to bear his deep love for the country, his practical knowledge, his poetic observation of nature, upon such a work ;— And again, that he should do something-if not to convert men from politics and plots, from luxury and vice-at any rate to turn their thoughts to purer sources of pleasure; to remind them of the ancient love of Romans for the land, of the old farmer-heroes who went from the plough to command an army; to sing the praise of Italy in memorable verse, to give a new stimulus, of a sincere and profound character, to the reviving patriotism; and thus to promote the hopefulness and gratitude and salutary enthusiasm with which men were beginning to hail the Augustan era ;— If such were the hopes that prompted Maecenas when he urged Vergil to write the Georgics, they were not unreasonable in view of the times, and in view of what the poet had already done: and certainly as far as poetical achievement went they were more than fulfilled. 6. The execution of the poem1. Many critics are of opinion that in the Aeneid Vergil had set himself an impossible task, while in the Georgics he had a subject exactly suited to his gifts. Without entering on such sweeping judgments—which, in the case of rare works of genius are generally misleading and superficial-we may at least agree that the Georgics is a most striking and beautiful poem on what appears at first sight a rather unpromising subject. It is worth while to try and understand, in however rough and general a way, what are the qualities of workmanship that have made the 'manual for farmers' into a poem that has given delight to all readers for 1900 years. The result is due partly to the art and partly to the spirit of the poet. Of course these two things are closely connected, and it is not possible really to distinguish completely between them: but it may be allowed to consider some aspects 1 For some points in this section I am indebted to Mr J. H. Skrine's preface to his edition of Georgic II.: a preface written with taste and insight, and with many happy illustrations. of each separately, and it will perhaps tend to clearness to do so. In considering the art of the Georgics the first thing we have to remember is that the Augustan literature owes its inspiration mainly to Greek. Horace's aim is to be the Roman Alcaeus and Sappho Ovid devotes himself to naturalising in Italy the Greek Elegiac metre: Propertius makes Callimachus his model and Vergil announces himself in the Georgics as 'singing the song of Ascra (Hesiod's birthplace) through the Roman towns.' But it is not merely that the general form of the poem is suggested by Greek; nor that the subject and metre are borrowed from Hesiod; far more important is the taste of literary association with which the workmanship abounds. Both the poet and those for whom he wrote were possessed with the greatness and beauty of Greek literature; and the poem at every turn is intended to remind them of it. Sometimes this is done with a mere epithet: the 'Chaonian' acorn, the 'Lethean' poppy, the 'Acheloian' cups of water, the 'Paphian' myrtle. More often a passing allusion or phrase touches some part of the rich and picturesque Greek mythology: "The wagons of the Eleusinian mother' (reminding us of the tales of Demeter, the mysteries of Eleusis, the Athenian processions to the temple of Artemis &c.); The 'prizes of wit which the sons of Theseus ordained' (reminding us of the worship of Dionysus and all the glories of the Athenian stage). 'Till the Atlantides be hidden' (the story of the Pleiads); and similar reference in other places to Ariadne, Alcyone, Scylla, &c. Or again common things are beautified with a more direct literary reference: if the poet mentions waterbirds, they 'sport round Caystrian pools, in the Asian meads': an orchard reminds him of the 'groves of Alcinous'; the lightning strikes 'Athos or Rhodope or the Ceraunian rocks': the wrecked sailor vows 'to Glaucus and Panopea and Melicerta son of Ino,' and so forth. Again quite apart from the rich literary associations, Vergil has notably the power of picturesque suggestiveness; often all the more effective that the suggestion is given in a word. To G. I. II. 2 take examples from these books:- He is speaking of spices, and we see molles Sabaei, 'unwarlike Arabs'; of iron, and we see nudi chalybes 'the stripped forgers': the pine tree is 'doomed to witness the perils of the sea': the rich harvest is 'drawn home by tired heifers': the evening and morning sky suggest a crop of pictures, 'the timeless night,' the 'Bears fearing to be dipped in Ocean,' the 'Dawn's panting steeds', 'the turning poles,' &c. Indeed the whole poem is alive with such pictures. Another common note of Vergil's poetic art is connected with his deep love of nature, namely the touches of personification which abound in the poem. Of course the tendency is by no means peculiar to Vergil, but is found in all poetry: in other poets however it is often frigid, or artificial, or overloaded, whereas the particular merit of Vergil is that his touch is so light and graceful in these personifications. Thus in these books the frozen land is 'hard with Boreas' breath': the seeds are 'due to the furrows': the South wind 'broods,' the moon's ‘virgin face flushes,' the Sun 'none can call false': the apples 'feel their strength,' the poor vine is 'ashamed of her clusters,' the graft shoots 'know not their mother,' the buds 'are taught,' the tree 'wonders at her new leaves,' the vines in the winter 'put by the pruning hook,' the 'stealthy fire escapes to the upper leaves and reigns a conqueror,' the 'beasts are sent into the forests and stars into the sky! These are some of the most prominent points of Vergil's art, and most easily capable of being illustrated. But of course the real effect of the poem depends more on points which escape analysis: on the fitness of his diction, the vividness of the pictures, the melody, the imaginativeness, the variety, the delicacy, the impressiveness, the grace, of his phrases and lines. Towards the appreciation of these things, some aid may be found in the notes and index to these books: but in the main it must be left to each reader's ear and taste and sensibility. A few words should however be said, secondly, about the spirit of the Georgics, which has even more to do with their permanent effect than the style. The most obvious point is the poet's love for the country. Vergil has been called 'the Rustic1 of Genius,' and one of his strongest and deepest feelings was a love for country life; not merely its scenery but all its sights and sounds; the sky, the woods, the rivers, lakes and hills, the fields, the trees and flowers, the animals down to the very insects, the heavenly bodies, the storms and winds and calms, the changes of the day and seasons, the varied and healthy labour, the simple and honest and hardy men and women who lived and died amongst these things. This profound feeling finds vent in the beautiful eulogy on in the second book At secura quies et nescia fallere vita, &c. in the splendid and passionate outburst rustic life (ii. 467), ... o ubi campi Spercheosque et virginibus bacchata Lacaenis, &c. (ii. 485). and is closely bound up with Vergil's deep home-love for the Mantuan country and his ideal patriotism for the 'Saturnia tellus' which inspire the glowing panegyric on Italy in the beginning of the same book (ii. 136—176). But it appears no less in numerous little touches all through the poem. It is shewn for instance in his special choice of the words felix and laetus for plants and trees, the opening phrase quid faciat laetas segetes striking the keynote: in his loving description of beautiful sights, such as the incomparable lines on the flowering walnut Contemplator item cum se nux plurima silvis in little touches of accurate painting, such as the willow (glauca canentia fronde), the bean (siliqua quassante), and the signs of storm and fine weather in the first book; in the lovely passage about the birth of spring (ii. 325) when all things bear and 'Heaven descends in fruitful rain into the bosom of his glad 1 Mr F. Myers in his striking essay on Vergil, p. 126. bride': and in passing phrases like divini gloria ruris, tantus amor terrae, and flumina amem silvasque. Still more important, perhaps, and quite as deep-lying is the poet's feeling of the beauty and dignity of labour. The sadness of human life is likewise a constant feeling of Vergil's, but it is more apparent in his later work, the Aeneid; in the Georgics labour is represented rather as a bountiful provision of the gods, a sound and permanent source of happiness. Thus although in the golden age all was ease and abundance (i. 128), yet the need which gave rise to labour was in the end beneficial: "The father himself willed it' (121); he would not have 'sloth and torpor' (124); the change produced various inventions (135) and all the arts of life (145). Though the farmer's toil is never ending (redit labor actus in orbem), still his life is supremely happy, ‘o fortunati nimium...agricolae. The dignity of this toil is suggested by the constant use of words meaning conquest; imperat arvis, subactis scrobibus, cogere, dornare, &c. In the same spirit we have a con amore description of the busy variety of life on wet days (i. 260); of the wife singing at her loom (i. 290); in the same spirit again is the playful energy of the simile which depicts the farmer like the soldier hurling his seed, grappling the land, laying low the heaps (i. 104), and most notable of all, the passage at the end of book ii. where he contrasts the delight of the ceaseless labour of the husbandman with the vain or disastrous energies of the courtier, the soldier, the merchant, the orator, the statesman or the conqueror (ii. 501 sqq.) Another point (quite as significant, though less noticeable at first sight) which shews the poet's delight in his subject is the constant emergence in the Georgics of what we may call a spirit of playfulness. Vergil's delicate and 'finely touched spirit' inclined rather to pathos and to seriousness, and in the whole Aeneid we have hardly the least sparkle of humour, (though in the Iliad there is no lack of it and in the Odyssey it abounds): but in this poem his love of the country life and its objects and details not unfrequently finds expression in a certain gaiety of thought or phrase which conveys to the reader |