FOOTNOTES:
Inde, ubi prima quies, medio jam noctis abactæ
Curriculo, expulerat somnum, quum femina primum,
Cui tolerare colo vitam tenuique Minervâ,
Impositum cinerem et sopitos suscitat ignes,
Noctem addens operi; famulasque ad lumina longo
Exercet penso; castum ut servare cubile
Conjugis, et possit parvos educere natos—Æn. viii. 407-413.
I take the liberty of rejecting the ruling of Heyne, and of the late Professor Conington, that ‘impositum’ is the regimen of ‘tolerare.’ (1) It is not necessary. (2) ‘Impositum’ gives importance and meaning to ‘cinerem,’ which would be too meagre without it. It does also, as it were, balance ‘sopitos.’ (3) It brings before the eye the pictures of the way in which the fire had been made up over night, to keep it alive till the morning, and of the way in which in the morning it is resuscitated. Where wood is the fuel, the ashes are heaped up, for the night, over the live coals. This excludes the air. In the morning, the heaped up ashes are removed, and the fire fed. Everyone has seen this done in Italy, and elsewhere. Virgil had seen it done; and this is what he describes.
I also suppose that ‘ad lumina’ means at the first dawn. The good woman herself rises before dawn, ‘noctem addens operi.’ But it would be hard, and unnatural, to set her women to work before dawn. That they should work through the whole day, beginning at dawn, is a sufficiently long task for them. I even doubt whether spinning and weaving could have been carried on with the feeble light of the lamps of those days; and, too, whether, if possible, it would have paid to do it for the short time before dawn. At all events by my interpretation of ‘ad lumina’ the good woman’s motives and early rising are thrown into strong relief; and this is done without making her treat her women harshly.
[2] I was reminded of the Anacreontic to the Grasshopper, and of Cowley’s rendering of it:—
Thou dost drink, and dance, and sing,
Happier than the happiest king.
Thou dost innocently enjoy,
Nor does thy luxury destroy.
To thee, of all things upon earth,
Life is no longer than thy mirth.
Happy insect! happy thou,
Dost neither age nor winter know.
But when thou’st danced, and drunk, and sung
Thy fill, the flowery leaves among
(Voluptuous, and wise withal,
Epicurean animal,)
Sated with thy summer feast,
Thou retir’st to endless rest.
[3] Gibbon’s Miscellaneous Works, vol. i. pp. 198 and 255.
[4] And may I not be allowed to say here in passing, that our observation of this fact must have a good effect upon our treatment of our dumb fellow-workers, and of every creature that breathes? Indeed, if they were not dumb, as has been suggested in an earlier part of this volume, they would probably be able to show us, that in the highest gift also of all, that of reason, their approximation to ourselves is much closer than many of us suppose at present. And may not this eventually prove a new, and very striking instance of the way in which an increase of knowledge enlarges and elevates religion? I say religion rather than the sense of duty, because if such knowledge should bring us to treat the lower animals with kindly interest and consideration, it will not be because we feel in the matter responsibility to them, or to our fellow men, but to the common Author of all.