Here is a man indeed worthy to be the hero of a republican epic, did history permit it. Our chief reason—at moments there is a temptation to say 'our only reason'—for regretting the incompletion of the Pharsalia is that Lucan did not live to describe Cato's death. There was a subject which was worthy of his pen and would have been a labour of love. With what splendour of rhetoric he might have invested it can only be conjectured from the magnificent passage where Cato refuses to inquire into his fate at Ammon's oracle (ix. 566):
quid quaeri, Labiene, iubes? an liber in armis occubuisse velim potius quam regna videre? an sit vita nihil, sed longa? an differat aetas? an noceat vis ulla bono, fortunaque perdat opposita virtute minas, laudandaque velle sit satis, et numquam successu crescat honestum? scimus, et hoc nobis non altius inseret Hammon. haeremus cuncti superis, temploque tacente nil facimus non sponte dei; nec vocibus ultis numen eget, dixitque semel nascentibus auctor quidquid scire licet, steriles nec legit harenas, ut caneret paucis, mersitque hoc pulvere verum. estque dei sedes, nisi terra et pontus et aer et caelum et virtus? superos quid quaerimus ultra? Iuppiter est quodcumque vides quodcumque moveris. sortilegis egeant dubii semperque futuris casibus ancipites; me non oracula certum, sed mors certa facit. pavido fortique cadendum est; hoc satis est dixisse Iouem.
What should I ask? Whether to live a slave
Is better, or to fill a soldier's grave?
What life is worth drawn to its utmost span,
And whether length of days brings bliss to man?
Whether tyrannic force can hurt the good,
Or the brave heart need quail at Fortune's mood?
Whether the pure intent makes righteousness,
Or virtue needs the warrant of success?
All this I know: not Ammon can impart
Force to the truth engraven on my heart.
All men alike, though voiceless be the shrine,
Abide in God and act by will divine.
No revelation Deity requires,
But at our birth, all men may know, inspires.
Nor is truth buried in this desert sand
And doled to few, but speaks in every land.
What temple but the earth, the sea, the sky,
And heaven and virtuous hearts, hath deity?
As far as eye can range or feet can rove
Jove is in all things, all things are in Jove.
Let wavering souls to oracles attend,
The brave man's course is clear, since sure his end.
The valiant and the coward both must fall
This when Jove tells me, he has told me all.
PROF. GOLDWIN SMITH.
One Cato will not lend life to an epic, and history, to the great loss of art, forbids him to play a sufficiently important role. It is unnecessary to comment on the lesser personages of the epic; if the leading characters lack life, the minor characters lack individuality as well.[281] Lucan has nothing of the dramatic vitalising power that is so necessary for epic.
He is equally defective in narrative power. He can give us brilliant pictures as in the lines describing the vision of Caesar at the Rubicon[282] or Pompey's last sight of Italy.[283] But such passages are few and far between. Of longer passages there are not perhaps more than three in the whole work where we get any sustained beauty of narrative-the parting of Pompey and his wife,[284] Pompey's dream before Pharsalus,[285] and a description of a Druid grove in Southern Gaul.[286] The first of these is noticeable as being one of the few occasions on which Lucan shows any command of simple pathos unmarred by tricks of tawdry rhetoric. The whole episode is admirably treated. The speeches of both husband and wife are commendably and unusually simple and direct, but the climax comes after Cornelia's speech, where the poet describes the moment before they part. With the simplest words and the most severe economy of diction, he produces an effect such as Vergil rarely surpassed, and such as was never excelled or equalled again in the poetry of Southern Europe till Dante told the story of Paolo and Francesca (v. 790):
sic fata relictis exsiluit stratis amens tormentaque nulla vult differre mora. non maesti pectora Magni sustinet amplexu dulci, non colla tenere, extremusque perit tam longi fructus amoris, praecipitantque sues luctus, neuterque recedens sustinuit dixisse 'vale', vitamque per omnem nulla fuit tarn maesta dies; nam cetera damna durata iam mente malis firmaque tulerunt.
So spake she, and leaped frenzied from the couch, loth to put off the pangs of parting by the least delay. She cannot bear to cast her arms about sad Magnus' bosom, or clasp his neck in a last sweet embrace; and thus the last delight, such long love as theirs might know, is cast away: they hasten their own agony; neither as they parted had the heart to say farewell; and while they lived they knew no sadder day than this. All other losses they bore with hearts hardened and steeled by misery.
It is faulty and monotonous in rhythm, but one would gladly have more from Lucan of the same poetic quality, even at the expense of the same blemishes. The dream of Pompey is scarcely inferior (vii. 7):
at nox, felicis Magno pars ultima vitae, sollicitos vana decepit imagine somnos. nam Pompeiani visus sibi sede theatri innumeram effigiem Romanae cernere plebis attollique suum laetis ad sidera nomen vocibus et plausu cuneos certare sonantes; qualis erat populi facies clamorque faventis, olim cum iuvenis primique aetate triumphi * * * * * sedit adhuc Romanus eques; seu fine bonorum anxia venturis ad tempera laeta refugit, sive per ambages solitas contraria visis vaticinata quies magni tulit omina planctus. seu vetito patrias ultra tibi cernere sedes sic Romam fortuna dedit. ne rumpite somnos, castrorum vigiles, nullas tuba verberet aures. crastina dira quies et imagine maesta diurna undique funestas acies feret, undique bellum.
But night, the last glad hours that Magnus' life should know, beguiled his anxious slumbers with vain images of joy. He seemed to sit in the theatre himself had built, and to behold the semblance of the countless Roman multitude, and hear his name uplifted to the stars by joyous voices, and all the roaring benches vying in their applause. Even so he saw the people and heard their cheers in the days of old, when still a youth, in the hour of his first triumph … he sat no more as yet than a knight of Rome; whether it was that at thy fortune's close thy sleep, tormented with the fears of what should be, fled back to happier days, or riddling as 'tis wont, foretold the contrary of thy dreams and brought thee omens of mighty woe; or whether, since ne'er again thou mightest see thy father's home, thus even in dreams fortune gave it to thy sight. Break not his slumbers, guardians of the camp; let not the trumpet strike his ears at all. Dread shall to-morrow's slumbers be, and, haunted by the sad image of the disastrous day, shall bring before his eyes naught save war and armies doomed to die.