The Works of Alexander Pope Part 60

[Footnote 43: Virg. Ecl. v. 76:

Dum juga montis aper, fluvios dum piscis amabit, Dumque thymo pascentur apes, dum rore cicadae, Semper honos, nomenque tuum, laudesque manebunt.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 44: Virg. Ecl. x. 75:

solet esse gravis cantantibus umbra; Juniperi gravis umbra.--POPE.

Dryden's version of the pa.s.sage is,

From juniper unwholesome dews distil.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 45: Virg. Ecl. x. 69:

Omnia vincit amor; et nos cedamus amori.

Vid. etiam Sannazarii Ecl. et Spenser's Calendar.--WARBURTON.

Dryden's verse is:

Love conquers all, and we must yield to love.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 46: There is a pa.s.sage resembling this in Walsh's third eclogue:

Adieu, ye flocks, no more shall I pursue; Adieu, ye groves; a long, a long adieu.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 47: These four last lines allude to the several subjects of the four Pastorals, and to the several scenes of them particularized before in each--POPE.

They should have been added by the poet in his own person, instead of being put into the mouth of a shepherd who is not presumed to have any knowledge of the previous pieces. The specific character which Pope ascribes to each of his Pastorals is not borne out by the poems themselves. There is as much about "flocks" in the first Pastoral as in the second; and there is as much about "rural lays and loves" in the second Pastoral as in the first. The third Pastoral contains no mention of a "sylvan crew," but a couple of shepherds are absorbed by the same "rural lays and loves" which occupied their predecessors.]

MESSIAH,

A SACRED ECLOGUE:

IN IMITATION OF

VIRGIL'S POLLIO.

ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nT.

In reading several pa.s.sages of the Prophet Isaiah, which foretell the coming of Christ and the felicities attending it, I could not but observe a remarkable parity between many of the thoughts, and those in the Pollio of Virgil. This will not seem surprising, when we reflect, that the Eclogue was taken from a Sibylline prophecy on the same subject. One may judge that Virgil did not copy it line by line, but selected such ideas as best agreed with the nature of pastoral poetry, and disposed them in that manner which served most to beautify his piece. I have endeavoured the same in this imitation of him, though without admitting anything of my own; since it was written with this particular view, that the reader, by comparing the several thoughts, might see how far the images and descriptions of the prophet are superior to those of the poet. But as I fear I have prejudiced them by my management, I shall subjoin the pa.s.sages of Isaiah, and those of Virgil, under the same disadvantage of a literal translation.[1]

This is certainly the most animated and sublime of all our author's compositions, and it is manifestly owing to the great original which he copied. Perhaps the dignity, the energy, and the simplicity of the original, are in a few pa.s.sages weakened and diminished by florid epithets, and useless circ.u.mlocutions.--WARTON.

All things considered, the Messiah is as fine and masterly a piece of composition as the English language, in the same style of verse, can boast. I have ventured to point out a pa.s.sage or two, for they are rare, where the sublimity has been weakened by epithets; and I have done this, because it is a fault, particularly with young writers, so common. In the most truly sublime images of Scripture, the addition of a single word would often destroy their effect. It is therefore right to keep as nearly as possible to the very words. No one understood better than Milton where to be general, and where particular; where to adopt the very expression of Scripture, and where it was allowed to paraphrase.--BOWLES.

The fourth eclogue of Virgil is devoted to celebrating the coming birth, while Pollio is Consul, of a boy whose infancy will usher in the golden age, and whose manhood will witness its fullness. Wars are to cease; the beasts of prey are to change their natures; the untilled earth is to bring forth fruits spontaneously; and peace, ease, and plenty are to reign supreme. The names of the parents of this expected child are not recorded, and the commentators are greatly divided upon the question.

The most reasonable conjecture is that the intention was to do homage to the ruling genius at Rome, Augustus, or Caesar Octavia.n.u.s, as he was then called, whose wife Scribonia was pregnant at the time. Unhappily for the prognostications of the poet the infant "proved a daughter, and the infamous Julia."[2] Virgil grounds his glowing antic.i.p.ations upon certain c.u.maean or Sibylline verses; for, as Jortin well remarks, he would have deprived his announcement of all authority if he himself had set up for a prophet. He could only hope to accredit his promised marvels by appealing to an oracle that was popularly believed to be inspired. "The Sibylline books," says Prideaux, "were a main engine of state. When they were ordered to be consulted the keepers of them always brought forth such an answer as served their purpose, and in many difficulties the governors helped themselves this way."[3] Virgil was equally diplomatic. He probably had no faith in the wonders he announced. His object was to pay court to Augustus, and to a.s.sist in establishing his patron's power.

The resemblance which portions of the Pollio bear to pa.s.sages in Isaiah is generally admitted. "This," says Pope, "will not seem surprising when we reflect that the Eclogue was taken from a Sibylline prophecy on the same subject." He does not attempt to explain how the Sibyl came by her knowledge, unless he means us to infer that she was divinely illuminated. This theory has been supported by learned men, and would be warranted if the eight books of Sibylline oracles, still extant in Greek verse, were anterior to the Christian era; for since they often go beyond the Old Testament predictions in historic precision, the insight into futurity could not have been gathered exclusively from the Scripture prophets. But the existing oracles, says Jortin, "are without any one exception, mere impostures. They abound with phrases, words, facts, and pa.s.sages taken from the Septuagint and the New Testament, and are a remarkable specimen of astonishing impudence, and miserable poetry."[4] Still there remains the circ.u.mstance of the parallelism between parts of Isaiah and the Eclogue which Virgil based upon the Sibylline verses. It is easy to account for the coincidence. The original Sibylline books were accidentally burnt B. C. 83. A few years later the senate employed agents to glean together from Italy, Greece, Sicily and Africa a body of prophecies to replace the oracles which had perished. The collection was from private as well as public sources, and a vast number of the same or similar predictions were in the hands of individuals at Rome. The Jews were located everywhere; they abounded in Rome itself; they were animated by the expectation that the reign of the Messiah was approaching; their prophetic records were incomparable for poetic beauty, sublimity, and variety; the language of the Septuagint was well understood by lettered pagans, and was even the language of the new Sibylline oracles, which were embodied in Greek verse. When all these things are considered, it would be strange if the persons employed to pick up prophecies had not come across notions, which had either been derived from personal intercourse with Jews, or from their sacred books.

Although the entire world had been sunk in stupid apathy, and not a single heathen had been attracted by curiosity to turn his attention to Hebrew literature and beliefs, it was yet inevitable that a crude conception should get abroad of the leading idea which fermented in the mind of the ubiquitous Jew, and nothing was more likely than that it should be put into Sibylline verse when Roman agents were searching far and wide for oracles, and inviting contributions from every quarter.

Pope's Messiah first appeared in the Spectator for May 14, 1712, No.

378, where it is prefaced by these words: "I will make no apology for entertaining the reader with the following poem, which is written by a great genius, a friend of mine, in the country, who is not ashamed to employ his wit in the praise of his Maker." After it was published, Steele wrote on June 1, 1712, to Pope, and said, "I have turned to every verse and chapter, and think you have preserved the sublime heavenly spirit throughout the whole, especially at 'Hark a glad voice,' and 'The lamb with wolves shall graze.' Your poem is better than the Pollio."

Upon this Johnson remarks, "That the Messiah excels the Pollio is no great praise, if it be considered from what original the improvements are derived." Bowles and Warton thought that Pope had kept up his verse to the level of Isaiah, and had only here and there weakened the sublimity by epithets. Wordsworth was of another opinion. When he contended that the language of poetry should be a selection from the real language of men "in a state of vivid sensation," and repudiated the ornate conventional phraseology which pa.s.sed for poetic diction, he pointed to the paraphrases on parts of the Bible in ill.u.s.tration of what he condemned, and to the pa.s.sages as they exist in our authorised version for a specimen of what he approved. "Pope's Messiah throughout"

was in his apprehension an adulteration of the original.[5] His criticism appears well founded. The pure and natural language of the prophet is sometimes exchanged for sickly, affected expressions.

"Righteousness" becomes "dewy nectar," "sheep" the "fleecy care," and the call upon Jerusalem to "Arise and shine" is turned into an invocation to "exalt her tow'ry head." Apart from these mawkish phrases, the imitation is framed from first to last upon the mistaken principle that the original would be embellished by amplifications, by a profusion of epithets, and by a gaudier diction. The "fir-tree and box-tree" of Isaiah are called by Pope "the _spiry_ fir, and _shapely_ box." Where the sacred text announces that "instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle-tree," Pope tells us that

"To _leafless_ shrubs the _flow'ring_ palms succeed, And _od'rous_ myrtle to the _noisome_ weed."

In his translation of the prediction, that in the kingdom of Christ, "the sucking-child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the c.o.c.katrice' den," Pope makes the c.o.c.katrice a "_crested_ basilisk," and the asp a "_speckled_ snake;"

they have both scales of a "_green_ l.u.s.tre," and a "_forky_ tongue," and with this last the "_smiling_ infant shall _innocently_ play." "The leopard," says Isaiah, "shall lie down with the kid, and the young lion, and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them"; but Pope could not leave this exquisite picture undecorated, and with him "boys in _flow'ry_ bands the tiger lead." How grievously is the force and pathos of the pa.s.sage impaired by the subst.i.tution of "boys" for the "little child"; how completely is the bewitching nature turned into masquerade by the engrafted notion that the beasts are led by "_flow'ry_ bands." The alteration is an example of the justice of De Quincey's observation that "the Arcadia of Pope's age was the spurious Arcadia of the opera theatre."[6] The prophet refers anew to the time when creatures of prey shall cease to be carnivorous, and relates that "the lion shall eat straw like the bullock, and dust shall be the serpent's meat." Pope converts the second clause into the statement that "harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet," which alters the meaning, and introduces a conception more noticeable for its grotesqueness than for the enchanting vision it should conjure up of universal peace.[7] Pope says he was induced to subjoin in his notes the pa.s.sages he had versified by "the fear that he had prejudiced Isaiah and Virgil by his management." The reputation of Isaiah and Virgil was safe, and no one can doubt that his real reason for inviting the comparison was the belief that he had improved upon them. He imagined that he had enriched the text of the prophet, and did not suspect that the majesty and truth of the original were vitiated by his embroidery. Bowles has drawn attention to the finest parts of the poem, and it may be allowed that the piece in general is powerful of its kind. The fault is in the kind itself, which belongs to a lower style than the living strains of Isaiah, and borders too closely upon the meretricious to suit the lofty theme. The Messiah is a prophetic vision of a golden age, and on this account was cla.s.sed by Pope among his Pastorals.[8]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Pope printed in his notes only those pa.s.sages of Isaiah which had some resemblance to the ideas of Virgil. To the other portions of the prophet which he put into verse he merely gave references.]

[Footnote 2: Jortin's Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. i, p.

323.]

[Footnote 3: Prideaux's Connection, ed. Wheeler, vol. ii, p. 518.]

[Footnote 4: Jortin's Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p.

318.]

[Footnote 5: Wordsworth's Works, ed. 1836, vol. ii. p. 343.]

[Footnote 6: De Quincey's Works, vol. xv. p. 115.]

[Footnote 7: Such is the difference of taste that Wakefield says of Pope's variation, "This is indeed a glorious improvement on the sublime original. The diction has the true doric simplicity in perfection, and poetic genius never gave birth to a more delicate and pleasing image."]

[Footnote 8: Singer's Spence, p. 236.]

MESSIAH,

A SACRED ECLOGUE:

IN IMITATION OF

VIRGIL'S POLLIO.

Ye Nymphs of Solyma![1] begin the song: To heav'nly themes sublimer strains[2] belong.