The above verse has been thus imitated in an Epithalamium on the marriage of Lord Spencer, by Sir William Jones, who pronounces it a picture worthy the pencil of Domenichino:
And thus by Leonard, in his pastoral romance of Alexis, where, however, he has omitted the semihiante labello, the finest feature in the picture:—
This nuptial hymn has been the model of many epithalamiums, particularly that of Jason and Creusa, sung by the chorus in Seneca’s Medea, and of Honorius and Maria, in Claudian. The modern Latin poets, particularly Justus Lipsius, have exercised themselves a great deal in this style of composition; and most of them with evident imitation of the work of Catullus. It has also been highly applauded by the commentators; and more than one critic has declared that it must have been written by the hands of Venus and the Graces—“Veneris et Gratiarum manibus scriptum esse.” I wish, however, they had excepted from their unqualified panegyrics the coarse imitation of the Fescennine poems, which leaves on our minds a stronger impression of the prevalence and extent of Roman vices, than any other passage in the Latin classics. Martial, and Catullus himself elsewhere, have branded their enemies; and Juvenal, in bursts of satiric indignation, has reproached his countrymen with the most shocking crimes. But here, in a complimentary poem to a patron and [pg 298]intimate friend, these are jocularly alluded to as the venial indulgences of his earliest youth.
62. Carmen Nuptiale. Some parts of this epithalamium have been taken from Theocritus, particularly from his eighteenth Idyl, where the Lacedæmonian maids, companions of Helen, sing before the bridal-chamber of Menelaus497. This second nuptial hymn of Catullus may be regarded as a continuation of the above poem, being also in honour of the marriage of Manlius and Julia. The stanzas of the former were supposed to be sung or recited in the person of the poet, who only exhorted the chorus of youths and virgins to commence the nuptial strain. But here these bands contend, in alternate verses; the maids descanting on the beauty and advantages of a single life, and the lads on those of marriage.
The young men, companions of the bridegroom, are supposed to have left him at the rising of the evening star of love:—
These lines appear to have been imitated by Spenser in his Epithalamium—
The maids who had accompanied the bride to her husband’s house, approached the youths who had just left the bridegroom, and they commence a very elegant contention concerning the merits of the star, which the chorus of virgins is pleased to characterize as a cruel planet. They are silenced, however, by the youths hinting that they are not such enemies to Hesper as they pretend to be. Then the maids, draw a beautiful, and, with Catullus, a favourite comparison between an unblemished virgin, and a delicate flower in a garden:
To the sentiment delineated by this image, the youths reply by one scarcely less beautiful, emblematical of the happiness of the married state; and as this was a theme in which the maidens were probably not unwilling to be overcome, they unite in the last stanza with the chorus of young men, in recommending to the bride to act the part of a submissive spouse.
Few passages in Latin poetry have been more frequently imitated, and none more deservedly, than the above-quoted verses of Catullus, who certainly excels almost all other writers, in the beauty and propriety of his similes. The greatest poets have not disdained to transplant this exquisite flower of song. Perhaps the most successful imitation is one by the Prince of the romantic bards of Italy, in the first canto of his Orlando, and which it may be amusing to compare with the original:
The reader may perhaps like to see how this theme has been managed by an old French poet nearly contemporary with Ariosto:
It is evident that Ariosto has suggested several things to the French poet, as he has also done to the imitators in our own language, in which the simile has been frequently attempted, but not with much success. Ben Jonson has translated it miserably, substituting doggerel verse for the sweet flow of the Latin poetry, and verbal antithesis and conceit for that beautiful simplicity of idea which forms the chief charm of the original:
One of the best of the numerous English imitations is that in the Lay of Iolante, introduced in Bland’s Four Slaves of Cythera:
One of the lines in the passage of Catullus,
and its converse,
have been copied by Ovid in his Metamorphoses499, and applied to Narcissus,
The origin of the line,
may be traced to a fragment of the Greek poet Mimnermus:
63. De Ati.—The story of Atis is one of the most mysterious of the mythological emblems. The fable was explained by Porphyry; and the Emperor Julian afterwards invented and published an allegory of this mystic tale. According to them, the voluntary emasculation of Atis was typical of the revolution of the sun between the tropics, or the separation of the human soul from vice and error. In the literal acceptation in which it is presented by Catullus, the fable seems an unpromising and rather a peculiar subject for poetry: indeed, there is no example of a similar event being celebrated in verse, except the various poems on the fate of Abelard. It is likewise the only specimen we have in Latin of the Galliambic measure; so called, because sung by Galli, the effeminate votaries of Cybele. The Romans, being a more sober and severe people than the Greeks, gave less encouragement than they to the celebration of the rites of Bacchus, and have poured forth but few dithyrambic lines. The genius of their language and of their usual style of poetry, as well as their own practical and imitative character, were unfavourable to the composition of such bold, figurative, and discursive strains. They have left no verses which can be strictly called dithyrambic, except, perhaps, the nineteenth ode of the second book of Horace, and a chorus in the Œdipus of Seneca. If not perfectly dithyrambic, the numbers of the Atis of Catullus are, however, strongly expressive of distraction and enthusiasm. The violent bursts of passion are admirably aided by the irresistible torrent of words, and by the cadence of a measure powerfully denoting mental agony and remorse. In this production, now unexampled in every sense of the word, Catullus is no longer the light agreeable poet, who counted the kisses of his mistress, and called on the Cupids to lament her sparrow. His ideas are full of fire, and his language of wildness: He pours forth his thoughts with an energy, rapidity, and enthusiasm, so different from his usual tone, and, indeed, from that of all Latin poets, that this production has been supposed to be a translation from some ancient Greek dithyrambic, of which it breathes all the passion and poetic phrensy. The employment of long compound epithets, which constantly recur in the Atis,—
[pg 302]is also a strong mark of imitation of the Greek dithyrambics; it being supposed, that such sonorous and new-invented words were most befitting intoxication or religious enthusiasm500. Anacreon, in his thirteenth ode, alludes to the lamentations and transports of Atis, as to a well-known poetical tradition:
Atis, it appears from the poem of Catullus, was a beautiful youth, probably of Greece, who, forsaking his home and parents, sailed with a few companions to Phrygia, and, having landed, hurried to the grove consecrated to the great goddess Cybele,—
There, struck with superstitious phrensy, he qualified himself for the service of that divinity; and, snatching the musical instruments used in her worship, he exhorted his companions, who had followed his example, to ascend to the temple of Cybele. At this part of the poem, we follow the new votary of the Phrygian goddess through all his wild traversing of woods and mountains, till at length, having reached the temple, Atis and his companions drop asleep, exhausted by fatigue and mental distraction. Being tranquillized in some measure by a night’s repose, Atis becomes sensible of the misery of his situation; and, struck with horror at his rash deed, he returns to the sea-shore. There he casts his eyes, bathed in tears, over the ocean homeward; and comparing his former happiness with his present wretched condition, he pours forth a complaint unrivalled in energy and pathos. Gibbon talks of the different emotions produced by the transition of Atis from the wildest enthusiasm to sober pathetic complaint for his irretrievable loss501; but, in fact, his complaint is not soberly pathetic—to which the Galliambic measure would be little suited: it is, on the contrary, the most impassioned expression of mental agony and bitter regret in the wide compass of Roman literature:
[pg 303]One is vexed, that the conclusion of this splendid production should be so puerile. Cybele, dreading the defection and escape of her newly acquired votary, lets loose a lion, which drives him back to her groves,—
Muretus attempted a Latin Galliambic Address to Bacchus in imitation of the measure employed in the Atis of Catullus, and he has strenuously tried to make his poem resemble its model by an affected use of uncouth compound epithets. Pigna, an Italian poet, has adopted similar numbers in a Latin poem, on the metamorphosis of the water nymph, Pitys, who was changed into a fir-tree, for having fled from the embraces of Boreas. In many of the lines he has closely followed Catullus; but it seems scarcely possible that any modern poet could excite in his mind the enthusiasm essential for the production of such works. Catullus probably believed as little in Atis and Cybele as Muretus, but he lived among men who did; and though his opinions might not be influenced, his imagination was tinged with the colours of the age.
Atis is the name of one of the tragic operas of Quinault, which, I believe, was the most popular of his pieces except Armide; but it has little reference to the classic story of the votary of Cybele. The French Atis is a vehement and powerful lover, who elopes with the nymph Sangaride on the wings of the Zephyrs, which had been placed by Cybele, who was herself enamoured of the youth, at the disposal of Atis. It seems a poor production in itself, (how different from the operas of Metastasio!) but it was embellished by splendid scenery, and the music of Lulli, adapted to the chorus of Phrygians, and Zephyrs, and Dreams, and Streams, and Corybantes.
64. Epithalamium Pelei et Thetidis.—This is the longest and most elaborate of the productions of Catullus. It displays much accurate description, as well as pathetic and im[pg 304]passioned incident. Catullus was a Greek scholar, and all his commentators seem determined that his best poems should be considered as of Greek invention. I do not believe, however, that the whole of this epithalamium was taken from any one poet of Greece, as the Coma Berenices was from Callimachus; but the author undoubtedly borrowed a great deal from various writers of that country. Hesiod wrote an Epithalamium, Ἐις Πηλεα και Θετιν502, some fragments of which have been cited by Tzetzes, in his prolegomena to Lycophron’s Cassandra; and judging from these, it appears to have suggested several lines of the epithalamium of Catullus. The adornment, however, and propriety of its language, and the usual practice of Catullus in other productions, render it probable, that he has chiefly selected his beauties from the Alexandrian poets. Valckenar, in his edition of Theocritus, (1779,) has shown, that the Idyls of Theocritus, particularly the Adoniazusi, have been of much service to our Latin poet; and a late German commentator has pointed out more than twenty passages, in which he has not merely imitated, but actually translated, Apollonius Rhodius503.
The proper subject of this epithalamium is the festivals held in Thessaly in honour of the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis; but it is chiefly occupied with a long episode, containing the story of Ariadne. It commences with the sailing of the ship Argo on the celebrated expedition to which that vessel has given name. The Nereids were so much struck with the unusual spectacle, that they all emerged from the deep; and Thetis, one of their number, fell in love with Peleus, who had accompanied the expedition, and who was instantly seized with a reciprocal passion. Little is said as to the manner in which the courtship was conducted, and the poet hastens to the preparations for the nuptials. On this joyful occasion, all the inhabitants of Thessaly flock to its capital, Pharsalia. Every thing in the royal palace is on a magnificent scale; but the poet chiefly describes the stragula, or coverlet, of the nuptial couch, on which was depicted the concluding part of the story of Theseus and Ariadne. Ariadne is represented as standing on the beach, where she had been abandoned, while asleep, by Theseus, and gazing in fixed despair at the departing sail of her false lover. Never was there a finer picture drawn of complete mental desolation. She was incapable of exhibiting violent signs of grief: She neither beats her bosom, nor bursts into tears; but the diadem which had compressed her locks—the light mantle which had floated around her form—the veil [pg 305]which had covered her bosom—all neglected, and fallen at her feet, were the sport of the waves which dashed the strand, while she herself, regardless and stupified with horror at her frightful situation, stood like the motionless statue of a Bacchante,—
The above passage is thus imitated by the author of the elegant poem Ciris, which has been attributed to Virgil, and is not unworthy of his genius:
Catullus, leaving Ariadne in the attitude above described, recapitulates the incidents, by which she had been placed in this agonizing situation. He relates, in some excellent lines, the magnanimous enterprize of Theseus—his voyage, and arrival in Crete: He gives us a picture of the youthful innocence of Ariadne, reared in the bosom of her mother, like a myrtle springing up on the solitary banks of the Euphrates, or a flower whose blossom is brought forth by the breath of spring. The combat of Theseus with the Minotaur is but shortly and coldly described. It is obvious that the poet merely intended to raise our idea of the valour of Theseus, so far as to bestow interest and dignity on the passion of Ariadne, and to excuse her for sacrificing to its gratification all feelings of domestic duty and affection. Having yielded and accompanied her lover, she was deserted by him, in that forlorn situation, her deep sense of which had changed her to the likeness of a Bacchante sculptured in stone. Her first feelings of horror and astonishment had deprived her of the power of utterance; but she at length bursts into exclamations against the perfidy of men, and their breach of vows, which
This passage has been obviously imitated by Ariosto, in his Orlando—
After indulging in such general reflections, Ariadne complains of the cruelty and ingratitude of Theseus in particular, whom she thus apostrophizes—
These lines seem to have been suggested by the address of Patroclus to Achilles, near the commencement of the sixteenth book of the Iliad—
Catullus, having put the expression of this idea in the mouth of a princess abandoned by her lover, it became a sort of Formula for deserted heroines among subsequent poets. Thus Ovid, in the eighth book of his Metamorphoses—
and thus Virgil makes Dido address Æneas—
Tasso, who was a great imitator of the Latin poets, attributes, from the lips of Armida, a similar genealogy to Rinaldo—
Boileau had happily enough parodied those rodomontades in the earlier editions of the Lutrin; but the passage has been omitted in all those subsequent to that of 1683—
[pg 307]I do not think the circumstances in which Armida pours forth her reproaches are judiciously selected. The Ariadne of Catullus vents her complaints when her betrayer is beyond reach of hearing, and Dido, though in his presence, before he had taken his departure: But Armida runs after, and overtakes Rinaldo, in which there is something degrading. She expresses, however, more tenderness and amorous devotedness amid her revilings, than any of her predecessors—
When she has ended her complaints of the cruelty and ingratitude of Theseus, Ariadne expresses a very natural wish, that the ship Argo had never reached her native shores—
Thus, apparently, imitated by Virgil—
But both these passages, it is probable, were originally drawn from the beginning of the Medea of Euripides—