But the Lucretian conception of Nature in its relation to human wants has been greatly modified by the religious tendency of Virgil’s thought, his respect for traditional opinion, his sense of man’s dependence on a higher Spiritual Power. Nature he regards as no more independent in her sphere than man is in his. The laws and conditions imposed on her have been appointed with reference to the relation in which she stands to man. Where these conditions are unfavourable, they have been appointed to quicken man’s faculties and force him into the ways of industry. Lucretius dwells on the fact that two-thirds of our globe are unsuited for human habitation, as disproving the opinion of a Divine creation of the world for the benefit of man[321]: Virgil dwells on the fact that two temperate regions have been assigned to weak mortals as a proof of Divine beneficence[322]. Virgil also accepts the idea that the earth once was more productive than it is[323], but he accepts it in the spirit of Hesiod rather than of Lucretius. In the Golden Age, under Saturn, the earth bore all things spontaneously. It was Jove—or Providence—who imposed on man, and continues to impose on him, the necessity of labouring for his subsistence; and this he did, not, as Hesiod believed, in anger at the deceit of Prometheus, but as a discipline and incentive to exertion. The poetical references to the Saturnian Age and the subsequent reign of Jove need not imply a literal belief in the fables of mythology, any more than the allusion at Georg. i. 62 to the fable of Pyrrha and Deucalion implies the literal acceptance of the explanation there given of the existence of the present race of men. But as that allusion seems meant to convey the belief in a Divine creative act, so the former allusion seems to convey a belief in a Divine moral dispensation. The idea of Providential guidance, of a Supreme Father, wielding the forces of Nature, shaping the destinies of man, acting for the most part by regular processes in order [pg 210]that man may learn to understand his ways[324], but making his personal agency more manifest from time to time, as after the death of Caesar, by signs and wonders interrupting the order of Nature, supersedes or largely modifies the conception of natural law. The other powers of the Greek Olympus and of the Roman Pantheon are no longer, as the former are in the Iliad, at war with one another, but all work in harmony with the Supreme Will. Like the fables just referred to, the names of these deities seem to be introduced symbolically, to signify the different modes of activity of the one Supreme Spiritual Power, and the different forms under which he is to be reverenced.
The speculative idea of the Georgics is thus rather a theological than a philosophical idea. The ultimate fact which Virgil endeavours to set forth and justify is the relation of man to Nature, under a Divine dispensation. He too, as well as Lucretius, recognises the tendency of all things to degenerate; but this tendency he attributes, not to natural loss of force, but to the fiat of Omnipotence—
sic omnia fatis
In peius ruere.
He too recognises the liability to failure and loss from causes over which man has no direct control,—the violence of storms, the inclemency of seasons, etc.,—as well as from others which he is able to provide against by constant vigilance. What resource has he against these untoward conditions? First he is bound to watch the signs of impending change which Providence has appointed, so as to leave as little as possible at the mercy of the elements. Next he has the resource of prayer, and the power of propitiating Heaven by customary rites and sacrifices, and by a life of piety and innocence. The ethical precepts of the poem, as is said by a distinguished French [pg 211]writer, may be summed up in the medieval maxim, ‘Laborare est orare[325].’
To inculcate the necessity of a constant struggle with the reluctant forces of Nature, and to show how this struggle may be successfully conducted by incessant labour, vigilance, propitiation of the Supreme Will by prayer and piety, thus appears to be the main ethical teaching of the Georgics. And this statement of Virgil’s aim is not inconsistent with the interpretation of his meaning, first suggested by Mr. Merivale, and accepted and admirably illustrated by Conington. But the phrase ‘glorification of labour’ suggests modern rather than ancient associations. Labour is not glorified as an end in itself; it is inculcated as a duty, as the condition appointed by Providence for attaining the peace, abundance, happiness, and worth of the life of the fields. As of old
Τῆς ἀρετῆς ἱδρῶτα θεοὶ προπάροιθεν ἔθηκαν,
so now they make the sweat of man’s brow the means through which the ‘divini gloria ruris’ can be realised. By the labour spent in drawing into actual existence the glory and beauty of the land man best fulfils his duty and secures his happiness. There is no truer source for him of material and moral good, of simple pleasures, of contemplative delight. Yet if we wish rightly to appreciate the purely didactic parts of the poem, it is impossible, as has been fully shown by Conington in his General Introduction to the Georgics, to overrate the stress which Virgil puts on the ceaseless industry, foresight, vigilance, and actual force[326] which must be put forth by the husbandman, as the condition of success in the struggle in which he is [pg 212]engaged. The very style of the Georgics bears the impress of this predominant idea. It is this idea which seems to give Roman strength to the workmanship of the poem; as it is the sense of the rich and tender life of Nature which gives to it the softness of Italian sentiment, so marvellously blended with that Roman strength. The imperial tone of conquest and command and civilising influence makes itself heard in such lines as these:—
Exercetque frequens tellurem atque imperat arvis.
Tum denique dura