Salve! I have
read and reread the Eclogues a few times now and looked at the Latin closely
too and I can’t help agreeing in essence with Samuel Johnson (more of him
later) and his judgement of the whole work as uneven with flashes of brilliant
innovation. Virgil’s Beano Album maybe? Or more possibly his Truth Album to
continue the early British rock guitarist (Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck
respectively) parallels. I feel that Virgil is more Beck than Clapton but that
is a purely anachronistic and personal observation! Besides, I am known to be
biased towards Lucan as the great(est) unsung prodigy of Roman epic hexameter.
Nevertheless it cannot be denied that with the Eclogues we are in the presence
of the master, or at the very least a
master even it does smack more of a sweaty guitar work out in the garage than
the later Aeneidan Rhaspsody of the next few years of Virgil’s career.
The Eclogues (literally ‘accounts, records or
drafts’) thought to have been composed sometime between 44 and 38 BCE must have
made quite an impression at the time. To take an Alexandrian favourite of the
Roman poets, the Idylls of Theocritus of Sicily (c. 270 BCE) and use it as a
framework or background to reflect political issues of the day (Eclogues I and
X which seem to doorframe the Arcadian rustic wordplay of the intervening
eclogues) was a truly innovative and radical step – no-one but Virgil could
have dared to attempt the chops.
It’s difficult to know whether or not one can
say that the experiment was a success since, how are we to judge something so
utterly new in the context of its own time? It’s also difficult to ascertain
just exactly what Virgil is doing with the Pastoral genre – a highly
mythologised and ideal non-existent rustic paradise – as a backdrop for farm
evictions and the not so distant rumbling of war and its devastating and
disrupting force to the countryside. Do we therefore judge the Eclogues as
reinterpretations or homages to Theocritan idyll for a sophisticated Roman
readership/audience? How political are or were they? Is the interchange between
Tityrus and Meliboeus in Eclogue I meant to underline the inequity of the land
confiscations or its unexpected and welcome munificence? Both perhaps…’deus
nobis haec otia fecit’ with Octavian/Augustus obliquely referenced here. There
are some subtle sub-narratives going in the texts concerning the role of the
poet, and fame in posterity as well as the wider meaning of poetry and its
purpose which I think fare better as lightly disguised thought experiments but
it is a rocky road kind of trip for sure.
The
format/style of the eclogues is amoebaean bucolic hexameter (interlinked
exchanges of poetry by two or more voices, each taking up the ending line or
theme of the preceding singer singing contests between shepherds singing of thwarted
love, the golden age to come, or just singing matches in front of a judge for
the best rustic poetaster – all in a landscape positively groaning under the
weight of honey dripping bees hives and piles of sweating wool stained with
creamy milk. Phew!
There is not much in terms of technical
theatrics that is not present in Theocritus – the difference being Virgil’s
polish and flashy word play. There is more emphasis on Eros as love as opposed to the lust, wild abandon and slapstick buggery of the idylls and has been replaced by something more elevated and possibly blander in comparison. And
this is where I return to Samuel Johnson (1709-84) who penned a lit crit review
of sorts of the Eclogues for issue 92 of the Adventurer issue dated September
22, 1753 – who had it appears similar misgivings to my own about the unevenness
of the work despite its flashes of brilliance.
He
has this to say in his preamble of Virgil’s use of the Theocritan model:-
‘Virgil, however,
taking advantage of another language, ventured to copy or to rival the
‘Sicilian bard’: he has written with greater splendour of diction, and
elevation of sentiment: but as the magnificence of his performances was more,
the simplicity was less; and, perhaps, where he excels Theocritus, he sometimes
obtains his superiority by deviating from the pastoral character, and
performing what Theocritus never attempted.’
He goes on to express
his concerns:-
‘But though his general merit has been
universally acknowledged, I am far from thinking all the productions of his
rural Thalia equally excellent; there is, indeed, in all his pastorals a strain
of versification which it is vain to seek in any other poet; but if we except
the first and the tenth, they seem liable either wholly or in part to considerable
objections.’
He likes the first
Eclogue principally on the grounds of its innovation ‘by deviating from the pastoral
character, and performing what Theocritus never attempted.’ but here
are his comments (in periphrasis with apologies) of the others in brief.
Eclogue II: Corydon
and Alexis and their unmentionable if forgivable love…but for Mr. Johnson,
soggy lettuce leaves rather than the verdant shoots of desire.
III: The singing
contest between two shepherds. Basically not much cop and he considered the
invective a bit below the dignity of pastoral. The thought immediately springs
to mind; had he actually read the Idylls (in particular see: Idylls V, Comatas
[41], [43])?
IV: Poem to Pollio. It
is filled with ‘images at once splendid and pleasing, and is elevated with grandeur of
language worthy of the first of Roman poets. ’Johnson however finds
ridiculous the idea for the return of the golden age to be predicated upon the
birth of his son and is convinced that ‘so
wild a fiction’ had another purpose, probably involving Emperors hind
quarters and tongue (editors irreverent notes).
V: Daphnis. Thumbs up
as pastoral elegies go although he can’t resist having a side swipe with this ‘yet
whoever shall read it with impartiality, will find that most of the images are
of the mythological kind, and therefore easily invented; and that there few
sentiments of rational praise or natural lamentation.’ He seems a tad
demanding here since what more could you expect from an artificial paradise
such as pastoral pretends to? Perhaps like me he feels that the genre just
cannot carry the politics too easily. Perhaps even Virgil realised that after
penning Eclogues I and X (possibly composed first) and decided to riff closer
to the Theocritan model for the other sections.
VI: Tityrus addresses
Varus, a soldier (?) and after starting off with war as a potential theme
admits it to be too heavy for the pastoral mode and opts for a drunken and
charming tale of a drunken Silenus tangoed while sleeping off the booze by a
couple of Arcadian ne’er do wells called Chromis and Mnasyllos. Johnson’s
reaction to this eclogue can be summarised as a wtf moment, ‘the fiction of
Silenus seems injudicious: nor has any sufficient reason yet been found, to
justify his choice of those fables that make the subject of the song.’ It would
be like having a death metal band Cradle of Filth for example or Slipknot
suddenly change gear into a soulful mandolin rendition of Summer Holiday by
Cliff Richard. Wtf indeed.
VIII: Johnson doesn’t
even consider this an original piece of work being lifted from Theocritus
practically with no changes except to render it bland and pointless, ‘Of
the eighth pastoral, so little is properly the work of Virgil, that he has no
claim to other praise or blame, than that of a translator.’ The tried
and trusted stock pastoral themes of the cruelty of love…the track on this rustic goat path
must be well worn.
IX: Samuel is confused
again with this one, ‘...it is scarce possible to discover design
or tendency; it is said, I know not upon what authority, to have been composed
from fragments of other poems…..there is nothing that seems appropriated to any
time or place, or of which any other use can be discovered than to fill up the
poem. In short, Arcadian puffery.
X: See I. ‘the
first and tenth pastorals, whatever be determined of the rest, are sufficient
to place their author above the reach of rivalry. The complaint of Gallus
disappointed in his love, is full of such sentiments a disappointed love
naturally produces; his wishes are wild, his resentment is tender, and his
purposes are inconstant. In the genuine language of despair, he soothes himself
awhile with the pity that shall be paid him after his death.’
Johnson reserves his
warmest praise for the first Eclogue, one which he views as the most successful
and convincing in tone, ‘I cannot forbear to give preference to the
first, which is equally natural and more diversified. The complaint of the
shepherd, who saw his old companion at ease in the shade, while himself was
driving his flock he knew not whither, is such as, with variation of
circumstances, misery always utters at the sight of prosperity;
Nos
patriae fines, et dulcia linquimus arra;
Nos
patrium fugimus: Tu Tityre, lentus in umbra
Formosam
resonare doces Amaryllida sylvas. Ec.i.3.
‘Lentus in umbra’…this summer’s motto!
Vale!
