Post-Augustan Poetry From Seneca to Juvenal Part 23

But, n.i.g.g.ard Rome, thou giv'st how grudgingly!

What the year's tale of days at Formiae For him who tied by work in town must stay?

Stewards and lacqueys, happy your employ, Your lords prepare enjoyment, you enjoy.

A. E. STREET.

These are surely the most beautiful _scazons_[664] in the Latin tongue; the metre limps no more; a master-hand has wrought it to exquisite melody; the quiet undulation of the sea, the yacht's easy gliding over its surface, live before us in its music. Even more delicate is the homelier description of the gardens of Julius Martialis on the slopes of the Janiculum. It is animated by the sincerity that never fails Martial when he writes to his friend:

Iuli iugera pauca Martialis hortis Hesperidum beatiora longo Ianiculi iugo rec.u.mbunt: lati collibus imminent recessus et pla.n.u.s modico tumore vertex caelo perfruitur sereniore et curvas nebula tegente valles solus luce nitet peculiari: puris leniter admoventur astris celsae culmina delicata villae.

hinc septem dominos videre montes et totam licet aestimare Romam, Albanos quoque Tusculosque colles et quodc.u.mque iacet sub urbe frigus (iv. 64).

Martial's few acres, e'en more blest Than those famed gardens of the West, Lie on Janiculum's long crest; Above the slopes wide reaches hang recessed.

The level, gently swelling crown Breathes air from purer heavens blown; When mists the hollow valleys drown 'Tis radiant with a light that's all its own.

The clear stars almost seem to lie On the wrought roof that's built so high; The seven hills stand in majesty, And Rome is summed in one wide sweep of eye.

Tusculan, Alban hills unfold, Each nook which holds its store of cold.

A. E. STREET.

Such a picture is unsurpa.s.sed in any language.[665] Statius, with all his brilliance, never came near such perfect success; he lacks sincerity; he can juggle with words against any one, but he never learned their truest and n.o.blest use.

There are many other themes beside landscape painting in which the _Silvae_ of Statius challenge comparison with the epigrams of Martial.

Both use the same servile flattery to the emperor, both celebrate the same patrons,[666] both console their n.o.ble friends for the loss of relatives, or favourite slaves; both write _propemptica_. Even in the most trivial of these poems, those addressed to the emperor, Statius is easily surpa.s.sed by his humbler rival. His inferiority lies largely in the fact that he is more ambitious. He wrote on a larger scale. When the infinitely trivial is a theme for verse, the epigrammatist has the advantage of the author of the more lengthy _Silvae_. Perfect neatness vanquishes dexterous elaboration. Moreover, if taste can be said to enter into such poems at all, Martial errs less grossly. Even Domitian--one might conjecture--may have felt that Statius' flattery was 'laid on with a trowel'. Martial may have used the same instrument, but had the art to conceal it.[667] There are even occasions where his flattery ceases to revolt the reader, and where we forget the object of the flattery. In a poem describing the suicide of a certain Festus he succeeds in combining the dignity of a funeral _laudatio_ with the subtlest and most graceful flattery of the princeps:

indignas premeret pestis c.u.m tabida fauces, inque suos voltus serperet atra lues, siccis ipse genis flentes hortatus amicos decrevit Stygios Festus adire lacus.

nec tamen obscuro pia polluit ora veneno aut torsit lenta tristia fata fame, sanctam Romana vitam sed morte peregit dimisitque animam n.o.biliore via.

hanc mortem fatis magni praeferre Catonis fama potest; huius Caesar amicus erat (i. 78).

When the dire quinsy choked his guiltless breath, And o'er his face the blackening venom stole, Festus disdained to wait a lingering death, Cheered his sad friends and freed his dauntless soul.

No meagre famine's slowly-wasting force, Nor hemlock's gradual chillness he endured, But like a Roman chose the n.o.bler course, And by one blow his liberty secured.

His death was n.o.bler far than Cato's end, For Caesar to the last was Festus' friend.

HODGSON (slightly altered).

The unctuous dexterity of Statius never achieved such a master-stroke.

So, too, in laments for the dead, the superior brevity and simplicity of Martial bear the palm away. Both poets bewailed the death of Glaucias, the child favourite of Atedius Melior. Statius has already been quoted in this connexion; Martial's poems on the subject,[668] though not quite among his best, yet ring truer than the verse of Statius. And Martial's epitaphs and epicedia at their best have in their slight way an almost unique charm. We must go to the best work of the Greek Anthology to surpa.s.s the epitaph on Erotion (v. 34):

hanc tibi, Fronto pater, genetrix Flaccilla, puellam oscula commendo deliciasque meas, parvola ne nigras horrescat Erotion umbras oraque Tartarei prodigiosa canis.

inpletura fuit s.e.xtae modo frigora brumae, vixisset totidem ni minus illa dies.

inter tam veteres ludat lasciva patronos et nomen blaeso garriat ore meum.

mollia non rigidus caespes tegat ossa nec illi, terra, gravis fueris: non fuit illa tibi.

Fronto, and you, Flaccilla, to you, my father and mother, Here I commend this child, once my delight and my pet, So may the darkling shades and deep-mouthed baying of h.e.l.lhound Touch not with horror of dread little Erotion dear.

Now was her sixth year ending, and melting the snows of the winter, Only a brief six days lacked to the tale of the years.

Young, amid dull old age, let her wanton and frolic and gambol, Babble of me that was, tenderly lisping my name.

Soft were her tiny bones, then soft be the sod that enshrouds her, Gentle thy touch, mother Earth, gently she rested on thee!

A. E. STREET.

Another poem on a like theme shows a different and more fantastic, but scarcely less pleasing vein (v. 37):

puella senibus dulcior mihi cycnis, agna Galaesi mollior Phalantini, concha Lucrini delicatior stagni, cui nec lapillos praeferas Erythraeos nec modo politum pecudis Indicae dentem nivesque primas liliumque non tactum; quae crine vicit Baetici gregis vellus Rhenique nodos aureamque nitellam; fragravit ore quod rosarium Paesti, quod Atticarum prima mella cerarum, quod sucinorum rapta de manu gleba; cui conparatus indecens erat pavo, inamabilis sciurus et frequens phoenix, adhuc recenti tepet Erotion busto, quam pessimorum lex amara fatorum s.e.xta peregit hieme, nec tamen tota, nostros amores gaudiumque lususque.

Little maiden sweeter far to me Than the swans are with their vaunted snows, Maid more tender than the lambkins be Where Galaesus by Phalantus flows; Daintier than the daintiest sh.e.l.ls that lie By the ripples of the Lucrine wave; Choicer than new-polished ivory That the herds in Indian jungles gave; Choicer than Erythrae's marbles white, Snows new-fallen, lilies yet unsoiled: Softer were your tresses and more bright Than the locks by German maidens coiled: Than the finest fleeces Baetis shows, Than the dormouse with her golden hue: Lips more fragrant than the Paestan rose, Than the Attic bees' first honey-dew, Or an amber ball, new-pressed and warm; Paled the peac.o.c.k's sheen in your compare; E'en the winsome squirrel lost his charm, And the Phoenix seemed no longer rare.

Scarce Erotion's ashes yet are cold; Greedily grim fate ordained to smite E'er her sixth brief winter had grown old-- Little love, my bliss, my heart's delight.

A.D. INNES.

Through all the playful affectations of the lines we get the portrait of a fairy-like child, light-footed as the squirrel, golden-haired and fair as ivory or lilies.[669] Martial was a child-lover before he was a man of letters.

Beautiful as these little poems are, there is in Martial little trace of feeling for the sorrows of humanity in general. He can feel for his intimate friends, and his tears are ready to flow for his patron's sorrows. But the general impression given by his poetry is that of a certain hardness and lack of feeling, of a limited sympathy, and an unemotional temperament. It is a relief to come upon a poem such as that in which he describes a father's poignant anguish for the loss of his son (ix. 74):

effigiem tantum pueri pictura Camoni servat, et infantis parva figura manet.

florentes nulla signavit imagine voltus, dum timet ora pius muta videre pater.

Here as in happy infancy he smiled Behold Camonus--painted as a child; For on his face as seen in manhood's days His sorrowing father would not dare to gaze.

W. S. B.

or to find a sudden outbreak of sympathy with the sorrows of the slave (iii. 21):

proscriptum famulus servavit fronte notata, non fuit haec domini vita sed invidia.[670]

When scarred with cruel brand, the slave s.n.a.t.c.hed from the murderer's hand His proscript lord, not life he gave His tyrant, but the brand.

PROFESSOR GOLDWIN SMITH.

Of the _gravitas_ or dignity of character specially a.s.sociated with Rome he shows equally few traces. His outlook on life is not sufficiently serious, he shows little interest in Rome of the past, and has nothing of the retrospective note so prominent in Lucan, Juvenal, or Tacitus; he lives in and for the present. He writes, it is true, of the famous suicide of Arria and Caecina Paetus,[671] of the death of Portia the wife of Brutus,[672] of the bravery of Mucius Scaevola.[673] But in none of these poems does he give us of his best. They lack, if not sincerity, at least enthusiasm; emotion is sacrificed to point. He is out of sympathy with Stoicism, and the suicide doctrinaire does not interest him. 'Live while you may' is his motto, 'and make the best of circ.u.mstances.' It is possible to live a reasonably virtuous life without going to the lengths of Thrasea:

quod magni Thraseae consummatique Catonis dogmata sic sequeris salvus ut esse velis, pectore nec nudo strictos incurris in enses, quod fecisse velim te, Deciane, facis.

nolo virum facili redimit qui sanguine famam; hunc volo, laudari qui sine morte potest (i. 8).

That you, like Thrasea or Cato, great, Pursue their maxims, but decline their fate; Nor rashly point the dagger to your heart; More to my wish you act a Roman's part.

I like not him who fame by death retrieves, Give me the man who merits praise and lives.

HAY.

The sentiment is full of common sense, but it is undeniably unheroic.

Martial is not quixotic, and refuses to treat life more seriously than is necessary. Our complaint against him is that he scarcely takes it seriously enough. It would be unjust to demand a deep fund of earnestness from a professed epigrammatist dowered with a gift of humour and a turn for satire. But it is doing Martial no injustice to style him the laureate of triviality. For his satire is neither genial nor earnest. His kindly temper led him to avoid direct personalities, but his invective is directed against vice, not primarily because it is wicked, but rather because it is grotesque or not _comme il faut_. His humour, too, though often sparkling enough, is more often strained and most often filthy. Many of his epigrams were not worth writing, by whatever standard they be judged.[674] The point is hard to ill.u.s.trate, since a large proportion of his inferior work is fatuously obscene. But the following may be taken at random from two books:

Eutrapelus tonsor dum circuit ora Luperci expingitque genas, altera barba subit (vii. 83).

Eutrapelus the barber works so slow, That while he shaves, the beard anew does grow.

ANON., 1695.

invitas ad aprum, ponis mihi, Gallice, porc.u.m.

hybrida sum, si das, Gallice, verba mihi (viii. 22).

You invite me to partake of a wild boar, you set before me a home-grown pig. I'm half-boar, half-pig, if you can cheat me thus.

pars maxillarum tonsa est tibi, pars tibi rasa est, pars volsa est. unum quis putet esse caput? (viii. 47).

Part of your jaws is shaven, part clipped, part has the hair pulled out. Who'd think you'd only one head?

tres habuit dentes, pariter quos expuit omnes, ad tumulum Picens dum sedet ipse suum; collegitque sinu fragmenta novissima laxi oris et adgesta contumulavit humo.

ossa licet quondam defuncti non legat heres: hoc sibi iam Picens praest.i.tit officium (viii. 57).

Picens had three teeth, which he spat out altogether while he was sitting at the spot he had chosen for his tomb. He gathered in his robe the last fragments of his loose jaw and interred them in a heap of earth. His heir need not gather his bones when he is dead, Picens has performed that office for himself.