120 



DISCOVERY 



particular image in any one poet is closely associated 

 with a certain train of thought, then at least we may 

 be sure that there is nothing in the image which will 

 be inconsistent with that thought ; and we may guess, 

 though we cannot be sure, that that thought itself is 

 some part of what the image was intended to suggest. 

 So our enquiry here will not be a matter of folk-lore ; 

 not what the ancient Italian peasants believed about 

 the mistletoe, nor why they believed it, interesting as 

 such questions may be, but rather this : what ideas 

 does Vergil connect most closely with this golden 

 image ? It was essential to the purpose of iEneas, 

 that much everyone sees. It carried him through the 

 Underworld in safety ; it kept him living in a region 

 where all else was dead ; it reduced the " grim ferry- 

 man," Charon, to obedience ; it made even the 

 ruling powers of the dead world complaisant. Is it 

 not, then, well to ask what else there was essential to 

 the errand of iEneas ? What commands are given 

 him ? What kind of motive is enjoined upon him ? 

 What kind of a meeting does he seek, or find ? What 

 kind of a revelation crowns his journey ? All this 

 contributes to the question to which, from another 

 and more general point of view, I have sought an 

 answer in a lecture recently published on The Philo- 

 sophy of Vergil ^ ; namely, what was the central and 

 most characteristic part of Vergil's view of life ? 



But we must not stray yet from the Golden Branch 

 and its immediate surroundings. Into what class of 

 persons was ^Eneas admitted by the privilege of 

 gathering it ? The Sibyl tells us, " those few whom 

 just Heaven has loved, themselves of divine birth," 

 who have been allowed to enter and leave the Under- 

 world alive. Clearly, therefore, there is something 

 essentially divine about the Branch, some element of 

 majesty superior to ordinary mortal limitations. But 

 can we further discover in what this divine majesty 

 consists ? 



What is ^neas sent to do ? Nothing in itself 

 transcendent, not to rescue a bride, or to make any 

 change in the gloomy region he enters. No, he is only 

 going to see his father. True, he is to receive from 

 him a revelation. But the revelation has largely 

 been given already. He knows already from other 

 sources that he is to found a new nation, and a great 

 nation ; and he has actually reached Italy, which is 

 to be that nation's home. What he has to learn is 

 mainly the importance to mankind of the work which 

 that nation will do ; in particular the restoration of 

 the Golden Age, to be accomplished by the great 

 Augustus. For in his day, peace was to return to an 



" The editor of the John Ryland's Library Bulletin kindly 

 allows me to offer to the leaders of Discovery some account 

 of the investigation which is traced more fully in the pages 

 of that journal (vol. vi, p. 384). 



afflicted world ; justice, free intercourse, harmony and 

 merciful government was to be everywhere estabhshed. 

 That is the clima.x of the revelation. But at the 

 moment when /Eneas is seeking the Branch he has in 

 his mind nothing but the longing to see his father ; 

 and when he arrives, his father greets him knowing 

 nothing of the Branch, but only seeing the cause of 

 his son's triumph over the powers of darkness in that 

 son's affection. So that, whereas the Sibyl might 

 have said, " It is the Golden Branch that has brought 

 you here," Anchises does actually say, " It is your own, 

 pieias, your own devoted affection, which I knew would 

 not disappoint me." 



This double description of the power which brought 

 iEneas on his way is most characteristic of Vergil. 

 First, the supernatural image linked with old folk-lore 

 in the poet's mind ; and, secondly, the natural motive 

 which Anchises — who, after all, saw things from a 

 loftier point of view than the Sibyl — recognises as the 

 moving cause of the journey.- 



But again, how did ^neas come to find the Branch ? 

 Only because he delayed his departure from the upper 

 world in order to render the last honour he could to 

 a friend who had been suddenly cut off ; and to render 

 it by hard work, felling trunks of trees to build a lofty 

 pyre, and penetrating into the heart of the wood to 

 seek them. The Golden Branch, then, would seem to 

 grow somewhere beside the path which men tread 

 who do honour to their friends at some cost to them- 

 selves. 



Again, when does /Eneas find it ? The discovery is 

 granted in direct answer to a prayer. That, of course, 

 is not strange, seeing what divine power the Branch 

 has when once discovered. Yet it adds a point to its 

 character. It is divine, we knew. But we know now 

 that it is given to those — and presumably only to those 

 — who approach its divine creators and sponsors in 

 the attitude of reverence and of what in Christian 

 phraseology might be called faith. 



Yet again, how are the eyes of /Eneas actually guided 

 to the Branch ? By two twin doves whom he recognises 

 as sacred to his mother, Venus ; they fly before him 

 into the forest just far enough to lead him on without 

 passing out of his sight ; and they finally settle on the 

 tree " whence through the boughs flashes the strange, 

 half-breathing gleam of gold." 



Now in the Mneid Venus is a distinctly mixed char- 

 acter. She often does a great deal of harm. But so 

 far as /Eneas is concerned she is always trying — in her 

 own too clever ways — to do what a mother should ; 

 and in his relation to her there is never anything but 

 reverence and affection, which indeed appear here in 



- Other examples of this habit of giving double causes, 

 natural and supernatural, side by side are collected in the 

 article just referred to, pp. 389 ff. 



