5-8. Feb. 1829.
[4450,6]
Niebuhr (loc. cit. p.
4431. fine) sezione intitolata Beginning and Nature of the Earliest History,
p. 216. segg. The greater is the antiquity of the
legends
*
: (dei miti ec. intorno ai fatti dei re di
Roma, e ai primi tempi della città): their origin goes back far beyond the time when the
annals
*
(gli annali pontificali di Roma)
were restored
*
(furono rinnovati, dopo che
gli antichi annali erano periti nell'incendio di Roma
al tempo della presa della città fatta dai Galli.) That
they were transmitted from generation to generation in lays, that their
contents cannot be more authentic than those of any other poem on the
deeds of ancient times which is preserved by song, is not a new notion.
A century and a half will soon have elapsed, since Perizonius (not. 627. In
4451
his Animadversiones Historicae, c. 6.)
expressed it, and shewed that among the ancient Romans it had been the
custom at banquets to sing the praises of great men to the flute; (not.
628. The leading passage in Tusc. Quaest. IV. 2. Gravissimus auctor in Originibus dixit Cato, morem apud majores
hunc epularum fuisse, ut deinceps, qui accubarent, canerent ad
tibiam clarorum virorum laudes atque virtutes
*
.
Cicero laments the loss of
these songs; Brut. 18.
19. Yet, like the sayings of Appius the blind, they
seem to have disappeared only for such as cared not for them. Dionysius knew of songs on Romulus
*
[ὡς ἐν τοῖς πατρίοις ὕμνοις ὑπὸ
῾Pωμαίων ἔτι καὶ νῦν ᾄδεται
*
, dice Dionisio 1. 79. della nota favola circa
la nascita di Romolo e Remo, e la vendetta da loro presa
di Amulio]) a
fact Cicero only knew from Cato, who seems to have spoken
of it as an usage no longer subsisting. The guests themselves sang in
turn; so it was expected that the lays, being the common property of the
nation, should be known to every free citizen. According to Varro, who calls them old, they
were sung by modest boys, sometimes to the flute, sometimes without
music. (not. 629. In Nonius II. 70. assa voce: (aderant) in
conviviis pueri modesti ut cantarent carmina antiqua, in quibus laudes
erant majorum, assa voce, ei cum tibicine.) The peculiar function of the
Camenae was to sing the praise of the ancients; (not. 630. Fest.
Epit. v. Camenae, musae, quod
canunt antiquorum laudes
*
.) and among the rest
those of the kings. For never did republican Rome
strip herself of the recollection of them, any more than she removed
their statues from the Capitol: in the best times of liberty their
memory was revered and celebrated. (not. 631. Ennius
4452 sang of them, and Lucretius mentions them with the highest
honour.)
*
[4452,1]
We are so
thoroughly dependent on the age to which we belong, we subsist so much
in and through it as parts of a whole, that the same thought is at one
time sufficient to give us a measure for the acuteness, depth, and
strength of the intellect which conceives it, while at another it
suggests itself to all, and nothing but accident leads one to give it
utterance before others. Perizonius knew of heroic lays only from books; that he
should ever have heard of any then still current, or written down from
the mouth of the common people, is not conceivable of his days: he lived
long enough to hear, perhaps he heard, but not until a quarter of a
century had passed since the appearance of his researches, how Addison (sic) roused the
stupefied senses of his {literary}
contemporaries, to join with the common people in recognizing the pure
gold of poetry in Chevy-chase
*
{(V. Τhe
Spectator's N.os 70. 74.)}
For us the heroic lays of Spain,
Scotland, and
Scandinavia, had long been a common stock:
the lay of the Niebelungen had already returned and taken its place in
literature:
*
(l'autore, p. 196. the German
national epic poem, the Niebelungen lay.
*
) and now that we listen to the Servian lays, and to those of
Greece,
*
(raccolti da Fauriel, che l'autore cita più
volte), the swanlike strains of a slaughtered nation;
now that every one knows that poetry lives in every people, until
metrical forms, foreign models, the various and multiplying interests of
every-day life, general dejection or luxury, stifle it so, that of the
poetical spirits, still more than of all others, very few find vent:
while on the contrary spirits without poetical genius, but with talents
so analogous to it that they may serve as a
4453 substitute, frequently usurp the art; now the empty objections that
have been raised no longer need any answer. Whoever does not discern
such lays in the epical part of Roman story, may continue blind to them:
he will be left more and more alone every day: there can be no going
backward on this point for generations.
*
[4453,1]
One among the
various forms of Roman popular poetry was the nenia, the praise of the
deceased, which was sung to the flute at funeral processions, (not. 632.
Cicero
de legib. II. 24.) as it was related in the
funeral orations. We must not think here of the Greek threnes and
elegies: in the old times of Rome the fashion was
not to be melted into a tender mood, and to bewail the dead; but to pay
him honour. We must therefore imagine the nenia to have been a memorial
lay, such as was sung at banquets: indeed the latter was perhaps no
other than what had been first heard at the funeral. And thus it is
possible that, without being aware of it, we may possess some of these
lays, which Cicero supposed to
be totally lost: for surely a doubt will scarcely be moved against the
thought, that the inscriptions in verse (not. 633. On the coffin of L. Barbatus the verses are
marked and made apparent by lines to separate them: in the inscription
on his son they form an equal number of lines, and may be recognized
with as much certainty as in the former from the great difference in the
length of them) on the oldest coffins in the sepulcre of the Scipios are
nothing else than either the whole nenia, or the beginning of it.
4454 (not. 634. The two following inscriptions
are of this kind: I transcribe them, because it is probable many of my
readers never saw them.
Cornélius Lúcius Scípio Barbátus,
Gnáivo (patre) prognátus, fortis vír sapiénsque,
Quoius fórma vírtuti paríssuma fuit,
Consúl, Censor, Aédilis, qúi fuit apúd vos:
Taurásiam, Cesáunam, Sámnio cépit,
Subícit omnem Lúcánaam, (cioè Lucaniam)
Obsidésque abdúcit.
The second is:
Hunc únum plúrimi conséntiunt R(ománi)
Duonórum optumum fúisse virúm,
Lúcium Scipiónem, fílium Barbáti.
Consúl, Censor, Aédilis, híc fuit apúd vos.
Hic cépit Córsicam, Alériamque úrbem
Dédit tempestátibus aédem mérito. *
Cornélius Lúcius Scípio Barbátus,
Gnáivo (patre) prognátus, fortis vír sapiénsque,
Quoius fórma vírtuti paríssuma fuit,
Consúl, Censor, Aédilis, qúi fuit apúd vos:
Taurásiam, Cesáunam, Sámnio cépit,
Subícit omnem Lúcánaam, (cioè Lucaniam)
Obsidésque abdúcit.
The second is:
Hunc únum plúrimi conséntiunt R(ománi)
Duonórum optumum fúisse virúm,
Lúcium Scipiónem, fílium Barbáti.
Consúl, Censor, Aédilis, híc fuit apúd vos.
Hic cépit Córsicam, Alériamque úrbem
Dédit tempestátibus aédem mérito. *
[4454,1]
I have softened the
rude spelling, and have even abstained from marking that the final s in prognatus, quoius, and the final m in Taurasiam, Cesaunam, Aleriam, optumum, and omnem,
was not pronounced. The short i in Scipio, consentiunt,
fuit, fuisse, is
suppressed, so that Scipio for instance is a
disyllable; a kind of suppression of which we find still more remarkable
instances in Plautus. In the
inscription of Barbatus, v. 2,
patre after Gnaivo is beyond doubt an interpolation: and in that on his
son, v. 6, it is to be observed that the last syllable
4455 of Corsicam is not cut off.) These
epitaphs present a peculiarity which characterizes all popular poetry,
and is strikingly conspicuous above all in that of modern Greece. Whole lines and thoughts become
elements of the poetical language, just like single words: they pass
from older pieces in general circulation into new compositions; and,
even where the poet is not equal to a great subject, give them a
poetical colouring and keeping. So Cicero read on the tomb of Calatinus: hunc plurimae
consentiunt gentes populi primarium fuisse
virum
*
: (not. 635. Cicero
de Senectute 17.) we read on that of L. Scipio the son of Barbatus:
hunc unum plurimi consentiunt R(omani) bonorum
optumum fuisse virum.
*
[4455,1]
The poems out of
which what we call the history of the Roman Κings was resolved into a
prose narrative, were different from the nenia in form, and of great
extent; consisting partly of lays united into a uniform whole, partly of
such as were detached and without any necessary connexion. The history
of Romulus is an epopee by
itself: on Numa there can only
have been short lays. Tullus,
the story of the Horatii, and
of the destruction of Alba, form an epic whole,
like the poem on Romulus: indeed
here Livy has preserved a
fragment of the poem entire, in the lyrical numbers of the old Roman
verse. (not. 636. The verses of the horrendum
carmen I. 26.
Duúmviri pérduelliónem júdicent.
Si a duúmviris provocárit,
Provocátióne certáto:
Si víncent, caput óbnúbito: 4456 Infélici arbore réste suspéndito:
Vérberato íntra vel éxtra pomoérium. *
Duúmviri pérduelliónem júdicent.
Si a duúmviris provocárit,
Provocátióne certáto:
Si víncent, caput óbnúbito: 4456 Infélici arbore réste suspéndito:
Vérberato íntra vel éxtra pomoérium. *
[4456,1]
The description of
the nature of the old Roman versification, and of the great variety of
its lyrical metres, which continued in use down to the middle of the
seventh century of the city, and were carried to a high degree of
perfection, I reserve, until I shall publish a chapter of an ancient
grammarian on the Saturnian Verse, which decides the question.) On the
other hand what is related of Ancus has not a touch of poetical colouring. But afterward
with L. Tarquinius Priscus
begins a great poem, which ends with the battle of
Regillus; and this lay of the Tarquins even in its prose
shape is still inexpressibly poetical; nor is it less unlike real
history. The arrival of Tarquinius
the Lucumo at Rome; his deeds and
victories; his death; then the marvellous story of Servius; {Tullia's} impious
nuptials; the murder of the just king; the whole story of the last Tarquinius; the warning
presages of his fall; Lucretia; the feint of Brutus; his death; the war of Porsenna;
in fine the truly Homeric battle of Regillus; all
this forms an epopee, which in depth and brilliance of imagination
leaves every thing produced by Romans in later times far behind it.
Κnowing nothing of the unity which characterizes the most perfect of
Greek poems, it divides itself into sections, answering to the adventures in the lay of the
Niebelungen: and should any one ever have the boldness to think of
restoring it in a poetical form, he would commit a great mistake in
selecting any other than that of this noble work (del poema of the Niebelungen).
*
[4457,1]
4457
These lays are much
older than Ennius
*
,
(not. 637.
-Scripsere alii rem
Versibu' quos olim Fauni vatesque canebant:
Quom neque Musarum scopulos quisquam superarat,
Nec dicti studiosus erat. *
-Scripsere alii rem
Versibu' quos olim Fauni vatesque canebant:
Quom neque Musarum scopulos quisquam superarat,
Nec dicti studiosus erat. *
[4457,2]
Horace's annosa volumina vatum may have been
old poems of this sort: though perhaps they are also to be understood of
prophetical books, like those of the Marcii; which, contemptuously as
they are glanced at, were extremely poetical. Of this we may judge even
from the passages preserved by Livy (ΧΧV. 12.): Horace can no more determine our
opinion of them than of Plautus.) who moulded them into hexameters, and found matter in
them for three books of his poem; Ennius, who seriously believed himself to be the first poet
of Rome, because he shut his eyes against the old
native poetry, despised it, and tried successfully to suppress it. Of
that poetry and of its destruction I shall speak elsewhere: here only
{one} further remark is needful. Ancient as
the original materials of the epic lays unquestionably were, the form in
which they were handed down, and a great part of their contents, seem to
have been comparatively recent. If the pontifical annals adulterated
history in favour of the patricians, the whole of this poetry is
pervaded by a plebeian spirit, by hatred toward the oppressors, and by
visible traces that at the time when it was sung there were already
great and powerful plebeian houses. The assignments of land by Numa, Tullus, Ancus, and Servius,
are
4458 in this spirit: all the favorite Κings
befriend freedom: the patricians appear in a horrible and detestable
light, as accomplices in the murder of Servius: next to the holy Numa the plebeian Servius is the most excellent Κing: Gaia Cecilia, the Roman wife of
the elder Tarquinius, is a
plebeian, a Κinswoman of the Metelli: the founder of the republic and
Mucius Scævola are
plebeians: among the other party the only noble characters are the Valerii and Horatii; houses friendly to the commons.
Hence I should be inclined not to date these poems, in the form under
which we know their contents, before the restoration of the city after
the Gallic disaster at the earliest. This is also indicated by the
consulting the Pythian oracle. The story of the symbolical instruction
sent by the last Κing to his son to get rid of the principal men of
Gabii, is a Greek tale in Herodotus: so likewise we find the stratagem of Zopyrus repeated
*
(dal
figlio di Tarquinio a Gabii):
(anche la storia di Muz. Scev. è
greca, cosa non notata dall'autore neppure a suo luogo, e da me osservata
altrove p. 4153
p.
4330; e greche sono quelle tante raccolte da Plutarco nel libro da me cit. altrove in tal
proposito p. 4213) we must therefore
suppose some knowledge of Greek legends, though not necessarily of Herodotus himself.
*
(5-8. Feb. 1829.).