Montibus et silvis studio iactabat inani[257].
In Virgil’s representation neither the scenes nor the human figures are so distinctly present to the eye; but there is diffused through it a subtle influence from the outward world, bringing man’s nature into conformity with itself. The genius in modern times, which shows most of this yielding susceptibility to the softer aspects and motions of Nature, is that of Rousseau; but in the manner in which he gives way to this sentiment there is a want of restraint, a strain of excited feeling, suggestive of the contrast between this transient intoxication of happiness and the abiding unrest and misery of all his human relations. In reading Virgil there is no sense of any such jarring discord; yet it is rather as a pensive emotion, not unallied to melancholy, than as the joy of a sanguine temperament, that his susceptibility to outward impressions is made manifest.
The objects through which Nature exercises this spell are, as was said, much the same as those out of which the landscape of Theocritus is composed. Virgil, like Theocritus, enables us to feel the charm of ‘the sparkling stream of fresh water,’ of ‘mossy fountains and grass softer than sleep,’ of ‘the cool shade of trees,’ and of caves ‘with the gadding vine o’ergrown.’ The grace and tender hues of wild flowers—violets, poppies, narcissus, and hyacinth—and of fruits, such as the ‘cerea pruna’ and the ‘tenera lanugine mala,’—the luxuriant vegetation clothing the rocks and the ideal mountain glades,—
Ille latus niveum molli fultus hyacintho[258],—
the plants and trees,—osiers and hazels, ilex and beech,—the woods, and meadow-pastures, and rich orchards of his native district, have communicated the soul and secret of their being to the mellow tones of his language and the musical cadences of his verse. He makes us hear again, with a strange delight, the murmur of bees feeding on the willow hedge, the moan of [pg 166]turtle-doves from the high elm tree, the sound of the whispering south wind, of waves breaking on the shore, of rivers flowing down through rocky valleys, the song of the woodman plying his work, the voice of the divine poet chanting his strain. By a few simple words he calls up before our minds the genial luxuriance of spring, the freshness of early morning, the rest of all living things in the burning heat of noon, the stillness of evening, the gentle imperceptible motions of Nature, in the shooting up of the young alder-tree and in the gradual colouring of the grapes on the sunny hill-sides. If the labour of man is mentioned at all, it is in the form of some elegant accomplishment or picturesque task—pruning the vine or grafting the pear-tree, closing the streams that water the pastures, watching the flocks and herds feeding at their own will. The new era on which the world was about to enter is seen by his imagination, like the vision of some pastoral valley, half hidden, half glorified through a golden haze. The peculiar blessings anticipated in that era are the rest from labour, the spontaneous bounty of Nature, the peace that is to reign among the old enemies of the animal kingdom.
The human affections which mingle with these representations of Nature are the love of home, and the romantic sentiment, rather than the passion, of love. The common human feeling of the love of home Virgil realises more intensely from his love of the beauty associated with his own home. Many of the sayings of Tityrus and Meliboeus bear witness to the strong hold which their lands and flocks had on men of their class:—
nos dulcia linquimus arva—
ergo tua rura manebunt, Et tibi magna satis—
Ille meas errare boves ut cernis—
Spem gregis a, silice in nuda conixa reliquit—