Post-Augustan Poetry From Seneca to Juvenal Part 22

ANON., 1695.

In this respect his defence of himself is just. When he writes in a vein of invective his victim is never mentioned by name. And we cannot a.s.sert in any given case that his pseudonyms mask a real person. He may do no more than satirize a vice embodied and typified in an imaginary personality.

He is equally concerned to defend himself against the obvious charges of prurience and immorality:

innocuos censura potest permittere lusus: lasciva eat n.o.bis pagina, vita proba[660] (i. 4. 7).

Let not these harmless sports your censure taste!

My lines are wanton, but my life is chaste.

ANON., seventeenth century.

This is no real defence, and even though we need not take Martial at his word, when he accuses himself of the foulest vices, there is not the slightest reason to suppose that chast.i.ty was one of his virtues. In Juvenal's case we have reason to believe that, whatever his weaknesses, he was a man of genuinely high ideals. Martial at his best shows himself a man capable of fine feeling, but he gives no evidence of moral earnestness or strength of character. On the other hand, to give him his due, we must remember the standard of his age. Although he is lavish with the vilest obscenities, and has no scruples about accusing acquaintances of every variety of unnatural vice, it must be pointed out that such accusations were regarded at Rome as mere matter for laughter.

The traditions of the old _Fescennina locutio_ survived, and with the decay of private morality its obscenity increased. Caesar's veterans could sing ribald verses unrebuked at their general's triumph, verses unquotably obscene and casting the foulest aspersions on the character of one whom they worshipped almost as a G.o.d. Caesar could invite Catullus to dine in spite of the fact that such accusations formed the matter of his lampoons. Catullus could insert similar charges against the bridegroom for whom he was writing an _epithalamium_. The writing of Priapeia was regarded as a reputable diversion. Martial's defence of his obscenities is therefore in all probability sincere, and may have approved itself to many reputable persons of his day. It was a defence that had already been made in very similar language by Ovid and Catullus,[661] and Martial was not the last to make it. But the fact that Martial felt it necessary to defend himself shows that a body of public opinion--even if not large or representative--did exist which refused to condone this fashionable lubricity. Extenuating circ.u.mstances may be urged in Martial's defence, but even to have conformed to the standard of his day is sufficient condemnation; and it is hard to resist the suspicion that he fell below it. His obscenities, though couched in the most easy and pointed language, have rarely even the grace--if grace it be--of wit; they are puerile in conception and infinitely disgusting.

It is pleasant to turn to the better side of Martial's character. No writer has ever given more charming expression to his affection for his friends. It is for Decia.n.u.s and Julius Martialis that he keeps the warmest place in his heart. In poems like the following there is no doubting the sincerity of his feeling or questioning the perfection of its expression:

si quis erit raros inter numerandus amicos, quales prisca fides famaque novit a.n.u.s, si quis Cecropiae madidus Latiaeque Minervae artibus et vera simplicitate bonus, si quis erit recti custos, mirator honesti, et nihil arcano qui roget ore deos, si quis erit magnae subnixus robore mentis: dispeream si non hic Decia.n.u.s erit (i. 39).

Is there a man whose friendship rare With antique friendship may compare; In learning steeped, both old and new, Yet unpedantic, simple, true; Whose soul, ingenuous and upright, Ne'er formed a wish that shunned the light, Whose sense is sound? If such there be, My Decia.n.u.s, thou art he.

PROFESSOR GOLDWIN SMITH

Even more charming, if less intense, is the exhortation to Julius Martialis to live while he may, ere the long night come that knows no waking:

o mihi post nullos, Iuli, memorande sodales, si quid longa fides canaque iura valent, bis iam paene tibi consul tricensimus instat, et numerat paucos vix tua vita dies.

non bene distuleris videas quae posse negari, et solum hoc ducas, quod fuit, esse tuum.

exspectant curaeque catenatique labores: gaudia non remanent, sed fugitiva volant.

haec utraque manu complexuque adsere toto: saepe fluunt imo sic quoque lapsa sinu.

non est, crede mihi, sapientis dicere 'vivam '.

sera nimis vita est crastina: vive hodie (i. 15).

Friend of my heart--and none of all the band Has to that name older or better right: Julius, thy sixtieth winter is at hand, Far-spent is now life's day and near the night.

Delay not what thou would'st recall too late; That which is past, that only call thine own: Cares without end and tribulations wait, Joy tarrieth not, but scarcely come, is flown.

Then grasp it quickly firmly to thy heart,-- Though firmly grasped, too oft it slips away;-- To talk of living is not wisdom's part: To-morrow is too late: live thou to-day!

PROFESSOR GOLDWIN SMITH

Best of all is the retrospect of the long friendship which has united him to Julius. It is as frank as it is touching:

triginta mihi quattuorque messes tec.u.m, si memini, fuere, Iuli.

quarum dulcia mixta sunt amaris sed iucunda tamen fuere plura; et si calculus omnis huc et illuc diversus bicolorque digeratur, vincet candida turba nigriorem.

si vitare voles acerba quaedam et tristes animi cavere morsus, nulli te facias nimis sodalem: gaudebis minus et minus dolebis (xii. 34).[662]

My friend, since thou and I first met, This is the thirty-fourth December; Some things there are we'd fain forget, More that 'tis pleasant to remember.

Let for each pain a black ball stand, For every pleasure past a white one, And thou wilt find, when all are scanned, The major part will be the bright one.

He who would heartache never know, He who serene composure treasures, Must friendship's chequered bliss forego; Who has no pain hath fewer pleasures.

PROFESSOR GOLDWIN SMITH

He does not pour the treasure of his heart at his friend's feet, as Persius does in his burning tribute to Cornutus. He has no treasure of great price to pour. But it is only natural that in the poems addressed to his friends we should find the statement of his ideals of life:

vitam quae faciunt beatiorem, iucundissime Martialis, haec sunt: res non parta labore sed relicta; non ingratus ager, focus perennis; lis numquam, toga rara, mens quieta; vires ingenuae, salubre corpus; prudens simplicitas, pares amici, convictus facilis, sine arte mensa; nox non ebria sed soluta curis.

non tristis torus et tamen pudicus; somnus qui faciat breves tenebras: quod sis esse velis nihilque malis; summum nec metuas diem nee optes (x. 47).

What makes a happy life, dear friend, If thou would'st briefly learn, attend-- An income left, not earned by toil; Some acres of a kindly soil; The pot unfailing on the fire; No lawsuits; seldom town attire; Health; strength with grace; a peaceful mind; Shrewdness with honesty combined; Plain living; equal friends and free; Evenings of temperate gaiety: A wife discreet, yet blythe and bright; Sound slumber, that lends wings to night.

With all thy heart embrace thy lot, Wish not for death and fear it not.

PROFESSOR GOLDWIN SMITH.

This exquisite echo of the Horatian 'beatus ille qui procul negotiis'

sets forth no very lofty ideal. It is frankly, though restrainedly, hedonistic. But it depicts a life that is full of charm and free from evil. Martial, in his heart of hearts, hates the Rome that he depicts so vividly. Rome with its noise, its expense, its bustling sn.o.bbery, its triviality, and its vice, where he and his friend Julius waste their days:

nunc vivit necuter sibi, bonosque soles effugere atque abire sent.i.t, qui n.o.bis pereunt et imputantur (v. 20. 11).

Dead to our better selves we see The golden hours take flight, Still scored against us as they flee.

Then haste to live aright.

PROFESSOR GOLDWIN SMITH

He longs to escape from the world of the professional lounger and the parasite to an ampler air, where he can breathe freely and find rest. He is no philosopher, but it is at times a relief to get away from the rarified atmosphere and the sense of strain that permeates so much of the aspirations towards virtue in this strange age of contradictions.

Martial at last found the ease and quiet that his soul desired in his Spanish home:

hic pigri colimus labore dulci Boterdum Plateamque (Celtiberis haec sunt nomina cra.s.siora terris): ingenti fruor inproboque somno quem nec tertia saepe rumpit hora, et totum mihi nunc repono quidquid ter denos vigilaveram per annos.

ignota est toga, sed datur petenti rupta proxima vestis a cathedra.

surgentem focus excipit superba vicini strue cultus iliceti, * * * * *

sic me vivere, sic iuvat perire. (xii. 18. 10).

Busy but pleas'd and idly taking pains, Here Lewes Downs I till and Ringmer plains, Names that to each South Saxon well are known, Though they sound harsh to powdered beaux in town.

None can enjoy a sounder sleep than mine; I often do not wake till after nine; And midnight hours with interest repay For years in town diversions thrown away.

Stranger to finery, myself I dress In the first coat from an old broken press.

My fire, as soon as I am up, I see Bright with the ruins of some neighbouring tree.

Such is my life, a life of liberty; So would I wish to live and so to die.

HAY.

Martial has a genuine love for the country. Born at a time when detailed descriptions of the charms of scenery had become fashionable, and the cultivated landscape at least found many painters, he succeeds far better than any of his contemporaries in conveying to the reader his sense of the beauties which his eyes beheld. That sense is limited, but exquisite. It does not go deep; there is nothing of the almost mystical background that Vergil at times suggests; there is nothing of the feeling of the open air and the wild life that is sometimes wafted to us in the sensuous verse of Theocritus. But Martial sees what he sees clearly, and he describes it perfectly. Compare his work with the affected prettiness of Pliny's description of the source of the c.l.i.tumnus or with the more sensuous, but over-elaborate, craftsmanship of Statius in the _Silvae_. Martial is incomparably their superior. He speaks a more human language, and has a far clearer vision. Both Statius and Martial described villas by the sea. We have already mentioned Statius' description of the villa of Pollius at Sorrento; Martial shall speak in his turn:

o temperatae dulce Formiae litus, vos, c.u.m severi fugit oppidum Martis et inquietas fessus exuit curas, Apollinaris omnibus locis praefert.

hic summa leni stringitur Thetis vento: nec languet aequor, viva sed quies ponti pictam phaselon adiuvante fert aura, sicut puellae lion amantis aestatem mota salubre purpura venit frigus.

nec saeta longo quaerit in mari praedam, sed a cubili lectuloque iactatam spectatus alte lineam trahit piscis.

frui sed istis quando, Roma, permittis?

quot Formianos imputat dies annus negotiosis rebus urbis haerenti?

o ianitores vilicique felices!

dominis parantur ista, serviunt vobis[663] (x. 30).

O strand of Formiae, sweet with genial air, Who art Apollinaris' chosen home When, taking flight from his task-mistress Rome, The tired man doffs his load of troubling care.

Here the sea's bosom quivers in the wind; 'Tis no dead calm, but sweet serenity, Which bears the painted boat before the breeze, As though some maid at pains the heat to ban, Should waft a genial zephyr with her fan.

No fisher needs to buffet the high seas, But whiles from bed or couch his line he casts, May see his captive in the toils below.