and again in Tibullus,
Di patrii, purgamus agros, purgamus agrestes, etc.,—
of a happy and generally of a genial and festive character, and not altogether devoid of such elements of simple piety as find expression in the
Caelo supinas si tuleris manus, etc.,
of Horace. Poetical sympathy with the beliefs and picturesque ceremonies of the peasants among whom they lived enhanced the real enjoyment derived from their country life by men of refined feeling like Horace and Tibullus. But Virgil’s feeling in regard to the religious trust and observances of the country people appears to be stronger than mere poetical sympathy. He sees in them a class of men more immediately dependent than others on the protection of some unseen Power, and thus forced, as it were, into more immediate relation with that Power. The modes in which they endeavoured to gain the favour of that Power or to express their thankfulness for its protection were probably among the influences which had moulded his own early belief and character in his Mantuan farm. In the prayer
Dique deaeque omnes studium quibus arva tueri[332],
as in the later exclamation,
Fortunatus et ille deos qui novit agrestes[333],
he is identifying himself in imagination with a living mode of popular belief, and one to which he may have been attracted by his early associations as well as by poetical sympathy.
But the Invocation recognises the creations of Greek art [pg 220]along with the ruder and simpler objects of Italian worship. The ‘Fauni Dryadesque puellae’ assume to Virgil’s fancy the forms of Greek art and poetry. The legend of Neptune producing the horse by the stroke of his trident suggests the attributes of Ποσειδῶν ἵππιος, not of the Italian Neptunus. It is not the Roman Minerva, but ἁ γλαυκῶπις Ἀθάνα, who is associated in poetry and legend with the olive,—