Part 22 (1/2)

From this we gather that _Amazonis_ was the name of his poem. In erotic poetry he held a high place, though not of the first rank. His _Fabellae_ and treatise on _Urbanitas_, both probably poetical productions, are referred to by Quintilian, and Martial mentions him as his own precursor in treating the short epigram. From another pa.s.sage of Martial,

”Et Maecenati Maro c.u.m cantaret Alexin Nota tamen Marsi fusca Melaenis erat,” [6]

we infer that he began his career early; for he was certainly younger than Horace, though probably only by a few years, as he also received instruction from Orbilius. There is a fine epigram by Marsus lamenting the death of his two brother-poets and friends:

”Te quoque Virgilio comitem non aequa, Tibulle, Mors invenem campos misit ad Elysios.

Ne foret aut molles elegis qui fleret amores, Aut caneret forti regia bella pede.”

ALBIUS TIBULLUS, to whom Quintilian adjudges the palm of Latin elegy, was born probably about the same time as Horace (65 B.C.), though others place the date of his birth as late as that of Messala (59 B.C.). In the fifth Elegy of the third book [7] occur the words--

”Natalem nostri primum videre parentes c.u.m cecidit fato consul uterque pari.”

As these words nearly reappear in Ovid, fixing the date of his own birth, [8] some critics have supposed them to be spurious here. But there is no occasion for this. The elegy in which they occur is certainly not by Tibullus, and may well be the work of some contemporary of Ovid. They point to the battle of Mutina, 43 B.C., in which Hirtius and Pansa lost their lives. The poet's death is fixed to 19 B.C. by the epigram of Domitius just quoted.

Tibullus was a Roman knight, and inherited a large fortune. This, however, he lost by the triumviral proscriptions, [9] excepting a poor remnant of his estate near Pedum which, small as it was, seems to have sufficed for his moderate wants. At a later period Horace, writing to him in retirement, speaks as though he were possessed of considerable wealth [10]--

”Di tibi divitias dederunt artemque fruendi.”

It is possible that Augustus, at the intercession of Messala, restored the poet's patrimony. It was as much the fas.h.i.+on among the Augustan writers to affect a humble but contented poverty, as it had been among the libertines of the Caesarean age to pretend to sanct.i.ty of life--another form of that unreality which, after all, is ineradicable from Latin poetry. Ovid is far more unaffected. He a.s.serts plainly that the pleasures and refinements of his time were altogether to his taste, and that no other age would have suited him half so well. [11] Tibullus is a melancholy effeminate spirit.

Horace exactly hits him when he bids him ”chant no more woeful elegies,”

[12] because a young and perjured rival has been preferred to him. He seems to have had no ambition and no energy, but his position obliged him to see some military service, and we find that he went on no less than three expeditions with his patron. This patron, or rather friend, for he was above needing a patron, was the great Messala, whom the poet loved with a warmth and constancy testified by some beautiful elegies, the finest perhaps being those where the general's victories are celebrated.

[13] But the chief theme of his verse is the love, ill-requited it would seem, which he lavished first on Delia and afterwards on Nemesis. Each mistress gives the subject to a book. Delia's real name as we learn from Apuleius was Plania, [14] and we gather from more than one notice in the poems that she was married [15] when Tibullus paid his addresses to her.

If the form of these poems is borrowed from Alexandria, the gentle pathos and gus.h.i.+ng feeling redeem them from all taint of artificiality. In no poet, not even in Burns, is simple, natural emotion more naturally expressed. If we cannot praise the character of the man, we must admire the graceful poet. Nothing can give a truer picture of affection than the following tender and exquisitely musical lines:

”Non ego laudari curo: mea Delia, tec.u.m Dummodo sim quaeso segnis inersque vocer.

Te spectem suprema mihi c.u.m venerit hora: Te teneam moriens deficiente manu.” [16]

Here is the same ”linked sweetness long drawn out” which gives such a charm to Gray's elegy. In other elegies, particularly those which take the form of idylls, giving images of rural peace and plenty, [17] we see the quiet retiring nature that will not be drawn into the glare of Rome.

Tibullus is described as of great personal beauty, and of a candid [18]

and affectionate disposition. Notwithstanding his devotion Delia was faithless, and the poet sought distraction in surrendering to the charms of another mistress. Horace speaks of a lady named Glycera in this connection; it is probable that she is the same as Nemesis; [19] the custom of erotic poetry being to subst.i.tute a Greek name of similar scansion for the original Latin one; if the original name were Greek the change was still made, hence Glycera might well stand for Nemesis. The third book was first seen by Niebuhr to be from another and much inferior poet. It is devoted to the praises of Neaera, and imitates the manner of Tibullus with not a little of his sweetness but with much less power. Who the author was it is impossible to say, but though he had little genius he was a man of feeling and taste, and the six elegies are a pleasing relic of this active and yet melancholy time. The fourth book begins with a short epic on Messala, the work of a poetaster, extending over 200 lines.

It is followed by thirteen most graceful _elegidia_ ascribed to the lovers Cerinthus and Sulpicia of which one only is by Cerinthus. It is not certain whether this ascription is genuine, or whether, as the ancient life of Tibullus in the Parisian codex a.s.serts, the poems were written by him under the t.i.tle of _Epistolae amatoriae_. Their finished elegance and purity of diction are easily reconcilable with the view that they are the work of Tibullus. They abound in allusions to Virgil's poetry. [20] At the same time the description of Sulpicia as a poetess [21] seems to point to her as auth.o.r.ess of the pieces that bear her name, and from one or two allusions we gather that Messala was paying her attentions that were distasteful but hard to refuse. [22] The materials for coming to a decision are so scanty, that it seems best to leave the authors.h.i.+p an open question.

The rhythm of Tibullus is smooth, easy, and graceful, but tame. He generally concludes his period at the end of the couplet, and closes the couplet with a dissyllable; but he does not like Ovid make it an invariable rule. The diction is severely cla.s.sical, free from Greek constructions and antiquated harshness. In elision he stands midway between Catullus and Ovid, inclining, however, more nearly to the latter.

s.e.x. AURELIUS PROPERTIUS, an Umbrian, from Mevania, Ameria, a.s.sisi, or Hispellum, it is not certain which, was born 58 B.C. or according to others 49 B.C., and lost his father and his estate in the same year (41 B.C.) under Octavius's second a.s.signation of land to the soldiers. He seems to have begun life at the bar, which he soon deserted to play the cavalier to Hostia (whom he celebrates under the name Cynthia), a lady endowed with learning and wit as well as beauty, to whom our poet remained constant for five years. The chronology of his love-quarrels and reconciliations has been the subject of warm disputes between n.o.bbe, Jacob, and Lachmann; but even if it were of any importance, it is impossible to ascertain it with certainty.

He unquestionably belonged to Maecenas's following, but was not admitted into the inner circle of his intimates. Some have thought that the troublesome acquaintance who besought Horace to introduce him was no other than Propertius. The man, it will be remembered, expresses himself willing to take a humble place: [23]

”Haberes Magnum adiutorem posset qui ferre secundas Hunc hominem velles si tradere. Dispeream ni Submosses omnes.”

And as Propertius speaks of himself as living on the Esquiliae, [24] some have, in conformity with this view, imagined him to have held some domestic post under Maecenas's roof. A careful reader can detect in Propertius a far less well-bred tone than is apparent in Tibullus or Horace. He has the air of _a parvenu_, [25] parading his intellectual wares, and lacking the courteous self-restraint which dignifies their style. But he is a genuine poet, and a generous, warm-hearted man, and in our opinion by far the greatest master of the pentameter that Rome ever produced. Its rhythm in his hands rises at times almost into grandeur.

There are pa.s.sages in the elegy on Cornelia (which concludes the series) whose n.o.ble naturalness and stirring emphasis bespeak a great and patriotic inspiration; and no small part of this effect is due to his vigorous handling of a somewhat feeble metre. [26] Mechanically speaking, he is a disciple in the same school as Ovid, but his success in the Ovidian distich is insignificant; for he has nothing of the epigrammatist in him, and his finest lines all seem to have come by accident, or at any rate without effort. [27] His excessive reverence for the Alexandrines Callimachus and Philetas, has cramped his muse. With infinitely more poetic fervour than either, he has made them his only models, and to attain their reputation is the summit of his ambition. It is from respect to their practice that he has loaded his poems with pedantic erudition; in the very midst of pa.s.sionate pleading he will turn abruptly into the mazes of some obscure myth, often unintelligible [28] to the modern reader, whose patience he sorely tries. There is no good poet so difficult to read through; his faults are not such as ”plead sweetly for pardon;” they are obtrusive and repelling, and have been more in the way of his fame than those of any extant writer of equal genius. He was a devoted admirer of Virgil, whose poems he sketches in the following graceful lines: [29]--

”Actia Virgilio custodit (deus) litora Phoebi, Caesaris et fortes dicere posse rates: Qui nunc Aeneae Troianaque suscitat arma, Iactaque Lavinis moenia litoribus.

Cedite Romani seriptores, cedite Graii, Nescio quid maius nascitur Iliade!

Tu canis umbrosi subter pineta Galesi Thyrsin et attritis Daphnin arundinibus, Utque decera possint corrumpere mala puellas, Missus et impressis haedus ab uberibus.

Felix qui viles pomis mercaris amores!

Huic licet ingratae t.i.tyrus ipse canat.