Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

English. The men are ftraight and well proportioned. They do not accuftom themselves to high living, nor indulge much in the juice of the

grape.

"The women, when young, are remarkably thin, pale, and delicately fhaped; but after marriage they generally incline to be lufty, without lofing theat conftitutional pale, or rather fallow appearance. They have regular and better teeth than are ufually obfervable in warm climates, where fweet productions are plentiful. They have likewife the moft lovely, piercing. dark eyes; in the captivating ufe of which they are by no means unfkilled. Upon the whole, the women of this country are very engaging; and rendered more fo by their free, eafy, and unrestrained manner. Both fexes are extremely fond of fuffering their hair, which is black, to grow to a prodigious length. The ladies wear it plaited, and tied up in a kind of a c ub, or large lump; a mode of hair dreffing that does not feem to correfpond with their delicate and feminine appear

ance. Custom, however, reconciles
us to the most outré fashions, and
what we thought unbecoming, the
Portuguese confidered as highly orna-
mental. I was one day at a gentle-
man's houfe, to whom I expreffed my
wonder at the prodigious quantity of
hair worn by the ladies: adding,
that I did not conceive it poffible for it
to be all of their own growth. The gen-
tleman affured me that it was; and,
in order to convince me that it was
fo, he called his wife, and untied her
hair, which, notwithstanding it was
in plaits, dragged at least two inches
upon the floor as fhe walked along.
I offered my fervice to tie it up again,
which was politely accepted, and con-
fidered as a compliment by both.
has been faid that the Portugese are
a jealous people; a difpofition I never
could ever perceive among any of
thofe with whom I had the pleasure
of forming an acquaintance; on the
contrary, they feemed fenfible of, and
pleafed with, every kind of attention
paid to their wives or daughters."

It

On the Theology of the Sixth Book of Virgil's Eneid. By Dr Beattie *.

TH

HE poetical beauties of Virgil's fixth book are great and many; and a most agreeable task it would be to point them out: but that is not my prefent purpofe. Nor do I intend to draw a comparifon of the fentiments of our poet with thofe of Homer, concerning a future ftate. From Homer, no doubt, Virgil received the first hint of this epifode; but the evocation of the ghosts, in the eleventh book of the Odyffey, is not in any degree fo ftriking, or fo poetical, as Eneas's defcent into the world of fpirits. Nor does the former exhibit any diftinct idea of retribution. In

it all is dark and uncomfortable. " I would rather, fays the ghoft of Achilles, be the flave of a poor peafant among the living, than reign fole mo narch of the dead:" a paffage blamed, not without reafon, by Plato, as unfriendly to virtue, and tending to debafe the foul by an unmanly fear of death.

My defign is, to give as plain an account as I can of the theology (if I may be allowed to call it fo) of this part of Virgil's poem. And I fhall make the poet his own interpreter without trufting to commentators, or, feeking unneceffary illuftrations from

* From the Second Vol. of the Edinburgh Phil. Trans,

Plato,

Plato, to whom Virgil, though he pre-existence and tranfmigration, then

differs from him in many particulars, was indebted for the outlines of the fyftem, and who probably owed them to philofophers of the Pythagorean fchool.

The learned Bishop Warburton has commented on this part of the Eneid, Many of his obfervations are pertinent, but fome are fanciful; and in more places than one he feems to have mifunderstood the author. His general pofition is, That what the poet fays of Elyfium and the infernal regions, we are to understand as nothing more than a figurative account of the myfteries exhibited in the temple of Ceres at Eleufis; and that the poet meant in this way to tell us, that Eneas had, like fome other heroes or lawgivers of old, been initiated into thofe mysteries. This theory he fupports very ingeniously, but not, I believe, to the fatisfaction of many readers. I admit there are allegories in the book, as I fhall have occafion to fhow; but that the whole is an allegory, or rather an allegorical reprefentation of the Eleufinían myfteries, I can no more fuppofe, than that the arrival at Carthage is an allegory, or the vifit to Evander, or the combat with Turnus, or any other of our hero's achievements. I confider this epifode as truly epic, and as a part, though not a neceflary part, of the poet's fable; and that he contrived it, firft, that he might embellish his work with a poetical account of a future flate; and fecondly, and chiefly, that he might thence take an opportunity to introduce a compliment to his country, by celebrating the virtues of fome of the great men it had produced. As thefe great men did not flourish till after the death of Eneas, there were but two ways in which the poet could make himfelf acquainted with them. One was, by caufing fome priest or foothfayer to prophecy concerning them; and the other, by fo availing himself of the doctrines of

taught in fome of the fchools, as to exhibit in their pre-exiftent state, fuch of the hero's pofterity as there might be occafion for. He chofe the latter method; and has fo mariaged it, that we must acknowledge the choice to have been judicious.

As the chief thing I have in view is, to illuftrate the moral and theological fentiments of my author, I need not take up much time, either in vindicating, or in apologizing for, his general fiction; I mean, his laying the fcenery of a future ftate in the fubterranean regions. That on the coat of Italy, in the neighbourhood of Cumæ, there should be a paffage under ground, leading to the rivers Acheron, Cocytus, and Styx, and thence to Tartarus on the left hand, and Elyfium on the right; that in this Elyfium, though thus fituated, there fhould be a fun and ftars, and graffy plains, and delightful groves and rivers, and two gates, the one of ivory, the other of horn, opening into the upper world at no great ditance from the Cumæ above mentioned; and that in the fubterranean fpaces thus bounded, there fhould be different forts of accommo dation for all the fades or fouls of the dead: thefe, I fay, are fables, which as they cannot, according to our way of judging, be reconciled to probability, or even to poffibility, we must endeavour, to acquiefce in the best way we can. So, in reading Ovid's ftory of Phaeton, if we would enter into the post's views, and be faitably affected with his narrative, we must fuppofe, what we know to be abfolutely impoffible, that the fun is driven about the world in a chariot, which, though made of gold and filver, and dragged by real horfes, and fupported by nothing but air, yet palles along in a beaten highway, where the marks of the wheels are clearly dif cernible. Fables of this fort, however inconfiftent with the laws of nature, when rendered by the art of the

--

poet

poet confiftent with themfelves, it is not our intereft to criticize too minutely; efpecially if, like that now under confideration, they abound in fublime defcription and inftructive lef fons of morality. The fable then let us acquiefce in for a moment. Our dreams, while they laft, we believe without inconvenience; and the fcenery of this fable will not be more lafting than that of a dream.

As a fort of apology for the wildpefs of fome parts of this fable, it may be remarked, that formerly, at Cuma, near which the Trojan fleet was now ftationed, there lived a prophe tefs called the Cumean Sybil; that in her neighbourhood, encompaffed with thick woods, there was a lake called Avernus, which emitted peftilential fteams; that in the fame parts of Italy there are many dreadful caverns, one of which is to this day called the Sybil's Grotto; and that for those who knew nothing of the real fize of the earth, or the final deftination of man, it was not altogether abfurd to imagine, as all dead bodies return to the earth, that the fubter ranean regions might be the manfions of the ghosts or fhades of human beings departed.

The neceffary facrifices being performed, and Eneas having found in the woods that golden bough which, being intended as a prefent to Proferpine, was to ferve him as a paffport through her dominions; the Sybil or prieftefs plunged into the cavern, cal ling to him to follow her, with his fword drawn in his hand. They went a great way through a lonely region, where there was no more light than one.travelling in a wood receives in a cloudy night from the moon. At length they arrived at the entrance of the infernal world, where a number of terrible beings refided: Difeafe, Old Age, Fear, Famine, Poverty, and Death, and Labour, and War, and Difcord; and fuch monftrous things as centaurs, gorgons, harpies and VOL. XII. No. 70. Kk

giants, one with three heads, and another with a hundred hands, and the chimera breathing fire, and the manyheaded ferpent of Lerna roaring hideously. By placing thefe at the entrance, the poet perhaps intended to fignify, in the way of allegory, the horrors that accompany the near approach of death; or perhaps thofe many evils, real and imaginary, which we must all pafs through in our way. to the other world.

From this place to the river Styx was a region, in which the gholts of thofe, whofe bodies had not been honoured with the rites of fepulture, were obliged to wander in a melancholy condition for the face of an hundred years, before they could be permitted to pafs the river, or appear before any of the internal judges. Hore Eeas met with his old pilot Patinarus, who, in their laft voyage, having fallen over board in the night, and fwam to the main land of Italy, was there murdered by the natives, who did not give themselves the trou ble to bury him, but threw his body into the fea. He begged Eneas to take him under his protection, and procure him a paffage over the Styx. "It cannot be, faid the Sybil; you muft have patience. In the place where you were murdered, there will foon be prodigies, which will induce the natives to perform your funeral rites, and call a promontory after your name; and then you may pafs the river, but not before." Palinarus acquiefced, well pleafed to hear that fuch honours awaited him.

Toinculcate this doctrine,thatthe foul would fuffer for fome time in another world, if the body were not decently buried in this, and that the neglect of the funeral ceremonies is offenfive to fuperior beings, was a very warrantable fraud in the lawgivers of Greece and Egypt; as it would no doubt make the people attentive to a duty, whereof we find that favage nations are too apt to be forgetful.

Our

Our two adventurers were now approaching the rive, when Charon, the ferryman, alarmed at the fight of a living man in complete armour, called to the Trojan to ftop, and give an account of himself. The Sybil pacified Charon, by declaring the name and quality of her fellow-traveller, and fhowing the golden bough. They were then ferried over; and the threeheaded dog Cerberus, preparing to attack them, was quieted with a cake which the priestefs had got ready for him, and which he had no fooner fwallowed than he fell fast afleep.

What could have given rife to this fable of Charon and his boat, it is not very material to inquire. Mythological writers have faid, That the Greeks learned it from the Egyptians, which is indeed probable enough; that the Egyptians framed both this, and fome other fables relating to the dead, from certain cuftoms peculiar to their country; that in particular there was, not far from Memphis, a famous burying-place, to which the dead bodies were conveyed in a boat across the lake Acherufia; and that Charon was a boatman who had long officiated in that fervice. The learned Dr Blackwell fays, in his life of Homer, that, in the old Egyptian language, Charoni fignified ferryman.

The travellers had now before them a region which the poet calls lugentes campi, extending from the other fide of the Styx to the road that leads to Elyfum on the right hand, and that which terminates in Tartarus on the left. These melancholy plains muft not be confounded with Tartarus. The latter is a place of eternal torment, prepared for thofe who, in this world, had been guilty of great crimes; for there, fays the poet, "Sedet, æternumque fedebit infelix Thefeus." The former, though an uncomfortable region, is not a place of endless punishment, but a fort of purgatory, in which all thofe fouls that are not configned to Tartarus, are doomed to

undergo certain purifying pams, to prepare them for Elyfium. Thefe pains are more or less severe, and of longer or fhoster duration, according to the degree of guilt committed in the upper world. The fouls, on paffing the Styx, appear before the judge Minos, who fummons a council, either of ghofts or of infernal deities, but whether as a jury, or as witnesses, we know not; and having informed himself of the lives and characters of those who are brought before him, allots to each a fuitable manfion in this purgatory.

The fouls thus difpofed of, arefirst, those of good men, who, after undergoing the neceffary pains of purification, pafs into Elyfium, where they remain in a ftate of happinefs for ever; 2dly, of thofe who have been of little or no ufe to mankind; 3dly, of those who have been cut off by an untimely death, fo that the real characters could not be exactly afcertained; 4thly, of thofe who, though guilty of crimes, had not committed any thing very atrocious; and, laftly, of thofe whofe crimes, though atrocious, were confidered as the effects, rather of an unhappy deftiny, than of wilful depravation.

That the fouls of good men, who were to have an eternal abode in Elyfium, were previously obliged to updergo purgation by fuffering, is not exprefsly declared, but may be inferred from what Anchifes fays " Quifque fuos patimur manes:" "every one of us undergoes what is inflicted on him by his manes; that is, by those deities of the nether world who were the difpenfers of expiatory punishment. This is the original, or at least the moft ufual fenfe of the word manes, which, however, fometimes denotes metonymically, the infernal regions in general, and fometimes, but more rarely, the fouls or fhades who inhabited thofe regions. In Tartarus, it does not appear that the manes had any thing to do. The difpenfers of punishment

punishment in that dreadful place were Tiúphone and her fifter furies. The manes must have been a gentler fort of beings. Some derive the word from manus, or manis, which they fay (on what authority I know not) is an old adjective fignifying good. The invocations of the manes practifed at funerals, the altars that were erected to them, and these monumental infcriptions which began with the words Dis Manibus, were all, no doubt, intended as acts of worship, or as compliments, to thefe deities, and fuppofed to incline them to mercy in their treatment of the perfons deceased, whofe fouls were now in their hands in purgatory. Horace tells us, that the Manes, as well as the gods above, might be rendered placable by fong "Carmine di fuperi placantur, carmine manes." But the furies were inexorable and mercilefs-" Nefciaque humanis precibus manfuefcere corda." And I do not find that worship, ar any other honours, were, except by witches, paid them, though to mother Midnight, whofe daughters they were, facrifice was occafionally performed. Ovid fays indeed, that they relented on hearing the fong of Or pheus, but affures us it was for the first time. Virgil, in his account of that affair, fays only, that they were a ftonished.

Here I cannot but remark how abford it is for us to begin an epitaph with the wards Dis Manibus, or the letters D. M. which oftener than once I have feen on a modern tombstone. Such an exordium may be claffical; but, in a Chriftian church-yard, an invocation to Proferpine would not be more incongruous. Addifon did well, when he advised the writers of his time not to facrifice their catechifm to their poetry.

I faid, that the Manes feem to have had nothing to do in Tartarus. I am not ignorant, however, that Rpeus and the common Dictionaries affirm, that the word fometimes de

notes the furies, and quote as an authority, "Ignofcenda quidem, fcirent fi ignofcere manes." But this is not fufficient authority. That verfe of Virgil relates to Orpheus looking behind him, when conducting his wife to the upper world; a fault, or infatuation, which was to be punished, not by the fcourge of the furies, but by calling back Eurydice to the fhades below; and which the Manes, however placable, could not pardon, because it was a direct violation of the treaty with Proferpine.

It is fomewhat difficult to understand diftinctly what the ancients meant by the words anima, umbra, fimulacra, which, in this difcourfe, I call ghofts, fhades or fouls. We know, that man confits of a body and a foul, a material and an incorporeal part the one, like all other bodies, inactive, the other the fource of life, motion, and intelligence. But, on comparing the general doctrine of this fixth book with a paffage in the fourth Georgic, and with the eleventh of the Odyffey, we find, that our poet, following in part the opinions of Pythagoras and Plato, and partly too the reprefentations of Homer, fuppofed man to confift of three substances; first, a vital and active principle, derived either from the Deity himfelf, or from that univerfal fpirit whom he created in the beginning, who animates all nature, and of whom the vital principal of brutes is alfo, according to Virgil, an emanation; 2dly, a fhade or ghoft, umbra, anima, fimulacrum, or who, as Homer calls it; and, 3dly, a body. At death, the vital princi. ple was re-united to that univerfal fpirit whereof it was originally a part; the body was burned or buried, and returned to the earth whence it came ; and the fhade or ghoft went to the nether world, and appeared before Minos or Rhadamanthus, who affigned it fuch a mansion of happinefs, of torment, or of expiatory fuffering, as the perfon's behaviour ou Kk 2

earth

« ForrigeFortsæt »