Studies in the Poetry of Italy, I. Roman Part 10

Fairly well, as times go. I trust all is well with you? [_As the Bore follows him up, Horace attempts to forestall conversation, and to dismiss his companion with the question of formal leave:_]

There's nothing I can do for you is there? _Bore._ Yes, make my acquaintance. I am really worth knowing; I'm a scholar. _Horace._ Really? You will be more interesting to me on that account, I am sure. [_He tries desperately to get rid of the Bore, goes faster, stops, whispers in the slave-boy's ear; while the sweat pours down his face, which he mops desperately. He exclaims aside:_] O Bola.n.u.s, how I wish I had your hot temper! _Bore_ [_chatters empty nothings, praises the scenery, the buildings, etc. As Horace continues silent, he says:_] You're terribly anxious to get rid of me; I've seen that all along. But it's no use, I'll stay by you, I'll follow you. Where are you going from here? _Horace_ [_trying to discourage him_]. There's no need of your going out of your way. I'm going to visit a man--an entire stranger to you. He lies sick at his house away over beyond the Tiber, near Caesar's gardens. _Bore._ O, I have nothing else to do, and I'm a good walker. I'll just go along with you. [_As Horace keeps on doggedly in sullen silence, he continues:_] Unless I am much mistaken in myself, you will find me a more valuable friend than Viscus or Varius. There's no one can write more poetry in a given time than I, or dance more gracefully; and as for singing, Hermogenes himself would envy me. _Horace_ [_interrupting, tries to frighten him off by suggesting that the sick man whom he is going to visit may be suffering from some contagious disease_]. Have you a mother or other relative dependent on you? _Bore._ No, I have no one at all. I've buried every one of them. _Horace_ [_aside_]. Lucky dogs! Now I'm the only victim left. Finish me up; for a dreadful fate is d.o.g.g.i.ng my steps, which an old Sabine fortune-teller once warned me of when I was a boy. She said: "No poisonous drug shall carry this boy off, nor deadly sword, nor wasting consumption, nor crippling gout; in the fulness of time some chatterbox will talk him to death. So then, if he be wise, when he shall come to man's estate, let him beware of all chatterboxes." [_They have now come opposite the Temple of Vesta in the south end of the Forum, near which the courts of justice were held. The hour for opening court has arrived._] _Bore_ [_suddenly remembering that he has given bond to appear in a certain suit, and that if he fails to appear this suit will go against him by default_]. Won't you kindly attend me here in court a little while? _Horace._ I can't help you any. Hang it, I'm too tired to stand around here; and I don't know anything about law, anyhow. Besides, I'm in a hurry to get--you know where. _Bore._ I'm in doubt what to do, whether to leave you or my case. _Horace._ Leave me, by all means. _Bore_ [_after a brief meditation_]. No, I don't believe I will. [_He takes the lead, and Horace helplessly follows. The Bore starts in on the subject which is uppermost in his mind._] How do you and Maecenas get on? He's a very exclusive and level-headed fellow, now, isn't he? No one has made a better use of his chances. You would have an excellent a.s.sistant in that quarter, one who could ably support you, if only you would introduce yours truly. Strike me dead, if you wouldn't show your heels to all compet.i.tors in no time.

_Horace._ Why, we don't live there on any such basis as you seem to think. There is no circle in Rome more free from self-seeking on the part of its members, or more at variance with such a feeling. It makes no difference to me if another man is richer or more learned than I. Every man has his own place there. _Bore._ You don't really mean that? I can scarcely believe it. _Horace._ And yet such is the case. _Bore._ You only make me more eager to be admitted. _Horace_ [_with contemptuous sarcasm_]. O, you have only to wish it: such is your excellence, you'll be sure to gain your point. To tell the truth, Maecenas is a soft-hearted fellow, and for this very reason guards the first approach to his friendship more carefully. _Bore_ [_taking Horace's suggestion in earnest_]. O, I shall keep my eyes open. I'll bribe his servants.

And if I don't get in to-day, I'll try again. I'll lie in wait for chances, I'll meet him on the street corners, and walk down town with him. You can't get anything in this life without working for it. [_Enter Aristius Fuscus, an intimate friend of Horace. They meet and exchange greetings_]. _Horace_ [_to Fuscus_]. h.e.l.lo!

where do you come from? _Fuscus._ Where are you going? [_Horace slyly plucks his friend's toga, pinches his arm, and tries by nods and winks to get Fuscus to rescue him from the Bore. But Fuscus pretends not to understand._] _Horace_ [_to Fuscus_]. Didn't you say that you had something to say to me in private? _Fuscus._ Yes, but I'll tell you some other time. To-day is a Jewish festival.

You wouldn't have me insult the Jews, would you? _Horace._ O, I have no such scruples myself. _Fuscus._ But I have. I'm just one of the plain people--not as strong-minded as you are. You really must excuse me; I'll tell you some other time. [_Fuscus hurries away, with a wicked wink, leaving his friend in the lurch._]

_Horace_ [_in a despairing aside_]. O, to think that so dark a day as this should ever have dawned for me! [_At this juncture the Bore's adversary at law comes running up._] _The Adversary_ [_to Bore, in a loud voice._] Where are you going, you bail-breaking rascal? [_To Horace._] Will you come witness against him? [_Horace gives him his ear to touch in token of his a.s.sent, and the Bore is hurried off to court, with loud expostulations on both sides, and with the inevitable jeering street crowd following after._]

_Horace_ [_left alone_]. Saved, by the grace of Apollo!

The fourth and tenth satires of the first book are of especial value to us, because they contain Horace's own estimate of his predecessor, Lucilius; answers to popular criticism against the spirit and form of satire; much general literary criticism; and many personal comments by the poet upon his own method and spirit as a satirist. Following is an abstract of the tenth:

Yes, Lucilius _is_ rough--anybody will admit that. I also admit that he is to be praised for his great wit. But wit of itself does not const.i.tute great poetry. There must also be polish, variety of style, sprightliness and versatility. This is what caused the success of the old Greek comedy. "But," you say, "Lucilius was so skilled in mingling Latin and Greek." That, I reply, neither requires any great skill, nor is it a thing to be desired. This last a.s.sertion is at once apparent if you take the discussion into other fields of literature than poetry. I myself have been warned by Quirinus not to attempt Greek verse.

I have looked over the literary field and found it occupied by men who could write better than I in each department--comedy, tragedy, epic, pastoral. Satire alone promised success to me; but still I do not profess to excel Lucilius. I freely leave the crown to him.

But for all that I cannot help seeing his faults which I mentioned in my former satire--his extreme verbosity and roughness. In criticizing him I take the same license which he himself used toward his predecessors, and which he would use now toward his own extant works were he alive to-day. He surely would be more careful, and take more pains with his work, if he were now among us.

And that is just the point. One must write and rewrite, and polish to the utmost, if he would produce anything worth reading. He must not be eager to rush into print and cater to the public taste. Let him be content with the applause of men of culture, and strive to win that; and let him leave popular favor to men who are themselves no better than the rabble whom they court.

Few Roman writers are more frankly autobiographical than Horace. His odes, epodes, satires, and epistles are full of his own personality and history. From various references in these poems, we learn that he was born in 65 B. C., in Venusia, a munic.i.p.al town in Apulia; that his father was a freedman, a small farmer, and debt collector by trade; that he was educated in Rome under his father's personal care; that he finished his education in Athens, where he eagerly imbibed Greek philosophy and literature. But now the long storm of civil war, which had attended the rise of Julius Caesar and the struggle between that leader and Pompey for supremacy, and which had been temporarily allayed by the complete ascendency of Caesar, broke out afresh with renewed violence upon the a.s.sa.s.sination of the great dictator. The verse of Horace, especially in his odes, is full of the consciousness of this civil strife, and of deep and sincere regret for its consequence to the state.

The young student was just twenty-one years of age when the fall of Caesar startled the world. And when Brutus reached Athens on his way to Macedonia, and called upon the young Romans there to rally to the republic and liberty, the ardent heart of the youthful Horace responded to the summons. He joined the ill-fated army of the liberators, was made a military tribune, and served as such until the disastrous day of Philippi, when Horace's military and political ambition left him forever, together with all hope which he may have cherished of the lost cause. He made his way back to Rome under shelter of the amnesty which the merciful conqueror had granted, and there found himself in an unfortunate plight indeed; for his father was now dead, his modest estate lost, probably swallowed up in the general confiscations, and he himself with neither money, friends, nor occupation. He managed in some way, however, to secure a small clerkship, the income from which served to keep the wolf from his humble door.

But in this obscure, unfriended clerk one was now walking the streets of Rome to whom Rome's proudest and most princely mansions were before many years to open as to a welcome guest. For he carried within him, concealed in a most unpretentious personality, a rich store of education, experience, and genius, which was to prove the open sesame for him to the world's best gifts. To the exercise of this genius he now turned; and the appearance of the earliest of his satires, with perhaps some of his odes and epodes as well, was the result. All these things and much more the poet tells us, frankly giving the whole of his story with neither boasting on the one hand nor false pride on the other.

And now the event occurred which was the first link that bound Horace tangibly to his future greatness--his meeting with the poet Vergil, who was at this time famous and powerful in the friendship of Maecenas, Pollio, and even the emperor himself. This sweet and generous-souled poet, recognizing the kindred spirit of genius in the youthful Horace, straightway admitted him to his own friendship, a friendship which is one of the most charming pictures of that brilliant age, and which was destined to endure unbroken until parted by the death of Vergil himself.

It was Vergil who in due time introduced Horace to another friend, a man who was one of the great personages of that age, a leading statesman, a man of letters himself, and a generous patron of letters--Maecenas, under whose sheltering patronage our poet grew and expanded to the full development of those poetic powers which first had brought him recognition.

From this shelter Horace writes a satire addressed to Maecenas, in which he recounts, among other circ.u.mstances of his life, the occasion of his introduction to his patron; and takes occasion to answer the envious criticisms which were aimed against him, that he, a mere freedman's son, should be elevated above his betters to this high social position. The theme of this satire, which he st.u.r.dily maintains, is, that in social, even if not in political matters, character, not family, should be the standard; or, in the language of another gifted son of poverty:

The rank is but the guinea's stamp; The man's the gowd for a' that.

We give quotations from this satire in the translation of Francis.

The poet feels justified in addressing it to his patron, because, though Maecenas is of n.o.ble birth himself, he does not hold in contempt the worthy of lowly descent. Horace says that it is all very well to deny a man political advancement on the score of low birth; but when it comes to denying social advancement upon this score to a man of worth, that is quite unbearable. Horace cannot rightly be envied or criticized for his friendship with Maecenas, for this came to him purely on his merits and not by chance. A pleasing picture is given of his first introduction to Maecenas, and his final admission to that n.o.bleman's charmed circle of friends.

As for myself, a freedman's son confessed; A freedman's son, the public scorn and jest, That now with you I joy the social hour,-- That once a Roman legion owned my power; But though they envied my command in war Justly, perhaps, yet sure 'tis different far To gain your friendship, where no servile art Where only men of merit claim a part.

Nor yet to chance this happiness I owe; Friendship like yours it had not to bestow.

First my best Vergil, then my Varius, told Among my friends what character I hold; When introduced, in few and faltering words (Such as an infant modesty affords), I did not tell you my descent was great, Or that I wandered round my country seat On a proud steed in richer pastures bred; But what I really was I frankly said.

Short was your answer, in your usual strain; I take my leave, nor wait on you again, Till, nine months past, engaged and bid to hold A place among your nearer friends enrolled.

An honor this, methinks, of n.o.bler kind, That, innocent of heart and pure of mind, Though with no t.i.tled birth, I gained his love, Whose judgment can discern, whose choice approve.

The poet here pays a glowing tribute of filial affection to his father, to whose faithful care and instruction he owes it that he has been shielded from the grosser sins and defects of character.

If some few venial faults deform my soul (Like a fair face when spotted with a mole), If none with avarice justly brand my fame, With sordidness, or deeds too vile to name; If pure and innocent, if dear (forgive These little praises) to my friends I live, My father was the cause, who, though maintained By a lean farm but poorly, yet disdained The country schoolmaster, to whose low care The mighty captain sent his high-born heir, With satchel, copy-book, and pelf to pay The wretched teacher on th' appointed day.

To Rome by this bold father was I brought, To learn those arts which well-born youth are taught; So dressed and so attended, you would swear I was some senator's expensive heir; Himself my guardian, of unblemished truth, Among my tutors would attend my youth, And thus preserved my chast.i.ty of mind (That prime of virtue in its highest kind) Not only pure from guilt, but even the shame That might with vile suspicion hurt my fame; Nor feared to be reproached, although my fate Should fix my fortune in some meaner state, From which some trivial perquisites arise, Or make me, like himself, collector of excise.

For this my heart, far from complaining, pays A larger debt of grat.i.tude and praise; Nor, while my senses hold, shall I repent Of such a father, nor with pride resent, As many do, th' involuntary disgrace Not to be born of an ill.u.s.trious race.

But not with theirs my sentiments agree, Or language; for if Nature should decree That we from any stated point might live Our former years, and to our choice should give The sires to whom we wished to be allied, Let others choose to gratify their pride; While I, contented with my own, resign The t.i.tled honors of an ancient line.

Horace proceeds to draw a strong contrast between the very onerous duties and social obligations which fall to the lot of the high-born, and his own simple, quiet, independent life.

This friendship with Maecenas, of which the preceding satire relates the foundation, began in the year 38 B. C., when Horace was twenty-seven years of age. From this time on the poet received many substantial proofs of his patron's regard for him, the most notable of which was the gift of a farm among the Sabine hills about thirty miles from Rome.

Such a gift meant to Horace freedom from the drudgery of the workaday world, consequent leisure for the development of his literary powers, a proper setting and atmosphere for the rustic moods of his muse; while his intimacy in the palace of Maecenas on the Esquiline gave him standing in the city and ample opportunity for indulging his urban tastes.

Although this gift of the farm and other favors derived from the friendship of Maecenas were so important to Horace as to color all his after life and work, he nowhere manifests the slightest spirit of sycophancy toward his patron. While always grateful, he makes it very clear that the favors of Maecenas cannot be accepted at the price of his own personal independence. Rather than lose this, he would willingly resign all that he has received.

The following satire expresses that deep content which the poet experiences upon his farm, the simple delights which he enjoys there, and, by contrast, some of the amusing as well as annoying incidents of his life in Rome as the favorite of the great minister Maecenas. The satire is in the translation of Sir Theodore Martin.

My prayers with this I used to charge,-- A piece of land not over 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.

All this and more the G.o.ds have sent, And I am heartily content.

O son of Maia,[B] that I may These bounties keep is all I pray.

If ne'er by craft or base design I've swelled what little store is mine, Nor mean it ever shall be wrecked By profligacy or neglect; If never from my lips a word Shall drop of wishes so absurd As, "Had I but that little nook, Next to my land, that spoils its look!"

Or, "Would some lucky chance unfold A crock to me of hidden gold, As to the man whom Hercules Enriched and settled at his ease, Who, with the treasure he had found, Bought for himself the very ground Which he before for hire had tilled!"

If I with grat.i.tude am filled For what I have--by this I dare Adjure you to fulfil my prayer, That you with fatness will endow My little herd of cattle now, And all things else their lord may own Except what wits he has, alone, And be, as heretofore, my chief Protector, guardian, and relief!

So, when from town and all its ills I to my perch among the hills Retreat, what better theme to choose Than Satire for my homely muse?

No fell ambition wastes me there, No, nor the south wind's leaden air, Nor Autumn's pestilential breath, With victims feeding hungry death.

[B] Mercury, the G.o.d of gain, and protector of poets.

The poet proceeds to contrast with his restful country life the vexatious bustle of the city, and the officious attentions which people thrust upon him because of his supposed influence with Maecenas.

Some chilling news through lane and street Spreads from the Forum. All I meet Accost me thus--"Dear friend, you're so Close to the G.o.ds, that you must know; About the Dacians have you heard Any fresh tidings?" "Not a word."

"You're always jesting!" "Now may all The G.o.ds confound me, great and small, If I have heard one word!" "Well, well But you at any rate can tell If Caesar means the lands which he Has promised to his troops shall be Selected from Italian ground, Or in Trinacria be found?"

And when I swear, as well I can, That I know nothing, for a man Of silence rare and most discreet They cry me up to all the street.

Thus do my wasted days slip by, Not without many a wish and sigh: Oh, when shall I the country see, Its woodlands green? Oh, when be free, With books of great old men, and sleep, And hours of dreamy ease, to creep Into oblivion sweet of life, Its agitations and its strife?

When on my table shall be seen Pythagoras' kinsman bean, And bacon, not too fat, embellish My dish of greens, and give it relish?

Oh happy nights, oh feasts divine, When, with the friends I love, I dine At mine own hearth-fire, and the meat We leave gives my bluff hinds a treat!

No stupid laws our feasts control, But each guest drains or leaves the bowl, Precisely as he feels inclined.

If he be strong, and have a mind For b.u.mpers, good! If not, he's free To sip his liquor leisurely.

And then the talk our banquet rouses!

Not gossip 'bout our neighbors' houses, But what concerns us nearer, and Is harmful not to understand; Whether by wealth or worth, 'tis plain That men to happiness attain; By what we're led to choose our friends,-- Regard for them, or our own ends; In what does good consist, and what Is the supremest form of that.

At some such informal gathering of neighbors as this the story of the city mouse and the country mouse would be told. The poet's own moral of this homely tale is gathered from the farewell words of the country mouse as he escapes from the splendors--and terrors of the city:

"Ho!" cries the country mouse. "This kind Of life is not for me, I find.

Give me my woods and cavern. There At least I'm safe! And though both spare And poor my food may be, rebel I never will; so, fare ye well!"

3. AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS

The mantle of the satirist preacher which had fallen from Horace found no worthy claimant for nearly half a century. The successor, and, so far as in him lay, the sincere imitator of Horace, was Aulus Persius Flaccus. His circ.u.mstances were as unlike those of his great predecessor as can well be imagined. Horace was the son of a freedman, with no financial or social backing save that which he won by his own genius; Persius was, like Lucilius, of n.o.ble equestrian rank, rich, and related by birth to some of the first men of his time. Horace, while he had every opportunity for learning all that books and the schools could teach him, was, as we have already seen, preeminently a student of real life, having been taught by his father to study men as they actually were. Persius, on the other hand, saw little of the world except through the medium of books and teachers. When the future satirist was but six years of age, his father died, and he was brought up chiefly in the society of his mother and sister, carefully shielded from contact with the rough and wicked world. At the age of twelve he was taken from his native Volaterrae in Etruria to Rome, where his formal education was continued in the same careful seclusion until he a.s.sumed the toga of manhood. His writings do not, therefore, smack of the street and the world of men as do those of Horace, but they savor of the cloister and the library. Horace preached against the sins of men as he saw them; Persius, as he imagined them and read of them, taking his texts often from the more virile satires of Horace himself. Horace was devoted to no school of philosophy, but accepted what seemed to him best and sanest from all schools, and jeered alike at the follies of all. But Persius was by birth, education, and choice a Stoic. He became an ardent preacher and expounder of the Stoic philosophy, just as Lucretius had thrown his whole heart into expounding the doctrine of Epicurus a hundred years before.

Stoicism, as Tyrrell says, was the "philosophy in which under the Roman Empire the human conscience sought and found an asylum. It had ceased now to be a philosophy, and had become a religion, appealing to the rich and great as Christianity appealed to the poor and humble."

Persius, accordingly, following his early bent, as soon as he arrived at man's estate, placed himself under the care and instruction of Cornutus, a Stoic philosopher. His own account of this event forms one of the most pleasing pa.s.sages in his works, and is found in the fifth satire, which is a confession of his own ardent devotion both to his friend the Stoic, and to Stoicism as well.

The lofty and almost Christian tone of this ardent young Stoic preacher was greatly admired in the Middle Ages, and he was much quoted by the Church Fathers. His high moral truths sounded out in an age of moral laxity, when faith in the old religious beliefs had given way, and had not yet laid hold upon the nascent doctrine of Christianity which was even now marching westward and was soon to gain admission to Rome itself. To the Stoic, virtue was the bright goal of all living. To gain her was to gain life indeed; and to lose her was to suffer loss irreparable. This loss the poet invokes in a masterly apostrophe in the third satire upon those rulers who basely abuse their power.

Dread sire of G.o.ds! when l.u.s.t's envenomed stings Stir the fierce nature of tyrannic kings; When storms of rage within their bosoms roll, And call in thunder for thy just control; O then relax the bolt, suspend the blow, And thus and thus alone thy vengeance show: In all her charms set Virtue in their eye, And let them see their loss, despair, and die!