Part 2 (1/2)
”L_et him to whom the G.o.ds award_ C_alenian vineyards prune the vine_; T_he merchant sell his balms and nard_, A_nd drain the precious wine_
”F_rom cups of gold--to Fortune dear_ B_ecause his laden argosy_ C_rosses, unshattered, thrice a year_ T_he storm-vexed Midland sea_.
”R_ipe berries from the olive bough_, M_allows and endives, be my fare_.
S_on of Latona, hear my vow!_ A_pollo, grant my prayer!_
”H_ealth to enjoy the blessings sent_ F_rom heaven; a mind unclouded, strong_; A_ cheerful heart; a wise content_; A_n honored age; and song_.”
This is not the prayer of the city-bred formalist. It reflects the heart of humble breeding and sympathies. For the faith which really sets the poet aglow we must go into the fields and hamlets of Italy, among the householders who were the descendants of the long line of Italian forefathers that had wors.h.i.+ped from time immemorial the same G.o.ds at the same altars in the same way. They were not the G.o.ds of yesterday, imported from Greece and Egypt, and splendid with display, but the simple G.o.ds of farm and fold native to the soil of Italy. Whatever his conception of the logic of it all, Horace felt a powerful appeal as he contemplated the picturesqueness of the wors.h.i.+p and the simplicity of the wors.h.i.+per, and reflected upon its genuineness and purity as contrasted with what his worldly wisdom told him of the heart of the urban wors.h.i.+per.
Horace may entertain a well-bred skepticism of Jupiter's thunderbolt, and he may pa.s.s the jest on the indifference of the Epicurean G.o.ds to the affairs of men. When he does so, it is with the G.o.ds of mythology and literature he is dealing, not with really religious G.o.ds. For the old-fas.h.i.+oned faith of the country he entertains only the kindliest regard. The images that rise in his mind at the mention of religion pure and undefiled are not the gaudy spectacles to be seen in the marbled streets of the capital. They are images of incense rising in autumn from the ancient altar on the home-stead, of the feast of the Terminalia with its slain lamb, of libations of ruddy wine and offerings of bright flowers on the clear waters of some ancestral spring, of the simple hearth of the farmhouse, of the family table resplendent with the silver _salinum_, heirloom of generations, from which the grave paterfamilias makes the pious offering of crackling salt and meal to little G.o.ds crowned with rosemary and myrtle, of the altar beneath the pine to the Virgin G.o.ddess, of Faunus the shepherd-G.o.d, in the humor of wooing, roaming the sunny farmfields in quest of retreating wood-nymphs, of Priapus the garden-G.o.d, and Silva.n.u.s, guardian of boundaries, and, most of all, and typifying all, of the faith of rustic Phidyle, with clean hands and a pure heart raising palms to heaven at the new of the moon, and praying for the full-hanging vine, thrifty fields of corn, and unblemished lambs. Of the religious life represented by these, Horace is no more tempted to make light than he is tempted to delineate the Italian rustic as De Maupa.s.sant does the French,--as an amusing animal, with just enough of the human in his composition to make him ludicrous.
_iv_. THE INTERPRETER OF THE POPULAR WISDOM
Finally, in the homely, unconventional wisdom which fills _Satire_ and _Epistle_ and sparkles from the _Odes_, Horace is again the national interpreter. The ma.s.ses of Rome or Italy had little consciously to do with either Stoicism or Epicureanism. Their philosophy was vigorous common sense, and was learned from living, not from conning books.
Horace, too, for all his having been a student of formal philosophy in Athens, for all his professed faith in philosophy as a boon for rich and poor and old and young, and for all his inclination to yield to the natural human impulse toward system and adopt the philosophy of one of the Schools, is a consistent follower of neither Stoic nor Epicurean.
Both systems attracted him by their virtues, and both repelled him because of their weaknesses. His half-humorous confession of wavering allegiance is only a reflection of the s.h.i.+ftings of a mind open to the appeal of both:
And, lest you inquire under what guide or to what hearth I look for safety, I will tell you that I am sworn to obedience in no master's formula, but am a guest in whatever haven the tempest sweeps me to. Now I am full of action and deep in the waves of civic life, an unswerving follower and guardian of the true virtue, now I secretly backslide to the precepts of Aristippus, and try to bend circ.u.mstance to myself, not myself to circ.u.mstance.
Horace is either Stoic or Epicurean, or neither, or both. The character of philosophy depends upon definition of terms, and Epicureanism with Horace's definitions of pleasure and duty differed little in practical working from Stoicism. In profession, he was more of the Epicurean; in practice, more of the Stoic. His philosophy occupies ground between both, or, rather, ground common to both. It admits of no name. It is not a system. It owes its resemblances to either of the Schools more to his own nature than to his familiarity with them, great as that was.
The foundations of Horace's philosophy were laid before he ever heard of the Schools. Its basis was a habit of mind acquired by a.s.sociation with his father and the people of Venusia, and with the ordinary people of Rome. Under the influence of reading, study, and social converse at Athens, under the stress of experience in the field, and from long contemplation of life in the large in the capital of an empire, it crystallized into a philosophy of life. The term ”philosophy” is misleading in Horace's case. It suggests books and formulae and externals. What Horace read in books did not all remain for him the dead philosophy of ink and paper; what was in tune with his nature he a.s.similated, to become philosophy in action, philosophy which really was the guide of life. His faith in it is unfeigned:
Thus does the time move slowly and ungraciously which hinders me from the active realization of what, neglected, is a harm to young and old alike.... The envious man, the ill-tempered, the indolent, the wine-bibber, the too free lover,--no mortal, in short, is so crude that his nature cannot be made more gentle if only he will lend a willing ear to cultivation.
The occasional phraseology of the Schools which Horace employs should not mislead. It is for the most part the convenient dress for truth discovered for himself through experience; or it may be literary ornament. The humorous and not unsatiric lines to his poet-friend Albius Tibullus,--”when you want a good laugh, come and see me; you will find me fat and sleek and my skin well cared for, a pig from the sty of Epicurus,”--are as easily the jest of a Stoic as the confession of an Epicurean. Horace's philosophy is individual and natural, and representative of Roman common sense rather than any School.
HORACE AND h.e.l.lENISM
A word should be said here regarding the frequent use of the word ”h.e.l.lenic” in connection with Horace's genius. Among the results of his higher education, it is natural that none should be more prominent to the eye than the influence of Greek letters upon his work; but to call Horace Greek is to be blinded to the essential by the presence in his poems of Greek form and Greek allusion. It would be as little reasonable to call a Roman triumphal arch Greek because it displays column, architrave, or a facing of marble from Greece. What makes Roman architecture stand is not ornament, but Roman concrete and the Roman vault. Horace is Greek as Milton is Hebraic or Roman, or as Shakespeare is Italian.
4. HORACE THE PHILOSOPHER OF LIFE
HORACE THE SPECTATOR AND ESSAYIST
A great source of the richness of personality which const.i.tutes Horace's princ.i.p.al charm is to be found in his contemplative disposition. His att.i.tude toward the universal drama is that of the onlooker. As we shall see, he is not without keen interest in the piece, but his prevailing mood is that of mild amus.e.m.e.nt. In time past, he has himself a.s.sumed more than one of the roles, and has known personally many of the actors.
He knows perfectly well that there is a great deal of the mask and buskin on the stage of life, and that each man in his time plays many parts. Experience has begotten reflection, and reflection has contributed in turn to experience, until contemplation has pa.s.sed from diversion to habit.
Horace is another Spectator, except that his ”meddling with any practical part in life” has not been so slight:
Thus I live in the world rather as a Spectator of mankind than as one of the species, by which means I have made myself a speculative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artisan, without ever meddling with any practical part in life. I am very well versed in the theory of a husband, or a father, and can discern the errors in the economy, business, and diversion of others, better than those who are engaged in them: as standers-by discover blots which are apt to escape those who are in the game.
He looks down from his post upon the life of men with as clear vision as Lucretius, whom he admires:
Nothing is sweeter than to dwell in the lofty citadels secure in the wisdom of the sages, thence to look down upon the rest of mankind blindly wandering in mistaken paths in the search for the way of life, striving one with another in the contest of wits, emulous in distinction of birth, night and day straining with supreme effort at length to arrive at the heights of power and become lords of the world.
Farther, Horace is not merely the stander-by contemplating the game in which objective mankind is engaged. He is also a spectator of himself.
Horace the poet-philosopher contemplates Horace the man with the same quiet amus.e.m.e.nt with which he surveys the human family of which he is an inseparable yet detachable part. It is the universal aspect of Horace which is the object of his contemplation,--Horace playing a part together with the rest of mankind in the infinitely diverting _comedie humaine_. He uses himself, so to speak, for ill.u.s.trative purposes,--to point the moral of the genuine; to demonstrate the indispensability of hard work as well as genius; to afford concrete proof of the possibility of happiness without wealth. He is almost as objective to himself as the landscape of the Sabine farm. Horace the spectator sees Horace the man against the background of human life just as he sees snow-mantled Soracte, or the cold Digentia, or the restless Adriatic, or leafy Tarentum, or snowy Algidus, or green Venafrum. The clear-cut elegance of his miniatures of Italian scenery is not due to their individual interest, but to their connection with the universal life of man.