Part 8 (2/2)

vergentibus annis in senium longoque togae tranquillior usu dedidicit iam pace ducem: famaeque pet.i.tor multa dare in volgus; totus popularibus auris inpelli plausuque sui gaudere theatri; nec reparare novas vires, multumque priori credere fortunae, stat magni nominis umbra: qualis frugifero querens sublimis in agro exuvias veteres populi sacrataque gestans dona duc.u.m: nec iam validis radicibus haerens pondere fixa suo est, nudosque per aera ramos effundens trunco non frondibus efficit umbram.

One aged grown Had long exchanged the corselet for the gown: In peace forgotten the commander's art, And learned to play the politician's part,-- To court the suffrage of the crowd, and hear In his own theatre the venal cheer; Idly he rested on his ancient fame, And was the shadow of a mighty name.

Like the huge oak which towers above the fields Decked with ancestral spoils and votive s.h.i.+elds.

Its roots, once mighty, loosened by decay, Hold it no more: weight is its only stay; Its naked limbs bespeak its glories past, And by its trunk, not leaves, a shade is cast.

PROF. GOLDWIN SMITH.

Even the panegyric p.r.o.nounced on him by Cato on hearing the news of his death is as moderate as it is true and dignified (ix. 190):

civis obit, inquit, multum maioribus inpar nosse modum iuris, sed in hoc tamen en utilis aevo, cui non ulla fuit iusti reverentia; salva libertate potens, et solus plebe parata privatus servire sibi, rectorque senatus, sed regnantis, erat.

... invasit ferrum, sed ponere, norat; praetulit arma togae, sed pacem armatus amavit: iuvit sumpta ducem iuvit dimissa potestas.

A man, he said, is gone, unequal far To our good sires in reverence for the law, Yet useful in an age that knew not right, One who could power with liberty unite, Uncrowned 'mid willing subjects could remain, The Senate rule, yet let the Senate reign.

He drew the sword, but he could sheathe it too, War was his trade, yet he to peace inclined, Gladly command accepted-and resigned.--PROF. GOLDWIN SMITH.

Elsewhere he is as one of the 'strengthless dead', here he lives.

Elsewhere he may be invested with the pathos that must cling to the shadow of a mighty name, but he is too weak and ineffective to be interesting. His wavering policy in his last campaign is unduly emphasized.[277] When he is face to face with Caesar at Pharsalus and exhorts his men, he can but boast, he cannot inspire.[278] When the battle turns against him he bids his men cease from the fight, and himself flies, that he may not involve them in his own disaster.[279] No less convincing portrait could be drawn. The material was unpromising, but Lucan emphasizes all his weaknesses and wholly fails to bring out his n.o.bler elements. He is unworthy of the line

nec cinis exiguus tantam compescuit umbram.

So, too, in a lesser degree with Caesar. For a moment in the first book he flashes upon us in his full splendour (143):

sed non in Caesare tantum nomen erat nec fama ducis: sed nescia virtus stare loco, solusque pudor non vincere bello.

acer et indomitus, quo spes quoque ira voca.s.set.

ferre manum et numquam temerando parcere ferro, successus urgere suos, instare fauori numinis, inpellens quidquid sibi summa petenti obstaret, gaudensque viam fecisse ruina.

Not such the talisman of Caesar's name, But Caesar had, in place of empty fame.

The unresting soul, the resolution high That shuts out every thought but victory.

Whate'er his goal, nor mercy nor dismay He owned, but drew the sword and cleft his way: Pressed each advantage that his fortune gave; Constrained the stars to combat for the brave; Swept from his path whate'er his rise delayed, And marched triumphant through the wreck he made.

PROF. GOLDWIN SMITH.

Here at any rate is Caesar the general: in such a poem there is no room for Caesar the statesman. But from this point onward we see no true Caesar. Henceforward, save for a few brief moments, he is a figure for the melodramatic stage alone, a 'brigand chief', a master hypocrite, the favourite of fortune. And yet, for all his unreality, Lucan has endowed him with such impetuous vigour and such a plenitude of power that he dwarfs the other puppets that throng his pages even more, if possible, than in real life he overtopped his contemporaries.

Cato, the third great figure of the _Pharsalia_, was easier to draw.

Unconsciously stagey in life, he is little stagier in Lucan. And yet, in spite of his absurdity, he has a n.o.bility and a sincerity of purpose which is without parallel in that corrupt age. He was the hero of the Stoic republicans[280] of the early princ.i.p.ate, the man of principle, stern and unbending. He requires no fine touches of light and shade, for he is the perfect Stoic. But from the very rigidity of his principles he was no statesman and never played more than a secondary part in politics.

Lucan's task is to exalt him from the second rank to the first. But it is no easy undertaking, since it was not till after the disaster of Pharsalus that he played any conspicuous part in the Civil War. He first appears as warrant for the justice of the republican cause (i. 128). We next see him as the hope of all true patriots at Rome (ii. 238). Pompey has fled southward. Cato alone remains the representative of all that is n.o.blest and best in Rome. He has no illusions as to Pompey's character.

He is not the leader he would choose for so sacred a cause; but between Pompey and Caesar there can be no wavering. He follows Pompey. Not till the ninth book does he reappear in the action. Pompey is fallen, and all turn to Cato as their leader. The cause is lost, and Cato knows it well; but he obeys the call of duty and undertakes the hopeless enterprise undismayed. He is a stern leader, but he shares his men's hards.h.i.+ps to the full, and fortifies them by his example. He is in every action what the real Cato only was at Utica. On him above all others Lucan has lavished all his powers; and he has succeeded in creating a character of such real moral grandeur that, in spite of its hardness and austerity, it almost succeeds in winning our affection (ii. 380):

hi mores, haec duri inmota Catonis secta fuit, servare modum finesque tenere naturamque sequi patriaeque inpendere vitam nec sibi sed toti genitum se credere mundo.

'Twas his rule Inflexible to keep the middle path Marked out and bounded; to observe the laws Of natural right; and for his country's sake To risk his life, his all, as not for self Brought into being, but for all the world.

SIR E. RIDLEY.

Here is a man indeed worthy to be the hero of a republican epic, did history permit it. Our chief reason--at moments there is a temptation to say 'our only reason'--for regretting the incompletion of the _Pharsalia_ is that Lucan did not live to describe Cato's death. _There_ was a subject which was worthy of his pen and would have been a labour of love. With what splendour of rhetoric he might have invested it can only be conjectured from the magnificent pa.s.sage where Cato refuses to inquire into his fate at Ammon's oracle (ix. 566):

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