Studies in the Poetry of Italy, I. Roman Part 12

Wealth is notoriously a fatal gift, and should be shunned, not sought.

No one need fear poison if he drinks his wine out of a cheap cup. If the love of money is the root of all evil, the possession of money is a challenge to all evil-doers. What, then, may one rightly desire? Power?

This is just as fatal to its possessor.

Some are brought to ruin through their great power, subject itself to envy just as great; they are wrecked by their long and brilliant roll of honors; down from the pedestals come their statues, and now the stroke of the axe shatters the very wheels of the triumphal cars. Hark! now the fires are hissing, now, by dint of bellows and forge, that head, the people's idol, is aglow; and the great Seja.n.u.s is a crackling! And soon from the face, second to one only in the whole world, they are making pipkins, and basins, and a pan--ay, and even meaner vessels!... What laid low a Cra.s.sus, and a Pompey, and that leader who broke the proud Romans'

spirit and brought them under his lash? Why, it was just the unscrupulous struggling for the highest place, and the prayer of ambition, heard but too well by the malicious G.o.ds. It is but seldom that a king does not take a murderous crowd with him down to Ceres' son-in-law; seldom that a despot dies without blood-letting.... Just weigh Hannibal. How many pounds' weight will you find in that greatest of leaders? This is the man for whom Africa is too small--Africa, lashed by the Moorish main, and stretching thence to the tepid Nile; and, on another side again, to the Ethiopian tribes with their towering elephants! He adds Spain to his empire; he bounds over the Pyrenees; Nature barred his path with her Alp and her snow; he rives the rocks and bursts the mountain with vinegar. Now he holds Italy, yet he still strains forward. "Nothing," cries he, "is gained unless we storm the city gates with our Punic soldiery, and this hand plants my standard in the very heart of Rome!" Oh, what a sight! oh, what a subject for a caricature--the one-eyed general bestriding the Gaetulian monster! What, then, is his end? Fie, glory! Why, he in his turn is conquered, and flies headlong into exile; and there he sits, that august dependent--a gazing stock at a king's gates--until it may please His Majesty of Bithynia to awake. The soul which once turned the world upside down shall be quelled, not by a sword, not by a stone, no, nor by a javelin; but by that Nemesis of Cannae, the avenger of all that blood--just a ring.[E]

Off with you, madman! Scour the bleak Alps, that so you may--catch the fancy of schoolboys, and become a theme for declamation!

[E] Hannibal always carried with him, concealed in a ring, a dose of poison, with which, at last, he took his own life, to escape capture by the Romans.

If any are disposed to pray for long life and length of days, Juvenal's dark and repulsive picture of old age would effectually banish that desire. One by one the physical and mental powers fail and the man is left but a pitiful wreck of his former self.

But suppose his faculties be sound, yet still he must conduct his sons to their burial; must gaze at the pyre of his beloved wife, and of his brother, and on urns filled with what was once his sisters. This is the forfeit laid upon longevity, to pa.s.s to old age amid bereavement after bereavement, thick-coming griefs, and one weary round of lamentations, with the garb of the mourner never laid aside.

But age brings not alone loss of friends, but in many instances personal suffering and disaster from which one would be mercifully delivered by a more timely death. This, Caius Marius, the great Roman general, found to his cost:

That banishment, that jail, Minturnae's swamps, and the bread of beggary in conquered Carthage, all had their origin in a long life. What happier being in the world than that Roman could nature, could Rome ever have produced, if, after leading round the train of captives amid all the circ.u.mstance of war, he had breathed out his soul in glory, when just stepping down from his Teutonic car?

As for beauty, foolish indeed is that mother who prays for her son or her daughter that he or she may possess this; for it is the most fatal possession of all. Not even the most rugged training of the old Sabine school of morality can s.h.i.+eld the possessor of great beauty from the poisonous, insidious temptations, if not actual violence, of the wicked world. What then?

Shall men then pray for nothing? If you will take my advice, you will allow the G.o.ds themselves to determine what is meet for us, and suited to our lot; for the G.o.ds will give us--not what is pleasant, but what is most befitting in each case. Man is dearer to them than to himself. Urged on by impulse, by blind and violent desires, we pray for a wife, and for offspring; but only they (the G.o.ds) know what the children will be, and of what character the wife. Still, if you must make your pet.i.tion, and must vow a meat offering at the shrine, then pray for a healthy mind in a healthy body; pray for a brave spirit free from the fear of death--a spirit that regards life's close as one of nature's boons, that can endure any toil, that is innocent of anger and free from desire, and that looks on the sufferings of Hercules and his cruel labors as more blessed than all the wantoning, and reveling, and down-couches of a Sardanapalus.

Perhaps the appeal of Juvenal that comes most powerfully to the present generation, and contains the most solemn lesson for us, is his warning to fathers and mothers that all unconsciously to them their sons and daughters are following in their footsteps, bound to copy them, and reproduce their faults in later life. The presence of a child is as sacred as a temple shrine, and should be as carefully guarded from every profaning influence. It is surely notable to find this wholesome teaching springing like a lily out of the mire of that degenerate age.

It smacks neither of fervid rhetoric nor of cold and formal philosophy, but rings true and natural as childhood itself.

Let no foul word or sight come nigh the threshold where dwells the father of a family. _You owe your boy the profoundest respect. If meditating aught that is base, despise not your boy's tender years; but let the image of your infant son arrest you on the verge of sin._ For should he some day do a deed to earn the censor's wrath, and show himself not only your counterpart in face and figure, but heir of your character as well--one to follow in your steps, and sin every sin in worse degree--you will chide and scold him, no doubt, with loud reproaches, and then proceed to change your will. But whence that boldness, whence those parental rights, when you do worse, despite your age? If company is coming, none of your people will have any rest. Sweep the pavement! Let me see the pillars glistening! Down with the shriveled spider and all her web! Ho! you polish the plain silver, and you the figured cups! So the master storms at the top of his voice, urging them on, with rod in hand. Poor wretch! are you in such a fidget lest the hall may offend your friend's eye, when he comes, and lest the vestibule be splashed with mud--all of which one little page with one half-peck of sawdust puts to rights--but yet bestow no thought on this, that your son's eye shall rest upon a household unsullied, stainless, innocent of vice? We thank you that you gave a citizen to your country and your people, if you make him worthy of that country, helpful to its soil, helpful in public work, in peace and war; for it will matter much in what lessons and principles you train him.

Such wholesome truths as these and many more did Juvenal press home upon his generation. And he speaks no less to all humanity; for the problems of human life and conduct are not peculiar to any age, but are always and everywhere the same.

We have now reviewed two centuries of Roman preachers, and it may naturally be asked, "What was their influence upon the Roman world?" No direct results are traceable to their efforts. Society went on its accustomed course; the seeds of decay and death sprang up, grew to maturity, and brought forth their natural fruits of national destruction in due season, apparently unchecked by the counter influences of which we have spoken. These influences cannot yet be weighed and known--not until account has been taken of all the factors in the world's life problem, the grand totals cast up and the trial balance made. But in that time the bead-roll of the world's real benefactors will contain the names of these Roman satirists whose voices were raised against an age of wrong in immemorial protest, who were the numb and dormant conscience of the human race awakened and incarnate in a human tongue.

SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW

_Roman Satire_, as ill.u.s.trated by the works of Ennius (239-169 B. C.), Lucilius (180-103 B. C.), Horace (65-8 B. C.), Persius (34-62 A. D.), and Juvenal (48(?)-138(?) A. D.).

1. What position did the Roman satirist occupy as a teacher of morals?

2. Show how the great Greek writers served as models for the leading Roman men of letters. 3. In what literary field did the Romans strike out for themselves? 4. What may we suppose was the character of the rude satire of ancient Italy? 5. What position does Ennius hold among Roman satirists? 6. What famous events took place within the lifetime of Lucilius? 7. How did his social position help to make his writings effective? 8. What did the Romans themselves think of him? 9. How have fragments of his works been preserved to us? 10. What picture of life in the Roman Forum does he present? 11. Give other examples of the teachings of Lucilius. 12. Quote his definition of virtue. 13. How does Horace's att.i.tude toward his fellow-men differ from that of Lucilius?

14. What advantage had he in his early education? 15. Ill.u.s.trate his habit of personal reflection upon the events of the day. 16. What are the marked qualities of his style? 17. Describe his argument in favor of contentment. 18. What qualities of the "bore" are brought out in his famous satire on this subject? 19. What is his criticism of Lucilius?

20. Give an account of Horace's own life. 21. What ideas does he set forth in his satire to Maecenas? 22. What description does he give of his father? 23. What picture does he give of his life on his farm as contrasted with his life in Rome? 24. How did the circ.u.mstances of the life of Persius differ from those of Horace? 25. How different is his poetry for this reason? 26. Ill.u.s.trate the poet's high estimate of Stoicism. 27. How does he treat the subject of prayer in one of his famous satires? 28. How is his skill shown in his picture of the false suppliant? 29. What do we know of the life of Juvenal? 30. What was the character of the times in which he lived? 31. How does his style differ from that of Horace? 32. How does he deal with the h.e.l.lenizing tendencies of his time? 33. Give an outline of his satire upon the vanity of human wishes. 34. What is his solemn warning to parents?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

SIMc.o.x, _History of Latin Literature_: Early Satire, Lucilius, Vol. I, pp. 62-68; Horace, pp. 283-300; Persius, Vol. II, pp. 80-86; Juvenal, pp. 118-138.

SELLAR, _The Roman Poets of the Republic_: Early Roman Satire, C.

Lucilius, pp. 222-252. _The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age--Horace and the Elegiac Poets_: The Satires of Horace, pp. 51-84.

TYRRELL, _Latin Poetry_: Horace and Lucilius, pp. 162-181; Latin Satire, pp. 216-259.

NETTLEs.h.i.+P, _The Original Form of the Roman Satura. Lectures and Essays_: Horace, Life and Poems, pp. 143-167.

CONINGTON, _The Satires of Persius_, with translations and commentary: Lecture on Life and Writings of Persius, pp. xiii-x.x.xii.

GIFFORD, _Satires of Juvenal and Persius_, translated into English verse: The Life of Juvenal, Vol. I, pp. x.x.xi-xlviii; The Roman Satirists, pp. xlix-lx.x.xii; Life and Satires of Persius, Vol. II, pp.

v-xlvii.

PEARSON AND STRONG, _Thirteen Satires of Juvenal_ (the best text edition with commentary): Life of Juvenal, pp. 9-46.

PART III

EPIC POETRY

Who Show'd me that epic was of all the king, Round, vast, and spanning all, like Saturn's ring?

1. CN. NaeVIUS--THE FIRST NATIONAL ROMAN EPIC

We have already seen how the national pride of Rome was stirred by the completed subjugation of Italy and the first successful step in foreign conquest as the result of the First Punic War, and how this quickened national pride gave a new impulse to literature. We have seen how from this period under the powerful stimulus of Greek influence the drama sprang into being in its literary form. And it was in this same soil of awakened national consciousness, and in this same atmosphere of Greek thought and expression that the Roman epic had its beginnings.

The rude translation of Homer's _Odyssey_ made by Livius Andronicus is not to be considered in this connection, for this was produced with no national feeling, but only that he might have a text-book from which to instruct his Roman schoolboys in their native tongue. The honor of producing the first heroic poem in Roman literature belongs to Cn.

Naevius, to whom Mommsen accords the high praise of "the first Roman who deserves to be called a poet." He was a native of the district of Campania, of plebeian family, of most st.u.r.dy and independent character.

The period of his life falls approximately between the years 269 and 199 B. C. We know that he was a soldier in his earlier life, serving in the First Punic War in Sicily, that he was imprisoned for his bold attacks from the stage upon the n.o.ble family of the Metelli, and afterward banished to Africa, where he ended his days.

The tragedies and comedies of Naevius date from his life in Rome, but the occupation, and we may well believe the solace, of his old age in exile was the composition of his _Bellum Punic.u.m_, a heroic poem upon the First Punic War. This poem is a truly national epic written in the rough old Saturnian verse which came down from h.o.a.ry antiquity as a native Roman metrical product. This verse has a jingle not unlike some of our familiar nursery rhymes, of which

The king was in his counting-house counting out his money,

is a fair sample. Roman in form, the epic of Naevius was also intensely national in spirit and content. It was written in seven books, of which the first two form a kind of mythological background or prelude, and the remaining five books tell the story of the first great duel between Rome and Carthage.

In the scanty fragments of this poem, especially in the introductory books, we are surprised to find ourselves upon familiar ground, until we discover that we are dealing with one of the great sources of Vergil's inspiration. For here in these broken sc.r.a.ps as in a shattered mirror we catch glimpses of aeneas and Anchises departing from Troy with their wives and treasure, and of the storm that drove the Trojans out of their course and wrecked them upon the sh.o.r.es of Africa; we hear s.n.a.t.c.hes of Venus' appeal to Jupiter in their behalf, of Jove's reply promising to the Trojans a mighty destiny, and of Dido's request to aeneas for his tale of the Trojan War.

The whole seems to have been written in an exceedingly simple and direct style, without much attempt at poetic embellishment. The poet prided himself upon his unadulterated Latinity, and protested against the strong h.e.l.lenizing tendency that was setting in. His epitaph (Roman writers had a weakness for composing their own epitaphs) may seem a bit over-laudatory of self from our modest modern standpoint, but it is quite in keeping with the outspoken style of his time, and is very interesting in the claim that he makes to be the mouthpiece and perhaps the last disciple of the native Italian muses (Camenae). Here is his epitaph:

If it were meet that th' immortals' tears should fall on mortal clay, Then would our native Muses weep for this our Naevius; For truly, since to Death's great garner he was gathered in, Our Romans born have clean forgot to speak their mother tongue.

2. QUINTUS ENNIUS

The h.e.l.lenizing tendency of which Naevius complains was setting in strongly already during his life at Rome. But it was especially the influence of his literary successor, an influence still more strongly tending toward Greek forms and motives, which the unfortunate Naevius mourned from his place of exile and which gave added bitterness to the lament which the st.u.r.dy old Roman has left us in his epitaph.

This literary successor was the poet Quintus Ennius, who may almost be said to have met Naevius at the gates of Rome, since he arrived at Rome at about the time when Naevius went into banishment. Ennius was not a Roman citizen at this time, having been born and reared down in the extreme heel of Italy, at Rudiae in Calabria, a section which had for many generations been under Greek influence. He was of good local family, familiar with the rough Oscan speech of his native village, with the polished Greek of neighboring Tarentum, where he was probably at school, and with the Roman tongue, which had become the official language of his district after Rome had pushed her conquests to the limits of Italy. He was wont to say of himself that he had three hearts--Oscan, Latin, and Greek; and certainly by the circ.u.mstances of his birth and education he was a good representative of the threefold national influences which were rapidly converging.