Part 44

I maintain, then, that the poet adopted his version of the story of Dido not simply as an affecting and pathetic episode, but (in keeping with his whole design) to emphasise the great lesson of the poem by showing that the growth and glory of the Roman dominion are due, under providence, to Roman virtus and pietas—that sense of duty to family, State, and gods, which rises, in spite of trial and danger, superior to the enticements of individual passion and selfish ease. Aeneas is sorely tried, but he escapes from Dido to perform the will of the gods; it is Jupiter, ruler of the Fates and the Roman destinies, who rescues him, and thus the divine care for Rome, an idea of which Augustus wished to make the most, is carefully preserved in the tale. If for us the character of Aeneas suffers by his desertion of Dido, that is simply because the poet, seized with intense pity for the injured queen, seems for once, like his own hero, to have forgotten his mission in the poem, and at the very moment when he means to show Aeneas performing the noblest act of self-sacrifice, renouncing his individual passion and listening to the stern call of duty, human nature gets the better of him, and what he meant to paint as a noble act has come out on his canvas as a mean one.

In Virgil's story, then, we have in contrast and conflict the opposing principles of duty and pleasure, of patriotism and selfishness, and the victory of the latter in the person of Aeneas by the help of the great god who was the guardian of the destinies of Rome, and of the goddess who was the mother of the hero and the reputed progenitor of the Julian family. When once this great trial is over, the way is clear for the accomplishment of Aeneas' mission, though he still has trials to face, and as yet is not fully equipped for meeting them.

Whoever, after reading the stormy scenes of the fourth book, will go straight on to the fifth, cannot but be struck with a change of tone which would have been doubly welcome to a man of that true Roman feeling which Virgil was counting on as well as inculcating throughout his work—doubly welcome, because he would find it not only in the incidents, but in the character of Aeneas. We here leave self and passion behind, and are introduced to scenes where the careful performance of religious and family duties seems to produce ease of mind and the tranquillity that comes of a soothed conscience. For the first time in the poem we meet with a characteristic of that best Roman life which was dear to the heart of Augustus, and with which we may be quite certain that the poet himself was entirely in sympathy. Strange, indeed, it is that this should be the case in a book so wholly based for its externals on Greek poetical traditions; but it is none the less true, and it is a striking example of Virgil's wonderful genius for transforming old things with new light and meaning.

It is not only then, or even mainly, the traditional necessity of describing games in an epic poem, that is the raison d'etre of the fifth book; the object was rather, as I understand it, to gain the needful contrast to the stormy passion of the fourth, and a relief for the mind of the Roman reader before he approached the awful scenery and experiences of the sixth, while at the same time there could be indicated—and for a Roman reader more than indicated—the first beginning of a change in the character of the hero. All this is effected with wonderful skill by making Aeneas perform with detailed carefulness the Roman ritual of the Parentalia as it was known to the Romans of the Augustan age. The Parentalia, as I have said elsewhere, were not days of terror or ill-omen, but rather days on which the performance of duty was the leading idea in men's minds; that duty was a pleasant and cheerful one, for the dead were still members of the family, and there was nothing to fear from them so long as the living performed their duties towards them under the due regulations of the ius divinum. The ritual indicates the idea of the yearly renewal of the rite of burial, with the propitiation of the departed which was necessary for the welfare of the family; and when the liturgical nine days were over, the living members met together in the Caristia, a kind of love feast of the family, at which all quarrels were to be forgotten, and from which all guilty members were excluded. In families of wealth and distinction in Virgil's time the days of mourning might be followed by games in honour of the departed. Thus a Roman would at once recognise the fact that Aeneas is here presented to us for the first time as a Roman father of a family, discharging the duties essential to the continuance and prosperity of that family with cheerfulness as well as with gravitas; and that his pietas here takes a definite, practical, and truly Roman form, though it is not as yet extended to its full connotation as the performance of duty towards the State and its gods.

All this is quite in keeping with the little touches of characterisation which we can also notice in this book. In the second line Aeneas pursues his way certus, even while he gazes at the flames of Dido's funeral pyre, not knowing what they meant. He presides at the games with the dignity of a Roman magistrate, and reproachingly consoles the beaten Dares with words which seem to reflect his late experience at Carthage (v. 465):

infelix, quae tanta animum dementia cepit? non vires alias conversaque numina sentis? cede deo.

When the ships are burnt he does not give way to despair, as in the storm of the first book, but prays for help to the omnipotent Jupiter, in whose hand were the destinies of his descendants (v. 687 foll.). But he is not yet perfect in his sense of duty; he feels the blow severely, and for a moment wavers (v. 700 foll.):

... casu concussus acerbo nunc huc ingentis, nunc illuc pectore curas mutabat versans, Siculisne resideret arvis oblitus fatorum, Italasne capesseret oras.

It needs the cheering advice of old Nautes (quicquid erit, superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est), and the appearance of the shade of Anchises, to confirm his wavering will with renewed sense of his mission. This appearance of his father, "omnis curae casusque levamen," with the summons to meet him in Hades, is, as Heinze has seen, a turning-point in the fortunes and the character of Aeneas, and prepares us for the final ordeal and initiation which he undergoes in the following book.

I here use the word initiation because I have no doubt that Virgil had in his mind when writing it the Greek idea of initiation into mysteries preparatory to a new life. An actual initiation was, of course, out of the question; on the other hand a catabasis, a descent into Hades, was part of the epic inheritance he derived from Homer, and this, like the funeral games in the fifth book, he might use with an earnestness of purpose wanting in Homer, to work in with the great theme of his poem, not merely as an artistic effort. The purpose here was to make of Aeneas a new man, to regenerate him; to prepare him by mystic enlightenment for the toil, peril, and triumph that await him in the accomplishment of his divine mission. We must not look too closely into the process; it is a strange melange of popular and philosophic ideas and scenery, made at once intelligible and magnificent by the wonderful resources of the poet; but we may be sure that it has the same general meaning as the visions of Dante long afterwards. As Mr. Tozer has said, Dante's conversion and ultimate salvation were the primary object of his journey through the three realms of the spiritual world. In this sense it can be called an initiation, an ordeal, a sacrament.

So much has been written about this wonderful book that I do not need to dwell upon it here. I will content myself with pointing out very briefly a fact which struck me when I last read it. The ordeal of preparation is not complete till the very end of the book, when the shade of Anchises has shown his son all the great things to come, the due accomplishment of which depends on his sense of duty, his pietas. Up to that moment Aeneas is always thinking and speaking of the past, while in the last six books he is always looking ahead, absorbed in the work each hour placed before him, and in the prospect of the glory of Rome and Italy. The poet had contrived that his hero should himself narrate the story of the sack of Troy and his subsequent wanderings, and narrate them to the very person who would have made it impossible for him ever again to look forward on the path of duty. Surely this is significant of a moral as well as an artistic purpose; the passionate love of the queen urges her to keep his mind fixed on the past, to engage him in the story of events that concerned himself and not his mission (i. 748):

necnon et vario noctem sermone trahebat infelix Dido, longumque bibebat amorem multa super Priamo rogitans, super Hectore multa, etc.

After the shade of Creusa had told him of his destiny, which she was not to share, the past was still in his mind, and he seems to have forgotten the warning; he calls himself an exile (iii. 10):

litora cum patriae lacrimans portusque relinquo et campos ubi Troia fuit. Feror exsul in altum—

I find an exception after the meeting with Andromache, when he thinks of the future for a moment, but even then half-heartedly as it seems to me, with a very distinct reluctance to face the dangers to come, and with a touching envy of those who could "stay at home at ease" (iii. 493 foll.). His want of faith in the future is again shown in Book v., in the passage quoted just now; and even in Book vi. he is at first purposely depicted as "slack," as having his attention caught by what is for the moment before him, or with the figures of old friends and enemies whom he meets, until the last awakening revelation of Anchises. Thus no sooner has he landed in Italy than he is attracted by the pictures in the temple of Apollo and incurs a rebuke from the priestess (vi. 37 foll.):

non hoc ista sibi tempus spectacula poscit; nunc grege de intacto septem mactare iuvencos praestiterit, etc.;

so also a little farther on she has to warn him again (50 foll.) at the entrance to the cave:

"cessas in vota precesque, Tros" ait "Aenea, cessas?"

It may be fancy in me to see even in his prayer which follows a leaning to think of Troy and his past troubles (56 foll.). But I cannot but believe that in this book he is meant to take a last farewell of all who have shared his past fortunes, have helped him or injured him; he meets Palinurus, Dido, Tydeus, Deiphobus, and the rest, and while meditating over these he has once more to be hurried by his guide (538):

sed comes admonuit breviterque adfata Sibylla est: nox ruit, Aenea, nos flendo ducimus horas.

When Anchises appears the whole tone changes, and his famous words seem to me to show conclusively that hesitation and want of fixed, undeviating purpose had been so far his son's chief failing (806):

et dubitamus adhuc virtutem extendere factis, aut metus Ausonia prohibet consistere terra?

The father's vision and prophecy are of the future and the great deeds of men to come, and henceforward Aeneas makes no allusion to the past and the figures that peopled it, abandons talk and lamentations, "virtutem extendit factis." At the outset of Book vii. we feel the ship moving at once; three lines suffice for the fresh start; Circe is passed unheeded. "Maior rerum mihi nascitur ordo," says the poet in line 43; "maius opus moveo;" for the real subject of the poem is at last reached, and a heroic character by heroic deeds is to lay the foundation of the eternal dominion of Rome.

A very few words shall suffice about the Aeneas of the later books. Let us freely allow that he is not strongly characterised; that for us moderns the interest centres rather in Turnus, who is heroic as an individual, but not as a pioneer of civilisation divinely led; that there is no real heroine, for feminine passion would be here out of place and un-Roman, and the courtship of Lavinia is undertaken, so to speak, for political reasons. The role of Aeneas, as the agent of Jupiter in conquest and civilisation, would appeal to a Roman rather than to a modern, and it was reserved for the modern critic to complain of a lack of individual interest in him. So, too, it is in Jewish history; we feel with Esau more than with Jacob, and with David more than with Moses, who is none the less the grandest typical Israelite in the Old Testament. And, indeed, Virgil's theme here is less the development of a character or the portraiture of a hero than the idealisation of the people of the Italy which he loved so well, who needed only a divinely guided leader and civiliser to enter upon the glorious career that was in store for them.

I cannot escape the belief, as I read again through these books, that Virgil did intend to depict in Aeneas his ideal of that Roman character to which the leading writers of his day ascribed the greatness of their race. His pietas is now confirmed and enlarged, it has become a sense of duty to the will of the gods as well as to his father, his son, and his people, and this sense of duty never leaves him, either in his general course of action or in the detail of sacrifice and propitiation. His courage and steadfastness never fail him; he looks ever forward, confident in divine protection; the shield he carries is adorned—a wonderful stroke of poetic genius—with scenes of the future, and not of the past (viii. 729 foll.):

talia per clipeum Volcani, dona parentis, miratur rerumque ignarus imagine gaudet attollens umero famamque et fata nepotum.

He is never in these books to be found wanting in swiftness and vigilance; when he cheers his comrades it is no longer in a half-hearted way, but as at the beginning of the eleventh book, with the utmost vigour and confidence, "Arma parate, animis et spe praesumite bellum" (xi. 18).

His humanitas again is here more obvious than in his earlier career, and it is plainly meant to be contrasted with the heroic savagery of Mezentius and Turnus. So keenly did the poet feel this development in his hero's character, that in his descriptions of the death of Lausus and the burial of Pallas—noble and beautiful youths whom he loved in imagination as he loved in reality all young things—his tenderness is so touching that even now we can hardly read them without tears. And not only is the hero heroic and humane, but he is a just man and keeps faith; when, in the twelfth book, the Rutulians break the treaty, and his own men have joined in the unjust combat (xii. 311):

at pius Aeneas dextram tendebat inermem nudato capite atque suos clamore vocabat: "quo ruitis? quove ista repens discordia surgit? o cohibete iras; ictum iam foedus et omnes compositae leges: mihi ius concurrere soli."

He claims for himself alone, under the guiding hand of providence, the right to deal with Turnus, the enemy of humanity and righteousness. And we may note that when it came to that last struggle, though conquering by divine aid, he was ready to spare the life of the conquered till he saw the spoils of the young Pallas upon him.

The character of Aeneas, then, though not painted in such strong light as we moderns might expect or desire, is intentionally developed into a heroic type in the course of the story—a type which every Roman would recognise as his own natural ideal. And this growth is the direct result of religious influence. It is partly the result of the hero's own natural pietas, innate within him from the first, as it was in the breast of every noble Roman; partly the result of a gradually enlarged recognition of the will of God, and partly of the strengthening and almost sacramental process of the journey to Hades, of the revelation there made of the mysteries of life and death, and of the great future which Jupiter and the Fates have reserved for the Roman people. In these three influences Virgil has summed up all the best religious factors of his day: the instinct of the Roman for religious observance, with all its natural effect on conduct; the elevating Stoic doctrine which brought man into immediate relation with the universal; and, lastly, the tendency to mysticism, Orphic or Pythagorean, which tells of a yearning in the soul of man to hope for a life beyond this, and to make of this life a meet preparation for that other.

Only one word more. We can hardly doubt the truth of the story that the poet died earnestly entreating that this greatest work of his life should perish with him, and this may aptly remind us that though I have been treating the Aeneid as a poem of religion and morals, yet, after all, Virgil was a poet rather than a preacher, and thought of his Aeneid, not as a sermon, but as a work of art. Had he thought of it as a sermon he could hardly have wished to deprive the Roman world of it. The true poet is never a preacher except in so far as he is a poet. If the Greeks thought of their poets as teachers, says the late Prof. Jebb, "this was simply a recognition of poetry as the highest influence, intellectual and spiritual, that they knew." "It was not merely a recreation of their leisure, but a power pervading and moulding their whole existence." Surely this is also true of Virgil, and of the best at least of his Roman readers. No one can read the sixth Aeneid, the greatest effort of his genius, without feeling that poetry was all in all to him; that learning, legend, philosophy, religion, whatever in the whole range of human thought and fancy entered his mind, emerged from it as poetry and poetry only.

NOTES TO LECTURE XVIII

Sellar, Virgil, p. 371.

Sainte-Beuve, Etude sur Virgile, p. 68.

Horace, Epode 16, where, however, he is not quite so much in earnest as in Odes iii. 6. Sallust, prefaces to Jugurtha and Catiline: these do not ring quite true.

Georg. iv. 511 foll.

Georg. iii. 440 foll. The famous lines (498 foll.) about the horse smitten with pestilence will occur to every one.

Aen. vi. 309.

Op. cit. p. 231. He cites Georg. i. 107 and 187 foll.

Sellar, Virgil, p. 232.

Georg. iv. 221 foll.

Georg. ii. 493.

Prof. Hardie recently asked me an explanation of the double altar that we meet with more than once in Virgil in connection with funeral rites: e.g., Ecl. 5. 66; Aen. iii. 305; v. 77 foll. Servius tries to explain this, but clearly did not understand it. Of course I could offer no satisfactory solution. Yet we are both certain that there is a satisfactory one if we could only get at it.

Much has been written about the part of the Fates in the Aeneid and their relation to Jupiter. See Heinze, Vergils epische Technik, p. 286 foll.; Glover, Studies in Virgil, 202 and 277 foll. I may be allowed to refer also to my Social Life at Rome in the Age of Cicero, p. 342 foll.

Aen. i. 257 foll., vi. 756 foll., viii. 615 foll.

Suggestions preliminary to a Study of the Aeneid, p. 36.

It is not likely to strike us unless we read the whole Aeneid through, without distracting our minds with other reading, and this few of us do. I did it some ten years ago; before that the development of character had not dawned on me fully. I later on found it shortly but clearly set forth in Heinze's Vergils epische Technik, p. 266 foll.; and this caused me to read the poem through once more, with the result that I became confirmed in my view, and read a paper on the subject to the Oxford Philological Society, which I have in part embodied in this lecture.