The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age: Virgil Part 42

324 Cf. Georg. i. 351353:-

Atque haec ut certis possemus discere signis, Aestusque pluviasque et agentis frigora ventos, Ipse Pater statuit, quid menstrua Luna moneret.

325 'Travailler et prier, voila la conclusion des Georgiques.' From an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes (vol. 104), called Un Poete Theologien, by Gaston Boissier.

326 Compare, among many other similar instances, such expressions as these:-

Labor actus in orbem Agricolis redit.

Omnia quae multo ante memor provisa repones.

Quae vigilanda viris.

Continuo in silvis magna vi flexa domatur, etc.

327 'And is incessantly drilling the land, and exercising command over the fields'-'Then at length exercise a stern command, and restrain the wild luxuriance of the branches'-'They will, with no reluctant obedience, adopt any ways you bid them.'

328 'Whether it is that the heat opens up various ways of access and relaxes the secret pores, where the sap may enter into the young plants.'

329 'That he owed allegiance to no master.'

330 'But your excellence and the hope of the delightful enjoyment of your friends.h.i.+p.' 'O my pride, O thou, to whom I justly ascribe the greatest share of my renown.'

331 'While mighty Caesar is hurling the thunder-bolts of war by the deep Euphrates, and, a conqueror, issues his laws among willing subjects, and is already on the way which leads to Heaven.'

332 'G.o.ds or G.o.ddesses whose task it is to watch over the fields.'

333 'Blessed too was he who knew the G.o.ds of the country.'

334 Compare the first book of Cicero's De Natura Deorum.

335 Servius has the following note on the pa.s.sage:-'Stoici dic.u.n.t non esse nisi unum deum, et unam eandemque (esse) potestatem, quae pro ratione officiorum nostrorum variis nominibus appellatur. Unde eundem Solem, eundem Liberum, eundem Apollinem vocant. Item Lunam, eandem Dianam, eandem Cererem, eandem Iunonem, eandem Proserpinam dic.u.n.t; secundum quos, pro Sole et Luna, Liberum et Cererem invocavit.'

336 'Nor is it without good result that golden-haired Ceres beholds him from Heaven on high.'

337 Quoted by M. Benoist.

338 'But on whom she gazes with bright and favourable aspect, for them the field bears the ear of corn abundantly.'

339 Cf. 'Incolumi Iove et urbe Roma.' Hor. iii. 5. 12. Cf. also iii. 3.

42; iii. 30. 8.

Cf. also 'Sedem Iovis Optimi Maximi auspicato a maioribus pignus imperii conditam,' etc. Tac. Hist. iii. 72; and 'Sed nihil aeque quam incendium Capitolii, ut finem imperio adesse crederent, impulerat,' iv. 54.

The Capitol is the symbol of the eternal duration of the Empire to Virgil also:-

Dum domus Aeneae Capitoli immobile saxum Accolet, imperiumque pater Roma.n.u.s habebit.

Aen. ix. 4489.

340 Tac. Ann. iv. 38.

341 'Giver of fruits, and lord over the seasons.'

342 Cf. Tac. Ann. iii. 54. 'At Hercule nemo refert quod Italia externae opis indiget, quod vita populi Romani per incerta maris et tempestatum cotidie volvitur.... Hanc, Patres Conscripti, curam sustinet princeps, haec omissa funditus rem publicam trahet.'

343 'From this land thy white herds, c.l.i.tumnus, and the bull, most stately victim, after bathing often in thy sacred stream, have led the procession of the Roman triumphs to the temples of the G.o.ds.'

344 'I too must try to find some way by which I may rise aloft, and be borne triumphant through the mouths of men.'

345 'I shall have all Greece to quit Alpheus and the groves of Molorchus, and to contend before me in the race and with the cestus of raw hide.'

346 'Soon I shall gird myself up to celebrate the fiery battles of Caesar.'

347 'And when the parched field is all hot and its blades of corn are withering, look! from the brow of its sloping channel he tempts forth the rus.h.i.+ng stream: it as it falls awakens a hoa.r.s.e murmur among the smooth stones, and with its bubbling waters cools the tilled land.' i. 107110.

348 'Mark too, when in the woods, the walnut, in great numbers, clothes itself in blossom and weighs down the fragrant branches, if there is abundance of fruit, the corn crops will likewise be in abundance, and there will come a great thres.h.i.+ng with a great heat.' i.

187190.

349 'There is no other land of plain from which you will see more wains wending their way home with the lagging steers.' ii. 205206.

350 'They let them feed in lonely pastures, and by the bank of br.i.m.m.i.n.g rivers, where moss abounds and the gra.s.s is greenest, and where caves give shelter, and the shadow of some rock is cast far in front.' iii. 143145.

_ 351 a._ 'The young plant shoots up under the mighty shadow of its mother.'

_b._ 'Rending them from the loving body of their mother.'

_c._ 'Will cast off their woodland spirit.'

_d._ 'And marvels at its strange leaves and fruits not its own.'

_e._ 'Lest the plants through the sudden change should fail to recognise their mother.'

_f._ 'And the plants will lift up their hearts.'

_g._ 'By their strength they may become accustomed to mount aloft and despise the winds.'

_h._ 'And while they are still in the first stage of growth or their leaves are new, you must spare their infancy.'

_i._ 'Before that they shrink from the steel.'

_k._ 'Especially while the leaf is still tender, and all unwitting of its trials.'

352 As an instance of the last, cf. iii. 316, 317:-

Atque ipsae memores redeunt in tecta, suosque Duc.u.n.t.

353 'These pa.s.sions of their hearts and these desperate battles are all stilled to rest, by the check of a little handful of dust.' Compare Horace's line, Od. i. 28. 3:-

_Pulveris exigui_ prope litus parva Matinum Munera.

354 'What joy to plant Ismarus with the vine, or to clothe the mighty sides of Taburnus with the olive.'

355 'And now the last vintager sings with joy at completing all his rows.'

356 iii. 321338.

357 'So too looked even Saturn, when with nimble movement, at the approach of his wife, he let the mane toss on his neck, and, as he sped away, made high Pelion ring with his shrill neighing.'

358 'So with the snowy gift of wool, if one may believe the tale, did Pan, the G.o.d of Arcadia, charm and beguile thee, O Luna, calling thee into the deep groves; nor didst thou scorn his call.'

359 'These laws and everlasting covenants were at once established by Nature for particular places, from the time when Deucalion first cast stones into the empty world, whence men, a hard race, were born.'