Therefore let Pastoral never venture upon a lofty subject, let it not recede one jot from its proper matter, but be employ’d about Rustick affairs: such as are mean and humble in themselves; and such are the affairs of Shepherds, especially their Loves, but those must be pure and innocent; not disturb’d by vain suspitious jealousy, nor polluted by Rapes; The Rivals must not fight, and their emulations must be without quarrellings: such as Vida meant.
Whilst on his Reed he Shepherd’s strifes conveys,
And soft complaints in smooth Sicilian lays.
To these may be added sports, Jests, Gifts, and Presents; but not costly, such are yellow Apples, young stock-Doves, Milk, Flowers, and the like; all things must appear delightful and easy, nothing vitious and rough: A perfidious Pimp, a designing Jilt, a gripeing Usurer, a crafty factious Servant must have no room there, but every part must be full of the simplicity of the Golden-Age, and of that Candor which was then eminent: for as Juvenal affirms
Baseness was a great wonder in that Age;
Sometimes Funeral-Rites are the subject of an Eclogue, where the Shepherds scatter flowers on the Tomb, and sing Rustick Songs in honor of the Dead: Examples of this kind are left us by Virgil in his Daphnis, and Bion in his Adonis, and this hath nothing disagreeable to a Shepherd: In short whatever, the decorum being still preserv’d, can be done by a Sheapard, may be the Subject of a Pastoral.
Now there may be more kinds of Subjects than Servius or Donatus allow, for they confine us to that Number which Virgil hath made use of, tho Minturnus in his second Book de Poetâ declares against this opinion: But as a glorious Heroick action must be the Subject of an Heroick Poem, so a Pastoral action of a Pastoral; at least it must be so turn’d and wrought, that it might appear to be the action of a Shepherd; which caution is very necessary to be observ’d, to clear a great many difficulties in this matter: for tho as the Interpreters assure us; most of Virgils Eclogues are about the Civil war, planting Colonys, the murder of the Emperor, and the like, which in themselves are too great and too lofty for humble Pastoral to reach, yet because they are accomodated to the Genius of Shepherds, may be the Subject of an Eclogue, for that sometimes will admit of Gods and Heroes so they appear like, and are shrouded under the Persons of Shepherds: But as for these matters which neither really are, nor are so wrought as to seem the actions of Shepherds, such are in Moschus’s Europa, Theocritus’s Epithalamium of Helen, and Virgil’s Pollio, to declare my opinion freely, I cannot think them to be fit Subjects for Bucolicks: And upon this account I suppose ’tis that Servius in his Comments on Virgil’s Bucoliks reckons only seven of Virgil’s ten Eclogues, and onely ten of Theocritus’s thirty, to be pure Pastorals, and Salmasius upon Solinus says, that amongst Theocritus’s Poems there are some which you may call what you please Beside Pastorals: and Heinsius in his Scholia upon Theocritus will allow but Ten of his Idylliums to be Bucoliks, 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 11. for all the rest are deficient either in matter or form, and from this number of pure pastoral Idylliums I am apt to think, that Theocritus seems to have made that Pipe, on which he tun’d his Pastorals and which he consecrated to Pan of ten Reeds, as Salmasius in his notes on Theocritus’s Pipe hath learnedly observed: in which two Verses always make one Reed of the Pipe, therefore all are so unequal, like the unequal Reeds of a Pipe, that if you put two equals together which make one Reed, the whole inequality consists in ten pairs; when in the common Pipes there were usually no more then seven Reeds, and this the less curious observers have heedlessly past by.
Some are of opinion that whatever is done in the Country, and in one word, every thing that hath nought of the City in it may be treated of in Pastorals; and that the discourse of Fishers, Plow-men, Reapers, Hunters, and the like, belong to this kind of Poetry: which according to the Rule that I have laid down cannot be true for, as I before hinted nothing but the action of a Shepherd can be the Subject of a Pastoral.
I shall not here enquire, tho it may seem proper, whether we can decently bring into an Eclogue Reapers, Vine-dressers, Gardners, Fowlers, Hunters, Fishers, or the like, whose lives for the most part are taken up with too much business and employment to have any vacant time for Songs, and idle Chat, which are more agreeable to the leisure of a Sheapards Life: for in a great many Rustick affairs, either the hardship and painful Labor will not admit a song, as in Plowing, or the solitude as in hunting, Fishing, Fowling, and the like; but of this I shall discourse more largely in another place.
Now ’tis not sufficient to make a Poem a true Pastoral, that the Subject of it is the action of a Shepherd, for in Hesiods ἔργα and Virgils Georgicks there are a great many things that belong to the employment of a Shepherd, yet none fancy they are Pastorals; from whence ’tis evident, that beside the matter, which we have defin’d to be the action of a Sheapard, there is a peculiar Form proper to this kind of Poetry by which ’tis distinguish’d from all others.
Of Poetry in General Socrates, as Plato tells us, would have Fable to be the Form: Aristotle Imitation: I shall not dispute what difference there is between these two, but only inquire whether Imitation be the Form of Pastoral: ’tis certain that Epick Poetry is differenc’t from Tragick only by the manner of imitation, for the latter imitates by action, and the former by bare narration: But Pastoral is the imitation of a Pastoral action either by bare narration, as in Virgil’s Alexis, and Theocritus’s 7th Idyllium, in which the Poet speaks all along in his own Person: or by action as in Virgil’s Tityrus, and the first of Theocritus, or by both mixt, as in the Second and Eleventh Idylliums, in which the Poet partly speaks in his own Person, and partly makes others speak, and I think the old Scholiast on Theocritus took an hint from these when he says, that Pastoral is a mixture made up of all sorts, for ’tis Narrative, Dramatick, and mixt, and Aristotle, tho obscurely, seems to hint in those words, In every one of the mentioned Arts there is Imitation, in some simple, in some mixt; now this latter being peculiar to Bucolicks makes its very form and Essence: and therefore Scaliger, in the 4th Chapter of his first Book of Poetry, reckons up three Species of Pastorals, the first hath but one Person, the second several, which sing alternately; the third is mixt of both the other: And the same observation is made by Heinsius in his Notes on Theocritus, for thus he very plainly to our purpose, the Character of Bucolicks is a mixture of all sorts of Characters, Dramatick, Narrative, or mixt: from all which ’tis very manifest that the manner of Imitation which is proper to Pastorals is the mixt: for in other kinds of Poetry ’tis one and simple, at least not so manifold; as in Tragedy Action: in Epick Poetry Narration.