Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

dorf had passed lightly over an apparent objection to his theory founded on the similarity of passages in the earlier Eclogues to passages in the later, alleging other instances in which poets repeat themselves: Haupt contends that this does not touch the case of the third and ninth Eclogues, the latter of which is an obvious though unskilful imitation of the former. Having thus, as he conceives, shown that the poems in question cannot be by Calpurnius, he endeavours to prove that they are rightly attributed to Nemesianus, pointing out some resemblances between them and Nemesianus' Cynegetica, and urging that the silence of Vopiscus is not of that kind which would establish a negative. He shews that the MS. evidence for divided authorship, instead of resting on a single copy, is really supported by two others, one of them the best of all, the Neapolitan, and by the tradition of a third; while he considers the inscription of Calpurnius' Eclogues to Nemesianus to have arisen from a confusion between the concluding 'Explicit Calpurnii bucolicon' and the opening 'Aurelii Nemesiani Carthaginiensis bucolicon incipit,' which would follow it immediately, and cites other instances of similar amalgamations by transcribers. Lastly, he separates the two poets, who had been previously supposed to be contemporaries, by a gulf of more than two centuries, leaving Nemesianus at the date to which he is commonly fixed by external evidence, the date of the emperor Carus and his sons, and advancing Calpurnius, whose ordinary date rests partly on the inscription to Nemesianus mentioned above, partly on an arbitrary identification of him with a certain Junius Calpurnius, named by Vopiscus as the emperor's 'magister memoriae,' to the time of Nero, to whose reign he points out several allusions in the Eclogues. I am not aware whether any attempt has been made to invalidate this chain of reasoning, which certainly seems to me to be on the whole a strong one: at any rate, I may perhaps be allowed to assume Haupt to be in possession of the field, and speak of Nemesianus as the author of four out of the eleven pastorals.

Calpurnius' first Eclogue is a sort of imitation of the Pollio, introduced by a dialogue between two shepherds, brothers, Ornitus and Corydon, who, as they take refuge from the heat in a cave sacred to Faunus, observe some verses carved on a beech tree, apparently, so it is intimated, by the prophetic god himself. In these verses Faunus, in language reminding us sometimes of Virgil's Daphnis, sometimes of Jupiter's speech to Venus in Aeneid 1, sometimes again of the portents at the end of Georgic 1, announces that the golden age has come, that justice has returned under the auspices of the youth who became a pleader in his mother's arms- an allusion, Haupt thinks, to the early forensic efforts of Nero-that civil war shall be bound in chains, the senate no longer be sent to the block, and civic honours no more be a mockery—in confirmation of which blissful prediction he points to the meteor, then

.

shining, not with a bloody glare, but in a clear sky. The brothers receive the intimation with becoming awe, and resolve to record the verses, in the hope that Meliboeus-perhaps Seneca, perhaps, as Haupt thinks more probable, C. Calpurnius Piso-may convey them to the ears of Augustus. The MSS. give this Eclogue the somewhat inappropriate title Delos, which may have arisen, as Wernsdorf suggests, from an association in the transcriber's mind between the prophetic island and prophecy of any sort.

The second Eclogue is called Crocale, from a maiden with whom Astacus, a gardener, and Idas, a shepherd, are in love, and whom they accordingly celebrate in amoebean strains, with their respective produce as the stakes, Thyrsis as the umpire, and Faunus and the Satyrs, the Dryads and Naiads, sicco Dryades pede, Naides udo,' and all nature, animate and inanimate, as the audience. They appeal to their patron gods, talk of their respective occupations, vie with each other in offers to any deity who will bring the absent Crocale, enumerate their wealth, boast of their personal attractions, and finally are each reminded that it is time to go home. Thyrsis pronounces them equal in the following words:

"Este pares, et ob hoc concordes vivite: nam vos

Et decor, et cantus, et amor sociavit, et aetas."

The third Eclogue, entitled Exoratio, is pronounced by Scaliger to be merum rus, idque inficetum :" and certainly, though its coarseness may be paralleled from Theocritus, it is not what we should have expected from an imitator of Virgil. Iolas, on asking another shepherd, Lycidas, after a stray heifer, finds that he can think of nothing but Phyllis, who has deserted him. Lycidas had discovered her under a tree, singing with his rival Mopsus, and inflicted personal chastisement on her: on which she had run off to her friend Alcippe, declaring that she would live with Mopsus for the future. The forsaken lover now wishes for her back on any terms, and bethinks himself of sending her a poetical entreaty, which Iolas good-naturedly offers to convey. It is accordingly recited by Lycidas, and taken down by Iolas on cherrybark-a piteous composition, describing the lover's desolate condition, reminding Phyllis of her past pleasure in his society, comparing his personal attractions and his wealth with those of Mopsus, offering to let her bind his vindictive hands-hands which nevertheless had given her many presents-sneering at Mopsus' poverty, and finally threatening that the lover will hang himself in the event of rejection from the tree which first made him jealous. Iolas promises to report it, and is rewarded at the same moment by the sight of his heifer, which he kindly sets down as an omen of his friend's success.

The fourth Eclogue, Caesar, is again political. Meliboeus, the shep

herd-poet's patron, finds Corydon meditating a more than rustic song in praise of Caesar, a design in which his younger brother Amyntas is also anxious to join. The patron reminds Corydon that he had often warned his brother against the thriftless occupation of singing, and is told that it is his own kindness which has placed them both above want, and has given them the means of thinking of such pursuits. As the lines may, perhaps, possess some biographical interest, though the images are obviously borrowed from Virgil's first Eclogue, it may be worth while to quote them, by way of a specimen of the poet's manner:

"Haec ego, confiteor, dixi, Meliboee: sed olim :
Non eadem nobis sunt tempora, non Deus idem :
Spes magis arridet. Certe ne fraga rubosque
Colligerem, viridique famem solarer hibisco,
Tu facis, et tua nos alit indulgentia farre.
Tu, nostras miseratus opes docilemque juventam,
Hiberna prohibes ieiunia solvere fago.

Ecce nihil querulum per te, Meliboee, sonamus,
Per te secura saturi recubamus in umbra,
Et fruimur silvis Amaryllidos, ultima nuper
Litora terrarum, nisi tu, Meliboee, fuisses,
Ultima visuri, trucibusque obnoxia Mauris
Pascua Geryonis, liquidis ubi cursibus ingens
Dicitur occiduas impellere Baetis arenas.
Scilicet extremo nunc vilis in orbe iacerem,
Ah dolor! et pecudes inter conductus Iberas
Irrita septena modularer sibila canna,
Nec quisquam nostras inter dumeta Camenas
Respiceret, non ipse daret mihi forsitan aurem,
Ipse Deus, vacuam, longeque sonantia vota
Scilicet extremo non exaudiret in orbe."

Meliboeus, after deprecating an expression in which Corydon apparently speaks of himself as successor of the great Tityrus (doubtless Virgil), consents to listen to an amoebean song from the brothers in honour of the emperor. They invoke Caesar, speak of his superhuman power in calming the woods, rendering the cattle prolific, and fertilizing the country, of the freedom to dig treasure and celebrate rural festivities, and the general security enjoyed under his reign, and finally hope that this Deity may live and rule for ever on earth. Meliboeus compliments them on the improvement in their singing which the change of subject has produced, and Corydon in return hopes that he will prove a second Maecenas to a second Virgil, introducing him to the imperial city, and bidding him rise from rural to martial strains.

Mycon, the fifth Eclogue, is a kind of Georgic in a bucolic form. The person who gives it its title, an old shepherd, takes the opportunity of a mid-day sitting in the shade to lecture a young pupil on the care of

sheep and goats, the times for grazing and milking, the cautions to be observed in shearing, the remedies for wounded sheep, the best kind of winter fodder, in a speech of 120 lines, rather closely studied after the third Georgic of Virgil.

A pastoral quarrel, Litigium, is the subject of the sixth Eclogue. Lycidas is informed by Astilus that he has just arrived too late for an amoebean contest between Nyctilus and Alcon, in which the latter has been conqueror. Lycidas has a different opinion of the prowess of the combatants, arraigns the judgment, and challenges the judge. A contest is agreed on, Astilus wagering a stag, Lycidas a horse, and Mnasylos, the umpire, bids them sing of their respective loves. But a taunt from Lycidas rouses his rival, and they appear to be coming to blows, when they are stopped by Mnasylos, who declines to have anything to do with this physical encounter, and ends an Eclogue, not unreasonably pronounced by Barth and Wernsdorf the most unsuccessful of Calpurnius' bucolic efforts.

In the seventh and last Eclogue, to which a transcriber has given the not very appropriate title of Templum, the chief speaker is a shepherd, newly returned from town, and full of a show which he has seen in the amphitheatre, where he has been particularly struck with the beauty of the building and the variety of the wild beasts. He is congratulated on being young when this glorious age is beginning, and questioned about the personal appearance of the imperial deity. The answer which he gives is complimentary enough as far as it goes, but conveys little information, and certainly forms rather an abrupt termination to an Eclogue assumed to be the last of the series.

"O utinam nobis non rustica vestis inesset!

Vidissem propius mea numina: sed mihi sordes,
Pullaque paupertas, et adunco fibula morsu

Obfuerunt. Utcumque tamen conspeximus ipsum
Longius, ac, nisi me decepit visus, in uno

Et Martis vultus et Apollinis esse putavi."

Nemesianus, who, if not Calpurnius, was certainly an imitator of Calpurnius, makes his first Eclogue a funeral poem on Meliboeus, an exalted personage resembling the Meliboeus of his prototype. Tityrus is asked by Timetas to sing, but excuses himself on account of his age, and begs that the author of the request, who has become recently distinguished by a victory over Mopsus, will himself perform the task, taking as his subject the death of their common friend. Timetas complies, having recently composed an epicedium which he has inscribed on the bark of a neighbouring cherry-tree. Air, earth, and water are invoked to carry the lament to the ears of Meliboeus, whom the poet then proceeds to panegyrize.

I

"Longa tibi cunctisque diu spectata senectus,
Felicesque anni, nostrique novissimus aevi
Circulus, innocuae clauserunt tempora vitae.
Nec minus hinc nobis gemitus lacrimaeque fuere,
Quam si florentis mors invida pelleret annos.
Nec tenuit talis communis caussa querelas :
Heu, Meliboee, iaces letali frigore segnis
Lege hominum, caelo dignus, canente senecta,
Concilioque Deum. Plenum tibi ponderis aequi
Pectus erat: tu ruricolum discernere lites
Adsueras, varias patiens mulcendo querelas.
Sub te ruris amor, sub te reverentia iusti
Floruit, ambiguos signavit terminus agros.
Blanda tibi vultus gravitas, et mite serena

Fronte supercilium, sed pectus mitius ore."

The usual topics then succeed: the gods of the country bring gifts in honour of the dead: trees and herds, ' nostra armenta,' repeat his name: for the sea and land will change their inhabitants, and the products of the seasons become confused, before Timetas will cease to sing of him. Tityrus compliments the singer, hints that the song may be the means of advancing him from a country life to a life in Rome, a species of promotion which these shepherds appear especially to desire, and finally reminds him that the hour is late. Epiphunus (iri-funus) is the title which the MSS. give to the poem—a curiously illiterate confusion of Greek and Latin.

The second Eclogue is entitled Donace, the name of a girl who has been removed by her parents from the passionate pursuit of two shepherd boys, Alcon and Idas, and whose absence they accordingly lament in amoebean strains. It is modelled to a certain extent on Calpurnius' second and third Eclogues, not without some exaggeration and coarseness of handling, which are due to the author himself. The images in which the lovers express their longing are, as usual, borrowed from Theocritus or Virgil: one recommends himself on account of his wealth, the other on the score of his personal appearance: one talks of all nature as blighted to him, while Donace is away, the other reminds her that gods have led a shepherd's life and evening as usual comes in to stop the singing. The only noticeable passage is about a tame nightingale, which Alcon has sent as a present to Donace, though the thought gains but little from its expression.

"Munera namque dedi, noster quae non dedit Idas,
Vocalem, longos quae ducit, aedona, cantus;

Quae, licet interdum contexto vimine clausa,

Quum parvae patuere fores, ceu libera ferri
Norit, et agrestis inter volitare volucres,
Scit rursus remeare domum, tectumque subire
Viminis, et caveam totis praeponere silvis."

« ForrigeFortsæt »