Footnotes
‘Leporum
Disertus puer ac facetiarum.’ Catullus xii. 8.
Non ego divitias patrum fructusque requiro
Quos tulit antiquo condita messis avo.
Nam tua cum multi versarent rura iuvenci
Abstulit excultas pertica tristis opes.
‘Eloquentiam studiaque liberalia ab aetate prima et cupide et laboriosissime exercuit.’ Sueton. ii. 84.
‘Augusto prompta ac profluens, quaeque deceret principem, eloquentia fuit.’ Tac. Ann. xiii. 3.
Maecenatis erunt vera tropaea fides.
Et sumta et posita pace fidele caput.
Vester, Camenae, vester in arduos
Tollor Sabinos; seu mihi frigidum
Praeneste, seu Tibur supinum,
Seu liquidae placuere Baiae. Od. iii. 4. 21–24.
Magnae mentis opus nec de lodice paranda
Attonitae, currus et equos, faciesque Deorum
Aspicere, et qualis Rutulum confundat Erinnys, etc.
‘’Gainst flaming Sirius’ fury thou
Art proof, and grateful cool dost yield
To oxen wearied with the plough,
And flocks that range afield.’ Martin.
Neque Alexandrina beluata conchuliata tapetia.
Discedo Alcaeus puncto illius: ille meo quis?
Quis nisi Callimachus? Si plus adposcere visus,
Fit Mimnermus, et optivo cognomine crescit. Ep. ii. 2. 99.
‘At Rome, of all earth’s cities queen,
Men deign to rank me in the noble press
Of bards beloved of man: and now, I ween,
Doth envy’s rancorous tooth assail me less.’ Martin.
‘O servile crew! how oft your antics mean
Have moved my laughter, oh, how oft my spleen.’ Martin.
‘’Tis writing, writing now is all the rage.’ Martin.
Disce, puer, virtutem ex me, verumque laborem,
Fortuna saevo laeta negotio,
Quod faciunt nobis annorum tempora, circum
Cum redeunt felusque ferunt variosque lepores.
Cp. ‘Along the cool sequestered vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.’
Octobres Maro consecravit Idus.
‘But if a chaste and blooming wife, beside,
His cheerful home with sweet young blossoms fills,
Like some stout Sabine, or the sunburnt bride
Of the lithe peasant of the Apulian hills.’ Martin.
Siquidem virga populea more regionis in puerperiis eodem statim loco depacta ita brevi evaluit tempore ut multo ante satas populos adaequasset, quae arbor Virgilii ex eo dicta atque etiam consecrata est summa gravidarum ac fetarum religione.
The resemblance of the name to the word virga is probably at the root of this story.
‘An Orphic song indeed,
A song divine of high and passionate thoughts
To their own music chanted.’
Tu canis umbrosi subter pineta Galaesi
Thyrsin et attritis Daphnin harundinibus,
Namque sub Oebaliae memini me turribus arcis
Ergo tua rura manebunt—
Ille meas errare boves—
Multa meis exiret victima saeptis.
Candidior postquam tondenti barba cadebat—
Fortunate senex.
Καὶ γὰρ ἐγὼν Μοισᾶν καπυρὸν στόμα, κἠμὲ λέγοντι
πάντες ἀοιδὸν ἄριστον· ἐγὼ δέ τις οὐ ταχυπειθής,
οὐ Δᾶν· οὐ γάρ πω κατ’ έμὸν νόον οὔτε τὸν ἐσθλόν
Σικελίδαν νίκημι τὸν ἐκ Σάμω, οὐδὲ Φιλητᾶν
ἀείδων, βάτραχος δὲ ποτ’ ἀκρίδας ὥς τις ἐρίσδω.
Theoc. vii. 37–41.
Saepibus in nostris parvam te roscida mala.
At mater viridis saltus orbata peragrans.
καί μ’ ἀτρέμας εἶπε σεσαρώς
ὄμματι μειδιόωντι, γέλως δέ οἱ εἴχετο χείλευς.
θᾶσαι δὴ καὶ ταῦτα τὰ τῶ θείω Λιθυέρσα.
‘Next well-trimm’d
A crowd of shepherds, with as sunburnt looks
As may be read of in Arcadian books;
Such as sat listening round Apollo’s pipe,
When the great deity, for earth too ripe,
Let his divinity o’erflowing die,
In music, through the vales of Thessaly.’
‘He seem’d,
To common lookers on, like one who dream’d
Of idleness in groves Elysian.’
Keats, Endymion.
‘Then he tells in song how Gallus as he strayed by the streams of Permessus was led by one of the sisters to the Aonian mount.’
‘All those strains, which when attuned by Phoebus, Eurotas heard, enraptured, and bade his laurels learn by heart, he sings.’
‘Fundit humo facilem victum iustissima tellus.’
Ipse seram teneras maturo tempore vites
Rusticus et facili grandia poma manu.
Nec tamen interdum pudeat tenuisse bidentem, etc.
‘Shall I see you from afar hang from some bushy rock.’
‘Here green Mincio forms a fringe of soft reeds along his bank.’
‘He found us when the age had bound
Our souls in its benumbing round,’ etc.
Ut cum carceribus missos,
Ut cum carceribus sese effudere quadrigae,
‘For safe the herds range field and fen,
Full-headed stand the shocks of grain.’
‘Now each man basking on his slopes
Weds to the widowed trees the vine.’
‘Thy era, Caesar, which doth bless
Our plains anew with fruitfulness.’ Martin.
Ausim vel tenui vitem committere sulco;
Neve tibi ad solem vergant vineta cadentem, etc.
Ego apis Matinae
More modoque, etc.
‘I shall not here detain you with any tale of fancy, and winding digressions and long preambles.’
‘The other themes that might have charmed the vacant mind, are all hackneyed now.’
Tantus amor florum et generandi gloria mellis,
Nunc age, naturas apibus quas Iuppiter ipse, etc.
Exquirunt calidumque animis et cursibus acrem,
Neptunique ipsa deducat origine gentem,
Εὔχεσθαι δὲ Διὶ χθονίῳ Δημήτερί θ’ ἁγνῇ.
Φράζεσθαι δ’ εὖτ’ ἂν γεράνου φωνὴν ἐπακούσῃς.
Θεῶν τε τὰν ὑπερτάταν Γᾶν
ἄφθιτον ἀκαμἀταν ἀποτρύεται,
ἰλλομένων ἀρότρων ἔτος εἰς ἔτος, ἱππείῳ γένει πολεύων.
Atque haec ut certis possemus discere signis,
Aestusque pluviasque et agentis frigora ventos,
Ipse Pater statuit, quid menstrua Luna moneret.
Labor actus in orbem
Agricolis redit.
Omnia quae multo ante memor provisa repones.
Quae vigilanda viris.
Continuo in silvis magna vi flexa domatur, etc.
Cf. ‘Incolumi Iove et urbe Roma.’ Hor. iii. 5. 12. Cf. also iii. 3. 42; iii. 30. 8.
Cf. also ‘Sedem Iovis Optimi Maximi auspicato a maioribus pignus imperii conditam,’ etc. Tac. Hist. iii. 72; and ‘Sed nihil aeque quam incendium Capitolii, ut finem imperio adesse crederent, impulerat,’ iv. 54.
The Capitol is the symbol of the eternal duration of the Empire to Virgil also:—
Dum domus Aeneae Capitoli immobile saxum
Accolet, imperiumque pater Romanus habebit.
Aen. ix. 448–9.
Atque ipsae memores redeunt in tecta, suosque
Ducunt.
Pulveris exigui prope litus parva Matinum
Munera.
‘The ploughman goes sadly on his way, separating the sorrowing steer from his dead brother.’ The truth of this picture is confirmed by a modern writer, who, in her idyllic stories from the rural life of France, seems from time to time, better than any modern poet, to reproduce the Virgilian feeling of Nature. ‘Dans le haut du champ un vieillard, dont le dos large et la figure sévère rappelaient celui d’Holbein, mais dont les vêtements n’annonçaient pas la misère, poussait gravement son areau de forme antique, traîné par deux bœufs tranquilles, à la robe d’un jaune pâle, véritables patriarches de la prairie, hauts de taille, un peu maigres, les cornes longues et rabattues, de ces vieux travailleurs qu’une longue habitude a rendus frères, comme on les appelle dans nos campagnes, et qui, privés l’un de l’autre, se refusent au travail avec un nouveau compagnon et se laissent mourir de chagrin. Les gens qui ne connaissent pas la campagne taxent de fable l’amitié du bœuf pour son camarade d’attelage. Qu’ils viennent voir au fond de l’étable un pauvre animal maigre, exténué, battant de sa queue inquiète ses flancs décharnés, soufflant avec effroi et dédain sur la nourriture qu’on lui présente, les yeux toujours tournés vers la porte, en grattant du pied la place vide à ses côtés, flairant les jougs et les chaînes que son compagnon a portés, et l’appelant sans cesse avec de déplorables mugissements. Le bouvier dira: “C’est une paire de bœufs perdue: son frère est mort, et celui-là ne travaillera plus. II faudrait pouvoir l’engraisser pour l’abattre; mais il ne veut pas manger, et bientôt il sera mort de faim.”’ La Mare au Diable. G. Sand.
The famous picture in Lucret. ii. 355–366,
At mater viridis ... notumque requirit,
shows a similar observation of the strength of bovine affection.
‘Soon no longer shall thy home receive thee with glad greeting, nor thy most excellent wife, nor thy dear children run to meet thee to snatch the first kiss.’
The most classical of our own poets seems to combine both representations with the thought and representation of an earlier passage of the Georgics
(Et quidam seros hiberni ad luminis ignes, etc.)
in the familiar stanza—
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
No children run to meet their sire’s return,
And climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
Septemque una sibi muro circumdedit arces.
Aut impacatos a tergo horrebis Hiberos.
‘Sweet interchange
Of hill and valley, rivers, woods, and plains.’
Paradise Lost, Book ix. II. 115–116.
‘And now we passed
From Como, when the light was gray,
And in my head for half the day,
The rich Virgilian rustic measure
Of Lari Maxume, all the way,
Like ballad-burthen music, kept,’ etc.,
Fluctibus et fremitu adsurgens, Benace, marino.
Nec pietas ullast velatum saepe videri
Vertier ad lapidem atque omnis accedere ad aras;
Purpureo velare comas adopertus amictu.
* * * * *
Hunc socii morem sacrorum, hunc ipse teneto;
Hac casti maneant in religione nepotes.
Venatu invigilant pueri, etc.
neque ille
Aut doluit miserans inopem aut invidit habenti.
Rumoresque serit varios ac talia fatur. Aen. xii. 228.
Furius in decimo:
Rumoresque serunt varios et multa requirunt.
Nomine quemque vocans reficitque in proelia pulsos. Aen. xi. 731.
Furius in undecimo:
Nomine quemque ciet; dictorum tempus adesse
Commemorat.
Deinde infra:
Confirmat dictis simul atque exuscitat acres
Ad bellandum animos reficitque ad proelia mentes.
‘If our song be of the woods, let the woods be worthy of a consul.’
‘I must essay a way by which I too may be able to rise above the ground, and to speed triumphant through the mouths of men.’
Αἰνεἀδας Τίτος ὕμμιν ὐπέρτατον ὤπασε δῶρον
Ἑλλήνων τεύξας παισὶν ἐλευθερίαν.
‘Oxus forgetting the bright speed he had
In his high mountain cradle in Pamere.’
Sohrab and Rustum.
Quando et priores hinc Lamias ferunt
Denominatos, et nepotum
Per memores genus omne fastos, etc.
Quod per amoenam urbem leni fluit agmine flumen
Audire est operae pretium procedere recte
Qui rem Romanam Latiumque augescere vultis.
‘Yes, let her spread her name of fear,
To farthest shores; where central waves
Part Africa from Europe, where
Nile’s swelling current half the year
The plains with plenty laves.
* * *
Let earth’s remotest regions still
Her conquering arms to glory call
Where scorching suns the long day fill,
Where mists and snows and tempests chill,
Hold reckless bacchanal.’ Martin.
Sponte sua veterisque dei se more tenentem.
Sit Romana potens Itala virtute propago.
Usque adeo res humanas vis abdita quaedam
Opterit et pulchros fascis saevasque secures
Proculcare ac ludibrio sibi habere videtur.
Ergo avidus muros optatae molior urbis
Pergameamque voco, et laetam cognomine gentem
Hortor amare focos, arcemque attollere tectis,—
* * * * *
Iura domosque dabam.
Vobis laetus ego hoc candentem in litore taurum
Constituam ante aras, voti reus, extaque salsos
Porriciam in fluctus, et vina liquentia fundam.
Quare agite, O iuvenes! tantarum in munere laudum
Cingite fronde comas et pocula porgite dextris.
Hic ames dici pater atque princeps.
ni, mixtus matre Sabella,
Hinc partem patriae traheret.
‘Molem propinquam nubibus arduis.’
ἦ ῥα καὶ Ἕκτορα δῖον ἀεικέα μήδετο ἔργα.
‘Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood,
Averse, as Dido did with gesture stern
From her false friend’s approach in Hades, turn,
Wave us away, and keep thy solitude.’
The Scholar Gipsy, by Matthew Arnold.
‘Like the moon when one sees it early in the month, or fancies he has seen it rise through mists.’
‘So to see, as when one sees or fancies he has seen the dim moon in the early dawn.’
‘Yield not thou to thy hardships, but advance more boldly against them.’
‘Learn from me, my child, to bear thee like a man and to strive strenuously, from others learn to be fortunate.’
‘Have the courage, stranger, to despise riches, and mould thyself too to be a fit companion of the God.’