Post-Augustan Poetry From Seneca to Juvenal Part 5

_Meg_. 'Tis thus I'll meet my lord.

_Lyc_. Is that slave more to thee than I, a king?

_Meg_. How many kings has that slave given to death!

_Lyc_. Why does he serve a king and bear the yoke?

_Meg_. Remove hard tasks, and where would valour be?

_Lyc_. To conquer monsters call'st thou valour then?

_Meg_. 'Tis valour to subdue what all men fear.

_Lyc_. The shades of Hades hold that boaster fast.

_Meg_. No easy way leads from the earth to heaven.

MILLER

So, too, a little later (463) Amphitryon crushes Lycus with a true Stoic retort:--

_Lyc_. quemc.u.mque miserum videris, hominem scias.

_Amph_. quemc.u.mque fortem videris, miserum neges.[195]

_Lyc_. Whoe'er is wretched, him mayst thou know for mortal.

_Amph_. Whoe'er is brave, thou mayst not call him wretched.

Admirable as are the sentiments expressed by these virtuous and calamitous persons, they leave us cold: they are too self-sufficient to need our sympathy. Pain and death have no terrors for them; why should we pity them? But it would be unjust to lay the blame for this absence of pathetic power entirely on the influence of Stoicism. The scholastic rhetoric is not a good vehicle for pathos, and must bear a large portion of the blame, though even the rhetoric is due in no small degree to the Stoic type of dialectic. As Seneca himself says, speaking of others than himself, 'Philosophia quae fuit, facta philologia est.'[196] And it must further be remembered that of the few flights of real poetry in these plays some of the finest were inspired by Stoicism. The drama cannot nourish in the Stoic atmosphere, poetry can. Seneca was sometimes a poet. His best-known chorus, the famous _regem non faciunt opes_ of the _Thyestes_ (345), is directly inspired by Stoicism. The speeches of Agamemnon and Andromache, together with the chorus already quoted from the _Troades_, all bear the impress of the Stoic philosophy. The same is true of the scarcely inferior chorus on fate from the _Oedipus_ (980).

But there are other pa.s.sages of genuine poetry where the Stoic is silent. The chorus in the _Hercules Furens_ (838), giving the conventional view of death, will stand comparison with the chorus of the _Troades_, giving the philosophic view. The chorus on the dawn (_H.F._ 125) brings the fresh sounds and breezes of early morning into the atmosphere of the rhetorician's lecture-room. The celebrated

venient annis saecula seris quibus Ocea.n.u.s vincula rerum laxet et ingens pateat tellus Tethysque novos detegat orbes nec sit terris ultima Thule (_Med._ 375)

Late in time shall come an age, when Ocean shall unbar the world, and the whole wide earth be revealed, and Tethys shall show forth a new world, nor Thule be earth's limit any more.

has acquired a fict.i.tious importance since the discovery of the new world, but shows a fine imagination, even if--as has been maintained--it is merely a courtly reference to the British expedition of Claudius. And the invocation to sleep in the _Hercules Furens_ proved worthy to provide an inspiration for Shakespeare[197] (1063):

solvite tantis animum monstris solvite superi, caecam in melius flect.i.te mentem. tuque, o domitor Somne malorum, requies animi, pars humanae melior vitae, volucre o matris genus Astracae, frater durae languide Mortis, veris miscens falsa, futuri certus et idem pessimus auctor, pax errorum, portus vitae, lucis requies noctisque comes, qui par regi famuloque venis, pavidum leti genus humanum cogis longam discere noctem: placidus fessum lenisque fove, preme devinctum torpore gravi.

Save him, ye G.o.ds, from monstrous madness, save him, restore his darkened mind to sanity. And thou, O sleep, subduer of ill, the spirit's repose, thou better part of human life, swift-winged child of Astraca, drowsy brother of cruel death, mixing false with true, prescient of what shall be, yet oftener prescient of sorrow, peace mid our wanderings, haven of man's life, day's respite, night's companion, that comest impartially to king and slave, thou that makest trembling mankind to gain a foretaste of the long night of death; do thou bring gentle rest to his weariness, and sweet balm to his anguish, and overwhelm him with heavy stupor.

But the poetry is confined mainly to the lyrics. In them, though the metre be monotonous and the thought rarely more than commonplace, the feeling rings true, the expression is brilliant, and the never absent rhetoric is sometimes trans.m.u.ted to a more precious substance with a far-off resemblance to true lyrical pa.s.sion. In the iambics, with the exception of the pa.s.sages already quoted from the _Troades_ and the _Phaedra_, touches of genuine poetry are most rare.[198] In certain of the long descriptive pa.s.sages (_H.F._ 658 sqq., _Oed._ 530 sqq.) we get a stagey picturesqueness, but no more. It is for different qualities that we read the iambics of Seneca, if we read them at all.

Even in its worst moments the rhetoric is capable of extorting our unwilling admiration by its sheer cleverness and audacity. A good example is to be found in the pa.s.sage of the _Thyestes_, where Atreus meditates whether he shall call upon his sons Menelaus and Agamemnon to aid him in his unnatural vengeance on Thyestes. He has doubts as to whether he is their father, for Thyestes had seduced their mother Aerope (327):--

prolis incertae fides ex hoc petatur scelere: si bella abnuunt et gerere nolunt odia, si patruum vocant, pater est. eatur.

And by this test of crime, Let their uncertain birth be put to proof: If they refuse to wage this war of death And will not serve my hatred; if they plead He is their uncle--then he is their sire.

So to my work!

MILLER'S translation slightly altered.

Equally ingenious is the closing scene between Atreus and Thyestes after the vengeance is accomplished and Thyestes has feasted on the flesh of his own sons (1100):

_Thy_. quid liberi meruere?

_Atr_. quod fuerant tui.

_Thy_. natos parenti-- _Atr_. fateor et, quod me iuvat, certos.

_Thy_. piorum praesides testor deos.

_Atr_. quin coniugales?

_Thy_. scelere quid pensas scelus?

_Atr_. scio quid queraris: scelere praerepto doles, nec quod nefandas hauseris angit dapes; quod non pararis: fuerat hic animus tibi instruere similes inscio fratri cibos et adiuvante liberos matre aggredi similique leto sternere--hoc unum obst.i.tit: _tuos_ putasti.

_Thy_. What was my children's sin?

_Atr_. This, that they were thy children.

_Thy_. But to think That children to the father-- _Atr_. That indeed, I do confess it, gives me greatest joy, That thou art well a.s.sured they were thy sons.

_Thy_. I call upon the G.o.ds of innocence-- _Atr_. Why not upon the G.o.ds of marriage call?

_Thy_. Why dost thou seek to punish crime with crime?

_Atr_. Well do I know the cause of thy complaint: Because I have forestalled thee in the deed.

Thou grievest, not because thou hast consumed This horrid feast, but that thou wast not first To set it forth. This was thy fell intent, To arrange a feast like this unknown to me, And with their mother's aid attack my sons, And with a like destruction lay them low.

But this one thing opposed--thou thought'st them thine.

MILLER.

These pa.s.sages are as unreal as they are repulsive, but they are diabolically clever. Seneca's rhetoric is, however, as we have already seen, capable of rising to higher things, and even where he does not succeed, as in the pa.s.sages quoted above from the _Phaedra_ and _Troades_,[199] in introducing a genuine poetic element, he often produces striking declamatory effects. The exit of the blind Oedipus, as he goes forth into life-long banishment, bringing peace to Thebes at the last, is highly artificial in form, but, given the rhetorical drama, is not easily surpa.s.sed as a conclusion--

mortifera mec.u.m vitia terrarum extraho.

violenta Fata et horridus Morbi tremor, Maciesque et atra Pestis et rabidus Dolor, mec.u.m ite, mec.u.m. ducibus his uti libet (1058).

With me to exile lead I forth 'all pestilential humours of the land. Ye blasting fates', ye trembling agues, famine and deadly plague and maddened grief, go forth with me, with me!

My heart rejoices to follow in your train.

So likewise the last despairing cry of Jason, as Medea sails victoriously away in her magic car--

per alta vade spatia sublimi aethere, testare nullos esse qua veheris deos

Sail on through the airy depths of highest heaven, and bear witness that, where thou soarest, no G.o.ds can be.

forms a magnificent ending to a play which, for all its unreality, succeeds for more than half its length (l 578) in arresting our attention by its ingenious rhetoric and its comparative freedom from mere bombast. Excellent, too, is the speech (_Phoen_. 193) in which Antigone dissuades her father from suicide. 'What ills can time have in store for him compared to those he has endured?'--

qui fata proculcavit ac vitae bona proiecit atque abscidit et casus suos oneravit ipse, cui deo nullo est opus, quare ille mortem cupiat aut quare petat?

utrumque timidi est: nemo contempsit mori qui concupivit. cuius haut ultra mala exire possunt, in loco tuto est situs, quis iam deorum, velle fac, quicquam potest malis tuis adicere? iam nec tu potes nisi hoc, ut esse te putes dignum nece-- non es nec ulla pectus hoc culpa attigit.

et hoc magis te, genitor, insontem voca, quod innocens es dis quoque invitis....

... ... quidquid potest auferre cuiquam mors, tibi hoc vita abstulit.

Who tramples under foot his destiny, Who disregards and scorns the goods of life, And aggravates the evils of his lot, Who has no further need of Providence: Wherefore should such a man desire to die, Or seek for death? Each is the coward's act.

No one holds death in scorn who seeks to die.

The man whose evils can no further go Is safely lodged. Who of the G.o.ds, think'st thou, Grant that he wills it so, can add one jot Unto thy sum of trouble? Nor canst thou, Save that thou deem'st thyself unfit to live.

But thou art not unfit, for in thy breast No taint of sin has come. And all the more, My father, art thou free from taint of sin, Because, though heaven willed it otherwise, Thou still art innocent....

Whatever death From any man can take, thy life hath taken.

MILLER

It is, however, in isolated lines and striking _sententiae_ that Seneca's gift for rhetorical epigram is seen at its best. Nothing could be better turned than

quaeris Alcidae parem?

nemo est nisi ipse: (_H.F_. 84).[A]

curae leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent (_Phaedra_ 607).[B]

fortem facit vicina libertas senem (_Phaedra_ 139).[C]

qui genus iactat suum, aliena laudat (_H.F_. 340).

fortuna fortes metuit, ignavos premit (_Med_. 159).

fortuna opes auferre, non animum potest (_Med_. 176).

maius est monstro nefas:[D]