Horace Part 15

"Ten bulls shall pay thy sacrifice, With whom ten kine shall bleed: I to the fane will lead A yearling of the herd, of modest size, From the luxuriant mead,

"Horned like the moon, when her pale light Which three brief days have fed, She trimmeth, and dispread On his broad brows a spot of snowy white, All else a tawny red."

Augustus did not return from Gaul, as was expected when this Ode was written, but remained there for about two years. That this protracted absence caused no little disquietude in Rome is apparent from the following Ode (IV. 5):--

"From G.o.ds benign descended, thou Best guardian of the fates of Rome, Too long already from thy home Hast thou, dear chief, been absent now;

"Oh, then return, the pledge redeem, Thou gav'st the Senate, and once more Its light to all the land restore; For when thy face, like spring-tide's gleam,

"Its brightness on the people sheds, Then glides the day more sweetly by, A brighter blue pervades the sky, The sun a richer radiance spreads!

"As on her boy the mother calls, Her boy, whom envious tempests keep Beyond the vexed Carpathian deep, From his dear home, till winter falls,

"And still with vow and prayer she cries, Still gazes on the winding sh.o.r.e, So yearns the country evermore For Caesar, with fond, wistful eyes.

"For safe the herds range field and fen, Full-headed stand the shocks of grain, Our sailors sweep the peaceful main, And man can trust his fellow-men.

"No more adulterers stain our beds, Laws, morals, both that taint efface, The husband in the child we trace, And close on crime sure vengeance treads.

"The Parthian, under Caesar's reign, Or icy Scythian, who can dread, Or all the tribes barbarian bred By Germany, or ruthless Spain?

"Now each man, basking on his slopes, Weds to his widowed trees the vine, Then, as he gaily quaffs his wine, Salutes thee G.o.d of all his hopes;

"And prayers to thee devoutly sends, With deep libations; and, as Greece Ranks Castor and great Hercules, Thy G.o.dship with his Lares blends.

"Oh, may'st thou on Hesperia shine, Her chief, her joy, for many a day!

Thus, dry-lipped, thus at morn we pray, Thus pray at eve, when flushed with wine."

"It was perhaps the policy of Augustus," says Macleane, "to make his absence felt; and we may believe that the language of Horace, which bears much more the impress of real feeling than of flattery, represented the sentiments of great numbers at Rome, who felt the want of that presiding genius which had brought the city through its long troubles, and given it comparative peace. There could not be a more comprehensive picture of security and rest obtained through the influence of one mind than is represented in this Ode, if we except that with which no merely mortal language can compare (Isaiah, xi. and lxv.; Micah, iv.)"

We must not a.s.sume, from the reference in this and other Odes to the divine origin of Augustus, that this was seriously Relieved in by Horace, any more than it was by Augustus himself. Popular credulity ascribed divine honours to great men; and this was the natural growth of a religious system in which a variety of G.o.ds and demiG.o.ds played so large a part. Julius Caesar claimed-no doubt, for the purpose of impressing the Roman populace-a direct descent from _Alma Venus Genitrix_, as Antony did from Hercules. Altars and temples were dedicated to great statesmen and generals; and the Romans, among the other things which they borrowed from the East, borrowed also the practice of conferring the honours of apotheosis upon their rulers,--the visible agents, in their estimation, of the great invisible power that governed the world. To speak of their divine descent and attributes became part of the common forms of the poetical vocabulary, not inappropriate to the exalted pitch of lyrical enthusiasm. Horace only falls into the prevailing strain, and is not compromising himself by servile flattery, as some have thought, when he speaks in this Ode of Augustus as "from G.o.ds benign descended," and in others as "the heaven-sent son of Maia" (I. 2), or as reclining among the G.o.ds and quaffing nectar "with lip of deathless bloom" (III. 3). In lyrical poetry all this was quite in place. But when the poet contracts his wings, and drops from its empyrean to the level of the earth, he speaks to Augustus and of him simply as he thought (Epistles, II. 1)--as a man on whose shoulders the weight of empire rested, who protected the commonwealth by the vigour of his armies, and strove to grace it by "sweeter manners, purer laws." He adds, it is true,--

"You while in life are honoured as divine, And vows and oaths are taken at your shrine; So Rome pays honour to her man of men, Ne'er seen on earth before, ne'er to be seen again "--(C.)

but this is no more than a statement of a fact. Altars were erected to Augustus, much against his will, and at these men made their prayers or plighted their oaths every day. There is not a word to imply either that Augustus took these divine honours, or that Horace joined in ascribing them, seriously.

It is of some importance to the argument in favour of Horace's sincerity and independence, that he had no selfish end to serve by standing well with Augustus. We have seen that he was more than content with the moderate fortune secured to him by Maecenas. Wealth had no charms for him. His ambition was to make his mark as a poet. His happiness lay in being his own master. There is no trace of his having at any period been swayed by other views. What then had he to gain by courting the favour of the head of the state? But the argument goes further. When Augustus found the pressure of his private correspondence too great, as his public duties increased, and his health, never robust, began to fail, he offered Horace the post of his private secretary. The poet declined on the ground of health. He contrived to do so in such a way as to give no umbrage by the refusal; nay, the letters which are quoted in the life of Horace ascribed to Suetonius show that Augustus begged the poet to treat him on the same footing as if he had accepted the office, and actually become a member of his household. "Our friend Septimius," he says in another letter, "will tell you how much you are in my thoughts; for something led to my speaking of you before him. Neither, if you were too proud to accept my friendship, do I mean to deal with you in the same spirit." There could have been little of the courtier in the man who was thus addressed. Horace apparently felt that Augustus and himself were likely to be better friends at a distance. He had seen enough of court life to know how perilous it is to that independence which was his dearest possession. "_Dulcis inexpertis cultura potentis amici,-Expertus metuit_," is his ultimate conviction on this head (Epistles, I. 18)--

"Till time has made us wise, 'tis sweet to wait Upon the smiles and favour of the great; But he that once has ventured that career Shrinks from its perils with instinctive fear."

In another place (Epistles, I. 10) he says, "_Fuge magna; licet sub paupere tecto Reges et regum vita praecurrere amicos_"--

"_Keep clear of courts; a homely life transcends The vaunted bliss of monarchs and their friends._" (C.)

But apart from such considerations, life would have lost its charm for Horace, had he put himself within the trammels of official service. At no time would these have been tolerable to him; but as he advanced into middle age, the freedom of entire independence, the refreshing solitudes of the country, leisure for study and reflection, became more and more precious to him. The excitements and gaieties and social enjoyments of Rome were all very well, but a little of them went a great way. They taxed his delicate health, and they interfered with the graver studies, to which he became daily more inclined as the years went by. Not all his regard for Maecenas himself, deep as it was, could induce him to stay in town to enliven the leisure hours of the statesman by his companionship at the expense of those calm seasons of communion with nature and the books of the great men of old, in which he could indulge his irresistible craving for some solution of the great problems of life and philosophy. Men like Maecenas, whose power and wealth are practically unbounded, are apt to become importunate even in their friendships, and to think that everything should give way to the gratification of their wishes. Something of this spirit had obviously been shown towards Horace. Maecenas may have expressed himself in a tone of complaint, either to the poet himself, or in some way that had reached his ears, about his prolonged absence in the country, which implied that he considered his bounties had given him a claim upon the time of Horace which was not sufficiently considered. This could only have been a burst of momentary impatience, for the nature of Maecenas was too generous to admit of any other supposition. But Horace felt it; and with the utmost delicacy of tact, but with a decision that left no room for mistake, he lost no time in letting Maecenas know, that rather than brook control upon his movements, however slight, he will cheerfully forego the gifts of his friend, dear as they are, and grateful for them as he must always be. To this we owe the following Epistle (I. 7). That Maecenas loved his friend all the better for it--he could scarcely respect him more than he seems to have done from the first--we may be very sure.

Only five days, I said, I should be gone; Yet August's past, and still I linger on.

'Tis true I've broke my promise. But if you Would have me well, as I am sure you do, Grant me the same indulgence, which, were I Laid up with illness, you would not deny, Although I claim it only for the fear Of being ill, this deadly time of year, When autumn's clammy heat and early fruits Deck undertakers out, and inky mutes; When young mammas, and fathers to a man, With terrors for their sons and heirs are wan; When stifling anteroom, or court, distils Fevers wholesale, and breaks the seals of wills.

Should winter swathe the Alban fields in snow, Down to the sea your poet means to go, To nurse his ailments, and, in cosy nooks Close huddled up, to loiter o'er his books.

But once let zephyrs blow, sweet friend, and then, If then you'll have him, he will quit his den, With the first swallow hailing you again.

When you bestowed on me what made me rich, Not in the spirit was it done, in which Your bluff Calabrian on a guest will thrust His pears: "Come, eat, man, eat--you can, you must!"

"Indeed, indeed, my friend, I've had enough."

"Then take some home!" "You're too obliging." "Stuff!

If you have pockets full of them, I guess, Your little lads will like you none the less."

"I really can't--thanks all the same!" "You won't?

Why then the pigs shall have them, if you don't."

'Tis fools and prodigals, whose gifts consist Of what they spurn, or what is never missed: Such tilth will never yield, and never could, A harvest save of coa.r.s.e ingrat.i.tude.

A wise good man is evermore alert, When he encounters it, to own desert; Nor is he one, on whom you'd try to pa.s.s For sterling currency mere lackered bra.s.s.

For me, 'twill be my aim myself to raise Even to the flattering level of your praise; But if you'd have me always by your side, Then give me back the chest deep-breathed and wide, The low brow cl.u.s.tered with its locks of black, The flow of talk, the ready laugh, give back, The woes blabbed o'er our wine, when Cinara chose To teaze me, cruel flirt--ah, happy woes!

Through a small hole a field-mouse, lank and thin, Had squeezed his way into a barley bin, And, having fed to fatness on the grain, Tried to get out, but tried and squeezed in vain.

"Friend," cried a weasel, loitering thereabout, "Lean you went in, and lean you must get out."

Now, at my head if folks this story throw, Whate'er I have I'm ready to forego; I am not one, with forced meats in my throat, Fine saws on poor men's dreamless sleep to quote.

Unless in soul as very air I'm free, Not all the wealth of Araby for me.

You've ofttimes praised the reverent, yet true Devotion, which my heart has shown for you.

King, father, I have called you, nor been slack In words of grat.i.tude behind your back; But even your bounties, if you care to try, You'll find I can renounce without a sigh.

Not badly young Telemachus replied, Ulysses' son, that man so sorely tried: "No mettled steeds in Ithaca we want; The ground is broken there, the herbage scant.

Let me, Atrides, then, thy gifts decline, In thy hands they are better far than mine!"

Yes, little things fit little folks. In Rome The Great I never feel myself at home.

Let me have Tibur, and its dreamful ease, Or soft Tarentum's nerve-relaxing breeze.

Philip, the famous counsel, on a day-- A burly man, and wilful in his way-- From court returning, somewhere about two, And grumbling, for his years were far from few, That the Carinae [1] were so distant, though But from the Forum half a mile or so, Descried a fellow in a barber's booth, All by himself, his chin fresh shaved and smooth, Tr.i.m.m.i.n.g his nails, and with the easy air Of one unc.u.mbered by a wish or care.

"Demetrius!"--'twas his page, a boy of tact, In comprehension swift, and swift in act, "Go, ascertain his rank, name, fortune; track His father, patron!" In a trice he's back.

"An auction-crier, Volteius Mena, sir, Means poor enough, no spot on character, Good or to work or idle, get or spend, Has his own house, delights to see a friend, Fond of the play, and sure, when work is done, Of those who crowd the Campus to make one."

"I'd like to hear all from himself. Away, Bid him come dine with me--at once--to-day!"

Mena some trick in the request divines, Turns it all ways, then civilly declines.

"What! Says me nay?" "'Tis even so, sir. Why?

Can't say. Dislikes you, or, more likely, shy."

Next morning Philip searches Mena out, And finds him vending to a rabble rout Old crazy lumber, frippery of the worst, And with all courtesy salutes him first.

Mena pleads occupation, ties of trade, His service else he would by dawn have paid, At Philip's house,--was grieved to think, that how He should have failed to notice him till now.

"On one condition I accept your plea.

You come this afternoon, and dine with me."

"Yours to command." "Be there, then, sharp at four!

Now go, work hard, and make your little more!"

At dinner Mena rattled on, expressed Whate'er came uppermost, then home to rest.

The hook was baited craftily, and when The fish came nibbling ever and again, At morn a client, and, when asked to dine, Not now at all in humour to decline, Philip himself one holiday drove him down, To see his villa some few miles from town.

Mena keeps praising up, the whole way there, The Sabine country, and the Sabine air; So Philip sees his fish is fairly caught, And smiles with inward triumph at the thought.

Resolved at any price to have his whim,-- For that is best of all repose to him,-- Seven hundred pounds he gives him there and then, Proffers on easy terms as much again, And so persuades him, that, with tastes like his, He ought to buy a farm;--so bought it is.

Not to detain you longer than enough, The dapper cit becomes a farmer bluff, Talks drains and subsoils, ever on the strain Grows lean, and ages with the l.u.s.t of gain.

But when his sheep are stolen, when murrains smite His goats, and his best crops are killed with blight, When at the plough his oxen drop down dead, Stung with his losses, up one night from bed He springs, and on a cart-horse makes his way, All wrath, to Philip's house, by break of day.

"How's this?" cries Philip, seeing him unshorn And shabby. "Why, Vulteius, you look worn.

You work, methinks, too long upon the stretch."

"Oh, that's not it, my patron. Call me wretch!

That is the only fitting name for me.

Oh, by thy Genius, by the G.o.ds that be Thy hearth's protectors, I beseech, implore, Give me, oh, give me back my life of yore!"

If for the worse you find you've changed your place, Pause not to think, but straight your steps retrace.

In every state the maxim still is true, On your own last take care to fit your shoe!

[1] The street where he lived, or, as we should say, "Ship Street." The name was due probably to the circ.u.mstance of models of ships being set up in it.