LUCRETIUS.--PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS.
It is in keeping with the isolated and independent position which
Lucretius occupies in literature, that so little is known of his life.
The two kinds of information available for literary biography,--that
afforded by the author himself, and that derived from contemporaries,
or from later writers who had access to contemporary testimony,--almost
entirely fail us in his case. The form of poetry adopted by him
prevented his speaking of himself and telling his own history as
Catullus, Horace, Ovid, etc., have done in their lyrical, elegiac,
and familiar writings. His work appears to have been first published
after his death: nor is there any reason to believe that he attracted
the attention of the world in his lifetime. To judge from the silence
of his contemporaries, and from the attitude of mind indicated in his
poem, the words 'moriens natusque fefellit' might almost be written as
his epitaph. Had he been prominent in the social or literary circles
of Rome during the years in which he was engaged on the composition of
his poem, some traces of him must have been found in the correspondence
of Cicero or in the poems of Catullus, which bring the personal life
of those years so close to modern readers. It is thus impossible to
ascertain on what original authority the sole traditional account of
him preserved in the Chronicle of Jerome was based. That account,
like similar notices of other Roman writers, came to Jerome in all
probability from the lost work of Suetonius, 'de viris illustribus.'
But as to the channels through which it passed to Suetonius, we have no
information.
The well-known statement of Jerome is to this effect,--'The poet
Lucretius was born in the year 94 B.C. He became mad from the
administration of a love-philtre, and after composing, in his lucid
intervals, several books which were afterwards corrected by Cicero, he
died by his own hand in his forty-fourth year.' The date of his death
would thus be 50 B.C. But this date is contradicted by the statement
of Donatus in his life of Virgil, that Lucretius died (he says nothing
of his supposed suicide) on the day on which Virgil assumed the 'toga
virilis,' viz. October 15, 55 B.C. And this date derives confirmation
from the fact that the first notice of the poem appears in a letter
of Cicero to his brother, written in the beginning of 54 B.C. As the
condition in which the poem has reached us confirms the statement that
it was left by the author in an unfinished state, it must have been
given to the world by some other hand after the poet's death; and, as
Mr. Munro observes, we should expect to find that it first attracted
notice some three or four months after that event. We must accordingly
conclude that here, as in many other cases, Jerome has been careless
in his dates, and that Lucretius was either born some years before 94
B.C., or that he died before his forty-fourth year. His most recent
Editors, accordingly, assign his birth to the end of the year 99 B.C.
or the beginning of 98 B.C. He would thus be some seven or eight years
younger than Cicero, a year or two younger than Julius Caesar, and from
about twelve to fifteen years older than Catullus and the younger poets
of that generation.
But is this story of the poet's liability to fits of derangement, of
the cause assigned for these, of his suicide, and of the correction of
his poem by Cicero, to be accepted as a meagre and, perhaps, distorted
account of certain facts in his history transmitted through some
trustworthy channels, or is it to be rejected as an idle fiction which
may have assumed shape before the time of Suetonius, and been accepted
by him on no other evidence than that of a vague tradition? Though no
certain answer can be given to this question, yet some reasons may be
assigned for according a hesitating acceptance to the main outlines of
the story, or at least for not rejecting it as a transparent fiction.
It may indeed be urged that if this strange and tragical history had
been known to the Augustan poets, who, in greater or less degree,
acknowledge the spell exercised upon them by the genius of Lucretius,
some sympathetic allusion to it would probably have been found in their
writings, such as that in Ovid to the early death of Catullus and
Calvus. It would seem remarkable that in the only personal reference
which Virgil, who had studied his poem profoundly, seems to make to his
predecessor, he characterises him merely as 'fortunate in his triumph
over supernatural terrors.' But, not to press an argument based on the
silence of those who lived near the poet's time, and who, from their
recognition of his genius might have been expected to be interested
in his fate, the sensational character of the story justifies some
suspicion of its authenticity. The mysterious efficacy attributed to a
love-philtre is more in accordance with vulgar credulity than with the
facts of nature. The supposition that the poem, or any considerable
portion of it, was written in the lucid intervals of derangement seems
hardly consistent with the evidence of the supreme control of reason
through all its processes of thought. The impression both of impiety
and melancholy which the poem was likely to produce on ordinary minds,
especially after the religious reaction of the Augustan age, might
easily have suggested this tale of madness and suicide as a natural
consequence of, or fitting retribution for, such absolute separation
from the common hopes and fears of mankind[341].
Yet indications in the poem itself have been pointed out which might
incline us to accept the story rather as a meagre tradition of
some tragic circumstances in the poet's history, than as the idle
invention of an uncritical age. The unrelieved intensity of thought
and feeling, by which more almost than any other work of literature it
is characterised, seems indicative of an overstrain of power, which
may well have caused the loss or eclipse of what to the poet was the
sustaining light and joy of his life[342]. Under such a calamity
it would have been quite in accordance with the principles of his
philosophy to seek refuge in self-destruction, and to imitate an
example which he notes in the case of another speculative thinker, on
becoming conscious of failing intellectual power[343]. But this general
sense of overstrained tension of thought and feeling is, as was first
pointed out by his English Editor, much intensified by references
in the poem (as at i. 32; iv. 33, etc.), to the horror produced on
the mind by apparitions seen in dreams and waking visions[344]. 'The
emphatic repetition,' says Mr. Munro, 'of these horrid visions seen
in sickness might seem to confirm what is related of the poet being
subject to fits of delirium or disordering sickness of some sort.'
He further shows by quotation from Suetonius' 'Life of Caligula,'
that such mental conditions were attributed to the administration of
a love-philtre. The coincidence in these recorded cases may imply
nothing more than the credulity of Suetonius, or of the authorities
whom he followed: but it is conceivable that Lucretius may have himself
attributed what was either a disorder of his own constitution, or
the result of a prolonged overstrain of mind, to the effects of some
powerful drug taken by him in ignorance[345].
Thus, while the statement of Jerome admits neither of verification nor
refutation, it may be admitted that there are indications in the poem
of a great tension of mind, of an extreme vividness of sensibility,
of an indifference to life, and, in the later books, of some failure
in the power of organising his materials, which incline us rather to
accept the story as a meagre and distorted record of tragical events
in the poet's life, than as a literary myth which took shape out of
the feelings excited by the poem in a later age. Yet this qualified
acquiescence in the tradition does not involve the belief that any
considerable portion of the poem was written 'per intervalla insaniae,'
or that the disorder from which the poet suffered was actually the
effect of a love-philtre.
The statement involved in the words 'quos Cicero emendavit,' has also
been the subject of much criticism. No one can read the poem without
recognising the truth of the conclusion established by Lachmann, and
accepted by the most competent Editors of the poem since his time,
that the work must have been left by the author in an unfinished state
and given to the world by some friend or some person to whom the task
of editing it had been entrusted. But there is some difficulty in
accepting the statement that this editor was Cicero. His silence on
the subject of his editorial labours, when contrasted with the frank
communicativeness of his Epistles in regard to anything which for the
time interested him, and the slight esteem with which he seems to have
regarded the poem and the philosophy which it embodied, justify some
hesitation in accepting the authority of Jerome on this point also. He
only once mentions the poem in a letter to his brother Quintus, and
in passages of his philosophical works in which he seems to allude to
it he expresses himself slightingly and somewhat contemptuously[346].
In the disparaging references to the Latin writers on Greek philosophy
before the appearance of his own Tusculan Questions and Academics, he
makes no exception in favour of Lucretius. The words in his letter
to his brother Quintus are these, 'Lucretii poemata, ut scribis, ita
sunt, [non] multis luminibus ingenii, multae tamen artis: sed cum
veneris, virum te putabo, si Salustii Empedoclea legeris, hominem non
putabo.' In the MS. the _non_, seemingly required by the antithesis,
is found neither before the _multis_, nor the _multae_: we are thus
left in doubt whether it was the genius or the art of the poem that
Cicero denied. A correction of the passage has been suggested[347],
in accordance with which Cicero's discernment is vindicated, and the
impression that the poem was deficient in art is attributed to Q.
Cicero. Those who hesitate to accept this correction may yet agree
with the view that if the _non_ must be inserted, it is better to
insert it before the _multae_ than the _multis_. Even as the passage
stands, it may be a short summing up of a more detailed criticism of
the younger brother[348], to this effect. 'I agree with you that
there is much genius in the poem of Lucretius, and (though this is
less apparent) much art.' Cicero certainly admits either the genius or
the art of the poem; perhaps both. It is a truer criticism, and more
in accordance with Cicero's expressed opinion of all the Epicurean
writings, to admit the exceptional genius of the poem while denying its
artistic excellence, than to deny the first and admit the last. Thus
if his notice of the poem is slight, it is not markedly deficient in
appreciation. Mr. Munro succeeds in explaining Cicero's silence on the
subject in his other correspondence. It is in his Letters to his oldest
and most intimate correspondent, the Epicurean Atticus, that we should
expect to find notices of his editorial labours. It was a task on which
Atticus might have given most valuable help from his large employment
of educated slaves in the copying of manuscripts. Cicero's silence on
the subject in the Letters to Atticus is fully explained by the fact
that they were both in Rome during the greater part of the time between
the death of Lucretius and the publication of his poem. Again, Cicero's
strong opposition to the Epicurean doctrines was not incompatible
with the closest friendship with many who professed them; and this
opposition was not conspicuously declared till some years after this
time. Lucretius may have regarded him, as being the greatest master
of Latin style who had yet appeared, with an admiration similar to
that expressed by Catullus, though about him too Cicero is absolutely
silent. There is thus no great difficulty in supposing that the work
of even so uncompromising a partisan as Lucretius should have been
placed, either by his own request or by the wish of his friends, in the
hands of one who was not attracted to it either by strong poetical or
philosophical sympathy. The energetic kindliness of Cicero's nature,
and his active interest in literature, would have prompted him not to
decline the service if he were asked to render it. Thus, although on
this point too our judgment may well be suspended, we may think with
pleasure of the good-will and kindly offices of the most humane and
energetic among Roman writers, as exercised in behalf of Lucretius
after his untimely death, just as his name is inseparably associated
with that of Catullus, owing to some service rendered in life, which
called forth the lively expression of the young poet's gratitude.
This is all the direct external evidence available for the personal
history of Lucretius. It is remarkable, when compared with the
information given in his other notices, that the record of Jerome does
not even mention the poet's birth-place. This may be explained on the
supposition either that the authorities followed by Jerome knew very
little about him, or that, if he were born at Rome, there would not be
the same motive for giving prominence to the place of his birth, as in
the case of poets and men of letters who brought honour to the less
famous districts of Italy. While Lucretius applies the word _patria_
to the Roman State ('patriai tempore iniquo'), and the adjective
_patrius_ to the Latin language, these words are used by other Roman
poets,--Ennius and Virgil for instance,--in reference to their own
provincial homes. The Gentile name Lucretius was one eminently Roman,
nor is there ground for believing that, like the equally ancient and
noble name borne by the other great poet of the age, it had become
common in other parts of Italy. The name suggests the inference that
Lucretius was descended from one of the most ancient patrician houses
of Rome, but one, as is pointed out by Mr. Munro, more famous in the
legendary than in the later annals of the Republic. Some members
of the same house are mentioned in the letters of Cicero among the
partisans of Pompey: and possibly the Lucretius Ofella, who was one of
the victims of Sulla's tyranny, may have been connected with the poet.
As the position indicated by the whole tone of the poem is that of a
man living in easy circumstances, and of one, who, though repelled by
it, was yet familiar with the life of pleasure and luxury, he must
have belonged either to a senatorian family, or to one of the richer
equestrian families, the members of which, if not engaged in financial
and commercial affairs, often lived the life of country gentlemen
on their estates and employed their leisure in the cultivation of
literature. The tone of the dedication to Memmius, a member of a noble
plebeian house, and of the occasional addresses to him in the body of
the poem, is not that of a client to a patron, but of an equal to an
equal:--
Sed tua me virtus tamen et sperata voluptas
Suavis amicitiae--.
While Lucretius pays the tribute of admiration to the literary
accomplishment of his friend, and to the active part which he played
in politics, he yet addresses him with the authority of a master. In a
society constituted as that of Rome was in the last age of the Republic
this tone could only be assumed to a member of the governing class by a
social equal. Memmius combined the pursuits of a politician, a man of
letters, and a man of pleasure; and in none of these capacities does he
seem to have been worthy of the affection and admiration of Lucretius.
But as he filled the office of Praetor in the year 58 B.C.[349] it may
be inferred that he and the poet were about the same age, and thus
the original bond between them may probably have been that of early
education and literary sympathies. That Memmius retained a taste for
poetry amid the pursuits and pleasures of his profligate career is
shown by the fact that he was the author of a volume of amatory poems,
and also by his taking with him, in the year 57 B.C., the poets Helvius
Cinna and Catullus, on his staff to Bithynia. The keen discernment
of the younger poet, sharpened by personal animosity, formed a
truer estimate of his chief, than that expressed by the philosophic
enthusiast. But at the time in which the words--
Nec Memmi clara propago
Talibus in rebus communi deesse saluti--
were written, even Cicero regarded him as one of the bulwarks of the
senatorian cause against Clodius and his influential supporters. And
neither the scandal of his private or of his public life prevented his
being in later years among the orator's correspondents.
This relation to Memmius is the only additional fact which an
examination of the poem brings into light. Nothing is learned from
it of the poet's parentage, his education, his favourite places of
residence, of his career, of his good or evil fortune. There were
eminent Epicurean teachers at Athens and Rome (Patro, Phaedrus,
Philodemus, etc.) during his youth and manhood, but it is useless to
ask what influence of teachers or personal experience induced him to
become so passionate a devotee of the doctrines of Epicurus. Yet though
no direct reference to his circumstances is found in his writings, we
may yet mark indirect traces of the impression produced upon him by
the age in which his youth and manhood were passed; we seem to catch
some glimpses of his habitual pursuits and tastes, to gain some real
insight into his being, to apprehend the attitude in which he stood
to the great teachers of the past, and to know the man by knowing the
objects in life which most deeply interested him. Nothing, we may well
believe, was further from his wish or intention than to leave behind
him any record of himself. No Roman poet has so entirely sunk himself
and the remembrance of his own fortunes in absorption in his subject.
But his strong personal force and individuality have penetrated deeply
into all his representation, his reasoning, and his exhortation. From
the beginning to the end of the poem we feel that we are listening to a
living voice speaking to us with the direct impressiveness of personal
experience and conviction. No writer ever used words more clearly
or more sincerely: no one shows a greater scorn for the rhetorical
artifices which disguise the lack of meaning or insinuate a false
conclusion by fine-sounding phrases:--
Quae belle tangere possunt
Auris et lepido quae sunt fucata sonore.[350]
The union of an original and independent personality with the utmost
sincerity of thought and speech is a characteristic in which Lucretius
resembles Thucydides. It is this which gives to the works of both,
notwithstanding their studied self-suppression, the vivid interest of a
direct personal revelation.
The tone of many passages in the poem clearly indicates that Lucretius,
though taking no personal part in the active politics of his age, was
profoundly moved by the effects which they produced on human happiness
and character. Thus the lines at iii. 70-74--
Sanguine civili rem conflant, etc.--
recall the thought and spectacle of crime and bloodshed vividly
presented to him in the impressible years of his youth[351]. Other
passages are an immediate reflexion of the anarchy and alarm of the
times in which the poem was written. Thus the opening lines of the
second book, which contrast the security of the contemplative life with
the strife of political and military ambition, seem to be suggested
by the action of what is sometimes called the first triumvirate. The
lines--
Si non forte tuas legiones per loca campi, etc.--
have been noted[352] as a probable allusion to the position actually
taken up by Julius Caesar outside of Rome in the opening months of the
year 58 B.C. Some earlier lines of the same passage--
Certare ingenio, contendere nobilitate,
Noctes atque dies niti praestante labore
Ad summas emergere opes rerumque potiri,--
have a resemblance to words directly applied by Cicero to Caesar[353],
and are certainly more applicable to him than to any other of the
poet's contemporaries. The political reflexions in the poem, as for
instance that at v. 1123, seem, in almost all cases, to be forced from
him by the memory of the first civil war, or the vague dread of that
which was impending. It is not from any effeminate recoil from danger,
but rather from horror of the turbulence, disorder, and crimes against
the sanctities of human life, involved in the strife of ambition, that
Lucretius preaches the lessons of political quietism. And while his
humanity of feeling makes him shrink from the prospect of evil days,
like those which he well remembered, again awaiting his country, his
capacity for pure and simple pleasures makes him equally shrink from
the spectacle of prodigal luxury which Rome then presented in a degree
never before witnessed in the world.
Thus the first general impression of Lucretius which we form from
his poem is that of one who, from a strong distaste to the life
of action and social pleasure, deliberately chose the life of
contemplation,--the 'fallentis semita vitae.' Some illustrations of
his argument--as, for instance, a description of the state of mental
tension produced by witnessing public games and spectacles for many
days in succession[354], of the reflexion of the colours cast on the
stage by the awnings of the theatre[355], of the works of art adorning
the houses of the great[356], etc.--imply that he had not always been
a stranger to the enjoyments of city life, and that they attracted
him by a certain fascination of pomp and novelty. His pictures of the
follies of the 'jeunesse dorée,' (at iv. 1121, etc.), and of sated
luxury (at iii. 1060, etc.), show that he had been a witness of the
conditions of life out of which they were engendered. At iv. 784, in
speaking of the power of the mind to call up images, he specifies
'conventus hominum, pompam, convivia, pugnas.' But such illustrations
are rare when compared with those which speak of a life passed in the
open air, and of intimate familiarity with many aspects of Nature.
The vivid minuteness with which outward things are described, as
well as the occasional use of such words as _vidi_[357], show that
though a few of the sights observed by him may have been drawn from
the physics of Epicurus[358], the great mass of them had either been
originally observed by himself or at least had been verified in his
own experience. He was endowed not only with the poet's susceptibility
to the beauty and movement of the outward world, but also with the
observing faculty and curiosity of a naturalist: and by both impulses
he was more attracted to the solitudes of Nature than to the haunts of
men. Many bright illustrations of his argument tell of hours spent by
the sea shore. Thus he notes minutely the effect of the exhalations
from the salt water in wearing away rocks and walls (i. 336; iv.
220), the invisible influence of the sea-air in producing moisture in
clothes (i. 305; vi. 472), or a salt taste in the mouth (iv. 222), the
varied forms of shells paving the shore (ii. 374), the sudden change
of colour when the winds raise the white crest of the waves (ii. 765),
the appearance of sky and water produced by a black storm-cloud passing
over the sea (vi. 256). Other passages show his familiarity with inland
scenes,--with the violent rush of rivers in flood (i. 280, etc.), or
their stately flow through fresh meadows (ii. 362), or their ceaseless
unperceived action in eating away their banks (v. 256);--or again, with
all the processes of husbandry, the growth of plants and trees, the
ways of flocks and herds in their pastures, and the sounds and sights
of the pathless woods. While he anticipates Virgil in his Italian love
of peaceful landscape, he shows some foretaste of the modern passion
for the mountains,--as (at ii. 331) where he speaks of 'some spot
among the lofty hills,' commanding a distant view of a wide expanse of
plain, and (at iv. 575) where he recalls the memory of wanderings among
mountain solitudes--
Palantis comites cum montis inter opacos
Quaerimus et magna dispersos voce ciemus,--
and (at vi. 469) where he notices the more powerful action of the wind
on the movements of the clouds at high altitudes--
Nam loca declarat sursum ventosa patere
Res ipsa et sensus, montis cum ascendimus altos.
Even some of the metaphorical phrases in which he figures forth the
pursuit of truth seem to be taken from mountain adventure[359]. The
mention of companionship in some of these wanderings, and in other
scenes in which the charm of Nature is represented as enhancing the
enjoyment of a simple meal--
Propter aquae rivum sub ramis arboris altae,--
enable us to think of him as, although isolated in his thoughts from
other men, yet not separated from them in the daily intercourse of
life by any unsocial austerity. Such separation would have been quite
opposed both to the teaching and the example of his master. Some
remembrance of active adventure is suggested by illustrations of his
philosophy drawn from the experience of a sea-voyage (iv. 387, etc.,
432), of riding through a rapid stream (iv. 420), of watching the
action of dogs tracking their game through woods and over mountains
(i. 404), or renewing the memories of the chase in their dreams (v.
991, etc.). The lines (at ii. 40, etc., and 323, etc.) show that his
imagination had been moved by witnessing the evolutions of armies, not
indeed in actual warfare, but in the pomp and pageantry of martial
spectacles,--'belli simulacra cientes.' These and many other indirect
indications afford some glimpses of his habitual manner of life and of
the pursuits that gave him most lively pleasure: but they do not give
us any special knowledge of the particular districts of Italy in which
he lived; or of the scenes in foreign lands which he may have visited.
The poem tells us nothing immediately of the trials or passions of
his life, though of both he seems to bear the scars. But as passages
in which he reveals the deep secrets of human passion and suffering
prove him to have been a man of strong, ardent, and vividly susceptible
temperament, so the numerous illustrations drawn from the repertory of
his personal observation tell of an eye trained to take delight in the
outward face of Nature as well as of a mind unwearied in its search
into her hidden laws. One great charm of his work is that it breathes
of the open air more than of the library. If, in dealing with the
problems of human life, his strain--
'Is fraught too deep with pain,'
yet to him too might be applied the lines written of one who, though
not comparable to him in intellectual and imaginative power, yet, in
his spiritual isolation from the world, seems almost like his modern
counterpart--
'And thou hast pleasures too to share
With those who come to thee,
Balms floating on thy mountain air
And healing sights to see.'[360]
But we may trust with even more confidence to the indications of his
inner than of his outward life. The spirit and purpose which impelled
Lucretius to expound his philosophy can be understood without any
collateral knowledge of his history. The dominant impulse of his being
is the ardent desire to emancipate human life from the fears and
passions by which it is marred and degraded. He has more of the zeal of
a religious reformer than any other ancient thinker, except one who in
all his ways of life was most unlike him, the Athenian Socrates. The
speculative enthusiasm which bears him along through his argument is
altogether subsidiary to the furtherance of his practical purpose. Even
the poetical power to which the work owes its immortality was valued
chiefly as a pleasing means of instilling the unpalatable medicine of
his philosophy[361] into the minds and hearts of unwilling hearers. It
is the constant presence of this practical purpose, and the profound
sense which he has of the actual misery and degradation of human life,
and of the peace and dignity which are attainable by man, that impart
to his words the peculiar tone of impassioned earnestness to which
there is no parallel in ancient literature.
Among his personal characteristics none is more prominent than his
consciousness both of the greatness of the work on which he was
engaged, and of his own power to cope with it. The passage in which
his high self-confidence is most powerfully proclaimed (i. 920, etc.),
has been imitated both by Virgil and Milton. The sense of novelty,
adventure, and high aspiration expressed in the lines--
Avia Pieridum peragro loca nullius ante
Trita solo--
moved Virgil less powerfully in speaking of his humbler theme--
Sed me Parnassi deserta per ardua dulcis
Raptat amor;
and inspired the English poet in his great invocation:--
I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose and rhyme.
The sense of difficulty and the joy of overcoming it meet us with
a keen bracing effect in many passages of the poem. He speaks
disdainfully of those enquirers who fall into error by shrinking from
the more adventurous paths that lead to truth--
Ardua dum metuunt amittunt vera viai.
Without disowning the passion for fame,--'laudis spes magna,'--so
powerful an incentive to the Roman temperament, he is more inspired
or supported in his arduous task by 'the sweet love of the Muses.'
The delight in the exercise of his art and the joyful energy sustained
through the long processes of gathering and arranging his materials
appear in such passages as iii. 419-20:--
Conquisita diu dulcique reperta labore
Digna tua pergam disponere carmina cura:
and again at ii. 730--
Nunc age dicta meo dulci quaesita labore
Percipe.
The thoroughness and devotion of a student tell their own tale in such
expressions as the 'studio disposta fideli,' and the 'noctes vigilare
serenas' in the dedication to Memmius, and in the more enthusiastic
acknowledgment of the source from which he drew his philosophy at iii.
29, etc.--
Tuisque ex, inclute, chartis,
Floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant,
Omnia nos itidem depascimur aurea dicta.
The absorbing interest with which he carried on the work of enquiry and
of composition appears in illustrations of his argument drawn from his
own pursuits; as where (ii. 979) in arguing that, if the atoms have the
properties of sense, those of which man is compounded must have the
intellectual attributes of man, he says,--
Multaque de rerum mixtura dicere callent
Et sibi proporro quae sint primordia quaerunt;[362]
and, again (at iv. 969), in explaining how men in their dreams seem
to carry on the pursuits to which they are most devoted, how lawyers
seem to plead their causes, generals to fight their battles over again,
sailors to battle with the elements, he adds these lines:--
Nos agere hoc autem et naturam quaerere rerum
Semper et inventam patriis exponere chartis.[363]
His frequent use of the sacrificial phrase 'Hoc age,' affords evidence
of the religious earnestness with which he had devoted himself to his
task.
The feeling animating him through all his great adventure,--through
the wastest flats as well as the most commanding heights over which it
leads him,--is something different from the delight of a poet in his
art, of a scholar in his books, of a philosopher in his thought, of
a naturalist in his observation. All of these modes of feeling are
combined with the passion of his whole moral and intellectual being,
aroused by the contemplation of the greatest of all themes--'maiestas
cognita rerum'--and concentrated on the greatest of practical ends, the
emancipation and elevation of human life. The life of contemplation
which he alone among the Romans deliberately chose and realised he
carried out with Roman energy and fortitude. It was with him no life
of indolent musing, but one of thought and study, varied and braced by
original observation. It was a life, also, of strenuous literary effort
employed in giving clearness to obscure materials, and in eliciting
poetical charm from a language to which the musical cadences of verse
had been hitherto almost unknown. Above all, it was the life of one
who, while feeling the spell of Nature more profoundly than any poet
who had gone before him, did not in that new rapture forget
'The human heart by which we live.'
His high intellectual confidence, based on his firm trust in his
master, shows itself in a spirit of intolerance towards the school
which was the chief antagonist of Epicureanism at Rome. His argument
is a vigorous protest against philosophical error and scepticism, as
well as against popular ignorance and superstition. His polemical
attitude is seen in the frequent use of such expressions as 'vinco,'
'dede manus,' etc., addressed to an imaginary opponent. Discussion
of topics, not apparently necessary to his main argument, is raised
with the object of carrying the war into the enemy's camp. Such
frequently recurring expressions as 'ut quidam fingunt,' 'perdelirum
esse videtur,' etc., are invariably aimed at the Stoics[364]. Of other
early philosophers, even when dissenting from their opinions, he speaks
in terms of admiration and reverence: but Heraclitus, whose physical
explanation of the universe was adopted by the Stoics, is described in
terms of disparagement, levelled as much against his later followers
as against himself, as--
Clarus ob obscuram linguam magis inter inanis
Quamde gravis inter Graios qui vera requirunt.
The traditional opposition between Democritus and Heraclitus lived
after them. Adherence to the doctrine of 'atoms and the void,' and
to that of 'the pure fiery element,' became the symbol of a radical
divergence in the whole view of human life.
While there is frequent allusion to the Stoics in the poem, there is
no direct mention either of them or of their chief teachers, Zeno,
Chrysippus, or Cleanthes. Neither do the greater names of Socrates,
Plato, or Aristotle appear in it, though one or two passages clearly
imply some familiarity with the writings of Plato[365]. But among the
moral teachers of antiquity he acknowledges Epicurus only. The whole
enthusiasm of his temperament breaks out in admiration of him. He alone
is the true interpreter of Nature and conqueror of superstition (i.
75); the reformer 'who has made pure the human heart' (vi. 24); the
'guide out of the storms and darkness of life into calm and light'
(iii. 1; v. 11, 12); the 'sun who at his rising extinguished all the
lesser stars' (iii. 1044). He is to be ranked even as a God on account
of his great services to man, in teaching him the mastery over his
fears and passions:--
Deus ille fuit, deus, inclute Memmi.[366]
He speaks of his master throughout not only with the affection of
a disciple, but with an emotion akin to religious ecstasy[367].
His admiration for him springs from a deeper source of spiritual
sentiment than that of Ennius for Scipio, or of Virgil for Augustus.
Though Epicurus inspired much affection in his lifetime, and though
other great writers after Lucretius,--such as Seneca, Juvenal, and
Lucian,--vindicate his name from the dishonour which the perversion of
his doctrines brought upon it, yet even the most favourable criticism
of his life and teaching must find it difficult to sympathise with the
idolatry of Lucretius. Yet his error, if it be one, springs from a
generous source. He attributes his own imaginative interest in Nature
to a philosopher who examined the phenomena of the outward world
merely to find a basis for the destruction of all religious belief.
He saturates with his own deep human feeling a moral system which
professes to secure human happiness by emptying life of its most sacred
associations, most passionate longings, and profoundest affections.
There was a truer affinity of nature between Lucretius and another
philosopher whom he names with the warmest feelings of love and
veneration--Empedocles of Agrigentum--the most famous of the early
physiological poets of Greece. He flourished during the fifth century
B.C., and was the author of a didactic poem on Nature, of which some
fragments still remain, sufficient to indicate the nature of the work
and the character of the man. These fragments prove that Lucretius
had carefully studied the older poem, and adopted it as his model in
using a poetical form and diction to expound his philosophical system.
He declares, indeed, his opposition to the doctrine of Empedocles,
which traced the origin of all things to four original elements; but
he adopted into his own system many both of his expressions and of his
philosophical ideas. The line in which the Roman poet enunciates his
first principle,--
Nullam rem e nilo gigni divinitus unquam,
was obviously taken from the lines of the old poem περὶ φύσεως--
ἐκ τοῦ γὰρ μὴ ἐόντος ἀμήχανόν ἐστι γενέσθαι
τό τ᾽ ἐὸν ἐξόλλυσθαι ἀνήνυστον καὶ ἄπρηκτον.
Speaking of Sicily as a rich and wonderful land, Lucretius pays his
tribute of love and admiration to his illustrious predecessor in these
lines,--
Nil tamen hoc habuisse viro praeclarius in se
Nec sanctum magis et mirum carumque videtur.
Carmina quin etiam divini pectoris eius
Vociferantur et exponunt praeclara reperta,
Ut vix humana videatur stirpe creatus.[368]
There is a close agreement between the two poetical philosophers in
their imaginative mode of conceiving Nature. They both represented the
principle of beauty and life in the universe under the symbol of the
Goddess of Love--'Κύπρι βασίλεια;' 'alma Venus, genetrix.'
They both explain the unceasing process of decay and renovation in
the world by an image drawn from the most impressive spectacle of
human life--a mighty battle, waged through all time between opposing
forces. The burden and the mystery of life seem to weigh heavily on
both, and to mould their very language to a deep, monotonous solemnity
of tone. But along with this affinity of temperament there is also a
marked difference in their modes of thought and feeling. The view of
Nature in the philosophy of Empedocles appears to be just emerging out
of the anthropomorphic fancies of an earlier time: the first rays of
knowledge are seen trying to pierce through the clouds of the dawn of
enquiry: the dreams and sorrows of religious mysticism accompany the
awakened energies of the reason. His mournful tone is the voice of the
intellectual spirit lamenting its former home, and baffled in its eager
desire to comprehend 'the whole.' Lucretius, on the other hand, saw the
outward world as it looks in the light of day, neither glorified by the
mystic colours of religion, nor concealed by the shadows of mythology.
He was moved neither by the passionate longing of the soul, nor by the
'divine despair' of the intellect: but he felt profoundly the sorrows
of the heart, and was weighed down by the ever-present consciousness of
the misery and wretchedness in the world. The complaint of the first is
one which has been uttered from time to time by some solitary thinker
in modern as in ancient days:--
παῦρον δὲ ζωῆς ἀβίου μέρος ἀθρήσαντες
ὡκύμοροι, καπνοῖο δίκην ἀρθέντες ἀπέπταν
αὐτὸ μόνον πεισθέντες, ὅτῳ προσέκυρσεν ἕκαστος,
παντοσ᾽ ἐλαυνόμενοι· τὸ δ᾽οὖλον ἐπεύχεται εὑρεῖν
αὔτως. οὔτ᾽ ἐπιδερκτὰ τάδ᾽ ἄνδρασιν οὔτ᾽ ἐπάκουστα
οὔτε νόῳ περιληπτά.[369]
The other gives a real and expressive utterance to that 'thought of
inexhaustible melancholy,' which has weighed on every human heart:--
Miscetur funere vagor
Quem pueri tollunt visentis luminis oras:
Nec nox ulla diem neque noctem aurora secutast
Quae non audierit mixtos vagitibus aegris
Ploratus mortis comites et funeris atri.[370]
Besides Epicurus and Empedocles Lucretius mentions Democritus and
Anaxagoras, and speaks even of those whom he confutes as 'making many
happy discoveries by divine inspiration,' and as 'uttering their
responses from the shrine of their own hearts with more holiness
and truth than the Pythia from the tripod and laurel of Apollo.'
The reverence which other men felt in presence of the ceremonies of
religion he feels in presence of the majesty of Nature; and to the
interpreters of her meaning he ascribes the holiness claimed by the
ministers of religion. Thus, to a doctrine of Democritus he applies the
words 'sancta viri sententia.' The divinest faculty in man is that by
which truth is discovered. The highest office of poetry is to clothe
the discoveries of thought with the charm of graceful expression and
musical verse[371].
Of other Greek authors, Homer and Euripides are those of whom we find
most traces in the poem. To the first he awards a high preeminence
above all other poets,--
Adde repertores doctrinarum atque leporum,
Adde Heliconiadum comites; quorum unus Homerus
Sceptra potitus eadem aliis sopitu' quietest[372].
The passages in which Lucretius imitates him show how clearly
he recognised his exact vision of outward things, and his true
appreciation of the moral strength and dignity of man. The frequent
imitations of Euripides[373] show that while he felt the spell of his
pathos, he was also attracted by the poetic mould into which the tragic
poet has cast the physical speculations of Anaxagoras. Allusion is made
in tones of indifference or disparagement to other poets of Greece, as
having, in common with the painters of former times, given shape and
substance to the superstitious fancies of mankind. It is characteristic
of his powerful and independent genius, that, unlike the younger poets
of his generation, he adheres to the older writers of the great days of
Greece, and acknowledges no debt to the Alexandrine School. Although
amply furnished with the knowledge necessary for the performance of
his task, he is a poet of original genius much more than of learning
and culture: and he is thus more drawn to those who acted on him by a
kindred power, than to those who might have served him as models of
poetic form or repertories of poetic illustration. The strength of
his understanding attracted him to some of the great prose-writers
of Greece, by whom that quality is most conspicuously displayed;
notably to Thucydides, whom he has closely followed in his account
of the 'Plague at Athens,' and, as has been shown by Mr. Munro, to
Hippocrates. The kind of attraction which the last of these has for him
confirms the criticism of Goethe, that Lucretius shows the observing
faculty of a physician, as well as of a poet.
The diction and rhythm of the poem, as well as the more direct tribute
of personal acknowledgment[374], prove that he was an admiring
student of his own countryman Ennius, to whom in some qualities of
his temperament and genius he bore a certain resemblance. Many lines,
phrases, and archaic words in Lucretius, such as--
Per gentis Italas hominum quae clara clueret,--
Lumina sis oculis etiam bonus Ancu' reliquit,--
inde super terras fluit agmine dulci,--
multa munita virum vi; caerula caeli Templa; Acherusia templa; luminis
oras; famul infimus; induperator; Graius homo, etc.--
have a clear ring of the older poet. The few allusions to Roman history
in the poem, as, for instance, the line--
Scipiadas, belli fulmen, Carthaginis horror,--
the specification at iii. 833 of the second Punic War as a momentous
crisis in human affairs,--the description at v. 1226 of a great naval
disaster, such as happened in the first Punic War,--the introduction
there of elephants into the picture of the pomp and circumstance
of war,--suggest the inference that, just as events and personages
of the earlier history of England live in the imaginations of many
English readers from their representation in the historical plays of
Shakspeare, so the past history of his country lived for Lucretius
in the representation of Ennius. But of the national pride by which
the older poet was animated, the work of Lucretius bears only scanty
traces. The feeling which moved him to identify the puissant energy
pervading the universe with 'the mother of the Aeneadae,' and the
motive of his prayer for peace addressed to that Power,--
Nam neque nos agere hoc patriai tempore iniquo,--
seem indeed to spring from sources of patriotic affection, perhaps
all the deeper because not too loudly proclaimed. But in the body of
the poem his illustrations are taken as frequently from Greek as from
Roman story, from the strangeness of foreign lands as from the beauty
of Italian scenes. The Georgics of Virgil, in the whole conception of
Nature as a living power, and in many special features, owe much to
the imaginative thought of Lucretius; but nothing can be more unlike
the spirit of the older poet than the episodes in which Virgil pours
forth all his Roman feeling and his love of Italy. The height from
which Lucretius contemplates all human history, as 'a procession of
the nations handing on the torch of life from one to another,' is wide
apart from that from which Virgil beholds all the nations of the world
doing homage to the majesty of Rome. The poem of Lucretius breathes
the spirit of a man, apparently indifferent to the ordinary sources of
pleasure and of pride among his countrymen. Living in an era, the most
momentous in its action on the future history of the world, he was only
repelled by its turbulent activity. The contemplation of the infinite
and eternal mass and order of Nature made the issues of that age and
the imperial greatness of his country appear to him as transient as
the events of the old Trojan and Theban wars. To him, as to the modern
poet, whose imagination most nearly resembles his, the thought of more
enduring things had
'Power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal silence.'
But while by his silence on the subject of national glory and his
ardent speculative enthusiasm Lucretius seems to be more of a Greek
than of a Roman, yet no Roman writer possessed in larger measure the
moral temper of the great Republic. He is a truer type of the strong
character and commanding genius of his country than even Virgil or
Horace. He has the Roman conquering energy, the Roman reverence for the
majesty of law, the Roman gift for introducing order into a confused
world, the Roman power of impressing his authority on the minds of men.
In his fortitude, his superiority to human weakness, his seriousness
of spirit, his dignity of bearing, he seems to embody the great Roman
qualities 'constantia' and 'gravitas.' If in the force and sincerity of
his own nature he reminds us of the earliest Roman writer of genius, in
these last qualities, the acquired and inherited virtues of his race,
he reminds us of the last representative writer, whose tone is worthy
of the 'Senatus populusque Romanus.' But Lucretius is much more than
a type of the strong Roman qualities. He combines a poetic freshness
of feeling, a love of simple living, an independence of the world,
with a tenderness and breadth of sympathy, and a power of sounding
into the depths of human sorrow, such as only a very few among the
ancients--Homer, Sophocles, Virgil,--and not many among the poets or
thinkers of the modern world have displayed. In no quality does he rise
further above the standard of his age than in his absolute sincerity
and his unswerving devotion to truth[375]. He combines in himself some
of the rarest elements in the Greek and the Roman temperament,--the
Greek ardour of speculation, the Roman's firm hold of reality. A poet
of the age of Julius Cæsar, he is animated by the spirit of an early
Greek enquirer. He unites the speculative passion of the dawn of
ancient science with the minute observation of its meridian; and he
applies the imaginative conceptions formed in the first application of
abstract thought to the universe to interpret the living beauty of the
world.
[Footnote 341: Mr. Wallace in his very interesting account of
'Epicureanism,' just published, writes, in reference to the way in
which Epicurus himself was regarded in a later age, 'And the maladies
of Epicurus are treated as an anticipatory judgment of Heaven upon him
for his alleged impieties.'--Epicureanism, p. 46.]
[Footnote 342: This consideration is urged by De Quincey in one of his
essays.]
[Footnote 343: iii. 1039, etc.]
[Footnote 344: iv. 33-38:--
'Atque eadem nobis vigilantibus obvia mentes
Terrificant atque in somnis, cum saepe figuras
Contuimur miras simulacraque luce carentum,
Quae nos horrifice languentis saepe sopore
Excierunt, ne forte animas Acherunte reamur
Effugere aut umbras inter vivos volitare.'
]
[Footnote 345: An article, in a recent number of the Fortnightly
Review, on 'Hallucination of the Senses,' suggests a possible
explanation of the mental condition of Lucretius, during the
composition of some part of his work. The writer speaks of the power of
calling these hallucinations up as being quite consistent with perfect
sanity of mind, but as sometimes inducing madness. He goes on, 'Or,
if the person does not go out of his mind, he may be so distressed by
the persistence of the apparition which he has created, as to fall
into melancholy and despair, and even to commit suicide.' Fortnightly
Review, Sept. 1878.]
[Footnote 346: E.g. Tusc. Disp, i. 21, especially the sentence--'Quae
quidem cogitans soleo saepe admirari non nullorum insolentiam
philosophorum qui naturae cognitionem admirantur, eiusque inventori et
principi gratias exultantes agunt eumque venerantur ut deum.']
[Footnote 347: 'Multae tamen artis esse cum inveneris.' Munro's
Lucretius, Third Edition, p. 315.]
[Footnote 348: The theory of Lachmann and others that Q. Cicero was the
editor may possibly be true. He dabbled in poetry himself, and he was
more nearly of the same age as Lucretius, and thus perhaps more likely
to have been a friend of his. The fact that Cicero's remark is in
answer to one of his might suggest the opinion that the poem had been
read by him before it became known to the older brother, and perhaps
been sent by him to Cicero. This would explain Cicero's indifference
on the subject. He makes a casual reply on a matter more interesting
to his correspondent than to himself. But if Q. Cicero was the editor,
Jerome must here also have copied his authorities carelessly. In the
time of Jerome the familiar name of Cicero must have been understood
as applying to the great orator and philosophic writer, not to his
comparatively obscure brother. The only certain inference which can be
drawn from this mention of the poem is that it had been read, shortly
after its appearance, in the beginning of the year 54 B.C., by both
brothers. Yet the consideration of the whole case does not lead to
the rejection of the distinct statement that Cicero was the editor as
incredible, or even as highly improbable. If it was he, he must have
performed his task very perfunctorily.]
[Footnote 349: At that time he would be about forty-one years of
age--the same age as Lucretius, if, as is most probable, he was born in
99 B.C.]
[Footnote 350: i. 643-4; cf. οὔτε ὡς λογογράφοι ξυνέθεσαν ἐπὶ τὸ
προσαγωγότερον τῇ ἀκροάσει ἢ ἀληθέστερον.--Thuc. i. 21.]
[Footnote 351: The lines (v. 999)--
'At non multa virum sub signis milia ducta
Una dies dabat exitio,' etc.--
might well be a reminiscence of the great massacre at the Colline gate.]
[Footnote 352: Cp. Munro, Note II, p. 413. Third Edition.]
[Footnote 353: 'Si jam violentior aliqua in re C. Caesar fuisset,
si eum magnitudo contentionis, studium gloriae, praestans animus,
excellens nobilitas aliquo impulisset.' In. Vatinium 6.]
[Footnote 354: iv. 973, etc.]
[Footnote 355: iv. 75, etc.]
[Footnote 356: ii. 24, etc.]
[Footnote 357: In places where he is not drawing from his own
observation, he uses such expressions as _memorant_; e.g. iii. 642.]
[Footnote 358: E.g. iv. 353, etc.]
[Footnote 359: e.g.
'Ardua dum metuunt amittunt vera viai'
and
'Avia Pieridum peragro loca.'
]
[Footnote 360: Obermann, by M. Arnold.]
[Footnote 361: i. 935-50.]
[Footnote 362: 'And can discourse much on the combination of things;
and enquire moreover, what are their own first elements.']
[Footnote 363: 'While I seem ever to be plying this task earnestly, to
be enquiring into Nature, and explaining my discoveries in writings in
my native tongue.' This is one of those passages which seem to indicate
an unhealthy overstrain which may have been the precursor of the final
disturbance of 'his power to shape.']
[Footnote 364: Cp. Munro's notes on the passages where these
expressions occur.]
[Footnote 365: E.g. ii. 77, etc. Augescunt aliae gentes etc., suggested
by a passage in the Laws:--γεννῶντας τε καὶ ἐκτρέφοντας παῖδας, καθάπερ
λάμπαδα τὸν βίον παραδίδοντας ἄλλοις ἐξ ἄλλων--and the lines which
recur several times, etc. 'Nam veluti pueri trepidant,' which Mr.
Munro aptly compares with the words in the Phaedo (77), ἴσως ἔνι τις
καὶ ἐν ἡμῖν παῖς, ὅστις τὰ τοιαῦτα φοβεῖται.]
[Footnote 366: v. 8.]
[Footnote 367: Cf.
'His ibi me rebus quaedam divina voluptas
Percipit adque horror.'
]
[Footnote 368: 'But nought greater than this man does it seem to have
possessed, nor aught more holy, more wonderful, or more dear. Yea,
too, strains of divine genius proclaim aloud and make known his great
discoveries, so that he seems scarcely to be of mortal race.'--i.
729-33.]
[Footnote 369: 'When they have gazed for a few years of a life that
is indeed no life speedily fulfilling their doom, they vanish away
like a smoke, convinced of that only which each hath met in his own
experience, as they were buffeted about to and fro. Vainly doth each
boast to have discovered the whole. The eye cannot behold it, nor the
ear hear it, nor the mind of man comprehend it.']
[Footnote 370: 'With death there is ever blending the wail of infants
newly born into the light. And no night hath ever followed day, no
morning dawned on night, but hath heard the mingled sounds of feeble
infant wailings and of lamentations that follow the dead and the black
funeral train.'--ii. 576-80.]
[Footnote 371: i. 943-50.]
[Footnote 372: iii. 1036-38.]
[Footnote 373: Cf. notes ii. of Mr. Munro's edition.]
[Footnote 374: i. 117, etc.]
[Footnote 375: Mr. Froude, in his 'Julius Cæsar,' says, 'The age was
saturated with cant.' Perhaps, to that condition of his age we, in
part, owe one of the sincerest protests against cant, and unreality of
every kind, ever written. Both speculatively and practically Cicero
appears at a great disadvantage when compared with Lucretius in these
respects.]