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Was the Fourth Eclogue Written to Celebrate the Marriage of Octavia to Mark Antony?—A Literary Parallel

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Was the Fourth Eclogue Written to Celebrate the Marriage of Octavia to Mark Antony?—A Literary Parallel The Classical Review http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR Additional services for The Classical Review: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here Was the Fourth Eclogue Written to Celebrate the Marriage of Octavia to Mark Antony?—A Literary Parallel D. A. Slater The Classical Review / Volume 26 / Issue 04 / June 1912, pp 114 - 119 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00199871, Published online: 27 October 2009 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00199871 How to cite this article: D. A. Slater (1912). Was the Fourth Eclogue Written to Celebrate the Marriage of Octavia to Mark Antony?—A Literary Parallel. The Classical Review, 26, pp 114-119 doi:10.1017/ S0009840X00199871 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 138.251.14.35 on 26 Apr 2015 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW every thing that he sendeth wth the gathered and what he hath sent and of name of the master of the Shipp; he all other occurrants belonging to this must as often as he can send ltfes business.' (Endorsed in another hand— [letters] of what things he hath Statua's and antiquityes.) WAS THE FOURTH ECLOGUE WRITTEN TO CELEBRATE THE MARRIAGE OF OCTAVIA TO MARK ANTONY ?— A LITERARY PARALLEL. What is this marriage of Octavia sealed the compact That rises like the issue of a king of Brundisium; and it was Pollio who, And wears upon his baby-brow the round And top of sovereignty ? in conjunction with Maecenas, negoti- ated that treaty,—a treaty which was THE following notes are submitted in regarded at the time as a permanent support of a theory which seems to have settlement, and on which the highest been unduly neglected. The ' occasion ' hopes were accordingly founded. of the poem is, after all, a mere detail; But Pollio was also a friend of Mark but it is a detail of some importance; Antony, the bridegroom, and he was for if an agreement could be reached one of the consuls for the year. In this upon this point, the mind of the reader triple character of consul, plenipoten- would be set free to appreciate more tiary, and friend, he may therefore be fully the larger questions so admirably said to have stood in a somewhat special dealt with in Virgil's Messianic Eclogue and intimate relation to the child, or —a book for which, in common with the parents of the child; and, viewed many other lovers of Virgil, the present in this light, the dedication is seen to writer feels profoundly grateful. be both natural and appropriate. And yet the authors hardly give II. On this hypothesis the date of Catullus his due. There can, of course, the poem will be the date of the festivi- be no doubt that Virgil in his early ties at Rome with which the peace of period was strongly influenced by Brundisium was celebrated. Catullus; and nowhere more so than The feeling uppermost in men's minds here. If, however, this Eclogue can at the time—the feeling which the poet fairly be regarded as akin to an Epitha- was called upon to interpret—was one lamion, a ' sequela' to the Song of the of joy at the union by which the two Fates in Catullus, we must, it would great factions had been brought to- seem, go on to draw the inferences gether, and hope that a child would be which are drawn below. And it is born of that union, to be at once an strange how well the key fits the wards embodiment of the alliance and a of the lock, and how old familiar diffi- pledge of lasting concord. The Eclogue culties yield, one after another, to its is a poet's rhapsody, not a historical gentle pressure. At the very least, document. Take a modern parallel, the poem gains considerably by being —the knitting up of Yorkists and Lan- studied in connexion with its prototype. castrians in the marriage of Richmond In an Anthology the two should be set and Elizabeth, at the beginning,of a side by side. new era, after a similar period of civil I. The hypothesis has this initial war in England. Shakespeare touches advantage. It answers, once for all, the theme rather lightly, but he, too, the urgent question—why Pollio should expresses in effect much the same hopes have been singled out for the striking as Virgil: compliment of the strongly - worded dedication (lines 11-14), in which line We will unite the white rose and the red :— 11 is, from my point of view, less Smile, heaven, upon this fair conjunction, . That long hath frown'd upon their enmity!— important than line 13. The phrase O, now, let Richmond and Elizabeth, ' Te consule' fixes the date; the phrase The true succeeders of each royal house, ' Te duce' assigns the credit. For the By God's fair ordinance conjoin together ! THE CLASSICAL REVIEW And let their heirs (God, if Thy will be so) Only fourteen years intervened be- Enrich the time to come with smooth-fac'd tween the appearance of the two poems. peace, The Peleus and Thetis was finished in With smiling plenty, and fair prosperous 1 daysl 54 B.C. The Eclogue belongs to the year 40. We shall hardly be going too It would surely be a mistake to dis- far if we say that the later poem was sent from the theory on the ground that expressly meant to be read as a sequel Octavia was already a (mother and a) to the earlier one—a reply as explicit, widow. So was Violentilla, for whose if we may borrow an illustration from second marriage Statius wrote the English literature, as Raleigh's reply beautiful Epithalamion referred to to Marlowe's Passionate Shepherd. The below. Virgil's theme was not a love optimism of the Eclogue is intended to story, but a political alliance. The correct or to supersede the pessimism romance was to be sought, not in the of Catullus.2 Catullus closes with parents, but in the child, and the unity regrets for the lost age of gold and the and the hope which the child was to departure of Astraea, the Virgo Iustitia, symbolise. from the world; III. The Eclogue bears so strong a resemblance to the Song of the Iustitiamque omnes tota de mente fugarunt. Fates at the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, in Catullus LXIV., that we are Virgil opens with the announcement driven to assume a close and even vital of Astraea's return, and preaches a connexion between the two poems. So Saturnian Revival: far as I am aware the full significance of this connexion has never been pro- lam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna. perly appreciated. There is certainly There may also be special point in the no hint of what appears to be the truth suggestion which immediately follows, of the matter either in Page or in that Apollo and Diana- Lucina, who Conington. alone of the Immortals did not come to IV. The Eclogue is prophetic. Ca- the wedding-feast of Peleus and Thetis, tullus had put his Epithalamion on will both be present to bless the Roman the lips of the Fates, and had intro- child at its birth. duced it with a special solemnity— V. Virgil, by adopting, or rather ' veridicum oraclum (326); veridicos adapting, the refrain of Catullus, Parcae coeperunt edere cantus (306).' acknowledges his debt, and draws atten- In tone and versification (and it might tion to the resemblance. be added also in length) the resemblance VI. This acknowledgment invites, is very marked. And at the conclusion and is meant to invite, a closer com- of the Epithalamion there follows an parison. It is tantamount to calling Epilogue in the same strain as the song, Antony, the bridegroom, a second bewailing the iniquity of the present, and Peleus; and it invests Octavia, the regretting the ' auspicious time' (22), bride, with the divine attributes of in which the gods mixed freely with Thetis. This closer comparison also men. Compare, for instance, lines 15-18 explains and enriches the meaning of of the Eclogue, with lines 384-6 of the the vexed phrase in line 49,' magnum Peleus and Thetis ; Virgil's Iovis incrementum,' by recalling the I He deum vitam accipiet divisque videbit legend of Jupiter's passion for Thetis, Permixtos heroas et ipse videbitur illis and the omnipotence which had been is his answer to Catullus' 1 See Munro, Lucretius, iii. 57. Praesentes namque ante domps invisere castas 2 Virgil, I take it, wishes the reader to picture Heroum et sese mortali ostendere coetu to himself at least the Epilogue of Catullus Caelicolae nondum spreta pietate solebant. LXIV. as the background of his song. Thus we have a suggestion that the worst has been The child of the future is to revive the reached—and passed : golden age of the past: ' The night is darkest before the morn ; Old writers push'd the happy season back,— When the pain is fiercest the child is born ; The more fools they,—we forward. And the day of the Lord is at hand.' n6 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW foretold for the offspring of their union.1 virtutibus' undoubtedly presents some The lustre of this prophecy must neces- difficulty. But authority is not wholly sarily be reflected on any son born of lacking to justify us in understanding such a mother, and on the child of the the adjective to mean ' inherited' in the second Thetis (Octavia) no less than most general sense.
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