Part 11 (2/2)

The same whimsicality is shown elsewhere in the course of the novel.

It contains not a few poems which, detached from their context, are full of grace and charm, though their application is often disgusting in the extreme. Such are the hexameters towards the close of the work in which Encolpius describes the scene of his unhappy love affair with a certain Circe:

Idaeo quales fudit de vertice flores terra parens, c.u.m se concesso iunxit amori Iuppiter et toto concepit pectore flammas: emicuere rosae violaeque et molle cyperon, albaque de viridi riserunt lilia prato: talis humus Venerem molles clamavit in herbas, candidiorque dies secreto favit amori (127);

As the flowers poured forth by mother earth from Ida's peak, when she yielded to Jove's embrace and the G.o.d's soul was filled with pa.s.sionate flame; the rose, the violet, and the soft iris flashed forth, and white lilies gleamed from the green meadow; so shone the earth when it called our love to rest upon the soft gra.s.s, and the day, brighter than its wont, smiled on our secret pa.s.sion.

n.o.bilis aestivas plata.n.u.s diffuderat umbras et bacis redimita Daphne tremulaeque cupressus et circ.u.m tonsae trepidanti vertice pinus.

has inter ludebat aquis errantibus amnis spumeus et querulo vexabat rore lapillos.

dignus amore locus: testis silvestris aedon atque urbana Procne, quae circ.u.m gramina fusae ac molles violas cantu sua furta colebant (131).

A n.o.ble plane tree and the bay tree with its garland of berries, and the quivering cypress and the trim pine with its tremulous top, spread a sweet summer shade abroad. Amid them a foaming river sported with wandering waters and lashed the pebbles with its peevish spray. Meet was the place for love, with the woodland nightingale and the town-haunting swallow for witness, that, flitting all about the gra.s.s and the soft violets, told of their loves in song.

The unpleasing nature of the context cannot obscure the fact that here we have genuine poetry of great delicacy and beauty.[321]

Of the satirical epigrams contained in the novel little need be said.

They are not in any way pointless or feeble, but they lack the ease and grace, and, it may be added, the sting, of the best work of Martial.

The themes are hackneyed and suffer from the absence of the personal note. But it is at least refres.h.i.+ng to find that Petronius does not attempt, like Martial and others, to excuse his obscenity on the ground that his actual life is chaste. He speaks out frankly. 'Why hide what all men know?'

quid me constricta spectatis fronte Catones d.a.m.natisque novae simplicitatis opus?

sermonis puri non tristis gratia ridet, quodque facit populus, Candida lingua refert (132).

Why gaze at me, ye Catos, with frowning brow, and d.a.m.n the fresh frankness of my work? my speech is Latin undefiled, and has grace unmarred by gloom, and my candid tongue tells of what all Rome's people do.

A more interesting collection of poems, probably Petronian, remains to be discussed. In addition to the numerous fragments of poetry included in the surviving excerpts from the _Satyricon_, a considerable number of epigrams, attributed with more or less certainty to Petronius, are preserved in the fragments of the _Anthologia Latina_.[322] Immediately following on the epigrams a.s.signed to the authors.h.i.+p of Seneca, the Codex Vossia.n.u.s Q. 86 gives sixteen epigrams,[323] each headed by the word _item_. Of these two are quoted by Fulgentius as the work of Petronius.[324] There is, therefore, especially in view of the fact that they all bear a marked family resemblance to one another, a strong presumption that all are by the author of the _Satyricon_. Further, there are eleven epigrams[325] published by Binet in his edition of Petronius[326] from a MS. originally in the cathedral library of Beauvais, but now unfortunately lost. The first of the series is quoted by Fulgentius[327] as being by Petronius, and there is no reason for doubting the accuracy of Binet or his MS.[328] as to the rest. These poems are followed by eight more epigrams,[329] the first two of which Binet attributes to Petronius on stylistic grounds, but without any MS.

authority.[330] Lastly, four epigrams are preserved by a third MS. (Cod.

Voss. F. III) under the t.i.tle _Petronii_[331]. Of these the first two are found in the extant portions of the _Satyricon_. The evidence for the Petronian authors.h.i.+p of these thirty-seven poems is not conclusive.

Arguments based on resemblance or divergence in points of style are somewhat precarious in the case of an author like Petronius, writing with great variety of style on a variety of subjects. But there are some very marked resemblances between certain of these poems and verses surviving in the excerpts from the Satyricon[332], and the evidence _against_ the Petronian authors.h.i.+p is of the slightest. A possible exception may be made in the case of the last eight epigrams preserved by Binet, though even here Binet is just enough in pointing out the resemblance of the first two of these to what is admittedly the work of Petronius. But with regard to the rest we shall run small risk in regarding them as selected from the lost books of the _Satyricon_.

These poems are very varied in character and as a whole reach a higher poetical level than most of those preserved in the existing fragments of the _Satyricon_.[1] The most notable features are simplicity and unaffected grace of diction coupled with a delicate appreciation of the beauties of nature. There is nothing that is out of keeping with the cla.s.sicism on which we have insisted as a characteristic of Petronius, there is much that is worthy of the best writers of the Augustan age.

The five lines in which he describes the coming of autumn have much in common with the descriptions of nature already quoted from the _Satyricon_. The last line in particular has at once a conciseness and a wealth of suggestion that is rare in any post-Ovidian poet:

iam nunc algentes autumnus fecerat umbras atque hiemem tepidis spectabat Phoebus habenis, iam plata.n.u.s iactare comas, iam coeperat uvas adnumerare suas defecto palmite vitis: ante oculos stabat, quidquid promiserat annus.[333]

Now autumn had brought its cool shades, Phoebus' reins glowed less hot and he was looking winterward. The plane was beginning to shed her leaves, the vine to count its cl.u.s.ters, and its fresh shoots were withered. Before our eyes stood all the promise of the year.

Equally charming and sincere in tone is the description of the delights of the simple life:

parvula securo tegitur mihi culmine sedes uvaque plena mero fecunda pendet ab ulmo.

dant rami cerasos, dant mala rubentia silvae Palladiumque nemus pingui se vertice frangit.

iam qua diductos potat levis area fontes, Corycium mihi surgit olus malvaeque supinae et non sollicitos missura papavera somnos.

praeterea sive alitibus contexere fraudem seu magis inbelles libuit circ.u.mdare cervos aut tereti lino pavidum subducere piscem, hos tantum novere dolos mea sordida rura.

i nunc et vitae fugientis tempora vende divitibus cenis! me qui manet exitus olim, hic precor inveniat consumptaque tempora poscat.[334]

My cottage is sheltered by a roof that fears no ill; the grape, bursting with wine, hangs from the fertile elm; cherries hang by the bough and my orchard yields its rosy apples, and the tree that Pallas loves breaks beneath the rich burden of its branches. And now, where the garden bed's light soil drinks in the runnels of water, rises for me Corycian kale and low-growing mallow, and the poppy that grants easy slumber. Moreover, whether 'tis my pleasure to set snares for birds or hem in the timid deer, or on fine-meshed net to draw up the affrighted fish, this is all the guile known to my humble lands. Go to, now, and waste the flying hours of life on sumptuous feasts! I pray, that my destined end may find me here, and here demand an account of the days I have lived.

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