The Roman Poets of the Republic Part 44

Usque adeo largos haustus e fontibu' magnis Lingua meo suavis diti de pectore fundet.

And he had not only the 'suavis lingua diti de pectore'; he had also the 'daedala lingua,'--the formative energy which shapes words into new forms and combinations. The frequent [Greek: hapax legomena]

in his poem and his abundant use of compound words, such as _fluctifragus_, _montivagus_, _alt.i.tonans_, etc., most of which fell into disuse in the Augustan age, were products of the same creative force which enabled Plautus and Ennius to add largely to the resources of the Latin tongue. In him, more than in any Latin poet before or after him, we meet with phrases too full of imaginative life to be in perfect keeping with the more sober tones and tamer spirit of the national literature. Thus his language never became trite and hackneyed, and, as we read him, no medium of after-a.s.sociations is interposed between his mind and our own.

But it is not in individual phrases, however fresh and powerful, but in continuous pa.s.sages, that the power of his style is best seen. The processes of his mind are characterised by continuity, consistency, and a kind of gathering intensity of movement. The periods of Virgil delight us by their intricate harmony; those of Lucretius impress us by their continuous and hurrying impetus. The long drawn out charm of the one is indicative of the deep love which induced him to linger over every detail of his subject: the force and grandeur of the other are the outward signs of the inward wonder and enthusiasm by which his spirit was borne rapidly along. Virgil's movement displays the majesty of grace and serenity; that of Lucretius the majesty of power, and largeness of mind.

Thus although the poetical style of Lucretius shows the traces of labour and premeditation, and of occasional imitation both of foreign and native models, it is more than that of any other Latin poet, the immediate creation of his own genius. The 'ingenuei fontis,' by which his imagination was so abundantly fed, found many spontaneous outlets, and were not checked in their speed or stained in their purity by the artificial channels in which he sometimes forced them to flow. If the loving labour, so prodigally bestowed upon the task of finding words and rhythm[4] adequate to his great theme, explains some peculiarities of his diction, the qualities which have made the work immortal are due to his n.o.ble singleness of heart and sincerity of nature, and to the openness and sensibility with which his imagination received impressions, the penetrative force with which it saw into the heart of things, and the creative energy with which it shaped what it received and discerned into vivid pictures and symbols.

He has, in the first place, the freshness of feeling, the living sense of the wonder of the world, which is a great charm in the older poets of all great literatures,--in Homer, Dante, Chaucer;--and this sense he communicates by words used in their simplest and directest meaning.

The life which animates and gladdens the familiar face of earth, sea, and sky,--of river, wood, field, and hill-side,--is vividly and immediately reproduced in such lines as these:--

Caeli subter labentia signa Quae mare navigerum quae terras frugiferentis Concelebras[5].

Denique per maria ac montis fluviosque rapacis Frondiferasque domos avium camposque virentis[6].

Frondiferasque novis avibus canere undique silvas[7].

Nam saepe in colli tondentes pabula laeta Lanigerae reptant pecudes quo quamque vocantes Invitant herbae gemmantes rore recenti[8].

Nec tenerae salices atque herbae rore vigentis Fluminaque illa queunt summis labentia ripis[9].

So, too, he makes us realise, with a quickening and expanding emotion, which seems to bring us nearer to the core of Nature, the majesty of the sea breaking on a great expanse of sh.o.r.e,--the solemn stillness of midnight,--the invisible agency by which the clouds form the pageantry of the sky,--the active noiseless energy by which rivers wear away their banks,--by the use of words that seem exactly equivalent to the thing which they describe,--

Quam fluitans circ.u.m magnis anfractibus aequor Ionium glaucis aspargit virus ab undis[10].

Severa silentia noctis Undique c.u.m constent[11].

Ut nubes facile interdum concrescere in alto Cernimus et mundi speciem violare serenam Aera mulcentes motu[12].

Pars etiam glebarum ad diluviem revocatur Imbribus et ripas radentia flumina rodunt[13].

The changing face of Nature is to his spirit so full of power and wonder, that it needs no poetical adornment, but is left to tell its own tale in the plainest language. If words are a true index of feeling, it would be difficult to name any poet by whom the living presence and full being of Nature were more immediately apprehended, nor has any one caught with more fidelity the intimations of her hidden life, as they betray themselves in her outward features and motions.

With similar fidelity and directness of language he communicates to his reader the spell of awe and wonder by which his own spirit is possessed in presence of the impressive facts of human life. No subtlety of reflexion nor grandeur of ill.u.s.trative imagery could enhance the effect of the thought of the dead produced by the austere plainness of the words,--

Morte obita quorum tellus amplect.i.tur ossa,

and,

Ossa dedit terrae proinde ac famul infimus esset.

By no pomp of description could a deeper sense of religious solemnity be created than by the lines describing the silent influence of the procession of Cybele on the minds of her devotees,--

Ergo c.u.m primum magnas invecta per urbis Munificat tacita mortalis muta salute[14].

The undying pain of a great sorrow,--the paralysis of all human effort in the face of new and terrible agencies of death,--the blessedness and pathos of the purest human affections,--the ecstatic delight derived from the revelation of great truths--imprint themselves permanently on the imagination through the august simplicity of the phrases,

Aeternumque daret matri sub pectore volnus[15],--

tacito mussabat medicina timore[16],--

tacita pectus dulcedine tangent[17]--

His ibi me rebus quaedam divina voluptas Percipit adque horror[18].--

His language has the further power of producing a vague sense of sublimity, where the cause of the feeling is too vast or undefined to be distinctly conceived or visibly presented to the mind. The very sound of his words seems sometimes to be a kind of echo of the voices by which Nature produces a strange awe upon the imagination. Such, for instance, are these lines and phrases--

Alt.i.tonans Volturnus et auster fulmine pollens[19].

Nec fulmina nec minitanti Murmure compressit caelum[20].

Murmura magna minarum[21], etc.

The sublimity of vagueness and vastness is present in the language of these lines--

Impendent atrae formidinis ora superne[22].

Sustentata ruet moles et machina mundi[23].

Aut cecidisse urbis magno vexamine mundi[24].

Non si terra mari miscebitur et mare caelo[25].

While no other ancient poet brings before the mind more forcibly and immediately the living presence of the outward world and the solemn meaning of familiar things, there is none whose language seems to respond so sensitively to the vague suggestions of an invisible and awful Power omnipresent in the universe.

The creative power of imagination which gives new life to words and thoughts is also present in many vivid and picturesque expressions, either scattered through the main argument, or shining in brilliant combinations in the more elaborate parts of the work. By this more imaginative use of language, the poet can ill.u.s.trate his ideas by subtle a.n.a.logies, or embody them in visible symbols, or endow the objects he describes with the personal attributes of will and energy.

Thus, for instance, the penetrating subtlety of the mind in exploring the secrets of Nature becomes a visible force in the curious felicity of the expression (i. 408), 'caecasque latebras insinuare omnis.'

The freedom and boundless range of the imagination is suggested with picturesque effect in the familiar expression--

Avia Pieridum peragro loca nullius ante Trita solo[26];

while the calm serenity of the contemplative mind is symbolised in such figurative expressions as 'sapientum templa serena'; 'humanum in pectus templaque mentis'; and the stormy tumult of the pa.s.sions and the perilous errors of life become vividly present to the imagination by means of the a.n.a.logies pictured in the lines--

Volvere curarum tristis in pectore fluctus[27],

and

Errare atque viam palantis quaerere vitae[28].

What life and energy again are imparted to external things and abstract conceptions by such expressions as these:--'flammai flore coorto'; 'avido complexu quem tenet aether'; 'caeli tegit impetus ingens'; 'circ.u.m tremere aethera signis'; 'semina quae magnum iaculando contulit omne'; 'vagos imbris tempestatesque volantes'; 'concussaeque cadunt urbes dubiaeque minantur'; 'simulacraque fessa fatisci'; 'sol lumine conserit arva'; 'lucida tela diei'; 'placidi pellacia ponti'; 'vivant labentes aetheris ignes'; 'leti sub dentibus ipsis'; 'leti praeclusa est ianua caelo,' etc.

A similar power of imagination is shown in his more elaborate use of a.n.a.logies, in his symbolical representation of ideas, and in his power of painting scenes from Nature and from human life. Few great poets have been more sparing in the use of mere poetical ornament. The grandest imagery which he strikes out, and the finest pictures which he paints are immediately suggested by his subject. The earnestness of his speculative and practical purpose restrains all exuberance of fancy. Thus his imaginative a.n.a.logies are more often latent in single expressions than drawn out at length. But the few which he has elaborated, 'stand out with the solidity of the finest sculpture[29],'

to embody some deep or powerful thought for all time. They are suggested not by outward resemblance, but by an ident.i.ty which the imagination discerns in the innermost meaning of the objects compared with one another. The strong emotion attending on the presence of some great thought calls up before the inward eye some scene or action, which, if actually witnessed, would produce a similar effect upon the mind. Thus the thought of the chaotic confusion which the universe would present, on the supposition that the original atoms were limited in number, calls up the image of the most impressive and awful devastation, wrought by Nature upon the works of man.

Sed quasi naufragiis magnis multisque coortis Disiectare solet magnum mare transtra guberna Antemnas proram malos tonsasque natantis, Per terrarum omnis oras fluitantia apl.u.s.tra Ut videantur et indicium mortalibus edant, Infidi maris insidias virisque dolumque Ut vitare velint, neve ullo tempore credant, Subdola c.u.m ridet placidi pellacia ponti, Sic tibi si finita semel primordia quaedam Const.i.tues, aevom debebunt sparsa per omnem Disiectare aestus diversi materiari, Numquam in concilium ut possint compulsa coire Nec remorari in concilio nec crescere adaucta[30].

It is through the penetrating intuition of his imagination into the deepest meaning of the two phenomena, and his sensibility to the pathos and the strangeness involved in each of them, that he sees the birth of every child into the world under the well-known image of the shipwrecked sailor--'saevis proiectus ab undis.' Other a.n.a.logies, suggested rather than elaborately drawn out, express an inward or spiritual, not an outward or bodily resemblance. Or rather the thing ill.u.s.trated is a thought or a mental act, the ill.u.s.tration a scene or action, visible to the eye, suggestive of the same power in Nature, and calculated to rouse the same emotions in the mind. Thus he compares the life transmitted in succession through the nations of the world to the torch pa.s.sed on by the runners in the torch-race; or he ill.u.s.trates his calm contemplation of the struggles of life from the heights of his Epicurean philosophy, by the vision of the dangers of the sea, as seen from some commanding position on the land.