The seventh is an epigram mildly twitting Varius for his insistence upon pure diction. The crusade for purity of speech had been given a new impetus a decade before by the Atticists, and we may here infer that Varius, the quondam friend of Catullus, was considered the guardian of that tradition. Vergil, despite his devotion to neat technique, may have had his misgivings about rules that in the end endanger the freedom of the poet. His early work ranged very widely in its experiments in style, and Horace's Ars Poetica written many years later shows that Vergil had to the very end been criticized by the extremists for taking liberties with the language. The epigram begins as though it were an erotic poem in the style of Philodemus. Then, having used the Greek word pothos, he checks himself as though dreading a frown from Varius, and substitutes the Latin word puer,
Scilicet hoc fraude, Vari dulcissime, dicam:
"Dispeream, nisi me perdidit iste pothos."
Sin autem praecepta vetant me dicere, sane
Non dicam, sed: "me perdidit iste puer."
For the comprehension of the personal allusions in the sixth and twelfth epigrams, we have as yet discovered no clue, and as they are trifles of no poetic value we may disregard them.
The fourteenth is, however, of very great interest. It purports to be a vow spoken before Venus' shrine at Sorrento pledging gifts of devotion in return for aid in composing the story of Trojan Aeneas.
Si mihi susceptum fuerit decurrere munus,
O Paphon, o sedes quae colis Idalias,
Troius Aeneas Romana per oppida digno
Iam tandem ut tecum carmine vectus eat:
Non ego ture modo aut picta tua templa tabella
Ornabo et puris serta feram manibus—
Corniger hos aries humilis et maxima taurus
Victima sacrato sparget honore focos
Marmoreusque tibi aut mille coloribus ales
In morem picta stabit Amor pharetra.
Adsis o Cytherea: tuos te Caesar Olympo
Et Surrentini litoris ara vocat.
The poem has hitherto been assigned to a period twenty years later. But surely this youthful ferment of hope and anxiety does not represent the composure of a man who has already published the Georgics. The eager offering of flowers and a many-hued statue of Cupid reminds one rather of the youth who in the Ciris begged for inspiration with hands full of lilies and hyacinths.
However, we are not entirely left to conjecture. There is indubitable evidence that Vergil began an epic at this time, some fifteen years before he published the Georgics. It seems clear also that the epic was an Aeneid, with Julius Caesar in the background, and that parts of the early epic were finally merged into the great work of his maturity. The question is of such importance to the study of Vergil's developing art that we may be justified in going fully into the evidence[3]. As it happens we are fortunate in having several references to this early effort. The ninth Catalepton, written in 42, mentions the poet's ambition to write a national poem worthy of a place among the great classics of Greece (l.62):
Si patrio Graios carmine adire sales.
The sixth Eclogue begins with an allusion to it:
Prima Syracusio dignata est ludere versu
Nostra, nec erubuit silvas habitare Thalia.
Cum canerem reges et proelia, Cynthius aurem
Vellit et admonuit, pastorem Tityre pinguis
Pascere oportet oves, deductum dicere carmen.