Sivut kuvina
PDF
ePub

BOOK II.---ELEGY I

ADVERTISEMENT.

is book, though fhorter than the former, is not inferior to it in point of poetical fancy and amorous tenderness; the numbers flow with the fame eafy correctnefs, and perhaps the fentiments are more delicate; for, being wholly dedicated to rural devotion, friendship, and love, the reader will meet with nothing in it, offenfive to the strictest chastity.

he verfion of the following books of Tibullus fhould be found lef liable to cenfure, than that of the ormer, it is chiefly to be imputed to the kind obfervations of a friend, who allo obliged the transla or with the elegant notes marked B.

TEND! and favour! as our fires ordain;
e fields we luftrate, and the rifing grain :
me, Bacchus, and thy horns with grapes fur-
round;

me, Ceres, with thy wheaten garland crown'd;
is hallow'd day fufpend each twain his toil,
ft let the plough, and rest th' uncultur'd foil:
yoke the ftcer, his racks heap high with hay,
id deck with wreaths his honeft front to-day.
all your thoughts to this grand work apply'd!
d lay, ye thrifty fair, your wool afide!
nce I command you mortals from the rite,
10 spent in amorous blandishment the night,
e vernal powers in chastity delight.

t come, ye pure, in fpotlefs garbs array'd!

r you the folemn feftival is made!

[ocr errors]

My theme is gratitude, infpire my lays!
O be my genius! while I ftrive to praise
The rural deities, the rural plain,
The ufe of foodful corn they taught the fwain.
They taught man first the focial hut to raise,
And thatch it o'er with turf, or leafy fprays:
They first to tame the furious bull effay'd,"
And on rude wheels the rolling carriage laid. 50
Man left his favage ways; the garden glow'd,
Fruits not their own admiring trees bestow'd,
While through the thirsty ground meandring
runnels flow'd.

There bees of fweets defpoil the breathing spring.
And to their cells the dulcet plunder bring.
The ploughman first to footh the toilfome day.
Chanted in meafur'd feet his fylvan lay

me! follow thrice the victim round the lands! And, feed-time o'er, he first in blithfome vein, running water purify your hands!

!to the flanies the willing victim come! fwains with olive crown'd, be dumb! be dumb!

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

His numerous bond slaves all in goodly rows,
With wicker huts your altars fhall enclose.
That done, they'll cheerly laugh, and dance,
30

"and play,

And praife your goodness in their uncouth lay." The gods affent! fee! fee! thofe entrails show, hat heaven approves of what is done below; ow quaff Falernian, let my Chian wine, our'd from the cafk in maffy goblets fine! rink deep, my friends all, all, be madly gay, Twere irreligion not to reel to-day! Health to Meffala, every peaf roast, nd not a letter of his name be to!

O come, my friend, whom Gallic triumphs grace,

hou nobleft fplendour of an ancient race; Thou whom the arts ail e

v crown,

word of the itate, and heur of tuc gown;

40

σε

69

Pip'd to his household gods the hymning ftrain.
Then firft the prefs with purple wine o'er-ran,
And cooling water made it fit for man.
The village-lad firft made a wreath of flowers
To deck in fpring the tutelary powers:
Bleft be the country, yearly there the plain
Yields, when the dog-ftar burns, the golden grain:
Thence too thy chorus, Bacchus, firft began,
The painted clown first laid the tragic plan.
A goat, the leader of the fhaggy throng,
The village fent it, recompenc'd the fong.
i here too the fheep his woolly treasure wears;
There too the fwain his woolly treafure fhears;
This to the thrifty dame long work fupplies;
The diftaff hence, and basket took their rife.
Hence too the various labours of the loom,
Thy praife, Minerva, and Arachne's doom!
Mid mountain herds love firit drew vital air,
Unknown to man, and man had nought to fear;
'Gainft herds, his bow th' uafkilful archer drew;
Ah my pierc'd heart, an archer now too true!
Now herds may roam untouch'd, 'tis Cupid's
joy,
8.

The brave to vanquish, and to fix the coy.
The youth whose heart the foft em tion feels,
Nor fighs for wealth, no waits at grandcur's

heels;

Age fir'd by love is touch'd by fhame no more,
But blabs its follies at the fair one's door!
Led by toft love, the ender trembling fair
Steals to her fwain, and cheats fulpicion's care,

With out-stretch'd arms fhe wins her darkling | Breathe out aloud your wishes for my fold,

way,

And tiptoe liftens that no noise betray!

Ah! wretched those, on whom dread Cupid
frowns!

90
How happy they, whose mutual choice he crowns!
Will love partake the banquet of the day?
O come-but throw thy burning fhafts away.
Ye fwains, begin to mighty love the fong,
Your fongs, ye fwains, to mighty love belong!

Your own foft vows in whifpers may be told.
But hark loud mirth and mufic fire the crowd-
Ye now may venture to request aloud!
Purfue your fports; night mounts her curtain'd

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

NOTES ON ELEGY I.

[ocr errors]

Dicamus bona verba.

the part of thofe who prayed at the feftival, th Both these forms of speech intimate a defire,m all who were prefent would fincerely join wa them in putting up the fame petition.

We may, without hesitation, embrace the opinion of Muretus, that this elegy is a defeription of the Ambarvalia, a feftival inftituted by Acca Laurentia, and honoured with a folemn facrifice, for procuring a bleffing on the fields. We may even, with great probability, fuppofe this poem to The mythology of the ancients has been aff make a very interefting part of the festal entertainments. But it appears from it, that the Ro-ed as one of the caufes which have contributed mans, in Tibullus's time, had added many a refi- of the modern. render their poetical compositions superior to ned improvement from the Grecian ritual, to the And no doubt, that enthusiasm, which is plain inftitation of the good old nurfe of Romutural to every true artist in the poetical way to lus; fince we find our poet alluding to all the remarkable cuftoms of the feftal facrifices of Greece. religious doctrines. When all nature was fu confiderably inflamed by the whole turn of the First the facred filence is proclaimed, the Espnursed to fwarm with genii, and every oak and fon of the Greeks, which reftrains the worshippers tain was regarded as the haunt of fome prefe from the use of words of unlucky import. Next deity; what wonder if the poet was animace! follows an addrefs to the deities, to whofe honour the imagined influence of fuch exalted focie the festival is dedicated. The holiday being then and found himself, as a late writer eleganch proclaimed, and a strict reft enjoined, there follows the exclufion of all thofe, who had contract-preffes it, hurried beyond the ordinary lim ed any pollution, and an invitation of the pure to come with clean hands and veftments to join in the facrifice. The victim is then introduced, going without any force to the altar, attended by a crowd of worshippers crowned with garlands, from the tree facred to the rural deities. After this, is the prayer for bleffings on the countryman and his fields, and profperity to the growing crop. forms us, that the verb "laftrare" fignifies to go Ver. 2. The fields we luftrate.] Macrobius The offering up the victim fucceeds, and lucky round; efpecially on a religious or myftical omens appearing, the worshippers are encouraged count. The ceremony here alluded to, as has been to indulge themselves in joy and feftivity. The faid, was the "facrum ambervale," which in f facred hymn clofes the whole, celebrating the a-old MSS. is placed as a title to this elegy. T nours of the rural deities recounting their vas moft folemn of the rural ceremonies had the mo gifts, and the bleffings which they have poured ing and forenoon allotted for its celebration. C out upon the country. Whoever will look into the collectors of antiquities will find that these are the very particulars of the ritual of refined Greece. We may obferve, that the proceffions, luftrations, as well as the bufinefs of the "fratres arvales,' whofe office it was, upon this occafion, to fettle boundaries, have found their way into a religion which in its original inflitution, was little concerned with pomp and ceremony, but has been forced to receive many a fcenical foolery from Pagan Rome.

B.

Ver. 1. Attend! and favour!] The Roman poets alfo exprefs this by

[ocr errors]

fober humanity. Hence arofe the profo which, as it is one of the boldeft, fo is it m the Omniprefence of the one true God afford the the most pleafing figures in poetry. But m Christian poet a more exalted affiftance? Whe true genius is fired with devotion, poefy fhines out in all her splendour.

to,

larly defcribed it. And as it may not be unpla
de R. R. cap. 141. and Virgil, have partic
fing to most of our readers, to compare the dif
rent manners of Maro and Tibullus, in reprefent.
ing the fame objects we shall here place befor
them the picture of this rural ceremony, as drawi
by the great Mantuan.

Imprimis venerare Deos, atque annua magna
Sacra refer cereri, lætis opèratos in herbis,
Extremæ fub cafum hiemis, jam vere fereno,
Tum agni pingues, et tum molliffima vira:
Tum fomni dulces, denfæque in montibus umbez.

[ocr errors]

Cuneta tibi cererem pubes agreftis adoret,
Cui tu lacte favos, et miti dilue Baccho;
Terque novas circum felix eat hoftia fruges;
Omnes, quam chorus et focii comitentur ovantes,
Et cererem clamore vocent in tecta.

Georg. i. ver. 338.

Some critics contend, that Tibullus, in this elegy, does not defcribe the Ambarval ceremony, because he mentions fome circumftances relating to it, which Virgil omits, and relates/ others differently from that poet. This argument needs no confutation.

Ver. 3. Come Bacchus.] This god is frequently called Tauricornis by the poets; but why horns were planted on his head mythologifts are greatly divided. Some of them look upon horns as a mark of divinity; but why then do the other deities appear without this badge? Others of them aflign horns to Bacchus, becaufe drinking cups were anciently formed of horn; and there are, who contend, that he is thus diftinguished, because he was the first who ploughed with oxen. Those who recollect the old sentence,

Sine cerere et Baccho friget Venus,

may haply be able to afford as fatisfactory a reafon for the cornuted appearance of this deity, as any fuggefted above. River gods are frequently reprefented with horns; but on a very different account. Pindar makes Bacchus the agidges, or affeffor of Ceres: and in the Orphic hymn, addreffed to that goddess, the is called Brominiai suvesios. They were commonly worshipped together. See Callimachus's fixth hymn.

Some critics, fuperftitiously bent to deduce from fcripture the origin of every mythological practice, have, from the "cornuta facies," common to Mofes and Bacchus, fuppofed, that the lawgiver of the Jews, and that heatben god, were one and the fame perfon. But these perfpicacious critics fhould have confidered, that as adoration is natural to man, and ignorance and conjecture were prior to wifdom and philofophy, idolatry, which is the offspring of devotion and blind fancy, never was, nor could be, confined to thofe few regions bordering on Judea; nor confequently derived from the Jews, or any of their heroes. Were we permitted, becaufe of fome faint refemblances between them, to form one perfon out of two, we fhould rather choose, from the fimilar circumftances of their births, deaths, &c. to make a Romulus, than a Bacchus, of Mofes. Chronology in. deed forbids this odd incorporation; but writers would do better to interdict their pen, as Lord Bacon expreffes it, all liberties of this kind, and not offer ftrange fires at the altar of the Lord. G. The Grecians had most probably an hero-god of their own, named Bacchus, to whom they were indebted for fome of the improvements of life. But it is very certain, that many of the actions, inventions, and fymbols of the Egyptian Ofiris, were, in after times, attributed to him. We have here one instance of it. The bull was the established hieroglyphic of Ofiris, as the inventor of

agriculture. Greece adopted the invention for their own Bacchus; but not having the use of the hieroglyphic characters, they contented themfelves with borrowing an attribute for their deity, and affigned him the horns of the animal, by whose labours he was fuppofed to cultivate and introduce agriculture into the country. I might add, that whenever Bacchus and Ceres are spoken of together, as rural deities, almost every thing applied to them, more properly belongs to Ofiris and Ifis. See a remarkable inftance of this, Virgil's Georgics, B. i. L. 5. et feq. to the 9th. Vos, oh Clariffima mundi, &c.

Here Bacchus and Ceres, the humble inventors

of wine and agriculture, are exalted into the heavens, and become fun and moon, the great leaders of the year through its feasons. We know there is nothing in the Grecian mythology to fupport this; and that thofe heavenly luminaries are attributed to other deities. But it is certain, that the fun and moon were worshipped by the Ægyptians under the denomination of their hero-gods, Ofiris and Ifis. Vid. Div. Legation, B. 4. Sect. 5. et alibi paffim.

B.

Ver. 7. It was usual at the time of these facrifices, to drefs the cattle with garlands, and to give them a respite from labour. Vid. Fast. lib. i. ver. 663. lib. vi. ver. 311.

The ploughing ox was held in great estimation among the ancients; respecting this, Varro, de R. R. lib. ii. 1. 53. Columella in the preface to his fixth book, and Pliny, lib. viii. c. 45. may be confulted. But though we refer to thefe paffages, the tranflator cannot deny himself the pleasure of tranfcribing from Ovid the following good natured apostrophe, in favour of those useful animals. Quid meruere boves animal fine fraude dolifque Innocuum, fimplex, natim tolerare labores? Immemor eft demum, nec frugum munere dignus, Qui potuit curvi demto modo pondere aratri Ruricolam mactare fuum; qui trita labore Illa, quibus toties durum renovaverat annum Tot dederat Meffes, percuffit colla fecuri.

Met. lib. xv. ver. 120.

How did the toiling ox his death deferve?
A down-right fimple drudge, and born to serve?
O tyrant with what justice canst thou hope
The promife of the year, a plenteous crop ;
When thou destroy'ft the labouring fteer who
till d,
[field?
And plough'd with pains, thy elfe ungrateful
From his yet reeking neck to draw the yoke,
That neck with which the furly clods he broke;
And to thy hatchet yield thy husbandman,
Who finish'd autumn, and the year began.

Dryden.

Accordingly we find, that in the ancient times of the Roman republic, a perfon was publicly condemned, for having felled a labouring ox" (bos domitus)," in order to gratify the longings of one he was fond of. Valer. Maxim. lib. viii. lin. £. And, in the declension of that empire, Con.tan.

tine ordained, that no ploughing ox fhould be ei- | Annua venerunt cerealis tempora facri. ther diftrained for debt, or taken from the tra- Secubat in vacuo fola puella toro. veller, to fupply the place of fuch as were wanting to complete the number required at the pub-9. but not only the unchafte, but perfons def Complains the amorous Ovid, El. Lib. ii. ! lic fports and races.

Scaliger, on the authority of fome old MSS. reads the original of the last line, as follows: Plena coronato vertice stare boves:

Yet moft MSS. and the best editions read it, Plena coronato ftare boves capite.

But without their concurrence, Broekhufius justly oblerves, that Tibullus must have thus wrote it, as his ear taught him folicitoufly to avoid every combination of harsh hifling confonants, fuch as SC. SP. SQ ST.

with recent blood, or polluted with the touch a dead body, were forbidden to approach t altar.

Ver. 14. The pure vestment mentioned in original, was white, as Ovid, in that wonde work of his, the Fafti, informs us.

Alba decent Cererem, veftes Cerealibus albas
Sumite; nunc pulli velleris ufus abeft.

Lib. iv. ver. 6

Ver. 16. Although the Ambarval facrifice wa generally, either a fow with pigs, or a lamb, the goat and bullock were fometimes alfo e

Ex Tibullo probanda eft Tibullianæ fcriptionis But whatever was the animal, it was condus

confuetudo.

Ver. Ic. There are fome things, fays Servius, which, if done on a holiday, pollute it. Hence it was, that the pontiffs, when they were to perform a facrifice, fent out their beadles to prevent artificers from working, left the facred ceremony fhould be contaminated. Serv. ad G. lib. i. ver. 268. And Macrobius tells us, that a herald also

was employed on thefe occafions to prohibit the people from all fecular bufinefs. Thofe, who unknowingly tranfgreffed, were obliged to purchase their expiation by facrificing a hog; but the wilful guilt could not be expiated, in the opinion of Scævola the high-prieft. Sat. lib. c. 16.

Thefe heralds, from their office, had the names of Præclamitatores et præcia" bestowed upon them.

Yet was not all work forbidden to the husband

thrice with great folemnity round the field!" ambiens agros)" and thence obtained the m Ambarval.

If either in the proceffion, or at the ala fpurned, or fhowed the leaft reluctance, the moved it, as difpleafing to the deity; and tuted another victim in its flead. He verb eat, in the original, and the epithet z At the altar the vi in the tranflation. unbound; for, as Servius obferves, Piaculum eft, in facrificio aliquid effe rel

There is a fenfible epigram in the Arthing which informs us, that not only Ceres and chus, but Hercules and Mercury had firm made to them by the hufbandman. Hanss deed was contented with milk and fruits; be the former, sheep and oxen were facrifice it feems, difgufted the penurious farmer;

man; for as Cato de R R. informs us, they might, even on the most facred holiday, cleaning told, Hercules deferved victims of the mix their ditches, mend the highways, cut down he made this fpirited reply, what dif briars dig their garden, burn thorns, weed their there to me, whether my flock is deftrayed by meadows, cleanfe their fish ponds, bind withies, wolves, or by the keeper? and do every office of cleanlinefs in their house. C2 Broekbuf: Pictures of life and manners, when truly copied from nature, however low the fubject, never fail to delight us. And we have here a very faithful one exhibited to us. When the poet had difmif

Τι το πλέον ει το φυλακτικ
Ολλυται ύπο λυκου εθ ύπο του φυλακες.

Ver. 17. Clean hands were neceffary in crifices. Thus Hefiod,

Μηδε ποτ' εξ τους Δει λείβειν αιέοπα είναι

fed man and beat to reft, proclaimed a general Χερσιν ανιπτοιστιν, μηδε άλλοιστ αθανατιστικ

holiday, and a vacation from all business, he re. collects that his laft most difficult task was, to fnatch the diftaff out of the hands of the country housewife. Whoever has peeped into a farmhoule, must have obferved the notable miftrefs, whatever the rest of the family were doing, always in an hurry, and acting as eagerly upon the leading principle of the country, frugality, as a court lady in purfuit of pleasure. Perhaps one general reafon might be affigned for the impetuofity of both. And the fine lady Harriet, with the help of a little change of education, might have made a very notable Amaryllis in the country. B. Ver. 12. All matrimonial converfe with wo.

men

was ftrictly prohibited, during a certain number of days preceding the Amberval facrifices.

Οὐ γαρ τους κλυούστιν αποπτύεστι δι τ' αρχι
Egy, nai Hus. For

According to Macrobius, when the Rom crificed to the " Di fuperi," they washed the what body with river water; but, in facrifices to de infernal gods, a bare fprinkling was fuffice Sea water was also sometimes used for the sim purposes.

Ver. 19. From ills, O fylvan gods.] The follow ing is the form of prayer ufed by a farmer, sp a like occafion:

"O father, I conjure and entreat you, that you will be propitious to me, to my house and fam that you will difperfe all maladies, known and known; calamities, barrennefs, mortalities,

[blocks in formation]

Ver. 24. So fball the bind.] I fhould not have hacarded an explanation of this paffage, if I had not -bserved, that the meaning of it had efcaped the notice of all the commentators. One of them ha Produced from Horace, by way of explanation,

Edificare casas, ploftello adjungere mures.
And again,

Edificante cafas qui fenior.

Lib. ii. Sat. 3.

This is learning! this is that happy talent of riticifm which explains a paffage by authorities rom his fplendid fellows. But could this folemn

[blocks in formation]

the ancients never indulged themselves with dainties, nor drank any quantity of wine, but at fuch times. As a convincing proof of which, he obferves, that the very names for luxurious eating and drinking have fome relation to their religious facrifices. Thus on a banquet, is fo called, because they thought themselves obliged dia overdo, to be drunk in honour of the gods, and to be drunk they called uifus because they were most accustomed to do it, usra to buy, after sacrifice. The Romans had adopted the fame principles and practice, as appears from this very sober exhortation of the poet.

[ocr errors]

Though the Romans, by a very unlucky proverbial expreffion, ufed "Græcari" for playing the good fellow, yet I think that debauchery and intemperance were the characteristic manners neither of the Greeks nor Romans. At their feftivals, they indeed thought them an indispensible part of their religious rejoicings; and if they were not wholly confined to thefe, it is certain, tifler think that an action which Horace repre- that by their means they first got footing amongst ents as the play of childhood, which he ftigma-them. Athenæu Deipn. 1. iii. ch. 3. tells us, that izes as a glaring mark of an unfound head in any ne that had attained to manhood, could be conidered by fo exact a writer as Tibullus, as a proDer expreffion of gratitude from a country village o its divine protectors? The words we fee are art of an addrels to the " Dii patrii," upon a fomn luftration of the villagers and their fields irst, Their protection is invoked for their hareft and flocks, upon the grant of which, an affurnce is given, that the happy farmer and his faily would fhow their fente of the bleffing by eaping high the hearth, and running up hafty uts of twigs; both of which must be fuppofed > be done in honour of thofe very deities to hom the promise is made. Confider then, tha he Lares, the guardians, and protectors of famies, must be especially defigned by, or at leaft ncluded amongst the Dii patrii Now.com ortable houfes and warm fires, were confidered is their proper gifts, as pecularly under their tu telage: And nothing could be more in the fpiri of antiquity than for the farmer and his sportive amily, in the midst of their festal joy, and in graitude to the bounteous givers, to exhibit the representation of the very gifts which they were supposed to have received from them. The warm hut and the blazing fire were as proper expreflions of gratitude to the Lares, as arms which had been ufed fuccessfully to Hercules, the first-fruits to Ceres, and the image of a reftored limb to fculapius, or the herma to Mercury, the guide and protector of travellers.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Ver. 28. His numerous bond flaves all in goodly rows.] These certain indications of a wealthy farmer, Horace, with his ufual courtliness of expref fion, calls "Ditis examen Domus;" but as that would have appeared flat in English, Mr. Francis has judiciously paffed it over in his verfion. So peculiar are languages!

The "verna" were flaves born of flaves. Ver. 35. The original of this cannot be rendered into intelligible English. The Romans marked their wine cafks with the name of him who was conful at the time when they were

B.

Ver. 38 Upon certain occafions the Romans drank a bumper for every letter of their friend or miftrefs's name. They received this cuftom from the Grecians.

[ocr errors]

Ver. 40. The first Romans wore beards, and were reprefented accordingly in their ftatues and pictures. The "intenfis avis" of the original, therefore, fhows the antiquity of Meffala's fanaly. Varro de R. R informs us, that Fianius Mena was the first who introduced barbers into Rome; and he brought them from Sicily, A. U. C 454. Such circumstances, though feemingly inconfiderable, are yet neceffary for a thorough understanding of the claffics.

Ver. 48. And thatch it oe'r with turf or leafy Sprays.] Such were the rude beginnings of archi

tecture! and fuch wretched hovels are fill to be feen in the barren and mountainous parts of this great and civilized ifland! See Vitruv. Archit. 1. ii. c. I.

Houfes at firft being only a defence from the weather, and built of whatever rude materials the country afforded, Rome was originally compofed of mud-walled, straw-thatched cottages. Even Romulus's palace was a hut, and as ill furnished as those of his fubjects.

Parva fuit, fi prima velis elementa referre,

Roma: fed in parva fpes tamen hujus erat. Mænia jam ftabant populis augufta fururis; Credita fed turbæ nunc nimis ampla fu;

« EdellinenJatka »