Part 13 (1/2)

It may be doubted whether Columella was well advised when he yielded to the entreaties of his friend Silvinus and wrote his tenth book in verse. He had no great poetic talent, nor did he possess the sleight of hand of Calpurnius, the imitator of the _Eclogues_. But he possesses qualities which render his work far more attractive than that of Calpurnius. He is a genuine enthusiast, with a real love of the countryside and a charming affection for flowers. And as a stylist he is modest. He makes no attempt at display, no contorted striving after originality. His verse is clear and simple as his tastes. He is content to follow humbly in the footsteps of his great master, the 'starry'

Vergil.[371] He imitates and even plagiarizes[372] because he loves, not because it is the fas.h.i.+on. He shows no appreciation of the more intimate harmonies of the Vergilian hexameter; like so many contemporaries, he realizes neither the value of judicious elision nor varied pauses; but his verse, in spite of its monotony and lack of life and movement, is not unmelodious. The poem is a sober work, uninspired in tone, straightforward and simple in plan. It need not be described in detail; its advice is obvious, setting forth the times and seasons to be observed by the gardener, the methods of preparing the soil, the choice of flowers, with all the customary mythological allusions.[373]

At its worst, with its tedious lists of the names of flowers, it reads like a seedsman's catalogue,[374] at its best it is lit up with a quaint humour, a love of colour, and a homely yet vivid imagination.

Mother earth--'sweet earth' he calls her--is highly personified; that she may be adorned anew, her green locks must be torn from their tangle by the plough, her old raiment stripped from her, her thirst quenched by irrigation, her hunger satisfied with fertilizing manure.[375] The garden is to be no rich man's park for the display of statues and fountains. Its one statue shall be the image of the garden G.o.d, its patron and its protector.[376] Its splendour shall be the varied hue of its flower-beds and its wealth in herbs that serve the use of man:

verum ubi iam puro discrimine pect.i.ta tellus deposito squalore nitens sua semina poscet, pingite tunc varios, terrestria sidera, flores, candida leucoia et flaventia lumina caltae narcissique comas et hiantis saeva leonis ora feri calathisque virentia lilia canis, nec non vel niveos vel caeruleos hyacinthos, tum quae pallet humi, quae frondens purpurat auro, ponatur viola et nimium rosa plena pudoris (94).

But when earth, with parted locks combed clear, gleams, all soilure cast aside, and demands the seeds that are her due, call forth the varied hues of flowers, earth's constellations, the white snowflake and the marigold's golden eyes, the narcissus-petals and the blossom that apes the fierce lion's gaping maw; the lily, too, with calix s.h.i.+ning white amid its green leaves, the hyacinths white and blue; plant also the violet lying pale upon the ground or purple shot with gold among its leaf.a.ge, and the rose with its deep shamefaced blush.

He loves the return of spring with as deep a love as Vergil's, though he must borrow Vergil's language to describe its coming and its power.[377]

But his painting of its harvest of colour is his own:

quin et odoratis messis iam floribus instat: iam ver purpureum, iam versicoloribus anni fetibus alma parens pingi sua tempora gaudet.

iam Phrygiae loti gemmantia lumina promunt et coniventis oculos violaria solvunt (255).

Nay, more, the harvest-time draws near for sweet-scented flowers. The purple spring has come, and kindly mother earth rejoices that her brows are painted bright with all the many-coloured offspring of the year. Now the Phrygian lotus puts forth its jewelled orbs and the violet beds open their winking eyes.

All the glories of an Italian spring are in the lines in which a little later he describes the joy of living when the year is young, and the wasting heat of summer is still far off, when it is sweet to be in the sun and watch the garden with its rainbow colours:

nunc ver egelidum, nunc est mollissimus annus, dum Phoebus tener ac tenera dec.u.mbere in herba suadet et arguto fugientes gramine fontes nec rigidos potare iuvat nec sole tepentes, iamque Dionaeis redimitur floribus hortus, iam rosa mitescit Sarrano clarior ostro.

nec tam nubifugo Borea Latonia Phoebe purpureo radiat vultu, nec Sirius ardor sic micat aut rutilus Pyrois aut ore corusco Hesperus, Eoo remeat c.u.m Lucifer ortu, nec tam sidereo fulget Thaumantias arcu quam nitidis hilares conlucent fetibus horti (282).

Now cool spring is come, the gentlest season of the year, while Phoebus yet is young and bids us recline in the young herbage, and 'tis sweet to drink the rill that flows among the murmuring gra.s.s, with waters neither icy cold nor warm with the sun's heat. Now, too, the garden is crowned with the flowers Dione loves, and the rose ripens brighter than Tyrian purple. Not so brightly does Phoebe, Leto's daughter, s.h.i.+ne with radiant face when Boreas has dispersed the clouds, nor glows hot Sirius so, nor ruddy Pyrois, nor Hesperus with s.h.i.+ning countenance when he returns as the daystar at the break of dawn, not so fair gleams Iris with her starry bow, as s.h.i.+nes the joyous garden with its bright offspring.

These are the words of an enthusiast and a poet, and these few outbursts of song redeem the poem from dullness. There is wafted from his pages the perfume of the countryside, and the fresh air breathes welcome amid the hothouse cultures of contemporary poets. And he is almost the only poet of the age that can be read without a wince of pain. He is at least as good a laureate of the garden as Thomson of the seasons, and he has all the grace of humility. Even when the artist fails us, we love the man.

II

CALPURNIUS SICULUS. THE EINSIEDELN FRAGMENTS AND THE 'PANEGYRICUS IN PISONEM'

It may be said of pastoral poetry, without undue disrespect, that it is the most artificial and the least in touch with reality of all the more important forms of poetic art. Even in the hands of a master like Theocritus, invested as it is with an incomparable charm, and distinguished in many respects by an astonis.h.i.+ng truth and fidelity, it is never other than highly artificial. For its birth an age was required in which the cla.s.s whence the majority of poets and their audience are drawn had largely lost touch with country life, or had at any rate developed ideals that can only spring up in town society. This does not imply that men have ceased altogether to appreciate the value of the country life or the beauty of country surroundings, only that they have lost much of their understanding of them; and so their appreciation takes new forms. They love the country as a half-forgotten paradise, they fly back to it as a refuge from the artificiality of town life, but they take much of that artificiality with them. From the time of Theocritus pastoral poetry pure and simple has steadily declined. Great poems have been written with exquisite pastoral elements or even cast in pastoral form. But they have never owed their greatness entirely, or even chiefly, to the pastoral element. That element has merely provided a charming setting for scenes or thoughts that have nothing genuinely pastoral about them.

Of the small amount of pastoral poetry extant in Latin it need hardly be said that the _Bucolica_ of Vergil stand in a cla.s.s by themselves. And yet for all their beauty they are unsatisfactory to those who know and love Theocritus. Their charm is undeniable, but they are immature and too obviously imitative. But Vergil was at least country-born and had a deep sympathy for country life. When we come to the scanty relics of his successors and imitators we are conscious of a lamentable falling away.

If Vergil's imitations of Theocritus fail to ring as true as their original, what shall be said of the imitators of Vergil's imitations?

Even if they had been true poets, their verse must have rung false. But the poets with whom we have to deal, Calpurnius Siculus and the anonymous author of two poems known as the Einsiedeln fragments, were not genuine poets. They had little of the intimacy with nature and unsophisticated man that was demanded by their self-chosen task. That they possessed some real affection for the country is doubtless true, but it was not the prime inspiration of their verse. They had the ambition to write poetry rather than the call; a slight bent towards the country, heightened by a vague dissatisfaction and weariness with the artificial luxury of Rome, led them to choose pastoral poetry. They make up for depth of observation by a shallow minuteness. In the seven eclogues of Calpurnius may be found a larger a.s.sortment of vegetables, of agricultural implements and operations, than in the _Bucolics_ of Vergil, but there is little poetry, pastoral or otherwise. The 'grace of all the Muses' and the breath of the country are fled for ever; the dexterous phrasing of a laborious copyist reigns in their stead.

Of the life of Calpurnius Siculus nothing is known and but little can be conjectured. Of his date there can be little doubt. We learn from the evidence of the poems themselves that they were written in the princ.i.p.ate of a youthful Caesar (i. 44; iv. 85, 137; vii. 6), beautiful to look upon (vii. 84), the giver of splendid games (vii. 44), the inaugurator of an age of peace, liberty and plenty (i. 42-88; iv _pa.s.sim_). This points strongly to the opening of Nero's reign. The young Nero was handsome and personally popular, and the opening years of his reign (_quinquennium Neronis_) were famous for good government and prosperity. But there are two further pieces of internal evidence which clinch the argument. A comet is mentioned (i. 77) as appearing in the autumn, an appearance which would tally with that of the comet observed shortly before the death of Claudius in 54 A.D., while the line

maternis causam qui vicit Iulis (i. 45)

seems clearly to refer to the speech delivered by the young Nero for the people of Ilium,[378] from whom the Iuli, Nero's ancestors on the mother's side, claimed to trace their descent. It may therefore safely be a.s.sumed that the poems were written early in the reign of Nero. A most ingenious attempt has been made to throw some light on the ident.i.ty of their author.[379] He speaks of himself as Corydon, and he has a patron whom he styles Meliboeus. He prays that Meliboeus may bring him before Caesar's notice as Pollio brought Vergil (iv. 157 sqq.; also i.

94). It has been suggested with some plausibility that Meliboeus is no other than C. Calpurnius Piso, the distinguished n.o.ble round whom in 65 A.D. centred the great conspiracy against Nero. The evidence rests on the existence of a poem ent.i.tled _panegyricus in Pisonem_,[380] in which a nameless poet seeks by his laudations to win Piso for a patron. The style of the poem has a marked resemblance to that of Calpurnius. If, as is possible, it should be a.s.signed to his authors.h.i.+p, it becomes fairly certain that he was a dependent of Piso, and the name Calpurnius would suggest that he may have been the son of one of his freedmen.

The eclogues of Calpurnius are seven in number.[381] The first is in praise of the Golden Age, with special reference to the advent of the young princeps. Though given a different setting it is clearly modelled on the fourth eclogue of Vergil. The second, describing a contest of song between two shepherds before a third as judge, follows Vergil even more closely.[382] Parallels might be further elaborated, but it is sufficient to say here that only two of the poems show any originality, namely, the fifth and the seventh. In the former we have the advice given by an aged farmer to his son, to whom he is handing over his farm.

It is inclined to be prosy, but is simple and pleasing in tone, and the old countryman may be forgiven if he sometimes seems to be quoting the Georgics. The seventh is a more ambitious effort. A rustic describes the great games that he has seen given in the amphitheatre at Rome. The language, though characteristically decadent in its elaboration, shows considerable originality. The amphitheatre is, for instance, thus described (vii. 30):

qualiter haec patulum concedit vallis in orbem et sinuata latus resupinis undique silvis inter continuos curvatur concava montes, sic ibi planitiem curvae sinus ambit arenae et geminis medium se molibus alligat ovum.