Tag: Roman Epic

Athens Gave us Everything!? (Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, 6.1-11)

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“Athens, that famous name, first gave to sickly man
Fruit bearing crops long ago and with them
Created life anew and called for laws
And first offered the sweet comforts of life
When she produced a man with such a soul
That he once divulged everything from his truth-telling tongue.
Though his life has ended, thanks to his divine discoveries,
His glory has been carried abroad and now nears the heavens.
For he saw then that everything which is needed for life
Has already been set aside for mortal man and that
As far as they were able, their life was already safe…”
 

Primae frugiparos fetus mortalibus aegris
dididerunt quondam praeclaro nomine Athenae
et recreaverunt vitam legesque rogarunt
et primae dederunt solacia dulcia vitae,
cum genuere virum tali cum corde repertum,
omnia veridico qui quondam ex ore profudit;
cuius et extincti propter divina reperta
divolgata vetus iam ad caelum gloria fertur.
nam cum vidit hic ad victum quae flagitat usus
omnia iam ferme mortalibus esse parata
et, pro quam possent, vitam consistere tutam…
 

The man at Athens? Epicurus, of course.

Why is the Victor so Slow to Conquer? Cicero to Pompey (Lucan, VII.67-73)

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In the following passage, Cicero marshals his rhetorical talents to encourage Pompey to finally face Caesar in the field.

 

“In exchange for so many favors, Magnus, Fortune begs you
for only one thing: that you will use her; and your captains,
and the kings of your kingdoms, stand with the whole world before you
as suppliants: we ask you to commit to conquering your father-in-law.
Will Caesar remain for so long a time the root of war for mankind?
It is right for nations which were overcome by Pompey in haste
To be angry at his slowness to conquer now.
Where did your eagerness go? Where is your faith in your destiny?”

hoc pro tot meritis solum te, Magne, precatur
uti se Fortuna uelis, proceresque tuorum
castrorum regesque tui cum supplice mundo 70
adfusi uinci socerum patiare rogamus.
humani generis tam longo tempore bellum
Caesar erit? merito Pompeium uincere lente
gentibus indignum est a transcurrente subactis.
quo tibi feruor abit aut quo fiducia fati?

The News of War Corrupts our Public Discourse: Ennius, Annales fr. Book viii. 252-8

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Ennius, Annales book 8, 262-8

“After [the details of] the battles are well-known
Wisdom is publicly rejected, affairs are pursued with force,
A good speaker is spurned, and the wretched warrior is loved.
Men strive not with educated speeches but instead with insults
attack one another and enter into mutual enmity.
They seize property suddenly not by the right of law but with swords
As they seek sovereignty and wander with the power of the mob.

<proeliis……promulgatis>
Pellitur e medio sapientia, vi geritur res,               263
Spernitur orator bonus, horridus miles amatur.
Haut doctis dictis certantes sed maledictis
Miscent inter sese inimicitiam agitantes.
Non ex iure manu consertum sed magis ferro
Rem repetunt, regnumque petunt, vadunt solida vi.

The Annales of Quintus Ennius are available only in fragmentary form. They told the tale of Roman history in epic form from the story of Romulus and Remus down to his own time period (2nd Century BCE; Ennius served in the Second Punic War). While there are many fragments, only a handful are longer than a line or two.

It is difficult to evaluate from the short lines the quality of Ennius (his reputation is pretty good). From what we have, however, it seems that he was well-versed in the Homeric epics. One thing to note about the style from a Latin perspective, is how short the sense-units are in comparison to those of a later epic poet like Vergil (the slightly earlier Lucretius seems to be closer to Ennius in allowing most of his lines to make sense on their own).

Indeed, the ringing and repetition of the last line above (Rem repetunt, regnumque petunt, vadunt solida vi) seems much more akin to Lucretian style and some oral Greek traditions, perhaps…

Whether Life is Chance or Fate Rules All, Be Sudden (Lucan, 2.4-14)

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Since we have lately been a bit obsessed with Housman’s idea of scholarship, his invective, and his memory for student names, I thought it only fair to visit with a poet he edited (and there was no way I was reading Manilius this morning):

“…Ruler of Olympos, why did you
Add this worry to human suffering:
To learn of coming horrors through awful omens?
Is it true that the father of nature, when he first grasped unformed realms
And the raw material as creation’s flame receded,
Established causality forever, an act which bound him
To keep the law himself, carrying out the ordered ages
that he decreed for the world with his unchangeable boundary?
Or is it that nothing is certain, and chance wanders without reason:
It turns and returns and governs human outcomes?
May you be prepared, whatever is true, to be sudden:
May man’s mind be blind to future fate; allow the fearful to hope.”

…cur hanc tibi, rector Olympi,
sollicitis uisum mortalibus addere curam, 5
noscant uenturas ut dira per omina clades?
siue parens rerum, cum primum informia regna
materiamque rudem flamma cedente recepit,
fixit in aeternum causas, qua cuncta coercet
se quoque lege tenens, et saecula iussa ferentem 10
fatorum inmoto diuisit limite mundum,
siue nihil positum est, sed fors incerta uagatur
fertque refertque uices et habet mortalia casus,
sit subitum quodcumque paras; sit caeca futuri
mens hominum fati; liceat sperare timenti.

Lucan’s lines of thought are so long! But I do like this passage….

Lucretius, Nothing Is Knowable, and More (De Rerum Natura, 4.469-477)

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“In addition, if anyone thinks nothing can be known, he does not know
whether or not it can be once he confesses that he knows nothing.
Therefore, I decline to argue a case against a man
who has assigned his head to his own footsteps.
Nevertheless, should I concede that he knows at least that,
I would still ask him this: since he saw nothing true in the material world before
how could he know what there is to know or to not know in turn
or what provided him with a difference between true and false
and what matter distinguished the uncertain from the sure?”

Denique nil sciri siquis putat, id quoque nescit
an sciri possit, quoniam nil scire fatetur.
hunc igitur contra minuam contendere causam,
qui capite ipse suo in statuit vestigia sese.
et tamen hoc quoque uti concedam scire, at id ipsum
quaeram, cum in rebus veri nil viderit ante,
unde sciat quid sit scire et nescire vicissim,
notitiam veri quae res falsique crearit
et dubium certo quae res differre probarit.

Athens Gave us Grain, Law and Epicurus: Lucretius DRN, 6.1-9

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“Athens—that famous city—long ago was the first
to give grain-bearing seed to sickly man;
She gave us a new life and created laws
and was the first to give life sweet consolations
when she bore a man blessed with such a mind
who so long ago divulged everything with a true tongue,
whose fame, thanks to his divine discoveries,
has already long been known to heaven.”

Primae frugiparos fetus mortalibus aegris
dididerunt quondam praeclaro nomine Athenae
et recreaverunt vitam legesque rogarunt
et primae dederunt solacia dulcia vitae,
cum genuere virum tali cum corde repertum,
omnia veridico qui quondam ex ore profudit;
cuius et extincti propter divina reperta
divolgata vetus iam ad caelum gloria fertur.

Lucan, The Civil War, 1.1-6: Beginnings, Eloquence and, eventually, Cicero

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“War something more than civil over Emathian plains,
Legitimacy conferred on crime, and a powerful people,
We sing, a people who turned right hands against their own stomachs;
Battlelines of relatives, even when the pledge of tyranny was broken,
The forces of a shocked world marched toward common sin.
Standards waved to face enemy standards,
Eagles eyed each other and each javelin took aim at its mate.
What insanity is this, my countrymen, why so great a lust for violence?”

Bella per Emathios plus quam ciuilia campos
iusque datum sceleri canimus, populumque potentem
in sua uictrici conuersum uiscera dextra
cognatasque acies, et rupto foedere regni
certatum totis concussi uiribus orbis 5
in commune nefas, infestisque obuia signis
signa, pares aquilas et pila minantia pilis.
quis furor, o ciues, quae tanta licentia ferri?

Lucan, during the madness of the reign of Nero, wrote a sometimes incomprehensible and often untranslatable poem about the wars between Caesar and Pompey. Our friend Cicero shows up briefly in book 7 (61ff). The narrative description is less than flattering:

“The great model of eloquence, Cicero–
under whose rule and dress Cataline quavered–
brought forth the angry voices of the Roman people.
He was enraged by the wars and how soldiers had kept him
in a lengthy silence from the speaker’s platform and forum.
His florid strength supported a rotten cause.”

cunctorum uoces Romani maximus auctor
Tullius eloquii, cuius sub iure togaque
pacificas saeuos tremuit Catilina securis,
pertulit iratus bellis, cum rostra forumque 65
optaret passus tam longa silentia miles.
addidit inualidae robur facundia causae.

Cicero goes on to support Pompey….

Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 4.364-374: Shadows, Appearances and Light

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“Our shadows seem to us to move in the sun,
To follow our footsteps and imitate our gestures—
If you can believe that air without light moves,
Following the motion and gesture of man,
Since it cannot be anything but air without light,
What we are accustomed to naming ‘shadow’—
But it isn’t a wonder, since certain places on the earth
Are deprived of light in order whenever in our wandering
We block it, and refilled with light again when we leave.
This makes it appear as if the thing that was the shadow
Of our body always follows us in the same place.”

Umbra videtur item nobis in sole moveri
et vestigia nostra sequi gestumque imitari,
aëra si credis privatum lumine posse
indugredi, motus hominum gestumque sequentem;
nam nihil esse potest aliud nisi lumine cassus
aër id quod nos umbram perhibere suëmus.
ni mirum, quia terra locis ex ordine certis
lumine privatur solis qua cumque meantes
officimus, repletur item quod liquimus eius,
propterea fit uti videatur, quae fuit umbra
corporis, e regione eadem nos usque secuta.

Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 4.1192-1200: Sometimes Women Don’t Fake It

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“A woman doesn’t always gasp with counterfeit passion
when she joins her body in embrace with a man
and holds his lips with a drawn, moist kiss.
Often she acts from her spirit and as she seeks shared happiness,
she incites him to race through the course of his love.”

 

Nec mulier semper ficto suspirat amore,
quae conplexa viri corpus cum corpore iungit
et tenet adsuctis umectans oscula labris;
nam facit ex animo saepe et communia quaerens
gaudia sollicitat spatium decurrere amoris.

Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 1.192-198: From Rain to Letters to Elements

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“One must consider too that without a fixed annual amount of rain
the land cannot produce its gladdening fruit
nor is it the nature of animals bereft of their customary food
to be able to increase their race and safeguard life;
In this way you ought to understand more readily that many bodies
are shared among many things, just as we see letters shared among words,
than that anything could ever exist without elemental beginnings.”

Huc accedit uti sine certis imbribus anni
laetificos nequeat fetus submittere tellus
nec porro secreta cibo natura animantum
propagare genus possit vitamque tueri; 195
ut potius multis communia corpora rebus
multa putes esse, ut verbis elementa videmus,
quam sine principiis ullam rem existere posse.