It may be doubted whether Columella was well advised when he yielded to the entreaties of his friend Silvinus and wrote his tenth book in verse. He had no great poetic talent, nor did he possess the sleight of hand of Calpurnius, the imitator of the Eclogues. But he possesses qualities which render his work far more attractive than that of Calpurnius. He is a genuine enthusiast, with a real love of the countryside and a charming affection for flowers. And as a stylist he is modest. He makes no attempt at display, no contorted striving after originality. His verse is clear and simple as his tastes. He is content to follow humbly in the footsteps of his great master, the 'starry' Vergil.[371] He imitates and even plagiarizes[372] because he loves, not because it is the fashion. He shows no appreciation of the more intimate harmonies of the Vergilian hexameter; like so many contemporaries, he realizes neither the value of judicious elision nor varied pauses; but his verse, in spite of its monotony and lack of life and movement, is not unmelodious. The poem is a sober work, uninspired in tone, straightforward and simple in plan. It need not be described in detail; its advice is obvious, setting forth the times and seasons to be observed by the gardener, the methods of preparing the soil, the choice of flowers, with all the customary mythological allusions.[373] At its worst, with its tedious lists of the names of flowers, it reads like a seedsman's catalogue,[374] at its best it is lit up with a quaint humour, a love of colour, and a homely yet vivid imagination. Mother earth—'sweet earth' he calls her—is highly personified; that she may be adorned anew, her green locks must be torn from their tangle by the plough, her old raiment stripped from her, her thirst quenched by irrigation, her hunger satisfied with fertilizing manure.[375] The garden is to be no rich man's park for the display of statues and fountains. Its one statue shall be the image of the garden god, its patron and its protector.[376] Its splendour shall be the varied hue of its flower-beds and its wealth in herbs that serve the use of man:
verum ubi iam puro discrimine pectita tellus deposito squalore nitens sua semina poscet, pingite tunc varios, terrestria sidera, flores, candida leucoia et flaventia lumina caltae narcissique comas et hiantis saeva leonis ora feri calathisque virentia lilia canis, nec non vel niveos vel caeruleos hyacinthos, tum quae pallet humi, quae frondens purpurat auro, ponatur viola et nimium rosa plena pudoris (94).
But when earth, with parted locks combed clear, gleams, all soilure cast aside, and demands the seeds that are her due, call forth the varied hues of flowers, earth's constellations, the white snowflake and the marigold's golden eyes, the narcissus-petals and the blossom that apes the fierce lion's gaping maw; the lily, too, with calix shining white amid its green leaves, the hyacinths white and blue; plant also the violet lying pale upon the ground or purple shot with gold among its leafage, and the rose with its deep shamefaced blush.
He loves the return of spring with as deep a love as Vergil's, though he must borrow Vergil's language to describe its coming and its power.[377] But his painting of its harvest of colour is his own:
quin et odoratis messis iam floribus instat: iam ver purpureum, iam versicoloribus anni fetibus alma parens pingi sua tempora gaudet. iam Phrygiae loti gemmantia lumina promunt et coniventis oculos violaria solvunt (255).
Nay, more, the harvest-time draws near for sweet-scented flowers. The purple spring has come, and kindly mother earth rejoices that her brows are painted bright with all the many-coloured offspring of the year. Now the Phrygian lotus puts forth its jewelled orbs and the violet beds open their winking eyes.
All the glories of an Italian spring are in the lines in which a little later he describes the joy of living when the year is young, and the wasting heat of summer is still far off, when it is sweet to be in the sun and watch the garden with its rainbow colours:
nunc ver egelidum, nunc est mollissimus annus, dum Phoebus tener ac tenera decumbere in herba suadet et arguto fugientes gramine fontes nec rigidos potare iuvat nec sole tepentes, iamque Dionaeis redimitur floribus hortus, iam rosa mitescit Sarrano clarior ostro. nec tam nubifugo Borea Latonia Phoebe purpureo radiat vultu, nec Sirius ardor sic micat aut rutilus Pyrois aut ore corusco Hesperus, Eoo remeat cum Lucifer ortu, nec tam sidereo fulget Thaumantias arcu quam nitidis hilares conlucent fetibus horti (282).
Now cool spring is come, the gentlest season of the year, while Phoebus yet is young and bids us recline in the young herbage, and 'tis sweet to drink the rill that flows among the murmuring grass, with waters neither icy cold nor warm with the sun's heat. Now, too, the garden is crowned with the flowers Dione loves, and the rose ripens brighter than Tyrian purple. Not so brightly does Phoebe, Leto's daughter, shine with radiant face when Boreas has dispersed the clouds, nor glows hot Sirius so, nor ruddy Pyrois, nor Hesperus with shining countenance when he returns as the daystar at the break of dawn, not so fair gleams Iris with her starry bow, as shines the joyous garden with its bright offspring.
These are the words of an enthusiast and a poet, and these few outbursts of song redeem the poem from dullness. There is wafted from his pages the perfume of the countryside, and the fresh air breathes welcome amid the hothouse cultures of contemporary poets. And he is almost the only poet of the age that can be read without a wince of pain. He is at least as good a laureate of the garden as Thomson of the seasons, and he has all the grace of humility. Even when the artist fails us, we love the man.