Part 20 (2/2)

exposc.u.n.t Libyes n.o.bisque dedere haec referenda, pari libeat si pendere bellum foedere et ex aequo geminas conscribere leges.

sed mihi sit Stygios ante intravisse penates talia quam videam ferientes pacta Latinos, haec fatus Tyriae sese iam reddidit irae, nec monitus spernente graves fidosque senatu Poenorum dimissa cohors. quae maesta repulsa ac minitans capto patrias properabat ad oras.

prosequitur volgus, patres, ac planctibus ingens personat et luctu campus. revocare libebat interdum et iusto raptum retinere dolore.

'The Libyans ask whether you will cease from war on equal terms and draw up a treaty wherein each side keeps its own.

They bid me bring back your reply. But may I sooner enter the gates of h.e.l.l than see the Latins make such a compact!' He spake, and yielded himself back once more to the mercies of the Tyrian's hate: the Senate spurned not his words of weight, his loyal warning. The Punic emba.s.sy was dismissed. Cast down at their rebuff, and threatening their captive, they hastened homeward to their native sh.o.r.es. The people, the fathers, follow them: the whole vast plain resounds with weeping and beating of b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and ever and again they strove to recall the hero and with just grief to retain him as he was s.n.a.t.c.hed away from them.

Criticism is needless. One pa.s.sage is in the grand style, the other is not; one is mere verse-making, the other the purest poetry. Silius has nothing of _curiosa felicitas_ or even of the more common gift of vague sensuous charm. Even on such hackneyed themes as the choice of Hercules, with Scipio playing the part of Hercules, he fails to rise to the conventional prettiness of which even a Calpurnius Siculus would have been capable. Virtue and pleasure are rendered equally unattractive, and we pity Scipio for having to make the choice. With the other poets of the age it is easy to select pa.s.sages to ill.u.s.trate their characteristic merits and defects. But from the dull monotony of Silius it is hard to choose. He does not read well even in selections. Apart from the general absurdity of the conception of the poem he is rarely grotesque. His taste is chastened by his love of Vergil, and the absence of genuine rhetorical power saves him from dangerous exuberance. The tricks of rhetoric are there, but the edge of his wit is dull, and he has no speed nor energy. For similar reasons he never attains sublimity. There are faint traces of the _Romana gravitas_ in lines such as

iamque tibi veniet tempus quo maxima rerum n.o.bilior sit Roma mails (iii. 584).

And the time shall come when Rome, the greatest thing in all the world, shall be yet more enn.o.bled by her woes.

The idea that the trials of Rome shall be as a 'refiner's fire' has a certain grandeur, but the expression of the idea is commonplace. The same is true of the elaboration of the Vergilian _parcere subiectis_, where the poet describes Marcellus' clemency to the vanquished Syracusans, and makes brief allusion to the unhappy death of Archimedes (xiv. 673):

sic parcere victis pro praeda fuit et sese contenta nec ullo sanguine pollutis plausit Victoria pennis.

tu quoque ductoris lacrimas, memorande, tulisti, defensor patriae, meditantem in pulvere formas nec turbatum animi tanta feriente ruina.

So mercy toward the conquered took the place of rapine, and Victory was content with herself and clapped her wings unstained by any blood. Thou, too, immortal sage, defender of thy country, didst win the meed of the conqueror's tears, thou whom ruin smote down, all unmoved, as thou broodedst o'er figures traced in the dust.

To find Silius at his best--not a very exalted best--we must turn to the pa.s.sage where he depicts the feelings of Hannibal on finding the body of Paulus on the field of Cannae (x. 513):

quae postquam aspexit, geminatus gaudia ductor Sidonius 'Fuge, Varro,' inquit 'fuge, Varro, superstes, dum iaceat Paulus. patribus Fabioque sedenti et populo consul totas edissere Cannas.

concedam hanc iterum, si lucis tanta cupido est, concedam tibi, Varro, fugam. at, cui fortia et hoste me digna haud parvo caluerunt corda vigore, funere supremo et tumuli decoretur honore.

quantus, Paule, iaces! qui tot mihi milibus unus maior laet.i.tiae causa est. c.u.m fata vocabunt, tale precor n.o.bis salva Karthagine letum.'

'i decus Ausoniae, quo fas est ire superbas (572) virtute et factis animas. tibi gloria leto iam parta insigni. nostros Fortuna labores versat adhuc casusque iubet nescire futuros.'

haec Libys, atque repens crepitantibus undique flammis aetherias anima exultans evasit in auras.

When this he saw, the Sidonian chief was filled with double joy and cried, 'Fly, Varro, fly and survive defeat; enough that Paulus lieth low! Go, consul, tell all the tale of Cannae to the fathers, to laggard Fabius, to the people. If so thou long'st to live, I will grant thee, Varro, to flee once more as thou fleest to-day. But let him, whose heart was bold and worthy to be my foe, and all aflame with mighty valour, be honoured with the last rites of burial and all the honour of the tomb. How great, Paulus, art thou in the death! Thy fall alone gives greater cause for joy than the fall of so many thousands. Such, when the fates shall summon me, such I pray be my fate, so Carthage stand unshaken.' ... 'Go, Ausonia's glory, where the souls of those whom valour and n.o.ble deeds make proud may go. _Thou_ hast won great glory by thy death.

For _us_, Fortune still tosses us to and fro in weltering labour and forbids us to see what chance the future hath in store.' So spake the Libyan, and straightway from the crackling flame the exulting spirit soared skyward through the air.

The picture of the soul of Paulus soaring heavenward from the funeral pyre, exultant at the honour paid him by his great foe, is the nearest approach to pure poetic imagination in the whole weary length of the _Punica_.[623] But the pedestrian muse of Silius is more at home in the ingenious description of the manoeuvres and counter-manoeuvres of Fabius and Hannibal in the seventh book; the similes with which the pa.s.sage closes are hackneyed, but their application is both new and clever:

(vii. 91) iam Fabius tacito procedens agmine et arte bellandi lento similis, praecluserat omnes fortunaeque hostique vias. discedere signis haud licitum summumquc decus, quo tollis ad astra imperil, Romane, caput, parere docebat * * * * *

(123) ca.s.sarum sedet irarum spectator et alti celsus colle iugi domat exultantia corda infractasque minas dilato Marte fatigat sollers cunctandi Fabius, ceu nocte sub atra munitis pastor stabulis per ovilia clausum impavidus somni servat pecus: effera saevit atque impasta truces ululatus turba luporum exercet morsuque quat.i.t restantia claustra.

inritus incepti movet inde atque Apula tardo arva Libys pa.s.su legit ac nunc valle residit conditus occulta, si praecipitare sequentem atque inopinata detur circ.u.mdare fraude; nunc nocturna parat caecae celantibus umbris furta viae retroque abitum fictosque timores adsimulat, tum castra citus deserta relicta ostentat praeda atque invitat prodigus hostem: qualis Maeonia pa.s.sim Maeandrus in ora, c.u.m sibi gurgitibus flexis revolutus oberrat.

nulla vacant incepta dolis: simul omnia versat miscetque exacuens varia ad conamina mentem, sicut aquae splendor radiatus lampade solis dissultat per tecta vaga sub imagine vibrans luminis et tremula laquearia verberat umbra.

Now Fabius advanced, leading his host in silence and--such was his cunning--like to a laggard in war; so closed he all the paths whereby fortune or the foe might fall on him. No soldier might quit the standards, and he taught that the height of glory, even that glory, Roman, that raises thine imperial head to the stars, was obedience.... Fabius sits high on the mountain slopes watching the foeman's rage and tames his impetuous ardour, humbles his threats, and, with skilful delay, postpones the day of battle and wears out his patience: as when through the darkness of the night a shepherd, fearless and sleepless in his well-guarded byre, keeps his flock penned within the fold: without, the wolf-pack, fierce and famished, howls fiercely, and with its teeth shakes the gates that bar its entrance. Baffled in his enterprise, the Libyan departs thence and slowly marches across the Apulian fields and pitches his camp deep in a hidden vale, if perchance he may hurl the Roman to ruin as he follows in his track and surround him by hidden guile. Now he prepares a midnight ambush in some dark pa.s.s beneath the shelter of the gloom, and falsely feigns retreat and fear; then, swiftly leaving his camp and booty, he displays them to the foe, and lavishly invites a raid. Even as on Maeonian sh.o.r.es Maeander with winding channel turns upon himself and wanders far and wide, now here, now there. Naught he attempts, but has some guile in it. He weighs every scheme, sharpens his mind for divers exploits, and blends contrivance with contrivance, even as the gleam of water lit by the sun's torch dances through a house quivering, and the reflected beam goes wandering and lashes the roof with tremulous reflection.

There is in this pa.s.sage nothing approaching real excellence, but its dexterity may reasonably command some respect. It is dexterity of which Silius has little to show. He is well-read in history and its b.a.s.t.a.r.d sister mythology. At his best he can string together his incidents with some skill, and he makes use of his learning in the accepted fas.h.i.+on of his day.[624] The poem is deluged with proper names and learned aetiology, though he has no conception of that magical use of proper names and legendary allusions which is the secret of the masters of literary epic.[625]

But the absence of any true poetic genius makes him the most tedious of Latin authors, and his unenviable reputation is well deserved. For the poetry of the struggle with Carthage for the

plumed troops and the big wars That make ambition virtue,

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