Post-Augustan Poetry From Seneca to Juvenal Part 9

quid quaeri, Labiene, iubes? an liber in armis occubuisse velim potius quam regna videre?

an sit vita nihil, sed longa? an differat aetas?

an noceat vis ulla bono, fortunaque perdat opposita virtute minas, laudandaque velle sit satis, et numquam successu crescat honestum?

scimus, et hoc n.o.bis non altius inseret Hammon.

haeremus cuncti superis, temploque tacente nil facimus non sponte dei; nec vocibus ultis numen eget, dixitque semel nascentibus auctor quidquid scire licet, steriles nec legit harenas, ut caneret paucis, mersitque hoc pulvere verum.

estque dei sedes, nisi terra et pontus et aer et caelum et virtus? superos quid quaerimus ultra?

Iuppiter est quodc.u.mque vides quodc.u.mque moveris.

sortilegis egeant dubii semperque futuris casibus ancipites; me non oracula certum, sed mors certa facit. pavido fortique cadendum est; hoc satis est dixisse Iouem.

What should I ask? Whether to live a slave Is better, or to fill a soldier's grave?

What life is worth drawn to its utmost span, And whether length of days brings bliss to man?

Whether tyrannic force can hurt the good, Or the brave heart need quail at Fortune's mood?

Whether the pure intent makes righteousness, Or virtue needs the warrant of success?

All this I know: not Ammon can impart Force to the truth engraven on my heart.

All men alike, though voiceless be the shrine, Abide in G.o.d and act by will divine.

No revelation Deity requires, But at our birth, all men may know, inspires.

Nor is truth buried in this desert sand And doled to few, but speaks in every land.

What temple but the earth, the sea, the sky, And heaven and virtuous hearts, hath deity?

As far as eye can range or feet can rove Jove is in all things, all things are in Jove.

Let wavering souls to oracles attend, The brave man's course is clear, since sure his end.

The valiant and the coward both must fall This when Jove tells me, he has told me all.

PROF. GOLDWIN SMITH.

One Cato will not lend life to an epic, and history, to the great loss of art, forbids him to play a sufficiently important role. It is unnecessary to comment on the lesser personages of the epic; if the leading characters lack life, the minor characters lack individuality as well.[281] Lucan has nothing of the dramatic vitalising power that is so necessary for epic.

He is equally defective in narrative power. He can give us brilliant pictures as in the lines describing the vision of Caesar at the Rubicon[282] or Pompey's last sight of Italy.[283] But such pa.s.sages are few and far between. Of longer pa.s.sages there are not perhaps more than three in the whole work where we get any sustained beauty of narrative-the parting of Pompey and his wife,[284] Pompey's dream before Pharsalus,[285] and a description of a Druid grove in Southern Gaul.[286] The first of these is noticeable as being one of the few occasions on which Lucan shows any command of simple pathos unmarred by tricks of tawdry rhetoric. The whole episode is admirably treated. The speeches of both husband and wife are commendably and unusually simple and direct, but the climax comes after Cornelia's speech, where the poet describes the moment before they part. With the simplest words and the most severe economy of diction, he produces an effect such as Vergil rarely surpa.s.sed, and such as was never excelled or equalled again in the poetry of Southern Europe till Dante told the story of Paolo and Francesca (v. 790):

sic fata relictis exsiluit stratis amens tormentaque nulla vult differre mora. non maesti pectora Magni sustinet amplexu dulci, non colla tenere, extremusque perit tam longi fructus amoris, praecipitantque sues luctus, neuterque recedens sustinuit dixisse 'vale', vitamque per omnem nulla fuit tarn maesta dies; nam cetera d.a.m.na durata iam mente malis firmaque tulerunt.

So spake she, and leaped frenzied from the couch, loth to put off the pangs of parting by the least delay. She cannot bear to cast her arms about sad Magnus' bosom, or clasp his neck in a last sweet embrace; and thus the last delight, such long love as theirs might know, is cast away: they hasten their own agony; neither as they parted had the heart to say farewell; and while they lived they knew no sadder day than this. All other losses they bore with hearts hardened and steeled by misery.

It is faulty and monotonous in rhythm, but one would gladly have more from Lucan of the same poetic quality, even at the expense of the same blemishes. The dream of Pompey is scarcely inferior (vii. 7):

at nox, felicis Magno pars ultima vitae, sollicitos vana decepit imagine somnos.

nam Pompeiani visus sibi sede theatri innumeram effigiem Romanae cernere plebis attollique suum laetis ad sidera nomen vocibus et plausu cuneos certare sonantes; qualis erat populi facies clamorque faventis, olim c.u.m iuvenis primique aetate triumphi * * * * *

sedit adhuc Roma.n.u.s eques; seu fine bonorum anxia venturis ad tempera laeta refugit, sive per ambages solitas contraria visis vaticinata quies magni tulit omina planctus.

seu vet.i.to patrias ultra tibi cernere sedes sic Romam fortuna dedit. ne rumpite somnos, castrorum vigiles, nullas tuba verberet aures.

crastina dira quies et imagine maesta diurna undique funestas acies feret, undique bellum.

But night, the last glad hours that Magnus' life should know, beguiled his anxious slumbers with vain images of joy. He seemed to sit in the theatre himself had built, and to behold the semblance of the countless Roman mult.i.tude, and hear his name uplifted to the stars by joyous voices, and all the roaring benches vying in their applause. Even so he saw the people and heard their cheers in the days of old, when still a youth, in the hour of his first triumph ... he sat no more as yet than a knight of Rome; whether it was that at thy fortune's close thy sleep, tormented with the fears of what should be, fled back to happier days, or riddling as 'tis wont, foretold the contrary of thy dreams and brought thee omens of mighty woe; or whether, since ne'er again thou mightest see thy father's home, thus even in dreams fortune gave it to thy sight.

Break not his slumbers, guardians of the camp; let not the trumpet strike his ears at all. Dread shall to-morrow's slumbers be, and, haunted by the sad image of the disastrous day, shall bring before his eyes naught save war and armies doomed to die.

The scene is well and naturally conceived; there is no rant or false pathos; it is an oasis in a book which, though in many ways the finest in the _Pharsalia_, yet owes its impressiveness to a rhetoric which, for all its brilliance and power, will not always bear more than superficial examination. The last pa.s.sage, with its description of the Druid's grove near Ma.s.silia,[287] is on a different plane. It gives less scope to the higher poetical imagination; it describes a scene such as the Silver Age delighted in,[288] a dark wood, whereto the sunlight scarce can penetrate; altars stand there stained with dark rites of human sacrifice; no bird or beast will approach it; no wind ever stirs its leaves; if they rustle, it is with a strange mysterious rustling all their own: there are dark pools and ancient trees, their trunks encircled by coiling snakes; strange sounds and sights are there, and when the sun rides high at noon, not even the priest will approach the sanctuary for fear lest unawares he come upon his lord and master. While similar descriptions may be found in other poets of the age, there is a strength and simplicity about this pa.s.sage that rivets the attention, whereas others leave us cold and indifferent. But Lucan does not always exercise such restraint, and such pa.s.sages are as rare as they are welcome. The reason for this is obvious: the narrative must necessarily consist in the main of military movements. In the words of Petronius,[289] that is better done by the historians. The adventures on the march are not likely as a rule to be peculiarly interesting; there are no heroic single combats to vary and glorify the fighting.

Conscious of this inevitable difficulty, and with all the rhetorician's morbid fear of being commonplace, Lucan betakes himself to desperate remedies, hyperbole and padding. If he describes a battle, he must invent new and incredible horrors to enthral us; his sea-fight at Ma.s.silia is a notable instance;[290] death ceases to inspire horror and becomes grotesque. If a storm arises he must outdo all earlier epic storms. Vergil had attempted to outdo the storms of the Odyssey. Lucan must outdo Vergil. Consequently, in the storm that besets Caesar on his legendary voyage to Italy in the fisherman's boat[291] that 'carried Caesar and his fortunes', strange things happen. The boat rocks helplessly in mid-sea--

Its sails in clouds, its keel upon the ground, For all the sea was piled into the waves And drawn from depths between laid bare the sand.[292]

In the same tempest--

The sea had risen to the clouds In mighty ma.s.s, had not Olympus' chief Pressed down its waves with clouds,[293]

If he is concerned with a march through the African desert, he must introduce the reader to a whole host of apocryphal serpents, with details as to the nature of their bites.[294] So terrible are these reptiles that it is a positive relief to the army to enter the region of lions.[295] Before such specimens as this the hyperbole of Seneca seems tame and insignificant.

The introduction of irrelevant episodes would be less reprehensible were it not that such episodes are for the most part either dull or a fresh excuse for bombast or (worse still) a display of erudition.[296] He devotes no less than 170 lines in the first book to a description of the prodigies that took place at Rome on the outbreak of the Civil War, and of the rites performed to avert their omens.[297]

In the next book a hundred and sixty-six lines are given to a lurid picture of the Marian and Sullan proscriptions,[298] and forty-six to a compressed geography of Italy.[299] In the fifth book we are given the tedious story of how a certain obscure Appius consulted the Delphian oracle[300] and how he fared, merely, we suspect, that Lucan may have an opportunity for depicting the frenzies of the Pythian prophetess.

Similarly, at the close of the sixth book, Pompey's son consults a necromancer as to the result of the war.[301] The scene is described with not a little skill and ingenuity, but it has little _raison d'etre_ save the gratification of the taste for witchcraft which Lucan shared with his audience and his fellow poets.

Apart from these weaknesses of method and execution, Lucan's style is unsuited to epic whether historical or legendary. He has not sufficient command of a definitely poetical vocabulary to enable him to captivate the reader by pure sensuous charm. He is, as Quintilian says, 'magis oratoribus quam poetis imitandus.' He cannot shake himself free from the influence of his rhetorical training. It is a severe condemnation of an epic poet to deny him, as we have denied, the gifts of narrative and dramatic power. Yet much of Lucan is more than readable, to some it is even fascinating. He has other methods of meeting the difficulties presented by historical epic. The work is full of speeches, moralising, and apostrophes. He will not let the story tell itself; he is always harping on its moral and political significance. As a result, we get long pa.s.sages that belong to the region of elevated political satire.

They are not epic, but they are often magnificent. It is in them that Lucan's political feeling appears at its truest and strongest.[302] The actual fortunes of the republican armies, as recounted by Lucan, must fail to rouse the emotions of the most ardent anti-Caesarian, and it is doubtful whether they would have responded to more skilful treatment.

But in the apostrophes grief and indignation can find a voice and stir the heart. They may reveal a monstrous lack of the sense of historical proportion. To attribute the depopulation of the rural districts of Italy to the slaughter at Pharsalus is absurd. That Lucan does this is undeniable, but his words have a deeper significance. It was at Pharsalus, above all other battles, that the republic fell to ruin, and the poet is justified in making it the symbol of that fall.[303] And even where the sentiment is at bottom false, there is such an impetuosity and vigour in the lines, and such a depth of scorn in each epigram, that the reader is swept off his balance and convinced against his will. We hardly pause to think whether Pharsalus, or even the whole series of civil wars, really prevented the frontiers of Rome being conterminous with the limits of the inhabited globe, when we read such lines as (vii. 419)--

quo latius...o...b..m possedit, citius per prospera fata cucurrit.

omne tibi bellum gentes dedit omnibus annis: te geminum t.i.tan procedere vidit in axem; haud multum terrae spatium restabat Eoae, ut tibi nox, tibi tota dies, tibi curreret aether, omniaque errantes stellae Romana viderent.

sed retro tua fata tulit par omnibus annis Emathiae funesta dies, hac luce cruenta effectum, ut Latios non horreat India fasces, nec vet.i.tos errare Dahas in moenia ducat Sarmatic.u.mque premat succinctus consul aratrum, quod semper saevas debet tibi Parthia poenas, quod fugiens civile nefas redituraque numquam libertas ultra Tigrim Rhenumque recessit ac totiens n.o.bis iugulo quaesita vagatur, Germanum Scythic.u.mque bonum, nec respicit ultra Ausoniam.

The wider she lorded it o'er the world, the swifter did she run through her fair fortunes. Each war, each year, gave thee new peoples to rule thee did the sun behold advancing towards either pole; little remained to conquer of the Eastern world; so that for thee, and thee alone, night and day and heaven should revolve, and the planets gaze on naught that was not Rome's. But Emathia's fatal day, a match for all the bygone years, has swept thy destiny backward. This day of slaughter was the cause that India trembles not before the lictor-rods of Rome, and that no consul, with toga girded high, leads the Dahae within some city's wall, forbidden to wander more, and in Sarmatia drives the founder's plough. This day was the cause that Parthia still owes thee a fierce revenge, that freedom flying from the crimes of citizens has withdrawn behind Tigris and the Rhine, ne'er to return, and, sought so oft by us with our life's blood, wanders the prize of German and of Scyth, and hath no further care for Ausonia.

But this famous apostrophe closes on a truer note with six lines of unsurpa.s.sed satire (454)--

mortalia nulli sunt curata deo. cladis tamen huius habemus vindictam, quantam terris dare numina fas est: bella pares superis facient civilia divos; fulminibus manes radiisque ornabit et astris, inque deum templis iurabit Roma per umbras.

No G.o.d has a thought for the doings of mortal men: yet for this overthrow this vengeance is ours, so far as G.o.ds may give satisfaction to the earth: civil wars shall raise dead Caesars to the level of the G.o.ds above; and Rome shall deck the spirits of the dead with rays and thunderbolts and stars, and in the temples of the G.o.ds shall swear by the name of shades.

n.o.blest of all are the lines that close another apostrophe on the same subject a little later in the same book (638)--

maius ab hac acie quam quod sua saecula ferrent volnus habent populi; plus est quam vita salusque quod perit; in totum mundi prosternimur aevum, vincitur his gladiis omnis quae serviet aetas.

proxima quid suboles aut quid meruere nepotes in regnum nasci? pavide num gessimus arma teximus aut iugulos? alieni poena timoris in nostra cervice sedet. post proelia natis si dominum, Fortuna, dabas, et bella dedisses.

A deeper wound than their own age might bear was dealt the peoples of this earth in this battle: 'tis more than life and safety that is lost: for all future ages of the world are we laid low: these swords have vanquished generations yet unborn, and doomed them to eternal slavery. What had the sons and grandsons of those who fought that day deserved that they should be born into slavery? Did we bear our arms like cowards, or screen our throats from death? Upon our necks is riveted the doom that we should live in fear of another. Nay, Fortune, since thou gavest a tyrant to those born since the war, thou shouldst have given them also the chance to fight for freedom.

These are the finest of not a few[304] remarkable expressions of Lucan's hatred for the growing autocracy of the princ.i.p.ate: it is noteworthy that almost all occur in the last seven books. They can hardly be regarded as mere abstract meditations; they have a force and bitterness which justify us in regarding them as evidence of his changed att.i.tude towards Nero. The first three books were published while he yet basked in the suns.h.i.+ne of court favours. Then came the breach between himself and Nero. His wounded vanity a.s.sisted his principles to come to the surface.[305]

The speeches, with very few exceptions,[306] scarcely rank with the apostrophes. Like the speeches in the plays of Seneca, they are little more than glorified _suasoriae_. They are, for the most part, such speeches as--after making the most liberal allowance for rhetorical licence--no human being outside a school of rhetoric could have uttered.

Caesar's soldiery would have stared aghast had they been addressed by their general in such language as Lucan makes him use to inspire them with courage before Pharsalus. They would have understood little, and cared less, had Caesar said (vii. 274)--

civilia paucae bella ma.n.u.s facient; pugnae pars magna levabit his...o...b..m populis Romanumque obteret hostem;

Not in civil strife Your blows shall fall--the battle of to-day Sweeps from the earth the enemies of Rome.

SIR E. RIDLEY.

or (279)--

sitque palam, quas tot duxit Pompeius in urbem curribus, unius gentes non esse triumphi.

Make plain to all men that the crowds who decked Pompeius' hundred pageants scarce were fit For one poor triumph.

SIR E. RIDLEY.