Post-Augustan Poetry From Seneca to Juvenal Part 2

ad patrem victor non potes ire tuum.

sed potes ad fratrem: nunc fort.i.ter utere telo!

impius hoc telo es, hoc potes esse pius.

vivere si poteris, potuisti occidere fratrem!

nescisti: sed scis: haec mora culpa tua est.

viximus adversis, iaccamus partibus isdem (dixit et in dubio est utrius ense cadat).

ense meo moriar, maculato morte nefanda?

cui moreris, ferrum quo moriare dabit.'

dixit et in fratrem fraterno concidit ense: victorem et victum condidit una ma.n.u.s.[163]

What had been valour now is made a crime. The soldier halts by his foe and fears to launch his shafts. Then his courage rekindled. 'What! coward hand, dost thou delay _now_? There is one here whom thou shouldst slay sooner than the foe. Naught can a.s.soil of the guilt of a brother's blood save only death; 'tis thy death must atone. Shalt thou bear home to thy father's halls rich spoil of war? Nay, victor thus, thou canst not go to meet thy sire. But victor thou canst go to meet thy brother; _now_ use thy weapon bravely. This weapon stained thee with crime, 'tis this weapon shall make thee clean. If thou hast heart to live, thou hadst the heart to slay thy brother; thou _hadst_ no such murderous thought, but _now_ thou hast; this thy tarrying brings thee guilt. We have lived foes, let us lie united in the peace of the grave.' He ceased and doubted on whose sword to fall.' Shall I die by mine own sword, thus foul with shameful murder. He for whom thou diest shall give thee the steel wherewith to die.' He ceased, and fell dead upon his brother, slain by his brother's sword.

The same hand slew both victor and vanquished.

This is not poetry of the first cla.s.s, if indeed it is poetry at all.

But it is trick-rhetoric of the most brilliant kind without degenerating into bombastic absurdity. There is, in fact, a restraint in these epigrams which provides a remarkable contrast with the turgid extravagance that defaces so much of the dramas. This is in part due to the difference of the moulds into which the rhetoric is run, but it is hard to resist the belief that the epigrams--written mainly during the exile in Corsica--are considerably later than the plays. They are in themselves insignificant; they show no advance in dexterity upon the dramas, but they do show a distinct increase of maturity.

The plays are ten in number; they comprise a _Hercules Furens, Troades, Phoenissae_ (or _Thebais_), _Medea, Phaedra_ (or _Hippolytus_), _Oedipus, Agamemnon, Thyestes, Hercules Oetaeus_, and--sole example of the _fabula praetexta_--the _Octavia_. Despite the curious silence of Seneca himself and of his contemporaries, there can be little doubt as to the general correctness of the attribution which a.s.signs to Seneca the only Latin tragedies that grudging time has spared us. The _Medea, Hercules Furens, Troades, Phaedra, Agamemnon_, and _Thyestes_ are all cited by late writers, while Quintilian[164] himself cites a line from the Medea as the work of Seneca. The name Seneca, without any further specification, points as clearly to Seneca, the philosopher, as the name Cicero to the great orator. The absence of any further or more explicit reference on the part of Quintilian to Seneca's achievements as a tragedian is easily explained on the supposition that the critic regarded them as but an insignificant portion of his work. Yet stronger confirmation is afforded by the internal evidence. The verse is marked by the same brilliant but fatiguing terseness, the same polish and point, the same sententiousness, the same succession of short stabbing sentences, that mark the prose works of Seneca.[165] More remarkable still is the close parallelism of thought. The plays are permeated through and through with Stoicism, and the expression given to certain Stoical doctrines is often almost identical with pa.s.sages from the philosophical works.[166] Against these evidences the silence of Seneca himself counts for little. We may charitably suppose that he rated his plays at their just value. In any case a poet is under no compulsion to quote his own verses, or even to refer to them, in works of a totally different nature.[167]

A more serious question is whether Seneca is the author of all the plays transmitted to us under his name. The authenticity of four of these dramas has been seriously questioned. That the _Octavia_ is by a later hand may be regarded as certain. Seneca could hardly have dared to write a play on so dangerous a theme--the brutal treatment by Nero of his young wife Octavia. Moreover, Seneca himself is one of the dramatis personae, and there are clear references to the death of Nero, while the style is simple and restrained, and wholly unlike that of the other plays. It is the work of a saner and less flamboyant age.[168] The _Agamemnon_ and the _Oedipus_ have been suspected on the ground that certain of the lyric portions are written in a curious patchwork metre of a character fortunately unique in Latin lyric verse. The _Agamemnon_ further has two choruses.[169] But in all other respects the language, technique, and metre closely resemble the other dramas. Neither objection need carry any weight. There is no reason why Seneca should not have introduced a double chorus or have indulged in unsuccessful metrical experiments.[170] Far more difficult is the problem presented by the _Hercules Oetaeus_. It presents many anomalies, of which the least are a double chorus and a change of scene from Oechalia to Trachis. Imitations and plagiarisms from the other plays abound, and the work has more than its fair share of vain repet.i.tions and tasteless absurdities. On the other hand, metre and diction closely recall the dramas accepted as genuine. It is hard to give any certain answer to such a complicated problem, but it is noteworthy that all the worst defects in this play (which among its other peculiarities possesses abnormal length) occur after l. 705, while the earlier scenes depicting the jealousy of Deianira show the Senecan dramatic style almost at its best. Even in the later portion of the play there is much that may be by the hand of Seneca. It is impossible to brand the drama as wholly spurious. The opening lines (1-232) may not belong to the play, but may form an entirely separate scene dealing with the capture of Oechalia: there is no reason to suppose that they are not by Seneca, and the same statement applies to the great bulk of ll. 233-705. The remainder has in all probability suffered largely from interpolation, but its general resemblance to Seneca in style and diction is too strongly marked to permit us to reject it _en bloc_. The problem is too obscure to repay detailed discussion.[171] The most probable solution of the question would seem to be that the work was left in an unfinished condition with inconsistencies, self-plagiarisms, repet.i.tions, and absurdities which revision would have removed; this unfinished drama was then worked over and corrected by a stupid, but careful student of Seneca.

There is such a complete absence of evidence as to the period of Seneca's life during which these dramas were composed, that much ingenuity has been wasted in attempts to solve the problem. The view most widely held--why it should be held is a mystery--is that they were composed during Seneca's exile in Corsica (41-9 A.D.).[172] Others, again, hold that they were written for the delectation of the young Nero, who had early betrayed a taste for the stage. This view has nothing to support it save the accusation mentioned by Tacitus,[173] to the effect that the patronage and approval of Nero led Seneca to write verse more frequently than his wont. Direct evidence there is none, but the general crudity of the work, coupled with the pedantic hardness and rigidity of the Stoicism which pervades the plays, points strongly to an early date, considerably earlier than the exile in Corsica. There is no trace of the mature experience and feeling for humanity that characterize the later philosophical works. On the contrary, these plays are just what might be expected of a young man fresh from the schools of rhetoric and philosophy.[174] As to the order in which the plays were written there is practically nothing to guide us.[175] The _Hercules Oetaeus_ is probably the latest, for in it we find plagiarisms from the _Hercules Furens, Oedipus, Thyestes, Phoenissae, Phaedra_, and _Troades_. Even here, however, there is an element of uncertainty, for it is impossible to ascertain whether any given plagiarism is due to Seneca or to his interpolators.

Leaving such barren and unprofitable ground, what can we say of the plays themselves? Even after making due allowance for the hopeless decline of dramatic taste and for the ruin wrought by the schools of rhetoric, it is hard to speak with patience of such productions, when we recall the brilliance and charm of the prose works of Seneca. We can forgive him being rhetorical when he speaks for himself; when he speaks through the lips of others he is less easily tolerable.

Drama is a reading of human life: if it is to hold one's interest it must deal with the feelings, thought, and action of genuine human beings and represent their complex interaction: the characters must be real and must differ one from the other, so that by force of contrast and by the continued play of diverse aspects and developments of the human soul, the significance, the pathos, and the power of the fragment of human life selected for representation may be fully brought out and set before our eyes. If these characteristics be absent, the drama must of necessity be an artistic failure by reason of its lack of truth. But it requires also plot, with a logical growth leading to some great climax and developing a growing suspense in the spectator as to what shall be the end. It is true that plot without reality may give us a successful melodrama, that truth of character-drawing with a minimum of plot may move and interest us. But in neither case shall we have drama in its truest and n.o.blest form.

Seneca gives us neither the half nor the whole. The stage is ultimately the touchstone of dramatic excellence. But if it is to be such a touchstone, it must have an audience with a penetration of intelligence and a soundness of taste such as had long ceased to characterize Roman audiences. The Senecan drama has lost touch with the stage and lacks both unity and life. Such superficial unity as his plots possess is due to the fact that they are ultimately imitations of Greek[176] drama. A full discussion of the plots is neither necessary here nor possible. A few instances of Seneca's treatment of his material must suffice.[177]

He has no sense of logical development; the lack of sequence and of proportion traceable in the letters is more painfully evident in the tragedies.

The _Hercules Furens_ supplies an excellent example of the weakness of the Senecan plot. It is based on the [Greek: H_erakl_es mainomenos] of Euripides, and such unity as it possesses is in the main due to that fact. It is in his chief divergences from the Euripidean treatment of the story that his deficiencies become most apparent. Theseus appears early in the play merely that he may deliver a long rhodomontade on the appearance of the underworld, whence Hercules has rescued him; and, worst of all, the return of Hercules is rendered wholly ineffective.

Amphitryon hears the approaching steps of Hercules as he bursts his way to the upper world and cries (523)--

est est sonitus Herculei gradus.

The chorus then, as if they had heard nothing, deliver themselves of a chant that describes Hercules as still a prisoner in Hades. When Hercules at last is allowed to appear, he appears alone, and delivers a long ranting glorification of himself (592-617) before he is joined by his father, wife, and children. As Leo has remarked,[178] this episode has been tastelessly torn into two fragments merely to give Hercules an opportunity for turgid declamation.

The _Medea_, again, is, on the whole, Euripidean in form, though it probably owes much to the influence of Ovid.[179] It is, moreover, the least tasteless and best constructed of his tragedies. It loses comparatively little by the omission of the Aegeus episode, but suffers terribly by the insertion of a bombastic description of Medea's incantations. The love of the Silver Age for rhetoric has converted Medea into a skilful rhetorician, its love for the black art has degraded her to a vulgar sorceress. Nothing, again, can be cruder or more awkward than the manner in which the news of the death of Creon and his daughter is announced. After an interval so brief as scarcely to suffice even for the conveyance of the poisoned gifts to the palace, in rushes a messenger crying (879)--

periere cuncta, concidit regni status.

nata atque genitor cinere permixto iacent.

_Cho_. qua fraude capti? _Nunt_. qua solent reges capi, donis.

_Cho_. in illis esse quis potuit dolus?

_Nunt_. et ipse miror vixque iam facto malo potuisse fieri credo; quis cladis modus?

avidus per omnem regiae partem furit ut iussus ignis: iam domus tota occidit, urbi timetur.

_Cho_. unda flammas opprimat.

_Nunt_. et hoc in ista clade mirandum accidit, alit unda flammas, quoque prohibetur magis, magis ardet ignis: ipsa praesidia occupat.

All is lost! the kingdom's fallen! Father and daughter lie in mingled dust!

_Ch_. By what snare taken?

_Mess_. By gifts, the snare of kings.

_Ch_. What harm could lurk in them?

_Mess_. Myself I marvel, and scarce though the deed is done can I believe it possible. How died they?

Devouring flames rage through all the palace as at her command. Now the whole house is fallen and men fear for the city.

_Ch_. Let water quench the flames.

_Mess_. Nay, in this overthrow is this added wonder.

Water feeds the flames and opposition makes the fire burn fiercer. It hath seared even that which should have stayed its power.

That is all: if we had not read Euripides we should scarcely understand the connexion between the gifts and the mysterious fire. Seneca, with the lack of proportion displayed in nearly all his dramas, has spent so much time in describing the wholly irrelevant and absurd details of Medea's incantations that he finds no room to give what might be a really dramatic description of the all-important catastrophe in which Medea's vengeance finds issue. There is hardly a play which will not provide similar instances of the lack of genuine constructive power. In the _Oedipus_ we get the same long narrative of horror that has disfigured the _Hercules Furens_ and the _Medea_. Creon describes to us the dark rites of incantation used to evoke the shade of Laius.[180] In the _Phaedra_ we find what at first would seem to be a clever piece of stagecraft. Hippolytus, scandalized at Phaedra's avowal of her incestuous pa.s.sion, seizes her by the hair and draws his sword as though to slay her. He changes his purpose, but the nurse has seen him and calls for aid, denouncing Hippolytus' violence and clearly intending to make use of it as d.a.m.ning evidence against him. But the chorus refuse to credit her, and the incident falls flat.[181] Everywhere there is the same casual workmanship. If we stop short of denying to Seneca the possession of any dramatic talent, it is at any rate hard to resist the conviction that he treated the plays as a _parergon_, spending little thought or care on their _ensemble_, though at times working up a scene or scenes with an elaboration and skill as unmistakable as it is often misdirected.

The plays are, in fact, as Nisard has admirably put it, _drames de recette_. The recipe consists in the employment of three ingredients--description, declamation, and philosophic aphorism. There is room for all these ingredients in drama as in human life, but in Seneca there is little else: these three elements conspire together to swamp the drama, and they do this the more effectively because, for all their cleverness, Seneca's description and declamation are radically bad. It is but rarely that he shows himself capable of simple and natural language. If a tragic event enacted off the stage requires description, it must outdo all other descriptions of the same type. And seeing that one of the chief uses of narrative in tragedy is to present to the imagination of the audience events which are too horrible for their eyes, the result in Seneca's hands is often little less than revolting. For example, the self-blinding of Oedipus is set forth with every detail of horror, possible and impossible, till the imagination sickens.

(961) gemuit et dirum fremens ma.n.u.s in ora torsit, at contra truces oculi steterunt et suam intenti manum ultro insequuntur, vulneri occurrunt suo.

scrutatur avidus manibus uncis lumina, radice ab ima funditus vulsos simul evolvit orbes; haeret in vacuo ma.n.u.s et fixa penitus unguibus lacerat cavos alte recessus luminum et inanes sinus saevitque frustra plusque quam satis est furit.

The last line is an epitome of Seneca's methods of description. Yet more revolting is the speech of the messenger describing the banquet, at which Atreus placed the flesh of Thyestes' murdered sons before their father (623-788). Nothing is spared us, much that is impossible is added.[182] At times, moreover, this love of horrors leads to the introduction of descriptions wholly alien to the play. In the _Hercules Furens_ the time during which Hercules is absent from the scene, engaged in the slaying of the tyrant Lycus, is filled by a description of Hades from the mouth of Theseus, who is fresh-come from the underworld. The speech is not peculiarly bad in itself; it is only very long[183]

(658-829) and very irrelevant.

The effect of the declamation is not less unhappy. Seneca's dramatis personae rarely speak like reasoning human beings: they rant at one another or at the audience with such overwrought subtleties of speech and rhetorical perversions that they give the impression of being no more than mechanical puppets handled by a crafty but inartistic showman.

All speak the same strange language, a language born in the rhetorical schools of Greece and Rome. G.o.ds and mortals alike suffer the same melancholy fate. Juno, when she declares her resolve to afflict Hercules with madness, addresses the furies who are to be her ministers as follows (_H.F._ 105):

concut.i.te pectus, acrior mentem excoquat quam qui caminis ignis Aetnaeis furit: ut possit animo captus Alcides agi magno furore percitus, n.o.bis prius insaniendum est--Iuno, cur nondum furis?

me me, sorores, mente deiectam mea versate primam, facere si quicquam apparo dignum noverca; vota mutentur mea: natos reversus videat incolumes precor manuque fortis redeat: inveni diem invisa quo nos Herculis virtus iuvet.

me vicit et se vincat et cupiat mori ab inferis reversus....

pugnanti Herculi tandem favebo.

Distract his heart with madness: let his soul More fiercely burn than that hot fire which glows On Aetna's forge. But first, that Hercules May be to madness driven, smitten through With mighty pa.s.sion, I must be insane.

Why rav'st thou not, O Juno? Me, oh, me, Ye sisters, first of sanity deprive, That something worthy of a stepdame's wrath I may prepare. Let all my hate be change To favour. Now I pray that he may come To earth again, and see his sons unharmed; May he return with all his old time strength.

Now have I found a day when Hercules May help me with his strength that I deplore.

Now let him equally o'ercome himself And me; and let him, late escaped from death, Desire to die... And so at last I'll help Alcides in his wars. MILLER.

She is clearly a near relative of that Oedipus who, in the _Phoenissae_, begs Antigone to lead him to the rock where the Sphinx sat of old (120):

dirige huc gressus pedum, hic siste patrem. dira ne sedes vacet.

monstrum repone maius. hoc saxum insidens obscura nostrae verba fortunae loquar, quae nemo solvat.

... saeva Thebarum lues luctifica caecis verba committens modis quid simile posuit? quid tam inextricabile?

avi gener patrisque rivalis sui frater suorum liberum et fratrum parens; uno avia partu liberos. peperit viro, sibi et nepotes. monstra quis tanta explicat?

ego ipse, victae spolia qui Sphingis tuli, haerebo fati tardus interpres mei.