Virtù

“ Virgil, who us'd to say, that no Virtue was so necessary as Patience, was forc'd to drag a sick Body half the length of Italy, back again to Rome, and by the way, probably, compos'd his Ninth Pastoral, which may seem to have been made up in haste out of the Fragments of some other pieces; and naturally enough represents the disorder of the Poet's Mind, by its disjointed Fashion, tho' there be another Reason to be given elsewhere of its want of Connexion. ”

“ I say, therefore, through these examples, that it is possible for a weak Prince succeeding an excellent one to preserve any Kingdom, even if it should not be as that of France, which is maintained by its ancient institutions: and those Princes are weak who are not able to endure war. I conclude, therefore, with this discussion that the virtu of Romulus was so great, that it was able to give time to Numa Pompilius to be able to rule Rome with the arts of peace ”

“ That which is the prime virtue and chief ornament of Virgil, which distinguishes him from the rest of writers, is so conspicuous in your verses that it casts a shadow on all your contemporaries; we cannot be seen, or but obscurely, while you are present. You equal Donne in the variety, multiplicity, and choice of thoughts; you excel him in the manner and the words. ”

“ Thine hand it is that keeps me lingering in a life that is hateful since Pallas fell, and Turnus is the debt thou seest son and father claim: for thy virtue and thy fortune this scope alone is left. I ask not joy in life ”

“ And share th’ eternal Honours of the Skies,
To glut the Rage of one, our Vessels lost,335
(Hard Fate!) thrown wide, and barr’d the promis’d Coast.
Are these the Palms that Virtue must obtain?
And is our Empire thus restor’d again?
The Sire of Men and Gods, superior, smil’d
On the sad Queen, and gently kiss’d his Child. 340
Then, with those Looks that clear the clouded Skies,
And calm the raging Tempest, he replies.
Daughter, dismiss your Fears; by Doom divine
Fixt are the Fates of your immortal Line. ”

“ And as the observance of divine institutions is the cause of the greatness of Republics, so the contempt of it is the cause of their ruin, for where the fear of God is lacking it will happen that that kingdom will be ruined or that it will be sustained through fear of a Prince, which may supply the want of Religion. And because Princes are short lived, it will happen that that Kingdom will easily fall as he (Prince) fails in virtu. ”

“ that love, that source of every virtue in man, turned to horrible things in the heart of a priest, and that a man constituted like himself, in making himself a priest, made himself a demon. ”

“ As Virgil first expressed the political tendency of his age, so he is the purest exponent of its ethical and religious sensibility. He recalls the simpler virtues of the olden time, he represents the humanity of his own age, he anticipates something of the piety and purity of the future faith of the world. ”

“ Father, you yourself declare that there comes a moment when the soul must have no guide but the voice within it, to tell whether the consecrated thing has sacred virtue. ”

“ The words ‘patriis virtutibus’ imply that he is no ideal being, but the actual son of a well-known father. Virgil takes occasion in this poem to commemorate the attainment of the highest office by his patron, to celebrate the birth of the son born in the year of his consulship, and at the same time to express, by mystical and obscure allusions, the trust that the peace of Brundisium was the inauguration of that new era for which the hearts of men all over the world were longing. ”

“ The Romans rightly employed the same word (virtus) to designate courage, which is in a physical sense what the other is in a moral; the highest virtue of all being victory over ourselves. ”

“ Then He, without voice and opening of lips, formed in my soul these words: Herewith is the Fiend overcome. These words said our Lord, meaning His blessed Passion as He shewed it afore.
On this shewed our Lord that the Passion of Him is the overcoming of the Fiend. God shewed that the Fiend hath now the same malice that he had afore the Incarnation. And as sore he travaileth, and as continually he seeth that all souls of salvation escape him, worshipfully, by the virtue of Christ's precious Passion. And that is his sorrow, and full evil is he ashamed: ”

“ Princes may make laws and repeal them, but they can neither make nor destroy virtue, and how indeed should they be able to do what is impossible to the Deity himself? Virtue being as immutable in its nature as the divine will which is the ground of it.*
* Virtue did not derive its nature merely from the omnipotent will of God, but also from the eternal truth and moral fitness of things; ”

“ It is proper, if you please, to be inserted in such a Work; and many more as important as This are interspersed up and down, and mentioned among other Things, both in That of Virgil, and in Those of Homer. But how much more noble, extensive, and truly Heroic a Moral is This; That Piety to God, and Justice and Goodness to Men, together with true Valour, both Active, and Passive, (not such as consists in Strength, Intrepidity, and Fierceness only, which is the Courage of a Tyger, not of a Man) will engage Heaven on our Sides, and make both Prince, and People, victorious, flourishing, and happy? ”

“ Through wealth and want, through woe and bliss,
He saw his fellow-creature!
No soul could sink beneath his love,—
Not even angel blasted;
No mortal power could soar above
The pride that all outlasted!
Ay! Heaven had set one living man
Beyond the pedant's tether,—
His virtues, frailties, HE may scan,
Who weighs them all together! ”

“ Mock with their smile the wrinkled front of time
We stain thy flowers,—they blossom o'er the dead;
We rend thy bosom, and it gives us bread;
O'er the red field that trampling strife has torn,
Waves the green plumage of thy tasselled corn;
Our maddening conflicts sear thy fairest plain,
Still thy soft answer is the growing grain.
Yet, O our Mother, while uncounted charms
Steal round our hearts in thine embracing arms,
Let not our virtues in thy love decay,
And thy fond sweetness waste our strength away. ”

“ Comrades, great deeds have been achieved to-day;
Let not the morrow trouble you. See there
The tyrant's spoils, the first-fruits of the fray.
And this my work, Mezentius. Now prepare
To king Latinus and his walls to fare.
Let hope forestall, and courage hail the fray,
So, when the gods shall summon us to bear
The standards forth, and muster our array, 19 No fears shall breed dull sloth, nor ignorance delay. ”

“ XLVIII . "Or, if fame tempt, and in thy bosom glow
Such fire, and so thou hankerest to gain
A kingdom's dower, take heart and face the foe.
Must we, poor souls, that Turnus may obtain
A royal bride, like carrion strew the plain,
Unwept, unburied? If thine arm hath might,
If but a spark of native worth remain,
Go forth this hour; in arms assert thy right, 424 And meet him, face to face, who calls thee to the fight."
XLIX . Fierce blazed the wrath of Turnus, and he wrung
Speech from his breast, deep groaning in his gall. ”

“ But fierce Æneas on his foeman pressed.
His tree-like spear he poises for the fray,
And pours the pent-up fury of his breast.
"Why stay'st thou, Turnus? Wherefore this delay?
Fierce arms, not swiftness, must decide the day.
Shift as thou wilt, and every shape assume;
Exhaust thy courage and thy craft, and pray
For wings to soar with, or in earth's dark womb 1027 Sink low thy recreant head, and hide thee from thy doom."
CXVI . Thus he; but Turnus shook his head, and said,
"Ruffian! thy threats are but as empty sound;
They daunt not Turnus; 'tis the gods I dread,
And Jove my enemy." ”

“ Controuls the Thund'rer, on his awful Throne;
To thee thy much afflicted Mother flies,
And on thy Succour, and thy Faith relies. ⁠940
Thou know'st, my Son, how Jove's revengeful Wife,
By force and fraud, attempts thy Brother's life.
And often hast thou mourn'd with me his Pains:
Him Dido now with Blandishment detains;
But I suspect the Town where Juno reigns. ⁠945
For this, tis needful to prevent her Art,
And fire with Love the proud Phœnician's heart.
A Love so violent, so strong, so sure,
As neither Age can change, nor Art can cure. ”

“ Isaiah vii. 14. "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son." Ch. ix. ver. 6, 7. "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given,—the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government, and of his peace, there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice, for ever and ever."—Pope.
By "the virgin" Virgil meant Astræa, or Justice, who is said by the poets to have been driven from earth by the wickedness of mankind.—Professor Martyn. ”

“ I first, whom thou call'st foe (and nought that name I thrust aside) ,
Lo, suppliant to thy feet I come! Pity thy people then!
Sink thine high heart, and, beaten, yield; surely we broken men
Have seen enough of deaths, laid waste enough of field and fold.
But if fame stir thee, if thine heart such dauntless valour hold,
If such a longing of thy soul a kingly dowry be,
Dare then, and trust thee in thy might, and breast the enemy.370
Forsooth all we, that Turnus here a queenly wife might gain [Pg 325] —
We common souls—a heap unwept, unburied, strew the plain. ”

“ Thus Curious was Virgil in diversifying his Subjects. But Mr. F. is a great deal too Uniform; begin where you please, the Subject is still the same. We find it true what he says of himself,
Toûjours, toûjours de l'Amour.
He seems to take Pastorals and Love-Verses for the same thing. Has Human Nature no other Passion? Does not Fear, Ambition, Avarice, Pride, a Capricio of Honour, and Laziness it self often Triumph over Love? But this Passion does all, not only in Pastorals, but in Modern Tragedies too. A Heroe can no more Fight, or be Sick, or Dye, than he can be Born without a Woman. ”

“ What God, what hap, such glory gave to hands of Rutuli;
Beneath the weight of things unknown dead doth the honour lie,
Nor boasted any of the hurt Æneas had that day.
But Turnus, when he saw the King give back from that array,
And all the turmoil of the Dukes, with hope his heart grew fain;
He cried for horse and arms, and leapt aloft to battle-wain,
And high of heart set on apace, the bridle in his hand;
And many a brave man there he gave unto the deadly land,
And rolled o'er wounded men in heaps, and high in car wore down
The ranks of men ”

“ None of the Latin poets your fellows, or none but Virgil, seem to me to have known so well as you, Horace, how happy and fortunate a thing it was to be born in Italy. You do not say so, like your Virgil, in one splendid passage, numbering the glories of the land as a lover might count the perfections of his mistress. But the sentiment is ever in your heart and often on your lips. ”

“ Lest all my fame, unstained of old, my glory won aright,
Give place: lest there Æneas' sons Latinus overcome
By wedlock, and in Italy set up their house and home:
Thou, who the brothers of one heart canst raise up each 'gainst each,
And overturn men's homes with hate, and through the house-walls' breach
Bear in the stroke and deadly brand—a thousand names hast thou, [Pg 198] —
A thousand arts of ill: Stir up thy fruitful bosom now;
Be render of the plighted peace; of war-seed be the sower;339
That men may yearn for arms, and ask, and snatch in one same hour. ”

“ Knoweth the sound, the promised help, his Goddess-mother's meed.
He saith: "Yea, verily, O host, to ask is little need
What hap this portent draweth on: the Gods will have me wend;
The God that made me promised erst such heavenly signs to send
If war were toward; and through the sky she promised to bear down
Arms Vulcan-fashioned for my need.
Woe's me for poor Laurentium's folk! what death, what bloody graves!
—Ah, Turnus, thou shalt pay it me!—how many 'neath thy waves,
O Father Tiber, shalt thou roll the shields and helms of men,
And bodies of the mighty ones! ”

“ Fortune forefend the omen!—I give you up to death,
you, a suitor for my alliance, for my daughter’s hand?
Think of the uncertainties of war; have pity on your aged
sire, now biding forlornly far away in his Ardean home!” 20
These words abate not Turnus’ vehemence a whit: it
starts up fiercer, more virulent for the healing hand.
Soon as he can find utterance, he thus begins: “The care
you take for my sake, best of fathers, lay down for my
sake, I beg, and suffer me to pledge my life for my honour. 25
My hand, too, can scatter darts and fling steel with no
feeble force ”

“ But in Virgil’s time faith in the Republic had become impracticable, and, though the sentiment continued to ennoble the life of individuals, it was powerless to change the current of events. Loyalty to a person appealed to the imagination with the charm of novelty, and might be justified to the conscience of the world, as being, for that time and the times that came after, the necessary bond of civil order and union. ”

“ Where
is this to end, fair spouse? what last stroke have you in
store? you know yourself, by your own confession, that
Æneas has his place assured in heaven among Italia’s
native gods, that destiny is making him a ladder to the 35
stars. What plan you now? what hope keeps you seated
on those chilly clouds? was it right that mortal wound
should harm a god, or that Turnus—for what power [299]
could Juturna have apart from you?—should receive
back his lost sword and the vanquished should feel new
forces? ”

“ If false and faithless he withhold the dower,
And grudge thy marriage, learn the deed to rue, 523 And taste at length and try what Turnus armed can do."
LX . Then he in scorn: "Yea, Tiber's waves beset
With foreign ships—I know it; wherefore feign
For me such terrors? Juno guards me yet.
Good mother, dotage wears thee, and thy brain
Is rusty; age hath troubled thee in vain,
And, 'midst the feuds of monarchs, mocks with fright
A priestess. Go; 'tis thine to guard the fane
And sacred statues; these be thy delight; 532 Leave peace and war to men, whose business is to fight." ”

“ Phœbus on a time, by mighty longing moved,
Was fain to give him gifts of God, his very heavenly craft—
Foresight, or skill of harp-playing, or mastery of the shaft:
But he, that from his bed-rid sire the death he yet might stave,
Would liefer know the might of herbs, and how men heal and save,
And, speeding of a silent craft, inglorious life would wear. ”