THE LITERARY ART AND GENIUS OF LUCRETIUS.
It remains to consider the poem of Lucretius as a work of literary
art and genius. Much indeed of what may be said on the subject of his
genius has necessarily been anticipated in the chapters devoted to
the consideration of his personal characteristics, his speculative
philosophy, and his moral teaching. The 'multa lumina ingenii' are
most conspicuous in those passages of his poem which best illustrate
the range and distinctness of his observation, the grandeur and truth
of his philosophical conceptions, the passionate sympathy with which
he strove to elevate and purify human life. But, at the same time, the
most manifest defects of the poem, considered as a work of art, spring
from the same source as its greatness considered as a work of genius,
viz., the diversity and conflicting aims of the faculties employed on
its production. Although, perhaps, from a Roman point of view, the
practical purpose which reduces the mass of miscellaneous details to
unity, and the success with which he encounters the difficulties both
of matter and language, might entitle the poem to be regarded as a work
'multae artis,' yet, when tested by the canons either of Greek or of
modern taste, it fails in the most essential conditions of art,--the
choice of subject and the form of construction. The title of the poem
is indeed taken from a Greek model, the poem of Empedocles, 'περὶ
φύσεως': and the form of a personal address to Memmius, in which
Lucretius has embodied his teaching, was suggested by the personal
address of the older poet to the 'son of Anchytus.' But although
Aristotle acknowledges the poetical genius of Empedocles by applying
to him the epithet Ὁμηρικός, he denies to his composition the
title of a poem. The work of Empedocles and the kindred works of
Xenophanes and Parmenides are inspired not by the passion of art but
by the enthusiasm of discovery. They are to be regarded rather as
philosophical rhapsodies than as purely didactic poems, like either
the 'Works and Days' of Hesiod or the writings of the Alexandrine
School. They were written in hexameter verse partly because that was
the most familiar vehicle of expression in the first half of the fifth
century, B.C., and partly because it was the vehicle most suited to
the imaginative conceptions of Nature which arose out of the old
mythologies. But in the time of Lucretius a prose vehicle was more
suited than any form of verse for the communication of knowledge in a
systematic form. The conception of Nature was no longer mystical or
purely imaginative as it had been in the age of Empedocles. Thus the
task which Lucretius had to perform was both vaster and more complex
than that of the early φυσιόλογοι. He had to combine in one whole
the prosaic results of later scientific observation and analysis
with the imaginative fancies of the dawn of ancient enquiry. He
professes to make both conducive to the practical purpose of
emancipating and elevating human life; but a great part of his argument
is as remote from all human interest as it is from the ascertained
truths of science.
All life and Nature were to his spirit full of imaginative wonder,
but they were believed also to be susceptible of a rationalistic
explanation. And the greater part of the work is devoted to give this
explanation. This large infusion of a prosaic content necessarily
detracts from the artistic excellence and the sustained interest of the
poem. Lucretius speaks of the difficulty which he had to encounter in
gaining the ear of his countrymen, in the lines,--
Quoniam haec ratio plerumque videtur
Tristior esse quibus non est tractata, retroque
Volgus abhorret ab hac.[497]
And the unattractiveness of much of his theme is not diminished when
the real discoveries of science have shewn how illusory are his
processes of investigation, and how false are many of his conclusions.
He has made his poetry ancillary to his science, instead of compelling,
as Virgil, Dante, and Milton have done, a subject, susceptible of
purely artistic treatment, to assimilate the stores of his knowledge.
His theme--'maiestas cognita rerum,'--is too vast and complex to be
brought within the compass and proportions of a single work of art. The
processes of minute observation and reasoning employed in establishing
his conclusions are alien from the movement of the imagination. The
connecting links of the argument are suggestive of the labour of the
workman, not of the finished perfection of the work. And while some of
the ideas of science may be so applied to the interpretation of the
outward world, as to act on the imaginative emotions with greater power
than any mere description of the forms and colours of external things,
yet the pleasure with which processes of investigation are pursued is
quite distinct from the pleasure derived from poetic intuition into the
secret life of Nature and man. If it be the condition of a great poem
to produce the purest and noblest pleasure by its whole conception and
execution, the poem of Lucretius fails to satisfy this condition. It
is, in spite of its design and proportions,--in spite of the fact that
long parts of the work neither interest the feelings nor satisfy the
reason, that the poem still speaks with impressive power to the modern
world.
And while the whole conception of the work, as regards both matter
and method of treatment, necessarily involves a large interfusion of
prosaic materials with the finer product of his genius, it must be
added that there is considerable inequality of execution even in its
more inspired passages. A few consecutive passages show indeed the
finest sense of harmony, and are finished in a style not much inferior
to that of Virgil. Such, for instance, are the opening lines:--
Aeneadum genetrix, hominum divomque voluptas, etc.;--
and again the lines in the introduction to Book iii:--
Apparet divum numen sedesque quietae, etc.
But long passages seem rather to revert to the roughness of Ennius
than to approach the smooth and varied cadences of Virgil. Though the
imaginative effect of single expressions is generally more forcible
than in any Latin poet, yet the composition of long paragraphs is
apt to overflow into prosaic detail, or to display the qualities of
logical consecutiveness or close adherence to fact rather than those
of skilled accomplishment and conformity with the principles of
beauty. In common with the older race of Roman poets he exhibits that
straining after verbal effects by means of alliteration, assonances,
asyndeta, etc., which marks the ruder stages of literary development.
The Latin language, although beginning to feel the quickening of a new
life, had not yet been formed into its more exquisite modulations, nor
learned the power of suggesting delicate shades of meaning and the new
strength derivable from the reserved use of its resources. All these
causes,--the vast and miscellaneous range, and the abstruse character
of his subject, the dryness and futility of much of the argument, the
frequent subordination of poetry to science, the inadequacy of the
Latin language as a vehicle of thought and its imperfect development
as an organ of poetry,--prevented the poem from ever obtaining great
popularity in ancient times, and have denied to it in modern times
anything like the large influence which has been enjoyed in different
ages and countries by Virgil, Horace, and Ovid. Even the more ardent
admirers of the poem are tempted to pass from one to another of the
higher ranges and more commanding summits, which swell gradually or
rise abruptly out of the general level over which he leads them, rather
than to follow him through all the windings of his argument.
Yet it is only after the poem has been mastered in its details that we
realise its full effect on the imagination. It is only then that we
understand the complete greatness of the man, as a thinker, a teacher,
and a poet. The most familiar beauties reveal a deeper meaning when
they are seen to be not mere resting places in the toilsome march of
his argument, but rather commanding positions, successively reached,
from which the widest contemplative views of the realms of Nature and
human life are laid open to us. As we follow closely in his footsteps,
through all his processes of observation, analysis, and reasoning, we
feel, that he too, like the older Greeks, is borne along by a strong
enthusiasm,--the philosophical ἔρως of Plato,--different from,
but akin to, the impulses of poetry. That marvellous intensity of
feeling in conjunction with the operations of the intellect, which the
Greeks regarded as a kind of divine possession, and which Lucretius,
by the use of such phrases as 'divinitus invenientes,' ascribes to
the earliest enquirers, animates all his interpretation of the facts
and laws of Nature. The speculative passion imparts life to the
argumentative processes which are addressed to the understanding, while
it adds a fresher glory or more impressive solemnity to those aspects
of the subject by which the imagination is most powerfully moved.
Again, although his rhythm, even at its best, falls far short of
the intricate harmony and variety of Virgil, and, in its more level
passages, scarcely aims at pleasing the ear at all, yet there is a
kind of grandeur and dignity even in its monotony, varied, as that is,
by deeper and more majestic tones whenever his spirit is stirred by
impulses of awe, wonder, and delight. There is always a sense of life
and onward movement in the flow of his verse. Often there is a kind
of cumulative force revealing a more powerful emotion of heart and
imagination as his thoughts and images press on one another in close
and ordered sequence. Thus, for instance, the effect of the lines
describing the religious impressions produced on the early inhabitants
of the world by the grand and awful aspects of Nature, depends, not
on any harmonious variation of sounds, but on the swelling and
culminating power with which the whole passage breaks on the ear,--
In caeloque deum sedes et templa locarunt,
Per caelum volvi quia nox et luna videtur,
Luna dies et nox et noctis signa severa
Noctivagaeque faces caeli flammaeque volantes.
Nubila sol imbres nix venti fulmina grando
Et rapidi fremitus et murmura magna minarum.[498]
In many passages it may be noticed how much is added to the rhythmical
effect by the force or weight of the concluding line, as at iii.
870-893, by the rugged grandeur of the line,--
Urgerive superne obtritum pondere terrae,--
at ii. 569-580, by the sad and solemn movement of the close,--
Ploratus mortis comites et funeris atri,--
and at i. 101, by the line of cardinal significance, which ends a
passage of most finished power and beauty,--
Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.
The music of Lucretius is altogether his own. As he was the first among
his countrymen who contemplated in a reverential spirit the majesty
of Nature and the more solemn meaning of life, so he was the first to
call out the full rhythmical majesty and deep organ-tones of the Latin
language, to embody in sound the spiritual emotions stirred by that
contemplation.
The poetical style of Lucretius is, like his rhythm, a true and
powerful symbol of his genius. Though his diction is much less studied
than that of Virgil, yet his large use of alliterations, assonances,
asyndeta[499], etc., shows that he consciously aimed at producing
certain effects by recognised rhetorical means. The attraction which
the artifices of rhetoric had for his mind is as noticeable in his
style as a similar attraction is in the speeches of Thucydides. But
neither Lucretius nor Thucydides can be called the slave of rhetorical
forms. In both writers recourse is had to them for the legitimate
purpose of emphasising thought, not for that of disguising its
insufficiency. The use of such phrases, for instance, as 'sed casta
inceste,' 'immortalia mortali sermone notantes,' 'mors immortalis,'
etc., is no mere play of words, but rather the tersest phrase in which
an impressive antithesis of thought can be presented. The mannerisms
of his style, if they show that he was not altogether emancipated from
archaic rudeness, afford evidence also of the prolific fertility of his
genius. The amplitude and unchecked volume of his diction flow out of
the mental conditions, described in the lines,--
Usque adeo largos haustus e fontibu' magnis
Lingua meo suavis diti de pectore fundet.
And he had not only the 'suavis lingua diti de pectore;' he had also
the 'daedala lingua,'--the formative energy which shapes words into new
forms and combinations. The frequent ἅπαξ λεγόμενα in his poem and his
abundant use of compound words, such as _fluctifragus_, _montivagus_,
_altitonans_, etc., most of which fell into disuse in the Augustan
age, were products of the same creative force which enabled Plautus
and Ennius to add largely to the resources of the Latin tongue. In
him, more than in any Latin poet before or after him, we meet with
phrases too full of imaginative life to be in perfect keeping with the
more sober tones and tamer spirit of the national literature. Thus his
language never became trite and hackneyed, and, as we read him, no
medium of after-associations is interposed between his mind and our own.
But it is not in individual phrases, however fresh and powerful, but
in continuous passages, that the power of his style is best seen. The
processes of his mind are characterised by continuity, consistency,
and a kind of gathering intensity of movement. The periods of Virgil
delight us by their intricate harmony; those of Lucretius impress us
by their continuous and hurrying impetus. The long drawn out charm of
the one is indicative of the deep love which induced him to linger
over every detail of his subject: the force and grandeur of the other
are the outward signs of the inward wonder and enthusiasm by which his
spirit was borne rapidly along. Virgil's movement displays the majesty
of grace and serenity; that of Lucretius the majesty of power, and
largeness of mind.
Thus although the poetical style of Lucretius shows the traces of
labour and premeditation, and of occasional imitation both of foreign
and native models, it is more than that of any other Latin poet, the
immediate creation of his own genius. The 'ingenuei fontis,' by which
his imagination was so abundantly fed, found many spontaneous outlets,
and were not checked in their speed or stained in their purity by the
artificial channels in which he sometimes forced them to flow. If
the loving labour, so prodigally bestowed upon the task of finding
words and rhythm[500] adequate to his great theme, explains some
peculiarities of his diction, the qualities which have made the work
immortal are due to his noble singleness of heart and sincerity of
nature, and to the openness and sensibility with which his imagination
received impressions, the penetrative force with which it saw into the
heart of things, and the creative energy with which it shaped what it
received and discerned into vivid pictures and symbols.
He has, in the first place, the freshness of feeling, the living sense
of the wonder of the world, which is a great charm in the older poets
of all great literatures,--in Homer, Dante, Chaucer;--and this sense
he communicates by words used in their simplest and directest meaning.
The life which animates and gladdens the familiar face of earth, sea,
and sky,--of river, wood, field, and hill-side,--is vividly and
immediately reproduced in such lines as these:--
Caeli subter labentia signa
Quae mare navigerum quae terras frugiferentis
Concelebras.[501]
Denique per maria ac montis fluviosque rapacis
Frondiferasque domos avium camposque virentis.[502]
Frondiferasque novis avibus canere undique silvas.[503]
Nam saepe in colli tondentes pabula laeta
Lanigerae reptant pecudes quo quamque vocantes
Invitant herbae gemmantes rore recenti.[504]
Nec tenerae salices atque herbae rore vigentis
Fluminaque illa queunt summis labentia ripis.[505]
So, too, he makes us realise, with a quickening and expanding emotion,
which seems to bring us nearer to the core of Nature, the majesty of
the sea breaking on a great expanse of shore,--the solemn stillness of
midnight,--the invisible agency by which the clouds form the pageantry
of the sky,--the active noiseless energy by which rivers wear away
their banks,--by the use of words that seem exactly equivalent to the
thing which they describe,--
Quam fluitans circum magnis anfractibus aequor
Ionium glaucis aspargit virus ab undis.[506]
Severa silentia noctis
Undique cum constent.[507]
Ut nubes facile interdum concrescere in alto
Cernimus et mundi speciem violare serenam
Aera mulcentes motu.[508]
Pars etiam glebarum ad diluviem revocatur
Imbribus et ripas radentia flumina rodunt.[509]
The changing face of Nature is to his spirit so full of power and
wonder, that it needs no poetical adornment, but is left to tell
its own tale in the plainest language. If words are a true index of
feeling, it would be difficult to name any poet by whom the living
presence and full being of Nature were more immediately apprehended,
nor has any one caught with more fidelity the intimations of her
hidden life, as they betray themselves in her outward features and
motions.
With similar fidelity and directness of language he communicates to his
reader the spell of awe and wonder by which his own spirit is possessed
in presence of the impressive facts of human life. No subtlety of
reflection nor grandeur of illustrative imagery could enhance the
effect of the thought of the dead produced by the austere plainness of
the words,--
Morte obita quorum tellus amplectitur ossa,
and,
Ossa dedit terrae proinde ac famul infimus esset.
By no pomp of description could a deeper sense of religious solemnity
be created than by the lines describing the silent influence of the
procession of Cybele on the minds of her devotees,--
Ergo cum primum magnas invecta per urbis
Munificat tacita mortalis muta salute.[510]
The undying pain of a great sorrow,--the paralysis of all human effort
in the face of new and terrible agencies of death,--the blessedness and
pathos of the purest human affections,--the ecstatic delight derived
from the revelation of great truths--imprint themselves permanently on
the imagination through the august simplicity of the phrases,--
Aeternumque daret matri sub pectore volnus,[511]--
tacito mussabat medicina timore,[512]--
tacita pectus dulcedine tangent,[513]--
His ibi me rebus quaedam divina voluptas
Percipit adque horror.[514]--
His language has the further power of producing a vague sense of
sublimity, where the cause of the feeling is too vast or undefined to
be distinctly conceived or visibly presented to the mind. The very
sound of his words seems sometimes to be a kind of echo of the voices
by which Nature produces a strange awe upon the imagination. Such, for
instance, are these lines and phrases--
Altitonans Volturnus et auster fulmine pollens.[515]
Nec fulmina nec minitanti
Murmure compressit caelum.[516]
Murmura magna minarum,[517] etc.
The sublimity of vagueness and vastness is present in the language of
these lines--
Impendent atrae formidinis ora superne.[518]
Sustentata ruet moles et machina mundi.[519]
Aut cecidisse urbis magno vexamine mundi.[520]
Non si terra mari miscebitur et mare caelo.[521]
While no other ancient poet brings before the mind more forcibly and
immediately the living presence of the outward world and the solemn
meaning of familiar things, there is none whose language seems to
respond so sensitively to the vague suggestions of an invisible and
awful Power omnipresent in the universe.
The creative power of imagination which gives new life to words and
thoughts is also present in many vivid and picturesque expressions,
either scattered through the main argument, or shining in brilliant
combinations in the more elaborate parts of the work. By this more
imaginative use of language, the poet can illustrate his ideas by
subtle analogies, or embody them in visible symbols, or endow the
objects he describes with the personal attributes of will and energy.
Thus, for instance, the penetrating subtlety of the mind in exploring
the secrets of Nature becomes a visible force in the curious felicity
of the expression (i. 408), 'caecasque latebras insinuare omnis.'
The freedom and boundless range of the imagination is suggested with
picturesque effect in the familiar expression--
Avia Pieridum peragro loca nullius ante
Trita solo;[522]
while the calm serenity of the contemplative mind is symbolised in
such figurative expressions as 'sapientum templa serena;' 'humanum in
pectus templaque mentis;' and the stormy tumult of the passions and the
perilous errors of life become vividly present to the imagination by
means of the analogies pictured in the lines--
Volvere curarum tristis in pectore fluctus,[523]
and
Errare atque viam palantis quaerere vitae.[524]
What life and energy again are imparted to external things and abstract
conceptions by such expressions as these:--'flammai flore coorto;'
'avido complexu quem tenet aether;' 'caeli tegit impetus ingens;'
'circum tremere aethera signis;' 'semina quae magnum iaculando contulit
omne;' 'vagos imbris tempestatesque volantes;' 'concussaeque cadunt
urbes dubiaeque minantur;' 'simulacraque fessa fatisci;' 'sol lumine
consent arva;' 'lucida tela diei;' 'placidi pellacia ponti;' 'vivant
labentes aetheris ignes;' 'leti sub dentibus ipsis;' 'leti praeclusa
est ianua caelo,' etc.
A similar power of imagination is shown in his more elaborate use
of analogies, in his symbolical representation of ideas, and in his
power of painting scenes from Nature and from human life. Few great
poets have been more sparing in the use of mere poetical ornament.
The grandest imagery which he strikes out, and the finest pictures
which he paints are immediately suggested by his subject. The
earnestness of his speculative and practical purpose restrains all
exuberance of fancy. Thus his imaginative analogies are more often
latent in single expressions than drawn out at length. But the few
which he has elaborated, 'stand out with the solidity of the finest
sculpture[525],' to embody some deep or powerful thought for all time.
They are suggested not by outward resemblance, but by an identity
which the imagination discerns in the innermost meaning of the objects
compared with one another. The strong emotion attending on the presence
of some great thought calls up before the inward eye some scene or
action, which, if actually witnessed, would produce a similar effect
upon the mind. Thus the thought of the chaotic confusion which the
universe would present, on the supposition that the original atoms were
limited in number, calls up the image of the most impressive and awful
devastation, wrought by Nature upon the works of man.
Sed quasi naufragiis magnis multisque coortis
Disiectare solet magnum mare transtra guberna
Antemnas proram malos tonsasque natantis,
Per terrarum omnis oras fluitantia aplustra
Ut videantur et indicium mortalibus edant,
Infidi maris insidias virisque dolumque
Ut vitare velint, neve ullo tempore credant,
Subdola cum ridet placidi pellacia ponti,
Sic tibi si finita semel primordia quaedam
Constitues, aevom debebunt sparsa per omnem
Disiectare aestus diversi materiari,
Numquam in concilium ut possint compulsa coire
Nec remorari in concilio nec crescere adaucta.[526]
It is through the penetrating intuition of his imagination into the
deepest meaning of the two phenomena, and his sensibility to the
pathos and the strangeness involved in each of them, that he sees the
birth of every child into the world under the well-known image of the
shipwrecked sailor--'saevis proiectus ab undis.' Other analogies,
suggested rather than elaborately drawn out, express an inward or
spiritual, not an outward or bodily resemblance. Or rather the thing
illustrated is a thought or a mental act, the illustration a scene or
action, visible to the eye, suggestive of the same power in Nature, and
calculated to rouse the same emotions in the mind. Thus he compares the
life transmitted in succession through the nations of the world to the
torch passed on by the runners in the torch-race; or he illustrates his
calm contemplation of the struggles of life from the heights of his
Epicurean philosophy, by the vision of the dangers of the sea, as seen
from some commanding position on the land.
Although his subject did not afford much scope for the exercise of the
idealising faculty of a poetical artist, yet there are some passages in
the poem conceived with the finest pictorial power. Such, for instance,
is the representation of the sacrifice of Iphigenia, suggested indeed,
in some of its features, by an earlier poet, but executed with original
power. There are also one or two pictures from the ancient mythology,
as that of Venus and Mars in the invocation to the poem, and that of
Pan--
Pinea semiferi capitis velamina quassans,[527]--
showing that he might have rivalled Catullus and Ovid as a poet of
creative fancy, had he not felt himself more powerfully called to
interpret the laws and facts of Nature. By this power of imagination he
presents that superstition against which all the weight of his argument
is directed, not as an abstraction, but as a real palpably existing
Power of evil--
Quae caput a caeli regionibus ostendebat
Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans.[528]
So, too, in his vivid account of the orderly procession of the seasons,
he invests the freshness and the beauty of spring with the charm of
personal and human associations in the lines--
It ver et Venus, et veris praenuntius ante
Pennatus graditur zephyrus, vestigia propter
Flora quibus mater praespargens ante viai
Cuncta coloribus egregiis et odoribus opplet.[529]
But it is in describing actual scenes and actual aspects of human
life that Lucretius chiefly employs his power of poetical conception
and expression. He looks upon the world with an eye which discerns
beneath the outward appearances of things the presence of Nature in her
attributes both of majesty and of genial all-penetrating life,--as at
once the 'Magna mater' and the 'alma mater' of all living things[530].
She appears to his imagination not as an abstraction, or a vast
aggregate of forces and laws, but as a living Power, whose processes
are on an infinitely grander scale, but are yet analogous to the active
and moral energies of man. He shows the same sympathy with this life
of Nature, the same vivid sense of wonder and delight in her familiar
aspects, the same imaginative perception of her secret agency, which
led the early Greek mind to people the world with the living forms of
the old mythology, and which have been felt anew by the great poets of
the present century. All natural life is thus endowed with a poetical
interest, as being a new manifestation of the creative energy, which is
the fountain of all beauty and delight in the world.
The minutest phenomena and the most gigantic forces, the changes of
decay and renovation in all outward things, the growth of plants
and trees, the habits of beasts rioting in a wild liberty over the
mountains,--
Quod in magnis bacchatur montibu' passim,[531]--
or tended by the care and ministering to the wants of man; the life and
enjoyment of the birds that gladden the early morning with their song
by woods and river-banks, or that seek their food and pastime among the
sea-waves;--these, and numberless other phenomena, are all contemplated
and described by an eye quickened by the poetical sense of manifold
and inexhaustible energy in the world.
It is not so much the beauty of form and colour, as the appearance of
force and life which he reproduces. He has not, like Catullus, the pure
delight of an artist in painting outward scenes. He does not express,
like Virgil, the charm of old associations attaching to famous places.
It is the association of great laws, not of great memories, which moves
him in contemplating the outward world. Neither has he invested any
particular place with the attraction which Horace has given to his
Sabine home, and Catullus to Sirmio. But no ancient or modern poet has
expressed more happily the natural enjoyment of beholding the changing
life and familiar face of the world. No other writer makes us feel with
more reality the quickening of the spirit, produced by the sunrise or
the advent of spring, by living in fine weather or looking on fair and
peaceful landscapes. The freshness of the feeling with which outward
scenes inspire him is one of the great charms of the poem, especially
as a relief to the pervading gravity of his thought. More than any
poet, except Wordsworth, he seems to derive a pure and healthy joy
from the common sights and sounds of animate and inanimate Nature. No
distempered fancies or regrets, no vague longings for some unattainable
rapture, coloured the natural aspect which the world presented to his
eyes and mind.
In the descriptions of Lucretius, as in those of Homer, there is
always some active movement and change represented as passing before
the eye. What power and energy there are, for instance, in that of a
river-flood,--(like one of equal force and truth in Burns's 'Brigs of
Ayr,')--
Nec validi possunt pontes venientis aquai
Vim subitam tolerare: ita magno turbidus imbri
Molibus incurrit validis cum viribus amnis.[532]
How naturally is the pure and sparkling life of brooks and springs
brought before the mind in the passage at v. 269[533], already
quoted,--and again, in these lines--
Denique nota vagi silvestria templa tenebant
Nympharum, quibus e scibant umori' fluenta
Lubrica proluvie larga lavere umida saxa,
Umida saxa, super viridi stillantia musco,
Et partim plano scatere atque erumpere campo.[534]
In this representation of the sea-shore--
Concharumque genus parili ratione videmus
Pingere telluris gremium, qua mollibus undis
Litoris incurvi bibulam pavit aequor harenam,[535]--
there is the same suggestion of quiet ceaseless movement, as in a line
of the Odyssey representing the same phase of Nature--
λαΐγγας πότι χέρσον ἀποπλύνεσπε θάλασσα.
There is the same sense of active life in all his pictures of the early
morning; as, for instance,--
Primum aurora novo cum spargit lumine terras
Et variae volucres nemora avia pervolitantes
Aera per tenerum liquidis loca vocibus opplent,
Quam subito soleat sol ortus tempore tali
Convestire sua perfundens omnia luce,
Omnibus in promptu manifestumque esse videmus.[536]
And again,--
Aurea cum primum gemmantis rore per herbas
Matutina rubent radiati lumina solis
Exhalantque lacus nebulam fluviique perennes,
Ipsaque ut interdum tellus fumare videtur;
Omnia quae sursum cum conciliantur, in alto
Corpore concreto subtexunt nubila caelum.[537]
Two other passages (at iv. 136 and vi. 190), in which the movements
and shifting pageantry of the clouds are described, may be compared
with a more elaborate passage in the Excursion, in which Wordsworth has
represented a similar spectacle[538] wrought by 'earthly Nature,'--
'Upon the dark materials of the storm.'
Nowhere does he present pictures of pure repose. The philosophical idea
of ceaseless motion and change animates to his eye every aspect of the
world. Every separate description in the poem possesses the charm of
freshness and faithfulness, and of relevance to the great ideas of his
philosophy. His living enjoyment in the outward world, and his sympathy
with all existence, both fed and were fed by his trust in speculative
ideas. The poetical descriptions which adorn and illustrate his
argument are like the sublime and beautiful scenes which refresh and
reward the adventurous discoverer of distant lands.
Some passages, illustrative of philosophical principles, blend the
movements of animal and human life with descriptions of natural
scenery. The lines at ii. 352-366, describing the cow searching
for her calf, which has been sacrificed at the altar, combine many
characteristics of the poetical style of Lucretius. There is the
literal--almost too minute faithfulness of reproduction--as in the
line--
Noscit humi pedibus vestigia pressa bisulcis;[539]--
the active life of the whole representation, too full of movement for
a picture, yet flashing the objects on the inward eye with graphic
pictorial power; the ever fresh charm of some familiar scene, called
up by the lines already referred to,--
Nec tenerae salices atque herbae rore vigentes
Fluminaque illa queunt summis labentia ripis;--
the pathos and respect for every mode of natural feeling denoted in
such expressions as 'desiderio perfixa iuvenci'; and, lastly, the
power of investing the most common things with the majesty of the laws
which they express and illustrate. This passage is adduced as a proof
and illustration of the varieties in form of the primordial atoms. In
a passage, immediately preceding, the perpetual motion of the atoms,
going on beneath an appearance of absolute rest, is illustrated by two
pictures, one taken from the jubilant life of the animal creation--
Nam saepe in colli tondentes pabula laeta,'[540] etc.;
the other taken from the pomp of human affairs, and the gay pageantry
of armies--
Praeterea magnae legiones cum loca cursu
Camporum complent belli simulacra cientes,
Fulgor ibi ad caelum se tollit totaque circum
Aere renidescit tellus supterque virum vi
Excitur pedibus sonitus clamoreque montes
Icti reiectant voces ad sidera mundi
Et circumvolitant equites mediosque repente
Tramittunt valido quatientes impete campos.[541]
The truth and fulness of life in this passage are immediately
perceived, but the element of sublimity is added by the thought in the
two lines with which the passage concludes, which reduces the whole of
this moving and sounding pageant to stillness and silence--
Et tamen est quidam locus altis montibus unde
Stare videntur et in campis consistere fulgor.[542]
As Lucretius was the first poet who revealed the majesty and wonder of
the Natural world, so he restored the sense of awe and mystery, felt by
the earlier Greek poets, to the contemplation of human life. In dealing
with the problem of human destiny, he has sounded deeper than any of
the other ancient poets of Italy: but others have sympathised with a
greater variety of the moods of life, and have allowed its lights and
shadows to play more easily over their poetry. The thought both of the
dignity and the littleness of our mortal state is ever present to the
mind of Lucretius. His imagination is involuntarily moved by the pomp
and grandeur of affairs, while his strong sense of reality keeps ever
before him the conviction of the vanity of outward state, the weariness
of luxurious living, and the miseries of ambition. Thus his imaginative
recognition of the pomp and circumstance of war brings out by the force
of contrast his deeper conviction of the littleness and impotence of
man in the presence of the great forces of Nature--
Summa etiam cum vis violenti per mare venti
Induperatorem classis super aequora verrit
Cum validis pariter legionibus atque elephantis,
Non divom pacem votis adit ac prece quaesit
Ventorum pavidus paces animasque secundas, etc.[543]
If his reason acknowledges only inward strength as the attribute of
human dignity, yet his imagination feels the outward spell that swayed
the Roman genius, through the symbols of power and authority, through
great spectacles, and in impressive ceremonials.
But it is with more heart-felt sympathy, and with not less imaginative
emotion, that he recognises the deep wonder and the infinite pathos of
human life. There is perhaps no passage in any poet which reveals more
truthfully that union of feelings in meditating on the strangeness and
sadness of our mortal destiny than the well-known passage describing
the birth of every infant into the world--
Tum porro puer, ut saevis proiectus ab undis
Navita, nudus humi iacet, infans, indigus omni
Vitali auxilio, cum primum in luminis oras
Nixibus ex alvo matris natura profudit,
Vagituque locum lugubri complet, ut aecumst
Cui tantum in vita restet transire malorum.[544]
With what truth and naiveté is the complaint of the husbandman over his
ineffectual labour and scanty returns echoed!--
Iamque caput quassans grandis suspirat arator
Crebrius incassum manuum cecidisse labores,
Et cum tempora temporibus praesentia confert
Praeteritis, laudat fortunas saepe parentis
Et crepat, anticum genus ut pietate repletum
Perfacile angustis tolerarit finibus aevom,
Cum minor esset agri multo modus ante viritim.[545]
His feeling is profoundly solemn, as well as infinitely tender. Above
all the tumult of life, he hears incessantly the funeral dirge over
some one departed, and the infant wail of a new-comer into the troubles
of the world,
mixtos vagitibus aegris
Ploratus mortis comites et funeris atri.[546]
His tone can, indeed, be stern and indignant, as well as tender and
melancholy: it is never morbid or effeminate. His tenderness is that
of a thoroughly masculine nature. Some signs of the same mood may be
discovered in the fragments of Ennius; but the feeling of Lucretius
springs from a more sympathetic heart and a more contemplative
imagination.
His imagination, which depicts so forcibly the intimations of
experience, is able to bear him beyond the known and familiar regions
of life. As it enables him to pass--
extra flammantia moenia mundi--
and to behold the dawn of creation, and even the blank desolation which
will follow on the overthrow of our system, so it has enabled him to
realise with vivid feeling the primeval condition of man upon the
world. Yet even in these daring enterprises of his fancy he adheres
strictly to the conclusions of his philosophical system, and shows that
sincerity and truthful adherence to fact are as inseparable from the
operations of his creative faculty as of his understanding and moral
nature.
His excellencies are so different from those of Virgil that the
question need not be entertained, whether the rank of the greatest of
Roman poets is or is not to be awarded to him. If each nation must be
considered the best judge of its own poets, it will be admitted that
Lucretius would have found few Roman voices to support his claim to the
first or even the second place. The strongest support which he could
have received would have been Virgil's willing acknowledgment of the
powerful spell which the genius of his predecessor had exercised over
him. Both the artistic defects and the profound feeling and imaginative
originality of his work were calculated to alienate both popular favour
and critical opinion in the Rome of the Empire. The poem has a much
deeper significance for modern than it had for ancient times. Lucretius
stands alone as the great contemplative poet of antiquity. He has
proclaimed with more power than any other the majesty of Nature's laws,
and has interpreted with a truer and deeper insight the meaning of her
manifold life. Few, if any among his countrymen, felt so strongly the
mystery of man's being, or have indicated so passionate a sympathy with
the real sorrows of life, and so ardent a desire to raise man to his
proper dignity, and to support him in bearing his inevitable burden.
If he has, in large measure, the antique simplicity and grandeur of
character, he has much also in common with the spirit and genius of
modern times. He contemplates human life with a profound feeling,
like that of Pascal, and with a speculative elevation like that of
Spinoza. The loftier tones of his poetry and the sustained effort of
mind which bears him through his long argument remind us of Milton.
His sympathy with Nature, at once fresh and large, is more in harmony
with the feeling of the great poets of the present century than with
the general sentiment of ancient poetry. In the union of poetical
feeling with scientific passion he has anticipated the most elevated
mode of the study of Nature, of which the world has as yet seen only a
few great examples. His powers of observation, thought, feeling, and
imagination, are characterised by a remarkable vitality and sincerity.
His strong intellectual and poetical faculty is united with some of
the rarest moral qualities,--fortitude, seriousness of spirit, love of
truth, manly tenderness of heart. And if it seems that his great powers
of heart, understanding, and genius led him to accept and to teach a
philosophy, paralysing to the highest human hope and energy, it is to
be remembered that he lived at a time when the truest minds may well
have despaired of the Divine government of the world, and must have
honestly felt that it was well to be rid, at any cost, of the burden of
Pagan superstition.
[Footnote 497: i. 943-45.]
[Footnote 498: 'And they placed the dwelling-places and mansions of the
gods in the heavens, because it is through the heavens that the night
and the moon are seen to sweep--the moon, the day, and night, and the
stern constellations of night, the torches of heaven wandering through
the night, and flying meteors, the clouds, the sun, the rains, the
snow, the winds, lightning, hail, the rapid rattle, the threatening
peals and murmurs of the thunder.'--v. 1188-93.]
[Footnote 499: Cf. Munro, Introduction, ii. pp. 311, etc.]
[Footnote 500: Cf.
'Quaerentem dictis quibus et quo carmine demum
Clara tuae possim praepandere lumina menti
Res quibus occultas penitus convisere possis.'
i. 143-5.
]
[Footnote 501: i. 2-4.]
[Footnote 502: i. 17-18.]
[Footnote 503: i. 256.]
[Footnote 504: ii. 317-19.]
[Footnote 505: ii. 362-63.]
[Footnote 506: i. 718-19.]
[Footnote 507: iv. 460-61.]
[Footnote 508: iv. 136-38.]
[Footnote 509: v. 255-56.]
[Footnote 510: ii. 624-25.]
[Footnote 511: ii. 639.]
[Footnote 512: vi. 1179.]
[Footnote 513: iii. 896.]
[Footnote 514: iii. 28-30.]
[Footnote 515: v. 745.]
[Footnote 516: i. 68-9.]
[Footnote 517: v. 1193.]
[Footnote 518: vi. 254.]
[Footnote 519: v. 96.]
[Footnote 520: v. 340.]
[Footnote 521: iii. 842.]
[Footnote 522: i. 926-27.]
[Footnote 523: vi. 34.]
[Footnote 524: ii. 10.]
[Footnote 525: Prevost Paradol, _Nouveaux Essais de Politique et de
Littérature_.]
[Footnote 526: 'But as when there have been at the same time many and
mighty shipwrecks, the mighty sea is wont to drive in all directions
the rowers' benches, rudders, sailyards, prows, masts, and floating
oars, so that along all the coasts of land there may be seen the
tossing flag-posts of ships, to warn mortals that they shun the
wiles, and force, and craft of the faithless sea, nor ever trust the
treacherous alluring smile of the calm ocean; so if once you will
suppose any finite number of elements, you will find that the many
surging forces of matter must disperse and drive them apart through all
time, so that they never can meet and gather into union, nor stay in
union and wax in increase.'--ii. 552-64.]
[Footnote 527: iv. 587.]
[Footnote 528: i. 64-5.]
[Footnote 529: 'Spring advances and Venus, and before them goes the
harbinger of Spring, the winged Zephyr; and near their path, Mother
Flora, scattering her treasures before her, fills all the way with
glorious colours and fragrance.'--v. 737-40.]
[Footnote 530: Cp. 'Keats has, above all, a sense of what is
pleasurable and open in the life of Nature; for him she is the _Alma
Parens_: his expression has, therefore, more than Guérin's, something
genial, outward, and sensuous. Guérin has above all a sense of what
there is adorable and secret in the life of Nature; for him she is
the _Magna Parens_; his expression has, therefore, more than Keats',
something mystic, inward, and profound.' _Essays in Criticism_, by M.
Arnold, p. 130. _Third Edition._]
[Footnote 531: v. 824.]
[Footnote 532: 'Nor can the strong bridges endure the sudden force of
the rushing water: in such wise, swollen by heavy rain, the stream with
mighty force dashes upon the piers.'--i. 285-87.]
[Footnote 533: 'Percolatur enim virus,' etc.]
[Footnote 534: 'Finally, in their wandering they made their dwelling in
the familiar woodland grottoes of the nymphs, from which they marked
the rills of water laving the dripping rocks, made slippery with
their abundant flow,--dripping rocks, with drops oozing out above the
green moss,--and gushing forth and forcing their way over the level
plain.'--v. 944-52.]
[Footnote 535: 'And in like manner we see shells paint the lap of the
earth, where with its soft waves the sea beats on the porous sand of
the winding shore.'--ii. 374-76.]
[Footnote 536: 'When the dawn first sheds its new light over the earth,
and birds of every kind, flying over the pathless woods through the
delicate air, fill all the land with their clear notes, the suddenness
with which the risen sun then clothes and steeps the world in his
light, is clear and evident to all men.'--ii. 144-49.]
[Footnote 537: 'Just as when first the morning beams of the bright
sun glow all golden through the grass gemmed with dew, and a mist
arises from meres and flowing streams; and as even the earth itself
is sometimes seen to steam; then all these vapours gather together
above, and taking shape, as clouds on high, weave a canopy beneath the
sky.'--v. 460-66.]
[Footnote 538: Excursion, Book ii:--
'The appearance, instantaneously disclosed,' etc.
]
[Footnote 539: ii. 356.]
[Footnote 540: ii. 317.]
[Footnote 541: 'Besides when mighty legions fill the plains with their
rapid movement, raising the pageantry of warfare, the splendour rises
up to heaven, and all the land around is bright with the glitter of
brass, and beneath from the mighty host of men the sound of their tramp
arises, and the mountains, struck by their shouting, re-echo their
voices to the stars of heaven, and the horsemen hurry to and fro on
either flank, and suddenly charge across the plains, shaking them with
their impetuous onset.'--ii. 323-30.]
[Footnote 542: 'And yet there is some place in the lofty mountains
whence they appear to be all still, and to rest as a bright gleam upon
the plains.'--ii. 331-32.]
[Footnote 543: 'When, too, the utmost force of a violent gale is
sweeping the admiral of some fleet over the seas, along with his mighty
legions and elephants, does he not court the protection of the Gods
with vows, and in his terror pray for a calm to the storm, and for
favouring gales?'--v. 1226-30.]
[Footnote 544: 'Moreover, the babe, like a sailor cast ashore by the
cruel waves, lies naked on the ground, speechless, in need of every aid
to life, when first nature has cast him forth by great throes from his
mother's womb; and he fills the air with his piteous wail, as befits
one whose doom it is to pass through so much misery in life.'--v.
222-27.]
[Footnote 545: 'And now, shaking his head, the aged peasant laments,
with a sigh, that the toil of his hands has often come to naught; and,
as he compares the present with the past time, he extols the fortune
of his father, and harps on this theme, how the good old race, full of
piety, bore the burden of their life very easily within narrow bounds,
when the portion of land for each man was far less than now.'--ii.
1164-70.]
[Footnote 546: ii. 569-70.]