The History of Roman Literature Part 56

[33] Ec. ix. 35.

[34] Virg. Ec. iii. 90; Hor. Epod. x.

[35] "_Cinna procacior_," Ov. Trist. ii. 435.

[36] _Saepe suas volucres legit mihi grandior aevo, Quaeque necet serpens, quae iuvet herba Macer._ Trist. iv. 10, 43. Quint. (x. 1, 87) calls him _humilis_.

CHAPTER II.

[1] See Sellar's _Virgil_, p. 107.

[2] _Pagus_ does not mean merely the village, but rather the village with its surroundings as defined by the government survey, something like our parish.

[3] _Mantua vae miseras nimium vicina Cremonae_, Ecl. 9. 27.

[4] In the celebrated pa.s.sage _Felix qui potuit_, &c.

[5] Horace certainly did, and that in a more thorough manner than Virgil.

See his remark at the end of the _Iter ad Brundisium_, and other well- known pa.s.sages.

[6] Contrast the way in which he speaks of poetical studies, G. iv. 564, _me dulcis alebat Parthenope studiis florentem ign.o.bilis oti_, with the language of his letter to Augustus (Macrob. i. 24, 11), _c.u.m alia quoque studia ad id opus multoque potiora_ (_i.e._ philosophy) _impertiar_.

[7] This is alluded to in a little poem (Catal. 10): "_Villula quae Sironis eras et peuper agelle, Verum illi domino tu quoque divitiae: Me tibi, et hos una mec.u.m et quos semper amavi.... Commendo, in primisque patrem; tu nunc eris illi Mantua quod fuerat, quodque Cremona prius._" We observe the growing peculiarities of Virgil's style.

[8] See Hor. S. i. 5 and 10.

[9] Macrob. i. 24. See note, p. 5.

[10] As Horace. Od. I. iii. 4: "_Animae dimidium meae._" Cf. S. i. 5, 40.

[11] "_Namque pila lippis inimic.u.m et ludere crudis._" Hor. S. i. v. 49.

[12] "_A penitissima Graecorum doctrina._" Macr. v. 22, 15.

[13] "_Gallo cuius amor tantum mihi crescit in horas Quantum vere novo viridis se subiicit alnus._"

--Ecl. x. 73.

[14] The _Ciris_ and _Aetna_ formerly attributed to him are obviously spurious.

[15] vi. and x.

[16] iii. iv.

[17] viii. ix.

[18] v. vii.

[19] Macrob. Sat. iii. 98, 19, calls Suevius _vir doctissimus_.

[20] "The original motive of the poem can only have been the idea that the gnat could not rest in Hades, and therefore asked the shepherd whose life it had saved, for a decent burial. But this very motive, without which the whole poem loses its consistency, is wanting in the extant _Culex_."-- _Teuffel, R. L._ -- 225, 1, 4.

[21] Its being edited separately from Virgil's works is thought by Teuffel to indicate spuriousness. But there is good evidence for believing that the poem accepted as Virgil's by Statius and Martial was our present _Culex_. Teuffel thinks _they_ were mistaken, but that is a bold conjecture.

[22] The missing the gist of the story, of which Teuffel complains, does not seem to us worse than the glaring inconsistency at the end of the sixth book of the Aeneid, where Aeneas is dismissed by the gate of the false visions. That incident, whether ironical or not, is unquestionably an artistic blunder, since it destroys the impression of truth on which the justification of the book depends.

[23] For instance, v. 291, _Sed tu crudelis, crudelis tu magis Orpheu_ looks more like an imperfect antic.i.p.ation than an imitation of _Improbus ille puer crudelis tu quoque mater_. Again, v. 293, _parvum si Tartara possent peccatum ignovisse_, is surely a feeble effort to say _scirent si ignoscere Manes_, not a reproduction of it; v. 201, _Erebo cit equos Nox_ could hardly have been written after _ruit Oceano nox_. From an examination of the similarities of diction, I should incline to regard them as in nearly every case admitting naturally of this explanation. The portraits of Tisiphone, the Heliades, Orpheus, and the tedious list of heroes, Greek, Trojan, and Roman, who dwell in the shades, are difficult to p.r.o.nounce upon. They might be extremely bad copies, but it is simpler to regard them as crude studies, unless indeed we suppose the versifier to have introduced them with the express design of making the _Culex_ a good imitation of a juvenile poem. Minute points which make for an early date are _meritus_ (v. 209), cf. _fultus hyacintho_ (Ecl. 6); the rhythms _cognitus utilitate manet_ (v. 65), _implacabilis ira nimis_, (v. 237); the form _videreque_ (v. 304); the use of the pa.s.s. part. with acc. (v.

ii. 175); of alliteration (v. 122, 188); asyndeton (v. 178, 190); juxtapositions like _revolubile volvens_ (v. 168); compounds like _inevectus_ (v. 100, 340); all which are paralleled in Lucr. and Virg. but hardly known in later poets. The chief feature which makes the other way is the extreme rarity of elisions, which, as a rule, are frequent in Virg.

Here we have as many as twenty-two lines without elision. But we know that Virgil became more archaic in his style as he grew older.

[24] _Molle atque facetum Virgilio annuerunt guadentes rure camenae_.-- Sat. i. x. 40.

[25] _E.g. tutthon d' osson apothen_ becomes _procul tantum_; _panta d'

enalla genoito_ becomes _omnia vel medium fiant mare_, &c.

[26] Virgil as yet claims but a moderate degree of inspiration. _Me quoque dic.u.n.t Vatem pastores: sed non ego credulus illis. Nam neque adhuc Vario videor nec dicere Cinna Digna, sed argutos inter strepere anser olores_.

Ec. ix. 33.

[27] Ec. v. 45.

[28] In his preface to the Eclogues.

[29] Page 248. Cf. also _tua Maecenas haud mollia iussa_, G. iii. 41.

[30] _Ascraeumque cano Romana per oppida carmen_, G. ii. 176.

[31] The words _Ille_ ludere _quae vellum calamo permisit agresti_ (Ecl.

i. 10), might seem to contradict this, but the Eclogues were of a lighter cast. He never speaks of the Georg. or Aen. as _lusus_. So Hor. (Ep. i. 1, 10), _versus et cetera ludicra pono_; referring to his odes.

[32] Hor. A. P. 218.

[33] See G. i. 500, _sqq._ where Augustus is regarded as the saviour of the age.

[34] We have observed that except Lucretius all the great poets were from the municipia or provinces.

[35] The tenth; imitated in Milton's _Lycidas_.

[36] In its form it reminds us of those _Epyllia_ which were such favourite subjects with Callimachus, of which the _Peleus and Thetis_ is a specimen.

[37] Said to have been uttered by Cicero on hearing the Eclogues read; the _rima spes Romae_ being of course the orator himself. But the story, however pretty, cannot be true, as Cicero died before the Eclogues were composed.

[38] Hist. Lat. Lit. vol. iii.

[39] The most powerful are perhaps the description of a storm (G. i. 316, _sqq._). of the cold winter of Scythia (G. iii. 339, _sqq._), and in a slightly different way, of the old man of Cerycia (G. iv. 125, _sqq._).

[40] The _latis otia fundis_ so much coveted by Romans. These remarks are scarcely true of Horace.

[41] Naples, Baiae, Pozzuoli, Pompeii, were the Brightons and Scarboroughs of Rome. Luxurious ease was attainable there, but the country was only given in a very artificial setting. It was almost like an artist painting landscapes in his studio.