May 1931
203
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Vergil and the Consolations of Isaiah B y E rnest G ordon
¥ HE Sixteenth Epode of Horace was written in the sign of national depression. The Roman republic had for a generation been torn by civil wars and massacres, and it was at such a point of decline that there seemed to be no hope in store for it. What should men do ? The poet saw no other way than to abandon Rome altogether and flee to happier shores. “As the Phocaeans, having cursed their fields and * ' ancestral gods . . . went into exile, so let us go forth, or at least the better portion of us . . . Let us seek the Happy Fields, the Islands of the Blest. Where every year the land, unploughed, yields corn and ever blooms the vine unpruned, and buds the shoot of the never- failing olive; . . . honey flows from the hollow oak; the goats come unbidden to the milking pails . . .. nor does the bear at eventide growl round the sheep-fold . . . No murrain blights the flock . . . Jupiter set apart these shores for a righteous folk ever since, with bronze, he dimmed the luster of the Golden Age. With bronze and then with iron did he harden the ages; from these a happy escape is offered to the righteous if my prophecy be heeded.” This same depression marked the Latin literature of the period, with one exception. Vergil’s Fourth Eclogue points to a deliverance that was to have come through a coming child—an idea absolutely unique in classical lit erature. Vergil and Horace were contemporaries. An acute German commentator on Horace, Professor Kiess ling, of Berlin, has pointed out a correspondence between the Sixteenth Epode of Horace (vs. 49-51) and the Fqurth Eclogue of Vergil (vs. 20, 21). The Eclogue is in the nature of a reply to the Epode, and this corre spondence in the two passages is thought of by Professor Kiessling as “the compliment of the master to the novice struggling upward. Vergil insists that the happiness which the younger poet seeks in far Utopias is already impending at home.” It will immediately be recognized b K , *■'
that the Nec magnos metuent armenia leones (nor do the flocks fear mighty lions) of the Eclogue is a con scious imitation of the Nec rovos timeant armenia leones (nor are the flocks afraid of raging lions) of the Epode; and that the Ipsae lacle domum referent distenta capellae ubera (the very goats.bring home udders distended with milk) of Vergil echoes the lines of Horace : Illic inuissae veniunt ad mulctra capellae, Refertque tenta qrex amicus ubera (there will the goats come unbidden to the milk ing pails, and the friendly herd bring back full udders). I nspiration from Í sa ia ií " Where did Vergil get this idea of :a"millennium cen tering in a child ? Undoubtedly if wás from Isaiah. The idea of a Golden Age was familiar to classical'paganism, but it was a Golden Age in the remote-past whose glorious sunset had long since faded-: away, -The Hebrews alone looked for a joyful future, and-it was from those prophe cies which most fully insist on: the*coming1 time- of bless ing, the. consolations of Isaiahr-.ihat: Vergil id-rew his in spiration. Sir William Ramsay, in His-book oh “The bearing of Recent Discovery on the 'T#ustwéfthinessiídf tEér^Nfefí Testament,” has called atténtiérl fó 'Hébraic indteSfiófíá in the versification of the Eclogüé. The stops or sentence1 ends of the Eclogüe coincide tvith the -ending ‘ b f fine^ much more Commonly than is usual in' Vergil’s yersei Again, “in a number of instances, the second hálf ;of the line repeats with slight variation the meaning of the first half, or, where the sense is enclosed in two hexameters, the second line repeats the meaning of the first. These characteristics are unlike any previous treatment' of the hexameter. They are distinctly those of Hebrew^poetryj and the metrical treatment of this Eclogue can. hardly be explained except as an experiment made in imitation of the same original from which sprang the central.concep tion of the Better Age, surely approaching and inaugurat ed by the birth of a child. We notice that the peculiar
Where He Dwells , ’Tis Always Spring B y A. B. S impson
The love of Jesus is my sunshine, His presence is my joy and song; His loving kindness floods my being And keeps me gladsome all day long; 1 And so my happy heart is singing — • For Jesus is my Lord and King; His peace to me a heaven is bringing,
My day no more can sink in darkness, My sun no more shall set in night; Christ is my sunshine and my summer, And God,, my everlasting light; And- so my happy heart is singing —- ForJesus is my Lord and King; His peace to me a heaven is bringing, And where He dwells, ’tis always spring.
And where He dwells,’tis always spring.
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