Then did I entertain the poets' song,
My great Idea's guest, and, passing o'er
That iron bridge the Tuscan built to hell,
I heard Ulysses tell of mountain-chains
Whose adamantine links, his manacles,
The western main shook growling and still gnawed.
I brooded on the wise Athenian's tale
Of happy Atlantis, and heard Bjorne's keel
Crush the gray pebbles of the Vinland shore:
I listened musing to the prophecy
Of Nero's tutor-victim…
And I believed the poets.
The son of the discoverer wrote in his copy of the tragedies opposite these lines,—'This prophecy was fulfilled by my father, the Admiral Christopher Columbus, in the year 1492.'
2. Agamemnon returns to Argos after the capture of Troy, his wife Clytemnestra expressing deep joy at his return. He has brought with him as a captive Cassandra the seer who, suddenly swooning, sees in prophetic frenzy Agamemnon's death and her own at the hand of Clytemnestra and her paramour, Aegistheus. Agamemnon worships Jupiter and Juno at the altar and then enters the palace to his death.
1, 2. Tandem…terra. Cf. Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 503 ff., 810 ff. laris: Roman coloring. 3. diu: taken with felix. 4. Asiae: objective genitive, after potentes, B. 204, 1; A. & G. 349, a. 5. vates: Cassandra. corpus: accusative of specification. 7. recipit diem: i.e. revives. 9. optatus ff.: with a double meaning to the audience. 10. Festus ff.: Troy fell immediately after the festivities that celebrated the withdrawal of the Greek fleet. Cf. Aeneid, 2. 246 ff. 11. Cecidit ff.: for the death of Priam cf. Aeneid, 2. 506 ff. 13. Priamum: King Agamemnon's fate is to be such as King Priam's. Priam was slain at the altar, and these altars (aras, 1. 11) awaken forebodings. 14. Ubi ff.: where faithless wives are, is calamity. 15. Libertas: the freedom of death. 19. dum excutiat deum: until she casts off the influence of Apollo who has thrown her into the prophetic frenzy. 21. pater: Jupiter. 24. cuncta: accusative of specification. 25. Argolica Iuno: Hera had a famous shrine at Argos. For an account of excavations there see Waldstein, The Argive Heraeum. 26. Arabumque donis: incense. supplice fibra: the entrails of the sacrificed animals (pecore votivo), whose condition was supposed to indicate the will of the gods.
VII. LUCAN.
39-65 A.D.
Lucan, full of warmth and vehemence, eminently quotable, but, to speak frankly, one whom, orators rather than poets should imitate.— Quintilian, 10. 1. 90.
When I consider that Lucan died at twenty-six, I cannot help ranking him among the most extraordinary men that ever lived.— Macaulay.
The whole production (the Pharsalia) is youthful and unripe, but indicative of genuine power.—Teuffel, Schwabe, and Warr, History of Roman Literature, vol. 2, p. 78.
Lucan was born in Spain; was taken early to Rome; was carefully educated; wrote much; and was much admired; but was disliked by Nero, who forbade him to publish poems or recite them, and finally put him to death on the charge of complicity in the conspiracy of Piso.