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VIRGIL (PUBLIUS VERGILIUS MARC)
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See also:VIRGIL (PUBLIUS VERGILIUS MARC) , the See also:great See also:Roman poet, was See also:born on the 15th of See also:October in the See also:year 70 B.C., on a See also:farm on the See also:banks of the Mincio, in the See also:district of See also:Andes, not far from the See also:town of See also:Mantua. In the region See also:north of the Po a See also:race of more imaginative susceptibility than the See also:people of See also:Latium formed See also:part of the Latin-speaking See also:population. It was favourable to his development as a See also:national poet that he was born and educated during the See also:interval of See also:comparative See also:calm between the first and second See also:civil See also:wars, and that he belonged to a See also:generation which, as the result of the social See also:war, first enjoyed the sense of an See also:Italian See also:nationality. Yet it was only after Virgil had grown to manhood that the See also:province to which he belonged obtained the full rights of Roman See also:citizen, See also:ship. It is remarkable that the two poets whose See also:imagination seems to have been most powerfully possessed by the spell of See also:Rome—See also:Ennius and Virgil—were born outside the See also:pale of Roman citizenship. The scenery See also:familiar to his childhood, which he recalls with See also:affection both in the Eclogues and the Georgics, was that of the See also:green banks and slow windings of the Mincio and the See also:rich pastures in its neighbourhood. Like his friend and contemporary See also:Horace, he sprung from the class of yeomen, whose See also:state he pronounces the happiest allotted to See also:man and most conducive to virtue and piety. Virgil, as well as Horace, was fortunate in having a See also:father who, though probably uneducated himself, discerned his See also:genius and spared no pains in giving it the best culture then obtainable in the See also:world. At the See also:age of twelve he was taken for his See also:education to See also:Cremona, and from an expression in one of the See also:minor poems attributed to him, about the authenticity of which there cannot be any reasonable doubt, it may be inferred that his father accompanied him. Afterwards he removed to See also:Milan, where he continued engaged in study till he went to Rome two years later. The See also:time of his removal to Rome must have nearly coincided with the publication of the poem of See also:Lucretius and of the collected poems of See also:Catullus. After studying See also:rhetoric he began the study of See also:philosophy under Siron the Epicurean. One of the minor poems written about this time in the scazon See also:metre tells of his delight at the immediate prospect of entering on the study of philosophy, and of the first stirring of that See also:enthusiasm for philosophical investigation which haunted him through the whole of his See also:life. At the end of the poem, the real See also:master-See also:passion of his life, the See also:charm of the See also:Muses, reasserts itself (Catalepton v.). Our next knowledge of him is derived from allusions in the Eclogues, and belongs to a See also:period nine or ten years later. Of what happened to him in the interval, during which the first civil war took See also:place and See also:Julius See also:Caesar was assassinated, we have no indication from See also:ancient testimony or from his own writings. In 42 B.C., the year of the See also:battle of See also:Philippi, we find him " cultivating his woodland Muse " under the See also:protection of Asinius Pellio, See also:governor of the district north of the Po. In the following year the famous See also:confiscation's of See also:land for the benefit of the soldiers of the triumvirs took place. Of the impression produced on Virgil by these confiscations, and of their effect on his fortunes, we have a vivid See also:record in the first and ninth eclogues. Mantua, in consequence of its vicinity to Cremona, which had been faithful to the cause of the re-public, was involved in this calamity; and Virgil's father was driven from his farm. By the See also:influence of his powerful See also:friends, and by See also:personal application to the See also:young Octavian, Virgil obtained the restitution of his land. In the meantime he had taken his father and See also:family with him to the small See also:country See also:house of his old teacher Siron (Catolepton x.). Soon afterwards we hear of him living in Rome, enjoying, in addition to the patronage of Polio, the favour of See also:Maecenas, intimate with Varius, who was at first regarded as the rising poet of the new era, and later on with Horace. His friendship with See also:Gallus, for whom he indicates a warmer affection and more enthusiastic admiration than for any one else, was formed before his second See also:residence in Rome, in the Cisalpine province, with which Gallus also was connected both by See also:birth and See also:office. The See also:pastoral poems, or " eclogues," commenced in his native district, were finished and published in Rome, probably in 37 B.C. Soon afterwards he withdrew from habitual residence in Rome, and lived chiefly in See also:Campania, either at See also:Naples or in the neighbourhood of See also:Nola. He was one of the companions of Horace in the famous See also:journey to See also:Brundisium; and it seems not unlikely that, some time before 23 B.C., he made the voyage to See also:Athens which forms the subject of the third See also:ode of the first See also:book of the Odes of Horace. , The seven years from 37 to 30 B.C. were devoted to the See also:composition of the Georgics. In the following year he read the poem to See also:Augustus, on his return from See also:Asia. The remaining years of his life were spent on the composition of the Aeneid. In 19 B.C., after the Aeneid was finished but not finally corrected, he set out for Athens, intending to pass three years in See also:Greece and Asia and to devote that time to perfecting the poem. At Athens he met Augustus, and was persuaded by him to return with him to See also:Italy. While visiting See also:Megara under a burning See also:sun, he was seized with illness, and, as he continued his voyage without interruption, he See also:grew rapidly worse, and died on the 21st of See also:September, in his fifty-first year, a few days after landing at Brundisium. In his last illness he called for the cases containing his See also:manuscripts, with the intention of burning the Aeneid. He had previously See also:left directions in his will that his See also:literary executors, Varius and Tucca, should publish nothing of his which had not already been given to the world by himself. This pathetic See also:desire that the See also:work to which he had given so much care, and of which such great expectations were formed, should not survive him has been used as an See also:argument to prove his own dissatisfaction with the poem. A passage from a See also:letter of his to Augustus is also quoted, in which he speaks as if he See also:felt that the undertaking of the work had been a See also:mistake. This dissatisfaction with his work may be ascribed to his passion. for perfection of workmanship, which See also:death prevented him from attaining. The command of Augustus overrode the poet's wish and rescued the poem. Virgil was buried at Naples, where his See also:tomb was See also:long regarded with religious veneration. Horace is our most See also:direct See also:witness of the affection which he inspired among his contemporaries. The qualities by which he gained their love were, according to his testimony, candor—sincerity of nature and goodness of See also:heart —and See also:pietas—the See also:union of deep affection for kindred, friends and country with a spirit of reverence. The statement of his biographer, that be was known in Naples by the name " Parthenias," is a testimony to the exceptional purity of his life in an age of See also:licence. The seclusion of his life and his devotion to his See also:art touched the imagination of his countrymen as the finer qualities of his nature touched the heart of his friends. It had been, from the time of See also:Cicero,' the ambition of the men of finest culture and most See also:original genius in Rome to produce a national literature which might See also:rival that of Greece; and the feeling that at last a poem was about to appear which would equal ' Cf. Tusc. Disp. ii. 2: " Quamobrem hortor omnes qui facere id possunt, ut hujus quoque generis laudem jam languenti Graeciae eripiant," &c. These words apply specially to philosophical literature, but other passages in the same and in other See also:works imply that Cicero thought that the See also:Romans had equal aptitudes for other departments of literature; and the practice of the Augustan poets in each appropriating to himself a See also:special province of See also:Greek literary art seems to indicate the same ambition.or surpass the greatest among all the works of Greek genius found a See also:voice in the lines of See also:Propertius " Cedite Romani scriptoles, cedite Graii; Nescio quid majus nascitur Iliade." The feeling of his countrymen and contemporaries seems justified by the personal impression which he produces on See also:modern readers—an impression of sanctity, as of one who habitually lived in a higher and serener See also:sphere than that of this world. The veneration in which his name was held during the long interval between the overthrow of Western See also:civilization and the revival of letters affords testimony of the See also:depth of the impression which he made on the heart and imagination of the ancient world. The traditional belief in his pre-See also:eminence has been on the whole sustained, though not with See also:absolute unanimity, in modern times. By the scholars and men of letters of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries it was never seriously questioned. During the first See also:half of the 19th See also:century his right to be ranked among the great poets of the world was disputed by some See also:German and See also:English critics. The effect of this was a juster estimate of Virgil's relative position among the poets of the world. It may still be a See also:matter of individual See also:opinion whether Lucretius himself was not a more powerful and original poetical force, whether he does not speak more directly to the heart and imagination of our own time. But it can hardly be questioned, on a survey of Roman literature, as a continuous expression of the national mind, from the age of See also:Naevius to the age of Claudian, that the position of Virgil is central and commanding, while that of Lucretius is in a great measure isolated. If we could imagine the place of Virgil in Roman literature vacant, it would be much the same as if we imagined the place of See also:Dante vacant in modern Italian, and that of See also:Goethe in German literature. The serious efforts of the See also:early Roman literature—the efforts of the older epic and tragic See also:poetry—found their fulfilment in him. The See also:revelation of the See also:power and life of Nature, first made to Lucretius, was able to charm the Roman mind, only after it had passed into the mind of Virgil. Virgil is the only See also:complete representative of the deepest sentiment and highest See also:mood of his countrymen and of his time. In his pastoral and didactic poems he gives a living voice to the whole charm of Italy, in the Aeneid to the whole See also:glory of Rome. He was in the maturity of his See also:powers at the most See also:critical See also:epoch of the national life, one of the most critical epochs in the See also:history of the world. Keeping aloof from the trivial daily life of his See also:con-temporaries, he was moved more profoundly than any of them by the deeper currents of emotion in the sphere of See also:government, See also:religion, morals and human feeling which were then changing the world; and in uttering the enthusiasm of the See also:hour, and all the new sensibilities that were stirring in his own heart and imagination, he had, in the words of Sainte-Beuve, " divined at a decisive hour of the world what the future would love." He was also by universal See also:acknowledgment the greatest literary artist whom Rome produced. Virgil had a more See also:catholic sympathy with the whole range of Greek poetry, from See also:Homer and See also:Hesiod to See also:Theocritus and the Alexandrians, than any one else at any period of Roman literature. The effort of the preceding generation to attain to beauty of See also:form and finish of See also:artistic See also:execution found in him, at the most susceptible period of his life, a ready recipient of its influence. The See also:rude See also:dialect of Latium had been moulded into a powerful and harmonious See also:organ of literary expression by a long See also:series of orators; the Latin See also:hexameter, first shaped by Ennius to meet the wants of his own spirit and of his high argument, had been smoothed and polished by Lucretius, and still more perfected by the finer See also:ear and more careful See also:industry of Catullus and his circle; but neither had yet attained their final development. It was left for Virgil to bring both diction and See also:rhythm to as high a See also:pitch of artistic perfection as has been attained in any literature. This great work was accomplished by the steady devotion of his genius to his appointed task. For the first half of his life he prepared himself to be the poet of his time and country with a high ambition and unresting industry. The second half of his career was a religious See also:consecration of all his powers of heart, mind and spirit to his high office. Virgil's fame as a poet rests on the three acknowledged works of his early and mature manhood—the pastoral poems or Eclogues, the Georgics and the Aeneid—all written in that hexameter See also:verse which See also:Tennyson has called " The stateliest measure ever moulded by the lips of man." The pastoral poems or Eclogues—a word denoting See also:short selected pieces—were composed between the years 42 and 37 B.C., when Eclogues. Virgil was between the age of twenty-eight and See also:thirty- three. By his invocation to the " Sicelides Musae " and " See also:Arethusa," and by many other indications, he avows the purpose of eliciting from the strong Latin See also:language the See also:melody which the " Sicilian shepherd " See also:drew out of the " Doric See also:reed," and of expressing that See also:tender feeling for the beauty of Italian scenes which Theocritus had expressed for the beauty of See also:Sicily.
The earliest poems in the series were the second, third and fifth; and these, along with the seventh, are the most purely Theocritean in See also:character. The first and ninth, which probably were next in See also:order, are much more Italian in sentiment, are much more an expression of the poet's own feelings, and have a much more direct reference both to his own circumstances and the circumstances of the time. The first is a true poetical reflex of the See also:distress and confusion which arose out of the new See also:distribution of lands, and blends the poet's own deep love of his See also:home, and of the See also:sights and sounds familiar to him from childhood, with his Italian susceptibility to the beauty of nature. The ninth is immediately connected in subject with the first. It contains the lines which seem accurately to describe the site of Virgil's farm, at the point where the range of hills which accompany the See also:river for some distance from the See also:foot of the Lago di See also:Garda sinks into the See also:plain about 14 or 15 M. above Mantua. The See also:sixth is addressed to Varus, who succeeded See also:Pollio as governor of the Cisalpine district. Its theme is the creation of the world (according to the Epicurean See also:cosmogony), and the See also:oldest tales of See also:mythology.' The See also:fourth and eighth are both closely associated with the name of Virgil's earliest See also:protector, Pollio. The fourth celebrates the consulship of his See also:patron in 40 B.C., and also the prospective birth of a See also:child, though it was disputed in antiquity, and still is disputed, who was meant by this child whose birth was to be coincident with the See also:advent of the new era, and who, after filling the other great offices of state, was to " See also:rule with his father's virtues the world at See also:peace." 2 The See also:main purpose of the poem, however, is to See also:express the longing of the world for a new era of peace and happiness, of which the treaty of Brundisium seemed to hold out some definite hopes. There is no trace in this poem of Theocritean influence. The ideas are derived partly from Greek representations of the See also:Golden Age, and partly, it is supposed, from the later Sibylline prophecies, circulated after the burning in the time of See also:Sulla of the old Sibylline books, and possibly tinged with Jewish ideas. Some of the phraseology of the poem led to a belief in the early See also:Christian See also: The date of the eighth is fixed by a reference to the See also:campaign of Pollio against the Dalmatians in 39 B.C. It is founded on the 4'aptaaKevrpla of Theocritus, but brings before us, with Italian associations, two love tales of homely Italian life. The tenth reproduces the See also:Daphnis of Theocritus, and is a See also:dirge over the unhappy love of Gallus and Lycoris. As in the other poems, the second and eighth, of which love is the See also:burden, it is to the romantic and fantastic See also:melancholy which the passion assumes in certain natures that Virgil gives a voice. There is no important work in Latin literature, with the exception of the See also:comedy of See also:Terence, so imitative as the Eclogues. But they are not, like the comedies of Terence, purely See also:exotic as well as imitative. They are rather composite, partly Greek and partly Italian, and, as a vehicle for the expression of feeling, hold an undefined place between the objectivity of the Greek idyll and the subjectivity of the Latin See also:elegy. For the most part, they express the sentiment inspired by the beauty of the world, and the kindred sentiment inspired by the charm of human relationships. Virgil's susceptibility to the beauty of nature appears in the truth with which his work suggests the charm of Italy—the fresh life of an Italian See also:spring, the delicate hues of the See also:wild See also:flowers and the quiet beauty of the pastures and orchards of his native district. The representative character of the poems is enhanced by the fidelity and See also:grace with which he has expressed the Italian See also:peasant's love of his home and of all things associated with it. The supreme charm of the diction and rhythm is universally recognized. The power of varied See also:harmony is as conspicuous in Virgil's earliest poems as in the maturer and more elaborate workmanship of the Georgics and Aeneid. The Italian language, without See also:sacrifice of the fulness, strength and See also:majesty of its tones, acquired a more tender grace and more liquid flow from the See also:gift—the " molle atque facetum "—which the Muses of country life bestowed on Virgil. In the Georgics also Virgil attempts to combine See also:science with the poetic fancies which filled its place in older times. 2 See Virgil's Messianic See also:Eclogue: Its Meaning, Occasion and See also:Sources, three studies by J. B. See also:Mayor, W. Warde See also:Fowler and R. S. See also:Conway (1907). But these Muses had a more serious and dignified See also:function to fulfil than that of glorifying the picturesque pastime, the " otia dia," of rural life. The Italian imagination formed an ideal of Georgics. the happiness of a country life nobler than that of passive susceptibility to the sights and sounds of the outward world. It is stated that Maecenas, acting on the principle of employing the poets of the time in favour of the conservative and restorative policy of the new government, directed the genius of Virgil to the subject of the Georgics. No See also:object could be of more consequence in the eyes of a statesman whose master inherited the policy of the popular leaders than the revival of the great national industry, associated with happier memories of Rome, which had fallen into See also:abeyance owing to the long unsettlement of the revolutionary era as well as to other causes. Virgil's previous life and associations made it natural for him to identify himself with this object, while his genius fitted him to enlist the imagination of his countrymen in its favour. It would be a most inadequate view of his purpose to suppose that, like the Alexandrian poets or the didactic poets of modern times, he desired merely to make useful See also:information more attractive by the aid of verse. His aim was rather to describe with realistic fidelity, and to surround with an See also:atmosphere of poetry, the See also:annual See also:round of labour in which the Italian See also:yeoman's life was passed; to bring out the intimate relation with nature into which man was brought in the course of that life, and to suggest the delight to heart and imagination which he drew from it; to contrast the simplicity, See also:security and sanctity of such a life with the luxury and lawless passions of the great world; and to See also:associate the ideal of a life of rustic labour with the beauties of Italy and the glories of Rome. This larger conception of the dignity of his subject separates the didactic poem of Virgil from all other didactic, as distinct from philosophic, poems. He has produced in the Georgics a new type of didactic, as in the Aeneid he has produced a new type of epic, poetry. The subject is treated in four books, varying in length from 514 to 566 lines. The first treats of the tillage of the See also:fields, of the constellations, the rise and setting of which form the See also:farmer's See also:calendar, and of the signs of the See also:weather, on which the success of his labours largely depends. The second treats of trees, and especially of the See also:vine and See also:olive, two great staples of the national See also:wealth and industry of Italy; the third of the rearing of herds and flocks and the breeding of horses; the fourth of bees. As he had found in Theocritus a See also:model for the form in which his idler fancies were expressed, he turned to an older See also:page in Greek literature for the outline of the form in which his graver See also:interest in rural affairs was to find its outlet. The Works and Days of Hesiod could not See also:supply an adequate See also:mould for the systematic treatment of all the processes of rural industry, and still less for the treatment of the larger ideas to which this was subsidiary, yet that Virgil considered him as his prototype is shown by the See also:line which concludes one of the See also:cardinal episodes'of the poem " Ascraeumque See also:cano See also:Romana per oppida carmen." Virgil accepts also the guidance of the Alexandrian poets who treated the science of their See also:day—See also:astronomy, natural history and See also:geography—in the metre and diction of epic poetry. But, in availing himself of the work of the Alexandrians, Virgil is like a great master making use of See also:mechanical assistants. A more powerful influence on the form, ideas, sentiment and diction of the Georgics was exercised by the great philosophical poem of Lucretius, of which Virgil had probably been a diligent student since the time of its first See also:appearance, and with which his mind was saturated when he was engaged in the composition of the Georgics. Virgil is at once attracted and repelled by the genius and attitude of the philosophic poet. He is possessed by his imaginative conception of nature, as a living, all-pervading power; he shares his Italian love of the beauty of the world, and his sympathy with See also:animal as well as human life. He recognizes with enthusiasm his contemplative See also:elevation above the See also:petty interests and passions of Iite. But he is repelled by his apparent separation from the See also:ordinary beliefs, hopes and fears of his See also:fellow-men. Virgil is in thorough sympathy with the best restorative tendencies—religious, social and national —of his time; Lucretius was driven into See also:isolation by the anarchic and dissolving forces of his. So far as any speculative See also:idea underlying the details of the Georgics can be detected, it is one of which the source can be traced to Lucretius—the idea of the struggle of human force with the forces of nature. In Virgil this idea is modified by Italian piety and by the Italian delight in the results of labour. In the See also:general See also:plan of the poem Virgil follows the guidance of Lucretius rather than that of any Greek model. The distinction between a poem addressed to national and one addressed to philosophical sympathies is marked by the prominence assigned in the one poem to Caesar as the supreme See also:personality of the age, in the other to See also:Epicurus as the supreme master in the realms of mind. The invocation to the " Di agrestes," to the old gods of mythology and art, to the living Caesar as the latest power added to the See also:pagan See also:Pantheon, is both a parallel and a contrast to the invocation to the all-pervading principle of life, personified as " See also:Alma See also:Venus." In the systematic treatment of his materials, and the interspersion of episodes dealing with the deeper poetical and human interest of the subject, Virgil adheres to the practice of the older poet. He uses his connecting I I 4 links and formulas, such as " principio," " nunc age," &c., but uses them more sparingly, so as to make the logical mechanism of the poem Iess rigid, while he still keeps up the liveliness of a personal address. All his topics admit of being vitalized by attributing to natural processes the vivacity of human relationships and sensibility, and by association with the joy which the ideal farmer feels in the results of his See also:energy. Much of the argument of Lucretius, on the other See also:hand, is as remote from the genial presence of nature as from human associations. Virgil makes a much larger use than Lucretius of See also:ornament borrowed from older poetry, art, science and mythology. There is uniformity of chastened excellence in the diction and versification of the Georgics, contrasting with the imaginative force of isolated expressions and the majesty of isolated lines and passages in Lucretius. The " vivida vis' of imagination is more apparent in the older poet; the artistic perfection of Virgil is even more conspicuous in the Georgics than in the Eclogues or the Aeneid. The See also:principal episodes of the poem, in which the true dignity and human interest of the subject are brought out, occur in the first and second books. Other shorter episodes add variety to the different books. These episodes are not detached or isolated ornaments, but give a higher unity to the poem, and are the main ground of its permanent hold upon the world. There is indeed one marked exception to this rule. The long See also:episode with which the whole poem ends—the See also:tale of the shepherd See also:Aristaeus, with which is connected the more poetical See also:fable of See also:Orpheus and See also:Eurydice—has only the slightest connexion with the general ideas and sentiment of the poem. It is altogether at variance with the truthful See also:realism and the Italian feeling which pervade it. But we are distinctly told that the original conclusion had contained the praises of Gallus, the friend of Virgil's youth, who, about the time when Virgil was See also:finishing the poem, had gained distinction in the war against See also:Cleopatra, and had in consequence been made the first governor of the new province of See also:Egypt. Such a conclusion might well have been in keeping with the main purpose of the poem. After the fall of Gallus, owing to his ambitious failure in his See also:Egyptian See also:administration, and his death in 26 s.c., the poet, according to the See also:story, in obedience to the command of the See also:emperor, substituted for this encomium the beautiful but irrelevant fable of Orpheus and Eurydice, in which he first displayed the narrative skill, the pathos and the magical power of making the See also:mystery of the unseen world See also:present to the imagination which characterize the Aeneid.
The cardinal episodes of the poem, as it now stands, are the passages in bk. i. from line 464 to the end, and in bk. ii. from 136 to 176 and from 475 to 542. The first, introduced in connexion with the signs of the weather, recounts the omens which accompanied the death of Julius Caesar, and shows how the misery of Italy and the neglected state of the fields are the See also:punishment for the great See also:sin of the previous generation. In the second of these passages the true keynote of the poem is struck in the invocation to Italy
" Salve, magna parens frugum, See also:Saturnia tellus,
Magna virum."
The thought of the beauties of the land, of the abundance and variety of its products, of its ancient cities and mighty works of man, its brave and See also:hardy races, the great men who had fought for her in old times, and of him, the greatest among her sons, who was then defending Rome against her enemies in the farthest See also:East, inspires the poet, and gives dignity to the trivial details of farm life. But a still higher and more catholic interest is given to the subject in the greatest of the episodes—the most perfect passage in all Latin poetry—that from line 458, " O fortunatos nimium," to the end. The subject is there glorified by its connexion not only with the national well-being but with the highest life and purest happiness of man. The old delight in the labours of the See also: The work which yet remained for Virgil to accomplish was the addition of a great Roman epic to literature. This had been the Aenold earliest effort of the national imagination, when it first departed from the See also:mere imitative See also:reproduction of Greek originals. The work which had given the truest expression to the genius of Rome before the time of Virgil had been the Annalesof Ennius. This had been supplemented by various See also:historical poems but had never been superseded. It satisfied the national imagination as an expression of the national life in its vigorous See also:prime, but it could not satisfy the newly See also:developed sense of art ; and the expansion of the national life since the days of Ennius, and the changed conditions into which it passed after the battle of See also:Actium, demanded a newer and ampler expression. It had been Virgil's earliest ambition to write an heroic poem on the traditions of See also:Alba Longa; and he had been repeatedly urged by Augustus to celebrate his exploits. The problem before him was to compose a work of art on a large See also:scale, which should represent a great See also:action of the heroic age, and should at the same time embody the most vital ideas and sentiment of the hour—which in substance should glorify Rome and the present ruler of Rome, while in form it should follow closely the great See also:models of epic poetry and reproduce all their sources of interest. It was his ambition to be the Homer, as he had been the Theocritus and Hesiod, of his country. Various See also:objects had thus to be combined in a work of art on the model of the Greek epic: the revival of interest in the heroic fore-time; the See also:satisfaction of national sentiment; the expression of the deeper currents of emotion of the age; the personal celebration of Augustus. A new type of epic poetry had to be created. It was desirable to select a single heroic action which should belong to the See also:cycle of legendary events celebrated in the Homeric poems, and which could be associated with Rome. The only subject which in any way satisfied these conditions was that of the wanderings of See also:Aeneas and of his final See also:settlement in Latium. The story, though not of Roman origin but of a composite growth, had long been familiar to the Romans, and had been recognized by See also:official acts of See also:senate and people. The subject enabled Virgil to tell again of the fall of See also:Troy, and to weave a tale of sea-See also:adventure similar to that of the wanderings of See also:Odysseus. It was also recommended by the claim which the Julii, a patrician family of See also:Alban origin, made to descent from See also:Iulus, the supposed son of Aeneas and founder of Alba Longa. The Aeneid is thus at once the epic of the national life under its new conditions and an epic of human character. The true keynote of the poem is struck in the line with which the proem closes " Tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem." The idea which underlies the whole action of the poem is that of the great part played by Rome in the history of the world, that part being from of old determined by divine See also:decree, and carried out through the virtue of her sons. The idea of universal See also:empire is thus the dominant idea of the poem. With this idea that of the unbroken continuity of the national life is intimately associated. The reverence for old customs and for the traditions of the past was a large See also:element in the national sentiment, and has a prominent place in the Aeneid. So too has the feeling of See also:local See also:attachment and of the power of local association over the imagination. The poem is also characteristically Roman in the religious belief and observances which it embodies. Behind all the conventional machinery of the old Olympic gods there is the Roman See also:apprehension of a great inscrutable power, manifesting itself by arbitrary signs, exacting jealously certain observances, working out its own See also:secret purposes through the agency of Roman arms and Roman counsels. The poem is thus a religious as well as a national epic, and this explains the large part played in the development of the action by special revelation, omens, prophecies, ceremonial usages and See also:prayer. But, while the predominant religious idea of the poem is that of a divine purpose carried out regardlessly of human feeiing, in other parts of the poem, and especially in that passage of the sixth book in which Virgil tries to formulate his deepest convictions on individual destiny, the agency of See also:fate seems to yield to that of a spiritual See also:dispensation, awarding to men their portions according to their actions. The idealization of Augustus is no expression of servile adulation. It is through the prominence assigned to him that the poem is truly representative of the critical epoch in human affairs at which it was written. The cardinal fact of that epoch was the substitution of personal rule for the rule of the old See also:commonwealth over the Roman world. Virgil shows the imaginative significance of that fact by revealing the emperor as chosen from of old in the counsels of the supreme ruler of the world to fulfil the national destiny, as the descendant of gods and of heroes of old poetic renown; as one, moreover, who, in the actual work done by him, as See also:victor in a great decisive battle between the forces of the Western and the Eastern world, as the organizer of empire and restorer of peace, order and religion, had rendered better service to mankind than any one of the heroes who in an older time had been raised for their great deeds to the See also:company of the gods. Virgil's true and yet idealizing See also:interpretation of the imperial idea of Rome is the basis of the greatness of the Aeneid as a representative poem. It is on this representative character and on the excellence of its artistic execution that the claim of the Aeneid to See also:rank as one of the great poems of the world mainly rests. The inferiority of the poem to the Iliad and the Odyssey as a direct See also:representation of human life is so unquestionable that we are in danger of underrating the real though secondary interest which the poem possesses as an imitative epic of human action, See also:manners and character. In the first place it should be remarked that the action is chosen not only as suited to embody the idea of Rome, but as having a See also:peculiar nobleness and dignity of its own. It brings before us the spectacle of the destruction of the See also:city of greatest name in poetry or See also:legend, of the See also:foundation of the imperial city of the western seas, in which Rome had encountered her most powerful antagonist in her long struggle for supremacy, and that of the first rude settlement on the hills of Rome itself. The scenes through which the action is carried are familiar, yet full of great memories and associations—Troy and its neighbourhood, the seas and islands of Greece, the coasts of See also:Epirus, familiar to all travellers between Italy and the East, Sicily, the site of See also:Carthage, Campania, Latium, the See also:Tiber, and all the country within sight of Rome. The personages of the action are prominent in poetry and legend, or by their ethnical names stir the sentiment of national enthusiasm--Aeneas and See also:Anchises, See also:Dido, Acestes, See also:Evander, Turnus. The See also:spheres of activity in which they are engaged are war and sea-adventure. The passion of love is a powerful addition to the older sources of interest. The Aeneid revives, by a conventional See also:compromise between the present and the remote past, some See also:image of the old See also:romance of Greece; it creates the romance of " that Italy for which Camilla the virgin, Euryalus, and Turnus and See also:Nisus died of wounds." It might be said of the manner of life represented in the Aeneid, that it is no more true to any actual See also:condition of human society than that represented in the Eclogues. But may not the same be said of all idealizing restoration of a remote past in an age of advanced civilization? The life represented in the See also:Oedipus Tyrannus or in See also: But the adverse criticisms of the Aeneid are chiefly based on Virgil's supposed failure in the See also:crucial test of the creation of character. And his chief failure is pronounced to be the " pious Aeneas." Is Aeneas a worthy and interesting See also:hero of a great poem of action? Not, certainly, according to the ideals realized in See also:Achilles and Odysseus, nor according to the modern ideal of heroism. Virgil wishes to hold up in Aeneas an ideal of pious obedience and persistent purpose a religious ideal belonging to the ages of faith combined with the humane and self-sacrificing qualities belonging to an era of moral enlightenment. His own sympathy is with his religious ideal rather than with that of chivalrous romance. Yet that there was in his own imagination a chord responsive to the chivalrous emotion of a later time is seen in the love and pathos which he has thrown into his delineations of See also:Pallas, Lausus and Camilla. But he felt that the deepest need of his time was not military glory, but peace, reconciliation, the restoration of See also:law, order and piety. In Dido Roman poetry has added to the great See also:gallery of men and See also:women, created by the imaginative art of different times and peoples, the ideal of a true See also:queen and a true woman. On the episode of which she is the heroine the most passionate human interest is concentrated. It has been objected that Virgil does not really sympathize with his own creation, that he gives his approval to the See also:cold See also:desertion of her by Aeneas. But if he does not condemn his hero, he See also:sees in the desertion and death of Dido a great tragic issue in which a See also:noble and generous nature is sacrificed to the larger purpose of the gods. But that Virgil really sympathized with the creation of his imagination appears, not only in the sympathy which she still inspires, but in the part which he assigns to her in that shadowy See also:realm " Conjunx ubi pristinus illi Respondet See also:curia, aequatque Sychaeus amorem." Even those who have been insensible to the representative and to the human interest of the Aeneid have generally recognized the artistic excellence of the poem. This is conspicuous both in the conception of the action and the arrangement of its successive stages and in the workmanship of details. Each of the first eightbooks has a large and distinct sphere of interest, and they each contribute to the impression of the work as a whole. In the first book we have the See also:storm, the prophecy of Jove and the See also:building of Carthage; in the second the destruction of Troy; in the third the voyage among the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean; in the fourth the tragedy of Dido; in the fifth the See also:rest in the Sicilian See also:bay, at the foot of See also:Mount Eryx; in the sixth the revelation of the spiritual world of Virgil's imagination, and of the souls of those who built up the greatness of Rome in their pre-existent state; in the seventh the arrival of the Trojans at the mouth of the Tiber and the gathering of the Italian clans; in the eighth the first sight of the hills of Rome, and the prophetic representation of the great crises in Roman history, leading up to the greatest of them all, the crowning victory of Actium. Among these books we may infer that Virgil assigned the See also:palm to the second, the fourth and the sixth, as he selected them to read to Augustus and the imperial family. The interest is generally thought to See also:flag in the last four books; nor is it possible to feel that culminating sympathy with the final combat between Turnus and Aeneas that we feel with the combat between See also:Hector and Achilles. Yet a personal interest is awakened in the ad-ventures and fate of Pallas, Lausus and Camilla. Virgil may himself have become weary of the See also:succession of battle-scenes—" eadem horrida bella "—which the requirements of epic poetry called upon him to portray. There is not only a less varied interest, there is greater inequality of workmanship in the later books, owing to the fact that they had not received their author's final revisal. Yet in them there are many lines and passages of great power, pathos and beauty. Virgil brought the two great See also:instruments of varied and continuous harmony and of a rich, chastened and noble See also:style to the highest perfection of which the Latin See also:tongue was capable. The rhythm and style of the Aeneid is more unequal than the rhythm and style of the Georgics, but is a larger and more varied instrument. The See also:note of his supremacy among all the poetic artists of his country is that subtle See also:fusion of the .See also:music and the meaning of language which touches the deepest and most secret springs of emotion. He touches especially the emotions of reverence and of yearning for a higher spiritual life, and the sense of nobleness in human affairs, in great institutions, and great natures; the sense of the sanctity of human affections, of the imaginative spell exercised by the past, of the mystery of the unseen world. This is the secret of the power which his words have had over some of the deepest and greatest natures in all ages. (W. Y. S.; T. R. G.) BIBLIOGRAPHY Appendix Vergiliana.—Under this collective name there are current several poems of some little length and some See also:groups of shorter pieces, all attributed to Virgil in antiquity. Virgil wrote a Culex, but not the Culex now extant, though it passed for his half a century after his death. The Aetna, the Ciris and the Copa are clearly not Virgil's. The Moretum is said to have been translated by him from a Greek poem by his teacher See also:Parthenius; it is an exquisite piece of work, familiar perhaps to English readers in See also:Cowper's See also:translation. The See also:case of the Catalepton (Kara XHrrlw) is peculiar. Two of these little poems (Ite hint indnes and Villula quae Sironis) are generally accepted as Virgil's; opinion varies as to the rest, with very little to go upon, but generally rejecting them. The whole are printed in the larger See also:editions of Virgil. For English readers the most obvious edition is that of See also:Robinson See also:Ellis (1907), who has also edited the Aetna separately.
Manuscripts.—See also:Gellius (Nodes Atticae, ix. 14, 7) tells us of people who had inspected idiographum librum Vergilii, but this has of course in all See also:probability long since perished. There are, however, seven very ancient See also:MSS. of Virgil. (I) The Mediceus at See also:Florence, with a note purporting to be by a man, who was See also:consul in 494, to say he had read it. (2) The Palatinus Vaticanus of the 4th or 5th century. (3) The Vaticanus of the same period. (4) The " Schedae Vaticanae." (5) The " Schedae Berolinenses," perhaps of the 4th century. (6) The
Schedae Sangallenses." (7) The " Schedae rescriptae Veronenses " —the last three of insignificant extent. For a full See also:account of the MSS., see See also: Suetonius, V. Verg. 44, mentions an Aeneidomastix of Carvilius Pictor and other works on Virgil's " thefts " and " faults," besides eight " volumina " of Q. Octavius Avitus, setting out in parallel passages the " likenesses ' (E iotErrires was the name of the work) between Virgil and more ancient authors. M. See also:Valerius See also:Probus (latter part of 1st century A.D.) wrote a commentary, but it is doubtful for how much of what passes under his name he is responsible, if for any of it. At the end of the 4th century come the commentaries of Tiberius See also:Claudius See also:Donatus and of Servius, the former See also:writing as a teacher of rhetoric, the latter of style and See also:grammar. The work of Servius was afterwards See also:expanded by another See also:scholar, whose additions greatly added to its See also:worth, as they are See also:drawn from older commentators and give us very valuable information on the old Roman religion and constitution, Greek and Latin legends, old Latin and linguistic usages. In this enlarged form the commentary of Servius and the Saturnalia of See also:Macrobius (also of the end of the 4th century) are both of great interest to the student of Virgil. There are, further, sets of Scholia in MSS. at See also:Verona and See also:Bern, which draw their material from ancient commentaries. See H. See also:Nettleship, Essays in Latin Literature, xi., and See also:Comparetti, Vergil in the See also:Middle Ages, ch. 5.
Editions.—The editions of Virgil are innumerable; See also:Heyne (1767–180o), Forbiger (1872–75) and Ribbeck (1859–66) in See also:Germany, Benoist (1876) in See also:France, and See also:Conington (completed by Nettleship, and edited by Haverfield) in See also:England, are perhaps the most important. See also:Good school editions in English have been produced by Page, See also:Sidgwick and Papillon. Conington's work, however, is with-out question the best in English.
See also:Translations.—Famous English translations have been made by See also:Dryden and by a See also:host of others since his day. Since the middle of the 19th century the most important are Conington (Aeneid in verse, whole works in See also:prose) ; J. W. Mackail (Aeneid and Georgics in prose) ; See also: Y. See also:Tyrrell, Latin Poetry (appendix). Virgil-literature: Sainte-Beuve, Etude sur Virgile (one of the great books on Virgil); Comparetti, Virgilio nel medio Evo (1872)—Eng. tr., Vergil in the Middle Ages, by E. F. M. Benecke (1895) (a book of very great and varied interest) ; Heinze, Virgil's epische Technik (1902); \V. Y. See also:Sellar, Roman Poets of the Augustan Age: Virgil (2nd ed. 1883); See also:Glover, Studies in Virgil (1904). Essays in the following: F. W. H. See also:Myers, Essays [Classical] (1883), the most famous English See also:essay on Virgil; J. R. Green, Stray Studies (1876) (an excellent study of Aeneas) ; W. Warde Fowler, A Year with the Birds (on Virgil's See also:bird-See also:lore) ; Nettleship, Essays in Latin Literature (1884); Tyrrell, Latin Poetry (1898); Patin, Essais sur la poesie Latine (4th ed. 1900) (one of the finest critics of Latin literature) ; Goumy, See also:Les Latins (1892) (a See also:volume of very See also:bright essays) ; J. W. Mackail, Latin Literature (3rd ed. 1899). (T. R. G.) The Virgil Legend. Virgil's great popularity in the middle ages is to be partly explained by the fact that he was to a certain extent recognized by the Church. He was supposed to have prophesied the coming of See also:Christ in the fourth Eclogue, and by some divines the Aeneid was held to be an See also:allegory of sacred things. This position was sufficiently emphasized by Dante when he See also:chose him from among all the sages of antiquity to be his See also:guide in the Divina Commedia. Ancient poets and philosophers were commonly transformed by See also:medieval writers into necromancers; and Virgil and See also:Aristotle became popularly famous, not for poetry and science, but for their supposed knowledge of the See also:black art. Naples appears to have been the home of the popular legend of Virgil, which represented him as the special protector of the city, but was probably never quite See also:independent of learned tradition.
One of the earliest references to the magical skill of Virgil' occurs in a letter of the imperial See also:chancellor See also:Conrad of See also:Querfurt (1194),
' The Irish apostle to See also:Carinthia, St Virgilius, See also:bishop of See also:Salzburg (d. 784), who held original views on the subject of See also:antipodes, may have been the real eponym of the legend.reproduced by See also:Arnold of See also:Lubeck in the continuation of the Chronica Slavorum of See also:Helmold. See also: He also plays a considerable part in the popular folk-tale The Seven Wise Masters, and appears in the Gesta Romanorum and that curious guidebook for pilgrims, the Mirabilia Romae. He is to be found in John See also:Gower's Confessio Amantis and in John See also:Lydgate's Bochas. A See also:Spanish romance, Vergilios, is included by E. de Ochoa in his Tesoro (See also:Paris, 1838), and Juan See also:Ruiz, See also:archpriest of See also:Hita (d. c. 136o), also wrote a poem on the subject. Many of the tales of magic throughout See also:Europe were referred to Virgil, and gradually developed into a completely new life, strangely different from that of the real hero. They were collected in French under the See also:title of Les Faitz Merveilleux de Virgille (c. 1499), a See also:quarto See also:chapbook of ten pages, which became extremely popular, and was printed, with more or less additional matter, in other See also:languages. The English version, beginning "This is resonable to wryght the mervelus dedes done by Virgilius," was printed about 1520. We are told how Virgil beguiled the See also:devil at a very early age, in the same See also:fashion as the fisherman persuaded the jinnee in the Arabian Nights to re-enter See also:Solomon's See also:casket. Another reproduction of a widely spread tale was that of the See also:lady who kept Virgil suspended in a See also:basket. To revenge the affront the magician extinguished all the fires in the city, and no one could rekindle them without subjecting the lady to an See also:ordeal highly offensive to her modesty. Virgil made for the emperor a See also:castle in which he could see and hear every-thing done or said in Rome, an ever-blooming See also:orchard, statues of the tributary princes which gave warning of See also:treason or See also:rebellion, and a See also:lamp to supply See also:light to the city. He abducted the soldan's daughter, and built for her the city of Naples upon a secure foundation of eggs. At last, having performed many extraordinary things, he knew that his time was come. In order to See also:escape the See also:common See also:lot he placed all his treasures in a castle defended by images unceasingly wielding See also:iron flails, and directed his confidential servant to hew him in pieces, which he was to See also:salt and place in a See also:barrel in the cellar, under which a lamp was to be kept burning. The servant was assured that after seven days his master would revive, a young man. The directions were carried out; but the emperor, missing his See also:medicine-man, forced the servant to divulge the secret and to quiet the whirling flails. The emperor and his See also:retinue entered the castle and at last found the mangled See also:corpse. In his wrath he slew the servant, whereupon a little naked child ran thrice round the barrel, crying, " Cursed be the hour that ye ever came here," and vanished. For the legends connected with Virgil see especially D. Comparetti, Virgilio nel medio evo (2nd ed., Florence, 1896; English trans., E. F. M. Benecke, 1895). The chief original source for the Neapolitan legends is the 14th-century Cronica di Partenope. See further W. J. Thorns, Early Eng. Prose Romances (1858) ; G. See also:Brunet, Les Faitz merveilleux de Virgile (See also:Geneva, 1867) ; E. Dumeril, " Virgile enchanteur " (Melanges archeologiques, 1850) ; Gervase of Tilbury, Otia Imper. (ed. Liebrecht, 1856) ; P. Schwubbe, Virgilius per mediam aetatem (See also:Paderborn, 1852) ; Siebenhaar, De fabulis quae See also:media aetate de Virgilio circumf. (See also:Berlin, 1837); J. G. T. Graesse, Beitrdge zur Litt. u. See also:Sage See also:des Mittelalters (185o); Bartsch, " Gedicht auf. d. Zaub. Virgil " (See also:Pfeiffer's Germania, iv. 1859) ; F. Liebrecht, " Der Zauberer Virgilius " (ibid. x. 1865) ; K. L. See also:Roth, " Uber d. Zaub. Virgilius " (ibid. iv. 1859) ; W. Victor, " Der Ursprung der Virgilsage " (Zeit. f. tons. Phil. i. 1877) ; A. See also:Graf, See also:Roma nella memoria e nelle imaginazioni del medio evo (See also:Turin, 1882) ; F. W. Genthe, Leben and Fortleben des Publius Virgilius Mato als Dichter and Zauberer (2nd ed., See also:Magdeburg, 1857). (M. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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