Cruel Alexis can’t my Verses move?
Hast thou no Pitty? I must dye for Love.
And again,
He neither Gods, nor yet my Verse regards.
The Sense must not be long, copious, and continued, ForPastoral is weak, and not able to hold out; but of this more when I come to lay down rules for its Composure: But tho it ought to imitate Comedy in its common way of discourse, yet it must not chose old Comedy for its pattern, for that is too impudent, and licentiously abusive: Let it be free and modest, honest and ingenuous, and that will make it agreeable to the Golden Age.
Let the Expression be plain and easy, but elegant and neat, and the purest which the language will afford; Pontanus upon Virgils Bucolicks gives the very same rule, In Bucolicks the Expression must be humble, nearer common discourse than otherwise, not very Spirituous and vivid, yet such as shows life and strength: Tis certain that Virgil in his Bucolicks useth the same words which Tully did in the Forum or the Senate; and Tityrus beneath his shady Beech speaks as pure and good Latin as Augustus in his Palace, as Modicius in his Apology for Virgil hath excellently observ’d: This rule, ’tis true; Theocritus hath not so strictly follow’d, whose Rustick and Pastoral Muse, as Quintilian phraseth it, not only is affraid to appear in the Forum, but the City, and for the very same thing an Alexandrian flouts the Syracucusian Weomen in the Fifteenth Idyllium of Theocritus, for when they, being then in the City, spoke the Dorick Dialect, the delicate Citizen could not endure it, and found fault with their distastful, as he thought, pronunciation: and his reflection was very smart.
Like Pidgeons you have mouths from Ear to Ear.
So intolerable did that broad way of pronunciation, tho exactly fit for a Clowns discourse, seem to a Citizen: and hence Probus observes that ’twas much harder for the Latines to write Pastorals than for the Greeks; because the Latines had not some Dialects peculiar to the Country, and others to the City, as the Greeks had; Besides the Latine Language, as Quintilian hath observ’d, is not capable of the neatness which is necessary to Bucolicks, no, that is the peculiar priviledge of the Greeks: We cannot, says he, be so low, they exceed us in subtlety, and in propriety they are at more certainty than We: and again, in pat and close Expressions we cannot reach the Greeks: And, if we believe Tully, Greek is much more fit for Ornament than Latin for it hath much more of that neatness, and ravishing delightfulness, which Bucolicks necessarily require.
Yet of Pastoral, with whose Nature we are not very well acquainted, what that Form is which the Greeks call the Character, is not very easy to determine; yet that we may come to some certainty, we must stick to our former observation, viz. that Pastoral belongs properly to the Golden Age: For as Tully in his Treatise de Oratore says, in all our disputes the Subject is to be measur’d by the most perfect of that kind, and Synesius in his Encomium on Baldness hints the very same, when he tells us that Poetry fashions its subject as Men imagine it should be, and not as really it is: πρὸς δόξαν, οὐ πρὸς ἀλήθειαν: Now the Life of a Shepherd, that it might be rais’d to the highest perfection, is to be referr’d to the manners and age of the world whilst yet innocent, and such as the Fables have describ’d it: And as Simplicity was the principal vertue of that Age, so it ought to be the peculiar Grace, and as it were Character of Bucolicks: in which the Fable, Manners, Thought, and Expression ought to be full of the most innocent simplicity imaginable: for as Innocence in Life, so purity and simplicity in discourse was the Glory of that Age: So as gravity to Epicks, Sweetness to Lyricks, Humor to Comedy, softness to Elegies and smartness to Epigrams, so simplicity to Pastorals is proper; and one upon Theocritus says, that the Idea of his Bucolicks is in every part pure, and in all that belongs to simplicity very happy: Such is this of Virgil, unwholsome to us Singers is the shade
Of Juniper, ’tis an unwholsome shade:
Than which in my opinion nothing can be more simply; nothing more rustically said; and this is the reason I suppose why Macrobius says that this kind of Poetry is creeping and upon mean subjects; and why too Virgils Tityrus lying under his shady Beech displeaseth some; Excellent Criticks indeed, whom I wish a little more sense, that they might not really be, what they would not seem to be, Ridiculous: Theocritus excells Virgil in this, of whom Modicius says, Theocritus deserves the greatest commendation for his happy imitation of the simplicity of his Shepherds, Virgil hath mixt Allegories, and some other things which contain too much learning, and deepness of Thought for Persons of so mean a Quality: Yet here I must obviate their mistake who fancy that this sort of Poetry, because in it self low and simple, is the proper work of mean Wits, and not the most sublime and excellent perfections: For as I think there be can nothing more elegant than easy naked simplicity, so likewise nothing can require more strength of Wit, and greater pains; and he must be of a great and clear judgment, who attempts Pastoral, and comes of with Honor. For there is no part of Poetry that requires more spirit, for if any part is not close and well compacted the whole Fabrick will be ruin’d, and the matter, in it self humble, must creep; unless it is held up by the strength and vigor of the Expression.