from the passage of Propertius just quoted, and from the allusion in the same elegy to the recent death of Gallus, that Virgil was engaged on his work in B. C. 24. Propertius appears, from other allusions in his elegies, to have been acquainted with the poem of Virgil in its progress; and he may have heard parts of it read. In B. C. 23 died Marcellus, the son of Octavia, Caesar's sister, by her first husband; and as Virgil lost no opportunity of gratifying his patron, he introduced into the sixth book of the Aeneid (v. 883) the well-known allusion to the virtues of this youth, who was cut off by a premature death: Heu miserande puer ! si qua fata aspera rumpas,

Tu Marcellus eris.

Octavia is said to have been present when the poet was reciting this allusion to her son, and to have fainted from her emotions. She rewarded the poet munificently for his excusable flattery. As Marcellus did not die till B. C. 23, these lines were of course written after his death, but Virgil may have sketched his whole poem, and even finished in a way many parts in the later books before he elaborated the whole of his sixth book. The completion of the great work occupied the few remaining years of his life; but it never received the finishing touches, and it is said that in his last illness he wished to burn it. But his friends would not allow the poem to be sacrificed to a morbid sensibility. "Augustus placed it in the hands of Varius and Tucca for the necessary correction, but strictly charged them to make no additions, nor even to complete the few unfinished lines at which the hand of the master had paused or faltered. Great, undoubtedly, is the debt we owe him for this delicate consideration. The Roman epic abounds in moral and poetical defects; nevertheless it remains the most complete picture of the national mind at its highest elevation, the most precious document of national history, if the history of an age is revealed in its ideas, no less than in its events and incidents. This is the consideration which, with many of us, must raise the interest of the Aeneid above that of any other poem of antiquity, and justify the saying of I know not what Virgilian enthusiast, that if Homer really made Virgil, undoubtedly it was his greatest work." *

When Augustus was returning from Samos, where he had spent the winter of B. C. 20, he met Virgil at Athens. The poet, it is said, had intended to make a tour of Greece, but he accompanied the emperor to Megara, and thence to Italy. His health, which had been long declining, was now completely broken, and he died soon after his arrival at Brundusium, on the 22d of September, B. C. 19, not having quite completed his fifty-first year. His remains were transferred to Naples, which had been his favorite residence, and placed on the * Merivale, op. cit. Vol. IV. p. 448.

431

road (Via Puteolana) from Naples to Puteoli (Pozzuoli), between the
first and second milestones from Naples. The monument now called
the tomb of Virgil is not on the road which passes through the tun-
nel of Posilippo; but if the Via Puteolana ascended the hill of Posilip-
po, as it may have done, the situation of the monument would agree
very well with the description of Donatus.

The following inscription is said to have been placed on the tomb:
Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc
Parthenope. Cecini pascua, rura, duces.

From internal evidence it is improbable that it was written by the
poet, though Donatus says that it was.

Virgil named as heredes in his testament his half-brother, Valerius Proculus, to whom he left one half of his estate, and also Augustus, Maecenas, L. Varius, and Plotius Tucca. The poet had been enriched by the liberality of his patrons, and he left behind him a considerable property, and a house on the Esquiline Hill near the garHe used his wealth liberally, and his library, dens of Maecenas. He used to

which was doubtless a good one, was easy of access. send his parents money every year. His father, who became blind, did not die before his son had attained a mature age. Two brothers of Virgil also died before him. Poetry was not the only study of Virgil: he applied himself to medicine and to agriculture, as the Georgica show; and also to what Donatus calls Mathematica, perHis stature was tall, his haps a jumble of astrology and astronomy. complexion dark, and his appearance that of a rustic. He was modest and retiring, and his character is free from reproach, if we except one scandalous passage in Donatus, which may not tell the truth. In his fortunes and his friends Virgil was a happy man. Munificent patronage gave him ample means of enjoyment and of leisure, and he had the friendship of all the most accomplished men of the day, among whom Horace entertained a strong affection for him. He was an amiable good-tempered man, free from the mean passions of envy His fame, and jealousy; and in all but health he was prosperous. which was established in his lifetime, was cherished after his death as an inheritance in which every Roman had a share. No writer probably ever exercised so wide an influence either in time or space. His works became school-books even before the death of Augustus, and have continued such ever since; they were even translated into Greek; they were commented on by a host of grammarians; they were the subject of innumerable epigrams; they were formed into centos; they were used for the purposes of divination. They have taken their place among the imperishable offspring of genius, and, while literature lasts, will continue to exercise a powerful influence on the poetical taste of successive generations.

NOTES

ON THE

SELECTIONS FROM VIRGIL.

THE BUCOLICS.

THE ten short poems called Bucolica were the earliest works of Virgil, and probably all written between B. C. 41, and B. C. 37. They are not Bucolica in the same sense as the poems of Theocritus, which have the same title. They have all a Bucolic form and coloring, but some of them have nothing more. Their chief merit consists in their versification, which was smoother and more polished than the hexameters which the Romans had yet seen, and in many natural and simple touches. But as an attempt to transfer the Syracusan muse into Italy, they are certainly a failure; and we read the pastorals of Theocritus and of Virgil with a very different degree of pleasure. The former are distinguished by a simplicity equally remote from epic majesty and sordid rusticity. Every charm of the country has been rifled to adorn them, and almost every deformity carefully concealed. Then, too, the Doric dialect, in which they were written, was peculiarly adapted to pastoral poetry. It at once removed the reader from the town, while it afforded the Muse every facility of utterance. The lordly language of Imperial Rome was ill suited to convey the unpremeditated effusions of unlettered herdsmen. If Virgil, therefore, has fallen very far short of his great prototype, the difficulty of his attempt must not be forgotten. Indeed, he appears not insensible of it himself; and by the nature of the language in which he wrote he has been compelled to abandon his original intention, and to attempt loftier flights than the nature of pastoral poetry strictly justifies.

The publication of the Bucolica created a great sensation in literary Rome. Honors were publicly lavished on the author. They were recited on the stage; and it is said that, on one occasion, when the poet happened to be present, all the spectators rose and paid him the same marks of respect which they would have shown to Au

gustus. Propertius (II. 34) has celebrated the conclusion and publication of the Bucolics, and Ovid (Amor. I. 12) has foretold their immortality.

The title Bucolica was probably that given to these poems by Virgil himself. It is from a Greek word which signifies pertaining to the shepherd life, pastoral. The title Ecloga is generally supposed to have been added by the critics. It also is from the Greek, and signifies, a selected piece; so that Bucolicon Eclogae means, selections from pastoral poems, Bucolicon being the genitive plural in the Greek

form.

ECLOGUE I.

TITYRUS.

THE subject of this Eclogue is Virgil's gratitude to Octavianus for the favor shown him in the restoration of his lands. See Life.

The speakers are two shepherds, one of whom is enjoying rustic life, singing of his love, and seeing his cattle feed undisturbed, when he is encountered by the other, who has been expelled from his homestead, and is driving his goats before him, with no prospect but a cheerless exile. This is simple enough, but it is complicated by an unhappy artifice. The fortunate shepherd is represented as a farm slave who has just worked out his freedom; and this emancipation is used to symbolize the confirmation of the poet in his property. The two events, with their concomitants, are treated as convertible with each other, the story being told partly in the one form, partly in the other.

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1. Tityre; a name borrowed from Theocritus. Tu...nos. Gr. 446. A. & S. 209, R. 1 (b). So nos... tu, v. 4. 2. Silvestrem Musam a pastoral tune. The Muse is here put, by metonymy, for that over which she presided. Gr. 705. II. A. & S. 324. 2. Tenui... avena on a slender reed-pipe. Tenui suggests the notion of simplicity and humility, at the same time that it is a natural epithet of the reed, like fragili cicuta, v. 85. Avena by metonymy for fistula. Meditaris art practising. The word implies care, repetition, and by some critics is translated "art composing." -3. Nos. Gr. 446. 2. A. & S. 209, R. 7 (6). Patriae = of my paternal estate, farm. Cf. patrios fines, v. 68. — 4. Fugimus = we are banished from. Lentus: at ease. 5. Formosam - silvas =thou teachest the woods to re-echo (the name of) the beautiful Amaryllis. Amaryllis is a shepherdess, beloved by Tityrus. Gr. 93. A. & S. 8o. I.; 231, R. 3 (6). — 6. Deus; Octavianus. This may be mere hyperbole, though this same emperor was actually

I; 374 4

1

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deified, before his death, by the Roman people. Otia peace, security. A. & S. 98. —7. Mihi. Gr. 390. 2. A. & S. 222, R. 8, N.; 227, R. 4. Illius. Gr. 612. 3. A. & S. 283. I. Ex. 4. 8. Imbuet; sc. sanguine suo.-9. Errare to roam at will, to graze at large. It implies security. Ipsum; sc. me, implied in meas. -10. Quae vellem. Gr. 445. 6; 501. I. A. & S. 206 (4); 264. I. Permisit. Gr. 551. II. I. A. & S. 273. 4 (a). Calamo; the same as avena, v. 2. —11. Invideo; sc. tibi. Magis rather. 12. Usque turbatur to such a degree does confusion prevail; i. e. caused by the veteran soldiers, who are everywhere dispossessing the people of their lands. This sentence is explanatory of the preceding, and the connection of thought may be thus expressed: I wonder rather that you enjoy such peace, since there is everywhere so much confusion. Ipse is contrasted with undique totis agris.— 13. Protinus = forward, before me. Aeger sad, sick at heart. It may refer also to the state of the body, as consequent upon that of the mind. Duco. The rest he drove before him; this one he leads by a cord. — 14. Namque. A. & S. 279. 3 (a) and (e). — 15. Silice in nuda; i. e. with no herbage spread beneath. Connixa is put for enixa for the sake of the measure, though it has a rhetorical force of its own, expressing the difficulty of the labor.· 16. Laeva stupidly perverse. It is better to consider the non as qualifying laeva. Cf. A. II. 54. Before si mens some such clause is implied as quod nos monuisset. 17. De coelo tactas struck by lightning. The striking of a person or thing by lightning was an omen of evil. Pomponius says, on the authority of the lost works of ancient Grammarians, that the blasting of fruit-trees was ominous: that of the olive being supposed to forebode barrenness; that of the oak, banishment. This would make the malum hoc to be Meliboeus's exile, not the loss of the goat's twins. Memini. A. & S. 268, R. I (a). Z. 589. Praedicere portended, foreboded.-18. Praedixit; sc. malum hoc. This line is generally regarded as spurious. It is made up from IX. 15.-19. Sed tamen. These particles indicate a stronger opposition than the simple sed or tamen, and mark a return to a previous thought from which the speaker has digressed. Here they recall the mind to the words of Tityrus, vv. 6-10, from which Meliboeus had turned aside to speak of himself. Cf. G. I. 79. Iste that of yours. Gr. 450. A. & S. 207, R. 25. Sit. Gr. 525. A. & S. 265. Da... nobis = tell me. 20. Urbem. Instead of answering directly, Tityrus begins ab ovo, in rustic fashion, and dilates upon the description of Rome itself. - 21. Huic nostrae; i. e. Mantua, which was about three miles from Andes, Virgil's native village. Quo = whither. — 22. Pastores. Gr. 363. 2.

A. & S. 204, R. 4. Depellere to drive away. The de denotes destina

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