CHAPTER III.

AGE OF VIRGIL FAVOURABLE TO POETRY—HIS BIRTH, EDUCATION, HABITS, ILLNESS, AND DEATH—HIS POPULARITY AND CHARACTER—HIS MINOR POEMS, THE CULEX CIRIS MORETUM COPA AND CATALECTA—HIS BUCOLICS—ITALIAN MANNERS NOT SUITED TO PASTORAL POETRY—IDYLLS OF THEOCRITUS—CLASSIFICATION OF THE BUCOLICS—SUBJECT OF THE POLLIO—HEYNE’S THEORY RESPECTING IT.

P. VIRGILIUS MARO (BORN B. C. 70.)

The period at which Virgil flourished was singularly favourable both to the development and appreciation of poetical talent of the most polished and cultivated kind. The indulgent liberality of the imperial court cherished and fostered genius: the ruin of republican liberty left the intellect of the age without any other object except refinement; imagination was not harassed by the cares and realities of life. The same causes contributed to limit the range of prose composition,[527] and therefore the field was left undisputed to Virgil and Horace and their friends; and as the age of Cicero was essentially one in which prose literature flourished, so that of Augustus was the golden age of poetry. Of this age, Virgil stands forth pre-eminent amongst his contemporaries, as the representative. He exhibited all its characteristics, polish, ingenuity, and skill, and to these he superadded dignity and sublimity. The life of Virgil, commonly prefixed to his works, professes to be written by Tiberius Claudius Donatus, who lived in the fifth century. If, as Heyne thought, the groundwork is by him, it has been overlaid with fables similar to those found in the Gesta Romanorum, and owing their origin to the inventions of the dark ages. From this biography, stripped of those portions which are clearly fabulous, and from other sources, the following particulars respecting him may be derived:—P. Virgilius Maro was born on the ides (the 15th) of October,[528] B. C. 70, on a small estate belonging to his father, at Andes (Pietola,) a village of Cisalpine Gaul, situated about three Roman miles from Mantua. It has been disputed whether his name was Virgilius or Vergilius. Most probably both orthographies are correct, as _Diana_, _Minerva_, _liber_, and other Latin words, were frequently written _Deana_, _Menerva_, _leber_, &c.[529]

Virgil was by birth a citizen of Mantua,[530] but not of Rome, for the full franchise was not extended to the _Transpadani_ until B. C. 49, although they enjoyed the Jus Latii as early as B. C. 89. The varied stores of learning contained in the Georgics and Æneid, abundantly prove that Virgil received a liberal education. It is said that he acquired the rudiments of literature at Cremona, where he remained until he had assumed the _toga virilis_.[531] This event, if the anonymous life is to be depended upon, took place unusually early; for it is there assigned to the consulships of Pompey the Great and Licinius Crassus,[532] in the first consulship of whom he was born. From Cremona he went to Milan, and thence to Naples, where he studied Greek literature and philosophy under the direction of Parthenius, a native of Bithynia. Muretus asserts that he diligently read the history of Thucydides; but his favourite studies were medicine and mathematics—an unusual discipline to engage the attention of the future poet, but one which, by its exactness, tended to foster and mature that judgment which distinguishes his poetry. The philosophical sect to which he devoted himself was the Epicurean; and the unfortunate general, P. Quintilius Varus, to whom he addresses his sixth Eclogue,[533] studied this system together with him under Syron.

After this, it is probable that he came to Rome, but soon exchanged the bustle of the capital, for which his bashful disposition and delicate health unfitted him, for the quiet retirement of his hereditary estate. Of this he was deprived in B. C. 42, with circumstances of great hardship, when the whole neighbouring district was divided, after the battle of Philippi, amongst the victorious legionaries of Octavius and Antony. The town of Cremona had supported Brutus, and the old republican party, and Mantua, together with its surrounding district, suffered in consequence of its too close vicinity.[534] Asinius Pollio was at that time commander of the forces in Cisalpine Gaul. He was grinding and oppressive in his administration; but being himself an orator, poet, and historian, he patronised literary men. Congenial tastes recommended Virgil to his notice, and led him to take compassion on the poet’s desolate condition. By his advice, Virgil proceeded to Rome with an introduction to Mæcenas. Through him he gained access to Octavius, and either immediately before or after the peace of Brundisium[535] his little farm was restored to him.

He now became a prosperous man, was a member of the literary society which graced the table of Mæcenas, and basked in sunshine of court favour. Horace, Virgil, Plotius, and Varius, were united by the closest bonds of friendship with Mæecenas, and accompanied him on that cheerful expedition to Brundisium,[536] when he went thither in order to negotiate a reconciliation between Octavius and Antony. Henceforth Virgil’s favourite residence was Naples.[537] Its sunny climate suited his pulmonary weakness far better than the low and damp banks of his native Mincius (Menzo.) He had, besides, a villa in Sicily, and when at Rome he lived in a pleasant house on the Esquiline, situated near those of his friends Mæcenas and Horace. It is difficult to say how Virgil became so rich: patrons were liberal in those days, and he doubtless owed a portion of his affluence to their munificence. The liberality of Mæcenas is well known; and Martial attributes the prosperity of Virgil to the favour of “the Tuscan knight.”[538] Augustus also had great wealth at his disposal, and was profuse in the distribution of it amongst his favourites.

There is a passage in the Odes of Horace[539] which seems to hint that he engaged to a slight extent in mercantile concerns: even if this formed one source of his wealth, the love of gain (studium lucri,) and anxiety about the means of living, do not appear to have hindered him from devoting his hours of serious occupation to literary labours and the diligent use of his well-stored library, whilst his leisure was given to the delights of social intercourse, for which he was so eminently qualified by his sweet temper and amiable disposition.

The poet’s term of life was not extended far beyond fifty years. He had never been healthy or robust: he sometimes spat blood, and frequently suffered from headache and indigestion.[540] Ill health was the only drawback to a life otherwise passed in calm felicity. In the year B. C. 19 he meditated a tour in Greece, intending, during the course of it, to give the final polish to his great epic poem. Greece and her classic scenes, the favourite haunts of the Muses, the time-honoured contests of Olympia, the living and breathing statues which he beheld in that home of art, evidently inspired the beautiful imagery which adorns the introduction to the third Georgic. He, however, only reached Athens: there he met Augustus, who was on his way back from Samos, and both returned together. On the occasion of this voyage, Horace wrote that tender ode[541] in which he affectionately calls him “the half of his soul:”—

Navis quæ tibi creditum Debes Virgilium, finibus Atticis Reddas incolumem precor Et serves animæ dimidium meæ.

On the way he was seized with a mortal sickness, which was aggravated by the motion of the vessel, and he only lived to land at Brundisium. The powers of nature, already enfeebled, were now totally exhausted, and he expired on the 22nd of September. He was buried rather more than a mile from Naples, on the road to Puteoli (Pozzuoli.) A tomb is still pointed out to the traveller which is said to be that of the poet. Nor is this improbable; for, although it is not situated on the present high-road, it is quite possible that the original direction of the road may have been changed.[542] His epitaph is said to have been dictated by himself in his last moments:—

Mantua me genuit; Calabri rapuere; tenet nunc Parthenope. Cecini Pascua, Rura, Duces.[543]

Virgil was deservedly popular both as a poet and as a man. His rivals in literature could not envy one so unassuming and inoffensive his well-merited success, but loved him as much as they admired his poetry. The emperor esteemed him, the people respected him. “Witness,” says Tacitus,[544] “the letters of Augustus,—witness the conduct of the people itself, which, when some of his verses were recited in the theatre, rose _en masse_, and showed the same veneration for Virgil, who happened to be present among the audience, which they were wont to show to Augustus.” He was exceedingly temperate in his manner of living; so pure-minded[545] and chaste in the midst of a profligate and licentious age, that the Neapolitans gave him the name of Parthenias (from παρθενος, a virgin,) unselfish, although surrounded by selfishness, kind-hearted, and sympathizing. His talents and popularity never spoiled his natural simplicity and modesty, as his moving in the polite circles of the capital never could entirely wear off his rustic shyness and unfashionable appearance.

He was constitutionally pensive and melancholy, and so distrustful of his own poems, that Augustus could not persuade him to send an unfinished portion of the Æneid to him for perusal. “As to my Æneas,” he writes to the emperor,[546] when absent on his Cantabrian campaign, “if I had anything worth your reading I would send it with pleasure, but the work is only just begun, and I even blame my folly for venturing upon so vast a task. But you know that I shall apply fresh and increased diligence to carrying out my design.” It was with real reluctance that he subsequently read the sixth book to the Emperor and Octavia. In his last moments he was anxious to burn the whole manuscript; and in his will he directed his executors, Varius and Tucca, either to improve it or commit it to the flames.[547] He was open-hearted and generous, but not extravagant in the expenditure of his wealth, for he bequeathed to his brother, his friends, and the Emperor, a considerable property.

It is said that Virgil’s earliest poetical essay was an epic poem, the subject of which was the Roman wars; but that the impossibility of introducing Roman names in hexameter verse caused him to desist from the task almost as soon as he had commenced it. The minor poems which are still extant, were probably his first works. These are the _Culex_, _Ciris_, _Moretum_, _Copa_, and the shorter pieces in lyric, elegiac, and iambic metres,[548] commonly known by the name of Catalecta. The “Culex” (Gnat) is a bucolic poem, with something of a mock-heroic colouring, of which the argument is as follows:[549] A shepherd, overcome with the heat, falls asleep beneath the shade of a tree, and a venomous serpent from a neighbouring marsh stealthily approaches. A gnat flies to his rescue, and stings him on the brow. The shepherd, awoke by the smart, crushes his rescuer, but sees the serpent and kills it. The ghost of the gnat appears, reproaches him with his ingratitude, and describes the adventures he has met with in the regions of the dead. The shepherd erects a monument in his honour, and indites the following epigram:—

Parve culex, pecudum custos tibi tale merenti Funeris officium vitæ pro munere reddit.

Poor insect, thou a shepherd’s life didst save; Thou gavest a life, he gives thee but a grave.

The “Ciris,” which some have attributed to Corn. Gallus, is the Greek legend of Scylla, who was changed into a fish, and her father Nisus into an eagle. Great use has been made by Spenser of this poem in the conversation between Britomart and her nurse Glauce, and also in Glauce’s incantations.[550] The “Moretum,” was intended to trace the employments of the agricultural labourer through the day; but it only describes the commencement of them, and the preparation of a dish of _olla podrida_ of garden herbs called _moretum_. It contains an ingenious description of a cottager’s kitchen garden. The “Copa,” is an elegiac poem, not unlike in jovial spirit the scolia or drinking songs of the Greeks: it represents a female waiter at a tavern, begging for custom by a tempting display of the accommodations and comforts prepared for strangers. It describes the careless enjoyment of rural festivity: the simple luxuries of grapes and mulberries, the fragrant roses, the cheerful grasshoppers, and timid little lizards of Italy. Nor are the excitements of the dice, the joys of wine, the blandishments of love unsung. Dull care is banished far, and the enjoyment of the present hour inculcated:—

Pereant qui crastina curant Mors aurem vellens Vivite, ait, venio.

Amongst the lyric poems of Virgil is a very elegant one on the villa of his instructor in philosophy, Syron.

The poems which first established his reputation were his Bucolics or Eclogues. This latter title was given them in later times, implying either that they were selections from a greater number of poems or imitations of passages selected from the works of Greek poets.[551]

The characters in Virgil’s Bucolics are Italians, in all their sentiments and feelings, acting the unreal and assumed part of Sicilian shepherds. In fact, the Italians never possessed the elements of pastoral life, and therefore could not naturally furnish the poet with originals and models from which to draw his portraits and characters. They were a simple people, but their simplicity was rather Ascræan than Arcadian: the domestic habits and virtues of rural life in Italy were not unlike those of Bœtia, as described by Hesiod. Virgil, therefore, wisely took him as his model, and produced a more natural picture of Italian manners in his Georgics than in his Eclogues. The denizens of the little towns had the manners and habits of municipal life: their cultivation was the artificial refinement of town life, and not the natural sentiments of the contemplative shepherd. Those who lived in the country were hard-working, simple-minded peasants, who gained their livelihood by the sweat of their brow—honest, plain-spoken, rough-mannered, and without a grain of sentimentality. Pastoral poetry owes its origin to, and is fostered by, solitude; its most beautiful passages are of a meditative cast. The shepherd beguiles his loneliness by communing with his own thoughts. His sorrows are not the hard struggles of life, but often self-created and imaginary, or at least exaggerated. When represented as Virgil represents them in his Bucolics, they are in masquerade, and the drama in which they form the characters is of an allegorical kind. The connexion with Italy is rather of an historical than a moral nature: we meet with numerous allusions to contemporary events, but not with exact descriptions of Italian characters and manners. As, therefore, we cannot realize the descriptions, we can neither sympathize nor admire. Menalcas and Corydon and Alexis, and the rest, are as much out of place as the gentlemen and ladies in the garb of shepherds and shepherdesses in English family pictures. Even the scenery is Sicilian, and does not truthfully describe the tame neighbourhood of Mantua. So long as it is remembered that they are imitations of the Syracusan poet, we miss their nationality, and see at once that they are untruthful and out of keeping; and Virgil suffers in our estimation because we naturally compare him with the original whom he professes to imitate, and we cannot but be aware of his inferiority: but if we can once divest ourselves of the idea of the outward form which he has chosen to adopt, and forget the personality of the characters, we can feel for the wretched outcast, exiled from a happy though humble home, and be touched by the simple narrative of their disappointed loves and child-like woes; can appreciate the delicately-veiled compliments paid by the poet to his patron; can enjoy the inventive genius and poetical power which they display; and can be elevated by the exalted sentiments which they sometimes breathe. We feel that it is all an illusion; but we willingly permit ourselves to be transported from the matter-of-fact realities of a hard and prosaic world.

Virgil in his Eclogues was too much cramped by following his Greek original to present us with true pictures of Italian country life; although the criticism of his friend Horace with justice attributes to his rural pieces delicacy of touch and graceful wit:—

molle atque facetum Virgilio annuerunt gaudentes rure Camœnæ.[552]

The Idylls of Theocritus are transfusions into appropriate Greek of old popular Sicilian legends which had taken root in the country, and had become part and parcel of the national character. His subjects are not always strictly pastoral, for his characters are sometimes reapers and fishermen.[553] His language, characters, sentiments, scenery, habits, incidents, are all Sicilian, and therefore all are in perfect harmony. The characters of Theocritus have a specific individuality, and are therefore different from each other; those of Virgil are generic, the representatives of a class, and therefore there is little or no variety. But still Virgil’s defects do not detract much from the enjoyment experienced in reading his Bucolic poetry. The Aminta of Tasso, the Pastor Fido of Guarini, the Calendar of Spenser, the Lycidas of Milton, the Perdita of Shakspeare, the pastorals of Drayton, Drummond, and Florian, are equally open to objection, and yet who does not admire their beauties?

The Bucolics may be arranged in two classes. Those in the first are composed entirely after the Greek model, and contain the following poems:—

I. The first, in which the poet, representing himself under the character of Tityrus, expresses his gratitude for the restoration of his property, whilst Melibœus, as an exiled Mantuan, bewails his harder fortune.

II. The second, which is generally supposed to have been the first pastoral written by him, and is principally copied from the Cyclops of Theocritus.

III. The third is an imitation of the fourth and fifth Idylls of Theocritus, and as well as the seventh, represent improvisatorial trials of musical skill between shepherds.

V. The fifth, in which two shepherds pay the last honours to a departed friend, the one singing his epitaph, the other his apotheosis. Scaliger[554] has with good reason supposed that this poem allegorized the murder and deification of Julius Cæsar. It has been often imitated by modern poets: the most beautiful imitations are Spenser’s lament for Dido, Milton’s Lycidas, Drayton’s sixth Eclogue, and Pomfret’s Elegy on Queen Mary.

VIII. The eighth, which is imitated from the second and third Idylls of Theocritus, consists of two parts; and, from the subject-matter of the second portion, is entitled “Pharmaceutria,” (the Enchantress.) Two shepherds, Damon and Alphesibœus, rival Orpheus in their musical skill, for, whilst they sing, heifers forget to graze, lynxes are stupified, and rivers stop their course to listen. It was addressed by Virgil to his kind patron Pollio, whilst employed in his expedition to Illyricum.[555] Damon, personifying an unsuccessful lover, laments that a rival has been preferred to himself. Alphesibœus, in the character of an enchantress, goes through a formula of magical incantations in order to regain the lost affections of Daphnis. In this poem a refrain, or intercalary verse, recurs after intervals of a few lines. In the song of Damon, the refrain is—

Incipe Mænalios mecum, mea tibia, versus.

In that of his opponent—

Ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnim.

IX. In the ninth, two shepherds converse together on the troubles which have befallen their neighbourhood, and one of them is represented as conveying a present of a few kids to court the favour of the new possessor.

The second class are of a more original kind.

IV. The fourth, entitled Pollio, which is the most celebrated of them all, bears no resemblance to pastoral poetry. In the exordium, the poet invokes the Muses of Sicilian song; but he professes to attune their sylvan strain to a nobler theme. The melancholy Perusian war had been brought to a termination. The reconciliation of Anthony and Octavius had been effected by the treaty of Brundisium, and all things seemed to promise peace and prosperity. The contrast was indeed a bright one, after the havoc and desolation which war had spread through Italy. The peace ratified with Sextus Pompey at Puteoli opened the long-closed granaries of Sicily, and plenty succeeded to famine. The enthusiasm of the poet hailed the return of the fabled golden age—the reign of Saturn. The songs which the old bards of Italy professed to have learnt from the Cumæan Sibyl, and to which legendary tradition attributed a prophetical meaning, seemed to point to the new era which now dawned on the Roman empire.

The belief of the civilized world was undoubtedly at this time concentrated on the expectation of some great event, which should bring peace and happiness to mankind. The divine revelation which God’s people enjoyed taught them now to expect the advent of the Messiah; whilst traditions, probably derived through corrupting channels from the true light of prophecy, taught the heathen, though more vaguely, to look for the coming of some great one. The prophetic literature of the East might have travelled to Europe; and the divine prophecies of Isaiah, and the other sacred writers, may have been incorporated by native bards in Italian legends.

Bishop Lowth even supposed that the Sibylline predictions derived their origin from a Greek version of Messianic prophecies.[556] A belief in the inspiration of the Sibyls prevailed in the early ages of Christianity, and the Emperor Constantine in one of his orations[557] quotes from them, and paraphrases Virgil’s Pollio as an evidence to the truths of the Gospel.

Some of the fathers of the Church attributed to them supernatural power; and the Italian painters, acting under the patronage of the Roman Church, honoured the four Sibyls as participators in a knowledge of the Divine counsels. Ambrose[558] allows that they were inspired, but by the spirit of evil. Jerome[559] believes that this power was given to them by God as a reward for virginity; and Augustine[560] thinks that they predicted many truths concerning Jesus Christ. Justin[561] adopts a legend which would account for the similarity between the Sibylline oracles and Hebrew prophecy. He says that the Cumæan Sibyl, celebrated by Virgil, was born at Babylon, and was the daughter of Berosus, the Chaldean historian.

If Virgil, in the fourth eclogue, correctly paraphrased the Sibylline poems, two parallelisms between them and the prophecies of Isaiah are remarkably striking:[562]—

Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna; Jam nova progenies cœlo demittitur alto— Te duce, si qua manent sceleris vestigia nostri, Irrita perpetua solvent formidine terras— Pacatumque reget patriis virtutibus orbem.—v. 6.

Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son.—Is. vii. 14.

Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever.—Is. ix. 7.

At tibi prima, puer, nullo munuscula cultu, Errantes hederas passim cum baccare tellus, Mixtaque ridenti colocasia fundet acantho.—v. 18.

The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.—Is. xxxv. 1.

Many theories have been proposed respecting the child to whom allusion is made in this eclogue, not one of which was satisfactory to Gibbon;[563] but the following is adopted by Heyne as the most probable. The peace of Brundisium was cemented by the marriage between Antony and Cæsar’s half-sister Octavia. She was the widow of Marcellus, and appeared likely to give birth to a posthumous child. To this child yet unborn, the poet applies all the blessings promised by the Sibylline oracles, and predicts that, under his auspices, the peace and prosperity already inaugurated shall be confirmed.

VI. In the sixth, Virgil represents allegorically, under the character of Silenus the tutor of Bacchus, his own instructor Syron; and thus makes it the vehicle of a short account of the Epicurean philosophy. It was not long since the same subject had been treated of at greater length by the eloquent Lucretius; and it is said that when Cicero heard it recited by the mime Cytheris, he was so struck with admiration as to exclaim that he was “Magnæ spes altera Romæ.” This eclogue is parodied by Gay in the Saturday of his Shepherd’s Week.

X. The tenth can scarcely be distinguished from any other amatory poem, except that the heroic metre is not so usual in that species of poetry as the elegiac. The loves of the poet Gallus are sung; Arcadia is fixed upon as the place of his exile; and the lay is said to be set to the music of the oaten-pipe of Sicily: but this eclogue has no other claim to be entitled a bucolic poem.

One passage in this eclogue, which suggested the following beautiful lines in Milton’s “Lycidas,” illustrates the truth that poetry often derives additional beauty from the fact of its being a successful imitation:—

Quæ nemora aut qui vos saltus habuere, puellæ Naiades, indigno cum Gallus amore periret? Nam neque Parnassi vobis juga nam neque Pindi Ulla moram fecere, neque Aonia Aganippe. _Ecl._ x. 9.

Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep Closed o’er the head of your loved Lycidas? For neither were ye playing on the steep, Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie, Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high, Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream. _Milton’s Lycidas._