Ecce supercilio clivosi tramitis, etc.,
Virgil has adopted the language of the Iliad[430]; and though it is impossible to improve on that, yet there is no slavish imitation of it; only a new picture is painted, recalling, by some vivid touches, a former piece by the great master. If detraction is to be made from the originality of expression in the Georgics, the debt due by Virgil was incurred to his own countryman. In adopting modes of expression from Lucretius, Virgil brings down the bold creativeness of his original to a tone more suited to the habitual sobriety of the Italian imagination. He often fixes into the form of some general thought what appears in Lucretius as a living movement or individualised action. And this tendency to abstract rather than concrete representation is in accordance with the Roman mould of mind. We notice also how much more sparingly he uses such compound words as ‘navigerum,’ ‘silvifragis,’ etc., by which the earlier poets endeavoured to force the harder metal of the Latin language into the flexibility of Greek speech. Virgil felt that these innovations were unsuited to the genius of the Latin tongue, and endeavoured to enlarge its capacities by novel constructions and by using old words with a new application rather than by novel formations of words. But this gain was perhaps more than compensated by the loss which the language suffered in idiomatic purity and clearness.
In rhythmical movement the poem exhibits the highest perfection of which Latin verse is capable. Of Homer’s verse it has been happily said that it has ‘a tranquil deep strength, reminding us of his own line,
Ἐξ ἀκαλαρρείταο βαθυρρόου ὠκεανοῖο[431].
The movement of Virgil’s verse reminds us rather of his own river—
qui per saxa volutus
Purior electro campum petit[432].
Occasionally we catch the sound of some more rapid rush and impetuous fall, as in the hurry and agitation and culminating grandeur of these lines—
Continuo, ventis surgentibus, aut freta ponti
Incipiunt agitata tumescere, et aridus altis