissimulas? te regna tuae felicia gentis, te coniunx
natique manent; ego prodita obibo.
'"If thou hast any hope of safety from these goddesses, that are thine
helpers, or if perchance thine own valour can snatch thee from the jaws
of death, even now, I pray thee, stranger, let me be, and send me back
guiltless to my unhappy sire." She spake, and straightway--for now the
stars outworn sank to their setting, and Bootes in the furthest height
of heaven had turned him towards his rest--straightway she gave the
charms to the young hero with wailing and with lamentation, as though
therewith she cast away her country and her own fair fame and honour.'
And then, 'when her guilt was accomplished and the blush of shame had
passed from her face for evermore,' she saw as in a vision (474) 'the
Minyae spreading their sails for flight without her. Then in truth
bitter anguish laid hold of her spirit, and she grasped the right hand
of the son of Aeson and humbly spake: "Remember me, I pray, for I,
believe me shall forget thee never. When thou art hence, where on all
the vault of heaven shall I bear to gaze? Ah! do thou too, where'er thou
art, through all the years ne'er let the thought of me slip from thy
heart. Remember how thou stood'st to-day, tell of the gifts I gave, and
feel no shame that thou wast saved by a maiden's guile. Alas! why stream
no tears from thine eyes? Knowest thou not that the death I have
deserved waits me at my father's hand? For thee there waits a happy
realm among thine own folk, for thee wife and child; but I must perish
deserted and betrayed."'[514]
All this lacks the force and passion of the corresponding scene in
Apollonius. This Medea could never have cried, 'I am no Greek princess,
gentle-souled,'[515] nor have prayed that a voice from far away or a
warning bird might reach him in Iolcus on the day when he forgot her, or
that the stormwind might bear her with reproaches in her eyes to stand
by his hearth-stone and chide him for his forgetfulness and ingratitude.
The Medea of Apollonius has been softened and sentimentalized by the
Roman poet. Valerius knows no device to clothe her with power, save by
the narration of her magic arts (vii. 463-71; viii. 68-91). Yet she has
a charm of her own; and it needed true poetic feeling to draw even the
Medea of Valerius Flaccus.
In no age would Valerius have been a great poet, but under happier
circumstances he would have produced work that would have ranked high
among literary epics. As it is, there is no immeasurable distance
between the _Argonautica_ and works such as the _Gerusalemme liberata_,
or much of _The Idylls of the King_. He is a genuine poet whose genius
was warped by the spirit of the age, stunted by the inherent
difficulties besetting the Roman writer of epic, overweighted by his
admiration of his two great predecessors, Ovid and Vergil. He is
obscure, he is full of echoes, he staggers beneath a burden of useless
learning, he overcrowds his canvas and strives in vain to put the breath
of life into bones long dry; in addition, his epic suffers from the lack
of the reviser's hand. And yet, in spite of all, his characters are
sometimes more than lay-figures, and his scenes more than mere
stage-painting. He has the divine fire, and it does not always burn dim.
Others have greater cunning of hand, greater force of intellect, and
have won a higher place in the hierarchy of poets. He--though, like
them, he lacks the 'fine madness that truly should possess a poet's
brain'--yet gives us much that they cannot give, and sees much that they
cannot see. With Quintilian, though with altered meaning, we too may say
_multum in Valerio Flacco amisimus_.