Post-Augustan Poetry From Seneca to Juvenal Part 28

Wisdom, I know, contains a sovereign charm, To vanquish fortune or at least disarm: Blest they who walk in her unerring rule!

Nor those unblest who, tutored in life's school, Have learned of old experience to submit, And lightly bear the yoke they cannot quit.

GIFFORD.

He agrees with the Stoics just because their practical teaching harmonizes so entirely with the old _virtus Romana_, that is his ideal.

No more profound are his religious views: he hates the alien cults that work as insidious poison in the life of Rome; he rejects the picturesque legends of the afterworld, bred of the fertile imagination of the Greeks. But he is no unbeliever:

separat hoc nos a grege mutorum, atque ideo venerabile soli sort.i.ti ingenium divinorumque capaces atque exercendis pariendisque artibus apti sensum a caelesti demissum traximus arce, cuius egent p.r.o.na et terram spectantia. mundi principio indulsit communis conditor illis tantum animas, n.o.bis animum quoque, mutuus ut nos adfectus petere auxilium et praestare iuberet (xv. 142).

This marks our birth The great distinction from the beasts of earth!

And therefore--gifted with superior powers And capable of things divine--'tis ours To learn and practise every useful art; And from high heaven deduce that better part, That moral sense, denied to creatures p.r.o.ne And downward bent, and found with man alone!-- For He, who gave this vast machine to roll, Breathed life in them, in us a reasoning soul: That kindred feelings might our state improve, And mutual wants conduct to mutual love.

GIFFORD.

G.o.d is over all and guides and guards the world, and has ordained torment of conscience and slow retribution for sin.[735] Yet Juvenal does not definitely reject the G.o.ds of his native land; nor do these exalted beliefs cause him to refuse sacrifice to Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, and his household G.o.ds.[736] It is the creed, not of a theologian, but of a man with high ideals, a staunch patriotism, and a deep reverence for the past.

But this lack of profundity and philosophical training does not, as may be inferred from pa.s.sages already quoted, prevent him from being intensely effective as a moral teacher. His plat.i.tudes are none the worse for not having a Stoic label and all the better for their simplicity and directness of expression. They do not reveal the hunger and thirst after righteousness that breathe from the lines of Persius, but they have at least an equal appeal to the plain man, and they are matchlessly expressed. His pleading against revenging the wrong done, if not on the very highest moral plane, possesses a grave dignity and beauty that brings it straight home to the heart:

at vindicta bonum vita iucundius ipsa.

nempe hoc indocti, quorum praecordia nullis interdum aut levibus videas flagrantia causis.

Chrysippus non dicet idem nec mite Thaletis ingenium dulcique senex vicinus Hymetto, qui partem acceptae saeva inter vincla cicutae accusatori nollet dare. plurima felix paulatim vitia atque errores exuit omnes, prima docet r.e.c.t.u.m sapientia. quippe minuti semper et infirmi est animi exiguique voluptas ultio. continuo sic collige, quod vindicta nemo magis gaudet quam femina. cur tamen hos tu evasisse putes, quos diri conscia facti mens habet attonitos et surdo verbere caedit occultum quatiente animo tortore flagellum?

poena autem vehemens ac multo saevior illis quas et Caedicius gravis invenit et Rhadamanthus, nocte dieque suum gestare in pectore testem (xiii. 180).

'Revenge,' they say, and I believe their words, 'A pleasure sweeter far than life affords.'

Who say? The fools, whose pa.s.sions p.r.o.ne to ire At slightest causes or at none take fire.

... ... ... Chrysippus said not so; Nor Thales, to our frailties clement still; Nor that old man, by sweet Hymettus' hill, Who drank the poison with unruffled soul, And, dying, from his foes withheld the bowl.

Divine philosophy! by whose pure light We first distinguish, then pursue the right, Thy power the breast from every error frees And weeds out every error by degrees:-- Illumined by thy beam, revenge we find The abject pleasure of an abject mind, And hence so dear to poor, weak womankind.

But why are those, Calvinus, thought to 'scape Unpunished, whom in every fearful shape Guilt still alarms, and conscience ne'er asleep Wounds with incessant strokes 'not loud but deep', While the vexed mind, her own tormentor, plies A scorpion scourge, unmarked by human eyes?

Trust me, no tortures which the poets feign, Can match the fierce, the unutterable pain He feels, who night and day, devoid of rest, Carries his own accuser in his breast.

GIFFORD.

The same characteristics mark his praise of n.o.bility of character as opposed to n.o.bility of birth:

tota licet veteres exornent undique cerae atria, n.o.bilitas sola est atque unica virtus.

Paulus vel Cossus vel Drusus moribus esto, hos ante effigies maiorum pone tuorum, praecedant ipsas illi te consule virgas.

prima mihi debes anima bona. sanctus haberi iust.i.tiaeque tenax factis dictisque mereris?

adgnosco procerem; salve Gaetulice, seu tu Sila.n.u.s, quoc.u.mque alio de sanguine, rarus civis et egregius patriae contingis ovanti (viii. 19).

Fond man, though all the heroes of your line Bedeck your halls, and round your galleries shine In proud display: yet take this truth from me, 'Virtue alone is true n.o.bility.'

Set Cossus, Drusus, Paulus, then, in view, The bright example of their lives pursue; Let these precede the statues of your race, And these, when consul, of your rods take place, O give me inborn worth! Dare to be just, Firm to your word and faithful to your trust.

Then praises hear, at least deserve to hear, I grant your claim and recognize the peer.

Hail from whatever stock you draw your birth, The son of Cossus or the son of Earth, All hail! in you exulting Rome espies Her guardian power, her great Palladium rise.

GIFFORD.

This is rhetoric, but rhetoric of the n.o.blest kind. Of pure poetry there is naturally but little in Juvenal. Neither his temperament nor his subject would admit it. He had too keen an eye for the hideous and the grotesque, too strong a pa.s.sion for the declamatory style. Hence it is rather his brilliant sketches of a vicious society, his fiery outbursts of rhetoric, his striking _sententiae_ that primarily impress the reader:

expende Hannibalem: quot libras in duce summo invenies? (x. 147).

Great Hannibal within the balance lay, And count how many pounds his ashes weigh.

DRYDEN.

finem animae quae res humanas miscuit olim, non gladii, non saxa dabunt nec tela, sed ille Cannarum vindex et tanti sanguinis ultor anulus. i demens et saevas curre per Alpes, ut pueris placeas et declamatio fias (x. 163).

What wondrous sort of death has heaven designed For so untamed, so turbulent a mind?

Nor swords at hand, nor hissing darts afar, Are doomed to avenge the tedious b.l.o.o.d.y war; But poison drawn through a ring's hollow plate, Must finish him--a sucking infant's fate.

Go, climb the rugged Alps, ambitious fool, To please the boys, and be a theme at school.

DRYDEN.

nemo repente fuit turp.i.s.simus (ii. 83).

For none become at once completely vile.

GIFFORD.

summum crede nefas animam praeferre pudori et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas (viii. 83).

si natura negat, facit indignatio versum (i. 79).

Think it a crime no tears can e'er efface, To purchase safety with compliance base, At honour's cost a feverish span extend, And sacrifice for life, life's only end!

GIFFORD.

It is lines such as these that first rise to the mind at the mention of Juvenal. But he was no mere declaimer. Here and there we may find phrases of the purest poetry and of the most perfect form. Far above all others come the wonderful lines of the ninth satire:

festinat enim decurrere velox flosculus angustae miseraeque brevissima vitae portio; dum bibimus, dum serta unguenta puellas poscimus, obrepit non intellecta senectus (ix. 126).

For youth, too transient flower! of life's short day The shortest part, but blossoms--to decay.

Lo! while we give the unregarded hour To revelry and joy in Pleasure's bower, While now for rosy wreaths our brow to twine, While now for nymphs we call, and now for wine, The noiseless foot of time steals swiftly by, And, ere we dream of manhood, age is nigh!

GIFFORD.

Of a very different character, but of a beauty that is nothing less than startling in its sombre surroundings, is the blessing that he invokes on the good men of old who 'enthroned the teacher in the revered parent's place'.

di maiorum umbris tenuem et sine pondere terram spirantesque crocos et in urna perpetuum ver, qui praeceptorem sancti voluere parentis esse loco (vii. 207).

Shades of our sires! O sacred be your rest, And lightly lie the turf upon your breast!

Flowers round your urns breathe sweets beyond compare, And spring eternal shed its influence there!

You honoured tutors, now a slighted race, And gave them all a parent's power and place.

GIFFORD.

The sensuous appeal of the 'fragrant crocus and the spring that dies not in the urn of death' is unique in Juvenal. This slender stream of definitely poetic imagination reveals itself suddenly and unexpectedly in strange forms and circ.u.mstances. At the close of the pa.s.sage in the third satire describing the perils of the Roman streets, Juvenal imagines the death of some householder in a street accident. All is bustle and business at home in expectation of his return:

domus interea secura patellas iam lavat et bucca foculum excitat et sonat unctis striglibus et pleno componit lintea guto.

haec inter pueros varie properantur, at ille iam sedet in ripa taetrumque novicius horret porthmea nec sperat caenosi gurgitis alnum infelix nec habet quem porrigat ore trientem (iii. 261).

Meantime, unknowing of their fellow's fate, The servants wash the platter, scour the plate, Then blow the fire with puffing cheeks, and lay The rubbers and the bathing-sheets display, And oil them first, each handy in his way.

But he for whom this busy care they take, Poor ghost! is wandering by the Stygian lake; Affrighted by the ferryman's grim face, New to the horrors of the fearful place, His pa.s.sage begs, with unregarded prayer, And wants two farthings to discharge his fare.

DRYDEN.

Out of the grotesque there gradually looms the horror of death and the friendless ghost sitting lost and homeless by the Stygian waters.

That there is small scope in his work for such distinctively poetic imagination is not Juvenal's fault, nor can we complain of its absence.

But in technical accomplishment he shows himself a writer of the first rank. His treatment of the hexameter exactly suits his declamatory type of satire. The conversational verse of Horace, with its easy-going rambling gait, was unsuitable for the thunders of Juvenal's rhetoric.