DISCOVERY 



139 



feeling, might always lead a poet into danger. But 

 it was always safe to study the work of your prede- 

 cessors and refine upon their style. So it came about 

 that the poets of the Alexandrian Court specialised in 

 what we may call the graceful or picturesque style of 

 poetrj', concerning themselves with comparatively 

 humble or merely sentimental themes. Most of them 

 made it their business to decorate these with a wealth 

 of learning. In particular, they developed the artificial 

 type of poem which we caU the Pastoral. Some of the 

 Alexandrian Pastorals, for example several of those by 

 Theocritus, really are what the name implies — pictures 

 of shepherd-life ; but most of them were only dialogues 

 of fashionable or literary society prettily veiled by 

 being put into the mouth of shepherds and their 

 comely companions. It was this type of poem to 

 which VergU first turned when he began to write work 

 of his own. But there is one of the ten Eclogues, as 

 his Pastorals are called, which has somehow trans- 

 cended the narrowness of the frame in which it is set. 

 The Fourth Eclogue is fuU of imitations of older 

 poets, and marked also by much of the pretty fancy 

 associated with a not wholly serious kind of poetry. 

 But it is so original and so complete in itself and so 

 very much in earnest, that it has always been read 

 for its own sake, an3 even criticised for some of the 

 features which really belong to its framework ; that is 

 to say, features which were indispensable if it was to 

 rank in any sense as a Pastoral of the current type, 

 such as the general atmosphere of mythology produced 

 by frequent allusions to old-world stories. 



The poem itself tells us when it was written, namely 



in the year 40 B.C., when PoUio, to whom it is dedicated, 



was Consul. Pollio was a friend both of Octavian, 



then just twent3'-three years old, and of Vergil himself ; 



and in that year he had rendered great service to 



OctaNaan, and indeed to the world, by bringing the 



turbulent Mark Antony to the agreement with Octavian 



that is commonly known as the Peace of Brundisium. 



By this the two practically agreed to divide the Empire 



between them : Antony was to have the East and 



Octavian the West. The conspirators who had slain 



Julius Caesar had been o\'ercome two years before, and 



something hke the end of the Ci\41 Wars seemed to 



I be in sight for the first time for ten years ; the epoch 



! of revolution, in which war of some kind, often 



I civil war, had never ceased, had lasted for nearly a 



'.centurj'. The poem celebrates the prospect of this 



1 great deUverance, a dehverance which affected not 



Rome merely, but the whole of civilised humanity. 



'But the poet's hope is linked to one particular event 



I to which he looks forward as a typical part of the 



(new order of things — namely, the birth of some young 



Prince who is to rule a regenerate world. 



The main part of the poem begins by referring to 



some prophecy attributed to the Greek Sibyl of Cumae, 

 the legendary figure whom in the Mneid, later on, 

 Vergil represented as having introduced ;Eneas to the 

 Under-world, and whom popular folklore represented 

 as having sold a fraction of her prophecies to King 

 Tarquin for the same sum as she had asked at first 

 for the whole. Vergil's reference was probably not to 

 the official " SibylUne Books," as they were called, 

 which were consulted from time to time by direction 

 of the Senate, but to some more accessible collections 

 of Greek prophecies of the same kind. In them must 

 have been embodied the favourite doctrine of ancient, 

 especially Etruscan, astronomers that at a certain point 

 all the heavenly bodies would be in the position in 

 which they stood at the beginning of the world ; and 

 that consequently all human affairs, being, as was 

 supposed, governed by these celestial movements, would 

 repeat themselves over again. 



The first of all the ages of Mankind had been, in 

 popular belief, an age of gold under the rule of Saturn. 

 During it gods had walked with men on earth, and the 

 last of the gods to leave the earth because of its in- 

 creasing wickedness had been the Maiden Justice. 



Now it is time to let Vergil speak for himself, at 

 least so far as a rough rendering ' will allow : 



Lo, the last age of Cumas's seer has come ! 

 Again the great millennial aeon dawns. 

 Once more the hallowed Maid appears, once more 

 Ivind Saturn reigns, and from high heaven descends 

 The firstborn child of promise. Do but thou. 

 Pure Goddess, by whose grace on infant eyes 

 Daylight first breaks, smile softly on this babe ; 

 The age of iron in his time shall cease, 

 And golden generations fill the world. 



From this prayer to Lucina, the Goddess of Child- 

 birth, the poet turns to PoUio, whom he congratulates 

 on the great beginning that is to take place during 

 his Consulship : 



Under thy banner all the stains of ill. 



That shame us yet, shall melt away and break 



The long, long night of universal dread. 



For the child's birthright is the life of gods ; 



Heroes and gods together he shall know. 



And rule a world his sire has blessed with peace. 



For thee, fair child, the lavish earth shall spread 

 Thy earliest playthings, trailing ivy-wreaths 

 And foxgloves red and cups of water-lilies. 

 And wild acanthus leaves with sunshine stored. 

 The goats shall come uncalled, weighed down with milk, 

 Nor lion's roar affright the labouring kine. 

 Thy very cradle, blossoming for joy. 

 Shall with soft buds caress thy baby face ; 

 The treacherous snake and deadly herb shall die. 

 And Syrian spikenard blow on every bank. 



' Two other renderings, one in the original metre and one 

 in Biblical prose, both very interesting, are given by Mr. Royds 

 in the book mentioned below. 



