Part 9

Papyrus, to Caecilius tell (A touching bard, my friend as well) That to Verona he must come, Where his Catullus is at home, And new-built Comu's walls forsake, And that sweet shore of Laris Lake. A friend of mine and his has brought To light some passages of thought, Which he must hear. So if he will Be thriving and improving still, His speed will swallow up the distance, Although with amorous resistance, And both arms clinging round his neck, That lovely maid his progress check, With lips a thousand times that say "Oh, do not, do not go away!" I mean that maid who, Fame--not I-- Asserts for love of him would die; For fire consumes her heart and head, Since first the opening lines she read Of Cybele the God's great queen. Maid, learned as the Sapphic muse, I cannot sympathy refuse; For not amiss (the book I've seen) Begins the tale, "The Mighty Queen."

AQUILIUS.--I protest against "so if he will be thriving and improving still." That is the Curate's interpolation. The fact is, he must have rhymed a passage from his last sermon; and it has somehow or other slipped into his Catullus.

CURATE.--No authority! What, then, is meant by "Quare si sapiet?"

AQUILIUS.--Simply, if he would know the secret--the "cogitationes."

GRATIAN.--I am inclined to agree with you. Now, Aquilius, we will listen to your version.

AQUILIUS.

Hasten, papyrus! greet you well That tender poet, my sweet friend Caecilius--speedily I send, As speedily my message tell: That he should for Verona make All haste--and quit his Larian Lake, And Novum Comum--for I would Some certain thoughts he understood And purposes, that now possess A friend of mine; and his no less. And if he takes me rightly, say His coming will devour the way, Though that fair girl should bid him stay, And round his neck her arms should throw, And cry, Oh, do not, do not go!-- That girl, who, if the truth be told, E'en in her heart of hearts doth hold And cherish such sweet love--since he First read to her of Cybele, "Great Queen of Dindymus" the tale Begun. Oh, then she did inhale The living breath of love, whose heat Into her very life doth eat. Thy passion I can well excuse, Fair maid! more learn'd than the tenth muse, The Lesbian maid--nor couldst thou fail To find for love an ample plea, In that so nobly open'd tale Of the great Goddess Cybele.

CURATE.--What's all this?--the "tenth muse!" where is she in the Latin?

AQUILIUS.--_Sapphica musa_, Doctor. That is Sappho, is it not? and pray was Sappho one of the _nine_ muses? No; then of course she was the _tenth_--and was not she "the Lesbian maid?"

CURATE.--Well, I admit it--you have vindicated your muse fairly, and I will not pronounce against her, though tempted by an apt quotation from the mouth of Bacchus, in the _Frogs_ of Aristophanes.

"[Greek: Aute poth e Mouo ouk elesbiazen ou]."

For your muse is certainly a Lesbian; but you have omitted "misellae," which shows that the passion was not returned.

GRATIAN.--I don't see that; for she throws her arms about his neck. But neither of you have well spoken the "millies euntem revocet," the calling him back after departure, and that is very good too. I see the note upon _Sapphica Musa_, speaks of various interpretations to the passage; but adopts this--that the maiden loving Caecilius has more sense (is that _doctior_? I doubt) than Sappho, who loved a youth too stupid ever to write a line; but this maid did not love till she had read the commencement of his poem. I don't see the necessity for thinking the passion hopeless either, because of the comparison with Sappho. Few Roman maidens took the Leucadian leap.

CURATE.--It is very odd, and might first appear a mark of their good manners--that the Romans never mention "old maids." I fear there was another cause. I suppose the omission may be accounted for by the state of society, which was not favourable to their existence at all; for then a man could put away his wife at any moment, and for any plea, most women must have managed to get a husband for a long or a short time.

AQUILIUS.--The only ancient old maids were the Fates and Furies--of the latter, the burden of the song was--

"Oh no, we never mention them, Their names are never heard!"

GRATIAN.--Come back to your duty: we are wandering, and leaving Catullus behind. What are we to have now?

AQUILIUS.--An attack upon one Egnatius, who, having white teeth, took care to show them upon all occasions. He was not, however, celebrated for his tooth-powder. He is a fair mark for the wit of our author. The arrow of his satire was occasionally keen enough and free to fly.

IN EGNATIUM.

Egnatius's teeth are very white, And therefore is he ever grinning: Let pleaders in the court excite All hearts to weep--from the beginning E'en to the end he laughs. The while The mother on the funeral bier, Sheds o'er her only son the tear, Alone Egnatius seems to smile, Then opes his mouth from ear to ear: Where'er he is, whatever doing, He laughs and grins. The thing in fact is A tasteless, foolish, silly practice, Egnatius, and well worth eschewing. Spare all this risible exertion, And were you Roman or Tiburtian, Sabine, Lanuvian, fat Etruscan, Or porcine Umbrian with rare show Of tusks--columnar--order Tuscan: Or born the other side the Po,} (And my compatriot, therefore know,)} Where folk are civilised I trow,} And wash their teeth with water cleanly-- Pure water such as folk might quaff-- I would entreat you still--don't laugh. You look so sillily, so meanly, As if you were but witted half. Yet being but a Celtiberian, Holding the custom of your nation, Using that lotion called Hesperian; The more you grin, folk say, forsooth, What pity 'tis the whitest tooth Should have the foulest application!

CURATE.--I did not translate--and our host will think one translation quite enough.

GRATIAN.--Go on then to the next. What are we to have?

CURATE.--His address to his farm. Authors were happy in those days to have their landed estate. Horace always speaks of his with delight; so does Catullus, as we have seen, of his Sirmio. This farm was, it should seem, like Horace's, among the Sabine hills.

TO MY FARM.

My farm! which those who wish to please Thy master's heart, Tiburtian call; But they who call thee Sabine, these Respect his feelings not at all: And wishing more to tease and fret, Will wager thou art Sabine yet-- How well it pleased me to retreat To thy suburban country-seat; Where I sent summarily off That plaguy pulmonary cough; Which, half-deserved, my stomach gave Just for a hint no more to crave Luxurious living. I had hoped With a good dinner to have coped At Sextius' table; when he read A poisonous speech might strike one dead, All gall and venom, to refute One Attius in a certain suit. Since when, a cold cough and catarrh Against my battered frame made war; Until I came in thee to settle, And cured it with repose and nettle. So, now I'm well, I thank thee, farm! And that I got so little harm, From such great fault. I may be pardon'd If to this pitch my heart is harden'd: To pray, when Sextius reads again Things so abhorr'd of gods and men, That that my cough and cold catarrh Not mine but Sextius' health might mar-- Who never sends me invitation But for such wretched recitation.

GRATIAN.--A charitable wish this of our good Catullus! But these heathens knew little of "do as you would be done by." One of the neatest wishes of this kind is in a Greek epigram. I can't remember word for word the Greek, so I give the translation:--"Castor and Pollux, who dwell in beauteous Lacedemon, by the sweet-flowing river Eurotas, if ever I wish evil to my friend, may it light upon me; but if ever he wishes evil to me, may he have twice as much."

AQUILIUS.--In a note on _villae_, I see the derivation of that word given, _quasi vehilla_, because there the fruits of the farm were carried; so that the original idea of a villa was quite another thing from the modern suburban construction. Architects, when they call these suburban edifices villas, might as well remember how inappropriate is the term. But here you have my version of this address to his farm:--

AD FUNDUM.

My Farm, or Sabine or Tiburtian, (What name I care not we confab in, Though they who hold me in aversion, Persist and wager you are Sabine,)

In your suburban sweet recesses Of that vile cough I timely rid me, Merited well, for those excesses My stomach failed not to forbid me,

When I with Sextius was convivial, Who feasting read me his invective, Vilest, 'gainst Attius his rival, All venom--and, alas! effective.

For surely 'twas that poison seized me, A chill--a heat--a cough then shook me E'en to my vitals--and so teazed me, That to thy bosom I betook me.

Thanks, my good farm! my fault you pardon'd, And not revenged. We've much to settle On score of thanks: my chest you harden'd, And healed with basil-root and nettle.

But from henceforth, if I such vicious Invectives read, though Sextius pen 'em, Who but invites me with malicious Intent to kill me with their venom--

If e'er I yield to his endeavour, Expose me to his scrip infectious-- I call down ague, cold, and fever, Oh! fall ye not on me,--but Sextius.

GRATIAN.--I see the next is that one which has been not unfrequently translated and imitated. Is there not one by Cowley,--if I remember, much lengthened?

AQUILIUS.--It can scarcely be called a translation. The Latin measure is certainly here very sweet and tender.

DE ACME ET SEPTIMIO.

Septimius, to his bosom pressing His Acme, said, "I love thee, Acme-- All my life-long will love thee, Acme! Nor day shall come to love thee less in. Or should it come, like common lover, In such poor love I love thee only; May Libyan lion dun discover, Or torrid India's beast attack me, Wandering forlorn from thee, and lonely On desert shore."-- He said: Love, as before, Upon the left hand aptly sneezed. The omen showed that he was pleased To give his blessing.

Then gentle Acme, softly turning Upon the breast of her Septimius, And unto his her face upraising, And looking in his eyes so burning, As if inebriate with gazing; With that her rich red mouth she kissed them, And said,--"My love, dear, dear Septimius! Oh, let us serve our master duly-- Our master Love, as now caressing; For never yet have Love so blessed them As now my thoughts he blesseth truly, Even to my heart of hearts, Septimius, The inmost core." She said: and, as before, Love on the left hand aptly sneezed. The omen showed that he was pleased To give his blessing.

They loved--were loved: this sweet beginning Omen'd their future bright condition. Offer all Asia to Septimius-- Add Britain--put in competition With Acme--wretchedly abstemious They'd call him of your gifts, Ambition. The only province worth his winning Is Acme: Acme's faithful bosom Knows nought on earth but her Septimius. Ripe was the fruit, as fair the blossom Of this their mutual love, and glowing; And all admired its freshness growing. Was never pair so fond and loving! And Venus' self looked on approving.

CURATE.--Are you correct in your translation "Love, as before?" Is it not that, as before he sneezed on the left, now he sneezes on the right hand,--_was_ unfavourable--_is_ now propitious?

GRATIAN.--I see in the note that the passage bears either construction. There is also authority given; for what to us is the left hand, to the gods is the right. Now, Curate, for your Acme and Septimius.

CURATE.--

OF SEPTIMIUS AND ACME.

Acme to Septimius' breast, Darling of his heart, was prest-- "Acme mine!" then said the youth, "If I love thee not in truth, If I shall not love thee ever As a lover doated never, May I in some lonely place, Scorch'd by Ind's or Libya's sun, Meet a lion's tawny face; All defenceless, one to one."-- Love, who heard it in his flight, To the truth his witness bore, Sneezing quickly to the right-- (To the left he sneezed before.)

Acme then her head reflecting, Kiss'd her sweet youth's ebriate eyes, With her rosy lips connecting Looks that glistened with replies. "Thus, my life, my Septimillus! Serve we Love, our only master: One warm love-flood seems to thrill us, Throbs it not in me the faster?"-- Love, who heard it in his flight, To the truth his witness bore, Sneezing quickly to the right-- (To the left he sneezed before.)

Thus with omens all-approving, Each and both are loved and loving. Poor Septimius with his Acme, Cares not to whose lot may fall Syria's glory--wealthy province!-- Or both Britains great and small. Acme, faithful and unfeigning, Gives, creates, enjoys all pleasure, With her dear Septimius reigning.-- Oh! was ever earthly treasure Greater to man's lot pertaining? Blessed pair!--thus, without measure, Venus' choicest gifts attaining.

GRATIAN.--You have a little run riot, good Master Curate; and run out of your rhyming course too, I see--for you don't mean "province" to rhyme to "Acme."--I see the next is, On Approach of Spring--with that beautiful line, "Jam ver egelidos refert tepores." I wish to see how you would have translated that refreshing and cool warmth of expression--almost a contradiction in terms--the season when we inhale the heavenly air with the chill off--like hot tea thrown into a glass of spring-cold water, and drank off immediately.

AQUILIUS.--I gave it up in despair, and the Curate too has omitted it. There are two other perhaps untranslatable lines in this short piece:--

"Jam mens praetrepidans avet vagari; Jam laeti studio pedes vigescunt."

After two other little pieces, we come to a few lines to no less a personage than Marcus Tullius Cicero, who had probably in some cause gratuitously assisted the poet with his eloquence; for to sue _in forma poetae_, was, perhaps, pretty much the same as in _forma pauperis_. It seems that "omnium patronus" was a flattering title on other occasions, and by other persons bestowed upon Cicero, as well as by our poet here. One would almost think the orator had served the poet an ill turn, and that this superlative praise was but irony; for he not only calls Tullius the most eloquent of men, but as much the best of patrons, as he, Catullus, is the worst of poets. This surely must be a mock humility. Is it a satire in disguise, and meaning the reverse? After this, follows a little piece to his friend Cornellus Licinius Calvus, with whom he had passed a pleasant and too exciting day--but let him tell his own story. Shall I repeat?

AD LICINIUM.

My dear Licinius, yesterday We sported in our pleasant way; Tablets in hand--and at our leisure, In verse as various as the measure, Scribbling between our wine and laughter. But when we parted, mark the after Vexation;--conquered, and hard hit By your all-overpowering wit, I could not eat--nor yet would Sleep His softly-soothing fingers keep Upon my weary lids: all night} I toss'd, I turned from left to right} Impatient for the morning light,} That I might talk with you, and be Again in your society. But when my limbs, as 'twere half dead, Were lying on my restless bed, I made these lines--which, my good friend, That you may know my pains, I send. Now, though so free, so bold to dare, So apt to scoff--good sir, beware Lest with the eye of your disdain You view these lines, my vow, my pain. Beware of Nemesis, beware!-- For Vengeance, should I cry aloud-- She hears--and punishes the proud.

GRATIAN.--Those last lines are very grave: are they not too much so for the intended play of this mock anger? Let us have your version, Master Curate.

CURATE.--I am sure you think one version quite enough. I did not translate it; and believe we must now turn over many pages, and then I have little more to offer.

GRATIAN.--(Turning over the leaves of Catullus.) Here I see is that beautiful passage in his "Carmen Nuptiale."

"Ut flos in septis secretus nascitur hortis."

AQUILIUS.--Which did not escape the tasteful, though bold Ariosto. I have made a weak attempt to translate the passage; and as it stands in the middle of a long piece, I have taken it out as a sonnet. I will read it:--

UT FLOS IN SEPTIS, &C.

As in enclosure of chaste garden ground, The floweret grows--where nor unseemly tread Of flocks or ploughshares bruise its tender head-- There soft airs soothe it with their gentle sound; Suns give it strength, and nurturing showers abound, And raise its tall stem from its sheltered bed; And many a youth and maiden, passion-led, With longing eyes admiring walk around: Pluck'd from the stem that its pure grace supplied, Nor youths nor maidens love it as before. So the sweet maiden, in the queenly pride Of her chaste beauty, many hearts adore; But that her virgin charter laid aside, Who lov'd, who cherish'd, cherish, love no more.

CURATE.--I remember Ariosto's translation--for translation it is; and though you know it, I will repeat it, and, by Gratian's favour, let it pass for my version. For once, borrowed plumes,--and I shall not be the worse bird--though birds of richer plumage have no song.

"La verginella e simile alla rosa, Chi'n bel giardin su la nativa spina, Mentre sola, e sicura si riposa, Ne gregge, ne pastor sele avvicina; L'aura soave, e l'alba rugidosa L'acqua, la terra al suo favor s'inch a: Giovani vaghi, e donne innamorate, Amano averne e seni, e tempre ornate. Ma non si tosto dal materno stelo, Remossa viene, e dal suo ceppo verde, Che, quanto avea dagli uomini, e dal cielo, Favor, grazia, ebellezza, tutto perde."

GRATIAN.--Let us examine the alterations made by one genius, in transferring to his own language the ideas of another genius of another country. Catullus says "the floweret,"--_flosculus_: Ariosto particularises the rose,--the _bel giardin_, "the beautiful garden," stands for _septis in hortis_, the enclosed. Then he has given the idea of _secretus_, which is certainly "separated," "set apart," by the words _sola e sicura_, "alone and safe"--is it so good? but he gives that a grace, a beauty, the original perhaps has not, _riposa_--the floweret enjoys its secret repose. The cutting down the flower by the plough was unnecessary, after telling us of the enclosure; we scarcely like to be brought suddenly into the ploughed field. Here Ariosto is better--"nor shepherd nor flock come near it." That enough confirms the idea of its being fenced off, and they wander in their idleness, or, but for the fence, might have reached it; the plough and the team are a heavy apparatus, and would be a most unexpected intrusion,--so I like the Italian here better. Then, _su la nativa spina_ is good: you see the beautiful creature on its native stem or thorn. Then for the enumeration of the airs, the sun, and the shower, the Italian, in his beautiful language, softens the very air, and gives it a sweetness, _l'aura soave_, and ushers in "the dewy morn:" then, expanding to the glory of the full reverence of nature to this emblem of purity, he makes all bend and bow before it, as before the very queen of the earth. Here he surpasses his original. Then he gives you the object of the wishes of the youths and maidens, the _multi pueri multae optaverae puellae_. They desire to place it in their bosoms or round their temples: and is not the lovingness of the youths and maidens a good addition? The _giovani vaghi e donne innamorate_. Both are admirable--but I incline to Ariosto.

AQUILIUS.--And do you think the Latin poet the original? You forget how little originality the Latin authors can claim. This of Catullus is a translation--a free one, it is true--of perhaps a still more beautiful passage in Euripides. Reach the book: you will find it in that very singular play the Hippolytus. Ay, here it is. He offers the garland to the virgin goddess Artemis--(line 73)

[Greek: "Soi tonde plekton stephanon ex akeratou Leimonos, o despoina, kosmesas phero, Enth' oute poimen axioi pherbein bota Out' elthe po sideros, all' akeraton Melissa leimon' erinon dierchetai Aidos de potamiaisi kepeuei drosois. Hosois didakton meden, all' en te physei To sophronein eilechen es ta panth' homos, Toutos drepesthai; tois kakoisi, d' ou themis."]

"I bring thee, O mistress, this woven crown, beautifully made up of flowers of the pure untouched meadow--where never shepherd thinks it fitting to feed his flock, nor the sickle comes; but the bee ever passes over the pure meadow breathing of spring, and modesty waters it as a garden with the river-dews. To them who have, untaught, in their nature the gift of chastity, to these only it is at all times an allowed sanctity to cut these flowers, but not to the evil-minded."

You cannot doubt that the passage in Catullus is taken from the Greek--which is of a higher sentiment in the conclusion, and is enriched beyond the Latin by the bee, and above all by the personification of Modesty tending and watering the garden, or rather these especial flowers, with the river-dews.

CURATE.--How far more pure is the sentiment, and more quiet the imagery, in the Greek! The Greeks were the great originators of glorious thought and beautiful diction.

GRATIAN.--Let us now to Catullus. What have we next?

AQUILIUS.--Here is a tender little piece, to his friend Ortalus. I see it has an omission: this edition does not supply it; I only take what I see. It seems Ortalus had requested him to send him his translation from Callimachus, the "Coma Berenices," which for some time, through grief for the death of his brother, he had failed to do. He now sends the poem.

AD ORTALUM.

Though care, that unto me sore grief hath brought, Calls me from converse with the sacred Nine, Nor can my heart incline To bring to any end inspired thought;--

(For now the wave of the Lethaean lake, How recent hath it bathed in Death's dark vale A brother's feet so pale; And I can only sorrow for his sake.

The Trojan land on the Rhoetean shore Hath hidden him for ever from these eyes,-- And I with glad surprise, And brother's love, shall welcome thee no more.

Loved more than life, dear brother! what can I But love thee still, and mourn for thee full long In a funereal song, In secret to assuage my grief thereby?

As amid many boughs all leaf-array'd The Danlian bird, the nightingale, out-poured, When Itys she deplored, Her mellow sorrows in the thickest shade:)

Yet, Ortalus, 'mid tears that flow so fast, The work of your Battiades I send, Lest you should deem, dear friend, Your wishes to the winds are idly cast,

And from my mind escaped, all unaware, As falls the fruit, love's furtive gift, unbid, In virgin bosom hid, When she, forgetful of its lying there,

Would suddenly arise, and run to greet The coming of her mother, from her vest And her now loosen'd breast, The shameless apple rolls before her feet.

And she, poor maid! abashed, and in the hush Of shame, before her mother cannot speak, While all her virgin cheek Betrays her secret in the conscious blush.

CURATE.--It is very tender--the last image is delicately beautiful. I did not translate it.