Chapter VI (3)

In their protest against the world both poets are entirely at one. But the ideal of Virgil’s imagination, on its positive side, is more on the ordinary human level than that of lonely contemplation in accordance with which Lucretius lived and wrote. The Virgilian ideal, like that of Lucretius, recognised a heart at peace and independent of Fortune as a greater source of happiness than any external good. But this peace the one poet sought for in a superiority to the common beliefs of men; the other rather in a more trusting acceptance of them. Some other elements in Virgil’s ideal Lucretius too would have ranked among the supreme sources of human happiness. The lines

Interea dulces pendent circum oscula nati,
Casta pudicitiam servat domus(394),

beautiful as the thought and picture is, are not more true to human feeling, scarcely touch the heart and imagination so vividly, as the lines which suggested them—

Iam iam non domus accipiet te laeta, neque uxor
Optima, nec dulces occurrent oscula nati
Praeripere(395).

Other elements in Virgil’s ideal Lucretius would have sympathised with, as he did with all natural human pleasure; but the elements of social kindliness expressed in the lines—

Ipse dies agitat festos, etc.

could mix only as an occasional source of refreshment with his lonely contemplation. The great difference between the two men is that Virgil’s ordinary feelings and beliefs are in unison with the common ways of life; he has a more active sympathy with the toils and pleasures of simple men; and, above all, he regards it as the highest good for man, not to secure peace of mind for himself, but to be useful in supporting others, in contributing to the well-being of his country, of his family, even of the animals associated with his toil:—

hinc patriam parvosque Penates
Sustinet, hinc armenta boum meritosque iuvencos(396).

This ideal Virgil seems to regard as one that might be attained by man, if he only could be taught how to appreciate it(397); nay, that has been attained by him in happier times when the land was cultivated by free men, each holding his own plot of ground. This was the life of the old Italian yeomen, the life by which Etruria waxed strong and brave, the life to which Rome herself owed the beginning of her greatness(398). It is the life which the national imagination, in its peaceful mood, and yearning to return into the ways of innocence and piety, discerned in that distant Golden Age, when all men lived in contentment and abundance under the rule of the old god, from whom the land received the well-loved name ‘Saturnia tellus(399).’

Hanc olim veteres vitam coluere Sabini,
Hanc Remus et frater, sic fortis Etruria crevit
Scilicet, et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma,
Septemque una sibi muro circumdedit arces.
Ante etiam sceptrum Dictaei regis et ante
Impia quam caesis gens est epulata iuvencis,
Aureus hanc vitam in terris Saturnus agebat;
Necdum etiam audierant inflari classica, necdum
Impositos duris crepitare incudibus enses(400).