Post-Augustan Poetry From Seneca to Juvenal Part 4

_Agam_. praeferre patriam liberis regem decet.

_Pyrrh_. _lex_ nulla capto parcit aut poenam impedit.

_Agam_. quod non vetat _lex_, hoc vetat fieri pudor.

_Pyrrh_. quodc.u.mque _libuit_ facere victori _licet_.

_Agam_. minimum decet _libere_ cui multum _licet_.

Idly strumming on his tuneful lyre.

_Pyrrh_. Then mighty Hector, scornful of thy arms, Yet felt such wholesome fear of that same lyre, That our _Thessalian s.h.i.+ps_ were left in _peace_.

_Agam_. An equal _peace_ did Hector's father find, When he betook him to Achilles' _s.h.i.+ps_.

_Pyrrh_. 'Tis regal thus to spare a _kingly life_.

_Agam_. Why then didst thou a _kingly life_ despoil?

_Pyrrh_. But _mercy_ oft doth offer death for life.

_Agam_. Doth _mercy_ now demand a maiden's blood?

_Pyrrh_. Canst thou proclaim such sacrifice a sin?

_Agam_. A king must love his country more than child.

_Pyrrh_. No _law_ the wretched captive's life doth spare.

_Agam_. What _law_ forbids not, yet may shame forbid.

_Pyrrh_. 'Tis victor's right to do whate'er he _will_.

_Agam_. Then should he _will_ the least, who most can do.

MILLER.

The cleverness of this is undeniable: individual lines (e.g. the last) are striking. Taken collectively they are ineffective; we feel, moreover, that the cleverness is mere knack: the continued picking up of the adversary's words to be used as weapons against himself is wearisome. It would be nearly as great a strain to listen to such a dialogue as to take part in it: the atmosphere is that of the school of rhetoric, an atmosphere in which sensible and natural dialogue is impossible.[188]

The characters naturally suffer from this continued display of declamatory rhetoric. They have but one voice and language; they differ from one another only in their clothes and the situations in which they are placed. It is true that some of them are patterns of virtue and others monsters of iniquity. But strip off the coating of paint, and within the limits of these two types--for there are but two--the puppets are precisely the same. There is none of the play of light and shade so essential to drama: all is agonizingly crude and lurid. This is not due to the rhetoric alone, there is another influence at work. The plays are permeated by a strong vein of Stoicism. Carried to its logical conclusion Stoicism lays itself open to taunts such as Cicero levels at his friend Cato in the _pro Murena_,[189] where he delivers a humorous _reductio ad absurdum_ of its tenets. Such a philosophy is fatal to the drama. It allows no room for human sentiment or human weakness; the most virtuous affections are chilled and robbed of their attractiveness: there are no gradations of temperament, intellect, or character: pathos disappears. The Stoic ideal was a being in whom the natural impulses and desires should be completely subjected to the laws of pure reason. It tends in its intensity to a narrowness, an abstract unreality which is unfavourable to the development of the more human virtues. What it gave with one hand the more rigid Stoic philosophy took away with the other.

It preached the brotherhood of man and took away half the value of sympathy. And here in the plays there is nothing of the _mitis sapientia_, the concessions to mortal weakness, the humanity, which characterize the prose works of Seneca and have won the hearts of many generations of men. There the hardness of Stoicism is softened by ripe experience and a tendency to eclecticism, and the doctrinaire stands less sharply revealed. 'Sous l'austerite du philosophe, on trouve un homme.' The most noteworthy result of this hard Stoicism upon the plays is the almost complete absence of pathos springing from the tenderer human affections. Seneca's tragedy may sometimes succeed in horrifying us, as in the ghastly rhetoric of the _Thyestes_ or the _Medea_. He moves us rarely.

But there are a few striking exceptions to the rule, notably the beautiful pa.s.sage of the _Troades_, where Andromache bids her companions in misfortune cease from useless lamentation[190] (409):

quid, maesta Phrygiae turba, laceratis comas miserumque tunsae pectus effuso genas fletu rigatis? levia perpessae sumus, si flenda patimur. Ilium vobis modo, mihi cecidit olim, c.u.m ferus curru incito mea membra raperet et gravi gemeret sono Peliacis axis pondere Hectoreo tremens.

tunc obruta atque eversa quodc.u.mque accidit torpens malis rigeusque sine sensu fero.

iam erepta Danais coniugem sequerer meum, nisi hic teneret: hic meos animos domat morique prohibet; cogit hic aliquid deos adhuc rogare--tempus aerumnae addidit.

Why, ye sad Phrygian women, do ye rend your hair and beat your woeful b.r.e.a.s.t.s and bedew your cheeks with streaming tears? But light is our sorrow, if it lies not too deep for tears. For you Ilium but now has fallen, for me it fell long ago, when the cruel wheels of the swift ear of Peleus' son dragged in the dust the limbs of him I loved, and groaned loud as they quivered beneath the weight of Hector dead. Then was I overthrown, then cast to utter ruin, and since then I bear whatso falleth upon me, with a heart that is numb with grief, chilled and insensible, and long since had I s.n.a.t.c.hed myself from the hands of the Greeks and followed my husband, did not my child keep me among the living: he checks my purpose and forbids me to die; he constrains me still to make supplication to heaven and prolongs my anguish.

Even here the pathos is the calm and reasoned pathos of hopelessness, the pathos of a Stoic who preaches endurance of evils against which his philosophy is not proof. Here, too, we find the Stoic att.i.tude towards death. Death is the end of all; there is naught to dread; death puts an end to hope and fear: to die is to be as though we had never been (394):

post mortem nihil est, ipsaque mors nihil.

velocis spatii meta novissima; spem ponant avidi, solliciti metum.

tempus nos avidum devorat et chaos: mors individua est, noxia corpori nec parcens animae: Taenara et aspero regnum sub domino limen et obsidens custos non facili Cerberus ostio rumores vacui verbaque inania et par sollicito fabula somnio.

quaeris quo iaceas post obitum loco?

quo non nata iacent.

Since naught remains, and death is naught But life's last goal, so swiftly sought: Let those who cling to life abate Their fond desires, and yield to fate; Soon shall grim time and yawning night In their vast depths engulf us quite; Impartial death demands the whole-- The body slays nor spares the soul.

Dark Taenara and Pluto fell, And Cerberus, grim guard of h.e.l.l-- All these but empty rumours seem, The pictures of a troubled dream.

Where then will the departed spirit dwell?

Let those who never came to being tell.

MILLER.

Death brings release from sorrow: the worst of torture is to be forced to live on in the midst of woe--

mors votum meum--cries Hecuba--(1171) infantibus violenta, virginibus venis, ubique properas, saeva: me solam times.

O death, my sole desire, for boys and maids Thou com'st with hurried step and savage mien: But me alone of mortals dost thou fear.

MILLER.

So, too, Andromache, in the pa.s.sage quoted above, almost apologizes for not having put an end to her existence. Polyxena meets death with exultation (_Tro_. 945, 1152-9): even the little Astyanax is infected with Stoic pa.s.sion for suicide (1090):

nec gradu segni puer ad alta pergit moenia. ut summa stet.i.t pro turre, vultus huc et huc acres tulit intrepidus animo....

non flet e turba omnium qui fletur; ac, dum verba fatidici et preces concipit Vlixes vatis et saevos ciet ad sacra superos, sponte desiluit sua in media Priami regna.

And with no lingering pace the boy climbed the lofty battlements, and all about him cast his keen gaze with dauntless soul.... But he alone of all the throng who wept for him wept not at all, and, while Ulysses 'uttered in priestly wise the words of fate and prayed' and called the cruel G.o.ds to the sacrifice, the boy of his own will cast himself down to death on the fields that Priam ruled.

The enthusiasm for death is carried too far.[191] Even the agony of the _Troades_ fails really to stir us: it depresses us without wakening our sympathy. So, too, with other scenes: in the _Hercules Furens_ we have the virtuous Stoic--in the persons of Megara and Amphitryon--confronting the _instans tyrannus_ in the person of Lycus: it is the hackneyed theme of the schools of rhetoric,[192] but derives its inspiration from Stoicism (426):

_Lyc_. cogere.

_Meg_. cogi qui potest nescit mori.

_Lyc_. effare potius, quod novis thalamis parem regale munus.

_Meg_. aut tuam mortem aut meam.

_Lyc_. moriere demens.

_Meg_. coniugi occurram meo.

_Lyc_. sceptrone nostro famulus est potior tibi?

_Meg_. quot iste famulus tradidit reges neci.

_Lyc_. cur ergo regi servit et pat.i.tur iugum?

_Meg_. imperia dura tolle: quid virtus erit?[193]

_Lyc_. obici feris monstrisque virtutem putas?

_Meg_. virtutis est domare quae cuncti pavent.

_Lyc_. tenebrae loquentem magna Tartareae premunt.

_Meg_. non est ad astra mollis e terris via.[194]

_Lyc_. Thou shalt be forced.

_Meg_. He can be forced, who knows not how to die.

_Lyc_. Tell me what gift I could bestow more rich Than royal wedlock?

_Meg_. Or thy death or mine.

_Lyc_. Then die, thou fool.