Perhaps one of the most deplorable legacies left to us by the influence of Latin literature has been the introduction of Jupiter, Juno, Venus, Cupid, Mars, Vulcan, the nymphs, the Graces and the rest into the répertoire of what is called poetic diction. As the eighteenth century, more than any other, was dominated by the artificial principles of Roman literature, both directly and through the French, so in that century these names became a set of tinsel tokens to take the place and conceal the lack of honest and genuine ideas and their natural expression.
Leaving Plautus and Terence, we turn to the golden age of Latin literature, its most classical period. Most classical, because during that period its works attain to the “class,” the class of the best in their kind. It is between the year 80 B.C. and A.D. 14 that Latin literature reaches this best, although the kind itself may be in frankness considered not of the most sublime. In point of matter and style Latin literature attains its acme during these last active days of the republic and under the fostering, but at the same time cramping, care of the first emperor, the great Augustus, and his favourite and minister, the munificent Maecenas.
Before this golden period Latin work had been crude, rough, and inharmonious. It is now perfectly polished and used for polished purposes. On the other hand, after this period, in the silver age, there is a loss of purpose, of healthy and genuine subject-matter, and consequently an indulgence in strained cleverness, far-drawn epigram, empty declamation. But during this period itself Latin in the hands of Cicero, Lucretius, Caesar, Catullus, Virgil, Livy, Horace, and Ovid is for the most part sober and restrained. It may not, in most of these cases, delve very deep or soar very high, but at least it is both admirable workmanship and marked by sober and practical sense. In the poetry of the epic, the lyric, and the elegiac; in the prose of history, oratory, and philosophy; in all but satire and epigram (which by their nature flourish best in times of decadence), this golden period far transcends the age which followed. It is not in this period that neatly executed nothings, verbal conceits in the absence of true matter, out-of-the-way learning and allusions, take the place of thinking.
It is true that during this Ciceronian and Augustan age the Roman literary art was always conscious in its workmanship, always studied and deliberate, always intentionally aiming at finish or style, at skill and beauty and harmony of expression. It is true that it was seldom prompted by instinct like the Greek. It is true that it was nearly all imitative, unoriginal. But it is also true that it was sensible withal, free from absolute rodomontade, bathos, or frivolity.
The department of poetry from which Latin literature derives most nobility, if no other quality, is the epic. The two greatest epics of the world are indisputably the Iliad of Homer and the Aeneid of Virgil. The Jerusalem Delivered of the Italian poet Tasso and the Paradise Lost of the English Milton rank next, but the distance between either of these works and the Greek and Roman epics is scarcely to be bridged. Probably an epic in the old-world sense is scarcely possible under our modern social conditions and philosophic limitations.
The epic is the poem of a great action of a great hero. There may be many episodes in the shape of other actions performed by other characters, but, if the art is to be true, all must bear some appreciable relation to, or centre upon, the said great action of the chief great figure. Virgil’s Aeneid is an epic left somewhat incomplete; its hero is Aeneas, and the great action is the founding of the Roman race. In the poem are described the wanderings of Aeneas from Troy, his adventures by sea and land, his love of Dido and its calamitous ending, his landing in Italy, his descent to the nether world and the sights he there beholds, his wars and victories over the native Italian princes. But the foundation of the Roman race is never reached, the work, which consists already of some 10,000 lines, having been left unfinished.
The more serious purpose of this fine and noble work was to give to the Romans a great national poem, and to supply them, now that they were masters of the world, with an origin of which to be proud. In this aim the poet completely succeeded, establishing himself at the same time as the supreme national poet of the Empire. We may refrain from blaming him if, meanwhile, he sought to offer poetical incense to the emperor Augustus, by connecting him in direct descent with the Aeneas of heroic exploits and half-divine birth. In such conscious purposes Virgil differs entirely from Homer. Homer composed his verse to be heard or read by all and sundry for its own sake, as a narrative full of life and interest and verbal charm. His works have a nearer claim to be called effusions. But Virgil necessarily writes without a simple strong conviction, with more conscious toil of art, as a greatly gifted man of letters writing for men of culture. Spontaneous he assuredly is not. Homer had described battles and councils in the Iliad, and wanderings and marvels in the Odyssey. Virgil borrows the battles or the wanderings, and weaves them with wonderful art into one poem. He takes the similes and imagery of Homer and other Greeks; he translates or paraphrases much of their diction; he “finds his good things wherever he can” and works all into a mosaic, which is exceedingly dexterous, vigorous and polished, but which cannot be called original. The chief sphere of his originality is perhaps to be found in the rhetorical strength and adroitness of many of the speeches which he puts into the mouths of his characters.
Virgil is essentially a writer for the lover of verbal art. For those who can read Latin with easy and scholarly apprehension he appears to combine the splendid harmonies of Milton with the studied grace of Tennyson and often the polished conciseness of Pope. It is impossible to translate him so as to convey any adequate idea of these qualities, for it is exactly these which are untranslatable. Matthew Arnold, in his Essays in Criticism, speaks of individual lines which may serve as touchstones of poetic virtue. In the mere matter of sound each great writer is apt to be distinguishable by such isolated lines. Milton, for example, is only one of many who have written in blank verse. Yet a fragment like
A dungeon horrible on all sides round