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VIRGIL IN THE MIDDLE AGES.* THE younger Pliny tells us that Silius Italicus was wont ft visit the tomb of Virgil near Naples, as if it were a temple. Silins, whose birth was removed by something less than half a century from the poet's death, may be supposed to have satisfied himself that the site was authentic, nor is it at all un- likely that tradition has preserved the true locality. It was indeed, discredited in the general sceptical movement which began in the last century. A recent reaction, which may claim the support of Professor Comparetti, tends to restore our belief in it. The monument, in any case, is curiously interesting. It is a symbol of the continuous fame which Virgil, alone among the classical authors, retained even when the intellectual darkness of Europe was most dense It actually contributed to the growth of that popular legend which so strangely supplements the literary glory of the great Italian poet.
The culture of the Roman Empire, though it rapidly declined after the end of the first century, was never wholly, extinguished, and it always found its chief exercise in the study of Virgil. The national interest of the poet's theme, the force of his rhetoric, an art which never wholly loses its hold on the human intellect, as it is never wholly absent when that intellect is at its lowest, and some sense, it may be, of his incomparable style and of his melodious verse, kept him in. popular favour. More efficacious still was the place which was early given to him, and which he never lost, as the great. text-book of schools. Already in Horace's time—and Horace
• Vergi, in the Middle Ages. By Dcmenico Comparetti. Translated by R. F' M. BeneekA. W th Ittroluctian by Robtrs:n EDI., M.A. Le udon : Swan honren chtin and Co.
was the poet's junior by but a quarter of a century—Virgil was in every schoolboy's hands. The grammarians—and the literature of the last age of the Empire was almost wholly grammatical—constructed their system out of his language, and used his phrases as examples of the rules which they formulated, and every one knows how the examples of a rule will stick in a memory from which all other knowledge of a literary kind has slipped away.
The footing thus acquired resisted the attempts of a certain form of Christian zeal to discredit the classical authors, attempts that were, indeed, half-hearted, belonging to theory rather than to fact, and that were counteracted, in large measure, by the practice of the very writers who made them. Jerome may have been humbled by the rebuke of the angel who said to him, " Ciceronianns es non Christianus," but be did not therefore forego the imitation of Ciceronian eleganeies ; be may have blamed the laxity of the priests who knew their Virgil better than their Psalter, but he did not hesitate to describe his sensations in the Catacomb of Rome by a Virgilian line, "Horror ubique animos simul ipsa silentia terrent." Nor did he scruple to use authors less edifying in instructing his pupils at Bethlehem, a practice for which Rufinus, who ought to have known better, severely re- proves him. (The quotation here, p. 83, has auctorem for " auctorum.") The fact was that the great classics were indispensable. Secular scholarship was a necessary intro- duction to the knowledge of the Scripture and theology. As the Emperor Charles the Great put it in his circular to the Bishops and Abbots, "We exhort you not merely not to neglect the study of letters, but to pursue it with diligence, that you may be able to penetrate with ease and security into the mysteries of the Holy Scriptures."
The respect thus paid, almost involuntarily, to the greatest of the Roman poets, found an expression in the regretful wish that he could have shared the benefits of the Christian revelation. Gregory the Great had indeed prevailed to bring Trajan, who ought to have been in worse case than Virgil, out of hell, though he had been warned not to repeat the attempt, bat St. Paul at Virgil's grave had not ventured to go beyond the wish :- " Quern te, inquit, reddidissem, Si te vivum invenissem, Poetarum maxime."
These benevolent feelings sometimes satisfied themselves with pious inventions. The great classical author was credited with miraculous prevision of the coming revelations. " I myself remember," writes Professor Comparetti, "hearing as a boy in a school at Rome that the dying words of Cicero were Cansa causarum, miserere mei!' " In the case o! Virgil the famous Pollio Eclogue gave a plausible reason for attributing to the poet a prophetical knowledge of the blessing which he was not destined to see. Some of the particular applications of his language were very curious. " Assyrium vulgo nascetur amomum " was interpreted to mean that a blameless race of Christians would spring up throughout the world, " amomum" being transliterated into cl,aciaos. Ovid, a less edifying author, did not come so well off. In one of the medimval legends we hear of two scholars visiting his tomb, and conversing with the spirit within. Moved by gratitude for an argument for asceticism that the poet suggested when he declared that the best line he had ever written was " Virtue est licitis abstinuisse bonis," they began to recite for the benefit of his soul the Paternoster and the Ave Maria. Unhappily he did not appreciate the pious effort; he exclaimed, "Nolo Paternoster; carpe, Viator, iter."
Another way of claiming the great works of pagan genius for the Christian faith was to allegorise them; and it was in Virgil that the ingenuity of the allegorisers found its most fertile field. Professor Comparetti gives a highly interesting account of what may be reckoned the most elaborate effort ever made in this direction, the De Continentia Vergiliana of Fulgentius, " continentia " being a somewhat barbarous equi- valent for " what is contained,"—i.e., in the works of Virgil. Fulgentius passes over the Bucolics and Georgics. The wisdom hidden in them surpassed his power to interpret. Greater learning than he could lay claim to would be re- quired to deal with astrology, as adumbrated in the First Georgic ; physiognomy and medicine in the Second, augury in the Third, and music in the Fourth. But he proceeds to set forth how the 2Eneid is the image of human life. The first line contains, says the commentator, the key to the whole. Anna indicates "valour," i.e., the physical; siren> " wisdom," i.e., the intellectual ; primes, what is ornamental and artistic. So we arrive at the three stages of life,—nature, wisdom, happiness. The allegorist interpreters of Scripture never took wilder flights of fancy than does Falgentius in drawing out the hidden wisdom of Virgil.
The popular legend of Virgil, to pass on to the second part of the book, shows what may be called a process of degeneration. He first appears as an expert in white magic, which he practises for the benefit of the home of his later life, Naples. He provides the city with a safeguard against the eruptions of Vesuvius, a bronze statue keeping the mountain quiet with a bent bow and arrow threateningly directed towards it; he makes public baths for the healing of all manner of diseases ; he fashions a fly of bronze which destroys the plague of flies that tormented man and beast. Gervasius tells a strange story of how an Englishman, having received permission from King Roger of Sicily, searched for and found the body of Virgil, and discovered under the head the book of his art (Ars Notoria). The remains he was not allowed to removes but was permitted to take the book. " I have seen," continues this veracious chronicler, "some extracts from that book, and have made experiments satisfactorily establishing their value." But when the legend passes from Naples to other parts of the world the white magic changes to black, and Virgil becomes the hero of unedifying adventures. He digs up a bottle which contains twelve devils, learns from them magic, and releases them (every one will recall the Arabian Nights). He carries on intrigues which contrast strangely enough with the nick- name of Parthenias, which he is said to have earned for him- self by his blameless life.
We have selected from Professor Cumparetti's volume a few specimens of the curious learning with which it abounds. Of the most important and interesting of the subjects with which it deals, the appearance of the poet in the Divina Commedia, we can make but a bare mention. " It shows clearly," writes the Professor," like every one of Dante's creations, how far Dante was at one with the Middle Ages, and how far he was raised above them." The reader will find this sentiment admirably illustrated in the chapter devoted to this topic.
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