Horace

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"About my farm, dear Quinctius: You would know
What sort of produce for its lord 'twill grow;
Plough-land is it, or meadow-land, or soil
For apples, vine-clad elms, or olive-oil?
So (but you'll think me garrulous) I'll write
A full description of its form and site.
In long continuous lines the mountains run,
Cleft by a valley, which twice feels the sun--
Once on the right, when first he lifts his beams;
Once on the left, when he descends in steams.
You'd praise the climate; well, and what d'ye say
To sloes and cornels hanging from the spray?
What to the oak and ilex, that afford
Fruit to the cattle, shelter to their lord?
What, but that rich Tarentum must have been
Transplanted nearer Rome, with all its green?
Then there's a fountain, of sufficient size
To name the river that takes thence its rise--
Not Thracian Hebrus colder or more pure,
Of power the head's and stomach's ills to cure.
This sweet retirement--nay, 'tis more than sweet--
Insures my health even in September's heat." (C.)

Here is what a last year's tourist found it:--('Pall Mall Gazette,'
August 16, 1869.)

"Following a path along the brink of the torrent Digentia, we passed a
towering rock, on which once stood Vacuna's shrine, and entered a
pastoral region of well-watered meadow-lands, enamelled with flowers
and studded with chestnut and fruit trees. Beneath their sheltering
shade peasants were whiling away the noontide hours. Here sat Daphnis
piping sweet witching melodies on a reed to his rustic Phidyle, whilst
Lydia and she wove wreaths of wild-flowers, and Lyce sped down to the
edge of the stream and brought us cooling drink in a bulging conca
borne on her head. Its waters were as deliciously refreshing as they
could have been when the poet himself gratefully recorded how often
they revived his strength; and one longed to think, and hence half
believed, that our homely Hebe, like her fellows, was sprung from the
coloni who tilled his fields and dwelt in the five homesteads of which
he sings. ... Near the little village of Licenza, standing like its
loftier neighbour, Civitella, on a steep hill at the foot of
Lucretilis, we turned off the path, crossed a thickly-wooded knoll,
and came to an orchard, in which two young labourers were at work. We
asked where the remains of Horace's farm were. '_A pie tui!_'
answered the nearest of them, in a dialect more like Latin than
Italian. So saying, he began with a shovel to uncover a massive floor
in very fair preservation; a little farther on was another, crumbling
to pieces. Chaupy has luckily saved one all doubt as to the site of
the farm, establishing to our minds convincingly that it could
scarcely have stood on ground other than that on which at this moment
we were. As the shovel was clearing the floors, we thought how
applicable to Horace himself were the lines he addressed to Fuscus
Aristius, 'Naturam expelles,' &c.--

'Drive Nature forth by force, she'll turn and rout
The false refinements that would keep her out;' (C.)

For here was just enough of his home left to show how nature, creeping
on step by step, had overwhelmed his handiwork and reasserted her
sway. Again, pure and Augustan in design as was the pavement before
us, how little could it vie with the hues and odours of the grasses
that bloomed around it!--'Deterius Libycis' &c.--

'Is springing grass less sweet to nose and eyes
Than Libyan marble's tesselated dyes?' (C.)

"Indeed, so striking were these coincidences that we were as nearly as
possible going off on the wrong tack, and singing 'Io Paean' to Dame
Nature herself at the expense of the bard; but we were soon brought
back to our allegiance by a sense of the way in which all we saw
tallied with the description of him who sang of nature so surpassingly
well, who challenges posterity in charmed accents, and could shape the
sternest and most concise of tongues into those melodious cadences
that invest his undying verse with all the magic of music and all the
freshness of youth. For this was clearly the 'angulus iste,' the nook
which 'restored him to himself'--this the lovely spot which his
steward longed to exchange for the slums of Rome. Below lay the
greensward by the river, where it was sweet to recline in slumber.
Here grew the vines, still trained, like his own, on the trunks and
branches of trees. Yonder the brook which the rain would swell till it
overflowed its margin, and his lazy steward and slaves were fain to
bank it up; and above, among a wild jumble of hills, lay the woods
where, on the Calends of March, Faunus interposed to save him from the
falling tree, and where another miracle preserved him from the attack
of the wolf as he strolled along unarmed, singing of the soft voice
and sweet smiles of his Lalage! The brook is now nearly dammed up; a
wall of close-fitting rough-hewn stones gathers its waters into a
still, dark pool; its overflow gushes out in a tiny rill that rushed
down beside our path, mingling its murmur with the hum of myriads of
insects that swarmed in the air."

On this farm lovers of Horace have been fain to place the fountain of
Bandusia, which the poet loved so well, and to which he prophesied,
and truly, as the issue has proved, immortality from his song (Odes,
III. 13). Charming as the poem is, there could be no stronger proof of
the poet's hold upon the hearts of men of all ages than the enthusiasm
with which the very site of the spring has been contested.

"Bandusia's fount, in clearness crystalline,
O worthy of the wine, the flowers we vow!
To-morrow shall be thine
A kid, whose crescent brow

"Is sprouting, all for love and victory,
In vain; his warm red blood, so early stirred,
Thy gelid stream shall dye,
Child of the wanton herd.

"Thee the fierce Sirian star, to madness fired,
Forbears to touch; sweet cool thy waters yield
To ox with ploughing tired,
And flocks that range afield.

"Thou too one day shall win proud eminence
'Mid honoured founts, while I the ilex sing
Crowning the cavern, whence
Thy babbling wavelets spring." (C.)

Several commentators maintain, on what appears to be very inconclusive
grounds, that the fountain was at Palazzo, six miles from Venusia. But
the poem is obviously inspired by a fountain whose babble had often
soothed the ear of Horace, long after he had ceased to visit Venusia.
On his farm, therefore, let us believe it to exist, whichever of the
springs that are still there we may choose to identify with his
description. For there are several, and the local guides are by no
means dogmatic as to the "_vero fonte_." That known as the "Fonte
della Corte" seems to make out the strongest case for itself. It is
within a few hundred yards of the villa, most abundant, and in this
respect "fit" to name the river that there takes its rise, which the
others--at present, at least--certainly are not.

Horace is never weary of singing the praises of his mountain home--
"_Satis beatus unicis Sabinis_,"

"With what I have completely blest,
My happy little Sabine nest"--
Odes, II. 18.

are the words in which he contrasts his own entire happiness with the
restless misery of a millionaire in the midst of his splendour. Again,
in one of his Odes to Maecenas (III. 16) he takes up and expands the
same theme.

"In my crystal stream, my woodland, though its acres are but few,
And the trust that I shall gather home my crops in season due,
Lies a joy, which he may never grasp, who rules in gorgeous state
Fertile Africa's dominions. Happier, happier far my fate!
Though for me no bees Calabrian store their honey, nor doth wine
Sickening in the Laestrygonian amphora for me refine;
Though for me no flocks unnumbered, browsing Gallia's pastures fair,
Pant beneath their swelling fleeces, I at least am free from care;
Haggard want with direful clamour ravins never at my door,
Nor wouldst thou, if more I wanted, oh my friend, deny me more.
Appetites subdued will make me richer with my scanty gains,
Than the realms of Alyattes wedded to Mygdonia's plains.
Much will evermore be wanting unto those who much demand;
Blest, whom Jove with what sufficeth dowers, but dowers with sparing
hand."

It is the nook of earth which, beyond all others, has a charm for
him,--the one spot where he is all his own. Here, as Wordsworth
beautifully says, he

"Exults in freedom, can with rapture vouch
For the dear blessings of a lowly couch,
A natural meal, days, months from Nature's hand,
Time, place, and business all at his command,"

It is in this delightful retreat that, in one of his most graceful
Odes, he thus invites the fair Tyndaris to pay him a visit (I. 17):--

"My own sweet Lucretilis ofttime can lure
From his native Lycaeus kind Faunus the fleet,
To watch o'er my flocks, and to keep them secure
From summer's fierce winds, and its rains, and its heat.

"There the mates of a lord of too pungent a fragrance
Securely through brake and o'er precipice climb,
And crop, as they wander in happiest vagrance,
The arbutus green, and the sweet-scented thyme.

"Nor murderous wolf nor green snake may assail
My innocent kidlings, dear Tyndaris, when
His pipings resound through Ustica's low vale,
Till each mossed rock in music makes answer again.

"The muse is still dear to the gods, and they shield
Me, their dutiful bard; with a bounty divine
They have blessed me with all that the country can yield;
Then come, and whatever I have shall be thine!

"Here screened from the dog-star, in valley retired,
Shalt thou sing that old song thou canst warble so well,
Which tells how one passion Penelope fired,
And charmed fickle Circe herself by its spell.

"Here cups shalt thou sip, 'neath the broad-spreading shade
Of the innocent vintage of Lesbos at ease;
No fumes of hot ire shall our banquet invade,
Or mar that sweet festival under the trees.

"And fear not, lest Cyrus, that jealous young bear,
On thy poor little self his rude fingers should set--
Should pluck from thy bright locks the chaplet, and tear
Thy dress, that ne'er harmed him nor any one yet."

Had Milton this Ode in his thought, when he invited his friend Lawes
to a repast,

"Light and choice,
Of Attic taste with wine, whence we may rise,
To hear the lute well touched, and artful voice
Warble immortal notes, and Tuscan air"?

The reference in the last verse to the violence of the lady's lover--a
violence of which ladies of her class were constantly the victims--
rather suggests that this Ode, if addressed to a real personage at
all, was meant less as an invitation to the Sabine farm than as a balm
to the lady's wounded spirit.

In none of his poems is the poet's deep delight in the country life of
his Sabine home more apparent than in the following (Satires, II. 6),
which, both for its biographical interest and as a specimen of his
best manner in his Satires, we give entire:--

"My prayers with this I used to charge,--
A piece of land not very large,
Wherein there should a garden be,
A clear spring flowing ceaselessly,
And where, to crown the whole, there should
A patch be found of growing wood.
All this, and more, the gods have sent,
And I am heartily content.
Oh son of Maia, that I may
These bounties keep is all I pray.
If ne'er by craft or base design
I've swelled what little store is mine,
Nor mean, it ever shall be wrecked
By profligacy or neglect;
If never from my lips a word
Shall drop of wishes so absurd
As,--'Had I but that little nook
Next to my land, that spoils its look!
Or--'Would some lucky chance unfold
A crock to me of hidden gold,
As to the man whom Hercules
Enriched and settled at his ease,
Who,--with, the treasure he had found,
Bought for himself the very ground
Which he before for hire had tilled!'
If I with gratitude am filled
For what I have--by this I dare
Adjure you to fulfil my prayer,
That you with fatness will endow
My little herd of cattle now,
And all things else their lord may own,
Except his sorry wits alone,
And be, as heretofore, my chief
Protector, guardian, and relief!
So, when from town and all its ills
I to my perch among the hills
Retreat, what better theme to choose
Than satire for my homely Muse?
No fell ambition wastes me there,
No, nor the south wind's leaden air,
Nor Autumn's pestilential breath,
With victims feeding hungry death.
Sire of the morn, or if more dear
The name of Janus to thine ear,
Through whom whate'er by man is done,
From life's first dawning, is begun
(So willed the gods for man's estate),
Do thou my verse initiate!
At Rome you hurry me away
To bail my friend; 'Quick, no delay,
Or some one--could worse luck befall you?--
Will in the kindly task forestall you.'
So go I must, although the wind
Is north and killingly unkind,
Or snow, in thickly-falling flakes,
The wintry day more wintry makes.
And when, articulate and clear,
I've spoken what may cost me dear,
Elbowing the crowd that round me close,
I'm sure to crush somebody's toes.
'I say, where are you pushing to?
What would you have, you madman, you?'
So flies he at poor me, 'tis odds,
And curses me by all his gods.
'You think that you, now, I daresay,
May push whatever stops your way,
When you are to Maecenas bound!'
Sweet, sweet, as honey is the sound,
I won't deny, of that last speech,
But then no sooner do I reach
The dusky Esquiline, than straight
Buzz, buzz around me runs the prate
Of people pestering me with cares,
All about other men's affairs.
'To-morrow, Roscius bade me state,
He trusts you'll be in court by eight!'
'The scriveners, worthy Quintus, pray,
You'll not forget they meet to-day,
Upon a point both grave and new,
One touching the whole body, too.'
'Do get Maecenas, do, to sign
This application here of mine!'
'Well, well, I'll try.' 'You can with ease
Arrange it, if you only please.'
Close on eight years it now must be,
Since first Maecenas numbered me
Among his friends, as one to take
Out driving with him, and to make
The confidant of trifles, say,
Like this, 'What is the time of day?'
'The Thracian gladiator, can
One match him with the Syrian?'
'These chilly mornings will do harm,
If one don't mind to wrap up warm;'
Such nothings as without a fear
One drops into the chinkiest ear.
Yet all this tune hath envy's glance
On me looked more and more askance.
From mouth to mouth such comments run:
'Our friend indeed is Fortune's son.
Why, there he was, the other day,
Beside Maecenas at the play;
And at the Campus, just before,
They had a bout at battledore.'
Some chilling news through lane and street
Spreads from the Forum. All I meet
Accost me thus--'Dear friend, you're so
Close to the gods, that you must know:
About the Dacians, have you heard
Any fresh tidings? Not a word!'
'You're always jesting!' 'Now may all
The gods confound me, great and small,
If I have heard one word!' 'Well, well,
But you at any rate can tell,
If Caesar means the lands, which he
Has promised to his troops, shall be
Selected from Italian ground,
Or in Trinacria be found?'
And when I swear, as well I can,
That I know nothing, for a man
Of silence rare and most discreet
They cry me up to all the street.
Thus do my wasted days slip by,
Not without many a wish and sigh,
When, when shall I the country see,
Its woodlands green,--oh, when be free,
With books of great old men, and sleep,
And hours of dreamy ease, to creep
Into oblivion sweet of life,
Its agitations and its strife? [1]
When on my table shall be seen
Pythagoras's kinsman bean,
And bacon, not too fat, embellish
My dish of greens, and give it relish!
Oh happy nights, oh feasts divine,
When, with the friends I love, I dine
At mine own hearth-fire, and the meat
We leave gives my bluff hinds a treat!
No stupid laws our feasts control,
But each guest drains or leaves the bowl,
Precisely as he feels inclined.
If he be strong, and have a mind
For bumpers, good! if not, he's free
To sip his liquor leisurely.
And then the talk our banquet rouses!
But not about our neighbours' houses,
Or if 'tis generally thought
That Lepos dances well or not?
But what concerns us nearer, and
Is harmful not to understand,
By what we're led to choose our friends,--
Regard for them, or our own ends?
In what does good consist, and what
Is the supremest form of that?
And then friend Cervius will strike in
With some old grandam's tale, akin
To what we are discussing. Thus,
If some one have cried up to us
Arellius' wealth, forgetting how
Much care it costs him, 'Look you now,
Once on a time,' he will begin,
'A country mouse received within
His rugged cave a city brother,
As one old comrade would another.
"A frugal mouse upon the whole,
But loved his friend, and had a soul,"
And could be free and open-handed,
When hospitality demanded.
In brief, he did not spare his hoard
Of corn and pease, long coyly stored;
Raisins he brought, and scraps, to boot,
Half-gnawed, of bacon, which he put
With his own mouth before his guest,
In hopes, by offering his best
In such variety, he might
Persuade him to an appetite.
But still the cit, with languid eye,
Just picked a bit, then put it by;
Which with dismay the rustic saw,
As, stretched upon some stubbly straw,
He munched at bran and common grits,
Not venturing on the dainty bits.
At length the town mouse; "What," says he,
"My good friend, can the pleasure be,
Of grubbing here, on the backbone
Of a great crag with trees o'ergrown?
Who'd not to these wild woods prefer
The city, with its crowds and stir?
Then come with me to town; you'll ne'er
Regret the hour that took you there.
All earthly things draw mortal breath;
Nor great nor little can from death
Escape, and therefore, friend, be gay,
Enjoy life's good things while you may,
Remembering how brief the space
Allowed to you in any case."
His words strike home; and, light of heart,
Behold with him our rustic start,
Timing their journey so, they might
Reach town beneath the cloud of night,
Which was at its high noon, when they
To a rich mansion found their way,
Where shining ivory couches vied
With coverlets in purple dyed,
And where in baskets were amassed
The wrecks of a superb repast,
Which some few hours before had closed.
There, having first his friend disposed
Upon a purple tissue, straight
The city mouse begins to wait
With scraps upon his country brother,
Each scrap more dainty than another,
And all a servant's duty proffers,
First tasting everything he offers.
The guest, reclining there in state,
Rejoices in his altered fate,
O'er each fresh tidbit smacks his lips,
And breaks into the merriest quips,
When suddenly a banging door
Shakes host and guest into the floor.
Prom room to room they rush aghast,
And almost drop down dead at last,
When loud through all the house resounds
The deep bay of Molossian hounds.
"Ho!" cries the country mouse, "this kind
Of life is not for me, I find.
Give me my woods and cavern! There
At least I'm safe! And though both spare
And poor my food may be, rebel
I never will; so, fare ye well!"'"

[1]
Many have imitated this passage--none better than Cowley.

"Oh fountains! when in you shall I
Myself, eased of unpeaceful thoughts, espy?
Oh fields! oh woods! when, when shall I be made
The happy tenant of your shade?
Here's the spring-head of pleasure's flood,
Where all the riches be, that she
Has coined and stamped for good."

How like is this to Tennyson's--

"You'll have no scandal while you dine,
But honest talk and wholesome wine,
And only hear the magpie gossip
Garrulous, under a roof of pine."

It is characteristic of Horace that in the very next satire he makes
his own servant Davus tell him that his rhapsodies about the country
and its charms are mere humbug, and that, for all his ridicule of the
shortcomings of his neighbours, he is just as inconstant as they are
in his likings and dislikings. The poet in this way lets us see into
his own little vanities, and secures the right by doing so to rally
his friends for theirs. To his valet, at all events, by his own
showing, he is no hero.

"You're praising up incessantly
The habits, manners, likings, ways,
Of people hi the good old days;
Yet should some god this moment give
To you the power, like them to live,
You're just the man to say,' I won't!'
Because in them you either don't
Believe, or else the courage lack,
The truth through thick and thin to back,
And, rather than its heights aspire,
Will go on sticking in the mire.
At Rome you for the country sigh;
When in the country to the sky
You, flighty as the thistle's down,
Are always crying up the town.
If no one asks you out to dine,
Oh, then the _pot-au-feu's_ divine!
'You go out on compulsion only--
'Tis so delightful to be lonely;
And drinking bumpers is a bore
You shrink from daily more and more.'
But only let Maecenas send
Command for you to meet a friend;
Although the message comes so late,
The lamps are being lighted, straight,
'Where's my pommade? Look sharp!' you shout,
'Heavens! is there nobody about?
Are you all deaf?' and, storming high
At all the household, off you fly.
When Milvius, and that set, anon
Arrive to dine, and find you gone,
With vigorous curses they retreat,
Which I had rather not repeat."

Who could take amiss the rebuke of the kindly satirist, who was so
ready to show up his own weaknesses? In this respect our own great
satirist Thackeray is very like him. Nor is this strange. They had
many points in common--the same keen eye for human folly, the same
tolerance for the human weaknesses of which they were so conscious in
themselves, the same genuine kindness of heart. Thackeray's terse and
vivid style, too, is probably in some measure due to this, that to
him, as to Malherbe, Horace was a kind of breviary.

CHAPTER V.

LIFE IN ROME.--HORACE'S BORE.--EXTRAVAGANCE OF THE ROMAN DINNERS.

It is one of the many charms of Horace's didactic writings, that he
takes us into the very heart of the life of Rome. We lounge with its
loungers along the Via Sacra; we stroll into the Campus Martius, where
young Hebrus with his noble horsemanship is witching the blushing
Neobule, already too much enamoured of the handsome Liparian; and the
men of the old school are getting up an appetite by games of tennis,
bowls, or quoits; while the young Grecianised fops--lisping feeble
jokes--saunter by with a listless contempt for such vulgar gymnastics.
We are in the Via Appia. Bariné sweeps along in her chariot in superb
toilette, shooting glances from her sleepy cruel eyes. The young
fellows are all agaze. What is this? Young Pompilius, not three months
married, bows to her, with a visible spasm at the heart, as she
hurries by, full in view of his young wife, who hides her
mortification within the curtains of her litter, and hastens home to
solitude and tears. Here comes Barrus--as ugly a dog as any in Rome--
dressed to death; and smiling Malvolio--smiles of self-complacency.
The girls titter and exchange glances as he passes; Barrus swaggers
on, feeling himself an inch taller in the conviction that he is
slaughtering the hearts of the dear creatures by the score. A mule,
with a dead boar thrown across it, now winds its way among the
chariots and litters. A little ahead of it stalks Gargilius, attended
by a strong force of retainers armed with spears and nets, enough to
thin the game of the Hercynian forest. Little does the mighty hunter
dream, that all his friends, who congratulate him on his success, are
asking themselves and each other, where he bought the boar, and for
how much? Have we never encountered a piscatory Gargilius near the
Spey or the Tweed? We wander back into the city and its narrow
streets. In one we are jammed into a doorway by a train of builders'
waggons laden with huge blocks of stone, or massive logs of timber.
Escaping these, we run against a line of undertakers' men,
"performing" a voluminous and expensive funeral, to the discomfort of
everybody and the impoverishment of the dead man's kindred. In the
next street we run the risk of being crushed by some huge piece of
masonry in the act of being swung by a crane into its place; and while
calculating the chances of its fall with upturned eye, we find
ourselves landed in the gutter by an unclean pig, which has darted
between our legs at some attractive garbage beyond. This peril over,
we encounter at the next turning a mad dog, who makes a passing snap
at our toga as he darts into a neighbouring blind alley, whither we do
not care to follow his vagaries among a covey of young Roman street
Arabs. Before we reach home a mumping beggar drops before us as we
turn the corner, in a well-simulated fit of epilepsy or of helpless
lameness. _'Quoere peregrinum'_--"Try that game on country
cousins,"--we mutter in our beard, and retreat to our lodgings on the
third floor, encountering probably on the stair some half-tipsy
artisan or slave, who is descending from the attics for another cup of
fiery wine at the nearest wine-shop. We go to the theatre. The play is
"Ilione," by Pacuvius; the scene a highly sensational one, where the
ghost of Deiphobus, her son, appearing to Ilione, beseeches her to
give his body burial. "Oh mother, mother," he cries, in tones most
raucously tragic, "hear me call!" But the Kynaston of the day who
plays Ilione has been soothing his maternal sorrow with too potent
Falernian. He slumbers on. The populace, like the gods of our gallery,
surmise the truth, and, "Oh! mother, mother, hear me call!" is
bellowed from a thousand lungs. We are enjoying a comedy, when our
friends the people, "the many-headed monster of the pit," begin to
think it slow, and stop the performance with shouts for a show of
bears or boxers. Or, hoping to hear a good play, we find the
entertainment offered consists of pure spectacle, "inexplicable
dumbshow and noise"--

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