The earth which produced fair crops and vineyards under the genial influence of sun and rain, and without the labour of the ploughman and vinedresser1, can now scarcely produce its fruits in sufficient quantity, though the strength of men and oxen is worn out by labouring on it 2. The cause of this decay in productiveness he attributes to the waste or dissipation of the elemental matter of our world, which has become much greater and more rapid than the supply of new materials. In the long warfare Ex infinito contractum tempore bellum the destructive forces are gaining the superiority over the restorative forces of Nature; and this process is hastening on the advent of that 'single day' which will overwhelm in ruin the whole framework of earth, sea, and sky 3. What then under these irremediable conditions is it best for man to do? Lucretius has no other answer to give him than to study the laws of Nature, so as to understand his position, and thus to limit his wants and reconcile himself to what he cannot alter. Yet in other passages of the poem, which Virgil also remembered 4, he did recognise the fact that human skill and the knowledge acquired by observation had done much to enrich and beautify the earth : Inde aliam atque aliam culturam dulcis agelli But he seems to have no idea of further progress. Though he has an imaginative sympathy with the trials of the 'grandis arator' and the 'vetulae vitis sator,' he has no guidance to offer them. The lessons taught by Lucretius are not those of active energy, applicable to every condition of life, but the lessons of a resigned quietism and a contemplative energy, adapted only to men of leisure. and enjoying ample resources for the gratification of their intellectual wants. 1 v. 932, etc. 2 ii. 1160, etc. 3 ii. 1146; v. 95. * Compare Lucret. v. 1367-1369 with Georg. ii. 36. Compare also Virgil's use of indulgere and indulgentia. That this opinion of the decay in the natural productiveness of the earth made a strong impression on the Roman mind may be inferred from the fact that Columella opens his treatise by arguing against it. And that the idea of the struggle with Nature was one familiar to the prose writers on such subjects appears from an expression in the first book of the same writer: 'Imbecilliorem agrum quam agricolam esse debere, cum sit colluctandum cum eo.' Cicero too puts into Cato's mouth the sentiment that the earth, if rightly dealt with, never refuses the 'imperium' of man. And this too is Virgil's doctrine: and it was to give that guidance which Lucretius, though he discerned the evil, did not supply, that the didactic directions of the Georgics were given. The Lucretian idea of Nature, both in its poetical and philosophical significance, runs through the Georgics; but it is modified by other considerations, and it is rather latent than prominent both in the poetry and in the practical teaching of the poem. The mind of Virgil is not possessed, as the mind of Lucretius was possessed, by the thought of the immensity of her sphere and the universality of her presence. He sees her presence in the familiar scenes and objects around him. The idea adds variety, grace, and liveliness to his description of every detail of rural industry. A sense of the ministering agency of Nature is a more pervading element in his poetry than that of her power and majesty. Objects are still regarded by him as separate and individual. The conceptions of Nature which created mythology contend in his mind with the half-apprehended conceptions of universal law and of the interdependence of phenomena on one another. Thus the poetical element in his descriptions of the life of plants and trees, or of the forces of flood and storm, does not spring from such deep sources in the imagination as the same element in the descriptions of the older poet. But neither is it limited to the perception of the 'outward shows' of things 1 De Senectute, xv. which gratify the eye, or the sounds which delight the ear. Even in the Eclogues the intuition of Nature is deeper than this. The study of Lucretius has enriched the Georgics with the most pervading charm of the poem-the sense of a secret, unceasing, quiet power (like that ascribed by Wordsworth to May Thy help is with the weed that creeps Along the barest ground, etc.), communicating to outward things the grace and tenderness of human sentiment, the variety and vivacity of human energy. But the Lucretian conception of Nature in its relation to human wants has been greatly modified by the religious tendency of Virgil's thought, his respect for traditional opinion, his sense of man's dependence on a higher Spiritual Power. Nature he regards as no more independent in her sphere than man is in his. The laws and conditions imposed on her have been appointed with reference to the relation in which she stands to man. Where these conditions are unfavourable, they have been appointed to quicken man's faculties and force him into the ways of industry. Lucretius dwells on the fact that two-thirds of our globe are unsuited for human habitation, as disproving the opinion of a Divine creation of the world for the benefit of man1: Virgil dwells on the fact that two temperate regions have been assigned to weak mortals as a proof of Divine beneficence2. Virgil also accepts the idea that the earth once was more productive than it is3, but he accepts it rather in the spirit of Hesiod than of Lucretius. In the Golden Age, under Saturn, the earth bore all things spontaneously. It was Jove-or Providence—who imposed on man, and continues to impose on him, the necessity of labouring for his subsistence; but this he did, not, as Hesiod believed, in anger at the deceit of Prometheus, but as a discipline and incentive to exertion. The poetical references to the Saturnian Age and the subsequent reign of Jove need not imply 1 V. 204, etc. VOL. I. 2 Georg. i. 237-8. P 3 Ib. 128. a literal belief in the fables of mythology, any more than the allusion at Georg. i. 62 to the fable of Pyrrha and Deucalion implies the literal acceptance of the explanation there given of the existence of the present race of men. But as that allusion seems meant to convey the belief in a Divine creative act, so the former allusion seems to convey a belief in a Divine moral dispensation. The idea of Providential guidance, of a Supreme Father, wielding the forces of Nature, shaping the destinies of man, acting for the most part by regular processes in order that man may learn to understand his ways1, but making his personal agency more manifest from time to time, as after the death of Caesar, by signs and wonders interrupting the order of Nature, supersedes or largely modifies the conception of natural law. The other powers of the Greek Olympus and of the Roman Pantheon are no longer, as the former are in the Iliad, at war with one another, but all work in harmony with the Supreme Will. Like the fables just referred to, the names of these deities seem to be introduced symbolically, to signify the different modes of activity of the one Supreme Spiritual Power, and the different forms under which he is to be reverenced. The speculative idea of the Georgics is thus rather a theological than a philosophical idea. The ultimate fact which Virgil endeavours to set forth and justify is the relation of man to Nature, under a Divine dispensation. He too, as well as Lucretius, recognises the tendency of all things to degenerate, but this tendency he attributes, not to natural loss of force, but to the fiat of Omnipotence sic omnia fatis In peius ruere. He too recognises the liability to failure and loss from causes over which man has no direct control,—the violence of storms, the inclemency of seasons, etc.,-as well as from others which he is able to provide against by constant 1 Cf. Georg. i. 351–353:— Atque haec ut certis possemus discere signis, vigilance. What resource has he against these untoward conditions? First he is bound to watch the signs of impending change which Providence has appointed, so as to leave as little as possible at the mercy of the elements. Next he has the resource of prayer, and the power of propitiating Heaven by customary rites and sacrifices, and by a life of piety and innocence. The ethical precepts of the poem, as is said by a distinguished French writer, may be summed up in the medieval maxim, 'Laborare et orare 1.' To inculcate the necessity of a constant struggle with the reluctant forces of Nature, and to show how this struggle may be successfully conducted by incessant labour, vigilance, propitiation of the Supreme Will by prayer and piety, thus appears to be the true didactic aim of the Georgics, as the didactic aim of the poem of Lucretius is the purification of the human heart from superstition and passion. And this statement of Virgil's aim is perhaps merely an expansion of the interpretation of his meaning, first suggested by Mr. Merivale, and accepted and admirably illustrated by Conington. But the words 'glorification of labour' suggest modern rather than ancient associations. Labour is not glorified as an end in itself; it is inculcated as a duty, as the condition appointed by Providence for attaining the peace, abundance, happiness, and worth of the life of the fields. As of old Τῆς ἀρετῆς ἱδρῶτα θεοὶ προπάροιθεν ἔθηκαν, so now they make the sweat of man's brow the means through which the 'divini gloria ruris' can be realised. By the labour spent in drawing into actual existence the glory and beauty of the land man best fulfils his duty and secures his happiness. There is no truer source for him of material and moral good, of simple pleasures, of contemplative delight. Yet if we wish rightly to appreciate the purely didactic parts of the poem, it is impossible, as has been fully shown. 1 'Travailler et prier, voilà la conclusion des Georgiques.' From an article in the Revue des deux Mondes (vol. 104), called Un Poëte Theologien, by Gaston Boissier. |