Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi
Prima fugit; subeunt morbi tristisque senectus[365].
In so far as the thought here expressed is true, the truth cannot be said to be either new or profound.
The inferiority of Virgil to Lucretius, in that faculty of imagination, which perceives an inner identity between great forces in the material and in the spiritual world, is apparent also from a comparison of their respective diction. There is often a creativeness, a boldness of invention and insight into the deepest nature of things, in the language of Lucretius, such as did not reappear again in Italian poetry till more than thirteen centuries had passed, and which makes us feel how much nearer he was in many ways than any other Latin poet to our modern modes of thought and feeling. There is, on the other hand, scarcely any great poem from which so few striking and original images can be quoted as from the Georgics. The figurative language arising out of the perception of the analogy between the vital processes of Nature and various modes of human sensibility is rather like that unconscious identification of Nature with humanity out of which mythology arose, than the conscious recognition of some common force or law operating in totally distinct spheres. And even this identity or analogy between the life of Nature and of man is not conceived with such power and passion in Virgil as in Lucretius. But if Virgil’s language is inferior to that of his predecessor not only in vivid creative power, but in clearness and idiomatic purity, it is much superior in the uniform level of poetical excellence which it maintains. In this respect Virgil compares favourably with some of the greatest masters of style among English poets, for example with Wordsworth, Shelley, and Byron. There is nothing redundant [pg 242]or monotonous in the style of the Georgics, nothing trivial or mean; while always rich and pregnant with suggestion, it is never overstrained or overloaded; while always elevated to the pitch of poetry, it never seems to soar too far above the familiar aspects of the world. Nothing shows the perfect sanity of Virgil’s genius more clearly than his entire exemption from the besetting sin of our own didactic poetasters of last century—a sin from which even Wordsworth himself is not altogether free—that of calling common things by pompous names, and of dignifying trifles by applying heroic phrases to them. If he seems sometimes to deviate from this habitual temperance of manner in the account of his bee communities, he does so purposely, to convey through this gentle vein of irony something of that pensive meditativeness of spirit which is produced in him by reflection on the transitory passions, joys, and vicissitudes of our mortal life.
The general superiority of Virgil’s art to that of Lucretius is equally apparent in his rhythm. The powerful movement of spirit which Lucretius feels in the presence of the sublimer spectacle of Nature and of the more solemn things of human life does indeed produce isolated effects of majestic speech and sonorously rhythmical cadence, swelling above the deep, strong, monotonous flow of his ordinary verse, which neither Virgil nor any other poet has surpassed. But in variety, equable smoothness and grandeur, in that tempered harmony of sound which never disappoints and never burdens the ear, it may be doubted whether the musical art of any poet has maintained such a uniform level of excellence as that maintained in the Georgics. Virgil produces more varied effects than Lucretius can do even in his more finished passages, while at the same time binding himself by stricter laws in the composition of his verse. This he does by the greater variety and greater frequency of his pauses, by uniformly placing the words of strength and emphasis in the strong positions of the line, and by a skilful regulation of the succession of long and short, of accentuated and unaccentuated syllables, and of lines of a more rapid or slower move[pg 243]ment. The result is that the feeling of his rhythm becomes a main element in the realisation of his meaning.
The principal resources by which Virgil, in the didactic exposition of his subject, avoids that monotony of effect which was likely to arise from the strong Roman concentration of purpose with which his work was executed, and, without deviating from the true perception of facts, is able to invest a somewhat narrow range of interests with charm and dignity,—
angustis hunc addere rebus honorem,—
are thus seen to be, first his feeling of Nature, of man’s relation to it, of his joy in the results of his toil, and, secondly, the associations of strange lands, of mythology, of antiquity, and of religious custom. The instruments by which these resources are made available are the careful choice and combinations of words and the well-practised melody of his verse. These resources and instruments have been considered in relation to and contrast with those employed by Lucretius. There is, moreover, this difference between the method of the two poets, that Virgil is much more of a conscious artist, that he seems to go more in search of illustrations and the means of artistic embellishment, that he endeavours to make for himself a wreath, ‘undique decerptam;’ while the occasional accessions of a more powerful poetic interest to the ordinary exposition of Lucretius arise naturally in the process of his argument, from the habit of his mind to observe the outward world, the ways of all living things, and the condition of man in their intimate connexion with the great speculative ideas of his philosophy. His modes of varying the interest of his subject and adorning it are thus more simple and homogeneous; they work more in harmony with the purpose of his poem, so as to produce a pervading unity of sentiment and impression. The variety of resources used by Virgil gives, at first sight, a composite character to his art. But there is, deeper than this apparent composite character, an inner unity of tone and sentiment pervading the whole work. The source of this unity is the deep love and [pg 244]pride which he feels in every detail of his subject, from the great human interests with which these details are associated in his mind. What these human interests are is brought out prominently in the episodes of the poem, which still remain to be considered.