THE "CIRIS"
It was at about this same time, 48 B.C., that Vergil began to write the Ciris, a romantic epyllion which deserves far more attention than it has received, not only as an invaluable document for the history of the poet's early development, but as a poem possessing in some passages at least real artistic merit. The Ciris was not yet completed at the time when Vergil reached the momentous decision to go to Naples and study philosophy. He apparently laid it aside and did not return to it until he had been in Naples several years. It was not till later that he wrote the dedication. As we shall see, the author again laid the poem away, and it was not published till after his death. The preface written in Siro's garden is addressed to Messalla, who was a student at Athens in 45-4 B.C., and served in the republican army of Brutus and Cassius in 43-2. In it Vergil begs pardon for sending a poem of so trivial a nature at a time when his one ambition is to describe worthily the philosophic system that he has adopted. "Nevertheless," he says, "accept meanwhile this poem: it is all that I can offer; upon it I have spent the efforts of early youth. Long since the vow was made, and now is fulfilled." (Ciris, 42-7.)[1]
[Footnote 1: On the question of authenticity, see, Class. Phil. 1920, 103 ff.]
The story, beginning at line 101, was familiar. Minos, King of Crete, had laid siege to Megara, whose king, Nisus, had been promised invincibility by the oracles so long as his crimson lock remained untouched. Scylla, the daughter of Nisus, however, was driven by Juno to fall in love with Minos, her father's enemy; and, to win his love, she yields to the temptation of betraying her father to Minos. The picture of the girl when she had decided to cut the charmed lock of hair, groping her way in the dark, tiptoe, faltering, rushing, terrified at the fluttering of her own heart, is an interesting attempt at intensive art: 209-219:
cum furtim tacito descendens Scylla cubili auribus erectis nocturna silentia temptat et pressis tenuem singultibus aera captat. tum suspensa levans digitis vestigia primis egreditur ferroque manus armata bidenti evolat: at demptae subita in formidine vires caeruleas sua furta prius testantur ad umbras. nam qua se ad patrium tendebat semita limen, vestibulo in thalami paulum remoratur et alti suspicit ad gelidi nictantia sidera mundi non accepta piis promittens munera divis.
Her aged nurse, Carme, comes upon the bewildered and shivering girl, folds her in her robe, and coaxes the awful confession from her; 250-260:
haec loquitur mollique ut se velavit amictu frigidulam iniecta circumdat veste puellam, quae prius in tenui steterat succincta crocota. dulcia deinde genis rorantibus oscula figens persequitur miserae causas exquirere tabis. nec tamen ante ullas patitur sibi reddere voces, marmoreum tremebunda pedem quam rettulit intra. ilia autem "quid me" inquit, "nutricula, torques? quid tantum properas nostros novisse furores? non ego consueto mortalibus uror amore."
Scylla does not readily confess. The poet's characterization of her as she protracts the story to avoid the final confession reveals an ambitious though somewhat unpracticed art. Carme tries in vain to dissuade the girl, and must, to calm her, promise to aid her if all other means fail. The aged woman's tenderness for her foster child is very effectively phrased in a style not without reminiscences of Catullus (340-48):
his ubi sollicitos animi relevaverat aestus vocibus et blanda pectus spe luserat aegrum, paulatim tremebunda genis obducere vestem virginis et placidam tenebris captare quietem inverso bibulum restinguens lumen olivo incipit ad crebros (que) insani pectoris ictus ferre manum assiduis mulcens praecordia palmis. noctem illam sic maesta super morientis alumnae frigidulos cubito subnixa pependit ocellos.
On the morrow the girl pleads with her father to make peace, with humorous naïveté argues with the counsellors of state, tries to bribe the seers, and finally resorts to magic. When nothing avails, she secures Carme's aid. The lock is cut, the city falls, the girl is captured by Minos—in true Alexandrian technique the catastrophe comes with terrible speed—and she is led, not to marriage, but to chains on the captor's galley. Her grief is expressed in a long soliloquy somewhat too reminiscent of Ariadne's lament in Catullus. Finally, Amphitrite in pity transforms the captive girl into a bird, the Ciris, and Zeus as a reward for his devout life releases Nisus, also transforming him into a bird of prey, and henceforth there has been eternal warfare between the Ciris and the Nisus: