Romans are less interesting in their individuality than the Greeks of the great ages of Greek life, and from the fact also that the manners of an advanced age do not affect the imagination in the way in which those of a nation's youth affect it. Not only was Virgil's own genius much less creative than that of Homer, his materials possessed much less plasticity. There is no need of any act of reconstructive criticism to enable us to feel the immediate power of the Iliad and the Odyssey. To do justice to the power of the Aeneid we must endeavour to realise in imagination the state of mind of those who received the poem in all the novelty of its first impression,-at once 'rich with the spoils of time,' and 'pregnant with celestial fire.' IV. Conception and Delineation of Character in the Aeneid. The most important element in the Aeneid, regarded as a poem of heroic action, remains still to be considered, viz. the conception and delineation of individual character. The greatest of epic poets in ancient times was also endowed with the most versatile dramatic faculty. And this faculty was displayed not only in the conception of a great variety of noble types of character, but also in the modes in which these conceptions were embodied. The Greek language is greatly superior to the Latin in its adaptability to natural dialogue. In this respect Cicero's inferiority to Plato is as marked as Virgil's inferiority to Homer. The language of Homer and the language of Plato are equally fitted for the expression of the greatest thoughts and feelings, and for the common intercourse of men with one another. Neither that of Virgil nor of Cicero adapts itself easily to the lively play of emotion or to the rapid interchange of thought. The characters of Homer, like the characters of Shakspeare, reveal themselves in their complete individuality, as they act and re-act on one another in many changing moods of passion and affection. The personages of Virgil are revealed by the poet, partly in his account of what they do, and partly through the medium of set speeches expressive of some particular attitude of mind. Virgil's imagination is the imagination of the orator rather than of the dramatist. It is not a complete and complex man, liable to various moods, and standing in various relations to other men, but it is some powerful movement of the Ovpós in man, that the oratorical imagination is best fitted to express. Milton also, like Virgil, reveals the characters of his personages with the imaginative power of an orator rather than with that of a dramatist. But he possesses another resource in the analytical power with which he makes his chief personage reveal his inmost nature and most secret motives in truthful communing with himself. It is through the soliloquies in the 'Paradise Lost' that we can best realise the whole conception of Satan, in his ruined magnificence, and in his lost but not forgotten capacity of happiness and nobleness. The soliloquies of these personages perform for the epic poet the part performed by the elaborate introspection and discussion of motives in modern prose fiction. Homer also avails himself frequently of the soliloquy, as he does of natural dialogue and more formal oratory. In the Aeneid the chief personage is often introduced, like the heroes of the Iliad and Odyssey, · This way and that dividing his swift mind;' but the process generally ends in the adoption, without any weighing of conflicting duties or probabilities, of the obvious course indicated by some supernatural sign. The soliloquies of Dido are to be regarded rather as passionate outbursts of prayer to some unknown avenging power than as communings with her own heart. The single soliloquy, if it may be called such, which brings the speaker nearer to us in knowledge and sympathy, is the proud and stately address in which Mezentius seems to make the horse, which had borne him victorious through every former war, a partaker of his sorrow and his forebodings Rhaebe, diu, res siqua díu mortalibus ulla est, But not only are the media through which Virgil brings his personages before us less varied and flexible than those of Homer, but the characters themselves are more tamely conceived, and less capable of awakening human sympathy. And this is especially true of the character of Aeneas as contrasted with those of Achilles and of Odysseus. The general conception of Aeneas is indeed in keeping with the religious idea of the Aeneid. He is intended to be an embodiment of the courage of an ancient hero, the justice of a paternal ruler, the mild humanity of a cultivated man living in an age of advanced civilisation, the saintliness of the founder of a new religion of peace and pure observance, the affection for parent and child, which was one of the strongest instincts in the Italian race. A life-like impersonation of such an ideal would have commanded the reverence of all future times. Yet at no time has the character of Aeneas excited any strong human interest. No later poet or moralist set it up, as Horace sets up the characters of Achilles and of Ulysses, as a subject of ethical contemplation. Ovid in the deepest gloom of his exile retains enough of his old levity to jest at his single lapse from saintly perfection— Et tamen ille tuae felix Aeneidos auctor As compared with the hero of the Odyssey, Aeneas is altogether wanting in energy, spontaneity, intellectual resource, and insight. The single quality in which he is strong is endurance. The principle which enables him to fulfil his mission is expressed in the line Quidquid erit, superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est. His courage in battle springs from his confidence in his destiny Tum socios maestique metum solatur Iuli Fata docens. One of the few touches of nature which redeem his Aen. x. 861, etc. 2 Trist. ii. 533-4. character from tameness is the momentary feeling of the rage of battle roused by the resistance of Lausus saevac iamque altius irae Dardanio surgunt ductori. The occasion in which he seems most worthy of his place as a leader of men is after the death of Mezentius, where the self-restraint of his address contrasts favourably with the intemperate ardour expressed in some of the speeches of Turnus Maxima res effecta viri: timor omnis abesto. He appears as a passive recipient both of the devotion and of the reproaches of Dido. He undergoes no passionate struggle in resigning her. The courtesy and kindliness of his nature elicit no warmer expression of regret than the words nec me meminisse pigebit Elissae, Dum memor ipse mei, dum spiritus hos regit artus. The only exercise of thought required of him is the right interpretation of an omen, or the recollection of some dubious prediction at some critical moment. Even the strength of affection which he feels and which he awakens in the hearts of his father and son does not move us in the way in which we are touched by the feelings which unite Odysseus to Penelope and Telemachus, to Laertes and the mother who meets him in the shades, and tells him that she had 'died neither by the painless arrows of Artemis nor by wasting disease '— This contrast was suggested by Mr. Nettleship's interpretation of the character of Turnus ('Suggestions,' etc., pp. 15 et seq.). As will appear later, I am inclined to think that he insists too exclusively on the 'violentia,' which is undoubtedly a strong element in the character of the Italian hero. The antagonism of Turnus to Aeneas, as of the Italians to the Trojans, he justly regards as an instance of the strife of passion with law. If the Greek drama suggested the ethical aspect of this strife, a comparison with Horace, Ode iii. 4, of which Ode the leading idea is the superiority of the 'vis temperata' over the 'vis consili expers,' as illustrated in the wars of the Olympian Gods with the Titans, and in the triumph of Augustus over the elements of disorder opposing him, suggests that the political inspiration of the idea came from the stately mansion on the Esquiline' ‘Molem propinquam nubibus arduis.' ἀλλά με σός τε πόθος σά τε μήδεα, φαίδιμ' Οδυσσεύ, The failure of Aeneas to excite any lively personal interest is not to be attributed solely to a failure of power in the poet's imagination. In the part he plays he is conceived of as one chosen by the supreme purpose of the gods, as an instrument of their will, and thus necessarily unmoved by ordinary human impulses. In the words of M. Coulanges, 'Sa vertu doit être une froide et haute impersonalité, qui fasse de lui, non un homme, mais un instrument des dieux. The strength required in such an instrument is the strength of faith, submission, patience, and endurance; and it is with this strength that Aeneas encounters the many dangers and vicissitudes to which he is exposed, and withdraws from the allurements of ease and pleasure. The very virtues of his character act as a check rather than as a stimulus to those natural impulses out of which the most living impersonations are formed. To compare great things in art with what are not so great, the impression produced by the superiority of Aeneas to ordinary passion is like the impression produced by the superior tolerance and enlightenment of some of Scott's heroes, when contrasted with the more animated impulses and ruder fanaticism of the other personages in his story. That he is, on the one hand, the passive receptacle of Divine guidance, and, on the other, the impersonation of a modern ideal of humanity, playing a part in a rude and turbulent time, are the two main causes of the tame and colourless character of the protagonist of the Aeneid. And as loyalty to a leader is the sole form of political, as distinct from patriotic virtue which Virgil acknowledges, the other Trojan chiefs-the faithful Achates, the speaker Idomeneus, the more martial figures of Mnestheus and Serestusdo little more than play the part of the ayyedos or of the κшpà прóσшла in a Greek tragedy. The interest awakened by Anchises arises solely from the halo of sacred associa 1 La Cité Antique. |