I

LOVE OF HOME

AMONG the Romans love of home was broader and deeper than among the Scandinavian and Teutonic nations. The intimate sanctity of the family hearth, and the religious veneration felt for the abode of the Manes, once partakers in its blessedness, were extended to the City, the mother of all homes; and the beauty, fertility and mildness of the Mother Earth (with sudden flashes of primal ferocity,1 causing dread and superstition) kindled these feelings into a love which had the strong natural impulse of kinship. Domesticity was therefore allied with sociability, 'clannishness' with patriotism. The city lived as one large family, to an even greater extent than a modern University. Yet the sanctity and privacy of home were never lost, though in the daytime life was spent in the open. Few accidents of locality or fortune quite buried this instinct. Catullus is stirred to one of his finest inspirations by the contemplation of his Northern home; 2 even the wretched dweller in the insulae, the great public lodginghouses, carried his household gods with him in all his vicissitudes; even a cold-hearted wit like Ovid, in his lament for his loss of home, shows a selfishness warmed by real feeling.

In War, in Religion, in Politics, in Art, in all the Romans did, the ground-swell of this deep emotion may be traced.

(See especially I. 6, I. 7 (c. 54, § 2) and VII. 4.)

1 IX. 6, 2 note; II. 8. Introd.; X. 6. 2 note; X. 7, 43–47.

2 Among the Northern Italians generally the feeling for the Mother Earth seems to have been stronger than the feeling for the Mother City. See X. 9.

5

This is my own, my native land!'
PAENE insularum, Sirmio, insularumque

ocelle, quascumque in liquentibus stagnis
marique vasto fert uterque Neptunus;
quam te libenter quamque laetus inviso,
vix mi ipse credens Thuniam atque Bithunos
liquisse campos et videre te in tuto.

o quid solutis est beatius curis ?

cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino
labore fessi venimus larem ad nostrum,
desideratoque acquiescimus lecto.

hoc est quod unum est pro laboribus tantis.
salve o venusta Sirmio atque hero gaude;
gaudete vosque o Lydiae lacus undae;

ridete quidquid est domi cachinnorum.

CATULLUS, 31. (Circ. 60 B. C.)

The Joys of Winter Time.

This Ode opens on a typically Roman, and English, note, though with the third verse it passes to what seems the trite philosophical commonplace and prettiness of Greek lyrics. Horace loved the country, except in bad weather, when he preferred his comfortable villa. The bond of home ties and the love of City life were particularly strong in him. He has little sympathy with the wild romance found in Byron, or the intellectual worship of Nature typical of moderns like Shelley and Wordsworth. The tone of the opening stanza recalls Aristophanes, Pax, ll. 1140–69. ORACTE, see, looms white with snow!

SOR

The labouring woods no longer know
How to support their burden deep;
Rivers are frozen fast asleep.

Heap up the logs with bounteous hand
Upon the hearth; a generous brand
In homely jar, Toast-master, draw;
Cold hands, cold hearts, together thaw.

Leave God the rest; as soon as He
Lull winds that fight for mastery
With raging waves, and aged ash
No more against the cypress crash,

Cease asking what will dawn to-morrow;
And every day from Fate you borrow

Count so much gain; nor slight your chance
In youth of pleasant love and dance.

While crabbed Age is far away,
And Youth is green, O seek to-day

The fields and parks, ere shadows lower,
The whispers soft at trysting hour,

The lovely laugh that has betrayed
In cosy corner hidden maid;

The keepsake snatched from hand or wrist
That will so naughtily resist.

83

HORACE, Odes i. 9. (Circ. 30 B.C.)

Exile from Home worse than Death.

Ovid recalls his last night in Rome before his expulsion to the Black Sea. Each incident stamped upon his memory is worked up with facile rhetoric, through which, however, true feeling emerges, notably in ll. 29-34 and 95-100.

Cf. Goethe, Italienische Reise: 'Wie sollte mir gerade in solchen Augenblicken Ovid's Elegie nicht ins Gedächtniss zurückkehren, der, auch verbannt, in einer Mondennacht Rom verlassen sollte. Cum repeto noctem '--seine Rückerinnerung, weit hinten am Schwarzen Meere, kam mir nicht in den Sinn?' (Rom, 1788.)

'VM subit illius tristissima noctis imago,

CVM

qua mihi supremum tempus in urbe fuit, cum repeto noctem, qua tot mihi cara reliqui, labitur ex oculis nunc quoque gutta meis. iam prope lux aderat, qua me discedere Caesar finibus extremae iusserat Ausoniae,

nec spatium nec mens fuerat satis apta parandi: torpuerant longa pectora nostra mora.

IO

15

20

5

ΙΟ

non mihi servorum, comites non cura legendi,

non aptae profugo vestis opisve fuit.

non aliter stupui, quam qui Iovis ignibus ictus vivit et est vitae nescius ipse suae.

ut tamen hanc animi nubem dolor ipse removit, et tandem sensus convaluere mei,

15 alloquor extremum maestos abiturus amicos,
qui modo de multis unus et alter erat.
uxor amans flentem flens acrius ipsa tenebat,
imbre per indignas usque cadente genas.
nata procul Libycis aberat diversa sub oris,
nec poterat fati certior esse mei.

20

quocumque aspiceres, luctus gemitusque sonabant, formaque non taciti funeris intus erat.

femina virque meo, pueri quoque funere maerent, inque domo lacrimas angulus omnis habet.

25 si licet exemplis in parvis grandibus uti,

30

haec facies Troiae, cum caperetur, erat. iamque quiescebant voces hominumque canumque, Lunaque nocturnos alta regebat equos.

hanc ego suspiciens et ad hanc Capitolia cernens, quae nostro frustra iuncta fuere Lari,

numina vicinis habitantia sedibus,' inquam,

' iamque oculis numquam templa videnda meis, dique relinquendi, quos urbs habet alta Quirini, este salutati tempus in omne mihi.

35 et quamquam sero clipeum post vulnera sumo, attamen hanc odiis exonerate fugam,

40

caelestique viro, quis me deceperit error, dicite, pro culpa ne scelus esse putet.

ut quod vos scitis, poenae quoque sentiat auctor, placato possum non miser esse deo.'

hac prece adoravi superos ego pluribus uxor, singultu medios impediente sonos.

illa etiam ante Lares passis adstrata capillis contigit extinctos ore tremente focos,