Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

manner, though not quite with the felicity, of the Third Georgic, partly with hunting implements; after which we are dismissed to the chace rather abruptly:

"His ita dispositis hiemis sub tempus aquosae

Incipe velocis catulos inmittere pratis,

Incipe cornipedes latos agitare per agros :

Venemur, dum mane novum, dum mollia prata

Nocturnis calcata feris vestigia servant."

Two fragments of a poem on Fowling (Ixeutica or De Aucupio) were printed in a Dialogue on Birds (1544) by Gibertus Longolius, who asserted that they had been transcribed for him from a copy of a work by Nemesianus existing in a library at Bologna. Wernsdorf, in opposition to Ulitius, thinks them not unworthy of their reputed author: but in any case they need not detain us further.

The elder Pliny, in two passages of his Natural History, speaks of a poem by Ovid, entitled Halieutica. A fragment on that subject with Ovid's name attached to it is found in a MS. containing part of Gratius' Cynegetica, and has been frequently printed in editions of Gratius and Nemesianus, or as part of Ovid's works. It would perhaps be too much to assign it to such illustrious parentage, though Haupt thinks otherwise but it would not disgrace either of the two poets whom we have just been considering. Take a specimen.

"At contra scopulis crinali corpore segnis
Polypus haeret, et hac eludit retia fraude,
Et sub lege loci sumit mutatque colorem,

Semper ei similis quem contigit: atque ubi praedam
Pendentem setis avidus rapit, hic quoque fallit
Elato calamo, cum demum emersus in auras
Brachia dissolvit, populatumque exspuit hamum.
At mugil cauda pendentem everberat escam
Excussamque legit. Lupus acri concitus ira
Discursu fertur vario, fluctusque ferentis

Prosequitur, quassatque caput, dum volnere saevus
Laxato cadat hamus, et ora patentia linquat."

Another fragment with the same argument was published by Hieronymus Columna in his Commentary on the Fragments of Ennius, having been transcribed from an old MS. by Sertorius Quadrimanus. More ambitious than the former, to which however it is indebted for several lines, it professes in its exordium to be the work of Ovid, who speaks of himself as led to his subject by the scenes of his exile: but though the lines in which the profession is made are not without ability, those who should credit it would be compelled to suppose that Ovid's removal from

4 Book 32, chaps. 2 and 11.

Rome had made him forget the quantity of the first syllable of' dirigo,' as he ventures to address Glaucus

"Quare si veteris durant vestigia moris,

Si precibus hominum flectuntur numine ponti,

Huc adsis, dirigasque pedes, humerosque natantis."

The date of Serenus Sammonicus is at any rate earlier than that of Nemesianus, though it is questioned whether he is to be identified with a person of that name, "cuius libri,” says Spartianus," plurimi ad doctrinam exstant," who was put to death by Caracalla, or with his son, the preceptor of the younger Gordian, and the valued friend of Alexander Severus. His work, however, De Medicina Praecepta, in 1115 hexameters, is not properly a didactic poem at all, but merely a medical treatise in metre. Those who are fond of classical parallels may compare it with Catius' lecture to Horace: but to others it will seem a product of the second childhood of literature, when subjects, which, since prose composition existed, have always been treated in prose, are set to tune again by the perverse ingenuity of grammarians. The only part which appears to have any poetical pretension is the opening.

"Membrorum series certo deducta tenore

Ut stet, nam similis medicinae defluit ordo,
Principio celsa de corporis arce loquamur.
Phoebe, salutiferum, quod pangimus, assere carmen,
Inventumque tuum prompto comitare favore.
Tuque potens artis, reducem qui tradere vitam

Nosti, seu caelo manis revocare sepultos,

Qui colis Aegeas, qui Pergama, quique Epidaurum,

Qui quondam placidi tectus sub pelle draconis

Tarpeias arcis atque incuta templa petisti
Depellens tetros praesenti numine morbos,
Huc ades, et quidquid cupide mihi saepe roganti
Firmasti, cunctum teneris expone papyris."

Now let us listen to a remedy for a stiff neck.

"At si cervices durataque colla rigebunt,
Mira loquar, geminus mulcebitur unguine poples;
Hinc longum per iter nervos medicina sequetur:
Anseris aut pingui torpentia colla fovebis.
Illinitur valido multum lens cocta in aceto,

Aut caprae fimus et bulbi, aut cervina medulla :
Hoc etiam inmotos flectes medicamine nervos.
Quos autem vocitant tolles, attingere dextra
Debebis, qua gryllus erit pressante peremptus."

Still more barren and unpoetical is Prisciani Carmen de Ponderibus et Mensuris, a set of 208 hexameters, the authorship of which is involved in some doubt. The first nine lines will show that, in spite of

a preliminary flourish, it is little better than a 'memoria technica,' a device for fixing facts about weights and measures in the memory.

"Pondera Paeoniis veterum memorata libellis

Nosse iuvat. Pondus rebus natura locavit
Corporeis: elementa suum regit omnia pondus.
Pondere terra manet: vacuus quoque ponderis aether
Indefessa rapit volventis sidera mundi.

Ordiar a minimis, post haec maiora sequentur :
Nam maius nihil est aliud quam multa minuta.
Semioboli duplum est obolus, quem pondere duplo
Gramma vocant, scriplum nostri dixere priores."

Here at length we may stop. The didactic poetry with which we have been dealing, though far enough removed from the spirit of the Georgics, has at any rate preserved their form. Terentianus Maurus may have been as much of a didactic poet as Sammonicus or the supposed Priscian; but as he chose to exemplify in his work the various metres for which he laid down rules, he can hardly come under consideration in an essay which is intended to illustrate by comparison the didactic poetry of Virgil. Other works which the historians of Latin literature have classed among didactic poems seem to be excluded by different The Phaenomena of Avienus, like the fragments of Cicero and Germanicus, hardly calls for notice independently of Aratus' work. The poem on Aetna has didactic affinities, but its subject is not sufficiently general. The Periegeses of Avienus and Priscian fall rather under the category of descriptive poetry. Columella's Tenth Book has been mentioned in another place 3.

reasons.

5 Note on G. 4. 148.

[blocks in formation]

Abiungere, 'to unyoke,' 296
Ablaqueatio, 237

Ablative, material, 39, 171, 235, 274: local,
187, 274, 289, 362: of circumstance,
187, 215: modal, 39, 215, 360: two abla-
tives in one construction, 289: ablative
coupled with participle, 326

apprime, 208

Ad prima
Addere in, 194

Adeo gives a rhetorical prominence to the
word after which it is used, 48, 97, 228,
273, 323

with dum, 311
Adfectare viam, &c. 364
Adjectives or participles attached contin-
tingently to substantives, 169, 216, 232
descriptive, converted by Hesiod
into substantives, 123

-

Admordere, 234

Adolescere and similar words, 86, 300, 345
Adstare, of standing up, 299
Advena, used contemptuously, 91
Adverbial substantive coupled with ad-
verbial adjective, 239
Aequare, with ablative, 316

Ablative and dative, sometimes almost un- Aerius and népios, 183

distinguishable, 51, 76, 265

Abolere, shades of meaning of, 300

Abscindere and abscidere, 198

Abydos, famous for oysters, 165

Acalanthis, acanthis, 281

Acanthus, 206, 317

Accingi, with infinitive, 256

Accipere, correlative of dare, 22: of inire
or ingredi, 83, 343

Accusative after passive or intransitive verb
or participle, 340

cognate, 68, 199, 256: factitive,

68
Acer equis, 252
Acervi, of corn, 172

Achelous, supposed the oldest of rivers,
145 connexion of with the discovery of
wine, ib.

Acheron, called palus, 354
Achilli and Achillis, 260
Aconite in Italy, 210

Acorns given to cattle in winter, 101: how
made characteristic of the golden age,
159

Action, put for the celebration of the ac-
tion, 45, 67

Actium, battle of, alluded to, 211
Ad,' with a view to,' 231

- plenum, 219

Aesculus, as the supporter of a vine, 225
Aestas, of the warm half of the year, 278,
309 of the summer sky, 309

Aestiva, of summer pastures, 292
Aestus, of summer, 176

Aetas for annus, doubtful, 268

Aether and Tellus, whether identical with
Jupiter and Juno, 228
Aevum, not old age, 103
Africa, shepherd life in, 281

Agere, of upward or downward growth, 232:
of chasing, 287

Agitare for agere or degere, 249: other
senses of, 277

Agitator aselli distinguished from asinarius,
173

Agmen and acies, 223, 282
Agriculture and division of property con-
nected, 157

Aius Locutius, 191
Albus and candidus, 259
Alcimedon, an unknown artist, 39
Alcinous, orchards of, 203
Alcon, who, uncertain, 55
Alders, river trees, 68
Alexis, whether a real person, 29
Alii, answering to pars, 27
Alio ordine, unequally,' 173
Alius, alius for alius quam, 186

« ForrigeFortsæt »