Tityrus

“ We know pretty well that Tityrus,—who in the First Eclogue expresses his gratitude to the "godlike youth" who has preserved his little farm from the ruthless hands of the soldier colonists, while his poor neighbour Melibœus has lost his all,—can be no other than the poet himself, who thus compliments his powerful protector. ”

“ This I hope to make clear; and, in relation to the contrast presented by the Georgics, to emphasize, if not satisfactorily to explain, one of the subtle reticencies of Vergil.
The Bucolics place us in an unreal atmosphere. The scenic setting is a blend of Theocritean Sicily and the poet’s own lowlands of the Cisalpine. The characters and status of the rustics are confused in a remarkable degree. Thus in the first eclogue Tityrus appears as a slave [219] who has bought his freedom late in life (lines 27-9) , having neglected to amass a peculium in earlier years (31-2) . ”

“ Even where, as in the first, the poem is intended to convey a personal expression of gratitude for Vergil's exemption from harsh evictions, the poet is very careful not to obtrude a picture of himself or his own circumstances. Tityrus is an old man, and a slave in a typical shepherd's country, such as could be seen every day in the mountains near Naples. And there were as many evictions near Naples as in the North. Indeed it is the Neapolitan country—as picturesque as any in Italy—that constantly comes to the reader's mind. ”

“ It is from Theocritus that our poet took the Flight of Love and the rewards offered by Venus in the Prologue, the comparison of Love with a bee at the beginning of the Second Act, and the complaints of the Satyr in that soliloquy. Minor touches of imitation are also scattered about from Theocritus, Moschus, and Anacreon. The Satyr's curse upon mercenary love is from Tibullus. Thyrsis going to the capital, and describing his patron as a god, is Virgil's Tityrus going to Rome and deifying Augustus. ”

“ The first Eclogue, Tityre tu, is even more general than the ninth in its application. Though, of course, it is meant to convey the poet's thanks to Octavian for a favorable decree, it speaks for all the poor peasants who have been saved. The aged slave, Tityrus, does not represent Vergil's circumstances, but rather those of the servile shepherd-tenants, [14] so numerous in Italy at this time. Such men, though renters, could not legally own property, since they were slaves. ”

“ Downward sinks the pit, twice as deep as the heavens are high. In it groan the Titans, hurled down with thunderbolts, and the giants, Otus and Ephialtes, who strove to overturn the throne of Jupiter himself. There lies Tityus, o'er nine roods outstretched, and eternally does a vulture tear his liver with her beak. Over some hangs a rock threatening ever to fall; before others a bounteous banquet is continually spread, but the hands that they stretch to take the food are evermore struck back by the Furies. Some roll a huge stone, others are bound to the revolving wheel. ”

“ Here, also, is Tityus, the giant, whose form is so immense that as he lies he stretches over nine acres, while a vulture preys upon his liver, which as fast as it is devoured grows again, so that his punishment will have no end. ”

“ Tityus, that gigantic son of earth, who had once dared to dishonor the divine Leto, mother of Apollo and Artemis, lay fast bound upon the ground in punishment, two vultures on either side tearing at his entrails which ever grew again and were anew destroyed. ”

“ They thought mainly of how to wrest riches and nectar and ambrosia from the gods, and they decided to try and kill Apollo and the Muses first of all.
Thessaly had the wildest forests and the most rocky coasts of any part of Greece. It was a fitting place for the giants to meet, and it must have been a terrible sight when they landed and formed their ranks for battle. They say that Tityus, one of their leaders, covered nine acres when he lay down for a nap on a plain. Certain others had a hundred arms, limbs made of huge serpents and could breathe fire. ”

“ There also lies Tityus, the huge giant who, having insulted the goddess Latona, was slain by the darts of her children, Apollo and Diana, and whose writhing body now lies extended over nine acres of ground, while insatiable vultures perpetually prey on his vitals, that are renewed as fast as they are devoured. Beyond him is Ixion, bound to a wheel that never ceases to revolve, while he is scourged by attendant Furies. He it was who, being admitted to Olympus by the generosity of Jupiter himself, dared to seek the love of the queen of the Gods. ”

“ Tityus was the son of Jupiter and Elara. On account of his enormous size, the poets sometimes style him a son of the earth. Attempting to commit violence upon Latona, he was slain by the arrows of Apollo, and precipitated to the infernal regions, where he was condemned to have his liver constantly devoured by a vulture, and then renewed, to perpetuate his torments. ”

“ Clinging to the rocks, and gazing ever ahead at the guiding cloud, Titurel came at last to the top of the mountain, where, in a beam of refulgent light, he beheld the Holy Grail, borne in the air by invisible hands. He raised his heart in passionate prayer that he might be found worthy to guard the emerald-colored wonder which was thus intrusted to his care, and in his rapture hardly heeded the welcoming cries of a number of knights in shining armor, who hailed him as their king. ”

“ This is another admirable example of the dignity and reserve which Titian combines with sumptuous colour at this stage of his practice. His mastery is not less but greater, subtler, than that of his more showy and brilliant contemporaries of the younger generation; the result is something that appears as if it must inevitably have been so and not otherwise. The central figure of the patriarch is robed in deep crimson with grayish fur, rather black in shadow; the man in the prime of manhood wears a more positive crimson, trimmed with tawnier fur, browner in shadow ”

“ If it is Titian that we have here, as certainly appears most probable, he cannot be deemed to have exerted his full powers in completing or developing the Bellinesque landscape. The task may well, indeed, have presented itself to him as an uninviting one. There is nothing to remind the beholder, in conception or execution, of the exquisite Giorgionesque landscapes in the Three Ages and the Sacred and Profane Love, while the broader handling suggests rather the technical style, but in no way the beauty of the sublime prospect which opens out in the Bacchus and Ariadne. ”

“ The sensual type is preserved, but rendered acceptable, and in a sense attractive, by a certain assurance and even dignity of bearing, such as success and a position impregnable of its unique and unenviable kind may well have lent to the adventurer in his maturity. Even Titian's brush has not worked with greater richness and freedom, with an effect broader or more entirely legitimate than in the head with its softly flowing beard and the magnificent yet not too ornate robe and vest of plum-coloured velvet and satin. ”

“ In the Bacchus and Ariadne Titian's genius flames up with an intensity of passion such as will hardly again be seen to illuminate it in an imaginative subject of this class. Certainly, with all the beauties of the Venuses, of the Diana and Actaeon, the Diana and Calisto, the Rape of Europa, we descend lower and lower in the quality of the conception as we advance, though the brush more and more reveals its supreme accomplishment, its power to summarise and subordinate. ”

“ The predictions of the prefect Titianus were fulfilled, for the Emperor's faults increased with years and the meaner side of his mind and nature came into sharper relief. Titianus and his wife led a retired life by lake Larius, far from the world, and both were baptized before they died. They never pined for the turmoil of a pleasure-seeking world or its dazzling show, for they had learnt to cherish in their own hearts all that is fairest in life.
It was the slave Mastor who brought to Titianus the news of the sovereign's death. ”

“ He left two sons, Titus and Domitian. Titus was more of a scholar than his father, and was gentle and kindly in manner, so that he was much beloved. He used to say, "I have lost a day," when one went by without his finding some kind act to do. He was called the delight of mankind, and his reign would have been happy but for another great fire in Rome, which burnt what Nero's fire had left. ”

“ Jupiter, having disposed of all the Titans, now fancied he would enjoy the power so unlawfully obtained; but Gæa, to punish him for depriving her children of their birthright, created a terrible monster, called Typhœus, or Typhon, which she sent to attack him. This Typhœus was a giant, from whose trunk one hundred dragon heads arose; flames shot from his eyes, nostrils, and mouths; while he incessantly uttered such blood-curdling screams, that the gods, in terror, fled [Pg 24] from Mount Olympus and sought refuge in Egypt. ”

“ By virtue of the miraculous preservative influence of the Holy Grail, Titurel seemed but forty when he was in reality more than four hundred years old. His every thought had been so engrossed by the care of the precious vessel that he was somewhat surprised when he read upon its rim a luminous command to marry, so that his race might not become extinct. When the knights of the temple had been summoned, and had all perused the divine command, they began to consider where a suitable helpmate could be found for their beloved king. ”

“ The combat with Tityus is nearly allied to that with the Python. This earth-born monster, dwelling at Panopea, a town situated on the sacred road, and hostile to the Delphians, laid hands upon Latona when passing through that place: but her children soon overcome the ravisher, and send him to the shades below; where a vulture incessantly preys upon his liver,1339 the seat of inordinate desire.
10. The hostile part of nature now lying vanquished, and quiet having gained the victory over disturbance, Apollo begins to exercise the other office for which he was sent into the world. ”

“ Yet in fulness and variety of life, in unexaggerated dignity, in coherence, in richness and beauty, if not in poetic significance of colour, in grasp of humanity and nature, Titian stands infinitely above his younger competitor. If, unhappily, it were necessary to make a choice between the life-work of the one and the life-work of the other—making the world the poorer by the loss of Titian or Tintoretto—can it be doubted for a moment what the choice would be, even of those who abdicate when they are brought face to face with the mighty genius of the latter? ”

“ Besides, Titus got his renown, assisted by the power of a flourishing Rome; the other flourished under a declined Greece, so that his successes may be accounted his own; in Titus's glory Rome claims a share. The one had brave men under him, the other made his brave, by being over them. And though Philopœmen was unfortunate certainly, in always being opposed to his countrymen, yet this misfortune is at the same time a proof of his merit. Where the circumstances are the same, superior success can only be ascribed to superior merit. ”

“ Beneath a huge rock hanging in the air;
But in life rather an empty fear of gods
Oppresses mortals; and the fall they dread
Is fortune’s fall, which chance may bring to each.
Nor verily entering the large breast of Tityos,
As he lies stretched in Acheron, do vultures
Find food there for their beaks perpetually.
How vast soever his body’s bulk extends,
Though not nine acres merely with outspread limbs
He cover, but the round of the whole earth,
Yet would he not be able to endure
Eternal pain, nor out of his whole body
For ever provide food. ”

“ Of the same nature as these was the gigantic personage, supposed, to have been seen at Gades by Cleon Magnesius. He made, it seems, no doubt of Tityus and other such monsters having existed. For being at Gades, he was ordered to go upon a certain expedition by Hercules: and upon his return to the island, he saw upon the shore a huge sea-man, who had been thunderstruck, and lay extended upon the ground: [320] τουτον πλεθρα μεν πεντε μαλιστα επεχειν; and his dimensions were not less than five acres. So Typhon, Caanthus, Orion, are said to have been killed by lightning. ”

“ We know not that Titus was a Christian. The light is very dim which comes down to us through these long centuries. But it is certain, that, in very many things, he manifested the spirit of Christ. The reign of this good man was short. Titus had a brother Domitian, an utterly depraved young man. He was to Titus as Cain to Abel. Anxious to grasp the sceptre, it is said that he poisoned his brother Titus when he had attained the forty-first year of his age and the second of his reign. The wretched Domitian ascended the throne. It is certain that he had heard of Jesus, of Christianity. ”

“ For decorative effect, for "go," for frankness and breadth of execution, it could not be surpassed. Yet hardly elsewhere has the great master approached so near to positive vulgarity as here in the conception of the fair Europa as a strapping wench who, with ample limbs outstretched, complacently allows herself to be carried off by the Bull, making her appeal for succour merely pour la forme. What gulfs divide this conception from that of the Antiope, from Titian's earlier renderings of female loveliness, from Giorgione's supreme Venus! ”

“ There was evidently nothing to be hoped for from Titianus. He is, no doubt, a brave man, but there is a touch of the actor in him too. He is a Stoic; and where would be the point of that, if a man could not appear to look on approaching death as calmly as on taking a bath?
"Titianus plays his part well. However, I next went to the Serapeum—it is a long way, and it was very hot in the sun—to ask for help from my old patron, the high-priest. Caesar is now his guest; and the prefect, too, had advised me to place my father's cause in his hands." ”