that produced by the careless levity and gay insolence of Antinous and Eurymachus. As a painter of manners Virgil adopts the stately and conventional methods of Greek tragedy rather than the vivid realism of Homer. The intercourse of his chief personages with one another is conducted with the dignity and courtesy of the most refined times. Homer's personages indeed act for the most part with a natural dignity and courtesy of bearing,—proceeding from the commanding character which he attributes to them, as well as from the lively social grace of their Greek origin,—which can neither be surpassed nor equalled by any conventional refinement. But these social virtues can be rapidly exchanged for vehemence of passion and angry recrimination. In the manners of Virgil's personages we recognise the influence of refined traditions, and of the habits of a dignified society. His personages show not only courtesy but studied consideration for each other. Thus while Latinus addresses Turnus in words of courteous acknowledgment—of which the original suggestion may be traced to a tragedy of Attius O praestans animi iuvenis! quantum ipse feroci Turnus replies to him in the terms of respect which are due to his age and position Quam pro me curam geris, hanc precor, optime, pro me Deponas letumque sinas pro laude pacisci. Et nos tela, pater, etc. The element of self-command amid the deepest movements of feeling and passion enhances the stately dignity of manners represented in the poem. Thus in the greatest sorrow of Evander, when he is recalling with fond pride the youthful promise of Pallas Tu quoque nunc stares immanis truncus in armis, he remembers that he is detaining the Trojans, who had come to pay the funeral honours to his son sed infelix Teucros quid demoror armis? Vadite et haec memores regi mandata referte. The queenly courtesy of Dido springs from deeper elements in human nature than conformity to the standard of demeanour imposed by elevated rank Solvite corde metum, Teucri, secludite curas. Quis genus Aeneadum, quis Troiae nesciat urbem Nec tam aversus equos Tyria Sol iungit ab urbe, etc.1 The sea-adventures of the Aeneid seem to be suggested rather by the experience of travellers in the Augustan Age, than by the spirit of wonder and of buoyant resistance with which Odysseus and his companions encounter the perils of unexplored seas and coasts. The fabulous portents of legendary times appear in the shape of the Harpies, the Cyclops, the sea-monster Scylla, etc., but they do not produce that sense of novelty and verisimilitude which the same or similar representations produce in the Odyssey. The description of the Harpies is grotesque rather than imaginative. There is a touch of pathos in the introduction of the Cyclops Lanigerae comitantur oves: ea sola voluptas Solamenque mali 2, reminding us of the кρîе Téпov, etc. of the Odyssey; and the picture of his assembled brethren Cernimus adstantis nequiquam lumine torvo is conceived with a kind of grim power, showing that the imagination of Virgil does not merely reproduce, but endows with a new life the figures which he borrows most closely from his original. But the vivid sense of reality, the combined humour and terror of Homer's 1 i. 561, etc. 2 iii. 360-1. 3 iii. 677-9. representation, are altogether absent from the Aeneid. These marvellous creations appear quite natural in the Odyssey; they are in keeping with the imaginative impulses and the adventurous spirit of the ages of maritime discovery; but they stand in no real relation to the feelings and beliefs with which men encountered the occasional dangers and the frequent discomforts of the Adriatic or the Aegean in the Augustan age. In his conception of these real dangers of the sea, which have to be met in the most advanced as well as the most primitive times, Virgil's inferiority to Homer both in general effect and in life-like detail is very marked. The wonderful realism of the sea-adventures in the Fifth Book of the Odyssey produces on the mind the impression that the poet is recalling either a peril that he himself had encountered, or one that he had heard vividly related by some one who had thus escaped from the issue of death' and that there was in the poet too the genuine delight in danger, the spirit That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine,' which has been attributed to the companions of his hero's wanderings. Odysseus, like Aeneas, feels his limbs and heart give way before the sudden outburst of the storm; but though swept from the raft and overwhelmed for a time under the waves, he never loses his presence of mind or his courage ἀλλ ̓ οὐδ ̓ ὡς σχεδίης ἐπελήθετο τειρόμενός περ, The poet of the Odyssey may have encountered such storms as are described in the passage here referred to, and we cannot doubt that in such case he bore his part bravely, 'redeeming his own life and securing the safe return of his comrades.' If Virgil in some unadventurous voyaging ever happened to be 'caught in a storm in the open Aegean,' it probably was in the position of a helpless and suffering spectator that he contemplated the wild commotion of the elements. On the other hand he shows a keen enjoyment of the pleasure of sailing past famous and beautiful scenes with a fair wind and in smooth water Linquimus Ortygiae portus pelagoque volamus The first sight of land from the sea is vividly brought before the eye in such passages as these Quarto terra die primum se attollere tandem Crebrescunt optatae aurae, portusque patescit Iam propior, templumque apparet in arce Minervae1. The disappearance of the shores left behind, and the opening up of new scenes in the rapid onward voyage, leave on the mind a fresh feeling of novelty and life in such passages as Protinus aerias Phaeacum abscondimus arces, Chaonio, et celsam Buthroti accedimus urbem5; and in this in which the historic associations of famous cities are evoked Apparet Camarina procul, campique Geloi, Moenia, magnanimum quondam generator equorum, etc. These and similar passages—such as that describing the moonlight sail past the enchanted shores of Circe-remind us of the great change which had come over the world between the Age of the Odyssey and that of the Aeneid. The one poem is pervaded by the eager curiosity of the youthful prime of the world, attracting the most daring and energetic spirits to the discovery and peopling of new lands; the other by that more languid curiosity, awakened by the associations of the past,-by the longing for some change to break the routine of a too easy life,and by the refined enjoyment of beauty, urging men to encounter some danger and more discomfort for the sake of visiting scenes famous in history, rich in natural charms, or in works of art, the inheritance from more creative times. In his scenes of battle, Virgil is as inferior to the poet of the Iliad as he is to the poet of the Odyssey in those of sea-adventure. In the details of single fights, in the account of the wounds inflicted on one another by the combatants, in the enumeration of the obscurer warriors who fall before the champions of either side his addit Amastrum Hippotaden, sequiturque incumbens eminus hasta Tereaque Harpalycumque et Demophöonta Chromimque', he follows closely in the footsteps of Homer. He is, however, more sparing of these details, so as to avoid the monotony of Homer's battle-field's and single combats. The Iliad was originally addressed to a people of warriors οἷσιν ἄρα Ζεύς ἐκ νεότητος ἔδωκε καὶ ἐς γῆρας τολυπεύειν And although through the mouth of the wisest of his Life one perpetual fight’— αἶψα τε φυλόπιδος πέλεται κόρος ἀνθρώποισι— yet all accepted this life as their destiny; and those who first listened to the song of the poet would know no satiety in the details of battle and records of martial prowess, glorifying perhaps the reputed ancestors of those chiefs whom they themselves followed to the field or to the 1 Aen. xi. 673-5. 2 II. xiv. 85-7. The fascination which the poem has even for modern readers is due, in no slight degree, to the spell which some aspects of war exercise over the imagination in all times. |