The Oxford Book of Latin Verse
The Oxford Book of Latin Verse
The Oxford Book of Latin Verse
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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OXFORD BOOK OF LATIN VERSE ***
Chosen by
H.W. Garrod
Fellow of Merton College.
Oxford
At the Clarendon Press
I have spent a good deal of labour on the revision of texts: and I hope that of
some poems, particularly the less known poems, this book may be found to offer
a purer recension than is available elsewhere. I owe it to myself, however, to say
that I have sometimes preferred the convenience of the reader to the dictates of a
rigorous criticism. I have thought it, for example, not humane to variegate the
text of an Anthology with despairing obeli: and occasionally I have covered up
an indubitable lacuna by artifices which I trust may pass undetected by the
general reader and unreproved by the charitable critic.
H.W.G.
Latin poetry begins where almost all poetry begins—in the rude ceremonial of a
primitive people placating an unknown and dreaded spiritual world. The earliest
fragments are priestly incantations. In one of these fragments the Salii placate
Leucesius, the god of lightning. In another the Arval Brethren placate Mars or
Marmar, the god of pestilence and blight (lues rues). The gods are most dreaded
at the seasons most important to a primitive people, seed-time, for example, and
harvest. The Salii celebrated Mars at seed-time—in the month which bears his
name, mensis Martius. The name of the Arval Brethren betrays their relation to
the gods who watch the sown fields. The aim of this primitive priestly poetry is
to get a particular deity into the power of the worshipper. To do this it is
necessary to know his name and to use it. In the Arval hymn the name of the god
is reiterated—it is a spell. Even so Jacob wished to know—and to use—the name
of the god with whom he wrestled. These priestly litanies are accompanied by
wild dances—the Salii are, etymologically, 'the Dancing men'—and by the
clashing of shields. They are cast in a metre not unsuited to the dance by which
they are accompanied. This is the famous Saturnian metre, which remained the
metre of all Latin poetry until the coming of the Greeks. Each verse falls into
two halves corresponding to the forward swing and the recoil of the dance. Each
half-verse exhibits three rhythmical beats answering to the beat of a three-step
dance. The verse is in the main accentual. But the accent is hieratic. The hieratic
accent is discovered chiefly in the first half of the verse: where the natural accent
of a disyllabic word is neglected and the stress falls constantly on the final
syllable.[2] This hieratic accent in primitive Latin poetry is important, since it
was their familiar use of it which made it easy for the Romans to adapt the
metres of Greece.
The first poets, then, are the priests. But behind the priests are the people—
moved by the same religious beliefs and fears, but inclined, as happens
everywhere, to make of their 'holy day' a 'holiday'. And hence a different species
of poetry, known to us chiefly in connexion with the harvest-home and with
marriage ceremonial—the so-called Fescennine poetry. This poetry is dictated by
much the same needs as that of the priests. It is a charm against fascinum, 'the
evil eye': and hence the name Fescennine. The principal constituent element in
this Fescennine poetry was obscene mockery. This obscenity was magical. But
just as it takes two to make a quarrel, so the obscene mockery of the Fescennine
verses required two principals. And here, in the improvisations of the harvest-
home, we must seek the origins of two important species of Latin poetry—drama
and satire.
There was magic in the house as well as in the fields. Disease and Death
demanded, in every household, incantations. We still possess fragments of
Saturnian verse which were employed as charms against disease. Magic dirges
(neniae) were chanted before the house where a dead man lay. They were
chanted by a praefica, a professional 'wise woman', who placated the dead man
by reiterated praise of him. These chants probably mingled traditional formulae
with improvisation appropriate to particular circumstances. The office of the
praefica survived into a late period. But with the growth of Rationalism it very
early came into disrepute and contempt. Shorter lived but more in honour was an
institution known to us only from casually preserved references to it in Cato and
Varro. This was the Song in Praise of Famous Men which was sung at banquets.
Originally it was sung by a choir of carefully selected boys (pueri modesti), and
no doubt its purpose was to propitiate the shades of the dead. At a later period
the boy choristers disappear, and the Song is sung by individual banqueters. The
ceremony becomes less religious in character, and exists to minister to the vanity
of great families and to foster patriotism. In Cato's time the tradition of it
survived only as a memory from a very distant past. Its early extinction must be
explained by the wider use among the Romans of written memorials. Of these
literary records nothing has survived to us: even of epitaphs preserved to us in
inscriptions none is earlier than the age of Cato. So far as our knowledge of
Latin literature extends we pass at a leap from what may be called the poetry of
primitive magic[3] to Livius Andronicus' translation of the Odyssey. Yet between
the work of Livius and this magical poetry there must lie a considerable literary
development of which we know nothing. Two circumstances may serve to bring
this home to us. The first is that stage plays are known to have been performed
in Rome as early as the middle of the fourth century. The second is that there
existed in Rome in the time of Livius a school of poets and actors who were
sufficiently numerous and important to be permitted to form a Guild or College.
The position of Livius is not always clearly understood. We can be sure that he
was not the first Roman poet. Nor is it credible that he was the first Greek
teacher to find his way to Rome from Southern Italy. To what does he owe his
pre-eminence? He owes it, in the first place, to what may be called a mere
accident. He was a schoolmaster: and in his Odyssey he had the good fortune to
produce for the schools precisely the kind of text-book which they needed: a
text-book which was still used in the time of Horace. Secondly, Livius
Andronicus saved Roman literature from being destroyed by Greek literature.
We commonly regard him as the pioneer of Hellenism. This view needs
correcting. We shall probably be nearer the truth if we suppose that Livius
represents the reaction against an already dominant Hellenism. The real peril
was that the Romans might become not too little but too much Hellenized, that
they might lose their nationality as completely as the Macedonians had done,
that they might employ the Greek language rather than their own for both poetry
and history. From this peril Livius—and the patriotic nobles whose ideals he
represented—saved Rome. It is significant that in his translation of the Odyssey
he employs the old Saturnian measure. Naevius, a little later, retained the same
metre for his epic upon the Punic Wars. In the epitaph which he composed for
himself Naevius says that 'the Camenae', the native Italian muses, might well
mourn his death, 'for at Rome men have forgotten to speak in Latin phrase'. He is
thinking of Ennius, or the school which Ennius represents. Ennius' answer has
been preserved to us in the lines in which he alludes scornfully to the Punica of
Naevius as written 'in verses such as the Fauns and Bards chanted of old', the
verses, that is, of the old poetry of magic. Ennius abandons the Saturnian for the
hexameter. Livius and Naevius had used in drama some of the simpler Greek
metres. It is possible that some of these had been long since naturalized in Rome
—perhaps under Etrurian influence. But the abandonment of the Saturnian was
the abandonment of a tradition five centuries old. The aims of Ennius were not
essentially different from those of Livius and Naevius. But the peril of a Roman
literature in the Greek language was past; and Ennius could afford to go further
in his concessions to Hellenism. It had been made clear that both the Latin
language and the Latin temper could hold their own. And when this was made
clear the anti-Hellenic reaction collapsed. Cato was almost exactly contemporary
with Ennius: and he had been the foremost representative of the reaction. But in
his old age he cried 'Peccavi', and set himself to learn Greek.
Ennius said that he had three hearts, for he spoke three tongues—the Greek, the
Oscan, and the Latin. And Roman poetry has, as it were, three hearts. All
through the Republican era we may distinguish in it three elements. There is the
Greek, or aesthetic, element: all that gives to it form or technique. There is the
primitive Italian element to which it owes what it has of fire, sensibility,
romance. And finally there is Rome itself, sombre, puissant, and both in
language and ideals conquering by mass. The effort of Roman poetry is to adjust
these three elements. And this effort yields, under the Republic, three periods of
development. The first covers the second century and the latter half of the third.
In this the Hellenism is that of the classical era of Greece. The Italian force is
that of Southern and Central Italy. The Roman force is the inspiration of the
Punic Wars. The typical name in it is that of Ennius. The Roman and Italian
elements are not yet sufficiently subdued to the Hellenic. And the result is a
poetry of some moral power, not wanting in fire and life, but in the main clumsy
and disordered. The second period covers the first half of the first century. The
Hellenism is Alexandrian. The Italian influence is from the North of Italy—the
period might, indeed, be called the Transpadane period of Roman poetry. The
Roman influence is that of the Rome of the Civil Wars. The typical name in it is
that of Catullus—for Lucretius is, as it were, a last outpost of the period before:
he stands with Ennius, and the Alexandrine movement has touched him hardly at
all. In this period the Italian (perhaps largely Celtic) genius is allied with
Alexandrianism in revolt against Rome: and in it Latin poetry may be said to
attain formal perfection. The third period is the Augustan. In it we have the final
conciliation of the Greek, the Italian, and the Roman influences. The typical
name in it is that of Vergil, who was born outside the Roman ciuitas, who looks
back to Ennius through Catullus, to Homer through Apollonius.
It is significant here that it is with the final unification of Italy (which was
accomplished by the enfranchisement of Transpadane Gaul) that Roman poetry
reaches its culmination—and at the same time begins to decline. Of the makers
of Roman poetry very few indeed are Roman. Livius and Ennius were 'semi-
Graeci' from Calabria, Naevius and Lucilius were natives of Campania. Accius
and Plautus—and, later, Propertius—were Umbrian. Caecilius was an Insubrian
Gaul. Catullus, Bibaculus, Ticidas, Cinna, Vergil were Transpadanes. Asinius
Gallus came from Gallia Narbonensis, Horace from Apulia. So long as there was
in the Italian municipia new blood upon which it could draw, Roman poetry
grew in strength. But as soon as the fresh Italian blood failed Roman poetry
failed—or at any rate it fell away from its own greatness, it ceased to be a living
and quickening force. It became for the first time what it was not before—
imitative; that is to say it now for the first time reproduced without transmuting.
Vergil, of course, 'imitates' Homer. But observe the nature of this 'imitation'. If I
may parody a famous saying, there is nothing in Vergil which was not previously
in Homer—save Vergil himself. But the post-Vergilian poetry is, taken in the
mass, without individuality. There is, of course, after Vergil much in Roman
poetry that is interesting or striking, much that is brilliant, graceful, or noble. But
even so it is notable that much of the best work seems due to the infusion of a
foreign strain. Of the considerable poets of the Empire, Lucan, Seneca, Martial
are of Spanish birth: and a Spanish origin has been—perhaps hastily—
conjectured for Silius. Claudian is an Alexandrian, Ausonius a Gaul.[4] Rome's
rôle in the world is the absorption of outlying genius. In poetry as in everything
else urbem fecit quod prius orbis erat.
If we are to understand the character, then, of Roman poetry in its best period, in
the period, that is, which ends with the death of Augustus, we must figure to
ourselves a great and prosaic people, with a great and prosaic language, directing
and controlling to their own ends spiritual forces deeper and more subtle than
themselves. Of these forces one is the Greek, the other may for convenience be
called the Italian. In the Italian we must allow for a considerable intermixture of
races: and we must remember that large tracts at least of Northern Italy, notably
Transpadane Gaul and Umbria, have been penetrated by Celtic influence. No one
can study Roman poetry at all deeply or sympathetically without feeling how un-
Roman much of it really is: and again—despite its Hellenic forms and its
constant study of Hellenism—how un-Greek. It is not Greek and not Roman, and
we may call it Italian for want of a better name. The effects of this Italian quality
in Roman poetry are both profound and elusive; and it is not easy to specify
them in words. But it is important to seize them: for unless we do so we shall
miss that aspect of Roman poetry which gives it its most real title to be called
poetry at all. Apart from it it is in danger of passing at its best for rhetoric, at its
worst for prose.
Ennius is a poet in whom the Roman, as distinct from the Italian, temperament
has asserted itself strongly. It has asserted itself most powerfully, of course, in
the Annals. Even in the Annals, however, there is a great deal that is neither
Greek nor Roman. There is an Italian vividness. The coloured phraseology is
Italian. And a good deal more. But it is in the tragedies—closely as they follow
Greek models—that the Italian element is most pronounced. Take this from the
Alexander:
adest, adest fax obuoluta sanguine atque incendio:
multos annos latuit, ciues, ferte opem et restinguite.
iamque mari magno classis cita
texitur, exitium examen rapit:
adueniet, fera ueliuolantibus
navibus complebit manus litora.
Mr. Sellar has called attention to the 'prophetic fury' of these lines, their 'wild
agitated tones'. They seem, indeed, wrought in fire. Nor do they stand alone in
Ennius. Nor is their fire and swiftness Roman. They are preserved to us in a
passage of Cicero's treatise De Diuinatione: and in the same passage Cicero
applies to another fragment of Ennius notable epithets. He speaks of it as poema
tenerum et moratum et molle. The element of moratum, the deep moral
earnestness, is Roman. The other two epithets carry us outside the typically
Roman temperament. Everybody remembers Horace's characterization of Vergil:
Horace is speaking there of the Vergil of the Transpadane period: the reference is
to the Eclogues. The Romans had hard minds. And in the Eclogues they
marvelled primarily at the revelation of temperament which Horace denotes by
the word molle. Propertius, in whose Umbrian blood there was, it has been
conjectured, probably some admixture of the Celtic, speaks of himself as mollis
in omnes. The ingenium molle, whether in passion, as with Propertius, or, as with
Vergil, in reflection, is that deep and tender sensibility which is the least Roman
thing in the world, and which, in its subtlest manifestations, is perhaps the
peculiar possession of the Celt. The subtle and moving effects, in the Eclogues,
of this molle ingenium, are well characterized by Mr. Mackail, when he speaks
of the 'note of brooding pity' which pierces the 'immature and tremulous
cadences' of Vergil's earliest period. This molle ingenium, that here quivers
beneath the half-divined 'pain-of-the-world', is the same temperament as that
which in Catullus gives to the pain of the individual immortally poignant
expression. It is the same temperament, again, which created Dido. Macrobius
tells us that Vergil's Dido is just the Medea of Apollonius over again. And some
debt Vergil no doubt has to Apollonius. To the Attic drama his debt is far deeper;
and he no doubt intended to invest the story of Dido with the same kind of
interest as that which attaches to, say, the Phaedra of Euripides. Yet observe.
Vergil has not hardness enough. He has not the unbending righteousness of the
tragic manner. The rather hard moral grandeur of the great Attic dramatists, their
fine spiritual steel, has submitted to a strange softening process. Something
melting and subduing, something neither Greek nor Roman, has come in. We are
passed out of classicism: we are moving into what we call romanticism. Aeneas
was a brute. There is nobody who does not feel that. Yet nobody was meant to
feel that. We were meant to feel that Aeneas was what Vergil so often calls him,
pius. But the Celtic spirit—for that is what it is—is over-mastering. It is its
characteristic that it constantly girds a man—or a poet—and carries him whither
he would not. The fourth Aeneid is the triumph of an unconscionable Celticism
over the whole moral plan of Vergil's epic.
I will not mention Lesbia by the side of Dido. The Celtic spirit too often
descends into hell. But I will take from Catullus in a different mood two other
examples of the Italic romanticism. Consider these three lines:
—'till that day when gray old age shaking its palsied head nods in all things to all
assent.' That is not Greek nor Roman. It is the unelaborate magic of the Celtic
temperament. Keats, I have often thought, would have 'owed his eyes' to be able
to write those three lines. He hits sometimes a like matchless felicity:
But into the effects which Catullus just happens upon by a luck of temperament
Keats puts more of his life-blood than a man can well spare.
Take, again, this from the Letter to Hortalus. Think not, says Catullus, that your
words have passed from my heart,
There is invective. There is the lash with a vengeance. Yet the very stanza that
follows ends in a sob:
Note the dragging cadences, the pathetic iteration, the scarce-concealed agony of
longing. Yet this five-line poem ends in a couplet of intolerable obscenity.
There once more you have the unpredictable Celtic temperament—obscenity of
wrath dissolving in the tenderness of unbidden tears, fond regret stung suddenly
to a rage foul and unscrupulous.
But let me here guard against a misapprehension. The more closely we study
Roman poetry the more clearly do we become aware of the presence in it of a
non-Roman element: and the more does it seem as though this non-Roman
element were the originative force, as though it were to this that Roman poetry
owes most of that in it which we regard as essentially poetical. The quickening
force in the best Roman poetry is the Italian blood. Yet we speak of this poetry
as Roman: and it is not without reason that we do so. If it was to a great extent
made by Italians, it was made by Italians who were already Romanized. Indeed
the Italian and the Roman elements are never so separate or so disparate in
actuality as they appear in literary analysis. The Italian spirit worked always
under the spell of Rome, and not under any merely external compulsion. And the
spell of Rome is over the whole of Roman poetry. The Italians were only a
nation through Rome: and a great poetry must have behind it a great life: it must
express a great people, their deeds and their ideals. Roman poetry does, beyond
almost any other poetry, bear the impress of a great nation. And after all the
language of this poetry is the language of the Romans. It is said of it, of course,
that it is an unpoetical language. And it is true that it has not the dance and
brightness of Greek: that it is wanting in fineness and subtlety: that it is defective
in vocabulary. All this is true. Yet the final test of the poetical character of a
language is the poetry that is written in it. The mere sound of Roman poetry is
the sound of a great nation. And here let us remember what we ought never to
forget in reading Roman poetry. It was not made to be read. It was made to be
spoken. The Roman for the most part did not read. He was read to. The
difference is plain enough. Indeed it is common to hear the remark about this or
that book, that 'It is the kind of book that ought to be read aloud'. Latin books
were read aloud. And this practice must have reacted, however obscurely, upon
the writing of them. Some tinge of rhetoric was inevitable. And here I am led to
a new theme.
II
Perhaps no poetry of equal power and range is so deeply infected with rhetoric
as the Roman. A principal cause of this is, no doubt, the language. But there are
other causes, and we shall most easily penetrate these if we consider what I may
call the environment of Roman poetry.
Two conditions in Rome helped to foster literary creation among a people by
temperament unimaginative. Of these the first is an educational system
deliberately and steadily directed towards the development of poetical talent. No
nation ever believed in poetry so deeply as the Romans. They were not a people
of whom we can say, as we can of the Greeks, that they were born to art and
literature. Those of them who attained to eminence in art and literature knew this
perfectly well. They knew by how laborious a process they had themselves
arrived at such talent as they achieved. The characteristic Roman triumphs are
the triumphs of material civilization. But the Romans were well aware that a
material civilization cannot be either organized or sustained without the aid of
spiritual forces, and that among the most important of the spiritual forces that
hold together the fabric of nationality are art and literature. With that large
common sense of theirs which, as they grew in historical experience, became
more and more spiritual, they perceived early, and they gauged profoundly, the
importance of accomplishments not native to their genius. They knew what had
happened to the 'valiant kings' who 'lived before Agamemnon'—and why. The
same could easily happen to a great empire. That is partially, of course, a
utilitarian consideration. But the Romans believed also, and deeply, in the power
of literature—and particularly of poetry—to humanize, to moralize, to mould
character, to inspire action. It was this faith which, as Cicero tells us, lay behind
the great literary movement associated with the circle of Scipio Africanus. It was
this faith which informed the Augustan literature. Horace was a man of the
world—or he liked to think himself one. He was no dreamer. Yet when he speaks
of the influence of high poetry upon the formation of character he speaks with a
grave Puritanism worthy of Plato. These practical Romans had a practicality
deeper than ours. The average Englishman, when he is told that 'the battle of
Waterloo was won by the sonnets of Wordsworth', is puzzled and even offended.
Nothing of Eton and its playing-fields? Nothing of Wellington and his Guards?
What have sonnets in common with soldiering? But the Roman knew of himself
that sonnets are a kind of soldiering. And much as he admired deeds, he knew
that there is no deed greater than 'the song that nerves a nation's heart.'
These are not mere words: and this was not, in the Roman, an idle faith. It was a
practical faith; that is to say, he acted upon it. Upon this faith was based, at any
rate in the early period of Roman history, the whole of the Roman system of
education. The principal business of the Roman schoolmaster was to take the
great poets and interpret them 'by reading and comment'. Education was
practically synonymous with the study of the poets. The poets made a man
brave, the poets made a man eloquent, the poets made him—if anything could
make him—poetical. It is hardly possible to over-estimate the obscure benefit to
the national life of a discipline in which the thought and language of the best
poetry were the earliest formative influences.
The second of the two conditions which favoured literary creation in Rome was
a social system which afforded to a great and influential class the leisure for
literary studies and the power to forward them. These two conditions are,
roughly, synchronous in their development. Both take rise in the period of the
Punic Wars. The Punic Wars not only quickened but they deepened and purified
Roman patriotism. They put the history of the world in a new light to the
educated Roman. The antagonism of Greek and Roman dropped away. The wars
with Pyrrhus were forgotten. The issue was now no longer as between Greece
and Rome, but as between East and West. The Roman saw in himself the last
guardian of the ideals of Western civilization. He must hand on the torch of
Hellenic culture. Hence, while in other countries Literature happens, as the sun
and the air happen—as a part of the working of obscure natural forces—in Rome
it is from the beginning a premeditated self-conscious organization. This
organization has two instruments—the school of the grammaticus and the house
of the great noble. Here stands Philocomus, here Scipio.
In the period of the Punic Wars this organization is only rudimentary. By no
means casual, it is none the less as yet uninfected by officialism. The transition
from the age of Scipio to the age of Augustus introduced two almost insensible
modifications:
(1) In the earlier period the functions of the grammaticus and the rhetor were
undifferentiated. The grammaticus, as he was known later, was called then
litteratus or litterator. He taught both poetry and rhetoric. But Suetonius tells us
that the name denoted properly an 'interpres poetarum': and we may infer that in
the early period instruction in rhetoric was only a very casual adjunct of the
functions of the litterator. At what precise date the office of the litterator
became bifurcated into the two distinct professions of grammaticus and rhetor
we cannot say. It seems likely that the undivided office was retained in the
smaller Italian towns after it had disappeared from the educational system of
Rome. The author of Catelepton V, who may very well be Vergil, appears to
have frequented a school where poetry and rhetoric were taught in conjunction.
Valerius Cato and Sulla, the former certainly, the latter probably, a Transpadane,
were known as litteratores. But the litterator gradually everywhere gave place to
the grammaticus: and behind the grammaticus, like Care behind the horseman,
sits spectrally the rhetor.
(2) The introduction of the rhetor synchronizes with the transition from the
private patron to the patron-as-government-official. And by an odd accident both
changes worked in one and the same direction. That the system of literary
patronage was in many of its effects injurious to the Augustan literature is a
thesis which was once generally allowed. But it was a thesis which could easily
take exaggerated expression. And against the view which it presents there has
recently been a not unnatural reaction. A moderate representative of this reaction
is the late Professor Nettleship. 'The intimacy', says Nettleship[5], 'which grew up
between Octavianus and some of the great writers of his time did not imply more
than the relation which ... often existed between a poor poet and his powerful
friend. For as the men of nobler character among the Roman aristocracy were
mostly ambitious of achieving literary success themselves, and were sometimes
really successful in achieving it: as they had formed a high ideal of individual
culture ... aiming at excellence in literature and philosophy as well as in politics
and the art of war, so they looked with a kindly eye on the men of talent and
genius who with less wealth and social resources than their own were engaged in
the great work of improving the national literature.'
There is much here which is truly and tellingly said. We ought never to forget
that the system of patronage sprang from a very lofty notion of patriotism and of
the national welfare. It implies a clear and fine recognition among the great men
of affairs of the principle that a nation's greatness is not to be measured, and
cannot be sustained, by purely material achievements. It is true, again, that the
system of patronage did not originate with Augustus or the Augustans. Augustus
was a patron of letters just as Scipio had been—because he possessed power and
taste and a wide sense of patriotic obligation. So much is true, or fairly true. But
if it is meant, as I think it is, that the literary patronage of the Princeps was the
same in kind as, and different only in degree from, that exercised by the great
men of the Republican period—if that is meant, then we have gone beyond what
is either true or plausible.
I am not concerned here, let me say, with the moral effects of literary patronage.
I am concerned only with its literary effects. Nor will I charge these to Augustus
alone. He was but one patron—however powerful—among many. He did not
create the literature which carries his name. Nevertheless it seems impossible to
doubt that it was largely moulded under his personal influence, and that he has
left upon it the impress of his own masterful and imperial temper. Suetonius in a
few casual paragraphs gives us some insight into his literary tastes and methods.
He represents him as from his youth up a genuine enthusiast for literature:
'Eloquentiam studiaque liberalia (i.e. grammatice and rhetoric) ab aetate prima et
cupide et laboriosissime exercuit.' Even upon active military service he made a
point of reading, composing, and declaiming daily. He wrote a variety of prose
works, and 'poetica summatim attigit', he dabbled in poetry. There were still
extant in Suetonius' time two volumes of his poetry, the one a collection of
Epigrammata, the other—more interesting and significant—a hexameter poem
upon Sicily.[6] Moreover Augustus 'nursed in all ways the literary talent of his
time'. He listened 'with charity and long-suffering' to endless recitations 'not only
of poetry and of history but of orations and of dialogues'. We are somewhat apt, I
fancy, to associate the practice of recitation too exclusively with the literary
circles of the time of Nero, Domitian, and Trajan. Yet it is quite clear that
already in the Augustan age this practice had attained system and elaboration.
From the silence of Cicero in his Letters (the Epistles of Pliny furnish a notable
contrast) we may reasonably infer that the custom was not known to him. It is no
doubt natural in all ages that poets and orators should inflict their compositions
upon their more intimate friends. No one of us in a literary society is safe even
to-day from this midnight peril. But even of these informal recitations we hear
little until the Augustan age. Catullus' friend Sestius perhaps recited his orations
in this fashion: but the poem[7] admits a different interpretation. And it is
significant that we are nowhere told that Cicero declaimed to his friends the
speeches of the second action against Verres. Those speeches were not delivered
in court. They were published after the flight of Verres. If custom had tolerated it
we may be sure that Cicero would not have been slow to turn his friends into a
jury.
The formal recitation, recitation as a 'function', would seem to be the creation of
the Principate. It was the product in part, no doubt, of the Hellenizing movement
which dominated all departments of literary fashion. But we may plausibly place
its origin not so much in the vanity of authors seeking applause, or in that
absence of literary vanity which courts a frank criticism, as in the relations of the
wealthy patron and his poor but ambitious client. The patron, in fact, did not
subscribe for what he had not read—or heard. The endless recitations to which
Augustus listened were hardly those merely of his personal friends. He listened,
as Suetonius says, 'benigne et patienter'. But it was the 'benignity and patience'
not of a personal friend but of a government official—of a government official
dispensing patronage. Suetonius allows us to divine something of the tastes of
this all-powerful official. He was the particular enemy of 'that style which is
easier admired than understood'—quae mirentur potius homines quam
intellegant. It looks as though the clearness and good sense which mark so
distinctively the best Augustan literature were developed to some extent under
the direct influence of the Princeps.
The Princeps and his coadjutors may perhaps be not unprofitably regarded as the
heads of a great Educational Department. Beneath them are numberless
grammatici and rhetores. The work of these is directed towards the ideals of the
supreme heads of the Department. How far this direction is due to accident and
how far to some not very defined control it would be impossible to say. But
obviously among the conscious aims of the schools of many of these grammatici
and rhetores was the ambition of achieving some of the great prizes of the
literary world. The goal of the pupil was government preferment, as we should
call it. And we may perhaps be allowed, if we guard ourselves against the peril
of mistaking a distant analogy for a real similarity of conditions, to see in the
recitations before the Emperor and his ministers, an inspection, as it were, of
schools and universities, an examination for literary honours and emoluments.
And this being so, it is not to no purpose that the rhetor in this age stands behind
the grammaticus. For the final examination, the inspection-by-recitation, is
bound to be, whatever the wishes of any of the parties concerned, an
examination in rhetoric. The theme appointed may be history, it may be
philosophy, it may be poetry. But the performance will be, and must be, rhetoric.
The Aeneid of Vergil may be read and re-read by posterity, and pondered word
by word, line upon line. But it is going to be judged at a single recitation. For
Vergil, it is true, there may be special terms. But this will be the lot of the many;
and the many will develop, to suit it, a fashion of poetry the influence of which
even Vergil himself will hardly altogether escape. Moreover, there will be, of
course, other patrons than the Princeps, at once less patient and less intelligent.
These effects of recitation we recognize, of course, easily enough in the case of
such a poet as Lucan. But we must go back further. Vergil is, no doubt, as little
like Lucan as he well could be. Yet he did not sit at the feet of Epidius for
nothing: and he did not forget when he wrote the fourth book of the Aeneid that
he would one day read it to Augustus. We know that there are several kinds of
oratory. But we are inclined, I think, to suppose that there is only one kind of
rhetoric—that rhetoric is always the same thing. Yet there are at least two kinds
of rhetoric. In the practical world there are two conquering forces—the iron hand
and the velvet glove. Just so in rhetoric—which in the spiritual world is one of
the greatest, and very often one of the noblest, of conquering forces—there is the
iron manner and the velvet manner. Lucan goes home like a dagger thrust. His is
the rhetoric that cuts and beats. The rhetoric of Vergil is soft and devious. He
makes no attempt to astonish, to perplex, to horrify. He aims to move us in a
wholly different manner. And yet, like Lucan, he aims to move us once and for
all. He aims to be understood upon a first hearing. I know that this sounds like a
paradox. I shall be told that Vergil is of all poets the most indirect. That is
perfectly true. But why is Vergil of all poets the most indirect? Just because he is
always trying at all costs to make himself clear. Lucan says a thing once and is
done with it. Vergil cannot. He begins all over again. He touches and retouches.
He has no 'theme' not succeeded by a 'variation'.[8] In Lucan everything depends
upon concentration, in Vergil upon amplification. Both are trying painfully to be
understood on a first hearing—or, rather, to make, on a first hearing, the
emotional or ethical effect at which they aim. Any page of Vergil will illustrate
at once what I mean. I select at random the opening lines of the third Aeneid:
postquam res Asiae Priamique euertere gentem
immeritam uisum superis, ceciditque superbum
Ilium, et omnis humo fumat Neptunia Troia;
diuersa exsilia et desertas quaerere terras
auguriis agimur diuum, classemque sub ipsa
Antandro et Phrygiae molimur montibus Idae,
incerti quo fata ferant, ubi sistere detur.
The first three lines might have been expressed by an ablative absolute in two
words—Troia euersa. But observe. To res Asiae in 1 Vergil adds the explanatory
Priami gentem, amplifying in 2 with the new detail immeritam. Euertere uisum
(1-2) is caught up by ceciditque Ilium (2-3), with the new detail superbum
added, and again echoed (3) by humo fumat—fumat giving a fresh touch to the
picture. In 4 diuersa exsilia is reinforced by desertas terras, sub ipsa Antandro
(5-6) by montibus Idae (6). In 7 ubi sistere detur echoes quo fata ferant. One has
only to contrast the rapidity of Homer, in whom every line marks decisive
advance. But Vergil diffuses himself. And this diffusion is in its origin and aim
rhetorical.
Yet he did not write, and I do not mean to suggest that he wrote, for an
auditorium and ἐς τὸ παραχρῆμα, and not for the scrupulous consideration of
after ages. He wrote to be read and pondered. But he is haunted nevertheless by
the thought of the auditorium. It distracts, and even divides, his literary
consciousness. He writes, perhaps without knowing it, for two classes—for the
members of his patron's salon and for the scholar in his study. We shall not judge
his style truly if we allow ourselves wholly to forget the auditorium. And here let
me add that we shall equally fail to understand the style of Lucan or that of
Statius if we remember, as we are apt to do, only the auditorium. The auditorium
is a much more dominating force in their consciousness than it is in that of
Vergil. But even they rarely allow themselves to forget the judgement of the
scholar and of posterity. They did not choose and place their words with so
meticulous a care merely for the audience of an afternoon. If we sometimes are
offended by their evident subservience to the theatre, yet on the whole we have
greater reason to admire the courage and conscience with which they strove
nevertheless to keep before them the thought of a wider and more distant and
true-judging audience.
I have intentionally selected for notice that rhetorical feature in Vergil's style
which is, I think, the least obvious. How much of the Aeneid was written
ultimately by Epidius I hardly like to inquire. Nowhere does Vergil completely
succeed in concealing his rhetorical schooling. Even in his greatest moments he
is still to a large extent a rhetorician. Indeed I am not sure that he ever writes
pure poetry—poetry which is as purely poetry as that of Catullus. Take the
fourth book of the Aeneid, which has so much passionate Italian quality. Even
there Vergil does not forget the mere formal rules of rhetoric. Analyse any
speech of Dido. Dido knows all the rules. You can christen out of Quintilian
almost all the figures of rhetoric which she employs. Here is a theme which I
have not leisure to develop. But it is interesting to remember in this connexion
the immense and direct influence which Vergil has had upon British oratory.
Burke went nowhere without a copy of Vergil in his pocket. Nor is it for nothing
that the fashion of Vergilian quotation so long dominated our parliamentary
eloquence. These quotations had a perfect appropriateness in a rhetorical
context: for they are the language of a mind by nature and by education
rhetorical.
III
Roman poetry continued for no less than five centuries after the death of Vergil
—and by Roman poetry I mean a Latin poetry classical in form and sentiment.
But of these five centuries only two count. The second and third centuries A.D.
are a Dark Age dividing the silver twilight of the century succeeding the age of
Horace from the brief but brilliant Renaissance of the fourth century: and in the
fifth century we pass into a new darkness. The infection of the Augustan
tradition is sufficiently powerful in the first century to give the impulse to poetic
work of high and noble quality. And six considerable names adorn the period
from Nero to Domitian. Of these the greatest are perhaps those of Seneca,
Lucan, and Martial. All three are of Spanish origin: and it is perhaps to their
foreign blood that they owe the genius which redeems their work from its very
obvious faults. It is the fashion to decry Seneca and Lucan as mere rhetoricians.
Yet in both there is something greater and deeper than mere rhetoric. They move
by habit grandly among large ideas. Life is still deep and tremendous and
sonorous. Their work has a certain Titanic quality. We judge their poetry too
much by their biography, and their biography too little in relation to the terrible
character of their times. Martial is a poet of a very different order. Yet in an
inferior genre he is supreme. No other poet in any language has the same never-
failing grace and charm and brilliance, the same arresting ingenuity, an equal
facility and finish. We speak of his faults, yet, if the truth must be told, his poetry
is faultless—save for one fault: its utter want of moral character. The three other
great names of the period are Statius, Silius, and Valerius. Poets of great talent
but no genius, they 'adore the footsteps' of an unapproachable master.
Religiously careful artists, they see the world through the eyes of others.
Sensible to the effects of Greatness, they have never touched and handled it.
They know it only from the poets whom they imitate. The four winds of life
have never beat upon their decorous faces. We would gladly give the best that
they offer us—and it is often of fine quality—for something much inferior in art
but superior in the indefinable qualities of freshness and gusto. The exhaustion
of the period is well seen in Juvenal—in the jaded relish of his descriptions of
vice, in the complete unreality of his moral code, in a rhetoric which for ever just
misses the fine effects which it laboriously calculates.
The second century is barren. Yet we are dimly aware in the reign of Hadrian of
an abortive Revival. We hear of a school of neoterici: and these neoterici aimed
at just what was needed—greater freshness and life. They experimented in
metre, and they experimented in language. They tried to use in poetry the
language of common speech, the language of Italy rather than that of Rome, and
to bring into literature once again colour and motion. The most eminent of these
neoterici is Annius Florus, of whom we possess some notable fragments. But the
movement failed; and Florus is the only name that arrests the attention of the
student of Roman poetry between Martial and Nemesianus. Nemesianus is
African, and his poems were not written in Rome. But his graceful genius
perhaps owes something to the impulsion given to literary studies by Numerian
—one of the few emperors of the period who exhibit any interest in the progress
of literature. The fourth century is the period of Renaissance. We may see in
Tiberianus the herald of this Renaissance. The four poems which can be
certainly assigned to him are distinguished by great power and charm. It is a
plausible view that he is also the author of the remarkable Peruigilium Veneris—
that poem proceeds at any rate from the school to which Tiberianus belongs. The
style of Tiberianus is formed in the academies of Africa, and so also perhaps his
philosophy. The Platonic hymn to the Nameless God is a noble monument of the
dying Paganism of the era. Tiberianus' political activities took him to Gaul: and
Gaul is the true home of this fourth-century Renaissance. In Gaul around
Ausonius there grew up at Bordeaux a numerous and accomplished and
enthusiastic school of poets. To find a parallel to the brilliance and enthusiasm of
this school we must go back to the school of poets which grew up around
Valerius Cato in Transpadane Gaul in the first century B.C. The Bordeaux school
is particularly interesting from its attitude to Christianity. Among Ausonius'
friends was the austere Paulinus of Nola, and Ausonius himself was a convert to
the Christian faith. But his Christianity is only skin-deep. His Bible is Vergil, his
books of devotion are Horace and Ovid and Statius. The symbols of the Greek
mythology are nearer and dearer to him than the symbolism of the Cross. The
last enemy which Christianity had to overcome was, in fact, Literature. And
strangely enough the conquest was to be achieved finally, not by the superior
ethical quality of the new religion, but by the havoc wrought in Latin speech by
the invasion of the Barbarians, by the decay of language and of linguistic study.
To the period of Ausonius—and probably to Gaul—belong the rather obscure
Asmenidae—the 'sons', or pupils, of Asmenius. At least two of them, Palladius
and Asclepiadius, exhibit genuine poetical accomplishment. But the schools both
of Ausonius and of Asmenius show at least in one particular how relaxed had
become the hold even upon its enthusiasts of the true classical tradition. All
these poets have a passion for triviality, for every kind of tour de force, for
conceits and mannerisms. At times they are not so much poets as the acrobats of
poetry.
The end of the century gives us Claudian, and a reaction against this triviality.
'Paganus peruicacissimus,' as Orosius calls him, Claudian presents the problem
of a poet whose poetry treats with real power the circumstances of an age from
which the poet himself is as detached as can be. Claudian's real world is a world
which was never to be again, a world of great princes and exalted virtues, a
world animated by a religion in which Rome herself, strong and serene, is the
principal deity. Accident has thrown him into the midst of a political nightmare
dominated by intriguing viziers and delivered to a superstition which made men
at once weak and cruel. Yet this world, so unreal to him, he presents in a
rhetorical colouring extraordinarily effective. Had he possessed a truer instinct
for things as they are he might have been the greatest of the Roman satirists. He
has a real mastery of the art of invective. But, while he is great where he
condemns, where he blesses he is mostly contemptible. He has too many of the
arts of the cringing Alexandrian. And they availed him nothing. Over every page
may be heard the steady tramp of the feet of the barbarian invader.
After Claudian we pass into the final darkness. The gloom is illuminated for a
brief moment by the Gaul Rutilius. But Rutilius has really outlived Roman
poetry and Rome itself. Nothing that he admires is any longer real save in his
admiration of it. The things that he condemns most bitterly are the things which
were destined to dominate the world for ten centuries. Christianity is 'a worse
poison than witchcraft'. The monastic spirit is the 'fool-fury of a brain unhinged'.
The monasteries are 'slave-dungeons'.
It was these 'slave-dungeons' which were to keep safe through the long night of
the Middle Ages all that Rutilius held dear. It was these 'slave-dungeons' which
were to afford a last miserable refuge to the works of that long line of poets of
whom Rutilius is the late and forlorn descendant. Much indeed was to perish
even within the fastnesses of these 'slave-dungeons': for the monasteries were
not always secure from the shock of war, nor the precious memorials which they
housed from the fury of fanaticism. Yet much was to survive and to emerge one
day from the darkness and to renew the face of the world. Rutilius wrote his
poem in 416 A.D. If he could have looked forward exactly a thousand years he
would have beheld Poggio and the great Discoverers of the Italian Renaissance
ransacking the 'slave-dungeons' of Italy, France, and Germany, and rejoicing
over each recovered fragment of antiquity with a pure joy not unlike that which
heavenly minds are said to feel over the salvation of souls. These men were,
indeed, kindling into life again the soul of Europe. They were assisting at a New
Birth. In this process of regeneration the deepest force was a Latin force, and of
this Latin force the most impelling part was Latin poetry. We are apt to-day,
perhaps, in our zeal of Hellenism, to forget, or to disparage, the part which Latin
poetry has sustained in moulding the literatures of modern Europe. But if the test
of great poetry is the length and breadth of its influence in the world, then
Roman poetry has nothing to fear from the vagaries of modern fashion. For no
other poetry has so deeply and so continuously influenced the thought and
feeling of mankind. Its sway has been wider than that of Rome itself: and the
Genius that broods over the Capitoline Hill might with some show of justice still
claim, as his gaze sweeps over the immense field of modern poetry, that he
beholds nothing which does not owe allegiance to Rome:
ii
iii
Incertae Aetatis.
4. An Ancient Lullaby
Incertae Aetatis.
ii
iii
iv
ii
iii
iv
vi
viii
ix
7. Dramatic Fragments
ii
iii
iv
vi
vii
viii
ix
ii
iii
Amborum uxores
noctu Troiad exibant capitibus opertis,
flentes ambae, abeuntes lacrimis cum multis.
iv
vi
Transit Melitam
Romanus exercitus, insulam integram urit,
populatur, uastat, rem hostium concinnat.
vii
viii
ix
9. Dramatic Fragments
ii
iii
iv
Ego semper pluris feci
potioremque habui libertatem multo quam pecuniam.
vi
12. Precepts
ii
13. Vaticinium
250-200 B.C. (?)
ii
iii
iv
vi
vii
viii
ix
Dramatic Fragments
22. Alcmaeon
23. Andromache
24. Cassandra
25. ii
26. Telamon
27. Telamon
AGAM.
SENEX.
Temo superat
stellas sublimen agens etiam atque
etiam noctis iter.
35. Fortune
TARQVINIVS
HARIOLVS
Rex, quae in uita ursurpant homines, cogitant curant uident,
quaeque agunt uigilantes agitantque, ea si cui in somno accidunt,
minus mirandum est, di rem tantam haut temere improuiso offerunt.
proin uide ne, quem tu esse hebetem deputas aeque ac pecus,
is sapientia munitum pectus egregie gerat
teque regno expellat: nam id quod de sole ostentum est tibi,
populo commutationem rerum portendit fore
perproquinquam. haec bene uerruncent populo! nam quod dexterum
cepit cursum ab laeua signum praepotens, pulcherrume
auguratum est rem Romanam publicam summam fore.
42. The Argo seen by a Shepherd who has never seen a Ship
ii
iv
vi
ii
iii
54.
56. Marius
63. Terence
ii
iii
66. Exordium
IVVENES
VIRGINES
IVVENES
VIRGINES
IVVENES
VIRGINES
IVVENES
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
at libet innuptis ficto te carpere questu.
quid tum, si carpunt, tacita quem mente requirunt?
Hymen O Hymenaee, Hymen ades O Hymenaee!
VIRGINES
IVVENES
76. Attis
COLLIS o Heliconiei
cultor, Vraniae genus,
qui rapis teneram ad uirum
Virginem, O Hymenaee Hymen,
Hymen O Hymenaee;
Cinge tempora floribus
suaue olentis amaraci,
flammeum cape laetus, huc
Huc ueni, niueo gerens
luteum pede soccum.
Vt lubentius, audiens
se citarier ad suum
munus, huc aditum ferat
Dux bonae Veneris, boni
coniugator amoris.
. . . . . .
. . . . . .
tardet ingenuus pudor:
Quem tamen magis audiens,
flet quod ire necesse est.
102. Nothing to do
ii
108.
To Horace
ii
109. 'Is this the Man that made the Earth to tremble'
112. Pharmaceutria
PASTORVM Musam Damonis et Alphesiboei,
immemor herbarum quos est mirata iuuenca
certantis, quorum stupefactae carmine lynces,
et mutata suos requierunt flumina cursus,
Damonis Musam dicemus et Alphesiboei.
Tu mihi seu magni superas iam saxa Timaui,
siue oram Illyrici legis aequoris,—en erit umquam
ille dies, mihi cum liceat tua dicere facta?
en erit ut liceat totum mihi ferre per orbem
sola Sophocleo tua carmina digna coturno?
a te principium, tibi desinam: accipe iussis
carmina coepta tuis, atque hanc sine tempora circum
inter uictricis hederam tibi serpere lauros.
Frigida uix caelo noctis decesserat umbra,
cum ros in tenera pecori gratissimus herba:
incumbens tereti Damon sic coepit oliuae.
Nascere praeque diem ueniens age, Lucifer, almum,
coniugis indigno Nysae deceptus amore
dum queror et diuos, quamquam nil testibus illis
profeci, extrema moriens tamen adloquor hora.
incipe Maenalios mecum, mea tibia, uersus.
Maenalus argutumque nemus pinusque loquentis
semper habet, semper pastorum ille audit amores
Panaque, qui primus calamos non passus inertis.
incipe Maenalios mecum, mea tibia, uersus.
Mopso Nysa datur: quid non speremus amantes?
iungentur iam grypes equis, aeuoque sequenti
cum canibus timidi uenient ad pocula dammae.
incipe Maenalios mecum, mea tibia, uersus.
Mopse, nouas incide faces: tibi ducitur uxor.
sparge, marite, nuces: tibi deserit Hesperus Oetam.
incipe Maenalios mecum, mea tibia, uersus.
o digno coniuncta uiro, dum despicis omnis,
dumque tibi est odio mea fistula, dumque capellae
hirsutumque supercilium promissaque barba,
nec curare deum credis mortalia quemquam—
incipe Maenalios mecum, mea tibia, uersus—
saepibus in nostris paruam te roscida mala
(dux ego uester eram) uidi cum matre legentem.
alter ab undecimo tum me iam acceperat annus,
iam fragilis poteram a terra contingere ramos:
ut uidi, ut perii, ut me malus abstulit error!
incipe Maenalios mecum, mea tibia, uersus.
nunc scio quid sit Amor: duris in cotibus illum
aut Tmaros aut Rhodope aut extremi Garamantes
nec generis nostri puerum nec sanguinis edunt.
incipe Maenalios mecum, mea tibia, uersus.
saeuus Amor docuit natorum sanguine matrem
commaculare manus; crudelis tu quoque, mater:
crudelis mater magis, an puer improbus ille?
improbus ille puer; crudelis tu quoque, mater.
incipe Maenalios mecum, mea tibia, uersus.
nunc et ouis ultro fugiat lupus, aurea durae
mala ferant quercus, narcisso floreat alnus,
pinguia corticibus sudent electra myricae,
certent et cycnis ululae, sit Tityrus Orpheus,
Orpheus in siluis, inter delphinas Arion—
incipe Maenalios mecum, mea tibia, uersus—
omnia uel medium fiat mare. uiuite siluae:
praeceps aërii specula de montis in undas
deferar; extremum hoc munus morientis habeto.
desine Maenalios, iam desine, tibia, uersus.
Haec Damon: uos, quae responderit Alphesiboeus,
dicite, Pierides; non omnia possumus omnes.
Effer aquam et molli cinge haec altaria uitta,
uerbenasque adole pinguis et mascula tura,
coniugis ut magicis sanos auertere sacris
experiar sensus; nihil hic nisi carmina desunt.
ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnin.
carmina uel caelo possunt deducere Lunam,
carminibus Circe socios mutauit Vlixi,
frigidus in pratis cantando rumpitur anguis.
ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnin.
terna tibi haec primum triplici diuersa colore
licia circumdo, terque haec altaria circum
effigiem duco; numero deus impare gaudet.
ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnin.
necte tribus nodis ternos, Amarylli, colores;
necte, Amarylli, modo et 'Veneris', dic, 'uincula necto.'
ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnin.
limus ut hic durescit, et haec ut cera liquescit
uno eodemque igni, sic nostro Daphnis amore.
sparge molam et fragilis incende bitumine lauros.
Daphnis me malus urit, ego hanc in Daphnide laurum.
ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnin.
talis amor Daphnin qualis cum fessa iuuencum
per nemora atque altos quaerendo bucula lucos
propter aquae riuum uiridi procumbit in ulua
perdita, nec serae meminit decedere nocti,
talis amor teneat, nec sit mihi cura mederi.
ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnin.
has olim exuuias mihi perfidus ille reliquit,
pignora cara sui: quae nunc ego limine in ipso,
terra, tibi mando; debent haec pignora Daphnin.
ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnin.
has herbas atque haec Ponto mihi lecta uenena
ipse dedit Moeris (nascuntur plurima Ponto);
his ego saepe lupum fieri et se condere siluis
Moerin, saepe animas imis excire sepulcris,
atque satas alio uidi traducere messis.
ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnin.
fer cineres, Amarylli, foras riuoque fluenti
transque caput iace, nec respexeris. his ego Daphnin
adgrediar; nihil ille deos, nil carmina curat.
ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnin.
aspice: corripuit tremulis altaria flammis
sponte sua, dum ferre moror, cinis ipse. bonum sit!
nescio quid certe est, et Hylax in limine latrat.
credimus? an, qui amant, ipsi sibi somnia fingunt?
parcite, ab urbe uenit, iam parcite carmina, Daphnis.
113. 'In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread'
116. 'God made the country but man made the town'
117. Exordium
ostendet Capitolio:
sed quae Tibur aquae fertile praefluunt,
et spissae nemorum comae
fingent Aeolio carmine nobilem.
o testudinis aureae
dulcem quae strepitum, Pieri, temperas,
o mutis quoque piscibus
donatura cycni, si libeat, sonum,
123. Winter
124. To Venus
tempestiuius in domum
Pauli purpureis ales oloribus
commissabere Maximi,
si torrere iecur quaeris idoneum;
140. Pollio
141. Regulus
142. Cleopatra
NVNC est bibendum, nunc pede libero
pulsanda tellus; nunc Saliaribus
ornare puluinar deorum
tempus erat dapibus, sodales.
145. Bandusia
O FONS Bandusiae splendidior uitro,
dulci digne mero non sine floribus,
cras donaberis haedo,
cui frons turgida cornibus
147. Pindar
at fides et ingeni
benigna uena est pauperemque diues
me petit: nihil supra
deos lacesso nec potentem amicum
largiora flagito,
satis beatus unicis Sabinis.
truditur dies die
nouaeque pergunt interire lunae:
tu secanda marmora
locas sub ipsum funus et sepulcri
inmemor struis domos
marisque Bais obstrepentis urges
summouere litora,
parum locuples continente ripa;
quid quod usque proximos
reuellis agri terminos et ultra
limites clientium
salis auarus? pellitur paternos
in sinu ferens deos
et uxor et uir sordidosque natos.
pauperi recluditur
regumque pueris, nec satelles Orci
callidum Promethea
reuexit auro captus: hic superbum
ii
178. Hylas
HOC pro continuo te, Galle, monemus amore,
(id tibi ne uacuo defluat ex animo)
saepe imprudenti fortuna occurrit amanti:
crudelis Minyis dixerit Ascanius.
est tibi non infra speciem, non nomine dispar,
Theiodamanteo proximus ardor Hylae:
hunc tu, siue leges Vmbrae sacra flumina siluae,
siue Aniena tuos tinxerit unda pedes,
siue Gigantea spatiabere litoris ora,
siue ubicumque uago fluminis hospitio,
Nympharum semper cupidis defende rapinis
(non minor Ausoniis est amor Adryasin);
nec tibi sit curae fontes et frigida saxa,
Galle, neque expertos semper adire lacus.
namque ferunt olim Pagasae naualibus Argon
egressam longe Phasidos isse uiam,
et iam praeteritis labentem Athamantidos undis
Mysorum scopulis applicuisse ratem.
hic manus heroum, placidis ut constitit oris,
mollia composita litora fronde tegit.
at comes inuicti iuuenis processerat ultra,
raram sepositi quaerere fontis aquam.
hunc duo sectati fratres, Aquilonia proles,
hunc super et Zetes, hunc super et Calais,
oscula suspensis instabant carpere plumis,
oscula et alterna ferre supina fuga.
ille sub extrema pendens secluditur ala
et uolucres ramo summouet insidias.
iam Pandioniae cessat genus Orithyiae:
a dolor! ibat Hylas, ibat Hamadryasin.
hic erat Arganthi Pege sub uertice montis
grata domus Nymphis umida Thyniasin,
quam supra nullae pendebant debita curae
roscida desertis poma sub arboribus,
et circum irriguo surgebant lilia prato
candida purpureis mixta papaueribus.
quae modo decerpens tenero pueriliter ungui
proposito florem praetulit officio,
et modo formosis incumbens nescius undis
errorem blandis tardat imaginibus.
tandem haurire parat demissis flumina palmis
innixus dextro plena trahens umero.
cuius ut accensae Dryades candore puellae
miratae solitos destituere choros,
prolapsum leuiter facili traxere liquore:
tum sonitum rapto corpore fecit Hylas.
cui procul Alcides iterat responsa, sed illi
nomen ab extremis fontibus aura refert.
quae miser ignotis error perpessus in oris
Herculis indomito fleuerat Ascanio,
his, o Galle, tuos monitus seruabis amores;
formosum Nymphis credere cautus Hylan.
182. The Lover alone knows in what Hour Death shall come to him
ii
197. Comets
204. Andromeda
ii
ii
225. Socrates
226. Opportunity
227. Epilogue
232. Time
233. Corsica
234. Athens
ii
241. Hymeneal
243. Mutability
(GLYCERANVS. MYSTES)
Gl. QVID tacitus, Mystes? My. curae mea gaudia, turbant:
cura dapes sequitur, magis inter pocula surgit
et grauis anxietas laetis incumbere gaudet.
253. Contrasts
262. To Sleep
263. Bilbilis
i
TEMPORIBVS nostris aetas cum cedat auorum
creuerit et maior cum duce Roma suo,
ingenium sacri miraris deesse Maronis,
nec quemquam tanta bella sonare tuba.
sint Maecenates, non deerunt, Flacce, Marones,
Vergiliumque tibi uel tua rura dabunt.
iugera perdiderat miserae uicina Cremonae
flebat et abductas Tityrus aeger ouis.
risit Tuscus eques, paupertatemque malignam
reppulit et celeri iussit abire fuga.
'accipe diuitias et uatum maximus esto;
tu licet et nostrum' dixit 'Alexin ames'.
adstabat domini mensis pulcerrimus ille
marmorea fundens nigra Falerna manu,
et libata dabat roseis carchesia labris,
quae poterant ipsum sollicitare Iouem.
excidit attonito pinguis Galatea poetae,
Thestylis et rubras messibus usta genas:
protinus ITALIAM concepit et ARMA VIRVMQUE,
qui modo uix Culicem fleuerat ore rudi.
quid Varios Marsosque loquar ditataque uatum
nomina, magnus erit quos numerare labor?
ergo ego Vergilius, si munera Maecenatis
des mihi? Vergilius non ero, Marsus ero.
ii
ii
iii
iv
271. In Memoriam
Alcimus
ii
Glaucias
iii
Paris
iv
Erotion
274. Diadumenos
QVOD spirat tenera malum mordente puella,
quod de Corycio quae uenit aura croco;
uinea quod primis cum floret cana racemis,
gramina quod redolent, quae modo carpsit ouis;
quod myrtus, quod messor Arabs, quod sucina trita,
pallidus Eoo ture quod ignis olet;
gleba quod aestiuo leuiter cum spargitur imbre,
quod madidas nardo passa corona comas:
hoc tua, saeue puer Diadumene, basia fragrant.
quid si tota dares illa sine inuidia?
275. Earinos
ii
276. To a Schoolmaster
280. Saturnalia
ii
285. Valedictory
286. Epitaphs
Nepos
ii
293. Bacchus
294. Women
TAM malum est habere nummos, non habere quam malum est;
tam malum est audere semper, quam malum est semper pudor;
tam malum est tacere multum, quam malum est multum loqui;
tam malum est foris amica, quam malum est uxor domi:
nemo non haec uera dicit, nemo non contra facit.
301. Viue
302. Ludite
304. Pan
308. 'Margaret'
A Dog's Epitaph
Learning
ii
Religion
iii
Friendship
iv
Death
vi
313. Narcissus
314. Woman
317. Gold
319. God
OMNIPOTENS, annosa poli quem suspicit aetas,
quem sub millenis semper contutibus unum
nec numero quisquam poterit pensare nec aeuo,
nunc esto affatus, si quo te nomine dignum est,
seu sacer ignoto gaudes, quo maxima tellus
intremuit, sistunt rapidos uaga sidera cursus.
tu solus, tu multus item, tu primus et idem
postremus mediusque simul mundique superstes
(nam sine fine tui labentia tempora finis),
altera ab alterno spectans fera turbine certo
rerum fata rapi uitasque inuoluier aeuo
atque iterum reducis supera in conuexa referri,
scilicet ut mundo redeat quod partubus astra
perdiderint refluumque iterum per corpora fiat.
tu (siquidem fas est in temet tendere sensum
et speciem temptare sacram, qua sidera cingis
immensus longamque simul complecteris aethram)
fulgentis forsan rapida sub imagine Phoebi
flammifluum quoddam iubar es, quo cuncta coruscans
ipse uides nostrumque premis solemque diemque.
tu genus omne deum, tu rerum causa uigorque,
tu natura omnis, deus innumerabilis unus,
tu sexu plenus toto, tibi nascitur olim
sidereus mundus (genus hinc hominumque deumque),
lucens, augusto stellatus flore iuuentae.
quem (precor, aspires), qua sit ratione creatus,
quo genitus factusue modo, da nosse uolenti;
da, pater, augustas ut possim noscere causas,
mundanas olim molis quo foedere rerum
sustuleris animamque leui quo maximus olim
texueris numero, quo congrege dissimilique,
quidque id sit uegetum, quod per cita corpora uiuit.
ii
325. Dedication
329. Nemesis
(From the Greek)
337. Narcissus
His Wife
ii
His Father-in-law
iii
His Aunt
i
Menelaus
ii
Deiphobus
346. Valedictory
351. Galla
ASCLEPIADIVS
circa 400 A.D.
355. Fortune
II
PALLADIVS
356. Orpheus
III
(a) Palladius.
(b) Vomanius.
(c) Maximinus.
IV
(a) Asclepiadius.
(b) Vitalis.
(c) Euphorbius.
360. Epithalamium
364. On Avarice
373. Rome
376. An Invitation
'The subject of it', says Johnson, 'is a character not discriminated by any shining
or eminent peculiarities: yet that which really makes, though not the splendour,
the felicity of life, and that which every wise man will choose for his final and
lasting companion in the languor of age, in the quiet of privacy, when he departs
weary and disgusted from the ostentatious, the volatile and the vain. Of such a
character, which the dull overlook, and the gay despise, it was fit that the value
should be made known and the dignity established.'
66
(Beginning at the third paragraph, Illud in his rebus...)
67
SWEET, when the great sea's water is stirred to his depths by the storm-winds,
Standing ashore to descry one afar-off mightily struggling:
Not that a neighbour's sorrow to you yields dulcet enjoyment:
But that the sight hath a sweetness, of ills ourselves are exempt from.
Sweet too 'tis to behold, on a broad plain mustering, war hosts
Arm them for some great battle, one's self unscathed by the danger:—
Yet still happier this: to possess, impregnably guarded,
Those calm heights of the sages, which have for an origin Wisdom:
Thence to survey our fellows, observe them this way and that way
Wander amidst Life's path, poor stragglers seeking a highway:
Watch mind battle with mind, and escutcheon rival escutcheon:
Gaze on that untold strife, which is waged 'neath the sun and the starlight,
Up as they toil on the surface whereon rest Riches and Empire.
O race born unto trouble! O minds all lacking of eye-sight!
'Neath what a vital darkness, amidst how terrible dangers
Move ye thro' this thing Life, this fragment! Fools that ye hear not
Nature clamour aloud for the one thing only: that, all pain
Parted and passed from the body, the mind too bask in a blissful
Dream, all fear of the future and all anxiety over!
Now as regards man's body, a few things only are needful,
(Few, tho' we sum up all), to remove all misery from him,
Aye, and to strew in his path such a lib'ral carpet of pleasures
That scarce Nature herself would at times ask happiness greater.
Statues of youth and of beauty may not gleam golden around him,
(Each in his right hand bearing a great lamp lustrously burning,
Whence to the midnight revel a light may be furnishëd always),
Silver may not shine softly, nor gold blaze bright, in his mansion,
Nor to the noise of the tabret his halls gold-cornicëd echo:—
Yet still he, with his fellow, reposed on the velvety greensward,
Near to a rippling stream, by a tall tree canopied over,
Shall, though they lack great riches, enjoy all bodily pleasure:
Chiefliest then when above them a fair sky smiles, and the young year
Flings with a bounteous hand over each green meadow the wild-flowers:—
Not more quickly depart from his bosom fiery fevers,
Who beneath crimson hangings and pictures cunningly broidered
Tosses about, than from him who must lie in beggarly raiment.
Therefore, since to the body avail not riches, avails not
Heraldry's utmost boast, nor the pomp and pride of an empire;
Next shall you own that the mind needs likewise nothing of these things;
Unless—when, peradventure, your armies over the champaign
Spread with a stir and a ferment and bid War's image awaken,
Or when with stir and with ferment a fleet sails forth upon ocean—
Cowed before these brave sights, pale Superstition abandon
Straightway your mind as you gaze, Death seem no longer alarming,
Trouble vacate your bosom and Peace hold holiday in you.
But if (again) all this be a vain impossible fiction,
If of a truth men's fears and the cares which hourly beset them
Heed not the javelin's fury, regard not clashing of broad-swords,
But all boldly amongst crowned heads and the rulers of empires
Stalk, not shrinking abashed from the dazzling glare of the red gold,
Not from the pomp of the monarch who walks forth purple-apparelled:
These things shew that at times we are bankrupt, surely, of reason:
Think too that all man's life through a great Dark laboureth onward.
For as a young boy trembles and in that mystery, Darkness,
Sees all terrible things: so do we too, ev'n in the daylight,
Ofttimes shudder at that which is not more really alarming
Than boys' fears when they waken and say some danger is o'er them.
So this panic of mind, these clouds which gather around us,
Fly not the bright sunbeam, nor the ivory shafts of the daylight:
Nature, rightly revealed, and the Reason only, dispel them.
C.S. CALVERLEY
69
70
I give a part of this piece in the version of Dryden, beginning from Cerberus et
furiae. 'I am not dissatisfied', says Dryden, 'upon the review of anything I have
done in this author.'
74
82
83
This beautiful and delicate piece remains the despair of the translator. I quote a
few lines of Cowley's sometimes rather clumsy version (beginning from Sic,
inquit, mea uita):
85 b
So many critics have compared Catullus to Burns that some of them may be glad
to see this North-Italian rendered into the English of the North.
I append the version of Prof. R. Ellis, which preserves the metre of the original:
86 a
Langhorne is best known by his translation of Plutarch's Lives. But he was a
copious poet; and Catullus has never perhaps been more gracefully rendered
than in the following piece:
86 b
92
97
Of this, one of the most famous and effective of Catullus's poems, I offer two
versions. The first (an adaptation) is by 'knowing Walsh', the friend of Pope,
pronounced by Dryden to be 'the first critic in the nation': the second is by Prof.
Slater of Cardiff:
100
101
103
110
I append Clough's Lines Written in a Lecture Room. The theme is that of Vergil
inverted. But the mood in either poet is the same—that mood of passionate
revolt against academicism which never comes to some people and never departs
from others:
116
Dryden's version of this piece shows him at his best as a translator of Vergil.
'Methinks I come,' he writes, 'like a malefactor, to make a speech upon the
gallows, and to warn all other poets, by my sad example, from the sacrilege of
translating Vergil.' But in the Georgics, at any rate, which he reckons 'more
perfect in their kind than even the divine Aeneids,' he can challenge comparison
with most of his rivals.
118
(Beginning at At cantu commotae....)
119 a
121
I give first the version of Conington—an excellent specimen of his skill and its
limitations; and I add Pope's imitation—a piece as graceful as anything he wrote:
124
125
Milton's version has been a good deal criticized. Yet, though it lacks the
lightness of its original, it remains a nobler version than any other. Of other
versions the most interesting is, perhaps, that of Chatterton (made from a literal
English translation), and the most graceful that of William Hamilton of Bangour.
Of the latter I quote a few lines:
126
Of this often-translated poem I give first the version of Herrick and then that of
Gladstone. There is an amusing adaptation in the Poems of Soame Jenyns,
Dialogue between the Rt. Hon. Henry Pelham and Modern Popularity.
127
136
139
I give the first stanza of this poem in the effective paraphrase of Herrick, and the
first two stanzas in the rather diffuse rendering of Byron. Byron's version is one
of his earliest pieces but not altogether wanting in force.
145
148
The rendering that follows is printed in the author's Ionica not as a translation,
but as a poem, under the title Hypermnestra. It represents our poem of Horace
from the 25th line onwards.
149
152, ii
153
161
166
179
When thou shalt kiss their tears, kiss too for me:
Henceforth thy load must be the house complete.
If thou must weep with them not there to see,
When present, with dry cheeks their kisses cheat.
217
I give a part of the version of Stepney, whom Dr. Johnson describes as 'a very
licentious translator'.
IF mighty gods can mortal sorrows know,
And be the humble partners of our woe,
Now loose your tresses, pensive Elegy,—
Too well your office and your name agree.
Tibullus, once the joy and pride of Fame,
Lies now—rich fuel—on the trembling flame;
Sad Cupid now despairs of conquering hearts,
Throws by his empty quiver, breaks his darts,
Eases his useless bows from idle strings.
Nor flies, but humbly creeps with flagging wings—
He wants, of which he robbed fond lovers, rest,—
And wounds with furious hands his pensive breast.
Those graceful curls which wantonly did flow,
The whiter rivals of the falling snow,
Forget their beauty and in discord lie,
Drunk with the fountain from his melting eye.
. . . . . . . .
In vain to gods (if gods there are) we pray,
And needless victims prodigally pay;
Worship their sleeping deities, yet Death
Scorns votaries and stops the praying breath:
To hallowed shrines intending Fate will come,
And drag you from the altar to the tomb.
Go, frantic poet, with delusions fed,
Thick laurels guard your consecrated head—
Now the sweet master of your art is dead.
What can we hope, since that a narrow span
Can measure the remains of thee, Great Man?
. . . . . . . .
If any poor remains survive the flames
Except thin shadows and mere empty names,
Free in Elysium shall Tibullus rove,
Nor fear a second death should cross his love.
There shall Catullus, crowned with bays, impart
To his far dearer friend his open heart;
There Gallus (if Fame's hundred tongues all lie)
Shall, free from censure, no more rashly die.
Such shall our poet's blest companions be,
And in their deaths, as in their lives, agree.
But thou, rich Urn, obey my strict commands,
Guard thy great charge from sacrilegious hands;
Thou, Earth, Tibullus' ashes gently use,
And be as soft and easy as his Muse.
G. STEPNEY.
240
261
262
I append six Sonnets to Sleep by six English poets of very different genius, none
of whom, save perhaps Drummond, seems to have been influenced by Statius.
Cowley's poem To Sleep in the Mistress may perhaps also be read—the last line
shows that Cowley recalled Statius.
Side by side with these sonnets may be placed Thomas Warton's Ode—a fine
poem, too little known:—
287
Byron's version is a weak piece of youthful work. I add here Pope's Dying
Christian to his Soul, a noble poem suggested by that of Hadrian, and
emphasizing powerfully the contrast between pagan and Christian sentiment:—
VITAL spark of heavenly flame!
Quit, oh quit this mortal frame!
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying,
Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life!
368
I append the version of a poet who was accounted in his time 'the best translator
since Pope'.
If we accent these five words as Naevius and the Metelli would in ordinary
speech have accented them, we shall have to place our accents thus:—
since by what is known as the Law of the Penultimate the accent in Latin always
falls on the penultimate syllable save in those words of three (or more) syllables
which have a short penultimate and take the accent consequently on the ante-
penultimate syllable. But those who accommodate the Latin saturnian to the
rhythm of 'The queen was in her parlour ...' have to postulate an anomalous
accentuation:—
The Saturnian line is, they hold, a verse falling into two cola, each colon
containing three accented (and an undefined number of unaccented) syllables—
word-accent and verse-accent (i. e. metrical ictus) corresponding necessarily
only at the last accented syllable in each colon (as Metélli ... poétae above).
Now here there are at least four serious difficulties:
1. While the principle of the verse is accentual half the words in any given line
may be accented as they were never accented anywhere else.
2. Sometimes verse-accent and word-accent do not correspond even at the last
accent in a colon. There is, for example, no better authenticated Saturnian than
Cornelius Lucius Scipio Barbatus:
and it is incredible that at any period in the history of the Latin language the
word-accent ever fell on the middle syllable of Lucius[17].
3. The incidence of word-accent is left unfixed save so far as the incidence of
verse-accent enables us to fix it. But the incidence of the verse-accent is itself
hopelessly uncertain. In a very large percentage of saturnian lines we abandon
the natural word-accent and have at the same time no possible means of
determining upon what syllable of what word we are to put the verse-accent.
or
ii.
But is it certain, after all, that the accent-law in Saturnian verse is the Law of the
Penultimate? There was, as is well known, a period in the history of the Latin
language when this Law did not obtain, but all Latin words were alike accented
on the first syllable. When this period ended we cannot precisely determine. But,
as Lindsay himself points out, the influence of the old protosyllabic accentuation
was not quite dead even in the time of Plautus.[18] Now the saturnian verse
undoubtedly reaches back to a very remote antiquity: even of our extant
specimens some are very likely as old as the eighth century. It is probable
enough, therefore, that the accent-law known at any rate to the first saturnian
poets was the old protosyllabic law. And when we remember the hieratic
character of the earliest poetry, when we take into account the conservatism of
any priestly ritual or rule, may we not suppose it possible that saturnian verse
retained the ancient law of accentuation long after the Law of the Penultimate
had asserted itself in ordinary speech and in other forms of literature? Accented,
as Lindsay accents it, according to the Law of the Penultimate, the saturnian
loses the lilt and swing which it has under the old 'Queen-and-Parlour' system.
dábunt málum Metélli Naéuio poétae
is not a music to pray to or dance to or die to. A much easier and more lively
movement would be
2. The third foot must consist of a trisyllabic word or 'word-group'[20]: save that
occasionally the second and third feet together may be formed of a
quadrisyllabic (or pentasyllabic) word with secondary accent.
3. The first and second, and again the fourth and fifth, feet may be either
disyllabic or trisyllabic: but (a) two trisyllables may not follow one another in
the first two feet, and (b) if the fifth foot (usually trisyllabic) is a disyllable the
fourth must be trisyllabic.
The normal type is
A common variation in the first two feet is either ─́─ ── ── │ ─́─ ──, or
─́─ ── │ ─́─ ── ──. A somewhat rare variation in the last two is
─́─ ── ── │ ─́─ ──. In the first foot ─́─ sometimes replaces ─́─ ── (or
─́─ ── ──), no doubt owing to the greater stress at the opening of the verse.
Some exceptions (or apparent exceptions) to these rules will no doubt be found.
But the rules cover most of the extant examples of saturnian verse: and it must
be remembered that the text of our fragments is often not at all certain. The
system outlined has, however, the merit—which it shares with Lindsay—that it
dispenses with most of the alterations of the text in which other systems involve
us.
THE HYMN OF THE ARVAL BROTHERHOOD.
I have given the text of this celebrated piece according to what may be called the
Vulgate; and in the sub-title, in the Glossary and in my Introduction p. 1 I have
followed the ordinary interpretation. I may perhaps be allowed here to suggest a
different view of the poem.
It begins with an appeal to the Lares. These are apparently the Lares Consitivi,
gods of sowing. Then comes an appeal to Marmar, then to Mars. Then the
Semones are invoked, who, like the Lares, are gods of sowing. There follows a
final appeal to Marmar.
It is pretty clear that the Mars, Marmar, or Marmor, invoked in such iteration is
not the war-god, but Mars in his more ancient character of a god of agriculture.
But if this be so, what are we to make of lines 7-9,
'Be thou glutted, fierce Mars, leap the threshold, stay thy scourge',—or, as
Buecheler takes it, 'stand, wild god'? This sort of language is appropriate enough
to Mars as god of war, but utterly inappropriate to the farmer's god[21].
Now it so happens that for
the monumental stone to which we owe this inscription offers at one point
'Be thou the sower: sower Mars, sow the soil, moisten the loam'. And this
suggests what ought to be the meaning of enos iuuate. enos ought to mean
harvests, or at any rate something in that kind. And why should it not?
Hesychius knew a word ἔνος which he glosses by ἐνιαυτός, ἐπέτειος καρπός.
See Suidas s.v. and Herwerden Lexicon Suppletorium.
The Hymn is a hymn for Seedtime. We know, however, that the festival at which
it was sung fell in the month of May. The explanation of this has been hinted at
by Henzen.[23] Henzen points out that the Arval Brothers entered on their duties
at the Saturnalia, and that their worship is probably connected in its origin with
Saturn, the god of sowing. (See Varro L.L. 5, 57, and apud Aug. C.D. 7. 13 p.
290, 28, Festus s.v. Saturnus.) We must suppose, therefore, that at some date
when the meaning of its words had been already lost this hymn was transferred
from a seedtime festival to a harvest festival.
GLOSSARY OF OLD LATIN
1. i. cante: cante (sometimes said to be an Athematic imper. 2 pers. plur.).
ii. quome: cum.
Leucesie: (Lucerie?) a title of Jupiter as god of lightning.
tet: te.
tremonti: tremunt.
quor: cur.
Curis: 'god of spear-men' (?): Etruscan curis, a spear: (cf. Iunonis Curitis).
decstumum: dextimum, 'on the right' (the suffix -imus is not strictly a
superlative suffix, but denotes position: cf. summus (sup-mus), finitimus,
citimus).
iii. ulod: illo (?) (ollod) (cf. Umbrian ulu).
oriese: oriere: future for imperative as in 2 aduocapit.
isse: ipse (ipese): the form isse is merely the vulgar spelling of a later period.
ueuet: uiuit.
po melios: optimus (?) ('po pro potissimum positum est in Saliari carmine',
Festus).
eu: heu (admirantis).
recum: regum (as uirco for uirgo in the Duenos Inscription: and so always in
early Latin until 312 B.C.).
8. ii. Anchisa: Anchises (-as): as Aenea in iv, and in later Latin Atrida &c.
iii. Troiad: Troia (abl.).
iv. Aenea: Aeneas: so Anchisa in ii.
vi. concinnat: 'concinnare est apte componere', Festus.
viii. mavolunt: malunt (mage-uolunt).
9. iii. cedo: dic, da (the demonstrative particle -ce + old imperative of dare).
v. promicando: 'promicare est extendere et longe iacere', Nonius.
12. nouentium: *nuentium (annuentium): cf. the spelling souo = suo in 44. So
regularly in the oldest Latin. ou for u.
duonum: donum (cf. Umbrian dunu, Oscan dunum: old Latin duo = do).
negumate: negate (nec autumate).
17. indu: Greek ἔνδον; as 21. viii, and 32 (endo): later the word became
confused with, and then entirely supplanted by, in.
uolup, 'pleasantly': neut. of an extinct volupis, used adverbially: cf. facul,
difficul.
suaset: (i.e. suasset), suasisset.
uerbum paucum: uerborum paucorum.
42. dum .. dum: τότε μὲν .. τότε δέ: cf. the use of dum in primumdum,
agedum, adesdum.
ABBREVIATIONS
The numerals in large type indicate the number of the piece (not the page, save
where p. is prefixed).
(In the early fragments the numerals indicate the number of the line as given in
the principal editions.)
Accius, L., 41-43 (T.R. 17, 391; 156, 234, 314, 621, 651, 203)
Ennius, Q., 14-34 (Vahlen, Ann. 35, 77, 194, 234, 303, 401, 266;
1, 52, 110, 367, 140 and 187, 287, 370, 443, 457, 514;
Scen. 27, 85, 54, 35, 316, 312, 234, 246, 215;
Varia 19, 21;
Sat. 6;
Var. 15 and 17)
Livius (L. Livius Andronicus), 6-7 (F.P.R. 1, 3, 4, 21, 22, 28, 9, 26, 36, 38;
T.R. 5, 12, 13, 16, 18, 30, 37, 38, 40, 7)
Naevius, Cn., 8-10 (F.P.R. 1, 3, 4, 24, 32, 37, 38, 39, 63;
T.R. 15, 21, 7;
C.R. 10, 15, 75;
F.P.R. p. 296)
Seneca, L. Annaeus, 232-244 (A.L. 232, 237, 411, 420, 445, 417 and 418;
Herc. Fur. 838-874;
Phaedra 761-784;
Tro. 371-408;
Med. 56-115;
Thyest. 339-403, 596-602;
Herc. Oet. 1031-1127)
Sidonius Apollinaris (C. Sollius Modestus Apollinaris Sidonius), 374-7
(Luetjohann pp. 233, 242, 243, 30)
Transcriber's Notes:
Table of contents added.
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