Horace Part 5

"My freedom's a lairdship nae monarch may touch."

And we shall hereafter have occasion to see that, when put to the proof, he acted upon this creed. "Well might the overworked statesman have envied the poet the ease and freedom of his life, and longed to be able to spend a day as Horace, in the same Satire, tells us his days were pa.s.sed!--

"I walk alone, by mine own fancy led, Inquire the price of potherbs and of bread, The circus cross, to see its tricks and fun, The forum, too, at times, near set of sun; With other fools there do I stand and gape Bound fortune-tellers' stalls, thence home escape To a plain meal of pancakes, pulse, and pease; Three young boy-slaves attend on me with these.

Upon a slab of snow-white marble stand A goblet and two beakers; near at hand, A common ewer, patera, and bowl; Campania's potteries produced the whole.

To sleep then I....

I keep my couch till ten, then walk awhile, Or having read or writ what may beguile A quiet after-hour, anoint my limbs With oil, not such as filthy Natta skims From lamps defrauded of their unctuous fare.

And when the sunbeams, grown too hot to bear, Warn me to quit the field, and hand-ball play, The bath takes all my weariness away.

Then, having lightly dined, just to appease The sense of emptiness, I take mine ease, Enjoying all home's simple luxury.

This is the life of bard unclogged, like me, By stern ambition's miserable weight.

So placed, I own with grat.i.tude, my state Is sweeter, ay, than though a quaestor's power From sire and grandsire's sires had been my dower."

It would not have been easy to bribe a man of these simple habits and tastes, as some critics have contended that Horace was bribed, to become the laureate of a party to which he had once been opposed, even had Maecenas wished to do so. His very indifference to those favours which were within the disposal of a great minister of state, placed him on a vantage-ground in his relations with Maecenas which he could in no other way have secured. Nor, we may well believe, would that distinguished man have wished it otherwise. Surrounded as he was by servility and selfish baseness, he must have felt himself irresistibly drawn towards a nature so respectful, yet perfectly manly and independent, as that of the poet. Nor can we doubt that intimacy had grown into friendship, warm and sincere, before he gratified his own feelings, while he made Horace happy for life, by presenting him with a small estate in the Sabine country--a gift which, we may be sure, he knew well would be of all gifts the most welcome. It is demonstrable that it was not given earlier than B.C. 33, or after upwards of four years of intimate acquaintance.

That Horace had longed for such a possession, he tells us himself (Satires, II. 6). He had probably expressed his longing in the hearing of his friend, and to such a friend the opportunity of turning the poet's dream into a reality must have been especially delightful.

The gift was a slight one for Maecenas to bestow; but, with Horace's fondness for the country, it had a value for him beyond all price. It gave him a competency--_satis superque_--enough and more than he wanted for his needs. It gave him leisure, health, amus.e.m.e.nt; and, more precious than all, it secured him undisturbed freedom of thought, and opportunities for that calm intercourse with nature which he "needed for his spirit's health." Never was gift better bestowed, or more worthily requited. To it we are indebted for much of that poetry which has linked the name of Maecenas with that of the poet in a.s.sociations the most engaging, and has afforded, and will afford, ever-new delight to successive generations. The Sabine farm was situated in the Valley of Ustica, thirty miles from Rome, and twelve miles from Tivoli.

It possessed the attraction, no small one to Horace, of being very secluded--Varia (Vico Varo), the nearest town, being four miles off--yet, at the same time, within an easy distance of Rome. When his spirits wanted the stimulus of society or the bustle of the capital, which they often did, his ambling mule could speedily convey him thither; and when jaded, on the other hand, by the noise and racket and dissipations of Rome, he could, in the same homely way, bury himself within a few hours among the hills, and there, under the shadow of his favourite Lucretilis, or by the banks of the clear-flowing and ice-cold Digentia, either stretch himself to dream upon the gra.s.s, lulled by the murmurs of the stream, or do a little fanning in the way of clearing his fields of stones, or turning over a furrow here and there with the hoe.

There was a rough wildness in the scenery and a sharpness in the air, both of which Horace liked, although, as years advanced and his health grew more delicate, he had to leave it in the colder months for Tivoli or Baiae. He built a villa upon it, or added to one already there, the traces of which still exist. The farm gave employment to five families of free _coloni_, who were under the superintendence of a bailiff; and the poet's domestic establishment was composed of eight slaves. The site of the farm is at the present day a favourite resort of travellers, of Englishmen especially, who visit it in such numbers, and trace its features with such enthusiasm, that the resident peasantry, "who cannot conceive of any other source of interest in one so long dead and unsainted than that of co-patriotism or consanguinity," believe Horace to have been an Englishman [Footnote: Letter by Mr Dennis: Milman's 'Horace.' London, 1849. P. 109.]. What aspect it presented in Horace's time we gather from one of his Epistles (I. 16):--

"About my farm, dear Quinctius: You would know What sort of produce for its lord 'twill grow; Plough-land is it, or meadow-land, or soil For apples, vine-clad elms, or olive-oil?

So (but you'll think me garrulous) I'll write A full description of its form and site.

In long continuous lines the mountains run, Cleft by a valley, which twice feels the sun-- Once on the right, when first he lifts his beams; Once on the left, when he descends in steams.

You'd praise the climate; well, and what d'ye say To sloes and cornels hanging from the spray?

What to the oak and ilex, that afford Fruit to the cattle, shelter to their lord?

What, but that rich Tarentum must have been Transplanted nearer Rome, with all its green?

Then there's a fountain, of sufficient size To name the river that takes thence its rise-- Not Thracian Hebrus colder or more pure, Of power the head's and stomach's ills to cure.

This sweet retirement--nay, 'tis more than sweet-- Insures my health even in September's heat." (C.)

Here is what a last year's tourist found it:--

('Pall Mall Gazette,'August 16, 1869.)

"Following a path along the brink of the torrent Digentia, we pa.s.sed a towering rock, on which once stood Vacuna's shrine, and entered a pastoral region of well-watered meadow-lands, enamelled with flowers and studded with chestnut and fruit trees. Beneath their sheltering shade peasants were whiling away the noontide hours. Here sat Daphnis piping sweet witching melodies on a reed to his rustic Phidyle, whilst Lydia and she wove wreaths of wild-flowers, and Lyce sped down to the edge of the stream and brought us cooling drink in a bulging conca borne on her head. Its waters were as deliciously refreshing as they could have been when the poet himself gratefully recorded how often they revived his strength; and one longed to think, and hence half believed, that our homely Hebe, like her fellows, was sprung from the coloni who tilled his fields and dwelt in the five homesteads of which he sings. ... Near the little village of Licenza, standing like its loftier neighbour, Civitella, on a steep hill at the foot of Lucretilis, we turned off the path, crossed a thickly-wooded knoll, and came to an orchard, in which two young labourers were at work. We asked where the remains of Horace's farm were. '_A pie tui!_' answered the nearest of them, in a dialect more like Latin than Italian. So saying, he began with a shovel to uncover a ma.s.sive floor in very fair preservation; a little farther on was another, crumbling to pieces. Chaupy has luckily saved one all doubt as to the site of the farm, establishing to our minds convincingly that it could scarcely have stood on ground other than that on which at this moment we were. As the shovel was clearing the floors, we thought how applicable to Horace himself were the lines he addressed to Fuscus Aristius, 'Naturam expelles,' &c.--

'Drive Nature forth by force, she'll turn and rout The false refinements that would keep her out;' (C.)

For here was just enough of his home left to show how nature, creeping on step by step, had overwhelmed his handiwork and rea.s.serted her sway.

Again, pure and Augustan in design as was the pavement before us, how little could it vie with the hues and odours of the gra.s.ses that bloomed around it!--'Deterius Libycis' &c.--

'Is springing gra.s.s less sweet to nose and eyes Than Libyan marble's tesselated dyes?' (C.)

"Indeed, so striking were these coincidences that we were as nearly as possible going off on the wrong tack, and singing 'Io Paean' to Dame Nature herself at the expense of the bard; but we were soon brought back to our allegiance by a sense of the way in which all we saw tallied with the description of him who sang of nature so surpa.s.singly well, who challenges posterity in charmed accents, and could shape the sternest and most concise of tongues into those melodious cadences that invest his undying verse with all the magic of music and all the freshness of youth. For this was clearly the 'angulus iste,' the nook which 'restored him to himself'--this the lovely spot which his steward longed to exchange for the slums of Rome. Below lay the greensward by the river, where it was sweet to recline in slumber. Here grew the vines, still trained, like his own, on the trunks and branches of trees. Yonder the brook which the rain would swell till it overflowed its margin, and his lazy steward and slaves were fain to bank it up; and above, among a wild jumble of hills, lay the woods where, on the Calends of March, Faunus interposed to save him from the falling tree, and where another miracle preserved him from the attack of the wolf as he strolled along unarmed, singing of the soft voice and sweet smiles of his Lalage! The brook is now nearly dammed up; a wall of close-fitting rough-hewn stones gathers its waters into a still, dark pool; its overflow gushes out in a tiny rill that rushed down beside our path, mingling its murmur with the hum of myriads of insects that swarmed in the air."

On this farm lovers of Horace have been fain to place the fountain of Bandusia, which the poet loved so well, and to which he prophesied, and truly, as the issue has proved, immortality from his song (Odes, III.

13). Charming as the poem is, there could be no stronger proof of the poet's hold upon the hearts of men of all ages than the enthusiasm with which the very site of the spring has been contested.

"Bandusia's fount, in clearness crystalline, O worthy of the wine, the flowers we vow!

To-morrow shall be thine A kid, whose crescent brow

"Is sprouting, all for love and victory, In vain; his warm red blood, so early stirred, Thy gelid stream shall dye, Child of the wanton herd.

"Thee the fierce Sirian star, to madness fired, Forbears to touch; sweet cool thy waters yield To ox with ploughing tired, And flocks that range afield.

"Thou too one day shall win proud eminence 'Mid honoured founts, while I the ilex sing Crowning the cavern, whence Thy babbling wavelets spring." (C.)

Several commentators maintain, on what appears to be very inconclusive grounds, that the fountain was at Palazzo, six miles from Venusia. But the poem is obviously inspired by a fountain whose babble had often soothed the ear of Horace, long after he had ceased to visit Venusia.

On his farm, therefore, let us believe it to exist, whichever of the springs that are still there we may choose to identify with his description. For there are several, and the local guides are by no means dogmatic as to the "_vero fonte_." That known as the "Fonte della Corte"

seems to make out the strongest case for itself. It is within a few hundred yards of the villa, most abundant, and in this respect "fit" to name the river that there takes its rise, which the others--at present, at least--certainly are not.

Horace is never weary of singing the praises of his mountain home--"_Satis beatus unicis Sabinis_,"

"With what I have completely blest, My happy little Sabine nest"-- Odes, II. 18.

are the words in which he contrasts his own entire happiness with the restless misery of a millionaire in the midst of his splendour. Again, in one of his Odes to Maecenas (III. 16) he takes up and expands the same theme.

"In my crystal stream, my woodland, though its acres are but few, And the trust that I shall gather home my crops in season due, Lies a joy, which he may never grasp, who rules in gorgeous state Fertile Africa's dominions. Happier, happier far my fate!

Though for me no bees Calabrian store their honey, nor doth wine Sickening in the Laestrygonian amphora for me refine; Though for me no flocks unnumbered, browsing Gallia's pastures fair, Pant beneath their swelling fleeces, I at least am free from care; Haggard want with direful clamour ravins never at my door, Nor wouldst thou, if more I wanted, oh my friend, deny me more.

Appet.i.tes subdued will make me richer with my scanty gains, Than the realms of Alyattes wedded to Mygdonia's plains.

Much will evermore be wanting unto those who much demand; Blest, whom Jove with what sufficeth dowers, but dowers with sparing hand."

It is the nook of earth which, beyond all others, has a charm for him,--the one spot where he is all his own. Here, as Wordsworth beautifully says, he

"Exults in freedom, can with rapture vouch For the dear blessings of a lowly couch, A natural meal, days, months from Nature's hand, Time, place, and business all at his command,"

It is in this delightful retreat that, in one of his most graceful Odes, he thus invites the fair Tyndaris to pay him a visit (I. 17):--

"My own sweet Lucretilis ofttime can lure From his native Lycaeus kind Faunus the fleet, To watch o'er my flocks, and to keep them secure From summer's fierce winds, and its rains, and its heat.

"There the mates of a lord of too pungent a fragrance Securely through brake and o'er precipice climb, And crop, as they wander in happiest vagrance, The arbutus green, and the sweet-scented thyme.

"Nor murderous wolf nor green snake may a.s.sail My innocent kidlings, dear Tyndaris, when His pipings resound through Ustica's low vale, Till each mossed rock in music makes answer again.

"The muse is still dear to the G.o.ds, and they shield Me, their dutiful bard; with a bounty divine They have blessed me with all that the country can yield; Then come, and whatever I have shall be thine!

"Here screened from the dog-star, in valley retired, Shalt thou sing that old song thou canst warble so well, Which tells how one pa.s.sion Penelope fired, And charmed fickle Circe herself by its spell.

"Here cups shalt thou sip, 'neath the broad-spreading shade Of the innocent vintage of Lesbos at ease; No fumes of hot ire shall our banquet invade, Or mar that sweet festival under the trees.

"And fear not, lest Cyrus, that jealous young bear, On thy poor little self his rude fingers should set-- Should pluck from thy bright locks the chaplet, and tear Thy dress, that ne'er harmed him nor any one yet."

Had Milton this Ode in his thought, when he invited his friend Lawes to a repast,

"Light and choice, Of Attic taste with wine, whence we may rise, To hear the lute well touched, and artful voice Warble immortal notes, and Tuscan air"?

The reference in the last verse to the violence of the lady's lover--a violence of which ladies of her cla.s.s were constantly the victims--rather suggests that this Ode, if addressed to a real personage at all, was meant less as an invitation to the Sabine farm than as a balm to the lady's wounded spirit.

In none of his poems is the poet's deep delight in the country life of his Sabine home more apparent than in the following (Satires, II. 6), which, both for its biographical interest and as a specimen of his best manner in his Satires, we give entire:--

"My prayers with this I used to charge,-- A piece of land not very large, Wherein there should a garden be, A clear spring flowing ceaselessly, And where, to crown the whole, there should A patch be found of growing wood.