Sivut kuvina
PDF
ePub

of age, and therefore must have been born A. U. C. 710.

To this it may be oppofed, that by the laws of Servius Tullus, the Romans confidered every citizen as a juvenis till his forty-fixth year. After that time indeed they called them feniores; and therefore, as Tibullus was only forty-five when he died, Marfus might call him juvenis. Doubtless he might, according to the Tullian computation; but then, it may be obferved, that Marfus does not fay that Tibullus died the fame year with Virgil, i. e. in his forty-fifth year; but only, that he was the first poet who died after him; and therefore he mutt either have been out of the clafs of juvenis; or born in 710, and confequently then only twenty-five or twenty-fix when he died.

But had our author been fo young, Ovid would not have omitted that circumftance, as it would have greatly added to the pathos of his famous clegy on his death; efpecially fince, in that very poem, he mentions the youth of Catullus, who, by the by, was upwards of forty when he died, contrary to the common opinion.

Obvius huic venies, hedera juvenilia cinctus

Tempore, cum Calvo, docte Catulle, tuo.

This argument, indeed, is of moment; but the fame poet affords fome other arguments of fill greater weight to prove that Tibullus could not be born in 710. In the first place, he says, that our poet was eminent for his reputation as a writer, when Auguftus Cæfar was prince,

-jam te principe notus erat. that is, when Cæfar was "princeps fenatus," after having had the glorious but undeferved title of pater patria" bestowed on him by Meffala and the fenate, A. U. C. 727. But how could a youth of feventeen be known as a pott? The answer to this has in part been anticipated; and when we add, that Heinfius reads "natus," it rather is an argument in fupport of Tibullus's being born in 710. as Octavius Cæfar and Pedius fucceeded

Hirtius and Panfa in the confulate. It muft here, at the fame time, be confeffed, that Cæfar could not be styled princeps," far lefs “ princeps fenatus," for being made conful; yet could even this be granted, Heinfius's reading is fupported by MS. authority.

But the argument to which the least objection can be made, is that which follows, and Ovid furnishes it. It runs thus,

Virgilium vidi tantum; nec avara Tibullo
Tempus amicitiæ fata dedere meæ :
Succeffor fuit hic tibi, Galle; Propertius illi;
Quartus ab his ferie temporis ipfe fui.
Trift. Lib. iv. el. 10.

That is, I only faw Virgil, and the cruel fates did not long indulge me with the friendship of TibulJus. He (viz. Tibullus), was thy fucceffor, Gallus; Propertius followed Gallus and, in order of time, I myself was the fourth. Now, as Gallus

was born A. U. C 681; and Propertius, by his own confeflion, did not put on the toga virilis" till after the divifion of the municipal lands among the veterans, A. U. C 711, when he was at leaft fifteen; Tibullus must have been born between the year 681, and the year 696, that is, about the year 690, one year after Horace. But why might he not be five years younger, as well as one year? And indeed, as this correfponds more with Marfus's epigran, it feems as likely that Tibullus was born 695. Some, indeed, object to the quotation from Ovid, as if that poet meant poetical fame, or the order in which the poets he there mentions were known to the world by their writings; and indeed, were it not for the former paffage from Ovid, such a suggestion might invalidate the at gument upon which Douza chiefly builds his op

nion.

[blocks in formation]

which could not be proper from a boy of e years of age. Nay, that poem itself, though is yet too great a work for one fo young. And rior in every relpect to his elegiac compos if to this we add, that in this poem he talks of the old warrior of Arupinum, and of his having at tended Meffala in his Pannonian expedition; and if we confider, that this expedition took place A.U. be the year of Tibullus's birth, and that, therefort, C. 718, or 719. it must appear that 710 could not

the

Cum cecedit fato corful uterque pari is fpurious, and foifted in by fome librarian from Ovid. Nay, Vulpius, not content with putting mark of reprobation on that line, even fufpects the following one, as it is, according to him, not only languid, but interrupts the fentence, which is complete without it.

However immaterial thefe remarks may ap pear to the generality, the tranflator hopes, that the critical reader will pardon their length, as they may be found of some service to future biographers.

Ver. 15. Apples unripe, cobat folly 'tis to puli?) This fentiment would answer in paftoral, and were it not what every man might have thought, it might be fail, that Ovid had almoft tranfcribed it.

Quid plenam fraudas vitem crefcentibus uvis?
Pomaque crudeli vellis acerba manu?

El. 14. Lib. 2, The "tolle cupidinem immitis uva" of Horace, is almost the fame; but as the lyric bard in the ode where he uses thefe expreffions defcribes lalage as a young frifking heifer, and her lover as a bull, the metaphor is not so happily exact. Ver. 17. This and the foregoing thought are thus imitated by Mr. Hammond:

No stealth of time has thinn'd my flowing hair,
Nor age yet bent me with her iron hand;
Ah why fo foon the tender bloffom tear?

Ere autumn yet the ripen'd fruit demand.
Ye gods who dwell in gloomy fhades below,
Now flowly tread your melancholy round;
Now wandering view the baleful rivers flow,
And mufing hearken to their folemn found:

O let me still enjoy the cheerful day,

Till many years unheeded o'er me roll'd, Pleas'd in my age I trifle life away,

And tell how much I lov'd ere I grew old. The whole fourth elegy, from which these ftanzas are taken, is an improvement upon our author. In the original, the poet joins two adjectives to one noun, which Servius, in his notes on Virgil, blames as a vice in writing; and yet not only inftances of this may be produced from the incient Roman authors, but also from Lucretius, Cicero, Ovid, and Virgil,

Ver. 21. That man fhould be fo folicitous for old age, is really aftonishing, when we confider, with a great moral poet,

That life protracted is protracted woe.
Time hovers o'er, impatient to destroy,
And buts up all the paffages of joy:

In vain their gifts the bounteous seasons pour,
The fruit autumnal, and the vernal flower.
With liftlefs eyes the dotard views the store;
He views, and wonders that they pleafe no more.
Now pall the taftelefs meats, and joyless wines,
And luxury, with fighs, her flave refigns.
Approach, ye minstrels, try the foothing rain,
And yield the tuneful lenitives of pain;
No found, alas! would touch th' impervious ear,
Though dancing mountains witnefs'd Orpheus

near:

[fneer,

Nor lute, nor lyre his feeble powers attend,
Nor fweeter mufic of a virtuous friend;
But everlasting dictates crowd his tongue,
Perversely grave, or pofitively wrong:
The ftill returning tale, and lingering jeft,
Perplex the fawning niece and pamper'd gueft,
While growing hopes fcarce awe the gathering
And fearce a legacy can bribe to hear;
The watchful guests ftill hint the last offence,'
The daughter's petulance, the fon's expence ;
Improve his heady rage with treacherous fkill,
And mould his paffions, till they make his will.
Unnumber'd maladies his joints invade,
Lay fiege to life, and prefs the dire blockade:
But unextinguifh'd avarice renuns,
And dreaded loffes
aggravate

He turns, with anxious heart and crippled hands,
His bonds of debt, and mortgages of lands;
Or views his coffers with fufpicious eyes,
Unlocks his gold, and counts it till he dies.
But grant the virtues of a temperate prime,
Blefs with an age cxempt from fcorn or crime;
An age that melts in unperceiv'd decay,
And glides in modest innocence away:
Whofe peaceful days benevolence endears,
Whofe nights congratulating confcience cheers;
The general favourite, as the general friend :
Such age there is, and who could wish its end?
Yet ev'n on this her load misfortune flings,
To prefs the weary minutes' flagging wings;
New forrow rifes as the day returns;
A fifter fickens, or a daughter mourns;
Now kindred merit fills the fable bier,
Now lacerated friendship claims a tear.
Year chafes year, decay purfues decay,
Still drops fome joy from withering life away;
New forms arife, and different views engage,
Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage,
Till pitying nature figns the last release,
And bids afflicted worth retire to peace.
But few there are whom hours like thefe await,
Who fet unclouded in the gulfs of fate;
From Lydia's monarch fhould the fearch defcend,
By Solon caution'd to regard his end,
In life's laft fcene what prodigies furprife,
Fears of the brave, and follies of the wife;
From Marlborough's eyes the ftreams of dotage
And Swift expires a driv'ler and a fhow.

[flow,

Its great beauty will, it is prefumed, excuse the length of this quotation.

Ver. 26. Swimming was much practifed by the Romans; an exercife which they, as a military people, found ferviceable to them on many accounts, and which Britons, both on that account, and as a naval people, would do well to practise more; for as the poet of the seasons tings, This is the pureft exercife for health, The kind refresher of the funimer heats; Nor when cold winter keens the brightening floods Would I, weak-fhivering, linger on the brink. Thus life redoubles, and is oft preserv'd By the bold fwimmer, in the swift illapfe of accident difaftrous. Hence the limbs

Knit into force; and the fame Roman arm
That rofe victorious o'er the conquer'd earth,
Firft learn'd, while tender, to fubdue the wave.
E'en from the body's purity, the mind
Receives a fecret fympathetic aid.

[blocks in formation]

from whence have fprung moft of the good ac tions which have afton.fhed or benefited humani ty, the tranflator cannot join iffue with thofe who condemn its exertion.

Ver. 31. The old Scholiaft on Statius, whofe comment Barthius had in his poffeffion, calls blood, honey, and milk, the banquet of the infer nal powers, "inferorum paftus.' But this paffage in our poet fhows, that wine was alfo part of

their cheer.

Black cattle were the only victims facrificed to the "dii inferni." The ancients, fay the critics, generally offered to their gods, thofe beafts which they were fuppofed to hold in the greatest abhorrence. When they facrificed to the infernal powers, they turned their palms downwards.

There are two or three instances in the legendary part of the Roman story, of the cealing of plagues at Rome, upon immolating on the altars of Piuto and Proferpine. Pluto's altars at Tarentum were chiefly remarkable for miracles of this kind. Thefe facrifices, which in time gave rife to the fecular games, the jubilee of Paganifm, were performed in the evening; as thofe to the celestial powers were in the morning. The priests were sprinkled with water, when offerings were made to the infernal deities. See the old Scholiaft on the fourth Ifthmian ode of Pindar. And it is certain from Homer (Iliad ix. lin. 565.) that those who a dreffed these powers, fell on their knees when they prayed to them.

[blocks in formation]

20

Wine, wine, dear boy! Can any here in empty goblets joy? No, no, the god can never difapprove, That those who praife him fhould a bumper love. What terrors arm his brow? the goblet drain : To be too fober is to be profane !

Her fon, who mock'd his rites, Agave tore, And furious fcatter'd round the yelling fhore! Such fears be far from us, dread god of wine! Thy rites we honour, we are wholly thine! But let the fober wretch thy vengeance prove: Lover.

Or her whom all my fufferings cannot move! 30 What pray'd I rafhly for? my madding prayer, Ye winds, difperfe, unratified, in air :

For though, my love! I'm blotted from your foul, Serenely rife your days, ferenely roll!

Companion.

The love-fick ftruggle paft, again be gay: Come crown'd with rofes, let's drink down the day!

Lover.

Ah me! loud-laughing mirth how hard to feign When doom'd a victim to love's dreadful pain: How forc'd the drunken catch, the fmiling When black folicitude annoys the breast!

Companion.

Complaints, away! the blithfome god of wint Abhors to hear his genuine votaries whine.

Lover.

You, Ariadne! on a coast unknown, The perjur'd Thefeus wept, and wept alone; But learn'd Catullus, in immortal strains, Has fung his bafenefs, and has wept your pains.

Companion.

Thrice happy they, who hear experience call, And fhun the precipice where others fa!!. When the fair clafps you to her breast, beware, Nor trust her, by her eyes although the fwear; 50 Not though, to drive fufpicion from your breast, Or love's foft queen, or Juno she attest; No truth the women know; their looks are lies Lover.

Yet Jove connives at amorous perjuries. Hence ferious thoughts! then why do I complain! The fair are licenc'd by the gods to feign. Yet would the guardian powers of gentle love, This once indulgent to my wishes prove,

[blocks in formation]

C

NOTES ON ELEGY VI.

We have seen, with what cruelty Neara had treated her lover, all his endeavours to fix her folely his, having proved hitherto ineffectual. But his mifery being now extreme, fome remedy must be attempted; and wine, by the joint approbation of antiquity, being esteemed the certain antidote of affliction, his friends ftrongly recommended his making an experiment of its virtues : he follows their advice, and begins the prefent elegy with an addrefs to the god of wine, in full confidence of his being able to free him from his amorous inquietude.

This poem, which is one continued struggle between the powers of love and wine, but in which the latter triumphs over the former, the tranflator has thrown into a dialogue between the lover and one of his boon companions. This gives it a more fpirited air, but does not entirely remove all its obfcurities; and hence the tranflator has been led to believe, that it is imperfect; unless with fome judicious critics, it is fuppofed, that as the author was agitated with a diverfity of paffions at the time of his compofing it, fo the hyperbaton and diforderly connection was the refult of judicious choice, and not the fault of imperfection.

In fome editions this elegy is improperly split

into two.

Ver. 1. fo may the myftic vine.] Why myftic? Because those who were initiated in the myfteries of Ceres and Bacchus carried thyrfi, round which were twisted vine branches; or, becaufe thofe who affifted at the orgies of Bacchus wore vine garlands. See a defcription of thefe frantic ceremonies in the fixth book of Ovid's Metamorphofis, ver. 587.

Ver. 2. Bacchus wore grapes on his horns. See notes on the first elegy of the fecond book; and ivy round his temples.

Cur hedera cincta eft? hedera eft gratiffima

Baccho :

Hoc queque cur ita fit, dicere nulla mora eft. Nyfades Nymphæ, puerum quærente noverca, Hanc frondem cunis appofuere novis.

Lib. iii. Faft. ver. 769 But Conftantius Cæfar, in the eleventh book of his Geopen, fays, that Bacchus loved the ivy be

[blocks in formation]

Δαμα]ηρ δ' αφαίον, &c.

Callim. Hymn. in Cerer, ver. 58.

Ver. 23. Penthus, King of Thebes, was torn in pieces by his mother and the other Mænades, for having ridiculed the newly-introduced orgies of Bacchus. See Ovid, Met. lib. iii. and Theocritus, Idyll. 26. See also the Baxxas of Euripides.

Ver. 29. This is a fine inftance of amorous irreHeaven for the happiness of his inconftant fair, folution; and the prayer the poet puts up to makes us compaffionate him more, than if he had broke out into the most direful execrations.

Taffo has given us a no lefs beautiful inftance of this paffionate figure in his Gierufalem. Liberat. Canto xx. where Armida, being abandoned by Rinaldo, breathes fury and revenge and, purfuing him through the ranks of the battle, aims an arrow at his heart; but fcarce had the fhaft left the bow, when returning love compelled her to wish it might mifs its aim:

Lo ftral volo; ma con lo ftral, un voto
Subito ufci, che vada il copo a voto.
Swift flies the fhaft, as fwiftly flies her prayer
That all its vehemence be spent in air.

Spence.

Such fudden changes of paffion give a vast energy to poetical compofitions. They are frequent in the elegiae poets: but no inftance of this kind ever afforded the tranflator more pleasure than the following of Lotichius, who defiring his deceafed mistress's fhade often to appear to him, fuddenly checks himself:

Quid precor imprudens? non fas ita velle priumve
Otia fint cineri, fit fopor ufque tuo.
Et tumulum myrti virides, & amaricus ornet;
Et fedeat cuftos ad tua bufta Venus.

B. iii. El. 3. Ver. 37. This double paffion is aptly termed diffimulation, by Mr Spence, in his ingenious Obfervations on Pope's Odyffey Such figures are viewed in a jufter light, when we look upon them as naturally expreffive of what we feel within us, than when we regard them only as the artful machineries of writing.

Men are

Ver. 43. Catullus is here called learned; and antiquity, with one confent, beftows upon him that diftinguished epithet. He certainly underflood the Greek language, and tranflated, with fome applaufe, Callimachus's beautiful poem on Berenice's hair: but his verfion from Sappho is very indifferent. Yet thefe perhaps obtained him the reputation of learning; or perhaps it arofe from his frequent ufe of cramp words." often called learned, even now-a-days, for no better reafons. The tranflator, however, is not of opi. nion, that he merited that diftinction, fo much at left as fome of his Roman predeceffors. Nay, are not the best critics now agreed, that had all his poems perished, the world would have been at no very great lofs, except for the piece here al luded to, his Epithalamium on Peleus and Thetis, and one or two more?

The most remarkable part of Catullus's character is, the freedom with which, in his writings, he attacked Julius Cæfar, at a time when he was the fovereign master of the world. That great, but wicked Roman, understood the importance of having the men of abilities and learning on his fide, and therefore invited the poet to fup with him on the night his Pafquin was published. Could the poet fatirize after fuch an act of condefcenfion? Something of the fame kind is alfo told us, of that most confummate of politicians, Philip, who more than paved the way for his fon's conqueft of the Eaft.

See Dr Leland's excellently written Life of that monarch.

In the poem which Tibullus here had in his eye, there is an exquifite ftroke of nature, where Ari adne runs into the fea, as if to reach Thefeus, whe was failing off.

Tum tremuli falis adverfas percurrere in undus Mollia nundatæ tollentem tegmina furæ, &c. Ovid has written on the fame fubject but there is more real beauty in the pathetic exclamations and frantic behaviour of Catallus's Ariadne, than in the witty, but unaffected epistle of Nafo.

There appears no connection between this fory of Ariadne, and what either goes before or fol lows it. But if the tranflator durft venture upon a tranfpofition, he would join

Thrice happy they,

and fo on, to

Hence, ferious thoughts!

to the forty-fecond line, and make it part of the advice which our poet's companion gave hi The manner of difpofing and connecting thele verfes, would make the ftory of Ariadne appear as part of Tibullus's anfwer, by which he weld infinuate, that if the women were deceitful, the men are not much better, as witnefs the treatment which Thefeus, whom they all deemed a hero, gave Ariadne.

Ver. 50. The common editions read Junonemque fuam, perque fuam venerem. But Brockhufius is of opinion that Tibullus wrot

[ocr errors]

Junonemque fuam, per Veneremque fuam,

and produces feveral inftances of his he que" in that manner. He clofes his ques on that fubject with the following fet, which is in the true fpirit of a verbal critic: "Hæc palæmonibus noftris exila videbuntur,

que fatis digna in quibus otium ponatur: mili vero, quæ mea eft humilitas, nihil exile habetur, quod faciat ad inluftrationem fermonis Latini."

Ver. 51. Female infidelity has been a common topic of invective with the wits of all ages; and yet, had they looked into their own conduct with the fame virulent penetration, they would have found that the lion made a juft obfervation to the man, who vauntingly fhowed him a picture wherein one of the lion kind was reprefented conquered by a man, when that monarch of the woods faid, "We lions are not painters."

Ver. 52. Plato affigus a whimfical reason fer Jupiter's good-nature in this affair; the pleasures (fays he) are infants, incapable of understanding and judgment, and therefore not liable to puni ment for perjury, or breach of promise.

Ver. 59. "Nobis merenti," in the original, as Broekhufius obferves, is an elegant Grad (archaifmus), which Terence and the most corre Roman poets have admitted. There are many fuch Græcifms in both Milton and Shakspeare; the former, no doubt, thought the joining a f

« EdellinenJatka »