Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 20.djvu/96

* VERGIL. TO VERGIL. greater interest in rural life, in the hope that if agriculture were made more attractive to the Roman people, the farms which had been aban- doned and laid waste during the civil wars might be restored to cultivation. Here again, however, the task was a congenial one, and the suljject was one in which the poet was deeply interested and which he was thoroughly competent to liandle. Although Vergil was the first Roman writer to compose a poem on agriculture, the topic was at all times a popular one., and he had an abun- dance of material at hand in his native language, the translation of the treatise of the Carthagin- ian Mago, the works of Cato and of Varo, and probably those of Hyginus, besides an abundance of Greek sources. Vergil styles himself the Ro- man Hesiod. but there is little in common be- tween the Works and Days and the Gcorgics; he owes much more to the Alexandrian poets, espe- cially Nieandcr and Aratus. Though strictly speaking a didactic jjoem, the Georgics are not a complete treatise on agriculture, but handle selected topics. The first book deals with the management of fields, the second with the cul- ture of trees, the third with the rearing of horses and cattle, and the fourth with bee-keeping, con- chiding with the episode of Aristaeus. It is said that the last book contained a panegv'ric of Cor- nelius Gallus, which was stricken out at the re- quest of Augustus after the downfall of Gallus in B.C. 27. The poem was composed slowly and deliberately, and refined and polished to the highest degree. There is nothing in it of the dryness of a didactic work, but the most com- monplace details are given an attractive form. There are numerous digressions, such as the praise of spring and of Italy, and each book closes with one of these. It has justly been called the most finished poem in the Latin language, and Addison termed it the most finished of all poems. As in the case of the Eclogues, Vergil undoubtedly followed his Greek and Roman sources closely, but he nevertheless stamped the ■work with his own individuality. In spite of the literarj' perfection of the Georgics and the unfinished state in which he left the jEneiil, the latter has always rightly been regarded as the greatest of Vergil's works. The idea of writing a great national epic is one which he .seems to have formed early in life, but he had postponed the undertaking until he should feel himself competent for it. He was doulitless hastened somewhat in carrying out his plan by requests for such a work from authority which it was impossible to resist. In this field Vergil was not a pioneer, for the works of Noevius and Ennius had already connected the destiny of Rome with that of Troy and had out- lined a ])lan for a national epic from which it would have been diflicult to depart in any radical way. Vergil ;indoubtedly made much use of the work of his predecessors, but the .'Fmcid bore to their productions much the same relation that history does to mere chronicle. It entirely sup- planted them, and at once took a position as the national epic, from which it was never displaced. Besides the Roman writers, Vergil had at his oommand an abundance of Greek models, the lUdd and Odgsscg. the Cyclic Poets, and Apollo- nius Rhodiusj and on these and others he drew with a freedom which would to-day be called plagiarism. In order to form a fair estimate of the rank of the JEneid as an epic poem, it must be borne in mind that it is an epic of a different type from the Homeric poems and hence can- not fairly be compared with them. The Iliad and the Odyssey are the greatest of primitive epics, and as such defy imitation. But the .Eneid is an historical epic, written w'ith a definite purpose, the glorification of Rome and of the Julian line. In its own class it must hold a high rank, if not the highest. In the JEneid the stories of the gods and goddesses and many of the mythological details are of the nature of 'epic machinery,' though Vergil himself appears to have had a religious nature; and while his philosophical studies probably prevented him from accepting the ancient belief in its entirety, a desire to effect a revival of the old Roman reverence for the gods doubtless formed part of his plan, and was thoroughly in accord with the wishes and the policy of Augustus. The task which Vergil had undertaken w'as a great one, and he never completed it to his own satisfaction, although, as ]Iaekail saj-s, it is easy to see within what limits any changes or improvements must have been made, and the poem is substantially complete. Suetonius tells us that he first wrote a version in prose and then turned this into poetic form in no special order. Such a method of composition would account for various incon- sistencies that are found in the poem, which would doubtless have been corrected in the final revision which Vergil had in mind; though strict consistency is not demanded of a poet. So dis- satisfied was Vergil himself with his work, that on his death-bed he gave directions that the JEneid should be destroyed ; but by the com- mand of Augustus it was published, with only such revision as was absolutely necessary, by Varius and Tucca. The fact that Vergil was engaged on a national epic soon became known, and the appearance of the JEneid was awaited with great expectancy, to which Propertius gives expression in the well- known lines: Ceflite Rnmanl scriptores, cedife Graii; 2s't:sc'w quid nmius nascitur Itiatte (iii. 2C. 25). In the year 20 Augustus, wlio was absent in Spain, wrote asking to see a first draft of the poem or some part of it; but Vergil was not yet ready and spoke of himself as having been mad to undertake such a task. A few years later, however, he read three books to Augustus, in- cluding the sixth, in which he inserted lines 8(10-88(> in memory of the young JIarcellus. When the poet, who is said to have been an cfFcetive reader, finished the beautiful lines, Octavia. who was present, is reported to have swooned, and on her recovery to have presented Vergil with 10.000 sesterces (about $500) for each line of Ihe tribute. The outline of the JEneid is in brief as fol- lows. The poem begins with the voyage of .-Eneas from Sicily to Italy in the sixth year after the fall of Troy. Juno, the relentless foe of the Trojans, persuades .Eolus, king of the winds, to raise a great storm, which destroys one ship of the fleet and scatters the rest far and wide over the sea. .'Kneas with seven ships takes refuge in a harbor on the African coast within the ter- ritory ruled by Dido, Queen of Carthage. His