Part 28 (1/2)

Wisdom, I know, contains a sovereign charm, To vanquish fortune or at least disarm: Blest they who walk in her unerring rule!

Nor those unblest who, tutored in life's school, Have learned of old experience to submit, And lightly bear the yoke they cannot quit.

GIFFORD.

He agrees with the Stoics just because their practical teaching harmonizes so entirely with the old _virtus Romana_, that is his ideal.

No more profound are his religious views: he hates the alien cults that work as insidious poison in the life of Rome; he rejects the picturesque legends of the afterworld, bred of the fertile imagination of the Greeks. But he is no unbeliever:

separat hoc nos a grege mutorum, atque ideo venerabile soli sort.i.ti ingenium divinorumque capaces atque exercendis pariendisque artibus apti sensum a caelesti demissum traximus arce, cuius egent p.r.o.na et terram spectantia. mundi principio indulsit communis conditor illis tantum animas, n.o.bis animum quoque, mutuus ut nos adfectus petere auxilium et praestare iuberet (xv. 142).

This marks our birth The great distinction from the beasts of earth!

And therefore--gifted with superior powers And capable of things divine--'tis ours To learn and practise every useful art; And from high heaven deduce that better part, That moral sense, denied to creatures p.r.o.ne And downward bent, and found with man alone!-- For He, who gave this vast machine to roll, Breathed life in them, in us a reasoning soul: That kindred feelings might our state improve, And mutual wants conduct to mutual love.

GIFFORD.

G.o.d is over all and guides and guards the world, and has ordained torment of conscience and slow retribution for sin.[735] Yet Juvenal does not definitely reject the G.o.ds of his native land; nor do these exalted beliefs cause him to refuse sacrifice to Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, and his household G.o.ds.[736] It is the creed, not of a theologian, but of a man with high ideals, a staunch patriotism, and a deep reverence for the past.

But this lack of profundity and philosophical training does not, as may be inferred from pa.s.sages already quoted, prevent him from being intensely effective as a moral teacher. His plat.i.tudes are none the worse for not having a Stoic label and all the better for their simplicity and directness of expression. They do not reveal the hunger and thirst after righteousness that breathe from the lines of Persius, but they have at least an equal appeal to the plain man, and they are matchlessly expressed. His pleading against revenging the wrong done, if not on the very highest moral plane, possesses a grave dignity and beauty that brings it straight home to the heart:

at vindicta bonum vita iucundius ipsa.

nempe hoc indocti, quorum praecordia nullis interdum aut levibus videas flagrantia causis.

Chrysippus non dicet idem nec mite Thaletis ingenium dulcique senex vicinus Hymetto, qui partem acceptae saeva inter vincla cicutae accusatori nollet dare. plurima felix paulatim vitia atque errores exuit omnes, prima docet r.e.c.t.u.m sapientia. quippe minuti semper et infirmi est animi exiguique voluptas ultio. continuo sic collige, quod vindicta nemo magis gaudet quam femina. cur tamen hos tu evasisse putes, quos diri conscia facti mens habet attonitos et surdo verbere caedit occultum quatiente animo tortore flagellum?

poena autem vehemens ac multo saevior illis quas et Caedicius gravis invenit et Rhadamanthus, nocte dieque suum gestare in pectore testem (xiii. 180).

'Revenge,' they say, and I believe their words, 'A pleasure sweeter far than life affords.'

Who say? The fools, whose pa.s.sions p.r.o.ne to ire At slightest causes or at none take fire.

... ... ... Chrysippus said not so; Nor Thales, to our frailties clement still; Nor that old man, by sweet Hymettus' hill, Who drank the poison with unruffled soul, And, dying, from his foes withheld the bowl.

Divine philosophy! by whose pure light We first distinguish, then pursue the right, Thy power the breast from every error frees And weeds out every error by degrees:-- Illumined by thy beam, revenge we find The abject pleasure of an abject mind, And hence so dear to poor, weak womankind.

But why are those, Calvinus, thought to 'scape Unpunished, whom in every fearful shape Guilt still alarms, and conscience ne'er asleep Wounds with incessant strokes 'not loud but deep', While the vexed mind, her own tormentor, plies A scorpion scourge, unmarked by human eyes?

Trust me, no tortures which the poets feign, Can match the fierce, the unutterable pain He feels, who night and day, devoid of rest, Carries his own accuser in his breast.

GIFFORD.

The same characteristics mark his praise of n.o.bility of character as opposed to n.o.bility of birth:

tota licet veteres exornent undique cerae atria, n.o.bilitas sola est atque unica virtus.

Paulus vel Cossus vel Drusus moribus esto, hos ante effigies maiorum pone tuorum, praecedant ipsas illi te consule virgas.

prima mihi debes anima bona. sanctus haberi iust.i.tiaeque tenax factis dictisque mereris?

adgnosco procerem; salve Gaetulice, seu tu Sila.n.u.s, quoc.u.mque alio de sanguine, rarus civis et egregius patriae contingis ovanti (viii. 19).

Fond man, though all the heroes of your line Bedeck your halls, and round your galleries s.h.i.+ne In proud display: yet take this truth from me, 'Virtue alone is true n.o.bility.'

Set Cossus, Drusus, Paulus, then, in view, The bright example of their lives pursue; Let these precede the statues of your race, And these, when consul, of your rods take place, O give me inborn worth! Dare to be just, Firm to your word and faithful to your trust.

Then praises hear, at least deserve to hear, I grant your claim and recognize the peer.

Hail from whatever stock you draw your birth, The son of Cossus or the son of Earth, All hail! in you exulting Rome espies Her guardian power, her great Palladium rise.

GIFFORD.

This is rhetoric, but rhetoric of the n.o.blest kind. Of pure poetry there is naturally but little in Juvenal. Neither his temperament nor his subject would admit it. He had too keen an eye for the hideous and the grotesque, too strong a pa.s.sion for the declamatory style. Hence it is rather his brilliant sketches of a vicious society, his fiery outbursts of rhetoric, his striking _sententiae_ that primarily impress the reader:

expende Hannibalem: quot libras in duce summo invenies? (x. 147).

Great Hannibal within the balance lay, And count how many pounds his ashes weigh.