The third Georgic sets out with an apology for the low and simple argument of that work, which, yet, the poet esteemed, for its novelty, preferable to the sublimer, but trite, themes of the Greek writers. Not but he intended, on some future occasion, to adorn a nobler subject. This was the great plan of the Aeneïs, which he now prefigures and unfolds at large. For, taking advantage of the noblest privilege of his art, he breaks away, in a fit of prophetic enthusiasm, to foretel his successes in this projected enterprize, and, under the imagery of the ancient triumph, which comprehends, or suggests to the imagination, whatever is most august in human affairs, to delineate the future glories of this ambitious design. The whole conception, as we shall see, is of the utmost grandeur and magnificence; though, according to the usual management of the poet (which, as not being apprehended by his critics, hath furnished occasion, even to the best of them, to charge him with a want of the sublime) he hath contrived to soften and familiarize its appearance to the reader, by the artful manner, in which it is introduced. It stands thus:
tentanda via est, qua me quoque possim
Tollere humo, VICTORQUE virûm volitare per ora.
This idea of victory, thus casually dropped, he makes the basis of his imagery; which, by means of this gradual preparation, offers itself easily to the apprehension, though it thereby loses, as the poet designed it should, much of that broad glare, in which writers of less judgment love to shew their ideas, as tending to set the common reader to a gaze. The allegory then proceeds:
Primus ego patriam mecum (modo vita supersit)
Aonio rediens deducam vertice Musas.
The projected conquest was no less than that of all the Grecian Muses at once; whom, to carry on the decorum of the allegory, he threatens, 1. to force from their high and advantageous situation on the summit of the Aonian mount; and, 2. bring captive with him into Italy: the former circumstance intimating to us the difficulty and danger of the enterprize; and the latter, his complete execution of it.
The palmy, triumphal entry, which was usual to victors on their return from foreign successes, follows:
Primus Idumaeas referam tibi, Mantua, palmas.
But ancient conquerors did not hold it sufficient to reap this transient fruit of their labours. They were ambitious to consecrate their glory to immortality, by a temple, or other public monument, which was to be built out of the spoils of the conquered cities or countries. This the reader sees is suitable to the idea of the great work proposed; which was, out of the old remains of Grecian art, to compose a new one, that should comprize the virtues of them all: as, in fact, the Aeneïd is known to unite in itself whatever is most excellent, not in Homer only, but, universally, in the wits of Greece. The everlasting monument of the marble temple is then reared:
Et viridi in campo templum de MARMORE ponam.
And, because ancient superstition usually preferred, for these purposes, the banks of rivers to other situations, therefore the poet, in beautiful allusion to the site of some of the most celebrated pagan temples, builds his on the Mincius. We see with what a scrupulous propriety the allusion is carried on.