Part 11 (2/2)
”The victim marked for sacrifice, that feeds On snow-capped Algidus, in leafy lane Of oak and ilex, or on Alba's meads, With its rich blood the pontiff's axe may stain;
”Thy little G.o.ds for humbler tribute call Than blood of many victims; twine for them Of rosemary a simple coronal, And the lush myrtle's frail and fragrant stem.
”The costliest sacrifice that wealth can make From the incensed Penates less commands A soft response, than doth the poorest cake, If on the altar laid with spotless hands.”
When this was written, Horace had got far beyond the Epicurean creed of his youth. He had come to believe in the active intervention of a Supreme Disposer of events in the government of the world,--”_insignem attenuans, obscura promens_” (Odes, I. 34):--
”The mighty ones of earth o'erthrowing, Advancing the obscure;”--
and to whose ”pure eyes and perfect witness” a blameless life and a conscience void of offence were not indifferent.
CHAPTER VII.
HORACE'S POEMS TO HIS FRIENDS.--HIS PRAISES OF CONTENTMENT.
If it be merely the poet, and not the lover, who speaks in most of Horace's love verses, there can never be any doubt that the poems to his friends come direct from his heart. They glow with feeling. To whatever chord they are attuned, sad, or solemn, or joyous, they are always delightful; consummate in their grace of expression, while they have all the warmth and easy flow of spontaneous emotion. Take, for example, the following (Odes, II. 7). Pompeius Varus, a fellow-student with Horace at Athens, and a brother in arms under Brutus, who, after the defeat of Philippi, had joined the party of the younger Pompey, has returned to Rome, profiting probably by the general amnesty granted by Octavius to his adversaries after the battle of Actium. How his heart must have leapt at such a welcome from his poet-friend as this!--
”Dear comrade in the days when thou and I With Brutus took the field, his perils bore, Who hath restored thee, freely as of yore, To thy home G.o.ds, and loved Italian sky,
”Pompey, who wert the first my heart to share, With whom full oft I've sped the lingering day, Quaffing bright wine, as in our tents we lay, With Syrian spikenard on our glistening hair?
”With thee I shared Philippi's headlong flight, My s.h.i.+eld behind me left, which was not well, When all that brave array was broke, and fell In the vile dust full many a towering wight.
”But me, poor trembler, swift Mercurius bore, Wrapped in a cloud, through all the hostile din, Whilst war's tumultuous eddies, closing in, Swept thee away into the strife once more.
”Then pay to Jove the feasts that are his fee, And stretch at ease these war-worn limbs of thine Beneath my laurel's shade; nor spare the wine Which I have treasured through long years for thee.
”Pour till it touch the s.h.i.+ning goblet's rim, Care-drowning Ma.s.sic; let rich ointments flow From amplest conchs! No measure we shall know!
What! shall we wreaths of oozy parsley trim,
”Or simple myrtle? Whom will Venus[1] send To rule our revel? Wild my draughts shall be As Thracian Baccha.n.a.ls', for 'tis sweet to me To lose my wits, when I regain my friend.”
[1] Venus was the highest cast of the dice. The meaning here is, Who shall be the master of our feast?--that office falling to the member of the wine-party who threw sixes.
When Horace penned the playful allusion here made to having left his s.h.i.+eld on the field of battle (_parmula non bene relicta_), he could never have thought that his commentators--professed admirers, too--would extract from it an admission of personal cowardice. As if any man, much more a Roman to Romans, would make such a confession! Horace could obviously afford to put in this way the fact of his having given up a desperate cause, for this very reason, that he had done his duty on the field of Philippi, and that it was known he had done it. Commentators will be so cruelly prosaic! The poet was quite as serious in saying that Mercury carried him out of the _melee_ in a cloud, like one of Homer's heroes, as that he had left his s.h.i.+eld discreditably (_non bene_) on the battle-field. But it requires a poetic sympathy, which in cla.s.sical editors is rare, to understand that, as Lessing and others have urged, the very way he speaks of his own retreat was by implication a compliment, not ungraceful, to his friend, who had continued the struggle against the triumvirate, and come home at last, war-worn and weary, to find the more politic comrade of his youth one of the celebrities of Rome, and on the best of terms with the very men against whom they had once fought side by side.
Not less beautiful is the following Ode to Septimius, another of the poet's old companions in arms (Odes, II. 6). His speaking of himself in it as ”with war and travel worn” has puzzled the commentators, as it is plain from the rest of the poem that it must have been written long after his campaigning days were past. But the fatigues of those days may have left their traces for many years; and the difficulty is at once got over if we suppose the poem to have been written under some little depression from languid health due to this cause. Tarentum, where his friend lived, and whose praises are so warmly sung, was a favourite resort of the poet's. He used to ride there on his mule, very possibly to visit Septimius, before he had his own Sabine villa; and all his love for that villa never chilled his admiration for Tibur, with its ”silvan shades, and orchards moist with wimpling rills,”--the ”_Tiburni lucus, et uda mobilibus pomaria rivis_,”-and its milder climate, so genial to his sun-loving temperament:--
”Septimius, thou who wouldst, I know, With me to distant Gades go, And visit the Cantabrian fell, Whom all our triumphs cannot quell, And even the sands barbarian brave, Where ceaseless seethes the Moorish wave;
”May Tibur, that delightful haunt, Reared by an Argive emigrant, The tranquil haven be, I pray, For my old age to wear away; Oh, may it be the final bourne To one with war and travel worn!
”But should the cruel fates decree That this, my friend, shall never be, Then to Galaesus, river sweet To skin-clad flocks, will I retreat, And those rich meads, where sway of yore Laconian Phalanthus bore.
”In all the world no spot there is, That wears for me a smile like this, The honey of whose thymy fields May vie with what Hymettus yields, Where berries cl.u.s.tering every slope May with Venafrum's greenest cope.
”There Jove accords a lengthened spring, And winters wanting winter's sting, And sunny Aulon's[1] broad incline Such mettle puts into the vine, Its cl.u.s.ters need not envy those Which fiery Falernum grows.
”Thyself and me that spot invites, Those pleasant fields, those sunny heights; And there, to life's last moments true, Wilt thou with some fond tears bedew-- The last sad tribute love can lend-- The ashes of thy poet-friend.”
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