we are left without the knowledge by which to measure the extent of the wrong done to her and Turnus by the enforced severance of their affections. Amata exhibits the blind animal rage of a mother whose affections have been outraged, but her figure wants the firm outlines and substance of the Hecuba of the Iliad. The prophetic office of Helenus enables him to advance the action of the story by preparing the mind of Aeneas for his immediate future: the jealous interference of Iarbas accelerates the doom of Dido: Acestes performs the part of a kindly host to the Trojans in Sicily. But of any individual traits of character they exhibit no trace whatever. Drances serves as a vehicle of impassioned oratory, and as a kind of foil to the generous impulsiveness of Turnus—just as the timid craft of Arruns is a foil to the splendid rashness of Camilla;—and perhaps he is not much less real to our imaginations than Polydamus, who is the only personage of the Iliad that we think of rather as the embodiment of an abstract [pg 401]quality,—moderation,—than as a living man. But in the delineation of Drances there is no sign of that power which, by a few graphic strokes of description and the force of dramatic insight, has made Thersites stand forth for all times as the type of an envious and ignoble demagogue. Though there is more effort of thought in the delineation of Latinus as swayed to and fro by his religious sense of duty and the influence of others, and though there is true pathos in the words with which he allows the declaration of war to be made—
Nam mihi parta quies, omnisque in limine portus:
Funere felici spolior[648];—
yet he does not live before us as Priam lives in the scene with Helen on the walls of the town, and he has no power to move our hearts with the awful compassion which the grief of Priam awakens in the last books of the Iliad. Perhaps the most impressive of the secondary personages in the Aeneid is Evander, as he appears in the dignity of his simple state in the eighth Book, and in the dignity of his great sorrow in the eleventh. Pallas and Lausus, Nisus and Euryalus, afford occasions for pathetic situations, rather than perform any part affording scope for the display of character. The romantic career of Camilla interests us; and she has the further attraction to modern readers of reminding them of a martial heroine of actual history: but we scarcely recognise in the vivid delineation of her deeds those complex elements which in their union form a whole character for our imaginations, whether in the representations of literature or in our experience of life.
The chief personal interest of the story is centred in those whose fortunes and action bring them into antagonism with the decrees of Fate, and who perish in consequence,—in Turnus, Mezentius, and Dido. Patriotism, courage, and passion are exhibited in a fatal but not ignoble struggle with the purposes and chosen instruments of Omnipotence. The tragic interest of this antagonism stimulates the imagination of the poet to a [pg 402]more energetic delineation of character. And in the representation of this struggle it is quite true, as has been well shown by Mr. Nettleship, that Virgil’s own sympathies go with the ‘victrix causa’ which ‘pleased the gods,’ not with the ‘victa’ which pleases our modern sensibilities. He professes not to question but
‘To justify the ways of God to men.’
The death of Mezentius satisfies poetical as well as political justice. Turnus brings his doom upon himself by the intemperate vehemence and self-confidence with which he asserts his personal claims. Though Aeneas and Dido are both represented as ‘forgetful of their better name,’ yet, as happens in real life more generally than in fiction, it is the woman only who suffers the penalty of this forgetfulness. Yet though in all these cases the doom of the sufferers is brought about in part through their own fault, Virgil does not, as an inferior artist might do, endeavour to augment the sympathy with his chief personage, by an unworthy detraction from his antagonist. No scorn of treachery or cowardice, no indignation against cruelty, mingles with the feeling of admiration which the general bearing of Turnus excites. The basis of his character seems to be a generous vehemence and proud independence of spirit. If Aeneas typifies the civilising mission of Rome and is to be regarded as an embodiment of the qualities which enabled her to give law to the world, Turnus typifies the brave but not internecine resistance offered to her by the other races of Italy, and is an embodiment of their high and martial spirit—of that ‘Itala virtus’ which, when tempered by Roman discipline, gave Rome the strength to fulfil her mission. The cause which moves Turnus to resist the Trojans is no unworthy one, either on patriotic grounds or on grounds personal to himself. If the Greeks were justified in making war against the Trojans on account of Helen, the Italians may be justified in making war against the same people on account of Lavinia. His appeals to his countrymen are addressed to the most elemental of patriotic impulses—
nunc coniugis esto
Quisque suae tectique memor: nunc magna referto
Facta, patrum laudes[649].