Morigerisque modis et mundo corpore culta,
Ut facile assuescat secum vir degere vitam.
Quod super est, consuetudo concinnat amorem;
Nam, leviter quamvis, quod crebro tunditur ictu,
Vincitur id longo spatio tamen, atque labascit:
Nonne vides, etiam guttas, in saxa cadenteis,
Humoris longo in spacio pertundere saxa?”—IV. 1273.
The principal subject of the fifth book—a composition unrivalled in energy and richness of language, in full and genuine sublimity—is the origin and laws of the visible world, with those of its inhabitants. The poet presents us with a grand picture of Chaos, and the most magnificent account of the creation that ever flowed from human pen. In his representation of primeval life and manners, he exhibits the discomfort of this early stage of society by a single passage of most wild and powerful imagery,—in which he describes a savage, in the early ages of the world, when men were yet contending with beasts for possession of the earth, flying through the woods, with loud shrieks, in a stormy night, from the pursuit of some ravenous animal, which had invaded the cavern where he sought a temporary shelter and repose:
—— “Sæcla ferarum
Infestam miseris faciebant sæpe quietem;