Part 9 (2/2)
Ille terrarum mihi praeter omnes Angulus ridet,--
Y_onder little nook of earth_ B_eyond all others smiles on me_,--
and expressed through its perfect phrase the love they bear their own beloved nook of earth. ”Happy Horace!” writes Sainte-Beuve on the margin of his edition, ”what a fortune has been his! Why, because he once expressed in a few charming verses his fondness for the life of the country and described his favorite corner of earth, the lines composed for his own pleasure and for the friend to whom he addressed them have laid hold on the memory of all men and have become so firmly lodged there that one can conceive no others, and finds only those when he feels the need of praising his own beloved retreat!”
To speak of sterner virtues, what a source of inspiration to righteousness and constancy men have found in the apt and undying phrases of Horace! ”Cornelius de Witt, when confronting the murderous mob; Condorcet, peris.h.i.+ng in the straw of his filthy cell; Herrick, at his far-away old British revels; Leo, during his last days at the Vatican, and a thousand others,” strengthened their resolution by repeating _Iustum et tenacem_:
”T_he man of firm and n.o.ble soul_ N_o factious clamors can control_ N_o threat'ning tyrant's darkling brow_ C_an swerve him from his just intent_....
A_y, and the red right arm of Jove_, H_urtling his lightnings from above_, W_ith all his terrors then unfurl'd_, H_e would unmoved, unawed behold_: T_he flames of an expiring world_ A_gain in cras.h.i.+ng chaos roll'd_, I_n vast promiscuous ruin hurl'd_, M_ust light his glorious funeral pile_: S_till dauntless midst the wreck of earth he'd smile_.”
Of this pa.s.sage Stemplinger records thirty-one imitations. How many have had their patriotism strengthened by _Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori_, the verse which is aptly found in modern Rome on the monument to those who fell at Dogali. How many have been supported and comforted in calamity and sorrow by the poet's immortal words of consolation on the death of Quintilius:
Durum: sed levius fit patientia Quicquid corrigere est nefas,--
A_h, hard it is! but patience lends_ S_trength to endure what Heaven sends_.
The motto of Warren Hastings was _Mens aequa in arduis_,--An even temper in times of trial. Even humorous use of these phrases has served a purpose. The French minister, compelled to resign, no doubt drew substantial consolation from _Virtute me involvo_, when he turned it to fit his case:
I_n the robe of my virtue I wrap me round_ A _solace for loss of all I had_; B_ut ah! I realize I've found_ W_hat it really means to be lightly clad_!
But the most p.r.o.nounced effect of Horace's dynamic power is its inspiration to sane and truthful living. Life seems a simple thing, yet there are many who miss the paths of happiness and wander in wretched discontent because they are not bred to distinguish between the false and the real. We have seen the lesson of Horace: that happiness is not from without, but from within; that it is not abundance that makes riches, but att.i.tude; that the acceptation of worldly standards of getting and having means the life of the slave; that the fraction is better increased by division of the denominator than by multiplying the numerator; that unbought riches are better possessions than those the world displays as the prizes most worthy of striving for. No poet is so full of inspiration as Horace for those who have glimpsed these simple and easy yet little known secrets of living. Men of twenty centuries have been less dependent on the hard-won goods of this world because of him, and lived fuller and richer lives. Surely, to give our young people this attractive example of sane solution of the problem of happy living is to leaven the individual life and the life of the social ma.s.s.
IV. CONCLUSION
We have visualized the person of Horace and made his acquaintance. We have seen in his character and in the character of his times the sources of his greatness as a poet. We have seen in him the interpreter of his own times and the interpreter of the human heart in all times. We have traced the course of his influence through the ages as both man and poet. We have seen in him not only the interpreter of life, but a dynamic power that makes for the love of men, for righteousness, and for happier living. We have seen in him an example of the word made flesh.
”He has forged a link of union,” writes Tyrrell, ”between intellects so diverse as those of Dante, Montaigne, Bossuet, La Fontaine, Voltaire, Hooker, Chesterfield, Gibbon, Wordsworth, Thackeray.”
To know Horace is to enter into a great communion of twenty centuries,--the communion of taste, the communion of charity, the communion of sane and kindly wisdom, the communion of the genuine, the communion of righteousness, the communion of urbanity and of friendly affection.
”Farewell, dear Horace; farewell, thou wise and kindly heathen; of mortals the most human, the friend of my friends and of so many generations of men.”
Our Debt to Greece and Rome
AUTHORS AND t.i.tLES
1. HOMER. John A. Scott, Northwestern University.
2. SAPPHO. David M. Robinson, The Johns Hopkins University.
3A. EURIPIDES. F.L. Lucas, King's College, Cambridge.
3B. AESCHYLUS AND SOPHOCLES. J.T. Sheppard, King's College, Cambridge.
4. ARISTOPHANES. Louis E. Lord, Oberlin College.
5. DEMOSTHENES. Charles D. Adams, Dartmouth College.
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